By Hanna Raskin Proof’s celebrated gin-and-tonic still leads its cocktail list, and the King Street bar wouldn’t dare do away with its Knuckleball, better known as the whiskey drink with pickled boiled peanuts in it. But Proof’s menu has undergone a significant overhaul, featuring a slew of cocktails developed by staff bartenders. Of the 38 […]

Southern Living deputy editor Jennifer V. Cole identifies Charleston as her second home in a 10-page city guide featured in the magazine’s current issue. And judging from her savvy recommendations for restaurants, bars and other culinary diversions, the claim is justified. “It’s really no surprise that bars and restaurants have paved the path to expansion,” […]

Deidre Schipani Post and Courier, 2014 What’s the story? In July 2014, Brent Stephens, master distiller, along with Alison Curry and Stephen Heilman opened the Charleston Distilling Company. The company is a micro-distillery using locally grown grains raised at Flowers Farm in Summerton. They produce small-batch spirits and liquors. The trio has outfitted its “factory” […]

By Hanna Raskin Post and Courier, 2014 As Proof’s Craig Nelson proved with his winning entry in a recent cocktail contest sponsored by Bombay Sapphire, sometimes thinking outside the box requires thinking inside the bottle. Nelson was one of 10 local bartenders invited to participate in a qualifying round of the U.S. Bartenders’ Guild’s national […]

It’s no secret that Charleston’s a port city. We’re known to drink like sailors after salty days at sea—liquors, liqueurs, and fortified wines, too. Charleston’s Madeira-sipping tradition is said to be a holdover from the days of long, trans-Atlantic passages, but we like classic cocktails and the sophisticated new concoctions, too—to make them, drink them, […]

By Neal Dewing The Federalist, 2014 I spent some time traveling the other week, and at the end of it I found myself in Charleston, SC. Perhaps no other city in the United States holds the same allure for me. I mean this as no snub to New Orleans, about whom I’ve waxed romantic in […]

For the uninitiated, Charleston, South Carolina can be a tough city to grasp. King Street—the city’s sprawling hub—was once mostly known for its yawning stretches of corporate restaurants and chain stores, which you can still find in abundance. It was where tourists went to check out a Banana Republic or American Apparel, as though those […]

In a city such as Charleston, South Carolina, there are obviously many choices for your drinking hole of an evening. So it’s easy to see why Proof might escape your notice – after all, it is a narrow, less-than-800-square-foot space on busy Upper King Street, and it’s without a lot of bells or whistles. But it should […]

In Craig Nelson’s eight years of bartending, he’s used a lot of different techniques to come up with new cocktails: scouring mixology books, learning from friends, pulling bottles from his liquor cabinet in the dark so as not to wake his sleeping baby—well that drink was sort of an accident. But what he’s discovered is […]

ABC News 4, 2012 CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — A new cocktail bar is aiming to fill a sophisticated Lowcountry niche. The owner of the bar Proof, says the resurgence of the cocktail culture has mixologists challenging themselves to prepare inspired drinks. Proof, which is located at 437 King Street, was a joint venture between Craig […]

By Erica Jackson Curran Charleston City Paper, 2012 Earlier this week, we stopped in to Proof, King Street’s newest watering hole. Located in a former to-go pita place at 437 King, it’s a joint venture between the owners of the TBonz Restaurant Group and Craig Nelson, who worked at the West Ashley Pearlz for four […]