Try it. You’ll like it. That old advertising slogan applies neatly to the newest line of Gulf Coast specialty foods, created and distributed by Bays to Bayous in Fairhope. The inspiration comes from Mobile family matriarch Ann Bridgeman, an epicurean legend around these parts, and the product line reads like a Coastal entertaining checklist: West Indies Salad ready-mix marinade, Spicy Bloody Mary mix, Creole Lemon dressing, Lemon-stuffed olives and Spicy Pickled asparagus.
The family behind it — Billy Curtright, his sister Laura Curtright Glassburn and her husband Doug Glassburn, along with Laura’s grown children Emory Jones and Anabel Bamberg — turned a conversation at a family gathering into a real brand, with products now sold along the Gulf Coast from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to Destin, Florida.
A Mother’s Kitchen
Ann was a family lawyer in Mobile whose true passion was the family kitchen. She loved everything about cooking — reading cookbooks, trying new recipes, learning different techniques. She went to Paris to study with Jacques Pépin, the influential French chef, author and television personality, and married her French training to her Mobile epicurean roots, mixing local seafood and fresh produce into meals her family still talks about.
The family spent summers at their beach house on the Little Lagoon in Gulf Shores — a home hit hard by Hurricane Frederick — and still gathers at Ono Island each summer. That is where the idea to honor their mother with a specialty food business took shape. As Billy tells it, the family kitchen was the original test kitchen: fresh local Gulf seafood became Creole dishes like gumbo, etouffee and jambalaya, and recipes were handed down for generations with taste profiles unique to Mobile and Baldwin County.
The family’s food history runs deeper than one kitchen. In the 1990s, Ann purchased property on De la Mare Avenue in Fairhope, built a beautiful building, and opened Fairhope’s first fine-dining establishment, Aubergine — with Laura as the first manager and Billy as the first maitre d’ and bartender. The building is now home to Aubergine Culinary Antiques and Oriental Rugs, a Fairhope institution in its own right.
The Products, Each With a Story
The genesis of the brand was the realization that no one had ever produced a bottled, ready-made West Indies salad marinade — a bold gap to fill in a region where the chilled crabmeat dish is a signature. The Bays to Bayous recipe is tweaked from the original Bill Bailey recipe found in the Junior League cookbook “Recipe Jubilee,” and the marinade makes a great crabmeat appetizer with nothing more than a fresh onion, a pound of lump crabmeat and a stack of saltines.
Every item has a story. The Lemon-stuffed olives honor Ann’s martini ritual: she would buy Queen Martini olives, punch out the pimientos and stuff them with lemon so she could have both an olive and a twist in one glass. The Creole Lemon Dressing is an old family recipe used as a marinade or sauce, good with grilled meats, fish or pasta salads. The Spicy Bloody Mary mix — thicker than most, made from premium vine-ripe tomatoes with Creole spices, horseradish and Worcestershire — is ready to pour, no doctoring required. The Spicy Pickled asparagus is made to ride along in that same glass.
From Idea to Shelf
Through family connections, the family located a local bottler who could take the recipes and package the products. Laura, who built a career in pharmaceutical and medical supply sales, created most of the product line and ingredients; Doug, a retired Purdue-trained engineer, works as CFO and oversees delivery; Billy, who studied marketing and history at the University of Alabama and once served as a food editor for a local magazine, handles frontline sales. Laura’s daughter Anabel is an ace at promoting the brand online and on social media. In December 2025, the family went full bore; the first product arrived in February, and sales have grown every day.
The early traction tells the story. Bays to Bayous was picked up by Joe Patti’s, the storied Pensacola seafood market, and the Pirates Cove bar on the Perdigo-side shore was going through two cases of Bloody Mary mix a week. The brand was a hit at the Oyster Revel hosted by The Scout Guide at Fort Conde, an afternoon of Gulf Coast oysters, chef tastings and craft cocktails benefiting the FUSE Project. Retailers like Wildflowers and MB Greene have helped place the line in specialty shops, and the products now appear in grocery stores, seafood shops, butcher shops and select lifestyle stores across the coast.
A Love Letter in a Bottle
The family describes the brand as a love letter to their mother, thanking her for raising them to appreciate the Gulf Coast. The website’s framing says it plainly: wherever you find yourself, from bays to bayous, enjoy the family recipes and the traditions that bring people together.
There is something distinctly Gulf Coast about the whole enterprise. West Indies Salad, unknown outside the coastal South, becomes a bottled marinade anyone can pour. A lawyer’s Sunday cooking becomes a product line. A family that grew up throwing cast nets into the Little Lagoon turns its table into a business — table ready, boat ready, tailgate ready.
For coastal hosts planning a weekend, the pitch is simple: the marinade plus crabmeat makes an instant appetizer; the Bloody Mary mix needs nothing but ice and vodka; the olives honor a mother who liked her martini with both an olive and a twist. The family that put the products together did it the way Gulf Coast food has always been done — with recipes from the table, and enough for everyone who shows up.