00:00:00FERNHEIMER: Good morning. Today is May 24th, 2016. My name is Janice W.
Fernheimer. I'm the director of Jewish Studies at the University of Kentucky,
and I am here with Max Shapira. It is my great honor to be able to have the
opportunity to interview you today, as part of the Jewish Heritage Fund for
Excellence Jewish Kentucky Oral History Project. If that's not a mouthful, I'm
not sure what is. (laughs)
SHAPIRA: Well, well, it's nice to be here, as well. And hopefully I have
something that I'll be able to contribute to this.
FERNHEIMER: Well, I, I'm very confident that you do. I hope you'll forgive me
by asking--beginning by asking some very basic questions, uh, just so that we
have them official for the record.
SHAPIRA: Certainly.
FERNHEIMER: Um, I'd like to get started by asking you to talk a little bit
about yourself. What was your name at birth, and when were you born?
SHAPIRA: Uh, I was born on, uh, January 8th, 1944. Um, my full name is
actually Maxwell Louis Shapira. And I was born here in Louisville, Kentucky,
although we lived, at that time, and lived for any number of years thereafter,
00:01:00in Bardstown, Kentucky, which is the headquarters of where our company is,
Heaven Hill Brands. Uh, so I lived in Bardstown for--until I was a junior in
high school. Went to, uh, public school, uh, there, and, uh, uh, ultimately we
moved to Louisville, where I spent my last two years of high school. And then
was off to, uh, undergraduate school at, uh, Washington and Lee University in
Lexington, Virginia. And I followed that up with, uh, two years at the Harvard
Business School, where I received my MBA. After that, uh, I did a stint on Wall
Street--and, uh, very exciting, very interesting--and, ultimately, made my way
back here to Louisville, in the very early '70s. And I've been here at our
company ever since.
FERNHEIMER: Wow. Homegrown here in Kentucky. I want to return to that in just
a minute, um, but can I back up just for a minute to have you state your
00:02:00parents' names and occupations, and when your family came to the US?
SHAPIRA: Well, let me go back, uh, sort of, to the beginning of US time, in any event.
FERNHEIMER: Sure.
SHAPIRA: Uh, my grandfather, whose name was Max, as well.
FERNHEIMER: Max, or Maxwell?
SHAPIRA: Uh, Maxwell. And, uh, came over from Lithuania in the late 1800s,
along about 1892, '93.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: He emigrated to, uh, this country through, uh, New Orleans.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: And, uh, ultimately made his way, uh, to this part of the country, uh,
where he was a peddler, you know, in the, uh--with a pack on his back, uh,
selling notions--you know, thread and thimbles and, you know, um, just basic
household items--to families that, that he--that were on his route. Well, that
business actually became, I guess, reasonably okay. And he, uh, then had a
00:03:00horse and carriage selling the same kind of things. That, ultimately, morphed
into, uh, something a bit more extensive, when he opened a, what you would call,
maybe, a junior department store in, in a little town called New Haven,
Kentucky, which is about, uh, fifteen miles from Bardstown. The town is, is
still there. It's still a very small town. Um, and that general department
store--junior department store--uh, was really sort of like a general store.
Um, they sold everything from pickles in a barrel to seeds and small farm
implements to farmers, and just about everything in between including what you'd
call soft good--you know, things, uh--things such as that. Um, he, uh, married,
uh, a, an, a woman from, um--who had immigrated from, uh, Germany, and, uh, was
00:04:00living in Louisville. And, uh, they were living in this small town of New
Haven, Kentucky. They had, uh, five sons. And as the five sons, uh, became of
age--which was probably about, uh, oh, the middle to--about the middle twenties,
maybe in the late twenties--he sent them out to open additional general stores
in various small towns in the state of Kentucky, one of which was Bardstown,
which is where my dad, uh, uh, was, um--uh, was given the, the job (laughs) of
opening that particular entity. This was all, again, during the late twenties,
the early thirties. And you've got to remember, in the--in this--in the country
at that time, think of what was going on. You know, the Roaring Twenties were
the Roaring Twenties, fine. But, of course, we had, you know, the, uh, crash of
Wall Street in 1929.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: And then, from there until really more or less, uh, World War Two started--
00:05:00
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --you had really difficult economic times, particularly from 1929 to
about 1937, '38, '39. Um, but during all of that time, this, uh,
junior-department-store business actually was a reasonably successful--and,
actually, it was a very successful business, uh, because despite the economic
times, people needed the basics. So, they needed socks for ten cents a pair.
They needed a shirt for a dollar and a half and maybe a suit for a wedding or a
funeral or something like that. Uh, and, uh, so, the business thrived. And,
uh, my dad was a really good business person. And he, uh, uh, was known
throughout the community. And, uh, along about 1932, '31--I think even
00:06:00after--before that, the other social piece of what was going on here in the
United States was Prohibition, which started--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --in 1918, and finally ended with the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933.
Now, uh, what happened was that by the--well, it was sort of a failure from day
one, but (Fernheimer laughs) forgetting about all that, it just--it lasted
until, again, it was 1933, but, you know, the last three or four years, people
could see that the--it just really was the social--this great, noble experiment,
as it's called, was just not going to work. And so, uh, there was a movement
across the country to have it repealed. Simultaneously, as people saw this
happening, there were a lot of people who wanted to get back into the
alcohol-beverage business, particularly the American whiskey business, and even
to define it a bit more, to the Kentucky bourbon business, uh, who had had some
expertise and, and, uh, had been involved in it pre-Prohibition. Um, and so,
00:07:00along about 1933, a group who had this technical expertise who had been in the
business before, from a plant level--from--in other words, from pro--from a
production side of the business, um, came to my dad and said, "We want to get
into, uh, uh, the business again. We think it has a bright future." And, uh,
I'll go into that in just a minute. "And we'd like for you--we, we're, we've
got all the technical expertise. And we can build a facility. We can produce
the product. We can help with, uh, understanding the nuances of different
types--stock--ta--different styles of mash and all the other things--recipes,
and all of this kind of thing. But we are short of money." So they needed a
financial invest--investor. Now, I jokingly sort of say, you know, this was
sort of like private equity, 1933-style.
00:08:00
FERNHEIMER: (laughs) Right.
SHAPIRA: Uh, it wasn't really (laughs) all that--all that f--um, formatted and,
and detailed as it is today. But my dad and his brother said, "Well, we'll try
this thing." But think about it. This was the worst economic times. You had
no facility. You had no warehouses. You had no inventory.
FERNHEIMER: No.
SHAPIRA: You had no brand. And if you even had all of that, how much whiskey
did you make today for an industry starting back up on a brand that you don't
even know what the name of it's going to be, to hold for four years until you
have a product that was actually saleable? So, for four years, during the worst
of economic times, you're getting no revenue, and you're only having more money
00:09:00to go into the business. Well, in any event, you know, (laughs) it just sounds
like the riskiest--the riskiest kind of venture that you could ever imagine.
And I, I, I say, it made the dot-com ventures of the late 1990s--you know, there
were dozens and dozens of--look like a blue-chip investment relative to this
thing. I mean, it just looked like a, you know--a--really a scheme more than
anything else. Really, who would invest in something like this? Anyway,
(Fernheimer laughs) they gave them fifteen thousand dollars, and, uh, that was a
lot of money in those days. And the distillery was built. It wasn't, uh--there
was no day-to-day involvement by Dad, because he was--he was living in
Bardstown. But he'd--you know, he'd go out and visit the plants. I've heard
all of these stories, but--
FERNHEIMER: And he was still running the store at this time?
SHAPIRA: Uh, yes. And, uh, but, well, again, he didn't know anything about the
business. And these other people were supposed to do it. He was just the, the
money guy, (laughs) if you want to call it that. So after about a year and a
half, the plant was build, whiskey was being produced. Went into, uh some
00:10:00warehouses. And, uh, the people who had all the technical expertise, apparently
they got in some personal financial trouble.
FERNHEIMER: Hmm.
SHAPIRA: And they came to--back to my dad and said, "Look, we're either gonna
to have to close this thing down, or you have to buy us out, or we're gonna have
to liquidate it in some way. But we're in" --we meaning them--"we're in a
really bad financial straits." Because remember, still, in nineteen
thirty-th--1935 was when we first produced our first barrel, barrel of whiskey.
And this was a year and a half later. So it was about nineteen thirty-s--late
1936, 1937. So the--you know, economic times were still very, very bad.
FERNHEIMER: Yeah.
SHAPIRA: So anyway, uh, the, uh, family, I guess, took a deep breath and bought
'em out for another twenty-five thousand dollars.
FERNHEIMER: Hmm.
