I moved to Chicago for the bars.

In 2005, I had just returned stateside from a four-year stint working (and drinking a lot of sake) in Japan. As part of my search for a place to settle down, I took a week-long trip to Chicago. My first night in town, I drank $2 whiskey shots during Punk R....

A swanky enclave with a punk rock edge, Villains serves classic martinis and microbrews with a laid-back attitude. It opened in June 2007, just a few blocks from the Chicago Stock Exchange.

Chicago Drinks: Can you tell us more about the amazing décor in the bar?

I’m not Polish, although I am frequently mistaken for such (must be the blonde hair). I am, however, a huge fan of Polish booze, having cut my teeth on shots of Old Krupnik honey vodka, and Zubrowka (buffalo grass vodka) and apple juice cocktails. While a handful of dives on the strip of Di....

With both rents and hipsters increasing, I fled Logan Square a year ago. My new neighborhood of Albany Park i....

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During my years as an office drone in

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“I bump into people a lot,” says John Williamson of walking through the l....

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I drink a lot of PBR. It has something to do with being in my twenties, I assume. That, and the fact that one can always find a bar in <....

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Growing up near the Napa Valley, I developed an early appreciation for wine after quickly outgrowing my taste for

Beer impresario Joe Waizmann’s second annual Chicago AleFest went down on Saturday, July 12 at Soldier Field, and I joined a crew of good folks from the Chicago Reader to sample the goods. The skies had cleared after a raging thunderstorm the previous night, leaving a perf....

Full disclosure: Club Foot is quite possibly my favorite bar in Chicago. It was one of the first spots I visited when I got to town (my adopted sister Val DJs there on Tuesdays), and I’m still going three years l....

There are decrepit, old-man bars in Pilsen, Spanish-only bars, bars with painfully irregular schedules and unpredictable beer selections. And then there’s Skylark.

Most Thursday nights you’ll find me at Atomic at Neo, sipping vanilla Stoli sodas expertly mixed by bartender and general manager Scott Wilkins, chatting by the bar in a corset and heels (I have to compensate for the fact that I wear jeans and flip flops the rest of the week), or dancing to....

Named for the “original femme fatale” in 1993, Delilah’s was later deemed “the most important bar in America” by British beer and whiskey expert Michael Jackson, won a Best of C....

It’s the time that all Chicagoans dread: the final weeks of August, when the sun-and-fun-filled days of summer give way to six more months of winter and indoor drinking! Fortunately I’ve got a week of fantastic events lined up that will get you so drunk you won’t care that Augus....

Don’t like beer? The Glunz family is convinced it can change your mind. With a portfolio of 665 specialty and imported beers from 152 breweries worldwide, family-run Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. is the biggest supplier of craft and microbrewery beers in the Chicagoland area, providing everything ....

I first learned of Viet Bistro mixologist Rashed Islam through his legendary Nicotini—a liquid response to Chicago’s smoking ban. Islam steeps European tobacco in sugar cane juice to create a nicotine-laced syrup, then mixes it with pear juice. The result is a pleasantly mild cocktail....

I first encountered North Shore Distillery through my love of absinthe. North Shore’s Sirene Absinthe became the second absinthe to be produced domestically after the absinthe ban was relaxed in late 2007, and remains the only absinthe produced in Illinois. I met husband and wife co-owners ....

Rock ’n’ roll. Pizza. Beer. I’m tempted to leave this column on Piece at just those three terms — together they define the very essence of this Wicker Park brewpub. But I assume you’d like a few details. 

I was recently lingering over a smooth, c....

C&S Pub is an unassuming bar from the outside: a purple awning adorned with comedy and tragedy masks, an Old Style banner, and a sign on the door offering $7 Eastside pizzas. My BFF Samantha and I stumbled upon this place during a mission to find a nearby place to drink — I live near No....

I worked in West Town when I first moved to Chicago, and there’s still something endearing to me about an industrial area that smells overwhelmingly of chocolate—it’s like some apocalyptic version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The Paramount Room, which opened a ....

