THE CRAZIEST THING ABOUT OUR FIRST COCKTAIL MENU...

When we opened up our distillery and cocktail bar in February 2015, the immediate hit on the drink menu was the tart and citrusy Cardinal Sling. There was the Red Bird, a riff on the Negroni. And the Hot Hopscotch, the perfect boozy coffee. And ooooh, the Cafe a l'Orange, a dreamy combination of coffee and orange that had been missing all your life. 

But did you know that every single drink on our first menu was made with...

... Vodka?

Every. Single. Drink. Our brunch drinks. Our #tikituesday drinks. The hot drinks. The cold drinks. All with our vodka.

You might be thinking: Doesn't it seem a little insane to open a bar that serves just one kind of alcohol? 

By Indiana law, a distillery is only allowed to serve the booze it produces, and when we opened, vodka was the one spirit we had distilled and bottled. We knew we'd make more spirits (12 of them, in fact, by the end of 2015) but at the time, vodka was our sun, moon and stars.

Here was the menu when we opened in February 2015: 

Fortunately, our talented bar crew did some major tinkering with our vodka to make the menu diverse until our other sprits came along.

Vodka steeped with aronia berry, gentian root and other botanicals became a Campari-like elixir that went into the Red Bird cocktail. Vodka infused with coffee and vanilla bean approximated a smooth coffee liqueur for the Hot Hopscotch and Cafe a l'Orange. Our bar manager Logan Hunter even rapid-infused vodka with toasted oak chips to replicate an aged spirit — quite convincingly, we must say — for the Prelude, a take on a Manhattan.

All of those cocktails from opening weekend are still on the menu, in one way or another. They're our classics. 

In a year, we produced a dozen different spirits. Now we have Standard Dry Gin, American Gin, Tiki Rum, a Single Malt Whiskey, Songbird Craft Coffee Liqueur and many more spirits, sold in more than 200 locations across Indiana. 

But it all started with our vodka, in our cocktails, at our bar, a year ago.

Whether it's been a week, a month, six months, or even a year since you had a cocktail at Cardinal, we invite you back this weekend — our first anniversary — to toast to an incredible first year. We'll have birthday punch, free anniversary T-shirts, free tours and cakes, and a party on Saturday night in the distillery area.

Details for the entire weekend celebration are right here. We hope to see you! 

CRAFTPACK, VOL. 17

No happy hour, no cold beer at grocery stores, and no booze sales on Sunday: Indiana absolutely made this list of 8 States With The Strangest Alcohol Laws.

Cardinal Spirits' first anniversary celebration is this weekend. Punch, cakes, free t-shirts, free tours ... RSVP here. (Also, how crazy is it that our building used to look like this.)

Have any of you tried Elvis Presley Coconut Water Vodka? Which is a real thing.

A fun video tour of our neighborhood, called McDoel Gardens — and hey, that's us at 1:05!

PepsiCo is opening a restaurant in NYC that will offer an artisanal menu with dishes inspired by the kola nut. It's sodas will be served, of course, but Pepsi says it'll also have a "cocktail curator" on staff. 

SERRANO DAIQUIRI RECIPE

A classic daiquiri couldn't be simpler: It's just rum, lime and sugar. You know the daiquiri. You love the daiquiri. Now it's time to have some fun with the daiquiri.

Adding a few slices of serrano pepper into the shaker zaps this cocktail with some satisfying heat. It warms you without being warm itself, you know? You could tame it down with just one or two slices of pepper if you'd like.

SERRANO DAIQUIRI

By Jake Cifuentes of Cardinal Spirits

2 ounces Cardinal Spirits Tiki Rum
3/4 ounce fresh lime juice
1/2 ounce simple syrup
3 slices serrano pepper

Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice, and shake vigorously. Strain into a coupe glass and garnish with a slice of serrano pepper.

#WHISKEYMYWAY: WEEK 4 ROUNDUP

Week 4 of Age Your Own Whiskey — a big, boozy group project that meets on the Internet — is behind us. 

If you're playing along at home, you might be wondering: How many more weeks until the whiskey is ready? We're thinking that you'll see good color and flavor around Week 5, so you are in the home stretch! But, you can go longer, stop early, taste along the way .... it's #whiskeymyway, after all, so it's completely up to you.

Age Your Own Whiskey works like this: a bunch of you dropped an oak stave into a bottle of our unaged White Oak Whiskey on the day after Christmas. Once a week, you post a photo of the bottle on social media and tag it #whiskeymyway so that we can all see each other's progress.

Just starting to age yours now? You're not too late - start posting!

Here's how some of your #whiskeymyway bottles are looking after Week 4:

Instagram: @mrgoober03

Instagram: @cardinalspirits

Twitter: @Doc_Boc

Twitter: @JamesJpault75

Twitter: @FoodEvansville

Snap your Week 5 photo this Saturday, Jan. 30, post it and tag it #whiskeymyway. And let everyone know...

