The King of Booze | Cultural Historian Bob Batchelor Breaks Down the King of Booze | 5
Business Movers
Wondery
4.7 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 9 June 2022
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Cultural historian and author of The Bourbon King, Bob Batchelor explores the life and legacy of George Remus, examining the upbringing and culture that turned a poor German immigrant into America’s most successful bootlegger.
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Transcript
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| 0:31.0 | It's December 1927 inside a hotel room in Cincinnati, two months after George Remus shot his wife Imagine. |
| 0:39.0 | Hearing a knock, Imagine's 20-year-old daughter Ruth Holmes walks to the door of her hotel room and opens it, revealing a reporter standing in the threshold. |
| 0:48.0 | Miss Holmes, how do you do? Come in, come in, we can do the interview over here. |
| 0:53.0 | Ruth politely shows the reporter to a small table and pulls out a chair for him before taking her own seat. |
| 0:59.0 | Well, thank you for speaking with me today, Miss Holmes. I appreciate you making the time to do this, especially so soon after your mother's death and my condolences. |
| 1:07.0 | Well, thank you, but I felt like I had no choice. |
| 1:10.0 | George Remus took away the person I cared most about in the world. |
| 1:14.0 | Now he's even trying to take away my mother's character, disparaging her with made up stories, manufactured for the courtroom. |
| 1:21.0 | The worst part is people are believing him. |
| 1:24.0 | I just want everyone following the trial to know who George Remus really is before being so quick to blame my mother. |
| 1:30.0 | Well, we can start right there. Who is George Remus? |
| 1:34.0 | When I first met George, I thought he was a wonderful man. A true gentleman, I liked him, I really did. |
| 1:40.0 | But your opinion changed. Yes. Shortly after my mother married George, here was an incident. |
| 1:48.0 | One afternoon, I overheard them arguing in their bedroom. |
| 1:52.0 | The door was closed, but I heard my mother scream. She was screaming in pain. |
| 1:57.0 | From down the hall I watched as George swung open the door and his face was bright red. |
| 2:02.0 | He turned and glared at me, but he didn't say a word. I just went down the hall and out of sight. |
| 2:07.0 | When I rushed into the room, I found my mother and her blood all over her dress, her nose was bleeding. |
| 2:14.0 | She was too battered and panicked to even stand. She couldn't talk. She just sobbed on the floor for hours. |
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