Author: Jennifer

Fun & Fine Spirits at DC’s Dock 5

Last modified: July 22, 2021

Founding Spirits participated in the seventh annual Washingtonian Whiskey & Fine Spirits Festival on Thursday, November 15, 2018 at Dock 5 in DC’s Union Market.

Distillery Director, Jon Arroyo, and Distillery Manager, Bob VanLancker, served Vieux Carre with Founding Spirits American Whiskey, Founding Spirits American Amaro, bénédictine , and cognac to a sold-out crowd. This unusual craft cocktail was a smashing success.

Attendees also enjoyed sips of premium whiskey, scotch, bourbon, vodka, gin, tequila, and more from over 40 other local and national distillers. The event included live music and light fare from Ridgewells Catering, everyone enjoying what many say is one of the coolest event spaces in DC. Dock 5 is directly above the historic Union Market and features 12,000 expansive square feet with high ceilings and glass garage doors.

Sponsored by Washingtonian magazine, the entire event made for a classic DC evening.

Founding Spirits Releases Limited Edition American Amaro

Last modified: July 22, 2021

Founding Spirits just released a special batch of our quadruple award-winning amaro, which uses honey from an apiary we support atop The George Washington University in downtown Washington, D.C.

Our GW Limited Edition Founding Spirits American Amaro can be purchased online for a limited time, while supplies last.

Distillery Director, Jon Arroyo, was inspired by our very special partnership with The George Washington University Undergraduate Honey Bee Research Laboratory and Apiary. Partners for over five years, this past spring, we helped install six new hives, and just this fall, we helped harvest the honey used in this special, limited edition amaro.

Our new amaro is just another way that we are celebrating our love for honey bees. At Founding Spirits, and across Farmers Restaurant Group, we are always looking for ways to honor the honey bee and educate people on their importance to the diversity of our food supply.

Our GW Limited Edition Founding Spirits American Amaro is one tasty way that you can enjoy our efforts.

Get Your Cocktail On with Founding Spirits

Last modified: July 22, 2021

Find our Founding Spirits front and center for this year’s annual DC Cocktail Week celebrations across our Farmers Restaurant Group of restaurants.

From Monday, November 12th – Sunday, November 18th, our teams at Founding Farmers DC, Farmers Fishers Bakers, and Farmers & Distillers will be participating, along with 60 other local area restaurant and bar teams, in DC Cocktail Week, a weeklong celebration of DC’s dynamic bartenders, mixologists, and bar and beverage teams from across our region.

Our teams have been working hard to create offerings of our scratch-made goodness to highlight what sets DC Cocktail Week apart – celebrating not only the art of creating delicious, handcrafted cocktails, but the nearly divine pairing of the perfect cocktail with the perfect bite. All for $15. Now that’s worth a special week of celebration.

Find our handcrafted Bridgetown Sour cocktail, featuring Founding Spirits Vodka, perfectly paired with our delicious Chips & Dips served with fresh guacamole, salsa, pimento cheese, and corn tortillas at Founding Farmers DC. At Farmers & Distillers, you’ll find our scratch-made, Savory Beignet paired with our handcrafted The American cocktail. This modern spin on traditional Irish Coffee, is served hot or cold, and features our very own, pot-stilled and barrel-aged Founding Spirits American Whiskey with an amaro cream finish. At Farmers Fishers Bakers, our team has our handcrafted Negroni Spritzer, made with Founding Spirits American Amaro, paired with a much-loved guest favorite, our Margarita Pizza.

Join us at these sibling restaurants during DC Cocktail Week for a taste of all that Founding Spirits has to offer.

Order our spirits online to get the same great taste at home or for the perfect holiday gift. Friends, colleagues, and family members will love the fine spirits we’re distilling.

Our Amaro Wins AGAIN

Last modified: July 22, 2021

Founding Spirits American Amaro won its fourth award earlier this month, a SILVER medal from the 2018 International Review of Spirits by Tastings, an affiliate of the Beverage Testing Institute.

