Results tagged “northshoredistillery”

LUPEC, the Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails, is having the prohibition-era equivalent of a pub crawl. The Chicago chapter is led by Sonja Kassebaum of North Shore Distillery, and with a slogan like "Dismantling the Patriarchy, One Cocktail at a Time," what's not to love? On November 12, LUPEC is hosting "Women Helping Women," an evening of shopping, drinking and charity. Participants (ladies or gentlemen) will take a tour through the fashionable shopping of the West Loop, visiting boutiques like Bess and Loie, 2 Sisters and Smitten. At each of the twelve stops, enjoy shopping and try one classic cocktail.

In the weeks leading up to our anniversary party Saturday night, Whistler mixologist Paul McGee was in touch with Sonja and Derek Kassebaum of North Shore Distillery to work on the cocktail that many of us downed in large numbers. McGee came through with flying colors with an eponymous, deceptively potent concoction with North Shore No. 6 gin as the base spirit. "I like the botanicals in No. 6, which is one of North Shore's lighter gins," McGee said.

This in-between-seasons non-winter and non-spring bullshit tends to get us down, and we tend to treat our self-diagnosed Seasonal Affective Disorder with liberal quantities of intoxicants. So we figured it'd make sense for us to talk about liquor this week.

You'd think that, writing for a large blog, we'd be able to keep up with RSS feeds and tips. So how the Chicago chapter of the Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails went past our head is beyond us. Should've known that Sonja Kassebaum of North Shore Distillery was the mastermind behind this. Currently, LUPEC Chicago has nine members, including Master Mixologist Bridget Albert of Southern Wine and Spirits of Illinois.

The fine folks at North Shore Distillery (by the way, their Distiller's Gin No. 11, the second highest-rated American made gin— their Distiller's No. 6 is the highest rated) are looking for some good local artists to help them design some artwork for future advertising campaigns. To that end, they've decided to hold a contest to choose a winning design and want local artists to enter their best submissions.

So I'm a week into the Green City Market Localvore Challenge and doing well. I've been able to find really good, in-season fruits and vegetables without spending a small fortune and the meats I stockpiled over the summer in the freezer are coming into good use. I've also been surprisingly creative with my daily menus. For example, yesterday I was hard-pressed for a breakfast idea and didn't want to resort to the standard bacon-and-eggs.

 

Another year, another WhiskyFest down in the books. Malt Advocate magazine's annual festival celebrating all there is to celebrate about whiskies was, by all notes, a rousing success. Many exhibitor booths were four-to-five deep with patrons and customers paying $110 a pop to sample whisky. This having been our third WhiskyFest, we had to look long and hard for some new brands.