Tales of the Cocktail

Distillery Tour: Old New Orleans Rum

Matt Robold — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 03:59:46 GMT

During Tales of the Cocktail this year, I decided to make a trip down to see Celebration Distillation – home of Old New Orleans Rum. I wanted to get an inside look at how this small American distillery was producing a unique collection of rums that they claim captures the essence of the Crescent City in a bottle.

I spent the morning putting together some notes, and then grabbed a taxi from the Hotel Monteleone to the distillery. The two buildings are only about 3.5 miles apart, but I didn't want to end up lost and figured a cab would be the right way to go. The drive there took a tad longer than I had expected as we navigated the numerous one-way streets of the French Quarter and then traveled through several neighborhoods that were still showing signs of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina. It was a rather jarring reminder that – despite the signs of improvement in the French Quarter – New Orleans has still not fully recovered.

My plan worked like a charm, and we ended up lost in a cluster of industrial buildings, driving up and down rocky, uneven roads. Eventually we found ourselves on the other side of the tracks (literally) and after some searching about, we finally found a modest warehouse on Frenchmen Street in the Gentilly neighborhood with a sign for Old New Orleans Rum, and figured we'd found the right place.

My cab driver gave me his phone number so that I could easily get a ride back (for those of you who wish to go on this tour, I later learned that the friendly people at Celebration Distillation will be more than happy to arrange a taxi back to your hotel), and I ventured inside the open warehouse.

Stepping through the office door, I wandered directly in to the tasting area, where I ran in to Ben Gersh – General Manager for Old New Orleans rum. Ben seemed to be in a hurry (he was preparing to leave for a session at Tales), but stopped and asked me if I was there for a tour. When I responded that I was, he directed me to join one that had just started – pointing in the direction of 2 men being led by another gentleman through the distillery.

The interior of the warehouse was filled with barrels and equipment. The rums produced by Celebration are distilled and aged all within the walls of this dusty warehouse. There are a few tables scattered about for filling out paperwork, and a small tiki-style bar next door to the blending room.

Looking around the distillery you'd never guess that during Hurricane Katrina this building was filled with water to heights more than twice my own, causing extensive damage and loss.

Cassidy Reese – Brand Ambassador, Office Manager (and awesome bartender in the tasting room) – described the aftermath of the hurricane:

"We had approximately 14 feet of initial flood water and when the water settled it was at about 8 - 9 feet. We had to completely gut and redo the bottom floor of the distillery. Mainly the only thing that we seriously salvaged and saved post-Katrina was the column still which was cleaned and repaired and is our greatest work horse."

That still is the original still purchased by owner James Michalopoulos on a trip to Europe. The still was not originally designed for producing spirits, but rather perfume. Michalopoulos purchased the still with no real spirit in mind – just a desire to create a spirit from local produce in New Orleans. Once back in New Orleans, he found himself surrounded by sugar cane fields and the choice was obvious: New Orleans Rum.

Prior to Katrina, Celebration Distillation had been producing rum for about 10 years. After the distillery was nearly wiped out in 2005, Michalopoulos didn’t surrender. Like the city, he started the process of rebuilding.

Cassidy explained some of the effects this had on the distillery and its rums.

“Prior to Katrina our rum was made using only the column still and post-Katrina we purchased a great deal of equipment from a local brewery that went out of business and from the equipment we built our pot still (which greatly enhanced and honed the flavor) as well as all of the large cylinder holding tanks you [see through-out the distillery].”

Upon catching up to the tour, I was introduced to Chris Sule, the head distiller for Celebration. Chris joined the distillery after Hurricane Katrina, coming not from a distilling background, but rather one of brewing beer.

Chris explained that all the rums produced in the distillery are produced in 500 gallon batches. He pointed out the new pot still, which is actually a converted brewing tank. According to Chris, the difference in shape from a traditional pot still imparts a lot of “candy flavors” into the rums produced here.

