Museum of the American Cocktail Comes to Philly This Sunday


All the coolest things happen in New Orleans. There’s Jazz Fest, voodoo sacrifice and the Museum of the American Cocktail. You’re surely versed in the first two, but perhaps not the third.

No joke, the museum is a serious institution that explores the history of the cocktail and endeavors to advance its practice through research, seminars, multi-media presentations, and (according to the website), a “mind-boggling collection of rare spirits, books, Prohibition-era literature and music, vintage cocktail shakers, glassware, tools, gadgets and all manner of cocktail memorabilia and photographs.”

On Sunday, you have a chance to get the flavor of the museum without buying a plane ticket or a bead-worthy boob job when its founding president pushes his drink cart to The Farmer’s Cabinet. In a traveling fundraiser for the museum, James Beard award-winning mixologist Dale DeGroff will explore America’s vivid bar and cocktail history in what is sure to be an unforgettable one-man variety show he calls “On the Town – A Tribute to Bars, Speaks, and Legendary Saloons.” In true inimitable New Orleans style, DeGroff doesn’t just tell tales about drinking during colonial times, Prohibition and his own 40-year journey through the nation’s most storied watering holes, he also plays guitar and crafts classic cocktails for sampling.

A ticket includes four drinks and hors d’oeuvres and, if there’s any absinthe served, probably a voodoo incantation or two.

Farmers Cabinet [Official website]