Business & Finance: Liquor Scramble .

In Madrid last week it was learned that the Spanish Wine Institute has spent $700 for a set of U. S. telephone books, planning to mail to each & every one of 19,000,000 subscribers a gaudy pamphlet lauding the virtues of Spain’s fine wines. In the U. S. last week, as Repeal loomed but one month ahead, liquor dealers were concerned not with the demand for their goods, Spanish or otherwise, but with who was to sell what.

For months & months U. S. importers have been scrambling madly for exclusive agencies. Before the War about 20 big firms divided the bulk of wine & liquor imports, which amounted to $17,000,000 annually. Even a big importer thought himself lucky if he cleared $250,000. But in the last half year more than 100 new firms have mushroomed—many with no more than an agreement to handle the output of an obscure Alsatian vineyard. An importer requires little capital but, to be successful, long steeping in the lore of liquor.

Jean Tillier, affable U. S. representative of the French Line, resigned to launch an importing house with Henry S. Thompson, founder and former president of Thompson-Starrett Co. (building construction). Tillier-Thompson, Inc. got the contract for Pommery-Greno champagne and Chauvenet wines. Charles F. Bertelli, a Hearst European correspondent in Paris, rushed to Manhattan with a new wife and 17 exclusive agencies for little-known wines & liquors. He promptly organized Trans-Europa Corp. One of the founders of Hahn Department Stores, Eugene Greenhut, and Willard Karn, oil-burner salesman famed as a bridgeplayer, started National Distributors for— Distillers, Inc. to market through cigar-stores. A new firm called Stuart, Briton & Co. has Sandy Macnab Scotch whiskey. Scions of the Hotel McAlpin family have Smirnoff vodka and other liqueurs which they will make under patriarchal Vladimir Smirnoff’s direction in a factory at Bethel, Conn., hometown of the late great P. T. Barnum.

When the liquor trade ceases to agitate at the present tempo, observers believe that most of the business will settle into the hands of the more venerable importers who maintained their European connections through the dry years. Exclusive agencies usually call for a specified volume, and if the new firms fail to develop markets, they will lose their contracts. Only three newcomers whom the old importers regard as potential competitors are Tillier-Thompson. the distributing subsidiary of Schenley Distillers and R. C. Williams & Co.. an old grocery firm about to handle liquor for the first time. Some old importers and their brands are:

Schieffelin & Co., who have been liquor merchants for 139 years, lately obtained the agency for Hennessy (“* * *”) brandies and Teacher’s Scotch whiskey ( Highland Cream ). Both James Hennessy & Co. of Cognac, France and Schieffelin & Co. of Manhattan are under the management of the sixth generation in direct descent of their respective founders.

Julius Wile Sons & Co.’s prized agencies include J. & W. Nicholson & Co. (gins and orange bitters, Benedictine), J. A. Gilka (Kümmel), Wed. H. Warnink (Dutch Egg Nogg).

B. B. Dorf & Co. has Messrs. Nuyens & Co.’s French vermouth and grenadine, Schweppes’ table waters, Holloway’s London Dry and Sloe gins, Powers’ Three Swallow Irish whiskey.

W. A. Taylor & Co. boasts Martini & Rossi’s vermouths, Dow’s ports, Cusenier’s cordials.

Alex. D. Shaw & Co., Inc., control of which was bought by National Distillers, biggest U. S. whiskey company, concentrates on a wine list culled from Tarragona, Spain to Penn Yan, N. Y.

Park & Tilford before the War was one of the largest liquor dealers in the U. S. They stocked tycoons’ cellars from Manhattan to San Francisco. Hard hit by the loss of this profitable trade, they expanded their grocery and restaurant business in the last decade, but at the first hint of repeal more than a year ago President Gordon Stewart began to renew his European contracts. Their gin is Booth’s High & Dry, their Scotch Sanderson’s Vat 69, their champagne Heidsieck’s Monopole, their sherries, ports and Madeiras John Harvey & Sons’. When the Schulte interests sold Overholt and Large distilleries to National Distillers last spring. Park & Tilford received a big slice of the cash but lost their whiskey supply. Since then President Stewart has bought up warehouse receipts for 12,000 bbl. of rye and bourbon which Park & Tilford will sell under their own label, and has also searched for another distillery.

Last week two fat agencies were still dangling before importers’ eyes:

Bacardi. No one knows who will get the contract for Cuba’s rum but nearly every distributor has flirted ardently with the heirs of Founder Facundo Bacardi. At least seven bidders at one time or another have sworn that the agency was theirs. But Facundo Bacardi (pronounced “back-ar-dee”) had 22 grandchildren and most of the 16 living and their various in-laws like to have a hand in running the huge Santiago distillery. As soon as a distributor was certain he had landed the agency, he would discover that another Bacardi was dickering with another distributor. Canada Dry Ginger Ale, once its dryish directors were converted to the liquor business, went after Bacardi. The Canada Dry executive who handled the regulations left to build up a liquor business for the Schulte interests. Soon he was trying to get Bacardi for Park & Tilford. Schenley Distillers went after Bacardi; so did National Distillers, Lamborn & Co. (sugar), R. C. Williams, W. A. Taylor & Co. Thoroughly enjoying the game, the Bacardis played one off against the other.

More Bacardi seeped into the U. S. during Prohibition than before—40,000 cases annually. An enormously greater quantity of domestic rum was bootlegged under faked Bacardi labels and thus the trade name’s value has soared. Last week it reported that President Henri Schueg, elderly son-in-law of the founding Facundo who holds the balance of power in the factional Bacardi family, was about to journey to Manhattan to settle once & for all who was to cash in on the 13 years of free advertising.

Distillers Co., Ltd., Britain’s monster whiskey trust, has kept U. S. liquormen in a dither all summer. Its dozens of brands include most of the best known Scotch whiskeys and the world’s leading gin—Gordon’s. Like Bacardi, Johnny Walker, John Haig, White Horse, Dewar’s, etc. are probably more widely known in the U. S. today (through faked labels) than they were before Prohibition. Two D.C.L. representatives came to Manhattan early last spring, spent several months and thousands of dollars on surveys of potential business. Wined & dined by nearly every U. S. liquorman, they have kept politely mum.

In July it was learned that D. C. L.’s managing director, Thomas Herd, was in Montreal visiting his affiliated Distillers Corp.-Seagrams, Ltd. About all the liquormen knew was that Mr. Herd was a quiet, hard-headed gentleman who abhorred publicity and brokers, that he never moved a step without an aide, Thomas Wilkinson.

Nevertheless, they flooded Mr. Herd with offers for the world’s biggest line of liquors —to no avail. Suddenly Mr. Herd and his shadow turned up in Manhattan. Hopes soared. But Mr. Herd and Thomas Wilkinson saw no one except their own representatives, sailed for home the same night.

Few weeks later D. C. L.’s Canadian representative appeared in Manhattan. Archibald Kelly held court at the Hotel St. Regis and lived at the Wraldorf-Astoria. But even from the affable Mr. Kelly, liquormen learned nothing. It was variously reported that D. C. L. was about to set up its own agency, that it intended to parcel out its brands among various distributors; that it was really dickering with ‘leggers who had been such splendid customers these many years. Who if anyone would finally get the business of the $125,000,000-whiskey trust remained last week the most exciting secret of the liquor trade.