New Orleans history with cocktails is as rich as a vat of simple syrup.
This is the birthplace of the Sazerac and Peychaud Bitters. It brought imbibers the Ramos Gin Fizz, the Café Brûlot, the almighty Hurricane. Local importers popularized absinthe, and then bartenders turned it into a highly palatable frappe.
A thank you, one million times over, is due.
That’s what Ann Tuennerman thought when she gathered a small group cocktail connoisseurs back in 2002 for a casual walking tour of New Orleans’ most venerated watering holes.
Under the warm glow of Hotel Monteleone’s Carousel Bar, the group paid their respects to the fearless pioneers that came before them. By drinking.
It all started when Tuennerman read Kerri McCaffety’s Obituary Cocktail: The Great Saloons of New Orleans. In its pages, untold stories of local haunts and the drinks served there. Napoleon House, Pat O’Brien’s, Galatoire’s. There was history to mine in those New Orleans stalwarts.
