CLOVER CLUB RECIPE

Cardinal bartender Stella Snyder shows us how to make a classic gin cocktail called the Clover Club. It's tart, a touch sweet, a lovely rosy color with a foamy cap — what's not to love?

A note on your shaking technique: cocktails like this one that call for egg white are usually shaken in two steps. The first is a so-called dry shake without ice — this emulsifies the egg white. Then, add ice and shake a second time, which chills and properly dilutes the drink. Cheers!

CLOVER CLUB

1.5 ounces Cardinal Spirits Standard Dry Gin
Egg white
3/4 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce raspberry simple syrup (recipe follows)

Add all ingredients to a shaker without ice, and shake vigorously to emulsify the egg with the other ingredients. Add ice to the shaker and shake a second time. Strain into a coupe glass. 

To make the raspberry simple syrup: Combine 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar and 1 pint raspberries (small package) in a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium-low heat. Simmer for 5 minutes; let cool, then strain before using.

MEET OUR CREW: MICHELLE GOTTSCHLICH

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

MICHELLE GOTTSCHLICH

HOMETOWN
Portage, Ind.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU LIVED IN BLOOMINGTON
7 years

BEST PART ABOUT LIVING HERE?
 A lot of lively and creative people live here--there's always something to get into; a show, an art opening, a film at the cinema, food, food, booze, food. It's also very walkable!

FAVORITE THING TO DRINK
Negronis and coconut flavored La Croix (not together)

GO-TO DRINK AT CARDINAL
Every cocktail by Baylee

TELL US SOMETHING INTERESTING ABOUT YOU.
I had a book of poetry published last spring!

ANY HIDDEN TALENTS?
Up to this point, I've never broken a bone, had a nosebleed, or been in a traffic accident besides falling off my bike

FIRST JOB/WORST JOB
First job was working at a IMAX movie theater when I was 15. Worst job was life guarding.

READ ANYTHING GOOD LATELY?
I'm currently reading Madness, Rack, and Honey. It's a book of lectures by the poet Mary Ruefle.

FAVORITE CEREAL
Honey Bunches of Oats

IF YOU COULD HAVE A DRINK WITH ANYONE…
Probably my maternal great grandmother Vanetta (who could drink like a sailor, I've heard)

IN THE THE FUTURE…
Married folks will have increasing trouble with hyphenating already hyphenated last names. It will eventually be more popular to use the maternal last name. Also, down with the patriarchy <3

FIND MICHELLE
On Instagram @chellesbells11  |  On Facebook

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MEET MORE OF OUR FLOCK:

ALEX UTTER

CHRIS RESNICK

ALYVIA CAIN

HERE'S HOW WE MAKE SONGBIRD CRAFT COFFEE LIQUEUR

Our Songbird Craft Coffee Liqueur is nothing short of magical. If you've had a sip — either straight, or in a cocktail — you've probably noticed how much it tastes like coffee. Which gets you thinking: How's this spirit made, anyway? 

Watch as we make a batch from start to finish.

Then come to the distillery, where you can try a sample or a cocktail make with our coffee liqueur. You can also buy a bottle at the distillery, or at retailers across the state. 

Video by Anna Powell Teeter

OUR MOST POPULAR COFFEE LIQUEUR COCKTAIL RECIPES:

CAFE A L'ORANGE

SLOW HAND

MINT + COFFEE COCKTAIL

CRAFTPACK, VOL. 8

Links that make you go Hmmm.

A roundup of new cocktail books, including a scratch-and-sniff book about whiskey, to put on your holiday wish list.

A couple of coffee reads for your Monday morning: Peet's, which bought Stumptown recently, acquired Intelligentsia last week, plus: the future of fancy iced coffee. 

What do you think about these upgrades to shameful cocktail orders of our youth?

Well, fizzy fruit is our new favorite garnish.

MORE CRAFTPACK:
VOL. 1  |  VOL. 2  |  VOL. 3  |  VOL. 4  |  VOL. 5  |  VOL. 6  |  VOL. 7

AUTUMN SMOKE COCKTAIL RECIPE

Lapsang souchong, a smoky black tea, combined with pear juice, cinnamon and our Tiki Rum gives this cocktail its amazing fireside flavor. Cardinal bartender Stella Snyder shows us how to shake it up.

AUTUMN SMOKE

By Stella Snyder

1.5 ounces Cardinal Spirits Tiki Rum
1.5 ounces pear juice
3/4 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce lapsang souchong simple syrup* 
dash cinnamon bitters

Shake with ice; pour the liquid and ice into a cocktail glass and garnish with a cinnamon stick.

