OUR BEST HOLIDAY COCKTAIL RECIPES

Hot or cold. A punch for a crowd or one cocktail at a time. We've got you covered.
These are the merriest cocktails around. 

HOT TODDY

POINSETTIA PUNCH

RED RYDER

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HONEY BUZZ

MILK PUNCH

HOT SPIKED CIDER

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CAFE A L'ORANGE

CLOVER CLUB

ROSY CHEEKS

RED RYDER RECIPE

Looking for a holiday cocktail that's not over-the-top with its holiday flavors? We know exactly what you mean. A drink doesn't have to have crushed peppermint rimming the glass to be festive. The Red Ryder nails it. Spiced cranberry syrup and a fresh rosemary sprig, which gets shaken with the other ingredients, gives this tiki-ish cocktail its holiday spin. It's what Santa drinks when he's on the beach and misses home.

Serving suggestion: Sip it while you're watching "A Christmas Story."

RED RYDER

By Baylee Pruitt

2 ounces Cardinal Spirits Tiki Rum
1 ounce fresh pineapple juice
1/2 ounce fresh lime juice
1/2 ounce spiced cranberry syrup
2 dashes aromatic bitters
Rosemary sprig
Cranberries and rosemary sprig, for garnish

Combine all ingredients, except for garnish, in a shaker with ice. Shake vigorously, then strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with cranberries and rosemary sprig. 

*For the spiced cranberry simple syrup: In a saucepan over medium heat, combine 1 cup cranberry juice, 1 cup sugar, 5 allspice berries, 5 cloves and 2 cinnamon sticks. Simmer for five minutes. Let cool completely and strain before using.

HONEY BUZZ RECIPE

Honey, vanilla, coffee, cinnamon ... hello, holidays! This festive cocktail makes winter nights merrier — sip it while you're waiting for the cookie dough to chill, online shopping or addressing Christmas cards.

HONEY BUZZ

By Jake Cifuentes

1.5 ounces Cardinal Spirits Honey Vanilla Vodka
1/2 ounce Cardinal Spirits Songbird Craft Coffee Liqueur
1/4 ounce simple syrup
2 dashes cinnamon bitters
Lemon wheel and cloves, for garnish

Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake vigorously, then strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a clove-studded lemon wheel.

CRAFTPACK, VOL. 13

Ever wonder how our Songbird Craft Coffee Liqueur is made? Edible Indy breaks it down.

2 stellar punches for holiday gatherings. 

Icicle the cat saved by Smirnoff vodka after accidentally ingesting anti-freeze.

We interviewed one of our Holiday Gift Boxes, and yes, it is just as ridiculous as it sounds.

Atlas Obscura shines the light on a Bloomington building you've probably seen a million times.

INTERVIEW WITH A GIFT BOX

We sat down with one of our holiday gift boxes to talk about working out, reincarnation and finding "the one."

CARDINAL: First off, thanks for making time for us. This is a busy time of year for you, right?

GIFT BOX: Yeah, yeah. No problem, man. You know, it's a funny time of year, because every day I think about how one minute I'm here, and the next, I could be gone. Really makes you think about object permanence and all that stuff. Sorry, didn't mean to get existential so fast. 

That's OK. Let's lighten the mood. You're so sturdy. Do you work out?

Oh man, I hate answering this question because it makes me look like such a jerk! I actually do not work out.

What! What's your secret?

Thank you for the compliment though, really. I have to give a ton of credit to my manufacturer, Columbus Container Corp., it's uh, it's right nearby actually, in Columbus, Ind. I was made really well from the start, so I don't need a lot of maintenance. 

If you could have a drink with anyone, living or deceased, who would it be?

Probably the person who invented Tetris. 

Let's talk goals. What's yours? You want to go home with someone?

Yeah, don't we all? (Laughter.) But, yeah, definitely just waiting for that moment when I click with the right person. I have a friend — she's a Moscow Mule gift box, actually — and she's always telling me I have to be in the right place at the right time. That it's all timing. It's actually the last thing she said to me before she went home with someone. So, like, I know it'll happen. Maybe it's someone who is reading this right now.

And what would you say to that person?

Um ... this is tough! It's hard to talk about yourself. But, OK. I'm an incredible value. Ounce for ounce, I'm a better deal than if you were to buy all these spirits a la carte. My spirits are Vodka, Coffee Liqueur and Flora, which is just a really nice mix. The vodka is incredibly smooth, the Coffee Liqueur has a wonderful, robust coffee flavor and is a no-brainer around the holidays, and then there's Flora, which is a lovely, floral-berry liqueur. And the bottles are half the size of the regular bottles around here, so it's like a sampler. People walk up to me all the time and are like, "OMG, soooo cute."

Do you believe in reincarnation?

Oh yeah, for sure. I've been a ton of boxes since the '70s.

Great to be born in the era of recycling, huh?

Amen to that.

What kind of box do you think you'll be in your next life?

I mean, if I'm being honest? Probably an Amazon box. But I think it could be fun to be a box of chocolates. Like a Whitman's sampler or something. We'll see. Flaps crossed.

