Onward Reserve and Sweetens Cove Spirits Company have teamed up to launch Spirit of the SEC, a video series featuring cocktails that provide a spirited taste of game day in the South. 

Each video will showcase a specially crafted Sweetens Cove Kennessee bourbon cocktail from 13 bars across the southeast to celebrate the unique personalities and traditions of iconic SEC teams and towns.  

Last week’s video featured The Oxfordian from City Grocery in Oxford as Ole Miss hosts LSU. Visit this link for a list of participating bars, cocktail recipes, photos and videos.

“Game day here just hits different,” says TJ Callaway, founder of Atlanta-based clothing and lifestyle company Onward Reserve. “Over the next two months, we will be visiting some of the best bars in the Southeast and sharing cocktail recipes each week that fans can make at home if they can’t be in Athens, Auburn, Tuscaloosa, Knoxville, Oxford or any of the other amazing SEC towns on game day.”

The cocktail series continues each week ahead of big rivalry games through Nov. 25.

Rivalry is central to the backstory of Sweetens Cove’s Kennessee bourbon, a blend of Kentucky and Tennessee bourbons that Whisky Advocate named as one of the best whiskies in the world for 2022, according to Mark Rivers who is the managing partner of Sweetens Cove. 

“There’s no better celebration of rivalries than SEC football,” says Rivers, whose investment partners in Sweetens Cove include University of Tennessee and Ole Miss quarterback standouts Peyton and Eli Manning. “The whole premise of Sweetens Cove Kennessee bourbon is about celebrating rivalries, just like we celebrate rivalries between teams in the SEC most every week in the fall. While college football rivalries can cross state lines and bloodlines, Kennessee actually brings rivals together in a bottle to honor spirited competition in the South.”