 THE RECIPE 2oz. 504Hibiscus 1oz. pineapple juice 1oz. cranberry juice 1oz. lime juice 5 shakes chili bitters Add all ingredients to cocktail shaker with ice. Shake, strain over ice. Garnish with a fresh hot pepper, if you like it extra hot. THE STORY
As a major trading port just north of the Caribbean, New Orleans has been home to many a pirate and privateer in its 300+ year history. The Redbeard is inspired by the many legendary seafarers who transported rum and other goods to and from New Orleans throughout its tricentennial existence. With plenty of tropical flavors and just enough spice to make it interesting, the Redbeard will make you feel like you're aboard a great ship traversing across the seas in search of the greatest rum ever made - good news for you, you've already found it at Happy Raptor!
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 THE RECIPE 2oz. 504Silver 1oz. Simple Syrup 1oz. Lime Juice Add ingredients to shaker with ice. Shake vigorously and strain over ice. THE STORY What's more New Orleanian than a daiquiri? When we opened, we knew highlighting Louisiana flavors and creations would be a fundamental part of our operations. We source our ingredients locally wherever possible, starting with our molasses from Louisiana-grown sugar cane. Featuring classic Louisiana cocktails on our menu was a no-brainer to continue the local theme. Our original tasting room cocktail menu featured several Louisiana classics, but the daiquiris stole the show. Simple and foolproof, the traditional daiquiri lets the 504Silver shine, bringing our Louisiana flavors to the forefront of your palate. Think we have the best classic Louisiana cocktails? Let the world know by voting for Happy Raptor in Gambit Weekly's Best of New Orleans Readers' Poll!
Vote for us in these categories: - Best Distillery - Best place to get a traditional Louisiana cocktail - Best Louisiana-made food product (504Rum) - Best woman-owned small business  THE RECIPE 2oz. 504Silver 1oz. pineapple juice 1oz. horchata 1oz. apple juice 2 shakes Aromatic bitters Add rum, juices and horchata to a cocktail shaker over ice. Shake and strain over ice. Top with two shakes aromatic bitters of choice. THE STORY The White Whaler came into existence in the same week we developed the recipe for The Blue Mamou. We made an excess of horchata concentrate, and decided to experiment and see what else we could come up with! Thus, the White Whaler was born. We think its just the right balance of tart and creamy for a summer refresher.
 THE RECIPE 2oz 504Hibiscus Rum 1oz Blue Horchata 1oz Best OJ 1oz Blueberry syrup 2 Shakes Orange Bitters Orange peel for garnish Marsh Parsley for garnish Add all ingredients to cocktail shaker with ice. Shake and strain over ice. Garnish as desired with orange peel and marsh parsley. To Make Blue Horchata 2 parts (1/2 lb) blue mosaic corn flour 2 parts rice flour 1 part pecan flour 2 parts turbinado/raw sugar 5 parts water One lime, sliced and dehydrated Black pepper Zest of one orange 10 dried rose petals Bring all ingredients to simmer until rice and corn become tender, stirring constantly, about 20 minutes. Add more water as necessary to create desired thickness. Strain and bottle. To Make Best OJ Gather oranges and peel, reserving peels. Juice fruit into a container. Infuse half of peels into juice overnight, reserving remainder as cocktail garnish. To Make Blueberry syrup. 1 cup Local Blueberry Juice (We use J&D Farms Juice) 1 cup sugar 3 Rosemary sprigs 5 Mint sprigs Add all ingredients to a pot and heat to a simmer. Let herbs steep in syrup for 30 minutes. Strain and cool. THE STORY We developed this cocktail for the annual Garden to Glass cocktail competition at the National WWII Museum, hosted by Eat Local NOLA & the New Orleans Food Policy Advisory Committee. The challenge was to create a cocktail made from local ingredients that could have been commonly found in victory gardens during the WWII era. Our cocktail won the competition, and we couldn't be prouder! If it's too intimidating to try this at home, you can sample the winning cocktail at The American Sector for the next year.
