David Lowe is probably the only South Carolinian regularly driving to Miami and other southern port of calls, carrying gallons of Key West limejuice in the back of a Suburban.
But unlike the trucker who drives his rig into the Pacific with a load of coconuts in tow, Lowe has a method to his seeming madness. He is transporting what may just be the “best” all-natural margarita mix to retail spots throughout the panhandle state.
Three years ago, burned out from the buttoned-down and long-panted world of commercial furniture sales, Lowe made a daring leap, taking his family’s long-adored margarita mix recipe on the road.
Quitting his job, Lowe decided that just selling his small-batch, honey-sweetened mixer at the Mt. Pleasant farmers market wasn’t enough. Soon, he was on the phone with local-friendly Piggly Wiggly grocery stores.
Soon, the Shadowmoss resident found he was killing himself for such a small slice of the market, driving hither and yon for a half-case here and a half-case there, and branched out, approaching the manager of the West Ashley Total Wine store for a taste-test.
Having passed that test with flying colors and before he knew it, his mixer was the top bottled mixer in West Ashley, which was enough for the Total Wine regional manager to give him a shot in Columbia and Greenville.
From there, Lowe began eyeing the population centers and the warmer climes of Florida, where his product has continued to dominate on Total Wine shelves.
Lowe took a rare week off following Christmas, but not from his beloved khaki shorts, which replaced his former work attire. But work has taken the ranked tennis player off the courts, making sure he hasn’t played competitive match since his state-champion team from St. Andrews took part in a tournament in early fall.
In three years, his work week has morphed from 9-to-5 spot in a cubicle by a phone, to a midnight run south, sometimes by the seat of his pants.
Mondays through Wednesdays, Lowe stays in town, doing paperwork and accounting for his burgeoning business, Island Dave’s Cocktails, and hanging out with his wife and two kids. But come early Thursday morning, he hits the road.
Early. Real early. As in “early-early.”
“I usually leave at about one in the morning if I have to go to Miami that day,” says Lowe, who prefers to pull “windshield time” in the wee hours, saving lighter hours for all-day tastings at retail spots throughout Florida.
He’ll pull a 28-hour day to make sure he’s back Sunday night, no later than 9 p.m., because of a promise he made his family. But, because he loves his work, he can’t stop doing pulling long hours and longer trips.
At Total Wines in Florida, using their brand liquors, he shakes, mixes, rims and serves a variety of cocktails his modified sour mixer can be transformed into. “On any given Thursday, I’ll hand out, in one-and-a-half ounce sample cups, between 700 and 1,000 samples,” he said.
Some nights, he sleeps in his vehicle. Apparently, trying to find a hotel in Miami on a Friday night with a weeks-old reservation is nearly impossible. “Let’s just say I could find a ‘room,’ but you wouldn’t see it listed on TripAdvisor,” he says with a laugh.
Lowe’s business, while pointed more toward Florida, is following in the metaphorical footsteps of other libation-related Lowcountry businesses.
- Firefly’s sweet tea vodka has taken the nation’s bar scene by storm.
- Holy City Brewing’s Pluff Mud Porter was named the nation’s best brown porter.
- Jack Rudy Cocktail Co., whose small-batch grenadine and tonics have been praised everywhere from the New York Times and Esquire to Garden & Gun magazine and the Wall Street Journal.
Lowe has seen sales grow from a couple cases a weekend to 500-600 each month in less than three years. Back then, he would labor all Sunday in a rented commercial kitchen on St. Helena Island to produce 25 cases; today, a call to his Hanahan manufacture, 200 cases get turned out in an hour.
This year, he said, his goal was to find a distributor to help him expand.
“Let’s face it, I’m doing this the most expensive way possible,” hauling nearly 100 cases in his gas-guzzling Suburban versus packed into the back of a semi, Lowe said, bringing to bear business lessons he learned driving a Frito Lays route truck.
But Lowe wants to expand the right way, in a manner that allows him to remain true to his all-natural, all-fresh approach; an approach that gives his product a six-month shelf life, versus the years some big corporate mixers enjoy thanks to preservatives.
While it may be “brown likker” season right now in the South, it’s always breezy in Florida. But that doesn’t mean David Lowe is going to take it easy – and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
