There is much to be said, for the activities of a country, when even foreign criminals collectively decide to blacklist you. In 1926, rum running Bahamians tried to be clever. Too clever for their own good. They tried to outsmart big time American rum gangsters like Al Capone, Dutch Shultz and Bugsy Siegel by selling them worthless liquor. American rum running gangsters knew they couldn’t just come to the Bahamas and shoot up the place. They would be caught too easily.
The Americans did something better.
They BLACKLISTED the Bahamas.
1926 Blacklisted By Criminals
During the Prohibition years in the United States (1920-1933), alcohol became illegal. There was no Prohibition in The Bahamas though, and this period saw fortunes made for many entrepreneurial bootlegger Bahamians.
Believe it or not though, in 1926, American rum bootleggers blacklisted Bahamian bootleggers, because Bahamians were doctoring the alcohol. Bahamian bootleggers were making their own alcohol in the backyard and pouring the homemade moonshine into branded bottles. They were selling cheap imitation backyard liquor for the expensive high-end stuff and making a fortune.
Unfortunately for the Bahamas bootleggers, the American bootleggers noticed.
BAHAMA BOOTLEG SOURCES BLACKLISTED AS STUFF FROM THERE IS “DOCTORED”
They are maybe honour among thieves, but according to Treasury Department authorities today, there is little or none between bootleggers and their supply sources.
Because of this, rum smuggling from the Bahamas is decreasing. The American “rum trusts” have put most of the Bahama sources of supply on the blacklist, because according to prohibition enforcement authorities, the Bahamaites were “doctoring” grain alcohol and selling it for “genuine stuff.”
There upon “high grade customers” complained that the imported stuff was little or no better than the brand cooked on the kitchen stove, and trade suffered.
Treasury man said today the rum chiefs in the States have established a virtual boycott on the Bahamian supply sources because of “unfair tactics,” and are now turning to made in America moonshine for much of their supplies.