SHAPIRA: So, for approximately forty thousand dollars, over a course of about a
00:11:00year and a half or two years, the family ultimately, uh, gained control over the
whole thing. It became a hundred percent owned by our family. And, uh, it was
called the Old Heaven Hill Springs Distillery, at that time. And that's, that's
really sort of what happened. Now, my dad--of course, he was living in
Bardstown running the store--was given the opp--job of seeing whether this thing
was going to work or not. And, you know, things were pretty tough because,
yeah, there's nothing, nothing coming in and a whole lot going out. And bad
times--he didn't know your brand was gonna sell or not sell or whatever. He
didn't even have a brand at that point. But after about two years--and this
is--I guess I should go ahead and say this--this, this wasn't the proudest day
in the history of, uh, Heaven Hill. But there was a bit of desperation to have
some sort of revenue. You can sell--to produce---you can produce and sell
bourbon whiskey at two years of age.
00:12:00
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: It doesn't taste--of course, it doesn't taste--it didn't taste great
then, and it didn't--and it doesn't taste great now. This is a business about
patience, actually. You've gotta really have a lot of patience in this
business. But anyway, uh--
FERNHEIMER: Was it rectified?
SHAPIRA: Well, no, well, it was a--it was a Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey
adhering to all of the rules and standards of identity and everything else. But
they, they, they had a brand called Bourbon Falls. They brought it out under
that name. It gave a little bit of revenue until you could really wait and have
something that was great, which everybody felt would be a four years of age. So
at four years of age, uh, they brought out a brand called--you know, the--it's
not--today it's not--you know, it's not brain surgery. It was--the br--the
company was called Heaven Hill Brands--uh, Heaven Hill Distilleries, at that
time. And they brought out a brand, Old Heaven Hill Bottled in Bond.
00:13:00Bottled-in-bond whiskey was four years of age--minimum of four years of age. It
was hundred proof, 50 percent alcohol. It was what people really wanted at that
time. Today, actually, there's a resurgence in that sub-segment of the, uh,
American whiskey business. But, uh--but at that time, that's what everybody
wanted. It really was great quality. And it quickly became the
number-one-selling bourbon whiskey here in the state of Kentucky. So that gave
everybody lots of, um--of, uh, hope that this might actually become a real
business. And, uh, hired some people along the way--some really good people
along the way. And, uh--and it, it did start to develop. You know, you, you
had a success here, and then you would go to another market that was contiguous.
Usually would be like Tennessee or Indiana or Ohio or something like that.
And, uh, the business started just to expand on that basis. So, from, from the
00:14:00inception of the business in 1935 until about the mid-sixties, our company was,
um, strictly and only a producer of various types of American whiskey. Uh, all
during this time, through a lot of ups and downs, uh--and I can get into that in
a minute--but, uh, the--there was--
FERNHEIMER: --yeah--
SHAPIRA: --through a lot of ups and downs along the way--
FERNHEIMER: --but--
SHAPIRA: --um, the, uh--we had this national network of distributors around the country.
FERNHEIMER: I want to ask you some questions about that once--
SHAPIRA: --sure--
FERNHEIMER: --in, in just a second.
SHAPIRA: Okay, good--you want to do that now, or at, at--do you want to ask it
now? I can--
FERNHEIMER: --I--
SHAPIRA: --I can pick it back up here.
FERNHEIMER: Um, okay, uh, can I actually take you back in time just a little bit?
SHAPIRA: Sure.
FERNHEIMER: 'Cause I want to talk a little bit more about those stores--the
family stores all throughout Kentucky.
SHAPIRA: Fair enough.
FERNHEIMER: Um, can you tell me your grandmother's name? You, you mentioned
00:15:00your grandfather, Maxwell. And--
SHAPIRA: --her name was Annie.
FERNHEIMER: Annie?
SHAPIRA: Yes.
FERNHEIMER: And can you tell me the different locations of the family stores
across Kentucky?
SHAPIRA: Sure, uh, well I--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm. One here in--
SHAPIRA: --I may not get them all, but I can give you sort of a smattering of them.
FERNHEIMER: Sure.
SHAPIRA: Uh, they range from, of course, Bardstown; Lawrenceburg, uh, Kentucky;
uh, Elizabethtown; uh, Liberty; uh, Winchester; uh, Russellville; and the,
the--I think there was, uh, Harrodsburg--uh, Harrodsburg; and Danville; and I
think there were one or two other locations as well. It's--at one point, I
think there was a store down in Paducah--Paducah or Owensboro.
FERNHEIMER: And do you know how they arrived at these particular places? Were
the brothers already living there, or--
SHAPIRA: --no, uh, no. Uh, the--again, you know, the, the five brothers were
sent out. And, um--and they were sent out to small towns, rural towns. Uh,
00:16:00you'll notice the absence of Lexington. You'll notice the absence of
Louisville. You had, really, the absence of Bowling Green, as well.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: So these were small towns servicing the local communities. And most
all of these towns were, uh, county seats, so that was sort of the center of
commerce in each of the, uh, counties around. So that was where people came in
to do, uh--you know, to, uh, arrange for any legal things they had to do, or
financial things they had to do at the bank, or whatever. And so, it was a
good--it was the place for commerce, generally, in each of these counties around
the state. Obviously, I've named more than five. So, as, as the business grew
over the years, then there were other people that were--uh, that were--became
involved in the business and, um, were sent--were--helped open stores and do
that kind of thing.
FERNHEIMER: And were they all general stores like you described in d--Bardstown?
SHAPIRA: --they were all general stores. Yes, the--yes, exactly. They were
00:17:00all the same kind of concept.
FERNHEIMER: And was there travel back and forth for the family, or did--was
there one particular--
SHAPIRA: --well--
FERNHEIMER: --place where the family convened for meetings or--
SHAPIRA: --well, uh, ultimately, most of the family moved to Louisville. Uh,
and that was probably by the forties, there were people who were living in
Louisville. Uh, the, the, the family were living in Louisville. But we,
uh--our part of the family remained in Bardstown for very long--yeah--till I was
a junior in high school.
FERNHEIMER: Yeah.
SHAPIRA: And, uh--and so, there was an office here. And, uh, we had a couple
of different buildings. But ultimately had an office on Main Street.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: Uh, at 528 West Main Street.
FERNHEIMER: In Bardstown?
SHAPIRA: Which to--no, no, here, here in Louisville.
FERNHEIMER: Oh,
SHAPIRA: And that's where, sort of, the headquarters was. It was--uh, that
00:18:00served as--not only as our corporate offices for that business, but also served
as a warehouse for merchandise. It was a several-story building of whatever.
Today, we've actually changed that over to--just a few years ago, and it's now
our Evan Williams Bourbon Experience.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: It's right, right downtown, right on Main Street--
FERNHEIMER: --yeah--
SHAPIRA: --right--you know, one block away from the river.
FERNHEIMER: I wondered if it--
SHAPIRA: --and that was, you know, sort of an area where there were all sorts
of warehouses like this, at that time.
FERNHEIMER: And can you tell me a little bit about what it was like growing up
Jewish in Bardstown at that time?
SHAPIRA: Well, we were one of only two Jewish families in Bardstown. And, uh--
FERNHEIMER: --who was the second?
SHAPIRA: The second was the Auslander family--A-u-s-l-a-n-d-e-r. And they
actually had a--sort of a similar kind of, uh, department store, uh, in
competition with us. (Fernheimer laughs) Uh, but they were good friends and,
uh, the, uh, the son was about my age. And, uh, we'd get together and whatever.
00:19:00But growing up in Bardstown was, uh--well, I mean, just--let me go back. This
is--my dad, uh, uh, uh, married my mother, whose name was Sylvia. She was from
Chicago. And, uh, lived all her life there and, uh, was a real pretty woman. I
mean, she was a real--uh, the--you know, if some--if she walked in the room,
people would look at her. She was really a--quite a lovely-looking person. So
she came--you know, she was living in Chicago, and the next thing she knows,
she's in a town of about, you know, fifteen hundred people (Fernheimer laughs)
or two thousand people and--
FERNHEIMER: --when--who--when--
SHAPIRA: --or maybe a little bit larger as they--as it got along. But, um,
living in Bardstown, and you'd think it would be like, um, just, you know, the,
uh--that someone couldn't be happy in that kind of--she loved it. She was--she
was involved in all of the local, uh, clubs. It may, may sound silly today, but
00:20:00the garden club and the school and all of the other things that went on--that go
on in any community. But in a small community, it's the same sort of things,
and she was involved with all these kinds of activities. And, um--and loved it.
So we grew up in this environment where my dad was a pretty well-known--uh,
well, very well-known businessperson in Bardstown and sort of the surrounding
county. And my mother just was active in all sorts of these local
organizations, and loved it. And, uh, I sort of grew up in that sort of
atmosphere. I'm--uh, uh--I really didn't know anything that Jewish versus not
being Jewish--it, it, it never even really occurred to me. I went to school,
uh, from--you know, again, from--well, I actually--I went to school about--it's
sort of a humorous kind of little story here. The way my birthday was--fell,
00:21:00uh, uh, you, you were gonna have to be held back another year because you--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --couldn't start the year at school. So my dad went to, uh, the, uh,
parochial-school system, and said, "Do you think that you can take Max, um, and
let him be in the first grade here at the parochial school?" And, and, they
said, "Fine." And he said, "Well, I only have one request." He said, um, uh,
"You know, when you have the religious part of it, could you just do something
(laughs)--just--could you do something else--could you occupy him with some
other sort--form of, uh, education?" (both laugh) You know, so I don't know
what the--
FERNHEIMER: --quiet time in the corner.
