Bridgeview Liquor

Taste and learn about rum, and how age and time in oak impact its many flavors with instructor Evan Christie.Rum, unlike whiskey, can be a beautifully balanced and flavorful beverage without ever seeing an oak barrel. Yet the magic of oak aging plays just as well with spirits of sugarcane as with those of grape or grain. Especially when aged in hot and humid climates, rums can take on intense barrel character but still retain the expressive qualities generated earlier […]

Taste and learn about cocktails from late 1990s and early 2000s, a period often called the Cocktail Renaissance with Evan Christie.The cocktail, one of America’s greatest cultural exports, had come to a low point in the 1970s and 80s. A decline in institutional knowledge brought on by prohibition, increasing consumers preference for lighter flavors, and the rise of convenience food all conspired to undermine what makes a mixed drink good. However, all hope was not lost. Beginning in the early […]

Join Sommelier Justin Blanford for an exploration of Mezcal.“My obsession with Mezcal is here to stay! I still can’t get enough of this curious and complex spirit. Its wide variety of flavor and wine like terroir grab your attention and keep it. I hope you choose to join me as we explore the unique profile it expresses, as well as the people who craft it. I look forward to sharing a dram!”

Join Certified Sommelier Josh Voytek in an exploration of blind tasting featuring same varietal wines from l California and Italy.Join Certified Sommelier Josh Voytek in a unique exploration of how blind tasting works and the challenge of identifying wines made from the same grapes but from different regions. For this first blind tasting class, we will be exploring three Italian varietals with classic representations compared to three California counterparts of the same varietal. It will be a chance to test […]

Laura Botten teaches you to never hate a grape by tasting the wide range of wines made from often maligned grapes.Do you think Chardonnay is beloved by everyone's mother but no one else? Do you despise the sugary sweet simplicity of Riesling? Are you simply not drinking any *bleeping* Merlot? We all have wine prejudices. Too often, we take a couple prominent examples as representative of whole categories of wine, but most of the great wine grapes have tremendous range. […]

Taste and learn about Beaujolais with Anita BenderBeaujolais, when it is thought of at all by wine lovers, is too often considered the unserious cousin of Burgundy. While it’s neighbor to the north is one of the world's premier wine regions, growing those crown jewels of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, Beaujolais humbly offers mostly Gamay and is familiar mostly for Beaujolais Nouveau, a simple, fruity, young wine. Yet any wine lover who digs more deeply finds that Beaujolais, especially the […]

Taste and learn about Eau-de-vie (unaged fruit brandies) with Evan ChristieEau-de-vie, French for “water of life,” was once a general term for distilled spirits. It’s analogs in other languages include whiskey, aquavit, and even vodka, although that really just translates to “water.” Despite the generic name, eau-de-vie now refers to a specific category of spirit, albeit one not familiar to general American audiences. Eau-de-vie are unaged brandies made from fruit, not to be confused with their sweetened cousins, the fruit-based […]

Taste and learn about the drinks from the 1970's and 80's, but with a modern spin to make them a bit more delicious.Prohibition dealt a heavy blow to American cocktail culture, but it did not kill it outright. Nostalgic love of classics like Old Fashioned, Manhattans, and Martinis kept the classic scene going, while Tiki bars crafted the post-prohibition era’s most creative and exciting drinks. Eventually, other cultural trends would overtake these impulses and lead the American cocktail to its […]