Whiskey-rita with White Oak Whiskey

Our White Oak Whiskey made its debut this weekend, and today we're sharing a recipe that shows just how versatile this spirit is — a tart, refreshing spin on a margarita. It has a very clever name: Whiskey-rita. 

A really tasty triple sec or dry curacao is key here. We make our triple sec from scratch at the distillery — at home, we absolutely love and worship Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao.

Whiskey-Rita

Makes 1 cocktail

2 ounces Cardinal Spirits White Oak Whiskey
3/4 ounce triple sec or dry curacao
3/4 ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice
1/4 ounce simple syrup

Add ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice. 
Shake, then strain into a coupe glass. 

4 awesomely easy ways to use our coffee liqueur

Till the one day when our vodka met this coffee...

Our coffee liqueur launches today and when you bring a bottle home, you might be wondering what to do with it.

First, you should know that this is not the weird, old coffee liqueur that sat in your parents' cupboard for like three decades. You'll actually want to use this ... in everything. We use Hopscotch Coffee to make it — that's the excellent roaster and coffee shop just up the street from us.

Here are 4 easy and delicious ways to drink our coffee liqueur:

1. Splash some in your coffee. No need to measure. You'll know when.

2. Make a quick little coffee soda. Pour 2 ounces of coffee liqueur into a glass, add ice and top with club soda. That is refreshing.

3. Make a White Russian. It's classic recipe that's worth committing to memory: Pour 1 ounce of coffee liqueur and 2 ounces of vodka into an Old-Fashioned glass. Add ice. Stir. Float heavy cream on top.

4. Pour it over a couple scoops of ice cream. This is dessert at your next dinner party, where your guests declare you the most amazing host ever. Yay, you!

The source: Hopscotch Coffee

From our bar stools to our cocktail ingredients, everything at Cardinal has a story.
Eventually we'll tell you all of them.
 

The folks at Hopscotch Coffee, the roaster and coffee shop at Dodds Street and the B-Line, are our friends and neighbors but we don't like them only because they are nice and nearby.

Hopscotch makes phenomenal coffee. So, that, along with being nice and nearby, makes them wonderful collaborators, too. Hopscotch is our house coffee, and we use it in our caffeinated cocktails like the Iced Hopscotch, White Russian and Cafe a l'Orange.

We've even been using Hopscotch Coffee to make our popular coffee liqueur in very tiny batches ever since we opened. This week we're finally bottling and selling it for the first time. (Speaking of which: come to the coffee liqueur release party this Thursday. White Russians! The Big Lebowski! Free mugs!)

Recently we walked the B-Line with roaster and co-owner Jane Kupersmith to talk all things Hopscotch...

Cardinal:  Hopscotch makes an amazing drink called the Cobra Verde, and it's definitely the drink of summer. Tell us everything about it.

Jane:  Cobra Verde is our iced green-coffee drink — it’s really zippy and fresh, and it doesn’t taste anything like coffee. It has organic citrus and ginger juices, a little cane sugar-simple syrup and green coffee extract. 

My childhood friend Jarrett Mitchell, who runs Wake Up Iowa City, invented the Cobra Verde recipe and extraction process, so we licensed that formally from him. We’re working on kegging it for the summer. 

Hopscotch’s espresso machine is gorgeous. What’s special about it?

That’s our Cadillac. It defines how we do coffee here.

It’s a La Marzocco FB80 — it’s the 80th anniversary machine for La Marzocco, so it’s a little bit of a retro design. We feel like it pulls really smooth shots of espresso. It extracts more evenly and is less likely to have a bitterness. 

So, when people come to the shop and want to order an espresso, we often tell them that they can try something a little stronger than they might elsewhere. If they usually get a cappuccino, which is two ounces of espresso and four ounces of milk, maybe they’ll try a cortado, which is two ounces of espresso and two ounces of steamed milk.

What should we know about the coffee at Hopscotch?