SHAPIRA: Well, yeah, well, wait until you hear what this is all--and what
happened. Uh, so they said, "Fine." And, uh, they--you know, very helpful.
And so, anyway--so I went to parochial school for the, uh--the, uh,
kindergarten. I mean--kindergarten. For, uh, first grade. And I'll always
00:22:00remember--I remember to this day. It was just this--an odd thing. Uh, that
when they had the, the religious part of the, uh, program, they would take me
out, put me in a room, and give me extra math to do. (Fernheimer laughs) And
I'm thinking, everybody else is just sitting around and whatever, and here I am
in here working on this math. I mean, this did not sound, like, legit. It
wasn't one of those things that was like, "This is the greatest thing ever." It
was like, "Why is everybody else not having all of this extra math?" Anyway,
that's what happ--well, anyway, so after that I, um, went to the regular
elementary-school system, public-school system, in, uh, Bardstown. And, um, all
the way up until I was a junior and we moved to--uh, when I was a junior. But I
didn't--but during that time, I mean, it was like everybody was--I don't know if
I'd use the word curious, but they always--it was a very open kind of community,
you know, for--and I don't even know if you could get by doing this today, but,
00:23:00uh, on Passover, I would take matzo to school and everybody--and I'd do a little
program. I remember at--remember being asked, uh, "Now tell us what this is all
about and how this all works." You know, uh, for good, better, or, or bad, or
indifferent, you know, I got presents on Christmas days from Santa Claus. It
wasn't a religious thing, so to speak, but it, it was sort of an American
thing--Santa Claus. And then, two weeks before or two weeks after--whatever it
was--then we had a big Chanukah celebration. And, I think, the--my non-Jewish
friends said, "You know, that's pretty good. You get presents twice in this
thing." (Fernheimer laughs) But, I mean--and, and, you know, I had friends who
were over at the house for, uh, Friday-night dinners and, uh, for Passover, or
the, uh, uh, Chanukah celebration, or whatever. So it was really--I mean, this
was a long time ago. And, uh--but it was really just quite open and, uh, quite
easy, and it was easy to be a part of the--of, of, the, uh, school system.
00:24:00
FERNHEIMER: Well, you talked a little bit about Friday-night dinners and
Passover seders, and keeping matzo, and obviously it was important to your dad
that, that you not--
SHAPIRA: --yeah, 'cause--
FERNHEIMER: --be involved with the Christian part of things at parochial
school. Can you talk a little--
SHAPIRA: --no, no, but, yeah, that, that was a--that was--there--but that was
at the, the parochial-school system. But when I was in the, uh, public-school
system, I'd be in the Christmas plays.
FERNHEIMER: Yeah. (laughs)
SHAPIRA: There you go, really.
FERNHEIMER: Can you--can you talk a little bit about, um, how those--how
Judaism played into your life? That--what--
SHAPIRA: --we had a--
FERNHEIMER: --did you go to synagogue? You mentioned Shabbat dinners, those
kinds of things.
SHAPIRA: --uh, uh, sure. We had a kosher home--
FERNHEIMER: Whoa--
SHAPIRA: --absolutely. No w--
FERNHEIMER: --where did the meat come from?
SHAPIRA: --w--w--well, I'll, I'll get--a kosher home, like unto the nth degree,
where, for Passover, there were separate sets of dishes.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: You know, Friday nights were always--the candles were always lit on
Friday evening. Uh, we--on Sunday, we would come to Louisville for Sunday
00:25:00school. Uh--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --and, of course, the family--the--you know, the rest of the family
was here in Louisville so, you know, we'd mingle with the family after lunch,
and then come back to Bardstown. But, um, we would, if you want to call it--we
would import into Bardstown kosher meat from the kosher butcher shop
that--who--that, uh, existed here in Louisville.
FERNHEIMER: Hmm.
SHAPIRA: And brought it back, and, uh, you know, we'd always go shop--for
Passover, we'd all go out shopping in Louisville for the--uh, for the kosher
foods, uh, across the board, everything. And bring it all back to Bardstown.
So that's--that was just a part of it. And, of course, my dad would, uh--and
mother both would probably come to Louisville once--at least once a week beyond
a Sunday for business ma--dad, of course, for business thing--business things,
my mother just to see, in effect, her sister-in-laws, and, uh, mingle with them,
and hear the stories about family life in Louisville and all the other things
00:26:00that went on, and what, what everybody's kids were doing, and, uh, et cetera.
FERNHEIMER: So, uh, it sounds like it was a pretty strong part of growing up.
I, uh--I'm, uh, uh--
SHAPIRA: --we--uh, yeah, I mean, there was never any question. Uh, uh, I was
bar mitzvahed. We had--you know, you learned Hebrew at Sunday school. And then
you had sp--uh, since I could not go to the regular Hebrew classes at the
synagogue, 'cause we were in Bardstown and just couldn't go back and forth, on
Sunday afternoons I would have private tutor--a private tutor who taught me
Hebrew. And, uh, then, learning for--you know, getting, getting ready for your
bar mitzvah, I worked with the rabbi at the, uh, synagogue--Adath Jeshurun here
in Louisville. And, uh, we c--then we would come in, in an afternoon, uh, in
the middle of the week, and then on Sunday afternoon as well. And that's just
sort of how it went. I mean, it wasn't--it was just all part of it, you know?
00:27:00It's--and--but it j--it goes to show--I mean, it goes to show that, really--I
probably shouldn't even say all this kind of stuff now, because it's getting
into the, uh--the era today of political correctness and not saying a prayer in
school. I mean, there were prayers said in school all the time. Uh, they
were--and you heard them. You participated in the--in the, um, Christmas, uh,
pageants or whatever. But if your home, uh, focus from family and your support
system around you, that was just part of it. But it didn't become--it didn't
change your mentality. It probably broadened your mentality to some--to some
degree. So, you know, today, uh, not having a prayer before a ballgame or
a--you know, this happened all the time back then.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: And nobody thought a thing about it. And from a personal standpoint,
it certainly didn't change any of my beliefs or whatever. I probably said, oh,
00:28:00gosh, there's another segment of the world--of the world, and what people do in
a different way. And that's fine for them, and what I do is fine for me. And
everything of, of life went on.
FERNHEIMER: So how would you describe your parents' relationship to Judaism, if
you had to sum it up in a couple of sentences? Um--
SHAPIRA: Well, they, uh--they were certainly very involved, practicing Jewish
people. I don't know that I would say that they were religious in a--in
learning the, the w--the, uh, teachings of the Talmud or something like that,
uh, in depth. But being part of that Jewish community, uh, the, uh, sense of,
uh--of, um--from one generation to another, to pass down traditions, I think
00:29:00was--uh, I think--I know was a hugely important piece of what they thought about.
FERNHEIMER: And, and wh--what do you think---what sticks with you most about
what they taught you about Judaism?
SHAPIRA: Well, I think that it was--it's, it's the cohesion of a community that
has existed for many generations, that have been part of a--of the culture
wherever they've existed, whether it was in, uh, Europe or whether it was in the
United States. But that, in the modern world of the United States, that one
being Jewish was no barrier to entry; was, was just your religion; and you can
do anything that you wanted.
FERNHEIMER: And I, I hope you don't think I'm beatin' on a horse here. I've
00:30:00got just a couple more questions on this--
SHAPIRA: -that's all right. This, this is fine.
FERNHEIMER: --and then I'll bring you back.
SHAPIRA: --this is fine. This is fine.
FERNHEIMER: Um, can you tell me a little bit about how Judaism figured into
romance and the setting up of your own family? I know, in the Bourbon Tales
interview, you talk about your wife, Ellen, and how she's part of the Grabfelder
family--uh, another, another whiskey family, if you will, here in Louisville.
SHAPIRA: Okay. Uh, well, I'm not quite sure where to start on this. Uh, you
know, we moved to Louisville when I was a junior in high school, and, uh, my
sister--Ellen--uh, she had a lot of --uh, you know, people introduced her to a
lot of friends and whatever. And so, they were always over at the house, and
one of those--one of her friends was, uh--was Ellen. Uh, her name was Ellen
Hirsch. And she was part of a family here in Louisville that had been actually
in this area since 1848--I mean, many generations. And her mother and her
00:31:00father, they knew, I don't know, every man, woman, and child, I believe, here in
the entire city of Louisville. (Fernheimer laughs) Uh, and, uh, uh, so, you
know, she, she was always around. Of course, a lot of other of Ellen's, uh,
um--my sister's friends were always around. And, uh, she was--my sister
encouraged me. She said, "Well, why, why don't you take her out? We'll go--all
go to a movie together and we'll double date," or whatever. And so, we did.
And, uh, I guess that was--that was probably the latter part of my junior year
in high school. And, uh, so, I--you know, I don't know that, uh, the Jewish
influence, uh, actually--or the, the Jewish background influenced the
likeability or non-likeability, actually. Um, I don't think the--I don't know
that that ever came into, uh--to, uh--to play. Obviously, we were both Jewish.
