Who We Are

In 2007, Rob Baker opened the doors of A&E Trophy on Downtown Clayton’s Main Street. The business became a Main Street staple and Rob quickly became the town’s go-to “Trophy Guy.” Soon, every Little League trophy, swim medal, corporate plaque and custom engraving in the town was coming from A&E Trophy. Rob hired a full staff and for twelve solid years, Rob’s business was trending skyward, keeping pace with the rapidly growing town. Things could not have been going any better for Rob and his family. He worked alongside his wife, in the town he grew up in, and was a prominent figure in the community.  What could go wrong? 

In March 2020, the COVID19 virus paralyzed the United States and just like thousands of other small businesses, A&E Trophy took a massive hit. With sports events and corporate ceremonies being cancelled, the need for medals, trophies and plaques simply disappeared overnight. For the first time in twelve years, Rob was forced to start laying people off, starting with his wife.  Laying off employees is never an easy decision, but he knew that in this situation, it was what was best for the business as well as the employees.  Rob still went to work every day and took care of the few orders he received and looked for new revenue streams to try to keep the business afloat.  In a time where other businesses gave up and just succumbed to the circumstances around them, Rob used the pandemic as an opportunity and a new idea was born.  

Rob had been working with Eric Tansey, another young entrepreneur in Clayton, who owns Instill Distilling Company.  Eric’s business was not struggling from COVID19 and was actually still growing. Eric began to order custom hats from Rob and custom glassware for his distillery. One day Eric came into his shop and complained about the lack of high quality, personalized, “real whiskey glasses” on the market. Everything on the internet had a high minimum order and the glassware was cheap, as were the laser engravings that barely scratched the surface of the glasses. As a Certified Specialist of Wine and a Sommelier, Eric was a bit picky when it came to glassware and fine beverages. Rob quickly saw an opportunity and the seed for Whiskeyware.com was planted. Rob went home and immediately started to work on a business plan with his wife. He thought this might just be the thing to fill the gap left in his business by the pandemic.