Folks, it’s been two weeks since Tales of the Cocktail 2009, and I’m just now getting around to doing my wrap-up.  To be fair, I have officiated a wedding, started to move my apartment, decided not to move my apartment, and had to catch up with work.  Nonetheless, I have a great deal of things to relay to you, and I hope that my stories make you salivate and immediately book your trip for next year.  Every year, TotC hosts the Spirited Awards, in which such esoteric categories as “Best U.S. Bartender” and “Best Bar in the World” are awarded based on voting by visitors to the TotC site. (I am, of course, being facetious when I downplay the value of these awards, and if I ever make it to NYC I’ll be sure to visit P.D.T.)  In the spirit of the awards ceremony, I now present my TotC awards, in no particular order, and in the categories I determine to be awardable.

Best Session:

The title of Best Session or Seminar is given to the most interesting, well-presented, or otherwise notable event that is offered only to paying guests (as opposed to free events).  For the event to be considered, it must have been attended by the nominator (me, Dan, or Carine), which makes for a significantly shorter list than last year.  I won’t bother with nominees – the winner is: Tell It Like It Is!

This seminar, hosted on the last day by Francesco Lafranconi of Southern Wine and Spirits, was dedicated to the senses  of smell and taste, much to the confusion of the people who read only the title.  We were treated to a fairly scientific discussion on the sense of smell, which I promise I’ll go deeper into in a future post.  The best part of the session was the nearly two dozen olfactory samples provided for our perusal.  You might never appreciate how the scent of beeswax figures in to your favorite whiskey until you’ve nosed them side by side.  The end of the session was punctuated by a sampling of a product that I am very excited to be announcing, and it brings me to my next award:

Best New Product:

The Best New Product award is presented to a non-alcoholic product determined by Raven to be the coolest thing he saw that he’d never seen before.  This year there were two nominees.  The first nominee, and not the winner, is the Evolution Mobile Bar, which is a bar that fits into a case not much bigger than your standard suitcase, and which makes setting up a fully functioning bar possible almost anywhere.  Way too cool, if a little expensive, these things were everywhere at Tales.  Best for corporate-style events or really big parties; I’m not quite sure what you’d do with one in an apartment.

The winner of the Best New Product is Gläce Ice (pronounced ‘gloss’).  Gläce is blasting open the market for luxury ice, and is doing it with style. Roberto Sequeira heads up the company (follow him on Twitter @GlaceLuxuryIce); a great guy.  Gläce uses purified water, not artesian sources, to produce an absolutely flavorless ice cube.  I’ve misspoken, of course, because Gläce creates perfect spheres of ice.  Anyone who has ever had a cocktail ruined by ‘flavorful’ ice will appreciate that which Roberto and Gläce is doing for the world.  It’s a bit on the expensive side, but worth it for a special event.

Best Marketing:

Surely a strange category to give out an award for, but given so many examples of marketing (some good and some bad) at TotC, I thought it worth mentioning a particularly great campaign.  As a member of the ‘media’, I received many emails from various concerns prior to the event, but one particularly caught my eye.  There was no immediate mention of a product, just an invitation to tailor my experience at TotC for unimaginablele pleasure.  How does a red-blooded man not respond to that?

Long story short, I did respond, and was presented with a few choices of a gift to choose.  The email made sure that I stopped by the tasting room, which leads right into the next category:

Best Tasting Room:

When considering the options for Best Tasting  Room, I had to weigh many different facets – what criteria do you use?  Is the decor more important than the product?  Maybe the people – the ambassadors, marketers…the models?  In awarding this honor, I have decided to use the quantity of samples consumed by me as the deciding factor (though the models – and the marketing team – didn’t hurt).  The award goes to:

Xante.  This new-ish product (it’s been in Europe for ten years) is a blend of cognac and Belgian pears.  I’m going to keep my description short, as I hope to bring you a full review at a later date, but suffice to say that I had at least 6 ounces in the half hour I was in the room.

