How It Started
A Dock, a Cooler,
and a Question
It was a Thursday in July. We were out on the ACE Basin — the great tidal estuary that stretches along the coast of Colleton and Beaufort counties, one of the last unspoiled coastal wilderness areas on the entire East Coast. The sun was low. The tide was going out. Someone cracked a can of hard seltzer from a brand headquartered in Connecticut.
It was fine. But it felt like it was made for someone else's beach.
South Carolina has a culture — a coastal identity — that runs deeper than most people outside the state understand. The Lowcountry is its own world. Tidal creeks and live oaks draped in Spanish moss. Shrimp boats at dawn. Gullah Geechee traditions passed down through centuries. Red-tailed hawks circling the salt marshes. And through all of it, the palmetto tree — tall, resilient, bending in the storm but never breaking.
We wanted to make something that belonged here. That felt like this place. That you could crack open on a boat, at a tailgate, on a dock, or on the back porch in Beaufort and feel like it was made for that exact moment.
So we did.
"We wanted to make something that felt like the salt air and the live oaks and the sound of water lapping against a dock at golden hour. You can't put that in words — but maybe you can put it in a can."
— James Rutledge, Co-Founder
Palmetto Seltzer launched in 2023 out of a small contract brewing facility in the Charleston area. We started with one flavor — the Original — and sold out our first run in three weeks at local farmers markets and bottle shops. By the end of that summer, we had our first retail placement at a Beaufort liquor store. By the following spring, we were in grocery stores across the coast.
We're still growing. Still learning. Still every bit as proud to call South Carolina home as we were on that dock in July.
