By Michael Nagrant
Bridget Albert has gin in her blood. Albert, the chief mixologist for Southern Wine and Spirits and the co-author (with Mary Barranco) of the newly released “Market-Fresh Mixology,” from Surrey Books, is a fourth-generation bartender. Her lavender-eyed great aunt Tilly started the string by hopping behind the family tavern in Coal City, Illinois as a 12-year-old. Bridget’s then 10-year-old great grandmother soon joined Tilly and became a fixture in the street, hand-chiseling ice off the old delivery trucks with her fierce ice pick. Albert says, “My great grandfather used to get scared when he saw his wife running around with that pick.” The family lived above the tavern, and Albert’s great-grandmother would occasionally manage the tavern by peeking through the knots in the rickety floor down to survey the bar room below.
As a 16-year-old boy, Albert’s paternal grandfather, a Polish immigrant living on the East Side of Joliet, gathered up the gin made in his mother’s pot still, borrowed a car from an Italian family, and drove up the back-roads to Chicago selling the hooch during prohibition. He’d pay off policemen along the way while working the speakeasy circuit, often landing at the still-extant Green Door (678 North Orleans). Read the rest of this entry »
