What is a Blind Tiger?

During Prohibition, selling alcohol was illegal. Giving it away wasn’t. Operators charged admission to see a curiosity — a caged animal, a spectacle — and the drink came with the ticket. They called these places Blind Tigers.

 

The Bootleggers

Every glass in the Blind Tiger collection is named for a real Prohibition-era figure. These are their stories.

John Ashley — Bandit

John Ashley grew up trapping alligators in the Florida Everglades and never really left. He called himself the King of the Everglades. His gang robbed over 40 banks across Florida, hijacked rum shipments off the coast, and in 1924 launched a two-man raid on a British colony in the Bahamas — the first time Americans had attacked British soil in over a century. He escaped prison three times. He lost an eye in a bank robbery and wore a glass eye for the rest of his life. Rural Floridians treated him like a folk hero — he was robbing the banks that were taking their land. In November 1924 he was stopped at a bridge by deputies and killed in a disputed shootout. Witnesses said he was handcuffed. Nobody was ever charged.

Samuel Bronfman — Philanthropist

Samuel Bronfman arrived in Canada as a Jewish refugee with nothing. He noticed that the family hotel made more money at the bar than anywhere else, and decided that was the business to be in. When Prohibition hit America, he set up warehouses along the Canadian border and sold liquor to anyone who came to get it — all perfectly legal on his end. By the time Prohibition ended he had stockpiled the largest private reserve of aged whiskey in North America, knowing the thirst would come back. It did. Seagram became the biggest liquor company in the world. Despite his wealth, Montreal's elite clubs wouldn't let him through the door because he was Jewish. So he spent the rest of his life fighting that — funding relief organizations, challenging immigration laws to rescue refugees from Europe during WWII, and building institutions that outlasted him. His last name means "whisky man" in Yiddish. Some people are just born for it.

Gerald Chapman — Gentleman

Gerald Chapman wasn't born a gentleman. He learned it in prison, from a mentor who taught him that dressing well and speaking properly was the best disguise a criminal could have. He took the lesson seriously — moved to Gramercy Park, affected a British accent, and became a fixture in the kind of circles where nobody asks too many questions. In 1921 he robbed a mail truck in broad daylight and walked away with $2.4 million — the biggest heist in American history at the time. He escaped federal prison twice, once by cutting the power lines, once by jumping from a hospital window after being shot, but wasn't able to escape a third time before being hanged.

Jack "Legs" Diamond — Diamond

Jack Diamond ran bootlegging operations across New York and survived everything the underworld threw at him. Shot in a hotel lobby. Shot at a roadhouse. Shot in his pajamas in his own room. Each time he walked out of the hospital, doctors called him a medical miracle. He told them they hadn't made the bullet that could kill him. The night after he was acquitted of kidnapping charges, he celebrated hard and passed out drunk in his hotel room. Two gunmen came in while he slept and shot him three times. They found the bullet that actually could kill him.

The man who funded his operation has his own glass. Read Arnold Rothstein's story below.

William "Bill" Dwyer — Franchise

Bill Dwyer grew up working the docks and then built the largest bootlegging operation in New York — 800 men, 20 ships, politicians and Coast Guard on the payroll. He partnered with Owney Madden, helped finance the Cotton Club, and moved enough liquor to keep a city drinking. When the heat came he didn't fight it — he took his money and went legitimate, buying two NHL franchises, an NFL team, and a string of racetracks. For a while he owned more professional sports teams than anyone in America. The government sued him for back taxes in 1935, won, and stripped him of nearly everything. He died in 1946 in a quiet neighborhood in Queens, largely forgotten.

His partner ran the other half of New York. Read Owney Madden's story below.

Enoch "Nucky" Johnson — Empire

Nucky Johnson didn't bootleg in secret. He ran Atlantic City openly, took a cut of every illegal operation in town, and made no apologies for any of it. "We have whisky, wine, women, song and slot machines," he told reporters. "I won't deny it and I won't apologize for it." He wore a fresh red carnation every day, conducted business from the ninth floor of the Ritz Carlton, and made what would be $8 million a year in today's money. The government eventually got him on tax evasion. He served four years, came home, and lived quietly until 1968.

Owney Madden — Hot Springs

Owney Madden earned the nickname "The Killer" before he was twenty. He ran the Cotton Club — a prominent New York City nightclub — partnered with Bill Dwyer, and built one of the most connected criminal operations in New York. Then the city turned on him. Politicians, prosecutors, and the Italian mob all wanted him gone. He landed in Hot Springs, Arkansas, a small corrupt town that looked the other way at just about everything. He married the postmaster's daughter, funded the local Boys Club, and bought uniforms for the high school band. When he died in 1965 the mayor and police chief were pallbearers at his funeral.

