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 Books, a local independent bookstore in Uptown New Orleans, will set up a satellite bookstore in the lobby of the Hotel Monteleone featuring books from many of this year’s presenters.

For more on Octavia and the books, see the post in Rowley’s Whiskey Forge here.

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 — its pervasive sweets are anything but trifling.

Since Katrina, the obscure little fried cakes known as calas have undergone a revival. Definitely a fritter, arguably a donut, and with a lineage that reaches back to Africa, calas are little wads of rice held together in a custard-like batter, deep fried, and — more often than not — dusted in confectioners’ sugar….

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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 can I pack some of it back home with me?” Matthew Rowley, writing at Rowley’s Whiskey Forge, has a solution: namely, pack throwaway clothes that you can ditch at your hotel to make room for food, booze, or other souvenirs. More importantly, at least for us omnivores, are his recommendations for finding great andouille sausage. It’ll require a side trip out to LaPlace, Louisiana, but nothing’s too much if you’re obsessed.

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 panel explored barrel aging of spirits, the origins of woods, degrees of charring and—to some extent—how long is “too long” in a barrel.

Whiskey and brandy lovers know that distillers put high-proof white dog straight from the stills into oak barrels where they grow more complex and mellow. Many assume that barrels made of white American oak—and, to a lesser degree, French or other European oaks—are the only suitable choices for aging spirits. Look in the right places, however, and you’ll discover more exotic woods being put to use.

Cestari, for instance, brought samples of his double-distilled cachaça aged in Jequitiba rosa, a Brazilian hardwood. While Americans are becoming more familiar with the Brazilian sugarcane spirit, most of what we see here is not barrel-aged. The result was a light, honey-colored spirit with a soft touch, but clear woodiness. I hope we see more of this as the American market for cachaça matures.

Larry Kass of Heaven Hill Distilleries spoke about types of American straight whiskeys and the charring processes used to create them. Bringing in staves with various levels of char (coopers typically offer increasingly burnt char levels from #1-4), Kass discussed how the raw white spirit moving in and out of the porous wood becomes over time the golden, amber, brown and “red” whiskeys we know and love.

Over the 90-minute session, the panelists presented a variety of spirits, including; Cabana Cachaça, Cabana aged in Jequitiba rosa, Cabana aged in American oak, Evan Williams single barrel, Elijah Craig 12-year, Elijah Craig 18-year, and Glenmorangie white dog as well as their Nectar D’Or aged in lightly toasted American white oak.

All images are from the Independent Stave Company, a Missouri company founded in 1912 that provides American white oak barrels to distillers around the world. See the full video here.

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 poodle apron: Proper antiques. Among the sterling marrow spoons, pudding molds, copper pots, and sideboards, cocktails aren’t forgotten.

Patrick Dunne, the owner, travels to France several times a year and returns to New Orleans with cocktail accoutrements such as stemware, absinthe glasses, and absinthe spoons. Prices for the latter start at $45. If you care to pony up for something a little more rarified, $1650 lets you adopt a pair of 19th century hand-blown absinthe glasses with matching brouilles, the little cups that sit inside the rim and drip iced water into the coupe for creating the renowned pearlescent louche.

Feel like juleps? You could walk away with a set of silver julep mugs of both French and American make. Maybe something smaller for your carry-on: a case by the back room holds enameled liquor bottle pendants.

Lucullus
610 Chartres St.
New Orleans, LA 70130
504. 528.9620

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, Scene II)
William Shakespeare

American distilling is undergoing a profound transformation. And while the changes may seem recent, sudden, and unexpected to casual observers, in reality, they’ve been brewing for over thirty years.

For explosion in the range and quality of spirits newly available and for the burgeoning number of small distilleries making them, thank craft brewers. When they set up stills for vodka, gin, genevers, and other spirits, high-profile pioneers such as Fritz Maytag and Sam Calagione helped legitimize a trend among brewers of pushing into a higher-proof skill set.

This July at Tales of the Cocktail, a panel of erstwhile brewers chaired by Stephen Beaumont will speak openly of their transformation into distillers. Yes, openly. Big whoop, you say, brewer to distiller. Not such a big deal.  Except that it is.

A few years ago, in a big, easy, crescent-shaped southern city, I tried to speak to a homebrew supply shop owner about distilling. Since he was selling spirit hydrometers for measuring the alcohol content of spirits, not beer, I figured he’d be up for a little shop talk. He told me flatly, “Get the hell out of my shop.” Not quite the talk I was expecting—If anybody knows more about distilling than the general public, it’s the brewing crowd. As a former brewer myself, learning about distillation was not only intuitive, but a logical next step.

For brewers, the ingredients and techniques—even much of the equipment—used to make spirits are already familiar. Grains, malt, yeast, enzymes, ideal fermentation temperatures, filtration systems, and the water profiles that led to great-tasting beverages—shoot, these are all old hat once you’ve cut your teeth on your own homemade Oktoberfests, hefeweizens, brown ales, Scottish ales, barleywines, stouts, and Goat Scrotum Ale.

On wait what? Goat Scrotum Ale remains one of the more popular recipes in Charlie Papazian’s, er, seminal 1984 brewing manual The Complete Joy of Home Brewing. The puerile name helped no doubt bring a sense of playfulness to what might have seemed an intimidating hobby, letting new brewers know that it was alright to loosen up a little bit, to experiment, to push the boundaries of taste.

Papazian inspired generations of novice brewers with his reassuring manta “Relax. Don’t Worry. Have a homebrew.”  Want to add a little ginger to your mash? Relax. How about some licorice or rice? Don’t worry. Molasses? Kid, clean out your ears. I’m telling you—have a homebrew. His readers went to become accomplished amateurs and even professional brewers in the 1980s, joining homebrew clubs, winning contests, and opening brewpubs and microbreweries across America.

Today, many of those brewers have realized that even delicious beer’s potential is sometimes far from realized. Sometimes a beer wants to be more. Sometimes a beer is just crying to be whiskey. And once whiskey is in the barrel, rum, absinthe, or vodka suddenly seem, well, possible. In fact, they practically demand to be made.

Chris Sule, distiller at Old New Orleans Rum and one of July’s session panelists, suggests that brewers grow into exceptionally experimental distillers. After all, many began as home brewers making 5-10 gallons at a time. At those costs, one can afford to learn from many, many mistakes. Armed with firsthand knowledge of how altering recipes or procedures affect drink characteristics, many brewers as a matter of course play with variables such as yeast strains, specialty ingredients, or mashing techniques. Beer yeast in a rum wash? Why not? Sule’s done it. Come to the session and you may get to taste the result.

Join Chris Sule (Old New Orleans Rum), Ray Deter (d.b.a New Orleans and d.b.a. NYC), Jess Graber (Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey), and noted home brewer Charles Sule for a discussion about what brewers bring to the craft once they catch the distilling bug.

Hosted by Old New Orleans Rum, the 90-minute session will include tastings of whiskey mash as well as several spirits made by former and current brewers. Expect an enthusiastic examination of the “new state of American beer and spirits, drawing parallels, crafting contrasts, and telling the story of where we were, where we’re at, and where we’re going.”

Thursday, July 9, 2009 2:30-4:00 PM at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans.

Oh, and that homebrew shop owner? He went on to become a rum distiller. Of course.