Chris escorted three of us through the distillery, stopping to show us the equipment used at each step of the process. He even allowed us to sample the distillate and the varying stages, including a finger taste of the 185-proof distillate, and sipping the 150-proof - both of which were actually rather fruity and flavorful.

Next we sampled the batch of 5-year-old single barrel (not available in stores…or anywhere other than from Chris himself actually), which was spicy but smooth, with notes of caramel, pear, cloves, and a peppery finish. From there, Chris took us in to the blending room – which is one of only 2 spaces in the entire distillery with air conditioning (the other space being the office/tasting room).

In the blending room, Chris explained more of his philosophy on creating rum – a philosophy of “taste, not science”. When asked about the process for removing impurities from his creations, he explained that while they do remove some, “if I removed all my impurities, I’d be making vodka.”

Chris then pulled out a bottle of the Old New Orleans 10 Year Old - yet another product of Katrina. As the story goes, upon returning to the distillery after the hurricane, the staff discovered several barrels of old stock floating around the room. As it turned out, some of these barrels were from the distilleries initial batches. 17 barrels of 10 year old stock were blended into a single rum to create the premier item of the Old New Orleans line of rums - available only at the distillery and select bars and restaurants. Shortly after explaining this that Chris apologized, saying that he had to run to Tales of the Cocktail for a presentation. He thanked the three of us for coming and was whisked away by Ben Gersh, leaving only poor Cassidy to deal with a blogger with a notepad and an insatiable thirst for rum.

As with any distillery tour worth its salt, one of the highlights of the Celebration Distillation tour is the time in the tasting room. I bellied up to the bar and Cassidy began pulling out bottles and cups. As she poured each rum, she gave a little background on how the rum was created, as well as the people involved (Celebration Distillation has a kickball team?). As we worked our way through the entire line, Cassidy also made a few of the distillery's signature cocktails, including the New Orleans Cajun Iced Tea. A dangerously tasty and equally powerful drink, it definitely hit the spot on such a hot day.

New Orleans Cajun Tea

1.5 oz Old New Orleans Cajun Spice Rum
0.5 oz simple syrup

Fill a hi-ball glass with ice.
Add the rum and simple syrup, and then fill the glass with unsweetened iced tea.
Stir and serve with lemon garnish.

After chatting for nearly 90 minutes with my new best friend, I looked at my watch and realized that I needed to hit the road to make it back to the Monteleone in time for my next session. I called my cab driver and told him I was ready, thanked Cassidy, and set about to take a few additional pictures.

The visit to the distillery was easily one of the highlights of my time in New Orleans. The staff are friendly and fun, you'll learn a lot about rum, and you even get to have some great cocktails. This tour is definitely something everyone should consider a must-do event when in the Crescent City.

Celebration Distillation
2815 Frenchmen Street
New Orleans, LA 70122
Ph. (504) 945-9400
www.oldneworleansrum.com

Be sure to check back for reviews of the all of the Old New Orleans Rums!

Check Out Dood's Other Distillery Tour Write-Up At Refined Vices

Technorati Tags: rum, old new orleans, distillery tour

Mixology Monday: New Orleans

Matt Robold — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:19:42 GMT

Home safe and sound from Tales of the Cocktail, and I'm still nowhere near caught up in all of my writing...or my detox. It was a dizzyingly enjoyable trip that included a lot of different cocktails that are special to the city that calls itself "The Birthplace of the Cocktail". I sat in bars with bartenders, industry people, and fellow bloggers drinking Sazeracs, Absinthe Suisses, Vieux Carres, French 75's, and a littany of other fine drinks...and for this month's Mixology Monday, Paul Clarke has chosen to honor the New Orleans cocktail experience by naming New Orleans as the theme. You can catch the round-up at the Cocktail Chronicles.

