by Ebony L. Morman

Before chef Stephen Marshall owned a beverage company, he studied culinary arts and wine and spirits in Charleston, then spent roughly 15 years working in restaurant kitchens and behind the bar, making syrups from scratch for the cocktails he served.

“I knew that the syrups that I was making were really good,” he says. “People even told me, ‘Why don’t you bottle this, and I’ll buy it from you.'”

In 2019, he took that advice and launched Craftsman Beverage Co. in the Charlotte area, building the business around whole ingredients, careful technique, recipes built from scratch, and a focus on balance.

Marshall believes the quality of a cocktail begins with the mixer instead of the spirit. Rather than relying on concentrates, purees, natural flavors, or preservatives, he builds his syrups with whole ingredients, an approach that reflects the way he cooks. His ginger syrup, for example, relies on turbinado rather than white sugar because he believes it produces a richer flavor. He also grinds fresh ginger instead of simply dicing and cooking it.

“My whole thing is using ingredients that you could pick up and eat yourself,” he says. “I use the same ingredients that you would put in your own food at home.”

The wake n’ shake bloody mary blend follows the same standard. Marshall juices the vegetables himself, makes the Worcestershire sauce from scratch, and builds the mix with ingredients like mushrooms, anchovy paste, clam juice, and beef stock.

“It doesn’t taste like vegetable juice,” he says. “It tastes like the vegetables that are juiced.”

The old fashioned blend showcases Marshall’s culinary approach. He cooks cherries into a brandy cherry syrup and uses burdock root and wild cherry bark instead of more conventional bittering ingredients. With all recipes, his mind constantly moves from one flavor idea to the next, often generating combinations faster than he can test them.

Once he starts testing, Marshall relies on careful measurements rather than instinct, weighing ingredients precisely before he gets started. He typically decides within two test batches whether a recipe has a future. If it still isn’t working after the second round, he moves on.

“If something isn’t working by the second time,” he says, “I change the formula, and it becomes something completely different.”

Customer feedback and input help shape what stays. Because Craftsman Beverage Co. has never relied on paid advertising, Marshall pays close attention to what customers say about his products. A request for a strawberry basil syrup during the pandemic led him to create what he expected would be a one-off flavor. Instead, it grew into one of his most popular seasonal offerings and helped establish the rotating lineup that now includes rosemary peach in the summer, spiced apple and vanilla in the fall, and a holiday blend during the winter. Marshall designs his staple syrups — including the old fashioned blend, ginger, and roasted peppers and citrus — for specific cocktails and spirits.

He’s intentional about keeping production small, which gives him more control over each recipe and makes it easier to preserve the flavor profiles he develops.

“When you’re making a smaller batch, it’s easier to cook because you have more space,” he says. “It’s also easier to maneuver, stir, and keep the flavors balanced.”

Customers can find Craftsman Beverage Co.’s products on the company’s website, at several local retailers across the Charlotte area — including The Butcher’s Market in Ballantyne, Bare Food in Matthews, and Southern Spirits in Indian Land — as well as at the South End Farmers Market on Saturdays.

Wherever customers first encounter the brand, Marshall hopes people notice the difference in his products immediately. He enjoys when first-time customers pause after their first sip, then turn to whoever they’re with to encourage them to try it. He believes that reaction comes from more than flavor, it’s about being honest with the products you’re making. Part of that honesty includes thinking about the people behind those ingredients. Buying whole produce supports the farmers who grow it instead of relying on manufactured alternatives.

“We have farmers out there who need us to buy their food,” he says. “When you’re buying manufactured ingredients, that’s not helping anybody.”

He sees those ingredients as the foundation of every bottle he makes. While customers don’t need to know how he grinds the ginger or cooks the cherries, his hope is that they simply notice the difference when they take that first sip.

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