There's a handful of very good to excellent barbecue places in and around the greater Charleston area. One place I wanted to try - Rodney Scott's BBQ - was a James Beard Award winner in 2018. But we were told by someone deep in the "know" about local eateries in Charleston that Rodney Scott's had "passed their prime". "If you want to go stand in line for good barbecue, that's fine," we were told. "But if you want the best barbecue in Charleston, you need to go to Swig & Swine." Now - believe it or not - I had heard about Swig & Swine before. But not for their barbecue. One evening while in Charleston, we headed out to Swig & Swine for dinner.
Now, believe or not, I had heard of Swig & Swine before we had gone to Charleston. But not for the food, per se, but because for the past couple of years they have sponsored a college baseball classic at Shipyard Park in North Charleston. The University of Iowa baseball team played in the series last February, and being a fan of the Iowa baseball team I had to look up as to what Swig & Swine actually was when the Hawkeyes played there. The classic usually features teams from the northern part of the U.S. who come south to get a few games in at the start of the season. (Iowa went 2-1 in this year's Swig & Swine series with wins over Seton Hall and Ball State, but losing to Lehigh in their final game of the weekend.)
But the founder/owner of Swig & Swine didn't start out thinking that he was going to be the owner of a barbecue joint. It took some time before New Jersey-native Anthony DiBernardo figured out what he really wanted to do. DiBernardo always figured he'd end up as a cook somewhere. He started out at the early age of 14 working as a line cook for a banquet restaurant.
After graduating high school, DiBernardo joined the U.S. Navy and was assigned to a 1970's-era submarine that was based out of Charleston. He was the lead cook for the submarine and had to make 4 meals a day for a crew of 135. The kitchen was tight for him - the ceiling was six-feet, five-inches and DiBernardo stood 6'5".
Pictured right - Anthony DiBernardo. Photo courtesy Charleston Food+Wine.
After a four-year stint in the Navy, DiBernardo stuck around Charleston rather than going back to the Philadelphia area. He caught on at Blossom, a popular and hip southern/seafood restaurant in Charleston's French Quarter. (Blossom closed in 2020 after 27 years, a casualty of the pandemic.) In 2002, DiBernardo was then recruited to become the head chef at Jasmine Porch, a Low Country-style restaurant at the Kiawah Island Golf Resort, a luxury seaside resort on Kiawah Island south of Charleston.
It was at Jasmine Porch where DiBernardo was introduced to whole hog barbecue techniques. As a teenager, DiBernardo had helped his father - who was a butcher - smoke hams and roast whole pigs. But barbecuing was a whole new thing for him. The resort had a weekly beach barbecue where a whole hog would be slow-barbecued on the beach. When he left Jasmine Porch to become the chef at the popular Mustard Seed restaurant in Mount Pleasant, SC, he included barbecued meats on the wide and varied menu at the restaurant.
When the Halls Restaurant Management Group was looking to open a new American restaurant in Folly Beach, SC, they turned to DiBernardo to be the chef and managing partner in the new restaurant. DiBernardo left the Mustard Seed and went to run Rita's Seaside Grill for the group. He incorporated smoked meats at Rita's including smoked chicken wings, pulled pork, and hickory-smoked pork belly.
By 2013, the barbecue bug was deep inside DiBernardo. At that time, there was a dearth of good barbecue places around Charleston and there wasn't any of them who were doing whole hog, low-and-slow cooked barbecue. He turned to brothers Steve and Jonathon Kish from the Queen Street Hospitality Group (82 Queen, Florence's Low Country Kitchen) to help him establish a barbecue joint of his own.
The group found an old car wash in Charleston's West Ashley neighborhood and began renovating the building into a barbecue restaurant complete with a smoker and full kitchen. In May of 2014, Swig & Swine opened to the public offering whole hog barbecue once a week (the smoker was too small to do one every night), along with a long list of bourbons and whiskeys, as well as a number of locally-brew craft beers.
The days DiBernardo did his whole hog barbecue became the busiest times for Swig & Swine. In order to help sustain that momentum, DiBernardo had to come up with a way to have whole hog barbecue available each day. He designed larger smokers with offset wood boxes that would allow for whole hogs and other meats to be barbecued all at once and had a company in North Carolina make them to his specifications. Once the new smokers were in place, DiBernardo hired more crew members to help smoke the whole hogs, pork shoulder, brisket and other meats 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The West Ashley Swig & Swine was an absolute hit with the eating public. It wasn't long before DiBernardo and the Kish brothers were looking to expand. Four more Swig & Swine locations have popped up over the past 8 years in the South Carolina cities of Summerville, Myrtle Beach, Moncks Beach and Mount Pleasant. In 2019, DiBernardo was able to buy the shares of the Kish brothers to become the sole proprietor of Swig & Swine.
It was about a 10 minute drive from our hotel out onto Savannah Highway to the Swig & Swine location in West Ashley. (see map) Parking was limited in front of the restaurant, but there was a strip mall just to the east that was home to a Whole Foods grocery store and some other businesses. We parked along the side of the strip mall and walked a short distance over to Swig & Swine.
