I had intended to tweet live from WhiskyFest Chicago last week but was thwarted in my efforts because I couldn't get a signal in the underground ballroom at the Hyatt Regency. I did, however, faithfully take notes as I went. As I transcribe them, we'll be able to see together 1) how poor my whisky-tasting vocabulary is, and 2) how far downhill that vocabulary rolled as the evening progressed. Ready?

WhiskyFest Chicago, 4/1/09

TOMATIN 18yo sherry finish

delicious, light, a bit caramelly, bright bright finish on front of palate

ARDBEG Airigh Nam Beist

more refined than Uigeadail peaty but a bit lighter

ARDBEG Supernova

Holy peat, Batman! It's like a scouring pad made of peat! I loved it!

GLENROTHES 1975

bursts in your mouth like a buckyball unfolding, nutty, strong flavor

SPRINGBANK 11yo madeira wood finish

very purple flavor, strong, delicious is that a winey taste?

BRUICHLADDICH Links

very subtle sherry-ish flavor. Yum! Not fireworks-y. Caramel.

TOMINTOUL Peaty Tang

Peaty but tastes more watery than I like—no competition for the 27yo

HIGH WEST

Fantastic ryes interesting vodkas, peach vodka

CHARITY POUR—BALVENIE 1976 single cask

bright, in your face, caramel explosion

EADES blends—

Islay—Bowmore 60%, Caol Ila 40% Highland—Ben Nevis 85%, Clynelish 15% Speyside—Longmorn 50%, Glen Moray 50%

MICHAEL COLLINS Irish (peated)

BULLEIT bourbon

ARRAN

reg (10yo) cognac

Another high point of the evening came early, at the Ardbeg booth. When I professed my adoration of their Uigeadail, they insisted I sneak back for a sample of their rare Supernova, of which they had only brought 500 ml. So peaty it just about knocked me flat, but fantastic.

I started off the evening on the wrong foot, confusing Tomatin and Tomintoul at the Tomatin booth. Now, come on, I know the difference, and I'm a fan of both the Tomatin 12yo and the Tomintoul 27yo. But for some reason I tried to impress the Tomatin folks by professing my love of their 27, which earned me a gentle yet still embarrassing correction.

Charity tickets benefiting the Greater Chicago Food Depository were available for $20 a pop, entitling you to half an ounce of one of several rare donated whiskies. I went with a Balvenie 1976 single cask that was more than worth the money.

At some point in the second half of the evening, I stopped recording my impressions and wrote down only the names of what I tasted. I tried every Eades blend, but realized after two of the Arrans that I was probably approaching my limit. Free coffee, Fiji water, and a nice cabbie in a Scion helped me get home quickly and in one piece.

Next year I need company!

Laura and I had dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants this evening, Hopleaf. It's a Belgian place, with a bar out front specializing in Belgian and Belgian-style beers. It's always packed, and if you don't show up early you can wait an hour and a half for a table.

We showed up early and were rewarded with a quiet, secluded table on the balcony overlooking the main dining room. Laura had a bottle of Chimay Red and I a pint of Bell's Two-Hearted Ale while we perused the menu. Laura was there for the moules frites, Hopleaf's speciality. I ordered the duck reuben. It was amazing.

This is not a story about our wonderful evening, or our wonderful meal. This is the story of the poor rich kids in their twenties (three girls and a boy) who were seated at the table next to ours shortly after we ordered, and how we winced at every loud interaction they had with our rather curt mutual waitress.

"Can I start you off with some drinks?"

"Do you have Michelob Ultra?"

"Uh, no. We have a wide variety of Belgian ales and other fine beers. Can I offer you some suggestions?"

"What do you have that's light?"

"We have several good India pale ales, wheats, and weisses."

"No, I mean light beer."

"What do you like?"

"How about a vanilla vodka?"

"We don't have vanilla vodka."

"Do you have berry vodka?"

"We have six hundred beers. And vodka."

Most of them ended up drinking what looked like Diet Coke. I didn't actually hear them order because I had crawled so far under the table. Unfortunately, I had emerged again by the time one woman's Belgian steak frites arrived and she asked for A1 Sauce.

I'm sure we were all that young and inexperienced at one time, but ouch. I fear the only lesson learned tonight was never to come back to Hopleaf because the beer selection sucks and the steak tastes like steak.

Going home to New York City is as comfortable as slipping on an old shoe. I flew there Tuesday afternoon with just a backpack and the parka on my back, and I was immediately at ease and confident in a way I don't yet feel in Chicago. The only bad part was that I was alone, since Laura was on a concurrent business trip to Rochester.

But I wasn't solitary for long. I took a cab from Laguardia to my borrowed apartment in Astoria, Queens, dumped off most of the contents of my pack, and headed into the city. After a quick stop at my old office, I met John Klima, in from Iowa way, at the Tor offices in the Flatiron Building. I acquired an advance copy of Cory Doctorow's Little Brother, I chatted with Patrick Nielsen Hayden for a minute or two, and John and I hauled his bags back to Astoria on the subway.

