Little Dom's Gets Its Fat Tuesday On

You've still got time tonight to get down there, so I wanted to post this quick. As you do want get there. Little Dom's Seafood in Carpinteria is throwing a Mardi Gras Feast that started Sunday and runs through tonight, Fat Tuesday itself. Little Dom's menu already nods a lot to New Orleans, as that's where chef Brandon Boudet was raised. (Just consider his last name and you know he's legit.) On any given night you might order up a chilled Creole boiled shrimp or a bowl of seafood gumbo (that's all pescatarian, down to its stock). 

But for these few truly special days, you get a bunch more options, all provided in slightly smaller portions so you can eat widely without becoming too wide yourself. You definitely want to accelerate into the evening with a classic Sazerac, that absinthe rinse tickling your nose first, but then the sweetened rye, Peychaud's bitters, and squeeze of lemon blend and please. It transports you right to the Big Easy (after all, it's the city that holds Tales of the Cocktail every year).

While personally nothing can ever top sucking down BBQ oysters at Hog Island Oysters right alongside the Tomales Bay from which they were harvested, the ones offered by Little Dom's are a close second. Piping hot hitting the table, they carry just enough of the grill's smoky flavor but not so much to dominate. And then they bathe in luxurious liquor: not just butter but perfectly parceled out amounts of lemon juice, garlic, and Parmesan, and then a double hit of slow-growth warmth--paprika and hot sauce. The balance is beguiling, and you will drink every last drop and be sad for any drip that is left on the paper basket they show up at the table inside.

Clockwise in this photo from top left is a mug of chicken and andouille gumbo, a fried oyster mushroom po' boy, and crawfish Monica. (Note, these dishes, plus the oysters, three for both of us, and the two desserts was a perfectly filling dinner, even at smaller portions than the regular menu.) That gumbo was powered by a roux darker than an evil man's soul (I'm not going to name any names, plus then the metaphor gets too unappealing). You spelunk into the depths of its flavor. The chicken thigh meat is tender and pulled into tasty bits and then the andouille offers its spicy porkiness. It took me halfway through to find the little ball of rice hiding in the darkness. The po' boy's vegan, btw, right down to its lively aioli. The crispy, crunchy fry on the mushrooms subs perfectly for any meatiness even the most devoted carnivore might hope for. Even the roll was what you wanted--firm, tasty, willing to be a brilliant supporting, uh, roll (think the M. Emmet Walsh of breads). Then the Monica pasta was new to me, if hailed as a classic (Chef Pierre Hilzim named it after his wife). Evidently Monica is a bit creamy with a kick, and then there's plenty of crawfish tails for that great shrimp-and-lobster-had-a-delicious-baby taste. As a pasta dish, it's not too heavy, either. Yep, with cream. Promise.

Dessert closed with classics. The beignets, like the oysters, hit the table hot, not just warm. (So yes, things are cooked to order.) Plentifully powdered, they somehow didn't do the typical beignet blow up all its sugary dust trick, either. Piquant raspberry sauce added a lovely fruity note, and somehow we didn't do shots with what was left after the beignets were gone. King Cake of course is the essential culmination cake of carnival season. Cinnamon swirl spices the open-aired dough, and then there's plenty of colored sugar festively sprinkled atop. There's a chance you might find a plastic baby Jesu in your piece (your server will even warn you), but ours was untouched by infant holiness. Here's hoping we have luck and prosperity for the next year anyway. (Brief sigh for the mess our world is currently in.)

Overall, the Mardi Gras Feast at Little Dom's proved the homey and warm spot is firing on al cylinders. Staff was attentive, polite, funny, not too intrusive but there when you needed them. The booths in the barroom that replaced Sly's (and, yes, heavy sigh for Sly's too) hightops are inviting and classic, especially with their marble tabletops. It's a place where one instantly wants to hang. Just ask the Mardi Gras beads dangling from one wall's mounted marlin.

A Review of "Cure: New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ’Em"

 

What Marseilles is to the Mediterranean, New Orleans is to the Caribbean, a savory meeting place where countries and cultures, priests and pirates, hopeful and hucksters mix daringly and delightfully. It would be easy to call New Orleans the ultimate melting pot, but it’s probably more fitting to think of it as a cocktail shaker, given its long association with drink culture. So, who better to take us on a tipsy tour of the town than Neal Bodenheimer, founder of the James Beard Award-winning bar Cure? Heck he’s even co-chair of the Crescent City-based Tales of the Cocktail Foundation. (To produce this book he was ably assisted by longtime food and drink writer Emily Timberlake.) 

 Obviously the bulk of Cure: New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ’Em (Abrams) is recipes, each one sounding more quaffable than the next, but one also may read the gorgeously photographed volume both as a guidebook and a history of the myriad ways the mercantile impulse charted cocktail history. For instance, in his Sours chapter Bodenheimer tells the tale of the effects of the Italian lemon trade in New Orleans—he asserts that by 1884 they were New Orleans’s third most valuable imported commodity, behind only coffee and sugar. How could a Brandy Crusta not have happened, with its horse’s neck lemon twist prominent inside the glass? And while Bodenheimer himself isn’t the biggest fan of that drink, he has to tip his cap to its more pleasing offspring, including the margarita and sidecar.

