Beyond frozen daiquiris in souvenir cups, New Orleans is a tippler's treasure trove

Story and Photography By:  Sam Meyer

In 1838, chemist Antoine Peychaud set up shop on Royal Street in New Orleans, where he concocted and sold a namesake aromatic bitters as a health tonic. It went down easier with a bit of sugar - and a little brandy, and some absinthe - and Peychaud served it in a double-ended egg cup, called a coquetier. Some say that's the genesis of the word "cocktail." But true or not, New Orleans has been a cocktail town ever since.

From the yearly bacchanal of Mardi Gras to the genteel boîtes of the Garden District, the city's history and essence are inextricably intertwined with alcohol. There's a daily walking tour devoted to cocktails, the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum has displays on absinthe, and you'll find the Museum of the American Cocktail in the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in the Riverwalk Marketplace. Last July the annual cocktail convention, Tales of the Cocktail, went through three tons of ice, 61 cases of limes, and more than 8,000 mint leaves. New Orleans even has an official cocktail - the Sazerac, based on Peychaud's bitters - which is just one of the many fine tipples associated with the Big Easy. Though crowds throng the boisterous bars of Bourbon Street and clamor for Pat O'Brien's signature Hurricane, there's a world of lesser-known delights here awaiting the more refined imbiber.

A good first stop is at the corner of Chartres and St. Louis streets in the French Quarter, where the Napoleon House has stood since 1797. Its name stems from the original owner's offer to allow Napoleon Bonaparte to live here in exile, but the plan died with the emperor at St. Helena, and since 1914 the shabby-before-shabby-was-chic building has been more noted for its restaurant's classic New Orleans cuisine. Get yourself a muffuletta (the famous olive-salad sandwich) and wash it down with the restaurant's signature Pimm's Cup, a tart blend of Pimm's No. 1 (a gin-based English liqueur), lemonade, and lemon-lime soda, garnished with a cucumber slice. Since the base spirit is only 50 proof, you can enjoy a couple of these with your lunch without feeling foggy the rest of the day.

Arnaud's, one of the city's older Creole restaurants, boasts its own museum of Mardi Gras memorabilia, and also operates one of the finest cocktail bars in town: the French 75 Bar. Another local favorite named for a French agent of war - the 75 mm cannon was the mainstay of France's artillery forces in World War I - the French 75 cocktail is only slightly less lethal. This classy but potent mixture of cognac (a more pedestrian version uses gin), lemon juice, simple syrup, and champagne was favored by the restaurant's founder, Count Arnaud Cazenave. More recently, mixologist Chris Hannah has established himself as one of the city's cocktail experts, resurrecting forgotten drinks, pushing the boundaries with new recipes, and even making many of his own bitters, mixers, and liqueurs.

Steeped in the world of cocktails, the Swizzle Stick Bar, at Café Adelaide in the Loews New Orleans Hotel on Poydras Street, makes up for its lack of historical credentials with a liberal dose of showmanship. The bar - run by the Brennan family of Commander's Palace fame - is presided over by "bar chef" Lu Brow and her cadre of talented mixologists, who chip the ice for each drink from an enormous block behind the bar. Try the eponymous Adelaide Swizzle: a tangy long drink of rum, lime juice, Peychaud's Bitters, club soda, and a "secret ingredient" (which this author strongly suspects is the lime- and clove-flavored Velvet Falernum liqueur).

Lü ke, a justly famous brasserie run by Chef John Besh, may seem out of place in this list of cocktailian delights, but only until you step into the bar, which is as exceptional as the food. Here you can enjoy a properly made Ramos Gin Fizz or Sazerac, and this is also one of only a few places left where you can order the endangered Ojen Frappé. Ojen is a now-defunct Spanish anisette that's more popular in New Orleans than in its native land, and Lü ke and the local Martin Wine Cellar own all the remaining stock. When it's gone, it's gone, so get here soon.

Don't be alarmed if it seems like the floor at the Hotel Monteleone's Carousel Bar is spinning - even if you've managed to hit every gin joint in town on your way here. It's turning because the bar mimics a traditional carousel, with the stools circumnavigating a stationary bartender every 15 minutes. Try a Vieux Carre, which was invented by the head bartender in 1938 and given the French name for the district - French Quarter - in which the hotel sits. It's a heady concoction of rye, cognac, vermouth, Bénédictine, and both Peychaud's and Angostura bitters.

Nearby is the Renaissance Pere Marquette Hotel, where Chris McMillian, the dean of New Orleans bartenders, presides over Bar on Common with a generous spirit and good humor; he's also a font of wisdom on everything from the best local restaurants to colorful cocktail lore. Order a classic like the Blue Train from the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book, or an original like his signature Gin Deaux. But for a special experience, order a mint julep and watch as McMillian crushes the ice and lightly muddles the mint, while quoting Kentucky journalist and julep aficionado Joshua Soule Smith: "Then comes the zenith of man's pleasure. Then comes the julep - the mint julep. Who has not tasted one has lived in vain. ... It is the very dream of drinks, the vision of sweet quaffings."

Not so coincidentally, McMillian is one of the founders of the aforementioned Museum of the American Cocktail. If you're still upright after a julep or two, make your way to the Riverwalk Marketplace to see this bastion of priceless cocktail artifacts, from the newspaper in which "cocktail" was first defined (as "a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters"), to menus, bottles, glassware, and shakers.

By the way, you can still buy Peychaud's famous bitters, the linchpin of the Sazerac. Add a little rye whiskey and Herbsaint (the city's home-grown substitute for absinthe), some sugar, and a lemon peel, and you've got a glass full of history. If you've got a particularly well-stocked bar, you can make it at home.

But it tastes better in New Orleans.

WHEN YOU GO ...

Bar on Common
504-525-1111; marriott.com

Café Adelaide
504-595-3305; cafeadelaide.com

Carousel Bar
866-338-4684; hotelmonteleone.com

French 75 Bar
866-230-8895; arnauds.com

Lüke
504-378-2840; lukeneworleans.com

Museum of the American Cocktail
504-569-0405; museumoftheamericancocktail.org

Napoleon House
504-524-9752; napoleonhouse.com