Beer-drinking pig promotes Alabama tourism.

AP -- There's nothing like a beer-sipping swine to lure visitors to Alabama.

That's the hope of state tourism officials, who looked back in Decatur's history to find the poster pig for a campaign advertising a new series of walking tours in more than 30 Alabama towns and cities. "The rest are good, but in terms of character you can't beat a drinking pig," said Brian Jones, spokesman for the Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel.

The drawing for the ad was inspired by an illustration of the pig in a book by Kathryn Tucker Windham.

The nameless but presumably soon-to-be-famous pig was said to be the only drinking buddy of Decatur's notorious late 19th century riverboat captain, Simp McGhee. McGhee, with his pig, was a natural choice for one of three separate ads for the tours, said Carlton Wood of Lewis Communications, the agency running the campaign.

"So even when we decided we had to do Simp, it was like what part of Simp's crazy history are we going to talk about," Wood said. "There's no doubt that a pig drinking beer as a visual, you just don't get a chance to use that in an ad every day."

The other separate ads will feature Eufaula and Monroeville.

State tourism director Lee Sentell developed the state walking tours concept, which is based on a tour he started in Huntsville two years ago. He said the tours are cheap to promote and can help bring more tourists to small towns, which generally don't have large advertising budgets.