Picture it this way: It’s 1934 and America’s failed “Noble Experiment” — Alcohol Prohibition — has been repealed at 4:31 p.m. on December 5, 1933, ending 13 years, 10 months, 19 days, 17 hours and 32.5 minutes of Prohibition. Very suddenly, it has become legal to make, distribute, and drink alcohol again, but after more than a decade, what companies have weathered the financial storm that comes when what they do becomes illegal?
The short answer: very few. The ones that did survive the pressures of finding a way to make money doing something else were usually the large concerns like Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and others that took advantage of their already highly established supply lines to produce other products. (more…)