How the Prohibition law of 1920 made alcohol, savored in secret, all the more delectable when the cocktail shaker was forced to go underground
Roaring Twenties America boasted famousfirsts: womens right to vote, jazz music, talking motion pictures, flapper fashions, and wondrous new devices like the safety razor and the electric vacuum cleaner. The privations of the Great War were over, and Wall Street boomed.
The decade opened, nonetheless, with a shock when Prohibition became the law of the land on Friday, January 16, 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment banned intoxicating liquors. Decades-long campaigns to demonize alcoholic beverages finally became law, and America officially went dry.
American ingenuity promptly rose to its newest challenge. The law, riddled with loopholes, let the 1920s write a new chapter in the nations saga of spirits. Men and women spoke knowingly of the speakeasy, the bootlegger, rum-running, black ships, blind pigs, gin mills, and gallon stills. Passwords (Oscar sent me) gave entrée to night spots and supper clubs where cocktails abounded, and bartenders became alchemists of timely new drinks like the Making Whoopee, the Petting Party, the Dance the Charleston. A new social eventthe cocktail party staged in a private homesmashed the gender barrier that had long forbidden ladies from entering into the gentlemen-only barrooms and cafés.
From the author ofGilded Age Cocktails, this book takes a delightful new romp through the cocktail creations of the early twentieth century, transporting readers into the glitz and (illicit) glamour of the 1920s. Spirited and richly illustrated,Jazz Age Cocktailsdazzles with tales of temptation and temperance, and features charming cocktail recipes from the time to be recreated and enjoyed.
