Author name: Jack Sullivan

 

Brought to the United States from Germany in 1889 by their parents while they were still minors, Frank and Carl Ladner went on to create a wholesale and retail liquor enterprise that stretched from Montana to Illinois and produced a quantity of whiskey jugs that command significant prices from avid collectors.  The brothers are pictured here in maturity, Frank, the eldest, on the left.

After arriving in America the family initially settled in St. Paul, Minnesota, where the father, Franz Henry, found employment.  After six years, the Ladners moved in 1895 to nearby Red Wing, Minnesota, known for its quality potteries.  There Frank with the help of Carl founded the Ladner Brothers Saloon and Wholesale Liquor Company on the city’s Main Street.  The business apparently was a success.  With local potteries doing a booming business at the time, many of their workers had a taste for alcohol.

The Red Wing potteries also provided the Ladners with containers for their wholesale whiskey.  As shown here, the jugs ranged in size from one to five gallons, all bearing similar labels.  The Ladners were not distillers but were buying whiskey by the barrels, likely from distillers in Peoria and other Illinois locations, decanting them into smaller quantities and selling the product to saloons in Red Wing and the nearby Twin Cities, as well as pouring it over the bar in their adjoining saloon.  

Meanwhile, both men were having personal lives.  While still in St. Paul, at 19 Frank married.  His bride was Ellen “Nellie” Cain, a woman born in Minnesota of Irish immigrant parents who was slightly older than he.  During the next 10 years the couple would have six children.  Then sorrow struck as Nellie died in November 1905.  Left with children ranging in age from eleven years to a toddler, Frank remarried 18 months later.  His bride was Anna Koester of Red Wing.  They would go on to have four more children.  Carl, age 22, in September 1899 married Mary Straiger, of German descent in Red Wing.  They produced seven children.

For unexplained reasons, during the early 1900s the Ladners sold the liquor business to concentrate their energies on the success of their saloon.  Five years later Carl ceded his interest in the Ladner saloon to Frank and headed 300 miles west up the Mississippi River to Aberdeen, South Dakota.  There he opened a saloon and liquor store he called Aberdeen House.  Indicating that his leaving Red Wing had been an amicable separation, Carl named Frank as a partner. A photograph exists of this establishment.

Moreover, Carl continued to buy his liquor containers from Red Wing.  Selling at wholesale to Aberdeen saloons, he once again was buying “raw” whiskey from distilleries, delivered it to him in barrels by water and rail.  He was decanting it into jugs and selling it to the saloons, restaurants and hotels of Aberdeen.  As shown here the jugs ranged in size from a single gallon to two and five gallons. 

Like many liquor house proprietors, Carl was generous with his giveaways to his best customers.  Below are to examples of gifted shot glasses.  Note that like the sign on his saloon/liquor store, they advertise “Cream Pure Rye,” his house brand, likely blended on the premises. At the holidays he also gave away one-half pint decorative jugs of whiskey “Compliments of Ladner Brothers.”

Carl also was expanding the reach of the brothers’ liquor business, opening a branch office in Miles City, Montana, 360 miles west of Aberdeen, then still a “wild west” town.  Advertising as “Ladner Bros. Wine and Liquor Merchants,”  Carl installed an F. C. Schubring, a local of German heritage as his resident manager.  Schubring, according  to Miles City records, hired another Schubring, possibly his son, as a porter.  Carl also is recorded operating a satellite saloon in James, South Dakota, a rowdy railroad hamlet 12 miles from Aberdeen.

Amid this expansion, the specter of prohibition was looming larger and larger.  Local option laws bit by bit eliminated the ability of the Ladners to sell their liquor in surrounding communities.  South Dakota went completely “dry” in 1917, followed by Montana in 1918.  With foresight Carl had seen this strong movement in the upper Midwest to a ban on alcohol.  He closed up the Ladner Brothers operations in Aberdeen and Miles City and moved to Chicago.

For a time Carl managed a Coca Cola plant there but “whiskey was in his blood”  and with a friend from Red Wing days he established a new Ladner Brothers liquor house and cafe in The Windy City. Located at 207 West Madison Street, as shown above, it featured large signs, including one in neon, advertising the house brand, “Cohasset Punch.”  