That was fine. But it was more of the intellectual and just fun atmosphere of,
00:32:00of associating with somebody.
FERNHEIMER: But you met her through your sister's network?
SHAPIRA: I met her through my sister, yeah, ab--oh, absolutely. And, um, of
course, they were--have been--were, were then, and to this day are lifelong
friends. Is--um, and, uh--and that's just sort of the way it happened then.
FERNHEIMER: Is your sister older or younger? Remind me.
SHAPIRA: Younger sister.
FERNHEIMER: Younger. And, uh, how many other bro--any other brothers or sisters?
SHAPIRA: No, it was just the two of us.
FERNHEIMER: Just the two of you? And how much younger than you is she?
SHAPIRA: She's, uh, two years.
FERNHEIMER: Two years younger. So, it sounds like this was really important,
in, in terms of networks and social networks, but you--if--it wasn't Judaism,
per se, but it was who you were coming in contact with through your sister. Um,
is there--uh, can you tell me a little bit about your involvement now in the
Jewish community, either in, in Louisville or anywhere else?
SHAPIRA: Well, uh, I don't know that I'd call it the Jewish community as much
00:33:00just the community in general. Uh, now, my wife--I have never been the joiner
of committees (Fernheimer laughs) or organizations--uh. I've been--my life has
been--you know, I sort of--when we just had our fiftieth anniversary at, uh--
FERNHEIMER: --oh, mazel tov.
SHAPIRA: --in c--at, uh--no, no, at, at college. My college--uh, college--
FERNHEIMER: --still, (laughs) mazel tov.
SHAPIRA: Yes, indeed. And, you know, you had to write a little synopsis of
your life, or whatever, for a book, and all this kind of stuff. And, uh,
bas--you know, this, this--I've, I've used it several times. My life has
revolved around business and family, and family and business, and business is
family. And I guess you can get the picture from, from the whole--from the way
00:34:00I've constructed those words there. So, I was never much of a--now, my wife,
Ellen, she is the quintessential joiner, and has been actively involved in--
FERNHEIMER: --hmm--
SHAPIRA: --in pretty much all the Jewish organizations in Louisville, uh,
whether it's the federation, or what's--what it was called years ago, or whether
it's, uh, uh, the Jewish hospital, where she's been a trustee; or, well, today,
of what's--and, and, and, and in broader community kind of organizations where
she's been a trustee of the Speed Museum, and a variety of Hosparus--uh, she was
a trustee, or a trustee, or a member of the board of that organization. And any
number of other similar kinds of activities. Today she's a, a member of the
ballet board. So, she was the joiner. She was the member of the family who
sort of represented everything, uh, uh--who represented the family in, in both
00:35:00Jewish and--or community organizations.
FERNHEIMER: So, so she, she serves as the public face for--if you will,
(laughs) in that--
SHAPIRA: --sort of, yes.
FERNHEIMER: Um, um, you talk about business and family, family and business,
feeds--and, and how each one feeds into the other. And I'm gonna steer you back
to business here in a little bit, but I want to ask one more question about this
relationship with family and business. Um, these family meals, right? You talk
about a, a Friday-night dinner, or a Sabbath dinner, maybe, if you will. So,
did business bleed into Sabbath dinner, or was there a kind of obser--uh,
observance of however you define it, of Sabbath--
SHAPIRA: --yeah--
FERNHEIMER: --or was it just impossible to keep it out because everyone was
involved in it?
SHAPIRA: You used the best word: impossible. (Fernheimer laughs) Look, now,
again, the bro--the, the five brothers--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --very close. You know, they, they worked very hard. They, they
would meet on Sunday mornings down at the offices, down here on Main Street.
00:36:00I'd go sometimes with them, as well. And they'd discuss what happened during
the week, you know, from things that are maybe thirty-thousand-foot-view kinds
of things, to the most minutia of details that you could ever want to imagine.
And, um, it was must part of their DNA. It was part of what they did. And,
again, for them, it was business and family, and family and business. And that,
you know, transmitted to me, as well. Uh, so, to--so, the--to answer, it's
impossible, during those dinners, not to have, uh, business conversation. Uh,
you may want to get into this a bit more later. And today, that tradition is
continued on, uh, because--well, you're gonna interview, I know, my daughter, Kate--
00:37:00
FERNHEIMER: --yeah--
SHAPIRA: --and my son, Andy, is involved in the business, as well, and my
son-in-law. And, um, we don't get together every Friday night for dinners. But
whenever we're together, whether it's by the pool in, in the afternoon, on a
Sunday, or wherever--it might be somebody's birthday, the--it seems like, more
often than not, you know, we sort of jokingly say it, those, um, kinds of
activities morph into some conversation about our businesses.
FERNHEIMER: Yeah. I--so, we started this kind of line of questions talking
about networks, and the social network that led to your wife. And even before I
kind of interrupted you to bring you back to the family, you were starting to
talk about those distribution networks. So--
SHAPIRA: --sure--
FERNHEIMER: --and I hope you're--you'll follow my, my jumbled, uh, line of
questioning a little bit, and, um--and talk a little bit more about those
distribution networks. I know, uh, in your interview for the Kentucky Bourbon
00:38:00Tales Project, you talk about just how important those networks are, and how
those distribution networks helped you grow the business. Could you talk a
little bit more about that?
SHAPIRA: Sure, well, uh, the industry's structured--coming out of Prohibition
and to this today--as a three-tier system.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: So, the only way that you can--in the United States, at least, the
only way that one can get their products to market is to go through this system.
Uh, and that means the three tiers are suppliers--in other words, producers--
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: --or the importers of a product from abroad. We would be a supplier.
We produce our products-.
FERNHEIMER: Hmm.
SHAPIRA: We manufacture them. We bottle them. And then, we ship them out to
the second tier, who are distributors or wholesalers, if you will. And they're
on a local basis--you know, every state has several different ones, and they
generally cover the state, uh, in the respective states from one end of the
state to the other. And what they do, then they sell to the third tier, which
00:39:00is your retail stores or bars and restaurants and whatever. So that's the
three-tier system along the way. So, the relations that were--well, that
are--that you build up, and particularly in the early days, the relationships
that you built up were hugely important in the ability to get--to have access to
the market. Because unless you had a distributor who was really interested in
wanting to sell your brands, access to the market was considerably more
difficult and, for some, virtually impossible to obtain. So, you know,
developing these relations with the distributors around the country by doing the
right thing--by providing good products at reasonable prices; uh, helping with
merchandising and marketing; and providing the concepts for the brands and
brand, brand platforms for marketing and merchandising--were all really
important in building these relationships. Most of all of these distributors
around the country at that time were very much independent; uh, very much, uh,
00:40:00involved in their communities; and all privately owned. These were not publicly
held companies that you were doing business with. So there were--there were
lots of family relationships between our family and our distributors' families
around the country. And that's sort of how you d--how that business was built.
So, for the--for the first number of years, they were critically important.
They continue to be critically important. But, uh, they apparently liked what
we were doing, and how we conducted ourselves, and the familial relationships
between everyone. And then, um--and they kept asking us, as our business was
built to this national distribution network, to, "Why don't you bring more
products to us?" So, along about the middle part of the sixties, there were,
first of all, the--there were some chan--lots of changes in the industry--
00:41:00
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --as other kinds of spirits started to take hold in the market,
whether it was vodka or gin or the rise of rums and whatever. So you could see
that, uh, diversification and, um, broadening your portfolio were a--were really
important things to get done. And so, that's what happened. So, really fast
forwarding a whole lot of activity, um, through a lot of internal product
development and a lot of brand acquisitions over the years, we've broadly
diversified the product line going through the same channels of distribution
that we had done since the very earliest days, but broadened the whole portfolio
of products that we sell. And today it's really a very broad portfolio of
products cutting across virtually every distilled-spirit category that you could
imagine in the industry. And we sort of jokingly say we sell everything from
110-proof, uh, bourbon whiskeys to root-beer schnapps, and just about everything
00:42:00in between. (Fernheimer laughs) that's sort of true, actually.
FERNHEIMER: Yeah, you talk about the importance of those family connections,
those family relationships. To what extent do you think the family
relationships that the brothers built in those outlying rural towns helped to
create, un, some of the infrastructure for those relationships to--as they
transitioned into more, uh, of the effort in the--in the bourbon industry?
SHAPIRA: Well, I think it was--I don't know that--specifically, that I
could--that, that I would know that. But it was the--those--more importantly,
doing the right thing. Uh, uh, you know, just doing the right thing. You know,
that's right, being a mensch. Got it?
FERNHEIMER: (laughs) Got it.
SHAPIRA: Uh, just doing the right thing. Uh, sure, you know, you can discuss
your point of view with a customer, a distributor that might have--that we
00:43:00might--we may have had different ideas for merchandising something that our
customer--but eventu--but, but to do it in the right way. You know, every
meeting doesn't have to be an argument.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: It's a discussion. And I think that was the overall mentality of the
family over the course of many years. And that was the critical part of
developing these relationships.
