I’ve been to New Orleans twice in my life, both of those during the brutally humid month of July. The first visit, back when I was 15, was to a Southern Baptist Convention and left me with nothing even slightly positive to remember. The next visit, in 2005, was partially overseen by food writer and friend Pableaux Johnson. He took my wife and I to some now-disappeared Marigny neighborhood diner for snapper soup and other local seafood specialties. The turtle broth was as tasty as it was transgressive, but I was focused on the drink that seemed to dissolve the heat: the Sazerac. I spent the next three days, six meals and three cocktail hours in New Orleans split between ordering a Sazerac and the local version of the Pimm’s Cup. I usually just got both.

Ready

• 3oz rye whiskey
• 1tsp simple syrup
• 3 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
• 1tsp Herbsait or other pastis
• lemon peel
• ice cubes

Set

• shaker
• chilled old-fashioned glass

Go

1. Coat the inside of the glas with the pastis, then fill half-way with ice and place it back in the fridge.
2. Stir the whiskey, simple syrup and bitters in the shaker along with more ice.
3. Remove glass from fridge and strain whiskey mixture over the ice. Twist the oil and bit of juice from the lemon peel into the drink, then toss the peel in the garbage.