Love it or hate it, Tiger Town Tavern’s infamous Pickletini has won Best Signature Drink once again. The drink is a mix of vodka and savory pickle brine, topped with a perfect quarter-slice pickle spear, that everyone of drinking age in Clemson has tried.

Cameron Farish, Triple’s co-owner who has worked at the establishment since 1993, gave The Tiger some background on the Pickletini. To him, it was always incredulous that people would pay extra to drink pickle juice. But, he’s been wrong many times before, according to himself, and did not resist the fast-moving current of trends and novelty.

“I think it started from kind of the myths behind pickle juice,” Farish stated, referencing the prominence of a pickleback, where people would take a liquor shot immediately followed by a shot of pickle juice to reduce the effects of a hangover.

At first, it was “a niche little thing,” but unsuspecting to the owners and other patrons of Triple, someone with a prominent social media following tried the Pickletini and posted to the world about how tasty it was.

The rest is history.

Pickletini sales skyrocketed, the Pickletini shirt was made, the original poster was tracked down and now, almost every Clemson student tries a Pickletini for the first time on their 21st birthday.

Many may not know this, but Triple has a pickle juice perfectly constructed for their Pickletini, mastered by Clemson alumni.

Farish told The Tiger that three Clemson alumni had moved up to the Northeast to work in food science-related jobs. The three of them gathered back at Triple and told the owners they had a plan, since Triple remained such an inspiration to them.

They wanted to perfectly construct the pickle brine for the Pickletini. Up until this point, it’d just been leftover pickle juice from the pickles that they served on the plate of every meal.

They had test tastings, changed the mouthfeel, strained the seeds and calculated how many should be left in. Farish called it “crazy science.”

“And they developed the Tiger Town pickles, and they ship it to me,” he said.

Farish buys 24 five-gallon buckets at a time, and in the future, they hope to bottle it up in a mixer jar that people can bring home.

The savory smoothness and perfectly-engineered pickle juice, paired with a careful hold on the martini glass, are what make the Pickletini the timeless drink of Clemson.

Hours:

Mon-Thu: 4 p.m.-2 a.m.

Fri-Sun: 11 a.m.-2 a.m.

Address:

368 College Ave.

Clemson, SC 29631

Phone: (864) 654-5901

www.tigertowntavern.com // @tigertowntavern (Instagram) // Tiger Town Tavern (Facebook)