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charllieeldridge · 3 years ago

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7 Best New Orleans Cocktails (+Where to Drink Them)

When it comes to the best cities for cocktails, it’s hard to top New Orleans. After all, the motto of the Big Easy is “Laissez les bon temps rouler” — “Let the good times roll.”

Those good times are fueled largely by booze, thanks to the abundance of excellent New Orleans cocktails.

I often complain about my home country’s uptight drinking laws, but thankfully those puritan rules go out the window in the Big Easy.

Here you can drink in public, bars can stay open 24/7, and there are even drive-thru places for frozen daiquiris.

Speaking of partying, I most recently visited the city during our year-long party celebration There are so many New Orleans festivals and events!

Rest assured that I did some quality research in order to present you with some of the best cocktails in New Orleans.

In this article, I’ll run the gamut from the classy to the debaucherous, which can usually be accomplished in half a city block here.

There are so many fun things to do in New Orleans (don’t miss the swamp tours), and if you fancy an adult beverage when you travel, you’re going to love visiting the Big Easy.

Read on for a look at some of the best New Orleans cocktails and recommendations on the best bars to get them.

Wondering where to stay in New Orleans? Don’t miss our epic guide to the best Bourbon Street hotels and information on staying in the French Quarter.

1. Sazerac: The Official Cocktail of New Orleans

Ingredients:

Herbsaint

Bitters

Rye Whiskey

Sugar Cube

Lemon Wedge

Of course, we have to kick off our list of the best New Orleans drinks with the original.

Some actually claim this to be the oldest cocktail in the United States, as it dates all the way back to the 1830s. As with many things in New Orleans, there’s an interesting backstory behind this classic drink.

As the story goes, a Creole man named Antoine Peychaud came up with the recipe. He was the owner of an apothecary and a big fan of a brand of French brandy called Sazerac-de-Forge et fils.

After hours, he would serve up a mixture of the cognac with his own home-made bitters. He served the drinks in an egg cup known as a “coquetier.” Some believe to be the origin of the word “cocktail,�� but apparently that’s a tall tale.

While historians may debate whether or not this was actually America’s first cocktail, one thing is for sure — the Sazerac was an immediate hit.

A saloon named Sazerac Coffee House started buying Peychaud’s Bitters and mixed them with the cognac and sugar. The new cocktail was the talk of the town and was immensely popular.

A few decades later, the main ingredient changed from cognac to American rye whiskey.

This was due to an epidemic in Europe that destroyed many of the vineyards in France. Without grapes, people turned to grain alcohol like whiskey. Another change to the recipe came shortly thereafter when bartenders added a dash of absinthe.

Things were going great for the Sazerac until absinthe was banned in 1912 because it was thought to cause hallucinations.

Bartenders replaced the banned booze with anise-flavored liqueurs. The most common was Herbsaint, which was made right in New Orleans. It’s still used to this day, alongside Peychaud’s Bitters and Sazerac Kentucky Rye Whiskey. Add in a sugar cube and a lemon wedge as a garnish and you’ve got an official Sazerac!

The Sazerac is so important that a Louisiana state senator even tried to have it declared the state’s official cocktail. While this wasn’t approved, his efforts were not in vain. It’s now the official cocktail of the city of New Orleans.

You can order up a Sazerac all over New Orleans, but the best place to have one is definitely the Sazerac Bar. After all, it’s right there in the name.

This bar is located in the Roosevelt Hotel (click here for directions). Other popular spots to try this classic New Orleans drink include Sylvain Tavern and Arnaud’s French 75.

If you’re interested in experiencing these bars with a fun and knowledgeable local, check out this walking and drinking tour. Four cocktails are included in four different bars, plus an informative guide.

RELATED POST: 10 Best Bars in Chicago – A Guide To The City’s Nightlife

2. Hurricane: One of The Best New Orleans Cocktails for Rum Lovers

Ingredients:

Rum

Passionfruit Juice

Orange Juice

Lemon Juice

Simple Syrup

Grenadine

Garnish

What is the most popular cocktail in New Orleans? These days, one of the quintessential New Orleans cocktails is a Hurricane.

It’s probably the most popular cocktail in the city for visitors, who enjoy slurping one of these potent concoctions as they stumble along Bourbon Street.

The Hurricane drink dates back to the 1940s and the post-prohibition era. Local tavern owner Pat O’Brien invented the drink when he needed to get rid of a bunch of rum. You may be wondering why he had an excess supply of rum. Of course, there’s a story behind that as well!

You see, rum was one of the least popular liquors at the time. O’Brien’s distributors forced cases of rum on him before they would sell him more popular liquors like scotch. He decided to whip up a concoction of rum with passion fruit and lemon juice.

