Booze Muse

Koval Distillery will hold its first mixology contest on Saturday, November 28. Taking place at 7pm at Binny’s Beverage Depot in the South Loop, contestants will go head to head and create an on-the-spot, original cocktail to be judged by a panel of four. “We’re looking to find some great upcoming mixologists that we can collaborate with in the future,” says co-owner Sonat Birnecker Hart. Koval Distillery is a family-owned business, boasting high-end, all-organic grain spirits and kosher products. “There aren’t that many small family-owned distilleries anymore; they were all wiped out during prohibition,” says Hart. “We make everything here from scratch, and it’s all organic and kosher. It’s important to build sustainable agriculture.”

By Michael Nagrant

You should always cook with good wine, but whoever set that rule probably didn’t expect anyone to deglaze their risotto pan with $400 Champagne like Jean-Baptiste Cristini. Cristini didn’t want me to mention this, probably because you’d think he’s some snooty rich dude. He’s not. He just happens to work for Salon and Delamotte Champagnes, and was lucky to taste some 1988 Salon that hadn’t aged well and got it as a side perk.

Such circumstance is emblematic of Cristini’s life. He’s like a younger version of the guy from Dos Equis’ “Most Interesting Man in the World” beer commercials, a cosmopolitan handsome 28-year-old dude who drinks Grand Cru Champagne like tap water. He hangs out in Paris on weekends with his girlfriend, a veteran chef of Michelin-starred kitchens, throws parties for friends larded with Iberico ham and trophy wines, and works as the globetrotting export director for one of the best bubbly makers in the world.

The luster of Cristini’s employer Salon/Delamotte shines even brighter. Located in the French commune of Le Mesnil sur Oger in the Côte des Blancs, Salon/Delamotte produces some of the world’s most prestigious Champagne. If you haven’t heard of Salon, you’ve likely heard of its cohorts Cristal and upstart cousin Dom Perignon which produce 300,000 and 5 million or so bottles a year respectively. If this trio of sparklers were baseball cards, Salon Champagne, which produces no more than 60,000 bottles in a vintage year, would be its Honus Wagner. Read the rest of this entry »

By Michael Nagrant

“Second floor retail is murder,” says Kyle McHugh, aka “The Boozehound” and owner of boutique wine, beer and spirits retailer Drinks Over Dearborn (DOD). Though McHugh learned this truism in business school, he opened DOD on the second floor of an old office building called The Raleigh on Dearborn between Erie and Ontario anyway.

It wasn’t that he was the Evil Knievel of liquor retailers interested in spitting on MBA textbook theories. Rather, a greater truism trumped all: rent prices in the Gold Coast (an area he preferred for its affluent traffic) were a straight-up serial killing. McHugh figured he could better avoid the death of his business by executing his business plan the right way: get a bigger space to conduct classes, tastings and host a wide variety of interesting stock instead of compromising and blowing his life’s savings and small-business loan on a dinky little box on the first floor.

And in a business climate where faux anonymity and cloak and dagger is the new version of the Vegas-style blinking neon sign, who could discount McHugh’s decision? After all, the Lincoln Park restaurant Alinea doesn’t even have a sign and the popular Wicker Park cocktail lounge The Violet Hour looks like a graffiti-covered abandoned building.

If you build it, they will come, right? Read the rest of this entry »

A piece of “The Sopranos” has come to the Midwest with the Chicago-area launch of The Sopranos Wines. Sopranos Wines was originally launched in November 2008 in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut mainly for the large Italian population and wine-drinking market, managing partner Mark Gonsalves says. Over the past few months, after getting their key markets up to speed, Sopranos entered into conversations and contracts with Franklin Park distributor Stoller Wholesale to bring the wine to Chicago. “We’re always attracted to family-run trades,” Gonsalves says. “The Sopranos is a family  business. We liked what [Stoller] had done with other products.” Gonsalves says Chicago is a great market because of the high concentration of Italian-American families. Prior to coming to Chicago, the brand was launched in Arizona and California. They plan to take their wine to Vegas next then to the northwest United States and eventually throughout the rest of the Midwest. The Sopranos Wines has three main tiers of pricing per bottle—$9.99, $14.99 and $24.99. “In today’s market, people are looking for value, a brand they can trust and that they can enjoy with their meal,” Gonsalves says. “The Sopranos fits the bill. We want to communicate that our wine is serious wine, family made and Italian-bottled. It’s value.”

