Disregarding advice (for some reason)

Posted on July 20, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized |

Guest blogger Derek Bagley is assistant editor of Southern Breeze Magazine.

I went to the Happy Hour with my wife, Beth, Thursday evening after a great day of events, beginning with the fantastic To Have and Have Not: The Hemingway Bartender’s Companion, followed by two-Sazerac lunch at the Napoleon House and then a tasting room with Belvedere Vodka.

As you can imagine, I was really beginning to wonder how I was going to make it though the Cocktail Hour and then a Spirited Dinner at Zoe. But I figured, what the hell, this is New Orleans and it’s Tales of the Cocktail and there’s no room for caution here. (Well, I take that back. Some caution is necessary; I don’t really want to see some of you get really liquored up and streak through the halls naked.)

My friend, Deborah Burst, a Tales veteran, advised that the best thing to do is take a sip of each drink, just enough to get a taste, and then put it down and go to the next one. But once Beth and I got in the room, we forgot all about the advice. The drinks were so delicious that we found it very hard to just sip.

After about an hour and a half of tasting Beth decided that her favorite was Mary Barranco’s Watermelon Margarita, made with fresh watermelon cubes, Don Julio Tequila, and salt on the rim to cut the sweetness perfectly. I’d have to say my favorite was the Ninth Ward, a Bulleit Bourbon drink, strong and robust and right up my alley.

We were also glad to see Lucy Buffett there, owner of LuLu’s, representing our home of Gulf Shores, Alabama, with her excellent and refreshing Bama Breeze.

After all that, we were both glad for the walk back to where we are staying at the Harrah’s Hotel. The walk was good for burning off the “calories” and made us not feel so bad about finishing all our drinks.