Session #9: Laissez les bons temps rouler!

This is my contribution to The Session, hosted this month by Tomme Arthur and titled, “Beer and Music – The Message in a Bottle.”

Great beer should be alive. The best music is live.

That these two don’t always show up at the same place at the same time can be OK.

Since I couldn’t tell this story Sir Arthur ask for as well, I’ll quote directly from something my favorite beer and travel writer, Daria Labinsky (I’m her husband), wrote for Touring America a dozen years ago:

“You hear the sweet strains of a waltz as you step from the car into the dusty parking lot of Fred’s Lounge. Open the door to the tavern in the tiny town of Mamou, Louisiana, and you’re greeted with a surprising sight: Dozens of people are jammed into a dark space not much bigger than the average living room.

“In one corner is the band, whose gentle fiddling and French lyrics are pouring into a microphone and out over the airwaves of KVPI Radio. Glittery Mardi Gras decorations hang from the ceiling tiles; photos and poster of Cajun musicians line the raspberry-colored walls. Couples twirl on the minuscule dance floor, the older ones swirling with grace despite their lack of elbow room, the younger ones mostly just rocking back and forth. The crowd around the bar is three or four deep and ranges from French-accented farmers and their wives to kids in college sweatshirts.

“With the next song, a two-step, you notice the female bartenders following the beat with their feet as they uncap beers and fill glasses. Someone enters with what looks like a bakery box, but instead of doughnuts, it’s filled with chunks of boudin, a spicy rice-and-meat sausage. A bartender whose shirt reads “Tante Sue from Mamou” passes the box around to patrons, and everyone shares.

“You sip your beer and sink your teeth into the tasty boudin. So what if it’s 9:30 in the morning? Right here, right now, it seems like the perfect thing to do.”

We were drinking Miller Genuine Draft.

And there’s more to the story. When we left Fred’s we realized we had time to get to the weekly Saturday jam at Marc Savoy’s music store outside of Eunice before it ended, though we’d need to make a quick stop. We knew that guests were expected to bring something to share — as I recall the guidebook suggested doughnuts — so we pulled into a general store along Highway 190 and grabbed the most expensive 6-pack of beer we could find. Old Milwaukee.

At the jam, we put the beer on the communal table — sure enough, somebody had brought doughnuts and somebody else boudin — and found a seat.

After a song or two, Savoy wandered over and grabbed a can of Old Milwaukee.

“Who brought these?” he asked, almost as if he were checking to see if it were OK to pop the top.

I raised my hand a bit, a little embarrassed.

He nodded, opened the can, took a sip. “Very generous.”

Nice to be the ones who brought the good stuff.

(With a tip of the hat to Joe Sixpack: This post was written with the Savoy-Doucet band playing in the background.)