Hot and Cool in the Big Easy

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Hot and Cool in the Big Easy
By DAVID G. ALLAN
Published: September 25, 2009
The New York Times

THERE was a long moment late into a recent Saturday night, when the Sazerac Bar in New Orleans felt like the early 1930s. Tim Laughlin, a local musician, blew a big-band number on a piercing clarinet; a young man in spats and a fedora spun his dance partner dizzily; and uniformed bartenders shook cocktails behind the bar. Chatty tipplers, some in seersucker suits, raised the din to a jovial shout, and you could just imagine Gov. Huey P. Long, a onetime regular, pulling on a gin fizz to cool off at the hottest spot in town.

When the Sazerac Bar reopened its doors in July for the first time since Hurricane Katrina, it reset the clock.

The bar and the hotel it’s part of (the Roosevelt, once the Fairmont) had undergone extensive restoration. The curvilinear bar of African walnut was polished, the four Art Deco murals by Paul Ninas had been touched up, a tile floor had been added and an old television removed.

“It’s a milestone for the recovery of the City of New Orleans, for sure,” said Michael Martin, a stockbroker who lives in the city.

As at any classic hotel bar, drinks are made with noticeable pride and professionalism. But, this being New Orleans, the Sazerac gets hopping in a way most hotel bars cannot.

On a weekend night the barstools and banquettes fill with a mostly local crowd, ranging from pastel-clad preppies in their 20s to smartly dressed former debutantes of a certain age. Dancers gaily spill out into the hotel lobby; because the city has very liberal open-container laws, people enjoy the marvelous freedom of walking in and out with drinks in hand.

“I came looking for a place with swing,” said Jason Gross, the dancer in the fedora. Apparently, he found it.

At 7 p.m. the place was packed. “It’s old New Orleans,” said a concierge at the Roosevelt, “and people are excited it’s reopened.”

The venerable bar is revered because it exudes history and tradition in a city that cares deeply for both. But it also offers a classy night in a beautiful space just steps from the sloppy swigging of the French Quarter.

Two cocktails are made with particular care. The eponymous Sazerac, an anise-flavored whiskey concoction that supplies a satisfying lip pucker, has a complexity that makes it something of the original artisanal drink. Officially the cocktail of New Orleans (by legislative decree), it is unofficially purported — by the bar, at least — to be the first cocktail ... ever. More refreshing and also locally invented is the lively Ramos gin fizz, a frothy, sweet and sour blend, made here with gin, citrus juices, egg whites, sugar and cream, that looks like, and goes down as easily as, a milkshake.

As the bartender, Peter-John Hanne, shook two fizzes, he explained one update to the bar’s Sazerac technique, involving Herbsaint, a New Orleans substitute for absinthe that supplies the drink’s anise accent. Once bartenders dripped Herbsaint into the glass, then tossed it into the air to coat it. Now the Herbsaint is twirled in the glass.

And why don’t they still toss it? “Gets all over the people,” Mr. Hanne said with a laugh.

The Sazerac Bar

The Roosevelt Hotel, 123 Baronne Street, New Orleans, (504) 648-1200, therooseveltneworleans.com.

ATTIRE Southern casual. Cocktail dresses and strappy heels for the belles and Oxford-cloth shirts and khakis for the gentlemen. Seersucker suits and fedoras optional.

GETTING IN The more the merrier.

SIGNATURE DRINK The Sazerac, of course. The historic New Orleans cocktail, which costs $9, is made with rye whiskey, a dash of Peychaud’s bitters, a touch of simple syrup and anise-flavored Herbsaint essence, served neat with a lemon peel.