FERNHEIMER: So, these, these ideas, these values that you're talking
about--being a mensch, which, for anyone who's--doesn't know the Yiddish, it, it
means just being a, a regular kind of great old person--
SHAPIRA: --well, well, it means--it means--
FERNHEIMER: --with good values.
SHAPIRA: --well, uh, to me, it means--meaning doing the right thing.
FERNHEIMER: Doing the right thing, ethical. Uh, the emphasis on being open to
discussion and having--not always having a, a, a, a vitriolic argument, but a, a
pro--a back-and-forth. These are some of the kinds of values that people might
say are traditional Jewish values. Um, but, but you don't see the word Jewish
00:44:00too much in, in transcripts of, of interviews with you. Um, I wonder if you
could talk about that sort of subt--that nuanced, uh, way some of these values
filter in.
SHAPIRA: I'm not sure if I quite got the--uh, uh, quite get what you're seeking
here on the--on the--this question.
FERNHEIMER: I guess, so, you, you talk about these distribution networks and--
SHAPIRA: --um-hm--
FERNHEIMER: --and how you work with the consumers, and, and go back and forth.
And this--you know, you talk about your parents not really having Talmudic, uh,
knowledge. Um, but the kind of values you're talking about might be what a lot
of people would associate with the Talmud itself. That sort of discussion of
back-and-forth, and, and other people might discuss those as sort of, broadly
speaking, more Jewish values.
SHAPIRA: Oh.
FERNHEIMER: Being a mensch. If you want to summarize all of Judaism, right?
Just be a mensch. Um, but that doesn't--that doesn't come out in explicit ways
all the time. I guess let me ask it in a really concrete way. Um, when you go
through the tasting room, right, at the Heritage Center--
00:45:00
SHAPIRA: --um-hm--
FERNHEIMER: --and if you look up in the beams, and you pay attention, you see
two big Magen Davids.
SHAPIRA: Oh, right, yes.
FERNHEIMER: --right?
SHAPIRA: And you're talking about in Bardstown?
FERNHEIMER: Yeah, and it's real subtle. And if you don't look up, you miss it.
And it's not---it's not plastered all over the, the story of, of Heaven H--of
Heaven Hill. So I wonder if you could talk about the sort of subtleties in the
ways that those values maybe seep into how the business goes, or how, how you've
taken it in your leadership of the business?
SHAPIRA: Well, I don't that I--(laughs) I don't know that the subtleties of
Jewish culture influenced the way we present ourselves through the community--
FERNHEIMER: --hmm--
SHAPIRA: --or the, um, industry, or whatever. I think, you know, we feel
like--that, you know, everybody is staunchly understanding of the Jewish
00:46:00heritage of the family.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: Uh, I don't know that, uh--I, I think that--uh, I think the view is
that one--uh, that, that you don't have to wear that on your sleeve.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: You don't have to, um, uh--if you--if, if, uh--you, you just do what
you want to do based upon the values, uh, that you hold--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --both corporate values and personal values. And if you're
Jewish--which we are, obviously--uh, that just--that's just all part of it.
It's just being--today, it's really just being about a good person. And if
Jewish values are all part of that--the history, the tradition, the--as I say,
the generation-from-generation aspect--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --that just--it's, like, just a part of your DNA. You don't really
think about it so much.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
00:47:00
SHAPIRA: I mean, I, I, you know--I--the--that's, that's about the easiest way I
can say it.
FERNHEIMER: That's just so, so much part of it that you don't have to talk
about it.
SHAPIRA: Right, it, it--exactly. We--you know it's there. It's not like after
we need reminding that we're Jewish, you know? It's not--it's not--that's not
an issue.
FERNHEIMER: So, uh, to follow up a little bit on, on that space. Can you tell
me about what, what--uh, a little bit about the decisions or the discussions
that went into the creation of the space, uh, at the center, with the--with the
stars in the--in the ceiling? (both laugh)
SHAPIRA: That, I believe--I did not know anything about it.
FERNHEIMER: Oh, it--really?
SHAPIRA: I'll just tell ya. And what--I said, "Where did this come from?" And
I think it was a collaboration between my cousin, Harry Sh--my first cousin,
Harry Shapira, who is involved in our business, as well, and the--and the
builder, or the, uh, contractor. And, uh, he said, "I wonder if we could do
00:48:00something like this, very subtly." And that's--and one day I was over there and
said, "Where did this come from?" Because it was certainly not--it was
certainly not as we developed the plans for the Visitor Center we said, "Oh, we
want to have something in there that reflects the Jewish tradition of the
business." And--but it was just--it was--that's, that's sort of what happened.
FERNHEIMER: So what was your reaction when you saw it--
SHAPIRA: --I said, "Oh, my."
FERNHEIMER: --or when you learned about it?
SHAPIRA: I said, "How--"--or w--I said, "Well, this--"--it--uh, I thought--I
said, "This is really an interesting thing. It, it will be interesting to see
who notices and who doesn't notice this."
FERNHEIMER: And does it come up? Do people notice on the tours?
SHAPIRA: --no, uh, uh, very, very rarely. Unh-uh, very rarely.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm. Um, so that--that's an in--interesting kind of insight
into, uh, some of those decisions about how the story gets told there, both in
the Heritage Center and in the Evan Williams Experience.
SHAPIRA: --that's about as subtle as you can get in telling the story.
FERNHEIMER: (laughs) Yeah. Um, is there any other way, or are there other ways
00:49:00that, um, your, your background--um, Jewish background has influence Heaven
Hill's interest in story-telling, or the story of bourbon, both in the Heritage
Center and in the Evan Williams Experience? Um--
SHAPIRA: --no, we're pre--it's pretty consistent. You know, what I've
mentioned earlier on is pretty much the story that we tell, which is, of course,
the true story. Uh, so, yeah, no, I would--I would say probably not.
FERNHEIMER: Okay. Um, as you know, I told you a little bit about the project
JT and I are working on, and we're working on. And we're interested in
these--in, in human stories, um, behind bourbon production. Uh, specifically
with Jewish people, women, African Americans, Native Americans, um, folks who
aren't traditionally in front and center of the iconic image of bourbon. Uh,
and I wonder if you have any anecdotes that you know about, that you think
00:50:00deserve some wider attention.
SHAPIRA: Like?
FERNHEIMER: Like, uh, stories involving folks you wouldn't normally expect to
be in bourbon--in bourbon. And you may not, and that's okay, too. I'm just
asking a broad swath.
SHAPIRA: --well, what about--yeah, let me ask you. Well, what about wives?
FERNHEIMER: You--uh, bingo.
SHAPIRA: What about--what about that? I mean, the--I mean, normally you
wouldn't expect somebody's wife to be terribly involved and understand the--sort
of the nuances of the business or whatever. But, but, I mean, I can talk about
that from personal experience. Well, I can talk about it for my--for my mother,
as well.
FERNHEIMER: Please do.
SHAPIRA: My dad and my--well, my dad and my mother, they would always--they
would go to any number of industry-wide meetings. And, in those days, uh, those
who attended generally brought their wives. That doesn't happen so much today,
but in those days it did. The wives were almost--I don't know if I'd use the
word expected to go, but they went. So, so my mother, uh, uh, made friends with
00:51:00the wives of all of our distributors. And, again, it goes back to that--those
relationship-building aspects of this. And, and that was really with people
from all across the country.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: And it became not just the--so, then, at some point, it morphed into,
uh, not just seeing those people at, uh--at a major, uh, event for all of the
industry, but if you were traveling on a vacation to Albuquerque, New Mexico,
you'd call up the--our distributor there and say, "Hey, let's all go out for
dinner. You know, we haven't see each other. We can catch up with the kids,"
and all of this kind of thing. Or, "We can go to a ballgame," or whatever. And
that's where all of that really went on. And so, I mean, she was actively
involved in understanding what the business was about. Now you talk about
00:52:00passing it from a generation down, uh--and, and I don't whether she--uh, uh, my
mother didn't pass this along to, to my wife, Ellen. But today, Ellen is hugely
involved in understanding all of the--well, the business has changed. But she
understands the--she says--she takes people through our Visitor Center down here
in Louisville, frequently. Uh, I'll be on a panel discussion in the industry.
She said, "You know, I think I could have done just what you did there. I know
enough." And--because she understands the business. She said, "I can--"--she
can take people through our distillery--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --and know what the mash--how the mash works, and how the ingre--the
ingredients, and all the other things, and what the--what part the barrel is
involved with in making the product. She can tell you all of these things.
And, um--and she knows--well, she doesn't know as many today, but she knows the
00:53:00names of pretty much all of our distributors all around the country. Um, she'll
know the ones that, you know, are, are easier to deal with than others. Um--
FERNHEIMER: --(laughs) of course.
SHAPIRA: And, and when our sales force was much smaller, but when it was still
maybe twenty-five or thirty people--it's a whole lot more than that today--but
she knew every one of our--of our sales people--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --what their territory was, whether--well, they--whether the--it was a
great expanding territory, one that needed a whole lot more work. She knew all
these things. And, um--so, well, today, when we have those family dinners and
the subject of the business comes up, she's right in there saying, "Oh, I have
an opinion about this." And she does. She--and a lot of--and she's quite
valuable with regard to all of that.
