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English Pages 1627 [1674] Year 2015
The SAGE Encyclopedia of
Alcohol
SAGE was founded in 1965 by Sara Miller McCune to support the dissemination of usable knowledge by publishing innovative and high-quality research and teaching content. Today, we publish more than 750 journals, including those of more than 300 learned societies, more than 800 new books per year, and a growing range of library products including archives, data, case studies, reports, conference highlights, and video. SAGE remains majority-owned by our founder, and after Sara’s lifetime will become owned by a charitable trust that secures our continued independence. Los Angeles | London | Washington DC | New Delhi | Singapore | Boston
The SAGE Encyclopedia of
Alcohol Social, Cultural, and Historical Perspectives
Volume 1 Scott C. Martin/Editor Bowling Green State University
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ISBN 978-1-4833-2525-5 (cloth)
Executive Editor: Jim Brace-Thompson Cover Designer: Candice Harman Reference Systems Manager: Leticia Gutierrez Reference Systems Coordinators: Laura Notton Anna Villasenor Reference Production Manager: Eric Garner Marketing Manager: Carmel Schrire
Golson Media President and Editor: J. Geoffrey Golson Production Director: Mary Jo Scibetta Author Manager: Joseph Golson Layout Editors: Stephanie Larson, Oona Patrick Copyeditors: Jane Calayag, Rebecca Kuzins, Barbara Paris, Pam Schroeder, Jana Weinstein Production Editor: TLK Editing Services Proofreaders: Suzanne DeRouen, Kathy Hix Indexer: J S Editorial
14 15 16 17 18 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents Volume 1 List of Articles vii Reader’s Guide xv About the Editor xxii List of Contributors xxiii Introduction xxix Chronology xxxiii
A B
1 201
Articles
C D
327 449
Volume 2 List of Articles vii Articles
E F G H I J K
513 549 583 647 711 741 761
L M N O P R
775 819 893 927 937 1029
Volume 3 List of Articles vii Articles
S T U V
1099 1231 1299 1315
W Y Z
1345 1457 1461
Glossary 1465 Resource Guide 1475 Appendix A. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “Apparent per Capita Alcohol Consumption: National, State, and Regional Trends, 1977–2012” 1482 Appendix B: Toasts Around the World 1538 Index 1543 Photo Credits 1627
List of Articles A Abbey Ales Absinthe Adams, Samuel Addiction and Alcoholism, History of Adult Children of Alcoholics Advertising and Marketing, History of Africa, Northern Africa, Sub-Saharan After-Dinner Drinks Al-Anon Alateen Alcohol Abuse, Symptoms of Alcohol Abuse and Crime, Sociology of Alcohol Abuse and Violence Alcohol and Drugs History Society Alcohol Awareness Month Alcohol by Volume Alcohol Management, Effective Techniques for Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test Alcohol Violations, Penalties for Alcohol Withdrawal Scale Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs Alcoholics for Christ Alcoholism: Effect on Family Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, History of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Sociology of
Alcoholism Treatment, Sociology of Alcopops Ale Alexander the Great Algeria Amarone American Association for the Study and Cure of Inebriety American Council on Alcohol Problems American Council on Alcoholism American Medical Association American Temperance Society American Temperance Union Amethyst Initiative Amstel Amsterdam Group Ancient World, Drinking in the Anstie, Francis Anti-Saloon League Anton Proksch Institute Aperitifs Appalachian Moonshine Culture Applejack Aqua Vitae Archeological Evidence Argentina Art Arthur, Timothy Shay (T. S.) Asia, East Asia, South vii
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List of Articles
Asia, Southeast Association Against the Prohibition Amendment Atlantic City Australia and New Zealand Austria B Bacardi Bacon, Selden D. Bands of Hope Bar Bets Bar Hopping Barbera Barmaids Barolo Bars, History of Alcohol Abuse in Bartenders Against Drunk Driving Bartending Beaujolais Beck’s Beecher, Lyman Beer Beer Advertising Beer and Foods Beer Containers and Sales Beer Pong Beer Runs Beerhouses Belgium Belvedere Betty Ford Center Binge Drinking, History of Black Sheep Bitter Blackouts Bloody Mary Blue Laws Blue Ribbon Movement Body Shots Boilermaker Booze Bordeaux Bourbon Bourbon Advertising Bourbon Cocktails Brandy Brazil Breathalyzer Test Brewing, History of Brewing Beer, Techniques of Brooks, Foster
Brown-Forman Bryan, William Jennings Budweiser Budweiser Budvar Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Burgundy C Cabarets Cabernet Franc Cabernet Sauvignon Cadets of Temperance Cafés Campari Canada Capone, Al Caribbean Islands Carling Carlsberg Carnival Casinos Cassiday, George Catholic Total Abstinence Society Catholicism Chamberlain, Joseph Champagne Champagne Advertising Champagne Cocktail Chardonnay Chartism Cherrington, Ernest H. Chianti Chile China Christianity Churchill, Winston Cider Civil Damage Laws Cocktail Parties Cocktail Waitresses Cocktails and Cocktail Culture Cognac Cognac Advertising Cold Turkey Cold Water Army Colombia Columbia Winery Commodity Chain Analysis, Global Confucianism
List of Articles
Congressional Temperance Society Controlled Drinking, History of Cooking With Alcohol Coors Craft Brewing Culture Cross-Addiction Cruikshank, George Cullen-Harrison Act Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition, The Czech Republic D Daiquiri Dark Beer Daughters of Temperance Delavan, Edward C. Democratic Party, U.S. Denmark Depression, History of Alcohol and Designated Driver Detoxification, Health Effects of Detoxification, History of Diageo Disease Model of Alcoholism Doctor Bob S. See Smith, Robert Holbrook Domaine Weinbach Domestic Beer Dow, Neal Drama, Drinking and Temperance in Drinking, Anthropology of Drinking Establishments Drinking Games Drinking Songs Drunk-Driving Laws Drunken Behavior as Culturally Learned Drunkenness, Legal Definitions of Dry Cities and Counties Dutch Courage E Edwards, Justin Egg Nog Egypt Egypt, Ancient Eighteenth Amendment Energy Drinks Ethnic Traditions Ethnicity, Alcohol, and Health Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, Northern
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Europe, Southern Europe, Western F Farmhouse and Belgian Ales Fermentation: Ancient Era Through Middle Ages Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Fields, W. C. Fifteen Gallon Law Films, Drinking in Fine Dining Finland Fortune Brands Foster’s France French Colonial Empire Functional Alcoholic, Sociology of G Gandhi, Mohandas K. Garnacha (Grenache) Gender and Alcohol Abuse Gender and Alcohol Reform Gender and Drinking in Popular Culture General Court of Massachusetts (1657) Genetic Disposition, Alcoholism as a Germany Gewürztraminer Gimlet Gin Gin Advertising Gin Cocktails Gin Epidemic in England “Girl” Drinks Good Templars Gough, John Batholomew Grain Alcohol: Ancient Era Through Middle Ages Grant, Ulysses S. Greece Greece, Ancient Greene King IPA Grenache. See Garnacha (Grenache) Grog and the British Royal Navy Grolsch Guinness H Hair of the Dog Handsome Lake Happy Hour
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List of Articles
Hard Cider Harm Reduction Network Harveys Best Hazelden Foundation Heavy Drinkers, History of Heineken High License High-Potency Drinks History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 17th Century History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 18th Century History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 19th Century History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century History of Alcoholic Beverages Holidays Home Protection Homelessness and Alcoholism, History of Hong Kong Hooch Hoover, Herbert Humor Hungary I Identification, Checking India Indonesia Industry Overview Internet, Alcohol Industry and the Internet, Drinking and Drunkenness on the Iran Iraq Ireland Islamic Law Israel Italy J Japan Jazz Age Jefferson, Thomas Jellinek, E. M. Jello Shots Jewish Traditions John Smith’s Brewery Johnson, Enoch “Nucky.” See Thompson, Nucky
