Tricentennial Tales

Legend has it that the cocktail was invented in New Orleans.  Whether or not that’s 100 percent true, there is no denying that many a cocktail was shaken first in the Crescent City, undoubtedly the lodestar of American drinking culture. 

As the city celebrates its tricentennial, that canon of American cocktails offers endless toasting possibilities. There’s no better place to raise a glass than at the upcoming Tales of the Cocktail festivities (July 17–22), the industry’s gold-standard meet-up that brings some 20,000 superstar bartenders, liquor brand managers, artisanal distillers, and serious imbibers to steamy New Orleans the third week of July for a series of ticketed events from lectures and paired dinners to cooking and shaking demos.

Long a “Tales” regular, Matt Ray, the crackerjack beverage director at the swank Ace Hotel, created a Tricentennial cocktail history menu for this year’s conference. His guests can literally hopscotch through libation history at the Ace bars located in the hotel lobby and restaurants Josephine Estelle and Seaworthy. 

[Read this: At Doe's Eat Place of Baton Rouge, Chef George Krause explores drink history.]

Ray, a former school teacher with a keen nose for research, earned his cocktail chops working as a bar back on Bourbon Street, at Chuck’s dive extraordinaire in the CBD, the game-changing Cure on Freret Street, and Cane + Table in the Quarter.  Working with Cure’s Neal Bodenheimer, the new Tales of the Cocktail Foundation’s co-owner (with Gary Solomon, Sr. and Gary Solomon, Jr.), forever changed Ray’s cocktail sensibilities, opening his mind to a vast world of spirited beverages crafted with intelligence and finesse. 

When doing his research for the Tricentennial menu, Ray corroborated the American passion for tippling at every turn. For example, he found that in 1770, 1.7 million colonists drank seven and a half million gallons of rum. Kids were given beer to slurp from an early age, sailors were rationed a pint of booze a day, and the colonial charters mandated a tavern in every town.  

New Orleans, where legend has it that a pharmacist looking to cure an upset stomach concocted the first cocktail, sets the highest bar for drinking culture in America, maybe even the world. Politicians cut back-room deals and worshiped at the altar of hooch at the impeccable Sazerac Bar, still a fixture in the gorgeous Roosevelt Hotel.  

“The impact that cocktails have had on New Orleans history can’t be overestimated,” said Ray. “It’s an integral part of our culture, and really always has been.”  

In researching the city’s three centuries of imbibing, Ray came up with eleven essential historic libations that deserve a tip(ple) of the hat, including the Original Sazerac (1850), the Vieux Carre (c. 1930), and the classic Hurricane (mid-1940’s).  So what have New Orleanians been drinking for the past three hundred years? Here’s a look at a few of the most popular New Orleans cocktails, chronicled by century:

Brandy Milk Punch (c. 1700s)

This adopted Colonial classic was originally doled out most often at Christmas time, a potent blend of brandy, vanilla, milk, cream, and nutmeg. 

Sherry Cobbler (1838)

First recorded in the seminal Jerry Thomas’ Bartenders’ Guide in 1862, this stir of spirits, fruit, sugar, and ice changed flavors with the seasons and was notably the first cocktail served with a straw.

Original Sazerac (1850)

Originally made with Sazerac French cognac and Peychaud’s bitters and poured into an absinthe-rinsed glass, this drink was another of Huey Long’s favorite libations. 

Ramos Gin Fizz (1888)

Invented by Henry C. Ramos, owner of the bygone Imperial Cabinet Saloon, this mix of gin, lemon, lime, orange flower water, seltzer, and egg white was so popular that Ramos employed up to twenty children just to shake it to the proper froth. 

Hurricane (1940s)

The bracing mash-up of passion fruit, citrus and rum was originally poured in the 1940s, when Pat O’Brien’s substituted rum for the whiskey that was scarce post World War II. Head bartender Louis Culligan first blended rum with passion fruit and served it in a tall glass shaped like a hurricane lamp. 

[If you're interested in following along at home, Ray has provided recipes for three of the most iconic New Orleans cocktails: Brandy Milk Punch, the Sazerac, and the Hurricane.]