A new biography is coming next year about one of Cincinnati’s most infamous citizens ever — George Remus, the Gatsbyesque jazz age/Prohibition Era bootlegger and lawyer who moved here from Chicago, had a legendary mansion on the West Side and eventually escaped jail for the brazen murder of his wife in Eden Park by claiming temporary insanity.
The author, Bob Batchelor, is having Diversion Books publish his Bourbon King: The Epic Rise and Fall of George Remus, America’s Bootleg Baron, and the Roaring Days of the Jazz Age in Fall, 2019, timed to the the 100th anniversary of the Volstead Act in 2019, which provided for the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment establishing Prohibition. Among the many books Batchelor has previously written are Stan Lee: The Man Behind Marvel, John Updike: A Critical Biography and Cult Pop Culture: How the Fringe Became Mainstream.
Via email, Batchelor explained his interest in the Remus. “George Remus’ story is in one sense a quintessential American Dream immigrant success story, but it is also a national nightmare of epic proportions. His creation of a national bootlegging network — some called him the JD Rockefeller of bourbon — is a wild tale of ingenuity and hubris. When he later murders his wife and gets off on a sham insanity plea, he brings great shame to his adopted hometown.
“In today’s era, we seem to love and hate great villains and shady characters, like Mad Men‘s Don Draper or Breaking Bad‘s Walter White, so George Remus is a kind of real-life Jazz Age version. He achieves amazing feats in just a couple of years, but his downfall is equally spectacular. Estimates of George Remus’ bootlegging empire run to $200 million, which would be about $17.5 BILLION in today’s income. He created one of the great fortunes of all time, right in Cincinnati, yet most Cincinnatians have never heard of him. Without Remus’ bourbon, there is no Lucky Luciano, Arnold Rothstein or Al Capone.”
For more information as it becomes available, visit bobbatchelor.com.
This article appears in Aug 15-22, 2018.
