The entire frigid month of February is a great time to embrace the warmth and spirit that Mardi Gras brings to the table. It's also a time to feast on Cajun cuisine and New Orleans-inspired cocktails.
In Wilmington, no place offers better Cajun than the Blue Parrot Bar & Grille at 6th and Union streets. And though we always knew the food was tip-top, we had no idea the list of cool cocktails they have on display -- until now.
What we found was a dessert martini named after a classic candybar, a signature blue cocktail with a side of drunken pineapple, and a hurricane recipe that's straight outta New Orleans to go with their spicy shrimp dish.
Rock you like a Hurricane
Just as any respectable wing joint owner might include the original Anchor Bar recipe for their Buffalo sauce, Blue Parrot owner Mark Diamond includes a New Orleans original as one of the key ingredients in his signature hurricane drink.
Each tall cocktail, served up in the apropos curvy glassware, is a mix of three different brands of rum, topped with a little Bacardi 151 for an extra kick -- and it's all blended with Pat O'Brien's hurricane mix of citrus and passion fruit juices.
For those who haven't been to the Crescent City, O'Brien's is one of the oldest and most famous New Orleans bars, and has been serving up this original concoction since they went from speakeasy to legit watering hole with the end of prohibition in 1933.
With its vibrant red color and candy-like flavor to it, the Hurricane ($7.50) is another one of those dangerous drinks that masks the amount of alcohol with sweetness, similar to the way a Mardi Gras mask might hide one's identity.
Garnished with an orange wedge, this thirst quencher on the rocks went particularly well with my order of Voodoo shrimp ($9.95), a "hotter than Hell" assortment of shrimp swimming in a sweet but scalding habañero BBQ sauce, served over rice and topped with sour cream.
But if you do stop in and give this one a shot, we recommend you also ask for a glass of water, a mug of lager and some bread. We had all four fire extinguishers on the bar and that habañero heat still lingered. Trés bien.
Jump for Almond Joy
I can think of quite a few cocktails whose goal was to substitute for dessert. But I can't think of any named directly after a famous candy bar, or one that tasted as close to its tag.
But the Blue Parrot's Almond Joy ($7.50) does both, with its creamy concoction of Absolut vodka, amaretto and Malibu rum for the coconut flavor, and dark créme de cacao, Bailey's Irish Cream and Kahlua for the chocolatey flavor, topped off a little cream.
As if those weren't enough ingredients, bartender Billy Cerasari also coats the inside of the martini glass with chocolate syrup and drops two chocolate-covered almonds in the bottom of the glass. When you finish the drink, those milky marinated almonds are a tasty treat.
A drink on the house: The Blue Parrotini
Every quality bar with a solid drink menu should have its own house drink, and the Blue Parrot's, naturally, is the Blue Parrotini ($7.50), a sweet vodka and Captain Morgan-based drink.
The other components include Level vodka, Gran Marnier, an orange liqueur with the French lineage to fit in with the Cajun theme, and DeKuyper's Island Blue Pucker, which adds some sweet, some sour, and plenty of color.
Perched atop the rim of this straight-up bowl of loudmouth soup is the strongest wedge of pineapple these buds have ever tasted. That's because the fruit is marinated over a period of weeks in blue curacao and vodka, hence that blue-greenish color.
