Spirit tasting at Chicago Botanic Garden

The Chicago Botanic Garden will debut Lift Your Spirits: Craft Spirits Tasting at the Garden will take place from 6-8 p.m. March 8 inside the Regenstein Center. The event will allow attendees to savor and understand more about the art of craft spirits.Connoisseurs, novices and mixologists alike can sample an array of spirits crafted by small batch distillers, including Death’s Door Spirits, Templeton Rye Spirits, Angel’s Envy, Rhum Clement, Dumante and Kindred Spirits. These distilleries will pour quarter-ounce tastings of vodka, gin, bourbon, white and rye whiskey, pistachio nut liqueur, rum, brandy and crème brandy liqueur while representatives give guests an insider’s view of ingredients and techniques used in the distillation process. Many plants are used to craft spirits.
Guests can further awaken their senses with light fare, slow-cooked with spirits, available for purchase. Selections include a tasting of house made charcuterie (venison, duck and pork, vegetables and mustard), a flight of three artisanal cheeses with two jams and peppered crackers, coffee braised beef short rib sliders, churros with two spirit-infused dipping sauces, and spiced fruits and nuts. Specialty cocktails made from the featured spirits will be available for purchase to toast the evening. Smart Gardner is an easy to use, feature rich, and free webapp for plotting out a garden. You start by outlining the basic areas where you have dirt, the type of containers you have, and the direction the garden faces. Then, SmartGardner gives you a recommended list of plants that will grow in your area and it even plots out their optimal placement for you. After you set it up, it reminds you when you to start plants indoors (right now, in many cases), creates a watering schedule for you, and gives you a projected date of harvest for vegetables. As far as a lazy-man's garden is concerned, Smart Gardner is the closest thing you'll get to automation.
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