Getting to know New Orleans one drink at a time

In New Orleans, the food isn’t just good, it’s historic.” So said Elizabeth Pearce, a lady who can tell you the history of New Orleans in two drinks — The Sazerac and The Hurricane — all while you nurse them.

We were at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum (SOFAB) in New Orleans, where Pearce regularly holds “Drink & Learn,” an interactive presentation where she regales attendees with tales of rum, rebellion, whiskey, prohibition and more.

As soon as all the cocktail ingredients were arranged on the table, Pearce merrily fired away...starting off with The Sazerac, the official cocktail of New Orleans where it’s legal to drink on the streets.

“In 2008, a Louisiana legislator passed a resolution naming The Sazerac as the city’s official drink,” shared Pearce. “Our state is divided. The South Interstate consists of Catholic drinkers, while the North Interstate is composed of Baptist non-drinkers in public. So that legislator deemed it appropriate for the state to have an official drink.”

Well, for those who might be interested, the official drink of the state of Louisiana is milk. Washington D.C. followed suit in 2011 with its official drink named the Rickey, a highball drink made from gin or bourbon.

Let’s drink to that

So what makes a Sazerac?

Sazerac originally came from The Sazerac Bar, the only place in town where you can buy the Sazerac Cognac, which is a combination of sugar, Peychaud bitters, HerbSaint (absynthe) and lemon twist.

“Well, it’s appropriate that The Sazerac is named the official cocktail because every ingredient in this drink is connected with the history of New Orleans,” explained Pearce.

According to Pearce, New Orleans was a vital commercial point from its inception. “But we never really got rich until we got into sugar,” she added.

Haiti, which was then called Saint Domingue, was under French control and had the largest enslaved population in the Caribbean. It had a booming sugar industry that produced more than 30 percent of the world’s sugar.

“Until a chain of slave rebellion began, ” added Pearce. All of those French-speaking African sugar farmers left Saint Domingue and went to New Orleans, another tropical environment where they could still plant sugarcane. They brought with them their sugar-making knowledge.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Today, sugar is still one of the major crops of the Louisiana economy.

“My favorite French immigrant is named Antoine Peychaud who came from a family of pharmacists. The revolution brought them to New Orleans,” Pearce noted.

Back in the 19th century, there were no big pharma companies in Louisiana. No Pfizer, no Walgreens. The Peychaud bitters were used to cure abdominal pains, etc. Antoine mixed his bitters with sugar, Cognac, HerbSaint and lemon twist. Soon, the locals used it not only as a medicinal cure, but as a stimulating beverage. They called it the Bitter Sling, which “renders the heart cold while it fuddles the head.”

“People came asking for this combination at Sazerac Bar,” added Pearce.

In 1780s, tragedy struck France. There was a terrible disease called the phyloxxera that devastated France’s wine grapes crop. If they ain’t got grapes, they ain’t got Cognac.

“So the owner of the bar tweaked the recipe of the Sazerac. Instead of Cognac, he used the American rye whiskey. When they added rye, they also changed absinthe (which had a bad reputation) with HerbSaint,” explained Pearce. “HerbSaint is actually one of the alcoholic products produced here in New Orleans.”

The last ingredient of The Sazerac, the lemon, represents the Sicilian immigrants who came to New Orleans.

“They were farmers. They initially settled on the outskirts of Louisiana. By the 1920s, the French Quarter was inhabited by 90-percent Sicilians. But they held on to their food,” explained Pearce enthusiastically. Her presentation was so fun and lively, I wished she’d been my history teacher. Whiskey helps, I guess.

After the talk, we were served a shot of the Sazerac in paper cups.

“So we have the history of New Orleans in this cup. There’s sugar, which represents money and economic power. We’re a French city drinking Cognac (Sazerac), becoming an American city drinking American rye. You have a taste of debauchery, well, not really because there’s HerbSaint instead of absinthe. And finally, we have the tenacity of the Sicilian immigrants (lemon),” said Pearce.

Simply put, the “Drink & Learn” experience is a journey through the tastes of New Orleans. It’s bitter, it’s powerful, it’s complex. And Pearce is right. I can’t think of a more appropriate official cocktail for the Big Easy.

A drinks historian, Pearce is the drinks curator and co-founder of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum (SOFAB), which we visited recently as part of the culinary tour arranged by the US Travel Association (USTA), which organized this year’s International Pow Wow (IPW) 2016 in New Orleans.

Travel connects us

IPW is the annual gathering organized by USTA, the largest generator of travel to the US with over 1,350 travel organizations, 1,200 international and domestic buyers, and approximately 500 media delegates.

The underlying theme at IPW 2016 was that travel connects us in both work and play.

Roger Dow, CEO and president of the USTA, stressed its importance at the five-day event, which was held at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

“We are now, and will always be, a connector of the travel industry, a leader in research and analysis, and a collaborative, trusted adviser to our country’s policymakers,” Dow said.

IPW featured 1,300 international and domestic buyers of US travel. At least 105,000 appointments took place to generate travel business.

Savor the deliciousness of the big easy

The State of Louisiana was pleased with the results of holding IPW 2016 in New Orleans. It is expected that more than one million extra visitors will visit the Big Easy by 2019.

“IPW 2016 is projected to bring an additional one million international visitors to Louisiana with over $1.7 billion in incremental spending over the next three years,” Louisiana Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser announced.

There were plenty of activities, including jazz, museums and other sightseeing tours. While others signed up for the Plantation Homes, museums, and natural parks tours, I decided to eat my way around New Orleans.

Apart from the Southern Beverage and Food Museum, I also got to visit the Dryades Public Market, an old school converted into a unique, affordable fresh food market and neighborhood events place for the Central City corridor and beyond, where I gulped down an Oyster Shooter; celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse’s Delmonico restaurant for a taste of its signature barbecue shrimp dish; and Cafe Du Monde at the French Quarter for my fill of beignet, which goes well with a cup of chickory coffee.

Eating around the Big Easy is no easy task. But the toughest part is staying hungry enough to sample all the Creole and Cajun dishes that make New Orleans a culinary mecca.

* * *

Delta offers daily flights from Manila to eight U.S. gateways via Tokyo (Narita) with onboard connections to over 230 cities in North America. For inquiries, call 841-8800.