By the time you’ve downed a mint julep at the Carousel Bar in the historic Hotel Monteleone, a slow panorama of the whimsical interior has passed by and you’re back where you started, all without leaving your seat. The Hotel Monteleone introduced New Orleans’ first revolving bar in 1940, and the Carousel has been rotating at a rate of once every fifteen minutes ever since. For more than fifty years, the revolving Carousel Bar in the historic Hotel Monteleone has earned the distinction of being one of the city’s favorite gathering spots. In fact, sometimes it’s hard to say which is more colorful, the Carousel’s bright circus motif or the characters it attracts.

Originally installed in 1949, the 25-seat carousel bar turns on 2,000 large steel rollers powered by a one-quarter horsepower motor. While the bar always rotates at the same speed, visitors who have imbibed for a while often claim that the bartender has turned up the motor’s speed.

The Monteleone Hotel opened in 1886 when Antonio Monteleone, a Sicilian cobbler, bought the 14-room Commercial Hotel across the street from his shoe repair shop at 241 Royal Street. Now run by a fourth generation of the Monteleone family, the hotel has expanded to 600 guest rooms.

Truman Capote claimed he was born at the Monteleone, and although he was not, he lived with his family at the Monteleone for a while after his birth. Capote returned to the hotel many times and shared a love of this home-away-from-home with other literary giants such as William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams. These literary greats brainstormed some of their most well-known work in the Carousel Bar. The Hotel Monteleone is designated as a literary landmark because of its history of welcoming countless authors, many of whom have written about the Monteleone, using it as a setting for their stories or novels.

In a city who’s most famous street is named after a liquor, it stands to reason that cocktails are a large part of New Orleans lore and legends. And the Carousel Bar has certainly contributed its share, including the invention of two French Quarter favorites, The Goody and The Vieux Carre Cocktail.

Through the years, the Hotel Monteleone has played host to some of the world’s most famous and colorful characters. Movie stars, dignitaries, royalty and political kingpins are part of our colorful past and present. Here, guests find the perfect blend of Southern hospitality, old world grandeur and casual elegance.

The Hotel Monteleone celebrates the history of the cocktail as the Headquarters Hotel for Tales of the Cocktail

Click here for hotel information and promotional code