There is going to be a point this weekend when you’re feeling weak. Off your game. Looking to bide some time until you can break through the weariness and get your fastball back. It's time to throw some junk. And that means frozen drinks.
Thankfully, the French Quarter has got ‘em. And not just your standard strawberry daiquiris and margaritas. The classics are tasty, but there’s a bigger frozen frontier to be explored or avoided at all risks. This is a brief guide to what’s out there waiting for you.
Frozen Irish Coffee
Molly’s At The Market
1107 Decatur Street
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| Rise and shine, kiddos. |
It’s the only Christian way to start the day, sprinkled with a dusting of coffee grounds. And at $4.50, the Frozen Irish Coffee is one of the more affordable frozen cocktails, served 24/7. Because down here. it's entirely possible your body clock might become askew, and you never know when the craving is going to hit. It's the perfect salve for dousing the fires after a night of Flaming Dr. Peppers from the Gold Mine. The Sub-Zero to Gold Mine's Scorpion.
Musical Accompaniment: When you order this, The Pogues's classic "Fairy Tale of New York (Christmas in the Drunk Tank" will probably be playing...either in reality or just within the last blinking gasps of sensory function you've got left.
Voodoo
Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop (not to be confused with Lafitte's in Exile)
Go until the men dance on bars. And then keep going a little further
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| It's dark, cold, dangerous and delicious. |
Ingredients: Purple, alcohol and drank...then frozen.
It tastes like purple. Not to be confused with grape. There's nothing grape about it. Made from the fermented juice pressed out of purple skittles, mixed with grain alcohol and frozen in a pirate's forge.
Music: "Beat It" wheezed by the last honest bar matron piano busker in the city.
Hand Grenade
Tropical Isle
Several locations along Bourbon
Ingredients: Grain alcohol and off-brand lemon-lime Gatorade...either frozen or on the rocks. No need to shout. Just take a look and you know what he's holdin. And you know what you need. We got that WMD. Just take a taste. Oh no, he don't handle no money or product. But he'll point you in the right direction. Just tell 'em you know the green pineapple.
On the rocks, it tastes like everything good about white trash. Frozen, it tastes like yellow snow from a Polar Bear with a diet of nothing but key limes and Eskimo virgins.
Music: "Fortunate Son" covered by a live band fronted by an overweight, shoeless, 50 year old man. A snake skin strap desperately clutching a Squire Stratocaster close to the protruding beer belly.
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| Oh, he sees you. He knows what you need. It'll make the pain go away. |
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| Don't. Sleep. |
The Jester
Jester’s Drinks and Pizza
At Bourbon's beginning and again at the end.
Ingredients: Off-brand Everclear, Off-brand 151, kiwi strawberry mix and Freddie Kruger's backwash.
Boldly, it claims to be the strongest drink on Bourbon Street. They will get no dispute from me. Famously, after tasting The Jester for the first time, it was noted that by a hardcore Louisiana deviant that this frozen drink "Tastes like Night Terrors." Again, no disagreement here.
It's the Baked Alaska of the French Quarter sidewalks. You wouldn't think something frozen could also be flammable, but this is a place that's all about pushing the boundaries of science and sense.
The Jester always has the last laugh, and it's a laugh of pure, hateful evil.
Music: Black Eyed Peas from wall-to-wall. All day. Every day. It's the soundtrack to Night Terrors and flaming ice.
190 Octane
Mango Mango Mango
Outposts of a dying empire.
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| Tried to paint with all the colors of the wind and got blown over by the breeze. |
Ingredients: "Diesel" is the off-brand grain alcohol used by many of the illustrious frozen-drink mongers. Here, it's mixed with Sunny D and other flavored beverages of the inner city.
The empire is dying. It was once proud and strong, overseen by the legendary Pochontas. But Pochontas spent the night under a small pox blanket, and it's been downhill since. Half the automated mixers were still and barren. The upstairs balcony was deserted, with only mis-matched executive furniture and an empty bar sitting in the corner, like the office of a small-time 1980s hedge fund after an SEC raid.
The drinks are still decent, however. The 190 Octane (Sunny D and Diesel) is probably the closest any of the New Orleans stunt drinks (drinks that only exist for someone at peace with the possibility that they might not make it all the way over Snake River Canyon) come to being enjoyable.
Music: Silence. The silence of desertion and decay. Like Chernobyl or Detroit. Somewhere, you hear the sad song of a woman's voice breaking the air...but then it disappears. You wonder if it was ever really there.
Honorable Mention
(DQ'd for unfair use of actual, naturally-grown food substances)
Dirty Banana
French Market
Ingredients: Whole bananas, ice cream, amaretto, dark rum and nutmeg, blended freshly before your eyes. It'd be blasphemy if it weren't so damned tasty.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Pharmacists
For a quick side note, let's discuss the highly trained class of individuals who will be serving you the above-mentioned poisons and remedies. There is no doubt you will find yourself conflicted on several levels throughout your journey of drinking in the Quarter.
For a true New Orleans dining and drinking experience, you should be both aroused and intimidated by your server. It's a Praying Mantis mating instinct-- attraction mixed with impending doom. Tattoos will almost always be involved. Just be prepared.
And whatever you do, never, ever, ever, buy anything sold to you in a vial. No matter how colorful it may be.
And Finally, A Word About Liquidity, The Gold Standard and Cash Reserves
New Orleans is a cash only town. Nothing personal. It’s just, you never know what tomorrow’s going to bring, so
it’s best for everyone involved to keep outstanding accounts to a minimum. The condemned aren’t good candidates for giving or receiving credit. New Orleans sees both itself and its customers as potential flight risks. Even for the places that will grudgingly accept a credit card, do you really want to commit yourself to a relationship here?
So, you need to carry cash. Knowing this, your friendly money lenders have conveniently placed ATMs throughout the greater French Quarter area with fees anywhere from $4 to $10 per transaction. There is one, and only one, honest man on Bourbon Street. Hidden behind the faux Mardi Gras masks and just below the “I got bourbon faced on shit street” t-shirt, is an ATM with a 99 cent fee. Find the Traders Emporium and use it often. It's the only upright usurer on the pilgrim's highway.
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