Cocktail à la Louisiane Recipe

Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? Here you go. Cheers!

The Cocktail à la Louisiane is much more delicious than a near-obsolete drink has any right to be. Once the house cocktail for the Restaurant de la Louisiane—"one of the famous French restaurants of New Orleans," wrote city historian Stanley Clisby Arthur in 1937--this rich, voluptuous mix of rye whiskey, sweet vermouth and the herbal Bénédictine liqueur is accented with the subtle flavor of anise, provided by New Orleans' homegrown Peychaud's bitters and a few dashes of absinthe or pastis. First documented 70 years ago in Arthur's Famous New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix 'Em, the Cocktail à la Louisiane has been largely ignored since then. It's worth the effort to search out the ingredients (or a talented bartender in a well-stocked establishment) and bring this drink into the 21st century.