The Carousel Bar & Lounge

This guide to The Carousel Bar & Lounge in New Orleans follows the French Quarter fixture built around a circular bar that turns one slow, steady revolution, and the bartender Walter Bergeron, who in 1938 needed a house drink once the Sazerac was already spoken for elsewhere. You'll hear how he drew on the neighborhood's mixed communities to build a replacement, and about the regulars, including Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote, who took their seats here for decades. Sit still at the rail and let the room carry you slowly past the same carved jester more than once.