PREFACE
1. “Psst: the speakeasy returns: the prohibition era hideaway finds a new—secret—home.” Restaurant Business, Apr. 2009: 20. “The modern speakeasy: a taboo’s irresistible appeal.” Art Culinaire, Spring 2010: 80.
2. Felicity Cloake, “The Modern Speakeasy: Felicity Cloake Celebrates a New and Sophisticated Golden Age of the Cocktail,” New Statesman (1996), September 19, 2011.
3. “Detroit dig uncovers hidden speakeasy.” Michigan History Magazine, 98.1 (2014): 9; “Mystery whiskey bottle ‘Belle of Dayton’ deepens tale of downtown Dayton’s secret speakeasy, pawn shop workers say.” Dayton Daily News (Ohio), February 9, 2013.
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCING “THE MAN IN THE GREEN HAT”
1. The act was named for Texas Senator Morris Sheppard on whose farm an illegal 130-gallon still was discovered during Prohibition. The fact that the farm was in Jollyville, Texas gave some the idea that the story was apocryphal, but it was true.
2. “When and How Prohibition Came to Washington,” The Washington Herald December 7, 1931. In 1931, when the article appeared, there were more than two thousand illegal operations in the city.
3. George L. Cassiday, “Cassiday, Capitol Bootlegger, Got First Rum Order from Dry.” Washington Post, October 25, 1930, p. 1. Cassiday seems to have gotten along as well with those who voted “Dry” as with those on the “Wet” side.
4. Literary Digest, “ ‘The Man in the Green Hat’ Uncovers,” November 22, 1930; p. 10.
5. Edward T. Folliard, “White House Hedge Hid Bootleg Gin.” Washington Post, December 6, 1953, p. B-1. The fact that Folliard could talk about his “favorite bootlegger” in print underscored the degree to which the press was wet.
6. Ibid., 1.
7. Interview with Frederick Drum Hunt by Sarah Booth Conroy, Washington Post, October 4, 1993, p. B-3. “Prohibition? Bottoms Up!”
8. “Old-Timers Dwell on Shoomaker’s Hey-Day Here,” Washington Daily News, December 5, 1933.
9. Frederick Tilp, This Was Potomac River (1978), 290.
10. R. L Hartt, “Prohibition as It Is,” World’s Work, XLIX (1925), 511–12, quoted in Preston William Slosson, The Great Crusade and After, 1914–1928, vol. 12 (New York: Macmillan Company, 1930), 115.
CHAPTER 2: UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
1. Marni Davis, Jews and Booze: Becoming American in the Age of Prohibition (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 147.
2. Frederic F. Van de Water, The Real McCoy (New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1931).
3. Herbert Asbury, The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1950), 247.
CHAPTER 3: GOTHAM
1. Al Hirschfeld, The Speakeasies of 1932 (Milwaukee, WI: Glenn Young Books, 2003), 9.
2. Preston William Slosson, The Great Crusade and After, 1914–1928, vol. 12 (New York: Macmillan Company, 1930).
3. “Oases Flourish Despite Gloom Along Rum Row,” New York Herald-Tribune, May 14, 1925; p. 1.
4. Slosson, The Great Crusade and After, 123.
5. Irving Fisher, Prohibition at Its Worst (New York: Macmillan, 1926), 101.
6. William E. Masterson, Jurisdiction in Marginal Seas: With Special Reference to Smuggling (New York: Macmillan, 1929), 358.
7. Cab Calloway and Bryant Rollins, Of Minnie the Moocher and Me, ed. John Shearer (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1976), 11.
8. Saul Pett, “Speakeasy Bouncer Remembers Fun and Frolic of the Twenties.” Milwaukee Journal, July 18, 1958; p. 12.
CHAPTER 4: THE RISE OF THE COCKTAIL CULTURE
1. H. L. Mencken, The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States, 2nd rev. ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1921), 99.
2. Max Rudin, “There Is Something about a Martini,” American Heritage, July–August 1997.
3. Ibid.
4. The Armchair James Beard, p. 196.
5. William Johnson, “Some Inside Stuff about New York,” The Sunday Star, December 24, 1922; p. 16. Also Evening Star, December 27, 1922; p. 1.
