My whisk(e)y quest has now led me to rye. It’s a bourbony whiskey, but strong and sharp because of the predominant rye grain component instead of bourdon’s milder and sweeter corn base (not to mention it’s typically higher 46% ABV). I take things slow, and after 3 years of scotch and then bourbon devotion feel I have pretty well finalized my tastes in those, so now it’s to rye.
My first foray was with the well-reviewed Old Potrero, an old fashioned 100% rye whiskey, which I tried at the fantastic English-style brewery and scotch bar Pint’s Pub in Denver. Didn’t like it much, but I think it was just too much of a rye for a first taste. I just now got a bottle of Sazerac Rye, and this was just what I was looking for. Had it straight, over ice, and bastardized an Old Fashioned with it, and it was great all around. Inevitably, research of the brand led directly to the cocktail of the eponymous whiskey, the Sazerac.
As with most good whiskey cocktails, there’s little more to it than great whiskey. It bears quite a bit of resemblance to the Old Fashioned, and it’s an equally old but traditional New Orleans drink with slight ingredient changes and procedural and serving differences. Here’s the best classic recipe I found, on a Creole & Cajun cooking and culture site Gumbopages:
- 1/2 teaspoon absinthe, or Herbsaint (a New Orleans brand of anise liqueur)
- 1 teaspoon of simple syrup (or 1 sugar cube or 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar)
- 4 dashes Peychaud's bitters
- 1 small dash, a scant drop, of Angostura bitters (extremely optional; some feel it helps open the flavors, but traditionalists may leave it out).
- 2 ounces rye whiskey.
- Strip of lemon peel
The traditional method: Pack a 3-1/2 ounce Old Fashioned (rocks) glass with ice. In another Old Fashioned glass, moisten the sugar cube with just enough water to saturate it, then crush. Blend with the whiskey and bitters. Add a few cubes of ice and stir to chill. Discard the ice from the first glass and pour in the Herbsaint. Coat the inside of the entire glass, pouring out the excess. Strain the whiskey into the Herbsaint coated glass. Twist the lemon peel over the glass so that the lemon oil cascades into the drink, then rub the peel over the rim of the glass; do not put the twist in the drink. Or, as Stanley Clisby Arthur says, "Do not commit the sacrilege of dropping the peel into the drink."
Reading this recipe I realized I had most (or similar) ingredients on hand, so I mixed myself up one. I’ve used both Peychaud’s and Angostura bitters, but found the Peychaud’s too mild for my Manhattan and Old Fashioned tastes, so I stock Angostura. Since it’s stronger I used just 3 dashes total Angostura in stead of the 4 (+1 optional Angostura) Peychaud’s.
The recipe calls for Herbsaint pastis, but this is a local substitute that found it’s way into the recipe when the original Absinthe ingredient was banned in 1912. I happened to have some Lucid Absinthe on hand, so I figure I was a step ahead than the prohibition-era recipe.
I went through the twist of lemon with the Old Fashioned, and I just found that I get a lot less effort, mess, and better flavor from Fee Brother’s Orange Bitters. I probably should try with lemon instead of orange, but for whatever reason the few places that carry Fee Brother’s at all only stock the orange. (I’ll probably just someday buy a full range of their bitters online, because I would certainly like to try the mint bitters in my mojitos and juleps, and maybe their classic bitters will turn out to be better than Angostura.)
The last step is the sweetener, and I absolutely recommend not only using simple syrup instead of sugar, but making your own. One can of course just buy it (and I did, once), but it is so easy to make, so widely useful in cocktail mixing, and so stupidly expensive to buy that it’s worth it even to a lazy guy like me to do-it-yourself. Straightforward recipe from Epicurious:
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 1/2 cups water
Preparation
Stir sugar and water in heavy large saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat and boil 3 minutes. Cool syrup, then cover and chill until cold, about 2 hours. (Will keep up to a month in the refrigerator.)
Again, lazy as I am, I didn’t coat the glass with the Absinthe, I just put several drops directly into a shaker and gently shook the whole thing. Despite dire warnings against shaking such fine cocktails, the only downsides are 1) it melts the ice faster, resulting in more dilution of the ingredients, and 2) furious shaking mixes air into the liquid making it cloudy with bubbles and frothy. So, add less ice for less dilution, and shake very gently just to move the ice around and mix the ingredients a bit until chilly. Shakers are too convenient to eschew on general principle.
My first Sazerac was very good, just a bit too sweet and with too much Absinthe, because as one might suspect of me I also do not measure out ingredients, I eyeball everything. It starts as laziness, but as I become more familiar with the drinks and find just the right balance for my tastes I’m able to keep the proportions very consistent without measuring. I like to gain this skill because it’s certainly easier than pulling out jiggers and measuring spoons every time I want to mix a drink, plus I’ve always found it more professional to know a recipe “by feel” than to simply follow steps.
With the second I erred a little in the opposite direction and it was too dry. Of course one can always add but not subtract, so I did and got it too a very pleasant and perfect balance. Damn good, and a fine additional to my personal repertoire of fine cocktails which is now:
- Old Fashioned
- Manhattan
- Mint Julep
- Mojito
- Martini
- …and Sazerac
Next cocktail of interest: Hemingway’s Mistress.
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