Draft cocktails — the latest buzz around the bar and where you can find them in Beaufort County

You’ve probably enjoyed a draft beer or two at some of the local restaurants and bars around town. You might have even tried a few craft cocktails in your time.

But ask any mixologist, or maybe even a dude with a man-bun, and they’ll tell you the latest craze in the alcohol world is draft cocktails.

Pre-made cocktails served on tap — think craft cocktails, but instead of going through a million steps to make a Manhattan, a bartender can flip a faucet from a draft system to serve the drink instantly — are a perfect way to beat a dinner rush, help a bartender who has multiple orders for popular cocktails and serve a signature drink that tastes the same each time around, according to Clayton Rollison, owner and chef of The Lucky Rooster Kitchen and Bar on Hilton Head Island.

“It gave us an opportunity to deliver a better, more consistent product,” he said. “One of the things that’s tough when you’re doing craft cocktails is the length of time it can take to make drinks.”

Rollison said he started serving cocktails on draft at Lucky Rooster in the fall of 2014, almost a year after opening his restaurant in 2013. Shortly after opening, he said at the time he didn’t notice a lot of old school cocktails being served on Hilton Head. Only recently have restaurants and bars in the area started to serve craft cocktails.

Much like the menu and atmosphere of The Lucky Rooster, Rollison likes to stay ahead of the game; there are currently four draft cocktails and two draft wines served at the restaurant, Rollison said.

“We push our bar program really hard to stay ahead, and I don’t know why other restaurants don’t do it,” he said. “It’s hard work. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

One of the reasons Rollison said many bars might stay away from serving draft cocktails is the risk involved in making a 5-gallon batch of 100 percent spirited drinks. He said if a drink that wasn’t 100 percent spirited was put on draft, say like a margarita, the concoction would separate if not constantly stirred.

“To make a 100 percent spirited cocktail … you have to know how to properly balance the cocktail and spirits,” he said.

Serving a 100 percent spirited drink that doesn’t taste boozy or watered down involves employing the right math, Rollison said. Knowing a bit of chemistry helps, too — for instance, a bar could never serve a gin and tonic on draft because tonic water uses carbon dioxide and a draft system uses nitrogen gas, he said.

One of the biggest hurdles for bartenders who serve cocktails on draft is figuring out how to put a citrus cocktail in the system without the mixture separating and spoiling, he said. At The Lucky Rooster, he said his bar team uses a milk punch, an old preservation practice used by founding father and the original American foodie Thomas Jefferson, which clarifies a citrus cocktail that’s later strained, refrigerated, kegged under pressure and served.

“Milk punch, it’s done at really interesting cocktail bars,” he said. “We do that as well, and we tie it all together.”

Rollison said draft cocktail aren’t just the latest trend in the restaurant world, though.

“For us, it’s much more than a novelty,” he said. “It operationally solved being able to expand our cocktail menu.”

In honor of the draft cocktail, here’s a list of three places you can find cocktails on draft in Beaufort County:

This story was originally published May 15, 2017 at 1:20 PM with the headline "Draft cocktails — the latest buzz around the bar and where you can find them in Beaufort County."