0:07

Although I'm welcome to say your production of iHeartRadio

0:09

and Stuff Media. I'm Annies and I'm Lauren Vocal

0:11

Bam. And today we have an interview

0:13

for you with one Elizabeth pres

0:16

And uh, this is one from our

0:18

New Orleans trip, which was just about a year

0:20

ago. It will a bit more now, Yeah,

0:22

I was right before Thanksgiving. Gosh right,

0:25

okay. Um. Elizabeth Here's

0:27

um is a drinks historian,

0:30

Um who lives in New Orleans and

0:32

has this amazing podcast called

0:35

Drink and Learn, which is also a tour.

0:37

She she will take you on tour around New Orleans

0:40

and talk about some of the classic cocktails and

0:42

ingredients that you will find in the bars

0:44

there. She's also the author of Drink

0:46

Debt New Orleans. UM. This is a book that

0:49

is a guide to the best cocktail bars, neighborhood

0:51

pubs, and all night dives. Yeah,

0:54

and you probably if you listen to our New Orleans

0:56

mini series, you probably will recognize her

0:58

voice. For used put a bit of her because she was just

1:00

a wealth of fantastic information. It's

1:03

delight to talk to you, oh so much so.

1:05

Yeah, and particularly

1:08

like New Orleans is a place that's very

1:10

famous for its drinking culture right now.

1:12

Um. But also alcohol

1:15

has really shaped a lot of

1:17

the industry there for the

1:19

entire time that New Orleans has been a thing. Yeah,

1:22

and it's a really unique drinking

1:24

scene from probably anywhere else in the

1:27

United States. Absolutely, Um, for reasons

1:29

that that Elizabeth gets into an amazing,

1:32

fascinating, bizarre detail. Yeah,

1:34

we could have kept going and talking to her forever,

1:38

but we had such a pack schedule. I just remember

1:40

at the end being like, but wait, you can

1:43

you can tell me about the water and she's like, yes,

1:47

you have to. Yeah, yeah, and

1:49

right this this was one that went on way longer

1:51

than I think we intended for it to, um,

1:54

but was not long enough.

1:57

So many of our interviews could be described that

1:59

way. Lute. Yeah,

2:02

but yeah we will at former Lauren and

2:04

Annie and Elizabeth take it away.

2:09

I'm Elizabeth Pierce. I'm a drinks the

2:11

storian here in New Orleans. Good

2:13

story, right, Yeah, it

2:16

seems obvious and

2:18

then people say how did

2:20

you how did you end up here and

2:22

not New Orleans? But you know, like how did you start

2:25

doing this? And do

2:27

you want to hear it's a It's a super short story.

2:30

Even if it were a long story, okay.

2:32

So I helped to create and open

2:34

the Southern Food and Beverage Museum. I was the

2:36

founding curator there, despite

2:39

having no academic background in museums

2:41

or history. A strong liberal arts

2:43

education prepares you to do anything, which

2:45

I bet both of you, all of you who might agree with right

2:48

absolutely so um. I

2:50

worked with Lois Williams for four years um

2:53

learning how to make something out of nothing, and

2:55

that mattered because the museum

2:58

opened in early two thousand eight, and of

3:00

course that year ended with the Great Financial

3:02

Apocalypse. Funny dried up, everybody

3:05

got laid off. I went on unemployment,

3:07

drank heavily, and dated a musician,

3:10

which is the holy trinity if you just

3:12

need to shift your professional path. So

3:15

two thousand nine was the last year. It was

3:17

a year there were no jobs. It was the year

3:19

that I learned that both unemployment and musicians run

3:21

out after six months. My favorite joke, even though

3:23

we're both still friends and

3:26

the museum stayed open through volunteers, that

3:28

I needed a paying gig. So

3:30

I decided to take all of the programming that I

3:33

had been presenting that I had written and presenting

3:35

with the museum and I began to sell that to

3:37

convention and meeting planners. So

3:39

it was the history of New Orleans through food

3:41

and drink, And after a couple

3:44

of years, I saw which way the wind was blowing. There

3:46

are a lot of people in this town that can talk about gumbo,

3:48

but very few were grounding the narrative of the

3:50

city through its drinks. Thus was born drink

3:53

and learn what a what a drink?

3:55

And learned to drink and learn attempts

3:57

to um, to

4:00

ground the narrative of a place

4:03

through its drengths in the same way

4:05

that we're all pretty comfortable understanding

4:07

history through war is very grim

4:10

um or politics or religion, um

4:14

or even art. Uh. And

4:16

now I think even food people are much more

4:18

comfortable with um consuming

4:20

culture or or under framing culture. You

4:23

know, in terms of food, the

4:25

drinks thing is always a surprise. But the

4:27

thing is it's there even when it's not there.

4:30

So even when it's illegal, it's still part of the story.

4:33

And when I say drinks historian, because

4:35

I'm in New Orleans, everybody assumes that means booze,

4:38

but it doesn't. Necessarily I can talk about

4:40

the non alcoholic stuff, and frankly water.

4:43

The story of like drinkable water is

4:46

um is fantastic and important

4:48

and um and obviously still not

4:50

available in parts of the world. So

4:53

it is Uh. It's the history of commerce

4:56

and sanitation and of

4:59

despair, enjoy and prohibition

5:02

and consumption and all of those

5:04

things are are in our drinks.

5:08

Um. I'm stopping myself

5:10

from going on a giant water radical

5:12

rate. That sounds incredibly Yeah.

5:15

I just put it over there. Yeah yeah,

5:17

how however long you have to talk with us, I'm

5:19

going to come back to it. But UM,

5:22

but so how did

5:25

how did New Orleans become the

5:28

I mean so many drinks started here? Um?

5:32

What environment let that

5:34

happen? So I'm

5:36

gonna answer a slightly larger question than

5:38

that, which is like why New Orleans and drinking?

5:41

Because that is that is how people

5:44

and New

5:46

Orleans and drinking is how many people

5:49

understand my city. UM.

5:51

Some people come for the architecture, and they totally

5:54

should. We have beautiful architecture, we have

5:56

amazing food and music. But

5:59

there are other cities that also have these

6:01

elements. But somehow

6:05

or additionally, UM,

6:08

people come here and they expect to drink

6:11

a lot, or they expect to see a lot

6:13

of people drinking, even if they're

6:15

not drinking, and they will either

6:17

look upon in amusement or

6:20

judgment or horror. Um.

