Tete Gras

Here we are: Go-live for the papist moratorium on fun and the pleasures of the flesh.

According to Wiki:

During the early Middle Ages, meat, eggs and dairy products were generally proscribed. Thomas Aquinas argued that “they afford greater pleasure as food [than fish], and greater nourishment to the human body, so that from their consumption there results a greater surplus available for seminal matter, which when abundant becomes a great incentive to lust.”

Rest assured,  I will abstain from nothing -- nothing -- for the next forty days. I will, however, raise a glass at any excuse: So, here’s to my costumed brethren, the devout, the festive.

But what to drink, what to drink?

Hurricanes -- the drinks, I mean -- give you a headache. Stand around Pat O’Briens in the French Quarter if you want to see some other stuff they can do to you. Usually, when I think of New Orleans, I think of Abita Beer and Sazeracs.

In the early 1800s, the Sazerac was originally made with Cognac and Peychaud's Bitters, created by Antoine Peychaud. He named the drink for his favorite brand of Cognac from Limoges, France, the Sazerac-de-Forge-et-fils. In 1870, with Cognac harder to come by due to phylloxera in France, rye whiskey was substituted. Absinthe was banned in the United States in 1912, and hence Pernod or Herbsaint was substituted to coat the glass.

Last year, it became New Orleans’ official cocktail, largely due to the efforts of the excellent Ann Tuennerman (the genius behind Tales of the Cocktail).

But still, drinking a Sazerac in my house is like waking up -- it happens every day, more or less.

In a surprising coincidence, I just bought a bottle of Lemon Bitters from The Bitter Truth. On their website, looking for something to drink, I found the Mardi Gras Cocktail.

They call the liquors therein, but I don’t like to go to the store and I assume that they called Labrot and Graham because they have a relationship with Brown and Forman, or want one. Nothing wrong with that, but I pour Weller.

Shot bourbon, splash absinthe, lemon bitters, stir. Pour it on the rocks and decorate it with an orange peel.

I eventually added a few dashes of Regan’s Orange Bitters, to make it a little more complicated.