Al Capone's great-niece Deidre Marie Capone is the last living Capone, and she wants to see her great-uncle's and her grandfather Ralph "Bottles" Capone's records cleared. more ›

To celebrate the repeal of Prohibition, here's a cocktail inspired by the Sinclair Lewis novel Babbitt. more ›

The last episode of Prohibition, "A Nation of Hypocrites," airs tonight. more ›

Part two of the three-part miniseries Prohibition premieres tonight on WTTW Channel 11 at 7 p.m. This installment of the latest documentary film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick chronicles the aftermath of the passage of the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act, the law that both gave Prohibition enforcement its teeth and unwittingly set in motion a 13-year bender of rampant criminality in America. more ›

We preview the forthcoming PBS miniseries and share the recipe for Corpse Reviver #2, a vintage cocktail. more ›

We pay a visit to Evanston's new craft distillery. more ›

On December 5, 1933, The "noble experiment" (which was pretty much a miserable failure) drew to a close. Prohibition was finally repealed when Utah, the last state needed for a three quarters majority, ratified the 21st amendment to the Constitution. more ›

Drinks Over Dearborn was transformed into a modern speakeasy last night, in honor of World Cocktail Week. All guests at the event had different passwords to gain entry to the boutique liquor shop. Owner Kyle McHugh set up a blackjack table, an absinthe room, a blues band in the main room and had bartenders mixing some very potent cocktails. Guests were given a gambling chip to use at the blackjack table. The top three winners won his or her choice of the liquors used to make the cocktails. Meanwhile, the backing band for Shirley King (B.B.'s daughter) played in McHugh's main room. more ›

World Cocktail Week 2009 started yesterday, and what's shaping up to be the major local event in honor of this is "Speakeasy Over Dearborn." From 9 p.m. until midnight Monday, Kyle McHugh is turning his Drinks Over Dearborn boutique liquor store and salon (650 N. Dearborn, 312-337-9463) into a speakeasy, complete with password entry. If you don't know the password, you don't get in. more ›

You didn't think we'd focus totally on the speakeasies this week, did you? more ›

Cheers to the 75th anniversary of Repeal Day, marking the end of prohibition and the beginning of the end of bathtub gin. To celebrate the occasion, we went on the often over-looked gangster tour of Chicago, The Untouchable Tour. This is not the architectural tour with its fancy building pointing out and cash bar. The Untouchable Tour is an old, black school bus, driven and guided by two middle-aged guys dressed up in suspenders and fedoras with thick Chi-caaaaa-go accents. Cheesy? Yes. Better than a herd of twenty-something aspiring actors spouting off memorized scripts (sometimes inaccurately) on a double-decker bus? Absolutely. more ›

Back in the day we closed down Green Mill (4802 N. Broadway, 773-878-5552) more times than we care to remember. Few things are as perfectly matched as 3 a.m. creeping on sunrise, a perfect martini in front of you, someone from out of town looking for an "authentic Chicago experience" and the Sabertooth Hammond organ combo providing a fitting soundtrack to a night that ends with salty diner coffee, runny eggs and the Sunday Sun-Times. It almost makes one long for the smoking ban to be lifted for only a few hours. Almost. more ›

The Green Door Tavern in River North (676 N. Orleans, 312-664-5496) manages to walk the balance between classic tavern and tourist trap with aplomb. Housed in a 130-year-old wood frame building built shortly after the Great Chicago Fire (the last building of its kind built that close to the Loop) if you look at it hard enough you'll see that it has a noticeable lean.. more ›

This week you're going to see articles online and in print noting the 75th anniversary of the repeal of the Volstead Act, which will be celebrated throughout the city on Friday. Prohibition didn't stop people from drinking, particularly in "the city that works." Places like the Green Mill actually thrived during Prohibition (we'll be writing about Green Mill and its Prohibition-era history later this week). more ›

If you're a member of an out-of-state wine club or shop online from an out-of-state wine retailer, you have a few days left to place an order. So make it count. more ›

Don't those bottles look pretty? We've been in contact with Andrew Mason, brewer at Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery has been keeping us abreast of some of the things that he brewmaster Matt Van Wyk has been working on since the start of the year. Now we can finally tell the big news: the award-winning brewpub is set to enter the bottled beer market. more ›