1938 Famous New Orleans Drinks and how to mix'em (3rd printing) by Stanley Clisby Arthur

into New Orleans was a brand manufactured by the firm of Sazerac-de-Forge et fils, of Limoges, France. The local agent for this firm was John B. Schiller. In 1859 Schiller opened a liquid dispensary at 13 Exchange Alley, naming it "Sazerac Coffee-house" after the brand of cognac §erved exclusively at his bar. Schiller's brandy cocktails became the drink of the day and his business flourished, surviving even the War Between the States. In 1870 Thomas H. Handy, his bookkeeper, succeeded as proprietor and changed the name to "Sazerac House." An alteration in the mixture also took place. Peychaud's bitters was still used to add the right fillip, but American rye whiskey was substi tuted for the cognac to please the tastes of Americans who preferred "red likker" to any pale-faced brandy. Thus brandy vanished from the Sazerac cocktail to be replaced by whiskey (Handy always used Maryland Club rye, if you are interested in brand names), and the dash of absinthe was added. Precisely when whiskey replaced brandy and the dash of absinthe added are moot questions. The absinthe innovation has been credited to Leon Lamothe who in 1858 was a bartender for Emile Seignouret, Charles Cavaroc &Co., a wine im porting firm located in the old Seignouret mansion still standing at 520 Royal street. More likely it was about 1870, when Lamothe was employed at Pina's restaurant in Burgundy street that he experimented with absinthe and made the Sazerac what it is today. But this history delving is dry stuff, so let's sample a genuine Sazerac. We will ask Leon Dupont, now vice- president of the St. Regis Restaurant but for years one of the expert cocktail mixers behind Tom Handy's origi nal Sazerac bar, to make one for us. Eighteen