Want to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

Liquor Companies Love to Love You, Baby

So there’s a wonder-material fabric bracelet attached to my wrist that I’m not supposed to take off for six days, despite my wrist being attached to my body in the humidor that’s New Orleans in July — no doubt a clever inventor’s inspiration for the steam room. I’ll have to use the chip in the bracelet to sign electronically into and out of rooms, so it’s either a harbinger of a creepy future or a sign someone’s really worried about losing me.

Want to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

(Yep, this is my Indy overview of Tales of the Cocktail--the gift that keeps giving.)

N'Awlins in a Nut Shell (TOTC 2016)

I figured it might be helpful to have all the 8 posts linked from one post, if people want to do some serious wrap-up reading. And, someday there's going to be an overview article in/on the Independent. I hope. I'll come add that in then.

Day 1: Sucking the Heads at Tales

Day 2: Set 'Em Up and Knock 'Em Down

Day 3: Again and a Gin

Day 4: Making Mighty as a Mule

Day 5: Of Blindfolds and Bacchanals

Day 6: Summoning Southern Spirits

Day 7: I'd Write You a Poem if I Could Put This Bottle Down

Day 8: Parting Is Such Virtual Reality

Think of this as a blurry, over-the-shoulder glimpse of Tales of the Cocktail 2016.

Parting Is Such Virtual Reality (TOTC, Day 8)

It's the last day, and like any last day of any vacation, that's all sorts of sad. But this seems particularly so, as a week in New Orleans is a week of finding a town's soul. No place seems so lived in and yet big enough to give you a space to live there too. It's too ripe, too raw, too lovely, too lost. Delicious and delirious in its dishabille.

There's even a spot like this:

And our friend Voodoo Bone Lady told us a great story about it that we can only hope is true. Supposedly that painting on the wall a husband bought for his wife and hid in the attic to give her as a surprise. That was 2005. Their house was completely flooded by Katrina, except for the attic, where the painting was secretly stored away. The couple moved to the French Quarter, which remained unflooded, post-Katrina. Then, one day their house collapsed; luckily no one was hurt. The only thing left standing--the painting and the vanity underneath it. So--is the painting lucky, a survivor of two calamities? Or is the painting a curse, a cause? The owner's going to leave it hang. But curse or cause is the ever confusing question, isn't it, especially in a city like New Orleans. You tell me what a cocktail is, for instance.

While I wait for your answer, let's go to breakfast. We head back into the CBD, this time to a place even more a neighborhood joint, Majoria's Commerce Restaurant. Despite not being local, we're greatly greeted and even better fed. I have their breakfast biscuit poured deep in a cheese sauce that gives cardiologists nightmares, rich with jalapeno and sausage and "seasonings," a spicy that ratchets up the temperature of your whole body, not your mouth. Of course, two eggs over easy over the top. It's sloppily scrumptious, the biscuits still firm enough to hold all that sop. And it's all of $5.50. Now that's a delicious deal.

We spend the rest of the morning just walking, taking it in, wishing to leave a bit of our spirits somewhere somehow too. We think about doing some quick museum-ing, but the Cabildo and Presbytere are both closed Mondays. So we do a quick peek into the St. Louis Cathedral, that is the center of the center of the Vieux Carre, and catches clouds.

Don't tell my dead mother, but I'm long gone from the Catholic church (ok, she knew even before passing, sorry, Mom), but that doesn't stop me from being a bit gobsmacked in the midst of mans' tribute to the holy. I mean, clearly people had to believe to build places like this, or I hope so. I mean, we need faith in something, although I sort of wish it was each other and not a super power that can be as indifferent to whip a Katrina on us.

Of course, we also paint pretty to sell our wares, so maybe faith is sold at fifty cents a line. This low-relief skyline enchants me either way.

And we opt to close very much tourists, at JAX Brewhouse, in a building that was clearly much more a brewery once, and now is a sort of sad mall-ish thing, if right on the Mississippi. You see, usually it's hard to see the river from the Quarter as the levee blocks your views (don't complain, it keeps you on dry land, too). But the Brewhouse is on the second floor, so you get a sweeping view. Plus they had a TV on with closed caption, and who knew that General Hospital was still such a dramatic thing? I mean, gun-point hostage situations on a Monday? The world is too accelerated. We need beer samplers at 1 pm on sticky days. And the Natchez, so close, yet so Twain.

Luckily, there's one last very Tales moment. Hendricks Gin has opted to provide an exit bar, even taking people to the airport afterward. It's at Sucre, which we'd passed some in our travels but unfortunately never visited because gorgeous macarons.You get four different cocktails and could have chair massages, but without handcuffs and blindfolds so what's the point, but even better there are virtual reality booths, which are pretty amazing if really just the most hyped-up ad you've ever experienced: you even get scent wafted at you and handed a drink at a planned time. If the future is all sell, but this good, I surrender.

