Satisfy Your Thirst SC Promo Tour – Charleston
STRIPED PIG DISTILLERY
Our first stop on the Satisfy Your Thirst PROMO tour, was Striped Pig Distillery located right here in North Charleston, South Carolina. We were excited about this location, because this was the first distillery the we visited when we became the Cocktail Bandits.
Striped Pig is about three years old, and they make several different spirits: rum, vodka, moonshine, whiskey, a spiced rum and our favorite, Gin! Johnny Pieper, one of the owners and master distiller, is our favorite person ever! He started because he saw a need in the Charleston market for local booze production and he wanted to fill that spirit void in the city. That’s when he partnered with a few other gentlemen, built the distillery, and named it Striped Pig. The striped pig was a false advertisement from a rum seller before prohibition period. It was painted on a flag to get customers interested into seeing it. They would pay a few coins in see the “striped pig” and would be rewarded with a glass of rum. Striped Pig Distillery was to engage its customers the same way and reward them with top notch spirits.
Striped Pig is now sold all over the country, as well as internationally. Striped Pig has a grain to glass process. They get their seeds from Myers Farm in Bowman SC, and the complete the mash creation, fermentation, distillation, and bottling in house. You can visit Striped Pig Distillery on Thursdays and Fridays; from 3 PM to 7 PM, and Saturdays from 12 PM to 5 PM. Please go check them out and tell them that the Bandits sent you! You can check out their website at www.stripedpigdistillery.com. Now on our way to the next stop on the SYT tour. Cheers!
HOLY CITY BREWING
Holy City Brewery was our next stop on the Satisfy Your Thirst SC promotional tour. Holy City was created by 4 young men who worked a rickshaw company. During the slower months of tourism, they decided to home brew beers. Eventually, they opened Holy City brewery in North Charleston and it has been a popular hub every since.
They have a lot of seasonal beers and they also have their staples which are a hoppy Pilsner and a Pluff Mud Porter that is a personal favorite. They have a kitchen now and the food is phenomenal “bar food”. They even have wings that are tossed in a Pluff Mud BBQ sauce. It’s AMAZING!! If you have never been to Holy City Brewing, please visit for a tour and check out their website at www.holycitybrewing.com. Now… Off to the next location. Cheers!
The Satisfy Your Thirst SC PROMO Tour
South Carolina is a state rich in history and culture. The Satisfy Your Thirst SC app was created by SC Parks Recreation and Tourism to show people how to travel around our beautiful state, and enjoy our delicious libations. By libations, we don’t only mean cocktails, beer, and things that place you under the influence; but anything that is produced in South Carolina, that we can drink.
The app showed us how to find creameries, juiceries, sodas, breweries, wineries, and of course, distilleries that produce products that are made and drank locally.
The Cocktail Bandits were more than excited to travel around the state, using the SYT app to find different cocktails and places to drink. Join us in the summary of our #satisfyyourthirstSC drink tour across state… Hope you’re thirsty!!
#DrinkLocal Challenge in April for Lowcountry Local First
For the month of April, the Cocktail Bandits were asked by Lowcountry Local First, to do a drink local challenge. The goal of this challenge, was to show people how they can spend their money locally and keep it in the community. We drank local coffee, juice, beer, and cocktails. We are huge advocates for supporting your local food and Bev so this was a challenge we couldn’t refuse! Enjoy our four-part series to drinking local in Charleston!
1. #DrinkLocalCoffee
We don’t drink coffee often, but when we do, we want to do it locally. During this month, we drink coffee from our local coffee shops and enjoyed every sip. We love the ladies from the Orange Spot Coffee House located in Park Circle in North Charleston. They are doing really cool things there, like making delicious savory lattes with seasonal ingredients…. Yummy! We love to cure our coffee fixes at The Orange Spot!
2. #DrinkLocalJuice
Juicing is an important part of the Cocktail Bandit diet. We love juices for our morning boosts and we definitely like to keep them local like the juice spot called Huriyali. All of their juices are seasonal and AMAZING! They have a strawberry juice now that is seriously addictive. It’s such a cute spot right on Huger St.
