CRAFTPACK, VOL. 6

Links that make you go Hmmm.

This is such an interesting read about "The Sniffer," a woman whose job it is to smell liquor from craft distilleries. 

What it's really like to work at a hip Brooklyn beer bar (which serves ale in wine glasses).

Stylish DIY cocktails stirrers, if you're into that sort of thing. (And, if not, some ones to buy.)

Salmon-safe beer is a thing in Portland.

In case you missed it: Our very best spiked apple cider recipe for tailgating, camping, bonfiring this fall.

MORE CRAFTPACK:
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HOT SPIKED CIDER RECIPE

This weekend is homecoming at Indiana University in Bloomington, and we've got some tailgating in our future. And you know what feels awesome in your hand on one of those sunny yet brisk fall days? A warm drink to keep you toasty.

We asked our bar manager Logan Hunter to share his favorite apple cider recipe to make for a crowd — something we could spike with our delicious White Oak Whiskey and pour into a thermos or two to share on the go with friends. And trust us, when you roll in with spiked cider, you make a lot of friends.

We are running a special Saturday and Sunday at the distillery: Buy a bottle of White Oak Whiskey or Honey Vanilla Vodka + a half gallon of Musgrave's Apple Cider + a pack of spices for $28. We only have 24 half-gallons so this will go quick!

This recipe of spiked apple cider makes a big batch — enough to fill about 16 mugs — but it's easy to halve if that sounds like too much. (Hint: it's never too much.) Make it at home in the morning, pour it into a few thermoses or one big guy, and head out. 

HOT SPIKED CIDER

By Logan Hunter

Makes about 16 servings

1 gallon apple cider (We love the cider from Musgrave Orchard in Bloomington)
4 cinnamon sticks
12 cloves
12 allspice berries
1/2 ounce vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
1 orange, sliced
1 lemon, sliced
2 cups Cardinal Spirits White Oak Whiskey (about 2/3 of a bottle)

1. Combine all ingredients except for the whiskey in a medium pot. Bring to a simmer over low heat. Continue to simmer for about 20 minutes.
2. Remove from heat and let the cider cool slightly, then strain if desired.
3. Add the whiskey and stir to combine. Pour cider into thermoses or a large insulated beverage container, working quickly to keep it warm. If you don't need it to-go, keep it warm on low heat on the stove or in a slow cooker.  

Variation: This cider is also stellar with our Honey Vanilla Vodka instead of White Oak Whiskey. Omit the vanilla extract and sugar if using Honey Vanilla Vodka. 

SLOW HAND COCKTAIL RECIPE

This Slow Hand cocktail by Cardinal bartender Jake Cifuentes is like a liquid version of Mexican chocolate — rich, smooth, spicy. Even though it's served over ice, it's naturally warming thanks to a kick from the cocoa-cayenne syrup. So good for fall.

SLOW HAND

By Jake Cifuentes

1 ounce cocoa-cayenne simple syrup*
2 ounces Cardinal Spirits Songbird Craft Coffee Liqueur
2 ounces Cardinal Spirits Vodka
Whole coffee beans for garnish

Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice; shake and strain into a glass with ice. Garnish with a few coffee beans.

*To make a the cocoa-cayenne simple syrup: Combine 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon cayenne powder, and 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer to dissolve ingredients. Remove from heat and let cool before using. Add more cayenne to taste if you like more heat!

Want more Cardinal cocktail recipes? Find them all right here. 

CRAFTPACK, VOL. 5

Links that make you go Hmmm.

This big index of simple syrup recipes is a handy thing to bookmark.

How to make a cocktail video, haha.

Cardinal Spirits cocktails and dining by candlelight? This is a dinner you don't want to miss.

Any food/drink bloggers out there? You might find this helpful:  39 blogging tools that'll make you work faster and write better. 

Is there a more perfect drink for Halloween than this?

MISSED A CRAFTPACK? CATCH UP HERE:
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MEET OUR CREW: Alex Utter

We've got a spectacular crew here at Cardinal Spirits, and we'd like to introduce you to everybody one by one. Today, meet Alex, one of our wonderful servers.