I'd Write You a Poem if I Could Put this Bottle Down (TOTC, Day 7)

Tales, alas, is more or less over by Sunday. But we don't leave until Monday, and that means we get to have one more amazing New Orleans day. In fact, it's been kind of sad we haven't taken advantage of the breakfasts this too-generous town has to offer, for the most part. So today we do, wandering into the CBD.

What's a CBD, you ask? The Central Business District, which from the Monteleone out the Quarter is really only a few blocks across Canal, but it's a very different world. For of the three words that make up CBD, one I'm neutral about, but the first two aren't usually things that give me warm feelies. Still, there's some cool stuff that-a-way. Like the Ruby Slipper Cafe, a little southern mini-chain, but also mostly delectable. Or make that liquid-able, as you can see here.

We simply did not have enough Bloodys this trip, but if that's the worst thing you can say about a trip.... Bacon in them is a good idea. (Bacon in your socks might be a good idea. Go, bacon!) And is there anything more pleasing than a pickled green bean, it's flat flavor lifted by vinegar and salt? You do want the BBQ shrimp and grits. The special I had with a biscuit proved that horrible biscuit conundrum--too often the reality of biscuit never matches the biscuit dream. Still, a fine spot.

And while the CBD tends to have more new buildings, more late 20th century hotel, more of less interest, there's still spots like this, as you never escape New Orleans no matter where you are in it. That's part of its magic.

Before we headed out to be poetic, we had to hit a place across the street from the Bienville House that had intrigued us (we are easy)--Evangeline.  We don't need anything, don't want much, but it's New Orleans, temptress, and vacation, idealization, and a gorgeous spot, easily romanced. The bartender, sort of a blond Julianne Moore, chats a lot, sells us beers. I get a Southern Prohibition Brewing Mississippi Fire Ant Imperial Red Ale, lots of caramel-rich malt with plenty of hops to balance. Chryss gets the Tin Roof Watermelon Wheat, a special that ends up in a can (a bit of a surprise), but still super refreshing and not too sweet given, well, watermelon.

So. This coming afternoon, thanks to our friends Melinda and Steve from Liuzza's day, we're going to be featured readers at the Maple Leaf Bar. That means Chryss needs a pedicure. (You do know how poetry works, don't you?) While she does that, I wander about and end up at the last Monteleone event, Ya-Ka-Mein by Miss Linda. I won't be able to do Ya-Ka-Mein justice in a couple of sentences, as it's a culture clash of deliciously epic proportions, and has many varieties and proponents. Miss Linda is particularly famous as she's been on national TV (thanks, Chopped!), and her mix was brilliantly spicy without any overpowering hot, and deep deep deep. It certainly packed a flavor punch that helped wash away the rest of the week, so seemed perfect as the food for the Sunday blessing.

OK, then the poetry, you don't need to know a lot about. I read, Chryss read better, there was open mic. It was a crazy honor to be part of this, since this event is the longest continuously running poetry reading series in North America. All props to Nancy Harris who runs it now, weekly. (Do you know what it means to run a weekly poetry series?) I also didn't realize, as I go into that weird fugue state of "oh shit I'm reading poems soon," that one of the audience members was Rodney Jones, one of my favorite poets--tell me this isn't one of the best poems ever. I am forever grateful I didn't realize who I was introduced to before the reading. I hope I didn't offend you, Rodney, with my poems.

After the event Chryss, Nancy, Melinda, Steve, and I all went to one of New Orleans' long-standing best neighborhood spots--Upperline--for dinner. Even better, since Melinda calls ahead, seems to be a bit of a semi-regular, and stresses our Santa Barbara ties, we get sat next to a haunting bayou photograph by Louisiana native/Santa Barbara resident Nell Campbell. That she took the photographs at our wedding certainly makes us feel a bit more welcome than most restaurants could. Restaurateur JoAnn Clevenger goes on and on about Nell, and we completely understand.

And if that perfect bonding welcome wasn't enough, there was the food. Not that everything can't be lovely here, a place that invented the now standard Creole dish fried green tomato with shrimp remoulade (be sure you read that deliciousness really slowly--go back if you have to), but it was also Garlic Fest. Rule 1 of Garlic Fest: everyone must partake of Garlic Fest. Luckily, we met that rule.

There were special martinis, made with things like Dorothy Parker gin (see this day's entry).  Then delights like heirloom tomato gazpacho with crab guacamole and garlic crisps--as flavorful as something that light and refreshing could be--and spicy shrimp with jalapeno cornbread and aioli--and those are just course one. For mains Chryss had eggplant and creole squash shrimp boats a la Muddy Waters, which involved the lightest flash fry, very summer eggplants and squash, and perfect shrimp. And I, well, I might have had my favorite duck dish ever. Skin crispy/crunchy, fat rendered, meat tender and not the slightest bit over-cooked. And then the sauce, a port-garlic brilliance I might wear as a cologne. You also get a little cast iron pan of luscious yam-meets-pecan side with that. I so want more right now.

