New Orleans is well known for what I call the stellar stirred, the Dynamic Duo. Two of my favorite cocktails of all time. The Vieux Carre, a simple, split base mash up of a Manhattan but with the addition of Benedictine, a French herbal liquor, and the Sazerac, (the official cocktail of The Big Easy) an old fashioned with an absinthe rinse and Peychaud’s. But, until just the other night I had no idea a strange blend of these two bevvies existed out there. Yes, another stirred, boozy libation, the La Louisiane, also known sometimes as De La Louisiane or A La Louisiane. Not so much a mash up, I guess, as an additional blast of absinthe.

For the punters: Yes, absinthe is legal now and has been for awhile. No, it doesn’t make you hallucinate and see green fairies. Get a grip.

Some people came in the other night and ordered two of these. I had no idea it even existed. Created in, you guessed it, the La Louisiane Hotel, New Orleans.

This is one of those cocktails owning a slight variation for whoever makes it. I can’t find a coherent recipe on any legit website and some are just outlandish. Wondrich’s tome, The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails, doesn’t list it. The Punch Drink page, usually stalwart and trustworthy, elucidates us with something a little too sweet for my taste. The Serious Eats page hands us a recipe that is sickly unpalatable. Every site I went to has its own take on the drink. Many go 1:1:1 Rye to Sweet Vermouth to Benedictine. No. Just no. I mean it is possible that’s the original version but I’m not drinking anything with that much Benedictine.

I don’t own small coupes or any Nick and Nora type thing to actually drink these out of. Not even an old school martini glass. So I went with a tumbler and a BFR. Here’s my recipe:

1 oz. Old Grand Dad Bonded

1 oz. Michter’s Rye

3/4 oz. Carpano Antica

1/4 oz. Benedictine

1/4 oz. Absinthe

3 Dashes Peychaud’s Bitters.

Garnished with a Luxardo cherry, orange and lemon peel because why the hell not? And yes, Grand Dad Bonded because I didn’t have a strong rye kicking around. I had some Michter’s, which veers toward the low ABV side but flavorful and soft.

I don’t have a spare dasher bottle for absinthe, so I just added a big heap from the jigger. The result was less elegant, more boozy. I liked it, but my partner in desensitization, Auntie, said it was really strong and tasted like medicine. Yeah, booze is medicine. Duh. After dealing with an insane toddler all day, a drink soothes jagged nerves. In the living hell of temper tantrums and no longer having much of a life, there’s always our old, trusty friend, alcohol.

The La Louisiane bar inside the hotel lists the cocktail on their menu as having chocolate walnut bitters instead of Peychaud’s. Hmm. Ok. I don’t know much about New Orleans. Apparently the place that invented the Sazerac, The Old Absinthe House on Bourbon Street, is the last place you want to order a Sazerac. Plus, no one in their right mind above the age of 30 should ever want to walk down that horrid, piss stained street.

I’ve been to New Orleans twice in my life. Once, as a nineteen year old during Mardi Gras (a torrid tale worth a couple of blog posts) and another time as an actual, sort of “adult.” It’s a beautiful, mystical place with a dark underbelly. Both times I never actually had a Sazerac or Vieux Carre. How sad is that?