You’ve also got to know your venue — as much as I love Coop’s, it’s not a Sazerac kinda place. I usually just drink Abita with my best-jambalaya-in-the-city.

As for Lafitte’s … it’s quite literally only a shell of its former self. When I should have just gotten a bottled beer like everyone else I was with did, I tried for a Pimm’s Cup. I got Pimm’s, some generic lemon-lime soda out of the gun, some soda water out of the gun, and then the bartender reached under the bar for a one-gallon white plastic jug of something that looked like industrial floor cleaner and topped off my drink with it. I made sure to look at the label just to make sure I wasn’t being poised and sure enough, it did say “SWEET AND SOUR.” The flavor of that stuff was so vile that the drink was completely undrinkable.

Mr. B’s has never let me down. :-)

Knowing your venue, especially in New Orleans, might not be fair to out-of-towners but a little reading up would certainly help know where one can and can’t get certain drinks made well, and where one shouldn’t even try. On my own blog I did a recap of the “Juniperlooza!” seminar on gin, and the best comment was from a New Orleanian who was responding to one of the cocktails that was served at the seminar:

“I’ll give you a hundred bucks if you go to Markey’s Bar in the Ninth Ward and order a Cucumber Cantaloupe Sour.”

I wouldn’t try that for a thousand …