Warm weekends in Chicago call for rooftops, patios, and frozen cocktails. Whether it be a day drinking extravaganza with the girls or guys or a swanky date on a gorgeous rooftop, the perfect frozen boozy drink can take things to the next level. Here are 5 of our favorite spots for the best frozen cocktails in Chicago this summer.
Starting next week, the West Loop hotspot is offering diners a variety of frozen cocktails to cool off this summer. Sip on a frozen “Sour Watermelon” featuring Pink Lemonade Smirnoff, Lemon, Red Bull Watermelon Edition. In addition, the menu at this restaurant in Chicago features a frozen drink called the Chi Colada. The drink is mixed with Captain Morgan, Pineapple, and Coconut. Lastly, diners can sit on the expansive patio and soak in the sun while enjoying the best of both worlds with the new “West Loop Vice”, featuring a mixture of both the Sour Watermelon and Chi Colada.
Located in River North, The Smith is elevating diners’ frozen cocktail experience by offering a frozen twist on the classic French 75 and turning it into a “French 75 Slushie”. Diners can sip and enjoy this frozen beverage on the expansive Clark Street patio while enjoying light bites or The Smith’s signature Mac & Cheese.
Nestled in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, Old Pueblo Cantina is “the” spot for frozen margaritas. Featuring fresh fruit, lime, and agave, diners can sip and sit on the patio while indulging in homemade Chips & Guac, sonoran cheese crisps, taco platters, chopped salads, and more.
Chicago’s largest patio, Recess, debuted the “Aperol Freeze” this summer, a frozen Aperol spritz with similarities to the classic cocktail. The frozen cocktail includes Aperol, watermelon vodka and sparkling wine — giving it an interesting tingle that has similarities to the effervescence of sparkling wine even when frozen. This summer, the Recess patio is becoming even bigger and better: with more second-floor seating offering amazing views and more street art along the shipping containers.
Chef Bill Kim’s beloved fast-casual in Wicker Park offers something you don’t see everyday: frozen Kirin beer. The frozen Kirin beer trend in Japan has worked its way into the US, but locating it is still like finding a unicorn. This frozen drink can only be found in Disney’s Epcot, New York, California, and now… urbanbelly. Beer lovers rejoice as the frosty top keeps the draft beer below it at the same temperature as it was poured, perfect for sipping on the patio.
Man, that Scottie Pippen, what a basketball player! The lockdown defense! The silky smoothness! The balletic dunks that counterbalanced Michael Jordan’s fierce slams!
Whenever someone starts a column listing all the things they like about a person, you can be pretty sure there will be a “but” soon after. And you can be pretty sure it won’t end well for that person.
But …
But I wish the part of Pippen’s brain that produces opinions would shut down. When it comes to hot takes, the man is a wildfire. He makes big, bold, noisy statements, then stands back to watch the flames. He’s the guy at the restaurant whose voice reaches every diner. You asked for a table with a view, not a viewpoint.
I know Pippen won’t stop talking, because he can’t help himself. I have a simple solution, however: My first vacation since the pandemic hit will be a long vacation from Scottie Pippen.
His latest unloading, the one that led to my Scottie sabbatical, came in an interview with GQ. In it, he more than implied that Bulls coach Phil Jackson was racially biased when he called a play for Toni Kukoc late in a 1994 playoff game against the Knicks. Jackson and Kukoc are both white. Pippen, who is black, infamously sat out the final 1.8 seconds of that game in protest of the play selection. Kukoc went on to hit the game-winning shot.
“I felt like it was an opportunity to give (Kukoc) a rise,” Pippen told the magazine. “It was a racial move to give him a rise. After all I’ve been through with this organization, now you’re gonna tell me to take the ball out and throw it to Toni Kukoc? You’re insulting me. That’s how I felt.”
I ask you, dear reader: Why would Jackson pick the closing moments of Game 3 of a second-round series to promote any bigoted views he might hold? A series, by the way, that the Bulls trailed 2-0? Wouldn’t he have shown this tendency throughout his career as the Bulls head coach? If there was evidence of it, why haven’t we heard about it until now?
