Created by a bartender at the Hotel Monteleone, one of the most luxurious hotels in the city’s French Quarter, famous for its rotating bar, the Carousel Bar. Bar manager Marvin Allen is the keeper of this storied cocktail’s history, as he has been making them for more than two decades.
“I’ve been here 21 years, started out as a bartender and spent 19 years behind the carousel,” Allen says. “Losing your guest is the biggest challenge. Once you get used to it and know the guests are spinning around you and you get your timing together, it’s no different than a regular bar. The biggest challenge is getting in and out, which you have to jump over.”
Allen explains that because the bar is rotating and there’s no entry point, in order to get in and out, bartenders will often have to ask patrons to stand up so they can hop over the bar. It can be problematic, because patrons often have to wait a significant amount of time for a seat at the famed rotating bar. It takes 15 minutes for the bar to make a full rotation, driven by a quarter-horsepower motor, a bicycle-type chain, and some 200 stainless steel ball bearings.
While the Vieux Carré was invented at the Hotel Monteleone, it hasn’t always been the most popular drink to order there.
“It was one of those cocktails that almost got lost during the ‘60s and ‘70s and into the ‘80s when there was what I call the boring cocktail period,” Allen says. “We were into what I call the slurpy cocktails, the slushy Daiquiris, the kind of wines like rosé and Lambrusco, and some of those wines that we were all drinking kind of got us started on developing our taste buds for better wines. And of course, during that period, a lot of the spirits really weren’t what we know today. When I started bartending about 30 years ago, your high-end Tequila was Cuervo Gold, which today we really don’t even talk about. It was a different time.”
Allen explains that the whiskey resurgence over the last 20–25 years has played a major part in the resurgence of many classic cocktails and classic cocktail preparation methods that had been lost to the convenience era. But the one thing he credits most with bringing back the Vieux Carré is Tales of the Cocktail.
“I credit a lot of this stuff to Tales of the Cocktail,” Allen says. “When you look at the timeline, Tales is 23 years old and you look at when the resurgence for all this stuff started, it was right along with Tales. There were pockets of different things going on prior to that, but Tales kind of united everybody on this and started getting bartenders, distillers, and distributors all together in one place to show that there was a need for these things or that there was a case for these things.”
Walter Bergeron was the original Hotel Monteleone bartender who created the Vieux Carré back around 1935, before the Carousel Bar was installed in 1949.
“Walter Bergeron came up with the name Vieux Carré, which means old square, which is another name for the French Quarter,” Allen explains. “As the story goes, he created this cocktail as a tribute to the different ethnic groups that lived in the French Quarter at the time: the Italians with the sweet vermouth, the French with the Cognac and Benedictine, the Americans with the rye whiskey, and the bitters with the Islanders from the islands of the Caribbean. Those particular groups were ones that really lived here in the quarter at the time. It was a cocktail that taste-wise is kind of a combination of an Old Fashioned and a Manhattan.”
The Vieux Carré combines sweet, bitter, woody, fruity, and herbal flavors in a perfectly balanced and unique cocktail. “When I came here 21 years ago, people were occasionally asking for it,” Allen recalls.
“But it was about three or four years later that the big resurgence started. I don’t want to say it almost got lost; it never really disappeared. But it wasn’t one of those that was on a menu anywhere. It was just kind of word-of-mouth. With the influence of Tales and the resurgence of cocktails is where it really started taking off. And of course, now it’s our house cocktail and we promote it everywhere we can. And it’s gone worldwide in its fame.”
The Vieux Carré has been the house cocktail of the Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone for about 15 years now. So how is the legendary cocktail made?
“It’s pretty simple and straightforward,” Allen says. “It’s going to be equal parts of Sazerac rye whiskey and Pierre Ferrand 1840 Cognac, half part of Valdepablo sweet vermouth, and about a quarter part of Benedictine. And then bitters, which you can vary to your taste – we use three dashes of Angostura bitters and three dashes of Peychaud’s bitters. It’s built on the rocks in a rocks glass, and you just do a quick stir and express a lemon twist over the top and drop it in.”
While some people prefer a cherry for a garnish or for the cocktail to be served up in a coupe glass instead of on the rocks, Allen prefers the house style, particularly a rocks glass with ice over up, because he says the cocktail benefits from slowly being watered down by the melting ice.
“As you’re sipping it, the ice slowly melts and it kind of mellows out a little bit,” Allen says. “I think if it’s in a coupe or a Martini-type glass, depending on how you hold it or something, you can actually warm the cocktail up.”
During his tenure at the Carousel Bar, Allen has served guests from around the world, including another bartender he ran into years later in Peru as well as actor Raúl Esparza of Law and Order.
“When I started here, the carousel was an icon, but it wasn’t the worldwide icon that it is now,” Allen says. “People rediscovered us and made it the destination bar that it is, for locals and for worldwide visitors.”
At least part of that fame is owed to the legendary, well-balanced Vieux Carré cocktail invented by Walter Bergeron right after the repeal of Prohibition.
Hotel Monteleone Vieux Carré Cocktail
- • 0.5 oz Sazerac Rye Whiskey
- • 0.5 oz Pierre Ferrand 1840 Cognac
- • 0.5 oz Valdepablo Sweet Vermouth
- • 0.25 oz Benedictine Liqueur
- • 3 dashes Angostura Bitters
- • 3 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters
- • Lemon twist
In a rocks glass with ice, add the whiskey, Cognac, vermouth, Benedictine, and bitters. Stir vigorously. Express the lemon twist over the top of the cocktail and drop in. Serve.
*This cocktail can also be served up by straining into a coupe or Martini glass and can also be garnished with a cherry, but the above is the authentic Hotel Monteleone house style.