So many classic and fantastic cocktails to choose from, I spent some serious time debating which one should be my submission. Then I stumbled across this photo from Tales:

That's right. A collection of self-proclaimed cocktail snobs participating in the holy ritual of drinking Hurricanes at Pat O'Brien's on Bourbon Street. We didn't do it because we wanted to do it, we did it because people always say that when you're in NOLA, you HAVE to have a Hurricane at Patty-O's.

The Hurricane was invented at Pat O'Brien's during World War II. There was a shortage of whiskey and a gluttony of rum available for making drinks. So the industrious folks at Patty-O's came up with a drink that would allow them to sell drinks with rum in them. They served them in hurricane lamps, and a New Orleans tradition was born!

The only problem with this ritual is that the Hurricanes there are...well...horrid. They're sickly sweet (dare I use the blogger hot-word "cloying"?), spiritually weak, and just all-around bad. It's the nectar of the college tourist. The drink of the non-discriminating palate. I believe the scientific term is "swill" (on a side note, the good news on those drinks is that they ended up being free).

So my choice was made for me, I had to go storm chasing and make a great Hurricane.

I figured I'd start at the bottom and work my way up. So I went and looked up the recipe for Pat O'Brien's Hurricane on their very own website:

Pat O'Brien's Hurricane

4 oz Pat O'Brien's Hurricane Rum or a good dark rum
4 oz Pat O'Brien's Hurricane Mix

Mix ingredients in a 26 oz. hurricane glass, fill with curshed ice, garnish with an orange and a cherry.

Needless to say, this is a recipe I cannot recreate. I don't have any of the Patty-O's rum or hurricane mix - and I am not ashamed of this fact at all. "Proud" would be a better word.

Moving right along to recipes worth trying, I searched the Internet and various bar books to discover that whatever the Hurricane originally was, it has since been so tinkered with and abused that there doesn't seem to be a definitive recipe available. So I cracked open one of my "free with purchase" bar books that litter my countertop and located a recipe that seemed to have some promise.

Hurricane #1

1.5 oz Dark Rum
1 oz Light Rum
1.5 oz fresh orange juice
1 oz fresh lime juice
1oz pineapple juice
.5 oz passion fruit syrup
1 dash Angostura bitters

Combine ingredient in a shaker with ice, shake and strain into a glass with crushed ice. Garnish with a pineapple wedge and a lime wedge.

I still lack an ice crusher, so I did the best I could with a mallet-like device and a plastic bag full of ice. I mixed the ingredients and tried the drink. It was OK. It wasn't too sweet. It wasn't too sour. It wasn't too good. It was incredibly weak and nothing really stood out about it. It tasted like one of those Dole "Orange-Pineapple-Strawberry-Lemon-Mango-Bamboo" juice drinks you can buy in the grocery store.

Of course, looking at the proportions, it's rather obvious that the spirit in this isn't all that much. I should have probably read the top of the page on this recipe:

The original hurricane was superpotent, with double the rum.... If you wish to attempt the classic formula, do so at your own risk.

Oh. Right. We can't have anyone tasting their rum. What was I thinking?

No more fooling around. I went back and found Jeff Berry's recommended recipe for a Hurricane, which is both simple and potent.

Jeff "Beachbum" Berry's Hurricane

2 oz Dark Jamaican Rum
1 oz lemon juice
1 oz passion fruit syrup

Shake with ice, strain into a glass with crushed ice.

Simple. Elegant. Straight-forward. I mixed the drink and poured it into a new glass. The flavor profile is a universe away from the first recipe. The flavors are strong and the drink was rather tart. It may be that I had an extra-sour lemon, or that there's something "off" with my passion fruit syrup, but this drink was puckery.

I had a few sips and decided it needed just a minor tweak to balance the sour flavor. Luckily I had just been to Hi Time and purchased a bottle of Passoa Passion Fruit Liqueur, which seemed like it could very easily do the trick.

