On Island Time

For someone who runs a West Ashley-based restaurant, David Lowe is spending less and less time here.
Four years ago, Lowe, a former corporate furniture salesman, took a big risk based on a family recipe. He struck out on his own, armed with all-fresh ingredients, and all natural honey-sweetened margarita mix.
At first it was tough sledding, hawking no-booze tastings at local farmer markets. Then he took a bottle by the local Total Wine, where “Island Dave’s” soon became the top-selling fresh mixer. Soon outlets in Columbia and Greenville were on the hook.
And then began the weekly treks to South Florida, where he could stir liquors in with his mix, and sales expanded, thanks to “28-hour” days behind the wheel and tasting tables on arrival.
This year, he’s added spots in the Mid-Atlantic states and has just started selling in New Jersey. Luckily, he’s hooked up with a distributor to expand further north.
“I’m glad because it makes the wife happy,” says Lowe, whose daughter just made the all-region high school tennis team as a seventh-grader playing for West Ashley High.
So, now Island Dave’s cocktail mix can be found anywhere from a Total Wine in Miami to The Grog Shop in Lewes, Del., wherever that is, and the Wall of Beer in Clemson in between.
Unit sales have doubled over the last year, and he’s added a half-gallon; a potentially risky maneuver since the Key West-based mix is perishable, unlike the vast majority of his competition.
Lowe has set his sights next on Texas and Arizona and California. “That’s a flying trip, there will be no driving involved,” Lowe says, laughing.
That he had a meeting with the second largest liquor retailer in the country last Wednesday is no joke and may mean even more expansion for his mix, which is capable of creating 15 different drinks.