Sidney Frank; Grey Goose Billionaire
Hyfler/Rosner
January 12, 2006 Thursday
Sidney Frank, 86, Impresario of Liquor
By STEPHEN MILLER, Staff Reporter of the Sun
Sidney Frank, who died Tuesday at 86, was the marketing
genius behind Jagermeister and Grey Goose, the premium vodka
he dreamed up and then sold just six years later, in 2004,
to Bacardi for more than $2 billion.
Frank was as flamboyant and eccentric as he was rich, and he
was capable of acts of generosity that were both spontaneous
and sustained, he cut a colorful figure in an industry not
usually noted for its star players. Aiming at the luxury
market, Frank revolutionized the "superpremium" liquor
classification by charging twice the price of other premium
vodkas. Grey Goose came in a pretty frosted bottle decorated
with geese in flight, taken from a painting by by Cezanne.
"Ask a lot of rich people what's a Cezanne, they know," the
cigar-chomping Frank told the Wall Street Journal. "That's
rich people."
The market for Jagermeister, an herbal concoction some
likened to cough syrup, was different: binge drinking
college students. Frank's sexy "Jagerettes" prowled bars
across the nation, dispensing free shots of liqueur. Several
dozen eventually sued him for sexual harassment, charging
that Frank and tried to "tongue kiss and fondle the
Jagerettes' breasts and buttocks," but the promotion
continues.
Frank became a billionaire only recently, with the sale of
Grey Goose in 2003, and he quickly established himself as a
major philanthropist. He was the biggest charitable giver in
New York in 2004, according to the Chronicle of
Philanthropy, thanks to a $100 million gift to Brown
University, a school Frank attended for but a single year.
Frank also created a foundation to honor R.J. Mitchell, the
British designer of the Spitfire fighter, which Frank
contended was responsible for turning the tide in World War
II.
Frank amassed an extensive art collection that he kept at
his large homes in New Rochelle, San Diego, and the Bahamas,
where he was building his own golf course. Too old to play
himself, he hired a half dozen golf pros whom he trailed
around the links, barking out club selections. He called
these near daily excursions, "my own Ryder Cup."
Equating retirement with death, Frank was working on
introducing a "superpremium" tequila, and a high-end hip-hop
themed sports drink called Crunk. Active until the end, he
told Britain's Daily Mail last year, "I'm going to have a
special cart built to take me into the sea so I can go
snorkeling."
Frank was raised in Montville, Conn., where his parents
raised chickens and vegetables. Starting at age 12, he built
a 50-foot ladder so tourists could climb nearby Mohegan
Rock, said to be the largest boulder in all of New England.
He charged them a dime each, he said in a recent interview
in INC magazine. By the time Frank was 17 he had saved
$1,000, enough to cover a year's tuition at Brown.
Once the year was up, he dropped out of college and went to
work for Pratt and Whitney, working on airplane engines in
East Hartford, Conn. During World War II, Frank worked as a
civilian troubleshooter for the company in East Asia.
After the war, Frank went to work for Lewis Rosenstiel,
founder of Schenley Industries, one of the nation's largest
distillers, to investigate using distilled alcohol as
airplane fuel. When that idea failed, Frank went to the
Philippines and Scotland, where he revived the flagging
Schenley businesses. He returned to America, and eventually
became president of the company. One of his successes was
Dewar's White Label Scotch. Inspired by long-aged Scotch,
Frank in 1954 pioneered the marketing of premium,
12-year-old bourbons, anticipating the "super premium"
campaigns of future decades. He also introduced innovative
packaging that served as a display in liquor stores, and as
a game board for chess, checkers, and quoits in bars.
When asked for advice, Frank invariably said that young men
should keep in touch with important people they meet, "And
marry a rich girl. It's easier to marry a million than to
make a million." It certainly worked for him, as he married
Rosenstiel's daughter. But friction with the imperious
Rosenstiel led to Frank being fired from Schenley in the
early 1960s. He spent much of the next decade as an art
dealer in partnership with Israeli artist Yaacov Agam.
After Frank's wife died in 1972, he sold much of his art
collection and a Park Avenue townhouse to bankroll a return
to the liquor business. Having been blackballed by
Rosenstiel (who had also been involved in lawsuits with his
now-deceased daughter), Frank started out by importing niche
products, including Gekkeikan Saki and Jagermeister - then a
virtually unknown liqueur. Sales toddled along until 1985,
when a student drinking fad at Louisiana State University
made local news - a shot of Jagermeister dropped,
boilermaker-style, directly into a beer. An article in a
Baton Rouge newspaper said the drink had the effect of
"liquid Valium." Frank made millions of copies of the
article, hired some Jagerettes, and the marketing blitz was
on. Jager shots became a symbol of exuberant consumption,
especially at universities. By 2000, demand topped 500,000
cases.
Having become wealthy importing Jagermeister, Frank set out
to invent his biggest score from scratch. Frank's new liquor
would compete with Absolut, a "designer" vodka that had
blazed the "superpremium" trail. The name "Grey Goose" was
already his; he had registered it as the name for a
Liebfraumilch wine he had tried to market in the mid-1970s
as a competitor for the popular Blue Nun brand. The new
brand's "story" was impressive - coming from "exotic" (for
vodka) France, filtered through Champagne limestone,
quintuple distilled, etc. But the clincher was that Frank
charged $30 for the bottle, twice the price of the
competition. Coming during the stock market run-up of the
late 1990s, just as the microbrew craze was dying down and
the cocktail and lounge craze was heating up, the high price
only made Grey Goose more alluring. Like Jagermeister, it
was marketed with exclusive parties, distinctive wood-crate
packaging, and more sex: "Goose Girls." Grey Goose sold
100,000 cases in its first year, 1999. By 2004, when he sold
out for a reported $2.3 billion, it sold over 2 million
cases.
