#Coffin Hop…The Haunted Voodoo & The Haunting Magic Cocktails

Day 2 of The Haunted & The Hauntings takes us to a place of Voodoo and Magic. This city is famous in the Horror and Paranormal Circles. It has inspired legends, myths, tales that terrify and movies that horrify. It has also been a favourite obsession of mine and has inspired my new WIP – The Tattooist Trilogy.

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

This city has been called the Most Haunted City in the USA. It has also been called “The Crescent City”, “The Big Easy” and “The City that Care Forgot” I first became familiar with this city through, what else but my favourite medium, books: specifically The Vampire Chronicles of Anne Rice. I could not get enough of this series and could not get enough of this strange haunting city. This city is one of the main settings in my NEXT BIG WIP – The Tattooist Trilogy. I am also planning on a 2013 trip – it falls under research – to this city of Hauntings, Voodoo & Vamps. In my thirst for knowledge + WIP research I explored the earliest times of this notorious city.

Perhaps the earliest legend that has fueled the Hauntings in this city is that the vast swamp that was New Orleans was once a sacred Indian burial ground. In 1718 King Louis XV founded the city of New Orleans, named after the city of Orleans lying on the banks of the Loire River in France, in the hope and belief that it would be a profitable trading station for the French because of its appealing location on the Mississippi River. Once people started trickling in to live here though;  murderers, thieves, rapists, common criminals and laborers were the first inhabitants. I assumed they came here and set up camp to escape their various crimes and the punishment they were sure to face on apprehension. In these early days of New Orleans, it was only the desperate and the damned who would choose to make their home here: They called it The French Quarter in 1721. It was a topography that perfectly mirrored the depraved, the desperate and the damned who settled here with natural harsh elements like quick sand, alligators, venomous snakes, mosquitoes and rampant disease. For the next hundred years the murder rate in this new city was high and along with numerous major fires, hurricanes, wars and the dreaded yellow fever epidemic this city became  a place of death, decay and destruction.

During this first 100 year period of New Orleans, the Haitian slave revolt (1791 – 1804) happened in Haiti. To escape the massacre the refugee plantation owners, bringing with them their slaves, escaped Haiti to make their way across the ocean to a new home and refuge in New Orleans. For the first time New Orleans heard the sacrificial drums of Voodoo. Voodoo had come to New Orleans. Voodoo is a strange mix of various African – originating in Benin and Nigeria – magic, belief and rites mixed with Catholic elements. Voodoo brought with it snake magic, seers, ritual animal sacrifice, fortune-telling, black magic, bonfires and orgies and notorious Voodoo Queens: the most famous Voodoo Queen would have to be Marie Laveau. Both a practicing Catholic and a Voodoo Queen; she acted as an Oracle, conducted private rituals, performed exorcisms and offered sacrifices to spirits. To this day people still come to her tomb to offer up favors and offerings. Her grave is the one of the most visited graves in the world. There are still sightings of this Voodoo Queen in modern-day New Orleans.

It is no wonder that this city with its notorious history, its birthplace founded on a purported sacred Indian burial ground and its mix of the depraved, the damned and the illicit combined with the black magic of Voodoo Queens has spurred the title of the Most Haunted city in the USA. It is a place layered in history, in magic and ancient sacred rites. It is a place where the veils between ritualistic beliefs, fears are thin. It is indeed a place where spirits watch you from veiled shadows.

Another thing that this city is famous for is Cocktails, decadence and illicit deliciousness…It is not known as “The Big Easy” and the home of “The Mardi Gras” for nothing. So for a treat today I have included some New Orleans cocktails and some Halloween inspired cocktails for your enjoyment.

New Orleans Classic Cocktails

Click on any of the DECADENT COCKTAILS

– this will take you to my Pinterest page,

One more click will take you to the delicious concoction’s RECIPE…

What is the use of posting cocktails unless you try them for yourself?

Come back and tell me which was your favourite flavour!

The Hurricane

The Sazerac

The Bywater Cocktail

Some Halloween Decadence…

Ashes to Ashes

Paranormal Activity or Licorice Trick

Smoking “Colour-changing” Martini

Vampire Kiss Martini

What’s your favourite decadent cocktail?

What’s your favourite New Orleans Haunted Legend?

Join me here tomorrow for the next X spots that mark the places where the spirits watch you from veiled shadows…

Remember to visit all the other coffin hopping macabre and haunted places buried in the

COFFIN HOP BONEYARD

for frightful contests, spookilicious giveaways and horrific halloween inspired swag.

You can also click through to the linky list included on this blog here or click on the creeptastic skull beneath…

x marks the spot where the spirits watch you from veiled shadows…

Don’t forget to enter my TRICK Haunted Flash Fiction for TREATS

Enter if you dare…Enter or be scared…

Related articles

• New Orleans Ghosts (neworleansghosts.com)
• CSI | Voodoo in New Orleans (csicop.org)
• Top 10 Haunted Cities in America – Rent.com | The Shared Wall (rent.com)
• 6 destinations with a dark side (wtkr.com)
• Voodoo festival opens in New Orleans (onlineathens.com)