In the original recipe he claimed that it was invented “by the author and three officers of H.M.S. Danae after having spent seven hours overboard trying to get Capt. Bra Saunders’ fishing boat off a bank where she had gone with us in a N.W. gale.” but then he was always one for a good yarn.
Sazerac has its roots in 1850s New Orleans, home to Peychaud’s bitters. The original base was Sazerac de Forge et Fils, a cognac. However in the 1870s, when phylloxera struck French vineyards and it was in short supply, this was switched to local rye whiskey and it stuck although some bartenders have now reverted to cognac.
The story goes that Donn Beach spontaneously created it as a hangover cure for one of his regulars heading for an important meeting. Asked a few days later if it had worked the gent replied: “I felt like the living dead, it made a zombie out of me.”