The company’s flagship whiskey now became “Ladner’s Old Reserve.”  No longer was Carl mixing up whatever whiskey he could buy on the open market and selling it in generic jugs.  This new enterprise allowed the Ladners to arrange for a distillery to prepare whiskey from a Ladner recipe and bottle it with a proprietary label.  Below is a photo of the interior of the Chicago establishment, showing the bar and plenty of Old Reserve on the shelves.  That is Carl Ladner standing far right. This profitable enterprise came to an end in 1920 with National Prohibition.

Meanwhile in Red Wing, Frank Ladner also was coping with the emerging “dry” era.  With the coming of World War I and wartime restrictions on alcohol, he could see the demise of his liquor business.  Moving to groceries, Frank’s saloon became “Ladner’s Cash and Carry and Delivery Store” featuring fancy goods, ice cream, a soda fountain, and “soft drinks of all kinds.”  Nary a bottle of booze in sight.  

Back in Chicago Carl pivoted to the bottling trade, specializing in soft drinks and sparkling waters.  He died in 1947 at age 70 and was buried Calvary Cemetery of suburban Evanston, Illinois.  Frank lived to be 84, dying in 1956.  He was buried in Red Wing’s Calvary Cemetery.  Both men had seen the end of National Prohibition in 1934 but neither apparently was tempted once again to enter the whiskey trade that had sustained them and their families for so many years.  We are the beneficiaries of their signature Red Wing pottery jugs and the story of an enterprising immigrant family.

Notes:   This post has relied heavily for information on a 1995 publication entitled “The Red Wing Collectors Society Convention Supplement, Volume XI,” editor Chuck Drometer.  A number of the photos used are from a Ladner Family Flickr site on the Internet.   This material has been supplemented from other internet sources.

 

 Foreword: In Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” the ghost of the poisoned king of Denmark tells his son of his killing, terming it, “Murder most foul.”  Whiskey men have been involved in homicides that might be similarly described, as bystander, victim or perpetrator, as related in the brief stories to follow.  The three incidents are linked by the reality that justice was not done in any of them.

Whatever sense of satisfaction Paterno felt as a leader of a significant portion of the Italian community in New Orleans, the year 1890 would change everything.  New Orleans was undergoing a period lawlessness, corruption and unrest.  On the night of October 15, as the New Orleans police chief, David Hennessy, was walking home he was gunned down on the street.  As he lay dying he is reputed to have whispered, “The dagoes did it.”  A mass arrest of Italian-Americans and Italian migrant workers followed.  Many were Paterno’s friends and adherents.

From his position of leadership, Patorno vigorously argued against the arrests.  At the same time he deplored the Hennessy murder.  He told a Daily Picayune reporter that as a New Orleans citizen and merchant he would do all in his power to “support and protect the honor and welfare of the city.” Among those taken was his brother, Charles, who is said to have had a strong resemblance to Antonio. 

The lynchings caused an international incident.  The Italian ambassador demanded that the U.S. government take action to protect Italians and provide restitution.  There were rumors of war between Italy and the U.S.  The threat passed when President Benjamin Harrison ordered a U.S. government award of $25,000 (equivalent to over $600,000 today) to the families of Italian citizens who had been lynched.  The perpetrators of the lynchings went free.

Through intermediaries, likely fellow Italians, he made contact with a New York City gang headed by Meyer Lansky who ran a prominent bootlegging operation.  Salamandra presumably made a deal to sell 51 cases of whiskey to the gangsters, worth in today’s dollar more than $600,000.  The conspirators agreed to the liquor handoff near Kingston, New Jersey, about 14 miles north of Trenton. There the money was to be turned over.  

On the night of February 13, 1921, with Salamandra and a brother following in their automobile, a truck carrying the whiskey set out from Trenton for the rendezvous.  The liquor dealer apparently was apprehensive about the deal as he and associates were armed with pistols. As they neared Kingston about three a.m. suddenly a Cadillac touring car with four men in it — hired by Lansky — pulled up beside them, pistols drawn, and forced both the truck and Salamandra’s car off the road.  A gun battle ensued. Leo Salamandra was shot five times at close range and died on the spot. 

