The 1st Annual Daiquiri Days Festival. Photo by Andy Cook.

A crowd formed outside of Gene’s on the last hot Friday night of the summer, waiting for their party bus to arrive. No one seemed to mind that it was running a little late because they had unlimited refills at the daiquiri bar. What was the hurry? They’d shown up for Daiquiri Days, the first-ever New Orleans daiquiri festival, organized by the fledgling event production company Open House New Orleans, or OHNOCO. Over the course of the weekend, participants in the festival would be treated to a party bus tour of some of the city’s most notorious daiquiri shops, a dance party at the Hi-Ho Lounge debuting a brand new daiquiri flavor, and a French Quarter bar crawl-cum-history lesson about the evolution of the beverage, led by some of New Orleans’ better-known mixologists. And of course, all the daiquiris their brain-freezed heads could handle.

The festival is the creation of OHNOCO founders Jeremy Thompson and Zac Kushner, both celebrated bartenders in their own right. The pair felt that this beloved and boozy New Orleans standby had never received the respect it deserved and wanted to do something about it.

“It never sat right with us that the Sazerac was the official cocktail of New Orleans,” says Kushner. “I love the Sazerac, don’t get me wrong, but I have one maybe three or four times a year. I’ll pick up a daiquiri and walk around the city once or twice a month.”

“If you look up frozen daiquiris on Wikipedia, there’s basically nothing there,” adds Thompson, referring to the meager description the Internet tome provides. It occurred to them that if they didn’t do something about this soon, someone else may beat them to the punch.

Participants on Friday night met at Gene’s Daiquiris on Elysian Fields and St. Claude Avenue, where they sipped some of the shop’s contemporary classic flavors such as What the Fuck?, Wet-Wet, and Soulja Slim. A posse of Flavor Girls showed up costumed as some of their favorites, playing mascots for the evening. Owner Eugene Theriot himself was on hand to give a bit of the story of the big pink building. Formerly a funeral parlor, Gene and his cousin began transforming it in 1994. According to Theriot, if it weren’t for the insurance money they received after a police car slammed into their building while chasing a drunk driver down St. Claude, they never would have had the money to open.

The evening’s party bus tour took participants from Gene’s to Mango Mango on Bourbon, then on to St. Charles Daiquiri Shop, and finally to the infamous Jazz Daiquiris on Claiborne and Louisiana. At each stop, the crowd would spill out of the bus, special Who Daiq? go-cups in hand, and sample whatever specialties the shops had to offer. The St. Charles Daiquiri Shop poured crème-based chocolate and White Russian flavors, a big hit with the crowd.

“It’s like an adult milkshake,” said participant Mike Mauer of Mid-City. He thoughtfully paused and then added, “This is a strong fucking daiquiri.”

The following day, events focused on a handful of bars in the French Quarter, as festival- goers were treated to a sort of walking tour through the history of the daiquiri. At One Eyed Jacks, bartender Daniel Victory of Victory Bar served up what was likely the first iteration of the drink, originating in Cuba. It was a simple, refreshing affair consisting of nothing more than sugar cane rum mixed with granulated sugar and a squeeze of lime over crushed ice. Michelle Reeves of Tonique re-created the Hemingway Daiquiri, a variation made famous by the author that incorporates maraschino cherries and grapefruit juice into the Cuban original. Finally, at Turtle Bay, participants were ushered into the modern era with a demonstration of the Waring blender, the kitchen appliance which at its unveiling in 1938 sparked the creation of the daiquiri we know and love today.

But while daiquiri appreciation was the aim of the weekend, the Daiquiri Days festival was on double duty to also raise funds for OHNOCO’s bigger plans. Ultimately, Kushner and Thompson want to create a New Orleans residency program for artists, musicians, and service industry professionals from other cities. They envision a house created entirely by local talent and products, from the carpentry to the food in the fridge. The pair hopes that their program of “vocational tourism” will help infuse fresh cultural ideas into New Orleans while spreading the gospel about all the good our city has to offer.

Though the dream of a residency program is still just that, New Orleanians can expect more daiquiri festivities from OHNOCO in the near future. Plans are in the works for a Who Daiq? New Year’s party, a New Orleans Daiquiri Club, and the distribution of the first-ever New Orleans daiquiri shop map.

“We think the daiquiri is a very unique part of our culture, something that doesn’t exist in other places like it does here,” says Kushner.

“We want the house to have its own daiquiri machine,” adds Thompson. “Our guests will have a daiquiri handed to them as soon as they walk in the door.”

For more information, go to DaiquiriDays.org.