Cause A Frockus

No Wine For You

Sep 23, 2015 | by Ellen Dial

I’m training to be a wine/spirit guide at the super-duper Disney World for foodies, Market District – soon to open a bit north of my home. We’ve been learning all about varietals and appellations – Loire, Rhone…. Cote d’Or. Have you tasted Chateauneuf de Pape? New world v. old world. Methode Tradionelle. Barriques. Dosage. Tuscany. Veneto. Rioja. American v. French oak.

Wine is a beautiful, living thing. Love. It. Enough said. Right? This got me thinking, what if you couldn’t legally purchase the wine or adult beverage you wanted? No wine with dinner. No cold one after mowing the lawn. No martini- neither shaken nor stirred. No good would come from it – none.

Between the years of 1920 and 1933, my co-workers and I would have been sent to jail for selling wine. All this truly gorgeous grape juice would have been dumped down the storm sewers….

Oh the humanity!

The US was in this tragic state – for almost 14 long years. A time when the will of a few dictated the behavior of the many and “demon rum” was blamed for just about every blight cast upon society. Let’s take a silly and sorry trot through the Volstead Act, shall we?

No Wine for You | Tee-totaling Triumphant

We all think of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement as being about the right to vote. The Suffrage platform had several moving parts. One of those moving parts included anti-alcohol rhetoric – primarily the Anti-Saloon League and the Christian Women’s Temperance Union.

Alcohol was evil. It was bad. It was immoral. It turned your loving husband into a lazy, abusive and irresponsible scoundrel. Drawing him away from hearth and home, work and family. Turning him into awful human being. It was ALL alcohol’s fault. All of it. Ugh.

“Lips that touch liquor shall not touch ours“

As early as 1826, high minded Americans (primarily women) viewed the ingestion of alcoholic beverages as a major societal scourge. Couching their message in Christian values, the touters of Temperance traveled far and wide. Lectured and preached. Held tent revivals. Passed out leaflets. Even destroying saloons – Carrie Nation, who believed she was chosen by God, took a hatchet with her on the road, to aid in the destruction of the demon alcohol – taking their protest to nearly fanatical heights.

Apparently, these ladies (and some gentlemen) didn’t approve of other people drinking. They were loud and proud – ranting and railing for nearly 50 years. As the country became more industrial, business owners jumped on the band wagon as well, since the “new” work ethic – early morning starts and late night finishes – didn’t mix well with alcohol. It’s tough to work a 16 hour day with a hangover or a belly full of beer. With all this protesting, vitriol and miserably long work days, Americans drank. Who wouldn’t?

No Wine for You | A Most Noble Experiment

As America entered WWI, President Wilson got the keg rolling – crafting the legislation for the 18th Amendment – under the auspice that grain was needed for the war effort – not for booze making. Additionally, the goal was to clean up the moral health and hygiene of the nation. The push for Prohibition went into overdrive. Many states from 1905- 1917 had passed local/state legislation placing great restrictions on the production and distribution of liquor. The President gave the rest three years get on board and ratify the Amendment.

In 1919, he succeeded. On January 16, 1920, the Volstead Act become the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, enforcing Prohibition nationwide. It became a federal offense to produce, distribute or purchase alcoholic beverages. You could have it or DRINK it, you just couldn’t make it, distribute it or buy it. Crazy, right? This “most noble experiment” was going to raise the morals of the nation and cure the societal ills of our post war society.

Americans were going to be morally superior, productive and sober. Not so much.

Of course, enforcing such a measure was nearly impossible, especially in the beginning. The IRS tried, then Federal Revenue agents took over. History and Hollywood tell us the latter had some success. Oh, but we’re a cagey bunch of hooligans!

No Wine for You | We Roared!

Along with rising hemlines and votes for women– Americans quite cleverly figured out how to work around this new, strict moral code. Liquor was smuggled across the border – whisky, rum and beer came across from Canada, Europe, Mexico and Cuba. Hence the handle “rum runner”. Also, homemade liquor became a thing. Gin was produced in bathtubs – the tradition of distilling white lightening (moonshine) expanded in the south and spread – this technique of utilizing DYI stills was used to make other types of booze as well. This illegal scronch was distributed by all manner of miscreants.