Earning 86 points and highly recommended, Tastings gave a full description of our amaro with the award win: “Hazy mahogany color. Aromas and flavors of soft black licorice, chocolate sauce, proofing dough, cinnamon, and ginger powder on raisins, and cola syrup with a round, crisp, bittersweet medium body, and a peppery, interesting, medium-length oregano finish. A funky amaro to pair with a chocolate croissant.”

This latest award follows on the heels of a winning year for our less than two-year-old spirit. Our Founding Spirits American Amaro won GOLD and Best in 2018 from the American Distilling Institute and SILVER from the 2018 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

Featured in several of our bar favorites, including the Negroni Swizzle at Farmers & Distillers and the Amaro Daiquiri at Founding Farmers, our amaro is also quite delicious on its own. It recently became available for purchase online, so even if you can’t get to one of our restaurants, you can enjoy its award-winning “never bitter” taste in the comfort of your own home.

Founded in 1981 with the goal of producing fair, impartial wine reviews for consumers, Tastings has since expanded their scope to include beer and spirits. Over the years, their reviews have appeared in publications and online industry sites such as, Wine Enthusiast, Restaurant Hospitality, The New Yorker, Wine & Spirits Magazine, Epicurious.com, and many others. As an independent product rating and review company, Tastings provides beverage buying guides and education for consumers and the trade. Their mission is to help people discover and understand drinks they will love.

Our Award-Winning Amaro is Available for Purchase

Last modified: July 22, 2021

Founding Spirits award-winning American Amaro is now available for purchase online at FoundingSpirits.com and in-store at the home of our distillery, Farmers & Distillers.

Infused with 22 herbs, botanicals, and spices, and sweetened with molasses and local honey, our distinctive amaro is exactly what its name suggests: never bitter. Distilled, aged, sweetened, bottled, and hand-labeled at Founding Spirits, it has been a featured spirit on our Farmers Restaurant Group restaurant cocktail menus for just over a year.

Our master distiller and cocktail aficionado, Jon Arroyo, created this spirit to bring the magic of the before and after dinner drink he discovered on his travels abroad back home to the U.S. A guest favorite in our craft cocktails across Founding Farmers, Farmers Fishers Bakers, and Farmers & Distillers, it’s especially good in our Amaro Daiquiri and our take on the famous Negroni Swizzle.

Now, you can have this award-winning taste in the comfort of your own home.

Stop by Farmers & Distillers to get your bottle today. Or order online.

Our Bloody Mary Adds Spice to a Great Weekend Festival

Last modified: September 25, 2018

Over the weekend, Founding Spirits joined Chesapeake Oyster & Wine Festival goers for much more than oysters and wine. Our team was on hand sharing all of our micro distillery’s spirits, and serving up our award-winning Bloody Mary made with our award-winning craft Founding Spirits Vodka.

The event included the first-ever Bloody Mary Pavilion, aka “We’ll Shake It and Make It – You Garnish It.” Our Bloody Mary – which has been named as DC’s Best Bloody Mary many years in a row – was the main attraction and could be tailored just how guests wanted it, with the many garnishes and hot sauces provided.

Every year, the Chesapeake Oyster & Wine Festival, run by TasteUSA, features top-rated American and International wines paired with the Chesapeake’s wild and farm-raised oysters, as well as other seafood dishes provided by local restaurants including jumbo lump crab cakes, lobster rolls, oyster po’ boys, lobster mac & cheese, and fish tacos.

Our Bloody Mary, and all of our craft spirits, was a great addition to the festival of tastes.

If you missed the weekend fun, our Bloody Mary is available at all of our restaurants. It is, of course, a crowd favorite at our weekend brunches but that isn’t the only time we serve it. Check out our menus and stop by Farmers & Distillers, Founding Farmers, or Farmers Fishers Bakers to see if you agree with Washington City Paper readers. Do you think we shake and serve the best Bloody Mary in town?

