Hazy Tippler

Last week the mrs and I and a couple friends headed over to Chicago for the weekend. We hit the museums, wandered the city, and sought out good bars and restaurants. Here's a quick rundown of the boozy highlights.

Our first stop turned out to be Green River where we had lunch and a couple drinks. Green River is a pretty swank place with tasty food and very nice drinks. They have one of the most interesting and thoughtful drink menus I've seen. The drinks are laid out by base spirit, and each cocktail is named after an Irish Chicagoan of significance who's personality typifies the qualities of the base spirit. It's pretty deep and educational and amazing. I really wanted a copy, but alas our waitress said 'no'. We liked the place enough that we visited again later in the weekend.

Banana daiquiri at Three Dots and a Dash

I'm a big fan of all the tiki action these days, and so we had to stop by both Three Dots and a Dash and Lost Lake. The Three Dots space is big and amazing. It's a seriously done up joint. The menu of drinks is pretty traditional, but everything is done spot on. The garnishes and glassware are first rate, and we especially enjoyed the dolphin in the banana daiquiri.

Lost Lake is a much smaller, neighborhood tiki bar in Logan Square. We had to wait our turn to get in, since it was Friday night. While the place was packed and loud, the drinks (and wallpaper!) were great. The tiki cocktails here are a bit more adventurous, which was fun. I'd imagine Lost Lake would be amazing during the week when all the riff raff, like us!, weren't messing up the place.

We also hit up The Violet Hour and the Game Room at the Chicago Athletic Association, and had an amazing meal at Momotaro. Momotaro had the best food of the weekend, no question. And I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to Broken Shaker, which happened to be our hotel bar. Broken Shaker was really hopping on Friday and Saturday night, but things were nice and chill when I swung by on Sunday evening. I sat at the bar and had the Campfire Boulevardie, which was a nice sipper. My second drink was an old fashioned using the Zafra 21 year old rum, which my bartender, Scott, recommended. It was a perfect last drink of the trip.

Last month, I took a trip up to Alaska. Our first stop on the way up was Vancouver, BC. While on the train ride up, I started looking for a decent place to have lunch. By decent, I mean a place with solid cocktails and good food that'd be walking distance from our hotel. All signs pointed to Uva Wine & Cocktail Bar.

The signs were not wrong. We had great food and seriously great drinks at Uva! Their drink menu is really quite impressive: interesting and complex cocktails, great wines and beer, and they even offer flights of wine or booze. With my lunch I had the Sour Rose and the Cricket Old Fashioned cocktails. My drinking partner, Glenn, started with a porter and then moved on to the Peater Rabbit.

Cricket Old Fashioned & Peater Rabbit at Uva.

I really liked the Sour Rose, and I asked our bartender, Jasmine, about the details. She revealed the secret ingredient is Harvest Song's Tea-Rose Petal preserves. The preserves smelled amazing, and I'll be picking some up soon. Glenn found his new favorite cocktail in the Peater Rabbit. He talked about that drink the whole trip, and now I'm on the hook for trying to recreate it the next time we meet.

And if this experience wasn't already good enough, after finishing lunch, I realized they also sell bitters! Uva's bar manager, Lauren Mote, produces her own line of bitters, called Bittered Sling. Lauren happened to be sitting at the bar, and she gave us the full rundown: flavor profiles, production methods, you name it. She really was most accommodating to our questions, and you could tell this was a passion for her. I ended up choosing the gift pack, which netted me 6 small bottles, because how can you choose just one? Importantly, the gift pack included the Plum & Rootbeer bitters that were in the Cricket Old Fashioned, so I can recreate that drink at home.

Uva Wine & Cocktail Bar was a stellar first stop on our trip, and I can't wait to get back there the next time I'm in Vancouver.