Tag Archives: Alcoholic beverage manufacturing

Sazerac House celebrates New Orleans cocktail culture

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Visitors to New Orleans who want to learn more about cocktails will soon have a new place to go. No, it’s not another bar.

The Sazerac Company, a Louisiana-based spirits maker, is opening the Sazerac House on October 2.

Described as an “immersive exploration of the spirited culture of New Orleans,” the six-story building houses multiple floors of exhibits as well as a gift shop and the company’s headquarters.

“We have created three exhibit floors that will showcase the history and traditions … of the cocktail itself, featuring the Sazerac cocktail as our namesake,” said Miguel Solorzano, the general manager. He said they expect 275,000 visitors the first year.

“People travel from all over the world, not only for our food, our culture but drinks,” he said.

Visitors can walk through and learn about the city’s cocktail culture and the various spirits the company makes, especially those used in the signature New Orleans drink called the Sazerac.

Tasting is encouraged at the Sazerac House. Free samples will be given to visitors, and there will be special classes and tastings daily.

The Sazerac House will officially open to the public Oct. 2.

The renovated building sits just across palm tree-lined Canal Street from the French Quarter.

On the first floor is a distillery where the company will make rye whiskey, the key ingredient in a Sazerac. The custom-built still stretches up to the second floor and is visible to tourists walking outside.

But the first batch won’t be ready to drink for six years as it has to age first. Distillery supervisor David Bock said the goal is to give visitors a feel for how the whiskey is made.

“We are going to show you how to do it on a small scale,” he said.

Three of the floors are open to visitors while other floors will house things like the company’s headquarters. There’s an extensive rum exhibit which walks visitors through the origins of rum production and its close association with Louisiana’s sugar production.

Visitors will also get to see how Peychaud’s Bitters — another key ingredient to a Sazerac — is made and see it being bottled.

The bitters gets its name from creator Antoine Amadie Peychaud, who owned an apothecary shop in New Orleans in the 1800s. The exact ingredients in Peychaud’s are proprietary but in the room devoted to bitters, visitors can sniff various dried herbs and botanicals like star anise or fennel seed that can be used to make bitters.

“I like to think of bitters almost like salt and pepper for a cocktail,” said Bock.

Over the decades the ingredients in a Sazerac cocktail have changed slightly. But served in a chilled old-fashioned glass with a twist of lemon peel, it’s still a staple in many bars and restaurants across town.

It’s one of a handful of cocktails closely associated with New Orleans though much more upscale than the hurricanes and hand grenades dispensed in plastic containers or souvenir glasses just a few blocks away on Bourbon Street or the daiquiris served at drive-thrus.

The Sazerac House joins the Southern Food and Beverage Museum as a more high-brow way to learn about the city’s food and drink culture.

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Follow Santana on Twitter @ruskygal.

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French wine vs US tech prowess: new Trump-Macron standoff

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France is pushing forward with a landmark tax on tech corporations like Google and Fb regardless of U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats of retaliatory tariffs on French wine.

That is rattling French vintners, who offered 1.6 billion euros ($1.78 billion) value of wine final yr to American customers. However neither Trump nor French President Emmanuel Macron seems able to again down.

After Trump slammed the “foolishness” of the tax in a tweet Friday and promised reciprocal motion, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire stated France will implement it anyway.

He insisted that the measure would not goal American corporations, and that “truthful and efficient taxation on digital actions” is of common concern. He stated France‘s tax is supposed as a brief measure pending negotiations on a global deal that France desires to work out “hand in hand with our American buddies.”

The three% tax that went into pressure this week primarily considerations corporations that use shopper knowledge to promote internet advertising.

It is designed to cease multinationals from avoiding taxes by establishing European headquarters in low-tax European Union nations. At the moment, corporations resembling Google, Amazon, Fb, Apple, Airbnb and Uber pay little or no tax on their vital enterprise in nations like France.

The Trump administration says the tax is discriminatory in opposition to U.S. enterprise.

The truth is, it targets any digital firm with yearly world gross sales value greater than 750 million euros ($835 million) and French income exceeding 25 million euros ($27 million). It ought to have an effect on about 30 corporations, primarily based within the U.S, China and Europe — together with France.

The income threshold is meant to permit extra room for startups. France argues that tech corporations are abusing their market dominance, notably by means of tax avoidance, and stopping others from a good probability of competing.

Additionally, the tax solely considerations revenues earned in France — not gross sales within the U.S. or elsewhere.

U.S. Commerce Consultant Robert Lighthizer started an investigation earlier this month to find out whether or not the tax is discriminatory or unreasonable and restricts U.S. commerce. Such a discovering would enable Trump to levy retaliatory tariffs.

Trump derided French wines in his tweet, and later stated he may hit them with retaliatory tariffs to French. He made the same risk final yr.

About 20% of French wine is offered within the U.S., and the Federation of French Wine and Spirits Exports on Saturday expressed concern about tariffs that would harm “French gamers on this market, but in addition their purchasers and American customers.”

The federation urged French and American authorities to pursue dialogue on the tax challenge, expressing hope “that they’ll shortly discover a path to observe to forestall these threats from materializing.”

Le Maire stated the U.S. “shouldn’t combine the 2 points,” and famous that European wines already face tariffs within the U.S. as do American wines in Europe. He hopes for a global deal by the tip of August.

Trump insisted Friday that he has a great relationship with Macron and had simply spoken with him.

After initially befriending the U.S. president regardless of their starkly completely different worldviews, Macron has more and more stood as much as the impulsive, America-first Trump on commerce, local weather change and Iran’s nuclear program.

The tech tax is simply their newest battleground, and might be a key rigidity level when the 2 males meet at a Group of Seven summit in France subsequent month.

France failed to influence EU companions to impose a Europe-wide tax on tech giants, however is now pushing for a global deal on it with the G-7 and the 34 nations of the Group for Financial Cooperation and Improvement.

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Jeffrey Schaeffer in Paris contributed.

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For all of AP’s tech protection, go to: https://apnews.com/apf-technology

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