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46%, 5 years old, 50 gallons, @angels_portion, alabama, angelsportion, anonymous note, batch cm-079, blind, clyde may's, conecuh distillery, homeless, illiterate, lutheran, minister, pastor, receptacle, recycling bin, review, scotch, sign on drywall, straight bourbon, thoma, trash can, Whiskey, whisky, wordiness
But I would submit that in an age where the normal pace of life is the sharing of minuscule snippets barely capable of communicating fractional thoughts, a moment of wordiness is what’s required to acquire the passerby’s attention and get the job done.
Take for example the time I discovered a recycling bin in my garage that didn’t belong to me. I don’t know how it got there, I only know that in my neighborhood, both the 50-gallon trash and recycling receptacles have serial numbers and are assigned to each house.
Yes, it would make better sense for each receptacle to be identified by the street address. Nevertheless, the nine-digit codes branded into the sides of the bins allows for the waste removal company to know which house owns which receptacle.
Step one: Call the company. Result: They can’t deduce by their records which house the receptacle belongs to.
Step two: Assuming such a large receptacle couldn’t have traveled all that far from its home, visit with the neighbors to discover its rightful owner. Result: Like the waste removal company, they have no idea whose bin it is.
Step three: Put the bin out near the street with a cardboard sign on it which reads “Is this yours?” Result: The receptacle sits in front of my house for about a week. But eventually it’s discovered up near my garage accompanied by an anonymous note from a thoughtful neighbor reminding me it’s against association rules to leave my garbage cans out at the street for so long after trash pickup.
Step four: Assume I live in a neighborhood full of people who are either blind, illiterate, or steal and collect cardboard “Is this yours?” signs so that the blind and illiterate among us can help me with my trash can problem. Roll the can right back down to the street, and while I’m in the mood, set beside it a few more of the larger items in my garage I’ve been meaning to give away. Fashion a much wordier message on a large piece of scrap drywall and lean it against the receptacle.
Result: All the items at the street are snatched away, my garage is cleaner, and the stray receptacle is retrieved.
Conclusion: A wordier message produced the greatest result.
The folks at the Conecuh Ridge Distillery took the same chance with the labeling of their Clyde May’s Straight Bourbon. Scanning the shelves of my favorite store, the bright fullness of its label in comparison to the other editions beside it is what caught my attention. There’s a lot happening on this thing. A slight turn of the bottle reveals an expansion of its busy wordiness through a somewhat lengthy story of the edition’s namesake beneath a title of “Say Whatcha Be & Be Whatcha Say.”
While I’ll admit it sounds a little gimmicky, I’m also willing to conceded to the premise. Sometimes what needs communicating takes a little more work than “Is this yours?” And if you get the message just right, it’ll achieve the zing necessary for producing results. The story of Clyde May is indeed an interesting angle for a craft distillery to take. But unless you actually know the story—true or untrue—you could become as a blind, illiterate, cardboard sign-stealers in relation to this product and overlook it. And you don’t want that, because this whiskey is really pretty good.
The nose of the Clyde May’s is one of oak, barrel spice, a stranger wrestling between vegetal and fleshy fruits, and a caramel.
The palate is an undiluted gathering of corn, vanilla, cola, and ripened nectarines. A drop of water sends the vegetal to the back and ushers the fruit forward.
Its medium finish brings back the cola from the palate while adding the barrel spice from the nosing.
Step five: Set a lawn chair at the edge of my driveway. Pour a dram of the Clyde May’s Straight Bourbon Whiskey and have a seat. Draw up a wordy plan for celebrating Earth Day, one that almost certainly involves dumping the contents of my trash cans in the yard of the anonymous note-writing neighbor (because I’m pretty sure I know who he is). Result: Reconsider the plan. Refrain from dumping my trash in the neighbor’s yard. Go inside. Pour and enjoy a dram of Clyde May’s Straight Bourbon Whiskey in the comfort of my living room instead of a jail cell.