Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Dayne & I were in fabulous New Orleans last month for about 6 days attending Tales of the Cocktail a very fun festival revolving around the history of cocktails, food and wine! It's been 2 years since Hurricane Katrina when our planned vacation with our friends Della and Greg had to be canceled and it was Dayne's birthday so I figured it was as good as time as any!

The festival allows you to attend seminars led by wonderful knowledgeable experts, go to cocktail parties, cocktail paired multi course dinners and meet really great people from all over! Dayne and I picked our own seminars, some were the same and some not so here is a little overview of the one's I did.

My first seminar was at 10am Thurs. after all day flights Wed. followed by various cocktails around the French Quarter that evening. It was called "Spirited Women" and was a great discussion of the history of women and cocktails and drinking. And of course there were 2 cocktails served with the discussion as well as my introduction to the glorious amount of swag we would be getting all week!



Between courses everyone meets up at the famous Carousel Bar- and yes it really rotates! ugh, that made me quite dizzy until I got use to it. In NOLA they take their cocktails quite seriously and even have designated morning drinks called Eye Openers. I found Dayne at the Carousel Bar with Mike behind it and a Ramos Gin Fizz Eye Opener in front of him!



After our next seminar on "Food and Cocktails of New Orleans" we had lunch at Johnny's Po-Boys with our new friends Chuck and Wes. This is one of the only good po-boys in the French Quarter Chuck told us, he's a NOLA native so we trusted him and boy was it good! Dayne and I shared a hot sausage po-boy.


A quick walk back to the Hotel Monteleone in time to catch the "Lost Ingredients" seminar in which Chuck was one of the speakers.