Friday, November 16, 2007

UPCOMING HOLIDAY EVENTS

TALES OF THE TODDY
Wednesday, November 28
Hotel Monteleone
214 Royal St.
6-8:30pm

Presented by Tales of the Cocktail, Tales of the Toddy presents holiday treats to warm your soul. The seasonal celebration offers tastings of toddies, nogs, hot buttered rums, mulled wine and more, along with desserts and delights from the areas best and most gifted mixologists and chefs. The cheerful toast to the holidays will also feature killer cocktail modeling by Febe, book signings by Kit Wohl & Lorin Gaudin. Proceeds benefit The New Orleans Culinary and Cultural Preservation Society. For more information please call 504-558-1840. Tickets are $20.00 and are on sale now!


RUM FIELD TRAINING SCHOOL
Saturday, December 8
11:30-3pm
Cafe Adelaide & Celebration Distillation

Tales of the Cocktail, with support from The Museum of the American Cocktail, presents a one-day rum boot-camp course and tasting. The day begins with a welcome cocktail at Café Adelaide and an historical review of rum by local author Wayne Curtis, followed by a tour of Celebration Distillation, home of award-winning Old New Orleans Rum. Lunch follows with cocktail pairings by bar chef Lu Brow back at Café Adelaide.
The Rum Field Training School is dedicated to everything about rum – its raucous role in American history, how it is made, how geography and aging alters its taste, and how to enjoy it: straight up, in cocktails, and paired with food. Tickets are $150 per person and space is limited, so make your reservation today...go to www.talesofthecocktail.com


SAVVY GOURMET RUM TASTINGS & GIFT BASKET IDEAS

Holiday gift baskets are now available at local gourmet store & cooking school Savvy Gourmet, and Old New Orleans Rum is proud to be featured in the "Local Favorites" basket!

Before you buy, enjoy a free Old New Orleans Rum tasting at Savvy:
Saturday Nov. 17, 11:30am -1:30pm
Saturday Dec. 1, 11:30am -1:30pm
Saturday Dec. 15, 11:30am -1:30pm

Please visit www.savvygourmet.com for more details.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Tipitina's Foundation Fundraiser

Last week the Tipitina's Foundation and Old New Orleans Rum joined forces at the distillery, hosting a listening party for a new CD tribute to Fats Domino, "Goin' Home."

We raised money for childhood music education as well as for the professional development of adult musicians, while our guests enjoyed tours and rum cocktails.



To the right, the lovely CEO of Michalopoulos Enterprises, Heidi Raines with her husband Danny Raines and Johnny Culpepper.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Old New Orleans Rum is Pirate-Approved

Shiver me timbers!
This past weekend our distillery was invaded by pirates!

There were wenches & men with swords and they all actually spoke like pirates, as in, "Arr, me hearty," in deep, throaty voices.

They are just a few of the fun-loving folks who have embraced pirate culture in this country. PyrateCon 2008 is an upcoming pirate festival here in New Orleans, featuring sword battles, wench auctions and feasts. Keep yer eyes peeled this April...Old New Orleans Rum is the official rum of PyrateCon!

Friday, September 14, 2007

Whatever It Takes


This is one of our hard-working distillers, Chris Sule, inside a 2,000 gallon stainless steel tank at Celebration Distillation.

Armed with a brush, cleaning supplies, muscle power and a head lamp, Chris climbed inside and scrubbed it down in preparation for filling. We use these tanks for a variety of purposes.

In one tank we store 150 proof rum until we are ready to dilute it down with de-ionized, filtered water to the 80 proof rum you'll drink gleefully at your next cocktail party .

Another tank has been converted into a pot still by Chris and Elvis, our other magnificent distiller. We think of these guys as our own personal "MacGyver's", as they are always coming up with amazing ideas and innovations at the distillery.




We also have another tank we use to store "low wines", which are the first spirits to come off of the still (usually about 21% alcohol/volume). Come for a tour to learn more about what we do!






Friday, August 24, 2007

Distilleries Pt. 1

This is a great video about distilleries from the History Channel...it's about 10 minutes long, but well worth it if you are interested!

Monday, August 6, 2007

New Packaging Hits the Shelves

After many months of development, Old New Orleans Rum is hitting the shelves this week with a brand new look!

If you're familiar with the traditional
"pirate ship" motif often found on rum labels, you can see the difference we've made here. The design team consisted of Tom Williams, Ze da Luz, James Michalopoulos and myself, and this combination of talent resulted in the striking packaging you see today. The labels also are very special because they have an image of James' work inside the back label.

Michalopoulos is a painter with a wildly colorful and expressive style. He is also the mastermind behind Old New Orleans Rum, so it's a perfect fit to have his images behind the rum.

As project manager for the art department at the distillery, I get to work with James on all of these labels, and if you visit our bottling room you can see the many, many designs that have poured out of James' brain over the years. For the moment, we really love our latest look.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Old New Orleans Rum Wins Again


OLD NEW ORLEANS RUM WINS FOUR MEDALS AT
TALES OF THE COCKTAIL

If you haven't heard, Tales of the Cocktail is a fabulous cocktail festival held every year in New Orleans, with presentations by mixologists, bartenders, chefs & authors from around the country. Old New Orleans Rum hosted a tasting of New Orleans cocktails and paired them with New Orleans music.
Celebrated Master Intoxicologist Bill de Turk spoke about the history of these cocktails and shared his vast knowledge of spirits with a very enthusiastic audience.

The Ministry of Rum granted these honors to our fine Louisiana rums:
Gold Medal - Old New Orleans Crystal
Silver Medal - Old New Orleans Amber
Silver Medal - Old New Orleans Ten Year
Bronze Medal - Old New Orleans Cajun Spice