Whiskey for Breakfast and a Pee-Covered Statue
Dec 01, 2021 | New Orleans, LA
We woke up in New Orleans and got to finally see our rental apartment in the daylight, and it was quite the beauty.
We started the day by walking around in the French Quarter near our apartment. The first place that caught our eye was called The Sazerac House, which turned out to be a distillery. Since, as we soon found out, the company has both has a very rich history and owns a lot of different liquor brands/IP, we were kind of surprised that we had never heard of them before. At first we thought it would just be like a gift shop or something superficial like that, but they said they had free tours that were an hour long and came with 4 free cocktail samplings along the way. It was only like 10am but we didn't have anything else to do so we said what the hell.
The tour was really great! It was 3 stories of information and interactive stations. The cocktails were fantastic and the employees were super nice and friendly.
At around noon, and with having 4 miniature cocktails in each of our bellies, we decided to grab some grub. We made the easy decision to go to our tried-and-true Gumbo Shop (that's literally the name). We dined in their lovely brick courtyard and ate, I'll let you guess....gumbo!
We walked off all of that traditional NOLA style food around the Mississippi river where we saw statues and drank Café Beignet's chicory coffee. We weren't able to go to the official Café Du Monde coffee shop because we didn't have cash on us. We didn't get to go the last time we were here either (because the line was so freaking long), so I guess it just wasn't meant to be.
Walking along the river, we heard some insane...music? Noise? We followed the terrifying sound to a huge steam boat, the Natchez, with a woman playing an organ. Here is a piece of info from the New Orleans's city website that might better explain this phenomenon we encountered: "The steam calliope, a steam pipe organ, has been identified with steamboats since 1865. Even small calliopes can be very loud and can be heard for miles. It was once a signal to head for the river: A showboat was 'a comin'."
After that we set off to track down a certain statue that we had heard existed in the city. It's a statue of Ignatius J. Reilly from the book Confederacy of Dunces. We both are big fans of that book and were excited to see him, but I must admit our excitement was slightly dampened by the fact that it smelled extremely strongly of urine around him. Poor Ignatius doesn't deserve that.
We went to dinner at a food hall where Brian got a "Pho-rito" (basically it was pho soup components put into a burrito) and Erika got a tofu bahn mi. Then we went to a rooftop bar called Monkey Board and got to see views of the city. Then we walked down to the craziness that is Bourbon Street.
We had to visit our favorite spot in that area, the supposed "oldest bar in America" Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar. It was built in 1732 and uses only candlelight for lighting just like would have been the case in the 1700's. They had a pianist playing requests that night, and he was kind of a snarky, feisty guy. If he didn't like your request he was going to let you know it.
No 13th floor, thank goodness (just kidding, we don't believe that kind of crap.)
No 13th floor, thank goodness (just kidding, we don't believe that kind of crap.)
"Our business stinks, but it's picking up!" Trash guys and their puns.
"Our business stinks, but it's picking up!" Trash guys and their puns.
Stiffest drinks. Get it??
Stiffest drinks. Get it??
