EIGHT
There’s Enough for Everybody, and You Can Never Get Too Much of It
was fresh into town and still feeling human as I hunkered down at the Carousel Bar off the main lobby of the Hotel Monteleone, in New Orleans’s French Quarter. By force of habit, I did a spot survey of who I was drinking with. I always like to check out my temporary family before I get soused with them. The guy sitting one stool over was in his mid-fifties, wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt that read LOVE SUCKS, TRUE LOVE SWALLOWS. From the brown stains slightly obscuring the lettering, I put him on Jack and Cokes. As I soon confirmed, he was downing two for every Louis Armstrong song. And Louis Armstrong is all they play at the Carousel Bar. It was ten a.m. on a Wednesday—pretty close to this guy’s bedtime.
He turned and looked at me, or at least tried to. His pupils were swimming in opposite directions. The old reverse cross-eye. I’d seen this before, of course, sometimes in the mirror. Call it an occupational hazard.
After taking a long contemplative drag off one of the two Marlboros he had going simultaneously, he croaked, “If alcohol kills millions of fuckin’ brain cells, how come it never kills the ones that make me want to drink?”
This turned out to be an entirely appropriate introduction to the 2009 Tales of the Cocktail Festival, the annual bacchanal that puts representatives from the world’s biggest liquor brands in the same room with the world’s biggest celebrity bartenders and the industry’s most notorious journalists/charity cases (still not sure which side of that equation I fall on). It’s the place where the big business of big booze gets done, over many, many libations.
And while the ninth annual Tales event promised to be the biggest yet, the fashion-impaired degenerate next to me felt like a harbinger of some heavy shit to come. Nearly four years after Katrina, New Orleans was still damaged goods, friends. Plus, the second Great Depression and its gut-punch to the tourism trade hadn’t helped the local recovery effort. But there we all were nonetheless, thousands of folks from all over the world, tied together by a common interest in the promotion and consumption of luxury adult beverages. But hey, why not New Orleans, right? It’s not like people are getting killed there. What’s that? They are getting killed? Three in this neighborhood last week? I see.
Despite my twitchy mood, I managed to have a hell of a time—at least as far as I can tell from my trusty notebook and voice recorder (in this profession you learn to live like that guy in the movie Memento). I was apparently blotto for five days straight, no doubt because there were people handing out sample cups of alcohol damn near everywhere you went. Hell, what else is a professional booze writer to do in the Big Easy at a spirits festival? My Playboy editor’s answer to that question, by the way, was, “Oh, I don’t know, Dan. Attend a seminar? Interview someone? Be a, you know, journalist?”
He’s so cute when he’s angry.
According to my trusty voice recorder, here’s how things went down.
10 A.M.—I’m hanging out at the Carousel Bar off the main lobby of the Hotel Monteleone with my new vision-challenged friend. You’ve heard this part before.
There Will Be Blood
BY PDT BARTENDER JOHN DEBARY
2 oz. Old Grand-Dad bourbon (100 Proof)
3/4 oz. Godiva Original Chocolate Liqueur
3/4 oz. blood orange juice
Blood orange twist, for garnish
Shake over ice and strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with a flamed blood orange twist.
Anyway.
8:30 A.M.—That was one powerful goddamn nap. I feel like a new man.
Can people in this town run or what?
“In this economy? We’re all fucked,” he says, handing me a sample cup of absinthe. We nod solemnly and slam ’em. We have just created the official drinking game of Tales ’09. It goes like this: “We’re all fucked! Hey, I know, let’s get even more fucked.”
“Besides,” he adds, shaking his head ruefully, “you can’t get a mustache ride for five cents anywhere anymore.”
I fear he’s correct. The impact of the economic shit storm is definitely evident on Bourbon Street, where women are now getting IOUs instead of beads for flashing their tits. Near the famed Old Absinthe House I run into an executive from a luxury vodka brand who claims the idea that the booze business is recession-proof is a bunch of bullshit. I’m not surprised he’s scared shitless. The guy’s peddling the good stuff at a time when people are saying peace to the high-end hooch in favor of Georgi or even Kirkland (for those of you who don’t buy their toilet paper in bulk, Kirkland is Costco’s house-brand vodka).
“Everybody’s scared things are going to get worse,” he says. “And nobody really knows what to do about it.”
I suggest getting drunk.
And with that, we head back to the Monteleone in search of sample cups. After all, they’re free.
Apparently I called in for a radio segment with Danny DeVito on Playboy Radio’s Morning Show today. I know this because there is a tape. Other than that, however, I have very little in the way of evidence of what happened Friday. Wouldn’t be the first time.
8:30 A.M.—I wake up to discover that some asshole has vomited all over my bathroom. Since I’m alone, the conclusion is obvious: It was housekeeping. I’ll be keeping an eye on them from now on.
“What’s this all about?” she asks.
Drinking game, I tell her. Don’t ask questions.
She nods, and we slam the shots.
11:15 A.M.—OK, nap ran long again. But Christ, I needed it if I was going to walk out of this town alive. Besides, my work here is done. I have taken the temperature of the industry (remind me to wash my thermometer). Now I’ve got bigger fish to fry.
What, you ask? I’m bringing back the five-cent mustache ride. All proceeds will benefit the Imbiber Home for Wayward Spirits Publicists. You can tell the Nobel people to forward the prize to my Playboy editor. That poor bastard deserves it.
“Lost in Oaxaca”
CREATED BY STEVE LIVIGNI
2 oz. Del Maguey Santo Domingo Albarradas Mezcal
1/2 oz. lemon juice (fresh)
1/2 oz. lime juice (fresh)
1 oz. egg whites
2 bar spoons of superfine sugar
Ice
Jalapeño, sliced, for garnish
6 drops Miracle Mile Bitters Co. Chocolate/Chili Bitters
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and dry shake (no ice) with a thin slice of jalapeño pepper. Once you get a nice froth, let the contents rest.
Add ice (preferably one big cube) and shake lightly until the shaker is too cold to handle.
Add one big cube into a double Old Fashioned glass (9 oz. is a nice fit).
Strain the contents slowly into the glass.
Garnish with a very thin slice of jalapeño (no seeds) and 6 drops of Miracle Mile Bitters Co. Chocolate/Chili Bitters.
“As this chapter will reinforce, you never really know what to expect from people, or from cocktails for that matter. I’ve come to expect certain things from Dan Dunn: an unsurpassed thirst for all things fortified, brewed, or distilled; solid stories (including the ones that actually give me a legitimate reason to buy Playboy for the articles); and the kind of joie de vivre that turns a painful eight a.m. call time for his Playboy Radio segments into, say, a full-blown coffee-cup wine tasting in a Glendale, California, studio green room. The ‘Lost in Oaxaca’ is one of those things you don’t expect to be delicious. Mezcal’s worm reputation scares people, raw eggs have gotten NYC bartenders fines from the health department, and jalapeños can definitely burn. Yet when these things are mixed in the right proportions, you get a delicious blend of sweet, spicy, smoky, and savory, with a serious buzz … kinda like Dan. Enjoy, and Salud!”