FERNHEIMER: Yeah, can you think of any--uh, uh, an idea or a concept that sort
00:54:00of bubbled up over one of those dinners, that came from, from--I mean, the
first--I, I'm delighted--
SHAPIRA: --well, uh--
FERNHEIMER: --that the first place you went is to the wives and to the women
who were involved. Uh, is there anything specific that you can recall, that
came specifically from them at--
SHAPIRA: --well, I, I, I can tell you more generally than specific, but
Ellen's, uh, background is, um, in counseling.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: And she's a career counselor, and, uh--and has been for any number of
years. This--so we were talking at one, uh, particular--I don't know if it was
at dinner or where it was. But anyway, we were talking--uh, at the restaurant,
we were talking about something having to do with our human-resources area.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: And she came up with some really interesting ideas with regard to
that. Uh, "Why don't you consider this? Why don't you consider that?"
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: So, that--I mean, that's, that's sort of how it--how she's, she's been
actively involved even though she's not on our payroll. (laughs)
00:55:00
FERNHEIMER: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly the kind of story that, that I was
thinking about. I mean, you mentioned being swaddled and brought to the
bottling line, which--
SHAPIRA: --that's true.
FERNHEIMER: I loved that story, because it tells you--it, it tells me a couple
of different things. One, that, you know, your mom, of course, was right there
with your dad at the plant, uh, watching. And, and there you were, from the
beginning, involved, um, um, from both. (laughs)
SHAPIRA: --well, you--yeah, well you have to, uh, understand, I grew up in the
business. Uh, and, I mean, I heard, early on, whiskey talk at breakfast, lunch,
and dinner. When I was a kid, we played on the property. It was, you know, a
hundred--several hundred acres, and there we'd take our BB guns and our rifles
down to, to the farm area where they'd have it, and we'd go hunting or whatever
it might be. Uh, and I remember the--you know, when we had f--uh, several very
severe floods, and--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --uh, when, when, uh, everybody wanted to--it was--we--the facility
00:56:00was--at that time, was right over a large creek. And when you had some sort of
really severe rain, the--it was subject to some flooding. Well, one time it was
really rather severe. And, uh, I remember one of the, uh--my father wasn't all
that tall. He was about five-foot-six or so. And, uh--and, and sort of thin.
And, uh, he said--he asked one of the people. He said, "What do you think is
going on over there?" He said, "How deep--how deep do you think the water is?"
Somebody at the off--in the facility was, was out there--I was out there at that
time at the water thinking, Well, what's going on here? Couldn't have been more
than maybe ten or eleven years old. And one of the people said, "Let me put you
on my back, Mr. Shapira." Not me. This was my dad. (Fernheimer laughs) "And
take you out there so we can see what's going on." And they went--waded out
into the water. I remember all of that.
FERNHEIMER: Yeah. Are there other ways that the mothers and wives were
involved, other than family dinners or coming around? It sounds like there was
00:57:00a key, uh--
SHAPIRA: --well, I think it's in that relationship-building. That was
the--that's huge. That's--that--that's huge. That's, that's, uh, really important.
FERNHEIMER: Yeah, and, and that's one thing that you, you keep coming back to.
And I think--
SHAPIRA: --but the other part of it is, look, everybody's working all the time.
There's lot of travel and whatever, even to this day.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: And so, you've gone quite a bit. So, you know, the support that
everybody gives for, hey, I understand why everybody's gone three days a week
this week, and two days a week next week. And, you know, my last--last weekend
I almost--uh, well, to--really, last weekend, I was away all weekend at a
con--at a--at a--at a--an event that I had to go to. Everybody understands all
of that. So it's the support mechanism for those who are working hard and doing
all the things that, that are necessary. That's, that's a big thing.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm. Um, yeah, these relationships are, are, uh, key. Uh, the
key facets, it's--uh, um, you keep coming back to that dynamic of the
00:58:00relationships with vendors and distributors. And, and you know I recently had
the chance to speak a little bit with Robert Lipman of Lipman Brothers. And I
wonder if you can speak a little bit more into that relationship be--between
distributors, distillers; how, how families--how, how back--a shared background
kind of fits into solidifying some of those? You talked a little bit how the
wives could help work in these, uh, industry settings by solidifying some of
those relationships. Um--
SHAPIRA: --well, you know, we, as a company--well, we bring, we believe, a
different perspective to the industry. We're quintessential family-owned and
-operated. Uh, many if not most of our competitors are either foreign-owned or
large, publicly held companies. Uh, they bring a completely different
00:59:00perspective to the business than what we do. And, you know, from the--and
to--and today, the business has changed a whole lot. There's been a whole lot
of consolidation and lots of other things going on. But all of the d--all of
our distributors are still family-owned. They're larger businesses because--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --there's only about four large distributors remaining in the United
States today. There's some smaller ones, but not very many. And, um, all of
those four businesses are all privately--four distribution businesses are all
family-owned companies--
FERNHEIMER: --hmm--
SHAPIRA: --that existed from the earliest days, but they grew and, and bought a
lot of the other individual companies. But as I said before--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --everybody in this industry starting out was privately owned,
independent, local, and you were dealing with those fifty different states.
01:00:00You're dealing with fifty different entities for which it is very important to
develop the relationship with. And, uh, the wives were always helpful in that,
on some--one, one side of it. But really, the, the majority of it, from the
day-to-day operating business, was to develop those relationships with each of
these distributors around the country. Obviously, some are better than others.
On the--you know, you can't have--it's not perfection everywhere.
FERNHEIMER: Yeah.
SHAPIRA: Um, and it just so happened, in, in not all the instances, but in many
instances, a lot of those distributor were of, uh, Jewish owners. Really, a
lot--I mean, a very large amount. Uh, and, in fact, today, of the four
largest--those four sort of semi--national or semi-national distributors that
exist today, uh, three of them have Jewish background and Jewish people still
01:01:00own the companies. And, um, are actually involved in the day-to-day management
of the company.
FERNHEIMER: Okay.
SHAPIRA: I don't know if that makes any difference in terms of the business or
whatever. It's just--it's just a fact. It's just sort of interesting. And
maybe there's some degree--commonality in whatever it might be.
FERNHEIMER: For the purposes of the interview, would you mind naming those, uh,
other family-owned--
SHAPIRA: --sure, there's--uh, well the, the largest ones are Southern Wine and Spirits.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: That's owned by the, uh, Chaplin family.
FERNHEIMER: How do you spell that?
SHAPIRA: Uh, C-H-A-P-L-I-N.
FERNHEIMER: Okay.
SHAPIRA: U, the other one--and the two of them--uh, the other one was Glazer
Distributing Company, owned by, uh, the Glazer family in--out of Texas.
Actually, those two are merging, though, uh, today. Uh, you have, uh, what is
a, a business called Breakthrough Beverage, uh, which is, um, pro--mostly owned
01:02:00by the Merinoff family out of New York.
FERNHEIMER: Merinoff?
SHAPIRA: Merinoff.
FERNHEIMER: M--
SHAPIRA: --M-E-R-I-N-O-F-F. You might want to check. There may be two Rs.
Anyway--and then the--uh, a company called Republic National Distributing
Company that's owned by several Jewish families, uh, um, one in--on in Georgia,
and another segment out of, uh, Texas--Dreeben--D-R-E-E-B-E-N. They're out of
Texas, and, um, the Davis family out of, um, Atlanta, Georgia.
FERNHEIMER: So--
SHAPIRA: --so, I mean, it's, it's an interesting thing. And I--and it--and,
and the Southern company who has bought any number of distributors over the last
twenty years to be the largest of that group. I mean, for example, here in
01:03:00Kentucky, our--which was one of our first distributors, of course, uh, there was
a family here whose--who we've worked with now for, uh, uh, two generations--um,
the Levitch family here in Louisville started a company or bought a company
right after Prohibition ended, was one of our first customers. And, uh, the
person who's in charge of--they were bought by Southern Wine and Spirits. But,
uh, the--one of the members of the Levitch family works--uh, really has an
important executive position at Southern Wine and Spirits here in Kentucky. And
we're with--you know, talk to him frequently. So, these are, like,
multi-generational kind of things. We have several distributors where we have
three generations of family members: um, the group that worked with my dad--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --the group that I've worked and sort of grew up with, and their kids
are the kids that, um, kids--so many kids. (laughs) That their third generation
01:04:00is actually involved in the business, work with Andy and Allan and, uh, Kate.
FERNHEIMER: Kate.
SHAPIRA: So, it's pretty interesting, really.
FERNHEIMER: Yeah, those are some very--I mean, when you start talking about
two-, three-generation-deep, uh, family connection, that's a very strong, uh,
network of, of ties. Um--
SHAPIRA: --well, remember, this is, uh--this is a pretty young industry--
FERNHEIMER: --yeah--
SHAPIRA: --relatively speaking. We're all, you know--we said, oh, we, well,
celebrated our eightieth year last year. Well, the whole industry pretty much
celebrated their eightieth--
FERNHEIMER: --right.
