Clyde 240: A Close Look at the Unique Still Clyde May Used
Back in Clyde’s day, moonshine stills were hard to come by for obvious reasons. Most moonshiners relied on other people to build stills for them because they did not know how to build one properly.
Clyde May was not like most moonshiners. Clyde owned the skillset needed to be able to build a moonshine still himself.
In 1968, Clyde came up with a new design for a moonshine still unlike any other. What made this still different from others was its condenser. This style of condenser was compact, which made it easier to move and hide from revenuers. It also had to have running water from either a faucet or a water pump. This condenser allowed him to run his whiskey faster, and he was able to produce a larger quantity of it moonshine due to its high demand. Clyde later said that he thought of the condenser design because it cooled down faster than others.
The only major downside to this design was that it cost around $240 to build. Factoring for inflation, that is around $1,700 in today’s money. Because of how much it cost to build, Clyde referred to his new design as a “240 still.”
Clyde took a major risk by building the 240 still because all it took was a $3 ax in the hands of a revenuer to destroy it. It was a risk that Clyde was willing to take because he was determined to use the best possible equipment to produce his whiskey. He began using this condenser for his stills at a time when his moonshine was becoming more and more popular across south Alabama. Customers knew the whiskey they bought from Clyde May was special.
Sadly, Clyde was unable to use his 240 still consistently. Law enforcement agents were constantly searching and finding whiskey stills in Bullock County, Alabama. In fact, at one point, the area where Clyde set up most of his stills had the heaviest concentration of illegal moonshining in the United States. Clyde could not afford to continuously build the 240 still, so he only built them when he thought he had found a good spot to hide it.
Fortunately, the style of whiskey that Clyde produced in those 240 stills for over 20 years can be found today. The recent release of Clyde May's New Straight Bourbon pays homage to the Clyde 240.
We honor the man who worked tirelessly to perfect his craft by putting his Alabama Style Whiskey on shelves around the country. You can taste 60 years’ worth of his hard work in every sip, and we can guarantee that no other whiskey maker was as innovative and unique as Clyde May.