Journal of Studies on Alcohol Juke Joints K Kazakhstan Keeley Institutes Keggers Knights of Labor Kronenbourg Kuwait L Lager Lambrusco Last Call Latin America Legal Drinking Age: Rite of Passage LifeRing Light Beer Lincoln, Abraham Liqueur Advertising Liquor Boards Liquor Licenses Literature, Role of Alcohol in Livesey, Joseph Lloyd George, David Local Breweries Local Option London Pride Loyal Temperance Legion LVMH Moët Hennessy M Mafia Mail Order Alcohol Maine Law Malaysia Malt Liquor Manhattan Mann, Marty Mardi Gras Margarita Marsanne and Roussanne Marsh, John Martha Washington Societies Martin, Dean Martinis Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance Mathew, Father Theobald
Mead Medicinal Use, History of Merlot Mexico Middle East Military Use and Regulation of Alcohol Miller Brewing Co. Mint Julep Moderation Management Montepulciano Moonshiners Moral Attitudes Toward Alcohol Consumption Moral Suasion Mothers Against Drunk Driving Mugler v. Kansas Muscat Music Halls N Nation, Carrie National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence National Temperance Society and Publication House Native Americans Netherlands New Orleans Hurricane New Year’s Eve Nigeria Nonbeverage Alcohols, History of Non-Partisan Women’s Christian Temperance Union Norway Nutrition O Oglethorpe, James Old Fashioned Ottoman Empire Oxford Group P Pakistan Patent Medicines Peer Pressure Pernod Ricard Peroni Perry
List of Articles Personal Liberty League Peru Petite Sirah Philippines Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Moderate Use Pilsner Pinot Gris/Grigio Pinot Noir Poland Popular Music, Drinking in Portugal Portuguese Empire Post-Prohibition Bootlegging Precolonial Africa Pregnancy, History of Alcohol and Presidents, U.S. Prohibition Prohibition Party Proof, Alcohol Psychological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse Psychological Effects of Alcohol: Moderate Use Pub Crawls Public Service Announcements Pubs Punch R Rational Recovery Rechabite Friendly Society Recovery International Regulation of Alcohol Rehabilitation Centers, History of Religion Republican Party, U.S. Resorts Riesling Rioja Rituals Roadhouses Roman Empire Romania Roosevelt, Franklin D. Rum Rum Advertising Rum Cocktails Rush, Benjamin
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List of Articles
Russia Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies Rye S Sabine, Pauline Morton Sake Saloons, Modern Saloons, Wild West Salvation Army San Miguel Sangiovese Sangria Saudi Arabia Sauvignon Blanc Schnapps Scotch Scotch Advertising Scotch Cocktails Scotland Screwdriver Secular Organization for Sobriety Semillon Server Responsibility Laws, U.S. Serving Sizes Sexual Activity and Aphrodisiacs Sharp’s Doom Bar Shebeens Ships, Commissioning of Shooters Shot and a Beer Sinclair, Upton Singapore Slavery SMART Recovery Smith, Robert Holbrook Social Media Songs About Alcohol and Drinking Sons of Temperance South Africa South Korea Spain Spanish Empire Speakeasies and Blind Pigs Sporting Events Sporting Events, Sponsorship of St. Patrick’s Day Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem State Liquor Stores State Regulations After Prohibition, U.S.
Stella Artois Stereotypical Depiction of Alcoholics Stouts and Porters Student Culture, College and University Student Culture, High School Students Against Destructive Decisions Sweden Switzerland Synanon Syrah (Shiraz) T Taoism Taverns Taxation Television Temperance, History of Temperance Movement, The New Temperance Movements Temperance Movements, Religion in Tennent’s Tenskwatawa Tequila Tequila Cocktails Tetley Smooth Thai Beverage Thailand Thompson, Nucky 3.2 Beer Timothy Taylor Landlord Toasting Tobacco and Drugs, Alcohol’s Interaction With Towns, Charles B. Trotter, Thomas Turkey Twenty-First Amendment U Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Untouchables, The V Valpolicella Victorian England Vietnam Viniculture, Global History of Viognier
List of Articles
Vodka Vodka Advertising Vodka Cocktails Volstead Act Voluntary Committee of Lawyers W Wakes War Washington, George Washingtonians Wassail Webb-Kenyon Act Wheeler, Wayne Whiskey Rebellion Willard, Frances William Grant & Sons Wilson, Bill Wine, Banana Wine, Early History of Wine, Madeira Wine, Palm Wine Advertising Wine Connoisseurship Wine Coolers Wine Tasting
Wine Tourism Wines, California Wines, Cheap Wines, Cocainized Wines, Fortified Wines, French Wines, Fruit Wines, Red Wines, Rosé Wines, White Wittenmyer, Annie Turner Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Women for Sobriety Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform Women’s Temperance Crusade (1874) Workplace Drinking, Sociology of World Health Organization World Trade, History of Alcohol and Worthington’s Creamflow Y Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies Z Zinfandel
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Reader’s Guide Alcohol and Health Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test Alcohol Withdrawal Scale American Association for the Study and Cure of Inebriety American Medical Association Bacon, Selden D. Depression, History of Alcohol and Detoxification, Health Effects of Ethnicity, Alcohol, and Health Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Genetic Disposition, Alcoholism as a Jellinek, E. M. Keeley Institutes Mann, Marty Nutrition Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Moderate Use Pregnancy, History of Alcohol and Psychological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse Psychological Effects of Alcohol: Moderate Use Rush, Benjamin Rutgers Center for Alcohol Studies Tobacco and Drugs, Alcohol’s Interaction With Towns, Charles B. Trotter, Thomas
World Health Organization Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies Alcohol and Popular Culture Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture Appalachian Moonshine Culture Art Bar Bets Bar Hopping Barmaids Bartending Beer Pong Beer Runs Blackouts Body Shots Booze Brooks, Foster Cocktail Parties Cocktail Waitresses Cocktails and Cocktail Culture Drama, Drinking and Temperance in Drinking Establishments Drinking Games Drinking Songs Dutch Courage Fields, W. C. Films, Drinking in Gender and Drinking in Popular Culture Hair of the Dog xv
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Reader’s Guide
Happy Hour Hooch Humor Internet, Drinking and Drunkenness on the Jazz Age Jello Shots Keggers Last Call Literature, Role of Alcohol in Mardi Gras Martin, Dean Moonshiners New Year’s Eve Peer Pressure Popular Music, Drinking in Pub Crawls Sexual Activity and Aphrodisiacs Ships, Commissioning of Shooters Social Media Songs About Alcohol and Drinking Sporting Events St. Patrick’s Day Stereotypical Depiction of Alcoholics Student Culture, College/University Student Culture, High School Television Toasting Untouchables, The Alcohol and Reform Alcohol Awareness Month Alcohol Management, Effective Techniques for Alcoholics for Christ American Council on Alcohol Problems American Council on Alcoholism American Temperance Society American Temperance Union Amethyst Initiative Amsterdam Group Anstie, Francis Anti-Saloon League Anton Proksch Institute Arthur, Timothy Shay (T. S.) Association Against the Prohibition Amendment Bands of Hope Bartenders Against Drunk Driving Beecher, Lyman Blue Ribbon Movement Bryan, William Jennings