6:22

But the expectation is always there. And

6:26

it's actually part of the reason that I

6:28

ended up kind of focusing on the drinking,

6:30

because I felt like it was a distinguishing

6:33

element about the city. Like you

6:35

cannot understand New Orleans unless

6:37

you understand it's drinking. You're

6:40

not required to participate in it, but you

6:42

listen, need to know what's going on. And

6:45

um, I think, well,

6:47

there are a lot of factors, but

6:50

you gotta go all the way back to the founding

6:52

of the colony, and we

6:55

were pretty much left

6:57

alone by Frozen. You're

7:00

founded by France. We were left alone

7:02

by France because they couldn't figure

7:04

out a way to make money from

7:06

New Orleans. Tried indigo, didn't

7:08

really work, furs would

7:10

spoil unlike UM. I

7:13

mean, there's some some tanning that went on, but not like

7:15

Canada where anything's freezing like forever

7:18

furs um cotton.

7:21

Cotton will grow here, it's too wet, and they

7:23

hadn't figured out sugar. And plus they

7:25

had all of these colonies in the Caribbean,

7:27

Santa Bang in particular, so sugar

7:29

they had, and not

7:33

long after, you know, they had

7:35

the colony, but they were not really

7:38

taking care of it, which meant that boats

7:40

were not coming here. Um,

7:44

the food was not coming on the regular. A

7:47

lot of people that were sent here were not

7:49

people who could necessarily take care of themselves

7:51

in a swampy environment, like thieves

7:55

and prostitutes and criminals

7:57

in general. Um. The illustrative

8:00

quote about that is there was a governor, our last

8:02

French governor, Carolac. He was sent over

8:04

to kind of clean up the town and he told

8:06

Louis whichever Louis it was fourteen

8:08

fifteen suthing like if I sent

8:11

home all of the criminal elements

8:14

of New Orleans or Louisiana, there

8:16

would be no one left. So

8:20

but what that what that means is, um,

8:23

you had people who were already

8:26

stewed to not entirely respect

8:29

the law and then had nothing

8:31

to support the thought that

8:33

they should. So smuggling

8:35

begins quickly, um

8:38

with primarily the Caribbean, because it's

8:40

like right there, although things are also

8:42

coming down the river on Mrsimi River and

8:46

you're getting um, you know, basic

8:48

food stuffs, but you're also getting liquor because

8:50

liquor keeps. People

8:53

wanted wine wine from France if they

8:55

could get it, but wine on a

8:57

sea voyage unless it's fortified like port

8:59

or Madeira, it's not showing

9:01

up in the best of state. UM.

9:04

So like from I

9:07

think seventeen forty seven forty two because

9:10

when you have the first taverns that open licensed

9:14

by the crown, and the fees

9:16

to open. These taverns supported

9:20

uh the charity hospital and

9:23

a and like and

9:26

also assisted orphans. So

9:29

I love this. From the very early states, we were

9:31

drinking, you know, for the sick and the children. Um.

9:34

But but it's because

9:37

like we're in a swamp. Life was

9:39

hard, the government's ignoring you. Things

9:42

are goind of crappy. Then like you you drink,

9:44

right, this is what people do and people continue

9:46

to do in difficult situations. And

9:50

you can contrast that with another

9:53

colony that is growing around

9:55

the same time, and that would be in New England.

9:59

But the people who settled in New England, we're

10:01

not thieves, criminals. They were

10:03

very earnest, they were hard

10:06

working. They believed in um,

10:09

you know that that God had brought them to this

10:11

new place and the way

10:15

that the pilgrims drank was

10:18

they drank beer because

10:20

that was safe, you know, safe safe drinking instead

10:22

of water. Um, and being

10:26

a drunk was was

10:28

viewed as something that could be very

10:31

detrimental to the colony. If you're

10:33

drunk, thing you can't plow, can't

10:35

build a cabin or whatever. It

10:37

wasn't only about the morality of

10:40

intoxication. It was about the logistics

10:43

of the colony. And that

10:47

was not around here. That

10:49

was not an issue. It was

10:51

a very independent streak um.

10:56

And also way

10:58

more men than families.

11:01

The women come later, um.

11:05

And so you have you

11:08

have a lot of single men

11:11

in a pretty crappy situation with

11:14

unreliable food. Maybe

11:17

you know, hunting, maybe the Native

11:19

Americans are going to give you something. But

11:21

like the one solid the

11:24

one through line is rom

11:27

doesn't spoil um

11:30

or brandy if you could get it. And

11:32

this continues even as

11:34

New Orleans grows and

11:37

we become prosperous because

11:39

we get into the sugar industry, which I think Jessica

11:41

might have talked with you all about a little bit

11:43

like the influence of the Caribbean and Santa may So

11:46

the city flourishes in the eighteen

11:49

thirties, So now we have families and stuff.

11:51

However, who is coming here

11:54

to unload their raft

11:57

from Kentucky? These

11:59

like wild drinking, They

12:02

were called kane. Tuck's just

12:04

still a word we toss around it right now and then. And

12:07

you know, it's like a jug of whiskey

12:10

chained to the rudder you're

12:13

pulling down the river. You

12:15

arrive, you sell whatever it is you're selling,

12:18

and now you're a single man in

12:21

a port town with money

12:23

in your pocket, and you multiply that

12:26

by the thousands. So

12:29

it is this. It

12:31

isn't the only thing that's

12:34

happening here, but it is

12:36

happening for a considerable

12:39

amount of time that New Orleans

12:41

is a party town. And

12:44

in fact, even when we were still a French colony,

12:47

like the news back in Spain which just kind

12:49

of talk about New Orleans as this like exotic

12:53

other we were always framed kind

12:55

of in terms of the way that the Caribbean was,

12:58

but we didn't have the place intation

13:00

economy yet. Um. There were people

13:02

of color were enslaved, some free also,

13:05

Um, So it was this zotic locale,

13:07

but not in the same way that Santa Me wants um.

