The Latest Booze News
Put down the mojitos, it’s time to get serious about drinking. Patio drinks are all well and good, but when it comes to drinking in Chicago, we go big and bold, and it's basically the only thing that makes frigid temperatures worthwhile. This means cocktails made with coffee and tequila, housemade limoncello, boozy sundaes studded with Chartreuse gelato, and lots more. Here’s the latest batch of booze news in Chicago.
Drumbar’s new mixologist Alex Renshaw recently rolled out his new cocktail menu, providing a medley of revised classics and singular creations. Across the board, drinks skew heady and hearty, as with the brandy-based Rocket Science, splashed with averna, grenadine, lemon, mint, egg white, and walnut bitters. Portlandia combines coffee and tequila for an unusual-yet-delicious potable finished with sherry, angostura bitters, and orange. The Road Less Traveled is a fall-centric mixture of fresh-pressed apple juice, whiskey, Cardamaro, lemon, and grated cinnamon. Then there’s the Honor Amongst Thieves, a drink featuring dual spirits bourbon and cachaca adjoined by Velvet Falernum, pineapple, lemon, and a Peychaud float.
Good news for all you Sunday drinkers! Barrelhouse Flat is henceforth open on Sunday evenings, and to honor the occasion, the cocktail bar is hosting a boozy sundae Sunday party on November 10 from 6:00 pm until 2:00 am. Chef Erik Chizeck will team up with the bar staff to concoct sundae fixings the likes of which you’ve never seen before, unless your childhood was a little bit racy. Attendees can fawn over housemade gelato options such as salted vanilla-bourbon, Chartreuse-mint chocolate chip, and coffee-averna. Go nuts with accoutrements such as chocolate-rum, Fernet whipped cream, cherry Kirsch, butterscotch, and peanut butter. Other add-ons include sprinkles, chocolate chips, toasted coconut, bacon praline, pecans, and more. Barrelhouse Flat will also be featuring one designated sundae each forthcoming weekend as well, so don’t fret if you can’t make this boozy sugar bash.
There’s plenty to look forward to this season at CH Distillery, the West Loop’s new liquor distillery-cum-cocktail barstaurant. Already renowned for their vodka and gin, CH is poised to debut their own limoncello this month. Adhering to a recipe from Giuliana Vitagliano, a Naples native and CH pal, the limoncello will feature CH vodka, lemons, milk, and sugar. Guests can sip it at the bar or take home a bottle. Also, with the holidays fast approaching, CH is readying holiday gift packages stocked with everything your booze-obsessed friends and family could ever want. Packages include an engraved CH flask, a bottle of CH vodka, Key gin, or London Dry gin, and some finocchiona salami from West Loop Salumi. Because nothing says “happy holidays!” quite like booze and cured meat.
Drumbar
201 E. Delaware Place, Chicago
(312) 933-4805
Website
Barrelhouse Flat
2624 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago
(773) 857-0421
Website
CH Distillery
564 W. Randolph Street, Chicago
(312) 707-8780
Website