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to simultaneously take a shot of whiskey and bite into a pinecone? Me neither, but I now know thanks to Weegee’s Lounge owner Alex Huebner. Alex has a notorious aversion to mass-produced liquors and beers; he doesn’t serve Jack Daniels, Bac....

It’s officially fall, that time when people trade sangria for mulled wine and hard lemonade for hard cider. I’ve been a very busy barfly these past few weeks, starting with a bang at the Chicago International Film Festival party at

When Peter Vestinos competed in the Chicago Iron Bartender competition in October of 2007, he’d only worked as a mixologist for a few months. Up against Chicago cocktail masters such as Adam Seger of Nacional 27 and Tim Lacey, who currently tends bar at The Drawing Room, Peter didn’t ....

Hang around Chicago cocktailers and whiskey connoisseurs on a regular basis and you’ll hear the Maxwell Street name bandied about a fair bit. Maxwell Street Trading Company is to liquor distribution what Louis Glunz is to beer, supplying unusual, high-end spirits to bars and retailers all o....

I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving feasts. I spent my holiday in Cleveland sampling beer at Great Lakes and Rock Bottom breweries and am grateful to be back in the Windy City. Now that Turkey Day is over, there’s another holiday to look forward to: Repeal Day! On December 5, 1933, the....

The recession sucks. In the midst of layoffs, it’s tempting to skip the bar and stay home with a bottle of three-buck Chuck. Fortunately Big Chicks in Uptown has the salve for your new (or not-so-new) poverty blues: food and drink specials all week beginning with $1 burger Mondays and endin....

Several elements go into a good neighborhood bar—stiff drinks, good beer, hearty bar food to soak up the booze, and, most importantly, cool people. Third Rail Tavern has all of the above, and I wish I lived stumbling distance from the West Loop; I would be hanging out here a lot. On the Wed....

I first met Doug and Tracy Hurst of Metropolitan Brewing last July at Chicago Alefest. The brewery was still in its infancy then; the duo served its Flywheel Bright and Dynamo Copper lagers from a Craftsman toolbox outfitted with an industrial-looking cog-shaped tap handle. A few weeks later I ha....

There are hundreds of Chicagoland bars where you can watch the game, drink a Bud, and eat a burger. Hopleaf isn’t one of them. You can, however, procure a pint of blueberry mead (honey beer) and a plate of frog legs. <....

“The human race has been making deliciously boozy beverages for 7,000 years,” says Kyle McHugh, proprietor of River North’s newest and quirkiest liquor store, Drinks Over Dearborn. Kyle also runs The Boozehound—tagline: “Yo....

I don’t know exactly what Trader Vic’s put in their Mai Tais, but the things ought to be served with a warning label. Trader Vic’s legendary concoctions look so cute and innocent in their little tiki glasses, garnished with pineapple, cherries and mint, and they taste fruity and....

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You gotta hand it to Blue Bayou—if they can pack the house when it’s zero degrees outside in the middle of a recession, they must be doing something ri....

It may be the dead of winter, but there’s so much pouring out of Chicago’s liquid culture I can barely keep up!

After winning the Chicago Iron Bartender competition ....

If you’ve ever enjoyed a cocktail mixed by Nacional 27’s Adam Seger, Sepia’s Peter Vestino or The Drawing Room’s Charles Joly....

Shaw’s Crab House has the best goddam maître d’ in Chicago. OK, so I’m clearly biased in this assessment: Shaw’s is pretty much the only place I go where I know the maître d’ by name. Still, it’s hard to forget a name like Virgil ....

For months, I drove by the mysterious new bar at the former Clark St. location of The Twisted Spoke. Sitting at the intersection of the gay bars of Boystown, the sports bars of Wrigleyville, and the Alley on Clark and Belmont, The Zoo was an enigma, ....

OK, so you’ve been laid off and you have no idea how you’re going to pay your rent. Bars all over town are offering dirt-cheap deals to help stretch that unemployment check, and joblessness means you can spend all day sleeping off your ha....

I’ll be the first to admit that, despite an extensive knowledge of beer and cocktails, I’m still pretty clueless where wine is concerned. The best way to remedy this deficiency, according to Lush Wine and Spirits General Manager Rachel Driver, is to “drink a lot of wine.” ....