Bronfman's Private Stock

Hardly a day goes by that far-traveling Samuel Bronfman, 74, the founder of the world's biggest distillery, does not telephone his son Edgar, 35. Last week, at his Chippendale desk in Manhattan's Seagram Building, Edgar took a typical call. Sam said he was feeling fine, but it was raining nastily in Clearwater, Fla., where he was on a visit. And by the way, the feisty father asked his son, shouldn't they market bottled cocktails under the Seagram label? Edgar smiled with satisfaction.

The seemingly innocuous conversation marked a significant victory for the younger Bronfman, who looks something like Joseph Cotten did 20 years ago. He has long wanted to put out mixed drinks in the bottle; but Bronfman the elder argued that it was difficult or impossible to make a bottled cocktail taste as it should. Now Edgar says that Seagram has solved the problem: it has discovered methods of using fresh, whole-fruit juices instead of extracts, and of preventing the vermouth in the mixes from losing flavor.

Under its Calvert label, Seagram this week will begin marketing the four most popular U.S. cocktails--martini, Manhattan, whisky sour and daiquiri. The first shipments will go to Connecticut and northern New York, and then the Calvert cocktails will be gradually introduced around the U.S. Sam Bronfman seems so smitten with the idea that Edgar may put out mixed drinks under the costlier Seagram label, which has always been Sam's pet trademark.

New Generation. Edgar Bronfman has steadily been assuming more power. Father still bosses the parent company, Montreal-based Distillers Corp.-Seagrams Ltd., but Edgar since 1957 has headed the mighty U.S. subsidiary, Joseph E. Seagram & Sons. At his order, it will soon bring out not only bottled cocktails, but also ten other new drinks in the most ambitious marketing program ever undertaken by any distiller. As the first step in that program, he jetted last week to Los Angeles to introduce a lighter blend of Four Roses in a bottle shaped like a fat paddle.

Within the next year, Seagram will bring out two new Scotches (100 Pipers and Passport), and four liqueurs, as well as a gin, a vodka and the first Hawaiian rum. Bronfman aims for 100 Pipers to compete against the bestselling U.S. Scotch, Schenley's Cutty Sark, which happens to be the favorite of Lyndon Johnson. The new liqueurs will have a more limited market than the mixed drinks and Scotches, but will be more profitable. "It is our philosophy," says Edgar, "that as costs keep going up we have to come out with higher margin items."

Heat from Father. Selling to 119 countries, Joseph Seagram last year accounted for 87% of the parent company's volume, earned $17 million on sales of $796 million (including excise taxes). Edgar figures to raise the total soon to $1 billion. "There's a little heat from my father to do it," he says. While supervising the U.S.'s two bestselling whiskies, Seagram's 7 Crown and V.O., Edgar has become a strong believer in market research, "but not as a substitute for intelligence." And every day he sits, sips, and selects blends with his master blenders.

In his off hours, Bronfman likes to relax over a V.O. and soda with his wife Ann, who is the daughter of John Loeb, chief of Wall Street's Loeb, Rhoades. With their five children (the eldest is named Sam II, in honor of grandpa) they occasionally slip away to their 4,480-acre Florida estate. It is called, aptly, the V.O. Ranch.

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