This week marks the one hundredth and second anniversary of America’s journey into the dark, dry years of Prohibition. The Eighteenth Amendment, ratified on January 16th, 1919, forbid the production, sale, and transport of “intoxicating liquors,” but was ineffective in curtailing the consumption of alcohol, wine, and beer in the United States. As a result, the Volstead Act was proposed in Congress to specifically prohibit alcohol, wine, and beer and provide measures for Federal Law Enforcement. President Woodrow Wilson vetoed the Act, but it was overridden by the House and Senate. The Volstead Act went into effect on January 17th, 1920, fully enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment and securely putting Prohibition in place.
Alcohol was still legal in other parts of the world and rumrunning-the smuggling of prohibited liquor across the sea-became a lucrative business. Bootleggers such as Bill McCoy licensed his ship, the Tomoka, under British registry to avoid U.S. jurisdiction. He loaded his schooner with booze obtained from the Caribbean and distributed it along America’s East Coast. On November 23rd, 1923, the U.S. Coast Guard ship, Seneca, had orders to capture Bill McCoy and his ship even if in international waters. Once under arrest Bill stated, “I have no tale of woe to tell you. I was outside the three-mile limit, selling whisky, and good whisky, to anyone and everyone who wanted to buy it.”
Although the U.S. government had long defined a three-mile limit from America’s coast as international waters, it was extended to a twelve-mile limit during Prohibition in an effort to curtail the continuous influx of alcohol onto America’s shores.
For thirteen long years the nation was fraught with crime, shootouts, and offshore Coast Guard arrests. Gangsters such as Al Capone in Chicago, Nucky Johnson in Atlantic City, and the Purple Gang in Detroit cashed in on the illegal transport and distribution of alcohol in the United States. Contrary to popular belief, the Jazz Age was not all fun parties, flamboyant flappers, and covert tipples of bathtub gin. Crime was on the uptick and the government was losing money on the illicitly obtained booze.
In stepped President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. After running on the repeal platform he pressured Congress to pass the Cullen-Harrison Act on March 22nd, 1933, allowing the sale, manufacture, and consumption of low content wine and beer in the United States. Full-fledged repeal came later that year on December 5th, 1933, when the Twenty-First Amendment was ratified permitting states to individually determine the sale, manufacture, and consumption of wine, beer, and alcohol in America.
Happy Days are here again! Bars, restaurants, and supper clubs popped up in cities large and small inviting customers back to imbibe legally once more.
RECIPE: Twelve-Mile Limit Cocktail. 1 oz. white rum, 1/2 oz. rye whiskey, 1/2 oz. brandy, 1/2 oz. grenadine, 1/2 oz. lemon juice. Shake with ice and strain into a glass.
*Note-for further reading on Prohibition consider, Baptists and Bootleggers, A Prohibition Expedition Through the South by Kathryn Smith. Refer to Cocktails Across America, A Postcard View of Cocktail Culture in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s by Lapis and Peck-Davis for more post-Prohibition information.
**Note- some portions of this article previously appeared in my piece for Postcard History, April 23rd, 2020.
What a gorgeous cocktail set! Those Bakelite handles. Love it!
Here is Cheers to the 21st Amendment. Prohibition, hard to believe.