Tired, Motlow headed for a Pullman berth.  A black sleeping car porter named Ed Wallis asked Motlow for his ticket.  When Motlow was unable to produce one, Wallis refused him a berth.  Motlow became enraged at being balked by a person of color.  Hearing their argument, Conductor Clarence Pullis, who was white, tried to intervene.  As the train slowly made its way through a downtown tunnel toward the Mississippi, Lem reached for his pistol, apparently to shoot Wallis.  In his drunken state, he fired two shots, one errantly, the second striking Pullis in the abdomen.

Taken off the train, Pullis died in a local hospital, leaving his widow and two minor children.  Motlow was charged with murder.  St. Louis newspapers gave the story front page treatment.  Local sentiment ran high against the Tennessee distiller.  As a wealthy man Lem had ample resources at his disposal.  He hired a phalanx of top lawyers as his defense team.  They built their case on Wallis being black.  

No subtlety attended the defense making race the issue. In closing arguments one of Motlow’s lawyers declared:  “There are two kinds of (blacks) in the South. There are those who know their place … and those who have ambitions for racial equality. … In such a class falls Wallis, the race reformer, the man who would be socially equal to you all, gentlemen of the jury.”  The all white, all male jury took little time in bringing a verdict of “not guilty.”  The foreman told reporters:  “We didn’t believe the Negro.”  Jurors shook hands with Motlow as he left the courtroom on December 10, 1924 — a free man. 

In each of these three cases “murder most foul” went unpunished. All the killers went free.  Only one perpetrator was tried and by virtue of a racist defense, acquitted.  Not only was justice “blind” in each incident, it was entirely absent.

Note:  Longer vignettes on each of these whiskey men may be found on this site:Antonio Paterno, September 2, 2018;  Leo Salamandra, November 10, 2019; and Lem Motlow, November 26, 2019.

 

The photo below of a dingy storefront hardly seems that it could have been the place of origin for some of the most attractive whiskey labels in pre-Prohibition America.  It depicts a window and door of a saloon and liquor store owned by Edward F. Hynes of Haverhill, Massachusetts, a whiskey man whose imagination in labeling his liquor belied his dreary surroundings.

During the 18th and most of the 19th Century Haverhill was an important industrial center, with woolen mills, tanneries, ship building, and the manufacture of hats and shoes.  Early in the 20th Century, even before other New England cities, its economy began to falter.  Shown below is its main street, Merrimack Avenue, the location of Hynes’s enterprise.

Born in Ireland about 1864, Hynes at the age of 19 immigrated to the United States in 1883.  He likely had relatives in Haverhill, where he located for the rest of his life, becoming a citizen in 1888.  His first three years in the city have gone unrecorded but we can assume that he must have been engaged in the liquor trade, likely working for another Irish-American saloonkeeper and learning the business.   By 1887 Hynes had opened a liquor store at 137 Merrimack Avenue and a saloon he called E. F. Hynes Grill & Bar.

He also began creating his own brands of whiskey, not as a distiller but as a “rectifier,”  someone buying “raw” whiskeys by the barrel from a variety of distillers and blending them to achieve a particular color, taste and smoothness.The process has been described as an “art form,” requiring the same delicacy of palate as a wine taster.  Hynes then took the “art” one step further by bottling his liquor under more than a dozen names in attractive labels of his own design.

Among Hynes’ brands were: “ Black Bird Rye Malt Whiskey,” “Cream of Malt,” E. F. Hynes Pure Grain Alcohol,”, “Two Stamp Whiskey,” “Greenbrier,” “Hob – Nob,” “Howard Whiskey,” “Landmark Whiskey,” ”Old Parish Rye”, “Everett Springs,” “Waterford Straight Whiskey,”  “Refreshmenter Rye,” and “Top Notch Rye.”  It is interesting that the Irish immigrant did not bother with the expense and effort to trademark any of his labels.  Hynes did, however, emboss his name on his bottles, thus identifying the origin even if the paper label was lost.