(For those that didn’t figure it out, Xante won the Best Marketing award too.)

Best Party:

This award is for the best invitation-only event.  Rather than waste a bunch of time on exposition, I’m just going to jump right in.  Benedictine turned the Broussard’s Restaurant into a monastery-inspired celebration, full of monks, alchemy, and chanting (mixed with lively, if disconcerting, dance beats.)  Though I had to leave my souvenir glass behind (too much weight in the suitcase), I was able to alight with a few tokens of alms that I was supposed to trade for a reading of my fate.  As party reviewing is not my forte, I’ll leave you with the knowledge that it was worth going to, and that you should try to get to Tales next year.

Most Amazing Product-Related Event:

This category is so-named because all of the other names I came up with would be better suited for future categories.  I’m going to include this particular event into my follow-up post, but it deserved a mention here.  The folks at Grey Goose offered a special tasting at midnight they called dans le noir or ‘in the dark’, because, well, it was completely in the dark.  The staff were all equipped with night vision goggles.  That’s how dark it was.  You’ve never enjoyed the scent of an alcohol until you’ve deprived your eyes of their use.  More later.  I promise.

Best Bucket List Check-off:

Folks, I got to cross something off my bucket list.  You know, those things that you just have to do before you die.  Well, I got to do one.  I got to  walk down the streets of New Orleans accompanying a funeral, complete with a brass band playing “When the Saints Go Marching In”.  I know that might seem a bit morbid to some people, but as a jazz enthusiast, the thrill of enjoying this microcosm of the roots of that great American music well outweighed the little fact that death was in the air.  Of course, it didn’t hurt that the deceased was none other than the Red-Headed Slut, the cocktail chosen by Tales-goers to be buried in 2009’s funeral.  If you’ve never heard ‘Saints’ on the streets of New Orleans, you haven’t lived.

Most Awesomest Experience:

This doesn’t exactly count as an award, and it’s an experience that is pretty much unique to me, but it is the kind of thing that can happen to you if you hang out long enough with cool enough people at Tales of the Cocktail.  Dan, Carine, and I were watching The Chef and the Fat Man show, when we were asked to film and photograph the goings on by none other than the Chef and the Fat Man.  If you listen to the first show from Tales (available on iTunes: go subscribe now!) you can hear the Fat Man give a shout out to lil’ ol’ me.

Now, I’ve never really been behind the camera (though I have been paid for it before) for a live event, but I was more than happy to join in the fun.  I don’t know if the footage will ever make it to the wide world, but I recorded the entire second show.  A most awesomest experience.

Best Dining:

In a city like New Orleans, awarding Best Dining is too much for one man, especially one as inexperienced as I, to attempt.  With all the things that go into great dining, I can’t hardly claim to have tried enough to make a comparison.  What I can do is tell you that Arnaud’s Jazz Bistro is worth eating at.  Right off Bourbon Street, Dan, Carine, and I joined Kevin Jenkins (Fat Man) at Arnaud’s for an amazing meal, followed by a once in a lifetime presentation of Cafe Brule.  I’ll grant you that I don’t drink coffee, but I enjoy watching fire run down an orange that causes cloves to glow red.  Trust me, you need to see it.

Well, y’all, this is easily my longest post yet, so I’ll stop now.  If I come up with more awards, I’ll put them up later.  Please enjoy that which I’ve put forth.  Please comment if you think I’m way off base, or if you like what I’ve said, or if you just want to say hi!

Friends, Friday at Tales of the Cocktail 2009 is a day I will have to work hard to forget. Aside from the incredible length of the day (breakfast at 8:30, bed sometime around 3a.m.), I had a slough of experiences that were memorable for their uniqueness and magnitude. I’ll try to bring it all to you here, but it will likely take multiple posts.

