The Sazerac, New Orleans’ official cocktail

The Sazerac is a short, stirred drink of rye, sugar, bitters, and an absinthe rinse. It has been the law in New Orleans since 2008, and its origin story is a tangle of a pharmacist, a coffee house, a cognac brand, and a bug. Here is what the record supports, and where the accounts part ways. For a version to make at home, see Charles’s Sazerac recipe.

The bitters

Antoine Amédée Peychaud (1803 to 1883) was a New Orleans pharmacist born in Saint-Domingue. The Oxford Companion entry says he opened his pharmacy in 1834 on Royal Street and introduced his bitters sometime between 1849 and 1857. The Sazerac Company’s timeline has him advertising an “American Aromatic Bitter Cordial” for the first time in 1857.

A coffee house and a cognac

The Merchants Exchange, with a coffee house and bar, was completed in 1836 at 26 Royal Street. Sewell Taylor worked there as a barkeeper and later ran the coffee house, according to the same timeline. The cognac brand Sazerac de Forge et Fils had its first known U.S. advertisement in 1839. By 1852, the Sazerac House and its proprietor, Aaron Bird, show up in the local press.

Who named the place is disputed. Wikipedia says Bird took over and renamed it around 1850. Difford’s Guide says Thomas H. Handy renamed it the Sazerac Coffee House in 1869 or 1870, after its house cocktail. The Sazerac Company’s timeline has Handy and other employees buying the Sazerac House in 1869 and becoming the sole New Orleans agent for the cognac in 1873.

From cognac to rye

The early drink used cognac. Then phylloxera, a pest that attacked French vines, cut the supply. The Sazerac Company’s timeline says the brandy shortage led New Orleans bartenders to start using American rye whiskey in 1885. Wikipedia puts the change around 1870, and New Orleans Magazine places the blight in the 1880s. Difford’s says Handy used Maryland Club rye at first and kept a dash of cognac. The sources agree on the cause. They do not agree on the year.

Did Peychaud invent it?

Local lore says yes, and the egg-cup tale (coquetier, the French word, supposedly became “cocktail”) often comes with it. Wikipedia calls that a myth, noting that “cocktail” appeared in print in 1803 and was defined in 1806. The Oxford Companion entry says his obituary and the 1806 definition make the claim unlikely. Writer Philip Greene, a relative of Peychaud’s, concluded that Peychaud “had nothing to do with the birth of the drink.”

Difford’s cites Stanley Clisby Arthur’s 1937 book as the source of the popular story. It adds that historian David Wondrich suggests the drink began as a bottled whiskey cocktail sold by the Sazerac company.

Absinthe, and then Herbsaint

The absinthe rinse is the other defining touch. The United States banned absinthe in 1912 and, per Wikipedia, effectively lifted the ban in 2007. New Orleans Magazine says pastis served as a substitute for a time. Then came Herbsaint, developed by J. Marion Legendre and Reginald Parker in 1934 and marketed as an absinthe substitute. It never contained grand wormwood, and it was first named “Legendre Absinthe” until the Federal Alcohol Control Administration objected to the word. The Sazerac Company’s timeline says it bought Herbsaint in 1949. Difford’s notes that most New Orleans bars still use Herbsaint for the rinse, even though absinthe is legal again.

How it became official

In March 2008, Senator Edwin R. Murray filed a bill to make the Sazerac Louisiana’s official cocktail. Wikipedia says that bill was defeated on April 8, 2008, and that on June 23, 2008, the Legislature proclaimed the Sazerac the official cocktail of New Orleans instead. KNAU, Arizona Public Radio, reported a 62-33 House vote.

The law is Louisiana Revised Statutes 33:1420.2, from Act 928 of 2008, effective July 15, 2008. It says the Sazerac was “created in the nineteenth century by Antoine Amedee Peychaud,” which is the very claim some historians reject. Legislation, it turns out, can settle a drink’s status without settling its history.

Where to see the history

The Sazerac House at 101 Magazine Street, run by the Sazerac Company, offers tours and tastings as of November 2026. Check its site for hours and booking.