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Michael Malloy is remembered as the man who couldn't be killed. The truth is darker. In the last year of Prohibition, men around a Bronx speakeasy insured the life of a vulnerable regular and tried to turn his open bar tab into a murder weapon.

George traces the documented insurance plot, the taxi attack, the gas murder, the false death certificate and the convictions that followed. He also separates the court-era record from the poison stories that were already being called legend in 1933. Along the way, he makes a Bronx cocktail with gin, sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, fresh orange juice and bitters.

Accounts of this case disagree on several details, including the Third Avenue address and the policy amounts. The show notes say where.

This episode was made with the assistance of AI, including an AI-generated voice.

IN THE GLASS: THE WHISKY & EMBER HOUSE BRONX- 1.5 oz London dry gin- 0.5 oz sweet vermouth- 0.5 oz dry vermouth- 0.75 oz fresh orange juice- 1 dash orange bittersShake with ice, fine strain into a chilled coupe, finish with an orange twist.Published Bronx formulas vary. This is the episode's house spec, not a claim about the one original recipe. The drink predates Prohibition, and it is a story pairing, not a drink anyone is documented to have served at Tony Marino's.

WHERE THE ACCOUNTS DISAGREEAccounts of this case disagree on several details. Among them: the address of the bar (3804 Third Avenue per Edmund Pearson in The New Yorker; 3775 Third Avenue per the Criminal podcast), the Prudential and Metropolitan Life policy amounts and totals, the date of the gassing (Feb. 21, 22 or 23 depending on the source), the length of Malloy's stay in hospital after the taxi attack, where he was left in the cold (Pearson says near the Bronx Zoo, others say Crotona or Claremont Park), and what first made the insurers suspicious. The episode uses Pearson's 1933 account as its strongest contemporary source and says where others differ.

SOURCES- Edmund Pearson, "Malloy the Mighty," The New Yorker, Sept. 1933. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1933/09/23/molloy-the-mighty- Smithsonian Magazine, "The Man Who Wouldn't Die" (Kahler, 2012). https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-man-who-wouldnt-die-89417903/- New York Irish History, vol. 21 (2007), "Of Hoods and Canaries". https://nyirishhistory.us/article/of-hoods-and-canaries/- The Journal.ie (2015), article on Michael Malloy.- New York Daily News (2007), article on the Malloy case.- Criminal podcast, episode 151 (interview with Simon Read).- CDC/NIOSH, "Methanol: Systemic Agent" emergency response card. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ershdb/emergencyresponsecard_29750029.html- National Archives, proclamation of the 21st Amendment (repeal of Prohibition). https://www.archives.gov/files/historical-docs/doc-content/images/21st-amendment-fdr-proclamation.pdf- Crockett, Albert Stevens, Old Waldorf Bar Days (1931), for the Bronx cocktail's history.- Boothby, William T., The World's Drinks and How to Mix Them (1908), for the Bronx cocktail's history.

AI DISCLOSUREThis episode was made with the assistance of AI. The script was researched, fact-checked and edited with AI tools, and the narration is an AI-generated voice trained on George's own voice.

A Cocktails & Crime episode from Whisky & Ember. Please drink responsibly.

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In 2012, a routine inventory check at a warehouse in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford, Quebec, turned up barrels of water where syrup from the Quebec Maple Syrup Producers Federation's strategic reserve should have been. The Supreme Court of Canada later described a theft of 9,571 barrels worth over eighteen million dollars.

George prepares a Maple Leaf cocktail while tracing the evidence behind Quebec's great maple-syrup theft: how the syrup was swapped for water and moved through a network of intermediaries and buyers, what published reporting alleges about the people around the warehouse, and how Richard Vallières's 2016 conviction turned into a fight over his fine that ended at the Supreme Court of Canada in 2022. We keep court findings, the Federation's statements and reported allegations separate, including recovery figures the sources don't reconcile.

In the glass: George's modern Maple Leaf variation with 2 oz Canadian whisky, ½ oz maple syrup and ½ oz fresh lemon juice.

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“Slip someone a Mickey” sounds like it should have a neat origin story. The history of the real Mickey Finn is messier.

In 1903, Chicago saloonkeeper Mickey Finn faced accusations that customers were secretly drugged at his Lone Star Saloon. Police seized bottles for testing, city officials revoked the saloon’s liquor licence, and Finn denied the allegations. We follow what contemporary reports establish—and what they leave unanswered—including a separate robbery at the saloon, the distinct 1918 “Mickey Finn powder” scandal, and a later cocktail that shares the name. We keep the documented events, allegations and later lore separate; the sources we found do not document a criminal conviction for Finn in the 1903 drugging case.

In the glass: a later Mickey Finn cocktail with gin, dry vermouth, absinthe and white crème de menthe.