Sazerac may be the oldest cocktail to be mixed in America, dating back to the pre-Civil War. The story goes that a man called Peychaud started up a drugstore in the 1830s New Orleans in which he sold an herbal remedy he called 'Peychaud's Bitters'.
A near by coffee house called 'Sazerac Coffee House', which was in fact a saloon, ttarted to mix the bitters with a cognac called Sazerac-de-Forge et Fils.
And so was born the first iteration of the Sazerac cocktail... Or so the story goes.