More Tales........

After all our seminars that first day at Tales of the Cocktail there was a cocktail party. I thought this would be a simple affair with some meeting & greeting and one or two cocktails before our Spirited Dinner. No. There were possibly 25+ authors and mixologists serving samples of their signature cocktails created for the event. I think Dayne tried all of them! And each cocktail had a recipe card you could take with you, not to mention getting your books signed. Very fun!

We then were off to the Spirited Dinner where cocktails, not wine, were paired with dinner. We chose Commanders Palace and were happy to find out that Wes and Chuck did too so we all had a very fun meal! As Dayne has pointed out, Chuck wrote a wonderful post on the dinner which you can read.

The next day we attended South American cocktails seminar together and learned all about Pisco and Cachaca (and of course tasted them both in drinks and alone.) A very interesting class that gave history and culture of these alcohols.

I also went to a "Secrets of Galatoire's" panel which ended up being 3 incredibly old men who had been having lunch and dinner at Galatoires for probably 200 years all added up and ended up just telling stories about the waiters and their guests. Funny for about 15 mins. Oh well.........

That night Dayne and I went to a fantastic newish restaurant called Cochon. It came highly recommended and I'll continue that....We started with fried boudin with pickled peppers as well as a smoked catfish. For the main I had rabbit & dumplings, YUM! I'm sure we had cocktails after this meal but darn if I can remember!

What I was looking forward to most in NOLA were beignets at Cafe du Monde, and they didn't disappoint! Strong coffees, beignets and a months worth of powdered sugar! LOL! The best part about this breakfast was that it was only a snack, Dayne had a morning seminar after and then we were headed to Brennan's for their famous breakfast! and eye openers, cocktails created to drink with breakfast, damn I love New Orleans! Mine was the brandy milk punch and Dayne's is a sazarac.

There was turtle soup, gumbo, eggs benedict Brennans style, and fire! I mean Bananas Foster! ha!

Then it was back to "school" where Beach Bum Berry was teaching a class on Tiki Drinks!

Dinner that night was at GWFinns which was just ok for us, it felt a bit like a McCormick & Schmitts (sp) and their bar was very disappointing. We had started at Arnauds French 75 bar where I had a nice namesake. And of course there were cocktails later at our new favorite The Swizzle Stick Bar @ Cafe Adelaide.