Before Goose Island was even a brewery, Quenchers Saloon was doing the “beer thing,” offering Chicagoans an impressive variety of fermented refreshments. Started in 1979, the bar is now throwing a massive thirtieth-anniversary celebration, from August 16-23. The week-long event will provide attendees with a lot of beer, and a lot of music. “We have three events that we’re focusing on,” says Steve Segel, the bar’s manager. Besides a slew of giveaways and prizes, and a possible vertical beer-tasting to be announced, there’s a bluegrass jam session Saturday afternoon and a rock show on Saturday night. The rock show will include The Lovers, The Amino Acids, The Runnies and The Livers. “The Livers do a great audio video setup behind them,” says Segel. “I’ve seen a lot of shows but this really blew my mind.”

Granite floors, two custom-fitted bars and gleaming cherry wood walls are some of the highlights of what used to be a “basement dive bar” just two years ago.

The original Yak-Zies at 506 West Diversey has reopened its doors after being closed, due to the death of its owner, Kenny Miller, in 2007. The “facelift,” as general manager Dan Schack describes it, began in November.

“People walk in and they’re like ‘wow,’” says Schack. “The response from the neighborhood has been unbelievable.” Read the rest of this entry »

We know, we hadn’t heard of it either. But when we did, we thought, brilliant! Then we thought, vodka.

Thanks to the folks at Luxbar for bringing this to our attention. You’ll find us there come August 20. (But if others are doing similar promotions, let us know and we’ll add them to the list.)

LUXBAR CELEBRATES NATIONAL LEMONADE DAY: $5 Signature Lemonhead Martinis
In celebration of National Lemonade Day, Luxbar is going grown-up by offering their signature Lemonhead Martini for only $5 (normally $11.50).  The cocktail features Veev Açai Liqueur, Three Olives Vodka, Chambord, and of course, freshly squeezed Lemon Juice. Thursday, August 20

LUXBAR
18 E Bellevue Place, 312.642.3400
www.luxbar.com

CITIZEN BAR CELEBRATES LEMONADE DAY
Chicagoans can soak up the sun and take advantage of Citizen Bar’s huge outdoor patio while enjoying Citizen’s signature Blue Raspberry Lemonade in honor of National Lemonade Day on August 20th.  For the entire month Citizen will offer this special cocktail for $7 a glass or $22 for a pitcher.

Citizen Bar
364 W. Erie St.
(312)640-1156
www.citizenbar.com

By Laura Hawbaker

Home to two of the tallest buildings in America, Chicago is a skyward city. Like pigeons to lampposts, Chicagoans take to rooftops when summer comes around, as if our proximity to the sky will somehow enable us to glimpse the stars through that hazy orange veil of light pollution.

This past weekend, a few friends and I assailed the summits of the Wit and the Trump to see if two brand-spankin’-new rooftop bars measure up to the height and hype. Read the rest of this entry »

By Jonathan Silverstein

Somewhere along the line, I discovered that I had both a talent for mixing cocktails and a tragically low tolerance for alcohol. After a few regrettable experiments, which I cannot remember but my former friends cannot forget, I decided to devote myself to the pursuit of quality over quantity.

The big obstacle I kept running into was the poor state of commercially available liqueurs and flavoring agents. Most of them are packed with artificial flavors and high fructose corn syrup, making them unfit for anything other than a Trixie’s candy martini, the kind garnished with lollipops and washed down with Diet Coke.

It turns out that it is ridiculously easy to infuse booze with flavors. Read the rest of this entry »

Entering Simone’s is likely to induce memories of walking through a summertime carnival funhouse. Gazing at a massive bar fashioned out of Fresnel lenses, bowling-alley remnants and pinball machines that have long since been forgotten can be disorienting at first, but still intriguing enough to keep wandering through to see what lies ahead in the next section.

When it came to designing Simone’s, which opened in Pilsen in February, the bar’s owners Russ and Desiree Grant and Michael Noone paired up with a design team from Salvage One to create a one-of-a-kind neighborhood bar. “We tried to repurpose items,” says Desiree Grant. “The whole idea of reusing and reducing, that was important to us. We knew that we did not want to bring a North Side-looking place down here; we wanted to respect the vibrancy of the community and the fact that it is an artist community. We wanted to celebrate that.” Read the rest of this entry »