The Violet Hour: It's Pronounced "Ar-tEEEEEz-anal"

At the Violet Hour in Chicago’s Wicker Park, the house rules are as follows: No cell phone use inside lounge. Proper attire requested. Please, no baseball hats. Sorry, no reservations. If you have a party of four, we’ll give you four chairs. If your party is eight, we’ll arrange eight chairs for you. No “party add-ons” without prior notification. No O-bombs. No Jager-bombs. No bombs of any kind. No Budweiser. No light beer. No Grey Goose. No cosmopolitans. And finally, please do not bring anyone to the Violet Hour that you wouldn’t bring to your mother’s house for Sunday dinner.

To even get into the Violet Hour, you have to know where it is. This is the kind of place that builds its reputation on its appearance of exclusivity – there is no signage out front indicating where it’s at, just a bare fluorescent lightbulb above a red wooden door. You just have to be “in the know” to find it, placing you in the ranks of the tens of thousands of other people who read about it in GQ or Esquire or Details or Travel + Leisure or Conde Nast and ran a Google search of the name.

Do you feel exclusive yet? Once you manage to “find” the place and stumble your way through the lead-weighted curtains (OMG JUST LIKE A SPEAKEASY!!!!), an overly-polite host who does not smile directs you to a semi-private booth where a shaggy-haired hipster water-boy who really does not smile (nor find humor in apparently ANYTHING because this is a very serious place that should be taken very seriously) will glare at you in silence after he asks if you have any questions and you try to joke with him, followed by a server who does not smile who describes the place as a “pre-Prohibition-inspired arteeeeesanal cocktail bar” and goes on to explain that the drinks are more of a culinary experience and so forth.

The menu is one page drinks and many many pages explanation of drinks, breaking down American Rye Whiskeys and American Bourbons and Irish Whiskeys and Tequilas and Mezcals and Rums and describing the “flavor profiles” of each individual liquor. (Which, admittedly, was unique and informative.)

Though not specified in the “House Rules,” a Jack and Coke or vodka and soda are not options here.

Oh, and all of their water and ice is filtered twice for maximum purity, as noted at the bottom of the menu. This would be a comforting thought if I were in Mexico City but it just doesn’t seem to be of such pressing importance in Chicago, Illinois, located at the heart of the region with the largest fresh water supply and most extensive water filtration system in the world.

As a food writer and an oft-reluctant identifier of food trends, I do appreciate the art of the classic hand-crafted cocktail. There is a true talent behind mixing a truly spectacular drink, just as there is a true talent behind preparing a truly spectacular dish. One must know his ingredients thoroughly and also know exactly how they will taste in combination with others, what proportions to mix, what small little flourish might make the difference between a good drink and a great drink. The traditional classic craft cocktails like the Sazerac and Corpse Reviver had been all but forgotten for many decades and are just now seeing a national resurgence in popularity in tandem with the sustainable food movement which emphasizes local, seasonal, arteeeeeesanal products.

All well and good. But a place like the Violet Hour takes the growing popularity of this trend and transforms it into a mecca of elitist escapism, a place where the most self-righteous “foodies” can revel in their own savvyness and being-in-the-know-ingness. This is the kind of place where the artistry of the drinks is lost in the pompousness of the place – a place that not only offers arteeeeesanal cocktails, but one that also offers the arrogant enjoyment of exclusivity afforded to those “sophisticated” enough to enjoy drinks made with rye whiskey and absinthe. The place downright basks in its elitist appeal; if it could roll around naked in a pool of its own grandiosity it would.

You see, this is the kind of place where its prestige is further validated by every Bud-drinking proletariat Philistine it can humiliate, as clearly stated in the “House Rules.” No Budweiser, no bombs, no cosmos … and pity the fool who might ask. (They’ll most assuredly be met with straight lips and an almost imperceptible roll of the eyes.)

After some debate, my group of three decided to split one of the seasonal punches. One friend was concerned that we might be asked to leave as I kept repeating the word “arteeeeeesanal” very loudly. I observed, “I have a feeling that if I got really drunk here and started dancing on the table it would be frowned upon.” Not that there was anything to dance to – the music selection wasn’t the lively, swinging jazz and big band music of the Prohibition era that you might imagine at a “pre-Prohibition-inspired arteeeeesanal cocktail bar,” but rather the droning noise-fuzz of fashionable hipsters made to stand around with your arms folded to. After an hour of this we decided NOT to order another drink in this soul-sucking environment and asked for our check, which our waitress (or whatever the properly pompous name for the chick who brings you your drinks at an arteeeeesanal cocktail bar might be) dropped while simultaneously spinning on her heels and walking away while uttering a barely-audible “Thank you” with her back turned. Sorry we only spent $30 but last I checked patrons have the right to get one drink and move on to a different bar if the first one’s lame.

I cannot wait for a time when it is no longer fashionable to alienate people with plebian tastes in order to situate your establishment as something “worthy.”

This place was not fun. In fact, “fun” seems to be discouraged here, what with the music to slit your wrists by and the somber cast of self-important servers. This place thinks it is a very important and serious place where only important and serious people should go (I guess it’s good that their discreet exterior deters foot traffic).

I like my bars to be fun and my bartenders to be happy. I like music that makes me want to dance and sing along. I like hearing laughter all around me. THAT is the kind of bar experience I seek, and I’ve had it at wine bars, pubs, martini lounges, even other craft cocktail bars. The drinks do not dictate the atmosphere; the attitude does. It was pretentious as fuck … but the punch was delightful.