PEGU CLUB COCKTAIL RECIPE

You don't need to reinvent the wheel every time you make a cocktail. Case in point: This gin cocktail has been around for nearly 100 years, and it's every bit as good today. This was the house drink at the Pegu Club in Burma — a watering hole for British top brass. It's crisp and refreshing and just a touch tart ... maybe your new house drink?

Cardinal's Logan Hunter show us how to shake it up right:

PEGU CLUB

1.5 ounces Cardinal Spirits Standard Dry Gin
3/4 ounce orange curaçao
3/4 ounce fresh lime juice
2 dashes aromatic bitters
1 dash orange bitters
Lime wheel, for garnish

Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice. Shake vigorously, then strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a lime wheel.

Video by Anna Powell Teeter

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. 

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.

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.

PUNCHES FOR LABOR DAY WEEKEND

Need drinks for a crowd this weekend?
Try one of these 5 fantastic punches.

ZINGER PUNCH

Makes 12 servings

1 bottle Cardinal Spirits Tiki Rum
17 ounces pineapple juice
8.5 ounces ginger syrup*
8.5 ounces fresh squeezed lemon juice
20 dashes bitters
Ginger beer, to taste

Combine all ingredients, except for ginger beer, in a punch bowl.
To serve, ladle punch into cups with ice and top with ginger beer.

* To make ginger syrup: Peel several chunks of ginger, slice into thin rounds. Combine 1 cup water and 1 cup sugar in a saucepan over medium-high heat, and stir to dissolve sugar. Add sliced ginger to the saucepan, and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat and let cool. Strain ginger slices from syrup before using.

BLOOD ORANGE PUNCH

SUMMER OF LOVE

ROSE CAN YOU SEE

GIN-CRANBERRY PUNCH

#tbt COCKTAILS

Our #tbt cocktail series begins this Thursday, and it works like this: every Thursday in September, we'll be making special pre-Prohibition cocktails. Dress the part and we'll make it worth your while (20% off cocktails). Next month and each month after that, we'll reach back in time for a new Throwback Thursday theme. So, dig out your high school letter jacket. It's going to come in handy at some point.

Our #tbt cocktails this week are the Stinger, with house-made crème de menthe; a Gimlet, classic gin-and-lime drink; and a Monkey Gland, a gin cocktail with housemade absinthe that tastes sort of like a Creamsicle, and goes down just as easy. 

One sip of the Monkey Gland, and you're going to want the recipe. So, here ya go.

MONKEY GLAND

Makes 1 cocktail

1.5 ounce Cardinal Spirits Standard Dry Gin
1.5 ounce fresh-squeezed orange juice
1/3 ounce grenadine
1/3 ounce absinthe

Shake ingredients with ice; strain into a coupe glass and garnish with an orange twist.

GIMLET RECIPE WITH STANDARD DRY GIN

Cardinal's bar manager Logan Hunter shows us how to make a proper gimlet.
It's a tart and refreshing favorite.

With just three ingredients total in this classic gin cocktail, you must use great gin. There's nowhere for crappy gin to hide in a Gimlet. 

Our Standard Dry Gin is a great gin with a fragrant juniper profile — it's a natural beauty that can be dressed minimally with lime juice and simple syrup and be a knockout. 

"This is my favorite cocktail," says Jeff Wuslich, co-founder of Cardinal Spirits. Pause. "But ... I don't want the other cocktails to feel bad."

We'll never tell.

GIMLET

Makes 1 cocktail

2 ounces Cardinal Spirits Standard Dry Gin
.75 ounce fresh lime juice
.5 ounce simple syrup
Lime peel

1. Add gin, lime juice and simple syrup to a shaker with ice. Shake vigorously. 
2. Strain into a coupe glass. Squeeze a lime peel over the cocktail, then twist the peel and use it as garnish. 

MORE GIN COCKTAIL RECIPES

Negroni  |  Bees Knees  |  Rose + Gin Punch

NEGRONI RECIPE WITH STANDARD DRY GIN

In its birthplace — Italy — the Negroni is an apéritif, a before-dinner drink. Here, we drink it before, during and after dinner. It's just that good. Italy always has the best ideas!

The Negroni is bitter, but balanced. Elegant, but unfussy. A fantastic go-to drink. And, the recipe is easy to memorize — the proportions are 1:1:1. 

Cardinal Spirits bar manager Logan Hunter shows us how to make a classic Negroni:

NEGRONI

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

1. Add Campari, sweet vermouth and gin to a tall glass with ice, then stir.
2. Strain into an old fashioned glass with a large ice cube.
3. 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. 

How to choose between our gins

Now that we distill two gins, you might be asking yourself tough questions, like, "Which gin is for me?" We created this flowchart to help you pick between our American Gin, a floral and citrusy spirit, and our Standard Dry Gin, a London-style spirit which gets its flavor from juniper berries.