• Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • JOIN
  • MEMBER PORTAL
  • DONATE
    • MAKE A DONATION
    • CREATE A NAMED ENDOWED FUND
    • SECURE OUR FUTURE
    • LIFE & LEGACY
    • THE TEMPLE APPEAL
  • PAY ONLINE
5101 US-42 • LOUISVILLE, KY 40241 • (502) 423-1818
The Temple - Congregation Adath Israel Brith Sholom
  • About
    • Our History
    • Our Clergy
      • Rabbi David
      • Cantor Lauren
      • Rabbi Diamond​
      • Rabbi Rooks
      • Rabbi Rapport
    • Our Staff
    • Our Leadership
      • Committees
    • Our Campus
      • Archives & Museum
      • Gift Shop
      • Temple Library
      • Temple Treasures
    • The Temple Cemetery
    • Bulletin
    • FAQs
    • Join Us
  • Spiritual Life
    • Shabbat Services
    • Jewish Holidays
    • Life Cycle Events
    • Becoming Jewish
    • Shir Chadash
    • Caring Rabbi
  • Learning & Living
    • Adults
      • Monday Classes
      • Temple Scholars
      • Torah Study
      • Senior University
    • Children
      • Trager Early Childhood Education Center
      • The Temple Religious School
      • B’nei Mitzvah Program
      • GUCI
    • College
    • Torah Tidbit
  • Community
    • *New* Member Portal
    • Member Directory
    • Brotherhood
    • Sisterhood/WRJ
    • Young Adult Group
    • LGBTQ Equality
    • Chavurat Shalom
    • Boy Scout Troop 30
    • Volunteering
  • Events
    • Event Calendar
    • Event Highlights & Pictures
    • Live Streaming
  • Contact
    • Have a Question?
    • New to Louisville?
  • Search
  • Menu Menu

Tag Archive for: BRO TALK

BRO TALK with Max Shapira

November 24, 2020/in Featured, News

BRO TALK with The Temple Brotherhood
Tuesday, November 24 at 6:00 pm

Join The Temple Brotherhood for their first BRO TALK with Max Shapira, President of Heaven Hill Distillery.

from https://www.whiskeyuniv.com/s-max-shapira

Max Shapira was the only son of Ed Shapira, one of the five brothers who founded Heaven Hill Distilleries following the repeal of Prohibition. Max has been with Heaven Hill for 48 years and at the helm of the Bourbon Behemoth during a period of rapid growth and expansion and brand acquisitions which has made Heaven Hill the world’s second largest bourbon distiller by volume.

Dating back to 1935 five local Bardstown businessmen including Ed and David Shapira and Mr. Joseph L. Beam (Jim Beam’s cousin) put their heads and their wallets together and started a distillery. The Shipira’s initial investment was 40% of total and equaled $17,500 (Mr. Joe had a 20% share or half of that of the Shapiras at $8,750) into a company that had no still, no warehouses, no brand names and no inventory. That amount is the equivelent of $330,000 in today’s monetary value. On December 13th, 1935, the first barrel was filled at Heaven Hill Distillery. The name was taken from William Heavenhill, a farmer who previously owned the land where the distillery was built. An old wise tale claims that when one of the partners went and applied for the distillery permit he typed the name wrong as two words instead of one. From that point on the name stuck. Ed later went to all his other brothers and asked them to join him. Around 1939 the five Shapira brothers (David, Ed, Gary, George and Mose) all agreed to invest another $20,000 to buy out their partners and keep the business running. The Shapira Brothers were inducted posthumously into the Bourbon Hall of Fame as a collective group in only its second class in 2002.

Two of the sons of the five Shapira brothers followed in their collective fathers’ footsteps. Max L. Shapira (1943-present), Ed Shapira’s son, came aboard at Heaven Hill at the age of 28 in 1971. Max had graduated with his Masters in Business Administration from Harvard and worked on Wall Street for five years before coming back to join the firm. Max became the first member of all the Shapira grandchildren to join the family business. His cousin Harry Shapira (1947-2013) , who was David Shapira’s son would also go to work for Heaven Hill when he started in 1973.

Max Shapira , the son of Ed shapira was born in Louisville in 1943 and most of his childhood he grew up in Bardstown near the the Heaven Hill distillery. Shapira left the family and Bardstown to go to college. He earned his Batchelor’s degree at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia in 1965 and went on to earn his Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1967. Among all his siblings and cousins in the Shapira family it would be Max that eventually assumed a leadership role for the second generation of Shapiras. He came aboard at Heaven Hill at the age of 28 in 1970 as the Director of Corporate Planning after five years at J. P. Morgan on Wall Street working in corporate acquisitions.