The drinks were served in hurricane lamp-shaped glasses, and thus the Hurricane was born.

The recipe is still basically the same after all these years, and Hurricanes now include a garnish of an orange slice and a cherry or two.

Pat O’Brien’s bar is still a mainstay in the city and is the top place to try the famous Hurricane drink (click here for directions). In addition to their signature Hurricanes, you can also enjoy dueling piano music as you sit by their flaming fountain.

Since you’re in New Orleans, you might as well take advantage of the fact that you can drink in public and order daiquiris from a drive-thru.

Go ahead and grab a Hurricane to-go for a wander up Bourbon Street. You can also try one of the frozen varieties from a drive-thru. When in Rome!

3. Brandy Milk Punch: Best Brunch Drink

Ingredients:

Brandy

Milk

Powdered Sugar

Nutmeg

Our tour of New Orleans cocktails moves on – or should I say “stumbles on”? – to Brandy Milk Punch. The Big Easy didn’t invent this classic cocktail, but the city definitely perfected it. Once again, there’s a lot of history behind the drink.

The story of Brandy Milk Punch in New Orleans goes back to the late 1940s. At the time, Dinner at Antoine’s was a popular murder mystery. The name came from a local restaurant, which was the setting of the story.

The owners of Antoine’s and several other restaurants and bars would often gather to play poker.

Owen Brennan owned a bar on Bourbon Street at the time, and the other guys made a bet with him that he couldn’t open a restaurant. A friend remarked to him “If there’s dinner at Antoine’s, why can’t there be breakfast at Brennan’s?”

We have this interaction to thank for the beloved modern-day tradition of brunch. The idea of a late and lavish breakfast complete with cocktails started at Brennan’s in New Orleans.

With a need for eye-opening cocktails, Brennan went with Brandy Milk Punch. As you may have guessed by now, the key ingredients are in fact brandy and milk!

Add powdered sugar (or simple syrup) and a dash of nutmeg on top, and you’ve got one of the best cocktails in New Orleans.

Tourists outside of Brennan’s

Not surprisingly, Brennan’s remains the top place to try Brandy Milk Punch (click here for directions).

You might as well go ahead and do the whole brunch thing there during your weekend in New Orleans, as many say that if you haven’t had brunch at Brennan’s, you haven’t really been to the city.

For a different spin on this drink, head to Bourbon House to try their frozen Bourbon Milk Punch.

RELATED POST: Want to get your “brunch on” in other cities in the US? Here are some of the best places to eat in Chicago, including breakfast, brunch, lunch, and dinner.

4. Ramos Gin Fizz: A Cocktail for Gin Lovers

Ingredients:

Gin

Lemon Juice

Lime Juice

Flower Water

Egg Whites

Powdered Sugar

Milk

The Ramos Gin Fizz is one of the most well-known New Orleans drinks. Its name comes from Henry C. Ramos, bar owner and inventor of the drink. He came up with the cocktail back in 1888, and it has been a staple of NoLa ever since.

Ramos invented the drink at his bar called the Imperial Cabinet Saloon by mixing gin, heavy cream, powdered sugar, lemon & lime juices, an egg white, and orange flower water.

His recipe called for 12 minutes of vigorous shaking, which is quite a lot of work to make a single cocktail!

When he sold the bar and moved to a new place he called The Stag, he actually hired a whole team of shakers to help whip up his signature drink.

He basically set up an assembly line where each person would shake it for a minute and then pass it on. After sufficient shaking, they added a bit of soda water on top to give the drink its fizz.

SEE ALSO: 15 Denver Attractions You Don’t Want To Miss

He originally called the drink a New Orleans Fizz. Years later, the Roosevelt Hotel bought the rights to the drink from Ramos’ son after Prohibition ended.

To honor the inventor, they named the drink after him. It was also at the Roosevelt Hotel that former Louisiana governor Huey Long fell in love with the drink.

Apparently, Long loved the Ramos Gin Fizz so much that be brought a bartender with him on a trip to New York just so he could teach people there how to make it.

This guaranteed that Long never had to be without his favorite cocktail on his frequent trips to Manhattan. What a legend!

The Roosevelt Hotel remains the best place to try one, so you might as well order one up after you try their Sazerac to make for an epic tour of New Orleans cocktails. Another good spot to try one is the Carousel Bar (click here for directions), where you can try several other famous New Orleans drinks.

RELATED POST: 21 Fun Things To Do in New Orleans – A Guide For Travellers

5. Vieux Carré: For Those Who Want a Strong Drink

Ingredients:

Cognac

Vermouth

Whiskey

Bitters

Garnish

Just as is the case with New Orleans food, there’s an obvious French influence with the city’s cocktails. Just take the classic Vieux Carré, which is French for “Old Square” and a nod to the French Quarter.

