ELIZABETH DRINKS (AND EATS) NOLA!
Read her "Tales of the Cocktail" favorites
RECAP: TALES OF THE COCKTAIL IN NEW ORLEANS
EK: It was hot. It was muggy. And it was the perfect weather for cocktails. Which was a good thing since I was in New Orleans for the Tales of the Cocktail (TOTC) conference.
AU: I had heard of Tales of the Cocktail, but never knew it was such a HUGE event! How’d you fare?
EK: It was a long week, and this recap doesn’t even touch on about 80% of what I ate and drank! But I hope that you’ll enjoy reading about some of my more memorable TOTC experiences…
I arrived mid-day on Sunday just like one of the tens of thousands of people traveling to NOLA for TOTC. It’s an annual conference for people working in the drinks industry or those who just love drinks. I went as a food and drinks writer.
Even though I have been to many conferences, I wasn’t prepared for “Tales.” Every attendee is responsible for setting their own schedule and when I say it’s overwhelming, that’s an understatement. Setting your schedule is like finding a needle in a haystack, because there are so many great events and seminars, and they are all happening simultaneously.
The first rule is that you have to throw FOMO out of the window, because you can’t be everywhere at once. I have to give a shout out to my two friends who are long-time TOTC veterans, Emily and Karla. They helped me build a schedule and even get coveted invites to some of the best parties and events that I’ve ever seen.
Once I got checked-in, I immediately went out to explore the Crescent City with Emily. This was her tenth year, so as I said before, she is a pro. We were both famished and discovered we shared a mutual love for The Port Of Call restaurant.
EK: Port Of Call opened as a steakhouse in 1963, but today it is better known as the best hamburger in town. The physical restaurant is dark and resembles a dive bar complete with fruity drinks. They have tables on either side of the bar, but I have only sat at the bar and I would say that’s the best seat in the house.
The room is rundown, but it’s clean, and the bartenders are longtime residents or locals, and welcome you with friendly banter. Most importantly, the kitchen grinds their own burger blend and the toppings are fresh and generous. In a delicious twist, every burger is served with a loaded baked potato that’s a meal unto itself.
It is one of those joints, IYKYK. And, it is an old favorite of mine. In fact, during a short-lived “vegetarian” phase, this burger topped with sautéed mushrooms is what changed me back to an omnivore.
AU: By the looks of it, seems like that burger could turn anyone into an omnivore!
EK: July in New Orleans is extremely slow, meaning that this is not high season for tourists. It’s just too hot to be appealing for out-of-towners, and it’s also smack-dab in the middle of hurricane season. But there is one week every summer where it gets much busier, and that is the week of TOTC. I heard that 25,000+ people attended this year, and there were big crowds at most of the events that I went to but luckily, you never saw that many people in one spot.
EK: Throughout the week, there were approximately 387 “official” events hosted by both big and small brands all-day-long. The night-time dinners, parties and big bashes included over-the-top concerts like the private Jack Daniels Ludacris performance (see above).
EK: I was lucky enough to go to one of the week’s intimate small dinner events. This was one of the many “unofficial” events, but it was the best one of the week in my opinion.
The dinner was at Commander’s Palace hosted by the effervescent Ti Adelaide Martin, daughter of Ella Brennan and co-proprietor of the restaurant, and the prolific cocktail and spirits writer and historian Noah Rothbaum. The small dinner was the highlight of my trip. The food was worthy of every accolade that has been given to Commander’s Palace, but the best part of the dinner was that our eclectic group of “strangers” became new best friends by the second course!
AU: Don’t you just love it when that happens? I think that’s a testament to both the hospitality at Commander’s Palace, and also to the power of food connecting us all. Sidenote: Commander’s Palace also happens to be the kitchen where a young (23!) Emeril Lagasse got his first chef gig, so saying the restaurant is an institution is a major understatement!
EK: Ti chose the menu with Executive Chef Meg Bickford. Commander’s is known for “Haute Creole” style of cooking but this dinner somehow combined contemporary, classic and nouvelle cuisine featuring Southern ingredients. Ti and her cousin and co-proprietor, Lally Brennan, say about Meg (executive chef since 2020), that “there is a sparkle in her eye and magic in those hands,” and I got to experience it all first-hand. Meg announced each of her exceptional dishes with a smile and a sparkle, and stuck around for some spirited conversations between courses.
Chef Meg has been with the Commander’s family of restaurants for 14 years and she has an ease and a joy about her approach to food and those eating her food.
EK: Each step of our five-course meal was spectacular. We started with a light and fresh Hokkaido Scallop Crudo that was accented with a perfectly pickled summer squash—instead of cucumbers and capers—Gribiche.
I also had the best bone-marrow dish of my life: It was as playful as it was enticing with a Silkie Irish Whiskey luge. If you’ve never had the pleasure, you eat the marrow—I sopped mine up with a Crystal buttermilk biscuit—and then you pour a shot of Silkie Irish Whiskey in the trough of the bone and drink it. Talk about sophisticated fun! Even more fun, James and Moira Doherty, the husband and wife team who make Silkie were part of our dinner crew and they brought their “fun bus” full of Irish humor to the table.
The drinks and the wines were spectacular and I particularly enjoyed the 2014 Domaine du Gros’ Noré Bandol from Provence that was served with the Iberico Pork Spinalis.
Obsessive beef/steak fans are familiar with the spinalis dorsi that is the coveted cap of the ribeye. It is often referred to as the spinalis steak when it is rolled and tied to look like a round filet. It is the marbled, tender, super flavorful part of the ribeye and the prime rib. If you’ve enjoyed a slice of prime rib, you’ve eaten the spinalis even if you don’t know it—it is the outer, darker, accordion-like patch of meat on the slice of prime rib.
