At the Mandarin Hide bar in St. Petersburg, a cocktail called “Florida Lady” is made from St. Petersburg Distillery’s Old St. Pete Tropical Gin and Tippler’s Orange Liqueur.
BY CAITLIN ASHWORTH
NNB Student Reporter
ST. PETERSBURG – For years, national publications taunted St. Petersburg as “God’s waiting room” – a “city of green benches” where hordes of listless seniors shared downtown sidewalks with the pigeons.
“The old people sit, passengers in a motionless streetcar without destination,” Holiday magazine said in 1958.
How things have changed.
Now the city is a hip, trendy destination for millennials and tourists – so hip, in fact, that a family recycling business that relocated from Michigan in 1997 has started a distillery that trades on St. Petersburg’s name and uses iconic city photos of yesteryear in its marketing.
“Welcome to the Sunshine City,” say the labels on the bottles of rum and spice, gin, whiskey, and vodka that St. Petersburg Distillery produces on the gritty western flank of Midtown. The labels also feature a golden winking sun – the face of “Old St. Pete” Spirits.
Brothers Steve and Dominic Iafrate Jr., 33 and 35, and their father, Dominic Iafrate Sr., 65, said they developed a love for St. Petersburg, which they call a “hidden gem.” Since relocating their recycling company, Angelo’s Recycled Materials, they have expanded to Orlando, Lakeland and several locations in the Tampa Bay area.
The distillery’s labels feature a golden winking sun, the face of “Old St. Pete” Spirits.
The Iafrates say they saw success in the local craft beer industry and were interested in the craft and quality of microbreweries. They formed a bond with Henry Kasprow, a fourth-generation distiller, which led to the birth of their distillery company.
The Iafrates predict their distillery will help revitalize the Midtown area. After moving their recycling company here, they said, it was the city’s support for the area that drew them to the distillery’s location.
Between 1999 and 2012, the city says, $207.2 million in private and taxpayer money was invested in Midtown, which has seen stirrings of resurgence.
The 30,000-square-foot distillery at 800 31st St. S is within the boundaries of the South St. Petersburg Community Redevelopment Area, a legal designation just approved by the city and county that allows local government to set aside property tax revenue increases in the district and plow them back into targeted improvements there.
Daniel Undhammar, St. Petersburg Distillery’s director of product development, said the distillery uses local ingredients and takes pride in the localism of St. Petersburg.
“Even the barcode is in the shape of Florida,” he said.
Undhammar said the distillery knows the importance of detail. Each bottle is marked with the Iafrate signature and a batch and bottle number. Each box of Old St. Pete Spirits contains a vintage-inspired St. Petersburg postcard “from your friends at St. Petersburg Distillery.”
Undhammar, a London native, said he moved from New York to St. Petersburg in the fall to work for the distillery.
He calls the Old St. Pete Tropical Gin “my baby” and said it is a combination of the old world of London and the new world of America. The style comes from gin’s classic ingredient, juniper, which is paired with Florida citruses to give it a modern and local twist, he said.
Unlike traditional gin, which uses only the peel of citrus fruits, the tropical gin uses the entire fruit, giving the gin more depth and flavor, he said.
When it came to right alcohol percentage to deliver a balanced taste, Undhammar said, they found just the right percentage.
Sweet corn whiskey is made with 1930s copper pot stills.
“At 90 proof it (the gin) began to talk to us,” he said.
St. Petersburg Distillery crafts other spirits along with the Old St. Pete line – American Royal Mead, Tippler’s Orange Liqueur, and the Oak & Palm line of mid-tier rum. By the end of summer, it plans to release its mid-tier vodka, Banyan Reserve.
Its Old St. Pete Spirits are now served locally at Cask and Ale, Mandarin Hide, Station House and Sea Salt. And the company is looking to expand.
“We love our hometown,” it says on its website, “and we want to take the spirit of St. Pete all over the country and the world.”