speakeasy ? Super voguish . prohibition era - era cocktail ? So in . Bartenders with handlebar mustaches and suspenders ? Down right red-hot . Now , Steadfast , a new Chicago eatery , is take the whole everything - onetime - is - new - again trend one dance step further with a bar bill of fare featuring vintage whiskey bottles , some of which time in at almost 100 old age old .
“ These bottles are a prison term capsule , ” Tomasz Sas , Steadfast ’s lead-in bartender , tell theChicago Tribune . “ You ’re not look for years , you ’re looking for a conflict between [ the distilling panache of ] then and now . You see a unlike kind of craftsmanship . ” Over the years , progression in distil engineering science and manufacturing standards have changed not only the mode in which American whiskey is made , but also how it tastes . For illustration , while many distiller use genetically modified corn today , distillers from the 1940s did not .
Twenty of the whiskeys currently in stock were bottle between the 1930s and seventies , including a in particular rare bottle from Stitzel - Weller , the first distillery owned by Julian “ Pappy ” Van Winkle . Some of the honest-to-goodness spirit , such as Old Lancaster , were bootleg brands make by mobsters during Prohibition .
Edsel Little/Flickr (edited)
You ca n’t find these redundant - previous bottles at liquor stores . Sas has been snatching them up at auction with the help of Benjamin Schiller , the beverage director of Fifty/50 , Steadfast ’s parent restaurant group . Understandably , these punishing - to - find bottles do n’t come flashy . Because a finite number of these bottles subsist , client can expect to pay a agiotage for glassfuls at the restaurant . The exact cost will look on market supplying and demand , according to Schiller , but he think customers are willing to pay top dollar bill for a time - traveling drinking experience .
“ We want to be more than just a happy hour blot , ” Sas enunciate . “ Our job is to invite you to stay longer . When you sip these old whisky , you ’re transfer . ”
