Lush Wine and Spirits - Roscoe Village

Visited August 11, 2013.

I’ve run into this issue several times before on my trips to Chicago: Retro on Roscoe. I dont know if it’s the same festival every time but they shut down a few blocks of Roscoe and parking becomes a nightmare. Anyway, they let me through to get a place tick. What is nice about the festival is that they’ll let you drink outside so Lush has some ice buckets ready with cans of beer in them. I thought that was kind of neat. I chose not to walk around with a Daisy Cutter but I could have. Also, I guess they’ll let you buy bottles and have them opened for you at the bar. You can’t open them yourself but they can do it for you.

The selection was small but pretty good. I saw a number of Stillwater beers that I hadn’t seen before. Turns out they had one made for the store but it sold out shortly after release. They have lots of locals as well. Not the most amazing selection but I think the next time I stay in that area I may grab some cans and walk around the festival. The service was very friendly too.

Lush is a very unique store, in that they truly focus on keeping quality products on the shelves regardless of the price. They (almost certainly) have a good number of long-retired beers hiding in the basement, only to emerge at some grotesque price level later on. If you are after one of these beers and have no real other choices of a place to obtain it, Lush is your best bet. The staff is always quite friendly, and I like how they set up the store. Everyone here is pretty relaxed and will talk beer or wine with you for a while. They primarily focus on wine, with a smallish craft beer cooler in the back. The selection focuses on some ’premium’ craft beer offerings and some aged rarities, but they do not have much in the way of regular craft beer. For anything that is available at Binny’s or West Lakeview, you are going to pay a hefty premium at Lush. Every once in a while I am looking for something crazy, they come through in the clutch, and that is what I come here for.

Stopped by here to pick up my bottle of Twisted Spoke. Really cool that you can order it over the phone and pay, then just come in and pick it up. Its right around the corner from West Lakeview Liquors and being so close no reason to ever come to this unless you literally are within talking distance. Not saying this place is terrible but WLV is a whole other level and being so close, there is no choice. I actually like the location, in the middle of a nice neighborhood, off the beaten path. Inside is nice and new looking, slightly modern. The beer is against the back wall in 3 coolers. Amazingly they have Boulevard, first time I have seem that at any bottle store in the city. The quality is above average, but the quality is pretty average. About 50-60 bottles, but outside of the Boulevard nothing you can’t get anywhere else. Wine dominates most of the store. I didn’t really check it out, but this is probably a better stop for that instead of beer. re-review- Upon stopping by a second time came across all the bottles on their counter, which are much more rare. They have some really unique brews (nemesis, imperial brown goose) that you can’t get anywhere else.