The Florida Keys is the destination for finding and becoming oneself. It is surrounded by luxuriant flora, vibrant homes, and unique shops, and it is undoubtedly lovely. Jimmy Buffett established roots in Key West after Ernest Hemingway did, attracted by the city's palm-lined avenues and fish so fresh as to entice even the most ardent food explorers. The island, which is home to various cultures, is known for its delicious seafood and enticing fusion dishes like African and Cuban cuisine. Live music and bustling bars are the ideal preludes to watching the sun set below the horizon into the Gulf of Mexico. This will be the best Florida Keys & Grouper Fritters Travel Guide.

Exquisite restaurants 

You'll probably be hungry after a full day of ocean exploration. Here are excellent restaurants in Key that you should check out.

Margaritaville

Most Jimmy Buffet fans will already be familiar with the well-known song, but you can also go to the restaurant! When I used to eat meat, I enjoyed their "Cheeseburger in Paradise," but there are so many other alternatives it's worth checking out if you're a fan! Remember to order a Fins Up or an Island Sunrise, two of his well-known boat beverages. 

Alabama Jack's

This roadside dive bar and restaurant offer amazing conch fritters and rum punch despite being off the main path. You'll need to take a toll road to get there, but once you're there, try to get a table along the water so you can watch many manatees swim past! Try their Bloody Mary if you still need to become a fan of their fantastic rum punch! It's minor but has a flavour explosion I didn't anticipate from a little roadside stand! While you're there, keep an eye out for Blue, a prominent American Bulldog who frequents the establishment and has a seat at the bar.

Mrs Mac's Restaurant

This modest diner has been around since; it's your classic diner with excellent breakfasts and great comfort meals. You should go to the original location on the side of the road if you're travelling south in the US. There are two locations. They offer a fantastic champagne breakfast; if you choose one of their specials, your Mimosa (freshly squeezed orange juice) is complimentary. If you order any other breakfast item, it costs just $2. Undoubtedly a bargain and the kind of lively, family-run establishment you won't discover at the large resorts.

Enjoyable locations 

Harry Harris Park

One of the areas where you may swim just off the beach is here. A small tidal lagoon provides a serene swimming place when the tide is up. Although there is a $5 per person admission fee, there are volleyball courts, picnic tables, the lagoon, a fantastic family-friendly setting, and a terrific spot to unwind.

Islamorada 

Islamorada is most renowned for being the centre of the world's sport fishing, but if you're not a fisherman, don't worry—there are many other entertaining things on this little chain of Keys! Islamorada comprises six distinct islands, including Indian Key, Lignumvitae Key, Plantation, Windley, Upper, and Lower Matecumbe. I've chosen to group them all under Islamorada for ease of reference because this chain of islands is so large, and each has so much to offer.

Marathon 

From Boot Key down to Grassy Key, Marathon spans a significant portion of the Florida Keys. The "Heart of the Florida Keys" is a vast island with a lot to offer. Be bold and venture off the usual road in search of unforgettable experiences because much of what these keys offer is indescribable natural beauty.

Best sunset in the Florida keys 

Mallory Square is where I like to watch the sunset the most in the Keys. The Mallory Square Sunset Party is unbeatable because it has plenty of live entertainment, street performers, merchants, and a spectacular sunset. Although admission is free, most acts and merchants offer tip jars.

In this Florida Keys & Grouper FrittersTravel Guide, we have mentioned the best places in the Florida Keys and Group Fritters to enjoy your particular time.

Paul Menta has spent the past five years crossing things off his lifetime “bucket list” while also managing to blend, distill, bottle, label and sell more than 100,000 bottles of specialty rum, all from a historic Coca Cola bottling plant on Simonton Street.

Professional kite surfer, chef, advocate of locally caught fish and rum distiller, Menta’s a busy guy, to say the least, but he has no plans of slowing down. In fact, he’s in the process of expanding Key West’s First Legal Rum Distillery, which he launched five years ago this month.

Menta pointed to a sign in the distillery Tuesday afternoon. It’s updated every time he and his crew bottle another batch of their chef-distilled rum. On Tuesday, the sign showed that Key West’s First Legal Rum Distillery had bottled 23,874 bottles since January.