The flagship of Hynes’ whiskeys was “Old Parish,” a name suggesting a church-y identification that may have been aimed at enraging the prohibitionists.  It is the only label to bear the owner’s signature.  Old Parish also contained the image of a shield with crossed battle axes rampant and the motto “Purity Paramount.”  Although the label indicated that this was a trademark, since there is no record of Hynes ever having registered it with the federal government, the assertion would have been useless if the name had been pirated.  Fortunately, it was not.  Among his many brands, Old Parish is his only whiskey for which I can find advertising shot glasses.

Hynes would have been just another saloonkeeper selling whiskey on the side had it not been for the attractive, well-designed labels he used on his many brands of liquor.  Shown here are a selection that demonstrates the reason why the company’s labels and bottles are sought by collectors.

Throughout the growth and success of his enterprises, Hynes was having a personal life in Haverhill.  At the age of 40, following a pattern of many Irish to marry late, he wed Ann, a woman five years his junior who was born in Massachusetts of Irish heritage.  There is no indication of children,  With his growing wealth Hynes was able to move Ann into a large home at 10 Park Street.  Built in 1900, the house is shown here as it looks today.  It was spacious enough that the Hynes could accommodate a live-in servant or two.

   

Records indicate that Hynes’ hobby was breeding and showing dogs — appropriately Irish terriers.  The pedigree listed for his top canine offers a glimpse into just how Irish these dogs could be.  Hynes “Darby,” born in April 1903 was accorded this ancestry:  “By Mulvaney out of Peggy, by Norfolk Spike out of Biddy, by Barney’s Brother out of Biddy Malone.”  That background should have been enough to qualify Darby for the Order of Ancient Hibernians.

With the coming of National Prohibition in 1920, after 32 years in business, Hynes was forced to close his saloon and liquor sales.  Subsequent listings in Haverhill directories and the census indicate that the whiskey man, just 56 years old, retired.  With him went all the brands of whiskey he had named along with their distinctive labels.  Since none were revived after Repeal, all Hynes artifacts must be considered over 100 years old and “antiques.”  “The Lord of Labels” Edward Hynes died in 1929 and was buried in Mount Benedict Cemetery in West Roxbury.

Notes:  Special thanks to Peter Samuelson of Intervale, New Hampshire, a noted collector of labeled whiskeys, for the picture of the Hynes Old Parish flask, thus providing the inspiration to devote a post to Hynes and his attractive liquor labels.

Addendum:  After this vignette had been posted Mr. Samuelson sent me another

photo of a Hynes jug from his collection.  This one advertises“Old Black Pete” Whiskey and shows an elderly African American gentleman standing in a cotton field. It is included here.

Long before comic book hero Bruce Wayne decided to don the “Caped Crusader” costume to fight crime in Gotham City, a Kentuckian described as being “pulchritudinous in features and magnificent figure” was flying high in Louisville as a crusader for quality liquor.  Shown here in winged caricature is Thomas J. Batman, known to some as “Brandy King of the World.”

Born in Louisville. Kentucky, in February 1853, as Thomas Kirwin, the boy was far from any kingdom at his birth.  His mother, Mary Ann Batman, died within a year, only 22 years old.  His father, Patrick N. Kirwin, an immigrant from Ireland, married again several years later and sired five more children before he died in June 1865 when Thomas was just 12.  Orphaned, the boy then went to live with his maternal uncle, Thomas Batman, who formally adopted him in 1876.  In gratitude, Thomas took his uncle’s surname. 

According to local directories, Stepfather Batman was a printer.  Thomas’s birth father, however, had been employed in a distillery in a city where the whiskey industry was a major economic engine.  The young Batman gravitated toward the liquor trade.  By the age of 23 he had accumulated enough knowledge of the business and sufficient resources to strike out on his own.  With two associates he founded T. J. Batman & Company, Wholesale Whiskeys, located at 37 Fourth Street below Main Street, the latter avenue also known as “Whiskey Row” because of the offices located there of many of America’s leading distillers and liquor wholesalers.

By this time Thomas had married, wedding Elvira Thompkins of Louisville in August 1876.  They would go on to have nine children together over the next 20 years of whom eight lived to maturity.  A photo of the family shown above discloses the middle age couple, with Elvira still an attractive woman, surrounded by a comely group of their children.

