We returned earlier this week from our trip to New Orleans to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. The French Quarter is a truly amazing place!
Here are a few tidbits…
#1 Who has better beignets—Cafe du Monde or Cafe Beignet?
We were told that this is a question. It is not a question. Cafe du Monde’s beignets are light and fluffy and served by friendly, efficient people in a delightful atmosphere. Cafe Beignet is joyless and its beignets are bricks. Don’t waste your time. Get the real deal.
#2 Bourbon Street
This street gets its name from the line of French kings, not the drink, but it might as well get it from the drink. Decatur, Royal, and Chartres streets are certainly lively, but Bourbon Street is a hive of drunken bedlam.
While walking its length, I thought of an analogy: Decatur Street is to Bourbon Street as Diagon Alley is to Knockturn Alley.
IYKYK.
#3 Absinthe is fun.
After nearly a century of languishing in the dungeons of Western governments, absinthe is once again legal. Why was it illegal, you ask?
Lawyers
In 1905, a Frenchman named Jean Lanfray—after more than a day of getting hammered on every kind of liquor he could get his hands on—murdered his wife and two daughters (and, as it was subsequently discovered, his unborn son). In spite of the fact that he had consumed a wide variety of alcohols, Lanfray’s attorneys seized on the absinthe as a defense: he was suffering from “absinthe madness,” you see. (As it turned out, the defense was not successful—Lanfray was found guilty and hung himself in jail four days later.)So-called ‘experts’
Anyone who lived through 2020–2023, and who is not prone to mass-formation hypnosis, knows that ‘experts’ and technocrats are definitely not to be trusted. This, as it turns out, has always been the case: Lanfray’s “lawyers called to the stand Albert Mahaim, a leading Swiss psychiatrist. He had examined the defendant and declared confidently that only sustained, daily corruption by that foul drink could have given him ‘the ferociousness of temper and blind rages that made him shoot his wife for nothing and his two poor children, whom he loved.’” *Eye roll*Politicians
“‘Absinthe,’ Commugny’s mayor publicly declared, ‘is the principal cause of a series of bloody crimes in our country.’ A petition to outlaw the drink gathered 82,000 signatures in just a few days.” A politician doing something stupid in order to get a gullible populace riled up? Color me shocked.The press
In the months leading up to the trial, the press made lots of hay out of what they dubbed “the absinthe murders.” They sold lots of newspapers and stirred outrage on a subject about which the people and press knew little. Lots of noise…not much actual data. Sound familiar?Prohibitionists (a.k.a. people who want to force others to live a certain way)
This excerpt from a 1907 temperance petition says it all: “Absinthe makes you crazy and criminal, provokes epilepsy and tuberculosis, and has killed thousands of French people. It makes a ferocious beast of man, a martyr of woman, and a degenerate of the infant. It disorganizes and ruins the family and menaces the future of the country.” A degenerate of the infant? Qu'est-ce que c'est?Crony capitalism
Seeing absinthe’s rising popularity, wine makers and distillers of other types of alcohol pressed governments to ban their competition, and it worked. I just know how completely shocked you are by that, too.
Once again, an unholy alliance of politicians, the media, technocrats, busybodies, crony capitalists, and a gullible public conspired to do something dumb. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Absinthe does not ‘cause madness and death,’ as we were all told. There is a putatively psychoactive compound called thujone in absinthe’s unique ingredient (wormwood). However, in order to feel the effects, you need to drink so much absinthe that you would die of alcohol poisoning long before you ever hallucinated your first green fairy.
My wife and I are not big drinkers. We shared three drinks over five days—all of them absinthe, all served by the same delightful bartender. But it was one of our favorite parts of the trip. The bartender was a hoot. The absinthe was unique. The Old Absinthe House is very old, very dirty, and very cool.
Our absinthe was served in an entertaining way: a sugar cube placed atop a special slotted spoon and lit aflame (using the very high-proof alcohol—120, in this case) and then dissolved into the absinthe along with some water.
I do not care whether or not that is the authentic or original way in which it was served—it was fun, as you can see from this video (complete with interested inquiries from onlookers):
Absinthe is alcohol, so its intoxicating effects are similar…but, the feeling is arguably somewhat cleaner and clearer. It certainly made the ghost tour we attended right afterwards seem that much more bubbly.
Everyone must choose for themselves, but one thing is for sure—the notion that absinthe is more dangerous than other alcoholic drinks is a 100-year-old myth. I am not giving you any advice, but Apocalypse Cartman (one of the many filthy things randomly stuck to the walls of the Old Absinthe House) seems to be beckoning people to try it…
I can believe it’s worth the wait. 🙏Tubas are amazing. Ha! Might have been the Rebirth brass band.
And re:tomorrow...OK! I will!! 🎸
Congrats on your anniversary!! A noble accomplishment in this age of....well, I’m not sure what to call it! 😉
I had the blessing of going to New Orleans for my 30th birthday, the spring before the summer the city drowned. Being a musician, I found it absolutely intoxicating to be there, where music with so much heart & soul seeped out of every crook and cranny. Sitting on the floor of Preservation Hall an inch away from the trombone was my “absinthe experience”. I’ve never been the same since.