The Rum Runners
At the start of Prohibition, enterprising bootleggers sought product from sea captains which brought cheap rum from the Caribbean to ports in Florida and the Carolinas. The Coast Guard presence soon made it difficult for larger vessels to reach the coastline surreptitiously, and they began remaining just outside US territorial limits where they rendezvoused with smaller craft which would bring the rum ashore. The line became known as Rum Row. In 1924 an act was passed moving the territorial line to 12 miles in the hope that the smaller craft would be unable to handle the rougher seas further out.
Rum was bought cheaply, but it was also sold cheaply to customers and was thus a low-profit product for the bootleggers. Soon cheap English gin and sparkling wines from Europe were being transferred to Bimini and other points in the Bahamas relabeled as top-shelf London gin and either French Champagne or Italian Spumanti, and sold for high profits when they reached American shores. One rum-runner, Captain William McCoy, was said to have never watered his product, nor mislabeled it, leading his shipments to be referred to as “the real McCoy“, though the phrase has other origin claims as well.
Rum running meant dealing with the Coast Guard and the smugglers encountered the dangers of the sea, but the enormous risks involved brought tremendous potential earnings, with some of the more successful captains making over $100,000 a year. Most armed their vessels, and running gun battles with the Coast Guard patrol boats were not uncommon. The majority of the rum runners worked for specific bootlegging syndicates ashore, and many of the small boats which went out to meet the larger vessels were manned by bootleggers as well as professional fisherman and seamen, sent to protect their bosses’ investments.