Results tagged “mixology”

A couple months back we wrote about Hum Spirit a rum-based liqueur infused with hibiscus, cardamom and ginger. Seger is ready to foist Hum Spirit on the rest of the world with a launch party at Pops for Champagne (601 N. State St., 312-266-7677) the Hum Spirit launch will feature cocktails crafted by Seger, Charles Joly of the Drawing Room and the Violet Hour's Stephen Cole. If that doesn't draw you over to Pops, maybe the $3 PBRs and $5 Jameson shots will. this is all part of Pops's "Shift Drinks" series featuring guest bartenders every Monday night in their downstairs bar.

Before Adam Seger, Bridget Albert, John Kinder, Peter Vestinos, Lynn House and all the other great mixologists in town, there was Joe Danno, owner and proprietor of the Bucket O' Suds. That old bar became the stuff of legend. Like Disco Demolition, the Bears' Super Bowl XX victory parade, and viewing the body of Harold Washington lying in state in City Hall after his death, more people actually say they went to the Bucket O' Suds than actually visited.

It’s rare that we actually invent anything new here at Chicagoist cocktail labs. We have our hands full most of the time testing out recipes and trying to figure out the perfect ways to make classic cocktails – besides, with so many recipes out there, inspiration is hard to come by. However, freezing our butts off is the mother of invention (or something like that).

Cocktail books are everywhere. Every time we walk into a big discount bookstore, the bargain bin is full of books with titles like “The Drunken Idiot Barman’s Encyclopedia of Cheap Spirits” (or something like that) with 1000 not-very-precise recipes and uninspiring photography. The cocktail books that we bring home with us show off the character and ideas of a single mixologist, with a few innovative new recipes combined with the best of the old favorites. Bridget Albert has created just such a book in “Market-Fresh Mixology: Cocktails for Every Season”and we’ve been working our way through the drinks in the book just as fast as we could.

It doesn't bear repeating, but we're doing it, anyway. Here at Chicagoist we're big fans of the Art of the Cocktail. If you aren't getting your fix from the "Properly Sauced" series, you can taste for yourself impeccably crafted cocktails while watching silk screen exhibitions and enjoying artwork. Starting Thursday night and running through October 9, Campari and Swindle Magazine are teaming up to host "The Art of the Cocktail" exhibitions throughout the city.

We had the good fortune to attend a cocktail mixing event at La Madia last week led by their mixologist, Jennifer Contraveos. Jennifer is a Chicago cocktail-ing star, winning regional and national competitions and being named one of the top mixers in the city by Metromix. Formerly the head mixer at Graze, she’s taken over the helm at La Madia.

Today is National Piña Colada Day. Naturally it makes sense to focus on the Colada for this installment of "Properly Sauced." Originally, the piña colada was nothing more than ripe pineapple juice, either strained (colada) or unstrained (sin colar). Visitors to Pilsen's Fiesta del Sol sample it in this version annually. According to Wikipedia, the earliest known reference to the piña colada as a rum-based cocktail was in a Travel magazine article about Cuba from 1922:

While browsing at O’Gara and Wilson in Hyde Park, we stumbled across a copy of Trader Vic’s Book of Food and Drink – a first edition from 1946, signed by the Trader himself. As lovers of classic cocktails, we couldn’t let this one go, and we’ve had fun making the various 1940s rum-based cocktails and reading the dated and sarcastic prose. One recipe for “Pondo Punch” was named after “Our Filipino Boy” who apparently used to make them for the Trader. Another, the Mahukona, is described thusly: “There’s a good story about this drink, but sitting here trying to remember it, I’m stuck. I know I got the drink some place, because I still have the scrap of paper I scribbled it down on, but dammed if I can remember where it was.”

Recently, during our visit to RL Restaurant, we came across two old favorites that aren’t often found (at least in non-fusionized form) on restaurant cocktail menus: the Sidecar and the Champagne Cocktail. RL’s cocktail list is filled with old favorites, but any good bar should be able to make either of these drinks. Both drinks are slightly sweet but not cloying, and both are based on brandy, a liquor not often seen in modern cocktails. The brandy lends both of these drinks a depth that vodka cocktails too often lack.

Over the holidays we received some lavender tincture from John Kinder, the sick talented bartender/mixologist at mk (some readers might remember Kinder from his days at moxie).

It's easy to forget that, with all the hype recently bestowed to the Violet Hour since it opened months ago (much of it warranted, we'll preface), that this city was already teeming with master mixologists before Toby Maloney blew back into town. Case in point, at the recent "Chicago Iron Bartender" competition, Sepia's Peter Vestinos beat out a packed field including Nacional 27's Adam Seger, Tim Lacey of Spring Restaurant Group, and Otom's James Macknyk...