Pat O'Brien's

This guide to Pat O'Brien's in the French Quarter opens with a wartime puzzle: why would a bar agree to buy fifty cases of unwanted rum just to get one case of scotch. It traces the liquor shortage that forced this deal on bars across New Orleans in the 1940s, and follows owner Pat O'Brien, once the keeper of a Prohibition speakeasy called Club Tipperary, as he and manager George Oechsner Junior decide what to do with rum nobody wanted. You'll hear about the squat, curvy glass shaped like an old hurricane lamp that they poured it into. Stand in the courtyard behind the bar, where the same flaming fountain still burns tonight.