Batman’s initial stab at establishing a liquor business apparently was not a complete success.  By the mid-1880s, he had closed the wholesale house and was working as a partner of T. H. Sherley, an established “Whiskey Row” commission merchant at 125 West Main Street.  The Sherley company specialized in the purchase and sale of Kentucky whiskeys, as well as conducted a brisk business in apple and peach brandies, as indicated by an 1888 advertisement.

Sherley, formerly an officer in the Union Army, also owned the Crystal Springs Distillery located the corner of First Street and Ormsby Avenue in Louisville.Listed in Federal records as Registered Distillery #3, 5th District, the plant figures in an 1886 photograph uncovered by Michael Veach, whiskey guru of Louisville’s Filson Historical Society.  Shown below the photo displays the assembled employees of the distillery.  Among other elements, Veach pointed out:  1.  The misspelling of “crystal” on the wall.  2. Employees each seeming to hold the tools of their trade, including African-Americans on each side with shovels. 3. The plant mascots were dogs.  To that I would add that every man and boy is wearing a hat, an interesting display of headgear variety.

Veach speculated about the two men standing immediately left of the date on the wall, believing that the man with the full beard is Sherley and to his right with the handlebar mustache is Tom Batman.  While the author says he is “not sure,” my analysis is that Veach has made a correct identification.  After Sherley retired in 1901, Batman bought out his share of his partner’s holdings.  He seems to have sold off the distillery, thereafter concentrating on the brokerage business from his “Whiskey Row” headquarters.

Given the honorific title of “Kentucky colonel” by the state governor apparently for his business prowess, Batman was pictured and extolled in the influential Whiskey & Spirits Bullletin in 1904:  “Our friend, Colonel Thomas J. Batman, has always had the apple brandy market of the country in his grasp, so much so, on numerous occasions, he has been dubbed ‘The Brandy King,’ but lately he has been spreading out.  He is now posing as one of the heavy whisky brokers of the trade and has been instrumental in engineering some very important whisky deals.  The colonel says brokerage business in the whiskey line reaches into every part of the country, and is now larger than his brandy business.”   As indicated by the caricature that opens this post, Thomas J.’s visage was a familiar one in whiskey circles.

With his growing prosperity, Batman was able to move his large family into an imposing house at 1143 South First Street, shown here.   Still standing in Louisville, the large dwelling is distinctive for its six Ionic columns flanking the front porch.  But sorrow was destined to visit the Batman home.  After 35 years of marriage, Elvira died in June, 1910 at the age of 56.  She was buried in the family plot in St. Louis Cemetery with her grieving spouse and children gathered around.  All of them except the youngest, daughter, Kirwin, 14, had reached their majority.

Not quite four years later, in February 1914, Thomas Batman remarried.  His bride was Libbie Kirwan, born in Louisville in 1868 and 15 years younger than her husband.  From her maiden name we can surmise that Libbie likely was a cousin.  The couple were married in a quiet ceremony in St. Francis Roman Catholic Church by Father Thomas White.  According to a press account, immediately after their marriage the couple left for a trip to the East Coast.

As his children grew to maturity Batman began to take them into his business.  Thomas J. Jr., was the first, prompting his father by 1912 to change the company name to ”T. J. Batman & Son.”  Later Batman created a new business involving Junior and A. S. Batman, likely Anna Batman, his eldest daughter.  It was called the Frishe Distilling Company, an enterprise on which little information exists.

In time becoming an elder statesman of the Kentucky liquor industry, Batman must have experienced with concern the growing clamor for National Prohibition as state after state and locality after locality went dry under the relentless pressure of the Prohibition lobby.  It would appear that he continued to do business from his offices in the downtown Tyler Building until 1920.  After that Batman fades from Louisville’s business scene and its city directories. 

In retirement Batman lived long enough to see prohibitionary fervor wane and the impending revival of the liquor industry.  As he aged, he had suffered multiple heath problems, diagnosed as heart disease and hepatitis.  In early 1933 Thomas Batman, while under a doctor’s care, continued to decline and died at home on March 29, 1933, at the age of 80. He was buried at St. Francis Cemetery next to Elvira. 

Note:  This post was drawn from a wide range of sources, from which two stand out: The Whiskey and Spirits Bulletin that regularly featured Batman in its articles and Michael Veatch’s “Images of the Past,” an online article that featured the photo of the Crystal Springs distillery staff.