We got to work, knowing that 504Hibiscus would be the base of our drink. The Blue Mamou is loosely based on a cocktail called The Big Mamou that was served at The American Sector, restaurant at the WWII Museum, around 10 years ago. The Big Mamou originated in the 1940s in New Orleans, and was commonly served as a tiki cocktail at the Sazerac, the Roosevelt's Blue Room, and other high-end bars in the city. The original version of the drink, as far as we can gather from our historical research, commonly used rum, orgeat, fruit juice and herbs. Our version of the classic tiki drink highlights our floral rum and subs in house-made horchata for orgeat, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and a blueberry-herb syrup with wild-foraged marsh parsley as a perfectly refreshing, sustainably sourced garnish. We hope you like it as much as we do!  THE RECIPE 2oz. 504Gold 1oz. Lemon juice 1oz. Lime juice 1oz. Hibiscus Syrup 5 dashes angostura bitters Add all ingredients to cocktail shaker with ice. Shake and strain over ice. THE STORY We concocted this drink under a different name (one reminiscent of the LeVar Burton children's show from the 90s) for our friends at One Book One New Orleans for their 2021 cohort graduation ceremony (which they're hosting on our patio this Sunday!).
Since it's also the end of Pride Month (and since we can't exactly name it after the aforementioned, thematically appropriate television program) we renamed it to commemorate the end of an historic month for Happy Raptor. Thank you to everyone who has made this month so special - our art and food vendors, anyone who's stopped in for a cocktail or bottle, those of you who've shared our posts, and everyone in the extended Happy Raptor family. The Rainbow's End is similar to a floral margarita - equal parts tart, sweet, and smoky. 25% of proceeds from this cocktail will benefit One Book One New Orleans now through June 27.  THE RECIPE 2oz. 504Bananas Foster 1oz. Blueberry Juice (we recommend JD Blueberry Farms juice) 1oz. Lemon Juice 1oz. Herbal simple syrup 5 dashes aromatic bitters Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker. Add ice, shake, and strain over ice. Top with herb garnish. HERB SYRUP Heat one part water to one part sugar in a pan. Let sugar dissolve and bring to a simmer. Add herbs and let steep on a low simmer for half an hour. We recommend a few sprigs of mint and rosemary, but any herb would work well in this cocktail. Strain into a container for later use. THE STORY Hi from Marketing Manager Ash! June is an important month in the LGBTQ+ Community as we celebrate Pride during this month, in remembrance of the Stonewall uprisings of June 1969. Marsha P. Johnson was a prominent figure in the Stonewall rebellion, and it is because of her and several other trans black women that the LGBTQ+ community has made it this far and can continue to fight for our collective liberation.
In planning our Pride Art Market and other pride month activities, it was important to me and other LGBTQ+ staff members to honor our predecessors, like Marsha P. Johnson, Bayard Rustin, Harvey Milk, and so many others who worked to improve and expand our rights. Stop in this weekend to try all our Pride Specials, benefiting House of Tulip: The Marsha P.: Pay it no mind, a blueberry and herb drink with 504Bananas Foster. Harvey's Jungle Milk: Fruity, nutty and creamy. The Bayard Rustin: Our take on a Dark & Stormy. The Stonewaller: It Packs a Punch.  THE RECIPE 1oz 504Gold 1oz 504Silver 1oz orange juice 1oz lime juice 1oz hibiscus syrup 1 dash Peychauds bitters 1 dash tiki bitters Shake vigorously in a cocktail shaker and strain into a hurricane glass (if you have one on hand) over ice. Serves 1. Enjoy. HOW TO MAKE THE HIBISCUS SYRUP Add equal parts water and sugar to a sauce pot. Add one scoop of dried hibiscus petals, lime peel, and one cinnamon stick. Heat until just before boiling. Turn off the heat and let it steep for one hour, stirring every ten minutes. Strain. Let it cool. Mix it in a cocktail and store the rest in an airtight container or Mason jar until the next use! THE STORY We rolled out this deceptively easy special cocktail in honor of a New Orleans Chamber of Commerce pop-up held on June 3rd in our tasting room! Despite the name, it was truly a breath of fresh air to greet and network with professional colleagues and friends after a long year and a half of exclusive Zoom calls and our new-found reliance on blue light glasses. (They're both trendy and effective!) On the other hand, our team has been pushing through for weeks and we're exhausted. We hope your team and ours will whip up a batch of hibiscus syrup in a beach hut somewhere soon and sip on this cocktail all week. In our separate huts...to be clear. We love you guys, but we need quiet to appreciate this.
 June is Pride Month, and I love the excitement of this time of year. I learned about Pride for the first time in the drama room at my high school in South Carolina where I spent pretty much every day and evening of my teenage years. Then, I celebrated for long hours in heels well into the morning at parades and nightclubs across Washington, DC, New York, and Boston where I spent most of my twenties. And there was that other time I went to Southern Decadence for about an hour before I realized...drumroll please....not all spaces are for me.
