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It’s the first Friday of the new year and these are our cocktail for the weekend and a song to enjoy with it.

Jan 03, 2025

Friday, finally focuses mostly on cocktails and music. They’ve both been around for a very long time. Cocktails, for our purposes, started in 1806 with the creation of the Old Fashioned. And I put the start of popular music at 1928 with Louis Armstrong’s recording of
West End Blues.
Over time we’ll highlight quite a few more old drinks and songs rather than new ones. It’s not because I think old is better, it’s just that there’s so much more of it.

Our Cocktail for the Weekend

Sometime around 1850, Sewell Taylor decided he wanted to be an importer of spirits so he sold his New Orlean bar, the Merchants Exchange Coffee House, to Aaron Bird. Among the spirits Taylor imported was a cognac named Sazerac-de-Forge et Fils. According to legend, Aaron Bird changed the name of his bar to The Sazerac Coffee House and he began serving the Sazerac Cocktail, made with Sazerac cognac imported by Taylor, and with bitters being produced by the local apothecary, Antoine Amedie Peychaud. Around 1870, the then proprietor of the Sazerac Coffee House, Thomas Handy, changed the primary ingredient in the cocktail from cognac to rye because cognac became unavailable due to the phylloxera epidemic in Europe that devastated the vineyards of France.

At some point before his death in 1889, Handy recorded the recipe for the cocktail and it made its first appearance in print in 1908 in William T. “Cocktail Bill” Boothby’s The World’s Dinks and How to Mix Them. The Sazerac is an iconic cocktail and it’s just about as perfect as a cocktail can be.

One major element of this cocktail is that it has an absinthe rinse. There are those who just put a couple of drops of absinthe in the cocktail – usually bartenders who don’t want to take the time to do a rinse. I urge you to take that time. One thing the rinse brings is a heightened aromatic that you just can’t get with drops and which is a significant component of the cocktail.

Recipes vary on the amount of rye, from as little as 1.5 ounces to as many as three ounces. I have given you the recipe for 3 ounces of rye because, why not?

Sazerac

4 generous dashes Peychaud’s bitters
.5 ounce simple syrup
3 ounces rye (this cocktail is worthy of good or very good rye)
absinthe rinse

Fill the drinking glass with ice or put it in the freezer.

Mix the simple syrup, rye and bitters in another ice packed vessel.

Dispose of the ice, if using, in the drinking glass and carefully coat its inside surface with absinthe (discarding the extra).

Put ice in the drinking glass, preferably a large ice cube, if you have one.

Stir down the liquid in the mixing glass until well chilled and strain into the drinking glass.

If you like, add a Luxardo cherry or squeeze a generous slice of lemon peel over the glass, wiping the edges. Or both.

The Song to Accompany This Weekend’s Cocktail

Dr. John (Mac Rebennack) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist from New Orleans. Originally known as Dr. John, the Night Tripper, he created a rich blend of New Orleans blues, jazz, R&B, soul and funk into a sound that was pretty uniquely his and, at the same time, reflected the vibrant musical heritage of his home town. He had a very successful career as a solo artist, a session musician, and a songwriter. He won six Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. He died in 2019. He was 77 years old.

In 1981 Dr. John recorded a solo album, Dr. John Plays Mac Rebennack, with no accompanists or vocals. He released a second solo album in 1983, The Brightest Smile In Town. Together these were called his solo piano albums (even thought there were a couple of titles that included vocals). Many considered it a shame that he never recorded another full album of unaccompanied solos.

So fans were surprised when they learned that a third solo album, recorded in 1982 and 83, had been discovered. The album, titled Frankie and Johnny, was shelved for some reason but was finally released last year. A cut from that album is our song to accompany this weekend’s cocktail.