Much like the city itself, the Vieux Carré is both potent and smooth at the same time. This signature New Orleans drink dates back to the 1930s and the Carousel Bar in Hotel Monteleone.

The bar is still there and it’s definitely the best place to try one of the top cocktails in New Orleans. It’s actually centered around a vintage carousel that you spin around as you drink. How cool is that?!

It’s a melting pot of a drink, with French cognac, Italian vermouth, American whiskey, and Caribbean bitters. Drinking a Vieux Carré is kind of like drinking the history of New Orleans! It typically comes in an Old Fashioned glass along with a cherry or lemon wedge as a garnish.

6. Pimm’s Cup: Simple and Refreshing Cocktail

Ingredients:

Pimm’s

Lemonade

7-Up

Cucumber Garnish

As a city that gets very hot and enjoys day drinking, New Orleans needs a light, refreshing cocktail. Cue the Pimm’s Cup, which came to the Big Easy via London a century after its creation.

We have London barkeep James Pimm to thank for this delightful concoction with a recipe that remains secret to this day. Over the years, he actually came up with six different variations of the drink.

Pimm’s No. 1 Cup is the one that made its way across the pond when the owner of the Napoleon House gave it a New Orleans twist.

He took the popular tonic and added lemonade, 7-Up, and a cucumber garnish. This is definitely one of the most refreshing cocktails in New Orleans!

The Napoleon House is still the best place to try a Pimm’s Cup in the Big Easy (click here for directions).

Isn’t it awesome that the places where most of these famous New Orleans drinks originated are still going strong? Another great spot to enjoy a Pimm’s is Bar Tonique, where they’re just $5 on Mondays. I’ll drink to that!

7. Hand Grenade: A Dangerously Strong Cocktail

Ingredients:

Vodka

Gin

Rum

Melon Liquor

Simple Syrup

Water to Dilute the Alcohol

Fresh Cantaloupe or Honeydew Juice

(The ingredients are a “secret”, but this is pretty close.)

Our tour of New Orleans cocktails comes to a fitting conclusion with the Hand Grenade. As the name implies, this drink packs a serious punch. If you’re looking to crank it up and get crazy on Bourbon Street, this is your ticket!

Owners of the Tropical Isle bar, Pam Fortner and Earl Bernhardt, invented this dangerously strong cocktail. They describe it as “a wonderful melon flavor drink with lots of liqueurs and other secret ingredients.”

A Hand Grenade comes in a green plastic yard glass with a base that resembles, you guessed it, a hand grenade.

Much like a grenade, you’ll want to exercise extreme caution with one of these in your hands. The creators themselves warn that while #2 will give you a nice buzz, #4 might result in public nudity. They even say you’re on your own after the fifth one!

You can only find Hand Grenades at the various Tropical Isle locations along Bourbon Street (click here for directions to one of the best). You can also get them at the Funky Pirate bar, which is a great place to catch some live blues.

Tourists drinking a hand grenade at Tropical Isle

If you can manage to put down an entire Hand Grenade, you’ve got a nice souvenir cup to bring home to remember your trip. Of course, if you had one too many Hand Grenades, remembering anything might be a bit difficult…

Ready for Some New Orleans Cocktails?

It’s really is fascinating to learn the stories behind some of these classic New Orleans cocktails. Read this post out loud as you sip on a few of these drinks and you’ll have your very own episode of Drunk History.

While many tourists to the Big Easy get stuck drinking overpriced, watered-down cocktails on Bourbon Street, there’s a lot more to discover when it comes to drinking in NOLA.

Get out there and start your day with a Brandy Milk Punch at Brennan’s, then move on to a Gin Fizz during the hottest part of the day.

After a nap and some tasty New Orleans food (probably a po’ boy or a bowl of jambalaya), you’ll be ready to hit the streets again in search of the best cocktails in New Orleans.

Go ahead and grab yourself a Hurricane or a Hand Grenade and join the revelry at least once.

If the crowds and the noise drive you crazy, there are plenty of chilled-out bars you can retreat to. Best of all, many of them never close. And they say New York is the city that never sleeps…

Have you been to New Orleans and have a great recommendation for a specific cocktail or bar? Drop a comment below and let us know about it!

