by Chelle Koster Walton
The breakfast menu lists twenty-three bottles of wine and champagne plus fifteen hard-liquor quaffs under the heading “Eye Openers.” And we’re not just talking Bloody Marys here, although there is a Creole version and a Bloody Bull (with beef bouillon). Brennan’s famous breakfast menu kicks the day in with brandy, gin, and those trademark tipples of the French Quarter, Sazerac and absinthe.
Cuba may have its mojito and Brazil its caipirinha. But in NOLA, the signature drinks’ inventory is as overindulgent as its Mardi Gras crowd. Besides absinthe and Sazerac, there’s the Hurricane, bourbon milk punch, Vieux Carré, Hand Grenade, Monsoon, and on and on.
As July pours on the city’s eighth annual five-day (July 21–25, 2010) Tales of the Cocktail bacchanal, let us stagger along through the history of New Orleans’s drinking, from absinthe to, well, absinthe re-legalized.
To get to the root of New Orleans’s drinking reputation, I quenched my curiosity about “the green fairy” at La Maison d’Absinthe, a.k.a. the Absinthe Museum of America. Absinthe, an anisette-tasting liqueur made originally from wormwood, reached its peak of popularity in late-nineteenth/early-twentieth-century France, where it quickly became the toast of writers and artists who credited it for releasing their Muse.
With New Orleans’s French connection, the transplanting of absinthe to local bars was inevitable, and so such illuminati as Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde came to grease their wheels of inspiration with the faintly green-tinted intoxicant.
The absinthe museum traces the drink’s ill-fated history to its 1912 banning in the U.S. The belief that absinthe-imbibing led to insanity hastened its U.S. prohibition. France, where winemakers feared its competition, followed suit in 1915.
Fine paraphernalia used in the absinthe sipping ritual fill the pre-ban room at La Maison d’Absinthe. The routine involved pouring the liquor, dispensed from fancy fountains, over sugar cubes held by especially made slotted spoons.
Since its re-legalization in 2007, absinthe’s comeback in NOLA town has been embraced wholeheartedly, and practically every bar serves its absinthe frappe, mojito, or other specialty, such as Brennan’s absinthe Suissesse, Ojen (Spanish absinthe), and absinthe-spiked Sazerac.
Which brings us to Sazerac, said to be the world’s oldest highball and declared, in 2008 by the state of Louisiana, the city’s official cocktail. The menu at Brennan’s describes it as bourbon and “a little mystery” served in a glass coated with absinthe. The mystery, it turns out, is bitters, sugar, and a twist of lemon.
Such was the classic recipe, which surfaced in New Orleans around the same time as absinthe, but originally was made using brandy (many bars today use rye whiskey rather than bourbon). It got its name from the “coffee house” that made it popular. Today the Sazerac Bar is part of the historic Roosevelt Hotel, where the classic cocktail, which is making a comeback around the country these days, has always remained fashionable. Traditionalists involve a bit of ritual, too, in making a true Sazerac, such as using a moistened sugar cube, combining two brands of bitters, and never tossing the lemon peel into the glass after releasing its oils by twisting. Sazerac Bar’s mixologists are said to prepare the best. And certainly the 1930s murals and dark-wood setting are conducive to sipping a classic.
For the most historic bar setting, however, Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop dates back to the late eighteenth century. A National Historic Landmark, some say it’s the longest continually running bar in the U.S. They also say pirate Jean Lafitte slept, drank, or “smithed” or “got smithed” here, but then they say a lot in New Orleans when the liquor flows.
Another bar, another story: This one is set in the French Quarter’s Monteleone Hotel 1938. That’s when head bartender Walter Bergeron came up with the Vieux Carré, named after the French Quarter’s French translation. Another stiff one, it combines rye whiskey, cognac, sweet vermouth, Benedictine, and bitters—“stirred with a silver spoon,” one recipe dictates. Be careful drinking them at the hotel’s Carousel Bar, lest your head start spinning from the revolving bar motion before you even take a sip.
And so many of the other oddball highballs that appear today on bar menus demonstrate New Orleans’s determination to keep visitors in high spirits. One recent visitor, Jeni Blaylock from Stillwater, Minnesota, tells her favorite NOLA cocktail tale:
Pat O’Brien’s made more recent history by inventing the Hurricane in the 1940s, so-named because it was served in a glass shaped like a hurricane lamp. It still is—a souvenir glass patrons can take with them as they totter their way down Bourbon Street from Pat O’Brien’s, which first opened in New Orleans in 1933. But as one old-school connoisseur put it: "Hurricanes are for tourists. Sazeracs are for natives."
“The first one that comes to mind is the ‘Monsoon’ at the Port of Call—a small house of a restaurant,” she remembers, adding that it serves the best burgers in town. “The Monsoon is a twenty-ounce rum-punch drink loaded with both rum and fruit. It was awesome! I met a man at the bar while I was ordering our Monsoons (as I looked around the bar, it appeared most everyone was having the same drink), and he stressed to me that even though after my first Monsoon I may think that I should have another, [but] I definitely should not! He once had two and didn't remember anything after (and he was a big burly guy). So they're a bit strong, yet oh so fruity and delicious, plus you get to keep your plastic cup.”
In a town where the main street is named for a type of liquor, it’s not surprising to find such cocktail creativity. The annual Tales of the Cocktail event—along with its drinking seminars, competitions, tastings, and dinners—sustains that reputation with a cocktail recipe contest every year. Last year’s ten winners had names like Death in the South Pacific and Fallen Schooner.
All require insane amounts of liquors, so definitely do not try one of these for breakfast…unless, of course, you’re looking for an Eye Shutter after an into-the-wee-hours night of debauchery in the French Quarter. Lights out!
Chelle Koster Walton felt brave enough trying an absinthe frappe for breakfast at Brennan’s. She also tasted several different Creole Bloody Marys—spicy like Bloodys ought to be.