Hello fine readers!

If you can believe it, or if you can read and saw the title of this post, we are on our ninth throwback thursday here at The Woman At The Bar. Do you believe it? Well, believe it. It’s happening.

And this week, we are going down south and celebrating a town, a culture, and a drink that we absolutely love.

So put on some jazz and start cooking up some jambalaya, because we are about to make the official state drink of Louisiana: The Sazerac!

Yes, you read that correctly, Louisiana has an officially sanctioned state drink. Is that not just the greatest thing you have ever heard?

You may not know this, but we here at The Woman At The Bar are huge, enormous, gargantuan lovers of New Orleans–the food, the music, the vibe, and (of course) the drinking. So we felt like it was just about time to show the city some love by delving into their delicious mixology masterpiece.

And it is just our luck that the Sazerac features two of our favorite things: rye and absinthe.

Now, for those of you who just read the word “absinthe” and got scared–we covered that here already, pay closer attention, jeez…

But really, the long and the short of it is this: the scary things you have been told about absinthe are total BS, and nothing you could purchase today is going to make you hallucinate. It is just a bright green liquor that tastes like licorice. Delicious, boozy licorice.

So, now that we have that over with, lets get this show on the road, shall we?

For the Sazerac, you will need:

• 2 oz rye
• 1/2 oz Absinthe
• 1 sugar cube
• 2 dashes bitters (preferably Peychaud’s, but you can use angostura if you are in a bind)
• lemon peel (for garnish)

Gather all of your ingredients plus two cocktail glasses (one for serving, one for prep), jiggers, muddler, and bar spoon.

First, fill your serving glass with ice and set aside to chill. Don’t skip this step, there is zero ice going into this cocktail, you want to make sure the glass is cold!

Now prep your garnish. You want to use a very sharp knife to cut a slice of lemon peel. Hold the lemon between your fingers and then use your knife to slice a thin piece of peel from one end to the other. You want to rock the knife back and forth as you cut, and do your best to only cut off the outer peel, not any of the pith (the white coating between the peel and the pulp of the fruit). Once you have your peel ready, set it aside.

Now place the sugar cube in the bottom of your prep glass, and then shake 2 dashes of bitters on top. As always, make sure to hold your bitters bottle vertically, directly over the glass.

Now use your muddler to crush the sugar cube and integrate the bitters.

Now measure out 2 oz of rye (we used Bulleit) and pour it over the sugar/bitters.

Now give that a good stir, and set aside.

Go back to your serving glass, remove the ice, and then pour your 1/2 oz of absinthe inside. Now swirl the absinthe around the glass to coat it as much as you can. After it is coated, pour out the majority of the remaining absinthe. You just want a hint of it left in the drink–mostly the absinthe is serving as an aromatic element in the drink, when you go to taste the drink you will instantly smell the anise from ye ol’ Green Fairy.

Now pour the rye/sugar/bitters mixture into your coated serving glass, and add your lemon peel garnish. Before dropping the peel into the drink gently twist and pull the peel to release the oil and bring out the flavor.

There you have it, the perfect New Orleans cocktail!

Now gather up some Mardi Gras beads and whip out your…southern drawl…to properly enjoy this baby. This is a special drink, and it deserves some respect.

Enjoy, everyone!