ALEX UTTER

WHERE ARE YOU FROM?
Kansas City, Missouri

HOW LONG HAVE YOU LIVED IN BLOOMINGTON?
6 years

BEST PART ABOUT LIVING HERE?
I like that Bloomington is such a diverse and welcoming place.
This town also celebrates uniqueness and creativity, which I love.

FAVORITE DRINK
A cappuccino

GO-TO DRINK AT CARDINAL
It's a tie between the Pineapple Bottom Jeans and the classic Salty Dog

ANY HIDDEN TALENTS?
I'm really good at baking treats for people,
and mixing up song lyrics whenever I try to sing them.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST JOB?
My first job was at Ransburg Scout Reservation on Lake Monroe, as a Ranch Counselor.
I got to teach merit badges, ride horses through the woods everyday,
and work with some pretty fantastic people.

WHAT ARE YOU READING?
These days, I like to read books that can teach me something applicable to my everyday life and interests. The most recent book I enjoyed reading was Being Peace, by Thich Nhat Hanh.

FAVORITE CEREAL
Honey Nut Cheerios

ON INSTAGRAM
@raravis90

Photos by Anna Powell Teeter

#NAILEDIT: KING CARDINAL TIRAMISU AT KING DOUGH

Just when you think you couldn't love King Dough any more, with its perfect pizzas and magical meatballs, and its beautiful wood-fired oven and lovely owners Adam and Alicia Sweet, they go and do this.

King Cardinal Tiramisu, made with Cardinal Spirits Songbird Craft Coffee Liqueur. Genius! 

You know tiramisu. You love tiramisu. It's that elegant Italian dessert with layers of espresso-soaked ladyfinger cookies and decadent mascarpone cheese — and it's often spiked with a little brandy or rum or coffee liqueur.

But you haven't had tiramisu like this. King Dough puts a modern twist on the classic version. 

All the traditional flavors are there, but it's been reimagined. Instead of making it in a big pan and portioning out slices, all of the layers are loaded into single-serving mason jars. Italian grandmothers will be like, "Whaaat?" but we're digging it. King Dough's version feels relaxed, and it's built for sharing. It is something you devour — everybody's spoons are clanking and scraping up the sides of the jar to get every last bit. 

A perfect bite? We think so.

We headed over to King Dough — a wood-fired pizza spot that opened a few weeks ago on the Square in downtown Bloomington — and checked in with Brenden Eade, who makes the tiramisu among other things at the restaurant.

Eade gave us the scoop on how the tiramisu comes together. A chocolate sponge cake that has been roughed up into crumbles goes in first. Then comes a generous drizzle of sauce made with Cardinal Spirits Songbird Craft Coffee Liqueur, sweetened condensed milk and espresso. Then, a decadent mixture of mascarpone cheese, whipped cream and more coffee liqueur is piped in with a whipping siphon, which gives it a lighter, airier texture. Aaaaand repeat all of that until the jar is filled to the top. 

But wait, there's more.

The dessert is topped with shards of chocolate, then dusted with cinnamon. Eade points out that the peaks of chocolate kind of look like a king's crown.  #nailedit!

Brenden Eade fills jars with tiramisu.

MORE WAYS TO DRINK SONGBIRD CRAFT COFFEE LIQUEUR:
Coffee liqueur + caramel milkshake 
Coffee liqueur and tonic cocktail
Cafe a l'Orange cocktail

LOGAN HUNTER: BLOOMINGTON DRINK SLINGER

Look who is in the latest issue of Edible Indy magazine: Cardinal's own Logan Hunter! Read all about our bar manager in this story: The Bloomington Drink Slinger.

Logan is the real deal when it comes to bartenders — so knowledgeable about classic cocktails, so skilled at developing original ones. He's friendly and will always make time to chat about what you're drinking, or what you want to be drinking. If you're at Cardinal when he is behind the bar, plant yourself on a stool and get to know him. If you've been in Bloomington for a while, you might recognize him from his days at the Irish Lion and Uptown Cafe. 

The crew from Edible Indy — a magazine all about the food scene in central Indiana — stopped by to see us this summer, and Logan shared these two gin cocktail recipes with them:

THE MARTINEZ

2 ounces Cardinal Spirits Standard Dry Gin
1 ounce sweet vermouth
1/4 ounce Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Place all ingredients into a tall glass. Fill with ice. Stir gently, then strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with orange twist.

