The effect of booze upon horses is little studied. The effect of booze upon the horsey set is well documented. Anyone who has read Jilly Cooper knows this. Image, 2006.
Across from the Potala Palace, Tibet. 2004. Very depressing.
Now that it's over, there's one reason we can be happy about Prohibition: it gave birth to The Cocktail! Or, really, a whole lot of cocktails. Originally devised to hide the taste of bathtub gin and similar rotgut, inventing cocktail recipes has become a continuing... art? ... science? Picture ca. 1950.
1933 ad for a Brisbane liquor store. ‘Nurse Port’? ‘Hospital Brandy’? Man, those were the days.
U.S. Prohibition, 1919-1933. This is what happened last time the religious right got their hands on the legislators.
Gimmicky gifts are nothing new, apparently. ‘Coffret de valeur’ = ‘valuable chest’ = ‘crappy little case the recipient will drag around for years, too guilt-ridden to chuck it out, as it deserves’ 1923.
Smirnov's ad from 1917. *Cue ominous dah-dum sound from Law and Order* Pyotr Smirnov founded his vodka distillery in Moscow in the 1860s. He apparently paid off clergymen not to give anti-vodka sermons. Maybe connected to that, maybe not, in 1904 the czar nationalised the company, and the Smirnovs lost it. They left Russia in 1917 and resumed distilling their vodka in Constantinople (now Istanbul), then in Lwow, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine), then Paris (Paris) (some things you just don't mess with). The Smirnov name passed out of the family in 1933, when it was given the contemporary French spelling of Smirnoff. It currently belongs to (surprise) Diageo.
Demon drink! 1906.
Um... rioting for the right to drink Hulstkamp's Old Schiedam? 1900.
Beer, the sports drink of its day! And any other day, of course. But it 1899 they let you say it in the ads.
1896 ad for absinthe. What's the deal with absinthe? Well... during the early 1900s it had a reputation for having a psychoactive effect outside that of just plain alcohol, due to the presence of thujone, derived from wormwood. There were lots of different recipes used for absinthe, some with more thujone, some with less. Thujone has a similar effect upon you as booze. Absinthe had a very high alcohol content, either side fo 50%. So, probably everyone was just drunk, not drunkstoned. Today, various jurisdictions have various rules about what anything labelled 'absinthe' can contain, including rules about hyssop and fennel, which are flavourings. The only thing that's certain is that modern, legally-sold absinthe won't give you much more that yer standard hangover. Darn.
Seattle Brewing and Malting Co., ca. 1895. 'The bear The bear! And the maiden fair!' just refuses to go away.
Ancient Roman graffiti for a bar and house of ill repute, ca. A.D. 50. Photo credit: fark.com. All other photos, Wiki Commons.