Cadets of Temperance Catholic Total Abstinence Society Chamberlain, Joseph Chartism Cherrington, Ernest H. Churchill, Winston Cold Water Army Congressional Temperance Society Cruikshank, George Daughters of Temperance Delavan, Edward C. Designated Driver Dow, Neal Dry Cities and Counties Edwards, Justin Gandhi, Mohandas K. Gender and Alcohol Reform Good Templars Gough, John Batholomew Handsome Lake Home Protection Knights of Labor Livesey, Joseph Lloyd George, David Loyal Temperance Legion Marsh, John Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance Matthew, Father Theobald Moral Attitudes Toward Alcohol Consumption Moral Suasion Mothers Against Drunk Driving Nation, Carrie National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence National Temperance Society and Publication House Non-Partisan Women’s Christian Temperance Union Oglethorpe, James Oxford Group Prohibition Public Service Announcements Rechabite Friendly Society Sabine, Pauline Morton Salvation Army Sinclair, Upton Sons of Temperance
Reader’s Guide
Students Against Destructive Decisions Temperance, History of Temperance Movement, The New Temperance Movements Tenskwatawa Wheeler, Wayne Willard, Frances Wittenmyer, Annie Turner Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Women’s Temperance Crusade (1874) Alcohol in Global Perspective Africa, Northern Africa, Sub-Saharan Alcohol and Drugs History Society Algeria Argentina Asia, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Australia and New Zealand Austria Belgium Brazil Canada Caribbean Islands Chile China Colombia Czech Republic Denmark Egypt Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Western Finland France Germany Greece Hong Kong Hungary India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Japan
Kazakhstan Kuwait Latin America Malaysia Mexico Middle East Native Americans Netherlands Nigeria Norway Pakistan Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Romania Russia Saudi Arabia Scotland Singapore South Africa South Korea Spain Sweden Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Vietnam Beers and Brewing Abbey Ales Adams, Samuel Ale Amstel Beck’s Beer and Foods Beer Containers and Sales Black Sheep Bitter Brewing, History of Brewing Beer, Techniques of Budweiser Budvar Carling Carlsberg Craft Brewing Culture Dark Beer Domestic Beer
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Reader’s Guide
Farmhouse and Belgian Ales Foster’s Greene King IPA Grolsch Guinness Harvey’s Best Heineken John Smith’s Brewery Kronenbourg Lager Light Beer Local Breweries London Pride Malt Liquor Mead Peroni Pilsner San Miguel Serving Sizes Sharp’s Doom Bar Stella Artois Stouts and Porters Tennent’s Tetley Smooth 3.2 Beer Timothy Taylor Landlord Worthington’s Creamflow Business of Alcohol Advertising and Marketing, History of Alcohol by Volume Alcopops Atlantic City Bacardi Beer Advertising Beerhouses Belvedere Bourbon Advertising Brown-Forman Budweiser Cabarets Cafés Campari Capone, Al Casinos Cassiday, George Champagne Advertising Cognac Advertising Commodity Chain Analysis, Global Coors
Diageo Energy Drinks Fortune Brands Gin Advertising Industry Overview Internet, Alcohol Industry and the Juke Joints Liqueur Advertising LVMH Moët Hennessy Mafia Mail Order Alcohol Miller Brewing Co. Music Halls Patent Medicines Pernod Ricard Proof, Alcohol Pubs Resorts Roadhouses Rum Advertising Saloons, Modern Saloons, Wild West Scotch Advertising Shebeens Speakeasies and Blind Pigs Sporting Events, Sponsorship of Taverns Thai Beverage Thompson, Nucky Vodka Advertising William Grant & Sons Wine Advertising Historical and Cultural Perspectives on Alcohol Abuse, Addiction, and Recovery Addiction and Alcoholism, History of Adult Children of Alcoholics Al-Anon Alateen Alcohol Abuse, Symptoms of Alcohol Abuse and Crime, Sociology of Alcohol Abuse and Violence Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs Alcoholism: Effect on the Family Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, History of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Sociology of Alcoholism Treatment, Sociology of Bars, History of Alcohol Abuse in Betty Ford Center
Binge Drinking, History of Cold Turkey Controlled Drinking, History of Cross-Addiction Detoxification, History of Disease Model of Alcoholism Drunken Behavior as Culturally Learned Functional Alcoholic, Sociology of Gender and Alcohol Abuse Harm Reduction Network Hazelden Foundation Heavy Drinkers, History of Homelessness and Alcoholism, History of LifeRing Martha Washington Societies Moderation Management Nonbeverage Alcohols, History of Rational Recovery Recovery International Rehabilitation Centers, History of Secular Organization for Sobriety SMART Recovery Smith, Robert Holbrook Synanon Washingtonians Wilson, Bill Women for Sobriety Workplace Drinking, Sociology of History of Alcohol Alexander the Great Ancient World, Drinking in the Archeological Evidence Beer Bourbon Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition, The Drinking, Anthropology of Egypt, Ancient Fermentation: Ancient Era Through Middle Ages French Colonial Empire Gin Gin Epidemic in England Grain Alcohol: Ancient Era Through Middle Ages Grant, Ulysses S. Greece, Ancient Grog and the British Royal Navy History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 17th Century
Reader’s Guide History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 18th Century History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 19th Century History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century Hoover, Herbert Jefferson, Thomas Journal of Studies on Alcohol Lincoln, Abraham Medicinal Use, History of Ottoman Empire Portuguese Empire Precolonial Africa Presidents, U.S. Roman Empire Roosevelt, Franklin D. Rum Russia Rye Scotch Slavery Spanish Empire Standard Cyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem Tequila Victorian England Vodka War Washington, George Whiskey Rebellion Wine, Early History of World Trade, History of Alcohol and Legal Regulation and Control of Alcohol Alcohol Violations, Penalties for Blue Laws Breathalyzer Test Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Civil Damage Laws Cullen-Harrison Act Democratic Party, U.S. Drunk-Driving Laws Drunkenness, Legal Definitions of Dry Cities and Counties Eighteenth Amendment Fifteen Gallon Law General Court of Massachusetts (1657) High License Identification, Checking
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Reader’s Guide
Legal Drinking Age: Rite of Passage Liquor Boards Liquor Licenses Local Option Maine Law Military Use and Regulation of Alcohol Mugler v. Kansas Personal Liberty League Post-Prohibition Bootlegging Prohibition Party Regulation of Alcohol Republican Party, U.S. Server Responsibility Laws, U.S. State Liquor Stores State Regulations After Prohibition, U.S. Taxation Twenty-First Amendment Volstead Act Voluntary Committee of Lawyers Webb-Kenyon Act Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform Liquor, Spirits, and Cocktails Absinthe After-Dinner Drinks Aperitifs Applejack Aqua Vitae Bloody Mary Boilermaker Bourbon Cocktails Brandy Champagne Cocktail Cider Cocktails and Cocktail Culture Cognac Cooking With Alcohol Daiquiri Egg Nog Fine Dining Gimlet Gin Cocktails “Girl” Drinks Hard Cider High-Potency Drinks History of Alcoholic Beverages Manhattan Margarita Martinis
Mint Julep New Orleans Hurricane Old Fashioned Perry Punch Rum Cocktails Sangria Schnapps Scotch Cocktails Screwdriver Shot and a Beer Tequila Cocktails Vodka Cocktails Religion, Tradition, and Alcohol Carnival Catholicism Christianity Confucianism Ethnic Traditions Holidays Islamic Law Jewish Traditions Religion Rituals Taoism Temperance Movements, Religion in Wakes Wassail Wines and Viniculture Amarone Barbera Barolo Beaujolais Bordeaux Burgundy Cabernet Franc Cabernet Sauvignon Champagne Chardonnay Chianti Columbia Winery Domaine Weinbach Garnacha (Grenache) Gewürztraminer Lambrusco Marsanne and Roussanne Merlot Montepulciano
Reader’s Guide
Muscat Petite Sirah Pinot Gris/Grigio Pinot Noir Riesling Rioja Sake Sangiovese Sauvignon Blanc Semillon Syrah (Shiraz) Valpolicella Viniculture, Global History of Viognier Wine, Banana Wine, Early History of Wine, Madeira
