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Legal Drinking 2.0, the beginning
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In the United States, "change" has always been a potent policitcal call to action. When Franklin Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, the country was stuck in the worst financial downturn in its history. Ending Prohibition was not the highest priority, but it was generally understood that the new administration would usher in a new era of legal drinking, Legal Drinking 2.0, which celebrates its 75th anniversary on December 5.
So even though it took more than a year to pass and ratify the 21st Amendment, the die was cast when Roosevelt won the presidency. But to stick with the gambling metaphor, the big winners that night were men who had placed their bets years before, when Repeal was by no means certain.
Since most drinkers in those days were whiskey drinkers, the thing to own when drinking became legal again was fully-aged whiskey. At the end of Prohibition, 21,000,000 gallons of aged whiskey remained in American warehouses, according to a Time Magazine article headlined “Rum Rush,” published on December 4, 1933. That may sound like a lot, but according to the same article, Americans before Prohibition were consuming about 135,000,000 gallons of rye and Bourbon whiskey per year.
A variety of entrepreneurs had positioned themselves to take advantage of Legal Drinking 2.0 on day one. Seton Porter of National Distillers was in the best position. He had bought up about half of all that aged whiskey. He also owned most of the brand names people remembered from before the drought: Old Grand-Dad, Old Crow, Old Taylor, Sunny Brook, Old Overholt, Large, and Mount Vernon
Lewis Rosenstiel of Schenley Distillers was second, with about half as much American whiskey, but better contracts with the Irish and Scottish producers. In Kentucky, the Thompson, Brown and Van Winkle families were all gearing up to start producing whiskey again. They had between them most of the remaining aged stock.
All of them had been doing all they legally could during the drought’s final days. Harry C. Hatch, who owned the Hiram Walker Distillery in Ontario, just across the river from Detroit, was building a massive, new distillery in Peoria, Illinois. Emil Schwarzhaupt broke off from Porter and bought Louisville’s Bernheim Distilling Co. In Philadelphia, Simon Neuman’s Publicker Commercial Alcohol Co. was making gin as fast as it could. (Gin doesn't require aging.)
Porter and his generation are long gone now and so are most of their companies. National was absorbed by Beam Global 20 years ago and they have some of what’s left of Harry Hatch’s empire too. Pernod has the rest. The old Schenley, Bernheim, Thompson and Van Winkle concerns are all somewhere inside of Diageo. Only the Brown family has survived more-or-less intact and still controls Brown-Forman.
For more info: Jeffrey Morgenthaler is a blogger and bartender in Oregon who writes a lot about Repeal Day, as he does here.
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