Celebrate Mardi Gras In The Land Of Cocktails The Big Easy's Best-known Restaurateurs

CELEBRATE MARDI GRAS WITH THEIR SASSY, SOPHISTICATED COCKTAIL BOOK, IN THE LAND OF COCKTAILS

NEW ORLEANS, LA. (January 2, 2007) - Mardi Gras in New Orleans: costumes, floats, beads, jazz, King's cakes.but without cocktails, the celebration just isn't complete. Ti Adelaide Martin and Lally Brennan, cousins and proprietors of the venerable Commander's Palace and Caf Adelaide & the Swizzle Stick Bar in New Orleans - and authors of the fabulous, new cocktail book, IN THE LAND OF COCKTAILS (HarperCollins) - will be eating, drinking and carryin' on as only the Brennans do when Mardi Gras kicks off Tuesday, February 5, 2008.

IN THE LAND OF COCKTAILS features eighty-two easy-to-follow recipes of classic cocktails (the Sidecar and Old-Fashioned); New Orleans favorites (the Sazerac, the Absinthe Frappe, the Ramos Gin Fizz), and their own delicious creations (the Whoa! Nellie and the Commander's Palace Martini).

Many cities have laid claim to the creation of the cocktail as we know it today, but there is little dispute that mixology was perfected in New Orleans. So leave it to these charming New Orleans natives to show that while cocktail alchemy may seem like chemistry (and there are similarities), the courses of learning and the final exams are far, far more enjoyable.

There's the Brandy Milk Punch, Ti and Lally's favorite Mardi Gras drink to enjoy while parading the streets of New Orleans on their float:

Makes 1 cocktail

2 ounces brandy

1 ounce Simple Syrup

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 ounces milk

Freshly grated nutmeg, for garnish

Combine all the ingredients in cocktail shaker with ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a rocks glass filled with ice. Garnish with a light dusting of freshly grated nutmeg and serve immediately.

Then there's the Neutral Ground, a name that puts a grin on every New Orleanian's face. As the ladies explain in the book, "We both went to college in Texas, and that was the first time we ever heard a bartender announce last call (foreign to us New Orleans kids), or someone call the grassy strip in the middle of an avenue a median. In New Orleans a street median is called neutral ground."

Makes 1 cocktail

1 1/2 ounces limoncello

1 1/2 ounces peach schnapps

1 ounce Sour Mix

Combine all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled Martini glass and serve immediately.

Ti and Lally's latest concoction, the Whoa, Nellie!, was created while they celebrated the first post-Katrina Mardi Gras celebration in 2006.

Makes 1 cocktail

1 1/4 ounces Sazerac rye or other rye

3/4 ounce dark rum, such as Myers's

3/4 ounce Cointreau

4 dashes Angostura bitters

1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice

1/2 ounce grapefruit juice

1/2 ounce Simple Syrup

Fill a Martini glass with ice and set aside to chill. Combine all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake vigorously. Discard the ice from the glass. Strain the drink into the glass and serve immediately.

Born raconteurs, the ladies regale readers with tales of the characters who have tended the Commander's Palace bar over the decades, and of their own forebears: Ella Brennan, matriarch of the family, and her sister Adelaide, who never smoked before 5 PM (that wouldn't have been ladylike), and whose recipe for curing the "vapors" (i.e., a sometimes other-than-ladylike hangover) is still printed on the back of the restaurant's cocktail napkins. And they provide a primer of Crescent City drinking culture - you'll learn why "sitting in the gutter" is something that in New Orleans you'll enjoy doi