Beer and Wine Adventures in Orleans (the new one).

I had originally intended to write a wine-centric post to balance out all the beer nerdiness of my maiden voyage, but I'm afraid this was a beery weekend for me. Apologies.

I spent my Easter weekend in New Orleans with Adrienne. We loosely intended to eat at restaurants and walk around doing fun stuff but trying to look as little like tourists as possible. A good start was avoiding Bourbon Street. I'm pretty sure tourists drinking hand grenades kill more brain cells per capita than people huffing paint thinner.

New Orleans is known for its awesome puddles.

I finally got to visit a place I had been wanting to visit for a while: Stein's Deli. Flashback two months ago. I asked Lindsey at Spec's downtown where in the hell I can find Cantillion lambics. He said the closest place he knew was some deli in New Orleans called Stein's. I went on the internets. I got on the googles. Found Stein's and promptly had to pick my jaw up off the floor. The website might as well have read "A list of all the beers Justin Vann wants to drink that aren't available in Texas." Cantillion. Castelain. Schlenkerla. Rochefort. Nogne. I called, incredulous.

"Hi, I was calling to see if you actually have all these beers that you have listed on line in stock."
"Uh, yeah."
"So you actually have Cantillion?"
"Yeah, we have them, Boon, Drie Fontenien, and like 5 others. I'm getting some Cuvee de Champions, and if you like sours [ I DO ] we have the Goudenband and Duchess."
...
"Hello?"
"Sorry I'm just flabbergasted. We can get like, one of those beers in Houston."
"Well, uh, surely you have a specialty beer store somewhere there that you can special order them."
...
"Hello?"
"I manage one of the largest selection of beers in the city. They're not approved for sale by the TABC."
"Ah. Well let me get your number so I can pass it on to my Shelton Bros. Rep. He'll give you a call."
...
"If they're just for your personal consumption, you could come buy some here."
I just might do that if I find the time to make it up there. You've been incredibly helpful, what's your name?"
"Dan Stein. Here's my cell number, I'll give you a call back in just a second, I gotta sweep the floor."

I want to get wasted with these guys.

This guy Dan, his operation is hard as nails. It's a little Jewish Deli on Magazine Street. The first thing my eyes found was a shelf on a metrorack with an ample amount of every Fee's and Bitter Truth bitters. I see the celery bitters. I want them. Community tables. The place looks dilapidated. I can't tell who looks more grizzled, the employees or the customers. I see coolers. I see more metroracks. My heart is pounding. There's a line of people blocking access to all the beer and I fantasize about throwing a chair to scatter them to get out of my goddamn way. I can identify at least ten sick beers at a distance from the color of the label and the bottle shape. Everything else goes blurry, I grab an empty wine box and start going to town.

Fuck fuck FUCK SHIT HOLY DAMMIT

For those of you who aren't in the industry, here's what causes this frenzy: No matter what the booze, we professionals have to study it. And when we do study it, we come across things we want to taste really bad. Maybe we've never even seen a bottle in real life, but from what we know, we're reasonably sure we'll love it. The suspense builds. You know it's out there, and that one day you're going to find it and drink the FUCK out of it. Then one day you're farting around in the liquor store, and there it is. Staring you in the face. Maybe it's wildly expensive. Maybe you overdraft your bank account. Maybe you couldn't afford it until someone accidentally gave it a price tag meant for a candy bar. You likely don't care, because you've been waiting a long time and your curiosity has mutated into a pathological obsession. Woe unto the chattel that block your path. People are swirling around you, buying vodka, adjunct lager, box wine, soda, chips. You try to contain your glee. You pick it up, and you grin like an idiot. Nobody knows why you're so excited. You float to the register. When the money finally changes hands and the bottle is in your legal possession, your brain craps every last drop of serotonin into your head, and you're drunk. You haven't even opened the bottle yet. Maybe its underwhelming when you actually try it. Or maybe its so good you trip balls and talk to dead family members and figure out the meaning of life. Either way, I believe that hunt is a joy that unites all us alcohol professionals.

Happiness is surprising yourself with alcohol.

A few examples of unicorn bottles that I spent much time hunting at various points in my booze journey: Namazake, all Pappy Van Winkle products, Vin Jaune, Germain-Robin Brandy, S.A. Huet vouvrays, etc. Well, I been learnin me some beer in the past six months, kay? And God Bless Texas but there are some beers the TABC has not seen fit to allow us to consume. Beers that sound really good to me, like REAL lambic, that isn't cloyingly sweet, and cuts like a knife with freakish acidity. Stout made with OYSTERS. French beer de garde. Trappist beers that I've never tried before. Imperial Oatmeal Stouts made with Kopi Luwak (read: catshit coffee). I knew they were out there. Adrienne wanted to go on a trip. To New Orleans. Stein's is in New Orleans. Lot of beer I haven't had, that is being sold in Stein's. When can we leave?

I freaked out hard because there were so many beers there that I had wanted to try for a long time, and I found them ALL AT ONCE. I clearly annoyed the crap out of all the regulars by pacing the coolers, and loudly filling what came to two cases of beer on the counter, holding up the line like a complete tourist jackass. Sorry, but I caught a herd of unicorns, I'm high on life. We shared a Reuben, it was the best I've ever had in my life. We got back to the hotel and I popped a Castelain. It was heavenly.

Improvise!

BUT GUESS WHAT BEER NERDS

There are indeed other beverage categories in this world than beer. We went to dinner at Stella!
It was the bomb. We made friends with the wine director, John Mitchell the night prior. It's always a blast to watch other wine people work. We got the tastin' menu with wine pairings. No Dom perignon please. He replaced it with Robert Weil. He also switched out the cali cab with more burgundy. 2001 Lafarge Clos de Chene Burgundy. It was rill good. 1993 Banyuls with a chocolaty peanut buttery fancy thing was the bomb. FINALLY got to try rose Txakoli, which John (in proper somm showoff fashion) poured from an authentic Txakoli decanter. Where did you get it, I asked. Basque country. Of course. Crap. 1991 Lopez de Heredia white rioja? It's what dreams are made of, silly goose.

I'M SORRY WINE NERDS BUT I GOTTA SAY THIS

I was still thinking about that beer at Stein's. I mean my head was in the moment, getting crunk on VEP chartreuse with Adrienne and eating funky minardises. But here's a question I can't get a satisfactory answer to: why is it so hard for epic beers like these to get a spot on the menu in fine dining restaurants? And no, for fucks sake, I don't mean instead of wine. I mean alongside it. I guess part of my little boozehound heart wished there could have also been a beer pairing option on a place like Stella!'s list. I wish high quality beer had a regular place in fine dining.

I know I'm not the first person to ask this question. I know there are restaurants that have excellent beer menus that one could consider "white tablecloth". But those restaurants seem like an exception to the rule. I feel like in my corner of the world, there are not any beer places that strive to serve really fine food, and no fine restaurants that have a desire to have an esoteric, if not comprehensive beer program. I see restaurants with more tea or coffee selections than beers. Why are we going so deep on wine, liqour, coffee, tea, and just glazing over beer? Do I sound like a conspiracy theorist? Because I feel like one.  I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

It's getting late, and I have to open tomorrow. I'm skipping over delmonico's, and green goddess, which were excellent meals, with sick wine. Here's one thing that I cannot glaze over though:

All of these pictures were taken by Adrienne Byard.

Bleg post number 2, completed.