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The Real McCoy
The Real McCoy is the biography of the Prohibition-era rum-runner turned national hero whose quality liquor and fair dealing perpetuated the phrase "it’s the real McCoy." Long out of print, this maritime classic has been updated with new text and photographs.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1931
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 15, 2015
The real-life story of the real Bill McCoy. The author is listed as Van De Water, but he was as much a ghostwriter as a writer, and the story is told in the first person with McCoy's voice.
Bill McCoy was the instigator of "Rum Row", which supplied America with alcohol during prohibition for a number of years. Rum Row was a fleet of ships sitting just outside US waters, carrying alcohol. Smaller boats came out at night to buy the alcohol from the ships, and carry into the US. This way the ships avoided breaking any laws since they were in international waters. To quote:
"Schooners and yachts, windjamming square-riggers from Scandanavia, tramps from England and Germany, converted tugs and submarines, chasers, anything with a bottom that would float and a hold that could be filled with booze, they stretched away in a long line, bowing the surges, swinging with the tide and wind, waiting in apathy all day for the strenuous activity that began as soon as night fell. [...] It was a roaring, boisterous, sinful-and-glad-of-it, marine Main Street of shifting membership and continually increasing size, and I was its founder and first citizen."
Bill McCoy a teetotaler, and a honest straightforward person was liked by drug runners and government officials alike. He never sold watered down or adultered booze, his name became a synonym for quality and good dealing, the "real McCoy". It seems that McCoy was motivated as much by the love of boats and the sea, and perhaps by the excitement, as by the lure of profits.
Eventually, the government caught up with him and he served nine months in jail. However, his "jail" sentence involved considerable freedom -- a point the book does not explain very well.
This is an incredible true account. It spends a great deal of time on boating, and ships and how drup smuggling worked. It doesn't shy away from some of the unseemly details of the alcohol running, e.g., murder, fighting, orgies. For all this four stars. However, the book omits a lot of personal details, and we never learn very much about McCoy as a person. For instance, did McCoy have a girlfriend? A wife? Close friends other than his dog? How did he cooperate with the government after he was captured? The afterword says he only cooperated with the government against smuggling of aliens and drugs, never alcohol. McCoy is a bit coy on this account, however.
Postscript: The phrase "The Real McCoy" was already in use in the late 1800's and thus did not originally refer to Bill McCoy.
Bill McCoy was the instigator of "Rum Row", which supplied America with alcohol during prohibition for a number of years. Rum Row was a fleet of ships sitting just outside US waters, carrying alcohol. Smaller boats came out at night to buy the alcohol from the ships, and carry into the US. This way the ships avoided breaking any laws since they were in international waters. To quote:
"Schooners and yachts, windjamming square-riggers from Scandanavia, tramps from England and Germany, converted tugs and submarines, chasers, anything with a bottom that would float and a hold that could be filled with booze, they stretched away in a long line, bowing the surges, swinging with the tide and wind, waiting in apathy all day for the strenuous activity that began as soon as night fell. [...] It was a roaring, boisterous, sinful-and-glad-of-it, marine Main Street of shifting membership and continually increasing size, and I was its founder and first citizen."
Bill McCoy a teetotaler, and a honest straightforward person was liked by drug runners and government officials alike. He never sold watered down or adultered booze, his name became a synonym for quality and good dealing, the "real McCoy". It seems that McCoy was motivated as much by the love of boats and the sea, and perhaps by the excitement, as by the lure of profits.
Eventually, the government caught up with him and he served nine months in jail. However, his "jail" sentence involved considerable freedom -- a point the book does not explain very well.
This is an incredible true account. It spends a great deal of time on boating, and ships and how drup smuggling worked. It doesn't shy away from some of the unseemly details of the alcohol running, e.g., murder, fighting, orgies. For all this four stars. However, the book omits a lot of personal details, and we never learn very much about McCoy as a person. For instance, did McCoy have a girlfriend? A wife? Close friends other than his dog? How did he cooperate with the government after he was captured? The afterword says he only cooperated with the government against smuggling of aliens and drugs, never alcohol. McCoy is a bit coy on this account, however.
Postscript: The phrase "The Real McCoy" was already in use in the late 1800's and thus did not originally refer to Bill McCoy.
March 6, 2011
A long-forgotten biography that was first published in 1931 and has recently been reprinted by Flathammock Press about a larger-than-life Prohibition-era figure who is remembered in part through the expression "the Real McCoy." In the book, Bill McCoy -- a rumrunning teetotaler who kept much of the United States "wet" for four years by being the first to sail liquor from the Bahamas and by founding Rum Row off the coast of New York -- tells his epic story through the pen of a journalist, Frederic Van de Water, with unbelievably colorful and lyrical language and vivid and candid descriptions of 1920s life in Nassau, New York, and, in the end, prison. An incredible slice of history -- and an memorable glimpse into an incredible life.
April 3, 2012
An interesting portrait of legendary bootlegger Bill McCoy
May 3, 2019
After borrowing this book and sitting on it for ages, I've finally smashed it out in one day.
As an objective biography written in the first person it's a little odd, but the tone and tales seem apt, and it flows pretty well. The insight into the history of smuggling up and down the east coast of the Americas and especially that of the operation of rum row is great.
Bill's character and integrity makes him strongly sympathetic, his 'playing the game by the rules' approach shows how he earned his respect in the industry on both sides of the law, clearly he was in it for the adventure and his retirement plan rather than motivated by greed and was a man of morals who kept to his word.
The narrative is also underpinned by the love story of a man and his ship, from his love-at-first-sight, to their adventures together and eventual parting and the melancholy of his unfulfilled final dream, she is as prevalent a character in this story as any other, and a strong female lead.
Now I have to return the book with an apology for keeping it so long, thankfully I've copied out the list of related books from the back so will eventually dive back into this world of rogues and twentieth century pirates.
As an objective biography written in the first person it's a little odd, but the tone and tales seem apt, and it flows pretty well. The insight into the history of smuggling up and down the east coast of the Americas and especially that of the operation of rum row is great.
Bill's character and integrity makes him strongly sympathetic, his 'playing the game by the rules' approach shows how he earned his respect in the industry on both sides of the law, clearly he was in it for the adventure and his retirement plan rather than motivated by greed and was a man of morals who kept to his word.
The narrative is also underpinned by the love story of a man and his ship, from his love-at-first-sight, to their adventures together and eventual parting and the melancholy of his unfulfilled final dream, she is as prevalent a character in this story as any other, and a strong female lead.
Now I have to return the book with an apology for keeping it so long, thankfully I've copied out the list of related books from the back so will eventually dive back into this world of rogues and twentieth century pirates.
April 27, 2018
A very fun and quick read. If you like boats, prohibition era, or a some history, you will enjoy this book. It is a easy read and the original version I read is written while prohibition was still active. I have heard other versions were updated. But you can't go wrong with The Real McCoy. This book will remain in my library and I would guess that I will eventually re-read it.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews