Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Evansville, Indiana right on the Ohio River, my home river. It was the quintessential midwestern American-kid childhood–lots of time spent outdoors and then, once Nintendo came, a lot of time spent indoors.
What did you study/what were you interested in?
In college, I “took” Sociology as a major, but I didn’t really study anything. I’m more of a self-learner. I was interested in music and literature. I read a lot of twentieth century American novelists, that was what I was really into at that time in my life. Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, Anthony Burgess—those were sort of my big three. But I guess in relation to this, all along, before I was really even legal I was making alcohol. I made bootleg wine in my attic and my friends’ attics. Then when I did turn twenty-one and I started getting into spirits, I really got more into spirits because of the stuff I was reading. So for a long time I was just drinking Wild Turkey because Hunter S. Thompson was drinking Wild Turkey. And then I got into Hemingway so I started drinking gin and Campari. I didn’t have any money—I was a “sandwich artist” at Subway–so I would just buy really cheap vodka and infuse it at home to try to make my own creations. So I’ve been making alcohol and home infusions for almost twenty years now.
What were you up to prior to Cardinal Spirits?
Since high school I was making websites, back when they didn’t look very good and it was all still pretty new. I ended up moving to New York City and got a job doing web design in Hoboken, New Jersey. I got into web video for quite a while and then I got more into the business side of it. I had a little company in Brooklyn that I created with two friends. At the time I was thinking I could either continue doing what I was doing, which was a lot of video work and social media stuff, which was fine, I wasn’t super passionate about it, but I loved the idea of doing a distillery. Then I met the guys who run Sproutbox in Bloomington and they offered me a job, which I took. Then I met Jeff. He had been thinking about opening a distillery here and I had been thinking about it in Brooklyn, so we just started putting our ideas together. It took a while to figure out exactly what we wanted to do, but I think the idea we came up with together is better than each of our individual ideas.
What do you do at Cardinal?
I am the CEO and one of the cofounders. I spend most of my time thinking about next month and then six months from then, and then sometimes I get to think about a year from then. But most of my time is spent just a little bit into the future, planning. I feel very fortunate to have the ability to plan, being able to rely on Jeff to handle the present day operations and the management of all the moving pieces here. I also focus on marketing and branding.
What do you do elsewhere?
I like to dig in the dirt and grow things. That’s probably my favorite thing to do, other than this. I occasionally get to do woodworking too, but that’s not as often.
Do you have thoughts about Cardinal or life you want to share, yearbook-style?
Have fun, do your best, colonize Mars.
