The past few years have seen an explosive growth of distilleries in Chicago. Has the city already reached its saturation point?
by Julia Thiel
Before Prohibition, Illinois was one of the biggest whiskey-producing states in the U.S. Peoria alone had 73 distilleries and paid more whiskey tax to the federal government than any other city in the country; Chicago paid the second-highest tax. Very few distilleries reopened in Illinois after Prohibition was repealed, but in 1933 Hiram Walker & Sons established the largest distillery in the world in Peoria, which closed in 1981 after the decline of the American whiskey market in the 1970s (Archer Daniels Midland took over the plant and now produces ethanol there).…[ Read more ]