 

 

The sign left is brim full of confidence.  Goldberg, Bowen & Company  in 1915 were proclaiming the specialty grocery and liquor firm  a “Master Grocer” with a “The World Our Field.”  The claim was backed up by illustrations of goods delivered by ship and rail from all over the globe.  Many San Franciscans, however, could remember when Goldberg, Bowen posted a quite different sign on the burned-out shell of its headquarters.  During the early years of this business few would have predicted its ultimate success and longevity.

The company originated about 1881 with the merger of two established San Francisco firms. Bowen Brothers had started as fruit merchants but expanded into speciality groceries.  Nearby, Lebenbaum & Goldberg were operating as liquor, wine and tea merchants.  Consolidation created Goldberg, Bowen & Lebenbaum. The company was listed local business directories as “Importers of Wines and Liquors and Commercial and Retail Grocers.”  As short-lived as this trio was destined to be, it early contracted with a German glass factory for a series of clear bottles topped by a logo, shown here.

By 1885 Lebenbaum had left the organization, bought out by the Bowens, Charles and Henry.  The new organization was renamed Goldberg, Bowen & Co. Running the enterprise was Jacob Goldberg, an immigrant from Poland, listed in directories as president and general manager.  The company advertised in San Francisco “Blue Book” that their groceries “make food a pleasure worth while….”   A writer for the San Francisco called the two company stores, located at 242-254 Sutter and 426-432  Pine Street “a paradise for the bon vivant.”  A calendar caught the celebratory flavor of the company. 

In 1906, this “paradise” became an inferno as the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 turned Goldberg, Bowen’s Sutter Street headquarters into a burned out shell amidst acres of rubble, as shown below.  The disaster also was reduced to ruins the nearby stables where the partners kept the horses used to pull their wagons and delivery carts.  I can find no information on the fate of the horses, although many in San Francisco are said to have been killed by falling bricks from the earthquake.

The sign visible on the side of the building made clear that despite the blow the disaster had leveled on them, the partners were determined to press on.  It read: “Goldberg, Bowen and Co. Grocers Will Open a Grand New Store, Van Ness & Sutter. Present Location 2829 Cal. St., Cor. Haight & Masonic.”  The second store, apparently untouched by the fire, is shown here, the name in large letters on the side.  

True to their pledge by 1909 Goldberg, Bowen was back in business at the old address, with a building, bigger and better than the one before.  Shown here, it still stands at 242 Sutter.  The company eventually would have four stores, including one in Oakland. Goldberg, Bowen was on its way to “World Reach.”

Goldberg, Bowen offered a full line of whiskeys, featuring imported Scotch brands, well-known American labels like “Old Crow” and an impressive number of proprietary “signature” brands.  The partners were careful to register trademarks for most of their labels after the U.S. Congress progressively tightened the laws against brand infringement.  Their whiskeys with dates of their registration were “Bull Dog Rye” (1906), “Old William Penn Malt” (1906), ”Early & Often Whiskey” (1908), “Pride of the Golden State” (1913),” Imperial Whiskey (1914), “Old Mellow Rye” (1914), and “Traveler Club(1915).”

Goldberg, Bowen were not distillers.  They were buying raw whiskey from distilleries elsewhere in America and shipping it into their headquarters.  There they employed “rectifiers” who blended the products to achieve a particular taste, smoothness and color.  The multitude of brands meant that their crew of blenders was highly skilled.  The company apparently was not particular about the quality of bottles used.  Shown here right is a clear flask, possibly a pint, that displays poorly blown glass.  An amber quart is more presentable.  The small bottle below was called a “Quiet Smile” flask; three of them filled with whiskey sold for 50 cents.

The profitability of the business was indicated in 1905 when Jacob Goldberg moved his wife, Kate, born in New York of Polish immigrants, and their five children, Sol, Harry, Cherney, Renne, and Zelda, into one of San Francisco’s most notable frame mansions at 1782 Pacific Avenue.  Built in 1876, the house from the street appears to be two stories but because of the slope on which it was built, is three stories at the rear.  Purchased by the Goldbergs in 1905, Jacob added a new wing, replaced the carriage house with a larger one, and remodeled the interior.  Undamaged by the 1906 earthquake and fire, it was owned by the family until 1936.  Today it is a San Francisco landmark.  

