It’s hot. It’s stupid hot. It’s asphalt melting under your feet, sweat through your clothes, exploding into flame hot and I’m thirsty and I want a glass of red wine but come on—if I pour one out on my patio it’s just gonna boil. I wish I could serve it cold, but I’m no idiot. …
Six ways to Blaum Bros Distillery in Galena and What to Drink on the Way
Galena is a magical town. It has historic Bed and Breakfasts, historic churches, historic parks, and a historic history museum. There are a couple of golf courses, a ski lodge, the Dowling House and a blacksmith shop. It’s lined wall-to-wall with antique stores, book shoppes, and quaintish establishments that quaint their quaint into the luminous …
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Wine and Song with Hannah Grossman
THE TRACK “Dreams” | Fleetwood Mac | Rumours released in 1977, the band’s only number-one hit. But really, this song was written by Stevie Nicks, alone at a piano in a stylish bedroom studio belonging to Sly and the Family Stone. Fleetwood Mac was experiencing a tumultuous emotional train wreck only achievable by coked-out musicians …
How to Dye the River Green and Not Die on the River While you Dye the River Green
There are ways one dyes a river. I don’t know what they are, but apparently, Chicago has gone through enough of them to come to a method that is safe, non-toxic, fine for ducks, and won’t bother the fish. That last part makes me roll my eyes hard enough to part my hair. I mean, …
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Wine and Song with Corey Drake
Wine and song is an occasional series on Wine in Chicago featuring a local sommelier challenged to pair a great song with a great wine. Song “Fake Plastic Trees,” Radiohead, from their 1995 album, The Bends. Radiohead found themselves in the charts with their grungy hit, Creep, in 1992. The label had pushed them to come …
Hofbrauhaus is the song of my people
On January 18 my people sounded the Alpine horns of calling from Hofbrauhaus in Rosemont and I answered to sit at the front table and celebrate their sixth anniversary in the style I am accustomed to: surrounded by waitresses in their dirndls, their fists filled with litre steins of dark German bier; men in lederhosen …
Daphne Stratta Builds a Wine List You Can Dance To
You may have overlooked Steadfast. Like, there you are furiously thumbing through Yelp reviews for local beef and burgundy joints because your senior partner just did you a solid and you want to take her out for a chop and some Chave but merde: The Loop. The prices. You’re just an associate. You drive a …
Wine and Song with Seth Wilson
Wine and song is an occasional series on Wine in Chicago featuring a local sommelier challenged to pair a great song with a great wine. Song “Feeling Good,” written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse; recorded by Nina Simone for her 1965 album, I Put a Spell on You. It was never released as a single …
Wine and Song with Amy Lutchen
Wine and song is an occasional series on Wine in Chicago featuring a local sommelier challenged to pair a great song with a great wine. Song: “Baker Street,” Gerry Rafferty; #2 on Billboard, 1979. A song that captures the transition from the soft rock of the 70s to the AOR of the 80s. It is a …
Wondrous Beer and Whirly Ball
In the long list of ways my life is better than yours, I present to you my recent attendance of the Goose Island Bourbon County Stout tapping party at Whirly Ball with my photographer, “Flowers”. At said party, I did not whirly, nor did I ball, though I did try to make my way through a …
Monkeying Around Three Dots with Monkey Shoulder and Employees Only
Please note there are no published medical studies linking the consumption of Scotch Whisky to the rapid development of a Scottish brogue nor the sudden acquisition of Scottish idiomatic phrases as occurs with Mr. Garlington in the following story. I was wildly excited as I stepped into the brilliantly decorated Three Dots & a Dash …
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Freaking Out For Five Darioush Wines at Del Frisco’s
Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse. It’s a cold October evening, one of the first really cool nights of the year. I’m walking into one of the private rooms upstairs next to the top of the Wine Tower when their Master Sommelier, Amy Lutchen, hands me a glass of 2017 Darioush Viognier and my ability to describe …
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