CITY LIFE NEW ORLEANS Slick new drinking dens, booze festivals and a mixology museum are stepping things up in America’s cocktail capital. WORDS: Jonathan Thomson PHOTOGRAPHS: Susanne Kremer & James Breeden 118 nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel September 2021 119 NEW ORLEANS NEW ORLEANS ver the years, plenty of plaintiffs drinks historian and author, as well as the Mardi Gras // New have toasted victories on the steps owner of the Drink & Learn tour company O of the Louisiana Supreme Court, but — is at pains to point out between her Orleans hosts the few like this. captivating tales of rum and rebellion. “Congratulations, you made it!” says “We’ve been a celebrated destination for biggest Mardi Gras Elizabeth Pearce, our tour guide, as we stand drinking, partying and generally having celebrations in the in a slightly sloshed semicircle near the a good time since the early 18th century,” entrance. “If you look across the street, you’ll she says, as we drain our sazeracs and sway US, with parties and see the exact spot where apothecary Antoine down the court steps together. “The French Peychaud first mixed his famous bitters, ruled Louisiana back then, and they had a parades lasting for and the sazerac cocktail began. Now grab certain laissez-faire attitude to the rules two weeks before the the green container in your bag, and let’s all here in New Orleans, which created a psyche drink a sazerac in his honour.” that’s still alive and well today. We’re a port grand bead-spangled This is our third delicious, cooling city too, of course, which means all kinds cocktail on a sweltering summer afternoon of different influences — and all kinds of finale on Shrove in New Orleans, as we wind towards the different spirits — were arriving from all Tuesday, centred on denouement of The Cocktail Tour, which over the world, all of the time. Particularly zigzags through the city’s hectic French every type and taste of rum, from places the French Quarter Quarter. Over the past couple of hours, we’ve like Jamaica, the Bahamas and Barbados. explored the historic, labyrinthine lanes People used to joke that New Orleans was the at the heart of this city, with their squeeze Caribbean’s northernmost city.” of Creole townhouses, hidden courtyards Throw in the invention of the first ice- and cast-iron balconies with intricate, making machine right here in Louisiana’s filigree detailing — walking with increasing biggest city, plus the presence of innovators confidence as we slip each pre-prepared like Peychaud — ready to mix ‘restorative’ drink from our ingenious, tool belt-style herbal bitters with booze to help the CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Streetcar cocktail carriers. To be frank, we look like medicine go down — and you have the on Canal Street, a Downtown a bevy of boozy builders — all we need is a perfect environment for the birth of one of thoroughfare; Bourbon Street, the few screwdrivers to complete the look — but the world’s finest cocktail scenes. raucous heart of the French Quarter; nobody seems to mind in the slightest. After Now that legacy has a new focal point Kiah Darion, general manager of Bar Marilou, serves a la luz cocktail through all, this is the Big Easy, famously America’s — a magnificent new temple to the art of a hatch in the wall of the ‘speakeasy’ most laid-back city. cocktail-making, located on the edge of the room; neon sign on Bourbon Street But New Orleans isn’t just renowned for its French Quarter: Sazerac House. advertising po’ boy sandwiches relaxed attitude; it’s also the spiritual home A palatial, three-story edifice, the grand, PREVIOUS PAGES: Early evening revelry of the cocktail, a fact that Elizabeth — a airy museum, on the corner of Canal and on Bourbon Street 120 nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel September 2021 121 NEW ORLEANS NEW ORLEANS Magazine Streets, contains all manner of The man behind this extraordinary Easy does it // interactive exhibits exploring the beloved (and multi-award-winning), cavernous bar rye whiskey sazerac itself — which became — vaulted of ceiling and vaunted of New Orleans has no the official cocktail of New Orleans by reputation — is local entrepreneur and state decree in 2008 — as well as the city’s lifelong New Orleanian, Neal Bodenheimer. shortage of nicknames, revered bar culture. Lifesize, hologrammatic “There’s an entire category of cocktails but stories abound as bartenders help you to select cocktails, while that originated right here in New Orleans, interactive displays allow you to delve deeper including the sazerac, the gin fizz, the la to how it earned its — sampling flavours and smells to create louisiane, the grasshopper and the hurricane your perfect blend. Meanwhile, there are — and that gives us a completely unique status best-known moniker, demonstrations to observe — and tastings to among American cities,” says Neal. “We’ve ‘The Big Easy’. One enjoy — on every floor, a working distillery always had this deep-rooted appreciation of to explore and a reconstructed apothecary spirits, fortified wines and cocktails, and after theory is that it came to visit, actively blending and using Katrina, that all came back with a vengeance. Peychaud’s famous bitters (still seemingly Cocktail culture became an integral part from The Big Easy, the foundation of half the cocktails in this of the city’s attempt to rediscover its own a former music hall, city) using his original secret recipe from identity, and that makes a lot of sense, because the 1830s. cocktails unite us in a very real way. They’re and soon began to be The museum is a game-changing addition a simple luxury we can gift to ourselves and to New Orleans, and a major milestone in to each other, in good times and in bad. And used to refer to the city an ongoing resurgence of cocktail culture that’s a belief we built Cure upon.” here, in the aftermath of 2005’s devastating Cure proved an effective shot in the arm as a whole, thanks to Hurricane Katrina. for Freret, which was desolate and down on its ‘gentle pace of life its uppers a decade ago but is now a bustling LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL corridor boasting 15 booming bars and and lax morals’, as If you ask those in the know which restaurants that attracts a stylish evening establishment was the trailblazer for the crowd of well-heeled young professionals. one newspaper put it city’s current cocktail renaissance, the Then Neal went a step further, founding an in 1887 majority will point you towards a renovated international festival, Tales of the Cocktail. former fire station in Uptown, about a Held each July at bars, hotels and event 15-minute drive south west of the boisterous venues, and serving also as the world’s largest LEFT: Coffee shop Café du Monde first French Quarter. Here, in the eight-block cocktail conference, it attracts thousands opened in 1862 neighbourhood of Freret, you’ll find what of leading mixologists and industry figures, ABOVE: Café du Monde’s beignets are many consider another bona fide sanctuary further cementing the city’s status as the famous city-wide and are best served of mixology: Cure. world’s cocktail capital. with a café au lait 122 nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel September 2021 123 NEW ORLEANS NEW ORLEANS FROM LEFT: Saint Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square, French Quarter; Dominican musician Fermín Ceballos performs at the rooftop bar of the Ace Hotel New Orleans Q&A with Chris Hannah, Jewel Of The South Bar “In many ways, we’re the bearers of the of the Ol’ Man River, where the water gently INSIDER TIPS WHEN DID NEW ORLEANS’ torch now,” says Neal. “This is a festival kisses the French Quarter by Jackson Square, Top 8 COCKTAIL RESURGENCE BEGIN? that’s grown out of the new craft cocktail that Elizabeth’s cocktail tour finally ends. The locals love their sugar-dusted I’d say around 2005 or 2006, after Hurricane Katrina, when movement in New Orleans, but we now “The Mississippi informs this whole city, as beignets (square doughnuts). COCKTAIL BARS the Tales of the Cocktail have 96 countries involved and counting, does death,” she states dramatically, as we sip Head to Café du Monde, on festival really took off. The best so it’s become way, way bigger than we ever our fourth cocktail — a spicy rum hurricane Decatur Street, for the perfect bartenders from all over the dreamed. Before the pandemic, the event was — in the swollen heat of early evening. “This example — ideally served with CURE CAROUSEL BAR & LOUNGE country would travel here for bringing 15,000 visitors into the city every entire town was hacked out of a snake- chicory coffee — to start your BEST FOR: TOP-DRAWER DRINKS BEST FOR: SPINNING TALES that — and then they started year. And we hope that we’re going to pick up infested swamp, and that breeds a certain morning with. cafedumonde.com Housed in a magnificent Edwardian former Part drinking establishment, part staying. When I first came to exactly where we left off post-Covid.” macabre mentality; if you could drop dead at fire station, Cure opened its doors in 2009, fairground ride, the Carousel Bar at New Orleans, I was floored by It’s not just Tales of the Cocktail that’s any moment, why not have another drink?” Leave at least two to three hours reigniting the Freret neighbourhood and the Hotel Monteleone has been a New the amazing amount of options successfully muddled mixology and Elizabeth’s logic makes sense, particularly for The National WWII Museum.