Christmas at the Indiana Whiskey Factory

- Jonathan

Do you like Bourbon and Rye Whiskys? I'm going to tell you a little secret. Among a number of other distilleries, there's a little-known whisky factory in Indiana called MGP of Indiana ("Midwest Grain Products of Indiana") in Lawrenceburg, Indiana that may very well be producing your favorite "craft bourbon whiskey". They produce a bourbon whiskey base that many other bourbons are "crafted" from. Why do I find this interesting? Well, for about ten years, I lived in Bloomington, Indiana. I moved there in 2001 for grad school, finished a Masters in Germanic Linguistics in 2004, and then stayed to do a Masters in Information Science until about 2008. Having gotten a full-time job at Indiana University in the meantime, I ended up lingering for a few more years until I moved back to North Carolina for a new position at UNC Chapel Hill. Being a Bourbon-lover and a former long-time resident of the Crossroads of America myself, I knew I had to find a way to integrate this fact into at least one blog post.¹ After all, Rachel and I met in Indiana, and without my Indiana experience, neither the friendship nor this blog would exist, and I will always be immensely grateful for it for that reason alone.

“If you can’t say it at Christmas, when can you, eh?”

- Natalie ("Love Actually", 2003)

Anyway, since I have a terrific Christmas cocktail idea involving bourbon anyway, I figured now was the perfect time. Not long after I moved back to the Chapel Hill area, I moved from my apartment to a house in Carrboro, which is a small town on the very edge of Chapel Hill - so much so that it all feels like the same town. Right up Franklin Street (the main drag... every college town has them - Bloomington's was Kirkwood Avenue), as you're just getting into Chapel Hill proper, there is a fancy cocktail bar called The Crunkleton. They serve absolutely amazing drinks crafted with care by extremely talented bartenders who are nicely dressed and incredibly polite and accommodating. I first experienced the Crunkleton in December 2012 when someone I briefly dated took me to the UNC Med School "Prom" and then we all went to the Crunkleton for a drink or three afterwards. I was so impressed that I got myself a membership and went back regularly with friends. It wasn't long before I found myself going there in the Fall of 2013 with the woman I would marry four years later. She loved it too - so much so, in fact, that she had purchased one of their "chair plaque" memberships for over $100 so she'd have a bar stool chair with her name engraved on a plate on the back of it. We spent a good part of the evening looking around for it, only to realize I had been sitting in it the entire time!

But I digress. The reason I wanted to tell you about the Crunkleton is that they make one of the best cocktails I've ever had: The Bumblebee. You can find the actual recipe here, but at the time, I had to guessed based on the vague menu ingredients, so this is the variant that I came up with that tasted as close as I could get to it:

Jon's Guess at the Bumblebee
Squeeze a wedge of lemon (and maybe a wedge of lime?) into a cocktail shaker. Drizzle about an ounce of honey into it and then swirl it around to dissolve it. Load it up with ice, and then crack one egg white over it, pour in about a shot of heavy cream, and then finally pour over about two shots of bourbon. Then shake the absolute shit out of it. (I count to 100.) Strain into a class (no ice) and sprinkle some nutmeg on top.

Now, I can hardly do justice to just how much we love this cocktail. It's the kind of thing you bring ingredients for to friends' houses and make for everybody to show off. I even made them for people while they were helping paint our new house when we first moved into it. So of course, if I'm going to write about a cocktail this Christmas, then I see no better way to do it than to share a holiday variant on my favorite. And so without further ado...

Jon's Christmas Variant: Christmas at the Indiana Whiskey Factory
Squeeze a wedge of lemon into a cocktail shaker, drizzle a little honey in, and swirl it around for a while. Load it up with ice, and then crack one egg white over it. Pour in a shot or two of eggnog, top it with two shots of bourbon, and then... yep... shake the absolute shit out of it. Sprinkle some nutmeg on top if you have it.

I was going to use Redemption Rye whisky² to make mine, since it's one of those factory-based bourbons, but I have a confession to make: I bought it too early and ended up drinking it ahead of time. Here's a picture:

Bonus: I'm drinking it out of a Bloomington tumbler that was part of a set that my friend Paul got us as a wedding gift.

When I went back to replenish my supply, I decided to get George Dickel instead. It's cheaper, and - let's be honest - when you're mixing this much stuff into it, there's no reason to spend a fortune on the liquor. To my surprise, the George Dickel turned out to taste pretty good anyway, even on its own. But don't worry, this time I managed to save some for the actual cocktail. Here's a photo!

BB and Tweedy Bear approve. Kernel and Robin (seen on the sofa) are abstaining.

My impression? Well, to be honest, I slightly prefer the regular Bumblebee recipe. The eggnog is nice, but I think the heavy cream specifically gave it a smoother texture that I preferred. The eggnog variant was, however, still excellent, and I recommend trying it out just to switch things up! Better yet...

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