Loyal readers of this magazine and blog are already hip to the fact that absinthe is on fire. So maybe I shouldn’t have been so pleasantly surprised when Sonja Kassebaum, the blogging half of the wife-and-husband team behind North Shore Distillery, emailed me with the news that they’ll be releasing their own absinthe this week.

“We’ve been working on it for so long and not talking about it,” Kassebaum told me with palpable relief in her voice. One reason they were keeping mum is because they had to go through the long process of getting the absinthe approved by the government. (The government tests for levels of thujone, a chemical that’s toxic in high quantities. Thujone is found in wormwood, which is an ingredient in absinthe, but most absinthes don’t have nearly enough thujone to be lethal. As Kassenbaum put it: “The alcohol would kill you long before you get enough thujone.”)

North Shore is calling their absinthe (which is verte, or green, absinthe) Sirène, which is French for “siren.” The idea is that it will call to you and pull you in. But first you have to get your hands on the stuff. They’ll be introducing the spirit tomorrow night at Binny’s South Loop outpost from 5–8pm (tickets are $40; a bunch of whiskies are included in the tasting as well) and at Friday’s WhiskyFest.

Speaking of WhiskyFest: Tickets have long been sold out, but Mrs. Murphy and Sons is giving away two free tickets tomorrow night. To be entered, you have to order the Celtic flight of whiskey ($20)—so it’s not a bad gamble, even if you lose.