5 Nights with NOLA: The Spirit of New Orleans

Guests mingle and sip on New Orleans-themed cocktails in the Punch Garden prior to being seated for the four-course tasting dinner.

From left: New Orleans & Company’s Tara Letort, Garden & Gun’s Amanda Heckert, and New Orleans & Company’s Sarah Forman.

A well-dressed guest enjoys a cocktail before the dinner.

Executive chef and owner Nina Compton and head bartender Abigail Gullo of Compère Lapin host the evening dedicated to New Orleans cocktails.

Guests try their hand at the first cocktail of the evening, a Ramos Gin Fizz that needs to be shaken for over five minutes.

The Ramos Gin Fizz, created in New Orleans in the late 1800s, made with gin, lemon juice, lime juice, egg white, sugar, cream, orange flower water, and soda water, is the first cocktail of the evening.

The first course of the evening is a crawfish beignet with herb tartar sauce paired with the Ramos Gin Fizz.

Nina Compton, recently named the James Beard Award winner for Best Chef: South, prepares the second course in the kitchen for guests.

The third cocktail is a Lucian Bacchanal, made with rum, mezcal, grapefruit, cinnamon, and lime.

The third course of the evening is jerk oxtail over sweet plantain gnudi served with the Lucian Bacchanal cocktail.

The final cocktail for the evening is the legendary Café Brûlot, a flaming coffee cocktail made famous in New Orleans.

Guests leave with a bottle of Cocktail & Sons Fassionola, paired with a cocktail recipe provided by Abigail Gullo and a custom tricentennial cup designed by Josh Hara.