“We have 10 different brands that are available for sale here in our retail shop,” he said. “Plus, Sloppy Joe’s and about 30 other local bars offer our rums, along with some online sales. In 2019, we’re taking three of our 10 brands national, so they’ll be available in retail outlets in 35 states. It’s been an exciting five years. You go into something like this thinking you’ve done all the research and have a lot of knowledge. But you never have any idea of how much you don’t know.”

In a concrete-floored room behind the retail shop and rum-tasting bar, giant, copper stills simmer and steam as the potent clear liquid inside is distilled six times at the rum distillery that’s located at 105 Simonton St. 

“Distilling it six times takes out so many impurities to help alleviate a lot of the hangover headaches. Plus, I started using demerara sugar in our rum rather than molasses. Demerara is the extra virgin olive oil of the sugarcane world,” Menta said, pointing to the wooden barrels that are stacked in every available space in the distillery, each one carefully dated and filled with rum that will age at least a year in the barrels that are all soaked in the saltwater at the end of the street before being filled with rum.

“We take every barrel to the end of the street and fill them with saltwater, so they’re all locally saltwater cured,” Menta said.

But another batch of barrels has been set aside for something entirely new.

“I’ll be making sparkling rum using the traditional method of champagne makers,” he said. “Imagine celebrating New Year’s Eve in Key West by popping the cork from a bottle of sparkling rum. It’ll be 25 proof, and will be bottled in the traditional green champagne bottles, and it’ll be aged in wooden barrels that I got from France that held champagne while it was aging.”

But the biggest expansion will come in March, when Menta opens a rum cake bakery and coffee shop in the adjacent storefront on Simonton Street.

“I got the bar from Sloppy Joe’s old Speakeasy that will become our dining counter, so there will be a true piece of history in our new rum cake bakery,” said Menta, who has infused every bottle of rum and every part of his enterprise with tales of old Key West and its storied rumrunners. “None of the stories or historic photos would have been possible without Tom Hambright at the county library. I meet with him once a week to find something cool in the history vault at the library.

“In addition to Tom, I could never take all the credit for any of this,” he said. “This whole project has been the result of so many cool and creative local people. Plus, my staff of distillers and everyone else has been crucial to our success. This has become a really, really cool way of life.”

Menta and the distillery are also featured in an upcoming Shopify documentary about Key West that also highlights Mel Fisher’s treasure hunt and the Kino sandal factory.

“It shows Key West in such a good light,” he said. 

But one of his biggest bucket list items occurred earlier this year when Menta and his wife loaded 14 cases of their Key West rum onto the Schooner Wolf and sailed for Cuba, where Menta declared the booze to a Cuban customs officers and stated that his intent was to give it away to the Cuban people.

“After all the years and countless barrels of Cuban rum that made its way across the Florida Straits to Key West, we figured we owed them a round of drinks,” Menta said smiling broadly. “The Cuban customs officer said that in his 36 years, he had never witnessed anyone bringing rum INTO Cuba, so we like to say we’re the first American rumrunners to run rum in the opposite direction and bring it TO Cuba.”

While they were giving away their rum in Cuba, Menta also learned the Cubans’ secrets to great mojitos, he said.

“Before that, ‘I’ll be honest, my mojitos weren’t great, but now, having learned the traditional methods, they’re amazing,” he said.

Key West’s First Legal Rum Distillery now offers mojito tastings and classes three days a week. Distillery tours are available daily and tastings are always offered.

“We don’t enter any competitions, but if someone tastes our rum here or in Sloppy Joe’s or someplace, and they like it enough to come in and buy a few bottles, that’s the best reward possible,” he said. “We’re doing things differently and they’re working really, really well.”

As of late I have noticed the sport of kiteboarding and kitesurfing coming out of a lull and progressing again into the future. In the same day riding my Cabrinha Switchblade 12 meter on a X caliber twin tip and having a epic time riding with Key West locals and tourists the wind died off. Using the same kite I broke out the double agent foil and added 2 more hours to my session!

Winds and conditions always change, if you come prepared these days it’s endless. Light wind has always been a problem in the sport, or no wind. Foiling has made the range of riding grow by 10x. More freestyle kiters are now making the move to learn how to foil. I will be helping people accomplish this task by teaching foiling in 2018/2019 season. Let’s go have some fun in Key West together!

Aloha,

Paul

Another day of the Key West lifestyle with Key Limes, time on the water, fresh fish, and RUM!