The morning started badly when
my mom woke us up at 7 a.m. to wish me happy birthday. My head ached and my
eyes were dry. It didn’t help when she threw open the hotel curtains and
sunlight flooded the room. Bad as I had it, my baby brother had it worse. He
groaned from somewhere underneath the covers of the other bed. Mom was having
none of our pain. It was our second day in New Orleans and we were getting up
whether we liked it or not.
Of course New Orleans was the
reason for our pain. The previous night my brother Chad and I felt it necessary
to have a Big Easy bacchanal. He had driven from his new home in Mobile, AL, to
show his big sis around the Gulf Coast and the sin city of Nawlins was our
starting point. The plan for our first night:
Walk the French Quarter drinking booze. Not the highest of cultural
activities.
Since it was the day before my
birthday, I got to choose where we ate dinner. From our well located hotel, the
Sheraton New Orleans, the three of us walked down Decatur Street to my elected destination
– Margaritaville. We were able to get a table on the small upstairs balcony
that overlooked the corner of Decatur and St. Phillip Street. Naturally, I
ordered a margarita, but I wanted one with lime juice instead of sour mix. The
waitress suggested JB’s Perfect Margarita. She said it contained Gold and
Silver Margaritaville tequila, orange curacao and lime juice. An obvious
upsell, we ordered two. Bad decision #1. Mom passed. The drink was strong yet
refreshing. I was unsure of the orange curacao, but it smoothed out the tequila
nicely. We watched the shadows on Decatur Street grow long as we ate our Cubano
sandwiches.
With my pre-birthday dinner
accomplished, mom left us for the evening. Her plan was to shop in all the
Decatur Street stores we had previously passed before turning in early at the
hotel. She also wanted no part of our Bourbon Street debauchery. With promises all
around to be safe, Chad and I began walking up St. Phillip Street toward
Bourbon. We contemplated our next drink; hurricane or hand grenade? But as we turned
the corner our drink plans quickly changed. We had accidently arrived at a
drinking Mecca: Lafitte’s Blacksmith
Shop.
Reputed to be the oldest
structure in the United States continuously used as a bar, the Blacksmith Shop
was built between 1722 and 1732. Sometime around 1772, the building was owned
by the pirate Jean Lafitte with the blacksmith business merely a front for his
illegal activities. This building had seen its share of characters; rum
runners, smugglers, mercenaries, war heroes, the French, the Spanish, Africans
and Cajuns. Chad and I felt the presence of those characters as we entered. The
building did not have electricity and ran its refrigeration and exit signs with
long extension cords into the building next door. Candle light sufficed for the
rest. Even though it was dusk on the street, the inside was already dark. The
buzz of conversation was everywhere, but we managed to find a small wobbly
table in the corner and promptly ordered two local beers, Dixie Blackened
VooDoo Lager. Even though we hadn’t seen each other in six months, Chad and I sat
silently for several minutes absorbing the atmosphere. I wanted to count the
bricks of the fireplace, the white candles holders around the bar, the
extension cords running up the walls and ceiling in an effort to become part of
its history. A mute piano sat in a corner. The wrought iron of the window next
to our table beautifully framed the street. Every few minutes a horse-drawn
carriage would stop in front of the bar. We could hear the driver explain to the
tourists the significance of the building. We wondered aloud why no one got out
and came inside. Why listen to a speech about history when you can actually sit
inside and experience it?
At Lafitte’s Bad Decision #2 occurred.
Chad and I were so thrilled to be there we wanted to drag the experience out a
bit longer, so we ordered a second beer. The cool lager was the perfect drink
for such a dark, dank dive. However, we knew we needed move on. All of Bourbon
Street awaited!
As we walked down Bourbon
Street this particular section was more residential and quiet. Admiring the
French colonial architecture, we heard music in the distance. With each block
more and more people filled the sidewalk and the music grew louder. Chad announced
he needed to use the restroom so we ducked into a place called Fritzel’s
European Jazz Bar. Unbelievably small and poorly lit the place consisted of a
thick wooden bar up front across from a bench and table. A few smaller round
tables and chairs sat empty in the middle and a ridiculously small stage was tucked
into the back corner. A door next to the stage led to restrooms. While Chad
went back, I sat at the bench watching the bartender. She was moving a tall and
elaborate glass jar across the bar.
“What’s that,” I asked.
“Ice water,” she
matter-a-factly replied.
“Ok, but what do you use it
for,” I tried again.
“Absinthe.” That was all I
needed to hear.
“I’ll take one!” Since the
spirit has only been legal in the states since 2007, this would be my first
absinthe ever. When Chad returned I caught a slight look of distain in his
eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“I found absinthe!”
“Oh, boy,” he said followed by
some eye rolling.
We watched the bartender intently
as she poured a small glass full of absinthe. The spirit was a silky yellowish-green.