13:11

But anyway, so all of these like facets

13:14

contribute to an

13:16

identity, and that

13:19

one of the pillars of that identity

13:21

is about cutting

13:25

loose, and drinking

13:27

is an integral part of that. Eventually

13:33

that is like woven into

13:35

how people understand New Orleans. And

13:38

the food is coming into because of France,

13:40

you know, like French, just like you're what

13:43

you eat is a part of who you are. And

13:46

and then we you know, we've become Americans, like a particular

13:48

kind of a folks coming down the river,

13:51

and and then you

13:54

know, and then here we are, and

13:56

everything that gets sort of created

13:58

or tied onto that

14:01

reinforces this very very early

14:04

iteration of the city's sensibility.

14:07

There's a really great book that you will not have time to read,

14:10

and it is called Accidental City

14:14

and it gets to you to eighteen o three, the Louisiana

14:16

Purchase. And I read that book

14:18

and I was like, like, that's my city.

14:21

Like we had we were who we were by

14:24

eighteen o three, and then it

14:26

just continued. Now, oh,

14:30

when did the bar scene develop kind

14:33

of kind of what it is like like sort of

14:36

what you see to today, which is actually

14:38

a very large question. I suppose because there's a lot of different

14:40

bars around the room. Game. Yeah, um,

14:43

so I think that again

14:46

the the So

14:50

there's this Southern sense

14:52

of hospitality, and

14:55

that comes from the fact that most

14:57

of the South was a grarian and rural

15:00

So this is like going back to the Greeks and stuff

15:02

like, you have to be hospitable to the stranger

15:05

because they've probably traveled very far and there's nowhere

15:07

else, you know, there's no else to go. And

15:10

so that Southern nous is something that

15:12

becomes a part of New Orleans, even though

15:14

we are a city. So hospitality

15:17

is like in there, and that

15:20

translates to a plus,

15:23

like how can you make money. We have

15:25

a lot of people coming here and they're thirsty or they're

15:28

hungry, and so bars

15:32

open in places where they're going to be successful,

15:35

which means you need a thriving

15:38

economy or you need enough economy to

15:40

sustain it. So by

15:42

the eighteen thirties, New Orleans is becoming very, very

15:45

wealthy. And while fortunes

15:47

dip after the Civil War, they don't

15:49

entirely because we're a port town. In

15:52

contrast to um parts

15:55

of the South that were completely depended on

15:57

cotton and like that's all they had or something.

16:00

Um. And we were a tourist town

16:02

and we didn't you know, we weren't burned. And people

16:04

people keep coming here. UM.

16:07

So places are open

16:09

because they're going to be able to stay open because

16:11

people want to come here. And by by

16:14

the late nineteenth century, everybody was like, oh, it's

16:16

a fun place to be. So

16:18

I think you you draw entrepreneurs

16:22

um, whatever that means, to places

16:26

to open a business that they believe it

16:28

will be successful in. And

16:30

New Orleans has like there

16:32

are there are things were not very good at. But one

16:35

of the things we are good at is showing showing people a

16:37

good time, and so you want

16:39

to It's kind of like what happened in Nashville.

16:41

It's like it starts with one brewery and then you're,

16:43

oh, the brewis goes not so bad, and then let's have another

16:45

brewery, and then you know, and then it grows and grows.

16:48

And so I would

16:50

say the the quantity of

16:53

the bars is you

16:55

know, sort of comes up out of that long

16:58

line of like knowing I'm an open

17:00

there's a lot of people They're gonna come drink. Also,

17:03

locals drink because

17:06

the summer's summer slow, and

17:08

so you need the locals to keep you open

17:12

when it's not you know, tourist season.

17:16

However, um, I

17:18

would say over the last well,

17:22

like since Katrina, definitely, but

17:24

maybe over the last twenty years or so, the

17:27

city has been um embracing

17:31

external trends, like we never

17:34

quit serving cocktails, but the consoles were

17:36

pretty like basic, like a

17:38

you know, the old fashioned in the Manhattan. The

17:40

standbys never went away because

17:43

people drink like their parents and their grandparents

17:45

here. I think the rest of America by

17:48

the sixties and seventies people are like, screw the

17:50

old man, whatever he's doing, I'm not going to do that.

17:53

But here people would continue to

17:56

go to restaurants and

17:58

bars that they their parents have

18:00

gone to grandparents, and you order

18:02

sort of the same thing. The old fashioned

18:04

never died. But eventually

18:08

you have other people who come

18:10

in and say, there's

18:12

this craft movement like

18:15

fresh Juice and you know, and all

18:17

of that, and you

18:19

know, I mean got Neil Bodenheimer at Cure.

18:21

He really was like he's a homeboy, and

18:24

he went away and then he came back and

18:26

he opened here and he said,

18:29

he's like this is gonna be This is a New York bar, This

18:32

is not any Warleans bar. And

18:37

and he actually uh ended

18:40

up kind of anchoring and a neighborhood

18:42

that has been revitalized. Uh

18:45

So he saw that opportunity and

18:47

he kind of could see ahead too that

18:50

this could be a town that can embrace

18:53

not just an older way of drinking,

18:55

but a newer way of drinking. Why

18:58

do you think that sense of tradition

19:01

um exists here? And

19:03

where you know, every time we do an episode

19:05

about a park tale like we're like and then there was a

19:07

dark time of the nineteen eighties, Yeah,

19:10

where everything sacks on the beach and

19:14

um, what what do you think that that's as a traditions

19:17

instrum here? Well, I mean I think

19:19

that we are a city whose sportunes

19:21

have been built on presenting

19:25

an ideal that

19:29

people arrive here expecting that

19:33

simultaneously we also

19:36

believe in so

19:40

like if

19:42

no one ever came to listen to a jazz

19:44

musician ever again, people

19:46

would still like learn to

19:50

play instruments because

19:52

that is a part of our cities culture. But

19:55

we and I it's like as New

19:57

Orleanians, but especially those

20:00

of us who work in the hospitality industry. We

20:02

are performing New Orleans

20:04

for you. And so

20:09

these elements, this

20:11

like cocktail culture or drinking

20:13

culture, actually let's call it drinking culture,

20:16

was defined early on, like late

20:18

nineteenth century, like these, these

20:21

the satarak, the old fashion in

20:23

Manhattan, like these things have

20:25

just been part of the through line, this thread,

20:29

and so we just kept doing the same

20:31

dance over and over. Plus

20:33

we like them. They're delicious, uh,

20:36

I mean, there are historic cocktails that nobody drinks

20:39

anymore because they're disgusting, you

20:42

know, like the good ones, the good ones

20:44

emerge. We have some

20:46

more for you of our interview with Elizabeth

20:48

the First we have a quick break for word from our sponsor.

