The Word On The Street At Tales Of The Cocktail

Shot at Coyote Ugly on N. Peters in the French Quarter

"I always look forward to the adventure, because you make plans and then life happens and all of a sudden you're playing cups at Coyote Ugly and your best friends are with you. And then every year the one thing I look forward to is always having something to walk away with. You always walk away with something new. I never know until it happens."

Shot outside the Chart Room on Chartres in the French Quarter

"Tales is all about the celebration of New Orleans and the culture and the heritage. My belief is that if you respect the locals and you participate, New Orleans will open her arms wide open to you. And so I love the embrace of New Orleans, because I love to participate. As Half Step, we took over One Eyed Jack's last night and we did a Spirited Dinner that was more about conviviality and a party like we like to throw, with "fleur de T's" and some epic burlesque an ice house experience, complete with a strip tease on ice skates on a faux ice skating surface on the stage at One Eyed Jack's. Tales is all about the unexpected and continually keeping people on their toes."

Shot at Pig 'n' Punch in Washington Square Park on Frenchmen in the Marigny.

Hannah: "I always really look forward to Pig 'n' Punch, it means Tales is over."
Enlil: "I look forward to watching everybody's reaction from out of town as they experience something that is spectacularly New Orleans as this brass band [points to a brass band behind us] or a second line, just really showing off the city. I really, really enjoyed working the Pernod welcome party, which this year was New Orleans–themed. So having the Mardi Gras Indians and Rebirth Brass Band play to everyone's surprise, it moved me to tears. It was really fun to watch everyone dance around to that."

Shot behind the bar at Bellocq

"I think the most surprising and exciting thing about Tales this year is the new location of the Museum of the American Cocktail. It's spacious, bright, the exhibit is beautifully laid out and I think the most important thing is the food and the beverage is really well integrated. It feels like we're all one family."

Shot at Latitude 29

"The thing I love most about Tales are the random encounters, like the one we're having right now, where I walk into a bar and I see somebody in the industry who I love and had no plans on meeting them, and I get to sit at the bar with them and have a really cool, impromptu bar experience. Last night I went into the French 75 Bar and saw H (Joseph Ehrmann of Elixir in San Francisco) and drank a French 75 with Chris Hannah and H and caught up. And it was totally unexpected — that's the most fun part of Tales."

Shot at Compère Lapin

"The reason I love coming to Tales is that even as tired as I am when I get home, I'm always excited to get back to work because of all the food and drinks I've had in New Orleans, and all the creativity everyone brings to their seminars. I'm really looking forward to the Letters to a Young Bartender seminar because last year was so great and inspiring."

Shot in front of the Old 77 Hotel and Chandlery on Tchoupitoulas in the Warehouse District

Payne: "I look forward to the Bartender's Breakfast, not because it's the end of Tales but because it's one helluva good party."
Harrison: "It's nice to bump into people you haven't seen in ages. I bumped into someone I hadn't seen for seven years a couple of days ago, which was really good."

Shot at Lee Circle in the Warehouse District

"What I look forward to in general, first and foremost, is catching up with friends that I genuinely only have the opportunity to see once a year, and if I'm going to run into them anywhere it's going to be here. Secondly, to a broader point, five years into my Tales patronage I'm learning to finally accept New Orleans for what it is, and not be too preoccupied with swinging from vine to vine, from event to event, and to slow things down, have a long lunch. Galatoire's blew my mind. We harnessed eight or nine people from Boston and got 'em all at the same table, and had a very leisurely, plodding New Orleanian lunch. It was fantastic. It's paradoxical that it sometimes take removing people a thousand miles from your hometown to spend quality time with them, because it removes you from that day-to-day."