MemeMachineGo!

From Earl Como’s autobiography:

There was a large warehouse, apparently abandoned, since there was never any activity around there. One day, Federal agents and police raided it and it was found to contain several hundred kegs of beer. As this was during prohibition, the officers rolled all the kegs out of the building to the rear and smashed in the tops. They then turned them on their sides rather than upending them, which showed a certain amount of sympathy on the part of these officers for all the local drunks. Everyone in that section brought any container available to cart beer home. My own father worked all one night hauling beer until he had every pot and pan in the house filled with it. My mother complained that we had nothing to cook with or drink out of, so he washed the bathtub out and dumped it all in there. He and a few friends went on a binge until the beer went flat, but by that time there was little left.

From Peter Barmann Brewery’s history:

January 20th 1920 (prohibition) set in motion the demise of the Barmann brewery. Prohibition had caused the brewery financial troubles. The brewery had to find ways to ease it’s financial burdens. This is when Jack “Legs” Diamond became involved with the Barmann Brewery. John T Diamond (aka - Jack “Legs” Diamond) was a bootlegger and gangster during prohibition that made his home in the Hudson Valley. “Legs” Diamond ran the illicit operations that involved the Barmann Brewery during prohibition. According to a June 2nd 1931 Kingston newspaper, Barmann brewery was raided by the “Flying Squadron” (an “elite” group of revenue agents). Persons with ties to Diamond were arrested during the raid. That seizure had been one of the largest of it’s time, a “Million Dollar Seizure”. The brewery had been brewing beer and shipping it out to other locations via a pipeline that ran through the sewers of Kingston. There was a 2 1/2 inch rubber hose was laid out through the city sewers during the late night hours when all respectable persons were inside their homes. The pipline had been laid out by plumbers who were hired by “employees” of the brewery. Being plumbers, their work in the sewers would not draw too much attention from passer-byers. The pipeline ran from the brewery to a warehouse several blocks away on Bruyn Avenue. At the warehouse, the beer was either bottled or kegged and then loaded onto waiting trucks to be shipped out to speakeasys in New York City and Albany/Troy. These speakeasys were run by Jack “Legs” Diamond. (The rubber hose pipeline was only discovered during the late seventies, but it was said that everybody knew about it - they just didn’t dare mention it, fearing Jack Legs Diamond’s wrath.)