*To make lapsang souchong simple syrup: combine 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, and 2 bags of lapsang souchong tea in a saucepan. Simmer for 5 minutes. Let cool, then remove tea bags. 

THE SOURCE: Blu Boy Chocolate

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

Blu Boy chocolates filled with Cardinal Spirits vodka.

If you think they only way to enjoy our vodka is to drink it, then you've missed the corner of our menu where we offer chocolates filled with our vodka. Oh yes. It's a crazy-good idea. They're available only at the distillery and they're made just for us by Blu Boy Chocolate, a sweet little shop in downtown Bloomington that's known for hand-made gourmet chocolates and desserts, plus espresso drinks.

Some of the chocolates have patterned and hand-painted shells that are so pretty, you almost hate to take a bite — like ours, imprinted with tiny red cardinals. But you must bite, otherwise you'd miss out on superb ganache-filled chocolates scented with blood orange, jasmine and ancho chile, and hand-rolled truffles in flavors like raspberry dark-chocolate. Meanwhile, the pastry case at Blu Boy is stocked with French macarons, salted caramel brownies and layer cakes. And let's not forget the shop's signature ice cream sandwich, made with local honey ice cream.

We chatted with Dani Doyle, Blu Boy's COO, about Cardinal's specialty chocolates and more:

Cardinal chocolate shells

Cardinal chocolates filled with ganache

WITH THE CARDINAL CHOCOLATES, WHEN DOES THE VODKA COME INTO PLAY?

The vodka comes in with the ganache — the filling. Once the chocolate and heavy cream are all mixed up and you've got your traditional ganache, that's when we'll add the vodka in.  There's no set ratio, it's just what tastes right. 

AND CAN YOU ACTUALLY TASTE THE VODKA?

With Cardinal vodka, which has such a distinctive taste, you can definitely pick that up. And it makes the ganache a little more soft. 

Lavender and dark chocolate-ganache chocolates.

Hand-painted chocolate shells, ready to be filled with ganache.

BLU BOY'S GANACHE-FILLED CHOCOLATES WITH PRETTY PAINTED SHELLS ARE SO STRIKING — HOW ARE THOSE MADE?

Those are hand-painted with colored cocoa butter (by chocolatier and Blu Boy owner David Fletcher). He'll take a little paintbrush and brush the insides of the molds. That'll dry, and then he'll pour chocolate on top of that (to create the top of the shell). Then he'll pipe in the ganache, then pour more chocolate to seal them. 

The hand-painted chocolates take about three days to make. Hand painting the chocolate shells is one day, then filling them is another day, and then sealing them off is another day. You can't really rush that. It just takes three days to do. 

SAY IT IS SOMEONE'S FIRST VISIT TO BLU BOY. WHAT SHOULD THEY KNOW WHEN THEY WALK IN?

I describe this place as the gem of the from-scratch bakery. We don't use any mixes. All of our chocolates are made here. All the pastries are made here. The ice cream is made here. Everything we sell, we put a lot of love and pride into.

We get all of our honey from Hunter's Honey in Martinsville. We get eggs from Poplar Ridge Farm, and we get those hand delivered every week. And with our coffee, we partnered with Brown County Coffee Roasters for a special Blu Boy espresso blend that we use for all of our espresso beverages. 

Fleur de sel caramels

Honey ice cream sandwich.

IF SOMEONE WANTS TO TRY JUST ONE BLU BOY CHOCOLATE — JUST ONE — WHAT WOULD YOU RECOMMEND?

Fleur de sel caramel. It's hands down the most popular things we sell, and really encapsulates what we do here. These are dipped in chocolate individually and salted individually. Each little piece of chocolate is done singularly. It's not mass produced or anything you can rush through, and that's what we're all about: taking our time and making a really great product.

OK, LET'S MOVE ON TO DESSERTS. WHICH ONE IS A MUST-TRY?

An ice cream sandwich with our honey ice cream — you can't go wrong with that. Our chocolate chip cookies are rolled in cinnamon sugar, and it pairs nicely with honey ice cream. The honey ice cream in and of itself is unique. It's not a vanilla base with honey flavor, it's just honey ice cream.

Dani Doyle of Blu Boy.

A build-your-own box of chocolates.

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE BLU BOY CHOCOLATE?

Over Valentine's Day we'll do a chocolate called Love's True Kiss, which is aleppo pepper. Unlike like our ancho chile chocolate which we have on a regular basis (and doesn't have too much heat), this one is actually spicy, like really spicy. I think that's such a unique experience because when most people have chocolate they think of this smooth, sweet, mellow chocolate experience and Love's True Kiss just blows that out of the water. It's spicy but very, very good.