Wine, Palm Wine Advertising Wine Connoisseurship Wine Coolers Wine Tasting Wine Tourism Wines, California Wines, Cheap Wines, Cocainized Wines, Fortified Wines, French Wines, Fruit Wines, Red Wines, Rosé Wines, White Zinfandel
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About the Editor Scott C. Martin received a B.A. in history from Yale University, an M.S. in applied history and social science from Carnegie Mellon University, and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Pittsburgh. After earning his doctorate, he spent three years teaching at the University of California, Riverside. Since 1993 he has taught at Bowling Green State University, where he is professor of history and American culture studies, and chair of the Department of History. His research interests include the early national United States, 19th-century America, and the history of alcohol and drugs. He has published Killing Time: Leisure and Culture
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in Southwestern Pennsylvania, 1800–1850 (1995), which won the Phi Alpha Theta Best First Book award in 1997; Devil of the Domestic Sphere: Temperance, Gender, and Middle-Class Ideology, 1800–1860 (2008); and edited Cultural Change and the Market Revolution in America, 1789–1860 (2005). His articles have appeared in the Journal of the Early Republic, Journal of Social History, Journal of Family History, and Social History of Alcohol and Drugs. In 2013, he began a two-year term as president of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society. His current project is a study of alcohol and drugs in the American Civil War.
List of Contributors Charles F. Abel Stephen F. Austin State University Ellen M. Abrams New York University Matthew Allen University of New England R. Bruce Anderson Florida Southern College Kenneth Anderson Harm Reduction for Alcohol Stuart Anderson London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Thomas H. Appleton, Jr. Eastern Kentucky University Catherine Aquilina Florida Southern College Randolph G. Atkins, Jr. Independent Scholar Jeffrey S. Austin Florida International University Dorothy Badry University of Calgary Steven D. Barleen Northern Illinois University Linda Barley York College, University of New York John Barnhill Independent Scholar
Jim Baumohl Bryn Mawr College David Beckingham University of Cambridge David H. Bennett Charles Darwin University Clovis Bergère Rutgers University, Camden Marlene Oscar Berman Boston University Rebecca Bishop Independent Scholar Sarah E. Boslaugh Kennesaw State University April Bradley University of North Dakota Steven Bramley Florida Southern College Alexander Brooks University of Nevada School of Medicine Joel Butler Independent Scholar Daniel J. Calcagnetti Fairleigh Dickinson Univiversity at Florham Paul Candon Rutgers University Tanya M. Cassidy National University of Ireland, Maynooth Derek Chechak Memorial University of Newfoundland xxiii
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List of Contributors
Jill M. Church D’Youville College Carissa van den Berk Clark Washington University in St. Louis David Clemis Mount Royal University Brian A. Cogan Molloy College Robert Eric Colvard Wayne State College Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School Christina Cota-Roblas Florida Southern College Gordon A. Crews Marshall University Joanna Crosby University of Essex Judith Cruz Florida Southern College Jaslynn Cuff North Carolina Central University Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar Jennifer Cundiff Lindsey Wilson College Patricia P. Dahl Washburn University Marika Dawkins University of Texas, Pan American Joseph Dewey Broward College Christina Drymon Washington University, St. Louis Christopher L. Edwards Duke University Medical Center Meredith Eliassen San Francisco State University Shawn L. England Mount Royal University Ruth Engs Indiana University, Bloomington David M. Fahey University of Miami, Ohio Miriam Feliu Duke University Medical Center João Azevedo Fernandes Universidade Federal da Paraiba, Brazil Virginia Ione Folsom Iowa State University
Steven L. Foy University of Texas, Pan American Terrill L. Frantz Peking University Gregg Michael French University of Western Ontario Elizabeth Gabay Independent Scholar Kassandra Galvez Florida Southern College Matthew Geras Florida Southern College Joy Getnick State University of New York, Geneseo Camille Gibson Prairie View A&M University Marc D. Glidden University of Arkansas, Little Rock Tiffany R. Glynn Brown University Samantha Gonzalez University of South Florida Laura Graham Independent Scholar W. Scott Haine University of Maryland University College David J. Hanson State University of New York, Potsdam Ashleigh Hardin University of Kentucky Graham Harding University of Cambridge Francis Frederick Hawley Western Carolina University Erica Rhodes Hayden Vanderbilt University Kara Headley New York University Patricia Herlihy Brown University Jamie Hickey University of Calgary Lisa Hines Wichita State University Hang Kei Ho University College London Stephanie Honchell Ohio State University Elizabeth Hunt University of South Florida
Geoffrey Hunt Institute for Scientific Analysis Taylor Jardno Yale University Paul Jennings University of Bradford James John Bath Wine School Keith R. Johnson Oakton Community College Glenda Jones Sam Houston State University Robert Steven Jones Southwestern Adventist University Holly Karibo Arizona State University Jon Klos Florida Southern College James Kneale University College London Paul Komarek Independent Scholar David Korostyshevsky University of New Mexico Tetiana Kostiuchenko National University of Kyiv, Mohyla Academy Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar Thomas J. Lappas Nazareth College of Rochester Alexandria Lara Emporia State University Tanja C. Laschober University of Georgia Tiffany K. Lee Western Michigan University Anna Lembke Stanford University Pnina Levi Bar-Ilan University Cathleen A. Lewandowski George Mason University Carly Lightowlers Liverpool John Moores University Shentelle Livan North Carolina Central University Jared Lobdell Independent Scholar
List of Contributors Arthur J. Lurigio Loyola University Chicago Brian MacAuley Pennsylvania State University Chris Maggiolo Independent Scholar Tamara Martsenyuk National University of Kyiv, Mohyla Academy Jeremy Matuszak University of Nevada, Reno Annemarie McAllister University of Central Lancashire Kelly McHugh Florida Southern College Andrew McMichael Western Kentucky University Trudy Mercadal Florida Atlantic University David Michalski University of California, Davis Jeffrey P. Miller Colorado State University Shari Parsons Miller Independent Scholar Wilbur R. Miller State University of New York, Stony Brook Mel Moore University of Northern Colorado Sarah Kruman Mountain Wayne State University David Lee Muggleton University of Chichester William H. Mulligan, Jr. Murray State University Leslie Stelljes Nanson George Washington University James Nicholls London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Gerald E. Nissley East Texas Baptist University Patrick K. O’Brien University of Wisconsin, Whitewater Claire Organ University of Aberdeen David A. Patterson Silver Wolf Washington University, St. Louis Justin Paulette Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs
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List of Contributors
