Today. As many of you know, lunch and learn as a Monthly Program where we invite Community Experts to share their knowledge of interesting aspects of cincinnati history, culture, and arts. This program was started on the suggestion of one of our members, one of you all, and it fits neatly into our history. For nearly 200 years our Historic Houses serve as an Important CommunityGathering Place for prominent cincinnati families such as those of martin baum, nicholas longworth, and, of course, charles taft. Each resident plays an Important Role in shaping the history, art and culture of cincinnati, this series celebrates their legacies as well as the new way our city continues to evolve and change. The complete schedule of all of our fall programs include our upcoming lunch and learns are available on our website which is www. Taft museum. Org. I would like to tell you about our talk today. Today we have offered of newly released book, the bourbon king the life and crimes of george remus, prohibitions evil genius. Bob batchelor is here with us today to share the story of george remus, the criminal mastermind and bootleg king who built a bourbon empire that stretched from his towering since any mention across america at the dawn of prohibition. Bachelor is a critically acclaimed bestselling cultural historian and biographer. He has published widely on American History and literature including books on stan lee, bob dylan, the great gatsby, madmen and john updike. He earned his doctorate in English Literature from university of south florida. He teaches in the media journalism and Film Department at Miami University in oxford ohio and lives in blue ash ohio. Following the talk today we have a project on site with copies of the bourbon king available for purchase. Threthrough unique partnershipsd the book industry, the project can donate a book to a disadvantage reader every time a book is purchased through the organization. So by purchasing a book for yourself or for a loved one, you are also helping a young reader in need. Mr. Batchelor will be available to answer oneonone questions and sign your copy of the book following the lecture. We are so delighted to present this program to you today so please join me in welcoming Bob Batchelor to the taft museum of art. [applause] thank you. I cant think of a better place really in cincinnati and the tap using to talk about george remus. Lots of you asking questions for begin about what is the connection between the tasks and our criminal genius george remus . Well get to that. If i forget, somebody please ask that question. Im a historian. I love big dates. I love Centennial School hundred anniversary celebrations, 50 years. So as we prepare for the 100th anniversary of the jazz age and 100th anniversary of the posted act of prohibition, that isnt a better time than to study somebody who history is really forgotten. You might be surprised because some of us, we have heard george remus. There are cincinnati ends i get approached all the time once people find that ive written this book, they see my greatgrandfather was a paperboy and george remus gave him a ten dollars tip, thats when ten dollars was a lot of money. George, we saw on working out done at the Athletic Club and theres a lot of remus cited, a lot of remus interest in this area. Once you go outside of the cincinnati region, theres almost no recognition at all. One of the goals in writing this book was to bring this really fascinating character to life. Was really an interesting set of circumstances around george remus. So well have a little discussion today about that. The first thing that people ask me whenever i determine im writing the bourbon king is how could you get interested in this person . How did you come across george remus . About 17 years ago a very prominent historian named Stanley Cutler who became really famous for investigating watergate and writing about watergate, he was editing a reference collection. Many of you might as you did in School Called the dictionary of American History and thats what teachers use to send their students to find out about American History. He was putting out a new edition and he asked me which my writing a little essay on bootleggers next i was like bootleggers . Why would we want to talk about that . In that research, 17 years ago i ran across remus, and like a bad song from the 1980s, it stuck stuck in my head for 17 years. I was going nuts thinking about this guy. Later i wrote this biography of the great gatsby. I treated not as if it were a person and wrote a book about this experience, this Great American novel, and remus again comes up because some people say that remus was the model took some people say he was a model for jay gatsby. We will get into that more, but ran across remus again and so when i was looking for my next book project i thought to myself, i want to discover somebody who is been forgotten, whose story can tell us something so interesting about todays world, and you can learn so much about what were facing in the 2020s from studying the 1920s. So remus became it. Thats how we get to george remus. Im probably not telling you anything you dont know but there are no heroes in the story. Its a very complex story with a lot of kind of bad characters, even people who seem good for all of the longtime all of a sudden i would read a new story or read Something Else in the paper six month after theyre doing something a role, theyre doing something terrible. Whats wrong with these people . If they are incredibly complex, just like we are today, incredibly complex people and it helps us understand the 1920s. It helps us understand today. Were going to dive right into george remus, the bourbon king. The story is large and there is no way we could go through this whole story. I think the audiobook if youre into audiobooks, i think the audiobook is like 16 hours long. We cant to all the stories here so i thought i would boil it down to six numbers, these numbers will give you a flavor of george remus and hopefully make you want to learn