Timeline of The Charmer Sunbelt Group
The Beginning
The origin of The Charmer Sunbelt Group began in the 1930s and 1940s as two separate corporations: Charmer Industries (originally Blue Crest Wine & Spirits Corp., 1944) and Sunbelt Beverage Corporation (originally McKesson Wines & Spirits, 1934).
History of Charmer Industries
The Merinoff/Drucker family has been in the beverage alcohol distribution business since 1944, when Charles Merinoff Sr. founded Blue Crest Wine & Spirits Corp. in Brooklyn, New York. Over the next few decades, Charles Sr. grew Blue Crest through the acquisitions of Ben Perlow (1956) and Universal Liquors (1957). In 1959, Charles Sr.’s son, Herman I. Merinoff, joined the family business, and would later serve as chief executive officer. Blue Crest Wine & Spirits Corp. changed its name to Charmer Industries Inc. (a derivative of CHARles MERinoff) in 1966. That same year, the company continued its growth strategy when it acquired Distilled Brands.
During the 1980s, the family acquired several more companies, including Standard Wine and Liquor (1981) and Connecticut Distributors Inc. (1986), as well as Service Liquor Distributors and Washington Wholesale Liquor Company (both in 1987). Interestingly, Connecticut Distributors predated Blue Crest, since it had been in operation since 1933 when its owner Donald Harrison and his family started the distributorship.
In 1991, in order to effectively serve the growing number of New York retailers, the New York operation was split to form two separate organizations, one in metropolitan New York and the other in Upstate New York. Charmer Industries remained as the metropolitan New York organization, while Service Universal became the Upstate operation.
In 1994, the family purchased an interest in Bacchus Importers, which had been in operation since 1985 in Baltimore, Maryland.
History of Sunbelt Beverage Corporation
Sunbelt Beverage Corporation, headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, was created in a leveraged buyout of the McKesson Wine & Spirits Wholesale Company in April 1988. McKesson Wine & Spirits had been distributing wine and spirits since the repeal of prohibition in 1934. Raymond R. Herrmann Jr., now chairman of The Charmer Sunbelt Group, managed McKesson Wine & Spirits for 13 years until the McKesson Corporation, the nation’s first drug distributor, decided to divest from the alcohol business and focus primarily on health care. Subsequently, Ray privatized the division under the name Sunbelt Beverage Corporation. At the time, Sunbelt distributed wines and spirits in seven states. Following various disposals and acquisitions from 1988 to 1992, Sunbelt became statewide distributors with Arizona Beverage Distributing in Arizona, Premier Beverage Company in Florida, Churchill Distributors in Maryland, and Heritage Beverage Company in South Carolina.
In December 1993, a joint venture between Heritage Beverage Company and Ben Arnold Company created The Ben Arnold – Heritage Beverage Company of South Carolina. Subsequently, the name was changed to its current name, The Ben Arnold – Sunbelt Beverage Company of South Carolina.
In February 1995, Sunbelt developed Capital Wine & Spirits Company in Pennsylvania, as a wholly owned subsidiary, when it purchased Spatola Wines. The company then expanded in October 1995 with the acquisition of Superior Wine & Spirits. This acquisition made Capital one of the largest brokers in Pennsylvania.
Sunbelt expanded its Maryland and District of Columbia operations in September 1996 with the acquisition of Quality Brands and International Distributors, which operated under the Washington Wholesale Liquor Company name.
Origin of The Charmer Sunbelt Group
The history of these two storied and successful companies – Charmer Industries and Sunbelt Beverage Corporation – began to merge when in 1994 the Merinoff/Drucker family acquired a controlling interest in Sunbelt. By 1997, the last of the outstanding shares in Sunbelt were acquired, and the Merinoff/Drucker family came to own all of Sunbelt.
In 1998, Sunbelt moved its headquarters to New York and all of the distributorships in which the Merinoff/Drucker family had an interest came to be known as The Charmer Sunbelt Group (CSG).
The Charmer Sunbelt Group continues to expand through strategic partnerships in various states:
In May 1998, CSG partnered with the Young family with brokerage houses operating as the Alabama Sales Company and the Mississippi Sales Company.
In December 1998, a joint venture between Arizona Beverage Distributing Company and Cactus Beverage Company of Arizona (owned by the Glazer family of Texas) formed Alliance Beverage Distributing Company.
In May 2000, Sunbelt partnered with Beverage Distributors Corporation, a Colorado distributorship owned by the Obernauer family, to form Beverage Distributors Company.
Charles Merinoff became vice chairman and chief executive officer in 2002, while his father Herman Merinoff and Ray Herrmann served as co-chairmen.
In February 2002, Churchill Distributors, the largest distributor in Maryland, formed a joint venture with Reliable Liquors to form Reliable Churchill. Today, Reliable Churchill is the no. 1 distributor in market share for both wine and spirits in Maryland. Later that year in June, Sunbelt formed a joint venture in Delaware with Standard Distributing Co. to open First State Distributing Group.
In April 2004, CSG partnered with Reitman Industries to form R&R Marketing of New Jersey.
Through a joint venture in 2006, CSG expanded into Virginia with Associated Distributors.
Later that year, First State Distributing merged with Century Wine & Spirits and Delaware Beverage to form United Distributors of Delaware.
In 2007, Charmer Industries and Peerless Importers combined their operations to form Empire Merchants in Metro New York, while Service Universal and Colony Wine & Spirits combined their operations in Upstate New York to form Empire Merchants North. These business combinations in New York were the largest single state distributor transactions in the history of the wine and spirits industry and make Empire Merchants the no. 1 distributor in market share for both wine and spirits in New York State.