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Ron Bacardi, S. A., was coming right over to sign the papers.
After the papers were signed a Schenley official hurriedly sent for a bottle of Bacardi to show the Press. As it was passed around Old Henri Schueg began to chuckle. It was bootleg with a faked label.
Scotch. Rye and Bourbon are the chief whiskies of North America. Bourbon starts with corn and a dash of small grains. Irish starts with barley but particular Irishmen always drink Scotch. Scotch also starts with barley but the ingredients are better, notably its water. And Scotch is the chief whiskey of all the rest of the world.
The great Scotch whiskey trust, Distillers Co. Ltd., has about 100,000,000 gal. which it would dearly love to sell in the U. S. The big hurdle is a $5-a-gallon tariff which will probably be upped to stimulate domestic grain consumption. DCL, like Bacardi, has taken its time about the U. S. market, has kept liquormen with their tongues hanging out over who was to sell Johnny Walker, Haig & Haig, Dewar and Gordon gin. The assignment of only two brands was definitely known so late as last week: Black & White to National Distillers and Johnny Walker to Canada Dry.
Gordon Prize. That another potent company might take a belated position on the stampede line became apparent when General Foods Corp., which had previously notified stockholders explicitly that it was not going into the liquor business, called a directors' meeting for this midweek to vote on a liquor affiliate. Mc-Callum's Perfection, Haig & Haig and Dewar's Scotch were the chief whiskeys in General Foods' eye, and also Gordon's Gin. The last was a cause for much debate and speculation. The importing company that had Gordon's in the old days had come sufficiently to life to give DCL legal pause in assigning this agency afresh. Observers waited to see whether the Gordon prize would fall to the General Foods crowd, led by its hustling Chairman Edward F. ("Ed") Hutton and Thomas L. Chadbourne, or to National Distillers for whom, for the sake of his insurance business, James Roosevelt was doing some discreet wangling, including a visit at the White House with his father for the bigwigs of DCL.
Distribution. Having helped big National Distillers into the saddle for the supply stampede, alert Mason Day turned his attention to the next important phase of the new industry: Distribution. Under his deft hand Mission Dry Corp.. nation-wide sellers of orange, lemon and grapefruit juice, with 1,700 jobbers' outlets and a sales organization throughout the land, has been recapitalized and staffed up. ready to move whiskeys and whatnot from warehouses via retailers to sideboards as none of the distillers or importers except perhaps Schenley is yet prepared to do. After the stampede is well begun, as all liquormen are beginning to realize, the real money will go to the ablest sales organizations, just as it does in the modern motor industry.