The man who put exotic cocktails on the Chicago map.
Paul McGee is the Chicago bartender most responsible for bringing the modern exotic-cocktail revival to the Midwest. He came up through the Chicago craft-cocktail scene in the late 2000s, working at The Whistler and Drumbar, and developed a reputation for technical precision and a deep interest in tropical-cocktail history. In 2013 he opened Three Dots and a Dash, named for Donn Beach’s 1944 cocktail and built as a serious modern tribute to the original era.
Three Dots and a Dash
Three Dots and a Dash opened in River North in 2013 and immediately became one of the most-discussed bars in the country. It was the largest serious exotic-cocktail bar in the Midwest at the time, with a 140-seat capacity, a full kitchen, and a cocktail program that treated the canon—Donn Beach, Trader Vic, and the rest—with the same rigor that Smuggler’s Cove had brought to San Francisco. Within two years it was on every best of list in American cocktail journalism. Tales of the Cocktail named it Best New American Cocktail Bar in 2014.
McGee’s specific contribution at Three Dots and a Dash was scale. Where Smuggler’s Cove was forty-two seats and Latitude 29 was fifty, Three Dots and a Dash was three times that size—and it ran the program at the same level of seriousness. That’s a different operational problem. The training, the consistency, the speed-and-quality balance required to make 140 seats work as a serious cocktail room hadn’t really been demonstrated for exotic cocktails before; McGee demonstrated it. Subsequent large-format tiki bars (in Chicago and elsewhere) have followed his template.
Lost Lake
In 2015, McGee opened Lost Lake in Logan Square—a smaller, weirder, more idiosyncratic exotic-cocktail bar that runs an experimental menu alongside the canon. Where Three Dots and a Dash is the polished flagship, Lost Lake is the laboratory: more frequent menu changes, more unusual rum sourcing, more willingness to put a drink on the menu that doesn’t quite work yet because it’s interesting. Both bars still operate; both are widely respected.
The pairing—flagship plus lab—is a model other revival bartenders have considered seriously. Run a tight, polished room for the broad audience; run a smaller, experimental room next to it for the work that needs space to develop.
The Chicago scene
McGee anchored Chicago’s emergence as a serious exotic-cocktail city. The Midwest has historically been underrepresented in the cocktail revival, partly because the dominant craft-cocktail story has been bicoastal (New York and San Francisco); McGee’s work made the case that Chicago belonged. Other Chicago exotic-cocktail rooms—including the Bamboo Room at Three Dots, the cocktail programs at Estereo and Federales, and assorted hotel bars—have benefited from his anchor presence.
What he made
Two bars that work, both of which have outlasted the breathless early-revival press cycle and become durable Chicago institutions. A demonstration that exotic-cocktail bars can run at scale without losing rigor. A Midwest training pipeline for serious bartending. And—by direct association with the Donn Beach catalog—a high-profile contemporary tribute to the original era that has helped keep the original era in the cultural conversation.
To go deeper
- Bars Three Dots and a Dash, 435 N. Clark St., Chicago. Lost Lake, 3154 W. Diversey Ave., Chicago. Both still operating; both worth visiting.
- Reading Industry coverage in Punch Drink, Imbibe, and the Chicago Tribune. McGee has been interviewed often; the most thorough profiles are in Tales of the Cocktail publications around the 2014 award.