Clyde May’s Whiskey hails from Alabama, where it can trace its root back to a gentleman named… you guessed it, Clyde May. Old Clyde was a craft distiller in an age of moonshiners, and while he flouted the law making illegal hooch, he did it with panache. Because, as the story goes, while other distillers in the area were making white lightning, Clyde was making his whiskey with quality grains, fresh spring water and a copper still. He even aged his whiskey in charred oak barrels.
Decades later, that whiskey remains mostly the same. The recipe — a mash of corn, rye and malted barley — was revived by Clyde’s son, and in 2002 the brand released its first batch of legal whiskey.
Diving right in, Clyde May’s Whiskey is full of green apples and caramel. It’s light, sweet and teeming with fruit. Take a sip, and things move in that same direction, with prominent apple accents mingling with more traditional whiskey notes like vanilla, cinnamon, butterscotch and grains. The fruit character is especially interesting and stays with you until the end,
where it’s joined by dry oak and more spice.
This is fun whiskey. It’s not particularly rich or complicated, but the interplay between green apples and traditional bourbon notes (this whiskey isn’t billed as a bourbon, although it does follow a similar mash bill) kept us going back for more.
Stats:
– 42.5% ABV
– $40
CE Rating: ★★★★