Friday started with a 4 cocktail breakfast hosted by Tres Generaciones at Brennan’s on Royal Street. Not being a tequila drinker, I was hesitant to go, but the food more than made up for any lack of drinks. Of course, the cocktails were great, but what else do you expect when Bobby G is making your eye-opener? The menu included a southern baked apple in heavy cream (which I’d walk over many, many people to get again), a duet of poached egg dishes, and a dessert of bananas foster, which I was unable to stay for because they started late and I had a can’t-miss session to get to.

Next, Dan and I headed over to the Cask Strength seminar. We weren’t sure what to expect, but we knew it’d be good. TotC isn’t known for letting people down, and this seminar was no exception. There is nothing that compares to tasting 12 high-proof liquors at 10:30 in the morning. I came to the realization that I’m maturing as a drinker: I actually tasted the products and set back half of the sample, rather than completely downing the offered quantities.

Then the day got exciting…but you’ll have to wait until I post more about that…

Alright, so I didn’t get the best night’s sleep, but I’m slowly recovering. I wanted to give y’all the rest of the story from yesterday. You’ll get the jalapeño shot later, but I did want to send a shout-out to the folks out at Ranch 616 in Austin, Texas for introducing this unique imbibation. (Woot! New word!) Anyone in the area should go check out the bar.

Moving right along, after this it was time for the Beefeater Welcome Reception. Dan, in all of his glory, neglected to secure a ticket, which meant I got to escort his lovely with Carine to the party. After last year’s soirée, I knew it was killing Dan that he couldn’t go, so I made sure to take pictures.

The bar set up at the Beefeater Reception.

Last year’s party was very good, so my expectations were high, and Desmond’s people did not disappoint. They even gave us all these really cool bowlers, which you can see if you look very closely at this picture:

The LOFT mistresses with a lovely model (who is a sophomore in college. I pay attention to these things...) Sorry you missed it, Dan.

I finished up at the reception and headed over to the Burlesque show, but it wasn’t for me and I split pretty quickly for the Mixo House with Craig of Dr. Bamboo. For those who aren’t here, this house is full of cocktail bloggers and has been well…sponsored. A screaming liver and too much good food prevented me from staying too long, but I hope to hop over there again before I leave NOLA.

I did run over to the TotC tweet-up arraigned by @livethelushlife before I collapsed for the night. I wish I could give some more info on the evening, but I was fried by then. I’m told it was a wonderful event, mostly by the hostess, but she’s got a trustworthy face, so I’ll recommend going to it again next year.

Gotta fly, more later.

Yeehaw! Have I got stories for you.

Day one of Tales of the Cocktail is the Professional Series; the seminars are all geared towards proprietors of cocktalian establishments. As I am not one of these people, most of the seminars run a bit on the dry side. I went to the early seminar on starting a bar, where I did learn a fair amount on the trials of bar ownership, but after that I decided to stick to the tasting rooms and other events of the day. It was truly a day full of spectacle (which is my buzz word for the week, as in ‘the word I use a lot when I’m buzzed’).

To appreciate the atmosphere, I have to start at the beginning. I woke up at the unfortunate hour of 6a.m., with the intent of moving slow, showering leisurely, and breaking the nightly fast at a pace becoming of a proper gentleman who is staying at the French Quarter’s only 4-diamond hotel. I thankfully managed to achieve this schedule, and arrived down in the lobby about a half hour before Dan and Carine (whom I was meeting for the first time.) We ate breakfast at Le Cafe, the Monteleone’s enjoyable if slightly overpriced eatery. After breakfast we were off to register!

Registration was in a better place this year, actually warranting its own room, and the process was rather smooth. Somehow my name was missing from the media list, but the wonderful staff quickly fixed the problem and we were off to our next stop, the swag room. Now, it’s no secret that convention type events are full of swag, or that the swag gathered at Tales can be truly monumental, but this year they have outdone themselves. Rather than fill a bag with samples and gadgets from the various sponsors and distribute the bags to VIP’s (and oddly enough, us) they instead filled a room with swag and gave us empty bags to fill as our hearts desired. I have pictures, but for the interest of safety, I won’t post them until after Tales closes for the year.

