--Read Time: 5 Minutes-- AUTHOR'S NOTE: Welcome to The Continuing Adventures of Stray Cat NOLA. My pet project--horrible pun intended!--I sporadically write these adventures for me and, hopefully, you, if you don't mind stories and advice from a smarmy, know-it-all cat obsessed with cocktails. Each of the episodes is a chapter to a book. A much larger story and an exercise in world building that, similar to drinking alcohol, is written for adults. Stray Cat and his compatriot

--Read Time: 8 Minutes-- May I reiterate: If there is an alpha cocktail in the cocktail kingdom, it is the martini. It is dead sexy as a leopard. Invites play like a kitten. And has as many aliases as this stray cat following you home for a drinkie: Martinez, Gibson, Turf Club, Dry Martini, Very Dry Martini, Dirty Martini, Perfect Martini, Burnt Martini, Bronx.(1) The story of its origin is brief. It appears in the late 1800's. We don't know who invented it. We don't know whe

Wherein Stray Cat NOLA Learns How to Make a Proper Martini, Is Inevitably Entertained by a Catfight and Entertains You With... A Brief History of the Martini and Where To Drink'Em In the French Quarter of New Orleans --Read Time: 10 Minutes-- You villein(1) have a saying: "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Which is bird-brained. What's wrong with y'all? "A bird in the hand is," not, "worth two in the bush." "Three birds in my mouth is worth torturing them to death

--Read Time: 6 Minutes-- Arnaud's Restaurant COVID-19 UPDATE: OPEN for a la carte Dinner service, 5:30pm-9pm, Thursday-Saturday and Brunch, Only, on Sundays, 10am-1:30pm. The souls of the charming and eccentric founder of Arnaud's, Count Arnaud Cazenave, and his equally-as-so daughter, Germaine, have been witnessed in this, one of New Orleans' undisputed premier establishments. Arnaud's French 75 Bar Still the flagship cocktail bar of the French Quarter, this legend is legend

Wherein Stray Cat NOLA Learns a Chilling and Unexpected Truth About Christmas Eve, Shares His Love With a Couple and Shares With You... Five French Quarter Cocktail Bars That Rock the Spirits and Are Your New Orleans Haunted Bar Crawl --Read Time: 8 Minutes-- It's Christmas Eve here in New Orleans and your 'ole spar(1) Stray Cat NOLA has been nesting with a couple somewhere on Ursulines Avenue. I say, "somewhere," 'cause I don't care from house numbers. I follow my nose. And