21:01

We're back, Thank you sponsor. Let's get back into the interview.

21:04

So I do want to tell

21:06

you something though, because I think you're your

21:09

listeners would be interested in knowing

21:11

why we have open containers, right

21:13

absolutely, yeah, all

21:16

right, So you're going to get a very short

21:18

history of drinking in public in America.

21:21

Looks like five centiss So,

21:23

drinking in America in public was

21:25

legal until about the nineteen

21:28

sixties. What was illegal was public

21:30

drunkenness, and that goes

21:32

like the pilgrim thing that I told you about. So

21:36

in the nineteen fifties, there

21:38

was an alderman in Chicago who

21:41

had been hearing from the police that

21:43

they were struggling with this thing

21:46

that was called bottles.

21:49

So it's a group of singlemen, indigence

21:52

or homeless or whatever, and they

21:54

pull their money and they buy one bottle

21:56

liquor stand

21:58

on a corner, passing around. Eventually

22:02

there'd be a fight, would be some sort of trouble, and

22:05

the cops said, we want to stop this before

22:08

it starts. How can we do

22:10

this? And so the

22:13

city council said, okay,

22:16

no more drinking in public. Now

22:19

you don't have to wait for somebody to be drunk or

22:21

to cause a fight or whatever. We're gonna

22:23

nip this problem in the button. Over

22:26

time, other cities

22:29

began adopting this because

22:33

vagrancy laws began

22:35

to be tossed out as um

22:38

unconstitutional. You

22:40

can't arrest some money just because they're hanging around,

22:44

and so this was a way for cities

22:47

to get in front of a

22:49

homeless problem, what I can

22:51

call the hobo factor. And

22:54

of course there were some people

22:56

who were targeted in some people who weren't people

22:59

of color, You're core and

23:02

um these laws are enacted piecemeal

23:06

cities, counties across

23:08

the country, and then of course if one county does it, then

23:11

the county next to it will do because then people are just moving

23:13

right, So eventually

23:18

it becomes pretty much illegal to drink anywhere

23:20

in public in the United States by

23:23

like the mid nineteen seventies. In

23:27

the meantime, the

23:29

Orleans had a vice district prior

23:32

to World War One. It closed

23:35

actually because of World War One,

23:37

because all of these soldiers were getting STDs,

23:39

and the U. S Government was like, if you want to be

23:42

a port and embarkation, you

23:44

have to um not have all

23:48

the free love. So uh,

23:52

this Vice district was also a

23:54

home of jazz. Story Bill

23:57

and like Louis Armstrong

23:59

play the Storyville King all or all these

24:01

great musicians. So that gets

24:04

shut down and then it's prohibition, which

24:07

like everybody Charlie durned during Prohibition. But

24:10

the clubs are you know, less

24:13

um less accessible,

24:16

less uh less reliable

24:19

because there were still raids and things. And

24:23

it's not until World War

24:25

two when we become a port

24:27

of embarkation again and you have

24:30

tens of thousands of single

24:32

young men with money in their pocket coming

24:34

through here looking for a good time. And

24:38

Bourbon Street was a commercial street. It

24:40

was not an entertainment district. But

24:42

a lot of these clubs that had closed before

24:45

World War One kind of begin reopening.

24:48

You create this new district. And

24:52

so it's not until after and there's

24:54

this it's actually I'm pulling

24:56

this information from a book by Richard Campanella,

24:58

which is Bourbon's Bourbon's Street, a geography.

25:02

Um so he he did all the hard

25:04

work on this, and so

25:07

it's not until after World War two that you really begin

25:09

to see Bourbon Street showing up in like travel

25:11

magazines or tourism things. And

25:15

again it's clubs where people

25:17

go inside to listen to music, to

25:19

eat, and it's

25:22

it's like going to Vegas and going to see a show,

25:24

you know, and locals

25:27

went there. It was classy, where your gloves

25:29

you had, you know. So unfortunately,

25:33

many of these places were owned by the mob, and

25:37

they were money laundering. There was prostitutional

25:39

gambling happening in the back. And

25:41

eventually we get an earnest d

25:44

a who's like, I'm gonna shut all this down,

25:47

conducting lots of raids, and

25:49

it becomes this quote of seedier and

25:51

seedier locals don't want to go um.

25:55

If you don't have vice money,

25:57

then you can't keep up the the

26:00

shine the inside and

26:02

little I little these clubs

26:04

UM they either close or they're barely staying

26:07

open, and nobody wants to go in. And so one

26:10

bright day, an unknown

26:13

employee opened a window

26:17

and sold a drink through that window. You

26:19

don't even have to come in my club. I'll

26:21

just sell you a drink right here. And

26:23

soon a lot of

26:25

people started doing it, particularly

26:27

on Bourbon Street. The city

26:30

council tried to shut it down. Um

26:33

the vall was overturned as being like

26:35

too vague because I think they wrote it hastily.

26:38

But then by then everybody's making a lot of

26:40

money and people really like it because

26:43

you can't do it anywhere else in the United States.

26:46

Initially the plan was to just keep it

26:48

in the French Quarter, and

26:50

they decided it would be too confusing for tourists,

26:53

which is actually what Savannah did. Savannah

26:56

kept it in a historic district, but not

26:59

the rest of the city. But even pushing it, everybody's

27:01

pushing it because if you're like one block over. Why

27:04

can't I do that? You know? So?

