SWERVE AND CURVE: I was trying to locate my inner quiet this Tuesday evening while sipping a sazerac, a drink allegedly invented by some Creole apothecary from Haiti sometime in the early 19th century. Where the sazerac is concerned, there’s much myth and little fact. So much the better. Its ingredients, however, are known. Rye whiskey, vermouth, bitters, and some other stuff. And whatever is available that can pass as absinthe.
In some establishments, the whiskey is infused with a splash of liquified duck fat. This is known as a “duck fat sazerac.” The happy collision of these syllables — a poem unto itself — is what drew me to the drink in the first place. What it tasted like was beside the point.
Be advised; it takes a professional bartender to make one of these things, and then, it’s a performance better than anything you might see at The Granada Theatre. That it also comes with a “sidecar” containing a murky-looking fluid said to be absinthe adds to the sacramental mystique of the whole thing. It’s not a drink. It’s High Mass said in Latin…