Cocktails, Craps & the Invention of Fun
A pharmacist accidentally invented the cocktail. A Creole aristocrat introduced craps and named a street after it. A bartender required twelve minutes of shaking and closed at eight because he hated drunks. Walk from the Roosevelt Hotel to Frenchmen Street and discover how New Orleans invented the good time.
Start This ExperienceWhat You'll Experience
A taste of what you'll hear
10 stops, each with its own story. Here's a preview.
"In eighteen eighty-eight, a bartender in New Orleans invented a cocktail that required twelve minutes of continuous shaking."
"The building with the octagonal cupola on top — that's Napoleon House. It's been crumbling beautifully since seventeen ninety-four, and at this point the decay is basically a design choice."
"Alright. You made it. Let's see how you did. Henry Ramos — twelve minutes of shaking, thirty-five shaker boys, closed at eight o'clock because he hated drunks — all real."
Part tour, part game
Most of what you hear is true. But we slip in a few things that aren't. At the end, there's a quiz — can you tell which facts were real?
It makes you pay attention. And it's way more fun than just listening.
Have questions? Just ask.
Curious about something you heard? Want to know more about a place? Ask us anything — we have a lot to say. It's more fun when it's a conversation.
Ready?
Download the app, head to the starting point, and press play. The stories start themselves.
Get the Free AppOther New Orleans Tours
French Quarter
Ghosts, Graves & the Voodoo Queen
Above-ground tombs, voodoo rituals, and the hairdresser who ran the city's underground — the REAL history behind the ghost tour hokum. Walk from a cemetery where 100,000 bodies share one city block through the birthplace of jazz, past a cathedral that will not stop burning down, and into the most infamous house in New Orleans.
Garden District
Mansions, Money & Magnolias
Walk through the most expensive temper tantrum in American real estate history. When the Creoles rejected them, the Americans built an entire neighborhood out of spite — complete with forty-eight columns, a president's deathbed, a thousand dolls, and a cornstalk fence from a catalog.
French Quarter
Pirates, Presidents & Purchase Receipts
How a pirate, a general, and a fifteen million dollar receipt changed the shape of America — all in one swamp. Walk through the French Quarter (which is actually Spanish) and discover the Louisiana Purchase, the battle fought after the war ended, the plot to rescue Napoleon, and why Mardi Gras colors may come from a Russian coat of arms.
French Quarter
The French Quarter Cheat Code
Beignets, Baronesses & Eight Blocks of Trouble. A woman got shot four times by her father-in-law and built the most famous apartments in the South with eight fingers. A shoemaker challenged segregation sixty-three years before Rosa Parks. A cook chained to a stove set a fire so someone would finally look upstairs. Eight stops through the French Quarter — eighty percent true, twenty percent invented.