Celebrity Cocktails: Author Poppy Z. Brite and the Sadist's Sazerac

Early photo of Poppy Z.Brite by JK Potter, used with permission

From the historic heart of New Orleans via one of the city’s most loyal writers comes a sadistic sazerac cocktail recipe.

Poppy Z. Brite was born in the Big Easy and made a name for herself at age 18 as a gothic-punk horror author with her no-taboo left inviolate short stories. She embalmed that reputation at age 25 with her first novel, the vampire-centered Lost Souls, then followed up with the haunted house book Drawing Blood and the explosive serial killer story Exquisite Corpse, the last of which was rejected by two of her publishers for its graphic, disturbing content. Many of her tales mention or feature the same characters and places, creating a coherent mythology similar to the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

Beginning in 2004 with the publication of Liquor, Brite made the short genre hop from goth horror to its sarcastic party-going sister, dark comedy (likely influenced by her husband, chef Chris DeBarr). This tale of two gay men (Brite frequently uses homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered characters) trying to open a restaurant in Nola with “a whole menu based on liquor” is the first of a fun trilogy that continues in Prime and Soul Kitchen.

Her latest book is Second Line: Two Short Novels of Love & Cooking in New Orleans, an omnibus version of her two novellas “The Value of X” and “D*U*C*K,” and comes out in October from Small Beer Press.

Brite has always loved New Orleans, evidenced by her holding out as long as she could before Hurricane Katrina (she reluctantly evacuated to her mother’s in Mississippi), and being one of the first citizens to return to her home, which suffered minimal damage. She was later quoted in the New York Times after being asked about people leaving the city for good as saying: "If you’re ever lucky enough to belong somewhere, if a place takes you in and you take it into yourself, you don't desert it just because it can kill you. There are things more valuable than life."

The sazerac is one of the world’s oldest cocktails, and reputedly the first invented in America—in New Orleans, of course. Legend also originates our word “cocktail” to the Crescent City. Initially a combination of cognac and bitters mixed in the 1830’s by Antoine Amédée Peychaud (who created the bitters with his name), the drink gained the name sazerac in 1859 when John Schiller opened the Sazerac Coffee House, a proponent of a popular cognac brand called Sazerac-de-Forge et Fils.

The cocktail has gone through many variations in the intervening century and a half. It may contain absinthe, but Pernod, Herbsaint, and green Chartreuse are common, acceptable substitutes. In the 1870’s, rye whiskey replaced the cognac.

As of June 2008, the sazerac is the Official Cocktail of New Orleans, as voted by the Louisiana Legislature. Following is a recipe by one of the city’s favorite daughters.

SADIST’S SAZERAC

1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon water
3 dashes Angostura bitters
ice cubes
1 1/4 oz. rye whiskey
3 dashes green Chartreuse
lemon wedge

Pre-chill a 10-oz. Old-Fashioned glass.

Muddle the sugar with the water in a second 10-oz. Old-Fashioned glass. Add the bitters and ice cubes. Pour rye whiskey over the ice and stir well.

Using a swirling motion, coat the pre-chilled glass with the green Chartreuse. Strain the ice from the rye-bitters mixture and pour into the pre-chilled glass. Squeeze the lemon wedge on top of the drink and serve immediately.

Warning from Poppy: It is not unheard of for people to have one of these, then three more in rapid succession, and then run screaming up and down Royal Street followed by two days of dry heaving.

 For more info: PZB cat rescue, PZB blog, the Sazerac Company, an NPR story on the sazerac (with recipe)

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