WHEN YOU WERE YOUNGER, DID YOU EVER PICK A PIECE OF CHOCOLATE OUT OF A VARIETY BOX, TAKE A BITE AND FIND SOME GROSS GOO INSIDE? WASN'T THAT JUST THE WORST?

I am super allergic to peanut butter, so I never had the random chocolate thing happen because ... I couldn't. I was super paranoid. But, we do include a description of the chocolates with our boxes. 

CRAFTPACK, VOL.7

Links that make you go Hmmm.

This is so great: what men vs. women Tweet when they drink. #girlsnight

Would you drink this cocktail that is nearly half bitters?

Really amazing fall cocktail recipes to try this week: Yellow Jacket with cinnamon-honey syrup. Warm spiked apple cider, a classic. And Spice Island, with a dusting of fresh nutmeg.

On a branding note, did you see that Jeni's ice cream pints got a makeover?

YELLOW JACKET COCKTAIL RECIPE

Love our Standard Dry Gin? Then this Yellow Jacket cocktail by Cardinal bartender Stella is just for you. It's a fall twist on the classic Bees Knees.

YELLOW JACKET

2 ounces Cardinal Spirits Standard Dry Gin
3/4 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce cinnamon-honey simple syrup*

Shake with ice, strain into a coupe class.

*To make cinnamon-honey simple syrup: In a saucepan, simmer 1 cup water, 1 cup honey and 6 cinnamon sticks for 5 minutes. Cool completely then remove cinnamon sticks before using.

SPICE ISLAND COCKTAIL RECIPE

Today's secret ingredient: Nutmeg.

Cinnamon, cloves and other baking spices really hit the spot in cocktails this time of year, don't you think? For Cardinal bartender Baylee Pruitt, nutmeg is the real winner. It's one of her all-time favorite garnishes for fall drinks — she takes a whole seed and gives it a few passes on a fine grater right over the glass, letting the spice fall like snow.

"I like the look of it, I like the smell of it. I like the texture. I like everything about it," Baylee says. 

Pass on the powdery, pre-grated stuff and buy whole nutmeg seeds instead — they're right there in the spice aisle, or sometimes in the bulk area. It smells so amazing when you grate it fresh, and you'll get a whiff of it every time you take a sip of your drink.

Try freshly grated nutmeg as a garnish in Baylee's lovely fall cocktail called Spice Island, which crisply combines tart apples with flavors of cinnamon, raisin and brown sugar.

SPICE ISLAND

By Baylee Pruitt

Makes 1 cocktail

2 ounces Cardinal Spirits Tiki Rum
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
1/2 ounce raisin-brown sugar simple syrup*
1 dash cinnamon bitters
1 dash Angostura bitters
4 slices of Pink Lady apple
Freshly-grated nutmeg, for garnish

1. Place apples and syrup in a shaker and muddle.
2. Add rum, lemon juice, both bitters and ice. Shake vigorously.
3. Double-strain into an old fashioned glass filled with ice. 
4. Grate fresh nutmeg on top of the cocktail to garnish. 

*To make raisin-brown sugar simple syrup: In a saucepan, combine 1 cup brown sugar, 3/4 cup water and 1/3 cup raisins. Heat until simmering, muddling the raisins as it's cooking. Cool completely and strain before using.

MEET OUR CREW: CHRIS RESNICK

We've got a spectacular crew here at Cardinal Spirits, and we'd like to introduce you to everybody one by one. Today, meet Chris Resnick, head bartender at Cardinal and one half of our talented Tiki Tuesday team. Here, Chris answers some Cardinal Qs.

CHRIS RESNICK

HOMETOWN
Bedford, Ind.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU LIVED IN BLOOMINGTON?
17 years

BEST PART ABOUT LIVING HERE?
I like the small town/but not TOO small town feel. Right now I'm loving the fall leaves.

HOW DO YOU TRAVEL ABOUT TOWN?
I used to walk but now I drive a pretty bitchin' mini van.

FAVORITE THING TO DRINK
Jamaican rum

GO-TO DRINK AT CARDINAL
The Stirred Bird is amazing.

FIRST JOB
My first job was at Little Caesars. I was in the pizza game for like 14 years.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO READ?
I read every cocktail book I can get my hands on. Aside from that, I do biographies and some fiction.

BEST ADVICE FOR MAKING BETTER DRINKS AT HOME
Always use fresh ingredients and always watch your proportions. Even a little bit more or less of anything can drastically change the balance and flavors of a drink.

FIND CHRIS
On Instagram  |  On Facebook

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MEET MORE OF OUR FLOCK:

ALEX UTTER

ALYVIA CAIN