1. Have you tasted it? What's the flavor like so far?
2. Are you changing conditions at all?  (Varying the temperature? Agitating it? Adding another stave?)
3. How's the color?  

We'll post another roundup next week!

CRAFTPACK, VOL. 16

One genius trick that will change your cocktail game. 

To jigger or to pour? Which side of the debate are you on?

Uh, pivot much? Under Armor founder is opening a distillery.

Because it feels like winter is juuuust getting started: 8 hot chocolate recipes (some are boozy)

A few sneak peaks at tonight's amazing cocktail-pairing dinner at the distillery: here, here and here. 

BEHIND THE BAR: SCOTT LOWE OF BLUEBEARD

Bartenders hear our stories all the time. So let's hear theirs for a change. This is Behind the Bar: interviews with bartenders over a drink (or two).
— by Kajal Singh
 

This week, we're chatting with Scott Lowe, the bar manager of Bluebeard, the excellent restaurant and bar in the Fletcher Place neighborhood on the southeast edge of downtown Indianapolis. Named after Kurt Vonnegut novel, Bluebeard is one of the wonderful Indianapolis establishments that serve Cardinal Spirits. 
 

What drinks on your menu are made with Cardinal Spirits, and what are the stories behind the names?

27 Mutual Friends (Cardinal Spirits Vodka, Cardinal Spirits Songbird Craft Coffee Liqueur, crème de cacao, mole bitters) is a play on social media. My girlfriend and I realized that we had 27 mutual friends on Facebook and we thought it would be fun name for a cocktail. Social media is prevalent these days and I think people really identify with it. 

Don’t be so Bonal (Cardinal Vodka, Bonal, house-hopped strawberry soda) is a play on the word banal. Hopped Gin and Tonic (Cardinal Spirits American Gin, Bittermens hopped grapefruit bitters, Fentimans Tonic) is a twist on the classic cocktail with hopped bitters. 

How long have you been in Indy? And how long at Bluebeard?

Sixteen years in Indianapolis. As of this coming April, I’ve been bartending for about 28 years. I was at Ball & Biscuit (on Mass Ave. in Indy) before Bluebeard. Before that I was bartending in Broad Ripple.

If you could have a drink with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?

Anthony Bourdain. I ran into him in New Orleans a couple of years ago, he just seems like an interesting guy to get a drink with. I’m a whiskey guy, so I would definitely be drinking rye whiskey. 

What’s your best advice for people who want the drinks they make at home to taste as good as the ones they order at a bar?

Honestly, just use fresh ingredients. Make your own stuff at home; it’s so easy to do now. You can make your own simple syrups. It may take some time, but they last a long time and it makes all the difference.

Do you remember the time you had your very first cocktail?

I was in Florida and it was just after graduation from high school. I worked on a charter fishing boat in Fort Walton and there was a place called Suds and Cinema. I was watching "Rocky Horror" with my aunt at Suds and Cinema and I had my first scotch and soda. It was so horrible. I literally spit it out. That was my first grownup cocktail. I was 18 years old.

So if you walked into Cardinal right now, what would you order?

I’m a big fan of the American Gin, so I would probably do a gin-based cocktail. The vodka is good too but I really love the botanicals in the American Gin. ... It’s awesome that we can make great spirits here in Indiana. Not just great beer, but great spirits!

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

Be honest. Be straightforward, look them in the eye and don’t fuck them over. 

What makes Cardinal Spirits different than the other craft distilleries around?

That’s pretty easy. Cardinal Spirits figured it out. Cardinal Spirits isn’t pretentious and is very straightforward; they’re not trying to split the atom. Everything Cardinal Spirits makes is solid, they’re not trying to be something they’re not. Everybody that I’ve run into that works at Cardinal Spirits is very straightforward. They’re just cool people. You know? Cardinal Spirits is kind of like Bloomington in that sense: very approachable and laid back.

(Editor's note: Aw, thanks, Scott!)

#WHISKEYMYWAY: WEEK 3 ROUNDUP

Week 3 of Age Your Own Whiskey — a big, boozy group project that meets on the Internet — is behind us. 

Age Your Own Whiskey works like this: a bunch of you dropped an oak stave into a bottle of our unaged White Oak Whiskey on the day after Christmas. Once a week, you post a photo of the bottle on social media and tag it #whiskeymyway so that we can all see each other's progress. We're thinking that you'll see good color and flavor around Week 5, but you can go longer, stop early, taste along the way .... it's #whiskeymyway, after all. Just starting to age yours now? You're not too late - start posting.

