In 1929 the government indicted Schenley in a bootleg ring. Seven months later it picked Schenley to make the country's medicine.

On June 18, 1929, a federal grand jury in Brooklyn indicted 140 people and companies in 35 cities. The New York Times put it on the front page the next morning: "140 Indicted Here as Bogus Liquor Ring." The ring was accused of selling fake revenue stamps, printed corks and bottles blown with the names of Johnny Walker and Haig & Haig. One charge was about barrels.

The government said two distilleries had sold freshly emptied whisky barrels, without treating them as Treasury rules required, to four firms. Two of them were the Joseph S. Finch Company and the Schenley Products Company, both of New York. The barrels, the indictment alleged, were sold "for the purpose of having the insides scraped and shaved and used as a flavoring" for whisky made from alcohol. The shavings went out as "units."

In January 1930, the same government chose the Schenley distillery as one of three plants in Pennsylvania allowed to make new medicinal rye. By January 1934 a business magazine was calling Schenley the largest rival to National Distillers. There is a man who knew Al Capone in this story, a murder in Kansas City, and, at the end, a Chicago lawyer and a farm workers union.

1876 to 1908: Golden Wedding, Pittsburgh

The whisky that carried Schenley for decades started in Pittsburgh. Joseph S. Finch and his partners ran a distillery on McKean Street by the Monongahela River. In September 1876 the Pittsburgh Commercial was telling readers to "Go Buy Some of Jos. S. Finch & Co's Golden Wedding Rye Whisky, seven years old."

On March 11, 1879, the Patent Office registered Finch's trade mark, No. 7,098, a round gold on black label reading "Jos. S. Finch's Golden Wedding Rye Whiskey, Pittsburgh, Pa." It was registered again in 1882. In 1908 the company registered the words Golden Wedding on their own. By the 1890s Pittsburgh dealers were selling it "for medical and family use" at a dollar a quart, thirty years before Prohibition made that the only legal way to sell it.

1888 to 1912: a town named for a distillery

Schenley was a different plant, up the Allegheny in Armstrong County. The 1914 history of Armstrong County says the Schenley Distilling Company was set up in 1888 where the Kiskiminetas runs into the Allegheny, "and the village has been called after the company ever since." It had five warehouses and thirty men, and with their families the village came to about 150 people. A warehouse burned in July 1912, a $350,000 loss.

The company's mail went to Lucesco, Pa. In 1910 the trade paper Printers' Ink reported it was buying newspaper space across the West through J. Walter Thompson. The ads that ran in St. Louis said Schenley Pure Rye was "Distilled (4) times in copper," against "not more than twice" for ordinary whisky, so it was "4 times purer." A St. Louis grocer sold it bottled in bond for 79 cents a quart.

1920 to 1929: Rosenstiel

Lewis S. Rosenstiel was born in Cincinnati in 1891 and went to work at his uncle's distillery in Kentucky as a young man. At some point during Prohibition he bought Finch, and with it a federal permit to handle medicinal whisky. Schenley's own 1933 advertising says the Finch permit "was transferred to a plant at Schenley," and that whisky had been made there "since 1930." That is how a Pittsburgh brand ended up with a label reading Jos. S. Finch & Co., Schenley, Pa.

By June 1929 there were two Rosenstiel companies in New York, Finch and Schenley Products, and both were named in the Brooklyn indictment. The Times listed the corporations. The first name on the list was Overholt, the distillery Andrew Mellon had once owned a third of. Mellon was still Secretary of the Treasury. That story is here.

1930 and 1931: medicinal rye and police dogs

The medicinal whisky left over from before Prohibition was running out. On January 7, 1930, Commissioner James M. Doran announced that "the Large and Schenley distilleries near Pittsburgh, and the Overholt company" would make more than 600,000 gallons of medicinal rye under permit, "to replace the depleted supply."

A year later Doran came back from inspecting the Overholt and Schenley plants with a detail for the Washington papers. "Police dogs are being used to prevent high jackers from raiding the distilleries authorized to produce medicinal whisky."

1933 and 1934: Repeal

In August 1933 a newspaper feature reported that new Schenley Distillers stock listed at $15 had opened at $34 and touched $47, and that Finch was enlarging its plant and warehouses at Schenley. In November the Pennsylvania Railroad added trains up the Allegheny Valley for "the augmented Schenley Distillery working forces."

