The Sazerac

This is the true New Orleans insider’s drink, created in some form or another in the early 1800s by the Creole apothecary Antoine Amadie Peychaud. The founding father of Peychaud’s bitters hailed from the West Indies and had a drugstore on Royal Street in New Orleans called Pharmacie Peychaud. He served this beverage, actually a stomach tonic that included absinthe, in a coquetier (egg cup)—the word that supposedly evolved into “cocktail.” (And the vessel that served as inspiration f