Courtney Peasant Duke University Medical Center Katie Penny Emporia State University Roger H. Peters University of South Florida Daniel W. Phillips III Lindsey Wilson College Rod Phillips Carleton University Noelle Plack Newman University Jason S. Plume Independent Scholar Rasa Pranskevičiūtė Vytautas Magnus University David C. Pratt College of William & Mary Michael J. Puniskis Middlesex University Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar Malcolm Purinton Northeastern University Emily Lauren Putnam Independent Scholar Penny Reddy North Carolina Central University Rosellen Reif Duke University Medical Center Stella M. Resko Wayne State University Wylene Rholetter Auburn University Isaias R. Rivera Tecnológico de Monterrey Julie Robert University of Technology, Sydney Julia Roberts University of Waterloo Gina Robertiello Felician College Wesley W. Roberts Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Elwood Robinson Cambridge College Richard L. Rogers Youngstown State University Paul M. Roman University of Georgia
Bryan D. Rookey University of Portland Susan Mosher Ruiz Boston University School of Medicine Richard Ruth George Washington University Robert A. Saunders Farmingdale State College Lauren Elizabeth Saxton City University of New York Stephen T. Schroth Knox College Julian Scott Prairie View A&M University Alexander Sessums Florida Southern College Adam Siegel University of California, Davis Frederick H. Smith College of William & Mary Mark C. Smith University of Texas at Austin Ludovic A. Sourdot Texas Woman’s University Michelle Stewart University of Regina Victor B. Stolberg Essex County College Joan M. Striebel University of California, San Francisco Erin Stringfellow Washington University, St. Louis Serenity S. Sutherland University of Rochester Emily Taylor Open University Katie Thomas University of North Dakota H. Paul Thompson, Jr. North Greenville University Thomas Thurnell-Read Coventry University Jay Trambadia Duke University Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University Lisa Turberfield University of Aberdeen James H. Tuten Juniata College
Michael Uebel University of Texas at Austin Annette Varcoe Independent Scholar Nicholas Van Allen University of Guelph Richard Van Dorn Research Triangle Institute John C. Wade Emporia State University Michael F. Walker Arizona State University Y. Yvon Wang Stanford University Judit Ward Rutgers University
List of Contributors Greg Widner Washington University, St. Louis Daniel K. Williams University of West Georgia Pamela Wiznitzer New York University Melda N. Yildiz Kean University M. Scott Young University of South Florida Till Zilian University of Graz Petra A. Zimmermann Ball State University Mariah Jade Zimpfer University of Edinburgh
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Introduction It would be difficult to overstate the ubiquity and importance of alcohol in human history. Even in prehistoric times, human beings produced and valued alcoholic beverages, reportedly using grain to ferment primitive versions of beer before discovering how to make bread. Written and archeological evidence from civilizations in Africa, Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, and elsewhere in the ancient world reveals that beer and ale production and use stretches back several millennia before the dawn of the Common Era. Winemaking and viticulture also date back more than 7,000 years, developing in diverse regions such as China, India, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Americas. As historian Gina Hames noted in Alcohol in World History, the production, “trade, consumption, and regulation of alcohol helped construct the economic, social, cultural, and political development of early civilizations.” In all of these civilizations, alcoholic beverages served a multiplicity of purposes: nutritional staple, exchange commodity, status symbol, medical treatment, gender identifier, social lubricant, ritual object, and many others. Beer, in the form of chicha, a fermented corn beverage, loomed large in the diet of ancient Andean peoples; in ancient Egypt, thick, porridge-like barley beer provided daily sustenance to much of the population and became a common element of hospitality to guests. Wine shaped
religious and cultural practices in many ancient civilizations. In Vedic India, priests fermented soma, a wine made from milkweed vines, attributing divine attributes to the beverage. Mesopotamian Jews celebrated wine as a gift from God, essential for social celebrations and religious rituals, as was also the case in China at least as far back as the Shang dynasty, 1600 b.c.e. Considering the omnipresence and significance of alcohol in ancient cultures, it is not surprising that legal and religious codes established regulations and standards for its production, distribution, and consumption. Official inspectors regulated the quality of wine sold in Egyptian taverns. Babylonia’s Code of Hammurabi, circa 2225 b.c.e., stipulated the prices, credit policies, and behavior of tavern keepers, many of whom were women, while also making them responsible for reporting any treasonous talk or actions that might occur in their drinking establishments. Perhaps more familiarly, the Hebrew Bible warned against the moral and spiritual consequences of overindulgence in wine. During the classical period between roughly 600 b.c.e. and 600 c.e., viticulture, winemaking, and consumption further developed in the great civilizations of India and China. Moreover, Greek and Phoenician traders spread various kinds of wine throughout the Mediterranean world, increasing its economic and cultural xxix
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importance in a variety of cultures. Wine also shaped imperial Rome’s social, religious, and cultural practices, which were then transplanted by conquering Roman legions to Britain and Europe as well as Asia Minor. As trade routes between and within empires formed, taverns and drinking places sprang up along them for the comfort and refreshment of travelers and merchants. By the beginning of the Common Era, trade and conquest had firmly established the consumption of wine and other fermented beverages in most parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia. Christianity’s use of wine for sacramental purposes expanded familiarity with the beverage still further, disseminating it throughout the remains of the Roman Empire, the Middle East, and Europe. For the next millennium, wine, beer, ale, and similar fermented beverages became objects of consumption and regulation all over the known world. Impact on Society The complexity and extent of alcohol’s impact on human societies increased as innovators created new, more powerful alcoholic beverages. Though the exact origin of distilling grain, water, and other ingredients into a beverage more potent and intoxicating than fermented drinks is unclear—by some accounts the Chinese had distilled liquor centuries before the Arabs discovered the process around the 10th century b.c.e.—the impact of these new potables on individuals and societies is undeniable. Distilled liquor could be produced any time of the year, unlike wine, and did not spoil quickly, unlike beer and ale. It traveled well, and its intoxicating potency delighted (some said ensnared) consumers, making it a valuable trade commodity during the early modern era and the Age of Discovery, as European colonists, conquerors, and merchants circumnavigated the globe. Rum produced from Caribbean sugarcane, for example, became an important element of the south Atlantic trading system of the 16th through the 18th centuries c.e., as Spanish, Portuguese, and English traders exchanged liquor for African slaves, who were then transported to the Americas as plantation labor to produce more sugarcane. The introduction of new, potent distilled beverages to populations unfamiliar with them often had negative, if not catastrophic, effects. French
