Sazerac Co. is an American maker of spirits headquartered in Metairie, Louisiana. Emerging from the New Orleans concern that operated the Sazerac House and popularized the Sazerac cocktail, the Sazerac Company has evolved over the years into a large spirits manufacturer with a stable that includes many of the country’s leading whisky brands.
The company traces its roots to the Thomas H. Handy Co., a New Orleans wholesale and retail liquor dealer and operator of the Sazerac House. See Sazerac House. After founder Thomas Handy died in 1893, the firm continued under the ownership of Handy’s widow and several business associates, including his two head bartenders. In 1900 they trademarked the Sazerac brand and began selling a line of premixed, bottled cocktails, including their famous Whisky Cocktail, which would become “the” Sazerac cocktail. See Sazerac cocktail.
In 1919, with Prohibition looming, the firm was reorganized as the Sazerac Company, with Christopher O’Reilly (1872–1941), the manager of the Sazerac House, as president. It rode out Prohibition as a grocery wholesaler. Immediately after repeal, the firm resumed its original trade selling wines and imported spirits as well as its namesake Sazerac cocktail. In 1948, the Sazerac Company was purchased by the Magnolia Liquor Company, a New Orleans wine and spirits distributor. By the 1970s, the firm had acquired two classic New Orleans products (and key ingredients in the Sazerac cocktail), Peychaud’s American Aromatic Bitters and Herbsaint, an anise-flavored absinthe substitute. See Peychaud’s Bitters. As the liquor industry as a whole was consolidating in the 1980s, the Sazerac Company took steps to grow from a regional supplier to a national distributor, and it steadily added more brands to its stable.
In the 1990s, amid the market revival of premium bourbons, the Sazerac Company moved aggressively into the whisky market. In 1992 it purchased the old E. H. Taylor distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky and renamed it Buffalo Trace, and in 1999 bought Old Charter from Diageo. See Taylor, Col. E. H.; Buffalo Trace Distillery; and Diageo. In March 2009, the Sazerac Company acquired the Tom Moore distillery in Bardstown and the Glenmore distillery in Owensboro.
The Sazerac Company today distills and distributes more than 250 brands of liquor, including Buffalo Trace, W. L. Weller, Pappy Van Winkle, George T. Stagg, Ancient Age, and Sazerac Rye, along with dozens of vodka, gin, tequila, and rum brands, making it one of the largest privately held distillers in the American market.
“Probers Reveal Lack of Licenses.” New Orleans Times-Picayune, November 16, 1948.
Quale, Jennifer. “The Drink That Old Orleans Made Famous.” New Orleans Times-Picayune, October 27, 1974.
Quillen, Kimberly. “Sazerac Company to Expand Operations, Workforce in Kentucky.” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 21, 2009.
By: Robert F. Moss