Consumers are more and more concerned with the ethics of coffee. We know that it’s possible for farms to not have the best practices in terms of labor or growing practices, and so we want to highlight farms that have really good practices. We are certified fair trade and we use that coffee often. 

We try to highlight really interesting beans that are well sourced and then we try to share the roasting process with the consumer so they are really getting information from start to finish.

One kind of fun blend is called Mother’s Little Helper, and that is a half-caf blend. It’s all fair-trade, organic coffee — one half is this really nice decaf and the other half is from this Sumatra Ketiara women-run coffee cooperative. The president of the coffee co-op is a woman, and the majority of the members are women, which is super rare in the coffee industry. They reinvest in community infrastructure and health care and schools, and it’s really nice to be able to make that connection.

What do you love about roasting?

It’s really sensory. The roaster I have has an open chamber which is cool because you can see, smell and hear the roasting process, and I feel like all those components are really critical in knowing what’s going on. There are a lot of high-tech roasters, but my roaster is small. It roasts 10-pound batches. 

There’s a thing called dry cupping where you take a bean that’s going through the roasting process and taste it, and that’s really interesting because a lot of the flavor notes that we talk about or that we list when we talk about our coffees, you can taste them right out of the roaster.

So, how's it going with Cardinal Spirits? Asking for a friend. 

Our coffee is so good. How do you make it better? You make it boozy. And serve it in a nice place. It’s a no brainer. 

That’s been just a wonderful gift. (Cardinal) is like-minded in that they saw this neighborhood and they could see the potential here, and they’re also making really wonderful craft products. It makes sense that we would try to find ways to work together. 

I am so proud of what they’re doing with our coffee. I think it’s more incredible than what we’re doing with our coffee. 

Hopscotch jazzes up coffee drinks with syrups and sodas from a local food truck called Bea’s Soda Bar. What are some favorites?

Our collaboration with Bea’s Soda Bar has lead us to some interesting drinks. Right now we have lavender syrup from Bea’s, and we’ve just been delighted with its popularity. We make lavender lattes with that, or you can buy a handmade lavender soda. 

Another seasonal drink right now with Bea’s syrup is the Bee Sting, which is a vanilla honey blossom soda (from Bea’s) with a double shot of espresso floated on top of it. It has a little bit of fizz, a little bit of sweetness and a little bit of bite. 

People talk about the interior nearly as much as the coffee at Hopscotch. How did the design come together?

We wanted it to feel well designed but we wanted everyone to feel at home and welcome, and I really feel like we did it.

Three people have had such an impact on the design. Rusty Peterson is our carpenter and we went to him with our ideas and needs, and we knew that he’s just such a thoughtful and practical builder that it would just come out like Rusty. It’s funny because Rusty says that he doesn’t have a particular aesthetic, but he does, and it’s always thoughtful, clean, simple —  his designs make sense and they’re useful and just so well crafted. 

When we told him we had this idea for a floating bench … it turned out he had this hundred-year-old, three-inch-thick, 17-foot-long piece of native beech that had been reclaimed from a demo job downtown. It was subfloor in an old car garage. So, if you come sit on our bench, that’s what you’re sitting on. 

And then (co-owner) Jeff’s wife, Erin, is a graphic designer and she came up with the mural on one of the walls. She designed and hand-painted the entire thing. It’s just lovely. It’s a sweet and humorous way to break up what otherwise could be a serious space. 

And then the third person is Vincent Edwards. He designed the chairs and stools that are in the space. What’s neat about these people is that they’re friends and loved ones, and what’s inside their minds, we get to have in the shop. 

What’s next for you guys?

There’s a lot of pressure to expand, and I think we’d like to do that. But I think we want to wear this hat for a while and see how that goes, and make sure that we’re doing everything well. 

Bourbon-berry smash: A cocktail for a cookout

Chances are you've got a cookout in your future for Memorial Day weekend. Before you fire up the grill, make this Bourbon-Berry Smash, an easy-drinking cocktail from Cardinal's bar manager Logan Hunter.

