Who's the Best Bartender in Chicago?

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Oct 3, 2007 7:53PM

Naming the best bartender in Chicago is like trying to find an identical pair of snowflakes. Everybody has a favorite bartender and ours, a gruff, lovable fellow who told stories of Old Town's grittier days and always had a dram of bourbon at the ready when we walked through the door of our local watering hole, was recently fired from his job for refusing to serve Jaeger bombs to a group of Captain Awesomes who couldn't string together consecutive grunts, let alone sentences.

Sadly, that bartender is not among the five finalists for Metromix's annual "best bartender in Chicago" competition. The lucky quintet will be putting their best faces and cocktails forward at Division Street palindrome evilolive. The competition begins at 8 p.m., drinks are free until 11 p.m., and the early-and-often, "which one was falling out of her top?" voting runs on Metromix until 11:59 p.m. Sunday.

Of the five, we're familiar with Bon V's Jennifer Contraveos from her work at the former small-plates restaurant Graze. In March, Contraveos won Southern Wine & Spirits' "Shake It Up" competition in Las Vegas for her cocktail "The Single." At Bon V her specialty is a drink called the "Cane Juice," an $11 concoction pairing 10 Cane rum with Clear Creek pear brandy, fresh-squeezed lemon juice and homemade ginger syrup in a cinnamon-and-sugar rimmed glass.