Episode 109: The Brandy Crusta With Chris Hannah

The Brandy Crusta isn’t only an essential New Orleans cocktail, it’s a key part of cocktail history, too. New Orleans bartender Chris Hannah first refined his approach to the Crusta while working at Arnaud’s French 75, and today the cocktail is a central part of the story at Jewel of the South, the French Quarter bar and restaurant where he’s a partner. For this episode, Hannah shares the significance of the Brandy Crusta, and talks us through the Jewel of the South approach to the cocktail today.

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Paul Clarke 

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Radio Imbibe from Imbibe magazine. I’m Paul Clarke, Imbibe’s editor in chief. And I took a little time off recently, so you may have tuned in to us revisiting a couple of our most popular episodes from over the years, focusing on the Vodka Martini with Keith Waldbauer from The Doctor’s Office in Seattle, and the Mai Tai with Beachbum Berry from Latitude 29 in New Orleans. 

The fact that both of these episodes offer up close and detailed looks at individual cocktails isn’t a coincidence. With more than four years of Radio Imbibe podcasts in the books, we’ve noticed that these single cocktail features tend to punch above their weight in terms of the number of people listening in and hopefully mixing along at home. 

So to get back into the swing of things, we wanted to spend time with another classic cocktail that deserves a closer look, the Brandy Crusta. The Crusta, of course, is a cocktail with roots in the 19th century. And it appeared at a time when the notion and definition of a cocktail were still taking shape. Fittingly, this kind of pioneering work with the cocktail was taking place in New Orleans, a city that’s contributed so much to cocktail culture over the centuries. So with this conversation about the Crusta, we’re turning to one of that city’s most esteemed bartenders, Chris Hannah, a partner at Jewel of the South. Here’s our conversation with Chris Hannah about all things Crusta and the ongoing significance of this classic cocktail. 

Paul Clarke

Chris, welcome to Radio Imbibe. 

Chris Hannah

Hey, Paul Clarke. Good to be on, man. Thank you. 

Paul Clarke

Absolutely. And, you know, I’m really excited to have you on the podcast. We’ve, of course, had you in the magazine a number of times over the years, both in relation to your current bar, Jewel of the South as well as your previous place at Arnaud’s French 75. And between the various places you’ve worked or where you’ve overseen the bar programs, of course you have a number of original cocktails on the menu from you and your colleagues. But you’ve always shown a good degree of respect to classic cocktails and in particular some of the less celebrated classic cocktails that are out there. So I just want to start off with asking you, why is that? What is the appeal of some of these often overlooked classics in your career and in the way that you’ve gone about it over the years? 

Chris Hannah

Well, because for one, it was just really interesting to find so many classics from from New Orleans. So to bring those back has been pretty important to me as well as several others. You know, I’ve had a lot of fun with Dr. Cocktail’s book, Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. But to find ones from New Orleans that weren’t really made often at all was more important to me, to be honest, like bartending at the beginning of the cocktail renaissance. We really, while we did make our own cocktails, it was more important bringing back these drinks that weren’t made in, you know, 50 to 100 years to 150 years. You know, that’s been very important for me as a as a bartender to think about classics. 

Paul Clarke 

So our audience, we found, enjoys the deep dives we do on here into individual cocktails. And I wanted to bring you on board for that. For this episode in particular, I was thinking of coming to you with a cocktail firmly rooted in New Orleans. Of course, there are a number of options that come to mind when you’re thinking historic New Orleans cocktails. But one that you’ve put front and center as part of your program at Jewel of the South is the Brandy Crusta. Why that drink and why is it important for that bar? 

Chris Hannah

Well, firstly, because the Brandy Crusta is the first rimmed cocktail in the world. But also we like to point out, is it could be the first cocktail with prepared with like a single usage of juice. And what I mean is usually bars had punches, you made big batches and you ladled them out, you know, and it wasn’t really a juice program.

So what we believe is Santini, Joseph Santini, who created the Brandy Crusta, had lemon juice, fresh and lime juice fresh, and he was making individual cocktails. That’s one thing that people don’t really talk about, is the fact that it’s the first cocktail prepared with single usage of juice. So you added the cognac, the lemon, maraschino, the bitters and the curaçao. And you shook and you made one singular cocktail for the guests. Obviously, that can be up to debate. We can ask [David] Wondrich about all that.

But that’s what’s really important, because this cocktail led to the daisy. And when you think about it, they’re the exact same ingredients. You know, you have this spirit—mainly the daisy was gin, and then you have the curaçao, and then you could have either use sugar or maraschino. A lot of places when they didn’t have maraschino, they would use sugar instead. So that’s why we were we’re really proud of the Brandy Crusta.

