The Sazerac Bar, New Orleans

When my husband and I decided to go back to Jazz Fest this year, after many years away, we decided that we wanted to stay in relative comfort--this was in retrospect a very good idea because it was so wet and muddy at teh festival that it was a true pleasure to come back to our hotel.

In the lobby of this hotel was the Sazerac Bar,which is reminiscent of the Roaring Twenties, complete with a large painted wall and an equally impressive bar.  Here is a recipe that is thought to be authentic:

1 sugar cube

1 1/2 ounces rye or American whiskey

2 dashes of Peychaud’s Bitters

Dash of angostura bitters

• Dash of absinthe (can substitute Herbsaint, Pernod, or Ricard)

Twist of lemon peel

Here is the purported story: a Creole apothecary Antoine Peychaud, who moved to New Orleans from the West Indies and set up shop in the French Quarter in the early 1800s, is credited with the earliest version of this drink. He mixed aromatic bitters from an old family recipe with brandy, water, and sugar for his ailing clients. What precisely ailed them is not known, but enough people suffered from the affliction that the concoction became the basis for what some historians claim to be the first true cocktail.