Bourbon-based cocktails are perfect with grilled and barbecued meals. Add a couple of favorite summer flavors — strawberries and mint — and splash in prosecco for a lovely bit of fizz, and you've got a most pleasant drink to sip outside.

Bourbon-Berry Smash

By Logan Hunter

Makes 1 cocktail

3 strawberries
4 mint leaves
1 teaspoon sugar
1.5 ounces bourbon
1.5 ounces prosecco

Muddle strawberries, mint and sugar together until berries are good and smushy.
Add bourbon and a few heaps of ice.
Top with prosecco.

My Liquid life

Cardinal's own Becky Button on what makes Bloomington a great place to drink.

By Becky Button

Confession: I have been drinking in Bloomington for more than seven years. Well now, that seems like quite a long time when one puts words to the thought. In my time here, I have met my share of fine folks — sometimes I’m serving them drinks, sometimes they’re serving me drinks and other times we’re simply drinking together — and seven years is a wink compared to their time in Bloomington. 

But together, we share a common love and awe for a town that yields so much adventure and positivity when it comes to alcohol. I am definitely not alone. 

Yes, my friends, Bloomington is a drinker’s town. The variety of watering holes increases every year. It is the accessibility of good wine, beer and spirits that makes our Bloomington so great. This isn’t a city that simply sells alcohol. Bloomington is full of makers — craft breweries, local wineries, and the newest addition, a craft distillery. And we celebrate with events like Craft Beer Fest, Wine and Food Fest, and various musical and restaurant events that support local establishments. 

And naturally, with one kind of great variety comes variety of a different species. Being that Bloomington is the college town in Indiana, we have so many types of what I like to call “drinker identities.”

I have been, seen and spoken to them all. 

Yep, I was the under-confident college girl waiting at the steps of fraternities some freshman nights (forgive me); I was the chain-smoking porch gal staying up until 5 a.m. with her sister-friends; and yes, I was the new 21-year-old hopping from bar to bar regardless of whatever night of the week it was. 

Seven years of changing identities and I have finally come to the one I feel most comfortable with: a Cersei-level wine-loving lady who finds enjoyment in a casual drink on the patio, with a fine friend and good conversation. It is a great gift to make the passage from out-of-state student to the loveable label of "townie," and with so many wonderful opportunities in our town, it is quite fun to be a part of the scene.

My enjoyment in the Bloomington restaurant and bar scene started as it has for many of my kin, working in service. It was easy to fall in love with this town's food and drink; wine and cuisine at Finch's Brasserie; beards and beer knowledge at Function Brewing; mountains of wine and craft cocktails at Feast Cafe and Cardinal Spirits. Also, dating a sommelier — that helps. Working with sharp, motivated and thirsty enthusiasts, the relationships I have made have shaped the way I live, breathe and drink in Bloomington. 

When it comes down to it, the people who run, support, and participate in the industry are family. Mi restaurante es su restaurante. Hours have passed chatting in respective dining rooms, creating the atmosphere that is the craft drinking world of Bloomington. As time passes in our town, her personality develops, crediting the individuals and their supporters that put their heart and soul into Bloomington businesses. It is ultimately this family that gives Bloomington her heart and soul.

I adore Bloomington; always have, always will. And in an effort to summarize this small town ode, here are several questions and answers one might seek before journeying to our town: 

Can different kinds of folks thrive in our ever-changing drinking culture? Of course. 

Is the drinking scene limited to students and young adults? Absolutely not!

Can you meet fantastic people that could potentially help shape your life? Sure thing. 

Is this really a great place to live? You betcha.

Meet our #tikituesdays masterminds

Cardinal bartenders Baylee Pruitt and Chris Resnick are the wizards behind the weekly oasis known as Tiki Tuesdays. You’ll find this couple behind the bar every Tuesday night, shaking up tropical delights like Cobra Fang, Traditional Family Voodoo and Montego Babe, using fresh fruits and ingredients that they've made from scratch. The garnishes are just as spectacular — you can’t not Instagram their gorgeous drinks.

