Take Flight Spirits is a women-owned craft distillery tucked into a former flower shop on Lincoln Avenue in downtown Skokie, about 45 minutes from the Loop by CTA Yellow Line. Founders Carrie and Andrew Cole started distilling during the pandemic in 2020, opening their tasting room in 2022 with a tight lineup of handmade, small-batch spirits. What sets them apart is the approach: their Sasha Gin is built on a rum base rather than grain-neutral spirits, re-distilled with cardamom, lavender, grapefruit, and juniper for something genuinely different from the standard gin playbook. The Sunbird Rum, distilled from blackstrap molasses, is mildly sweet with a hint of funk and pulls double duty as the gin's foundation. Their bourbon and malt whiskey round things out, both aged in small-batch oak barrels. At the tasting room, you can sample all of it in cocktail form or buy bottles to take home. The Coles are the ones behind the bar most nights, which makes for the kind of visit where you actually learn something about what's in your glass. Skokie has been quietly building a walkable food-and-drink scene, and Take Flight is one of the better reasons to make the trip.