I drank what?!

Posted on July 17, 2008
Filed Under Lauren Clark |

Lauren Clark is a freelance drinks journalist in Boston. She chronicles the city’s drinking landscape at Drink Boston.

I was a responsible adult yesterday until about 4:30. I abstained from joining my fellow Yankees in NOLA for lunch at the Napoleon House, because I had to prepare for my panel, How to Get Your City, Bar, Recipe or Bartender More Media Coverage. (Fellow blogger Jeffrey Morgenthaler wrote about it here.) Thanks to my excellent panelists Jenny Adams of Nightclub & Bar magazine (and author of Mixing New Orleans), Jeffery Lindenmuth of Food Arts magazine, Men’s Health and many other publications, and Jennifer Baum of the powerhouse PR firm Bullfrog & Baum for making it a very informative 90 minutes. And thanks to all who showed up!

After the panel, I was ready to get loose. I succeeded spectacularly. Not that I needed to try very hard, given that I’m at a cocktail conference. In New Orleans.

My activities were as follows:

* Blogger reception with Cabana Cachaca cocktails
* Plymouth Sloe Gin tasting (yummy stuff)
* Sazeracs and Vieux Carrés at the Carousel Bar
* Beefeater gin reception at the Palace Café, with Audrey Saunders and Josey Packard mixing cocktails behind a bar carved out of ice
* Dinner at the pork palace Cochon (This culminated in a war of the shots between our table of 11 Bostonians and a bunch of New York guys from PDT. It was cutthroat — we got warm shots of Grey Goose and retaliated with Fighting Cock bourbon laced with grenadine.)
* Daiquiri party at the French 75 bar at Arnaud’s (Many swizzle sticks were obtained.)
* Shots of Averna (in plastic cups) at the Old Absinthe Bar
* After-hours party #1 at the St. Germain suite at the Hotel Monteleone (this involved elderflower-laced cocktails, of course, but also swigs of Averna, Balvenie scotch and some sort of good, aged tequila straight from bottles/flasks that were circulated around the room)
* After-hours party #2 in Jeffrey Morgantheler’s room — Sazerac rye and Carpano Antica Manhattans mixed up in the bathroom. I’m not actually sure if I drank one of these.

Christ, it’s only Thursday.