As a business owner, years later, Pride Month is something my co-founders and I experience as strong advocates of an equitable and giving community. Despite my knee-jerk reaction to put pink glitter in any cocktail always, our responsibility is to support a strong, diverse team and create a safe space for our staff and guests of all backgrounds. Here are a few things that we prioritize, worry about, and appreciate about the journey to growing an equitable business: Safety goes well beyond a few simple policies in our handbook. It means an unwavering expectation of empathy, vulnerability, and communication amongst our team at all levels. It means clear boundaries that protect our staff and guests from transgressions that are far too often overlooked in the hospitality industry. Not to mention, it means equitable, fair, and transparent wages and benefits. We support local nonprofit organizations that work to improve equity in our community year-round - and we offer our event space to nonprofits for free. We donated $10,000 in donation of funds, products, and services in 2020 (our first year in business) and we're on track to double that in 2021. (Fingers crossed!) Almost half of our current team identifies as LGBTQ+, and their trust in us is extremely important. Distilling is historically an exclusionary industry, where jobs and access can be hard to find. We continue to work everyday - especially thanks to some incredible local partners - on building and prioritizing diversity across our team. We are thrilled for the opportunity to raise funds for House of Tulip, a nonprofit collective creating housing solutions for transgender and gender nonconforming people in Louisiana. And we're thrilled to push ourselves and throw our largest art market to date, supporting LBGTQ+ creators, artists, and food vendors across two whole days. At the end of the day, our Marketing Manager Ash said it best, "the feeling of community, acceptance, and family is universal" - and we are here for it.  Hi Happy Raptor family!
I'm Ash, the Marketing Manager (and sometimes bartender/tour guide) at Happy Raptor. June is Pride Month - an important time in the LGBTQ community to celebrate identity and community, and pay respects to those who came before us, fighting the fight so we can thrive. As a queer nonbinary person making (or attempting to make) a career in marketing and communications, the display of rainbow capitalism during Pride month is more than frustrating, and I hesitate to use any official platforms to celebrate Pride from a business standpoint. I don’t want to exploit my identity or community for the sake of likes, shares, and ultimately, profit. Luckily, I have an incredible team around me at Happy Raptor and a boss that says “yes, and” to my ideas, so we’re doing things a bit different this month. We hope you will join us in celebrating and uplifting the LGBTQ+ community, especially trans, gender non-conforming, and BIPOC members of our community. The first Pride was a riot, and we owe our collective liberation to black trans women like Marsha P. Johnson. Several staff members at Happy Raptor are part of the LGBTQ community, so we’re sharing our stories with you this month. We’re also doing everything we can to uplift the LGBTQ+ community in New Orleans. A portion of the proceeds from cocktail specials, 504Hibiscus Lemonade, and cocktail class admission on June 19th and 20th will benefit House of Tulip, an organization supporting trans and gender non-conforming communities in New Orleans through providing access to housing, education, healthcare, employment and home ownership. On Saturday, June 19th and Sunday, June 20th we’re hosting our first-ever Pride Arts Market! Queer creators of all backgrounds will be set up to sell their wares and share their art with you. More information and details are available on our website, Facebook, and Instagram. To close, I want to tell y’all about this photo - a few years ago, I went to World Pride in New York City. There was glitter and rainbows and parading and partying, but most importantly, there was family and community. Pride is many things and it means something different to everyone, but I think the feeling of community, acceptance, and family is universal, and that’s why we do it year after year. This May, we took to the streets in our neighborhood to clear storm drain catch basins as part of Pontchartrain Conservancy's #StormSweep2021 efforts! We learned from Pontchartrain Conservancy's work that as litter accumulates in our streets and sewer systems, it prevents Lake Pontchartrain from draining properly, threatening homes, businesses and roadways with flooding. We know that our tasting room takes on water FAST if the storm drains on our street aren't properly cleaned, so as a local business and as a community partner of this year's Storm Sweep, we knew it was up to us to clean our streets and protect our building from flooding.
Through May 31, you can stop into the tasting room for a free 8oz. cocktail with proof of Storm Sweep volunteer registration - after cleaning drains this week, we definitely needed a drink. We cleaned nearly 20 storm drains in our neighborhood, and y'all, it was no easy thing. Our team was armed with shovels, trowels, a rake, gardening and work gloves, and trash bags, and it still felt like it wasn't enough. Among the trash we found clogging our drains were:
If you want to be part of the solution, head on over to the Storm Sweep website. Hurricane season officially starts June 1, but as we New Orleanians know, street flooding has no respect for the Gregorian calendar and causes the destruction of many a car and home year-round. |