His partner built the other half of the operation. Read Bill Dwyer's story above.

Bill McCoy — Honest Lawbreaker

Bill McCoy built luxury yachts for the Vanderbilts and Andrew Carnegie before Prohibition dried up his business. When the law changed, he sailed to the Bahamas, loaded up on quality whiskey, and anchored just outside the three-mile territorial limit — international waters, completely legal on his end. Contact boats came out to meet him. He never diluted his product, never bribed anyone, and never dealt with organized crime. When the Coast Guard finally caught him, he didn't fight it. Nine months in jail. Then moved to Florida, where he lived and died on his boat.

This was the first glass I ever bought that made me think whiskey deserved better. Blind Tiger started here.

Elise Olmstead — Storyteller

Elise Olmstead ran the communications for one of the most sophisticated bootlegging operations in the country — and she did it in plain sight. Every night she hosted a children's radio program, reading bedtime stories to families tuned in across the region. Buried inside those stories were coded instructions for a network of drivers and distributors that stretched across the Pacific Northwest. Nobody suspected the woman reading nursery rhymes. Her codes were never cracked — unlike her husband's phone.

Her husband's story is a different glass. Read Roy Olmstead's story below.

Roy Olmstead — Wiretap

Roy Olmstead ran bootlegging like a corporation. Boats, drivers, warehouses, payroll — all of it organized, professional, and for years completely untouchable. He paid his people well and refused to deal in violence. Law enforcement couldn't find an angle. So they tapped his phone instead, pioneering one of the first uses of wiretapping in American criminal prosecution. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court. He lost. He served his time, walked out, and never looked back.

His wife's story is a different glass. Read Elise Olmstead's story above.

Raymond Parks — Pioneer

Raymond Parks left home at 14 to learn the moonshine trade. He was quiet, careful, and good at it — accumulating wealth without accumulating enemies. When he had enough, he didn't spend it. He invested it in stock car racing, a sport populated almost entirely by men who'd learned to drive running liquor. The first race ever held under NASCAR's banner was won by a driver Parks bankrolled. He never drove a lap himself. He just had the vision to see where the money should go.

Complete your set with The Racetrack decanter.

George Remus — Loophole

George Remus was a pharmacist who became a criminal defense lawyer and watched his clients — men he considered not very smart — get rich during Prohibition. So he memorized the Volstead Act, found the loophole that allowed medicinal alcohol, bought up distilleries and drug companies, and got government permits to sell whiskey legally. Then he had his own delivery trucks hijacked by his own men and sold it illegally on top of that. He controlled 30 percent of America's illegal liquor at his peak. He threw parties so extravagant some say he inspired Jay Gatsby. While he was in prison, his wife ran off with the undercover agent sent to investigate him — and sold everything he owned. When he got out, he chased her car through a park and shot her. He defended himself at trial, pled temporary insanity, and was acquitted in 19 minutes.

Teddy Roe — Robin Hood

Teddy Roe came from nothing — a sharecropper's son from Louisiana with no formal education who taught himself the tailor's trade and found his way to Chicago. He built a gambling empire on the South Side that became a genuine economic engine for a community that had no other access to capital. He was known for giving back — quietly, consistently, without fanfare. When the Chicago Outfit decided they wanted his operation, he refused. Every other Black policy operator in Chicago eventually paid the street tax or handed over control. Roe said he'd rather die. They sent men to kill him. He shot one of them dead. In 1952 they finally got him. His funeral drew thousands. Eighty-one cars followed the procession through the streets of the South Side.

Arnold Rothstein — Bankroll

Arnold Rothstein didn't run gangs. He bankrolled them. Luciano, Lansky, Jack Legs Diamond — they all ran on his money at some point. He carried a roll of $100 bills everywhere he went because he wanted to be able to close any deal, anywhere, on the spot. He was never convicted of anything. In 1928 he sat down at a poker table, lost $320,000, and told everyone the game was fixed. He refused to pay and two weeks later he was shot in a hotel. Ironic ending for someone accused of fixing the World Series.

The man who carried his money has his own glass. Read Jack Diamond's story above.

Johnny Torrio — Cashout

Johnny Torrio built the most sophisticated bootlegging operation in America and taught Al Capone everything he knew. He wasn't violent, wasn't flashy, and ran it like a business. In 1925 he was ambushed outside his home and shot five times. While he recovered, he looked at what he had — $30 million, a target on his back, and a protégé ready to take the wheel. He handed Capone the keys and walked. Capone became the most wanted man in America and died broke. Torrio lived quietly for another thirty years and died of a heart attack in a barber chair.