THE LAST REMAINING KILOMETRES
As the American and Canadian waters were closely monitored by law enforcement, champagne was not shipped in the traditional wooden cases but rather in jute bags filled with salt. Thanks to this ingenious process, bootleggers could throw their cargo into the sea without losing their merchandise in the event that they were intercepted by authorities. As the salt became saturated with water, the bags would drop to the ocean bed - right under the noses of the police - and, once the salt dissolved, the bottles would float back to the surface for the bootleggers to collect.
FLYING BOATS / AERONAUTICS - LITERALLY!
The Liberty L-12 was an aircraft engine designed by the USA at the end of WWI and later used to power certain boats to reach unparalleled speeds in motorboating. Since boat manufacturers sided primarily with their bootlegging clients, there was no way that the U.S. Coast Guard could hope to catch up with the Liberty L-12 400 horse-powered boats.
BLACK-BOATS
In general, when navigating the ocean at night, it is safer to travel onboard a highly visible craft so as to avoid running into another boat... But the bootleggers would take any risk to make sure their cargo made it safely to its destination. They would paint their hulls with totally black paint so that their boats would fuse perfectly into the night.
CHAMPAGNE BOMBS
There was no end to the hiding places used to stash illegal cargo and the creative techniques to fool the police during the Prohibition era. To say that bootleggers were experts in the matter is putting it mildly: they used trucks full of fake bricks and false shoe soles to imitate animal footprints to name a few examples. Some transporters even hijacked bomb casings from the First World War. After defusing the bombs, they would replace the explosives with dozens of champagne bottles... Original packaging, to say the least...
CODED MESSAGES
It was during the Prohibition era - just as the Federal authorities were ramping up to fight against the exponential increase in the black market - that phone tapping first emerged. Once again, the bootleggers did not take long to adapt to the situation. To avoid being caught, they communicated with the Saint-Pierre importers using coded telegrams.
CHEWING TOBACCO WITH BUBBLES
Piper-Heidsieck not only displayed incredible creativity in order to remain in the shadows but also innovated colourful methods so the American lovers of ‘French fizz’ could continue to legally enjoy the fruit of the Maison’s production. Piper-Heidsieck even invented its own chewing tobacco, a blend of tobaccos with unique flavours that reproduced the authentic taste of the Cuvée Brut.