A Quiet Drink: A Chicago Cocktail Crawl

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 27 Desember 2013 | 17.35

John Gress for The New York Times

Left to right: Tropic Thunder at the Aviary; Last Light at Scofflaw; and Box Lunch at Billy Sunday.

Chicago bars have a way with a resonant cultural reference.

One is named after a late-1800s White Sox outfielder turned temperance evangelist. A cocktail pioneer in another part of the same neighborhood is named after a renowned street photographer. A 10-minute walk away is a gin-centric bar whose name comes from a word coined to describe those who drank illegally during Prohibition. And popping up in unexpected places is the name of Nelson Algren, the author of "The Man With the Golden Arm," and perhaps most pertinently, "Chicago, City on the Make."

Cocktail bars across the country are pouring the past (resurrected recipes, speakeasy motifs, barkeeps with Smith Brothers beards) and earnestly so. In Chicago, some of the most engaging bars seem to specialize in what could best be described as studious fun. The history lessons come with a lilt, and the innovation with an intense enthusiasm.

Logan Square, on the northwest side of Chicago, is a locus of interesting, grown-up drinking. An excellent base camp from which to explore the area (and beyond) is Longman & Eagle, a restaurant and bar where travelers can also book a diligently designed room upstairs. (The bar is a fine place to have a Root & Rye cocktail made with root tea, Rittenhouse rye and the mellow, wine-based amaro called Cardamaro.)

Algren never slept here — it opened in 2010, 29 years after his death — but some of his words live on a Longman & Eagle wall, much-quoted lines from the novel "A Walk on the Wild Side": "Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own."

Billy Sunday

"It certainly was not without a sense of humor, naming a cocktail bar after a gentleman who spent the majority of his life preaching against the evils of alcohol," said Alex Bachman, the bartender at the animated spot across from the square that gave the neighborhood its name.

But it wasn't necessarily intended to mock, either: "One thing I definitely admired was, he had a great conviction to what he believed in," Mr. Bachman said. (Then again, Billy Sunday the outfielder had a lifetime batting average of .248.)

John Gress for The New York Times

Alex Bachman behind the bar at Billy Sunday.

Billy Sunday the bar can be winningly cheeky: The savory Box Lunch — made with goat's milk; oats and spices like mace and cinnamon; palo cortado sherry; and Génépi wormwood liqueur — is served in a small milk bottle complete with striped straw. The food menu includes a category called Things in Jars (the oven-roasted tomatoes are top-notch). The playlist assembled by John Byron, the floor manager, features welcome Dylan ("Changing of the Guards") and a wonderfully weird cover of "Crimson and Clover" by the Chilean band Aguaturbia.

There is a nod to Algren here as well, with a sprightly cocktail called the Algren Sling — New Western gin, pineapple, Three Pins herbal liqueur, lemon and Angostura bitters accented with cherries. It is served in a cup made of a coconut shell ("Dried and polished but very much real," Mr. Bachman said).

"I've always had a deep appreciation for Nelson Algren, how he wrote about Chicago," said Mr. Bachman, who grew up on the North Side and whose résumé includes work in the beverage program at the restaurant of the late Charlie Trotter. "I would never go as far as to say that he would drink Singapore Slings during his life, but it's just a tip of the hat to him in the small way that we could."

Mr. Bachman's point of pride is the back bar's bottles of amaro and fernet, and it shows in his breakdown of the invigorating, biting drink called the Victorian, created here. "We wanted to showcase a spirit-forward cocktail that embraced a lot of the herbal components of amaro, so we used gin — the great botanical spirit that it is — as a vehicle to carry that very deep herbaceous character of the amaro and fernet Angelico," he said.

Steve Reddicliffe is the deputy Travel editor for The New York Times. A Quiet Drink appears in the Booming section.


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