Last week, the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services announced appointments to the inaugural N.C. Spiritous Liquor Advisory Council created in the 2021 session of the N.C. General Assembly. Two principal members of the Distillers Association of North Carolina—Pete Barger of Statesville’s Southern Distilling Co. and Brian Call of Wilkesboro’s Call Family Distillers—were appointed and will represent the distilling industry on the advisory council.
Members are:
- Pete Barger of Southern Distilling Company in Statesville;
- Brian Call of Call Family Distillers of Wilkesboro;
- Michael “Mike” Yates of Republic National Distributing Company of Charlotte;
- Meredith McCormack of Beam Suntory of Wake Forest;
- Greg Stallings of the ABC Commission in Raleigh;
- Walter Harris, chairman of the Chatham County ABC Board in Pittsboro
- Joel Keith of the Wake County ABC Board;
- Jason Smith with the N.C. Restaurant and Lodging Association; and
- Robert Fleming of Fleming Brothers Farm, LLC in Halifax.
The advisory council was a DANC priority during the 2021 legislative session. It was established through HB890 with the goals of growing the spiritous liquor industry in the state, improving the state’s rank as a spiritous-liquor producing state, raising awareness of the industry and the quality of the products, developing a plan that identifies problems and constraints of the industry and offer advice and recommendations to the Commissioner of Agriculture.