Victor Emmanuel “Manny” Shwab

“Cascade Hollow Owner”

Victor Emmanuel “Manny” S(c)hwab was born January 11, 1847, in Ohio. The Schwabs, with whom George Dickel was involved as friends and business partners, were very involved in whiskey smuggling in Nashville during the Civil War. In 1862, Meier Salzkotter (son-in-law of Abram Schwab), who had worked with Dickel since 1859, was apprehended by the Union with contraband liquor. Salzkotter defended himself by claiming his in-laws forced the whiskey on him, but was jailed anyway. Upon release, he divorced his wife, Cecilia Schwab.

Immediately following the Civil War, Dickel opened his liquor store on College Street in Nashville. He then moved it to South Market Street the next year. Salzkotter was hired as a superintendent, and Victor Emmanuel “Manny” Shwab, son of Abram Schwab, became his bookkeeper (Shwab had by now removed the ‘c’ from his surname). Manny Shwab soon married Emma Banzer, one of Augusta Dickel’s sisters, and Manny became George Dickel’s brother-in-law.

A March 17, 1874, fire destroyed the Dickel and Company headquarters and just missed their large warehouse filled with flammable and expensive whiskey. After being rebuilt, in May 1881, the warehouse was again destroyed by fire. Dickel and Company rebuilt, but this time, a new five-story headquarters building was constructed, but this time on Market Street, and fire never threatened Dickel’s headquarters again. In fact, the building on Market Street still stands in Nashville.

It is somewhat unclear when Dickel and Company began the distribution of whiskey produced solely by the Cascade Hollow distillery. F.E. Cunningham and John F. Brown were by this time operating a distillery in Cascade Hollow. Eventually, Brown sold to Matthew Sims. Then in 1883, McLin Davis was appointed the distiller and was able to institute innovations that greatly improved the whiskey. Davis is also credited with the recipe for the whiskey. Victor Shawb, George Dickel’s brother-in-law, who was made a full partner in Dickel and Company in 1881, bought out Sims in 1888 and then held 2/3 ownership of the distillery.  At this time, Dickel and Company was then Cascade Hollow’s exclusive marketer and distributor, calling it, “George A Dickel’s Cascade Tennessee Whiskey, the whiskey that is Mellow as Moonlight”. The tagline was actually factual, as it was based on the method of cooling the mash at night, a process that began with McLin Davis. After the death of Master Distiller McLin Davis in 1898, Victor Shwab acquired the remaining shares of the Cascade Distillery. By the turn of the century, Shwab hired the D’Arcy Advertising, a large St. Louis firm, to advertise Geo. A. Dickel’s Cascade Tennessee Whisky nationally and internationally, to much success.

Shwab took over Dickel and Company operations as Dickel’s health was declining. Upon his death, Dickel left his stake in the company to Augusta and asked her to sell when she was able to. She decided instead to keep the company, though she was not active in the operations. 

By 1904, the distillery expanded as the demand for Cascade continued to grow. Unfortunately, Prohibition came to Tennessee in 1910, and distilleries were given 12 months to move or cease operations. Victor Shwab formed an agreement with Arthur Philip Stitzel to continue production of Cascade whiskey in Kentucky and paid Stitzel extra for the additional step of charcoal mellowing, in order to remain faithful to the Lincoln County process.

When Augusta Dickel died in 1916, Shwab received her share of the company.

Victor Shwab and his wife Emma Banzer had produced 6 children: Felix, George, John, Hugh, Louise, and Augusta. None of them were interested in the company, or in distilling at that time, and the Dickel company’s interests were sold and traded until it effectively ceased to exist until it was revived again in the 1950s.

Manny Shwab passed away on November 2nd, 1924. He was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Nashville.

Contributed by Daniel Snyder, Champaign, Illinois