NOLADrinks Show – 11-19-18 – Tales of the Cocktail Looking Ahead

On this week’s The NOLADrinks Show with Bryan Dias, we chat with Neal Bodenheimer and Caroline Rosen of Tales of the Cocktail. Neal is the organization’s board co-chair and Caroline is their executive director. We talk Tales on Tour taking place in Puerto Rico this spring, their ongoing efforts to improve and re-evaluate activities, their grants program, and much more!

Pictured above from left – Caroline Rosen, executive director of Tales of the Cocktail, Bryan Dias of The NOLADrinks Show, and Neal Bodenheimer, board co-chair of Tales of the Cocktail.

NOLADrinks Show – 11-19-18 – Tales of the Cocktail Looking Ahead

We start things up talking about this week’s show and a couple upcoming episodes. We also discuss and officially announce our French Quarter Festival Series that will begin in December!

Next, we head over to the terrific French Quarter establishment, Cane & Table, for our featured interview. We welcome two-thirds of the leadership team of Tales of the Cocktail – board co-chair, Neal Bodenheimer, and executive director, Caroline Rosen.

We discuss various aspects of their first almost-year running this important organization. Tales of the Cocktail is the largest bartender and spirits convention in the industry that takes place each July in New Orleans. We touch on the importance of the event to the city. We also begin to chat about the many year-round things they do, beyond Tales itself and the ongoing challenge to both continue programming as well as evaluate and, in many cases, re-tool things for the better. We talk about the need to continue building community around these events and their programs, including promoting personal wellness among industry members.

In the following segment, we focus on Tales on Tour – where they take the event to a different (usually international) location each year. Next spring, the convention will happen in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We discuss the importance of holding it there, including recognizing all the help and support New Orleans received in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and how that matters in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

We then circle back to some other programming including their annual winter event, Tales of the Toddy, and some of the significant changes they’re making to that event. We also mention taking a year off from “Daiquiri Season” in order to improve that event. It will be back next year!

We then move into conversation about their grants program. We talk about this year’s first iteration that gave $250,000 to support causes important to the industry, ranging from environmental/sustainability issues to maintaining personal health and wellness among industry members. This conversation continues as Neal and Caroline stick around for our podcast-only portion – “Another Shot with NOLADrinks.” We speak more regarding the grants program, in particular with some ideas moving forward for the second year. We also discuss how the call for seminar ideas for both Tales of the Cocktail and Tales on Tour is now open!

Thanks to Cane & Table for hosting us for the interview!

We close things out with our “Parting Shot” talking about Puerto Rico. Understanding what tourism and exposure meant in the wake of Hurricane Katrina here in New Orleans, we talk about how you can help out with a visit and give props to Tales for heading there in the spring!

You can subscribe to, stream, and download The NOLADrinks Show podcast from your favorite platform or get it here using the links and the player above. The map below shows the location of Cane and Table.

Cheers, You All!

~ Bryan