The logical answer to all of this is that Pippen has been lugging around the hurt of those 1.8 seconds for a long time, and, after years of festering, it has taken on this jagged shape. The problem is that it doesn’t fit with anything we know or have heard about Jackson.
Pippen spent most of his career as Jordan’s very talented sidekick, and that designation has been incredibly good to him. It brought him six NBA titles and a spot on the NBA’s top-50 list in 1996. But he also seems to look upon his status as No. 2 to Jordan’s No. 1 as an affliction that has robbed him of his due.
The part of the GQ interview that has gotten the most national attention is Pippen’s takedown of Kevin Durant’s recent postseason performance.
“KD, as great as his offense was, it turned out to be his worst enemy because he didn’t know how to play team basketball,” Pippen said. “He kept trying to go punch for punch.”
That led Durant to tweet about Pippen’s refusal to go on the floor for the final 1.8 seconds of the 1994 game.
And, sigh, here we are. Another Scottie-started fire that had talk shows across the country buzzing.
Pippen just released his own bourbon and has a memoir coming out, but anyone who has paid attention to him knows that he doesn’t need a book or booze launch to say crazy things. I can’t keep track of where he stands on whether Jordan is the best player of all time. Four years ago, he said that LeBron James had “probably” passed Jordan as the GOAT. Two years ago, he said James wasn’t as good as Jordan or Kobe Bryant. If you asked him today, he’d probably say: “Michael Jordan? I don’t know a Michael Jordan.”
Pippen opens his mouth, and a whole crew of people is there for the parsing. It reminds me of the salt trucks and snowplows that wait by the side of the highway in anticipation of a storm. It’s great for talk shows and newspaper columnists, unless you’re tired of the crazy uncle routine.
I’m well aware that there are people out there who wish I would give my opinions a rest. You’re free to take a vacation from me. I’m also aware that squeaky wheels like Pippen keep columnists like me very busy. But sometimes beggars can indeed be choosers.
MINNEAPOLIS — George Floyd’s family spoke in court Friday of the pain they felt over his murder and asked for the maximum punishment for former Officer Derek Chauvin as Chauvin faced sentencing for the crime that set off a fierce reckoning over racial injustice in America.
“We don’t want to see no more slaps on the wrist. We’ve been through that already,” said a tearful Terrence Floyd, one of Floyd’s brothers.
Floyd’s nephew Brandon Williams said: “Our family is forever broken.” And Floyd’s 7-year-old daughter, Gianna, in a video played in court, said that if she could say something to her father now, it would be: “I miss you and and I love you.”
Chauvin, 45, faced a potential decades-long sentence, with some legal experts predicting 20 to 25 years. He is also awaiting trial on federal civil rights charges in Floyd’s death, along with three other fired officers who have yet to have their state trials.
The concrete barricades, razor wire and National Guard patrols at the courthouse during Chauvin’s three-week trial in the spring were gone Friday, reflecting an easing of tensions since the verdict in April. Still, there was recognition that the sentencing was another major step forward for Minneapolis since Floyd died on May 25, 2020.
“Between the incident, the video, the riots, the trial — this is the pinnacle of it,” said Mike Brandt, a local defense attorney who closely followed the case. “The verdict was huge too, but this is where the justice comes down.”
Chauvin was convicted of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck for up to 9 1/2 minutes as the 46-year-old Black man gasped that he couldn’t breathe and went limp.
Bystander video of Floyd’s arrest on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a corner store prompted protests around the world and led to scattered violence in Minneapolis and beyond.
Minnesota sentencing guideline s called for 12 1/2 years, but Judge Peter Cahill agreed with prosecutors ahead of Friday’s proceedings that there were aggravating circumstances that could justify a heavier punishment — among them, that Chauvin treated Floyd with particular cruelty, abused his position of authority as a police officer and did it in front of children.
Prosecutors asked for 30 years, saying Chauvin’s actions were egregious and “shocked the nation’s conscience.” The defense requested probation, saying Chauvin was the product of a “broken” system and “believed he was doing his job.”
