Tales of the Cocktail is upon us!
Every year for the past 8 years, imbibing enthusiasts, geeks, bartenders and writers alike have gathered in the birthplace of the cocktail, New Orleans, for a long weekend of celebrating a truly American innovation: the cocktail.
This year, we are lucky enough to have two gentlemen in attendance at Tales of the Cocktail on our behalf, and as the party starts tomorrow (7/21) we are hereby giving them this space for the duration to keep us the inside scoop about events, happenings, and everything else they might happen to remember about the weekend.
With no further ado, we give you the first pre-festivities update on this years Tales of the Cocktail. Cheers!
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Is there Drinking Culture in the South outside of NOLA?
Most of you don’t know me, so I’ll make this brief. I am a dear friend of DrinkGal that she has referred to in the past as Unnamed Bar Owner for obvious reasons. Yes indeed, I own a bar.
In a late night excursion that DG and I deemed “research” several months back, she asked me to go to Tales of the Cocktail and report back. Of course having the opportunity to go to NOLA for anything I may have slurred back a barely intelligible “Hell Yeah I’m Down!”
My trip quickly became a week longer because I could take advantage of the southern direction of my travel by seeing some good friends of mine and their kids in Houston first. When my Texas “family” heard I was coming there was much excitement and immediately the daughter, to whom which I will refer to as Little Sister I Never Wanted and another friend Drink Gal has called IT Guy in the past started plotting to “show” me Houston’s bars.
Having been in this situation before I know that this is usually a cross between a genuine desire to show off the home town and a diabolical plot to exact some sort of revenge for a night of drink in past meetings where perhaps I had lead my friends down a lethal path of consumption, ending in a throbbing head and a belief that the wall color is yelling at them the next morning.
After much discussion between LSINW and IT Guy we decided on a tour that left me wondering if I would find anything other than what they call in Houston ice houses or what we in Seattle affectionately call dive bars. At a certain point in the night we came across something I didn’t expect, a beer list that blew me way. Being a bar owner in a place considered to be a hub of brewing I didn’t expect to be able to have an intelligent conversation about a beer or to find people that drink something other than swill lagers, ambers or hefe’s. But there I was, staring at a beer list with the likes of Maredsous, Bear Republic and Lagunitas. AND listening to people discusses the finer points between Spaten Pilsner and Victory Pils.
LSINW even had a beer!
(That last statement might sound funny if you didn’t know the last time I drink with LSINW she was so proud of the fact that she had moved from “pink wine” to red wine and I’m not talking about a good French rose.)
I think I counted 64 beers on draft and at least twice that in the bottle, but then at that point of the night I might be off by one or 10.
This magical place that I had be lead to was called Flying Saucer, I’m not sure where the name came from but this place was great. It had the feel of an Irish pub that you would expect to find in Manhattan, not Texas. While I wasn’t impressed with the food I thought the service was great. Of course the school-girl-like outfits the servers were wearing didn’t hurt my opinion… I am a simple man with a complex taste for food and beverage and that’s about it.
A few pints later, the evening turned on a drunken edge and we decided to head to a bar a few blocks from IT Guy’s house to end the evening. This was a great call. I ended the night by lamenting to my friends that I believe I did find culture in the south. This may explain the dirty looks and the lack of a ride home.
Tomorrow, I head to New Orleans, and to Tales.
- Unnamed Bar Owner
