If you’ve been on upper King Street after dark lately, you’ll likely see bar hoppers ordering dirty martinis, espresso martinis and Hugo spritzes — cocktails that have been clogging your Instagram feeds for a few years now.
Imbibers often order drinks they see on social media, and local bartenders are more than happy to mix them up. But sometimes, they’re tired of making the same thing over and over (and over). They want you to try their specialty cocktails, too.
At restaurants and bars around Charleston, mixologists try to find ways to distinguish themselves, whether that be through quirky clarifications, gonzo garnishes or playful names. But maybe they don’t need all that?
From classics to the local bounty
“I think a lot of people are overcomplicating things,” says Estadio bar manager Lauren Ganaway.
She mentions sweet foams and sugar rims on savory drinks, but she wants a classic dialed up to 11, not an experiment. She’s a dirty martini drinker and makes a version at the Spring Street restaurant called the
“Su Su Sucio” which is a filthy martini with capers, pickled peppers, olives, garlic, vinegar and salt with the customer’s choice of gin or vodka. The name is a play on the Phil Collins song “Sussudio” and the Spanish word for “dirty” (sucio).
Ganaway said she wants the right amount of salinity in her martini, so her complaint extends to bartenders using Castelvetrano olive brine in the drink.
“That olive is super buttery and not salty, and it doesn’t really have any vinegar to it. So, the Castelvetrano is a great garnish but not the brine you want to use in a dirty martini.”
For other bartenders, pushing savory drinks into unexpected territory is a way to treat cocktails like cuisine.
“We’re kind of picky and choosy about the trends that we decide to latch onto,” says Jimmy Chmielewski, bar manager at neighborhood restaurant The Archer. “A big thing for us is adding savory or umami elements to drinks — they’re almost mimicking food. I’ll have an idea about a dish I had once, and I want to put it into liquid form.”
One such drink is the Black Sheep, a cocktail created by the restaurant’s Damien Edens, who was inspired by his grandmother’s favorite snack: goat cheese toast with jam. The cocktail is made with goat cheese-washed gin, blackberries, grapefruit and thyme. It can be divisive, but it’s a popular drink.
When asked how the Charleston cocktail scene differentiates itself from other markets, Chmielewski points to the Lowcountry’s bounty of produce.
“The way to separate yourself is to use what’s local and what’s in season,” he said, “The things that we have local and in season here are going to be very different from what is local and in season in northern France or southern California. How do you take those things and make them super unique?”
Freshness counts, he said.
“We utilize tomato water during the summer. We’re using fresh South Carolina and Georgia apricots. Those things are hyper-seasonal,” he said. “The moment those things go away, they have to be taken off the list because we can’t get the same product. We had a cocktail on our opening menu with tomato water and peach oleo, but it was fresh South Carolina peaches. The moment they were out of season, that oleo would never taste the same.”
Another establishment making use of Charleston produce is Seahorse, the cocktail bar from the team at popular seafood restaurant Chubby Fish. Bar Manager Chris Carron says he’s inspired by the seasonal products brought in by the kitchen.
“We get these beautiful Sun Gold tomatoes, and they’re all over the menu at Chubby Fish,” he said. “I was able to take those and turn those into a cocktail.”
Carron said he makes the Tomato Collins with Sun Gold tomato water, fino sherry and a basil-oil-washed gin. It’s a light and refreshing cocktail that tastes like a Lowcountry summer.
“Because Charleston has so many great restaurant bars, you see more culinary collaboration,” he said, “Whether it’s the bar trying to cross-utilize cool produce or being inspired by a flavor profile going on in the kitchen. That’s something that is interesting and unique about here.”
The Spritz: love it or hate it
When strawberries were in season, bartender Dwayne Johnson at Bellerose Hotel Bar created a strawberry bourbon smash. The Bellerose serves traditional steakhouse fare, and its cocktail menu highlights all the classics, but Johnson always has a few nontraditional sips up his sleeve — just ask to hear the specials.
His newest addition is a Sarti spritz. Sarti, an Italian aperitif with flavors of blood orange, mango and passion fruit, wasn’t previously offered in the United States, but once it was, it sold out.
