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Recipe
How to make
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Fill an old fashioned glass (A) with crushed ice.
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Pour the sugar syrup, Peychaud's bitters and then the brandy or whiskey into an old fashioned glass (B).
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Add a few ice cubes to glass (B) and stir with a mixing spoon until cooled.
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Empty the glass (A) of its ice, pour in the absinthe and swirl it in the glass.
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Strain the mixture from glass (B) into glass (A) using an ice strainer.
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Twist a lemon zest over the glass to extract the essences then place it on the rim of the glass.
History
The Sazerac is a cocktail whose origin is often traced back to Peychaud's bitters created by Antoine Amédée Peychaud around 1850 in New Orleans, who was already mixing his bitters with alcohols, including brandy, which was very fashionable there at the time.
But it was in a bar located in Exchange Alley in New Orleans in the middle of the 19th century that the Sazerac found its origins and was named after the brand of Cognac imported here and manufactured by the Sazerac-de-Forge et fils company in Limoges, France.
It was here at number 13 Exchange Alley that John B. Schiller, the sales agent for this Cognac company, opened the "Sazerac Coffee-house" in 1859. Schiller's Cognac cocktails were a great success, keeping the business thriving despite the Civil War.
Schiller's accountant, Thomas H. Handy, took over in 1870 as the new owner, renaming the establishment "Sazerac House". The brandy used in Sazerac cocktails was then replaced with rye whiskey to satisfy American tastes who preferred "Red Likker" to any pale brandy.
Then the dash of absinthe was added, this Sazerac innovation can be credited to Leon Lamothe, then an employee of Pina's Restaurant on Burgundy Street, formerly a bartender for Emile Seignouret, Charles Cavaroc & Co. This is a hypothesis according to Stanley Clibsy Arthur in his 1938 book "Famous New Orleans Drins".
