By the mid-eighteenth century, every man, woman, and child in London drank an average of more than a pint of gin per week, because it was cleaner than water.
In 1620, the Mayflower was scheduled to land in Virginia, but the seas were rough and the Pilgrims were running out of beer, so they decided to disembark in Massachusetts at Plymouth Rock. As the voyagers wrote, “We could not now take time for further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, especially our Beere, and it being now the 19th of December.”
Upon passage of Prohibition, members of the Yale Club, a private club in Manhattan whose members were alumni or faculty of Yale University, pragmatically laid down a stock of wine sufficient to last for 14 years.
The Volstead Act required that chemicals be added to industrial alcohol to make it unpleasant and even dangerous to drink. Bootleggers, however, soon learned how to remove these chemicals (although they were not always successful) that could cause blindness, paralysis, and death. (I was under the impression the deadly nature was at the fault of the rednecks not understanding how to properly make liquor, not that they were trying to remove poison the government had put there.)
William S. McCoy was considered to be the prince of rumrunners. He never watered down his liquor and never dealt with gangsters. His name gave birth to the term “the real McCoy” for an article of genuine quality.
The mobster Al Capone coordinated a vast bootlegging enterprise and oversaw the importation of alcohol from Canada, hundreds of illegal distilleries and breweries in the United States, and bodyguards to protect these investments. Capone said he broke the law to fill the nation’s demand for liquor:
“I make my money by supplying a public demand. If I break the law, my customers, who number hundreds of the best people in Chicago, are as guilty as I am. The only difference between us is that I sell and they buy. Everybody calls me a racketeer. I call myself a businessman. When I sell liquor, it’s bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on a silver tray on Lake Shore Drive, it’s hospitality.”
Prohibition encouraged a general disregard for the law. Even President Harding drank whisky and beer in the White House bedroom.
People grew increasingly distasteful of the oppressive means by which the government enforced Prohibition, as federal agents searched homes, tapped phones, and killed innocents.
During prohibition and because of the great depression, the federal government lost billions in potential tax revenues. By 1932, industrial production had fallen by more than half, and a quarter of the workforce was unemployed. If liquor were to be made legal and taxed again, the country could fill the gaping hole in its revenue sources. So , in 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt included the repeal of the 18th Amendment (prohibition) as a plank of his platform for election, and he won by a landslide. By December 1933, some 35 states had passed a referendum to reinstitute drinking, and Utah became the 36th and final state to cast its ballot to officially end Prohibition.
Methyl alcohol (CH OH, also called methanol or wood alcohol), which is sometimes used in antifreeze, is toxic if consumed. Isopropyl alcohol ((CH ) CHOH), also called rubbing alcohol, is also unsafe to ingest. The alcohol we drink is ethyl alcohol, or ethanol. Ethanol (CH CH OH, also called grain alcohol) can also be dangerous to consume, but many of us do so 3 2 anyway.
Beverages also can be distilled by freezing a fermented product and removing the ice, thus concentrating the alcohol. This process is called freeze distillation or jacking.
The word “vodka” means “little water” in Russian.
The strongest proof that any alcoholic beverage can be is 190. Above 95 percent alcohol, the beverage draws moisture from the air and self-dilutes.
The term proof comes from an old British navy custom, wherein the sailors would test their ration of rum to ensure that it hadn’t been watered down. To do so, they would douse gunpowder with their rum—if the alcohol content was 50 percent or greater, the gunpowder would burn. If the rum contained too much water, it wouldn’t ignite. Burning was “proof” that their rum ration was at least 50 percent alcohol.
Women tend to have more body fat and less body fluid than men, so if you were to give the same amount of alcohol to a woman and a man who weigh the same, the woman will usually have a higher BAC.
Some animals, such as elephants and dogs, have a nonfunctioning gene for ADH, such that a very small amount of alcohol may get them very drunk.
Those who drink more than 14 drinks per week lose approximately 1.6 percent of brain size compared to nondrinkers.
In England, pubs serve drinks in either pints or quarts. In old England, bartenders told their customers to mind their own pints and quarts, which is how the expression “mind your P’s and Q’s” originated.
People in every culture have experienced the misery of a hangover. The Germans call it katzenjammer, which translates to “the wailing of cats.” Norwegians complain about jeg har tommeermenn (“the workmen in my head”), and Irish bemoan ta dha cinn orm (“There are two heads on me”). In France, drinkers experience “woody mouth” ( gueule de boi s) and Italians are “out of tune” ( stonato ). The isiZulu word for hangover is isibhabhalazi , which might be particularly difficult to say if you are experiencing one. Perhaps hangover is best expressed in Latin: crapula.
Regarding alcohol related deaths, poet Dylan Thomas, whose last words were “I’ve had 18 straight whiskeys… I do believe that’s a record.”
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