A Chicago Hot Dog Cocktail Is A Thing That Exists Now

Not all good things are good together, but sometimes unlikely pairings can make something really interesting. Not long ago a Chicago piemaker took Chicago's famously unpalatable Malort liqueur and made it into a rather tasty pie, and now someone has gone the other direction and made a cocktail that tastes like a Chicago-style hot dog.

According to Bon Appetit, mixologist Adam Seger of The Tuck Room in New York genuinely infused Templeton rye with all the signature flavors of a Chicago-style hot dog, including Vienna Beef hot dogs, Colman's mustard powder, raw white onion, sweet pickle relish, pickle spears, tomatoes, sport peppers, poppy seeds, and of course the requisite celery salt. The infused whiskey can then be drunk straight, or used for a variety of cocktails, though it does turn a disturbing shade of green because of the pickle relish. (Seger also makes a New York-style hot dog-infused whiskey, but that one remains a normal whiskey color.)

Bon Appetit's Alyse Whitney describes the Chicago dog whiskey as "oddly refreshing," and "vaguely briny and salty in a savory way that makes you hungry."

Seger lives in New York now, but he lived in Chicago for a decade and worked at Tru and created the cocktail program for Chicago's Nacional 27.