But also it’s like so it would be our first sour, you know. Then it’s and the Crusta is styles and several cocktail books from the late 1800s. As you could make it with rum you can make a gin, you can make it with whiskey. But brandy was the one that’s stuck. And that’s what made Santini famous. And so this is when he was at the Merchant Exchange bar, which is now the Omni Royal, which I’m sure you’ve been there during Tales of Cocktail. So then he was able to, you know, became popular and made enough money to open up his own bar to the South, which was at the time, the most popular bar in all of the South and all of New Orleans. 

Paul Clarke

Right. Right. And I think you brought up several points in there. I just want to touch upon. Because first off, you know, as you noted, this is a very kind of like important evolutionary step in cocktails because, you know, on one hand, you can look at the Brandy Crusta and you’re starting with the basic notion of the fancy cocktail, just like, you know, a fancy Old Fashioned. But then you gussied up a little bit more with that addition of citrus, which was not really done at the time.

I mean, if you’re using citrus and really you’re doing punches, are you doing sours? And this is this is all going back to the 1850s, kind of that primordial stew in a way before, we always like to talk about Jerry Thomas, but we’re going in the 1860s at this point. This is even before that, though, we’re talking about this kind of this mode taking place.

Chris Hannah 

Right. And that’s what I love. I love that you just mentioned that because Joseph Santini is the only bartender Jerry Thomas mentions by name in his book. In the whole book. So it makes me, you know, really happy about that. Obviously proud for being a New Orleans bartender. But that’s how that’s how popular Joseph Santini was. 

Paul Clarke

And another thing that you touched upon, you know, we talk about the Brandy Crusta like it’s a thing, but really it’s it’s an indicator. And we say the Brandy Crusta because the Crusta is just as at home using whiskey or using genever. It’s really like a category in its own way. 

Chris Hannah

Yeah, you’re right. And, you know, it’s also like, really clever when you think about it, because he’s the first person to figure out that, you know, making this, like, fancy cocktail where the sugar balances everything else the, in the cocktail, you know. So for him to, like, think to like what the rim of a glass and then crust it with sugar and have that part of the cocktail to make it balance the lemon, the maraschino, curacao, and then the spirit It’s pretty clever for you know, at the same time it’s the very first one. So that’s something to be proud of as well. 

Paul Clarke

I mean, you know, innovation takes many forms. And would imagine, like his his colleagues, his peers at the time may have looked at something like this. And I’m sure there may have been a certain degree of what the hell are you doing? But also, you know, a certain degree of that’s kind of cool. That’s really kind of does something for the drink. This is that kind of evolutionary stuff.

And you’ve mentioned the Crusta in the name. You mentioned that the sugar on it really this is kind of like the defining character in some ways. We’re talking about the crust is the presentation. Yes, we talked about the ingredients a little bit, and we’ll get into that a little bit more detail here in a moment. But the thing about the Crusta is, in addition to being delicious, it’s also that took that next step in terms of presentation. So let’s talk about that just for a moment. You’ve mentioned the sugar. How is that a big step? And then also the lemon peel coming into that equation. 

Chris Hannah 

You’re right. It was like very gratuitous for his day to have the entire peel as part of the presentation in the cocktails. So like now we’re looking at everybody’s garnish program and they’re all everybody’s like, so amazing all across the world. And so for him to have this gratuitously, like full swath of an entire lemon spiraled all the way around, it being part of the part of the garnish, which is what we still have to do at Jewel of the South. It was a big statement back then, obviously. 

Paul Clarke 

It was like a diamond pinky ring, you know. It was kind of showing off to some degree, you know. 

Chris Hannah 

Yeah. It’s like the caviar bump with your Martini. 

Paul Clarke 

Right. And, you know, Wayne Curtis wrote a piece for Imbibe several years ago talking about this whole practice of rimming a cocktail glass with sugar, with salt. And the Crusta is, probably the first case of that is, as you mentioned, it can also be kind of a messy pain in the butt when you’re doing it behind the bar. With the Crusta, how is the payoff worth the hassle? 

Chris Hannah 

The station of where we rim the glasses has to be something that’s not obnoxious because of how many glasses that we rim, obviously. And this it can be an extreme mess. Like when I travel and have to do it, I actually help out a lot of these these bars figure to figure this out. Obviously, you can have like a little bulb. We have this particular container and then multiple different sugars to make sure that the rimming is consistent. And so all of that is kind of a pain. And it is the practice. For every bartender that ever starts it at Jewel, it’s very paining to watch them go through it and see how much sugar is up on the counter.

So you see us go through like an entire evening of shift at Jewel is pretty, you would think it’s impressive that there’s no sugar on the counter at all because we’re so used to it. But it is an ordeal and it does go with a lot of practice. But I think having multiple types of sugar, sanding sugar, very fine sugar and regular sugar together, mixing it all, Obviously we have little black specks in ours and gold, so we do black and gold sanding sugar is in our mix to make it look really, really pretty when looking at the glass. That’s only because we have to do it. Because if we are the house of the, the home with the Brandy Crusta, we might as well make it the most fancy of. 

