Tale of the cocktail: Sazerac is official drink
by Ed Anderson - Times-Picayune (excerpt)

BATON ROUGE -- After a monthslong legislative tug-of-war, the third time was the charm Monday for the Sazerac, the cocktail created in New Orleans more than 160 years ago.

The House revived and passed Senate Bill 6 to make the alcoholic beverage the official drink of the city of New Orleans on a 62-33 vote after it appeared to be dead. It now goes to Gov. Bobby Jindal.

The measure by Sen. Edwin Murray, D-New Orleans, originally sought to make the drink, one of the oldest cocktails in the nation, the official cocktail of the state, but the Senate refused to go along with that, opting to make it the city's official cocktail.

Twice in the past two days, the House failed to muster the votes needed to go along with the change. Murray's bill failed by six votes Sunday, and by two on the first try Monday.

With a little more than an hour left in the session, Reps. Noble Ellington, D-Winnsboro, and Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans, asked the House to reconsider the vote one last time.