Roy Cohn Was Disbarred for Writing Himself Into Lew Rosenstiel's Will

Schenley Founder Lewis Rosenstiel in 1961.

Whenever the name of Roy Cohn is mentioned, which is frequently these days because President Donald Trump is such a fan, I think of a different name: Lew Rosenstiel. When Cohn was disbarred by the State of New York, shortly before his death in 1986, one of the reasons cited was his attempt to write himself into Rosenstiel's will as co-executor, a major legal ethics no-no because Rosenstiel was Cohn's client at the time.

But who was Lew Rosenstiel? And why is he fondling that whiskey barrel?

Born in Cincinnati in 1891, Rosenstiel belonged to one of the first families of the Queen City’s Jewish community. He was a grandson of Frederick A. Johnson, the first Jewish child born in that city.

The family had many business interests, including distilled spirits. Rosenstiel’s uncle was an executive at the Susquemec Distilling Co. in Milton, Kentucky, south of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. Rosenstiel went to work there as a teenager. By 1914 he was on the company’s board of directors. By 1918, at age 27, he was running the place.

Susquemec began as the Snyder Distillery in 1840 and was run by the Snyder family until it was destroyed by fire in 1879. Rebuilt the next year, it was renamed Susquemec and run by James Levy & Brothers, Cincinnati whiskey wholesalers. Rosenstiel’s family took it over in about 1910.

Distilleries being taken over by their customers was nothing new. Distilleries always had financing problems. Selling out to their best customer was a common solution. In most cases, the former owner stayed on as an employee and very little changed.

After Prohibition closed Susquemec and every other distillery in the country, the 30-year-old Rosenstiel and some of his associates formed a company called Cincinnati Distributing Corp. to sell medicinal whiskey. To obtain their license they bought an old Pennsylvania distillery that already had one. It gave Rosenstiel’s company a new name: Schenley.

Buying distilleries and their whiskey stocks throughout Prohibition positioned Rosenstiel and company to dominate the industry when it became legal again in December of 1933. They didn’t keep Susquemec, which never reopened, but did buy two distilleries in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, just west of Cincinnati, and merged them under the name Old Quaker.

By 1937, Schenley had outgrown Cincinnati and moved the company’s headquarters into the Empire State Building in New York. Schenley, largest of the ‘big four’ post-Prohibition liquor producers, would come to control about 25 percent of the United States distilled spirits market.

Schenley was a major player for more than 50 years. In 1987, a shadow of its former self, it was acquired by Guinness, making it part of what is now Diageo. Today, Diageo dominates the distilled spirits industry much as Schenley did a half-century ago.

Rosenstiel died in 1975. Cohn's gambit failed. Rosenstiel was luckier. Despite many salacious rumors, he is mostly remembered as a successful business leader and generous philanthropist.

What is he doing in that picture? It is unclear. As was the custom in those days with press release photographs, there is a proposed caption taped to the back. It reads: "BATTLE OF THE BARRELS was proclaimed by Lewis S. Rosenstiel, chairman and president of Schenley Industries Inc. in New York as he announced company's drive to break 'near-monopoly' of foreign producers in 'the large, profitable aged-whiskey field.' Barrels he displays here have special glass ends to illustrate the greater 'outage' or evaporation that occurs in longer-aged whiskey. Mr. Rosenstiel said his company is in good position to lead such a program because it has been 'building inventory continuity for a dozen of its major brands each year over the past decade.'"