Sidney Frank Importing Company history

Frank acquired his first distributorship in 1973.

Frank acquired from Joseph E. Seagram & Sons in 1979, was his company's first profitable product.

The interest in such brands dates to the 1980's, when a wave of anti-Soviet sentiment in this country paved the way for vodkas from countries other than Russia.

1985: A newspaper article spurs Jagermeister sales.

In 1986, Frank was struck with another obvious observation: "People love sex." He parlayed the drink's early success in southern college towns with the Jägerettes, a group of scantily clad girls who would flirt with male students and convince them to down shots of Jäger instead of Jack Daniels.

In 1988 he hired an attractive young woman and clothed her in a sexy outfit to become the first Jagerette.

In 1997 the company and its marketing subsidiary, All State Promotions Inc., were hit with a sexual harassment lawsuit, filed by the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and initiated two years earlier by a pair of former Jagerettes and that now represented more than 100 women.

Because 1998 was the last year Grey Goose had been tested, Sidney Frank Importing argued that it was not proper to mix results from different years.

The matter would not be settled for another two years when in June 1999 the company settled the matter by agreeing to pay $2.6 million to 104 women, the largest settlement of its kind in New York State.

For Frank it was a windfall profit, the result in large measure attributable to the need of Bacardi to distinguish itself from rival Diageo PLC, which in 2000 had outbid Bacardi for Seagram Co.'s liquor business.