NEGRONI

Watch Logan make this cocktail

1 ounce Campari
1 ounce sweet vermouth
1 ounce Cardinal Spirits Standard Dry Gin
Orange peel

Add Campari, sweet vermouth and gin to a tall glass with ice, then stir. Strain into an old fashioned glass with a large ice cube. Squeeze an orange peel over the cocktail to release the oil, then twist the peel and use as garnish.

Want more cocktail recipes? You got it. Find all of our recipes right here.

CRAFTPACK, VOL. 4

Links that make you go Hmmm.

Well, well, well! Here's a fun, boozy little project to do this week: apple and quince-infused brandy. 

“A large part of tequila comes from God-knows-where.” The plight of Mexico's iconic spirit is fascinating.

Tiki Tuesday at Cardinal Spirits. Have you been? Have you been lately? Tiki masters Chris Resnick and Baylee Pruitt's cocktails are nothing less than works of art: this, this and this. (Can you guess what matching tattoo Chris and Baylee have?) 

The next time you're sitting around a fire on one of these beautiful fall nights, drinking spiked cider and looking up at the starry sky, here's some heavy stuff about the universe to think about that will induce either awe or an existential meltdown. 

Hey, what's your favorite apple cider?

MORE CRAFTPACK:

VOL. 1  |  VOL. 2  |  VOL. 3

Communication Breakdown

We talk a lot about what we do and how we do it. The thoughts ahead are more about the "why." This is the rambling of a tired man in the middle of his distillery's first year. There is a monster at the end of this blog.

Hemingway said you should write drunk and edit sober. He knew that alcohol has a way of loosening up the mind (and tongue, and pen, and keyboard). The booze gets into us and all the sudden we don’t think twice before saying what's on our minds. The unseen weight of society telling us not to speak up is lifted. We lose our fear of embarrassment. This has some significant benefits, both to the drinker and to society at large. It's one reason we do what we do here at Cardinal Spirits.

For a young, drunk Hemingway, it means you can share your deep personal insights freely and unload any mental and emotional weight you’ve been lugging around. It is a temporary freedom, a furlough from the sobering daily grind of life as a worker bee in the hive of the American economy. It means sharing things that need to be shared, but have been kept inside for too long, hardening layers of plaque around what once was a grain of sand, and finally spitting out a pearl of wisdom in a drunken belch from your shell. It’s a release.

For the rest of us, the drinker is a fountain of potential. Many of the best ideas in history have bubbled up from booze-fueled conversations between actual geniuses and mortals experiencing moments of temporary clarity. Clarity is not a common association with spirits, but they break down the walls of mental defense so readily that it's not uncommon.

Unfortunately, there are forces at work that seem to be trying to prevent the sharing of ideas. Communication amongst the younger generations has devolved into vague hieroglyphics, reducing complex ideas and emotions into single-syllable words or even symbols. You can like something, or smiley-face something. What if you are slightly confused yet kind of turned on by something? No emoji for that yet. But the world will never be black and white, and we already have language to describe grey areas. We should add more words to the dictionary instead of condensing the ones we have.

At a higher level, our schools are teaching students that consuming information is more important than creating new ideas. Standardized tests contain multiple sections on reading and comprehension, but zero on writing and creativity. This means that when my cousin, a high school teacher in Indianapolis, gives a writing assignment to her English class, the resulting papers are nearly unreadable. Their ideas are simple, yet disorganized. Their vocabulary is small. Our government has forced schools to improve standardized test scores under threat of withdrawing funding, which means schools only teach what is on the standardized tests. Writing and creativity are devalued systematically. Does the government want consumers rather than communicators? I don’t know if there is a conspiracy at play or not, but we are surely losing something by not teaching the next generation how to properly express their ideas.

One of the big reasons we started Cardinal Spirits was that we were tired of consuming rather than creating. We wanted to hold something in our hands and say, "I made this, and I'm proud of it." That goes for communication as well. We spend the bulk of our marketing dollars and energy on creating things - blog posts, videos, recipes - that people actually enjoy and want. We want to create value and share ideas.