The liqueur is incredibly sweet, so you don't need a whole lot. Trayce had suggested that no drink really needed more than a cap-full, which is about a 1/4 ounce. I poured the liqueur in as a floater, and then stirred the drink a bit to mix it together a bit more.

This was better. The sour flavor was still prominent, but not lip-smackingly so.

Jeff "Beachbum" Berry's Hurricane (Modified)

2 oz Dark Jamaican Rum
1 oz lemon juice
1 oz passion fruit syrup
.25 oz passion fruit liqueur

Shake with ice, strain into a glass with crushed ice.

Check out previous Mixology Monday Entries!

Filed Under: rum, mxmo, new orleans

Tale of the Cocktail: 2008 Ministry of Rum Tasting Competition

Matt Robold — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 05:10:52 GMT

Tales of the Cocktail may have officially started on July 16, but for several intrepid rum-lovers, the festivities got going on a little earlier.

On Tuesday, July 15, Ed Hamilton opened the 2008 Ministry of Rum Tasting Competition. This year's competition saw 24 judges sitting on a panel to judge more than 60 different rums and cachacas. Ed had separated the different spirits into their core groups: whites, golds, aged, flavored/spiced, cachacas, and this year saw only 1 rhum agricole and 1 overproof rum (the suspense for who will win the Gold for those categories will not be killing anyone).

The judges were an accomplished group of rum experts from around the U.S., ranging from famous authors to respected bar owners to sommeliers to fantastic bloggers and other who have been reviewing rums and other spirits for years...and some guy that must have compromising photos of Ed or something. It was an impressive group with whom to be seated.

Ed got everyone seated in a room at Arnaud's, and laid out the ground-rules for the tasting. The rules were fairly simple. Nose and taste the rums, write down a score in 4 different categories (aroma, initial taste, body, and finish), and add up the total. Our sheets had spaces for any comments we wanted to make, and we were given another space to specify whether or not we felt the rum was deserving of a gold, silver, or bronze medal. Each scoring category was rated from 0 - 25, adding up to a possible 100 if we found a perfect rum. The only additional rule that Ed supplied was: please do not talk to each other while judging. This was to hopefully prevent the power of suggestion from affecting the final outcome.

We began the day with the flavored/spiced rums, 19 of them in-all. Glasses were laid out on sheets of paper with 1/4 to 1/2 ounce in them, with a number next to each glass. The judges all began the process of nosing and tasting the spirits, which had already filled the room with a fruity perfume due to a problem with the cork covers that Ed had brought to preserve the nose. These being the flavored rums, there was plenty of nose left.

This being my first experience sitting as a tasting judge, I was a tad nervous. The intense, silent focus in the room was reminiscent of taking an important test in school. Martin Cate, from Forbidden Island, had warned me about this the night before, saying, "You'll feel like you're taking your SAT's or something." The only sounds in the room were those of sniffing and the occasional glass clinking.

Every judge seemed to have their own approach to working through the samples. Some nosed all of the glasses first and then rated the noses for the entire group before moving on to the palate, while others worked through a single rum at a time. Most (but not all) judges made use of a spit-cup to prevent intoxication, which could be a real concern with so much spirit on the tables. Between tasting the various samples, judges would cleanse their palates with bottled water and neutral crackers.

After roughly 90 minutes, the judges had all turned in their scoring sheets, and Ed revealed which rums were which numbers. The judges gathered closely around the bar, taking pictures and taking notes on which rums matched their tasting notes and scores. There was a great deal of conversation about the difficulty in judging flavored rums because most of the classical rum characteristics that one looks for are covered with the flavors and spices. Personally I tried to determine what the producer was trying to accomplish (e.g. is this peach or mango?), and then judged by how well I thought their offering demonstrated that desire, or if I could even pinpoint their goal at all.

