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922 South Morton Street
Bloomington, IN, 47403
United States

812-202-6789

Cardinal Spirits is a craft distillery in Bloomington, Indiana that specializes in producing extraordinary spirits from local ingredients.  

Nocino

Nocino 

Indiana Green Walnut Amaro

We created this walnut spirit using a traditional European method, harvesting the walnuts while they were still green in mid-summer and steeping them in our grape vodka along with star anise, vanilla beans, allspice berries, and fresh orange peel.

 
GreenWalnuts-Nocino.jpg

What Is It?

A traditional Italian liqueur made from green, unripe walnuts that is enjoyed as a digestif or mixed into cocktails. For our version, we harvest the walnuts ourselves from trees in Fort Wayne, giving this liqueur an Indiana twist. We are the only distiller in Indiana that produces Nocino, and one of just a handful of craft distilleries in the country to do so.

Volunteers chopping the walnuts in the distillery.

Volunteers chopping the walnuts in the distillery.

How we made it

We harvest green, unripe walnuts from English walnut trees in Fort Wayne. The trees belong to Cardinal Spirits co-founder Adam Quirk's wife's aunt and uncle. The walnuts are brought back to the distillery and quartered by hand (opening up this part of the process to volunteers from the community), then steeped in our Vodka along with spices for months. Shortly before bottling we sweeten with maple syrup from the famed Burton's Maplewood Farm in Medora, Indiana.

Clockwise from left: Nocino Manhattan, Nocino Sour, Nocino Milk Punch

Clockwise from left: Nocino Manhattan, Nocino Sour, Nocino Milk Punch

how to drink it

Traditionally, Nocino is sipped on its own as a digestif (an after-dinner drink) - just a little pour of something special that warms you from head to toe. But it's great in cocktails too. We recommend using it in a Milk Punch, Walnut Manhattan, and Nocino Sour. You can also pour a bit over ice cream, hot chocolate, or eggnog!