Their love for tiki runs deep, and not just at Cardinal. At home, they have more rums than most bars do, they stalk tiki treasures online and sometimes they serve drinks out of a giant conch-shaped vessel. No big deal.

OK, let’s talk tiki with these two.

You guys are really into tiki, so much so that you got matching pineapple tattoos a couple months ago. What’s the story?

CHRIS RESNICK: We woke up one day and we just really wanted to get tattoos, and we kind of wanted to get the same thing. It was right after Tiki Tuesday and we were still on a high from the night before. 

BAYLEE PRUITT: I said, "What if we got pineapples?" and Chris said, "Yesss."

Yeah, those are very real.

What got you hooked on tiki drinks in the first place?

CR: The fact that they weren't super staunchy and boring. 

BP: Yeah, they're silly and over-the-top.

CR: I think it mostly stems from rum more than anything. I was almost always a whiskey drinker, but the more tiki drinks I make, the more I find how much I enjoy rum. A lot of people don't really think they like rum. They've only had bad stuff and made terrible mistakes when they were 16 years old.

BP: I was one of those people. But now we drink rum all the time. At home, it's our go to liquor. 

When you started Tiki Tuesdays at Cardinal, there was just vodka and gin to work with — no rum yet. What’s the trick for using something other than rum successfully in a tiki drink?

CR: Making it taste like rum, mostly.

No such thing as too much garnish.

Baylee cuts each of these skulls and snakes by hand.

Is it possible to make a tiki drink with gin?

CR: Gin will actually be a really fun challenge. Tea goes really well with gin. Then something probably with cream, and maybe orange? We usually never know until we get here. 

What’s your favorite Tiki Tuesday cocktail?

CR: My favorite is the Jungle Bird, which is a classic cocktail usually made with a really deep Black Strap rum, a dark rum. So, (our version) doesn't taste quite as full as a regular one, but it's still really nice with our housemade bitter liqueur. Actually, ours is a little easier to drink than a regular Jungle Bird.

BP: My favorite one to make would probably be the Seabag, which has coconut milk, cinnamon and passion fruit, and toasted coconut shavings. I make the coconut milk, and that process is really fun and it makes the cocktail super fresh.  

Tiki mugs on loan from Baylee and Chris' personal collection.

C-caw! It's a Jungle Bird.

What’s the key to a good tiki drink?

CR: Balance.

BP: And not too sweet.

CR: Tiki drinks typically have three to nine ingredients, so there can be a lot of stuff in there, and you want to be able to taste every flavor.

Speaking of ingredients, which ones do you make from scratch?

CR: Falernum (an almond-ginger-lime syrup), coconut milk, cinnamon syrup, black pepper syrup, strawberry syrup, ginger syrup. 

 Order punch for the table and Baylee and Chris will blow your mind with this cool skull bowl. 

What do people love about your Tiki Tuesday drinks?

BP: Definitely the orange-rind skulls that I spend hours carving! Garnishing is just a huge part of a tiki cocktail. It's as important as any other part of the cocktail. I'm getting much faster at the skulls.

CR: Yeah, she can do around 50 in an hour.

BP: Which doesn't sound like a lot, but it is! 

Your garnish game is strong. And then there's the cool tiki glasses.

BP: The tiki mugs we have at Cardinal, those are from our personal collection. We have twice as much at home as what we have here. We look on eBay, and shop at places online. There's this one company (Bespoke Barware) in London that's fantastic and we lust after everything they make. We do have one thing from them.

CR: It's a big, beautiful conch shell (for shared drinks). It's enormous.

What kind of rum is best for making tiki drinks at home?

CR: I like Appleton Jamaica Rum for most purposes. For a white rum, I would go with Barbancourt.

BP: Rum is great, as far as being affordable. You can get some really nice stuff for the same price as an "eh" bottle of any other spirit.