She put a silver strainer over the top of the glass with a sugar cube on top.
Then she moved the ice water jar over the glass and opened up a tap. Water dripped
onto the cube. Nothing much happened at first then suddenly the sugar dissolved
and the liquid went from clear to cloudy. At this point we thought she was
done, but not so. The bartender lit the liquid on fire and a blue flame rose
above the glass. She tipped the glass a bit and blew the flame out. Then she
lit a second match and repeated the motion. After blowing out the flame, she
set a second glass on the bar so both of us could try it. I poured half the
drink into the second glass and gave the first one to Chad.
We clinked glasses and I downed
my drink. I tasted nothing but sugar with a little bit of licorice at the
finish. My poor brother, however, didn’t get that far.
“Oh my god that’s awful!” he
coughed.
“Drink it!” I said. Good sport
that he is, he finished his drink and I asked him what it tasted like.
“Fire and licorice,” was the reply.
He was not happy with me.
“Too bad,” I teased. “I must
have gotten all the sugar because mine was really sweet.” I could finally cross
absinthe off my bucket list. For my brother, it was Bad Decision #3.
We entered Bourbon Street again
and music poured from every door and window, everything from modern dance
tracks, to country swing to traditional New Orleans jazz. People now covered
the sidewalks. I wanted another drink, but didn’t want to sit in another bar.
Fortunately in the French Quarter walking around with an open container was
acceptable behavior. I approached a street vendor and ordered two hurricanes.
Bad Decision #4. Plastic cups of fruity punch in hand, we continued on Bourbon
Street. A brass band was playing on the corner. The band members looked incredibly
young, high school age, but very talented so we stopped to listen to some
ragtime music. An old man dancing in the street held a tip bucket. The
semi-circle of spectators grew larger as the music grew louder. Satiated with
traditional jazz when the band finished, we put some dollar bills in the
bucket.
Now at the west end of Bourbon
Street, we turned around to make another pass. The street was completely packed.
People shouting, laughing, swearing, stumbling and dancing around us. We
laughed at all the drunken fools not even realizing we were two of them. We ducked
in the doorways of several bars, but nothing seemed to grab our attention. Some
were too touristy, some too loud and some were strip clubs. Chad suggested we
head back to Lafitte’s.
Like Bourbon Street, Lafitte’s had
even more people now than it did earlier and music spilled from the windows. We
entered a side door and found the place standing room only. A man dressed like Jean
Lafitte, pointy goatee and black hat included, was at the piano singing “What a
Night” by Dr. John. Appropriate for a Crescent City bar. People surrounded the
piano with their drinks, dollars and cigarettes lined up on top of it. I could
imagine a similar scene back in the late 1700s when Lafitte was running with
pirates, smugglers and other undesirables. The place was so dark we couldn’t
see anyone’s faces. A waitress tapped on my shoulder.
“We’d like two Voodoo beers,”
is what I thought I said. Beers were
not what we received, however. She returned with too large Styrofoam cups on a
tray. Inside was a dark slushy liquid.
“I ordered beer,” I said. The
waitress apologized and offered to get them, but then Chad asked her what the
drinks were.
“It’s the voodoo drink,” she
said in a “you-should-know-that” tone. She offered to take them back when Chad
asked to try one and she encouraged him by saying they tasted like grape soda. Chad
took a sip and the smile on his face told me we were keeping the drinks. Bad
Decision #5.
My brain froze as I sipped the
Everclear slushy. Chad spotted a high-top table near the piano. It didn’t have
chairs, but at least we could set our heavy drinks down. The piano player launched
into “House of the Rising Sun,” another New Orleans classic. We were now
alongside of him and could see he wore a dark old-fashioned suit. All his
fingers were adorned with gemmed rings, some digits with two, even three. His
jeweled fingers pounded the keys like he was kneading a large wad of pizza
dough. The piano was slightly out of tune, but his voice wasn’t. When he
finished the song, the building erupted in applause. Some idiot at the end of
the piano yelled, “Bruuuuuuuce!”
“You’re kidding, right?” the piano
man snickered. Then he sprang into “Tipitina” also by Dr. John. Nice. After we
finished the voodoo drinks we ordered two more Dixie Blackened Voodoo lagers.
Bad Decision #6. We sipped as the man played “Wish You Were Here” (Pink Floyd)
and “Hotel California” (The Eagles). Declaring ourselves drunk and broke, it
was now our turn to stumble into Bourbon Street swaying and laughing back to
the hotel.
This morning was payback for
waking up mom when we stumbled into our hotel room. She asked what was wrong
with us and I told her “It must have been the VooDoo drink,” a play on a Jimmy
Buffett lyric. She was not amused. Most definitely it was the voodoo drink.
Nothing a few beignets and a café ‘au lait at the Café du Monde wouldn’t cure.
Viva de mauvaises décisions!
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