Turning Up the Heat with Our Craft Vodka

Founding Spirits and Farmers & Distillers turned up the heat last night for an important cause, the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund Alliance. Our mixologists joined more than 50 female culinary and bar wizards in downtown DC for Turn Up the Heat.

Led by bartender Carly Barsalou, our team mixed and served one of our favorite Farmers & Distillers cocktails featuring our very own craft vodka. Bubbles & Berries combines our Founding Spirits Vodka with blackberry, lemon, cognac, Curaçao, and Perrier-Jouët Grand Brut. This slightly bubbly craft cocktail is light, a bit sweet, and very refreshing.

With over 400 attendees, Turn Up the Heat is a unique event showcasing women mixologists and chefs in the DC region. The gala proceeds help fund groundbreaking ovarian cancer private research grants, advocacy efforts, and support programs for patients and their families affected by this disease.

Every 24 minutes a woman is diagnosed with ovarian cancer in the U.S. The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund Alliance is the leading ovarian cancer research, advocacy, and patient support organization in the world. They are the largest, non-government funder of ovarian cancer research. They are the primary voice for the ovarian cancer community on Capitol Hill and beyond. They also direct a Woman to Woman support program, which pairs newly diagnosed patients with trained survivor volunteers.

DC Distillers Festival Welcomes Founding Spirits

Founding Spirits, our small-batch distillery located in the heart of Farmers & Distillers, was invited to join the party at this year’s DC Distillers Festival.

Guests sampled over 60 craft spirits from over 20 craft distillers, including our very own DC-based distillery, Founding Spirits.

We poured samples of our spirits, including our craft vodka, and mixed three of our signature craft cocktails, including: Buck’s Blood Orange, pictured above, (Founding Spirits Vodka, lemon, ginger, honey, aperol); Boulevardier (Founding Spirits American Whiskey, Founding Spirits American Amaro, campari); and our Amaro Daiquiri  (Founding Spirits American Amaro, Founding Farmers Rye Whisky, orgeat, lime).

A curated, three-session, all-day, all-night event featuring 1920’s jazz bands, a burlesque show, and Gatsby-era costumes is a one of a kind experience held at the Long View Gallery in downtown DC. It was a speakeasy environment with a day and night full of mingling and chatting, tasting and relaxing, and even some dancing. We were delighted to be welcomed into this year’s party.

Founding Spirits Featured at St. Jude Gourmet Gala  

Last night, Founding Spirits and Farmers & Distillers joined 600 guests and dozens of local restaurants at the 19th annual St. Jude Gourmet Gala at the National Building Museum in downtown Washington, D.C.

Distillery Director, Jon Arroyo, and Distillery Manager, Bob VanLancker, were serving up tastes from our very own DC distillery, Founding Spirits.

Our How Jefferson Woulda Liked It was the highlight, which combines our Founding Farmers Rye Whisky and Founding Spirits American Amaro with lemon, brandied cherry, and an orange slice.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has hosted this fundraising event at the National Building Museum for ten years running. The lively evening features restaurant and cocktail tastings from DC’s top restaurants, a rousing live auction, and a premiere silent auction. Last year’s event raised over $1.16M for the kids of St. Jude.

Located in Memphis, TN, the mission of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is to advance cures and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases, including cancer, through groundbreaking research and treatment. Consistent with the vision of Founder Danny Thomas, no child is denied treatment based on race, religion, or a family’s ability to pay.

Founding Spirits Delivered To Your Door

Just in time for your holiday planning, you can now order some of our spirits online! And they can be shipped directly to your door or shipped to the door of a friend, family member, or colleague just in time for the gift-giving season.

Currently, we are shipping four of our handcrafted spirits directly from our distillery, Founding Spirits in Washington, D.C.

Founding Spirits is a micro-batch distillery custom-built in the heart of our restaurant, Farmers & Distillers. Led by our dynamic duo, Jon Arroyo and Bob VanLancker, Founding Spirits is an extension of our from-scratch, source-matters mission. We are creating a growing collection of small-batch spirits distilled and blended to preserve the true flavors that come from the wheat, barley, rye, and botanicals grown on family farms across the country.