With good behavior, Chauvin could get out on parole after serving about two-thirds of his sentence.
Before the sentencing, the judge denied Chauvin’s request for a new trial. Defense attorney Eric Nelson had argued that the intense publicity tainted the jury pool and that the trial should have been moved away from Minneapolis.
The judge also rejected a defense request for a hearing into possible juror misconduct. Nelson had accused a juror of not being candid during jury selection because he didn’t mention his participation in a march last summer to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Prosecutors countered the juror had been open about his views.
Ben Crump, an attorney for the family, said relatives were “anxious and tense” ahead of the proceedings. “To us, George Floyd is a cause. He’s a case. He’s a hashtag. To them — that’s their flesh and blood. You know, that that’s their brother,” Crump said.
It was unclear whether Chauvin would break his long silence and speak at his sentencing. Some experts expressed doubt he would say anything because of the risk his words could be used against him in the federal case. No date for that trial has been set.
But Brandt said Chauvin could say a few words without getting into legal trouble. “I think it’s his chance to tell the world, ‘I didn’t intend to kill him,'” the attorney said. “If I was him, I think I would want to try and let people know that I’m not a monster.”
Chauvin did not testify at his trial. The only explanation the public heard from him came from body-camera footage in which he told a bystander at the scene: “We got to control this guy ’cause he’s a sizable guy … and it looks like he’s probably on something.”
Philip Stinson, a criminal justice professor at Bowling Green State University, said 11 non-federal law officers, including Chauvin, have been convicted of murder for on-duty deaths since 2005. The penalties for the nine who were sentenced before Chauvin ranged from from six years, nine months, to life behind bars, with the median being 15 years.
With Chauvin’s sentencing, the Floyd family and Black America faced something of a rarity: In the small number of instances in which officers accused of brutality or other misconduct against Black people have gone to trial, the list of acquittals and mistrials is longer than the list of sentencings after conviction.
In recent years, the acquittals have included officers tried in the deaths of Philando Castile in suburban Minneapolis and Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Two mistrials were declared over the death of Samuel Dubose in Cincinnati.
“That’s why the world has watched this trial, because it is a rare occurrence,” said Arizona-based civil rights attorney Benjamin Taylor, who has represented victims of police brutality. “Everybody knows that this doesn’t happen every day.”
Several people interviewed in Minneapolis before Chauvin’s sentencing said they wanted to see a tough sentence.
Thirty years “doesn’t seem like long enough to me,” said Andrew Harer, a retail worker who is white. “I would be fine if he was in jail for the rest of his life.”
Joseph Allen, 31, who is Black, said he would like to see Chauvin get a life sentence, adding that he hopes other police officers learn “not to do what Derek Chauvin did.”
As for whether she would like to hear Chauvin speak, Levy Armstrong said: “For me as a Black woman living in this community, there’s really nothing that he could say that would alleviate the pain and trauma that he caused. … I think that if he spoke it would be disingenuous and could cause more trauma.”
Chauvin has been held since his conviction at the state’s maximum-security prison in Oak Park Heights, where he has been kept in a cell by himself for his own protection, his meals brought to him.
The three other officers are scheduled for trial in March on state charges of aiding and abetting both murder and manslaughter.
Associated Press writers Aaron Morrison and Stephen Groves and Associated Press/Report for America reporter Mohamed Ibrahim contributed to this report.
SURFSIDE, Fla. — With nearly 160 people unaccounted for and at least four dead after a seaside condominium tower collapsed into a smoldering heap of twisted metal and concrete, rescuers used both heavy equipment and their own hands to comb through the wreckage on Friday in an increasingly desperate search for survivors.
As scores of firefighters in Surfside, just north of Miami, toiled to locate and reach anyone still alive in the remains of the 12-story Champlain Towers South, hopes rested on how quickly crews using dogs and microphones could complete their grim, yet delicate task.
“Any time that we hear a sound, we concentrate in that area,” Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said. “It could be just steel twisting, it could be debris raining down, but not specifically sounds of tapping or sounds of a human voice.”
