I'm Still Drunk!!!! Tales of the Cocktail, Day One

Dang.... That's two nights out of the last three in which I've woken up still drunk from the night before. I guess, if anything, that's a pretty decent return on investment, better than I'm getting in the stock market right now.

So, you've all endured the pain of drunk dialing.... making a mistake phone call when you're drunk and regretting it fully the next morning. I'm going to drunk blog. . . though I'm hedging my bets and posting here as opposed to the Tales Blog or Slashfood. I may be drunk, but I've still got some wits about me.

Okay, first, lets get this one out of the way. Rocky, Dayne, I love you guys, but fuck whichever of you brought me that absinthe frappé. It's now 8 a.m., two hours until I'm due at TOTC, and I'm still buzzed up. This isn't promising. Maybe for you guys, and everyone else, but not for me.

Now that that's off my chest, I'm going to unload my notebook from Day One at Tales Of The Cocktail.....

First, Christine and I got loaded the night before I left. Went out and pinballed around town, got food at 611, then went to the Saint, Liberty, Sun Liquor and finally back to Union (I'm too drunk to put links to all these, Google it yourselves, and that's just going to have to be true for the rest of this post). Got home, then woke up a couple hours later to finish "packing" so I could fly to NOLA. Well, being drunk from the night before, I forgot to pack extra pairs of shorts and shirts. The shirts I did pack look exactly alike, so now everyone at Tales is going to think I'm wearing the same clothes everyday, which will only partially be true.

Interjection: the coffee down south absolutely sucks!!!! You're going to hear a whole lot of bitching from the PNW guys about the lack of quality coffee.... ignore us at your peril....

SOOOOOOOO, being tired from sobering up while traveling, I missed out on the blogger party and was quite glad I did. I was able to make the very first session of Tales and all the subsequent panels I wanted to get to and was reasonably lucid and able to retain most of what I learned. Probably. Guess we'll find out when I try to write coherently for the Tales blog or Slashfood.

Highlights of Day One? Number One, meeting and partying with my fellow bloggers. This was and still is the one thing I wanted to do this week. As much as I read and love Degroff, Wondrich, Regan and everybody else, I think I still learn more from the collective blogging community than I do from my collection of books and authors. Yeah, I'm drunk, but I will happily stand behind that statement any day. I was (and still am) thrilled to meet the cocktail bloggers. And I'm looking forward to a few more nights like last night....

Other highlights? All three panels I attended yesterday were great in their own way. I'll write about these when (if) I sober up. I'm really looking forward to getting a chance to write about the sparsely attended first panel of the day, moderated by Doug Frost.

I got to meet David Wondrich, who is a great and charming guy, the kind of guy you'd like to drink with (I mean really, is there a better compliment?), Martin Cate, Robert Hess (funny that I should finally meet Robert in New Orleans rather than in our mutual hometown). I'm far too shy to introduce myself to Degroff or Regan, though given enough to drink anything is possible. Oh shit, yeah, I met Chris McMillan!!!! On my julep post, I provide a link to his Youtube video, and if you haven't seen it yet, I have no idea why you're even reading this blog!!! Chris is just the most gentle, humble bartender you're ever going to meet. He's a bartender's bartender, which is the second best compliment you can pay someone, and yes, I would LOVE to sit down with Chris and have a cocktail and listen to him spin New Orleans history all night, so now I've given him my highest compliment. I hope I get a chance to spend more time with him, as he is truly remarkable.

The Tales reception/Beefeater hoohah was fun, though a little crowded. Rocky, Dayne and I skipped the rest of the evening festivities and went to Cochon for dinner, which was pretty awesome. Those two know how to eat. Rocky has some pornographic pictures of the food we ate, if you're curious, and I'm sure he'll put some up for public drooling on his Flickr account. I remember lots of eating, lots of shouting, and lots of laughter, which in my mind means a perfect way to spend an evening.

Then, some bastard handed me an absinthe frappé at LaFitte's. And now everyone gets to read a drunk post from Slowpoke Rodriquez, the slowest mouse in all of Mexico (btw, this is how I always think of/refer to myself when I'm hungover or still drunk from the night before). It's going to be a long week....

That's all I have. You've been briefed. You've been drunk blogged.

You're welcome.

See you tomorrow. If I'm lucky.