27:07

Uh so here we are, so

27:09

that is why it is legal

27:12

to walk around with a drink here. But I

27:14

really I always encourage visitors

27:17

to try to drink in the open like we

27:20

do, which is it's

27:22

not a desperate, forced

27:24

march where

27:27

you have to arrive

27:30

at a destination of profound intoxication

27:33

in a very short time. But

27:36

instead it's just like we

27:40

pour a go cop as we

27:42

call him, go cup. My

27:45

husband and I poor a go cup and we walk our dog,

27:48

or if we're walking down the street to a

27:50

friends for dinner a couple of blocks

27:52

away, poor a go cup,

27:54

which is frankly, I think a lot of people do in in

27:57

this country, but they put it in a furnace, you

27:59

know. Um we

28:02

I have had beer at children's

28:04

birthday parties in public, you

28:06

know, on the on the levee. And

28:09

it isn't this unlike

28:12

the rest of the country where drinking

28:14

in public is now associated with vagrancy

28:16

and poverty and it's

28:19

seedy or vulgar

28:23

um. Here it just is it's

28:26

just a delight. It's

28:28

very civilized and

28:31

it isn't hasty. And

28:34

if you have a drink in your hand. And this is

28:36

true for coffee too, but you

28:39

have a beer, it'll kind

28:42

of slow you down and makes you pause, kind

28:45

of look around, like, oh, I

28:48

had noticed that house in my neighborhood

28:50

before that balcony, stop

28:52

and listen to a musician, Like it

28:55

alters the way that you interact

28:59

in public space. And

29:02

the other thing that I think it does, and this is stretching

29:04

it a little bit, but like go with me, Okay,

29:09

when you are in a restaurant,

29:13

we all were all at a table and

29:15

if someone came and joined us, we

29:17

would look askance at them. That is weird

29:20

because this is like our area

29:25

and it's like we planted a flag right

29:29

safer. But

29:34

if you're at a bar where people

29:36

sit next to you and they will talk

29:38

to you, and you do not think there is anything amiss

29:41

with that. Now you may not talk back to them,

29:44

or I maybe creepy or whatever, but the

29:47

the interaction is

29:49

publicly sanctioned and

29:54

it often leads to some really

29:56

delightful encounters unexpected.

29:58

You know, you meet people in a bar, you

30:01

don't meet in a restaurant

30:03

the same way. And so I

30:05

believe that the

30:08

walking with the drink and

30:11

carry the spirit of the bar, which

30:14

that it makes you just a little

30:16

more open to the

30:19

chance encounter the possibility. Um.

30:23

Yeah too engage

30:26

with the world around you. Yeah.

30:29

And if it's not, I mean a lot of other

30:33

a lot of other cultures in America,

30:36

I think think of drinking as

30:38

like a way to get drunks and

30:43

it has to be No. I mean it does,

30:46

it does, and it can and

30:48

we do. Um. But

30:50

the other thing is, in general,

30:54

I mean, let's all acknowledge like alcoholism

30:56

is an illness and it is a problem. There

30:59

are a lot of but there are a lot of problems

31:01

that are around.

31:05

So I'm not condoning anybody

31:08

who you know, struggles with that. Having

31:12

said that, Um, we

31:14

live in what was in a

31:17

country that is governed

31:19

by a very profound Protestant ethic.

31:23

Um. You know, how many listicals about

31:25

productivity can there possibly

31:27

be? You think you're you think you've seen them all, and

31:30

there's there's just more and

31:33

books about getting things done right.

31:37

And that is not a

31:41

It's not high in the list of values

31:43

of New Orleans. It doesn't mean that we don't

31:46

It doesn't mean that we don't accomplish anything,

31:49

but we value you

31:52

know, interaction and family

31:54

and friends, you know all that. And

31:57

so because of that, if you have

31:59

too much to do and you wake up hungover,

32:02

as long as you have not bothered anybody,

32:06

then no one is shaking their finger at

32:08

you and saying, oh, you

32:10

wasted. You know, at the time, it's

32:13

like this happens. Trying

32:15

not to make it happen too regularly. Um,

32:20

but like this is what it is to be human.

32:23

It is one of the things. And it goes

32:25

like way back, just

32:29

so far back that you

32:32

know, as early as

32:34

there was alcohol, there

32:36

was toasting. And it's this way

32:39

to create an engage

32:41

with community. And

32:43

no, you don't have to have it, but for

32:46

some reason it helps

32:51

I tast

32:59

No, I guess I say cheers. Yeah,

33:02

it's also my I signed my emails

33:05

cheers. And it's how Abigail and I end

33:07

our podcast. Yeah. So now that I

33:09

think about it, they say, chairs, yeah, it's

33:12

a good one. Um. Do

33:14

you do have a favorite cocktail

33:17

stories from most of those some of the big ones

33:19

in the class? Bo uh? I

33:21

mean, you know, you get I'm

33:23

sure that most of them come down to I

33:25

was born at my bar and bourt things into a glass

33:28

but are there are there any really really

33:31

good works? Okay, So I'm

33:34

not going to give too much away about

33:36

the Sazarak because

33:39

I would encourage your listeners to

33:41

check out the Drink and Learn podcast and listen to the Sazarak

33:44

episode. UM. And

33:46

the reason that you should do that is because Um,

33:50

Abigail and I tell the entire

33:52

history of New Orleans using only the ingredients

33:54

and a Sazerak cocktail. So the

33:56

Sazarak is the official cocktail of New Orleans. In

33:58

two thousand eight, the easy in a legislature

34:01

passed a resolution making the Sazeract

34:03

the city's official drink. And

34:05

that sounds like a joke, but in fact it

34:07

is. It is just rounded in the story

34:10

of the city and every component

34:13

of it was either invented here, found

34:16

a home here is illustrative

34:19

of people who came here, whether

34:22

it's French, Caribbean, American, all

34:24

of these forces that kind of combined to

34:27

um to inform the

34:30

evolution of the city. UM.

34:34

So that's I mean,

34:37

that's kind of it's it's a story I tell a lot because

34:39

I, uh, because

34:42

I get hired to do it. Um.