6. George Ade, The Old Time Saloon (New York: Ray Long and Richard R. Smith, 1931), 51.
7. Andrew Sinclair, Prohibition: The Era of Excess (Boston: Little, Brown, 1962), 239.
8. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “Our American Adventure,” The Evening Star, October 19, 1922, p. 6.
9. Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, 161.
10. Tom Pettey, “Dry Law Solves Christmas Gift Problem in N.Y.,” Chicago Tribune, December 17, 1928; p. 19.
11. Tori Avey of the History Kitchen made this assertion May 14, 2013.
12. George Jean Nathan and H. L. Mencken, The American Mercury, September 1924; pp. 57–63.
13. Sinclair (Boston, 1962), 233.
14. “Hergesesheimer Off, Flees ‘Bathtub gin,’ ” New York Times, September 1, 1932; p. 23.
15. Cab Calloway and Bryant Rollins, Of Minnie the Moocher and Me, ed. John Shearer (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1976), 10.
16. “Exiled Bartenders Ready to Return When Wanted Here,” Atlanta Constitution, June 5, 1926; p. 10.
CHAPTER 5: THE COCKTAIL AS ART AND ENTERTAINMENT
1. “Cocktail Hour’s Origin Disputed, But All of the Authorities Agree That It’s Old American Custom,” New York Herald-Tribune, June 19, 1934; p. A3.
2. Sinclair Lewis, The Man Who Knew Coolidge (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1928), 20-1. 60.
3. John C. Burnham, ed., Bad Habits: Drinking, Smoking, Taking Drugs, Gambling, Sexual Misbehavior and Swearing in American History (American Social Experience) (New York: New York University Press, 1994), 37.
4. Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, Mencken: The American Iconoclast (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 212.
5. Roy A. Haynes, Prohibition inside Out (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1923), 307.
6. Regan, The Joy of Mixology (New York: Clarkson Potter, 2003), 28.
CHAPTER 7: THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE COCKTAIL
1. H. L. Mencken, The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States, 2nd Rev. ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1921), 99. The manuals Mencken mentioned by name are: The Hoffman House Bartender’s Guide, by Charles Mahoney, 4th ed. (New York, 1916); in The Barkeeper’s Manual, by Raymond E. Sullivan, 4th ed. (Baltimore, n.d.); and in Wehman Brothers’ Bartenders’ Guide (New York, 1912).
2. H. L. Mencken, “Books about Boozing,” The American Mercury, October 1930; pp. 252–54.
3. Neil A. Grauer, “The Speakeasies I Remember: In a Last Conversation Before His Death at 99 This January, the Artist Recalled the Places He Visited, Drew, and Wrote About During Prohibition in New York City. You Can Still Lift a Glass at a Couple of Them. (Al Hirschfeld),” American Heritage, June–July 2003.
CHAPTER 9: DUFFY’S ASTERISKS
1. Salvatore Calabrese, Classic Cocktails (New York: Main Street, 2006), 122.
2. William Grimes, Straight Up or On the Rocks: A Cultural History of American Drink (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 103.
3. “Police Storm Deluxe Club, Seize Liquor,” Washington Post, November 4, 1933.
CHAPTER 10: THE FORMULARY—AKA “LIBERTY’S LIBATIONS”
1. William Guyer, The Merry Mixer or Cocktails and Their Ilk: a Booklet On Mixtures and Mulches, Fizzes and Whizzes (New York: Jos. S. Finch & Co., 1933), 18.
2. www.esquire.com/drinks/between-the-sheets-drink-recipe.
3. “How to Throw a Sure-Fire Party,” Washington Post, August 3, 1930; p. SM6.
4. “Holiday Hangover,” Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL), January 2, 2009.
5. Burns, Eric, The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004), 198–99.
6. Grosset & Dunlap, Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts (New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1949), 180.
