Today in Wrigleyville, fans will swarm into Wrigley Field for the Cubs' home opener, where they'll eat bags full of peanuts while taking swigs from overpriced cans of Old Style. If you weren't lucky enough to score tickets to the North Side team's first home stand, Virgin Hotels Chicago is trying to replicate the experience of a day at the ballpark in the form of an incredibly strange cocktail.
Virgin's second-floor bar, the Commons Club, has teamed up with Cubs pitcher Jon Lester to create a cocktail inspired by the tastes (and smells) of an afternoon spent in the Friendly Confines. The drink is called Never Quit, and it combines leather-infused vodka, roasted peanuts, vermouth and horny goat weed (presumably to ward off the Curse of the Billy Goat). To heighten the sensations of America's pastime, the glass is sprayed with leaf alcohol to simulate the aroma of freshly cut grass and finished with a splash of Old Style.
If you're enticed by a cocktail that approximates drinking a grass-stained pitcher's mitt that's been rolled in the debris of the Wrigley Field bleachers (and might increase your libido), the Never Quit is now available at the Commons Club for $11. And $1 of each drink sold will be donated to Lester's NVRQT charity, which raises awareness and money for children's cancer research. Plus, everyone who drinks the cocktail before June 11 will be entered to win tickets to the Cubs' annual charity event (where Eddie Vedder will play) or one of Lester’s baseball mitts. If you decide to knock one back, there's no shame in asking for an Old Style chaser.