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No cell phones, no baseball caps, and no cosmos. Inside the Jams Beard Award-winning cocktail program at Chicago’s The Violet Hour
Located in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood, this drink emporium is a pioneer in the city’s craft cocktail movement. Adorned with a facade of ever changing murals, it has kept its mystique by camouflaging its door, with a single light indicating the entrance.
Inside, a list of house rules applies: no cell phones, no baseball caps, no light beer, no cosmos. Most important of all: Do not bring anyone to The Violet Hour whom you wouldn’t bring to your mother’s house for Sunday dinner. The elegant blue-gray interior features three distinct salons separated by draped velvet curtains. A long bar spans the length of the room, where cornflower-blue walls, crown molding, crystal chandeliers and hardwood floors create an alluring intimacy. Toby Maloney is the creator of the James Beard Award-winning cocktail program, and as head mixologist, he encourages innovation among the staff.
On the menu, the artisanal cocktails are separated into categories. “Shaken” features such creations as ¿Que Paso? (Corazón reposado tequila, Luxardo Amaro Abano, lemon, strawberry). “Stirred” includes I’m Not Your Mary (Bertoux brandy, Wild Turkey 101 bourbon, Dolin blanc vermouth, Fernet-Branca) and Husky Pants (Citadelle gin, Dolin blanc vermouth, Meletti Bitter 1870, Pineau des Charentes). “Punch,” a rotating selection ideal for larger groups, updates historic punches with a contemporary twist, while a “bites” menu serves deftly prepared truffled frites, crispy Thai shrimp and guajillo-chile-glazed chicken wings. But it’s the Luxury Sazerac and Oaxaca Old Fashioned—combining private select spirits, housemade syrups, bitters and moles—that seal the bar’s reputation as one of the country’s finest.
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