When most people think of New Orleans, they think Bourbon Street, bachelorette parties, and hurricanes (the sugary, super alcoholic drink, not the weather event). Call me old fashioned (Get it?), but I’d much rather have a good whiskey on the rocks over a Hurricane! If you’re like me, and you love sipping a well-crafted cocktail, you can 100% still have a great time in the Big Easy.

One of the first activities you should do in NOLA is have a Sazerac, the official cocktail of New Orleans. You can have one in a lot of the bars in the French Quarter, but you can also visit the Sazerac House, a multi-floored museum dedicated to the history of Sazerac – the company and the drink. It’s filled with interactive and multimedia exhibits, and also runs a different liquor-themed tour every day of the week.

The Sazerac House Tour is a self-guided tour and exploration into New Orleans’ spirited culture and traditions, and it’s completely free. The self-guided tour features Sazerac product samples along the route. We had a total of four tastings during our self-guided tour.

We wanted to do a little bit more, so we opted to do The Sazerac Cocktail Tasting, which cost $30 per person. During the tasting, you learn about the evolution of New Orleans’ official cocktail. The tour features 3 Sazerac products: Sazerac Rye Whiskey, Peychaud’s Bitters, and Herbsaint Liqueur, and you get to learn how the Sazerac is made.

We did the Sazerac Cocktail Tasting tour first, and then followed it up with the self-guided tour, which was a lot of fun. Their gift shop at the end of the tour is really extensive and I enjoyed all the Sazerac products.

If you’re looking for a more intimate experience, I highly recommend visiting Seven Three Distillery, a small-batch distiller of fine American spirits. Founded in 2016, they currently produce 8 flagship spirits named for some of the 73 distinct neighborhoods in New Orleans. We booked the 75-minute Spirit Tasting Tour, which features a tasting of all of their spirits, a tour of the distillery, and a short cocktail making class.

The tour started with an introduction to the distillery by our guide, Emily. She then proceeded to walk us through a tasting of their 8 spirits: Irish Channel Whiskey, St. Roch Cucumber, St. Roch Vodka, Bywater Bourbon, Gentilly Gin, Barrel Reserve Gentilly Gin, Black Pearl Rum, and Marigny Moonshine. After the tasting, we toured the distillery and learned about how their spirits are made. I’ve been on whiskey tours before, but this one was definitely more intimate and it was great learning about how smaller distilleries do it.

The tour ends in their bar, which is open to the public for drinks. Emily taught us how to make an Old Fashioned as well as a new drink that they were debuting later that month. We each got two full sized drinks and were pretty buzzed by the end of the tour. It’s a great value for your money – and a great experience in general.

And lastly, an honorable mention to Luke, a Creole-inspiried Brasserie, which offers a glorious raw bar and fantastic cocktail list. They run happy hour daily from 3pm – 6pm with half price cocktails and $1.75 oysters. The drinks here are inventive, strong, and just delightful.