Coming to Tales? Stock up on Books

Like salmon swimming instinctively upstream to their ancestral homes (or, perhaps, elephants to their fabled graveyards), the world's alcoholists have begun descending on New Orleans for the city's annual Tales of the Cocktail celebration.

From Tuesday through Sunday, thousands of bartenders, liquor writers, distillers, beverage managers, culinary historians, tiki fanatics, absinthe enthusiasts, and drinks aficionados will be hunkering down to sessions and seminars about the spirits we drink, where they come from, and how they're used both now and over the last few hundred years.

It's pretty much awesome.

But in the lobby of Hotel Monteleone (host venue and ground zero for all these shenanigans), there's a little room just to the left as you come through the main entrance off Royal Street. For the next week, it will be a bookstore featuring the texts, tomes, rants, and recipes of the speakers and presenters at Tales. It's operated by Octavia Books, an independent local bookstore — certainly worth the trip uptown if you have the time to get away from Tales. If you can't, they'll have on site (unless they sell out) titles such as:

• Ted Munat and Michael Lazar's new Left Coast Libations
• Phillip Collier's Mixing New Orleans
• Difford's Encyclopedia of Cocktails
• Tony Abou-Ganim's The Modern Mixologist
• Sara Rohen's Gumbo Tales
• and loads more

For a more complete list, click here. Or, grab a cab with a buddy and to to their store for an even wider selection of great books, local authors, and New Orleans titles. Check the posted schedule in the lobby for which authors are autographing books when at the Monteleone.

Octavia Books
513 Octavia Street  (at the corner of Laurel)
New Orleans, Louisiana
504.899.7323
www.octaviabooks.com