Jacob Goldberg lived just long enough to see National Prohibition imposed on the United States, dying in 1920 at the age of 76 or 77.  He was buried in the family mausoleum in Cypress Lawn Memorial Park (Section F, lot 555) in Colma, California, just outside San Francisco.  Other family members over time would join him there.  Because of its trade in a variety of speciality groceries, Goldberg, Bowen successfully continued in business despite the loss of its liquor sales.  With Repeal the company again sold alcoholic products.  It shows up in San Francisco directories at least until 1974.  Having survived the San Francisco earthquake and fire, National Prohibition was just another bump in the road to “World Reach.”

Note:  This post was drawn from a variety of sources.  Among them was the blog western whiskey.com and its post of December 1, 2009.

 

Foreword:  Of the various nationalities that made up the distillers, liquor dealers, saloonkeeper and other whiskey men of the pre-Prohibition era, the majority of immigrants were either Irish or German.  Italians were a distant third, often selling liquor in connection with a grocery business.  Here are vignettes of three men born in Italy, each of whom in his own way climbed the ladder from penury to prosperity while contributing to their communities.

In 1859, an immigrant Italian boy of 16 stepped off the S.S John Simon onto the dock at Memphis, Tennessee. It would be his home town for the rest of his life and upon his death he had created a liquor and mercantile family dynasty that survived until 2010.  Shown here, his name was Domenico Canale.

Canale’s first employment was in a liquor and wine business owned by his uncles.  Saving his money, he struck out for himself about 1866.  He began selling fruits and vegetables from a push cart while continuing an interest in the liquor trade.  Within seven years Canale had graduated from his produce wagon to selling from a warehouse at Eight Madison St., near Front Street. Called D. Canale & Co., his company sold wholesale vegetables and fruit and also a quality bourbon whiskey that he named “Old Dominick.”

The D. Canale organization first showed up in Memphis business directories as a liquor house in 1885. Old Dominick whiskey rapidly gained a local and regional customer base, advertised lavishly by Canale in large signs in downtown Memphis.  He sold his liquor in stoneware jugs as well as in glass bottles with his name prominently displayed, Canale also became known for his giveaways to saloons and other favored customers, including paperweights and shot glasses.

Meanwhile, the italian immigrant’s continued success was drawing attention in Memphis business circles. A 1905 book entitled “Notable Men of Tennessee” featured him among the notables.  His biography stated:  “Today [he] stands at the head of the fruit business of Memphis and, perhaps, of the South. It added that: “Mr. Canale is what is rightly termed a self-made man, and has won his position in the social and commercial life of Memphis by his industry, his native ability, and the exercise of correct business principles.”

Canale died in 1919 just before the advent of National Prohibition.  Because whiskey and beer were only part of D. Canale’s business, the firm weathered the temperance “storm” by concentrating on fruit and vegetable sales. With Repeal the Canale family continued to market Old Dominick whiskey for a time, but eventually dropped their liquor business to concentrate on produce.  

Ernesto Bisi arrived on American shores in 1880 as an impoverished Italian immigrant with limited education.  After getting a start selling groceries and liquor in Pittsburgh, he went on to become the largest pasta producer in the United States.  But he did not do it alone.  Under highly unusual circumstances, Bisi in 1895 married Emilia, a woman who became the mother of his children and his valuable partner in business.  

After arriving in Pittsburgh in 1884, Ernesto joined in a grocery business with Civil War veteran Frank Bonistalli and Bonistalli’s vivacious young wife, Emilia. Eventually Bonistalli took Bisi as a full partner.  They added a full line of spiritous beverages, advertising widely.  In addition to featuring wines, E. Bonistalli & Bisi claimed “…A full stock of Guckenheimer, Silver Seal, Crystal Wedding and other whiskies.”  Many of the brands were Pennsylvania-made and would have resonated with the Pittsburgh clientele. As one biographer put it:  “It was clear that Ernesto possessed a remarkable business sense.”  Within a few years the store registered gross sales of over $100,000 — a fortune in the late 1880s. Goods were being sold in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and further west.  