Beloved family doctors joined the party – writing tens of thousands of prescriptions for medical gin – what exact diagnosis this addressed is a bit murky. People carried these illegal, foul tasting and frequently poisonous potions in hip/garter flasks and hollowed out canes. The Speakeasy was born and flourished, NYC boasted 30,000 bootleg bars, it’s even been estimated that as many as 100,000 operated in the city. You could slip in, drink some rot gut, listen to jazz and basically just party down.

Splendid times!

Initially, the 18th Amendment “worked”, it was reported that alcohol consumption dropped about 30%. Arrest rates dropped. The United States Commercial Brewers Association stated that consumption had dropped nearly 50%. Yet, alcoholism is reputed to have increased a whopping 300%. Plus, the use of opium, heroin and marijuana reached shocking levels.

Wait, what? Aren’t we now morally superior? Don’t we work harder?

Some were working harder – the infamous gangster Al Capone (who was clearing about $60 million per year) and other upstanding citizens in the newly formed crime syndicates worked like dogs! Brewing, smuggling and distributing hooch seemingly to their hearts content. Thwarting the Feds and creating havoc wherever they went.

Supply and demand, baby.

Moral superiority, it seems, eluded a great number of people. Shameful! Needless to say, Uncle Sam started to get testy – we weren’t playing fair! For years, industrial alcohol had been denatured so producers could avoid the taxes levied upon potable alcohol, denaturing made it unusable for the production of giggle juice. Pffft. Of course we figured out how to re-distill this stuff. Duh! Needless to say, chemists were in high demand. Our leaders come up with a brilliant answer – let’s POISON the industrial alcohol! Yes, you read it right, they began adding all manner of poisonous substances to denatured alcohol (of course blaming the bootleggers).

Awesome sauce! Can’t beat ‘em? Poison ‘em.

Christmas Eve 1926, 60 people presented in Bellevue Hospital’s ER – they were seriously ill and hallucinating.. Sick beyond the rampant alcohol poisoning doctors had gotten used to treating – eight of these people DIED. By the time Christmas Day drew to a close, a total of 23 people had died. Horribly. During Christmas. The cause? Ingesting homemade alcohol formulated from the industrial stuff – which had been poisoned by the manufacturer at the behest of our super awesome leaders.

I really have no words. Needless to say, if Uncle Sam was testy, the general populace got even testier. And drunker.

No Wine for You | Epic Fail

People continued to dance the Charleston – quaffing Gin Rickys, Side Cars and Whisky Sours with reckless abandon. Here’s a GREAT list of Prohibition Era cocktails – all formulated to cover up the revolting taste of bootleg booze. Luckily, you won’t die after drinking one or three of these concoctions! You may want to, but you won’t.

Funny, firewater was illegal but some great cocktails came out of this era. Go figure. A swell was beginning, people became increasingly disgusted with the whole ordeal. It obviously wasn’t working. People were dying. Crime was crazy…

A movement to repeal the 18th Amendment was gaining momentum. Concerned and thirsty, citizens took to the streets – matching the fervor of the not too distant past that had started this ridiculousness. Posters, leaflets and protest marches abounded. We want beer! We want beer! We want beer!

The Crash of 1929 further fueled the flames – pushing the call for repeal to the highest levels. The money being thrown at enforcement was mind blowing and there was no revenue being generated from the sale of alcohol. By 1933, state and federal leaders had heard and seen enough. Our country was a hot mess – with the trifecta of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl and Prohibition all creating national distress.

On December 5, 1933, Congress passed the the 21st Amendment, thus repealing the 18th. It’s said President Roosevelt celebrated the repeal with a dirty martini, his favorite adult beverage!

This most noble of experiments turned out to be an epic fail. The push of one groups sense of morality upon the entire nation fell flat, creating more problems than it solved. Driving people to drink, as it were.

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To Our Dear Readers: How many of the Prohibition era cocktails have you tried – did/do you like them? Do you see any parallels with todays “moral” struggles and the push for temperance/prohibition?

Thanks to: Wikipedia.com, history.com, slate.com, The Cato Institute, 1920-30.com, archives.com, eyewitnesstohistory.com. And to all those who share their images freely on the Internet.

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