On a slightly chill afternoon in 1867, Mlle. Ellen Andree and M. Marcelin Besboutin sit on the terrace of the Cafe de Nouvelle-Athenes in the Place Pigalle. Mademoiselle, pale, petite, with pearl ...

Reader Bites celebrates dishes, drinks, and atmospheres from the Chicagoland food scene. Explore all of our favorites at chicagoreader.com/food/reader-bites. The ...

Absinthe is a drink with an eventful history. After enjoying popularity in the second half of the 1800s, absinthe was blamed for a variety of sins, leading to a ban in many western countries in the ...

Perhaps you already have your own absinthe story. You drank it in New Orleans one foggy night, too full of fumes to remember much aside from the cloudy green swirl of the drink as water drip-dropped ...

It was the drink of choice for 19th century painters, poets and writers. Vincent van Gogh sliced off his ear while sipping it, Edgar Degas and Pablo Picasso painted it, French poet Paul Verlaine ...

Imagine if suddenly you could walk into your local Walgreens, plunk down a couple of twenties, and walk out with a gram of pink Peruvian flake. That, or something very much like it, happened last year ...