When we are not purchasing our juices, we are making them ourselves. We love to go to the Farmers Market and get local produce and make our own juices and smoothies. One of our favorite vendors is Joseph Fields from Fields Farm. His produce is amazing. The farmers market is a great way to keep all of your seasonal veggies for juicing.
3. #DrinkLocalBeer
If you know the Bandits, you know that we love a good beer. We are so thankful that Charleston provides us with so many craft breweries so we can always drink a local cold one. We had the pleasure of visiting Holy City Brewery and it was a delicious experience. Their Pluff Mud porter is so amazing that they made a BBQ sauce out of it! (And it’s pretty good too!) Holy City carries over 20 beers in their tap and you can find them in almost every bar in Charleston. They also make this pineapple soda that’s light, and tastes as good as the beer! Holy City Brewery is a gem and people are always there drinking locally.
4. #DrinkLocalCocktails
Of course a drink local challenge would not be complete if we didn’t include cocktails!! We love that the bartenders here incorporate local ingredients in their cocktails. Most places even have seasonal cocktail menus now. We definitely had a great time ordering local and an even better time drinking local.
We went to Obstinate Daughter and they have 2 cocktails on tap and both were local spirits. The cocktail that we chose we called the King’s Honey; made with King Charles Vodka from Charleston Distilling, and Honey Basil soda from Cannon Bourough Beverage Company.
Spectator Hotel is doing some amazing things with local ingredients as well. They have a seasonal cocktail called the Bees Knees that is made with local honey and garnished with seasonal edible flowers. It’s was light, refreshing, and not to mention, beautiful!!
5. #DrinkLocalWine
Last week we had the pleasure of going out to Wadmalaw Island to Deep Water Vinyards; formally Irving House Vinyards, to taste their wine. They make it with muscadine grapes, and although some believe that it’s impossible to make good with these grapes, we were impressed. The Reds and the Whites were smooth but not too sweet. Their best seller, Magnolia, was a dry white that we found quite delicious. It was our first time trying this wine and it did not disappoint.
We are huge supporters of drinking/eating locally and we are so thankful to live in a city that supports it as well. Charleston is such an incredible place where locals support each other. We had a great time doing this challenge!
Charleston Wine and Food: Roasted Goat
The roasted goat had to be our favorite event of this year’s Charleston Wine and Food Festival. It was located at HighWire Distillery’s parking lot and featured different restaurants sampling they’re delicious eats as well as different boozy beverages. We enjoyed tasting all of the different variations of the Star of the Night: roasted goat.
Even though goat was the staple of that event, we wanted to spotlight the fried chicken that we sampled from Urban Grub, located in Nashville TN. We literally stood in line for 20 minutes to taste it, but it was so worth it! We have to visit them when we visit Tennessee! The chicken was delicious.
We enjoyed seeing our “Discover SC” family at the Roasted Goat event as well. They are very supportive of the Bandits and we can’t wait to collaborate with them.
The music, ambiance, cocktails and people were perfect that night and the fact that our glasses were always filled with some type of alcoholic beverage never hurts the cause. We look forward to this event next year.
Charleston Wine and Food Festival: Opening Night
The Charleston Wine and Food Festival was a week full of delicious food, great cocktails, exquisite wine and a damn good time! There were over 200 events that took place during #chswff, but we are going to talk about the events that we enjoyed!
Opening Night
Opening night took place at the newly renovated Gilliard Auditorium. It was gorgeous. As soon as we walked in, we were greeted with our wine glasses and there were food/drink stations everywhere! The music was on point, and everyone was there having a blast! The Charleston Wine and Food cocktail contest winner, Iouli Burroughs of Fish Restaurant was able to show of his winning cocktail at opening night called the Bon Vivant, made with Hendricks Gin.
CHSWFF also partnered with the Art Institute of Charleston and had some of the local designer students showcasing their work as we sampled from different restaurants and bars. It was the absolutely favorite part of the event.
We had the pleasure of meeting our followers from social media! We loved seeing so many people who follow the Cocktail Bandits out at opening night, supporting the local festivities. Overall, opening night was a success. We were excited for MORE!!