7. Tallulah Bankhead, Tallulah: My Autobiography (New York: Harper, 1952), 95.
8. Beard, James, “Bloody Mary less Worcestershire? Bloody awful!” Washington Star, September 19, 1979.
9. Al Hirschfeld, Al, The Speakeasies of 1932 (Milwaukee, WI: Glenn Young Books, 2003), 54.
10. Fougner, G. Selmer, Along the Wine Trail Vol V (The Sun Printing and Publishing Association, 1937), 98.
11. Albert Stevens Crockett, Old Waldorf Bar Days, 1st ed. (New York: Aventine Press, 1931), 80–81.
12. “Bill W., 75, Dies; Cofounder Of Alcoholics Anonymous,” New York Times, January 27, 1971.
13. “The Navy Doctor & The Daiquiri,” The Grog: A Journal of Navy Medical History and Culture, Spring 2011: 23.
14. Sterling North, So Red the Nose, Or, Breath in the Afternoon (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1935), 8.
15. Baker, Charles H. Jr., The Gentleman’s Companion, Volume II (New York: Crown Publishers, 1946), 31.
16. Grosset & Dunlap, Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts, 116.
17. Neil A. Grauer, “The Speakeasies I Remember: In a Last Conversation before His Death at 99 This January, the Artist Recalled the Places He Visited, Drew, and Wrote about during Prohibition in New York City. You Can Still Lift a Glass at a Couple of Them.”
18. Norman H. Clark, Deliver Us from Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition, The Norton Essays in American History (New York: Norton, 1976), 213.
19. Richard Hughes, A High Wind in Jamaica (1929), 77.
20. H. L. Mencken, The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States, 2nd Rev. ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1921), 99.
21. Peter Tamony, “Martini Cocktail,” Western Folklore, 26, no. 2. April 1, 1967.
22. Max Rudin, “There Is Something about a Martini,” American Heritage, July–August 1997.
23. Max Rudin, “There Is Something About a Martini. (Cover Story),” American Heritage 48, no. 4 (July 1997); 32.
24. Barnaby Conrad, The Martini: An Illustrated History of an American Classic (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1995), 67–68.
25. “Nixon in Rebozoland,” Saturday Review, March 8, 1969; 109.
26. From About.Com, “Hollywood Cocktails.”
27. Brian Carpenter, “The South’s Thirsty Muse,” Southern Cultures, 6, no. 1, 2000.
28. “Book by Mrs. Doan Gives 83 Ginless Punch Recipes,” Washington Post, September 10, 1930; 1.
29. Michael A. Lerner, Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007).
30. Meigs O. Frost, “Creole Kitchens Monarchs Wait,” Evening Star (published as The Sunday Star), April 18, 1937; 62.
31. Quoting directly from The Boston Herald of January 16, 1924. “Delcevare King of Quincy last night announced that ‘scofflaw’ is the winning word in the contest for the $200 he offered for a word, to characterize the ‘lawless drinker’ of illegally made or illegally obtained liquor. ‘Scofflaw’ was chosen from more than 25,000 words, submitted from all the states and from several foreign countries. The word was sent by two contestants, so the prize will be equally divided between Henry Irving Dale and Miss Kate L. Butler.”
32. Roy A. Haynes, Prohibition Inside Out. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1923), 73.
33. Fletcher Dobyns. The Amazing Story of Repeal; an exposé of the power of propaganda (Chicago: Willett, Clark & Company, 1940), 185.
34. Prohibition at Its Worst (New York: Macmillan, 1926), 72.
GLOSSARY OF VOLSTEAD ENGLISH
1. Minnesota Gen. Statutes Suppl. (1888), 248.
2. Herbert Asbury, The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1950), 24.
3. Federal Writers’ Project, Kentucky: A Guide to the Bluegrass State (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939), 225.
4. Slosson, The Great Crusade and After, 117.
5. Mencken, The American Language, 99.
6. Roy A. Haynes, Prohibition inside Out (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1923).
7. Stanley Walker, The Night Club Era (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1933), 69.
8. Walker, 9.
9. New York Herald Tribune, March 1, 1924; 1.
10. Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History: www.historylink.org/This_week/index.cfm.
11. Thomas B. Allen, Declassified: 50 Top-Secret Documents That Changed History (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2008), 273 Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928).