New Orleans has flooded many times in the city’s long and checkered history. Many homes have been destroyed by countless fires and floods. Many lives have been lost over hundreds of years fighting hundreds of hurricanes and the unforgiving Mississippi river. Through fire and flood, storm and surge, one thing has remained in New Orleans; the spirit of the people of New Orleans. To some overly educated folks New Orleans may seem like a backwards area of the country. To outsiders, People in New Orleans talk slower, they are more polite and are more likely to enjoy a walk on a hot summer day. These things, I can assure you, are not signs of any form of slowness, laziness, or sloth. These are signs of the C'est La Vie attitude the city and its population developed over its countless turmoil's. I mean it is truly a New Orleans state of mind to say ”I only had 6 feet of water in my house!”

In New Orleans, two things are as sure as the mighty Mississip. The first can be discovered within 15 minutes by a tourist from a thousand miles away. This is the revelation that New Orleans is a place with no equal. Some call New Orleans the U.S. European city. While New Orleans may have derived some of its architecture and culinary expertise from our European predecessors, New Orleans could not be more different. The second thing sure as the river is the fact that New Orleans calls to its locals like no other place on earth. This may take a while for someone to realize, but it is as tangible as King Cake at Mardi Gras or the Humidity in Audubon park in the Summer..

I think that you can live anywhere in the world and feel happy and content. That is until you have lived in New Orleans. The city and the people will enter your blood and flow through your veins. New Orleans is like a drug that continually beckons you from your sub conscience. New Orleanians never really feel alive till they are back in the Big Easy. Why, I don't know. One crazy idea is that it is our body’s natural attraction to water. New Orleans is surrounded by and sometimes even filled with water. It may be an innate calling to our spirit that drives us to be near the water. Where can you find a more diverse water system than New Orleans? After all, the city has fresh marshes, a brackish lake, a salt water lake and a muddy river. Who knows if that is the reason... I do know one thing, I miss New Orleans when I am away. The city has even called people enough that they felt it necessary to write a song about it. In my life I have traveled extensively and have yet to find a place I felt at home besides the greater New Orleans area. New Orleans and its outlying communities weave a fabric of life that is unique as Satsumas and Sugarcane or as polished as Grandmaws French and Mamas Magnalites.

I like to think that making a whiskey and making a city have a lot in common. When a distiller sets out to make whiskey, he hopes to make the best whiskey possible. He uses great ingredients and proven recipes. Time honored traditions and family honor go into each barrel created. Just like when God set out to make a city on the Mississippi river, he made New Orleans. He chose the richest land in the most unique area of the country. He put New Orleans on the river of America and at the Gateway to Louisiana. Some might questions God's desire to make a city known for its excesses and debaucheries. For me, I try not to question God, he knows what he is doing. While it is true the city has things that are clearly the Devil's tools, these temptations teach each of us temperance and tolerance. These are surely two of God's most requisite virtues. A good whiskey maker knows aging and mellowing is the key to a good whiskey. New Orleans has surely been aged by years of corruption, gambling, prostitution, war, and other forms of over indulgence and the city has been mellowed by repeated floods, hurricanes and crime problems. God does not give up on lost souls, nor does he give up on lost cities. New Orleans will rise again above the water. God is merely testing the resolve and fortitude of New Orleans and her people. New Orleans is the modern day Job and Katrina was our most recent test.

So if I had to pick a whiskey that best fits the style and richness of New Orleans, what would it be? It would have to be an old sour mash whiskey in a dusty bottle found in an old worn out barn that we served in Dixie cups on the back of Uncle Larry’s Chevy at a Rex Mardi Gras Parade. It may have been old, dusty and little not so fancy, but it hadn’t lost its bite and sure perked up the party. So why did I choose a correlation between whiskey and New Orleans? It is because New Orleans and Whiskey have a lot in common besides Bourbon Street. As long as they keep making whiskey and as long as there is still a New Orleans to call home I and many others like me will keep drinking them up. So barkeep Let's have another round for New Orleans, she's a bit broken up!