There is still an ice cream sundae with garlic roasted in honey, and that oddly works. Nancy gets a Brandy Alexander as her dessert, and that's so New Orleans. This couldn't be a better last night dinner to celebrate both the brilliance, taste, and extravagance of the week of Tales.

We get back to the Quarter, realize it's our last night, and go out again as it's not too late and, hey, it's the last night! One stop is at the Bombay Club, home of a gazillion martinis, and we fall in love with their coupes and like their drinks too; if you get this The Bombay Club Martini, it's made with Old Raj Gin, Cocchi Vermouth di Torino, Luxardo, Maraschino Liqueur, and Regans’ Orange Bitters, with an orange twist and tastes a tad sweet for something martini-esque but looks lovely like this:

And, of course, as our last night in town we have to go to the Carousel Bar one last time. This time we get to ride the carousel itself, slowly circling our friends the barkeeps. It's still surprisingly lively, as just enough of the tails of Tales are kicking about. But this ride is about history, about so much aboutness--the words, the proof, the taste, the forgotten, the made up and re-remembered and the joy that our lives are the fictions we get to tell, even if they happened, almost just like that. I promise you the truth, if you just buy the next round.

Summoning Southern Spirits (TOTC 2016, Day 6)

We Sweat Socially for the last time, and parting is such damp sorrow. We Kick Start Coffee for the last time, and don't say thanks a latte, because we're not that lame. There's a room full of Anchor Distilling drinks, but we don't linger as it's not even 11 am and we have not eaten. See, Tales teaches you many things.

We do shower up and get dressed for Beignets on the Balcony by William Grant & Sons. It's in the Sonesta, the other hotel housing many of TOTC's events, and you wind up wandering through a warren of rooms and indeed balconies overlooking Bourbon Street. This would be prized real estate for Mardi Gras, but on a rainy July morning even most of the vomit has packed up and gone home, making what will be party central in 10 hours look more like a neon-lit ghost town.

The beignets are good, the eggs better, the cocktails best, particularity an Opera made of The Balvenie 14 year old Caribbean cask (I told you to Sip That back in April), lemon juice, pear brandy, elderflower liqueur, simple syrup, and topped with sparkling wine. Think French 75 squared or something, a lovely brunchish pour. That event ends up being the end of our official Tales day, except for a quick trip to the top floor of the Monteleone, hoping for good things in the Interview Room. Instead we got this view--they need to buy some letters, Vanna, or perhaps someone has a hankering for the original Let's Make a Deal host. (The last sentence brought to you by the International Association of Game Shows.)

It's time for a crosstown adventure! First, if you opt to take the streetcars, and you really sort of have to, you can buy a pass before trying to board. Do that. (We didn't.) Second, get ready for too many people with the same idea, and a crush, and heat, and grumble grumble. But then it gets moving, and you might get to hear the operator crack wise, and you might get views like this as you head out into the Garden District.

So it's all sorts of good. We decide it might be fun to wander about Audubon Park, so get off there and keep our fingers crossed that a typical afternoon rainstorm doesn't let loose on us. The first part of the park is still very much in its original Olmsted design, and so so much green to confront folks like us living in rain-starved southern California.

Also, here's the obligatory photo of moss.

That beats both Randy and Kate. We end up walking all the way from St. Charles to the Mississippi, around the zoo which we decide not to see. As for the park, it's an impressive taming of nature with equally impressive houses of the rich alongside. You know, America. It is a long walk, and everything past Magazine St. is far less scenic (the Olmsteds mustn't have been paid for that part) and very treeless. It is not sunless. We are not sweatless, even with mighty clouds like this.

Note, too, the river is intimidatingly wide and hinting at its real use as a highway and not something one should particularly romance. It's easy to agree, however, it's nicknamed well--that's about as unclear as water can be, Mighty Muddy M. That could be something jumping out of it, too.

We start the long hike back to Charles St., and get to see these critters along the way.

Being us, and given half of us is Chryss, we're nowhere near done walking, despite needing food and drink, and by drink we mostly even just mean water, so you know this was a long walk. We cross St. Charles and head for Freret, which, of course, we call Ferret, because the furry devils need their own street. Our goal is what often gets called the best craft cocktail bar in New Orleans--Cure--and we get there right as they open at 3, so luckily we do not enter crying, even though our tears would probably have been hidden amidst our perspiration. They let us in anyway.

There is the tiniest bit of 'tude here, but they seem to deserve it as they make outstanding cocktails and are just friendly enough. They describe their own creations by comparing them to a drink theirs is sort of like, to give you a handle of where to head. So I get a Sweet Leaf that's a cousin to a Corpse Reviver #2 that is divine and Chryss has an Irish Goodbye, which is described as follows: "Perfect for a hot day, this restorative Irish whiskey sour has notes of peach, mint, and green tea."

