Vieux Carré

Walter Bergeron, Carousel Bar at Hotel Monteleone, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1930s. Bergeron created the cocktail during the Art Deco heyday of the French Quarter. The Hotel Monteleone has operated continuously since 1886 and the Carousel Bar since 1949. The Vieux Carré name refers to the French Quarter itself, the historic heart of New Orleans.

The Vieux Carré (French for 'Old Square' — the French Quarter of New Orleans) is the most complex of the great stirred whiskey cocktails — equal parts rye whiskey and Cognac, sweet vermouth, Bénédictine, and two types of bitters, stirred over ice and served on the rocks. Created by Walter Bergeron at the Hotel Monteleone's Carousel Bar in New Orleans in the 1930s, it is the cocktail that most completely embodies New Orleans's cultural DNA: French (Cognac), American (rye whiskey), Spanish (Bénédictine's origins), and Italian (vermouth) in one glass. No other drink serves as both a Manhattan and a Sazerac simultaneously — the Vieux Carré achieves both.

• The Vieux Carré's Franco-American spirit combination mirrors New Orleans's Creole cuisine — French techniques applied to American and Spanish ingredients, creating something wholly new and unreplicable elsewhere. The Bénédictine's herbal recipe connects to the European monastery liqueur tradition (Chartreuse, Benedictine, Frangelico) where herbs were originally medicinal and became pleasurable.

FOOD PAIRING: The Vieux Carré's Cognac-rye-herbal complexity pairs with rich New Orleans cuisine. Provenance 1000 pairings: crawfish étouffée (the Cognac's fruit bridges the shellfish), duck and andouille gumbo (the rye's spice amplifies the andouille), turtle soup (the herbal Bénédictine echoes the turtle soup's herbaceous profile), bananas Foster (Cognac-caramel connection), and bread pudding with whiskey sauce.