It's America’s most popular tart cherry for pies and preserves. It's also one of the ingredients in a new cherry brandy made by Red Cedar Spirits in East Lansing.

"We still like to think of ourselves as real Michigan-based so we try to highlight Michigan fruits and grains," said Berglund, a professor of chemical engineering at Michigan State University, and in many ways, the godfather of the state's distilling industry. "Cherry is an obvious one for Michigan."

The cherries Berglund uses are grown by Traverse City’s Shoreline Fruit. 

"Fruit brandies are known for kind of having the essence of that particular fruit in them,” said  Dianne Holman, Berglund's wife. Together, they own Red Cedar Spirits, a distillery and cocktail bar and a training site for distillers from around the country.

Red Cedar Spirits operates out of a former public works building on Merritt Road that was shuttered by the city of East Lansing in 2004. Berglund and Holman bought the building in 2011 for their biochemical company, Working Bugs, which was formed in 2007.

Red Cedar Spirits came about in 2012. They now have about a dozen different products, including vodka, gin, brandy, whiskey and bourbon.

A gin with a strong fraction of Michigan raspberries and a straight whiskey blend are also among Red Cedar Spirits' recent releases.

"The raspberry gin, made with Michigan raspberries, makes really good gin and tonics," Berglund said. "Instead of having lime, you put raspberries in it. The raspberry gin was from last summer's raspberries."

The Melting Pot - their new whiskey - is a blend of straight whiskeys. It has a blend of corn bourbon, a rye whiskey and a malt whiskey. "They're barreled separately and then together," Holman said. "It’s a double barrel."

Read more at source: lansingstatejournal