34:45

But but yeah, they and I think really

34:49

more than any cocktail I can think of. There's

34:53

so much just literally in

34:55

the glass. I like,

34:58

I listened to y'all's Manhattan, which

35:01

tends to be more representative of other cocktail

35:04

histories, and it's like they're

35:07

started to be the seven. There was a new product

35:09

Vermouth. People are trying to figure out

35:11

how to use it. Maybe it happened

35:13

here, maybe it happened there. It got this great

35:16

name of a place that was has

35:18

a lot of people. So everybody's like, hey, let's

35:20

drink in Manhattan. UM. And

35:23

I have I've read Phil Green's book. It's great,

35:25

UM, but particularly because he talks about like

35:27

what Vermouth did and how it changes, how

35:29

it so the Manhattan occurs

35:32

on a continuum of drinks

35:35

starting with the original

35:37

cocktail, whiskey cocktail, UM,

35:41

and it becomes called an old fashioned

35:43

because people begin doing

35:45

all kinds of stuff with this very

35:48

basic thing. And then you have what I like to

35:50

call old man who shakes fists at skuy, who's

35:53

like, I want my whiskey cocktail the old fashioned

35:55

way, And eventually that is that's

35:58

how it becomes called that. So

36:02

many cocktails the

36:04

story that they tell they

36:08

can be standalone, but they're more interesting

36:11

in looking at the continuum, it's like what came

36:14

before? How

36:16

did this evolve? And

36:18

it's rarely about one

36:21

guy um And

36:23

I think that if there's any takeaway

36:25

here, you are

36:28

never inventing a cocktail

36:31

in a vacuum. And all

36:34

of your environment and all of the history of drinking

36:37

is like informing you. So

36:41

whenever people talk about like who invented

36:43

the dacri, it's like the Caribbean

36:47

invented the dacori because

36:49

you have rum, and you have a lime,

36:52

and you have sugar and they're all

36:54

there. And so people

36:57

have been drinking dacris like forever

37:00

and then eventually it's like,

37:02

oh, it's in Cuba and there's this room and

37:04

this sugar and this look, this is the name

37:07

of a place and I'm drinking it here and I'm a white

37:09

guy who you know is gonna

37:11

go back and tell my story. But

37:15

so that's like I guess. But when I say,

37:17

like, when you asked me like for a good story, that's

37:22

that to me is like the better story. And that's what this,

37:24

That's what drink and Learn is about. It's

37:26

like if you've got them all in a line, got

37:29

all the like all the cocktails you

37:31

would get like the World World History, and

37:34

everyone says they wish that I were their American

37:36

history teacher, and I say it whiskey helps,

37:39

but but it's true. Um,

37:43

I will tell you this is

37:45

probably not gonna make it in there, but I'm going to tell you one

37:47

of my favorite stories of somebody making a drink.

37:50

My friends Stevia Mata, who works

37:52

at Latitude twenty nine, fantastic TV

37:54

bar, super talented bartender. Um

37:57

kind of made his way, worked his way,

38:00

did a lot of catering gigs withky

38:02

soda, rum and coke kind of thing. Didn't

38:05

know anything about uh

38:09

cocktails, and so

38:11

he parleyed a job into

38:14

parleyed like this past catering experience

38:17

when I think he was underage, you know, and

38:20

the eventually gets a job at Bubba Gumps. So

38:23

somebody orders an old Fashioned and he doesn't know what that

38:25

is, and so we asked the bartender.

38:27

It was like a little guy, It's like, how

38:29

do I make that? What do I do? Because there was no internet?

38:32

There's not on your phone right like

38:34

there was probably a Mr Boston's or something. So

38:38

he says, grab the bottle

38:40

with the paper on it. Meaning the bidders

38:44

just make it to put some put some whiskey

38:46

and sugar, mush up a cherry and

38:49

then the bottle. At the paper Steve

38:53

made an old old Fashioned with

38:56

Worcester sauce, and

39:00

it was it was not sent back. He

39:02

made four of them that night, presumably

39:05

for the same person who thought was an interesting

39:07

I mean, like at its essence, it

39:10

is a bitter product, you know. Ummi.

39:13

But yeah, so that's my favorite,

39:16

Megan a drink story, you

39:20

know, had Steve. If this makes

39:22

it in there, it's not anywhere else story.

39:24

I don't think maybe he was here. I've never

39:27

thought about it, but I think that like that anchovy

39:29

note and risty she would it could actually be really

39:31

good with whiskey. Yeah, you have to have a very little

39:34

bit that I feel like he was blug

39:36

blug yeah. Um.

39:40

Speaking again about

39:42

the sense of community around here, how

39:45

does a lot

39:47

of cultures are a little bit jealousy

39:50

close with their uh

39:54

with with some of their their cultural elements,

39:56

you know, like or or

39:58

that they have a hard time I'm welcoming

40:01

strangers into participating. But

40:04

food, it's rarely like

40:07

that. Most people want to share food and dream um

40:09

and be that is

40:12

not what New Orleans is about? How

40:15

uh can you speak a little bit about that?

40:17

So I grew up an hour

40:19

from here. My mother

40:21

would would say, would tell you that I am

40:23

not from New Orleans. And if you all live in Atlanta,

40:26

you understand the South is very It's like where are you from?

40:28

It means where you're born. And

40:32

for a very long time, if

40:34

you said that you are

40:37

from New Orleans and somebody would say, where'd

40:39

you go to school? And they then high school so

40:41

they can organized understand

40:44

you in terms of this city. Um,

40:49

throughout all that time, we

40:52

were offering, we

40:55

were selling our

40:59

cities culture. Um,

41:03

happily you know,

41:05

it's a good's pretty good way to make a living and

41:08

or you know, offering hospitality people come

41:10

and visit. But I

41:13

do think that there was

41:16

and in some ways continues to be, and it's

41:18

probably true in a lot of cities there's

41:20

two cities. There's

41:23

the city that you get to experience

41:25

when you come here, that we offer

41:28

to you or sell you or show you. And

41:31

then every now and then

41:33

you have little moments where you get to peek into

41:37

the other city is the city where people

41:39

live. And sometimes it's

41:41

less glamorous because like we have to do laundry

41:45

and sometimes there's something that's

41:47

just very honest.

41:50

I really I prefer

41:53

not to use the word authentic um

41:57

that because like what you know, what

42:00

like what is offen? Everything is real, nothing

42:02

is fake. You know, you can touch it. But

42:06

is um a view that

42:08

is lived a little more lived in and

42:12

it can be in some

42:14

ways more magical and in some ways

42:16

more raw or disappointing.

42:20

So prior to Katrina,

42:25

that was like the model of

42:29

the two cities, and there was a very

42:31

big line even if you moved here

42:34

that I think you were not of

42:37

here. And

42:40

since then, um,

42:43

you know, of the city flooded.

