Put A Cherry On Top

When I flew out to meet the couple who makes our tart cherry juice for Tandem, Kim picked me up in her own car at the airport. We drove through Michigan, the cherry capital of the world, and visited their production site. Her team makes specialty juices - they are not in the business of bottling. However, we were just getting Tilden off the ground and needed to somehow produce a couple hundred high quality samples for sales meetings before we could produce our first small batch. Kim and her team went out of their way to create a bespoke solution.

I spent the day with Kim, Chad, and two of their employees. Together we carefully blended and tested each sample batch, confirmed our planned heating process worked, hand-filled two bottles at a time, sanitized closures to cap our sample bottles, and filled ice baths so we could quickly cool our pasteurized sample bottles. Working with them was a joy.

Knowing the people you work with personally leads to care, quality, and creativity. That is why we source our ingredients directly from producers, and why we view them as an extension of our team.

Our tart cherry juice is de-sugared using a patented process where yeast consumes the natural fructose. The result is a juice with full flavor, full nutrition, and no glucose spike. It's part of how we offer a cocktail pour with less than a gram of sugar, while most bar-made cocktails are up to 70% sugar syrup. 

Can you imagine a cherry with no sweetness? That dry, red fruit complexity pushes your pallet beyond the shallow satisfaction of sugar-forward flavor, bringing you on a true flavor journey. Working our de-sugared tart cherry into Tandem was both challenging and incredibly creative. We fell in love in the process.

Sip Tandem to find the tannic acidity of our tart cherry balanced by the umami of American oak, the floral sweetness of rooibos, the smoky earthiness of lapsang, and the warmth of ginger.