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Ron Waxman, 88, was a liquor pioneer and family man

Mr. Waxman's family business was the first distributor in the U.S. to market Smirnoff Vodka and Cutty Sark scotch.

Mr. Waxman with great grandchildren Taran Wasserman (left) and Mariana Chaparro.
Mr. Waxman with great grandchildren Taran Wasserman (left) and Mariana Chaparro.Read moreFamily Photo
    by Ed Barkowitz
    Updated 
    Published 
People We’ve Lost
  • Ron Waxman
  • 88 years old
  • Born in Elkins Park
  • Raise a glass for Mr. Waxman, who led a remarkable life

More Memorials

Put a bottle of wine in Ron Waxman’s hands, and he could tell you the vineyard it came from, the year it was produced, and probably the best food to go with it. A “salesman’s salesman,” his brother, Myron, called him.

As savvy of a oenophile as Mr. Waxman was, he was even more diligent when it came to his grandchildren. He’d try to make every event.

Mr. Waxman died of COVID-19 on Monday, April 20, at Lankenau Hospital. He was a popular figure in the Philadelphia wine and spirits community after spending 64 of his 88 years in the family business.

Mr. Waxman started in the business in 1956, shortly after he was discharged from the Army and two years following his marriage to Marilyn, who died in 2010. The couple had two children: Brad, who was born while Mr. Waxman was stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., and Linda. He also is survived by four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

“He really wanted to have a 90th birthday party,” his daughter said. “That’s not going to happen. But every year on Sept. 5, we’re going to have a party for him.”

Then the memories will be as thick as a white Russian, from meeting the actor Paul Newman and NASCAR drivers while on business trips to the Poconos to hanging with the family on the beach in Longport, N.J.

He loved to sit around the dinner table with family and friends.

Linda Waxman said her parents were regulars at Chef Vola’s, a classic BYOB restaurant in Atlantic City.

“He loved nothing better than having big dinners with his family,” Linda said, “where he was always responsible for bringing the wine.”

Part of his legacy is working all those years with his three brothers running the family business, Superior Wine & Spirits, which his father started in 1933 – the day after Prohibition was repealed. But that’s not his whole story.

“My grandfather came to every single one of my games while I was growing up, no matter how far away," said Josh Wasserman, who played multiple sports at Friends’ Central in the early 2000s. "He was an integral part of my life, and he played a big role in making me into the man I am today. I’ll think of him with a smile every time I open a bottle of good wine.”

— Ed Barkowitz