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Bittermilk: The Labor is in the Bottle

Bittermilk“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” Yes – a famous quote from Rick Blaine (a/k/a Humphrey Bogart) in Casablanca. Joe and MariElena Raya met while studying at The Culinary Institute of America, which, in my opinion is much more exciting than in a smoky, spy-ridden bar in Morocco…fast-forward to 2015 and pre-prohibition cocktails are alive and well at The Gin Joint in downtown Charleston.

Once they finished their studies at the C.I.A., MariElena worked at world-class venues including Blackberry Farm and The Breakers Resort, was the Executive Chef at Robert’s of Charleston for five years and was also a Culinary Arts Instructor. Joe earned the prestigious Diploma in Wine and Sprits with the Wine and Sprits Education Trust in London and still teaches intermediate and advance level wine and spirits classes to those in the biz. The couple opened The Gin Joint in 2010 and patrons enjoyed Joe’s cocktails so much they asked for his drink recipes. They tried to replicate the recipes at home but then realized the results were just not the same. So as though running their busy downtown Charleston hot spot wasn’t enough to keep them on their toes, they launched Bittermilk, a line of cocktail mixers made with unique ingredients designed for the modern-day cocktail enthusiast to help mix up unique, quality cocktails following a simple ratio of Bittermilk to your choice of spirit. We’re sure Bogart would have been a fan.

Bittermilk Joe and MariElena Raya on barrell“We were looking for another business suitable to our family lives and launched in October of 2013. These are unique products, a great gift item for home use with easy to follow ratio-based recipes. Users have come up with their own recipes as well and shared them with us. Each of our products uses a bittering agent, a sweetener, and an acid to achieve a balanced cocktail.” explains MariElena. The six flavors in the line are Bourbon Barrel Aged Old Fashioned, Tom Collins with Elderflowers & Hops, Smoked Honey Whiskey Sour, New Orleans Style Old Fashioned Rouge, Charred Grapefruit Tonic with Bulls Bay Sea Salt and Oaxacan Old Fashioned. There are no more than three components in their drink recipes, not including ice – we think that’s manageable, don’t you? I have never seen “torching grapefruit peels” in a job description but then again I am not on the creative team working at Bittermilk who came up with that very popular mixer. What are you smoking? Did you say honey? “Yes! We use charred bourbon barrel pieces from the barrels that have aged the Old Fashioned mixer from Kentucky which give the honey a subtle, smoky flavor. The cocktail mixer world was not thriving. We try to punctuate our mixers with unique flavors. We chose names that people could recognize like “Tom Collins” and “Whiskey Sour”. Bittermilk is word we came up with to bring attention to the fact there are three distinct flavors in cocktails: sweet, sour and bitter.”

Bittermilk has received tremendous well-deserved press from major media outlets including Garden and Gun (winning “Made in The South Award for Drinks”), and Charleston Magazine and many others. Here’s lookin’ at you Joe and MariElena! Now, we need to get back to The Gin Joint because tantalizing cocktails and share plates of quick bites await us– all made in-house from their jerky to the ice cream!

www.bittermilk.com

The Gin Joint
182 East Bay Street (between Cumberland and Queen Streets)
Charleston, SC 29401
843-577-6111

HOURS:
Sun-Wed 5:00 pm -12:00 am
Thurs- Fri 5:00 – 2:00 am
Sat 3:00 pm – 2:00 am
www.theginjoint.com

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