The brilliant Chef Meg, took this muscle from an Iberico pig and served it with the best candied collards, bits of fig and garlic-whipped Creole cream cheese. It was the first time that I’ve ever seen anyone serve pork spinalis and it was a treat!
EK: And, because our hostess knew that we would all be fast friends by the end of the meal, she served one of every dessert on the menu and we rotated them right to left so that everyone at the table could taste all the desserts plus a bonus Praline Parfait! The Bread-Pudding Soufflé has always been my favorite but there wasn’t a meh dessert in the bunch. They were all a dessert lovers dream, and it was a lot of fun to take a bite and pass it along!
AU: Now THAT sounds like an epic welcome to NOLA!!
EK: Now you see why it was the highlight of my week!
Besides Commander’s, I ate all the things that anyone who knows and loves New Orleans would expect to eat…
EK: A Central Grocery Muffuletta—now purchased at Rouse’s Grocery store because Central Grocery is still rebuilding after Hurricane Ida. Fried Shrimp Po’ Boys—plural because one wasn’t enough, Beignets, traditional and cinnamon sugar, oysters and crab, charcuterie and cheese, and late-night/early-morn fried chicken from Willie’s!
EK: Of particular note was Lunch at Galatoire’s. Friday afternoon lunch at Galatoire’s is a THING, and my favorite lunch ritual. This time it was a Three- Martini Lunch event for TOTC, instead of the traditional Milk Punch Lunch, but just as good!
It was hosted by Frank Grillo, an American who moved to Italy and discovered Altamura bread. The bread was so much better than any other bread that he had experienced that he thought, “what would happen if I used the grain to make a spirit instead of bread?” and he did it.
The lunch at Galatoire’s celebrated Frank Grillo’s birthday—which had been his birthday tradition for 16 years—and the launch of Altamura Vodka. The vodka is made in Apulia using the same 2000 year-old ancient-wheat grain that is used to bake the famous Pane di Altamura. The vodka is still in its infancy, and has already racked up the awards, including the Best in Category for International Vodka at the 2023 NOLA Spirits Competition. If you are a vodka drinker, this one’s for you!
And the drinks! So many drinks!
The first cocktail of the trip was the most unusual of the week. It was the Brisket Old-Fashioned at Brewery Saint X. Saint X shares a kitchen with Devil Moon Barbecue helmed by Pitmaster and Chef Shannon Bingham. And we went there to experience the Brisket Old-Fashioned.
If that sounds intriguing, it was.
EK: Fat-washing is a way of infusing the savory flavors of fatty foods into alcohol. You add about 2 ounces or 4 Tablespoons of liquid fat (melted butter, bacon grease, brisket fat) to a 750ml bottle of bourbon or other spirit and let it sit for a day. Once it has infused its flavor, you put the bottle in the freezer so that the fat hardens. Once the fat has frozen/hardened, it is easy to separate the fat from the spirit. You discard the fat and keep the spirit!
For the brisket fat-washing, the chef collects the fat that renders from smoking a brisket using a very gentle heat so the resulting beef tallow is smoky and perfectly seasoned with the rub that was on the brisket. He uses the collected fat to fat-wash Sazerac House Benchmark Bourbon.
As an aside, I had never tasted Benchmark Bourbon before and it tasted remarkably like Buffalo Trace. This makes sense, since it’s the same juice. So here’s a tip for you if you live in a market where you can buy Benchmark Bourbon, buy it. In New Orleans it sells for $11.99 a bottle and it is excellent in cocktails—I even sipped it and it was pleasant!
Back to the Brisket Old-Fashioned, it was served over a large square cube and the flavor was exceptional. It was different from a traditional Old-Fashioned in that instead of being accented with orange, it was accented with cherry bark bitters. The cherry bark bitters were also new to me, and it really brought out the spice in both the bourbon and the brisket flavors.
It was the most interesting cocktail of the week, and that’s saying a lot since I probably sipped on about 100 cocktails.
AU: You drank all of those?!? And you’re still standing??
EK: The term sipped is very important!! As my friend Emily, a.k.a. my spirit guide instructed me, “never finish a drink, because there’s always going to be the next drink, and it’s going to be just as good as the one you’re sipping.”
And, last but not least, the one cocktail that I have already made at home is the Spark Plug courtesy of Darrin Commerford, an Angel’s Envy Austin Whiskey Guardian.
If you know me, you know that I LOVE a 3-Ingredient Cocktail! I mostly drink my spirits neat or on the rocks or with just a couple of mixers like my Summer Sunrise Spritz of Mezcal, Campari and Spindrift.
The Spark Plug is an easy-to-drink bourbon (or rye) cocktail made with espresso and Licor 43. Coffee is showing up in drinks everywhere these days, and what I loved about this cocktail is that the coffee enhances the whiskey and doesn’t cover it up. And the Licor 43 provides the sweetness and adds a nice depth of flavor to the cocktail.
This cocktail is a winner! It’s easy to find the ingredients, it’s easy to make, and it’s super tasty.
Enjoy this one at home!
Darrin Commerford’s Spark Plug
Makes 1 Drink
1.5 ounces Angel’s Envy finished in Port Barrels
1 ounce Licor 34 Liqueur
2 ounces Espresso or Cold Brew
Mix Bourbon or Rye—I used Rye—Licor 43 and the Espresso. Pour over ice. You can use a big cube or lots of traditional ice cubes. It would also be great over crushed ice like a grown-up Snow Cone.
CONGRATS TO **ERIC LAWRENCE** FOR WINNING A COPY OF ‘FLAVORBOMB’ BY BOB BLUMER!!
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