SHAPIRA: --because Prohibition ended in 1933. People were up and running maybe
'34. So that would be eighty-one years. But in '35, like us, that's eighty
years. So, almost everybody, well, got in business during that period of time.
FERNHEIMER: Uh, of course, you know, over the course of the years, there's
been, uh--the--a lot of folks have, have paid interest in (laughs)--paid
attention to that curious fact of, of many different Jewish families involved.
And, and I wonder if you could speak a little bit to how those close ties
01:05:00sometimes, um, uh, call negative attention. Uh, certainly there was Henry
Ford's article that, that played on, uh, some of the anti-Semitic allegations
about control and connection. And I wonder if you might, um, talk about
the--how these--how these relationships sometimes play in or with some of those,
uh, allegations that have been made over the years--anti-Semitic alle--allegations?
SHAPIRA: Well, uh, you know, look. You know, you know, you're gonna have
people who are--uh, who question the Jewish religion. That's f--that's nothing new.
FERNHEIMER: No. (laugh)
SHAPIRA: That's been going on--really? It's, uh--(laughs) I mean, you're
talking about thousands of years. But, you know--you--I know you're gonna find
this really strange to say--for me to say this, but growing up as the only
Jewish family--so, one or two--in a small town--a small, rural town in Central
01:06:00Kentucky, uh, I never experienced one single solitary day, event, comment, or anything--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --that would be remotely considered, to me at least, anti-Semitic.
Just never happened. So, I, I certainly understand the history over the course
of many--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --um, of, of, many millenniums. Uh, I never experienced any of that.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: And whether it was--like I said, well, growing up in Bardstown;
whether it was living here in Louisville; whether it was living in, uh,
uh--whether it was working in New York; or, or at sch--at colleges; or whatever,
I, I just never experienced anything like that. Uh, I always felt that if you
01:07:00do the right thing, you're gonna be accepted by the community. Now, obviously,
I'm wrong in certain instances, because that does happen in certain places. I
guess it still does, and, and, you know, look what goes on in Europe even today.
Uh, I never experienced any of that, period, zero, zilch.
FERNHEIMER: Hmm. Yeah, yeah, that--it, it, it--I--you--I know you, you say you
think I'd be surprised, but during the course of these interviews--the
Kentucky--the Jewish Kentucky interviews, it--it's a common story, uh, that,
that, that we've heard of folks growing up in these different parts of the state
and not actually having any kind of experience of that--of the anti-Semitism.
SHAPIRA: Well, that--I mean, it's good--that's great to hear, of course.
FERNHEIMER: Yeah.
SHAPIRA: But, uh, you know, again, you, you'd--it, it--you can participate and
be a part of the--of the Jewish community, and be a part of the broader
community, as well--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --with really easy of access and, uh, acceptance of, uh, ideas. All
01:08:00those things, really, like I said. I mean, I, I get what you're driving at. I
have not seen that.
FERNHEIMER: Yeah, I'm--
SHAPIRA: I know--I know it exists in certain places.
FERNHEIMER: Yeah. Um, I'm gonna switch gears back to those stories. You were
talking about how the wives always knew which, which distributors or which, uh,
sellers were easier to deal with and which ones weren't. I wonder if you would
be willing to share--of course, without names, necessarily--but some of the more
colorful stories that you've encountered of personalities. The--obviously, JT
and I are, are, are writing a fictional graphic novel, so we're, we're looking
for some really rich--
SHAPIRA: --well--
FERNHEIMER: --juicy stories.
SHAPIRA: --I--that, that, I mean, this is an interesting story. This isn't--it
wasn't--my, my dad was involved in--there was a very large, uh--one of the
larger companies in the industry. This is some years ago. And the person who
ran this was, um, known to be, um, just a--an--on the outer edge of the envelope
01:09:00in terms of personality and (Fernheimer laughs), uh, just a
bigger-than--bigger-than-life kind of personality. And, uh--and was sort of
the, the owner, tyrant, uh, chief cook and bottle washer of a very large
company--supplier company in the industry. My dad was invited to, um--an
eccentric as it could possibly be. And, and he was the kind of person who would
call up somebody and--at two o'clock in the morning and say, "I need to have
this answer by six o'clock tomorrow morning," uh, for a particular thing. And
the person would--if he didn't have it properly right, it would be, "You're out.
You're done." Anyway, he was invited to this per--uh, to a party at this
person's house--and, uh, in a tony area of the eastern part of the United
States. And he went, and, uh--with some friends. And, um, the person who had
01:10:00the party never, never, uh, showed up. Anyway, he was--he
was--the--they--everybody was milling around or whatever, and no one knew where
the person who was giving the party--where he was. So, along about eleven
o'clock, the person comes down this big, broad staircase, and--in a pair of
pajamas and a robe (Fernheimer laughs), he looked and said, "What's everybody
doing here? I'm going to sleep. Good-bye." Uh, that was--yeah, those--that was
a outlandish kind of personality, but that actually happened. So, it's, it's
just those kinds of--those happened more than once. I've--I was, uh, in Paris,
and, uh, a distributor of ours, uh, at a meeting--and there was a bunch of
distributors there, as well--and I saw one of our distributors, like, aimlessly
sort of working down the Champs-Élysées, I'm thinking, like he was lost. So I
01:11:00went over to him and I said, I said, "What are--what are you--what are you
doing?" He said, "Well, I don't know where I am. I am lost. And I have no
money." Now, this was a very--pretty wealthy individual. (Fernheimer laughs)
"I have no money." I said, "What are you talking about, you have no money?" He
said, "Well, I've--I didn't know how to get the French francs." This was the
French francs at that time, not euros. "And, uh, so I have no money, and I
don't know where I can get a cab, or anything. And if I do, I don't know any
French as--" I said, "Well, (laughs) what do you want me--you want me to just
leave you here, or do you want me--?" So, we had to pile him into a cab and
take him to his hotel and whatever. I mean, just--those were just odd things
about, uh, sort of odd personalities in the industry.
FERNHEIMER: Yeah, those were some good ones. (laughs) Um, any others?
SHAPIRA: No, not even--they're not really--the, the--I mean, there's probably
others that I've thought about and they're--that are--
FERNHEIMER: --those are pretty good. Um, you talk about the art and mystery of
making bourbon, and how that captures people's imagination. Can you tell us a
01:12:00little bit about what you think the art and mystery of bourbon is?
SHAPIRA: The art and history?
FERNHEIMER: Art and mystery? Art and mystery was one of the--
SHAPIRA: --oh, the, the art--
FERNHEIMER: --things that you said in an earlier interview.
SHAPIRA: --yeah, okay, all right, yeah, the art--the art, yes, oh, sure. I
could go to a cocktail party where I don't know anybody, and maybe the host
introduced me to so-and-so. And they have a conversation. They said, "Now,
what do you do, Mr. Shapira?" And I said, "Well, I'm involved in our family
business. We, uh, uh, make, uh, American whiskeys and a lot of other
distilled-spirit products." They said--and as soon as I say that, I always get
another question.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: It'll be about, "Well, how does it get from being a clear substance
when it comes off the still to have that nice golden, uh, uh, brownish sort of
coloring when it gets into the bottle?" "What is--what is the d--uh, the age
difference--how does that age--do you actually have to age it all those years,
01:13:00or can you have some that's not a--" (Fernheimer laughs) If I said, "I'm Max
Shapira, and I'm involved in our family business. We make steel I-beams," I
imagine the next, uh, question was--would be--from the person would be, without
a doubt will be, "Well, that--what kind of alloy do you use?" It would be,
like, "How's the weather?" There's just something interesting and it--and
it--about the, the--uh, how our products are made, because the tastes are
different. The, uh--it's a--it's part of the social fabric of the country. You
know, our products are made--this is a great industry to be in--when--and, sure,
there's some abuse, and we certainly want to make certain that our products are
consumed in a--
FERNHEIMER: --hmm.