March Madness: Cocktail Bandit Style
March has been an incredible month for the Cocktail Bandits. We thought that it would be fitting to name this series CB March Madness!! We had the pleasure of attending Charleston Wine and Food Festival (3/2 – 3/6) as well as Charleston Fashion Week 10 (3/15 – 3/19). It’s was crazy and incredible. In this month alone, we have been around more creative souls than we have EVER encountered. We’ve tried some of the best food and booze from famous chefs, Brewers, and distillers around; and have seen dope fashions on the local fashionistas as well as runway. All of this amazing-ness happened this month right here in Charleston…. So get prepared to experience March Madness: The Cocktail Bandit way! Stay tuned and Cheers!! #cocktailbandits #chswff #chsfw10 #marchmadness
Lasered by Caruso
Hey ladies! Summertime is around the corner, and it’s time to get ready for those summer bodies. Caruso Aesthetics is the place for you. Gina the main aesthetician specializes and lasering all of that annoying hair away! She is very good with all women, but she specializes in women of color. Laser hair removal may also be the solution to some women who have annoying ingrown hairs and or hair bumps. It is even been proven to lighten up dark areas on extra melaninated skin. There is a fear that laser hair removal is painful, that’s not true. It’s mildly uncomfortable, but if you could handle a wax then you can handle the laser hair removal as well.
The Patron Experience 101
If any of you know the Cocktail Bandits, you know that our first love is tequila. It is the reason why we created the brand. For the last 3 years, we have been studying/tasting different tequilas, learning about the culture and we have been praying for a way to get down there to learn more. We were so thrilled that our prayers were answered when the USBG- Charleston as well as the Patron Academy gave us the opportunity of a lifetime! They invited us, along with other bartenders/mixologists to visit the Patron Hacienda in Mexico this week!
In 2016 the #HaciendaPatron and USBG partnered together and are inviting top USBG bartenders from around the country each month to visit their distillery , learn the whole tequila process, and show why Patron is not a tequila made for the “Gringo” palate. (Total myth)
Antonio was very knowledgeable about the tequila business. We love how excited he was during the presentation and the tour. We love what we do so it’s nice to be around people who love tequila as much as we do.
Mènage à Trois Vodka Galentine’s Day Challenge
We were challenged by Mènage à Trois Vodka to make a cocktail for Galentine’s Day. Galentine’s Day was created to celebrate love for your gal pals the day before Valentine’s Day. It’s meant to empower women and encourage them to love themselves!! So this is was the theme to our cocktail… “Single Fly Female”
Single Fly Female
muddled fresh Apple Slice/ pineapple/ginger
.5 oz fresh lime juice
.5 oz fresh honey
1.75 oz Mènage à Trois Berry Vodka
Splash of cranberry juice
Shaken
Strain into a rocks glass and top with Rose’
Garnish with cranberry and apple slice
We wanted to create a cocktail that was fun, but spicy; busy with ingredients but everything still works perfectly together. Just like us! There is no one I would rather spend Galentine’s Day with than my bestie Johnny. We work hard and we play harder. This is how we celebrate!!
Check out the other yummy flavors from Mènage à Trois and check them out at www.menageatroisvodka.com. We will be serving this delicious cocktail at Ro Sham Beau on Friday, 2/12, from 5-7. We can’t wait to see all of the gals try our tasty cocktail and celebrate everything amazing about ladies on Galentine’s Day!! #MATVGalentines #cocktailbandits #menageatrois #girlsdayout
30 Days 30 Faves – Republic Reign
Of course, Republic Reign of Charleston has to be one of our favorite spots because it’s always poppin’. It is the most popular nightclub and bar here in Charleston.
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Every weekend night, it’s packed! We have had quite a few memories in Republic. We collaborated, hosted, and pulled off an awesome day party there last year and that really inspired us to do more events!
They have partnered with us on several different projects and they have all been successful! We believe that Republics most memorable features are the infamous eclectic blue couch and spacious outside patio.
The bartenders in Republic are amazing as well. Wayne and Chris are so accommodating and so creative! We are so thankful to have them in our city. Hannah their female bartender that served us during our photo shoot is amazing not to mention super beautiful! She made us several cocktails with out featured spirit, Avion, that were delicious! If you ever want to go out and shake a leg here in Charleston, Republic is the place to be!
Photography by Jen Wilson Photography
Makeup Masks by Marie Fox MUA
