Tales of the Cocktail 2008

Last week we spent four days in New Orleans at Tales of the Cocktail. We had a great Boston group, and got a chance to meet a bunch of new people. Immediately after arriving at the airport, we headed out for lunch at Napolean House, complete with muffaletta sandwiches, gumbo, and Pimm's cups. Yum. After checking in at the Hotel Monteleone (haha), we stopped in a few tasting rooms. Some of the drinks were decent, but a lot were just blah. We'll have to work our way through all the booklets and recipes we brought back. I got a some pictures at a couple of the more interesting tasting rooms:

Cruzan rum:


They had samples of intermediates in the distilling process, and we got to smell all the nasty stuff they pull off as they make the final product. Very informative.

G'vine:

A gin made from grapes, infused with flowers from grape vines. It was really cool to smell the different components of the gin, then taste the final product.

We also enjoyed the Don Julio tequila, especially the bianco. We didn't stick around long enough to try the Rare, because the rep wouldn't stop blabbing.

Some of the drinking highlights/lowlights of the trip included:
Daquiri party: stickiest floor I have ever stood on. Seriously, our feet were glued to the floor. Daquiris were unmemorable.
Old Absinthe House: we ended up here on several evenings. Mostly we sent other people nasty drinks such as jaeger bombs. I stuck with beer, but vaguely remember having some Averna and green chartreuse.
St. Germain suite: We went the first night, and it was surprising how many bartenders acted like they'd never seen alcohol before. Many of them were severely fucked up. A considerable amount of drinking out of bottles occurred (tequila, scotch, averna, st. germain, and averna mixed with st. germain...yuck). Good times, though :-) Oh, and they had great posters:

We got a hurricane on Bourbon St just for shits and grins. We avoided the hand grenades though.
Vaughn's: we drank them out of Miller High Life. 'Nuf said.
The total shitshow that was Bartender's Breakfast: approximately 700 degrees and humid (INDOORS!!!). The bartenders ran out of mixers, and were just pouring booze into buckets. I sort of remember having a watermelon, maple syrup, and gin drink. It wasn't as bad as it sounds, but I don't think I'll try it at home.
If you count coffee drinking, Saturday night/Sunday morning at Cafe du Monde was one of the most hilarious experiences I can remember. Powdered sugar fights, randomly singing "ole, ole, ole" (that soccer chant...I know you know what I mean), dudes in black trench coats with light sabre umbrellas, etc.

Our livers are still recovering, but it was an absolutely fantastic time. So much fun.