DRINK AND LEARN TOUR, NEW ORLEANS: REVIEW
An intoxicating history lesson: Elisabeth Pearce leads the Drink & Learn Tour
Drink & Learn
Drink & Learn is a walking tour that uses cocktails to illustrate the history of our beautifully boozy city. Weirdly for a tour with the sauce as a central motif, the tour does not stop at any bars (save the one you meet in, inside the restaurant Vacherie). Instead, cocktail enthusiast and historian Elisabeth Pearce will furnish you with the ingredients to create your own concoctions as the tour progresses, a feature that has to be the most New Orleans approach to a tour ever.
Joining our group was a good mix (lazy pun sort of intended) of folk from around the United States, some more local than others. The crowd skewed more mature - no teenagers downing shots of Jagermeister here. We’ll walk a couple of miles over two hours, but the pace is slow and stops are plentiful.
Elisabeth is an immediately-likable guide, and celebrates hooch, history and horseplay with equal enthusiasm. Each cocktail that she has us make and drink along the way is a tasty window into a period of New Orleans’ past. Not just the drinks, mind you, but the resources that go into making them. Take just the Sazerac for instance - the sugar cane, absinthe and bitters used in its creation were all a huge part of the local economy at various times.
It’s a real pleasure to sip these drinks on the sunny sidewalk as Elisabeth details their origins as well as the events and personalities of the time. Cocktails aren’t created in a vacuum, after all - many political, economic and social trends contribute to the ingredients that were available and the most popular tastes of the time. The stories are engaging, intriguing and accessible no matter your level of prior knowledge.
One of the stops is the Supreme Court building, where it's completely legal to drink on the steps (if you take the tour, you'll likely have to dodge lawyers as you take photos). It’s a good representation of the tour’s irreverent vibe, although weightier historical issues get their due, too. Questions come thick and fast, especially after the second cocktail, and Elisabeth handles them all with expertise and aplomb.
I’d recommend this tour for fans of boozy afternoons, though you could also do the tour as a teetotaler and get just as much out of it. It’s a jam-packed two hours and, especially with the drinks provided, you’ll truly feel like you got your money’s worth, as well as enjoying that most beloved of all New Orleans’ activities: drinking on street. There’s no residual guilt, though - this is all in the name of education, after all.
Paul Oswell
More info and tickets for the Drink & Learn Tour
Drink & Learn is a walking tour that uses cocktails to illustrate the history of our beautifully boozy city. Weirdly for a tour with the sauce as a central motif, the tour does not stop at any bars (save the one you meet in, inside the restaurant Vacherie). Instead, cocktail enthusiast and historian Elisabeth Pearce will furnish you with the ingredients to create your own concoctions as the tour progresses, a feature that has to be the most New Orleans approach to a tour ever.
Joining our group was a good mix (lazy pun sort of intended) of folk from around the United States, some more local than others. The crowd skewed more mature - no teenagers downing shots of Jagermeister here. We’ll walk a couple of miles over two hours, but the pace is slow and stops are plentiful.
Elisabeth is an immediately-likable guide, and celebrates hooch, history and horseplay with equal enthusiasm. Each cocktail that she has us make and drink along the way is a tasty window into a period of New Orleans’ past. Not just the drinks, mind you, but the resources that go into making them. Take just the Sazerac for instance - the sugar cane, absinthe and bitters used in its creation were all a huge part of the local economy at various times.
It’s a real pleasure to sip these drinks on the sunny sidewalk as Elisabeth details their origins as well as the events and personalities of the time. Cocktails aren’t created in a vacuum, after all - many political, economic and social trends contribute to the ingredients that were available and the most popular tastes of the time. The stories are engaging, intriguing and accessible no matter your level of prior knowledge.
One of the stops is the Supreme Court building, where it's completely legal to drink on the steps (if you take the tour, you'll likely have to dodge lawyers as you take photos). It’s a good representation of the tour’s irreverent vibe, although weightier historical issues get their due, too. Questions come thick and fast, especially after the second cocktail, and Elisabeth handles them all with expertise and aplomb.
I’d recommend this tour for fans of boozy afternoons, though you could also do the tour as a teetotaler and get just as much out of it. It’s a jam-packed two hours and, especially with the drinks provided, you’ll truly feel like you got your money’s worth, as well as enjoying that most beloved of all New Orleans’ activities: drinking on street. There’s no residual guilt, though - this is all in the name of education, after all.
Paul Oswell
More info and tickets for the Drink & Learn Tour