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Better on Draft 380 | Carmen Amato's Galliano Club Series

·1 hr 13 min·4 clips

Capone's outfit moved 100,000 barrels a week and netted millions in profit and bribes.

1. Better on Draft 380 centers on Carmen Amato and the Galliano Club books, a Prohibition-era series set in a fictionalized Rome, New York. 2. Carmen Amato is the guest and author, Rob and Wendy are the hosts, and her grandfather's work as a deputy sheriff during Prohibition shaped the series. 3. The episode asks how a CIA veteran turned a family story, an old photograph, and upstate New York beer history into a historical crime series. 4. Amato says the books began with stories her grandfather told and with her mother's memories of growing up in Rome during the pandemic. 5. She describes a Chicago bootlegger who was pushed out by Al Capone, then heads to upstate New York to build a beer empire and recover power. 6. She says that bootlegger blackmails the accountant for a copper and brass rolling mill, using embezzled money to fund the operation. 7. The Galliano Club becomes the desired headquarters, and Luca Lombardo stands in the way while running it for the owner. 8. Amato contrasts the story with more familiar Prohibition images and says the books focus on blue-collar immigrant workers, ship hulls, copper tubing, electrical grids, and telephone wires. 9. She says the series runs through three books and a prequel, and the first book won the Silver Falchion Award for Best Historical of 2023. 10. She traces her research to West End Brewery in Utica, where she asked how beer was made and how the brewery stayed afloat during Prohibition. 11. One concrete detail she found was the use of malt syrup, which she says made the illicit beer likely taste rough and be produced very quickly. 12. She mentions Champagnetto Mum and Rickeys as examples of the odd products breweries made to survive, including white grape juice drinks and lime or lemon bottles. 13. Amato also cites a Prohibition-era profit model for Capone's operation: 100,000 barrels a week, $3 to produce each barrel, $55 to sell it, and $20 per barrel paid in bribes. 14. She says that works out to $5.2 million in gross weekly profit and $2 million a week in bribes, which explains why the Treasury focused on drying up bribery. 15. A cemetery story from her grandfather shows bootleggers hiding booze in a coffin and her grandfather waiting in the dark with a friend who sold insurance. 16. She says old newspapers from the Rome Daily Sentinel turned up many reports of stills hidden in barns and cases sent to federal court in Schenectady. 17. The interview stays conversational, with Wendy and Rob adding beer talk about Bourbon County, hops, and regional brewing while Amato answers in detail. 18. The tone is relaxed and practical, with long stretches of research discussion, personal memory, and industry-specific beer details. 19. Readers who like Prohibition history, beer lore, and crime fiction will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting a short celebrity chat or a spoiler-free mystery summary may skip it.

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