Following a quick lunch, the judges all filed back in to the room and took their seats in front of a collection of 12 aged and premium rums (followed by a separate rating with a single rhum agricole), and the process was played out in a similar fashion. The rums ranged from well-known and common in the US to rums that are currently not on the market. There were a few surprised looks at the reveal. Blind tasting is very different from what I typically do, and many judges were discussing that in a blind tasting you'll often find that you score your usual favorite rums as the worst and your least favorite rums as the best. Some of that has to do with how your palate changes from hour to hour based on things like what you've eaten or how you feel, and some of it is just the universe making fun of you.

This entire process was played out twice more on Wednesday. In the morning a selection of 18 gold rums was placed in front of the noses and palates of the judges. The reveal followed, and in the afternoon a segmented session first of 7 white/silver/platinum rums, followed by 4 cachacas, and then a single overproof.

After 2 days of drinking rum from 11 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon, the judges and their exhausted palates turned in their final scoring sheets and made their way back to the Hotel Monteleone. After dropping off bags and other sundry items, several judges went with Ed Hamilton to Margaritaville (of all places) for ti' punch. Ed makes a fantastic ti' punch, and the people behind the bar had no problem letting him work in front of the bar to make the drinks.

Finally, on Saturday, July 19, The Minsitry of Rum posted the results of the 2008 Ministry of Rum Tasting Competition. Congratulations to all of the medal-winners!

For those of you interested in reading more about this year's Tales of the Cocktail, be sure to check out the group blog: TalesBlog!

Tales of the Cocktail Live Blog: Potions of the Caribbean

Matt Robold — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:36:20 GMT

10:27am - Finally got my wireless working so I won't be using my blazing fast cellphone for this. I don't think there were this many island shirts and straw hats at Jeff Berry's tiki-themed Spirited Dinner. Jeff "Beachbum" Berry, Wayne Curtis, Martin Cate, and Stephen Remsberg. Behind the bar toils the entirety of what we've been calling the "Tiki Track" - Rick Stutz (Kaiser Penguin), Craig Herman (Tiki Drinks & Indigo Firmaments), Blair Reynolds (Trader Tiki), and Mrs. Beachbum - while Heather (Tiki Mama) breaks up materials for Martin.

10:35am - I tried to help Heather break up the stuff, and now I'm bleeding and need to see the nurse and call my mommy.

10:36am - Jeff stands up and introduces the rest of the panel and the bartenders, which I've already done, so no need to recap that. On to the slideshow! Jeff breaks out his "laser pointer", which is a fishing spear! I need one of those!

10:38am - Jeff begins to detail the pirate's life in the Caribbean as it related to drinking. Circa 1673, punches had become all the rage, originally from the SubContinent, and invaded the Gulf, where ingredients were eventually replaced with rum and any citrus (instead of only lemon).

10:42am - Jeff reviews the recipe for Meeting House Punch.

4 Barrels of beer (approx. 120 gallons)
24 gallons West Indies Rum
35 New England rum
35 pounds loaf sugar
25 pounds muscavado sugar
465 lemons

10:44am - Apparently, drinking rum from the barrel used to be called "sucking the monkey". Jeff's illustrations are...um...suggestive. This phrase came about because naturalists traveling with sailors would occasionally store samples of taxidermied monkeys in the barrels of spirit on the way home, and you would drink the spirits out with a straw. Similar story for "tapping the admiral."

10:47am - Flash-forward to the 1920's and Don The Beachcomber as we move in to his numerous punches - which had a slight kick to them (he was a fan of 151 rum). His famous Zombie cocktail (actually most of his cocktails) were essentially souped up Planters Punches.

10:50am - Catch up to Prohibition. Time to discuss the famous Sloppy Joe's bar in Havana. The inside of this bar was perhaps the only part of Cuba that any Americans ever saw when they visited. The bar was ridiculously long, and well-stocked. While locals never visited the bar, tourists practically lived there.

Apparently, the Sloppy Joe's Bar in Key West is not quite up to snuff. It was opened by a friend of Hemmingway's who was named Joe, and actually decided to plagerize the name of the bar at Earnest's request.

