Variety, not Quantity
The phrase, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation” has never rang so true for so many. We are all pretty much on the same path, the same schedule. This town, like most towns in America, is shut down.…
Author: Tim McNally
Someplace to Hide
Other versions for the reason of the name may swirl about, but the new Double Dealer bar, located in a basement directly below the Orpheum Theatre (yes, a basement) actually derives its name from a 1920’s era regional literary magazine. …
Great Locales Inspire Great Cocktails
(This article was composed before the full implementation of the effects and governmental restraints as applied to the Corona Virus outbreak. This article was penned on Friday March 13, which now seems eons ago. But the hope is that…
Sacrifice? Maybe Not so Much.
For many New Orleanians, even those who for most of the year are not strict followers of a particular Faith, Lent is a season of sacrifice. Nothing wrong with that approach, and it does not hurt to give up…
Drinking History
A cocktail that takes its name from a motorcycle part immediately sets itself off as singular. However, the sidecar is anything but, and is, in fact, another style of the New Orleans mid-19th century curated cocktail, Brandy Crusta. The sidecar…
Is Healthy Important?
There are a lot of reasons to drink adult beverages. And I know this is a strange time of year to ponder this issue. Carnival season does not align itself with healthy lifestyles, including doing plenty of exercise and…
Coming Around Again
Sometimes that which we really love just disappears. Take certain models of automobiles, or a high school sweetheart, or a favorite store, or even something as mundane as Windows 7. Gone. And there is nothing we can do about…
Living the Season
In an instant, a city street corner is filled with all manner of people and happenings, is transformed into a place filled with anticipation and promise. The distant wail of a siren draws everyone’s attention. The crowd settles in. The…
Whiskey in Winter
When the weather turns cool, and to be honest in January that really should happen despite how we do winter in south Louisiana, then to me the perfect accompaniment is whiskey. Oh sure, brandy, port and hot toddies all…
Chaos Organized
What is about to unfold here over the next seven weeks is mind-boggling, except that we’ve done it before many times. Every year is better, more elaborate, grander and in some cases unstoppable, until the following year. The Carnival Season…
A KISS to Start a New Year
The long-standing tradition of taking a few moments at the beginning of every year to define areas within our lifestyle where improvements can be made is a laudable exercise. More often than not, shortly after this personal evaluation, those positive-purpose…
Eggnog: Getting it Right
Regular readers of this missive will spot the misstatement in the headline. I am not a proponent of tightly defining style nor substance of adult beverages. I am a graduate of the “drink what you like the way you like…
Variety is the Spice of the Holidays
So many special flavors and aromas surround the holiday season – nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, burning embers, pine, eggnog, brandy, and baking aromas just to name a few. There is no reason to limit our sensory experiences by drinking the…
Last Call: Sipping at the Roosevelt
It’s not much of a contest whenever some challenge arises regarding where in the world the most amped celebrations take place. While New Orleans may not be in the top spot all the time, for sheer numbers of celebrations, and…
Best of Dining
For our annual December list of restaurant, food and drink “bests,” our team of writers, plus our editorial staff, met with the difficult task of honoring a few of our favorites. The restaurants, people and places listed within mark some…
Nixing the Mix
We’ve been put on notice about our diet, and now our drinking pleasures are assaulted. But it’s all rightfully so. New Orleans is a tough town for healthy living. Maybe eating and drinking in a healthy fashion makes some…
Last Call: Fun With Zombies
We cannot prove whether Ernest Gantt was born in New Orleans or not, but that is the legend. What is easier to prove is that this hospitality character became the renowned Donn the Beachcomber, opened an international string of Tiki-style…
Fun With Zombies
We cannot prove whether Ernest Gantt was born in New Orleans or not, but that is the legend. What is easier to prove is that this hospitality character became the renowned Donn the Beachcomber, opened an international string of Tiki-style…
Wild Night of (Halloween) Hops
We are not going out on a limb here, but it’s safe to say that Halloween in New Orleans is not like the celebration anywhere else. We take this date seriously. The surface frivolity that other places commemorate All…
Airplanes and Fine Wine
We live in confusing times. Simplicity does not seem to be a goal of any endeavor. And the more complicated the approach, it appears, the better the outcome. Or so it would seem. I am trying to avoid using…
Authenticity
Today’s word, students, is “authenticity.” It is one of my favorite answers to the question, “What makes New Orleans different and special when compared to other American towns?” Or “Why are we this way, and they are that way?”…
Mezcal Cocktail
October makes the perfect bookend on the without-end New Orleans festival calendar. While March gets the big celebration ball rolling in the spring, October, ending with Halloween, punts us into the end-of-the-year’s holiday season with plenty of forward momentum. The…
Adult Drinking Games
When most of us first started drinking, and in New Orleans that seems to have happened at a very early age, it was all about quantity. Many was the morning we awoke after not-enough sleep time to an ugly…
Not So Fast: Cool Cocktails For The Continuing Heat
It’s right about now that summer fatigue begins to set in and take hold. We’ve “tolerated” hot, humid weather now for over two months and we are ready for something a bit cooler. It’s’ not like we have much…
Let Your Tiki Flag Fly
In many ways, September may be the most difficult month in the New Orleans calendar. Money is spent on the children assuring a good back to school experience for them, rather than on vacations or festivals. The hot summer lingers…
Wine Confusion Squared
Many consumers would probably like to enjoy and understand wine. People who make wine seemed bent on making understanding as difficult as possible. There are all kinds of bottle shapes. Labels are not easily deciphered. Smelling and tasting seem…
Tales of Saving the Party!
