by JIM MCCONNELL
A “ lightbulb ” moment during a golf outing led VSGA member Turner Lewis to create Fore Craft Cocktails
FORE CRAFT COCKTAILS lose friends since medical school at Virginia Commonwealth University , Turner Lewis and Potter Henderson stayed connected despite their busy lives and respective practices taking them to different parts of the country by getting together once a year for a three-day golf weekend .
In January 2020 , they met at Streamsong in central Florida — a high-end golf resort with three 18-hole championship courses located about 90 minutes from Orlando .
On the second day of the trip , Lewis and Henderson had just finished walking the first nine of 36 holes when they arrived at a cabana for something to eat and a beverage or two for the back nine . They each ordered two Transfusions , the original “ golf cocktail ” with vodka , grape juice , ginger ale and lime .
“ It kind of hit me as we were standing there . You obviously can order something quick — a soda , beer or something that ’ s ready to go — but if you wanted a mixed drink , you had to wait for somebody to make it ,” said Lewis , who resides with his wife and three children in Richmond and is a member at The Country Club of Virginia . “ I like to play fast . I don ’ t play great , but I ’ m quick and the last thing I want to do is hold somebody up because of that kind of stuff .”
Then there ’ s the convenience factor ; more than four years later , Lewis still chuckles at the thought of Henderson struggling mightily to avoid dropping his food and two plastic drink cups while pushing his cart toward the 10th hole . He described it as “ one of those lightbulb moments .” “ I remember thinking , ‘ Why is a Transfusion not in a can like everything else these days ?’” Lewis added . “ I even asked the girl ( working at the cabana ) if she had ever seen one in a can and she said no . There was nothing like that at the time . That was kind of the incubus of the idea .”
“ The idea ” became Fore Craft Cocktails , a new line of golf-inspired canned cocktails Lewis launched in 2021 as a side hustle to his day job as a radiologist . It has since grown to offer six flavors — including the trademarked Forezalia , with vodka , lemonade and a splash of grenadine — and is now sold in Virginia , Maryland and seven other states , plus the District of Columbia .
Building a new business kept Lewis busy during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic , which adversely impacted his medical practice and left him with an abnormal — and uncomfort-
J ULY / A UGUST 2024 | V IRGINIA G OLFER 19