We were unable to contact Wolfeboro Sen. Jeb Bradley to ask him what he was thinking. And we have yet to sample Old Hampshire Applejack, one of the many craft liquors produced by the Tamworth Distilling Company. But one needn’t do either to know that Bradley’s bill designating the company’s applejack as the official state spirit is one really bad idea.
The declaration of an official “this” or “that” is a bit of harmless silliness indulged in by most states. This is the season to eat one’s fill of New Hampshire’s official state fruit, the pumpkin, and official vegetable, the white potato, along with a medallion of the official state animal, the white-tailed deer. None are brand-specific, and the state’s official spirit, whatever that might someday be, shouldn’t be either.
Tamworth Distilling, according to a profile of the company in the New York Times, was founded by Steven Grasse, a former advertising executive with MTV. Winning the official state spirit designation for one of his libations would be a great marketing tool, to which we say, “Nice try, but no thanks.”
New Hampshire is home to more than a dozen distilleries. Putting the state seal on a product from one of them would not only be unfair, it would set a terrible precedent. It would only be a matter of time before we had “Tide, the official state detergent” and “Fruit of the Loom, the official state underwear.”
Legislators should pour this idea down the drain, pronto.