If you have yet to experience our spirits, please stop by Farmers & Distillers, or its sibling restaurants Founding Farmers or Farmers Fishers Bakers, for a taste. We have a delightful variety of craft cocktails made specifically to highlight our spirits.

When ordering online, please note that only adults 21 or older can make the order, and an adult of 21 or older needs to be present to sign for the delivery. Shipping is $8 for a single bottle, and an additional $2 for each bottle after that, but shipping is absolutely FREE for six or more bottles.

Cheers to a very spirited holiday season.

*NOTE – Spirits cannot ship to the following states: AL, DE, IL, IA, KY, ME, MI, MS, NH, NY, ND, OR, PA, SD, TX, UT, VT, VA

Founding Spirits Helps Raise Money for DC Central Kitchen

Last night, Founding Spirits and Farmers & Distillers joined forces with over 80 of the area’s best chefs and mixologists to raise money for DC Central Kitchen at the fourteenth annual Capital Food Fight.

Our team served “How Poor Richard Would Have Liked It,” a craft cocktail made with Founding Spirits American Whiskey and Founding Spirits American Amaro, mixed with lemon, brandied cherry, and garnished with an orange slice. We also shared our tasty Parmesan Pound Cake with Shrimp & Local Crab.

This signature fundraiser, founded by Chef José Andrés, features four local top chefs competing in a live, onstage battle hosted and judged by the biggest names in the culinary world. This year’s hosts included foodie celebrities from the Food Network’s Kitchen Sink: Spike Mendelsohn, Tregaye Fraser, and Fanny Slater. Judges included Washington National’s star player Ryan Zimmerman and political analyst Ana Navarro. The lively event brought together over 1,000 guests from across the DC metro area.

DC Central Kitchen develops and operates social ventures targeting the cycle of hunger and poverty. They provide culinary training to jobless adults, turn wasted food into balanced meals for shelters and nonprofits, expand access to healthy food, and provide healthy, scratch-cooked meals in low-income schools. All proceeds from last night’s event will benefit DC Central Kitchen.

Craft Spirits Make for a Tastier DC Cocktail Week

This week Founding Spirits is joining other local mixologists, bartenders, and innovators of craft cocktails across the metropolitan Washington, D.C. region for seven full days of tasty drinks and paired snacks. Stop by Farmers & Distillers for our celebration of the 5th Annual DC Cocktail Week.

Starting today, Monday, November 13th, and continuing all week (through Sunday, November 19th), we’ll be serving our Amaro and the Rye cocktail, featuring our Founding Spirits American Amaro and Founding Farmers Rye Whisky, stirred and served in Georgian glass with lemon zest and a brandied cherry garnish. Guests will also get two of our delicious Kung Pao Chicken Dumplings for a total cost of $11.

As DC gets into the holiday spirit with decorations starting to go up around the city, make DC Cocktail Week your own holiday. Gather with some friends for some cocktail lovin’ at Farmers & Distillers overlooking our distillery. Make an evening of it and stay for a meal too. If possible, we recommend making a reservation.

Some Very Special Craft Cocktail Menus Thanks To Our Proprietary Spirits

Founding Spirits is opening to the public soon. This means there is a whole host of new craft cocktails for our restaurants, including the upcoming Farmers & Distillers.

One sip of the Suffering Candidate and our guests can easily learn what the highly anticipated Farmers & Distillers cocktail menu is all about. Our Suffering Candidate cocktail elevates the classic flavor of our Founding Farmers Rye Whisky. This third generation play on the Suffering Bastard (check out the Suffering Georgetowner at our sister restaurant, Farmers Fishers Bakers) highlights how our ingenious Distillery Director, Jon Arroyo, offers a nod to the rich history of cocktails while maintaining the true character of our spirits in a fun, relevant way.

Home to our Founding Spirits distillery, our Farmers & Distillers bar menu showcases our handcrafted spirits we are making in house.

Learn more and keep up to date on the goings on at Farmers & Distillers by following us on FacebookInstagram, and Twitter.