42:48

It's just that's a damn lot and

42:51

it's a thing that people um

42:55

forget. Like if your house burnt, so

42:57

I hope it doesn't, you would still have a

42:59

job, you would

43:01

still have a post office and a grocery, you

43:04

would have community to support you. But

43:09

if everything burned,

43:14

it's like then what like it? It was very

43:16

hard, and

43:19

it was harder for some people than others who

43:22

had resources not just

43:24

financial but just like social

43:27

cultural resources, and

43:30

we needed people's help. And

43:33

so people came and

43:35

a lot of people came and they were like, there's

43:37

something that's really special about this place, what

43:40

they value, what

43:42

you can kind of be yourself here, or

43:45

for some people they could either their selves

43:49

and they're like, I want to I want to stay here, And

43:52

a lot of people stayed, and

43:54

since then, more and more people have been coming

43:57

as they discovered this great place. This is the

43:59

same thing with ash Um,

44:02

because they're looking for something real. Just

44:05

thinking about the babies and beer.

44:07

We were half that although people

44:10

have children here, we

44:12

have like schools and stuff. You know, it's

44:15

the city of families, and

44:18

so there's

44:21

been a loosening of

44:23

this divide. But it's

44:25

also been kind of fraught because people

44:27

worry about, oh, the people moving in, But I'm

44:30

like people have been damn moving in since the cane touch

44:32

showed up. You know, like it's

44:35

it does, isn't. It isn't to say that city

44:37

planning isn't important. There shouldn't be an awareness

44:40

of like how can things change and people

44:42

getting priced out of neighborhoods or gentrification,

44:44

which sometimes gentrification just means fixing

44:47

up a house that looks like crap before, and

44:50

you know, like there's there's a lot of words. There's

44:52

a lot of things in that. But

44:54

um, since Kashrina,

44:57

since the storm, so that's what we call it here.

45:00

You only reads people say in storm. Um,

45:04

there has been more tolerance

45:07

of like where are you from? And

45:11

like I and now in the circle

45:14

because I'm from southern Louisiana.

45:17

My husband's from Lafayette apparently that's which

45:19

is like two and a half hours away. That's close enough

45:21

to um so.

45:25

But I think this is true of

45:27

a lot of places that depend on tourism.

45:30

I had some women from on my tour from Hawaii

45:33

and we had a really long talk about that. How

45:36

you do a thing that is a part, integral,

45:38

integral part of your culture, like

45:42

the hula dance, and

45:44

you know what it means in here, and

45:48

you do it for people who say that's pretty

45:51

and it means nothing, but

45:53

it doesn't mean that. You're like, I'm not showing

45:55

you ma hula dance too bad?

45:59

So I you and you give like this little

46:03

that. We have second lines here, so

46:06

many wedding second lines, and

46:09

all these people are going around and I know

46:12

I had to dance because they're self conscious

46:14

because they're like, I'm in a parade and everyone is staring

46:17

and maybe I should dance. I don't know. And

46:19

that is not how second lines happen in other neighborhoods.

46:22

But do I feel like, no second lines

46:24

unless you are a real New Orleans. No pay

46:27

the musicians, pay the cops. Everybody's

46:29

broke, you know, you know, I mean the musicians

46:31

are often broke, and so are as

46:34

those are a police force. You know, Like

46:38

it'd be great if if the wedding

46:40

planner who's like putting this together, could say,

46:44

hey, this is what this

46:46

means. This is the origin of this thing that you're

46:48

doing. But I've

46:50

also kind of come to a place a piece with this because

46:53

do you know why we feed each other

46:56

cake at a wedding? Why why the bride the room

46:58

feed each other know, and

47:00

we all do it, and so you'll have sweet words

47:03

in your mouth. You start your marriage with with

47:05

sweetness in your mouth. You have sweet words, right.

47:07

Body knows when we do that. Nobody

47:10

knows the garter is because you're gonna go. Nobody

47:12

knows about like you know, like

47:15

I know, that's not mean anything. It's like that's

47:17

what I mean. You know, we just

47:19

do these things and we and

47:21

it's like, oh, that sounds that sounds good. I want

47:23

to parade. Okay,

47:26

so I got off the drinking thing. But it's

47:28

all I connected. It really is. Everything is connected.

47:32

And this interview is not over yet. But

47:34

we have first one more quick break

47:36

for a word from our sponsor, and

47:46

we're back. Thank you sponsor, and back to the interview.

47:49

That's a lot of those beautiful things about I mean, like you're

47:52

saying way back in the beginning, like the

47:54

stories of mere wheat lives

47:58

have been determined by and

48:00

certain of water. Um usually was

48:03

because you know, we have we

48:06

have made here before, we had parts

48:08

with real like me infant with alcohol

48:11

before. Yeah, I feel like this is

48:13

just a work priority

48:16

priorities. Also beast of

48:18

bacteria. Uh.

48:21

I wanted to ask what what

48:24

experiences with food and drink did you have growing

48:26

up? Oh, my mother

48:29

was a very adventurous cook at a time

48:31

when people opened a lot of hands, and

48:34

she um like took

48:37

cooking classes and uh

48:40

we made like homade, pizza, pasta

48:43

and Chinese when

48:45

that was only like one you

48:48

know, there was no Mandarin or uh

48:51

there or our various regions

48:54

and you know, so you like American

48:57

Chinese rood, but like we made our own

48:59

roll and in thy seven

49:01

that was pretty was pretty cool in a very small

49:04

town. Um. My

49:07

mother is a tremendous fan of

49:09

the old fashioned, and my dad used to make them

49:11

for her. We went out to dinner

49:13

a lot with my grandparents, and

49:15

I was the only grandchild, so um, I always

49:18

brought a book. But I learned how to how

49:20

to eat and drink out, to like

49:22

to behave yourself in a restaurant, and

49:25

to enjoy myself. And

49:28

uh, I don't know what this means about

49:31

where I ended up now, but there was. My

49:33

grandfather owned a feed store for over

49:36

forty years. He and he and my grandmother owned

49:39

this and UM, a lot of times my my mom

49:41

and dad would would work there sometimes on the weekends.

49:44

Can't kind of help out, And so we would all

49:46

go out to this the local fancy

49:48

place in Covington, and

49:52

we had a waiter, Mr Jack, and

49:54

he knew everyone's streetquarder. Grandmother

49:57

would get a glass of chardonnay, grandfather

49:59

got crowned on. My dad would usually

50:01

just get jacked anials in the rocks. My mother get

50:03

an old fashioned not too sweet, and

50:06

I would say the usual

50:08

please, which was orange juice in

50:10

crediting, not a Shirley temple in

50:13

a rocks glass like everybody else. And

50:16

so I learned like the

50:18

pleasure of the whole

50:21

for dinner cocktail and that everybody

50:23

would enjoy this. Nobody's

50:26

getting hammered, you know, like it's

50:28

like this, it's this part you have a

50:30

cocktail and then you have you know, soup, soad

50:33

or whatever. And yeah,

50:36

I just kind of think that that

50:40

U And when we traveled,

50:43

Um again, my my

50:45

parents were both um, very

50:50

not adventurous in the sense of like climbing

50:52

mountains, but um,

50:55

we would seek out like what what

50:57

was of the place and

51:00

and recognizing that the food.