SHAPIRA: --in a highly social-responsible way. But when that h--occurs, on 98,
01:14:0099, probably, percent of the times when alcoholic beverages are consumed, it's
part of the--it's part of a--getting together with friends; to having, you
know--it's a relaxing with friends; to celebrating the--a business deal;
celebrating a wedding. Uh, it's, it's an act--you know, it's, it's when people
are having good times together as friends. Uh, it's a great business to be in,
to add to that--to add to that enjoyment of life. And, uh, that, in and of
itself, means--when people think about it, I said the products are interesting
because, you know, they're always, well, I'm always having a good time when,
uh--when I'm having a, a cocktail or a, a glass of wine, or beer, or whatever it
might be. Be friends around the pool, whether--so they're interested in
understanding, even more so today than it was years--uh, I mean, today, the
millennial customers and consumers, they really want to know about history and
01:15:00heritage and tradition and what it's made out of, and what is the alcohol
strengths? You know, what, what are the different recipes? And, and, again,
this is a product that's been part of the United States history from the
earliest days of the republic.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: And think about it: George Wash--uh, you know, there was--you had a
lot of Scotch-Irishmen come over here, and they settled in various parts of the
country. George Washington-- when he took office, one of the first things he
had to do (coughs) was to, uh, send the militia out to Western Pennsylvania to
quell the, uh, the, um, uh, farmers--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --who refused to pay the first federal--
FERNHEIMER: --the tax--
SHAPIRA: --excise taxes--the great Whiskey Rebellion. I think it was 1790,
'89, '90, '90, somewhere around there. Um, so it's, been all--uh, part of that
social fabric of the United States almost from day one. So there's history and,
01:16:00uh--and I--it's one of the few products in the United States that actually is
solely a product of the United States, and cannot be made in other places around
the world. A lot of it's through--because of various treaties and the trade,
trade agreements we have. It can't be made--it--you cannot make bourbon and
call it bourbon in Indonesia--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --or Ecuador or South Africa or the Czech Republic or whatever. So
this, this uniqueness of America--it's part of Americana. This uniqueness of
the process itself--remember, it's an all-natural product and process.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: It's not like we're putting in some, some, uh--something that--a
preservative to make sure it doesn't spoil after it's been in a bottle for six
months, or nine months, or a year and nine months, or ten years and nine months.
01:17:00So it's all about those things that are really positive characteristics:
natural, history--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --uh, tradition, a broad range of tastes that are involved.
So--though that--that's--I think that's one of those--this, this, uh--this--and
m--that, that--which defines this industry so well.
FERNHEIMER: Yeah. Is there a--I always--uh, there's a question in there that
I'm trying to figure out how to formulate, which is that you mentioned that
millennials and new customers are, are so interested in the history, and all the
details about how it's made, and the alcohol strength and, and the, the
different ingredients, and where it comes from, and the craft-ness of it. Um,
and you talk about, in the past, how the--uh, not needing to wear Jewish-ness on
your sleeve because it's so much part of the fabric. Do you imagine--
SHAPIRA: --this sounds like a complicated question here. (laughs)
FERNHEIMER: --yeah, yeah, I'm trying to formulate it in a simple way. But do
01:18:00you--do you imagine that there might be a, a--is there a marketing strategy, or
is there a move to kind of play up the heritage and the, the Jewish aspects of
the--of the family business to fit that kind of new niche, or, um, are there ways--
SHAPIRA: --unh-uh--
FERNHEIMER: --that, that, you know, as the industry has changed and the
consumers have changed, that, that, that relationship to Judaism changes to?
Maybe that's a better way to ask that question.
SHAPIRA: Well, the--uh, uh, probably the answer would probably
be--the--clearly, the answer would be, for us, no.
FERNHEIMER: Okay. (laughs)
SHAPIRA: But what--but that's the short answer. Uh, but the long narrative,
uh, where you can bring some of that in, in a discussion, or if we're in front
with--if we have our people, uh, in front of a consumer group for a bourbon dinner--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --of which we do hundreds of those, maybe thousands of those.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.
SHAPIRA: Uh, if it's at a tasting of a flights of bourbon--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --and sort of the history of bourbon, or whatever, those will come
01:19:00through subtly. But I, I don't--I---there--there's no attempt to make it
overtly, "Oh, and by the way, this was a Jewish business," or whatever it might be.
FERNHEIMER: Yeah. Uh, the--my last and final question, which I like to end
every interview with, is, is there anything that we didn't talk about, or that
you would like to be part of this record? Or something that you think JT and I
should know as we're crafting this mystical, magic, arty, fictional, female, uh,
bourbon characters, um, that you'd like to share?
SHAPIRA: Hmm. We've covered just about--I would say that, again, the emphasis
on the personal aspect, the relationship-building, is one of the key pieces of
the whole discussion process relating--
01:20:00
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --to this industry. I think that, over the course of maybe the last
ten or fifteen years, that some of that has been lost in this business--
FERNHEIMER: --hmm--
SHAPIRA: --where you particularly have had, uh, a giant, uh, international
drinks companies try to make this about spreadsheets and divvying up, uh, zip
codes to find fifty consumers who might be interested in a root-beer schnapps.
(Fernheimer laughs) Uh, we, we do all that ourselves, but we haven't lost that,
that, uh, relationship-building aspect of the business. We try to be
consistent. I think some of the consistency in manpower and whatever from some
of the other companies in the industry has been--it's just inconsistent,
01:21:00actually. You know, people call in on a distributor for six months or a year,
and then move to someplace else, replaced by another person who has a whole new
agenda and different sets of standards and identities and things that they want
to foster. So I guess one of the big things is, is, is the maintenance of
personal relationships as a hugely important aspect of whatever we do as a
company, and whatever we do as individuals, as well.
FERNHEIMER: And it--and that sounds like it's a--it's a shared labor of love,
uh, of--as part of the family.
SHAPIRA: Yeah, well, you know, it--the one thing that you didn't ask me is the
next gen--about the next generation. Uh, everybody always asks me, "What's the
biggest thing you've ever done at Heaven Hill?" And they think, well, there's
a, uh--they'll be thinking, well, it has to do with an acquisition they made or
01:22:00a brand they developed or a plant they opened or something like that. But the,
the easiest thing to--and it's just--it--it's like a no-brainer for me. The
biggest thing that I've ever done is to get the next generation involved in this business--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --with the sharing the passion and interest and the work ethic that is
necessary to make sure that the business prospers and moves forward in a--uh, in
the future. And I don't really want to go into all of this but, uh, it's an
interesting story exactly how this happened, because--and I think it's sort of
interesting from a--just a general family-business kind of, uh, perspective.
Uh, the one thing you can't do in wanting to perpetuate a business with family
is to make s--the, the worst thing you can do is to say it's your familial duty
01:23:00to come back and be (Fernheimer laughs) in the business. But that happens more
often than you'd think. I think it happens with a great deal of regularity, in
fact. Uh, so, in, in this particular instance, we had--of course we've got the
two children in--involved, and the son-in-law of--uh, and my son-in-law.
And--but it didn't happen with such ease, because they both, after college and
graduate school, had terrific jobs. Andy, my son, was on Wall Street, and was
there for, like, twelve years, did exceptionally well. Kate, uh, after she got
her MBA, uh, went to Procter & Gamble. Uh, her husband, Allan--son-in-law,
is--went to Procter & Gamble, as well, uh, on the finance side of the business.
01:24:00Kate was on the marketing side of the business. And they were doing great, and
the, the, the first group--Andy--I mean, not the first group--Kate and Allan,
they had been there about eight years and they said--they'd always thought it.
You know, we would--whenever we'd get together, we'd talk about the business or
whatever. But we didn't say, "Would you ever be interested?" I never wanted to
put any pressure on them to do that. So it was just sort of the antithesis of
putting pressure on. It was like no pressure to the standpoint of they called
Ellen, uh, after about eight years when they were--said, "You know, we're
thinking of doing--maybe doing some other things. Do you think Dad even wants
us in the business, 'cause he never asks whether we'd be interested in coming
back? And is that by design?" And so, Ellen said, "I know he would be." Uh,
and so, she brokered that deal. Uh, Andy, who was in, uh, New York for,
uh--well--actually Chicago, Charlotte, and, finally, New York. But he was in
New York for quite some period of time, loved being there. He was traveling all
01:25:00over the country and doing all sorts of things, and doing extremely well. And,
um, he f--finally said, "You know, you know, New York is fine when you're in a
certain lifestyle--
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: --and we have kids. But, you know, as you get a little bit older, you
know, living in the city is a little bit different." And he had always been
interested in the business as well. But, again, I never said
anything--anything. No, so, (laughs)--so he--when he came back, and it was--we
all worked it out. He did it also through Ellen. He, uh--we, uh--after about,
uh, six months, he came into my office. He said, "Dad," he said, "You know, I
thought I was traveling a lot when I was in--uh, at, uh--in New York, at Bank of
America." He said, "I'm traveling more now than I was traveling there." It's
sort of like a repeat of what he said, but he l--but he loves it. The--I mean,
so, to get the kids to come back, to have them have separate areas of distinct interest--
01:26:00
FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--
SHAPIRA: -that doesn't happen very often either. That's just luck. Uh, and to
then--to--for them to be as passionate and as interested, when the days are
never too long, the projects are never too involved, and, uh, to want to grow
and grow and grow--that's an unusual thing. I'm really lucky on that standpoint.
FERNHEIMER: Um-hm. Well, thank you so much for the opportunity to meet with
you, and to ask you some of these questions today. I have learned a tremendous
amount, and I'm really grateful, and I'm really glad that you shared those
stories, um, that I didn't ask you about. Because some of them are--
SHAPIRA: --okay (??)--
FERNHEIMER: --are--the more--the more exciting gems--of course, that's always
the way it is. That's why I like--
SHAPIRA: --right (??)--
FERNHEIMER: --that question.
SHAPIRA: My pleasure.
FERNHEIMER: Um, uh, thank you again.
SHAPIRA: Okay, good.
[End of interview.]