And, finally, where do you get your sweet tiki shirts?

BP: We buy a lot of stuff from local shops in town, like A.Z. Vintage and Cherry Canary. 

CR: I got a decent haul at H&M recently. They went tropical for spring, which worked out really well for me.

We're making whiskey

A copper ladleful of wash.

By far, the question we get asked most is: When will Cardinal make whiskey?

Usually we say: Soon. 

Today we say: Now!

Last week, we started making our first bourbon using entirely Indiana-grown corn, barley, wheat and rye. We've waited a really long time for this.

This is us loading 1,850 pounds of grain into our cooker, Dolly (as in Parton), one 50-pound bag at a time.

The cooked grain fermented over the weekend, and we'll distill it and barrel it this week, divvying it among a dozen new American oak barrels that are 20 gallons each.

Here, take a look inside the tank. That's the wash bubbling as it ferments. It doesn't look pretty, but, oh that smell. And the sound. Yes, it's our new favorite sound. 

Secret ingredient: Chamomile

The ins and outs of our favorite cocktail ingredients.

Secret ingredient:
Chamomile

A favorite of:
Andrew Wind, bar manager at Cardinal Spirits

Why it's worth it:
Chamomile is light and floral, with a wonderful fragrance, Wind says. It's a simple, subtle way to change things up.

How to use it:
Wind makes a chamomile-honey syrup for a Bees Knees, a classic cocktail with gin, lemon and honey (recipes below). The syrup tempers the tartness of the cocktail, and the chamomile is the little twist that makes the drink taste special. You can easily adjust the syrup's sweetness.

The syrup is also awesome in:
Hot or iced tea (especially green tea)
Any dessert/treat you would want to add a nice floral touch to
On top of pancakes and waffles!
 

CHAMOMILE HONEY SYRUP
Makes 1 cup

2 ounces chamomile (ours comes from Bloomingfoods)
1 cup cold water
1 cup local honey (more or less to taste)

Add chamomile and cold water to a mason jar.
Cold infuse for 3-4 hours, lightly shaking jar every 30 minutes or so.
Strain off liquid into another jar, removing chamomile (it will become too bitter if kept for too long).
In a saucepan, combine chamomile water and honey.
Heat on stovetop until melted and incorporated, then let cool. Keep refrigerated.

BEES KNEES
Makes 1 cocktail

2 ounces Cardinal Spirits American Gin
3/4 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce Chamomile Honey Syrup
Lemon peel, for garnish

Add all ingredients to shaker over ice.
Shake shake shake.
Strain into glass.
Garnish with lemon peel.

Drink Dept.: Sour Ales from Upland Brewing Co. (+ a giveaway)

We’re on a mission to drink all the good drinks. Let’s get started.

Photo by @indyhops

We know this guy who often shows up to dinner parties with a few big bottles of sour ales from Upland Brewing Co. He starts pouring a little here and a little there, and suddenly everyone is rapt and ditching their glasses of snoozefest pinot noir for these acidic, amazingly flavorful beers.

Sour ales are barrel-aged beers with tart, fruity and often funky character that comes from using things like wild yeast strains and fresh fruit. Upland's are intriguing, complex, rare, unpredictable — and incredibly fun to drink. Conversation pieces, really.

We wanted to know more, so we chatted with Caleb Staton, the sours director and former head brewer at Upland, to get the scoop on these award-winning beers. (He's not the dinner-party guy we mentioned. Unrelated: Caleb, would you like to come over for dinner?)

** We are giving away two passes to Upland’s Midwest Sour + Wild + Funk Fest this Saturday in Indianapolis, featuring sours from 25 breweries across the country. The 4th annual event is sold out! Learn how to win the set of passes at the end of this post. **

MIRACLE FRUIT. A ton of whole, unprocessed fruit goes into lambic varieties like peach, persimmon, blackberry and cherry — specifically, up to 3½ pounds of fresh fruit per gallon of beer, Caleb says. This is a huge part of what makes Upland’s sours so remarkable. If you’ve ever peeled and cut, say, a kiwi, you can imagine how time consuming it would be to prep hundreds of pounds of them by hand. But they do it and it’s totally worth it. 