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swiftsadprose · 7 years ago

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Nashville : June 2017

This recent trip to Nashville was easily one of the top two vacations of my life. Since there are so many memories I want to hold on to, I decided to write them all down.. Early morning on Tuesday June 13th we headed out of Columbus. On our way down we stopped by Chik-fil-A, of course, and then at Dinosaur World in Kentucky. They have 150 dinosaur statues set up throughout their wooded park and allow dogs. It was the perfect place to stretch our legs for a bit before the final leg to Nashville. We got into Nashville around noon. It was too early to check into our airbnb so we headed downtown to the farmers market and bicentennial park. We let Samson cool his feet in the Rivers of Tennessee fountain park while we waited for our Bella Nova pizza. Then sat in the shade and ate lunch. After that we walked around the park seeing the Court of 3 Stars and Bell Carillon. We walked down the Pathway of History stopping to see their World War II Memorial and Statehood Memorial over the McNarry Spring. Next we killed time by driving around the east side, locating some spots we knew we'd be visiting and finding some iconic Nashville murals. We also stopped into Project 615, a clothing store in the Fatherland District. We bought each other a Nashville tee, since the traditional two year wedding anniversary gift is cotton. The girl working in the shop was so nice. She gave Samson treats and gave us 615 stickers. She also suggested we check out the pet shop a few doors down so we did. Samson had his fill of treat samples and we purchased him the most adorable rain poncho (even though it never ended up raining when he was out of the house, haha). Our airbnb was so cute. It's was a remodeled upstairs loft space near Eastwood. It was so close to everywhere we were going. My favorite feature was that we were able to leave Samson home alone when we went out to dinner or a show. (most dog friendly hotels won't let you leave dogs unattended in rooms FYI). Once we settled into the house we decided to just run out real quick and bring some dinner back to the loft. We decided on Dino's which was just 5 mins from us. Dino's is a serious hole in the wall but Chelsea Lankes swears by their burgers. Jerry and I agree, they were so good! Wednesday morning we woke up at the crack of dawn ready to start exploring the city. Our first stop was in the Gulch to find the #WhatLiftsYou wings. We then got some refreshing drinks from Starbucks to try and combat the already sweltering heat. We parked in Hillsboro and got some pastries from Provence Breads & Cafe. Everything we tried from there was delicious. They even gave us a free pastry for choosing them over a chain bakery. Hillsboro is such a great area full of local restaurants and cute shops. From there we walked over the Fannie Mae Dees Park in hopes of seeing the Dragon Statue but it was currently being repainted. But we carried on and traveled over to Love Circle. It's a large hill that has great views of downtown and the surrounding hills. At this point we were really second guessing our choice of this trek on such a hot day but since we were halfway through we carried on. We made our way up to Centennial Park. There was a great fountain right where near we entered which Samson loved walking through. Then we took a nice long rest on a bench swing in the shade. As we walked towards the Parthenon I bought some lemonade from the cutest little boy collecting donations for his friend at Children's. It was so refreshing on such a hot day. After Centennial we crossed through Vanderbilt campus to get back to Hillsboro. While passing by the football stadium we noticed the tunnel was actually open so Jerry walked onto the field. Once back in Hillsboro we got a patio table at Fido and had some delicious sandwiches for lunch. That evening, if you can believe it, Jerry and I got the amazing opportunity to meet and hang out with THE Chelsea Lankes. We've been such fans of her music for years. It's was indescribable to chat her up like a friend. We met at Barista Parlor in the Gulch and she bought us all a round of iced coffees. Chelsea and I had a bourbon vanilla iced coffee while Jerry had a caramel whiskey. We talked about mine and Jerry's trips to Nashville, Chelsea's time in LA, relationships, our jobs, dogs, how people don't know how to pronounce Lankes, true crime pod casts, long term goals, family and Chelsea's new music. At one point Chelsea checked her phone and said "it's 6:15" and Jerry and I both died, haha. She invited us out to her car to listen to some demos of some of her new songs which was seriously amazing. Every one she played for us was bangin', we can't wait for her to release the singles this summer. While listening, Julian pulled up. They're seriously so cute together. She got out of the car and they started dancing in the street. Jules climbed in the backseat with me and when Chelsea skipped to the next song he said "why'd you turn that off? it's about us cuddling". So cute. We snapped a quick photo together and had Chelsea sign our vinyls before she had to run off to hot yoga. At her suggestion, Jerry and I quickly checked out a roof bar at a nearby hotel and caught some great sunset views of downtown Nashville. After that Jerry and I being true tourists hit South Broadway. We grabbed a quick bite of hotdogs from a street vendor while we meandered through souvenir shops and listened to live music. We of course had to stop at Savannah's Candy Kitchen to load up on chocolate covered marsh mellows, rice krispy treats, candied apples and fudge. We stopped by Luigi's for a drink at the bar and a pizza to go. On the way back to the car we passed by the Country Music Hall of Fame to take a pic with the TS Education sign bc Taylor Swift owns my ass. So then we went back to our loft for the night. It was much later/darker than it had been the night before when we took Samson for his walk. The alley behind our house was basically pitch black. But honestly it was alright because as we were also smoking up ya feel. So we're walking and we turn up onto a main street. It was a little more lit but still pretty dark and we, ourselves, were feeling pretty lit. As we're walking up the street I see something just sitting there. At first I thought it was a rabbit because it wasn't moving. Then as we got closer I could tell it was just staring at us even though I couldn't see it's face, which is always a freaky feeling. For a second I thought it might be an opossum or a raccoon, both which