As we crossed over into the parking lot, there was this painting of a pig on the side of the building with the Swig & Swine logo and the phrase, "horrifying vegetarians since 2013". I got a chuckle out of that and knew that I had to send a picture of it to my colleague in Montreal who is a vegetarian. Moments after I sent the picture to him, he replied with three š emojis. He's a good sport when it comes to acknowledging his vegetarianism.
Inside Swig & Swine, it's your typical barbecue joint. It was clean, but nothing fancy. A row of booths lined one wall, while the other wall had banquette seating with small tables. Garage door windows that opened to a patio seating area in front of the restaurant were next to the booths. It was a warm evening and the windows were closed up and the air conditioning was on full blast in the restaurant. Off to the side of the patio in front of Swig & Swine was a screened in area that housed their industrial smokers. And true to form, they were in use and billowing wood smoke.
The bar area was off to the side. They had red metal stools - the type of metal stools that I find uncomfortable - along the short bar and at high-top tables near the bar. Baseball games were playing on the televisions in the bar area. They had a number of bourbon and rye whiskies available on their liquor shelf.
We were seated at one of the tables along the wall with the banquette seats. The tables along that side of the wall weren't close together, so it didn't seem like the tables were on top of one another like I detest at some restaurants with banquette seating. After we were seated and menus were put on the table, our server for evening stopped over to greet us. Her name was Kirby and she was a black woman with short blonde hair. She was friendly, loud, and sassy - we immediately liked her. Starting off with drinks, my wife got her usual Tito's and cranberry, while I got a Hop Art IPA from the Coast Brewing Company in nearby North Charleston.
The menu consisted of meats by the half-pound or pound, as well as barbecue meat plates with brisket, pulled pork, smoked turkey, smoked chicken and pork belly. Smoked sausage was also available as both an entree or by the link. Sandwiches included a spicy fried chicken sandwich, a beef brisket and cheese sandwich, and a chopped prime brisket sandwich. Appetizers including pork rinds - either with nachos, or pimento cheese, or with Tabasco honey and blue cheese; as well as a chopped pork and smoked jalapeƱo appetizer; and jalapeƱo smoked pimento cheese served with Ritz crackers.
My wife likes fried pickles and they had them on the appetizer menu at Swing & Swine. They were breaded and deep-fried dill pickle spears with a side of honey mustard and served on paper on a small cookie sheet. The breading was sort of falling off the spears, but it there was enough on the pickles that we were able to get a taste of both the pickle and the breading.
We wanted to try a little bit of everything and my wife got the two meat combo with prime beef brisket and pulled pork. For her two sides she got the mac & cheese and pickled veggies with okra, cauliflower, collard greens, onions and pickles. Pickled onions and dill pickle slices came on the side with the meat.
I got the 1/3 rack of ribs for us to share. The ribs had a thick layer of bark on them and were very tender and meaty. For my sides I got baked beans and I ordered the vinegar slaw. I thought vinegar slaw wouldn't be creamy, but their slaw was creamy AND vinegary. It was actually pretty good. They had five different types of sauces on the table at Swig & Swine - a mustard sauce, a white Alabama-style sauce, a spicy jalapeƱo sauce, a tomato vinegar sauce (that tasted great on the pulled pork) and a sweet tangy sauce. I've never liked any type of mustard barbecue sauce or the white Alabama-style sauce. But the sweet and tangy, and the jalapeƱo sauces were excellent.
My wife gave me one of the small slabs of brisket to try and it cut easily with a fork. And when I put it into my mouth, it literally melted in my mouth, it was so tender and flavorful. Kirby came over to check on us and I told her that I wanted to get a half-pound of the brisket, it was so good. Moments later she came out with a platter of a couple thick slices of the prime brisket. It wasn't as tender as the first smaller piece I had, but I could still cut it with a fork. The bark on the outside of the brisket and the ribs had a wonderful smoky and somewhat spicy flavor.
My wife really liked the pulled pork and the two ribs that I shared with her. I thought the baked beans were very good on their own and probably didn't need any additives, but I added some of the jalapeƱo sauce and the regular sweet sauce to the baked beans to zip them up. My wife offered some of the mac & cheese and I thought it was a little dried out. My wife agreed with me, but she loved the pickled vegetables.
I could hardly finish the second helping of the prime beef brisket and I still had some on my plate when Kirby came over one more time. "Are you gonna be able to finish it off," she asked. I told her that I was going to give it a try. While it was all I could do to finish the last couple bites, I was able to do it. And when Kirby tried to tempt us with dessert with included a banana pudding, cobbler coconut pie, and chocolate bourbon pecan pie, I had to throw in the towel. I was so damned full after finishing the last bites of the brisket.
Swig & Swine was the only barbecue place we tried while we were on vacation down in South Carolina, but I can't imagine any other place being as good or better than the meal we had that evening. The brisket was just excellent and the pulled pork and the ribs were very good, as well. And we really enjoyed our service from Kirby. She was a ball of fire and fun to banter with. Although I was thoroughly stuffed when we left Swig & Swine, I was far from unhappy.
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