more because its a fascinating story. The first number is the number 13. The number 13 is significant because george remus was a german immigrant, and his family after bouncing around a little bit settled in chicago. At age 13 remus had to become the quoteunquote man of the family because his father had some Health Problems and some drinking problems. When not supposed to talk about those. But remus father had some problems. He could not support the family. And so remus takes over at age 13. He had to drop out of school. Luckily for him, his uncle owned a pharmacy in suburban chicago, and because of that connection, george started working and he worked really hard. He was a smart kid before had to drop out of school. He was really athletic. Even though he wouldnt look like an athlete how we would consider an athlete today, he was not 55 well overdue and repelled. He was built like like a fire hydrant, not an athlete but he was an amazing athlete. He did athletic feats that ensure none of us could of done on our best days. Its an interesting side story. Remus begins this career in the pharmacy, and when he comes of age he passes the licensure to become a pharmacist. The interesting thing is that this places george remus at the heart of the community he liked the attention. He liked the money and way past the licensure, which if i do get his license, in light and made himself to get older, he was only 19 and you lied to save 21 because this is an interesting side story. If he thought that a regulation or rule were unjust, he disobeyed it. So to him it may does sense that in, 19 euros couldnt be licensed, if you could pass the test you should get your license. Within a year or so after getting his license he bought his uncles pharmacy and another pharmacy. This is a guy really is ambitious. Remember, german immigrant dropped out of school. This was about the best like he could have. He was already gaining wealth turkey started speculating in real estate deals and these kinds of things. Very interesting early history. But what george remus does around 1902 is decided id had enough of the pharmacy. Even though he is more successful probably than anybody else he knows and he decides to become a lawyer of all things. Medicine wasnt for him. He thought it was all quackery. So decides to become a lawyer because george remus was a person who saw himself as bigger than life. He was like a character out of history who determines really early i want to be president of the United States and works really hard to get to that position. Remus saw himself in these terms, i want to be bigger than life. And to him becoming a lawyer was a step in that direction. So the number two number i will give you, the number two number is 300. 300 is important because after remus became one of the most famous criminal Defense Attorneys in america, he moves from chicago to cincinnati because within that 300mile radius from cincinnati, just like today, its a gateway to bourbon country. Remus realized as a criminal defense attorney that if these petty thugs that im defending club violated probation can pay their fine by whipping out roles of 100dollar bills and just tearing them off the top and paying the judge on the spot, if these knuckleheads can make hundreds or thousands, if i apply my genius to this principle, i can make millions are tens of millions. Thats a george remus was one of the best criminal Defense Attorneys in america, already famous across the United States as a criminal defense attorney, goes to the dark side. Cincinnati is us gateway and he sets up headquarters half a mile from your at the old fitton hotel. So theres a hint, the first connection to the taft. The hotel owned by the fitton family and that is remus headquarters for his entire run throughout the 1920s. He always keeps a suite of rooms at the fitton hotel. Even after his rich enough to buy the remus building which is also just down the street. Its not a football parking lot but thats okay. It was there. Theres a picture in the book of the old remus building so you would get to see that when you check out the book. 300mile radius, kentucky do they call it, the best bourbon in the world. Remus realized because he had been a pharmacist and because he was such a stellar lawyer, you are actually legal ways to get our call into the marketplace. They called it medicinal alcohol. And bourbon isnt that great. I want some medicinal alcohol. Wouldnt it be great that in that timeframe people, there wasnt the scientific advancement we have now, and are some therapeutic benefits to alcohol. There are uses for that, especially in an era in which a lot of advancements have yet to be made. Remus knew from his own days as a pharmacist that doctors and pharmacists could write prescriptions, and it would allow people even during prohibition to take out a little bit of whiskey or bourbon or other substance once a week. And so he got access to those whiskey certificates, thats what they were called, whiskey certificates, if i get access to these whiskey certificates, i can take this alcohol out of the government warehouses and put into the marketplace. But at the same time, remember, criminal mastermind, prohibitions evil genius, at the same time remus realized if i hire my own men to rob my other men at gunpoint, i can take this legal bourbon and i can take it into the black market. He sets up a series of distribution points. His major distribution point is a place that comes to be known as death valley because he had a fortified like an army four. He had hired an army as he started to make money, and this is about say 13 miles northeast northwest of the city. He sets up on an old farm, and then he sets up smaller depots all over cincinnati. All these places that many of you have traveled, he had a depot in hamilton. He had a depot in glendale. He had different locations throughout this area where he then and out nationwide and he built this empire really from this 300mile gateway out into the national marketplace. One journalist at the time quoted george remus is to