Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/221505
Left to right: Clyde May's Regional Sales Manager Brian Chandler with Alabama ABC Board members Randall Smith, William Thigpen, Mac Gipson, Nick Ketter, Debra Larrison and Clyde May's National Sales and Marketing Director Jay Liddell. "If you went into an Alabama state store a year ago, it would have been near impossible to find a variety of nuanced, specialty or small batch items, but that landscape is now changing," says Batson, author of Classic Cocktails: For Classy People and Other Interesting Characters. "The ABC has been quite receptive to the needs of our proactive members, and their reinvigorated stance on specialty items has created an easier more efficient way to appropriate these much desired products." The ABC Board recently posed for a photo with the Clyde May's holiday display (custom built for the occasion by Chandler, an accomplished woodworker) and store staff. Batson says the implementation of the USBG has helped showcase underdeveloped brands and presented educational programs to establishments and, vicariously, the consumer. The folks at the Alabama ABC Board in Montgomery have a fierce love of their state and rich knowledge of the region. They include Administrator Mac Gipson, Assistant Administrator William Thigpen, Product Director Randall Smith and the youngest of the group, Assistant Product Administrator Nick Ketter. administration has accomplished in "It seems like all of the really good getting the products to open up the spirits have a story behind them, and the story of Clyde May is so interesting, sku selection. "That wouldn't happen without the people back in the waregoing back through history in this part house getting it on the trucks, to meet of the country in Conecuh County," demand brought on by the resurgence says Smith. "The whiskey is developof craft distiller spirits," says Ketter. ing a real following branching out of Plans are underway to build a Alabama." Clyde's son Kenny lobbied the state legislature to make Clyde May's the official state whiskey of the Alabama— and won. Mac Gipson remembers May's Christmas reserve; his grandmother taught him how to make egg nog around the holidays, which back then, helped people with their infirmities. "She would add a tablespoon of whiskey and even folks that didn't drink would drink Mee Maw's egg nog," he Brian Chandler (left), Clyde May's Regional Sales says of the family tradition. Manager, with Jay Liddell, National Sales and "Even the doctor recomMarketing Director. mended it, and a lot of those new distillery and bottling plant traditions transfer into holiday time." in Alabama—after all, by Alabama Alabamians don't go the liquor store Legislature resolution HJR100, Clyde just to imbibe, as Smith points out. It's May's is now the official state spirit. also part of the state's vibrant Southern culinary experience. Nick Ketter has www.clydemays.com recently seen the progression the 62 / the tasting panel / december 2013 TP1213_034-63.indd 62 11/23/13 8:27 PM