My wife is in New Orleans this week for an accounting conference. Not that that's going to stop her from having a few cocktails while she's there.
Since she is in the home of the sazerac, we'd decided I was going to have one at home along with her when she stopped off for one. We're going to sort of have a drink together from across the country (probably via text message unless she's in a place that has wi-fi and we can FaceTime).
Last night I was all set to have a sazerac "with her." But she went to a brewpub instead and had beer. And because I'm a hopeless romantic, I decided to wait until we could have one together to have mine.
Sigh, I really wanted a sazerac.
Not one to let small things get me down, I decided to do the next best thing. I was going to make myself a manhattan. I grabbed a rye whiskey off the shelf. If I couldn't have a sazerac, I'd at least go with rye.
Then a thought occurred to me...might there be a way to combine my two favorite cocktails? I'm already part of the way there with the rye. I could use the absinthe as the bitters. I like orange bitters in my manhattans, but sazeracs are sweetened, I could combine both of those flavors by using Cointreau. Yeah, this might work.
I hopped on google to do a little research and then I experimented with ratios a bit and ended up with something that turned out pretty tasty. I'll leave it to others actually decide if it was good or if I had just convinced myself by wanting it to be good.
Here it is: the Sazehattan...the Manzerac...the Manhatterac...
Last Night's Ad-Libbed Cocktail
2 oz New Richmond Rye whiskey
3/4 oz Martini & Rossi Sweet (Rosso) Vermouth
1/2 oz Cointreau
light 1/2 tsp Leopold Bros Absinthe Verte
Stir with ice until it gets cold and oh so velvety. Strain it into a chilled cocktail glass and squeeze a lemon peel over it to get those oils in the drink. I wipe it around the edges too before dropping it in the glass.
By an odd coincidence half the ingredients I used were craft spirits. New Richmond Rye from 45th Parallel Sprits in New Richmond, WI and Absinthe Verte from Leopold Bros in Denver, CO. So if you can't get those, you'll have to experiment with substitutes, I guess.