We also hunger, and get a bar snack platter of olives and crudite and a pimento cheese spread that makes me wonder where pimentos have been of late. I will be having more. To do further cocktail research--I am a journalist, after all--I have a second drink, this time an Alaska (what more could one want on a hot day), made of City of London Gin, Yellow Chartreuse, Regans' Orange Bitters. Perfect simplicity. (Another big Cure plus--despite being one of the town's hot spots, most drinks are just $10. Put them in LA or Santa Barbara and their creations would cost at least $15.)

Chryss does some internet sleuthing and discovers that Bar Frances, just down the street (this stretch of Freret is particularly hip right now) is supposed to be something, so we decide to go there too. Hey, we missed lunch, don't judge. It's quite pleasing, too, and our waitress here turns out to be from Santa Barbara, of course. Happy hour Marcona almonds for three bucks are saltily nice, and I order a Boulevardier cocktail as I like the way it throws whiskey into a Negroni, or perhaps it throws Campari into a Manhattan. That is, it's almost so many other drinks but really only itself. Chryss goes for a local microbrew for the name as much as anything, Southern Prohibition Brewing's Jack the Sipper ESB. It reminded me what a pleasing style ESB is, but of course, the English just don't hop enough for us Americans.

I do not know, by the way, why I have no photos of this chunk of the day.

We work our way back to the streetcar and take it back to the Quarter, passing all the ornate houses that make much of the Garden District seem like a set for a Southern Gothic soap opera--These Are the Days of Our Columns. (I hope that's suggestive enough.) Somehow I can't remember at this point if we go straight to the dinner we've been slowly building to with drink after snack-accompanies drink, but it seems as good a way to experience New Orleans as any.

Dinner is far from glamorous--it's the walkup window of Killer Poboys, think of it as a food truck parked permanently in the back room of the Erin Rose Bar. You can't have too many poboys, and they also mean you get to eat cheap. Chryss goes for the Seared Gulf Shrimp with marinated radish, carrot, cucumber, herbs, and special sauce while I go for their famous “Dark & Stormy” Pork Belly long-marinated and re-brushed with NOLA rum ginger glaze and topped with lime slaw and garlic aioli. These are incredible flavor bombs and go well with some southern beers from the bar up front.

There might be time for a nap. Because at 8 we meet our wonderful neighbors from SB, who just happen to be in New Orleans for one night only, and they're booked for the Ultimate 5-in-1 Haunted Tour Experience with the Voodoo Bone Lady. Given these are our neighbors that also take Halloween seriously in ways that might scare others as they decorate their house so well people come out of their way to see it, of course nothing could be better than to do a ghost tour with them. It's practically research.

Guess who? She's an incredible story teller, which is just what you want for something like this, because while the Quarter can seem spooktacular--most of the buildings are hundreds of years old, the gas lamps flicker, even for rent signs advise whether a condo is haunted or not--the scariest thing you'll probably see is some 21-year-old chucking up his fifth Hurricane.

You do get touchdown Jesus, who supposedly helped the Saints win a Super Bowl. Or, perhaps, it just helps make Christianity creepier than it is in towns that aren't in no small part built on the slave trade.

We do get a drink/bathroom break at Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar, to get our pirates into the story, of course. It's supposed to be the oldest building used as a bar in the U.S., a couple of decades before we were the U.S. It is wonderfully ramshackle and creepy and candlelit except for the video poker machine or two. I mean, you can't ignore all uses of electricity. Oh, did Lafitte really having anything to do with this spot? We don't know. But if we claim it, and keep the corners properly in the shadows, anything can seem possible.

And, of course, the tour ends at the infamous LaLaurie House that American Horror Story made a national, overly graphic excuse to see if Kathy Bates could over-act more than Jessica Lange (was tv-watching America winners or losers, you decide). You know, the usual torture the slaves thing for your own sadistic thrills. And then, the house supposedly wasn't too welcoming--even one-time owner Nicolas Cage found the power of the haunting, even if it used the IRS to get him. We don' see anything spooky here, even in our photos. But the stories are terrifying enough.

So much so after saying goodbye to the neighbors, who are visiting with their teenagers, we decide we need a nightcap and return to Kingfish from our first night in town. I have to have that First Word again, it was so good. Less good are the other, of course younger, people at the bar who are so witty they must yell their bon-mots at each other, then laugh as if they learned how to do so by watching the cartoon ass on Hee-Haw. Even the people behind the bar are rolling their eyes, to the point they give us a drink for free, saying, "It took me too long to get you your drink." Now that's service. They do finally leave, and the volume change is almost like exiting the rock nightclub and suddenyl just hearing nothing.

Even better, our friend (thanks to our daughter) Laura Bellucci from SoBou is doing what bartenders do post shift, knocking back shots of Fernet-Branca, especially since one of the Kingfish bartenders is her beau. So we get to, on pretty much the last evening of Tales, join the honorary ranks of barkeeps ourselves. There's nothing bitter about this amaro in the slightest.

Of Blindfolds and Bacchanals (TOTC 2016, Day 5)

One good thing about not drinking past 11 pm--it's much easier to get up and run at 8. So we do that, again, and the group feels like a friendly little sleeper cell of health amidst the rest of the wantonness. One of the runners we most like is Cindy from the Portland Bitters Project, who is anything but bitter but makes a fine product. We're particularly fond of her Super Spice flavor, which she developed for the holidays but it's so popular she makes it year round.

