Emily Soileau
New Orleans seems as good a place to open a rabbit hole as any. This fall, Lewis Carroll’s delightful phantasms of magical mushrooms and broken riddles and Mad Hatters arise out of The Burgundy House—extending a tantalizing invitation to “Drink me”.
The Alice immersive cocktail experience began with heartfelt welcomes from a peculiar cast of hosts : the wild-eyed hatter, the gentle dormouse, the mischievous March Hare (all local New Orleans actors)—who sat us at a bistro table for two beside a white picket fence. As a centerpiece was a tiny bird’s nest from which two paintbrushes stuck out, guarded by a host of three plush mushrooms. An empty teapot sat waiting, an enchanting hint of the activities to come.
Jordan LaHaye Fontenot
Actors for The Alice: Cocktail Experience
The tiny space bloomed with over-the-top wallpaper, mushrooms taller than my five-foot-friend, cabinets filled books and cards and Wonderland’s signature oddities. Red roses plumed from the corners and vines and twinkly lights dripped from the walls. The Cheshire Cat grinned from a massive moss wall in the back, spouting riddles. Photo-opps abounded.
Emily Soileau
After a starter shot of something lemon-yellow with whipped cream on top, our hosts welcomed us with a slew of witty (occasionally-humorously-raunchy) banter, before explaining our task: to earn our next drink (“You’re all here to drink, correct?”), we must answer three riddles. I won’t ruin the fun, but I will share that one involved outsmarting the Cheshire Cat. For each riddle solved, we received a vial (“but not too vile”) of bright-colored elixirs—all destined to be swirled and smoked inside our waiting teapot.
Emily Soileau
After partaking in our poisons, we were treated to a costume change, in which the March Hare became the campiest Queen of Hearts camp ever did see—shouting her signature “Off with their heads!” refrain as we searched the room for her missing tarts. Raising the stakes (our necks), our next challenge was to paint something that should please her majesty. Using our birds’ nest paintbrushes and a pot of red syrup, we delicately wrought works of art inside the bubbly white foam of our final cocktail.
The winner, naturally, was a woman who painted the queen herself.
The Alice: An Immersive Cocktail Experience will host tea parties in New Orleans on dates between now and September 18. Family-friendly sessions are available. Tickets range from $34.50–$52.47. Visit explorehidden.com for details, and follow on Instagram at @alicecocktailexperienceglobal.