Sometimes a festival, no matter how much fun they are to attend, is just a lot of drudge work for organizers. I am sorry to break your fairy tale impressions of how these massive and involved events unfold, but…
A Cool Martini
Of all the months of the year, August has the worst reputation. Other months are beastly hot, crazy humid, and even provide the settings for hurricanes. But August is the month that catches most of the grief for our discomfort…
Cocktail Condiments
The recent annual gathering of Tales of the Cocktail is finished, and the last hedonist has returned home. We are left with fine memories and new ideas. It happens this way every year, and when the final ice cube…
Wine Conflicted
All is not well in Wine Land. At the national level, consumption is statistically flat. Little or no sales growth. Prices are on the ascension, most not reverting to lower levels noted when the costs went up even when…
Happy Hour
All there is to sip and savor in New Orleans
about
In New Orleans, when the subject is wine and spirits, it is very difficult to leave Tim McNally out of the discussion. He is considered one of the “go to” resources in the Crescent City for counsel and information about adult beverages and their place in the fabric of life in this great city.
Tim is the Wine and Spirits Editor, columnist and feature writer for New Orleans Magazine; the Wine and Spirits Editor and weekly columnist, Happy Hour, for www.MyNewOrleans.com; creator and editor of his own website, www.winetalknola.com; all in addition to his daily hosting duties on the radio program, The Dine, Wine and Spirits Show, on the air at WGSO – 990AM, every weekday, 3- 5 p.m, and streamed live on www.wgso.com.
Over the years, Tim has proved to be an informed interviewer, putting his guests at ease, and covering tactile and technical information so that even a novice can understand difficult agricultural and production concepts. Tim speaks with winemakers, wine and spirit ambassadors, distillers, authors, people who stage events and festivals, and takes questions from listeners and readers, all seamlessly blended together in a program that is unique in America.
Tim’s love of wine actually came about many years ago from his then wife-to-be, Brenda Maitland, a noted journalist in her own right, and together they have traveled to the major wine producing areas in the US and Europe, seeking first-hand information about beverages that give us all so much pleasure.
They were instrumental in the founding of the New Orleans Wine and Food Experience, a major national and international well-regarded festival of its type. They both continue to be involved with the planning and staging of this multi-venue, five-day event now over twenty years old.
Tim is also considered one of the foremost professional wine judges in the US, being invited to judge more than 11 wine competitions each year, including the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition (the largest competition of American wines in the world, with more than 6,000 entries), the Riverside, CA International Wine Competition, San Francisco International Wine Competition, Atlantic Seaboard Wine Competition, Indiana International Wine Competition, Sandestin, Florida Wine Festival Competition, the State of Michigan Wine Competition, the U.S. National Wine Competition, and the National Wine Competition of Portugal.
Tim is a guest lecturer to many local wine and dine organizations, and speaks each year to the senior class in the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management at Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama.
Staying abreast of the news of the wine and spirits world is a passion for Tim, and he is committed to sharing what he knows with his listeners and readers. “Doing something I love, with products that I truly enjoy, created by interesting people, coupling the experience with culinary excellence, and doing it all in the greatest city in America,” are the words Tim lives by.
It’s a good gig.