Paul Clarke 

You’ve got to be the house of the Brandy Crusta at that point. Yeah. 

Chris Hannah 

We got to go for it. But so yes, it is a very annoying process, but once you have it, you get your practice down and there’s like a little like a station you make for yourselves. You get through it. 

Paul Clarke 

So walk us through looking at the Brandy Crusta. I mean, we talked a lot about kind of the original formulation. What is your approach to the Brandy Crusta at Jewel of the South? Just walk us through step by step how you make these now.

Chris Hannah 

Well, we get the order in. We have the rimmed glass put in front, and then we do an ounce and three quarter cognac, three quarter ounce of lemon juice. We do a half ounce of curaçao. Quarter of maraschino. Two to 3 dashes of Angostura bitters. The peels are already there, we’ve already peeled. We do it. We do the peels ahead of time because we just can’t, you can’t do a la minute when you’re during service. And then shake, strain, and then you break some of the lemon zest over. Spiral it in and then it goes out looking beautiful. 

Paul Clarke 

Fantastic. So by that formulation, you know, as you mentioned earlier, the lemon juice and the original formulation were just a little dab really, I think Jerry Thomas even just used the term dash. Yeah. You’re amping it up. You’re making it more in that sour category. I’m assuming you worked through many iterations of this to define kind of your preferred approach to it. 

Chris Hannah 

Yeah. You know, I believe they went from a quarter to a full half ounce back in the day, especially if he was going to have like the amount of curaçao he mentions. But yes, we we went through several cognacs to see which one we were going to like, decide upon how full of a body cocktail. And we just came up with a full three-quarter lemon, which is kind of, you know, it’s kind of a big sour, and then three-quarter of a modifier, which is the half of the curaçao and then a quarter maraschino and then definitely need the bitters.

You know, I’ve seen several recipes. I found so many recipes and not just the oldest ones I mixed, like all of like late 1800s together. And this we just came out with the balance that we like and the one that we serve at Jewel. I would say I came up with this for the French 75 bar, but we brought it over to Jewel of the South.

Paul Clarke 

Right. Right now, as you mentioned, you kind of did your own kind of work through to find kind of the ideal formulation that you want to serve there, but being bartenders, Bartenders also like to tinker sometimes. And there’s always like that inclination of like, hey, let’s see what happens. You’ve got some Chartreuse in there or, Hey, you know, what about a mezcal Crusta. Is this is there something about the Crusta where you’re, You know what? Just let it be this. Just let it be its thing and it doesn’t really need to be messed with. 

Chris Hannah 

Yes, obviously. But, you know, it’s funny you mention Chartreuse because we have a, we have a summer Crusta that we normally do at the South called the Crusta of Alcala, which is tequila and mezcal based since it’s named for one of the streets in Oaxaca. And that Crusta’s rim is the ground coffee and sugar. So it’s a coffee sugar rim and then tequila, mezcal, and then that lime juice. And that’s modified with yellow Chartreuse and crème de cacao and chocolate bitters. So we do, we do actually tinker. We do like we have to do a lot of different presses just, you know, for them, for the kids walking and they want to try something new. But as far as the classic, we came up. We have that recipe in. 

Paul Clarke 

There is freedom to explore within the Crusta template as long as you respect the general structure. 

Chris Hannah 

Exactly. 

Paul Clarke 

Excellent. Excellent. We’re getting close to the end here. Are there any final thoughts you like to share in the on the Brandy Crusta or what it means serving these at that Jewel of the South today? 

Chris Hannah 

Well, you know, I’m really proud of the Brandy Crusta, I love to talk about its, you know, its history and how it’s developed into other cocktails. I’m really proud of sort of bringing it back first to the French 75 bar and then to finally bring back to Jewel of the South to the city as well as guests visiting as well. 

Paul Clarke 

Well, Chris, thanks for taking the time to talk about the Brandy Crusta with us here today and I’m looking forward to getting back into Jewel and getting one from your team at some point soon. 

Chris Hannah 

Right on, my friend. 

Paul Clarke 

You can find Chris Hannah on Instagram at Count_Hannah, and you can find Jewel of the South online at jewelnola.com. Just follow the links in this episode’s notes to get there.

And that’s it for this episode. Be sure to subscribe to Radio Imbibe on your favorite podcast app to keep up with future episodes. We’ve got our full back catalog online, along with plenty of articles and recipes at our website, Imbibemagazine.com. Keep up with us day to day on Instagram, Pinterest, Threads, and Facebook. And if you’re not already a subscriber to the print and/or digital issues of imbibe, then let’s get you on board. Just follow the link of this episode’s notes and we’ll be happy to help you out. 

I’m Paul Clarke. This is Radio Imbibe. Catch you next time.