Reader Bites celebrates dishes, drinks, and atmospheres from the Chicagoland food scene. Explore all of our favorites at chicagoreader.com/food/reader-bites. The ...

Absinthe’s history mirrors the way it’s meant to be prepared: a mix of the misunderstood and the legitimately unusual. For most of its existence, the spirit has been slandered, ostracized and, in ...

An ornate vessel fitted with four small spouts dispenses ice-cold water, drop by drop, onto a cube of brown sugar resting on a slotted spoon. Underneath that spoon, a specially designed glass holds a ...

Does absinthe contain any drugs? Will you start hallucinating green fairies after a couple of sips? The myths and misinformation surrounding this potent herbal concoction are many. But which ones hold ...

It’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon and I am trying to get a good louche going, the cloudy effect that occurs when cold water is slowly added to absinthe and its essential oils rouse from the liquid like ...

Preparing absinthe, a bright green liquor made with a mixture of herbs, is a process worthy of its artistic bohemian roots. Absinthe gained notoriety in late 19th- and early 20th-century France, where ...

A sugar cube is cradled by a slotted spoon balanced on top of a glass of absinthe. (Courtesy of Southern Food and Beverage Museum) There's something romantic about absinthe — that naturally green ...

Ernest Hemingway and Oscar Wilde wrote about it. Pablo Picasso sculpted it. Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear after drinking it. Absinthe, an anise-flavored liquor that had been banned for 95 years, is ...

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