It's one jam it in morning: as I look back on my notes I sort of wonder how we accomplished it all. Mostly by this point of Tales we're very good at not tasting every drink offered and never finishing the ones we taste. It's the only way to survive. Still, there's a sip of Jura Superstition, the middle level of their peaty product (I don't get to taste the full line that afternoon, alas); a run through the Deep Eddy room, with singers doing their best Andrews Sisters and solid Bloodys (you can drink a whole one of those, it's a vegetable!).

But best of all, there's Mezcal of the Caribbean, or perhaps that should be The Best Little Whorehouse on El Silencio Street. For El Silencio has taken over that Vieux Carre room with the amazing views up and down the Mississippi and built an environment in it. You line up in a hallway and are cheerfully greeted. (Here's the place to point out the TOTC demographic still skews male over female and therefore tends to use the cheesecake appeal at pretty much every turn.)

You have to sign a waiver to enter, which you don't have time to read, but you figure how bad can it be? Of course you haven't seen the blindfolds and handcuffs yet. You have to enter the speakeasy style door with the password, "Shhhhh!" And inside, the very crimsonly-lit inside, the house madame, channeling Divine divinely, offers you a wooden slug that has your number on it. In the meantime you drink very tasty mezcal cocktails (I so love the mezcal smoke, and keep hoping it becomes even more of a thing), or look through the far wall's peep shows, little holes that let you view vintage nudie films.

When your number comes up on the board, some fair, tastefully lingeried lasses blindfold you and politely apologize when the handcuffs are a bit tight. Then they ask you to hold a rope and lead you out of the room. You're on the 16th floor, so what could go wrong? After a few turns, a woman tells you to step forward and straddle what's in front of you. And, of course, it's a massage chair. You get rubbed heartily for ten minutes and led out.

I've had worse mornings.

We also finally check out the Interview Room, one of Tales' places of refuge for the media. There's usually someone pushing their booze, but even more importantly there are chairs, quiet, and spreads like this one. Turns out a spring roll wrapper around a large very well executed prawn in some Thai peanut sauce is a perfect couple of bites that will make you enjoy a few, until the martini glasses they come in pile up and you feel almost drunk with prawn and peanut sauce. It's a good feeling.

Then the deluge came, as much rain as Santa Barbara has seen in two years in 40 minutes. We want to get back to the Bienville from the Monteleone and are too impatient to wait it out, so I take off my shoes and socks, roll up my pants, and we dash about the flooded streets. All that Sweat Social running was good practice. Back at the Bienville we go to Latitude 29, which has less attitude at lunchtime, especially when the rain is keeping it empty. Turns out there's nothing better than taro chips, especially these, richly covered in spice. The hardest part of eating them was deciding which dip that accompanied them was better, the kimchi ketchup or the Sriracha mayo. Chryss couldn't pass on the vegan option, because in a carnivorous town like NO you got to support the vegan, Green Curry of charred cauliflower dusted with sumac, chick peas, carrots, mushrooms,sweet potato’d rice. I had a shrimp and grits special, because, well, I'm in New Orleans, and even in the tiki bar I'm in New Orleans. I make up for that by ordering their namesake cocktail made of eight-year Demerara rum, passion fruit purée, housemade Madagascar vanilla syrup, orange, pineapple and lemon. It is very good, and I start growing board shorts.

I do not wear them back to the Monteleone, as we've got another seminar, this one intriguingly titled "The Cocktail Crystal Ball: Drinking in 2116." It features a top-notch panel: Alexander Rose of The Long Now Foundation, Dave Arnold, founder of the Museum of Food and Drink, Jennifer Colliau of Small Hand Foods, and Dave Smith of St. George Spirits. They talk about everything, almost too much to get in-depth, from demographics (the hockey stick!), to climate change issues (what will we be able to grow where?), to robot servers (what's a bartender's function?), to Randall Grahm's experiments trying to discover what the American grape should be. It seems encouraging even these people with their eyes on the long game seem so human, as is the room, for Arnold's line, "Give me an alcohol enema or whatever if it's all about the frickin buzz," gets a hearty laugh and Colliau's line, "I'd rather have a decent Manhattan from a lovely person than an amazing Manhattan from an asshole" nearly gets a standing ovation. And I have to admit of the three cocktails they provide us, supposedly time-snapshots of martini variations past, present, and future, it's the present I like. Maybe we are living in the best of all possible worlds. (Plus if water gets crazy scarce, there goes our ice cubes, and that's downright uncivilizing.)

After the event we wander about the Monteleone some more. We do a quick blast through Of Grapes and Grain: Mixing Wine and Whiskey presented by High West Distillery and Quady Winery, wishing we had more time after the panel. Quady's vermouths--the Vya line--are all high class and I discover I have a thing for High West's Double Rye. There are a host of well turned cocktails here, a single room that's enough evidence for all the craft this country is cranking right now.

