The votes are in, and everyone loves Taz!
Clemson is home to many bartenders, but no one knows how to pour a classic cocktail quite like Taz of Triple T’s.
Taz started bartending at Triple T’s in 2017, following his graduation from Clemson in 2016. When he was a student, Triple T’s was his favorite downtown bar, and after being out of work for a month and a half after his graduation, he decided to return to the place he had spent so many of his college nights.
“I came and talked to the owner, Jason, and I got hired the day I asked, and here I am five years later,” Taz said.
Although he clearly knows how to make a good drink, for Taz, there is more to his job than what meets the eye.
“Aside from the obvious things that most people like about bartending: instant gratification of walking home with money every day that you work and getting to sling drinks to your friends, one thing that keeps me here is the weird dysfunctional family that we are,” he said.
“Something about being in the trenches together during the brutally long hours of gamedays forges a camaraderie. I also appreciate the people I work for because they value hard workers,” Taz articulated.
“I’ve learned a lot here at Tiger Town, and not just about making drinks!”
As a South Carolina native and Clemson alumnus, Taz knows what it takes to win the hearts of his customers.
“He’s got a great personality and is really attentive,” BJ Brown, one of Taz’s upstairs regulars, said about the bartender. “Once you’re a regular, he knows your drink and will have it ready for you as soon as you walk in.”
The first half of the week is actually when Taz prefers to work; that is when he really gets to know his customer base.
“Believe it or not, I like my Tuesdays and my Wednesdays,” he said. “That’s where I can not have to bust my rear so hard, and I can cut up with people a little more than I can on a Fidya or Saturday when it’s just haywire.”
Sometimes, for the best bartender in town, work has its lighter, more playful moments.
“One year some of my coworkers dressed up as the McPoyle siblings from Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and it was HILARIOUS!” Taz said, reminiscing about one of his funniest memory as a bartender at Triple. “They had the milk, the unibrows, and somehow they even looked like they needed to bathe – which I think was a necessary component of that look.”
As the best bartender at Triple T’s, Taz has been a part of thousands of 21st birthday celebrations, even his own.
“I came here on my twenty-first birthday and got my shirt,” Taz remembered. “Kelly was one of my favorite bartenders; she gave it to me.”
On Tuesdays, you can find Taz behind the bar upstairs all day from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., and on Wednesday nights, he returns back upstairs. On Fridays, he splits his hours as he works happy hour upstairs til 8 p.m. and then ventures downstairs to finish the night on the outside patio from 9 p.m. to close at 2 a.m.
If you don’t know Taz yet or haven’t tried one of his fan-favorite margaritas, make sure to stop by Triple T’s for a drink and meet Clemson’s most-loved man behind the bar!