would have freaked me the fuck out. As we got a little closer we realized it was just a cat and literally as we were realizing this we hear the nastiest low gurgling growl coming from a yard to our right. We look over and the whole yard and house are pitch black. We can only see a small white picket fence and hear this dog that sounds like it wants to kill us. So we're fucked up, already a little freaked out from the cat and now pretty sure some beefy dog is gonna lunge over this small ass fence and try to eat us. We power walked our asses out of that street as fast as we could! It was seriously the craziest experience! To update, we drove by that house like three more times trying to find out what breed of dog that was and how it was secured in that yard but never saw a dog there. Thursday morning, our anniversary, we woke up and took Samson with us to South Broadway to walk the John Seigenthaler pedestrian bridge, which Samson shit on haha. We saw some great views of the Titan's stadium and of the downtown skyline. Afterwards Jerry and I went out to breakfast at Fenwick's 300. Chelsea had recommended it because Julian works the bar there. It was a very cool restaurant. Their bar top was made from a lane from a bowling alley that had previously been in that location. The food was amazing. We toasted to our anniversary with some mimosas. Jerry got breakfast stir fry while I went with basic eggs, bacon and toast. We also shared the amazing french toast. It was great to chat up Julian. We mostly talked about dogs. I tried to talk him out of wanting a husky but I don't think it took. We were showing him a picture of Samson when another server brought our food. Julian elbowed her, "look that's Samson" and after briefly looking she responded, "uh huh, want some hot sauce?" Jerry and I thought it was too funny. We had planned to walk around 12 South for a bit after breakfast but 1) we'd misjudged our time and had a standing appointment at noon and 2) it had started raining. We decided to just drive through 12S to see if Amelia's flower truck was still there or if they'd left due to the downpour. Luckily, they were! We figured we better buy some flowers now rather than track them down again later. By this time the rain was really coming down. We maneuvered around swept away garbage cans to park on a side street. Jerry had to jump over a 3+ foot river flowing down the gutter to bring the umbrella around for me. Even with that, we were soaked through by the time we made it up to the truck. But I didn't mind. The flowers were so lovely. They traveled well and they're still giving off an amazing perfume in our bedroom. At noon we had an appointment at Gold Club Electric to get our matching 615 tattoos. It was so special to us to get the tats on 615 in the 615. The guys at the shop were so nice. Our artist chatted us up about Columbus, he used to live in Cleveland. The tattoos went so easy and quick. Once done the employees even helped us take an awesome pic of Jerry and I holding hands while showing off our matching tats. We then went just around the corner to Soda Parlor, probably one of the cutest places in town. They're known for their killer floats made from craft sodas and local ice cream. They're all topped with whipped cream and sprinkles and served in a Mason jar. I ordered the Freakin' Fosters which was a mix of Mike's vanilla ice cream and Sprecher's Orange Dream soda. Jerry got the All Hail Starstream with vanilla ice cream and Maine Root Mexicane Cola. They were both so delicious. Another very cool feature about the Soda Parlor is that they have a free arcade. I had to play TMNT. I just wish the game let me play as Michelangelo instead of Leonardo, haha, but I still kicked ass. Since the rain had stopped and we had some time to kill we decided to head back to 12 South and actually walk around. (We stopped by the airbnb to pick up Samson and change since we were still a little damp and the temp had dropped. When we walked in the house I asked Samson if he wanted to smell my Amelia's flowers. He did... and then tried to eat them. Haha, still laughing about that.) Walking around 12 South we mostly window shopped. But we did find the I Believe in Nashville mural as well as a few others. We never did find the "make music, not war" mural but that just means we'll have to go back. We also stopped into Five Daughter's Bakery. The donuts are expensive but seriously worth it. What I would give for a chocolate sea salt donut right now ladies. Later that evening we had tickets for the Bluebird Cafe. It's an iconic listening room in Nashville. Artists such as Garth Brooks and Taylor Swift were discovered there. We were ecstatic to get tickets since there are only about 60 seats able to be reserved. Luckily I was able get two tickets are soon as they went on sale. As for the show, I wish I could put into words how amazing it was. The artists, David Seger, JP Williams, Darryl Macquarrie, and Jeremy Busser were so personable. They joked with the crowd, told the stories that influenced their songs and played an amazing set. It's honestly a surreal experience and I'd recommend it to everyone. Friday was our last morning in Nashville. We didn't have to check out until noon so we decided to hit Shelby Park, a metro park right near our airbnb. We decided to walk around Sevier Lake. When we pulled up the parking lot was full of sleeping ducks and geese. I got out of the car and they literally came rushing over quacking and honking. Honestly, so sad I didn't have any duck feed on me. Walking around the lake we saw a man feeding the squirrels, lots of turtles and water birds. It was such a chill area of people just hanging out and fishing. My favorite part was a huge willow on the south end of the lake, so dreamy. We also hopped over to the Shelby Dog Park so Samson could run loose for a bit. After that we packed up the car to head home. Our last stop on our way out of Nashville was Consider the WLDFLWRS, a jewelry store that's owned by Emily (the wife of Ben who is the musical talents behind My Red + Blue). I've been following the shop's instagram and I love their pieces. Jerry bought me a small pendant with an H stamped into it. I adore it. The girl working the shop, Hannah, was so sweet. She loved meeting Samson and told us about her new pup Dolly. We got to chatting about how I knew about the store. Hannah mentioned that if I liked Ben's music I should check out Yøuth (aka Chelsea's boyfriend Julian). Turns out Julian was in Hannah's wedding and Chelsea is one of her very good friends! Nashville is such an amazing city, it's really like a big town. I cannot wait to go back xxx