All was not well, however, at Bonistalli & Bisi.  Emilia was the cause.  As a “silent partner” in the store she was constantly on the scene. Known to fudge her actual age, Emilia was 18 to possibly 26 years younger than her husband and virtually the same age as Bisi.  In addition to her business savvy, Emilia, shown here, was talented.  She spoke three languages in addition to Italian, was noted for a fine singing voice, and performed with the Pittsburgh Opera Society.  She could see the promise in Ernesto and the two became lovers.  Their liaison produced a son in 1891, baptized as a Bonistalli.  Four more years elapsed before Emilia sued for and in 1895 was granted a divorce from her husband.  Ernesto and Emilia soon married.

The liquor business subsequently was taken over by Carmelio Bisi, a younger brother whom Ernesto had brought from Italy in 1889 to assist him. This move allowed Ernesto and Emilia to concentrate on macaroni, spaghetti and linguini.  Together they established a large pasta factory at Fort Pitt on the periphery of Pittsburgh.  Shown here is an illustration of the plant. Situated on fifteen acres of land, the couple employed 150 employees.  The Bisi United States Macaroni Factory eventually would be accounted the largest in the Nation. Ernesto was president; Emilia was corporate secretary, in charge of all communications with suppliers and clients.

When he died in 1907, Bisi was eulogized as “one of the most prominent Italians in the eastern part of the United States.”  Floral tributes and condolences poured in from all parts of the country.  Beginning in America as an impoverished, poorly educated immigrant, because of the opportunities presented, his own “remarkable business sense” and his marriage to Emilia, Ernesto Bisi had risen to become a wealthy manufacturer and nationally recognized Italian-American leader. 

In 1893 Benjamin “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman, Governor of South Carolina and a man of dictatorial instincts, in order to enforce his hold on the sales of alcohol in the Palmetto State decided to make an example of a self-educated Italian immigrant Charleston saloonkeeper and liquor dealer named Vincent Chicco.  In targeting Chicco, shown here, Tillman had picked the wrong man.  

Trying to placate prohibitionist forces in South Carolina, the wily Tillman, shown left, had proposed a halfway solution:  Saloons would close along with all liquor dealerships but whiskey, wine and beer would still be available through a state dispensary system.  In protest, speakeasies called “Blind Tigers” became rampant throughout Charleston.  Tillman was outraged.  He vowed that if residents did not comply he would make the city “dry enough to burn” and would send sufficient compliance officers “to cover every city block with a man.”  In July 1893, Tillman’s officers made their first arrest.  It was Vincent Chicco.

The Italian immigrant’s arrest occasioned a near riot as local supporters rallied to protest the action.  Taken to court, he faced a friendly judge who freed him immediately to return to his establishment, shown below.  Overnight Chicco became a local hero in Charleston, dubbed as “King of the Blind Tigers.” In short order Chicco had become a public nemesis to Tillman, who called him “a kind of Dago devil.”  Hauled into court repeatedly over the years, Chicco always walked away a free man.

Tillman’s attacks on Chicco heightened into a personal battle, one that the Italian immigrant seemed to relish.  He introduced a line of cigars he called “The Two Determined.”  They came in a box with his picture and Tillman’s on the lid.  Chicco explained the concept to newsmen this way:  Tillman was determined that he should stop selling liquor;  Chicco was equally determined to continue selling it.  He also used his Charleston popularity to be elected to four terms as an alderman.

Tillman’s dispensary scheme in time became so corrupt that it was abolished by the South Carolina legislature. In 1915 the state went “dry,” however, and the Italian immigrant was forced to end his liquor trade.   When Vincent Chicco died in 1928, wrote one Charleston observer:  “The city nearly shut down for his funeral, as well it should have. The “King of Blind Tigers” is someone we can all draw inspiration from. He was an underdog, a free spirit, an independent thinker….”  

Note:  Longer articles on each of these whiskey men may be found elsewhere on this website:  Domenico Carnale, November 26, 2011;  Ernesto Bisi, June 2, 2020; and Vincent Chicco, July 4, 2020.  This blog featured a post about Ben Tillman and the South Carolina Dispensary on November 20, 2013.