Events

Welcome to stop #13 on the Brews and Choos project. Distillery: Rhine Hall Distillery, 2010 W. Fulton St., ChicagoTrain lines: Milwaukee District North and West, Western Ave. (Also CTA Green line, Ashland) Time from Chicago: 9 minutes (Zone A)Distance from station: 1.3 km (1.1 km from CTA) I found visiting Rhine Hall on a weeknight in February odd for two reasons. First, I didn't realize that they distill from fruit, rather than grain, so I didn't prepare myself for the flavors of their spirits well....

Freelance writer Alexandra Marvar took the Southwest Chief from Chicago to Los Angeles: I boarded the 2:50 p.m. Southwest Chief out of Chicago’s Union Station on a Friday. By mid-morning Sunday, we’ll arrive at another Union Station: Los Angeles. I could have flown between the two cities in roughly four hours. But as a frequent flyer all too familiar with the rush and stress of air travel, I was drawn to the idea of a long, slow journey across America by rail. Now, 15 hours into my inaugural long-haul...

Welcome to stop #12 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Midwest Coast Brewing, 2137 W. Walnut St., ChicagoTrain lines: Milwaukee District North and West, Western Ave. (Also CTA Green and Pink lines, Ashland) Time from Chicago: 9 minutes (Zone A)Distance from station: 1.1 km (1.3 km from CTA) Now, this is a brewery. Dog-friendly, great vibe, excellent beers, friendly staff and owners—what's not to love? They brew everything on-premises, rotating beers as their tastes change. They just opened in...

...the 1918-19 influenza pandemic began. Historian John M Barry studied the outbreak, summarizing his findings in a 2017 Smithsonian Magazine article that did nothing to help me feel more comfortable about our present circumstances: At its worst, the epidemic in Philadelphia would kill 759 people...in one day. Priests drove horse-drawn carts down city streets, calling upon residents to bring out their dead; many were buried in mass graves. More than 12,000 Philadelphians died—nearly all of them in six...

By "this," I don't mean the Covid-19 outbreak itself, though by cutting CDC pandemic funding 80%, ending epidemic prevention aid to 37 of 47 countries, or by appointing perhaps the worst possible administration official to lead the response effort, he has almost certainly increased the risk of infection to every person in the world. No, I mean that we're dangerously unprepared for the recession the virus outbreak appears to be encouraging. Economists have had a hunch we'd eventually get the stock-market...

Welcome to stop #11 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Haymarket Pub & Brewery, 737 W. Randolph St., ChicagoTrain lines: All Ogilvie and Union Station lines. (Also CTA Green/Pink lines, Clinton)Time from Chicago: 0 minutes (Zone A)Distance from station: 800 m from Ogilvie or Union (600 m from CTA) Haymarket has occupied their current plot in the West Loop for almost 10 years. They haven't changed a bit. I wish they had. The pub has pub grub, televisions, noise, confusion, and bits of interesting...

An AI demonstration website will show you photos of people who don't exist: You encounter so many people every day, online and off-, that it is almost impossible to be alone. Now, thanks to computers, those people might not even be real. Pay a visit to the website This Person Does Not Exist: Every refresh of the page produces a new photograph of a human being—men, women, and children of every age and ethnic background, one after the other, on and on forever. But these aren’t photographs, it turns out...

Some highlights: The Union of Concerned Scientists report that ride-hailing causes 69% more pollution than the services it displaces. Republican columnist Michael Gerson believes a Trump-Sanders matchup in November would "destroy our politics." Jeffrey Toobin explores the problems with Trump's pardons. Newly declassified documents make it clear that the NSA hoovering up phone metadata didn't accomplish anything, really. Medium tells the story of a $100m company that abruptly ceased operations last fall....

Welcome to stop #10 on the Brews and Choos project. Note: Ballast Point's Chicago taproom closed permanently in March 2021. Distillery: Ballast Point Brewing, 212 N. Green St., ChicagoTrain lines: All Ogilvie and Union Station lines. (Also CTA Green/Pink lines, Morgan)Time from Chicago: 0 minutes (Zone A)Distance from station: 1.2 km from Ogilvie or Union (400 m from CTA) After expanding a bit too quickly, Ballast Point found itself without enough cash and way too many beers to continue profitably....

A single 750 mL bottle of whisky sold at auction this week for £907,500, the highest price ever paid for a bottle: A European buyer [won] the 1926 Macallan Valerio Adami 60 year old on February 17, 2020, setting a record for Scotland’s most expensive whisky ever auctioned. It’s also the sixth standard-sized whisky bottle ever to achieve $1 million at auction, and the third-highest auction price ever achieved for a bottle of whisky. Even with the lower premiums charged by online whisky auction houses...