La Louisiane
The Vieux Carré's louder cousin
- Method
- Stirred
- Style
- Classic
- Glass
- Gibraltar glass
- Time
- 5 min
Ingredients
- 45mlRye Whiskey
No Rye Whiskey? Bourbon — rounder and sweeter — you lose rye's pepper, so the drink reads softer
- 22.5mlSweet Vermouth
No Sweet Vermouth? Sherry — the fancy alternative — much richer, so it pairs nicely with spicy spirits like rye whiskey. Not cream sherry.
- 22.5mlBénédictine
- 3 dashesAbsinthe
- 3 dashesPeychaud's Bitters
- —Cherriesthree, on a pick
- Garnish
- Three cherries on a pick
Make it well
Stirred, properly.
Add the rye, sweet vermouth, Bénédictine, absinthe and Peychaud's to a .
Fill with ice and for 25-30 seconds.
Strain into a chilled coupe.
Garnish with three cherries on a pick.
On the palate
On the nose it's absinthe and anise straight away, with the Peychaud's pushing in the same direction and the rye sitting underneath the pair of them. On tasting the Bénédictine is far more forward than it is in a Vieux Carré, honeyed and herbal and taking up a lot of room, and the rye has to work to get past it. It comes out sweeter than the ingredient list suggests and the absinthe is the only thing stopping it going further. Three cherries is the traditional garnish and they aren't just decoration, you'll want something to eat at the end of this.
Where it came from
La Louisiane, or A La Louisiane, was the house cocktail of Restaurant de la Louisiane on Iberville Street, one of the grand old Creole dining rooms of New Orleans. Like the Vieux Carré it reaches us through Stanley Clisby Arthur's Famous New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix 'Em in 1937, given there as the restaurant's own. Worth knowing what Arthur is and isn't. His is the same book that gave the world Antoine Peychaud serving brandy in an egg cup, a coquetier, and thereby inventing the word cocktail, a story that has since been fairly thoroughly taken apart. So Arthur is an excellent record of what was actually being poured in 1937 New Orleans and a much shakier one on where any of it came from. For this drink that distinction doesn't hurt, because he was writing about a restaurant that was still open and still serving it. No inventor is named. The restaurant gets the credit and the record stops there.
Keep pouring
If you like the La Louisiane, try these
The bartender’s note
One drink, one story, one bottle worth buying.
Thursday evening, so you have time to shop. No more than that.