Jimmy Buffett popularized the margarita. Cuba gave us the daiquiri, and a bevy of Florida bars serve a healthy share of Cuban mojitos every day. You can get a hurricane at any Chili’s around the state just as easily as you can at its birthplace (Pat O’Brien’s) in New Orleans.
If you want a traditional Florida cocktail, though, you need to dig a little deeper. Get off the sand and onto St. Pete Beach’s Corey Avenue.
Tucked into a storefront along Corey, the Swigwam Beach Bar is quietly carving out its own piece of history with some Florida beverages of its own. Call them the new classics, if you will.
Years ago, locals crowded the beach bar, dubbed “The Swig” when it lived on the sand behind what is now the Postcard Inn. Rob Williams started bartending there during spring break in 1986. By the time the bar closed in 2009, he was running the place. The owners of PCI tried to keep him on as bar staff, but Williams missed the Swigwam. He credits his partner, Pam, with his reprise of the popular spot.
“She kicked me in the butt and said, ‘It’s time for you to do something,’” Williams says. “She was the driving force.”
On New Year’s Day in 2010, he signed a lease for a small space on Corey, which isn’t near the crowded hotels or on the sand.
“Initially, people thought I was nuts to open a bar on Corey, off the beach,” he says.
If the tourists don’t immediately find the Swigwam, that’s OK. Locals know they can count on this dog-friendly, smoke-free bar (Williams survived a bout with cancer and intends to remain cancer-free) for sturdy cocktails and a sense of small-town community. St. Pete Beach evokes a 1950s seaside town with few hotels and even fewer T-shirt shops, and the Swig’s walls don’t have kitschy memorabilia because stepping inside is the real deal. And that authentic Florida style extends to the drinks.
“Let’s make a Tangerine Dream,” bartender Dan Helman says.
Rob suggests one of the Swig’s signature cocktails, a Cantaloupe, instead. A moment later, we each raise a small glass to our lips. The drink isn’t on fire; it doesn’t come served in a souvenir cup, with an orange Florida-esque tinge to the concoction. Nevertheless, this unremarkable-looking drink makes its mark on Sonia Nieto, a St. Petersburg Distillery rep.
“This tastes like a Jolly Rancher!” Nieto says, who came to the Swig to talk about the beverage’s booze.
While new, the distillery started churning out rums, gin, vodka and whiskey last year, and the vintage branding on its bottles adds to the old-school vibe thrumming through the Swigwam. Building on those four spirits and complementing them with a host of other liqueurs and liquors, the Swig can — and often does — mix up any Floridian favorite. The bulk of what people sip here doesn’t come as shooters or slammers, or require a special kind of branch only found in the Amazon rain forest. The Swig trucks in the stalwarts, beer and wine included.
The bar is a family affair, with Rob running the place, heavily assisted by his sister Mary, his son Robbie, 15-year veteran Helman, and the “new guy,” Steve Latona, who has been there for four years. Pam works a full-time job outside the Swig, but she stops in to wash glasses and pour beers.
“She doesn’t know prices or the register, so she gives drinks away,” Rob says, laughing because Pam, for that reason, remains a perennial favorite with locals.
Some things never go out of style.
If you can’t make it out to the Swig, here’s how to make three Florida classics.
1960s Orange Blossom
Makes 1
1 1/2 ounces gin
1/2 ounce orange juice
2 dashes lime juice
2 dashes sugar syrup
Combine ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with a small twist of orange peel.
Floridita
Makes 2
3 ounces rum
3 ounces fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice
1 ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice
1 ounce sugar syrup (or 1 teaspoon
of sugar)
Combine ingredients into a blender, add 2 cups ice and process until smooth. For non-alcoholic, substitute club soda for rum.
The Derby Daiquiri
Makes 2
The Derby Daiquiri dates back to 1961, when a Mai-Kai (the state’s quintessential tiki bar) bartender created it to enter a contest to name the Florida Derby’s official beverage. Think of it as a daiquiri with Florida orange juice. The Derby Daiquiri won first place, and the honor of “The Official Drink of the Florida Derby.” Today, the Mai-Kai still references the same recipe. The bar also uses original formulas for almost all of its drinks. “If you make a good drink with the right ingredients,” general manager Kern Mattei said in 2007, “you’ll never have to change the recipe.”
3 ounces rum
3 ounces fresh-squeezed Florida
orange juice
1 ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice
1 ounce sugar syrup (or 1 teaspoon
of sugar)
Combine ingredients into a blender, add 2 cups ice and process until smooth. For non-alcoholic, substitute club soda for rum.
