Off the wagon

[muckefuck]

Last night, I stumbled home to find a bottle of North Shore Distillery aquavit in the kitchen. Aha! I thought the Old Man went to In Fine Spirits again! I was a bit taken aback, since I thought he had no real love for akvavit, but I thought maybe he was remembering how impressed I was with it on a previous visit. But, no, it turns out that he had tried a variation on the cocktail I'd had back then and it inspired him to try to recreate it back home. (The word from the lab is that more experimentation is needed.)

Myself, I'd already done more mixing than was good for me. (Happily, going from rum to gin to bourbon seemed to have no pronounced ill effects the next day.) M³ had scored me and Dale tickets for a benefit at Excalibur and the rum in the cokes was premium. As people began drifting away, we wondered where else we fogeys could go to dance and Dale suggested Late Bar in Avondale. It is now officially my favourite New Wave bar in Chicago; think Club Foot but with the sophistication and androgyny of Berlin.

Part of my loves the fact that classic cocktails are ubiquitous, but I'm not so thrilled that they're spreading beyond the ability of callow bartenders to pull them off. This place, however, inspired immediate confidence; it's refreshing to take one look at a drinks menu and know without checking that not one of the martinis contains vodka. My big inner girl so thrilled at the sight of "sloe gin fizz" that I skipped right over the bourbon-based selections.

It was all good, however, because M³ soon decided his Italian manhattan was too generous if he was going to drive back home latter that night. The twist was Dumante VerdeNoce instead of vermouth, and it was a subtler one than I anticipated. Definitely going back there to test the menu some more! (And maybe this time, the fetching young DJ will have brought alone his BiGOD 20.)

ETA: Further experimentation has lead to these proportions:

• two parts aquavit
• two parts Koval ginger liqueur
• one part gin
• dash of orange bitter

Notes: In Fine Spirits uses Old Tom's. We substituted Tanqueray. We're not sure if they use any bitters or it's just the orange peel garnish that adds the hint of citrus; we'll find out next time we have fresh oranges handy.

Comments

[oh-meow.livejournal.com]

In the pantry cupboard in the hallway, there's a whole shelf of sloe gin made by my housemate, sadly I don't like gin though.

[gopower.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, its too late for you to take advantage of this, but I came across a 50% off coupon for In Fine Spirits over the weekend. It came from

http://www.groupon.com/chicago/

which features special offers from local merchants that change daily (today, it's half-price mani/pedis). So far, it seems to be no cost & no strings attached. I saw a pretty good play at the Goodman last week for half-price.