And in less lofty thoughts, if you're wondering, yes indeedy, there are pool parties sponsored by liquor companies, and we peek at them and feel old.

Instead, we opt to go on a long long walk. Out the Quarter, through Marigny, into Bywater, which I sort of sense is NO's Brooklyn but without the attitude. Humidity just slaps the attitude out of you. We even make sure to hit The Franklin on the way, as Novo Fogo, the sponsors of our morning runs, gives you a card for a free watermelon caipirinha, and we figure we've never earned a specific drink more. It's super refreshing, and the bar is captivatingly cool, but it's not where we plan to end up.

We don't plan on ending up at Euclid Records, either, but I had to share that picture. How can you not love a town so steeped in its music? Instead we head to Bacchanal, a sudden oasis of a wine store/bar/restaurant/outside jazz venue in what seems like a residential neighborhood. You buy a bottle of wine up front (the inventory is 98% Old World, so we went for a Chateau de Brigue rosé), they open it for you, you stick it and a bunch of ice in a plastic paint bucket, and you find a seat in the enchanting garden, ringed with lights and centered on a stage where jazz plays.

It's the kind of spot you imagine moving into after you've been there for fifteen minutes--so comfortable yet still mildly electric. It doesn't hurt there's tasty bites like bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with chorizo and a gulf fish ceviche with cucumber, citrus, cilantro, yuca chips. We also get an ear of corn grilled and slathered with cheese, and it's a place where the mess that makes offends no one as they all know how good it is and that pleasure is all that matters. The trio about was really impressive--even pulled off Miles Davis' "Freddie Freeloader."

After a leisurely Uber ride back the Quarter--nothing like a driver who stops at intersections even when he doesn't have the stop--we, no doubt led by me--take the idea of bacchanal seriously and head out again from the hotel. Since we failed to get into Napoleon House the other night, we go tonight as you have visit and Pimm's Cup. It's another very New Orleans drink that is most associated with one bar (does any other town have so many such spots?), and it's another cocktail made for sipping on a warm day. Of course even the nights hold the heat, so a Pimm's Cup is just fine then, too, right down to its cucumber slice garnish. We drink on the inner courtyard and get to watch people leaving a wedding in one of the upstairs fancy rooms, and dressed up children are always fun. (It's one of the best reasons to have any.)

Speaking of not backing off the bacchanal, we also realize, to our horror, we have not had dessert, and even worse will most likely be kicked out of town if the people in charge discover we've been here for five days and have yet been powdered-sugar covered at Cafe du Monde. Tourist trap, perhaps, especially since the sugared floors can get sticky at times, but these beignets are a delight--doughy, puffy, hot, and a sweet sweet rush. That's how good New Orleans is--even its cliches are brilliant.

Making Mighty as a Mule (TOTC 2016, Day 4)

We are a bit Absolut-ly slowed this morning, so do not run, but walk quietly to the Kick Start Coffee Bar, and can't resist a bit of gin and juice from Tanqueray because it's good, there, and free. I'm not sure I've made it clear yet how well-branded TOTC is, with lovely little logos lurking practically everywhere. It makes the event all the more special, even at those private moments.

There is a fascinating Lobby Bar event featuring the Wild Hibiscus Flower Company that markets actual hibiscus flowers that come packed in syrup all the way from Australia. It makes for a very ornately gorgeous cocktail accoutrement, but to be honest while edible, they still seemed too fleshy for me, at least before noon. Perhaps in a champagne flute at midnight under a gibbous moon I'd feel differently, at nibble on them as if they were a lover's neck. I've got a jar of them to experiment with, so will let George Eats readers know.

This is also the day we have to, sadly, switch hotels. I can't say enough about the Monteleone, its grace under the raucous pressure of Tales--so many people, events, alcohol-aided volume, elevators a-brim with revelry. The staff is ever calm, helpful. Somehow the rooms remain quiet, the escape from the lobby a move to a peaceful paradise. But, they also raised the rates for the weekend, so we move on a few blocks away to the sister property the Bienville House. It's got a rep, so when we check in we ask the desk clerk, "Is our room haunted?" and she replies without missing a beat, "You'll have to tell me." We do not experience any ghosts, nor do our phones take photos of us while we're asleep, which is supposedly one thing the spirits do--when did the dead get so technologically savvy? It is a noisier hotel, though, partially because we're on the third floor, not tenth, and we're also much closer to the elevator. Evidently the fear of dying in an old hotel's elevator make people shout a lot while waiting for it, just in case they only get to scream one more time, and at that it would be a scream cut off mid yell.

This is also the day we plan to meet up with Santa Barbara-New Orleans (yes, the lucky devils live in both places) Melinda and Steve to lunch out of the Quarter. They take us to Liuzza's, a Mid-City establishment around since 1947, except for the Katrina stretch when water flooded 2/3 of the way up the first floor. It's not where tourists go, even after it got highlighted in David Simon's Treme. You get called hon by the waitresses. You get a frosty goblet of draught beer you hold with two hands to be safe. There's lots of red gravy, as this is New Orleans by way of Italy, a connection people don't realize as much. (It's not as old and glamorous as all the French and Spanish influences, but it rings true through many neighborhoods.)