Johnson said he went to several stores to secure a bottle for Bellerose. Its vibrant pink hue lends itself well to Instagram photos, so it’s prime to replace the other favored drink of the summer, the Hugo spritz, which is made with St-Germain elder flower liqueur, prosecco and soda water.
“I’d love to see the Hugo spritz go away,” says Jackrabbit Filly bar manager Will Moscowitch, “But I’m glad that other uses for aperitivos are becoming more popular. I think a lot of people are using more sherries now. Like I’m guilty of that.” He prefers to make a spritz with Amontillado sherry and fresh cantaloupe juice.
At The Archer, the bartenders don’t stock St-Germain, so they aren’t able to offer a Hugo spritz, which is fine by Chmielewski.
“I think there’s cooler ways to utilize wine-based spirits and lower ABV (alcohol by volume) products in cocktails that are creative and fun, and not a Hugo,” he says. “I’ve never really understood why you go out to a place and spend $15 on a drink that would cost you $3 to make at your house.”
The three locations of European-ish cafe Babas have championed the spritz as part of their aperitivo hour program, which features free briny, salty snacks with the purchase of a boozy beverage on Friday and Saturday evenings. The cocktail is more involved than the Hugo, featuring Contratto aperitif, Campari and prosecco.
Babas tends to keep its bar selections classic. Richard Smith, general manager of the Wentworth location, thinks the cocktail trend cycle is looping back around to traditional drinks.
“It’s been funny seeing the martini come back, and not just like a dirty martini, but it’s the classic martini,” Smit said. “You can make a gorgeous drink, and it doesn’t have to involve milk washing, acid adjusting, clarifying, nitro muddling, or all these techniques that we’ve come across in the past 20 years. Now, it’s like, how do I pick a really great vermouth and a blend of really awesome gins and serve it at a temperature that’s perfect?”
As far as trends go, there are the Instagram and TikTok trends (the Hugo spritz), and then there are cocktail connoisseur trends, and you just have to find the right Charleston bar that fits your taste.
What people liked over the years
Cocktail trends are a pendulum, swinging from extreme to austere. In Charleston, it’s no different, but our cocktail culture didn’t take off until the repeal of the state’s mini-bottle law in 2006.
For years after 1973, the soundtrack in South Carolina bars was the crackle of the twist of the aluminum cap on a 1.7-ounce mini-bottle of liquor. There was no free-pour liquor. You had to commit to one spirit, unless you were splitting shots with a friend and ponying up for several types of liquor — if you wanted a Long Island Iced Tea, it was coming in pitcher form.
Starting in the ’90s, the most popular mini-bottle was Grand Marnier, because customers were taking shots of it. The story goes that the tradition started in the kitchen at downtown Vickery’s, where cooks were knocking them back after their shift. This practice then spread to other food and beverage workers in Charleston, and soon enough, it became weirdly popular.
The shot earned the nickname “GranMa,” and the Holy City became one of the top consumers of the French liqueur.
As mini-bottles faded with the replacement of full-sized bottles in bars, tastes became more varied, with patrons ordering shots of Van Gogh Espresso vodka, Firefly Distillery Sweet Tea vodka, Fireball whiskey and, finally, Fernet (which is still a preferred industry shot today).
High-end restaurants like FIG, McCrady’s and Charleston Grill could finally offer cocktails that featured more than one spirit. Imagine now coming to Charleston and not being able to order a Negroni because Campari mini-bottles weren’t available!
Charleston’s first dedicated cocktail bar, The Gin Joint, didn’t open until 2010. After that, the city saw The Belmont and others followed with a concentration on the classics, like a Hemingway daiquiri or boulevardier. That same year, Husk opened and brought the small-batch bourbon craze to town.
Now in 2026, bartenders are free to experiment with esoteric liquors, housemade bitters and complicated clarification processes. When a hot new drink comes out of a larger city, like New York or Chicago, Lowcountry bars are quick to pick it up if it gets enough traction.
Perhaps the only trend that remains uniquely Charleston might be a shot of super-orangy-sweet GranMa, if anyone out there still partakes. Bottoms up. (Blech.)
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