Sundown Sazerac, North-of-Anywhere Edition

The Sazerac is the cocktail New Orleans gave the rest of the country, and the rest of the country has spent more than a hundred years arguing about how to make it correctly. The drink is older than the cocktail glass it is most often served in. It predates Prohibition by half a century and survived it by being too specific to be forgotten. The standard recipe — a sugar-and-bitters foundation, a rye base, an absinthe-rinsed glass, a strip of lemon peel expressed and then most often discarded — has not changed in any meaningful way since the late 1800s. There is a reason for that. The drink is structurally complete. There is nothing to add and nothing to remove without breaking it.

The Minnesota tilt on a Sazerac is not in the recipe. It is in the conditions under which the drink makes sense. New Orleans drinks Sazeracs because the city has the kind of heat that rewards a chilled, slightly sweet, herbally cold spirit served in a small glass that the warmth of your hand will not undo. The Sazerac in February in Saint Paul is a different cultural object. It is a drink for the back end of a long evening, after the light has gone hard blue at four in the afternoon and the bar's interior has settled into the deep amber pool that bar interiors settle into when no one is in a hurry to leave. North of anywhere is a state of mind as much as it is a latitude. It is the awareness that the next interesting room is several hours away in any direction, which has the effect of making the room you are in matter more.

Why Rye, Specifically

The original Sazerac was built on French cognac, and the rye substitution dates to the 1870s when the phylloxera epidemic in Europe made cognac scarce and American bartenders had to improvise. The substitution worked so well it became the canonical form. Rye's high spice — the pepperiness that distinguishes it from corn-forward bourbons — gives the Sazerac a backbone that cognac never could. It also pairs with Peychaud's bitters in a way that feels nearly inevitable. Peychaud's is the cocktail's DNA. The bitters were invented by Antoine Amédée Peychaud in his New Orleans pharmacy around 1830, and they are the single most identifiable element of any Sazerac you have ever drunk. Light a Sazerac up with Angostura instead and you have a different drink. The Peychaud's anise note, soft and slightly floral and not at all aggressive, is the thread that holds the whole construction together.

For the Minnesota version, look for a rye from one of the regional distilleries that have come online in the past decade. The Twin Cities and the river towns now produce ryes that hold up against anything from Kentucky or Pennsylvania, and the local product gives the drink an additional layer of context. The local rye, like the local aquavit, is part of a quiet argument that Minnesota's drinking culture has its own resources and does not need to import all of them.

The Ritual of the Chilled Glass

The Sazerac is one of the few cocktails where preparation of the glass is as important as preparation of the drink itself. Chill the glass first — actually chill it, not just rinse it with cold water. Put it in the freezer for half an hour if you have the time. The cold of the glass is what holds the absinthe rinse against the interior. Rinse the chilled rocks glass with a small pour of absinthe — perhaps a quarter ounce — swirling to coat the inside, then discard the excess. The absinthe is not a flavor in the finished drink. It is an aromatic envelope. You smell it on the rim before you taste anything else, and that smell is the cue that primes the palate for what is coming.

Stir the rye, demerara syrup, and Peychaud's bitters over ice in a separate mixing glass until the dilution is right. Strain into the absinthe-rinsed glass with no ice. Express the lemon peel over the surface — the oils are the point — and either drop it in or set it aside, depending on which camp of Sazerac orthodoxy you subscribe to. There is a long-standing dispute on this question. Both sides have arguments. Neither is wrong.

When to Drink This

A Sazerac in Minnesota in winter is one of the most honest drinks available. It is not festive. It is not built for a crowd. It does not photograph well. It is a stirred drink for one person who is paying attention, which makes it the right drink for a winter evening that has been earned. Pour it after the second course of a long dinner at home, or order it from the kind of bar that understands what stirred drinks are for. It does not belong at the front of an evening. It belongs near the end of one, when the conversation has slowed and the room has settled and the cold outside has stopped being an argument and become a condition you are simply ignoring for the moment.

Stir over ice, strain into a chilled absinthe-rinsed rocks glass, express the lemon peel over the surface, and consider yourself north of anywhere for the next twenty minutes.