10:55am - Speaking of Hemmingway, here come our La Florida Cocktails:

1 oz Rhum Clement VSOP
1/8 oz Rhum Clement Creole Shrubb
1/2 oz Martini & Rossi Rosso Vermouth
1/4 oz BOLS White Creme de Cacao
1/8 oz Grenadine
1 oz Fresh Lime Juice

10:58am - From Hemmingway to Trader Vick and his tiki creations. He took inspiration from the drinks like the La Florida and tinkered with the concept until he finally came up with our well-known and loved tiki drinks: the mai tai, fogcutter, and scorpion.

11:00am - This just in: Jeffrey Morgenthaler is STILL at the pool. And from there we go to the "Castle Special" from the Castle Harbor Hotel (also known by everyone else in the world as the Mai Tai). Then to the "Lime Tree Cutter" from the Limetree Hotel (fogcutter ripoff), etc. During the boom in tourism in the Caribbean in the '50's, the Hilton resorts essentially ripped off these famous drinks - and then eventually just hired Trader Vick. Of course, the Trader's stint at the Havana Hilton was short-lived, as one Fidel Castro took power in Cuba roughly 5 months later.

11:07am - Wayne Curtis has taken over to talk to us about the various bars in Havana. Wayne, being a real journalist (unlike say....me), was able to go to Cuba for research purposes. He's sharing pictures and stories of his visits to the hotels and clubs that were once the center of the drinking culture in the Western Hemisphere. Apparently things have gone a bit downhill. "I don't care what your political leanings are, [these drinks] are not a good argument for Socialism."

11:10am - Havana reviewed, on to our Rum Pots:

1.5 oz El Dorado 12-year Rum
1/4 oz Fee Brother French Vanilla Syrup
1/2 oz Funkin Passion Fruit Puree
3/4 oz Orange Juice
3/4 oz Fresh Lemon Juice

Shake well with ice cubes and pour unstrained into a glass.

11:14am - And now we discuss the bane of the tropical drink...the scourge we all know as the Pina Colada - brought to you by Hilton! Of course, the Pina Colada cannot be considered ALL bad. Not that it's good, but it did eventually lead to the Pain Killer. And speaking of good drinks, that brings us to Martin Cate!

11:18am - Martin takes us on a tour of the islands and their various important spices and flavors. He gives us an overview on how the spices and flavors are mixed in to rum punches based on a very simple formula. Everyone say it with us now:

One of Sour
Two of Sweet
Three of Strong
Four of Weak

Congratulations, you can no make your rum punches! Go forth and imbibe!

11:23am - Martin's buried cocktail joke (for pimento dram) had everyone in stitches. I'd try to recount it, but there aren't words. I'm going to beg for a copy of the preso and see if I can post it...or if I'm even luckier someone will have it on video and it'll end up on YouTube.

11:26am - Stephen takes over as the Jasper's Jamaican Cocktail is handed out:

1.25 oz Cruzan Estate Dark Rum
1/2 oz St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram
1/2 oz Fresh Lime Juice
1/2 Tsp Fee Brother Rock Candy Syrup

Shake well with ice and strin into a glass. Dust with nutmeg.

11:33am - Stephen's a bit hard to hear, so I've slowed down my updates (which probably makes all of you happy). Jasper's theme in his cocktails was largely that one should be able to taste the rum in their drinks. Not to the point that the rum was overpowering, but at least such that you knew you were drinking rum...as rum drinks should be!

11:37am - Jeff wraps things up with the requisite jab at the drive-thru daiquiri and accepts thunderous applause. More applause now that they're handing out Hubig's New Orleans Style Pies to everyone. Great session. Greatly entertaining and wonderfully informative. If you went to something else, you really missed out.

Cheers!!

