Post #794567 by mikehooker on Thu, Apr 18, 2019 3:46 PM

Day 3:
Took the train into the loop again, this time to go on a bus tour of crime sites. It was fun and we learned a lot of history about the prohibition era crime wave. They also said something like there were over 4000 Speakeasies in the '20s while there are only like 1,200 bars in Chicago today. That's pretty crazy if true. We saw where Dillinger was killed and went into the basement at Harry Caray's restaurant, a late 19th century building that was the former home of Frank Nitty who was Al Capone's replacement. During renovations like 20 years ago, an electrician discovered a secret tunnel and a giant safe in the basement. You can go down there and see the secret hideout and they have a bunch of old newspaper clippings about Nitty and other artifacts to check out. Pretty neat.

We wanted to hit some vintage stores so we took the train up to the Broadway Antique Market and Edgewater Antiques where we found some mid century modern nick nacks to add to our collections, most notably for me a couple teak viking figures, and for my wife a CatherineHolm bowl, plus a cast iron Quistgaard candle holder. Also found two sets of Matson Line playing cards and a couple condiment dishes from Kon Tiki Ports. I wish we had a little more time to shop and check out other stores but we had to get back to the Loop for dinner plans at Lou Malnati's before our reservation at the Bamboo Room. The pizza was marvelous. We tried Giordano's a couple days earlier and it was disappointing, but the deep dish at Malnati's really hit the spot and satisfied the craving. With bellies full, we walked the couple blocks to Three Dots and met up with a couple Austin Ohana in the Bamboo Room.

Now, we had a pretty good time at Three Dots the night before, but the experience in their Bamboo Room was really special. It's reservation only, they only have like 12 seats, the music is appropriate, and they give you a very hands-on, informative, guided tour through a flight of four cocktails. You essentially get your very own dedicated bartender for several hours. Ours just so happened to be beverage director Kevin Beary who does all the rum buying and distillery touring so I was excited to shake him for whatever knowledgeable he was willing to share. I may have also nudged my way BEHIND the bar to get a closer look at the agricoles.

They started us off with just your typical, every day Daiquiri.... That is, you get a coupe full of pineapple "snow," which is fresh pineapple juice that's frozen and then shaved into little bits. You slowly pour the cocktail that's in the little carafe sitting on ice in the nautilus on top of it and as the pineapple melts it integrates the flavor into the drink while keeping it ice cold. I don't recall what else was involved beyond rum, lime and sugar but it sure was tasty.

We then had the option of going with a flaming coffee grog or something more traditional. My wife and I are not coffee drinkers, but we appreciate it as a flavor in cocktails among many others (like a Mutiny or Black Magic). But what they were making was predominately coffee, so we opted for the alternative, Mai Tai's. They were very agricole forward, which I like (I'm sure I asked what rums they used but don't recall) and they were delicious. We watched them prep this one for about ten minutes and the presentation and attention to detail was incredible. Missing in the pic is all the smoke from the dry ice since we took video before the photo.

After that, we were allowed to either choose three rums from the wall (up to a certain price point) or go with another cocktail. I chose to sample rums while my wife had her third cocktail. Can't recall what hers was but she really liked it. And I was thrilled to be able to try rums that I just can't get in Texas like St Lucia 1931 and Blackadder 14. All in all through the night he probably let me sample six rare rums which I was very grateful for.

Next up, we had a round of Zombies. This was a perfectly good drink, but didn't have the knock you on your ass, potent, complexity I'd expect in a drink of this namesake. But like I said, perfectly enjoyable. And garnish game was once again on point. You can barely make out that there's a flaming cinnamon stick that was soaking in 151 in the back. And how stinkin' cute is that mug? Of course he went home with me as did a couple other ceramics and a crap ton of swizzles to add to the collection.

So that concluded our regularly scheduled cocktail program, but we weren't prepared to leave just yet. And it just so happened that another friend from Austin who was in town for work (seriously, besides our Austin Ohana crew of seven that were in town for C.A.T.T., we had two other friends in town at the same time for other reasons that we ran into at Three Dots on consecutive nights. Small world!), spotted us in the Bamboo Room and jumped the barrier to say hello. We managed to smuggle her into our group even though she didn't have reservations and they still took care of her. I proceeded to order an off menu 151 Swizzle and my memories of the rest of the night are fuzzy/non-existent.

Day 4:
Took a Lyft to move all our baggage to the host hotel for C.A.T.T., the Aloft O'hare. Then grabbed the train back to the Loop and took a long walk through insane wind to the Field Museum. This was a highlight of the trip. We spent a good two hours just in the South Seas/Polynesia wing and could have spent significantly more time but there was so much to see in this building. The Maori meeting house was definitely a site to behold.

We also went through the taxidermy exhibit, Egypt, and hung with dinosaurs. Could have easily spent the whole day there. But we had one more crucial stop before heading back to the hotel for the CATT kickoff party... Another Binnys. The massive one that Kevin had suggested we check out to find more obscure things. Unfortunately a lot of what I was hoping to find was not there, but I still loaded up on delicious rums to bring home.

After momentarily getting lost, we took a long ass train ride back to the hotel and got changed for the start of CATT, our whole reason for being in Chicago. Opening night had a charity auction for the FOM. We won some Aloha shirts, a carved tiki necklace and a bottle of Lost Lake selected barrel JM Rhum. I believe over $4000 was raised through the auction. And a similar amount in raffle tickets. We decided to take it easy that night. No drinks. Save our energy for the next day cuz we had four tiki bars plus bus drinks ahead of us.

Stay tuned for the dramatic conclusion!

Also, if you had already read my previous post before I made this one, I went back and added some photos and recollections that have come back to me.

EDITED to add a couple more photos.

[ Edited by: mikehooker 2019-04-19 17:07 ]