Buffeted by gusty winds and pelted by intermittent rain showers, two heavy cranes began removing debris from the pile using large claws in the morning, creating a din of crashing glass and metal as they picked up material and dumped it to the side.
Once the machines paused, firefighters wearing protective masks and carrying red buckets climbed atop the pile to remove smaller pieces by hand in hope of finding spots where people might be trapped. In a parking garage, rescuers in knee-deep water used power tools to cut into the building from below.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said crews were doing everything possible to save as many people as they could.
“We do not have a resource problem, we have a luck problem,” he said.
Flowers left in tribute decorated a fence near the tower, and people awaiting news about the search watched from a distance, hands clasped and hugging. Nearby on the beach, visitor Faydah Bushnaq of Sterling, Virginia, knelt and scratched “Pray for their souls” in the sand.
“We were supposed to be on vacation, but I have no motivation to have fun,” Bushnaq said. “It is the perfect time to say a prayer for them.”
Three more bodies were removed overnight, and Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said authorities were working with the medical examiner’s office to identify the victims. Eleven injuries were reported, with four people treated at hospitals.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said rescuers were at “extreme risk” going through the rubble.
“Debris is falling on them as they do their work. We have structural engineers on-site to ensure that they will not be injured, but they are proceeding because they are so motivated and they are taking extraordinary risk on the site every day,” she said.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue personnel search for survivors through the rubble at the Champlain Towers South Condo in Surfside, Fla. Friday, June 25, 2021. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue via AP
With searchers using saws and jackhammers to look for pockets large enough to hold a person, Levine Cava said there was still reason to have hope.
Rachel Spiegel described her mother, 66-year-old Judy Spiegel, who was among the missing, as a loving grandmother known for chauffeuring her two granddaughters everywhere, advocating for Holocaust awareness and enjoying chocolate ice cream every night.
“I’m just praying for a miracle,” Spiegel said. “We’re heartbroken that she was even in the building.”
Teenager Jonah Handler was rescued from the rubble hours after the collapse, but his mother, Stacie Fang, died. Relatives issued a statement expressing thanks “for the outpouring of sympathy, compassion and support we have received.”
“There are no words to describe the tragic loss of our beloved Stacie,” it said.
Many people waited at a reunification center for results of DNA swabs that could help identify victims.
While officials said no cause for the collapse has been determined, Gov. Ron DeSantis said a “definitive answer” was needed in a timely manner. Video showed the center of the building appearing to tumble down first, and a section nearest to the ocean teetering and coming down seconds later.
About half the building’s roughly 130 units were affected, and rescuers used cherry pickers and ladders to evacuate at least 35 people from the still-intact areas in the first hours after the collapse. But with 159 still unaccounted for, work could go on for days.
Television video early Friday showed crews fighting flareups of fires on the rubble piles.
Rubble at the Champlain Towers South Condo is seen, Friday, June 25, 2021, in Surfside.Gerald Herbert/AP
Computers, chairs, comforters and other personal belongings were evidence of shattered lives amid the wreckage of the Champlain, which was built in 1981 in Surfside, a small suburb north of Miami Beach. A child-size bunk bed perched precariously on a top floor, bent but intact and apparently inches from falling into the rubble.
Fernando Velasquez said his 66-year-old brother Julio, his sister-in-law Angela and their daughter Theresa, who was visiting from California, were in the building when it fell.
“I miss my brother very much. I talk to him almost every day,” said Velasquez, of Elmhurst, New York. “His call was always a welcoming call. But I know he’s in heaven, because he was in love with Christ. If he is gone, he is in a much better place.”
The missing include people from around the world.
Israeli media said the country’s consul general in Miami, Maor Elbaz, believed that 20 citizens of that country are missing. Another 22 people were unaccounted for from Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay and Paraguay, where an aide said first lady Silvana de Abdo Benitez flew to Miami because her sister, brother-in-law, their three children and a nanny were among the missing.
Gilmer Moreira, press director for the government palace, said the wife of Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benitez has “has already received official information about the search for her family” and was awaiting more details.
