New Orleans has a rich and intriguing history of food, jazz music and cocktails.  In fact, the Big Easy is credited with creating the very first cocktail.  They say a man by the name of Antoine Amedie Peychaud was best known for creating a special cure-all bitters from a Haitian family recipe to cure a variety of ailments. He’d mix his famous concoction and add some of his favorite Cognac and a splash of absinthe–this became the first cocktail and is now known as the New Orleans official cocktail. The Sazerac.

As I perused the cocktail menu at the Vitascope bar of the Hyatt Regency New Orleans I selected a cocktail that had it’s very own tale. On my walk down memory lane with my mixologist, I learned that A Street Car Named Loyola cocktail was created in homage of the new streetcar line that opened on Loyola Avenue in 2013. I also learned that the very bar I was sitting in was named after a historic Canal Street movie theater, Vitascope Hall, the world’s first permanent, for-profit movie theater. WOW! New Orleans is chock-full of firsts and I think we can all drink to that. So let’s get to shaking.

Don’t forget to snap a picture of your finished cocktail and share it with me on Instagram using the hashtag #closetmixologist and tag me @iamlisareneejohnson

A Street Car Named Loyola

INGREDIENTS

• 1.5 oz Cathead Honeysuckle Vodka

• .5 oz Freshly squeezed lemon juice

• .5 oz White ginger syrup

• .25 oz St. Germain

• Ginger ale

• 8 Dashes Peychaud’s Bitters

• Rosemary sprig, for garnish

INSTRUCTIONS

In a shaker filled with ice, add vodka, lemon juice, ginger syrup and St. Germain. Shake vigorously, and strain into a rocks glass filled with ice. Top with ginger ale and 8 dashes of bitters. Garnish with a sprig of rosemary.