Annual Cocktail Conference Features Founding Spirits

Last modified: July 22, 2021

Founding Spirits joined the global cocktail community last week descending on New Orleans for Tales of the Cocktail.

Every summer for the past 16 years, The Big Easy has hosted this well-known, annual gathering that is equal parts cocktail conference and family reunion, featuring a spirited schedule of seminars, tastings, and competitions.

Since Founding Spirits won three prestigious awards with the American Distilling Institute this year, we were invited to be featured guests at two tasting events. The first event was held at the House of Blues on Thursday, July 18th, where we served our Boulevardier cocktail made with our FS American Whiskey, FS American Amaro, and campari. We also provided guests with tastes of our gold medal winner amaro, our bronze medal winner vodka, and our American whiskey. The second event took place on Saturday, July 21st at the epicenter of Tales of the Cocktail, the French Quarter’s historic Hotel Monteleone.

Tales of the Cocktail benefits the Tales of the Cocktail Foundation, a leading, non-profit organization working to educate, advance, and support the global hospitality industry through programs that make a lasting impact on the communities that host their events.

Founding Spirits Mixing it Up at Citi Open

Last modified: January 17, 2020

Founding Spirits is the spirit sponsor of DC’s biggest annual tennis week, the Citi Open. Throughout the weeklong tennis competition, from Saturday, July 28th– Sunday, August 5th, Founding Spirits will be mixing up our specialty cocktail, the Founding Spirits Mule (mint, ginger, lime, FS Vodka), as well as other cocktails made with Founding Spirits Vodka, Founding Spirits American Whiskey, and Founding Farmers Rye Whisky.

This year’s Citi Open includes a special 50th Anniversary Kickoff party on Friday, July 27th from 7pm-10pm at the Rock Creek Tennis Center, featuring sponsor Founding Spirits. We will be serving our Farmer Jon cocktail and serving our famous Glazed Bacon Lollis from Farmers & Distillers. Tickets are available here.

In addition, on Friday, August 3, from 6:30pm-9pm, Founding Spirits will be holding a special tailgate mixology contest for the best classic Tom Collins, featuring our Founding Spirits Vodka. Participating bars include Farmers & Distillers, Service Bar, The Salt Line, Colada Shop, Archipelago, and Copycat Co.

Citi Open, formerly known as the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, has been part of summertime in DC since 1969. Each year, proceeds benefit the Washington Tennis & Education Foundation, which works to improve the lives of DC-area youth, particularly those from lower-income communities, through educational and community-based activities, including tennis. Farmers & Distillers also participated in the kickoff event last year.

Tiki Training & Tasting by the Sea

Last modified: January 17, 2020

Our Founding Spirits team spent six days over the past two weeks teaching and training the art of tiki cocktails. Distillery Director, Jon Arroyo, and Distillery Manager, Bob VanLancker, joined bartenders from across the globe at the fourth annual Tiki by the Sea in Wildwood, NJ.

An educational and immersive cultural experience into the traditions, spirits, and drinks of the tiki era, attendees learned all about sugarcane distillates and explored classic cachaça tiki application. Tiki by the Sea is held every June at the Barcelona Motel in NJ and every September in Fregene, Italy. This year, Jon and Bob led a seminar on The Art of Blending Frozen Drinks, hosted by the Avuá Cachaça team.

We do have quite a knack for all things tiki, as anyone who has visited our bars knows, and as the press often cites. If you have never tasted our masterful Fisher’s Tikis or shared cocktails at Farmers Fishers Bakers or Farmers & Distillers, it couldn’t be a better season to enjoy them. Many are made with our very own Founding Spirits.

You can also sip smartly knowing you aren’t hurting the environment. We are leading a charge for change across the DMV to eliminate single-use plastic straws with the Our Last Straw coalition. We have made the switch to biodegradable paper straws – or no straw at all – across Farmers Restaurant Group.

So, there are more reasons than not to come on down to one of our restaurants and get a great cocktail crafted by some of our beverage wizards, using our very own craft spirits, and help us spread the word to #StopSucking, one tasty tiki at a time.