Asked why he sold Grey Goose, Frank said, "I'm 85 years old.
I wanted to count the money while I was still on this side
of the ground. "But far from retiring, Frank threw himself
into new projects. He planned to market a premium rum to be
named White Pelican, that would come in a battery-powered
musical bottle. He purchased two small travel magazines, and
also began laying plans for a foundation that would dis
tribute the bulk of his billions after his death. People who
visited him at one of his homes were sometimes startled to
find him impulsively giving away thousands of dollars to
descendents of survivors of World War II prison camps and
the like.
Like one of his heroes, Churchill, Frank liked to conduct
business from the bedroom, in pajamas, usually while smoking
a giant cigar, (when he remarried, it is rumored that a
clause in his prenup let him smoke them whenever he wanted.)
He owned dozens of cars, including a pair of customized
Mercedes Maybachs with beds in the back, employed four
personal chefs, and when he took his golf cart out to follow
his golf pros, he would dress in a bight pink or green
blazer and a red bowtie with polkadots. His art collection
was as excessive as everything else in his life - he liked
Henry Moore's sculptures so much that he owned 29 of them.
Sidney Frank
Born in 1919 in Norwich, Conn.; died January 10; survived by
his wife, Marian, children Cathy Halstead and Matthew Frank,
five grandchildren, and a sister, Edna Nowitz.
Kathi
wrote:
>Sidney Frank, who died Tuesday at 86, was the marketing
>genius behind Jagermeister and Grey Goose, the premium vodka
>he dreamed up and then sold just six years later, in 2004,
>to Bacardi for more than $2 billion.
<snip>
>After the war, Frank went to work for Lewis Rosenstiel,
>founder of Schenley Industries, one of the nation's largest
>distillers, to investigate using distilled alcohol as
>airplane fuel. When that idea failed, Frank went to the
>Philippines and Scotland, where he revived the flagging
>Schenley businesses. He returned to America, and eventually
>became president of the company.
Uncle Bill! Gee, it's been a long time. How on earth have you been?
You know, things have been pretty rough around here, what with the
kids being sick and my husband needs an operation and I've been out of
work for almost 11 years now...
>
>When asked for advice, Frank invariably said that young men
>should keep in touch with important people they meet, "And
>marry a rich girl. It's easier to marry a million than to
>make a million." It certainly worked for him, as he married
>Rosenstiel's daughter. But friction with the imperious
>Rosenstiel led to Frank being fired from Schenley in the
>early 1960s.
Oh. Hey, never mind about that will, Uncle Bill.
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Bill Schenley
> > founder of Schenley Industries, one of the nation's
> > largest distillers, to investigate using distilled alcohol
> > as airplane fuel. When that idea failed, Frank went to the
> > Philippines and Scotland, where he revived the flagging
> > Schenley businesses. He returned to America, and
> > eventually became president of the company.
> Uncle Bill! Gee, it's been a long time. How on earth have you
> been? You know, things have been pretty rough around here,
> what with the kids being sick and my husband needs an
> operation and I've been out of work for almost 11 years now...
> > When asked for advice, Frank invariably said that young
> > men should keep in touch with important people they meet,
> > "And marry a rich girl. It's easier to marry a million than to
> > make a million." It certainly worked for him, as he married
> > Rosenstiel's daughter. But friction with the imperious
> > Rosenstiel led to Frank being fired from Schenley in the
> > early 1960s.
> Oh. Hey, never mind about that will, Uncle Bill.
Heh ... The name "Schenley" seems like it would be a common last name
... but it isn't.
I started using the last name Schenley on the same day I graduated
from high school (1966). I legally changed it within a few years.
The only other Schenley's in this area ... are ex-wives ...
Anyway, the name Schenley is an old and well-known name in the
Pittsburgh area ... There is a Schenley Avenue, hotel, park, monument
and a high school ... When I am introduced to someone in or from
Pittsburgh ... the introduction is usually followed with "Are you
related to *the* Schenleys?" I always answer with a "no." People
seldom believe me. The next thing I hear is "Who manages your money?"
or "I have a wonderful investment opportunity for you." or "Can I
borrow ..."
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Bill Schenley <stra...@ma.rr.com> wrote:
> I started using the last name Schenley on the same day I graduated
> from high school (1966). I legally changed it within a few years.
You named yourself after a distillery. Oh, my, that's so perfect.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Schenley
> > I graduated from high school (1966). I legally changed it
> > within a few years.
> You named yourself after a distillery. Oh, my, that's so perfect.
Heh ...heh ... Actually ... it was baseball that inspired me.
After you passed the Schenley Hotel ... just down the street from
Schenley High School ...and crossed Schenley Bridge ... right across
Schenley Drive there was Schenley Park with the Mary Schenley Memorial
Fountain ... and Forbes Field.
Okay ... I just made all that up .. The only thing I remember was that
left field at Forbes Field was on Schenley Drive ... and that's where
I got the name ...
J.D. Baldwin
>
> Heh ...heh ... Actually ... it was baseball that inspired me.
If it's all the same to you, I'm just going to keep believing the
distillery thing.