#nashville #tourist #vacation #story #chelsea lankes

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wineanddinosaur · 6 years ago

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A Bagel Shop Is Serving the Most Creative Cocktails in Washington, D.C.

Growing up in working-class Brooklyn in the 1980s, Gina Chersevani had fairly limited dining options, and she liked it that way. Her family owned a pizzeria she sometimes worked at. A nice Jewish couple down the block had a soda shop called Norma’s, where she loved to grab knishes and egg creams. On weekends she might head out to Coney Island to visit relatives, where she’d eat hot dogs and french fries.

“I came from a place where simple food really defines our neighborhoods. Bagel shops. Pizza places,” Chersevani says. “They’re so simple, but you really have to be great if you want to succeed. I wanted to carry that culture with me to my bar.”

Chersevani began her bartending career slinging beer-in-a-bucket specials at a club at the University of Maryland. After college she briefly worked at Penang, an Asian fusion restaurant in Washington, D.C. In 2001, she headed back to New York to bartend at Penang’s location on the Upper West Side. Her return coincided with the start of NYC’s cocktail movement (“Oh shit, you have to use real juice!”).

After a couple of years she moved back to D.C. and started bartending at restaurants with such noted chefs as Jamie Leeds (15 Ria, Hank’s on the Hill), Rob Weland (Poste Moderne Brasserie), and Vikram Sunderam (Rasika). She built a name as one of the top mixologists in the city, adopting the nickname “The Mixtress.”

For her first solo venture, however, she decided to return to childhood. In late 2012, she opened Buffalo & Bergen — named after the Crown Heights, Brooklyn cross streets where Chersevani’s mother grew up — in the gourmet food hall Union Market. It served the beloved foods of Chersevani’s youth, at first focusing solely on knishes.

Unfortunately, most D.C. locals considered those Jewish delicacies to be “Martian food,” Chersevani says. Adding authentic New York bagels helped business quite a bit, but she realized she would need a legitimate cocktail program to engender more all-day support.

Chersevani wanted to return to her Brooklyn roots for that, too. She decided the bar would specialize in spiked sodas prepared via a classic, old-timey fountain. It just made sense, especially in light of the restaurant’s tight, U-shaped counter space.

“When you have a cocktail bar, what’s the biggest clutter? Syrup and tincture containers,” Chersevani says. “Soda organizes all that crap. It was a no-brainer.”

In inadvertently creating this sui generis beverage program, Chersevani still managed to nail several trends right on the nose (painstakingly hand-hewn production, nostalgia, locality, and seasonality) while offering drinks no one else is even really attempting in a town still trying to make a name for itself on the world cocktail scene.

These deeply ambitious cocktails — like Deeply Rooted, which matches Avua Cachaca Amburana and Luxardo Maraschino with a housemade gentian root soda — have, nonetheless, been such crowd-pleasers that Chersevani is now on the verge of opening a second location. Her new, standalone space in Capitol Hill will have a larger bar and longer service, but an antique soda fountain will still be its centerpiece.

Fountain Life

Soda fountains flourished in America in the early-1900s, and their heyday, especially around Brooklyn, was in the immediate post-World War II era. They started falling out of favor in 1970s, when customers began to switch to corn syrup-crammed, factory-canned, conglomerate-owned sodas.

