Tales of the Cocktail® New Orleans 2016

According to some psychologists, not only are we motivated by hunger, thirst and sex, but our ‘forth drive’ could in fact be intoxication. Can the pleasure of drinking really be that primal? Does nature or nurture determine the types of drinks we reject or revere, and can we use nature to enhance our enjoyment, if only we understood it better? Which leads us to the question: why drink? What drives us to seek out a well-made cocktail, a cold beer or a glass of wine? Cocktail culture and the proliferation of premium wines, beers and spirits may improve the contents of our glass today, but human beings have been seeking new ways to enjoy intoxication for millennia. So what’s the universal appeal? Whether we are seeking pleasure, stimulation, relief or escape, the human desire to ‘feel different from normal’ is powerful and often controversial. So the question is this: if our quest for intoxication is entirely natural, can we use nature to feel better about the drinks we enjoy? Join Claire Smith-Warner & Iain Griffiths (White Lyan/Dandelyan) as we explore our primal urges, a universal thirst and Mother Nature’s wicked sense of humour. With the help of Ronald D. Siegal Phy.d (Assistant Professor of Psychology, Harvard Medical School and author of The Mindfulness Solution: Everyday Practices for Everyday Problems ) and Zoe Cormier (founder, Guerilla Science and author of Sex, Drugs & rock n Roll: The Science of Hedonism and the Hedonism of Science) we’ll discover the secrets of our ‘forth drive’; exploring why we sometimes feel as though only a cocktail will do, but most importantly understand how we can use nature to keep our spirits high, our brain happy and our body healthy. Want to get intoxicated with us? Well, it’s only natural…