Early on in his days at Heaven Hill he was thrown into learning all aspects of the distillery business, he worked with his father side by side until his father’s death in 1982. The longest surviving of the five Shapira brothers was George Shapira who passed away in 1996. At that time Max took over as President at Heaven Hill. Shapira would become the Captain and pilot of the Heaven Hill ship guiding through both good and bad times.

It wasn’t an easy business to run at that time because the whiskey industry was at the bottom of all liquor sales in eighties and almost disappeared. But under Max’s stewardship Heaven Hill diversified. The made or bought a branded liquor product in all spirit categories. They actually started buying up other brands whean almost everyone else way selling. He encouraged Master Distiller Parker Beam to amp up research and development inside of Heaven Hill’s laboratories to find new products. They also built upon their current route structure to leverage their new and acquired products with their existing distributors.

In September 2018, Max Shapira became only the third recipient of the Kentucky Hall of Fame’s Parker Beam Lifetime Achievement Award. Only illustrious Bourbon leaders Jimmy Russell of Wild Turkey and Bill Samuels Jr. of Maker’s Mark proceeded Max in earning the award. The award was named in 2015 for Parker Beam, who joined Heaven Hill in 1960 as a sixth-generation distiller in his storied family. He became Master Distiller in 1975 and earned numerous awards for distilling, aging and selecting some of the world’s most acclaimed Bourbons.

YouTube link for BRO TALK with Max Shapira: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99QUpebZcPY

Latest Bulletin

March 2023
March 2023
Download Now!

Latest Stories

  • Annual Hanukkah Dinner 2022December 19, 2022 - 9:00 am
  • Hanukkah LanternsDecember 18, 2022 - 9:00 am
  • Bagels and BelongingDecember 5, 2022 - 10:00 am
  • Religious School Hanukkah ShoppingDecember 5, 2022 - 9:00 am
  • Ben Norton named as member of the Sing Unto God Teen Songleading FellowshipNovember 21, 2022 - 4:26 pm
  • Fill the Freezer Family Mitzvah EventNovember 15, 2022 - 10:46 am
  • Rabbi Rabbi Joe Rooks Rapport’s CelebrationMay 24, 2022 - 9:22 am
  • Passover 2022 at The TempleApril 26, 2022 - 12:52 pm
  • The Temple Welcomes Cantor Lauren AdesnikFebruary 24, 2022 - 1:27 pm
  • An Appeal on Behalf of our CommonwealthDecember 14, 2021 - 4:44 pm

Archive

  • March 2023 (3)
  • February 2023 (6)
  • January 2023 (6)
  • December 2022 (11)
  • November 2022 (8)
  • October 2022 (4)
  • September 2022 (5)
  • August 2022 (4)
  • July 2022 (5)
  • June 2022 (4)
  • May 2022 (5)
  • April 2022 (6)
  • March 2022 (4)
  • February 2022 (5)
  • January 2022 (4)
  • December 2021 (7)
  • November 2021 (4)
  • October 2021 (6)
  • September 2021 (4)
  • August 2021 (5)
  • July 2021 (5)
  • June 2021 (4)
  • May 2021 (4)
  • April 2021 (5)
  • March 2021 (6)
  • February 2021 (5)
  • January 2021 (5)
  • December 2020 (5)
  • November 2020 (6)
  • October 2020 (6)
  • September 2020 (6)
  • August 2020 (5)
  • July 2020 (6)
  • June 2020 (7)
  • May 2020 (7)
  • April 2020 (7)
  • March 2020 (5)
  • February 2020 (4)
  • January 2020 (6)
  • December 2019 (8)
  • November 2019 (14)
  • October 2019 (9)
  • September 2019 (6)
  • August 2019 (13)
  • July 2019 (11)
  • June 2019 (14)
  • May 2019 (6)
  • April 2019 (11)
  • March 2019 (15)
  • February 2019 (9)
  • January 2019 (6)
  • December 2018 (10)
  • November 2018 (7)
  • October 2018 (9)
  • September 2018 (3)
  • August 2018 (3)
  • July 2018 (2)
  • June 2018 (3)

GET IN TOUCH

Contact The Temple

5101 US-42, Louisville, KY 40241
(502) 423-1818

templenews@thetemplelouky.org

To contact a Rabbi about a confidential matter, please email CaringRabbi@gmail.com

Kroger Community Rewards
Shop Amazon

HELPFUL LINKS

Join The Temple

New to Louisville?

Register for an Event

Volunteer Opportunities

Religious School

Preschool

URJWhere Jewish Tradition Meets Tomorrow

THE TEMPLE WEEKLY EMAIL

 

Weekly news, right in your inbox

© Copyright 2021 – The Temple | Privacy Policy
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
Scroll to top