In summer 1979, Suzanne Shelton hatched a dream to open a punk dance club. She had two priorities: it had to play lots of new wave, and it needed clean bathrooms. Shelton had been DJing at a failing Lincoln Park disco called Hoots, but she spent all her free nights at O’Banion’s, a run-down gay […]
Tag: The Drinks Issue 2021
Posted inNews & Politics
Drinking and surviving it
On sharing a genetic predisposition to alcoholism
Posted inArts & Culture
Drinks with drama, cocktails for comedy
There was a time when concessions at Chicago live theaters were pretty basic: water, soda, candy, coffee, tea, and maybe some beer in a can or wine in a box (depending on whether or not the venue had a liquor license). But as theater bars have expanded their range of legal booze options (or in […]
Posted inFood & Drink Feature
The flood that birthed Love Cork Screw wines
Chrishon Lampley says she was a terrible writer when she started the blog Love Cork Screw in 2013: the Love section was about being a single woman who formerly owned an art bar, Cork had Lampley’s varietal wine selections, and Screw was her take on current pop culture. The year before, the highly successful art […]
Posted inFood & Drink Feature
Overgrown Orchard makes the best wine in Gary, Indiana
Stan Wash, dwarfed by towering metal shelves stocked with faucets and toilet seats, raises a small glass of butterscotch-colored liquid to his lips, takes a taste, and gasps. “WHOO! Oh my goodness! UGH! That’s so tannic!” We’re standing in a cavernous plumbing warehouse in Gary, Indiana, where Wash and a partner, Zach Getzelman, press, age, […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Social and sober
The “sober curious”—individuals who abstain from drinking to explore the positive effects of sobriety—have a new enclave in Andersonville. Eli Tea Bar, an alcohol-free social space, offers options for those rethinking their relationship with alcohol, including more than 100 loose leaf teas and special in-house blends, bubble tea, and kombucha on tap. Bar owner Elias […]