Outbound: telling Tales

So, Tales of the Cocktail was a thing. It's been nearly three weeks since I got back and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about it. There were definitely enjoyable parts - putting faces to names was a particular pleasure (thanks to everyone I foisted a business card upon), as was catching up with people that I haven't seen for a while from other parts of the UK and further afield. I enjoyed the seminars I caught - Bartenders in Media provided an interesting insight into the changing perception of bartending in certain areas (though notably not in fictional representations); the world's first session on the history of blue drinks was both enlightening and amusing; and the annual I Love/I Hate...Cocktails debate had some of the biggest laughs and best insults of the week.

Tasting rooms proved to be something of a hit-or-miss thing for me. The ones that were held in the Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone weren't that useful; those generally ended up being little more than a queue for a single drink with barely any time to find out about what it was I'd end up drinking. I did stumble on a couple of gems - a really old sherry-cask finished Bacardi stood out - but they were thin on the ground.

Overall, it was fun and I'm glad I went; the caveat is that I probably wouldn't go again on my own dime. I'd probably also suggest not trying to have a shot in every bar along a two-block stretch of Bourbon Street.

Retronaut - Disposing of Alcohol during Prohibition (via Barbore).

Art of Drink - Announcing the "Jerk Off"...which is probably my favourite ever name for a cocktail competition.

American Drink - not so simple

Bar Magazine - UK winners in 42 Below Cocktail World CupTeam East London take the prize and a spot in the world final in New Zealand with Team Scotland sneaking a wildcard spot.

The Guardian - it's farewell to mother's ruinTwo things: 1) Hi, mainstream media! Gin's a thing, who knew? 2) As if to prove that nothing good ever happens in the comments section of anything on the Internet:

"My tipple is gin and lime, but the other day I mistakenly added milk instead of lime."

We've all done it.

"When this baby hits 88 miles per hour..."

In honour of the forthcoming tenth edition of Tales of the Cocktail - which, coincidentally marks my first attendence - I've been spending a fair bit of time thinking about the Sazerac. It's often cited as the world's oldest cocktail (though the burden of proof suggests otherwise) but I think it represents something far more interesting. The Sazerac, you see, is a time machine.

It's a relic of an age of drinking very different to the one we have now. Its creation is tied to two specific occurrences - the entry of one Antoine Amedie Peychaud into the manufacture of medicinal bitters (sometime around 1830; the Sazerac Company, who do have a horse in the race, specifically date the drink's creation to 1838) and the establishment of the Merchant's Exchange Coffee House (later the Sazerac House) in New Orleans - and both happen before molecular mixology was a thing, before super-premium vodka was thing, before the light, sour style of cocktail found in places like Cuba and Mexico gain prominence during US prohibition became a thing, even before vermouth was a thing.

If anything, the Sazerac is a product of constraint. It's arguably as good of a drink as can be made from its four ingredients and even those have been informed by constraint. The original formulation called for a Cognac base which changed to rye whiskey after the phylloxera blight ended the former's run as the world's pre-eminent spirit; the absinthe rinse was modified to a less intense, more legal substitute following the US ban on La Fée Verte in 1912; whenever an ingredient became unavailble, the recipe was amended to suit what was available. Its survival and enduring popularity really is a testament to not being dogmatic about a recipe.

These days, if someone creates a recipe along similar lines to a Sazerac, or its close cousin, the Old-Fashioned, it's a conscious choice to reject the possibilities offered by the sheer range of ingredients available. Conversely, the Sazerac itself rejects those possibilities not because its creator wanted to but rather because he had no choice other than to do so; those things just weren't available. Trying a Sazerac today is taking a step back to a time when bartenders didn't have a lot to work with and worked wonders with what they had.

In another startling break with tradition, we're presenting this recipe in video form.

The Sazerac from Jon Hughes on Vimeo.

Sazerac

50ml rye whiskey or Cognac
3 dashes Peychaud's Bitters
1 barspoon sugar syrup
~10ml absinthe

Stir the first the ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled, absinthe-rinsed* glass. Twist and discard a lemon zest to garnish.

*To rinse the glass, either fill it with ice, add a small amount of absinthe and discard the contents of the glass before straining in the other other ingredients, or you could - as in the video - simply pop some absinthe in an atomiser.