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purchasing moonshine from bootleggers, or legally through medical suppliers by infusing it with juniper berries and other herbs in an effort to get the smell and taste of pre-ban gin. (They used large containers such as barrels—not bathtubs.) After bottling, they would cut the moonshine with water by placing the bottles and jugs under bathtub faucets. (The bottles would not fit under a sink faucet.) Around 1,000 people would die yearly because it is said that sometimes they would obtain cheap (and poisonous) industrial alcohol, which was used for fuels, polishes, etc., and use that in the cutting process as well.

      As for cocktails, more mixers and ingredients were added to the Mafia’s bathtub gin to mask the nasty burn, such as the Bee’s Knees, made with lots of lemon juice and honey. Cocktails made with smuggled rum, whiskey, and brandy included the Twelve Mile Limit, Mary Pickford, and Between the Sheets. But the average middle-to-lower-class Americans just mixed—any booze they could get—at home with ingredients as simple as plain juices, herbs, and homemade syrups. These recipes will always remain a mystery.

      The Top Ten Things to Know About Prohibition

      1.Prohibition (the noble experiment) did not outlaw the drinking of alcohol—it outlawed the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol.

      2.Prohibition did not only occur in America. It has happened at different times all over the world and still exists in some countries (and U.S. counties) today.

      3.To date, the American Constitution has twenty-seven amendments. The Eighteenth Amendment is when American Prohibition began (Tuesday, January 20, 1920) and the Twenty-First Amendment is when Prohibition ended (Tuesday, December 5, 1933) for a total of thirteen years, ten months, and fifteen days.

      4.The Eighteenth Amendment did not happen in one fell swoop. Many states banned alcohol before, starting in 1851. It was the same for the Twenty-First Amendment; many states did not lift the ban for years and, today, there are still counties that have alcohol bans resulting in “dry” counties. The Twenty-First Amendment left the decision up to the states.

      5.The fight for nationwide American Prohibition was not something that happened in a few years. It began in the late 1700s with the Temperance Movement (a movement to subdue the widespread drunkenness in America).

      6.Legal alcohol during Prohibition included sacramental wine for churches; patented medicines; use in scientific research; industrial development of fuel, dye, and other things industries might need; and use in hospitals for cleaning. Homemade beer, wine, and cider, and pre-banned alcohol could be drunk in the privacy of one’s own home.

      7.Up until the 1920s, the only American women allowed into the large main rooms of saloons/bars were prostitutes and madams. In nice bars there were small “Ladies’ Rooms” where prominent women could drink. The speakeasies from 1920 to 1933 were the first drinking establishments where women could patronize the whole bar.

      8.Cocktails and drinks in speakeasies were known to be expensive, so you saved up for a special night on the town, had plenty of money (or were with someone with money), or just partied at home.

      9.Out of necessity, Appalachian mountain bootleggers tinkered with their vehicle engines to make them faster than police cars. This led to what we know today as the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR).

      10.If you happen to be traveling through Kansas today, then feel lucky because they win for having the longest alcohol ban (sixty-eight years between 1880 and 1948). The alcohol ban was lifted by a new Kansas state law that was passed in 1965. However, it put all public bars out of business because only private bars were allowed. Twenty-one years later, in 1986, the private bar ban was lifted and within a year, 400 public bars opened. However, there was a stipulation—30 percent of bar sales must be from food. On a side note and to open the crazy Kansas box even more, in the 1970s—unbelievably—5’5” Vern Miller (ex–police officer, deputy sheriff, and county marshal who then went on to graduate law school) was elected as the Kansas attorney general in 1970. His job was to aggressively enforce Kansas’s liquor laws. Examples of his hostile assertiveness included raiding Amtrak trains that were passing through Kansas and forcing airlines to stop serving liquor while traveling through Kansas’s airspace. Miller made headlines and a book about him was published in 2008.

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      Prohibition Words to Know

      Amendment

      An article added to the Constitution of the United States.

      Anti-Saloon League

      The number-one leading organization that lobbied for an American Prohibition in the early 1900s.

      Bathtub Gin

      A gin-like spirit made by the Mafia with purchased legal and illegal alcohol.

      Bootlegger

      A person who makes and sells illegal alcohol. The American term came from the 1625 term for hiding a liquor bottle in the leg of one’s boot.

      Capone

      Alphonse Gabriel “Al” Capone (1899–1947) was one of the famous American Mafia gangsters during Prohibition. He was the first of nine children born in America to his Italian-immigrant parents and grew up in Brooklyn. He quit Catholic school at age fourteen after hitting a teacher in the face, then became a member of two New York City youth gangs. In his adulthood, Capone became a bouncer and bartender for mobster Frankie Yale in a Coney Island dance hall called the Harvard Inn. It was here that Capone earned his nickname “Scarface” after insulting a woman (her brother cut his face). At age twenty, Capone left New York City and moved to Chicago, where he worked for the biggest Mafia boss, James “Big Jim” Colosimo, as a bouncer at a brothel (where he contracted syphilis). Soon he became a famous gang leader spending his money on custom-made suits, gourmet food and drink, jewelry, the best women money could buy, and Cuban cigars. His seven-year reign as crime boss ended when he was thirty-three years old.

      Eighteenth Amendment

      This established the Prohibition of alcoholic beverages in America by declaring the production, transport, and sale of alcohol illegal.

      Flappers

      A twenty-something generation of young women who drank cocktails, wore short skirts, short hair, listened to jazz, frequented speakeasies, wore excessive makeup, smoked, drove automobiles, had casual sex in the time known as the “Roarin’ Twenties.” These women would have been born between 1890 and 1910.

      Gangsters

      A criminal who is a member of a gang.

      Jazz Age

      Blues and jazz singer Bessie Smith in 1923 singing, “Me and My Gin.” © Photofest

      A period of music from 1920–1928 that was put on hold for four years due to the Great Depression (1929–1933), and then resumed.

      Ratify

      To sign or give formal consent to a treaty, contract, or agreement, making it officially valid.

      Roaring Twenties

      This term and period in time encompasses many things. Briefly, it was a period of economic prosperity in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe, and it spread after World War I in 1919. The spirit of the Roaring Twenties was fueled by people wanting to break away from tradition and who desired to enter into a modern era. Some large-scale examples include the introduction of automobiles, telephones, radio, motion pictures, electricity, and commercial aviation. For the first time, media focused on celebrities (especially sports celebs and moving picture movie stars). Cities built gigantic sports stadiums and Hollywood kept moving forward by introducing “talkies.” As for style, art deco was everywhere. Dance clubs popped up and fashion changed dramatically (no more corsets). Female long hair was cut into bobs, skirt hems rose, sleeves were cut, and a sexual revolution began to seep.

      Rum Runner

      A person who is involved in the illegal business of transporting and smuggling illegal alcohol. It mostly relates

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