In January 1934 Business Week called Schenley "National Distillers' largest rival." Rosenstiel gave up the chairmanship to Grover A. Whalen, who had been New York City's police commissioner from 1928 to 1930. Whalen took over "Schenley Affiliated Corporations, capstone of 18 underlying companies," with a potential output of 20 million gallons a year.

Some of what Schenley sold right after Repeal was older than Prohibition. In 1936 Consumer Reports tested Golden Wedding blended rye at $2.69 a quart and printed the formula: 5 percent was whisky 18 years old. Some samples, the magazine said, had "a distinct woodiness."

1950 and 1951: the Kefauver hearings

When the Senate crime committee went city to city, Schenley kept coming up. In Chicago, Joseph Fusco, who told the committee he had known Al Capone and denied hauling beer for him, described how he got started as a liquor wholesaler after Repeal: "the first line I think that I could get was Schenley."

In California, the lobbyist Artie Samish was asked about a 1949 payment from Schenley Industries. "I get $36,000 flat fee from Schenley Industries," he said. The chairman said he must do a lot of work for that. "Well, I do at times, Senator. I do. But not always. I mean I'm callable when they want me."

In Kansas City, a witness said Wolf Riman had gone east to get the Schenley distributorship and came back with it about two months before he was killed in 1949. A federal narcotics agent, Claude Follmer, gave the committee his own explanation: "That is why Rymann was killed here just recently over that Schenley franchise." That was his opinion. No conviction for the killing has been found.

1957 to 1987: the end of Schenley

In 1957 Louis B. Nichols left the FBI, where he had been one of J. Edgar Hoover's top men, to become Schenley's executive vice president. Rosenstiel became the main donor to the J. Edgar Hoover Foundation, which Nichols set up in 1965. In February 1971 an investigator told a New York legislative committee that Rosenstiel had been part of a bootlegging consortium with Meyer Lansky. Rosenstiel called the charges "utterly ridiculous, absolutely false and completely without foundation."

He had already sold out. In March 1968 Glen Alden bought his 18 percent of Schenley for $75.6 million, and by 1971 the rest of the public shareholders were merged out. Rosenstiel died in 1976. The plant at Schenley was still shipping whisky in 1980, by a Federal Register filing, and was still listed as an employer in 1983. Guinness bought Schenley in 1987.

1966: Delano

Schenley was also the second largest grape grower around Delano, California, and in December 1965 it became the first target of the grape boycott called by the National Farm Workers Association. In April 1966 it agreed to recognize the union. The contract that followed was the first between a grower and the association, and the San Francisco Chronicle reported it was signed "by association director Cesar Chavez and Schenley attorney Sidney Korshak." Korshak was the Chicago lawyer that federal investigators long suspected of being a go between for organized crime and Hollywood. He was never convicted of anything.

If you have a Schenley bottle

Before Prohibition, look for Schenley Pure Rye, bottled in bond, Schenley Distilling Co., Lucesco, Pa., and Finch's Golden Wedding from Pittsburgh. Medicinal Golden Wedding pints from about 1930 came in gold carnival glass embossed "Golden Wedding" and "Full Pint." After Repeal the label reads Jos. S. Finch & Co., Schenley, Pa. The strip, the size and the label will narrow it down: run it through How old is this bottle?

Schenley, year by year

Where the sources disagree

When Golden Wedding started. Schenley era bottles are embossed "Since 1856." Schenley's own 1933 ad says 1863. A collector historian says about 1864. The earliest record found is the 1876 newspaper ad.

The trade mark. You will read that Golden Wedding was trademarked in 1884. The Patent Office registrations are dated 1879 and 1882.

When Rosenstiel bought Finch. Accounts say 1920, 1923, or after 1927. The first firm record found is the June 1929 indictment, which names both his companies.

The six licenses. You will read that Schenley was one of only six companies licensed to sell medicinal whisky. No primary list of six turned up. The record does show Schenley held a permit and was chosen to distill in 1930.

Rosenstiel and Churchill. His obituary says Winston Churchill told him in 1922 to get ready for Repeal. That story comes only from Rosenstiel.

When Schenley, Pa. closed. You will read it closed soon after 1968. Federal and directory records show it shipping in 1980 and hiring in 1983. The closing date is still open.

Who personally was charged in 1929. The Times names the companies and says the people indicted were their officers and employees. A 1972 book says Rosenstiel was named himself and the charge was later dropped. This page has not seen the court record.