Posts

Showing posts with the label Prohibition

Gangland Tour of New York's Infamous Crime Scenes

Image
Cool, cool website; thanks to my friend for calling this out: Infamous New York | A Gangland Tour of New York City's Most Infamous Crime Scenes : "Before the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and Prohibition put him on the map, Al Capone received his bachelor’s degree in gangsternomics courtesy of Johnny “The Fox” Torrio, a future mafia chieftan who got his start as the leader of the James Street Gang. A dormouse of a man with button eyes and a nose like a thimble, Torrio could only be described as one of the finest criminal mastermind’s of the 20th century, and it all started on James Street, a tiny sliver of a street that is one of the last remaining vestiges of the old Corlear’s Hook neighborhood. Life in crime came early for Torrio. As a boy he worked in his stepfather’s illegal moonshine den at 86 James Street. In 1904, the urchin started promoting boxing matches, where he met the bantamweight fighter and gangland kingpin, Paul Kelly. Kelly, a suave racketeer whose r...

Canadian Club ‘Boardwalk Empire’ Promotion Celebrates Prohibition Era

Image
 In honor of its key role in the HBO show  Boardwalk Empire  (it provokes a gunfight, or something like that), which begins its second season Sunday night,  Canadian Club  is releasing a special promotional package: a bottle of its classic six-year-old whiskey with a metal Boardwalk Empire hip flask. WATCH: Boardwalk Empire Season 2: Lucky Luciano Source: facebook.hbo.com Watch Character Spot: Lucky Luciano from Season 2 of Boardwalk Empire and other videos online on HBO.com As  BlackBook  reports, "Any American enjoying a cocktail this weekend should raise a glass to our polite neighbors to the north. After all, Canadian producers kept our country awash in hooch during the Prohibition era, with distillers such as Canadian Club inspiring entrepreneurs to deliver the unique and illicit whiskey to drinkers in Chicago, New York and beyond. Yes, the practice gave rise to a mafia we still have today, but at least nobody who really wanted a satisfyi...