Dapper Drinks: The Sazerac

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Jaime's Haberdashery presents Dapper Drinks, the show where I, your host, Dyson Heschke, will be whipping up some traditional cocktails for you. I'll tell you about the history of the cocktail and its evolution. I will also be making my own version of the cocktail. We'll compare and contrast the two, and it'll just go to show the mixology is a lot about fun and creativity. Our cocktail for today will be the Sazerac. For starters, we're going to be getting out a rocks glass. Set that to the side. Actually, we're going to get some ice first. Now, the traditional way to chill your glass before serving would be to get out some blocked ice, crack it up, and put it in your glass. Before refrigerators were a thing, this was the way to do it. All right, now we're going to be setting this to the side and be getting out our mixing glass, and we'll do the same with that, too. The spirit for this cocktail is going to be whiskey rye. I'm getting two ounces of that. We are also going to be using Peychaud's bitters. We are also going to be using some simple syrup as well. You will get a bar spoon of that as well. A little bit more. Now we're going to get out our absinthe. This is high-proof alcohol. It's 50%. What we're going to be doing is rinsing it, which is just a very small amount on the bottom of the glass. We're going to be swishing it around, making sure it coats the sides and the bottom of the glass. Now, the name Sazerac comes from where it was created, in New Orleans, at the Sazerac Coffee House, which is short for bar. It's New Orleans. This is before the Louisiana Purchase. Bar was a bit too low class of a name, so they decided coffee house was probably more their style. We're going to be getting a peel of lemon. We're going to express that into the drink. I'm just going to drop it into the glass and strain it into our rocks glass. We don't want any ice in the finished beverage. Here we are. Let's give it a taste. Obviously, it tastes a lot of the rye. It's got a nice wormwood base to it. It's kind of the herbal, kind of throaty taste to it. The paste shows, adds a little bit of a fruity, cherry kind of note into it. That lemon, just a little bit of that citrus zest to it. Thank you very much for joining us for this week's program. Stay tuned for next week when we do the old-fashioned.