I have been trying to both follow Dale's book and feature the cocktails of New Orleans, because I am still in a post-Tales recovery period. Unfortunately Dale does not feature all of the famous New Orleans cocktails in his book. He does, however, have a DDG (Dale DeGroff) original called the New Orleans Cocktail which I made tonight. Consisting of Bourbon, a few dashes of Peychaud's bitters and a couple dashes of orange curacao, the drink tastes...Bourbony. Sort of like a dry Old Fashioned, served up in a chilled cocktail glass, with a DDG signature, the flamed lemon peel.

We also made the Cocktail a la Louisiane which is not in Dale's book, but which I felt like making tonight in our New Orleans cocktail roundup. The Louisane is is like a Vieux Carre (also not in the Dale) without the Cognac and was, according to Chuck Taggart, the signature cocktail at the Restaurant de la Louisiane in New Orleans.