Serving to elevate dejected spirits, the “cocktail” was born in New Orleans. Legend sets forth that a popular apothecary named A.A. Peychaud began adding his family’s secret formula for bitters (a homemade liquid tonic for stomach pains) to brandy. Customers began demanding their French brandy spiked with a dash of the marvelous bitters compounded by M. Peychaud.

At his own establishment, M. Peychaud poured portions into an old-fashioned, double-end egg-cup known to the French speaking population as a coquetier (pronounced koh-kuh-TYAY). Soon the slurred words of imbibers resulted in the term “cocktail”.

Bitters, reportedly good for what ails one irrespective of malady, are the essential element of the original cocktail – the Sazerac. The addition of bitters gave an otherwise simple brandy toddy new life and zest… and created in New Orleans’ Vieux Carré an American tradition now known the world over.