A La Louisiane

The A La Louisiane is the hidden gem of the New Orleans cocktail scene. 

In the early 1900’s, no one did cocktails quite like New Orleans. The combined influences of France and the Caribbean introduced ingredients like Cognac, Absinthe, Bénédictine, and one of the MVPs of cocktails – Peychaud’s Bitters. As jazz music started to grow in popularity, New Orleans started to grow a party infrastructure with it including clubs, hotels, and signature cocktails. 

Classic cocktails like the Sazerac, Vieux Carré, Milk Punch, Ramos Gin Fizz, and Roffignac were all popularized during this time, but just about vanished from bar books by the 1950’s. Thanks to Dale DeGroff and Dick Bradsell’s cocktail revival of the 1990’s, a few New Orleans’ cocktails like the Sazerac and Gin Fizz made their way back onto menus, but one little cocktail stayed forgotten. 

It took another 20 years for the A La Louisiane to make an appearance on the bar scene. Named for the historic La Louisiane restaurant where it was invented, the A La Louisiane is a boozy cocktail that combines some of the best ingredients of its time. Truth be told, the A La Louisiane is actually a variation on the Vieux Carré, but hey – let’s let this cocktail have its moment. 

Traditionally this cocktail begins with rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters. A not too unfamiliar combination, but things get interesting with the addition of both Bénédictine and Absinthe. Maybe it was this heavy alcohol grouping that stopped bartenders from bringing the A La Louisiane back into fashion, but we think that’s exactly why it deserves a chance to shine in the 21st century.