and English traders who plied Native Americans with rum or whiskey to obtain pelts, land, or other commodities unleashed the horrors of alcohol abuse on societies ill-equipped to cope with the individual and social effects of intoxicating beverages. Even populations accustomed to fermented beverages might be disrupted by new drinks with higher alcohol content. Georgian England, for instance, experienced a “gin craze,” characterized by overconsumption and its attendant evils, as the laboring class switched from beer and ale to gin made inexpensive by government legislation. Since the 18th century, alcohol and drinking have remained pervasive and influential in the political, social, cultural, and economic life of the modern world. Governments have continued to regulate the production and consumption of alcohol, often deriving a significant portion of their revenue from excise and sales taxes on fermented and distilled beverages. Scientific and technological progress increased agricultural output and lowered the cost of producing and bottling alcoholic beverages, leading to increasing consumption in many parts of the world. In turn, the social problems caused by heightened levels of drinking—poverty, crime, domestic violence—produced public and private efforts to restrict production and consumption. During the 19th century, extensive temperance movements emerged in the United States and United Kingdom; anti-alcohol movements arose in other parts of Europe, Asia, and elsewhere somewhat later. In the early 20th century, the United States embarked on its noble experiment, national Prohibition, with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1919. Though Prohibition lasted little more than a decade, the issues, problems, and concerns surrounding alcohol that motivated the ill-fated reform persist, in various forms, in the United States and across the globe. The ongoing struggle to understand and reduce the social cost of individuals’ alcohol abuse has engaged scientists, medical doctors, the clergy, politicians, professors, social critics, and the general public. It has generated efforts ranging from self-help groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, to public awareness campaigns focused on the toll of alcohol abuse by lobbying groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, to legislative campaigns for civil liability
and server responsibility laws to hold alcohol vendors accountable for serving drunken patrons. Scope of the Encyclopedia The SAGE Encyclopedia of Alcohol: Social, Cultural, and Historical Perspectives aims at highlighting alcohol’s long and complex history and its role in the contemporary world. Unlike other encyclopedias, the present volume surveys the human experience with alcohol as far back into the past as possible, including articles on anthropological and archeological evidence to address periods and places lacking the written evidence favored by historians. Other entries provide insights into the evolution of alcoholic beverages, consumption patterns, and efforts to regulate or control drinking during the past three millennia or so, when societies did leave records of their activities. This volume also takes a broad geographic, as well as temporal, view of alcohol’s influence, incorporating discussions of national and regional drinking cultures, practices, and problems. How does the history and use of alcohol differ in predominantly Christian, as opposed to Muslim or Buddhist, societies? Why have some alcoholic beverages become so closely identified with particular nations: vodka for Russia, tequila for Mexico, and Scotch whisky for Scotland? Does geography shape drinking patterns and customs: are there similar forms of consumption and abuse in, for example, Scandinavia, Latin America, or sub-Saharan Africa, that differentiate their patterns of alcohol use from those in other regions? Since the discovery of fermentation, governments have struggled to control all aspects of alcohol use in order to diminish the negative consequences of abuse and overconsumption while profiting from the production, distribution, and sale of strong drink through taxation, monopoly, or other legislative means. Periodically, private interests and social groups have attempted to supplement legal regulations with reform efforts to discourage drunkenness, encourage temperance, or impose prohibition on their fellows. Consequently, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Alcohol: Social, Cultural, and Historical Perspectives devotes considerable attention to the lengthy history of alcohol reform movements, both public and private. The chronological and geographic sweep of its coverage allows readers to make
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comparisons between related reform impulses in different places and times. How did physicians and scientists understand intemperance during the 19th and 20th centuries, and how were their insights translated into reform ideology and governmental policy? Why do some societies—those of continental Europe, for example—express less concern about young people’s drinking, and alcohol consumption in general, than do others? What factors led to the demonization of some beverages, like absinthe, while others, such as Champagne, have acquired far more positive connotations? Why have some drinking spaces, such as the Parisian café, achieved respectability, while others, such as late-19th-century saloon, engendered suspicion and scorn? Where, in addition to the United States, has the drive for the complete abolition of alcohol use led to legislative prohibition? Through its series of broad-ranging articles on the reform and regulation of alcohol production and consumption, this volume provides insights for such comparisons. Reflecting increased interest during the past three decades among scholars and the general public in the popular culture of drinking, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Alcohol: Social, Cultural, and Historical Perspectives devotes considerable attention to the impact of alcohol and drinking on popular as well as high culture. Some occasions, such as spectating at many sporting events, lend themselves to alcoholic indulgence, while other popular leisure activities, such as attending the cinema or opera, do not. Holidays, depending on the location in which they are celebrated, also vary in the approved or expected amount of alcoholic consumption. Carnival, New Year’s Eve, and St. Patrick’s Day encourage excess, while other festive occasions do not. As the articles in this volume reveal, the depiction of alcohol in films, television, literature, and the popular arts provides a wealth of material for answering these and other questions about alcohol and popular culture. How have portrayals of drinking and alcohol abuse, for example, represented gender? Have ideas about the propriety of male and female drinking changed over time, and why? In what ways has the advertisement of alcoholic beverages influenced and been acted upon by larger cultural values related to public health, children’s welfare and education, physical
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fitness and well-being, corporate responsibility, and a host of other topics? In addressing these questions, the authors in this volume examine not only broad themes but also specific beverages. Though the history of brewing and distilling has long interested lay readers and scholars alike, coverage here extends not only to types of beverages, such as zinfandel, porter, and Cognac, but also to individual brands that have acquired historical relevance and cultural recognition, such as Guinness, Budweiser, or Pernod Ricard. Similarly, particular cocktails or combinations of alcoholic beverages receive attention for their distinctive histories as well as their social and cultural meanings. What are the connotations, for instance, of consuming malt liquor as opposed to light beer? A boilermaker instead of a manhattan? How has the social significance of the martini changed over time? When and why did a group of beverages known as “girl drinks” emerge?
