New Orleans Already Bountiful Bar Scene Expands Further

Bartenders from around the U.S. have been making an annual summer journey to New Orleans for ten years now—ever since the liquor convention Tales of the Cocktail began in 2003. So it's only natural that some of them would get stuck on the place. With it's rich history of creating classic cocktails and plethora of beautiful old bars—not to mention the general joie de vivre of the place, New Orleans is made for the mixologist's temperament. The past years have seen the emigration of several notable mixers and shakers to the Crescent City—from New York, Minneapolis, Asheville and elsewhere. The direct and/or indirect result of this influx is a batch of new and worthy cocktail bars. In 2012, choosing where to drink in NOLA just got that much harder.

I wrote a roundup of a few (but not all) of the new places for The New York Times, visiting them all during the course of this years TOTC. I recommend them all. Here's the article:

Napoleon House Gets a Second Pimm's Drink

The Napoleon House's house drink has been the Pimm's Cup since the 1950s. Owner Sal Impastato favored the light-bodied cocktail because it suited the hot New Orleans climate and did not send his patrons under the table with undue speed. (Perversely, for a saloon owner, he did not want his customers to get drunk.)

Today, Napoleon House sells two cases of Pimm's No 1 a day. The bar is Pimm's' largest account in the U.S. Almost all of that goes into the making of Pimm's Cups. But this July that will change.

Impastato is using this year's Tales of the Cocktail convention to launch a new Pimm's-based libation. It will be called the Pimm's Ginger Julep. It will basically be a Julep made with Pimm's and ginger beer and, presumedly, mint. Another cooling drink well-suited to the climate. But one, I'm thinking, that will get customers drunk, and pretty fast. Also one that will take bartenders considerably longer to make. (I've watched them makes Pimm's Cups. They can whip out out in roughly five seconds.)

Not Just for Wimbledon and New Orleans Anymore

I had my first encounter with Pimm's No. 1, appropriately enough, in Wimbledon. It was 1999. Business has relocated a college friend there temporarily. While visiting with him in his lush back yard, he made me a Pimm's Cup and told me he was mad about the stuff. Didn't I love it?

I'll be honest. It didn't make much of an impression at the time. I assumed that my friend was passing through an acute case of Anglophilia and had lost all sense of perspective where English-made goods were concerned.

Pimm's didn't truly leave its mark on me as a drink until 2006, when I stepped across the threshold of the Napoleon House in New Orleans. Everyone was drinking Pimm's Cups, and the bartender was making them by the half-dozen. When in Rome, I thought. 

I liked the drink immediately this time. That it was July and scorching outside, and the cocktail was light and refreshing, certainly helped stoke my affections. I've had many Pimm's Cups at Napoleon House since, as well as at other bars across the world, and at home, where I build them fairly frequently between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

It was a pleasure to report, in this article for the New York Times, that you can walk into almost any respectable bar in NYC today and order a Pimm's Cup with confidence.

Napoleon Is In The House

There are worse places you could start your Tales of the Cocktail itinerary than The Napoleon House, the iconic saloon at the corner of Chartres and St. Louis streets. That's where I chose to attend my first official function of the week, to take in the David Wondrich-hosted history lesson about the famous tavern.

I arrived early and didn't wait for permission to order a Pimm's Cup, the NH's signature drink. Everyone there seemed to be waiting for the talk to begin, but no one was complaining, since it was a good place to wait. Soon enough, we were ushered upstairs, once the living quarters of the Impastato family, longtime owners of the building.

The gathering was a much more casual than I expected. TOTC invitees and paying guests milled about happily gabbing for a half hour or more. Finally, around 5:45, Wondrich took the floor, exuding a very personable charm. He told how, a while back, Esquire asked him to put together his list of the top ten greatest bars. Napoleon House topped the tally. Reasons? "No TV," for one. Two: they make a few simple drinks very well, rather than a lot of complex drinks badly. He then rattled off a list of "Things I don't think about when I'm at the Napoleon House." Among the items: "Blackberries, i-pods, blogs, bloggers, celebutards, Lohans" and my favorite, "vodka."

Wondrich then introduced NH owner Sal Inpastato, a modest, moustachioed man, who related his family's long history with the address. We learned that his father was a religious man and this was one of the reasons he pushed the low-alcohol Pimm's Cup. It's a "conversational drink." The recipe for the renowned thirst-quencher was taken from the back label of an old bottle of Pimm's. "Probably Pimm's itself doesn't know the recipe now, because they stopped printing that label," he said.

The drink is the bar's most ordered refreshment. (Duh.) The second most popular? The Sazerac. (Also, duh.) Interestingly, he referred to a Sazerac as a conversational drink, too, even though you can can hammered a lot quicker on rye than you can on Pimm's.