Business Insider sent a travel writer to Charleston with his wife and his 75-year-old mother-in-law. The cocktail class they picked as the trip’s shared anchor was Sip History. The piece, the photo, and the headline are all on Business Insider here. That’s our class. That’s our host pouring.
What Business Insider wrote.
The article is by Ash Jurberg, published April 25, 2026. The hook isn’t Charleston — it’s how to travel with an in-law without losing your mind. Their answer was a simple rule: take turns picking activities so nobody gets dragged through somebody else’s idea of fun.
His pick was the Sip History cocktail class. Three of them at the bar. The host walked them through the story of the Old Fashioned, how the name actually came from drinkers asking for cocktails the “old fashioned” way, and what makes a good bartender different from a fast one. By the third round, Liz — the 75-year-old mother-in-law — was shaking the tin like she’d worked a bar in another life.
The photo running with the piece is captioned: “The three of us had a blast making drinks.” That’s our bar, mid-pour. That’s Jack, one of our hosts, working the right hand.
Why it’s the right activity for that kind of trip.
Most of what gets recommended for Charleston bachelorette parties or corporate groups skews 25 to 40 — energetic, photo-ready, half a bottle of rosé in. The class works for that crowd, but it also works for the harder shape: a 30-year-old, a 30-year-old, and a 75-year-old all wanting to be in the same room at the same time.
The reasons are mechanical, not magical. Two hours of structured fun. Indoors with seating. A clear start and a clear end. Three drinks, then dinner happens at the right hour. Nobody is on their feet on cobblestones at 9pm in July. The teacher slows down or speeds up to the table. Everyone leaves with something they didn’t walk in with.
Ash put it in one line: “Picking activities at a pace that suited everyone, like the Gullah Geechee bus tour and the cocktail-making class, meant no one was worn out by dinner.” Worn-out-by-dinner is the silent killer of group trips. Two hours of seated cocktail education turns out to be the cure.
The Old Fashioned story we told them.
For context on what the class actually covers: the Old Fashioned is older than the word “cocktail” means in modern usage. The original cocktail definition — sugar, water, bitters, spirits — predates Prohibition by a good fifty years. By the late 1800s, bartenders were running so far ahead of that base recipe with citrus and liqueurs that traditionalists started ordering drinks “the old-fashioned way.” The name stuck. The drink stuck. The lesson we teach is that it’s less of a recipe than a structure.
Same lesson we teach in Charleston and in Nashville. The bones don’t change. The spirits, citrus, and bitters rotate.
If you’re planning a multi-gen Charleston trip.
Take turns picking, like Ash’s family did. Book at least one indoor activity per day so the heat and your knees stop being the reason you go home early. Pick things with a clear start and end — not just “we’ll wander King Street.” Wandering happens between.
Beyond the cocktail class, the trip in Ash’s piece includes a Gullah Geechee bus tour, the Charleston City Market, and dinners that don’t require a forty-minute table wait. The bus tour for the Gullah history was the mother-in-law’s pick and the piece’s emotional anchor — worth reading the full Business Insider article for that part alone.
Our part of it: two hours, three drinks, snacks, mocktails available on request, 21+. Works for groups of three, works for groups of fourteen. Charleston booking is here.
Read the full article.
The Business Insider piece is here: Traveled with mother-in-law and wife; how we planned a trip to Charleston. We’re in the middle third.