Thank You Prohibition

Regular readers of this blog know that we are always on the hunt for the one of a kind and unusual items for our clients.

I  will bet that you would not guess that we just bought an estate of copper spirit stills--the tanks-funnels-coils--the whole kit and kaboodles.  An old 1950s private dinner club nearby was changing their decoration scheme--and was unloading all sorts of stills.  We said--"gotta get those".

I needed to brush up on my history--and read that the American constitutional prohibition lasted from 1920-1933--longer than I originally thought.  That opened the watershed of gangsters and gin runners and gun molls and the stuff of Chicago legends.  And I guess the Beverly Hillbillies--didn't they have a still??

I dug into my stash of oddities and found this interesting Abstinence Society ribbon from the late 1880s.  "Liquid Devil" was the stuff of many marches and town meetings and ladies society lectures.

I remember heading off to college in Wisconsin--when the drinking age was 18.  Actually--alcohol was never a very big deal in our household.  People drank, but responsibly.  Truth be told, I sat on my first bar stool at age five sipping an Orange Crush while Grandpa had a 10 cent beer toot on a hot summer day.  That was the 1960s for you.

These fabulous stills will look super as decorator pieces in someone's man or woman cave.

From the corn mash of the 1920s to cocktail muddling of 2014.  Hard to believe that Prohibition lasted as long as it did.  We have come a long way from bathtub gin.

This little yummer was served to us at the Sloane Club in London in April.  Looking at it was as enjoyable as drinking it....almost.