New Orleans Bartenders Are Genteel Amid Chaos

The best bartenders in the world live here in New Orleans, but I'm completely biased. They make incredible cocktails, get the most drunk on their nights off, and are somehow still very responsible when intoxicated. I'm also a bartender. By the end of a shift, a bartender has created a mass of drinks from simple to complex, so generally speaking, from cocktail to dive bartender, you go with something simple and potent: A shot and a beer. It's easy and gets you toasty quickly.

I, myself, have worked in the New Orleans bartending scene on and off for the last ten years. There's an unspoken shared desire and expectation in our community that you have to be just as good at being hospitable and entertaining as you are at your craft. It's part of what it means to be Southern. The built-in aspect of Southern service requires you to be friendly, sweet, and polite. Everyone who works the bar at my new restaurant, Oxalis, are people who care very much about what they do, but also engage with their customers as if they were friends. Our customers often do become our friends. We're literally serving our neighbors and community.

I come from a varied stock in terms of experience behind the bar: I've worked in live music venues watching some of the most respected New Orleans musicians (Walter Wolfman Washington loves Jack Daniels. Kermit Ruffins used to drink Miller Lites on Sunday after church in case you were wondering). I've worked bounce shows and had motherfuckers stick their hands in my tip jar and threaten to kill me in the paring lot. I've been mostly slinging drinks and poppin' beers, but I've also worked in fine dining. When I jumped head first into the cocktail scene three years ago, it was at Bar Tonique, a New Orleans watering hole for the craft-cocktail enthusiast and vodka soda drinker alike. I started and held onto Monday nights, which is the service industry's Friday night. Even when it was slow, industry friends would come in, fill me in on the gossip about their weekends, and tip really well.

One of the most commonly ordered drinks over there was the mint julep, which I dreaded making. Its a Southern classic that is truly soothing in the sticky heat of summer. Late one humid August Monday evening, my guests and I were rounding out our night—the bar was mellow with a couple tourists and a bartender that had just gotten off of his shift. I was about three juleps in that night, but not mad about it as the company was convivial. I thought, Fuck me its so slow, I'm closing the bar. Around 1 AM, two Australians walked in. They were charming, enthusiastic, and really wanted me to complete a potential threesome. This was amusing. So I thought, no, I'm going to make the best of this shift, and kept it open. They heard SBTRKT on my playlist and requested "Pharaohs," so I obliged. Right then, the entire FOH staff from John Besh's Italian restaurant, Domenica, walked in. Additionally, an old woman waddled in off the street while Peggy, a Domenica bartender, bought the entire bar a round of shots (She is legend for this). We're talking about 20 or so people. I was so thankful that no one ordered mint juleps. The Australians exclaimed that they made a line dance to the tune once an audience had arrived. Suddenly, all 20+ patrons started dancing, and before we knew it, the 50-year-old had positioned herself on top of the bar, screaming that she taught Zumba classes. She didn't look like she taught Zumba. It was awkward to have to pull an older woman off of a mahogany countertop. She refused to jump off, even when I told her, "You are 50 and drunk. You're going to fall. Get off the bar!" A fellow bartender had to bear hug her to pull her off the counter. She was practically tap dancing mid-air. No one really seemed to notice, however, as the clock was well passed drunk o'clock. Though mint juleps and the Blanche Dubois—a sweet and boozy mixture of gin, curacau, housemade orgeat, strawberries, citrus, and spearmint—fill up the majority of my average drink requests every other night of the week; I was thankful that even the Zumba lady didn't order a mint julep that night.

When I opened up Oxalis, I wanted to continue that tradition of a Southern drink like the mint julep, but update it and keep it seasonally driven. One of my favorite things to drink is scotch (I thank my Sri-Lankan uncles for this)—Japanese scotch, to be more specific. The first time I tried it, I was so impressed. Japanese scotches are really brilliant because the Japanese have a way of being very precise in all that they do. But then it got me wondering about what a scotch julep would taste like. One of the bartender's at Oxalis, Jesi, is very health conscious and is really into gardening. She recently mentioned that she wanted to create a shiso julep, and that's when I looked across the bar to a beautiful bottle of Japanese scotch. It was time to test it out. We asked around to our Louisiana distributors to see what was available to sweeten the drink and selected Soju. We went with the umeshu, or plum soju, with a small amount of simple syrup. All of these ingredients combined create the Japanese Julep, which I'm certain Blanche Dubois would approve of. You have to pace yourself though, because one too many of these can yield to a wild night. But I guess that's true of any cocktail in New Orleans, especially when they're delicious.