Old New Orleans Rum Distillery

Celebration Distillation's Old New Orleans Rum distillery offers my favorite distillery tour. (I'm a repeat visitor.) The tour covers the history and business of the distillery, the distillation process, the bottling, a bit of local history, and opportunity to taste the good stuff produced here.

Old New Orleans rum is produced by a small band of local brewmasters, engineers, and artists in an old cotton warehouse. They create their product in small batches, age it in charred whiskey barrels, and bottle it by hand.

If you find yourself on a dead end street of warehouses, you're probably in the right place

Jeff tells stories of the distillery's recovery from flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina

Jeff talks about the distillation process

Frank's Restaurant

Frank's Restaurant was recommended to us by a lifetime Louisiana resident as a good place to get a good taste of local New Orleans food.

I ordered the Snapper Jack, a trifecta of local favorites: snapper, gulf shrimp, and crawfish. Sophia ordered a Muffuletta: Italian cold cuts and olive salad on muffuletta bread. We received generous portions of both, and both were delicious.

Snapper Jack

Muffuletta Sandwich

Jackson Square

Any visit to New Orleans requires a selfie in Jackson Square -- even if sweaty after walking around all morning in search of drugs.

Caliche & Pao Gallery

We were lured into the Caliche & Pao Gallery by the vibrant colors and air conditioning. The gallery is filled with the art of husband and wife artists Caliche and Pao. Their work was mostly New Orleans or Jazz themed -- all with bold vibrant colors.

If I had the wall space and weren't at the start of a long (and costly) road trip, I'd likely would have made a purchase.

Drug-seeking behavior

We're playing tourist in New Orleans for a few days. Sophia has a prescription that needs to be refilled. We start the day with a visit to Café du Monde, and then set out to find a Walgreens and get her prescription refilled. I see that there is a Walgreens nearby and we walk that way.

We get to the Walgreens and discover that it contains no pharmacy.

We look up the next nearest Walgreens and go for another walk. It too has no pharmacy.  We'd never before encountered a Walgreens without a pharmacy. We're accustomed to the pharmacies inside some Walgreens not being open as late as the store. A Walgreens without a pharmacy is like a Conoco that doesn't sell gasoline.

We discover that there is another Walgreens not far away. Will the third time be a charm? Or does three strikes make an out?

The third Walgreens has a pharmacy. We get our drugs and return to being tourists... but the morning is now gone. 

Lessons learned: (1) Some pharmacies don't have pharmacies; therefore, (2) call ahead and inquire before walking around all morning on a hot and humid Louisiana summer day.