For cocktail connoisseurs, New Orleans has always had a place on the map. Tales of the Cocktail gave this connection a spot on the calendar too, right when it’s needed most.
Tales of the Cocktail is an annual spirits industry conference that’s rolling again this week. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel is itas home base, but ripples are felt across the city. You can see the impact as people from around the world soak in the scene, and bolster local businesses in the teeth of summer.
This is the 22nd year for Tales of the Cocktail, which started small as a walking tour of local cocktail history. It's grown to become an important place for people in the spirits and hospitality business to network with the movers and shakers in their field.
If you’re out and about in New Orleans, you’ll probably see signs of the Tales of the Cocktail return. Some of it happens in seminar rooms, but a lot of it spills over into our bars and restaurants, which fill with liquor brand events and a well-inked crowd of visiting bartenders out to experience the city’s liquid allure. Many in the local business tell me this is all wind in the sails that gets them through the doldrums of summer.
Tales of the Cocktail has been good for New Orleans in a more far-reaching way too.
The business of eating and drinking is big in New Orleans. It’s part of the city’s core identity and ideas in this realm get people’s attention.
The event grew in step with a modern cocktail renaissance taking root worldwide, and it helped move New Orleans to the forefront, burnishing its image a bit from Bourbon Street debauchery to a mix of classic and contemporary.
Today, the event is run by the Tales of the Cocktail Foundation. The nonprofit makes grants to initiatives aimed at improving the health and well-being of bartenders.
New Orleans is well known as a good place to drink. If Tales of the Cocktail helps turn that into something that does a greater good, well, that could really shake things up.