There are a lot of things to love about Tales, and it goes beyond the swag. The Monteleone, built and adapted as it is, has many floors that are half stories up or down, which gives it an almost catacombed feel. Looking down a hallway, one find amazing hidden gems. Dan and I found one such gem in a hidden passage containing the good folks at Cointreau. After bluffing our way inside as members of the ‘press’, we watched a demonstration in which a molecular mixologist created little gel capsules of Cointreau. This process was absolutely fascinating, if painstakingly time-consuming, and the end result was truly amazing.

Hard to see, but cool up close.

This demonstration was put on by one Fernando Castellon, a man whom I expect none of you to know, but whom all of you should admire. Go ahead, admire from where ever you are currently. At this event, which was really more like a private party we crashed, we ran into a guy who, I’m not kidding, introduced himself as Ugly. He told me his real name, but insisted I call him Ugly. How could I resist? At one point he walked away from the demonstration, only to miss the best part, so when I saw him next, I called out “Hey Ugly!” Too fun…

The thing I really love about Tales of the Cocktail is that your glass is never, ever empty. I kid you not, I sat with my arm outstretched clutching a glass I’d just finished and turned my attention away a minute and no foolin’ someone appeared with a bottle to fill my glass.

I spent the early afternoon watching the live version of the Chef and the Fatman show. I can’t say much here except that these guys are really great people and quite fun to watch, and when you’re there live you get to taste what they cook up. They even shanghaied Dan, Carine, and me into doing some photography/videography for them, which was an absolute blast. During one of Dan’s many trips away from the booth to get a good shot, I was joined by Ted Breaux, head distiller for Lucid Absinthe. In one of the great moments of the day, he actually remembered who I was from the previous year. The best thing I can say is that good people deserve a fair shake, so if you’re in the market for absinthe, give Lucid a try.

Moving right along…I only need two words to get your attention my next tasting experience: jalapeño shots!

The Raven taking a hearty sup from a pepper.

As it’s 1 in the morning, I can’t go into all the detail on these drinks, but I promise to follow up within the next month and show you how you too can contain your alcohol with vegetables.

Friends, I have to turn in. I may post again in the morning, or may just edit this post throughout the day tomorrow.

Caw!

Folks, I’ve been here for a little more than five hours, and already I’m tempted to stay forever. I [heart] New Orleans. This is one hell of a town, and Tales is one hell of a festival. I’ve met up with about 70% of the people I had really hoped to run into, and I’ve already had too much to eat and drink. Just prior to this, I was sitting at the Carousel Bar, the only carousel that you have to be 21 to ride. (I stole that joke from Kevin, the eponymous Fat Man from Chef and the Fat Man; I’m sure he stole it from someone else.) I’ve made some new friends from the SF area too. That in itself may be the best part of Tales: there are so many people here, they all love booze, and they’re all very friendly.

Notable things so far:
*Since arriving, I’ve acquired two new followers on Twitter. Not a huge thing, but it’s my largest increase ever, and I only recognize one of the names. This place is great for networking.

*I just had a chat with Chris McMillan, the man behind that great mint julep video I told you about a few newsletters back. This is the kind of thing I live for: sharing a drink with a cocktail luminary.

*Benedictine tossed a wonderful reception in a great venue just down the street, replete with living statues, robed monks, and an intervention from the fates. They set the bar high for production quality, though one of the monks started dancing to a hip-hop beat, which was kind of odd. As far as a spectacle though, can’t say it took away.

*Found out Chef and the Fat Man is now available on iTunes. These guys are a blast to listen to, and I recommend that you all go there immediately head to that program and sign up for their podcast.

*Bloggers reception sponsored by Martin Millers’ gin. Some great cocktails there, though I’m totally unaware of what they contained. Gin, I suppose.

Anyway, this is shaping up to be an amazing week. I’m going to hope to have this posted by midday Wednesday as it will make less and less sense to post it as time goes on.