8th Day Distillery

Matt and Jaime Lamping started 8th Day out of a recurring conversation about living without regrets — the name comes from asking what you would do with an eighth day in the week. Their answer was to make spirits. In 2015 they signed a lease on the Near Eastside, bought equipment and began filling bourbon barrels, then took gin and rum to market the hard way, walking them into Indianapolis bars, restaurants and liquor stores themselves. The public-facing bottle shop and cocktail bar followed in 2018, in Suite D06 of the Circle City Industrial Complex — a converted factory on Brookside Avenue that now holds studios, makers and small manufacturers, and which is one of the more interesting buildings in the city to spend an evening in.

The bar itself is unpretentious and domestic by design: the Lampings describe it as a hip living room, they rotate a new local artist's work into the space every quarter, and they run regular pop-ups in partnership with other Indianapolis businesses. The drinks menu rotates with the season and, unusually for a distillery bar, lists mocktails on it as standard rather than as a substitution — a distillery has every commercial reason to push its own spirits, so printing a zero-proof build is a deliberate choice. The Overalls. is the one local guides point to: lemon against a house lavender-and-thyme simple syrup, lengthened with soda water, which is a herbal, dry drink rather than a sweet one. Because the menu turns over seasonally, the specific non-alcoholic builds change; the practice of having them does not.

Opening hours are limited and worth checking before you set out — Thursday to Monday only, closed Tuesday and Wednesday, with the latest closes at 11pm on Friday and Saturday. Kan-Kan Cinema & Brasserie is about half a mile east in Windsor Park if you want to build an evening on this side of town.