Time of the tommy gun
The production, distribution and sale of all liquor was banned in the United States of America between 1920 and 1933. With a ban on liquor advertising looming in South Africa, Clifford Roberts looks at the lessons that might be taken from the pages of history.
It was 1940s Cambridge Professor of history Herbert Butterfield no less who memorably described history as “just one bloody thing after another.” In whisky terms, if a few “things” like Prohibition had not happened, Scotch today may well have played second fiddle to bourbon and American whiskey. This was a time when liquor consumption soared in spite of a legislated ban; where mass action meant supporting an illicit nightclub; and capitalism flourished.
Up until World War I, the United States had a burgeoning tradition of distillation thanks in no small measure to German, Dutch, Irish and Scottish settlers who saw the wider potential of rye. While objection to alcohol had seen some states go dry in the early 1800s already, it was the outbreak of war
that spurred the US government to first declare a national ban on strong alcoholic drinks. The motivation was to spare grain for the war effort, but intolerance among Christian religious groups in particular, along with the suffrage and anti- immigration movements resulted in the even wider ban through Prohibition. Under the Volstead Act – the 18th amendment to the US constitution that was in place from 1920 to 1933 – no alcohol could be sold, manufactured or transported.
Combined with the years of Great Depression and World War II, these events arguably sealed the fate for American distilleries for some three decades. The effects changed Americans’ tastes and significantly, pointed them towards whiskies from other parts of the world.
Noting his view privately in his diary on the shocking events, the then American Secretary of the Interior, Franklin K. Lane, commented: “The whole world is skew-jee, awry, distorted and altogether perverse. Einstein has declared the law of gravitation outgrown and decadent. Drink, consoling friend of a Perturbed World, is shut off; and all goes merry as a dance in hell!”
But in spite of the gloom, the 1920s are remembered as exciting times. Many law- abiding citizens didn’t support the new laws, which made them difficult to police. In fact, it was seen as sporting to defy the law. An unintended consequence was that with sleazy saloons closed down, drinking moved to swanky underground nightclubs and even places like deli’s, parlours, barbershops and corner shoe-shine shops. It made drinking more pervasive and acceptable, particularly among women and ironically, more drink was consumed than before. The age of speakeasies, bootlegging, the Thompson “Chicago Typewriter” submachine gun and legendary gangsters – Bonnie and Clyde, Bugs Moran and Al Capone – was born.
It’s an age that has remained beloved by Hollywood to this day. James Cagney became a star after his appearance in the 1931 gangster movie The Public Enemy; the original Scarface, later remade with Al Pacino, was inspired by the life of Al Capone; the 1959 classic Some Like It Hot that featured Tony Curtis, Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon took its lead from Prohibition gangland; The Great Gatsby celebrated the Roaring Twenties, as the period was known; and, more recently, Miller’s Crossing and The Untouchables, based on the life of federal lawman Eliot Ness, were instant hits on the silver screen. Even today, hit TV series Boardwalk Empire fans the sentimental spin on the era.
Not so glamorously, crime soared; fortunes were lost as much as they were made – entire industries ground to a halt. Powerful people were not simply going to let their substantial investments in warehoused whiskey go to waste and the good stuff was always protected – but available to those in the know. To get inside, all you needed for the man behind the big black door with the peephole was the password. In the backyards and countryside, illegal stills churned out moonshine of all qualities, some of it so injurious it turned you blind if you were lucky or killed you outright.
Doggerel
Reflecting some of the world view on the state of affairs, a 1950s issue of Life magazine carries the story by Edward, Prince of Wales, who after his visit to the US says his father, King George V, was curious about life in America under Prohibition. “An abstemious man himself, he considered it an outrage for the government of any country to attempt to regulate the conduct of its citizens in such a manner,” Prince Edward wrote. “However, of all the information that I brought back, I think that what delighted him most was the following doggerel picked up in a Canadian border town: “Four and twenty Yankees, feeling very dry, went across the border to get a drink of rye. When the rye was opened, the Yanks began to sing: God bless America, but God save the King”.
Prohibition may have been a clanger for American distillers, even though a fortunate few were actually licensed to dispense whiskey as medicine, but it changed the fortunes of many others too. Irish whiskey’s biggest export market had been shut down, dealing it a massive blow made worse by its ill-preparedness when repeal eventually came. But just across US borders, liquor producers flourished. Scotch imports to Canada, much of which went into bootlegger trucks headed for the states and into the hundreds of thousands of speakeasy bars, helped that industry to dull the pain of the Great Depression.
Jack Daniel’s producer Brown-Forman managed to secure one of only 10 federal licenses to continue to sell its Old Forester Bourbon whiskey for medicinal purposes. At that time, whiskey was considered an effective tonic for treating an assortment of ailments and doctors often prescribed whiskey for their patients.
Further opportunities arose, spurring the popularity of blended whiskies. “Blended scotches were popular in Prohibition because blenders like the Walker and Dewar families and James Buchanan had studied what people wanted to drink and fitted blends to their requirements,” says Dave Broom in his book, The World Atlas of Whisky. “Blends were made to suit a serve (whisky and soda) and an occasion (pre- dinner, pre-theatre).”
Canadian distiller Hiram Walker- Gooderham & Worts quickly acquired distilleries in Scotland, chasing a lighter style of whisky that Americans had taken a liking to.
London wine and spirit merchants Berry Bros & Rudd also spotted this trend and developed the Cutty Sark blend, named after the world’s fastest ship at the time – a tea clipper. Co-incidentally, the whisky was also the source of the expression ‘the Real McCoy’. According to the company website, Cutty Sark was bootlegged by legendary captain Bill McCoy, a smuggler based in the Bahamas. “McCoy was teetotal and, unusually, his contraband was uncut and unadulterated; the expression remains a synonym for integrity and authenticity.” The man who blended it was Charles H Julian, the same man who later developed J&B and Chivas Regal 12 year old.
According to Broom however, attempts to go light “simply diluted the essence of the American whiskey style”. He says it was only when big flavour became fashion again that young American drinkers took a fresh look at their own whiskies.
It was Franklin D. Roosevelt who eventually brought Prohibition to an end in 1933, for which brewer Anheuser-Bush had bottles of Budweiser delivered by a team of Clydesdale horses to the White House. “Happy days are here again,” was the news broadcast by the company – an announcement contained in an original sound clip on its website along with a grainy black and white film of bustling workers, bottling lines, and delivery trucks that had long been idle.
The so-called Noble Experiment was declared a stupendous blunder.
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