Communication should be a two-way street. Regardless of what our culture seems to be shouting, there is real value in talking to each other.

One of the greatest joys in life is sitting down across from another human being, toasting your health, and sharing ideas.

Homework assignment: Invite someone you barely know to have a drink at your favorite bar. Ask them what they have been thinking about recently. What things in the news, outside the headlines, have caught their attention? What is the biggest problem in their life? And what are they going to do about it? Flip to a random page in a book and discuss how the 3rd paragraph makes you both feel. If all goes well, order another drink. 

Drink Local

What do we mean when we say "drink local"?

At the most basic level, when you drink local more money stays in the community. When you choose a locally-made beer, wine, or spirit over  a big national brand, more money stays here in Indiana. Some smart finance people named this the "local economic multiplier effect." 

The multiplier has three elements — the direct, indirect, and induced impacts. 

"Direct Impact" is spending done by a business in the local economy to operate the business. Direct impact spending includes inventory, utilities, equipment and pay to employees. Let's say you buy a local craft spirit at the liquor store instead of a bottle of Grey Goose or Tito's. It's around the same price - our bottles are usually around 25 bucks - but the purchase impact is much greater. The money spent on a bottle of Cardinal Spirits goes directly into growing our local economy. We use some of that money to buy grain from farmers in Columbus, Lebanon, and all over the state. We use some of it to buy boxes from Columbus Container. Most importantly, we use the majority of it to pay a living wage to the twenty-odd Hoosiers on our payroll. 

"Indirect Impact" happens as dollars the local business spent at other area businesses re-circulate. The money we spend on the corn from Glick in Columbus is in turn spent by them to pay for local services. The money we spend to buy coffee from Hopscotch is in turn spent by them to expand their coffee shop. They hire local designers, contractors, and carpenters.

"Induced Impact" is when employees and business owners reuse their income in the local economy. Our employees use their wages to buy food at the Bloomington farmers market. That, in turn, pays for seeds and farm labor. We go out to dinner at local restaurants, which starts the cycle all over again

All the money from that sale stays in Indiana, and multiplies over and over and over again. Drinking Local is a virtuous cycle, and continually improves the community. The alternative, buying a product made somewhere far away, means that dollar is just a dollar.

Even if you don't care about the economic multiplier, there are many more tangible reasons:

Support non-profits: Small businesses contribute 250% more to local non-profits than large businesses.

Keep your city unique: Where we shop, where we eat and have fun -- it all makes our community home. Our one-of-a-kind businesses are an integral part of the distinctive character of this place. Our tourism businesses also benefit.  “When people go on vacation they generally seek out destinations that offer them the sense of being someplace, not just anyplace.” ~ Richard Moe, President, National Historic Preservation Trust

Reduce environmental impact: Locally owned businesses can make more local purchases, requiring less transportation. They generally set up shop in town or city centers as opposed to developing on the fringe. This generally means contributing less to sprawl, congestion, habitat loss and pollution.

Create more good jobs: Small local businesses are the largest employer nationally and in Indiana. We provide the most jobs to Hoosiers.

We stick around: Local businesses are owned by people who live in this community, are less likely to leave, and are more invested in the community’s future.

Less tax burden: Local businesses in town centers require comparatively little infrastructure investment and make more efficient use of public services as compared to nationally owned stores entering the community.

Better selection: A marketplace of thousands of small businesses is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long-term.  A multitude of small businesses, each selecting products based not on a corporate national sales plan, but on their own interests and the needs of their local customers, guarantees a much broader range of product choices.

Drinking local means you recirculate a far greater amount of money locally compared to the mass-produced spirits, beer, and wine. Drinking local creates more local wealth and jobs right where you live. When you buy from an independent local distiller or brewer, more of your money stays in the community.

Drink local, drink craft.

If any of these resonate with you, and you want to support you community by drinking local, visit our distillery for a tour, buy a bottle, or find our spirits at a location near you.

Sources: 
http://www.amiba.net/resources/multiplier-effect/
https://sustainableconnections.org/thinklocal/why
https://ilsr.org/why-support-locally-owned-businesses/