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By devhahn, on August 27th, 2010%
It wasn’t with the rum drinks. No, that would have been too easy. It was in a catchall section called “Mezclas Multiples.” The recipes were in alphabetical order. I flipped pages, past the As with their Antilles and their Astoria, the Ds with their Delmonico and Douglas Fairbanks. But it wasn’t in the Ps between Pelayo and Perry. No, that would have been too easy. I flipped to the end. There it was, in the bottom right-hand corner of page 399, after the curiously-spelled Zazerac cocktail. All by itself. Like it didn’t want to be found.
Periodista.
. . . → Read More: Periodista Tales: Lauren Clark—The Critic
By devhahn, on August 19th, 2010%
I was back in Boston drinking a Periodista at Eastern Standard. A coworker of mine was crowding the next bar seat and drinking a 19th Century. That’s what Jackson Cannon calls the Old Fashioned on his menu. Saves the bartenders the trouble of having the “new” Old Fashioned, “old” Old Fashioned conversation every time. Cannon would never begrudge a guest his muddled cherry, so he renamed the original. Whatever you call it, it’s a lot of whiskey and not many distractions. Not my style. I need the distraction.
The bar was quiet. It was early and the Sox . . . → Read More: Periodista Tales: One City’s Homage, One Man’s Quest
By devhahn, on August 11th, 2010%
Continued from Part 7…
It was my last night in New Orleans. I was sitting at the Carousel bar in the Hotel Monteleone, rotating slowly and nursing an absinthe. I always nurse absinthe. Can’t stand the stuff. But it was my last night in New Orleans, so I’d ordered one.
I’d been at Tales of the Cocktail for three days and I felt like last year’s Mardi Gras beads—sun-cracked and still dangling from that iron railing. I don’t know how people last the full week.
I looked at my absinthe. It looked like an antiseptic. I . . . → Read More: Periodista Tales: New Orleans, Part 8 — King Cocktail
By devhahn, on August 10th, 2010%
Continued from Part 6…
That night was the Bartender’s Breakfast, a big party for all the bartenders who had gathered in New Orleans for Tales of the Cocktail. It was invitation only. You couldn’t buy a ticket to this thing. You just had to know.
I hadn’t scrounged a dimestore lead that day and I was sore about it. I needed to make it up to myself. All the key players would be at the Breakfast: Dale DeGroff and Ted Haigh, David Wondrich and Audrey Saunders. It was my last shot to get in their faces about . . . → Read More: Periodista Tales: New Orleans, Part 7 — The Bartender’s Breakfast
By devhahn, on August 9th, 2010%
Continued from Part 5…
After putting a pile of fried oysters into my body at Mother’s, I was back at the Monteleone, aiming for the Carousel bar. It was about that time. I spotted Jeff Berry sitting at a squat table next to the bookstore, signing copies of his Beach Bum Berry Remixed. There was a potato of a man in a button-down shirt sitting next to him.
I said hello to Berry and thanked him for the Schumann lead.
“Oh, no problem,” he said. “I’m sorry I don’t know more about the Periodista. . . . → Read More: Periodista Tales: New Orleans, Part 6 — Brian Rea
By devhahn, on August 8th, 2010%
I was riding the streetcar down Canal Street toward the French Quarter. It was nearing 10 a.m. on my second day at Tales of the Cocktail and I was trying not to think too hard. Every time a neuron fired my head throbbed with equal parts pain and recrimination. At the Dauphine Street stop, two middle-aged men in wife-beaters and jean shorts were eating sausages out of a can. They knew how to start the day.
I’d gotten some good leads the day before, but I’d lost focus—lurched down the rabbit hole and passed out. Today I needed . . . → Read More: Periodista Tales: New Orleans, Part 5 — Mixography with Dave and Jeff
By devhahn, on August 4th, 2010%
Continued from Part 3…
Time passed like it does on long nights. The ornate galleries of the French Quarter blended together in streaks of light. My cab pulled up in front of a velvet rope. I didn’t remember hailing one.
Tales of the Cocktail’s big ticket event that night was the Bar Room Brawl, a competition that pitted six bars from across the country against one another for the chance to be heralded as the Best Bar in America. Los Angeles was represented by The Varnish, Sasha Petraske’s newest speakeasy, with Eric Alperin at the helm. New . . . → Read More: Periodista Tales: New Orleans, Part 4 — The Bar Room Brawl
By devhahn, on August 4th, 2010%
Continued from Part 2…
Our cab stopped in front of a townhouse barred by a six-foot-high iron gate. We stepped out into a roaring symphony of cicadas. Adam Lantheaume hit the buzzer on the gate. A plastic banner strapped to an upper balcony read The Mixoloseum. I could hear the wailing of a clarinet off in the distance. We spent a few minutes baking in the night air before a man in faded gray livery let us in.
“Welcome to Mixo House,” he said.
A long hallway with white wainscoting led us into a room full . . . → Read More: Periodista Tales: New Orleans, Part 3 — The Mixoloseum
By devhahn, on August 2nd, 2010%
Continued from Part 1…
I knew Adam Lantheaume as the owner and operator of The Boston Shaker, a cocktail supply shop in Davis Square. He was at Tales of the Cocktail hosting a coming-out party for a new product line. Bittermens bitters, made by a husband and wife team based in Somerville. The party was at Cure, New Orleans’s hottest new cocktail bar, located five minutes from absolutely nothing.
When I arrived I made nice with the Bostonians then went to the bar for a drink. Before I could order, somebody handed me a glass of punch. . . . → Read More: Periodista Tales: New Orleans, Part 2 — Clues at Cure
By devhahn, on August 1st, 2010%
I was wrenched from sleep by my iPhone alarm clock. For a second I just lay there, my head throbbing in time with the electronic marimba beeping on the bedside table. My mind ached with alcohol and half-forgotten names. It was 9:30 a.m., I’d just gone to bed three hours earlier, and I was going to be late for my first seminar.
I’d arrived in New Orleans the day before. The Crescent City was playing host to Tales of the Cocktail, an annual conference celebrating all things drink. All the big shots were there—authors, celebrity bartenders, liquor company . . . → Read More: Periodista Tales: New Orleans, Part 1 — The Monteleone
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