Attack Of The Parties

Matt Robold — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:39:56 GMT

This was originally posted yesterday on Tales Blog, and in my haste I neglected to cross-post it. If you haven't been following Tales of the Cocktail on Tales Blog, you should really start doing so today.

As day one of Tales of the Cocktail drew to a close, the festivities fought back, refusing to go gently into that good night. For Wednesday night the order of business was parties.

At 7pm Beefeater hosted a welcome reception for special guests at the Palace Cafe on Canal Street. The party occupied the second floor of the restaurant, with costumed beefeaters guarding the staircase, a photo booth with a collection of costume hats (guess which ones) for silly pictures, an assortment of food, and - of course - a few bars featuring complimentary cocktails made with Beefeater Gin. Guests could have a simple Martini, G&T, or Tom Collins, or move up into the Gin-Gin Mule, Jasmine, or Punch A La Burroughs.

The drinks and food served as excellent lubricant for the mob of people occupying the second floor while they discussed what they had seen during the day, as well as what they were expecting to see over the next few days. Industry big-wigs, notable bartenders, famous authors, and well-known bloggers rubbed elbows and enjoyed libations and tidbits of food.

At 9:30, if your need for sponsored, invitation-only events had not been sated (and you had an invitation handy), the place to be was Arnaud’s French 75, where Clement hosted Save The Daiquiri. A veritable crush of people descended on Arnaud’s for daiquiris and other cocktails made with the various Clement and J.M. Rhums. The bar was (again) full from wall to wall with a current of people getting to the bar to get their drink, and then flowing to the back of the line to cycle through again.

With your thirst for rum slaked (or maybe because the party just came to a close), you could then return to the Hotel Monteleone for the “Bartenders of the World Suite”. This - the last of the formal invitation-only parties for the evening - was billed as ” a relaxed environment where Tales of the Cocktail guests can enjoy a bespoke cocktail prepared by a select group of bartenders from specific regions of the world”. If this made you think of a quiet hotel suite with a few VIP’s on either side of the bar, you were in for a surprise. As each party closed, the crowd of cocktail revelers migrated from one to the other, and well over 100 people moved through the suite to be served drinks by some of the world’s finest bartenders, serving drinks made with St. Germain or Delice de Sureau.

Of course, once the formal parties ended, the informal, impromptu parties began…

Drinking In The Big Easy

Matt Robold — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:26:35 GMT

This is just a short note to let everyone know that I am still alive. I had meant to blog every day that I was here, but yesterday got a bit away from me.

Tales of the Cocktail didn't officially start until today, but the Ministry of Rum Tasting Competition started yesterday. I joined 20+ experts on a panel to taste and score 30+ rums in one day. I'll be doing a complete write-up of the competition tonight after it's all done (we have one session - whites and cachacas - still to go, for a total of 57 rums in 2 days). I will say that this has been an eye-opening experience and that the competition alone made this trip worth the effort.

One thing I am greatly enjoying here at Tales (besides the rum) is getting to meet fellow bloggers and other people that have only ever been screen-names or credits on books or bottles. I spent a great deal of time last night with fellow bloggers like Jay, Jeffrey (thanks for guiding me to French 75), Craig, Craig, Gabriel, Seamus, Rick, Blair, and Paul (I apologize if I missed anyone in that list). We had cocktails at French 75, then wandered down to Pat O'Brien's for the obligatory horrible hurricane-type red drink in a tall cup, before finally lighting at the Carousel Bar, which I have now closed down for two consecutive nights.

Prior to that I had had the great pleasure of having Ed Hamilton make me (and a number of the other judges) ti' punches at the bar in Margaritaville (of all places). It was a great treat - Ed makes fantastic ti' punches, and his process is a sight to behold. Once I get home I'll be posting a video of Ed doing his thing. Had dinner with Ed, Dave from RnDRumReviews, and Martin from Forbidden Island in Alameda.

If you're trying to follow my stumblings, be sure to check out my Twitter feed.