Branding alert: The Ninth Ward

When I travel around the country I've gotten in the habit of seeking out “authentic” New Orleans restaurants and trying out the food, mostly for the amusement value. Sometimes it’s actually nearly passable by Crescent City standards, and it makes me say “hmmm!” Sometimes, well, it just makes me say, "hmmmm." Like at Disneyland’s New Orleans Square, where I once ordered a “vegetarian gumbo served in a sourdough bread boule.” I prefer not to discuss this, thank you all the same.

The point is, New Orleans food — like its music — is a great cultural export, although mileage may vary once it gets beyond city limits.

The New Orleans cocktail may be following the same uncertain path. A recent post on the Village Voice’s food blog noted a bar under construction in the East Village (at 180 Second Ave, to be exact), which will be called The Ninth Ward. Not surprisingly, it will focus on New Orleans-style drinks. It’s being opened by Robert Morgan (who runs Shoolbred’s across the street), and he tells the Voice that “the new place will have an 1890’s New Orleans feel, with absinthe drips and classic cocktails, much like Laffite's or the Old Absinthe House on Bourbon Street.” Naturally, he’ll also serve New Orleans food.

It’s a great name — a nice play on the classic cocktail called the “Ward Eight,” and a nod to a section of New Orleans that got brutually hammered in the levee breach following Katrina. It’s unlikely the name would have had any resonance outside of the New Orleans if it hadn’t been for the storm.

As it is, the Ninth Ward has already been pleasingly recognized in drink. In 2008 Brother Cleve of Boston came up with a bourbon cocktail by that name for Tales of the Cocktail, and it’s right tasty. Here he is making one: [UPDATE: Sadly, the video seems to have vanished.]

Morgan said that he’s noticed customers coming into Shoolbred’s (which is not a fancy cocktail bar) and asking for Sazeracs, a New Orleans drink that was all but unknown outside the city five years ago. Seems to me it’s a good thing that the word is getting out about a fine regional drink, but I’m also a little concerned it could follow the path of unrighteousness and end up with its name badly sullied. Although if gumbo can survive a sourdough breadbowl, I have confidence that the Sazerac is hearty and self-assured enough to survive even an encounter with vodka. Well, maybe not vodka. But at least off-brand bitters.