To celebrate Mardi Gras ('Fat Tuesday' — or Pancake Day/Shrove Tuesday to those of us in the UK), which fell earlier this week, we're mixing up a Sazerac. This drink is the official cocktail of New Orleans, Louisiana, a city known for its magnificent Mardi Gras festival.

Credit for the invention of the Sazerac cocktail has been given to Antoine Peychaud, who was a Creole apothecary in New Orleans' French Quarter in the 1800s. Peychaud sold aromatic bitters made from a proprietary old family recipe, which reportedly appeared in the Sazerac Cocktail served at the Sazerac Coffee House opened by Aaron Bird.

Originally made with Cognac, it was later changed to rye whiskey after the phylloxera epidemic in Europe made the former hard to obtain, and the absinthe swapped out with alternatives like Herbsaint following the 1912 ban of absinthe in the US, which lasted nearly a century.

Ingredients:

50ml rye whiskey
10ml absinthe (or Herbsaint)
1 sugar cube
2 dashes Peychaud's bitters

Lemon peel

Method:

Rinse a rocks glass with absinthe and set aside. Combine the rye whiskey, sugar cube, and Peychaud’s bitters in a mixing glass, add a handful of ice, and stir for 60 seconds. Strain into the absinthe-rinsed glass and express the oil from a twist of lemon peel over the drink to finish.

Need more inspiration? Catch up on previous cocktail of the week selections.