Still Hungover from Phillips Spiked Lunch

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT > AC NIGHTLIFE

AC Weekly contributor Adam Robb is finally waking up after weeks of drinking at this year's Tails of the Cocktail event, held in New Orleans, and the Atlantic City Food & Wine Festival, held July 28-31.

By Adam Robb

Add Comment | Comments: 1 | Posted Aug. 9, 2011

A Blue Crab Margarita, paired with Mojito clams and (and an extra shot of tequila.)

Photo by Adam Robb

ATLANTIC CITY — The lifeblood of New Orleans is food and drink.

Flooding and gambling may stream through the city, cleansing and corrupting it, but oysters and alligators, gin and rye keep it alive.

It's why, on HBO's Treme, the rituals of chefs are as well regarded as Indian chiefs' and trumpet players', and why, to prepare ourselves for last month's Tales of the Cocktail, we picked up the most recent works of the goth turned foodie, local literary icon, Poppy Z Brite.

A week before boarding our flight, we read Brite's novel, Liquor, the story of two struggling cooks, Rickey and G-man, who strike out and succeed with the idea of opening a restaurant — Liquor — where every dish — such as lobster flambe au whiskey, prosciutto wrapped figs in calvados — is prepared with booze.

And while it's not uncommon in New Orleans for spirits to spill onto the plate, it's uncommon to occur with every course. But, sometimes, life imitates art.

Especially at Tales.

(See photo gallery of event here.)

Before Bobby Gleason departed New Orleans, to lead a cocktail workshop at the recent Atlantic City Food & Wine Festival, held July 28-31, the master mixologist contributed to a "Spirited Dinner" at La Cote celebrating Jim Beam's new Devil's Cut whiskey.

The dinners, 25 held simultaneously around town at the celebration's peak, gave importers, distillers and distributors the opportunity to showcase the versatility of their product, and at La Cote, chef Chuck Subra and mixologists Gleason and Jared Schubert, found a way to work the bourbon, made from extracting the whiskey seeped deep into the barrel's wood, into every dish.

Over five courses, Devil's Cut was blended into a braise for short ribs, a blackberry gastrique, an apple cobbler compote, shaken into a Manhattan and stirred into a milk punch.

A few hours before Gleason began demonstrating Daiquiri and Margarita recipes on the third floor of Caesars Atlantic City on Saturday afternoon, July 30, as part of the city's annual Food & Wine Festival, across the Atlantic City Boardwalk, atop the Pier Shops at Caesars, Phillips Seafood chef Paul Drew also made an appeal to Atlantic City's hungry lushes, hosting a "Spiked Lunch" event and serving six cocktails batched out to complement four courses of soused shellfish, and dessert.

By noon, tables and booths were piled with festival attendees as near, far, and diverse as Manhattan food bloggers and Margate housewives, all of whom were greeted with a raffle ticket and a Bloody Mary shooter.

Photo: A Blue Crab Margarita, paired with Mojito clams and (and an extra shot of tequila). Photo by Adam Robb for AC Weekly.