Thus, as you might guess, finding a vintage soda fountain is not exactly easy these days. Few are actually left in the entire world. After a nationwide search in 2012, prior to opening the first Buffalo & Bergen location, Chersevani finally located a 1930s Bastian-Blessing model in Chicago that had once been used at a local Woolworths. The cost? $50,000.

A steep price, of course. Still, she thought it would be worth it, mainly because it would give her the ability to finally make drinks from a bygone era — sodas, seltzers, and egg creams — that would pair perfectly with her food and inform her cocktail program as well. She had messed around with making sodas before, using mostly siphons when she was bartending at Rasika, but admits those had been very generic, like a cherry-turmeric soda. “I just didn’t know how to do a lot of stuff,” she says. She was ready to up her soda game.

And, while a Bastian-Blessing may look like obsolete technology, or a hipster’s affectation, it is actually still quite state-of-the-art. Its unique design gives Chersevani superior mastery over the carbonation and flavor in her sodas unlike every other bartender who simply has a soda gun or SodaStream. Believe it or not, the interior of the machine uses leather gears and leather washers; this gives her way more control than metal or plastic might. She can subtly manipulate her sodas’ bubble sizes, tighter or larger, depending on what the flavor dictates. The arm of the fountain moves 45 degrees, meaning, in theory, there are 45 different sizes of bubbles.

“That’s crazy when you think about it,” Chersevani notes. “So it really becomes about the feel. When you nail the feel — the ‘jerk’ — when you really get it, it becomes more special.”

If your classic sports bar soda gun is set at around 13 psi (pounds per square inch), her fountain’s psi is typically set at 23. In winter, with more root-based drinks, she moves it closer to 27 psi. Anything after 30 psi and she suspects you’d break your machine. That wouldn’t be great as there are only three guys in America that know how to repair the fountain — that’s why Chersevani has begun to teach herself.

“If it breaks during service, we start bringing in siphons and start double charging them,” she explains. “That’s our crash kit, so we always have that backup.”

If the recent cocktail revolution kicked off in the late-1990s/early-aughts, you could argue we’re currently in the early stages of a cocktail soda revolution. No longer are drinkers satisfied with making even basic mixed drinks using plastic liters of Canada Dry tonic or store-brand soda water; artisan makers like Fever-Tree and Q Drinks have begun to boom. At the bar level, the Highball has taken off and almost become fetishized in the last year or two.

In 2017, Suntory even introduced a $5,000 Highball machine — it can only make a Toki Japanese whiskey and soda — in select bars and restaurants in key American cities. And, while plenty of spots now make their own flavored sodas for use in cocktails —look at Brigitte in Manhattan or Clyde Common in Portland — Buffalo & Bergen is the only cocktail bar in America using a $50,000 vintage machine to do so. A machine that would look more appropriate in an episode of “Leave it to Beaver” than, well, what exactly is Buffalo & Bergen?

“I realized what we accidentally created is a ‘bagel bar,’ which doesn’t really exist anywhere else,” explains Chersevani. “Where would you go in New York City to get bagels and a cocktail? Nowhere.” (She does note that you can go to Russ & Daughters Cafe and get a Bloody Mary alongside your bagel with lox — but you can’t also take a dozen bagels to go like you can at her spot.)

Unfortunately for Chersevani, there was really no business plan for how to run a bagel bar. You can look up business plans for any restaurant idea on planet Earth — Mexican, Italian, high-end fine dining, or cheap-o delis — to get a snapshot of what equipment you need to order, what supplies you will eventually need. But, Chersevani had no template to work from and, thus, had to do a bunch of guess work. (This is a big problem that has led to her currently having a packed storage unit with items like an $8,000 TurboChef [essentially a rapid toaster oven] that she thought she would need, but quickly learned she has no use for.)

Of course, necessity is the mother of all invention, and the lack of any past examples of bagel bars would force Chersevani to forge her own path, making carbonated cocktails that follow an unexpected culinary bent.

Soda Pop Culture

“My career really took off when I started working with chefs and so I started really following their patterns,” she explains. “Chefs’ menus are seasonal and I knew I wanted my sodas to also read like a farmers’ market.”

Thus, in the spring Buffalo & Bergen’s cocktails include a lot of berry sodas. Those change to stone fruits and melon sodas in July and August. In fall you might see carrot and pumpkin sodas. Moving into winter Chersevani focuses more on root sodas, some of the most innovative things she makes. She’s really proud of her celery root soda, which she uses in a variety of more savory cocktails that typically employ gin as a base.

Her current batch of winter cocktails include a pineapple-cardamom soda, a lemon-lavender option, and even an orange sassafras one that pairs great with rum- and bourbon-based cocktails. As far as she can tell, there’s only one thing she has been unable to turn into a cocktail soda.