The authors, editor, and publishers hope that The SAGE Encyclopedia of Alcohol: Social, Cultural, and Historical Perspectives will serve as a useful and engaging resource for lay and scholarly audiences who are interested in the history and influence of alcohol in its varied forms. Its scope, coverage, and focus set it apart from previous reference works on alcohol, as does its incorporation of the latest themes and developments from a variety of scholarly disciplines and perspectives. As the editor of the volume, I would like to thank Geoff Golson, Joseph Golson, and Lisbeth Rogers, whose organization and publishing knowhow facilitated the identification, recruitment, and scheduling of authors for more than 500 entries, and the authors themselves for sharing their expertise and enthusiasm. Scott C. Martin Editor
Chronology ca. 5400–5000 b.c.e.: Wine is regularly brewed and consumed in Haji Firuz Tepe, a Neolithic settlement in Iran, as indicated by archeological evidence. ca. 3100 b.c.e.: In the Dynastic Era in Egypt, wine is the normal drink of the societal elite, while beer is the drink of the working class. ca. 3100–2900 b.c.e.: Beer brewed from barley is created and consumed in Godin Tepe, a settlement in the Zagros Mountains of Iran, as indicated by archeological evidence. 2500 b.c.e.: Alcoholic beverages, including beer, are created and consumed on a large scale in the city of Ur, in Sumer, as indicated by archeological evidence. 2013 b.c.e.: A cuneiform tablet from the city of Ur contains the earliest known mention of wine—it is a receipt for a quantity of wine received by a cook. ca. 1260–1240 b.c.e.: Wine is repeatedly mentioned in the Greek epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, indicating the important place wine held in Greek society. ca. 484–406 b.c.e.: Life of the Greek poet Euripides, whose play the Bacchae portrays the
followers of Bacchus as women who drink to excess and unintentionally commit murder in a state of drunken frenzy. 186 b.c.e.: The Roman Senate issues a decree outlawing the performance of Bacchic rites in Italy, believing that the drunken followers of Bacchus pose a threat to public order. 154 b.c.e.: In order to increase demand for Roman wine, the Roman Empire prohibits the cultivation of grape vines beyond the Alps. 79 c.e.: The eruption of Mount Vesuvius buries the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, preserving them as time capsules of the Roman society. Later excavations reveal the key role played by wine in the contemporary culture; for instance, villas featured frescoes showing the production of wine and the legends of Bacchus, and Pompeii alone had 118 taverns. 609–632: Revelation of the Qur’an to Muhammad; this Muslim holy text prohibits consumption of alcohol. 637: In Syria, the Umar Pact allows Jews and Christians to produce and consume wine, although Muslims are prohibited from consuming alcohol. xxxiii
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c. 8th–11th century: Composition of Beowulf, an epic poem written in Old English; it makes many references to the importance of the mead hall in Anglo-Saxon culture. 936–1013: Life of the Islamic surgeon Al-Zahrawi, who describes the symptoms of heavy alcohol use, including convulsions, apoplexy, dementia, paralysis, gout, and liver disease. 1112: In Burgundy, France, the founding of the monastic order of the Cistercians by St. Bernard of Citeaux; they will become famous as wine producers. ca. 1230: Creation of the German manuscript the Carmina Burana, which contains many literary works celebrating the importance of alcohol consumption in contemporary student life. 1267: In England, Henry III issues the Assize of Bread and Ale, which sets maximum prices for ale and establishes quality control through the appointment of ale tasters. 1307: In England, King Edward II orders 1,000 tons of claret for his wedding, the equivalent of about 1.15 million bottles. 1494: Appearance of the first statute in England that regulates liquor licensing; it gives justices of the peace the right to restrict the sale of ale in areas where it is deemed problematic. 1496: In Nuremberg, laws restricting the sale of spirits go into effect; these include prohibition of the sale of spirits on Sundays and feast days and require that those purchased during the week be consumed at home. 1500: In Eberbach, the Cistercian monks create a wine barrel, or tun, holding about 70,000 liters, in celebration of their success as vintners. 1512: The Alsatian physician Hieronymous Braunschweig publishes the Big Book of Distillation, which praises alcohol for its curative powers. 1516: The Bavarian dukes Wilhelm IV and Ludwig X formulate a law regulating the purity of
beer, specifying that the only permissible ingredients are barley, hops, and water. 1528: In The Book of the Courtier, Baldassare Castiglione denounces drunkenness as the enemy of those who wish to succeed at court. 1529: In England, Henry VIII passes legislation barring the clergy from producing ale other than for their own use and from running taverns. 1541: The Codex Mendoza, a compilation of Latin American native beliefs, includes an image of young people being stoned for drunkenness. 1548: The agricultural treatise De Omnibus Agriculture Partibut, written by Henrichum Petri and published in Basel, includes a chapter on winemaking, the care of vines, and the means of preserving grapes. 1552: In England, the Licensing Act establishes standards for operating a tavern, including payment of a fee and convincing two local justices of one’s good character; additional provisions added in 1553 limit the number of taverns allowed in different cities. 1563: The Council of Trent issues a formal warning to Catholics against the practice of allowing religious festivals to degenerate into drunkenness. 1577: The first official census carried out in England finds that the country has one pub for every 187 residents, including 14,202 alehouses, 1,631 inns, and 329 taverns. 1584: In Ireland, the Lord Deputy issues a decree restricting the access of Irish peasants to whiskey, declaring that it “breeds many mischiefs.” 1608: In Ireland, Sir Thomas Phillips founds the Bushmills distillery on the banks of the River Bush; it is the first English-chartered brewery in Ireland. 1628: In England, Richard Rawlidge publishes A Monster Late Found Out and Discovered, a pamphlet denouncing what he identifies as social disorder caused by alcohol consumption.
1634: In New England (colonial America), every community is required to construct an inn, with prices for food and drink regulated by law. 1723: In England, per capita consumption of gin is more than one pint per week. 1729: In England, the Gin Act restricts the retail sale of gin to licensed premises, but these restrictions are largely ignored. 1736: The Anglican clergyman Thomas Wilson publishes Distilled Spiritous Liquors the Bane of the Nation, arguing that heavy drinkers harm commerce because they consume less food and clothing than they otherwise might. 1736: In England, Parliament passes a new Gin Act including heavy fines for home distilling and substantial rewards for informers; it also imposes an annual license fee on anyone selling gin in quantities of less than two gallons. 1743: In England, Parliament imposes a tax on gin, hoping that the higher price will limit demand. 1754: A pamphlet written by a Cherokee tribal leader denounces alcohol for the role he claims it played in the subjugation of his tribe by white settlers. 1784: The first steam engine is used for brewing at the Red Lion Brewhouse in London; within five years, all major brewers in London have also installed steam engines.
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1793: In Sydney, New South Wales (Australia), the first alcohol-related death is recorded: two women and an infant are drowned in Sydney harbor following a day of drinking. 1794: In Pennsylvania (United States), a band of rebels calling themselves the Whiskey Boys launch an insurrection against the federal government, protesting the imposition in 1791 of an excise tax on domestically produced spirits. 1794: The American physician Benjamin Rush publishes “Essay on the Effects of Ardent Spirits on the Human Constitution,” warning of the dangers of excessive alcohol consumption. 1795: In England, Patrick Colquhoun proposes limiting the number of public houses in London and requiring those that repeatedly change hands to close. 1796: Following the passage of licensing legislation, James Larra opens the Masons Arms in Parramatta, the first legal pub in Australia. 1805: In Connecticut (United States), the Reverend Ebenezer Porter delivers a sermon on temperance, drawing on the biblical passage Isaiah 5:11: “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them.” 1808: The first temperance society in the United States in founded in Moreau, Saratoga County, New York, by Dr. Billy J. Clark.
