This article is adapted from the January 18, 2025, edition of Gastro Obscura’s Favorite Things newsletter. You can sign up here. You always remember your first flaming cocktail. For St. John Frizell, a mixologist and one of the owners of New York’s storied Gage & Tollner restaurant, it was café brûlot at Antoine’s in New Orleans. As the maître d’ ladled flaming-blue brandy down a spiraled orange peel and into the bowl below, Frizell watched in awe. “I just thought, Oh, my God, this is the coolest thing I’ve ever…
