Given the tiny size of Schwa and the difficulty securing a reservation, it was surprising, to say the least, to bump into someone I knew there. Well, someone I sort of knew. Paul McGee, up until a few months ago, was the esteemed bartender at the Whistler, Logan Square’s unpretentious but serious entry into the Prohibition Era drink craze. Which is to say, not terribly crazy – McGee and the bar itself put the emphasis on classic cocktails from the pre-Prohibition days through the Tiki drink peak , with nary a Cosmopolitan to be seen on the menu. And indeed, the Whistler has a menu, a carefully chosen selection of a dozen or so drinks, each priced around $11 and each showcasing the freshest ingredients and most careful preparation, the two keys to cocktail preparation designed to counter years of damage done by bad mixes and flavored vodkas. Go figure, a drink is only as good as what goes in it and how it goes in.
But I digress. During his tenure at Whistler, McGee was known for two special events. One was a monthly book night, where he mixed drinks from a selection of classic recipe tomes new and old – the (beautiful but impractical) PDT Cocktail Book, for example, or dusty compendiums of difficult to make tropical drinks. The other was his Cocktails 101 class, an introduction to the basics of spirits and what to do with them. I took this class back in November alongside eight or so other alcohol adventurers, and I must say the course was close to life-changing. Certainly it helped (in a way) that I knew next to nothing about cocktails going in, having been mostly a beer and wine guy all my adult life, and only the most casual one at that. But it also helped to be taught the ins and outs of liquor by a master of his field, someone who could tell you where it counts to cut corners and where it will hurt you, the minimum array of spirits any good home bar should stock, or how a drink called the Corpse Reviver #2 could be one of the most delicious things you could ever imbibe.
Who knew (besides McGee) that that class would be among his last at the Whistler? When I bumped into him at Schwa I told him what it a pity it was that he didn’t offer the Cocktails 101 course anymore, but he told me he’d work something else out eventually. Not coincidentally, rumors were swirling that McGee had hitched his horse to a new River North country western themed bar, but that seemed … strange, to say the least, given McGee’s status as a staunch traditionalist. Now more details have emerged, and it all makes a little more sense. The new place is called Bub City, and while it is reportedly a C&W themed bar that will focus on beer, whiskey and other brown drinks, the downstairs will be given over to McGee’s Tiki bar fantasy, a 4000-square foot room where patrons will surely encounter some ace punches, fruity confections, and proof of the Zombie’s infamous potency.
Will I ever go to River North to drink? Probably not. I don’t go anywhere to drink. But it is nice to see he’s landed a good gig that will expose his skills to a wider clientele. The Whistler and McGee may have been a well-kept secret for a while, but talent deserves an audience. And guys as classy as McGee deserve a class of their own.
