SC Distillery Gets Creative

By Mike Switzer

Published September 3, 2020 at 5:30 AM EDT

Back in February, our state's oldest working distillery made the move to a greatly expanded location to accommodate growing demand. Then COVID hit. And like many other distilleries and breweries, they moved to outside bottle sales, started producing hand sanitizer, and have now started producing a socially-distanced concert series.

Mike Switzer interviews Scott Newitt, co-founder of Firefly Distillery in North Charleston, SC.

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Mike Switzer

After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.

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