#35: The History of Wine Part 7 of ? (Not Cliffs Notes, but Squire’s Notes)

The Volstead Act (Prohibition) triggered many changes in America.  When the law was enforced in 1920, a major part of America’s population still wanted to drink alcohol.  (Remember that many people mistakenly believed that lower alcohol beverages like wine and beer would not be included in the law….) Regardless, the ramifications of Prohibition, both short term and long term, were vast and far reaching….

Follow the money….

Initially, Prohibition’s backers felt that there would be little if any tax money lost due to the elimination of alcohol taxes.  They felt that any loss of revenue would surely be replaced by taxes on other industries that would benefit. That was not the case.  Real estate suffered (saloon spaces were left vacant) restaurants suffered (less dining out as people couldn’t order wine or a cocktail) and even soft drink sales surprisingly plummeted.  “A night on the town” had all but disappeared. 

It is calculated that during Prohibition, $11 billion in alcohol tax revenue was lost and over $300 million was spent in trying to keep alcohol away from Americans.  This huge loss of revenue plus the additional funds allocated for law enforcement started Congress to re-think what it had done. 

For the public, the law seemed to be contrary: the possession or consumption of alcohol was not illegal, but the manufacture, sale and transportation of it was.  The 18th Amendment seemed to say “it’s OK to have a drink, but you can’t buy one.” 

There were three possible legal solutions:  Homemade wine (but it required a lot of hard work and the end product wasn’t very tasty) a doctor’s prescription for “Spiritus Frumenti” (complicated, costly and hard to pronounce) or Sacramental wine (how often can you attend Holy Communion?) 

People are enterprising and when problems arise, they tend to find solutions.  Criminals are quite adept at this (look at our country’s huge drug problem).  Since there were huge profits to be made, “bootleggers” thrived. (“Bootlegging” originally referring to the practice of hiding illegal liquor in boot tops.)

Why was hard liquor preferred over wine?

European wine was hard to come by as it had to be smuggled through Canada (costly) or directly from Europe (very costly). Smuggling a case of wine or spirits would cost the same but selling spirits (with a higher percentage of alcohol) was more profitable.   The phrase “more bang for the buck” became commonplace.  If the penalties were the same but the profit margin for spirits was much greater, why bootleg quarters when you could bootleg potential dollars? 

“Moonshine”

Americans, for a long time, had been distilling their own spirits from starchy grains to create hard liquor known as “moonshine” (meaning “under the cover of darkness”).  Since alcohol couldn’t be purchased legally, Americans, particularly in rural areas, began to distill spirits in earnest, not only to supply themselves, but to sell their product for a profit to their thirsty neighbors.  Unfortunately, distillation is fraught with danger: fire and alcohol vapors are extremely explosive and the process is exacting: ethyl alcohol (the alcohol in alcoholic beverages) and its cousin methyl alcohol (which is deadly) are both produced during distillation.  Conscientious distillers are extremely careful to eliminate the methyl alcohol but, unfortunately, many of the rustic distillers in those days were not as meticulous. Professional stills were also made of expensive metals (copper) but some crude stills used whatever metal containers that might be available, and sometimes those stills would contain lead (toxic) from soldering the metals.  During fermentation, heat would allow some of those toxic elements to leach into the liquid and the beverage became deadly. 1000 Americans died each year from the effects of drinking tainted “moonshine”.      

Organized Crime

Since the commercial production of alcoholic beverages was illegal and there was so much potential profit to be made, crime became rampant.  Crime “families” competed for the biggest market share…and violence became commonplace.  Words like “Organized Crime” and “Mafia” became mainstream.  Murder and mayhem occurred daily in our large cities while police and enforcers of Prohibition were regularly rewarded “to look the other way”.  Gangsters like Al “Scarface” Capone, “Lucky” Luciano and “Bugsy” Moran are still identified today for their role in organized crime and bootlegging.  Memorable films like SCARFACE and THE UNTOUCHABLES have been made that romanticize the era.

Prohibition marched forward but the public continued to ignore “the law of the land”.  Obtaining illegal alcohol became mainstream. At the height of Prohibition there were no less than 32,000 secret clubs known as “speakeasies” (“speak-softly”) in New York alone.  It became quite fashionable to know a “secret handshake” or a “word” that would admit you to a club or a backroom where alcohol flowed, jazz was played, and folks could dance the Charleston.  The 21 Club in NYC became a household name throughout America.  The club boasted a secret room that was accessed through a hidden door in a brick wall that “those-in-the-know” could be admitted to.  In case of a raid, an elaborate system of levers was used to hide the liquor bottles.  Speakeasies thrived in almost every city in America. Even Petaluma boasted that before Prohibition they had 53 legal saloons in town, but after Prohibition that number had been reduced (by illegal speakeasies) to only 53!  (As a side note, NY’s 21 Club, sadly shuttered during Covid, carried our GlenLyon Syrah on its wine list for years!)

What about wine?

A few enterprising vintners, defying Prohibition, still sold wine they made illegally in hidden locations, much to the chagrin of the authorities.  Raids still happened, but police were paid off and wine was still being made.  Agua Caliente, Kenwood, Glen Ellen, Fetters Springs, Boyes Springs and the Russian River Resort area became enormously popular destinations.  Automobiles were not yet common but the Northern Pacific and Southern Pacific both ran train lines to Sonoma County.  With the influx of thirsty tourists here to “take the waters”, the local hotels and speakeasies thrived.  (Aldo Biale of Biale Vineyard’s called his illegal Zinfandel “Black Chicken”.  My 18 year old father used to reminisce about frequenting the Agua Caliente Casino and Hotel, circa 1932.  He would quietly ask the waiter if he had any “Black Chickens”. The waiter would wink and promptly run across the road to fetch a bottle of Biale’s wine!)     

The aftermath of Prohibition and wine

In the next article, we’ll chat about the long-term ramifications of the Volstead Act. 

Until then, find a friend, raise your two glasses of (legal) Sonoma Valley wine and celebrate. 

“Here’s to the people who are so dumb they think Prohibition is a law.” A toast commonly heard from 1920-1933