Drink with the Goat!  Judge Roy Bean Bourbon

“Drink with the Goat” is a term you will certainly be familiar with if you grew up around the Scenic 98 Coastal area and ever frequented the iconic saloon that Jack West built on the outskirts of Daphne called Judge Roy Bean Saloon. 

Unfortunately, both are gone now and took with them a spirit of adventure and a damn good time. What does remain are special memories of misspent youth, most of which you might not want to repeat.  It’s a safe bet that you heard Jimmy Buffett play, or saw Tommy Lee Jones chilling, and you may have a good story to tell if you were a patron.

The good news is there’s a new Judge Roy Bean in town these days, and it’s a special bourbon with a surprisingly unique, smooth taste. It is the brainchild of entrepreneur and marketing savant, David Gibson. The jury is still out on where David will take his new venture, but it’s looking great so far. Judge Roy Bean Bourbon is available in select ABC stores throughout Alabama, local restaurants, and package stores. 

To be sure, this is not a novelty bourbon. David hopes to grow Judge Roy Bean Spirits into a national brand, and he’s just the kind of guy that can make it happen. At a recent tasting at Fairhope’s ABC store, we found Judge Roy Bean Bourbon to be quite good with a unique flavor due to David's process of finishing the bourbon with just the right amount of charred and toasted Pecan wood.  (Please don’t pronounce that “pea-can” like Billy Crystal did in When Harry Met Sally.)

David is on his third batch of Judge Roy Bean Bourbon. Each batch is a little larger because it sells out quickly and is getting picked up by stores across the state. After experimenting with the formula to get it just right, David introduced the first batch in October 2022. When asked about where he sees this going, David said, “I want Judge Roy Bean Bourbon to reflect the uniqueness of the Scenic 98 Coastal area, but it is designed to be your “go-to” bourbon that you take down to the Bay and sip with good friends while watching the sun go down.” I’m sold!

David’s career history has led him to this point. He is a marketing and branding expert and well-suited to make Judge Roy Bean Spirits a national brand. A few short years ago, in 2018, he sold his 18- year old Birmingham-based digital marketing company, Zeekee, to High-Level Marketing, a national digital marketing company.

Zeekee was a marketing and branding agency that built and hosted websites and did social media campaigns, and e-commerce for its clients. A few of these clients with local ties were all of LuLu’s Restaurants and Bob Baumhower’s restaurants. He also helped develop the website for Jimmy Buffett’s SiriusXM Satellite channel: Radio Margaritaville.

One of his clients had a new business called Ride-On-Carry-On and appeared on the first season of the TV Show, Shark Tank. The website David’s company built was the only one that didn’t crash during the show’s first season. After that, Barbara Corcoran, one of the show’s hosts and lead investors, asked David’s company to build websites for some of the other companies she invested in for subsequent episodes and additional seasons of the show.

After selling Zeekee, he pondered his next venture. He earned a marketing certification from StoryBrand and helped other companies with their branding strategies. “Most people don’t care about your product unless it solves a problem they have. StoryBrand helps companies tell their story in a way that shows how they can help people solve those problems.” David spent some time consulting using his Story Brand education and personal experience to facilitate marketing.

At his core, David is a vision guy. He felt most people in Birmingham knew him as a website guy, so he and his wife, Kassady, decided to pack up and move their family to Fairhope. “I needed something interesting to do that didn’t involve websites,” he said. He had an idea to sell his own bourbon and use his marketing expertise to try and build it into a national brand. 

He reached out to Seth Dettling at Big Escambia Spirits in Atmore and asked, “How can I get bourbon with my brand on it?” Seth agreed to help, but only if he could come up with something to make the bourbon unique. Then Hurricane Sally hit, and he saw all the pecan trees down and it hit him, “finish it with pecan wood!” 

That’s when he took some bourbon and began playing with charred and toasted pecan staves in mason jars. “I played with different degrees of char and toasting. Char is darker and creates a smoky flavor. Toasting is lighter and brings out the sugar flavor, vanilla notes, and sweetness, so the combination of the two created a really unique flavor.” 

Once he had the taste he wanted, he extrapolated the recipe, bought some bourbon in charred white oak barrels, and with the help of the folks at Big Escambia Spirits began the process of creating Judge Roy Bean Spirits. It took about a year and a half to get it on the shelves. A big part was getting approved to sell through the ABC Board in Montgomery. “They have to agree to carry it, and they have to think it will sell,” says David. “I think they thought I was kidding when I first approached them about a pecan-finished bourbon, but they agreed to try in the stores south of I-10 to see what happens.”

“There was a lot I didn’t know, and lots of regulations.” Everything had to be approved by either the Federal or State authorities including the recipe and the label. “Because we were doing something unique, they wanted to oversee everything involved with the process and formula. It was quite an experience, and along the way, I was never sure how long it would take to pass their approval.”

Judge Roy Bean Bourbon is a small batch production. Bottled by hand and numbered, it is the definitive small craft product. The first batch of 1100 bottles were bottled in September 2022 and hit the shelves in October. Batch-2 was around 1500 bottles and is in stores now. Batch-3 should be around 2100 bottles that will arrive in stores in mid-March. He also released a “Barrel Proof” single barrel he calls his” Jubilee Release,” which is almost already sold out. David uses upscale bottling and labels to enhance its appeal as a special product. And while the bourbon is now bottled in Opelika at John Emerald Distilling, David said there could be a day when he can open a distillery and do it all from here – there just has to be enough demand for it.

His tagline: DRINK WITH THE GOAT is the domain name for Judge Roy Bean Spirits and is from the days when the famous saloon had a goat that roamed the property and was happy to visit with you and take a drink or two. “It was important to me to create a local product that feels like it could be a national product. I had fun with the goat and it’s always fun to hear some stories of people’s fond memories at Judge’s.”

You can go online to order T-shirts, hats, and a gift box with Judge Roy Bean-branded items including “Bourbon Pecan-roasted coffee from Fairhope Coffee and “Campfire Bourbon” soap from Fairhope Soap Company. David is committed to supporting the community by providing Judge Roy Bean products for silent auctions or event sponsorships. 

There are other concepts in the works. Pecan is the signature ingredient for the bourbon, but David’s mind is always working on new products with a national appeal and a local connection. At the end of the day, “The best bourbon is one you enjoy with friends, relaxing.”

Here’s to Drinking with the Goat! 

(ALL PHOTOS COURTESY – KASSADY GIBSON AND STUART FRANCO, FOCUS CREATIVE CO)

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