Photo from Upland Brewing Co.

Fruit comes from local sources when possible, Caleb says. The brewery gets strawberries and blackberries from Heartland Family Farm in Spencer and peaches from Huber’s Orchard, Winery and Vineyard in Starlight. Some wild fruit is foraged, too. “We pay a guy to roam around in a van and pick up persimmons,” Caleb says.

Kiwi time. Photo from Upland Brewing Co.

Smooshing Michigan cherries into a barrel of lambic. Photo from Upland Brewing Co.

SMALL BUT MIGHTY. Upland is more devoted than ever to sours and it even has a separate brewery dedicated to making them, but it’s still a niche product. The brewery cranks out 20,000 barrels of beer a year, and less than 300 of those are sour ales, Caleb says. The phrase small batch gets thrown around a lot these days, but it really means something here. It’s what keeps Upland’s sours program experimental and exciting. 

Upland releases more than a dozen varieties of sour ales each year, but they all start as one of three base styles: lambic, a Belgian style aged in white oak; an oud bruin style, aged in white oak; and a Flanders style, aged in bourbon barrels. A blend, known as Sour Reserve, has taken home gold at the Great American Beer Festival.

Photo from Upland Brewing Co.

PLAY TO WIN. Upland’s sour beers can be hard to get a hold of, which is part of their mystique. You can find some varieties in stores (a 750-milliliter bottle is around $25), but most are released in small quantities via lottery. Five lotteries are planned for 2015, and the next lottery in June will feature beers aged on orchid and kiwi, among others (keep an eye on Upland’s social media and website for lottery announcements). If you’re super serious about sours, you can join the Secret Barrel Society to get first access and more bottles than the lottery route. Annual membership is $250.

BETTER TOGETHER. Upland’s sours have always been a collaborative effort. The brewery made its first sour beers in 2006 using spent red-wine oak barrels from Oliver Winery in Bloomington. That partnership still exists today — in 2014, Upland released VinoSynth Red and VinoSynth White sours, both which are aged on Oliver grapes, in Oliver barrels. “To me, that really showcases that the program has come full circle,” Caleb says. 

VinoSynth Red won Best in Show at the 2014 Indiana State Fair. 

Photo from Upland Brewing Co.

Upland is clearly having fun fraternizing when it comes to sours. It recently teamed up with Yazoo Brewing Company in Nashville, Tenn., to make a tropical-tasting, rosy-hued ale with kiwi and cherry, called Three Degrees North. Yazoo will release a companion brown ale called Three Degrees South. Another upcoming collaboration with Great Raft Brewing in Shreveport, Louisiana, uses mayhaw fruit, which is like the crabapple of the southern wetlands.

Upland's Caleb Staton, left, and Yazoo's Brandon Jones. Photo from Upland Brewing Co.

SHARE, PLEASE. The next time you head out to a dinner party, take a cue from our popular dinner party friend and bring sours. Sours make you a fun party guest, and even though they’re flavorful on their own, they’re surprisingly interesting with food, too. “In some ways, they open up your palette like wine would,” Caleb says. Pour them either at the beginning of the meal — they really shine with charcuterie and cheese plates, he says — or with dessert.

---

OK, giveaway time! Upland’s 4th Annual Midwest Sour + Wild + Funk Fest this Saturday in Indianapolis is sold out, but we snagged two passes for one lucky winner. Here’s how to enter: Take a photo of yourself with an empty glass. Post it to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #soursplease and tag Cardinal Spirits and Upland Brewing Co. Enter just once, play fair and all that good stuff. And we’ll pick one winner at random at 5pm on Thursday, 5/14. Best of luck!

Photo by @robmyersphotography