51:03

Let I would say, less the drink because that was a sort

51:05

of a harder thing in the seventies

51:07

and early eighties. Um, but

51:10

yeah, like what's the food here? What do we eat here?

51:13

And so learning that food and drink

51:16

is um part

51:18

of cultural personality.

51:22

This was something I learned really early on. Thanks

51:24

Mom, and

51:30

I don't I don't think we've covered this. How

51:35

how did you decide to make cocktails

51:39

and their history your your career? Oh,

51:43

so it was from

51:45

working with the Food Museum and

51:48

I was doing food and drink and

51:51

then it it was a combination

51:55

of immersed a bit of mercenary

51:57

attitude and also

52:00

know my own shifting interests.

52:04

The very first exhibit I did for the

52:07

Food Museum with Liz Williams, she

52:10

like, I had known Liz for a while and I knew

52:13

I wanted to work in food and drink stuff. I was

52:15

teaching at the University of New Orleans, and

52:17

she said, do you want to curate an exhibit? And I didn't

52:19

know what that meant, so I said yes, and

52:22

she said, we have a donated

52:24

location. It's

52:26

gonna be on the drinks of New Orleans, and

52:28

like that's what she gave me, along with a couple

52:31

of people to call. And so

52:33

I made an exhibit in nine weeks. And

52:36

I didn't know I could do that, but

52:38

she hoped I could, I

52:41

guess. But then after

52:43

that I got into like we did more more food

52:45

stuff. Um. But

52:48

as I so, when I worked at

52:50

the museum, I was doing food and drink without

52:53

I would say more food because it's sort of

52:55

more sets, more southern story. But

52:59

then when I got laid off off and

53:01

I started doing demos for conventions

53:04

all around the city. It is way easier

53:06

to tote a bag of liquor than like

53:09

a burner and pots and make gumbo.

53:12

So it was a little bit of bad um,

53:15

But also it was just a

53:17

recognition that, um,

53:21

I think, like the drink, drink

53:23

culture, drink history, this is still new relatively

53:26

speaking, even if you're just looking at like the books

53:28

that people are writing. Um,

53:31

there's a lot more food culture being

53:33

covered than drink culture. Tons of cocktail

53:35

recipes, so many cocktail

53:38

books, but not a lot really

53:40

looking at um history and

53:42

culture in place and anthropology and all

53:44

that. And and

53:47

I just thought, like I lived in this town. I'm

53:50

gonna do a drinks but overtime

53:52

now because I do some work at the Sazarat

53:55

liquor company, so I've been learning a lot more

53:57

about whiskey and a

53:59

mayor in history. And then and

54:02

then I get asked to do things. So

54:04

like you all talked to Amanda at the h n OC they

54:06

did it rum symposium and can tell you all about

54:08

Louisiana a round now. And you know, so

54:11

this is how these things have been. You get

54:13

somebody says, can you give a talk and you've

54:16

never researched it at all? You lie you're

54:18

like, of course they can give a talk about that. How long

54:20

does it have to be? And then

54:22

you learn it? And so now I

54:24

got all that in my back pocket and for

54:27

you know the future. Yeah.

54:31

Um, where where can people

54:33

fund your podcast? So? Um,

54:36

the Southern Food and Beverage Museum has is

54:38

sort of a host. Uh if

54:40

you're looking for the like a website.

54:43

Does anybody listen to podcast on a website?

54:46

I don't know? Yeah,

54:50

what's conspiracy people? Okay,

54:53

So you can find the

54:56

Drink and Learn podcast anywhere you listen

54:58

to podcasts, and uh.

55:01

You can also find me at Drink

55:03

and Learn a Drink and Learn in all the ways, Drink

55:05

and Learn dot com and Drink and Learn

55:07

on Instagram. I drink you know all the drink and learn. Um.

55:10

I do have a book out which I don't

55:12

know if you all Nope, Nope. It's

55:15

called Drink Debt, which is a guide

55:17

to the bars of New Orleans. I visited

55:19

them all so you don't have to, and

55:22

it gives you kind of insight into

55:25

the sensibility personality of each

55:27

bar. It's not a review, it's just because

55:30

people ask me all the time, what's the best bar in New Orleans,

55:33

and I say, you know, did you just

55:35

get engaged or do you want to drinks

55:38

to forget your name? Cheap very

55:41

different places? Yeah? Oh

55:46

and come take it to work right, yes? Yes, yes,

55:49

I don't know if you're gonna say, like, how you'll introduce

55:51

me or we're like because I know you, because you all talk about

55:53

other stuff, eating up to and whatever. Yeah,

55:56

I should come. This

56:01

brings us to the end of this

56:03

interview. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed

56:05

doing it. Yes, yes, uh.

56:08

And if anyone's working on some interesting

56:10

cocktails around this this season,

56:13

we would love to hear about those, oh absolutely always

56:15

yes. And also I have a lot of friends actually

56:18

that are going to New Orleans, mostly for

56:20

New Year's Okay, yeah,

56:22

so if any of you listeners are going that

56:24

way, are you live there and you

56:26

want to tell us your cocktail tales,

56:29

Yeah, we would love to hear them. We would or

56:32

or a book a tour with Elizabeth

56:35

with a Drink and Learn. Yes, yes,

56:38

um, and we would love to hear from you. If

56:40

you would like to emails, you can. Our email

56:42

is Hello at savor pod dot com. We're also

56:44

on social Media. You can find us on Twitter,

56:47

Instagram, and Facebook at Savor pod

56:49

and we do hope to hear from you. Savor

56:51

is a production of I Heart Radio and Stuff Media.

56:54

For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit the iHeart

56:56

Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

56:58

you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks

57:00

as always to our super producers Dylan Fagin

57:02

and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we

57:04

hope that lots more good things are coming your way.