___
Associated Press writers Tim Reynolds and Ian Mader in Miami; Freida Frisaro and Kelli Kennedy in Fort Lauderdale; Bobby Caina Calvan in Tallahassee; Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama; R.J. Rico in Atlanta; and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, contributed to this report.
Man, that Scottie Pippen, what a basketball player! The lockdown defense! The silky smoothness! The balletic dunks that counterbalanced Michael Jordan’s fierce slams!
Whenever someone starts a column listing all the things they like about a person, you can be pretty sure there will be a “but” soon after. And you can be pretty sure it won’t end well for that person.
But …
But I wish the part of Pippen’s brain that produces opinions would shut down. When it comes to hot takes, the man is a wildfire. He makes big, bold, noisy statements, then stands back to watch the flames. He’s the guy at the restaurant whose voice reaches every diner. You asked for a table with a view, not a viewpoint.
I know Pippen won’t stop talking, because he can’t help himself. I have a simple solution, however: My first vacation since the pandemic hit will be a long vacation from Scottie Pippen.
His latest unloading, the one that led to my Scottie sabbatical, came in an interview with GQ. In it, he more than implied that Bulls coach Phil Jackson was racially biased when he called a play for Toni Kukoc late in a 1994 playoff game against the Knicks. Jackson and Kukoc are both white. Pippen, who is black, infamously sat out the final 1.8 seconds of that game in protest of the play selection. Kukoc went on to hit the game-winning shot.
“I felt like it was an opportunity to give (Kukoc) a rise,” Pippen told the magazine. “It was a racial move to give him a rise. After all I’ve been through with this organization, now you’re gonna tell me to take the ball out and throw it to Toni Kukoc? You’re insulting me. That’s how I felt.”
I ask you, dear reader: Why would Jackson pick the closing moments of Game 3 of a second-round series to promote any bigoted views he might hold? A series, by the way, that the Bulls trailed 2-0? Wouldn’t he have shown this tendency throughout his career as the Bulls head coach? If there was evidence of it, why haven’t we heard about it until now?
The logical answer to all of this is that Pippen has been lugging around the hurt of those 1.8 seconds for a long time, and, after years of festering, it has taken on this jagged shape. The problem is that it doesn’t fit with anything we know or have heard about Jackson.
Pippen spent most of his career as Jordan’s very talented sidekick, and that designation has been incredibly good to him. It brought him six NBA titles and a spot on the NBA’s top-50 list in 1996. But he also seems to look upon his status as No. 2 to Jordan’s No. 1 as an affliction that has robbed him of his due.
The part of the GQ interview that has gotten the most national attention is Pippen’s takedown of Kevin Durant’s recent postseason performance.
“KD, as great as his offense was, it turned out to be his worst enemy because he didn’t know how to play team basketball,” Pippen said. “He kept trying to go punch for punch.”
That led Durant to tweet about Pippen’s refusal to go on the floor for the final 1.8 seconds of the 1994 game.
And, sigh, here we are. Another Scottie-started fire that had talk shows across the country buzzing.
Pippen just released his own bourbon and has a memoir coming out, but anyone who has paid attention to him knows that he doesn’t need a book or booze launch to say crazy things. I can’t keep track of where he stands on whether Jordan is the best player of all time. Four years ago, he said that LeBron James had “probably” passed Jordan as the GOAT. Two years ago, he said James wasn’t as good as Jordan or Kobe Bryant. If you asked him today, he’d probably say: “Michael Jordan? I don’t know a Michael Jordan.”
Pippen opens his mouth, and a whole crew of people is there for the parsing. It reminds me of the salt trucks and snowplows that wait by the side of the highway in anticipation of a storm. It’s great for talk shows and newspaper columnists, unless you’re tired of the crazy uncle routine.
I’m well aware that there are people out there who wish I would give my opinions a rest. You’re free to take a vacation from me. I’m also aware that squeaky wheels like Pippen keep columnists like me very busy. But sometimes beggars can indeed be choosers.
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