bourbon what j. D. Rockefeller was to oil. And remus, why think he is an evil genius, is he understood business even though he had no Business Training outside running his own pharmacy. So he set up a system that he called the circle, like j. D. Rockefeller. If you can control production, you control distribution, you control pricing. You control every piece of the circle, then you make all the money. And remus found ways to make all the money, and its very interesting. Many of you have probably visited the bourbon trail. I visited, my wonderful wife and i love to go down to bourbon country and see the tours here when they give you the tour and they start to mumble and fumble, when the hit 1920 and are not quite sure how to explain it, these were very proud families. And still today very proud people that run the distilleries, one of americas great industry. But in 1920, the things that happen that they dont want to talk about when you go to bourbon country is that probably george remus had come in and found way to buy up that bourbn and get it into the black market. My thinking as the george remus story becomes more public is that the distiller should embrace this story. Its part of their history. Theres nothing you can do about it now. You might as well digging and find out what the real truth was. They were proud people and the National Government had just declared in public enemy number one. They couldve wished for a fire or electricity, lightning strike, the only thing that would save them. Their entire inventories were basically worth nothing. So remus, which is really kind of a strange thing, there are some people, myself included, that believe remus in some ways even though he is doing it all behind the scenes and black market, remus saved the bourbon industry by giving it at least some Foundation Throughout prohibition. This is along 13 years for america, and remus gave the bourbon industry although a bit of a slide through that era. So thats my number two number, 300. This next number might well you out of your socks a little bit but just bear with me. 9. 62 billion, thats a large number, 9. 62 billion is the number if you calculate it the highend, todays money, what remus was able to acquire into an half years. 9. 62 billion. This is how george remus founded facebook or google or a hightech company and into an half years old it into one of the Biggest Companies in the world in two and half years all from his mansion in price hill. It is an amazing facet of the story. I think if people realize, because in todays world we are all kind of numbed by numbers, some races that person is a million, like no big you. I did millionaire, maybe we start to get our attention, but remus at the highend was in excess of 200 million in 1920 money, which if used the latest economic calculation, 9. 62 is kind of the midrange. It couldve been more than that. There are stories that george remus and his men made so much money so quickly, their suits were stuffed with hundreds of thousands of dollars because the banks wouldnt accept any more deposit each day. They had limitations so theyre running around with their giant stack stuffed in the coats and pants because if nothing else that with what you do with the money . Its coming in so fast they cant even make a place to hide it all. Its pretty amazing, and what this 9. 62 billion allowed george remus to do was as we can imagine, live a big life. Yet power. He built an army. He built a nationwide distribution network, and you lived like a king. He bought an estate in price hill and basically gutted it and put countless amount of money into remodeling mansion. He made it into one of cincinnatis most beautiful homes, and he invited the cream of the crop, another tie to the tafts. They never accepted his invitations but he always invited in. The centerpiece of the price hill mansion was our fourth number, 175,000. This is the height in number when people say how much did george remus pay for the ngram poorly put in in the spice of mansion . 175,000 in 1920 money. It was luxurious, perfumed water, special heating units. And this allowed them really to live a gatsby esque lifestyle. People love to come to the mansion and swim in the pool and see the pool. It was quite a thing at that time. And in 1920 when he wanted wanted to be really fabulous, what did you mind your pool with . You like it with what would tyler because thats the mark of really having made it. This was remus signature. Work with highlighting the pool, and has had 5000. The parties that he threw became legendary. The papers didnt cover them that much so people will tell you and you may have heard of a newspapers covered it, lots of reporters there. They really didnt. It was not, it became part of folklore. So much of the remus story is built on folklore and people telling other people and recollections later. One of the things i was able to do as he is doing is dig through all these materials that five years ago nobody could have done or ten years ago because today, because of digital resources you can pull together different story papers, newspaper articles. You can pull together archival information and kind of look at the remus stories like a giant literary historical detective jigsaw puzzle. And so i spent a long time piecing together the stories. The mansion because the center point of that. The night that they debut the pool to the public, which george called the imaging bath after his second wife, imogene remus, who is a femme fatale also not a sweetheart. She is very much an interesting person, and she targeted george remus when they met in chicago. One of my favorite quotes soon after meeting george remus, she said to one of her friends, i will roll him for his role. I will marry him if i have to but i will roll him for marvel. I always joke with my wife, roll him for his role, like that kind of because remus was surrounded by thugs who did talk like that. Its funny when somebody when you see a transcript that somebody has done the real they put its really fun to read. Imogene was a pers