We had a full evening ahead, but before I tell you about it I have to back up several months and remind you of the segment of Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" that Laura and I caught back in July:

Kabab Cafe is our favorite restaurant on earth, and Ali El Sayed our good friend. John had eaten Ali's appetizers once before at a party at our place, but despite our best efforts we had never managed to get Shai and him out to the restaurant itself for a real meal. What's more, John had seen the above segment on "No Reservations." Since he and I were staying right there in the neighborhood, how could we not head over for dinner? I promised him, though, that we'd have fare other than sweetbreads and testicles.

My promise turned out to be half hasty.

Ali, I'm happy to say, was as delighted to see us as we were to see him. He gave John and me the same booth that Zimmern and Bourdain had taken on TV, and as we split a bottle of wine and a beet salad and a mixed appetizer plate Ali somehow talked us into trying the sweetbreads, brains, and tongue for one of our entrees.

As John later said, if I'd tried to get him to Kabab Cafe by telling him that's what we were going to eat, it would have been an uphill battle. But there with Ali urging us on, we both felt bold enough just to dive right in. And you know what? It was all uniformly excellent. John Twittered about brains! all the while.

What we didn't feel quite bold enough to try were the "mountain oysters," which Ali was preparing for a party in from Seattle who had come specifically for the meal they'd seen on TV.

As Ali was preparing our dessert plate, and since our wine bottle was empty, he slipped us a bottle of Woodford Reserve bourbon and joined us in a furtive shot. I asked him what he was doing after hours, and he invited us to come back at eleven and meet him at the hookah bar across the street.

Stuffed, John and I took the subway back into the city, where we joined my friend Carrie's birthday karaoke outing. Many of the old CDMOM gang was there, and a great time was had by all. John and I got into the action when no one would claim Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" and it was pressed on us. My rendition of Steely Dan's "Cousin Dupree" went over like a turd in a punchbowl, though, doing nothing to refute Carrie's constant repetitions of a memorable quote from Knocked Up: "Steely Dan gargles my balls."

Hmm. I suppose "balls" was something of a leitmotif that evening.

After karaoke, John and I hopped a cab and headed back out to Astoria. Ali saw us through the window of the hookah bar where he was holding court, and we joined him and a couple of friends there for water pipes and tea. A bizarre Technicolor Egyptian musical from the '60s was playing on the giant-screen TV, but sadly without subtitles. John and I were warmly welcomed there, but we both wondered how welcome we would have felt if we had entered without Ali as our Virgil.

We ended up making a whirlwind tour of ethnic after-hours spots. After the Egyptian hookah bar, we hit Bohemian Hall, where we visited John's roots with Czech beer and harder spirits. Then, hungry anew, it was off to Roti Boti, an Indian spot on 21st Street where the three of us enjoyed a repast of cow foot and other spicy delicacies.

Ali dropped us off at the apartment at 2:30 am.

Morning came awfully early, especially considering that the unshaded windows faced east. Breakfast was giant omelettes at Igloo on 31st Street, after which John and I returned to the city to pursue our various agendas. I met Paul Witcover for beer and burgers at Waterfront Ale House, where we caught up and talked about our newly aborning novel projects.

Next I headed downtown to New York Adorned to have a broken curved barbell in my right ear replaced. (I went a gauge thicker in each ear as long as I was there.) While I was paying up front, our friend Victoria Tillotson, jewelry-maker to the stars, wandered up to the counter. I'd hardly seen Vic except on TV in about three years, so it was great to catch up with her for a few minutes. She relayed the awesome news that she's just sold a book on jewelry making to Random House.

With my new jewelry installed, I headed over to my friend Geoff Fowler's apartment for a surprise drop-in, then walked to d.b.a. where I settled down with a Talisker 25yo to wait for people to appear. John appeared first, followed in rapid succession by Paul, Colin Poellot, and rajankhanna.

At 6:30 we wandered over to KGB, which was precisely the event that had drawn John and me to town. It was an unofficial Electric Velocipede, with readings by two contributors, Marly Youmans and Dan Braum. I was delighted to see Laura Peterson and Jon Pope there, the two New York friends Laura and I have probably seen more often than any others since moving, because they're so often in Chicago and we're so often in Gotham.

Other folks there I hadn't seen in a while, sometimes a long while, included Jonathan Kopp (holy shit!), Craig Engler, Jae Brim, Jim Freund, Alaya Johnson, Matt Kressel, Doug Cohen, Rick Bowes, John Joseph Adams, Tempest Bradshaw, Will Smith, and of course hosts Ellen Datlow and Gavin Grant. After a Chinese dinner and then beers at a nearby pretend dive bar, John and I poured ourselves into yet another cab and lit out for the outer boroughs.

The next morning we were up at four, blear-eyed, each to make his own way back home. I had more good times and saw more good friends then I had thought would be possible to pack into two short days, but now it is good to be back home in Chicago with my wife and dog.