Post #722036 by AceExplorer on Wed, Jul 9, 2014 9:00 AM

Every Tuesday is "Tiki Tuesdays" at the new Ice Plant craft distillery and craft cocktail bar in St. Augustine, Florida. Happy hour is from 5p to 7p. Outside of those hours, drinks run between $8 and $12 depending on the exoticness of the ingredients. They are serving many drinks in real tiki mugs.

I don't know how long into the future they will continue Tiki Tuesdays, but for the time being, as of July 2014, I plan on enjoying it while it lasts.

Note that this is not a tiki venue, but they understand and love real tiki drinks and have Jeff Berry's "Potions of the Caribbean" behind the bar. They also have an amazing selection of high-quality and very cool liquors and liqueurs. I do think this is going to become my favorite bar in Northeast Florida based on the experiences I had last night. My conversations with the bartenders was very good from the standpoint of their knowledge and understanding of tiki cocktails and historical/vintage mixology.

The place is truly an old ice manufacturing facility from the old days when St. Augustine had a large commercial fishing fleet based in Oyster Creek. The building is very old, has a huge travelling crane in the ceiling formerly used to transport huge blocks of ice, and the cavernous vintage-ness of the space creates an amazing ambiance and atmosphere. The attached packing/shipping building is now used as their distillery where they make small-batch rums, vodkas, whiskys, and gins.

The food is high-end and incredible. Seriously. There is awesome food here. It's not Polynesian food - it's high-end burgers and a bunch of other soups and dinner stuff that I don't remember at the moment. But when you eat their food, angels sing! This is truly a good place which is going to start vacuuming cash out of my pockets more often in the future. And believe me when I tell you that even when it's busy you can actually carry on a conversation with the bartenders and other patrons without having to yell. That's a refreshing discovery when I consider that my other fave bars require quite a bit of yelling when they're busy.

If you're in Northeast Florida, I encourage you to check this place out. I'll post a few more pics in the future; I'm definitely going back.

Web site: http://www.iceplantbar.com