Restaurant Group Donates $7,725 to Water Quality Nonprofit Through Cocktail Sales

HM Restaurant Group handed over $7,725 to Captains For Clean Water. The money came from selling a specialty cocktail at Doc Ford's Rum Bar & Grille and Dixie Fish Company in 2025.

Each Send It South drink brought in one dollar for the cause. Guests ordered these drinks at five different restaurants across the state.

Storm Smart received recognition through this donation, which supports the nonprofit's mission to clean up waterways. Since April 2024, the drink program has pulled in $11,072 total.

"We are proud to support Captains For Clean Water and to make this donation in recognition of Storm Smart," said Joe Harrity, a partner with HM Restaurant Group, according to St. Pete Catalyst. "Through their support of Captains For Clean Water, we are honored to designate these proceeds in their name. We're also grateful to our guests who ordered the drink knowing their purchase would help protect Florida's waterways."

You can buy Send It South at four Doc Ford's spots and one Dixie Fish Company location. Bartenders mix mango rum with silver rum, then add blue Curaçao, pineapple, and soda water. The restaurants sit on Sanibel Island, Fort Myers Beach, St. Petersburg Pier, and Jungle Terrace in St. Petersburg.

Fishing guides started Captains For Clean Water back in 2016. 

Florida releases fresh water from Lake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers, which triggers blue-green algae blooms and red tide outbreaks in South Florida waters. The group wants fresh water to flow south through the Everglades and into Florida Bay again, the way it moved before humans intervened. Dams, dikes, and ditches built over a century ago now block that natural process.

HM Restaurant Group runs other fundraising programs at its restaurants. The Hospital Drinks program has brought in more than $140,309 for Golisano Children's Hospital of Southwest Florida and John Hopkins All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg. That initiative works the same way—$1 from select specialty cocktails goes straight to the hospitals.