Monday Afternoon Culture Post

Next time I make it down to NOLA, I'll have to broaden my horizons with a visit to the city's newest museum:

Start with hundreds of antique liquor bottles. Add Art Deco cocktail shakers, vintage swizzle sticks and Tiki cups. Mix well. Serve inside an 1823 French Quarter town house.

The result: The Museum of the American Cocktail.

Looks like the curator is looking for a more spacious home than the present location (above the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum). Here's hoping he finds one:

...the museum should feel at home in a city that already has a boozy reputation. New York and San Francisco would have also been logical choices, DeGroff says, but New Orleans history is full of strong ties to the cocktail. It's the home of drinks such as the ramos fizz, the sazerac and the grasshopper. Southern Comfort was created here, as were the liqueur Herbsaint and Peychaud's bitters, a key cocktail ingredient that's been made in the city since the 1830s.

I'll drink to that.