Thursday, August 01, 2019

The return of the swizzle stick as accessible pop art.


Louisville's Galt House Hotel has embarked on an $80 million renovation that includes two new restaurants and quite a lot more. Last evening at the Food & Dining Magazine web site I posted a brief news piece about Swizzle, the hotel's forthcoming 25th-floor eatery retrofit. In this quote from the info release, management explains the name.

Swizzle will be the Galt House Hotel’s new 25th floor restaurant, debuting in Spring 2020

"Perched 25 stories above River Road, Swizzle is inspired by a restaurant of the same name that operated on Chestnut Street in downtown Louisville in the 1940s and 50s. Back then, the spot was named for the drink stirrers that could mix a patron’s cocktail with just a quick swirl and was billed as the “headquarters for grand food. During the golden era of supper clubs, a swizzle stick was symbolic of a fun night out—of well executed American cuisine, free-flowing cocktails, and memories made with friends and family,” said Scott Shoenberger, President and CEO of the Al J. Schneider Company."

For my own reading pleasure, and now yours, here's further background on the swizzle stick comeback.

The Swizzle Stick Makes a Modern Comeback (Punch Drink)

A smart means of visual marketing, swizzle sticks have made a comeback—many of them with colorful, over-the-top designs. Leah Mennies on the visual range of swizzle stick 2.0 and the bars that have adopted them as calling cards.

In a moment when everything from rainbow bagels to milkshakes topped with entire pieces of cake is engineered purely for the photo-sharing potential on Instagram, an eye-catching swizzle stick is just smart business—working as a sort of social media geotag that’s embedded in the cocktail itself. This is, in a sense, the original purpose of a swizzle stick, after all.

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