I go for their famous Frenchuletta, a take on the muffuleta that comes more as a sub than in a giant round bread. It is ridiculously huge, all sorts of Italian cold cuts and most importantly an olive salad dripping with oil that is disgustingly delicious. I get about 3/4 of it down, which I consider a victory. Chryss orders the famous (everything here is famous, as people have been ordering it all for eight decades) Pasta Spinach Lougia, basically spinach, garlic, and olive oil on pasta, and nearly halfway through our waitress stops by with more spinach, saying, "Sorry, it didn't look like we gave you enough." It's the kind of place where mommas never feel there is enough. It's a kind of instant home.

The afternoon was a quick tour about some tasting rooms. It seems amaro is the THING right now, so everyone needs one, even if they don't call it an amaro. Exhibit A, meet Bruto Americano by St. George Spirits. (The call it a "bitter aperitivo liqueur.") So one had the opportunity to make  the rounds of bartenders having fun with the new product, all in the Vieux Carre room of the Monteleone, aka the top floor. So it's worth doing just for the view, but the drinks were darn good, too. (At this event I also discovered St. George's Green Chile Vodka--if you want something with a bit of heat, hunt this out.)

Exhibit B: The other tasting room, a crazed mass of people, was run by Fratelli Branca, makers of the classic amaro Fernet-Branca (which will surface again Saturday, just wait). I might just be bitter--no pun intended--because we didn't win the bike in the raffle they held, but overall these cocktails didn't do it for me--they tended to be a little sludgy and one-sided.

The evening then got messed up because we thought we were going to a Meet the Distillers event, but it was not clear press wasn't allowed as media at all, and once that became clear, well, this press wasn't going. (Sorry, distillers! Would love to have written about you but I wasn't allowed in. Talk to your favorite TOTC representative.) So we wandered a bit, taking in the Mississippi River some (we learned from our Sweat Social runs it's 250 feet deep at New Orleans!), and thinking we'd finally end up taking the free ferry across to Algiers one day this trip. Alas this didn't happen.

So instead we hit one of the city's most famous spots, the Sazerac Bar (snarky side note--do you also want to punch the people in the photos on that website?) in the Roosevelt Hotel. First, there are WPA murals in a hotel owned by the Waldorf Astoria Corp. There's America for you in a nutshell. Plus this is a bar Huey Long would hang out in (Long seems quaint with Trump around, no?). I get a Sazerac, of course, that simple, simply perfect mix of sugar, bitters, rye, Herbsaint, and something the NO humidity adds you don't get even when you make them properly at home. Chryss has the Ramos Gin Fizz, a preposterous yet gorgeous concoction: Hayman’s Old Tom Gin, fresh citrus, cream, egg whites, sugar, orange flower water, shaken until frothy and topped with club soda.

These drinks aren't cheap--you pay for all the marble in the Roosevelt lobby--but they are luxurious.

The rest of the evening is one of the TOTC's Spirited Dinners--Thursday the whole town is a-buzz with restaurants hosting crazy drink menu matched meals. We get invited to Smirnoff's celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Moscow Mule. It seems the simpler the cocktail, the more detailed the origin story must be (just try to tease out how a martini was born), and the Mule has a doozy--Hollywood setting, businessmen down on their luck, heiresses with copper mines. This dinner is a kind of dinner theater--they actually act out the invention of the cocktail between courses. Fake dinner guests join you spreading gossip and lies. It was hokey fun. It helped the food was very good (but you can't fry an oyster and call it a shooter, folks!), and the event had a bit of historical aura going for it, too, taking place at the lovingly restored Little Gem Saloon, where some guys named Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, and Buddy Bolden played back when jazz didn't have a name yet.

 And then there's the Mule itself. It almost seems too simple--vodka, ginger beer, lime--to count as a cocktail. But simplicity is one of the joys of drink, for sometimes a quick prep is everything. (You had that Monday, too, didn't you.) Cold, refreshing, zippy, with a hidden alcohol kick. Why not. Plus it goes well on a steamy New Orleans' evening with a blackberry pop. That seemingly gimmicky copper cup does it keep it icy.

Then there was yet one more huge bonus to this event, the music, for pianist David Hull and singer Meschiya Lake would have made the old ghosts of the Little Gem proud. Lake, in particular, sings like a modern Billie Holiday, with a lot more tattoos. This photo doesn't do her much justice, but you'll get a great sense of her talent watching this video.

We get back to the Quarter at almost 11 and figure, it's Tales, time to nightcap. We try to go to Latitude 29, an acclaimed tiki bar in our hotel, first. They close at 11, and don't want to seat anyone for drinks even at 10:40. So we walk the few blocks over to Napoleon House, where the Little Emperor never came to live although they wanted him to. (One of the few facts that make me feel pity for Napoleon.) Alas, it too closes at 11. New Orleans never fails to surprise.