Chicago has got history when it comes to spirits. The city was a vocal centre of the temperance movement that led to Prohibition between 1920 and 1933, which in turn fuelled the illegal and widespread production of moonshine and rise of Al Capone’s speakeasies. Today the city boasts a booming artisan distillery scene, the new generation producing small batch bourbon and rye whiskey, botanical gin and vodka, and even mezcal, kirsch and absinthe. Many have their own cocktail bars for those who want to make a night of it after a spirit-tasting tour. Tours and cocktails are generally priced at $10 – here are six of the best to check out.
Maplewood Brewery & Distillery
The red-brick Maplewood Lounge has become a hot venue since it opened a few months ago – unsurprisingly given that it is run by Chicago’s only microbrewery-meets-distillery. The Lounge is the front room of a bigger production space filled with oak barrels ageing whisky and a hybrid pot and column still, alongside towering beer fermentation tanks. The young owners are experimenting with half a dozen single malt varieties, all influenced by their beers, plus a clear non-oaked rum that is perfect in their retro, but lethal, frozen pina colada, as well as a malty Brewers Gin. The whiskies are rich and caramelised, sometimes even chocolatey when using stout barley. Master distiller Ari Megalis says: “I learnt my distilling the same way we learnt our beer brewing – at home in the garage,” and while the whisky is excellent neat, it is difficult to resist the Lounge’s dozen creative cocktails, especially the old fashioned, which mixes clear “white” whiskey with homemade bitters and a syrup made from their Fat Pug stout.
• Tours begin in 2019, cocktails $10, 2717 North Maplewood Avenue, maplewoodbrew.com
Koval Distillery
A pioneer of Chicago’s reborn distilling scene, Koval was founded by Robert and Sonat Birnecker, fourth-generation Austrian distillers who have made an international name for themselves with their signature range of bourbon and rye. In the chic Ravenswood suburb by Lake Michigan, this is a grain-to-bottle operation: it deals directly with local organic farmers; carries out on-site milling and mashing; then small-batch distilling. Koval’s popular tours take place in the original distillery, now used for barrel-ageing, along with a tasting bar and alembics. You can pop in and taste any time, but the organised tour is the thing – guests are quickly enthralled by entertaining guide Emily Williams. After an explanation of the distilling system, the atmosphere gets lively as she starts serving everyone a good selection of the Koval range, using a giant plastic syringe to add a dash of theatre. There are cocktail classes too.
• Tour and tasting $10, tours Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, 5121 North Ravenswood Road, koval-distillery.com
CH Distillery
A popular downtown venue in the West Loop, CH has a lively after-work cocktail bar with a glass wall looking into the distillery, a menu of Cajun cuisine and regular tours. CH does not stand for Chicago but rather carbon and hydroxyl, the two fundamental compounds in alcohol, and its Science of Alcohol Tour goes into the alchemy of distillation, including tasting the deadly top and tail alcohol of the process (which is so strong that bubbly guide Myra insists is can be used as a cleaning disinfectant). After this, you’ll understand why pure distilled alcohol needs to be watered down to make it drinkable. CH made its name with unique craft vodkas distilled from organic Illinois grain, and five are tasted in iced shot glasses accompanied by rye bread topped with pickled gherkin. But the distillery’s founder, Tremaine Atkinson, loves experimenting, so it is difficult to resist trying the rest of the CH range: gin, mezcal and aquavit, bourbon and gin, plus offbeat takes on amaro and Fernet-Branca.
• Tour and tasting $15, Saturdays only, 564 West Randolph Street, chdistillery.com
Rhine Hall
A tour of Rhine Hall’s distillery is the chance to discover Chicago’s latest hotspot, Fulton Street, a 19th-century covered market converted into hip diners, bars, delis and cocktail lounges. The father and daughter team behind Rhine Hall, Charlie and Jennifer Solberg, specialise in fruit brandies, distilling pear, plum, and cherry (known as eau-de-vie and schnapps), plus an oaked calvados-style apple brandy. (Charlie got a taste for amateur schnapps distilling when he was a professional hockey player in Austria – Rhine Hall is the name of his team’s arena – and set up a wobbly moonshine still in his garden when he got back to Chicago.) Guests walk into a roomy saloon bar where there is a creative selection of cocktails made with fruit brandies, while the distillery is right behind the bar, where rock’n’roll master-distiller Pete mixes exotic concoctions like pineapple and mango brandy. Distilling is very much seasonal here, with most of the fruits coming from the Great Lakes region, though Rhine has just launched a beer schnapps, distilling beer from a local Chicago craft brewer.
• Tour and tasting $10, tours Wednesday-Saturday, 2010 West Fulton Street, rhinehall.com
Chicago Distilling Company
The sign outside this funky place says it all – Drink Local Booze. Right in the heart of Logan Square, Chicago’s nightlife neighbourhood, this place opened as a small garage distillery, and really took off when the distiller converted the front space into a huge cocktail bar. Local mixologist Noah Roberts creates a stellar drinks list featuring only the distillery’s spirits; gin, vodka, bourbon, whiskey and absinthe. The tasting takes place inside the distillery, where everything is done by hand, right down to sticking the labels and numbering the bottles, with owner Jay DiPrizio narrating: “My wife’s family is from northern Wisconsin, where everyone still makes their own moonshine. We got the taste for this and decided to start our own project in Chicago. We went back to school, got our licence as distillers, and opened up in our local neighbourhood.” Star of the show is their barrel-aged Finns Gin, made from 11 botanicals including cardamom, hibiscus and Szechuan pepper – a world away from standard juniper gins. G&T is served on-tap – and tastes much better than that sounds – and locals love the canned cocktails (more of an acquired taste) for Lake Michigan beach picnics.
• Tour and tasting $10, tours run most days, 2359 North Milwaukee Avenue, chicagodistilling.com
Few Distillery
A quick train ride from the skyscrapers of downtown Chicago takes you to the grand mansions of residential Evanston, a notable location for a distillery, perhaps, as this was home to the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement, where it orchestrated the campaign for Prohibition. And Few still looks like a refugee of the speakeasy days, a dilapidated whitewashed brick warehouse, hidden down a back alley off respectable Main Street. You wonder how it manages to produce its outstanding range of small batch bourbon and rye in these chaotic surroundings as the tour weaves its way between sacks of cereals ready to be transformed into grain mash, piles of wooden barrels, stainless steel vats and copper pot and pipe stills. In the middle is a huge table that looks like a school chemistry lab, where the alchemist-distillers create new spirits. The tour is led by the amiable Zach Yates, who after discussing the art of distilling, walks guests through to a casual wood-panelled bar. Sitting on stools by the bar counter, there are half-a-dozen spirits to try, served in serious tasting glasses. You are encouraged to sniff, swirl and taste to get the full experience.
• Tour and tasting $10, tours Wednesday-Sunday, 918 Chicago Avenue, Evanston, fewspirits.com
