It’s Not Over ‘til the Vieux Carré Sings

I have announced the drink of the season - a toast to our ancestors

I am declaring a beverage for this dark autumn: The Season of the Vieux Carré.

It suits All Hallows Eve, La Toussaints, el Dia de Los Muertos, and the mother of them all, Samhain.

We have many loved ones we are grieving. We are in a time of war, and a time of loss. We are thinking of our ancestors, and wondering if they knew it would be like this. (Spoiler: Yes).

Like many, I am inviting my friends to mourn and celebrate this time with our family. I am cooking and pouring some potent remembrances.

I think drink makes us remember, as well as forget.

The “Vieux Carré” is a drink of New Orleans, a very old drink that wasn’t even published until the 1930s, but likely originates far before that.

In NOLA, you would pronounce it, VOO-Car-ay. —Just like that.

It means, the “old neighborhood,” and in this instance, the French Quarter, where so much of New Orleans music and community and feast and ecstasy occurs. No matter what you may read in a tourist brochure, the Quarter is older and deepe…