Pouring the Past Cocktail Experience

Join cocktail historian Elizabeth Pearce on a stroll through the history of local libations and experience the grandeur of New Orleans’s oldest restaurant! Your adventure begins at the Historic New Orleans Collection where our archivists will offer an exclusive look from HNOC’s Restaurant Menu Collection as well as other spectacular items from our vault.

This is a rare opportunity to gaze into the past through menus from storied New Orleans restaurants, including Antoine’s—the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the city.

After this introductory “aperitif” on local cocktail history, Elizabeth will lead your group into the French Quarter for the tasting portion of your tour.

• Visit Antoine’s Restaurant to enjoy two (2) classic cocktails and learn how drinking in the city’s restaurants has evolved over time.
• Explore the history of specific New Orleans cocktails and how they fit into America’s broader restaurant and drinking traditions.
• Grab a “go-cup” and join Elizabeth on a stroll through the streets of the French Quarter to learn why New Orleans is one of the few places in America that permits open containers throughout the city.
• Leave with an appreciation of how cocktails are an integral part of New Orleans’s culinary character—from colonial times to the present day.