Whiskey Men Involved in World Expositions

 

Foreword:  During the three decades from 1890 to 1920, the globe exploded with dozens of expositions, known popularly as “world fairs.” They included a whopping 31 during that period held in the United States alone.  Compare that number with none—zero—on these shores during the past 30 plus years — and only a few abroad.  In their heyday, however, expositions drew considerable public attention.   Presented here are vignettes of three pre-Prohibition “whiskey men,” each with a particular role in such extravaganzas.

Edmund Roche was a beneficiary.  Roche owned a saloon and liquor house in Aberdeen, North Dakota, when prohibitionary laws forced him to shut down.  He quickly uprooted his family and moved 700 miles east to America’s second largest city — Chicago.  He clearly had been saving his money because on his arrival he announced that he was looking to purchasing an established liquor business.  Enright & Kelly, founded in 1877, had operated successfully for two decades at 226-28 Kinzie St. but were in trouble with Chicago authorities for illegal sales.  The partners sold out to the newcomer who promptly renamed the business the “E.H. Roche Company.”

Roche was made for Chicago — and Chicago for Roche.  The era was one of exuberance in the “hog butcher for the world,” as Carl Sandburg termed the city. A program cover projected the self-proclaimed “Metropolis of the West” with its global aspirations in the arts, science and industry. That drive that would culminate in the Columbian Exposition of 1893, a World’s Fair of a proportion and impact seldom, if ever, to be equaled in the United States. 

The exposition drew millions to Chicago and filled the coffers of enterprises like Roche’s with an avalanche of cash.  Roche was quick to catch the flavor of Chicago, symbolically naming one of his flagship whiskeys “World’s Fair Rye.”  He also issued a colorful paperweight that advertised the liquor house and and carried an attractive color picture of the Columbian Exposition main building.

Roche’s profitability triggered his interest in opening liquor enterprises in other cities.  He opened an outlet in Des Moines, Iowa, and subsequently operated three stores in Detroit.   By the mid-1900s Roche also had become the president of the Hendryx Distilling Co.  Despite the name of the firm, he was not a distiller, but a rectifier, that is, blending and compounding whiskeys on one of the floors of his building at 170 East Ohio Street in Chicago.  All would be closed after 1920 with the coming of National Prohibition.  In the meantime, however, the Chicago World’s Fair had been very, very good to Edmund Roche.

Joseph Beck & Sons were participants.   They were not the only whiskey men to display their wares at the Paris Exposition of 1900, but the New York City distillers/rectifiers appear to have been the smallest company among the pioneering exhibitors who made “so fine a showing,” who won a plethora of medals, and who brought American whiskey aggressively to the attention of the European Continent.

That World’s Fair had been announced by the French government as a celebration of the dawning of the Twentieth Century.  Countries from around the world were invited by France to showcase their achievements and products. An official of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Dr. H.W. Wiley, decided that the Paris Exposition was a perfect time to show Europeans the decided benefits of  American made alcoholic beverages.  Using his contacts in the liquor industry, Wiley collected commitments from fourteen “leading houses,” including the Becks, to submit their whiskeys for exhibit in Paris at the United States pavilion.

Shown here, the whiskey exhibits were displayed in two cases, each six feet square and eight feet high, and facing on the two main isles.  While some ten distillers displayed their wares together in Case 108, the Becks invested in a much larger exhibit and shared Case 107 with only two other distillers. The Becks’ exhibit featured rank after rank of the company’s flagship brand, “Beckmore.”

The American whiskey exhibit was cited by Wiley as having the unique merit of being the only one containing more than one display in which every exhibitor secured an award. Bestowed by the tasting judges of the Paris Exposition, one-third of the whiskeys received gold medals and the others silver or bronze.  

Joseph Beck & Sons  were awarded a medal for “merit and quality” for their Beckmore brand whiskey,  It is unclear, however, if this represented a gold medal or a lesser silver or bronze. The rank apparently made no difference to the Becks.  They made the success of their Paris excursion a centerpiece of their subsequent merchandising, displaying the honor on their letterhead, whiskey labels, and advertising on shot glasses given to favored customers. 

Edward E. Bruce was an organizer.  Although Bruce accounted himself an Omaha  wholesale druggist, his advertising emphasized his wines, whiskey and brandy.  His flagship brand was “Country Club Bourbon” that he sold in stoneware jugs.  His whiskey likely was obtained from distilleries in Kentucky. He also may have done some “rectifying,” that is, mixing several whiskeys to improved taste and smoothness.

Bruce was well-known in Omaha business circles, according to a contemporary account, a gentleman respected for his ability, enterprise and ingenuity. A co-founder of the National Association of Wholesale Druggists,  he also was a  member of the Omaha Grain Exchange Board. Presumably as a result of his strong business reputation, Bruce was tapped by Omaha’s gentry to be a principal officer for a world’s fair known as the "Trans-Mississippi International Exposition."  This event was inspired by leading Nebraskans to illustrate the “progress of the West." It highlighted the 24 states and territories west of the Mississippi River and was meant to spur economic development. 

Held a mere five years after Chicago’s highly successful 1893 Columbian World’s Fair, the Trans-Mississippi Exposition ran from June to November 1898.   Bruce held the pivotal position of exhibits manager for the Exposition, an extravaganza that stretched several miles.  He was pivotal in choosing and managing 4,062 individual exhibits. The success of his efforts can be measured in the 2.6 million people who visited during the six month run of the fair.  Constructed quickly of flimsy materials, none of the Exposition buildings survives today.

Note:  Each  of these “whiskey men” has been given more elaborate treatment in prior posts on this website:  Edmund Roche, February 25, 2015;  The Becks, September 3, 2015; and E.E. Bruce, May 18, 2011.