NEW ORLEANS

BY DANIEL HEIMPEL

THE SPIRITS OF NEW ORLEANS

THE COCKTAIL HAS A STORIED PAST IN THE BIG EASY

New Orleans locals have been quenching their thirst with mixed drinks for centuries, creating a cocktail culture that still lives on today.

The city’s celebration of its liquor-soaked tradition goes beyond serving cocktails any time of day. There’s a walking tour of historic bars, an entire museum dedicated to the mixed drink and even a festival celebrating the cocktails invented-or-perfected-widthin the city limits. So go ahead and start drinking it all in.

Jim Fewell, operations manager of Gray Line Tours (www.graylineneworleans.com), which leads a two-and-a-half hour pub crawl that meanders through downtown, says that his first drink was a mint julep—heavy on the bourbon and crushed mint leaves. “[When you are young], you want something sweet,” he says. Since then, his palate has matured, and he is eager to share his passion for cocktails and New Orleans’ drinking culture.

“In New Orleans, we are much more laidback,” Fewell says. “We always get a drink prior to dinner. We walk into a restaurant and sit down to relax. And afterwards, there is always a place for a nightcap.” He adds that having visitors can be a bit nerve-wracking, because they are always in a hurry to finish. (Note to out-of-towners: Slow down!)

For the aforementioned nightcap, Fewell hits Richelieu Bar at Arnaud’s (www.arnauds. com; 504-523-5433), which was a speakeasy during the Prohibition years. He also likes Antoine’s (www.antoines.com; 504-581-4422), with its themed, Mardi Gras-inspired rooms.

But Fewell’s favorite stop is Napoleon House (www.napoleanhouse.com; 504-524-9752) in the French Quarter, the home of former New Orleans Mayor Nicholas Girod, who, in 1821, offered the residence to the then-exiled Napoleon Bonaparte. The maligned emperor never made it (he died before he could take the mayor up on his offer), but the name stuck. Today, the French Colonial-style bar and restaurant, with its creaking wood floors and French pane windows, is famous for the Pimm’s Cup—a mix of Pimm’s No. 1 and 7-Up.

Dale DeGroff, also a New Orleans native, was so taken with stories like that of Napoleon House that he founded his own museum based on the cocktail. Aptly called The Museum of The American Cocktail (www.. museumoftheamericancocktail.com), it has been on the move since the levees broke, but DeGroff, with 30 years of experience as a bartender, including a 12-year stint at New York’s famous Rainbow Room, says the museum has finally found a home in the Riverwalk Marketplace, where it will open in July. The museum’s permanent exhibit has artifacts dating all the way back to the first mention of the cocktail in an 1806 newspaper article.

As the tale goes, Antoine Amedee Peychaud, a Crescent City pharmacist, would mix home-made bitters with cognac as a sort of digestive. It was served in a double-sided egg glass, referred to as a coquetier in French-speaking Louisiana. As much as DeGroff would love the story placing the cocktail’s invention in New Orleans to be true, he has his doubts: “Unfortunately Peychaud would have been two when that 1806 article came out,” he says.

But even if the cocktail didn’t originate in New Orleans, this is where it has found its home. In 2003, Ann Tuennerman, after seeing the cocktail walking tour succeed, decided to create a festival to celebrate the mixed drink.

“I thought this is crazy that our dining and drinking history is so important and we don’t have a way to really educate our visitors,” she says.

The inaugural Tales of the Cocktail (www.. talesofthecocktail.com) drew 10 mixologists. Now, six years later, the festival—taking place July 16-20—is expected to draw as many as 12,000 visitors. “Now we go through so much product— 7,200 mint leaves, 5,000 lemon peels,” Rogers says. “We measure our success in garnishes.”

Rogers has had to stock everything from edible flowers to a backscratcher for one particularly inventive tiki drink. Participants range from thirsty tourists to restaurateurs and professional mixologists who come to show off the newest innovations in cocktailing. Today’s top bar staff are experimenting with molecular mixology, allowing for never-seen-or-tasted-before drinks.

But before innovation, Rogers points to a strong cocktail foundation. “All the new innovative things are rooted in the classics,” she says. And New Orleans is the place where you can have both.

NEW ORLEANS’ 5 HISTORIC COCKTAILS

BRANDY MILK PUNCH

Take a few cubes of ice, a shot of brandy, cup of milk and tablespoon of sugar. Mix them in a shaker until it gets frothy. Pour in a tall glass, sprinkle some shaved nutmeg on top and—voilà—you have a Brandy Milk Punch.

SAZERAC

This drink is so famous in New Orleans that it has a bar named after it: the 19th-century Sazerac Coffe House(www.sazerac.com). REcipe: Wet a sugar cube at the bottom of an old-fashioned tumbler. Add rye or cognac (try the 18-year-old Sazerac-du-Forge et fils) as well as Antoine Amedee Peychaud’s or Angostura bitters. Line another glass with absinthe and pour the the contents of the first glass in through a strainer. Add a twist of lemon for garnish.

Sidecar

Derived from the once exceedingly popular Brandy Cruster, the Sidecar is still a popular drink. It is a simple mix of brandy, Cointreau and fresh lemon juice that will leave your head reeling.

RAMOS’GIN FIZZ

Invented by restaurant owner Henry C. Ramos at Meyer’s Restaurant, this New Orleans twist on the Gin Fiz uses orange flower water and egg whites, wich add texture and sweetness to the standard combination that is typically heavy on the gin and flavored with lemon and lime juice, sugar, cream and soda water.

PIMM’S CUP

Imported from England, Pimm’s No.1-a gin-based spirit with an orange color and citrus and bitter flavors-was popular in 19th-century New Orleans. Today, Napoleon House is the place to go for a Pimm’s Cup: one part Pimm’s, two parts Sprite or 7-up ("lemonade" to the British). It’s served with ice and cucumber, strawberries or mint leaves as garnish.