Ann Rogers is the founder of Tales of the Cocktail, an annual multi-day event celebrating the history of the cocktail in New Orleans. She has planned, implemented and promoted the event since its inception in 2003. Recently celebrating its fifth year, Tales of the Cocktail, through Ann’s leadership, has attracted thousands of visitors, many culinary, cocktail and spirit celebrities as presenters and hosts of the event and several top spirit brands as sponsors. Rogers is also the founder of the New Orleans Original Cocktail Tour, started in 2002, currently operated by Gray Line New Orleans.

In 2006, for Tales of the Cocktail’s fourth year, Ann formed the New Orleans Culinary and Cultural Preservation Society to preserve New Orleans’ dining and drinking history, raise funds for the hospitality industry and produce the annual event. Currently, Ann works with the Society to further its mission and to produce Tales of the Cocktail, generate media attendance and coverage for the event and New Orleans, and attract visitors to the city to attend it.

Ann received a BA in Marketing and a Certificate in Event Marketing and Management from the University of New Orleans. Ann enjoys running marathons and has completed four in the last three years. She has also participated in two Half Iron Man Triathlons, which involve swimming, biking and running. Downtime for Ann is spent with her friend, Paul Tuennerman, at their 13-acre property outside of New Orleans with their two dogs.

Question #1
Adams Beverage Group (ABG): Since 2003 when you stared Tales, it has become a significant spirits event - is that what you hd in mind when you started?

Ann Rogers: The first year it wasn't necessarily my plan to make "Tales" an annual event - we were celebrating the success of our New Orleans cocktail tour and really only had three events set up, including the many "Spirited Dinners." But we had such a great response from people who attended who really wanted me to make it an annual event that I went ahead and planned for a second time. Then around year three, I started thinking that I was on the way to building it into something like a must-stop on people's calendar.

Question #2
ABG: And "Tales" is unusual in that, while it's primarily a local consumer event, there's a core of programs important to national on-premise people.

Rogers: It's interesting that you ask that question, because that's one of the things I really like about the event. Everybody's there - the local consumer, the cocktail enthusiast, the trade, the media - they're all in one place and that's not usually the case.

I would like to keep "Tales" this way - I think both the consumer and the professional pieces are going to grow. They have different interests - for instance, we had to make sure we had content for both of those audiences. For the enthusiasts, in certain things you can't talk over their heads, but you can't talk under the head of the professional, either. Making it work is a fine balance.

Question #3
ABG: Where dd you get the idea to launch this sort of event, espeically this time of year - getting people to New Orleans in the summer couldn't have been easy at first.

Rogers: I had started that walking tour of New Orleans bars and restaurants, a tour that shares New Orleans cocktail and culinary history, the year before. The idea of "Tales" was to celebrate the first year of the tour. I moved it from September, which was the anniversary, to August, because New Orelanes relaly needs visitors during that time, and, really, places like Florida are the same temperature around then. Post-Katrina, I didn't want to deal with the one-year anniversary of Katrina, so that's when I moved it to July. (Note: In 2005, "Tales" ended a few days before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.)

Question #4
ABG: How much has it grown in terms of attendance - I remember the first year, there were a handful of people from out of town attending those few events you hosted.

Rogers: This year we held 75 different events under the five day umbrella; last year, we had between 8,000 and 10,000 people, and while I haven't finished crunching the numbers, we definitely will surpass that 10,000 figure. Remember, we keep things fairly small, so the most ever at any event are 600-700 people at any one time. But we're always trying to improve and grow.

Question #5
ABG: What was new, different and successful this year?

Rogers: This year as I mentioned we added our bar chef competition, which was a big hit. We also added the first annaul Tales of the Cocktail Spirit awards, which will be our finale event from now on. We also started something that worlked really well this year, called the tasting room. This was the opportunity for sponsors and partners to showcase their brands, just one-on-one. It was a very interactive way for people to sample spirits and meet with the suppliers. In years past, people were naturally gathering together and tasting these spirits at the event anyway, so we wanted to serve them and match our sponsors with what our guests were already trying to do.

Question #6
ABG: Obviously, the spirit companies have been gettign more involved and noticed the interest of attendees - this year, Absolut introduced Absolut New Orleans - this is a growing sign of support from major suppliers, right?

Rogers: It really is. It's fun now, after five years, that people have by now at least of "Tales." It's a great sign that Absolut wanted to launch that product at "Tales." We had a few other things like that - George Reidel had his first ever U.S. spirits tasting at the event. To me those things are great because they shine the light on New Orleans. That he would take his time to fly from Austria to conduct that seminar is great for New Orleans and the industry as a whole.


Question #7
ABG: Are you aleady planning for next year's "Tales"?

Rogers: I am. All year long I keep a runnning folder of new ideas and changes, but right now I'm still recovering from this year's event. We've got to keep making it fresh each year; it's a lot more work, but everything in the seminars has to change each year so that the content stays fresh.

Find out more about Tales of the Cocktail here.