“White potato has no business in a drink,” Chersevani explains, though she tried her damndest to crack it. “I don’t like the word ‘no,’ and I said we’re going to figure this out. It works as a puree. Fuck! We should totally be able to make a soda out of it. Guess what? Potato has no interest in being friends with soda.”

Buffalo & Bergen typically offers 20 cocktails at any given time — about half the menu utilizes the soda fountain and is, thus, carbonated — but the other half is still quite avant garde. Like Rye Beet-ween the Lines, essentially a rye Manhattan featuring roasted beets. Even her standard Bloody Mary, called Lox’d & Loaded, uses a housemade tomato puree and comes with an everything bagel with all the fixins teetering on top of the vintage milkshake glass.

She’s likewise started playing with pickled ingredients and even fermented syrups — taking nearly rotten fruits and herbs, packing them in salt and aging them for a few days, then taking the resulting strained liquid to use as a cocktail sweetener. She’s particularly enjoyed doing this with a beloved, but kinda gross, local delicacy.

“Here in Virginia, we have pawpaws. They just fall on the ground and you don’t know what they are,” she says. “They rot and animals eat them. Most people have no idea they even taste good, but only when they are literally on the verge of being too rotten to eat.”

It’s not just the seasons or even local flavors that inspire Chersevani’s drinks. Sometimes, it’s purely color. For Pride last year, she wanted to see if she could create an entire rainbow cocktail menu, from ROY to G to BIV. Yellow and orange cocktails were easy to create, the latter coming from a kumquat soda. But how do you make a violet cocktail? Or an indigo one? For that she opted for an Irish root soda colored with butterfly pea flower tea — it was incredibly bitter but worked perfectly in an aperitivo-like cocktail.

Cocktail culture has always been cyclical. Chersavani has found success looking backward toward sodas most modern consumers don’t really know anymore. Last year, while visiting a farm to pick peaches and apricots, she noticed some birch trees. The farmer let her peel off 20 pounds worth of bark so she could attempt a birch soda. It’s toxic when fresh, so you really need to know how to cure and preserve it.

“Let me tell you, making it fresh compared to the stuff sitting in a warehouse, it’s ridiculously different,” Chersavani explains. “It has this amazing amber color, almost like blood. Like the first color of blood, a cherry red, before your blood really oxidizes when it hits the air.”

If it seems risky banking an entire business on old drinks and obsolete technology, just know that Chersavani’s soda fountain is coddled more than any luxury car, with its lines and gaskets meticulously cleaned every single week. In fact, she so believes in the machine that soon it will have a sibling.

Chersavini recently acquired a second soda fountain to reside in her new Buffalo & Bergen location, opening in Capitol Hill this spring. She will be serving and carbonating even more things there, perhaps even the spirits themselves.

She tells me maybe she’ll carbonate cask-strength whiskey “just to be a dick,” though she must admit she likes how light and delicate it becomes. She especially likes carbonating low-ABV drinks like vermouth, as it messes with your head since the bubbles rush to your brain so fast you feel more buzzed than you truly are.

Of course, there is one liquid she will probably never put into her soda fountain.

“Do I ever carbonate vodka? Not really. Is it fun to do, though? Hell yeah,” Chersavini explains. “It hits your bloodstream like a tank!”

The article A Bagel Shop Is Serving the Most Creative Cocktails in Washington, D.C. appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/washington-dc-cocktail-bar-bagel-shop/

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charllieeldridge · 4 years ago

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7 Must-Try New Orleans Cocktails: Where and What To Drink

When it comes to the best cities for cocktails, it’s hard to top New Orleans. After all, the motto of the Big Easy is “Laissez les bon temps rouler” — “Let the good times roll.”

Those good times are fueled largely by booze, thanks to the abundance of excellent New Orleans cocktails.

I often complain about my home country’s uptight drinking laws, but thankfully those puritan rules go out the window in the Big Easy. Here you can drink in public, bars can stay open 24/7, and there are even drive-thru places for frozen daiquiris.

Oh New Orleans, how I love you and your hard-partying ways!

Speaking of partying, I most recently visited the city during our year-long party celebration There are so many New Orleans festivals and events! Rest assured that I did some quality research in order to present you with some of the best cocktails in New Orleans.

In this article, I’ll run the gamut from the classy to the debaucherous, which can usually be accomplished in half a city block here.

There are so many fun things to do in New Orleans (don’t miss the swamp tours), and if you fancy an adult beverage when you travel, you’re going to love visiting the Big Easy.

Read on for a look at some of the must-try New Orleans cocktails and recommendations on the best bars to get them.