Here's how some of your #whiskeymyway bottles are looking after Week 3:

Twitter: @mifinke1986

Twitter: @FoodEvansville

Twitter: @JamesJpault75

Twitter: @BeanPizza

Instagram: @mrgoober03

Instagram: @_jenny.luna_

Snap your Week 4 photo this Saturday, Jan. 23, post it and tag it #whiskeymyway. And let everyone know...

1. Have you tasted it? What's the flavor like so far?
2. Are you changing conditions at all?  (Varying the temperature? Agitating it? Adding another stave?)
3. How's the color?  

We'll post another roundup next week!

MENU FOR DINNER AT THE DISTILLERY

Photo by Natasha Komodo of Femography

Cardinal Spirits and Plated Table, a farm-to-table caterer, are collaborating on the best dinner party of 2016. It's a bold claim, since we're not even 20 days in. But, we said it and we're not taking it back. We guarantee that Dinner at the Distillery on Jan. 25 will be a memorable evening: Four courses featuring fantastic local produce and meats, each paired with a cocktail that was crafted to complement the food. The setting: long tables, low lights, an intimate gathering in the back of the distillery among the still and barrels.

There are exactly eight seats left at the table, so buy your ticket today. 

Here's the full menu for the evening:

DINNER AT THE DISTILLERY, JAN. 25
Cocktails by Logan Hunter of Cardinal Spirits
Food by Kelsey Smith of Plated Table

FIRST COURSE
COCKTAIL
Bramble 75: This fizzy little number is the perfect starter, made with our Bramble Black Raspberry Vodka, lemon juice and bubbles.
DISH
Herbed ricotta on homemade nut and seed crackers topped with glazed baby carrots and brown-butter beets, plus arugula micro greens.

SECOND COURSE
COCKTAIL
Smoked Apple: Our American Gin, infused with three varieties of apples and cranberries, plus our Flora liqueur and a smoke tincture. 
DISH
Butternut squash and apple soup topped with sour cream, candied bacon and chives.
Vegetarian version served without bacon. 

THIRD COURSE
COCKTAIL
Truffle Barley Old Fashioned: A classic Old Fashioned with an earthy twist in the form of truffle-vanilla tincture.
DISH
Prosciutto-wrapped pork loin stuffed with kale, porcini mushrooms, ground pork, and brandy, roasted on a bed of apples.
Vegetarian dish: Four-mushroom risotto with riesling, thyme, and finished with a spritz of gin. Topped with a lion’s mane mushroom steak and garlic micro greens.

FOURTH COURSE
COCKTAIL
Espresso Martini: Without the riffraff. No cream or extra sugar. Our Vodka, Songbird Craft Coffee Liqueur and Bramble Black Raspberry Vodka. 
DISH
Flourless chocolate cake made with Songbird Craft Coffee Liqueur. Served with a side of whipped cream and homemade raspberry jam.

WET BANDITS COCKTAIL RECIPE

This cocktail made with our Standard Dry Gin blends fresh ingredients — blackberry and sage — with comforting winter flavors — honey and cinnamon. And the color couldn't be prettier.

WET BANDITS

By Baylee Pruitt of Cardinal Spirits

2 blackberries
Sage leaf
1/2 oz. honey syrup (recipe below)
2 oz. Cardinal Spirits Standard Dry Gin
3/4 oz. lemon juice
2 dashes cinnamon bitters

Add blackberries, sage leaf and honey syrup to a shaker. Muddle to release juices from berries. Add ice to the shaker, then add gin, lemon juice and bitters. Shake vigorously, then double strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a sage leaf. 

To make honey syrup: Add 1 cup water and 1 cup honey to a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir to dissolve. Heat for 5 minutes. Cool completely before using. 

#WHISKEYMYWAY: WEEK 2 ROUNDUP

If you bought or received one of our Age Your Own Whiskey kits over the holidays, then you know that this is one big group project.

The instructions were to drop the oak stave into the bottle on the day after Christmas, then post a photo of it once a week after that on social media and tag it #whiskeymyway so that we could all see each other's progress. We're thinking that you'll see good color and flavor around Week 5, but you can go longer, stop early, taste along the way .... it's #whiskeymyway, after all.

Here's how some of your bottles are looking after Week 2:

Instagram: @mrgoober03

Instagram: @diffuser_city

Instagram: @liquid81

Twitter: @EverHopefulWhit

Twitter: @JamesJpault75

Twitter: @FreshAir381

Twitter: @Doc_Boc

Twitter: @FoodEvansville

Twitter: @MattCarlton

Snap your Week 3 photo this Saturday, Jan. 23, post it and tag it #whiskeymyway. And let everyone know...

1. Have you tasted it? What's the flavor like so far?
2. Are you changing conditions at all?  (Varying the temperature? Agitating it? Adding another stave?)
3. How's the color?  

We'll post another roundup next week!