Coming to Tales? Stock up on Books

Matthew B. Rowley (Rowley’s Whiskey Forge) is an advertising executive, former museum curator, and past board member of the Southern Foodways Alliance.
Like salmon swimming instinctively upstream to their ancestral homes (or, perhaps, elephants to their fabled graveyards), the world’s alcoholists have begun descending on New Orleans for the city’s annual Tales of the Cocktail celebration.
Octavia [...]

Sweet New Orleans: Calas

Matthew B. Rowley (Rowley’s Whiskey Forge) is an advertising executive, former museum curator, and past board member of the Southern Foodways Alliance.
Sure, surviving New Orleans’ annual Tales of the Cocktail takes a defiant liver, iron kidneys, and a healthy dose of prudence. But the Crescent City’s liquid offerings aren’t all that require heroic constitutions — [...]

Are you hungry yet?

Matthew B. Rowley (Rowley’s Whiskey Forge) is an advertising executive, former museum curator, and past board member of the Southern Foodways Alliance.
If you’re anything like me, you’re already anticipating, during this third week of April, all the food you’ll be enjoying during the third week of July. And you may even be asking yourself, “How [...]

Cask Strength 1:1 (What better time than 10:30am for a dozen whiskeys?)

Matthew B. Rowley (Rowley’s Whiskey Forge) is an advertising executive, former museum curator, and past board member of the Southern Foodways Alliance.

We’re are not drinking; we’re learning.
~ Francesco Lafranconi
10 July 2009
10:32am
Cesar Cestari, master distiller of Cabana Cachaça, was among the panelists joining Francesco Lafranconi for “Cask Strength 1:1” today at Tales of the Cocktail. The [...]

Absinthe Spoons and Julep Cups

Matthew B. Rowley (Rowley’s Whiskey Forge) is an advertising executive, former museum curator, and past board member of the Southern Foodways Alliance.

The New Orleans antique store Lucullus beckons culinary collectors from around the world. The shop, at 610 Chartes Street, deals strictly in food-related antiques. And not your flea-market chic kitsch such as Aunt FiFi’s [...]

From Brewer to Distiller, a Change Both Rich and Strange

Matthew B. Rowley (Rowley’s Whiskey Forge) is an advertising executive, former museum curator, and past board member of the Southern Foodways Alliance.

Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made,
Those are pearls that were his eyes,
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change,
into something rich and strange

~ The Tempest (Act I, [...]