Recently in Tales of the Cocktail Category

One of the more recent editions to Tales of the Cocktail has been the Spirited Dinners. Basically, local restaurants are paired up with bartenders from around the world, in an effort to create a unique dining experience. The restaurants chef creates a unique menu for the evening and then the paired up bartender (aka the bar chef) creates a matching menu of cocktails. The goal is to try to compliment the courses with a cocktail and really experience how cocktails can be integrated into dining, not just aperitif’s and digestif’s. This year I’m pairing up with La Cote Brasserie.

There is now less than one month to go before Tales of the Cocktail. I’m looking forward to going, again, this year and I’ve started assembling my presentation, Sensory Perception and Mixology (What Your Taste Buds are Telling You). If you are a bartender, chef, enthusiastic mixologist or just anyone who likes to know what they are drinking, then this session is a must. Sure, I like my presentation, but let me explain why you will really enjoy it.

Why do certain people recoil in horror at the taste of Italian bitters and why do others gag on super sweet drinks? Then of course we've all know the guy who can't get enough suicide sauce in his Caesar (Bloody Mary) or the Dirty Martini addict. Maybe you are one of them. Have you ever wanted to understand how people taste and why there is such diversity.  If you are an aspiring mixologist or a professional who wants an edge, then knowing how people perceive flavours is a very important thing. Luckily, I'll be discussing this very stuff at Tales of the Cocktail in July and in this session we'll be doing a genetically specific taste test to help figure out who you are plus a whole lot more. Read on for more details.

Well, about Tales of the Cocktail anyway. You can only beat a dead horse for so long before you need to move on. This post will summarize all of the other great things and events that happened while I was in New Orleans. There is a lot to cover, including the Spirited Dinner at the Delachaise, the Rum Tasting, Jeff “Beachbum” Berry’s “Best of Show” presentation on all things Tiki, and the Absinthe session which has peaked my interest in this otherwise forgotten spirit. There were some other things in there as well, such as the VIP dinner, breakfast and the Cocktail Hour. I’ll touch on those briefly, but all the other cocktail bloggers have written about the same thing so I’ll try not to bore you. After this we will return to our regularly scheduled programming.

While at Tales of the Cocktail I participated in the Cocktails and the Blogosphere session. Paul did a great job of rounding things up and doing all the prep work, while the rest of us just blathered on about our blogs. Being bloggers, we are naturally long-winded, and love when people listen to us. Really, blogging is a cry for attention, well that’s what my wife says anyway. I believe that information should be free and opinions matter, so I share what little I know and give you my opinion on all things drink related. But when four people share a stage and only have 75 minutes to divulge everything they know about cocktail blogs, we inevitably ran out of time. So here is a summary of some things we discussed and some things I would have liked to discuss. 

Usually it’s my computer that crashes, not me, but yesterday my body ordered me to sleep more. It seems my body can’t do the living on four hours of sleep a night, for a week, anymore. But the resting was good and I did go to work so it wasn’t a complete crash. As I promised, here’s what happened on the Friday in New Orleans. You can also check out Cocktail Chronicles, Kaiser Penguin, Liquid Muse and On the House for other Tales of the Cocktail summary posts and comments.

I have returned from New Orleans with so much to write about that it will probably take a few days to cover everything. Also, I’ve used up every energy reserve I have, so I’m sleepy and my mind seems to be having a hard time recalling everything I’ve done in the past five days. That’s what happens when you only get four to five hours of sleep per night and then spend 14+ hours getting home. I think I’ll tackle this in reverse chronological order since the most recent memories are the easiest to remember.

Day 1 of Tales of the Cocktail has been great. I've met almost everyone in the first 12 hours og being here. New Orleans is a very interesting city, and I definately like it. Lots of character in the old buildings and many historical sites to see. But, my agenda is quiet busy so we'll see how much I can do outside of that. Excuse the abundant errors, I'm writing this on a PDA.

Well it is official, the 5th edition of Tales of the Cocktail will be taking place in New Orleans from July 18 to 22. For those that don’t know, Tales of the Cocktail is an annual event that brings together the top bartenders, mixologists, chefs, spirit producers and authors to learn, exchange information and share a few drinks. This years event will be taking place at the, six hundred room, Hotel Monteleone and there will be a good number of events, many free, that everyone can participate in. One of the events is Cocktails and the Blogosphere which will feature myself, Paul of Cocktail Chronicles, Rick of Kaiser Penguin and Chuck of The Gumbo Pages. If you love cocktails and bartending, you owe it to yourself to attend.