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Holiday Gift Boxes are sold at the distillery, or order online for local pickup. 

Free gift wrapping and holiday cocktails from 1-5pm this Saturday. 

AGE YOUR OWN WHISKEY KITS: LET'S DO IT TOGETHER

Drinking is, of course, a social thing, and sometimes you're happy to pop a bottle of whatever — even if it's not your absolute favorite — to please the crowd.

And other times, you really want to geek out about what you're drinking with people who are just as passionate as you are. 

Our Age Your Own Whiskey kits are for those geek-out moments, and they come with a built-in crowd of fellow DIYers. We're all going to do it together. Here's what we mean... 

First: what's in a kit? A bottle of our White Oak Whiskey (our unaged single malt barley whiskey), a toasted American oak stave and an instruction card. It's $25, and available through the holidays at the distillery (oh, hey there, perfect gift). You're in the driver's seat with this kit, and get to decide just how much color and flavor you want.

The idea is that everyone with a kit starts aging their bottle at the same time and uses social media to do this thing together.

Here's how it works:

1. Drop the stave in the bottle on 12/26.
2. Snap a photo each week and post it to social media with #whiskeymyway. Use the hashtag to see who else is aging, how it's going and how their whiskey tastes. And let's share tips: are you agitating? Keeping it warm? Adding an extra stave? (We sell extra staves for $2.50 a pop.)
3. Each week, we'll post a summary of the bottles so we can see each other's progress. Follow along on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and here on the blog.

It's all on the instruction card that comes with the kit.

We've seen great color and flavor right around five weeks, but the fun part is that you get to decide when your whiskey is ready. 

And that's how you age whiskey without filing for a federal distiller's permit. Hurray!

WHISKEY SOUR RECIPE

We're releasing our very first barrel of single malt whiskey on Saturday. RSVP and come early if you want to get a bottle. So you get a bottle, bring it home, and then what? You make a Whiskey Sour.

You just cannot go wrong with this drink: smooth and airy, with a gentle tang and a nice, foamy cap. Your dad likes it. Your bestie likes it. Even your co-worker who definitely does not like whiskey likes it. There's a reason a Whiskey Sour is known as the white T-shirt of cocktails.

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!

WHISKEY SOUR

Makes 1 cocktail

2 ounces Cardinal Spirits Whiskey
1/2 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/2 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
1/2 ounce simple syrup
1 egg white
brandied cherry and bitters, for garnish

Combine ingredients in a shaker without ice, and shake vigorously to emulsify the egg white. Then, add ice to the shaker and shake again to chill. Strain into a rocks glass with ice, and garnish with a brandied cherry and a couple dashes of bitters.

FIRST WHISKEY BARREL RELEASE

We are bottling our first ever barrel of whiskey this week, and will release it on Saturday, Dec. 5, which happens to be Repeal Day, the date Prohibition ended. What timing!

This is a single malt whiskey, made from 100 percent malted barley from Sugar Creek Malt Co. in Lebanon, Ind. As far as we know, this is the very first craft single malt whiskey in Indiana. 

We are thrilled to be able to share this whiskey with you before the end of this year, our first year of business. A distillery only releases its first barrel once, you know. So if you're interested in purchasing a bottle (375ml for $30) please RSVP and come early.

Emptying the whiskey barrel into the tank in preparation for bottling.

5 things you should know about our whiskey:

1. WE ARE RELEASING JUST ONE (1) BARREL. There are roughly 53 gallons of whiskey in that barrel.

2. IT TASTES TOASTY, MALTY, SPICY. And there's definitely some welcome sweetness to it, which comes from the way we distill it. Our house flavor, if you will. Its home for the better part of this year was a charred American oak barrel — traditionally used for bourbon, but we used it for our single malt whiskey.

3. OUR WHISKEY WAS AGED ON SITE AT THE DISTILLERY. When you take a tour, we'll show you the other barrels that are waiting for their big day to come.

4. WE DIDN'T ADD ANY COLOR TO THIS WHISKEY. Did you know that some distilleries add caramel coloring to their spirits to make them look more mature? What's that all about? We're not even going there. Ours went straight from the barrel to the bottle without any tinkering.

5. WE WEREN'T PLANNING TO RELEASE WHISKEY THIS SOON, but you tasted it and told us to do it. We offered samples of what we had aging to whiskey drinkers who we know have good taste, and over and over again, we heard, "It's ready to go." And here we are.

Jason, Doug, Jeff, Adam, Justin and Rob. Happy faces after a couple of stressful minutes of emptying the whiskey barrel. 

CRAFTPACK, VOL. 12

Links that make you go Hmmm.

We've got all new Tiki Tuesday drinks with a wonderful, wintry twist — like the one above with Standard Dry Gin, pineapple shrub, lapsang souchong syrup, lime and sage. 

Is there a more polarizing liqueur than this one?

Eating — and drinking — invasive species.

Diddy's birthday apple pie was 30 inches across, had 30 pounds of flour, 20 pounds of sugar — and zero drops of the apple-flavored Ciroc that Diddy just launched. Missed opportunity?

Cocktails for Dingdongs and other new booze books that might be fun to gift (or get).