According to this fun article in the Atlantic Monthly, old is new again as the latest bar trend is the return of the classic cocktail:

the drinks highlight rather than mask the tastes of the spirits. This is as it should be. Lading drinks with overly sweet mixers, thick juices, and fruits amounts, in a way, to a continuation of Prohibition. During the 13-year drought, Americans applied considerable creativity to hiding the taste of bathtub gin and bootlegged liquor, and then never really broke the habit. Seventy-five years after Prohibition’s repeal, we’re returning to the basics at last.

What are the best classic cocktails in Asheville, and who’s making them?

We went to Zambras for a Christmas eve dinner and I was very pleased to find they had the Sazerac on their specials menu. Supposedly the first cocktail invented in America back in the 1800’s. I first had one on my honeymoon, over twenty years ago at the Sazerac Bar at the Fairmont Hotel in New Orleans, the supposed birthplace of the drink. Wikkipedia show it’s origins in the 1830’s and the hotel was built in the 1890’s so while their claim may be suspect it is certainly the place that one thinks of when you think of a Sazerac. It was originally congac based with Absinthe but the congac was replaced with rye whiskey and the Absinth with Pernod or Herbsaint way back in the 1870’s.

  You muddle bitters with a sugar cube in an old fashioned glass then take a second glass that has been packed with ice, dump out the ice and coat the sides of the glass with Pernod. Then you pour the Rye/Bitters mixture into the Pernod glass and add lemon peel. At Zambra I had them use Absinthe instead of Pernod. The first one was OK but working with the bartender a bit we increased the bitters until it was the drink I remmbered. If you go there have them use Absinthe and no less than five dashes of bitters. Since your at Zambras you might as well have some tapas with it, right?

Evan at Scratch makes a very tasty “Old Fashioned” using the house bitters.

Angostura bitters are awesome1

the guys up in the bar on the second floor of the s&w;building make a decent cocktail

zambras makes a hand full of very good ones ...

of course last weekend I was at one of my favorite bars nationally
‘eastern standard’ in boston .... world class classical cocktails .... yummy

I think to be as authentic as possible, the cocktails should be priced at the same amount they went for in the early 60s to late 50s.