The modern cocktail movement began during Prohibition

With the craft beer and craft wine movements booming in America, it’s easy to forget that Prohibition was once the law of the land in the United States.

One hundred years ago, on January 17, 1920, Prohibition went into effect, and a year later Nebraska became the 36th of the 48 states in the United States to ratify the 18th Amendment. The law prohibits the production of drinks with an alcohol content exceeding 1%. Breweries, wineries and wineries across the United States are closed. Most have not reopened.

Prohibition may have long since expired, but the voices and cocktails it spawned are still with us. Much of the moonshine of that era was stomach-churning. The need to make this low-quality alcohol drinkable and provide buyers with a discreet place to consume it created a phenomenon that continues to this day with the cocktail craft movement and artificial voices.

For better or worse, Prohibition changed the way Americans drank, and its cultural impact has never really gone away. Bootleggers got creative during Prohibition

The main source of alcohol was denatured alcohol, which was used to make ink, perfume, and campfire fuel. About 3 gallons of gin or whiskey can be made from 1 gallon of denatured alcohol.

The authors of the Volstead Act, which implemented the 18th Amendment, had anticipated that denatured alcohol would have to be denatured, meaning it would be adulterated with chemicals that made it unfit for drinking. .

Smugglers quickly adapted and found ways to eliminate or neutralize these adulterers. This process changes the taste of the finished product, but not for the better. Despite the poor quality, about one-third of the 150 million gallons of industrial alcohol produced in 1925 is thought to have been diverted to the illicit alcohol trade.

The next most common source of alcohol that was banned was alcohol brewed in illegal stills, creating what was known as moonshine. By the end of prohibition, the Bureau of Prohibition was seizing nearly 250,000 illegal drinking paraphernalia each year. Orange County Sheriff's deputies dump illegal alcohol in Santa Ana, California. (Orange County Archives, CC BY)

This era of homemade alcohol was harsh. It's almost never barrel aged, and most moonshineers try to imitate the taste by mixing in some questionable ingredients. They discovered they could simulate bourbon by adding dead mice or rotting meat and letting it sit for a few days in the moonlight. They add juniper berry oil to the draft spirit to create gin, while mixing the juniper berry oil with creosote, a preservative made from wood tar, to recreate the smoky flavor of Scotch whisky.

There are few substitutes, but nevertheless these dubious versions of déjà vu remain popular.

Bootleggers prefer to trade in spirits rather than beer or wine because a bottle of moonshine gin or whiskey is much more expensive than a bottle of beer or wine. Before Prohibition, distilled spirits accounted for less than 40% of alcohol consumption in the United States. By the end of the "Noble Experiment", distilled spirits accounted for more than 75% of alcohol sales. To mask

the unpleasant taste and make the hard liquor palatable, drinkers and bartenders mixed it with a variety of condiments, usually sweet.

Gin was one of the most popular drinks of the era because it was often the simplest, cheapest and fastest drink: take some alcohol, dilute it with water, add glycerin and juniper oil, And then drink gin. For this reason, many cocktails made during Prohibition used gin. Popular inventions of the era included "the bees' knees," a gin-based drink made with honey to ward off unpleasant tastes, and Last Word, gin mixed with Chartres and Maraschino maraschino, it is said. It was invented at the Detroit Athletic Club in 1922.

Rum is another popular prohibition drink. The "Mary Pickford" is a cocktail invented in the 1920s that uses rum and red grapefruit juice.

Cocktail trends have also become an important part of home entertainment. With beer and wine in short supply, dinners featuring creative cocktails were held. Some people even skip dinner altogether and host the latest trendy cocktail party.

Cocktails have become synonymous with America, just as wine has become synonymous with France and Italy.

A modern movement was born in the late 1980s, as enterprising bartenders and restaurateurs sought to recreate the atmosphere of the Prohibition-era big saloon, serving creative cocktails in dimly lit lounges.

The modern craft cocktail movement in the United States may be traced back to the 1988 reopening of the legendary Rainbow Room in New York's Rockefeller Center. New bartender Dale Degroff has created a cocktail list filled with Prohibition-era classics, as well as new recipes based on timeless ingredients and techniques.

Around the same time, across town in Odeon, bar owner Toby Cecchini created Sex and the City's most popular international brand - a vodka martini served with Vietnamese Orange juice, lime juice and triple sec. On December 10, 1987, David Rockefeller joined the cigarette ladies at a party celebrating the reopening of the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center, New York. (AP Photo/Susan Ragan)

A movement was born: Bartenders became superstars, and new drinks with exotic ingredients like the Lost in Translation were added to cocktail menus. Lost in Translation – performed in Manhattan with Japanese whiskey, handcrafted absinthe and mushroom-flavored syrup – or Dry Dock, a gin soda made with cardamom bitters that’s simple and scented with lavender Syrup and grapefruit.

In 1999, legendary bartender Sasha Petraske opened the Milk and Honey Bar as an alternative to rowdy bars that made terrible cocktails. Petreske wanted a quiet bar with world-class drinks, where, according to the patronage code, there would be "no yelling, shouting, or other loud behavior," "gentlemen will not introduce themselves to ladies," and "gentlemen will not introduce themselves to ladies." Hats off. ”

Petreske insists on the highest quality wine and mixers. Even the ice is custom-made for each cocktail. Many of the clichés now seen in craft cocktail bars - big, hard ice cubes, bartenders with Edwardian facial hair and ties, rules for entry and service - originated with milk and honey.

Many early bars subscribed to the craft cocktail ethos to mimic the speech of the Prohibition era. The idea is to make them look special and unique, with some of the new "speakeasies" incorporating gimmicks such as requiring customers to enter behind bookshelves or through phone booths. Their purpose is for patrons to enjoy the drinks, not the band, not the food, not the pickup scene.

Fortunately, today's drinkers don't have to worry about Roberoot: The craft distilling industry offers delicious white spirits that can be enjoyed in cocktails or simply sipped neat. This article was originally published in The Conversation

Jeffrey Miller is an associate professor and program coordinator of hospitality management at Colorado State University