Gumbo is a phenomenal New Orleans dish. It’s a traditional stew of seafood, sausage, chicken or pork, rice, and various spices thrown together in a single pot and fortified by a thick roux. When made with quality ingredients, attention to detail, and a little love, the results are balanced and satisfying.
New Orleans drinking culture is not unlike gumbo. Instead of rice and proteins, its ingredients are a jumble of important cocktail history and bumbling, stumbling overindulgence up and down Bourbon Street, seasoned with Sazeracs and Vieux Carrés and Hurricanes and topped off with generous sprinkles of reverence and raunch. Bourbon Street and the rest of the French Quarter carry their own unique flavor via their well-earned, hard-partying reputation, but outside their boundaries are revered spaces upholding cocktail lore and pushing the drinking scene to more sophisticated places. It’s a recipe that helps the Big Easy attract millions of visitors every year, which is what it needs to do — tourism is the city’s lifeblood. Raw numbers suggest it’s a good one. The Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism reported $1.9 billion in state and local tax revenues came from travel and tourism in 2022, and it’s not difficult to deduce that the Crescent City contributed a healthy chunk of that figure.
Talking to the locals in the city’s hospitality industry, though, paints a slightly different picture. There are growing concerns that the city’s rowdiest street has changed for the worse. “Bourbon Street was around long before we were.
