The Real History Behind Detroit's "Whiskeytown" Nickname

Detroit's whiskey identity is older than any current distillery in the city, and the history behind it is more dramatic than most people realize.

A river built for smuggling

The Detroit River separates the city from Windsor, Ontario, by less than half a mile at its narrowest point. During Prohibition, Canada's looser alcohol laws made that short crossing one of the busiest smuggling routes in the country. An estimated 75% of all illegal liquor entering the United States passed through this corridor.

A genuine industry

By 1929, rum-running had become Detroit's second-largest industry, generating an estimated $215 million a year, second only to automobile manufacturing. The city had somewhere between 16,000 and 25,000 speakeasies operating behind closed doors.

A complicated legacy

The smuggling economy also attracted serious organized crime, most notably the Purple Gang, which specialized in hijacking other smugglers' shipments. It's a rougher part of the history, and a documented one, alongside the more familiar speakeasy imagery people usually picture.

A long gap before the legal revival

Detroit didn't build a legal whiskey industry again until Michigan changed its distilling laws in 2008, roughly 75 years after Prohibition ended. That gap is part of what makes the city's current craft distilling scene feel like a genuine comeback.

Next time you're picking up a Michigan-made whiskey, it's worth knowing it's part of a much longer, more complicated story than the label usually tells.