Gentlemen Bootleggers

During the Prohibition Era, the most famous brands of bootleg booze sent drinkers to the graveyard instead of back for more. Templeton rye whiskey was a rare exception. This is the true story of that beverage and its makers.

The drink originated in Templeton, Carroll County, Iowa, shortly after the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1920. The original maker just wanted something that tasted good without costing a fortune. Over the next years, Joe Erlbeck built the making and distribution into a bootlegging empire despite the efforts of his nemesis, Federal Agent Benjamin Franklin Wilson.

This book tells a mixed story. Whiskey was flat out illegal. Yet the rent Joe Erlbeck paid to set up a still would pay the interest on the morgage and maybe stretch to shoes for the kids. The danger from the revenuers was the price a farmer paid to squeek by one more year.

Despite an admitted bias toward the bootleggers' side, the book both seems well researched and is a good yarn.