1788: An advertisement in the Lexington Gazette (Kentucky, United States) offers an exchange of a Negro slave for two copper liquor stills.
1810: In the United States, average annual per capita consumption of alcohol is 16 pints of whiskey and eight pints of beer.
1790: The United States adopts an excise tax on domestic whiskey of 9 cents per gallon; this is the first internal revenue measure imposed by the U.S. Congress. When the tax is increased to 25 cents per gallon, the result is the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794.
1813: In Boston, Massachusetts, the temperance organization the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance is organized by a group of Calvinist ministers.
1792: Dr. Pierre Ordinaire, a French immigrant to Switzerland, produces the first absinthe by combining wormwood and other herbs with alcohol.
1814: A serious industrial accident at the Meaux Brewery in London kills eight people; the accident is caused by the collapse of a giant vat of porter, which floods the surrounding houses, destroying several in the process.
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1814: In London, 14,000 citizens sign a petition protesting high beer prices and adulterated beer. 1820s: Wine is produced in New South Wales, Australia, on the estate of John Macarthur, who introduces vines from Europe and South Africa. 1825: In England, an act requires alcohol distillers to have licenses, bans them from acting as retailers, and bans the consumption of spirits in workhouses and prisons. 1828: In England, laws regarding liquor licensing are consolidated. Conditions imposed on those holding a license include not operating during the hours of Sunday worship, Christmas, or Good Friday; not adulterating the liquor; serving fair measure; and not permitting drunkenness or gambling on the premises. 1828: In England, about 50,000 establishments hold licenses allowing them to sell liquor on the premises. 1830: In the United States, a report about an election in Kentucky, published in the New England Weekly Review, makes clear how common the custom of bribing voters with alcoholic beverages has become. 1830: In England, the Beer Act allows anyone to brew and sell beer after paying a licensing fee; this law substantially increases the number of breweries and taverns in the country. 1831: In England, Joseph Livesey founds a temperance campaign based on two principles: that alcoholic beverages are not particularly nourishing, and that both ale and distilled spirits contain the same intoxicating agent, alcohol. 1833: In California, the French immigrant JeanLouis Vignes plants a vineyard near Los Angeles; by 1851, his Rancho El Aliso is producing 100,000 gallons of wine each year. 1834: In England, parliament member James Silk Buckingham calls for a select committee to investigate the causes and consequences of alcohol consumption among members of the working classes.
1834: In England, the British and Foreign Temperance Society (BFTS) has nearly 80,000 members and claims to have distributed over 2 million temperance tracts since the early 1830s. 1836: Charles Dickens denounces gin drinking as a “great vice” in England but notes that as long as the poor live in hunger and wretchedness, the appeal of gin will continue to increase. 1836: In the United States, the American Temperance Society (ATS) publishes research confirming Joseph Livesey’s contention that the same intoxicating substance—alcohol—is present in both “weak” spirits, such as wine, and “strong” spirits such as whiskey. 1837: In Australia, laws are passed to prevent Aboriginal people from accessing alcohol; although ineffective, these laws are not repealed until 1957 to 1975 (depending on the state or territory). 1838: The French physician Jean-Étienne Esquirol suggests that some people who drink to excess are victims of the disease of dipsomania, which existed prior to their consumption of alcohol. 1840s: Absinthe becomes popular in Paris, is celebrated by poets such as Paul Verlaine and Charles Baudelaire, and becomes known by nicknames such as “the white witch” and “the green fairy” (absinthe is green until mixed with water, at which point it becomes cloudy). 1842: In Plzen (now in the Czech Republic), the brewmaster Josef Groll creates pilsner, a pale, dry beer created with bottom-fermenting yeast. 1843: In the United States, the Washington Temperance Society, founded in Baltimore, Maryland, and named after the first American president, claims to have half a million members. 1847: In Leeds, England, the temperance society Bands of Hope is founded; it recruits primarily children, and by 1849 has about 4,000 members age 16 or younger. 1849: The American Temperance Union publishes The Glass; or, The Trials of Helen More,
A Thrilling Temperance Tale, a lurid novel written by Maria Lamas intended to discourage alcohol consumption by portraying its shocking consequences. 1849: Charles Dickens denounces the radical wing of the temperance movement, which wants to impose total abstinence from alcohol, a decision that ends his relationship with his former collaborator George Cruikshank, a teetotaler. 1850: In New South Wales, Australia, over 100,000 gallons of wine are produced. 1851: In the United States, prohibition becomes law in the New England state of Maine. 1853: In Manchester, England, the temperance society the United Kingdom Alliance is founded to advocate for the prohibition of alcoholic beverages; it has about 4,500 members by 1857.
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they receive accolades for their fine quality and diversity. 1855: Dyer Breweries in India becomes the first Asian brewery to be incorporated; the company was founded by Edward Dyer and produced beer primarily for British colonial administrators and troops stationed in India. 1857: In St. Louis, Missouri, the German immigrants Eberhard Anheuser and Adolphus Busch purchase a brewery and begin producing pilsner beer; some years later, the most famous brand from the Anheuser-Busch brewery is Budweiser beer. 1858: The Scottish physician Alexander Peddie proposes the creation of public institutions for the housing and treatment of habitual drunkards.
1853: In Scotland, following a five-year campaign led by members of the Scottish Church and Privy Councilor Lord Kinnaird of Rossie Priory, liquor sales are prohibited on Sunday.
1859: In California, the state legislature promotes wine production by granting tax-free status to wine produced during the first four years of production at new vineyards; by 1862, the state has 10.5 million grape vines.
1854: In the United States, T. S. Arthur publishes Ten Nights in a Bar-Room, a temperance novel that dramatizes in lurid fashion the purported evils caused by alcohol consumption.
1859: Edward FitzGerald publishes an English translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a collection of Persian poems notable for their celebration of wine consumption.
1854: In California, two German immigrants, Charles Kohler and John Frohling, buy a vineyard near Los Angeles and later expand their business to the area now known as Anaheim, which is producing 300,000 gallons of wine annually by 1862.
1861: In England, the Church of England Temperance Society (CETS) is founded following the publication of Haste to the Rescue, a temperance tract written by Mrs. Charles Wightman, which points out the potential links between evangelism and the temperance movement.
1855: In Sweden, Parliament passes a law allowing private companies to purchase and run the alcohol trade on a nonprofit basis; this system is first put into effect in Gothenberg in 1865. 1855: In The Shirley Letters, Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe describes the pervasive role of alcohol consumption in the culture of mining camps in the western United States. 1855: Several Australian wines are displayed at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, where
1862: The French scientist Louis Pasteur determines that yeast, a micro-organism discovered in 1836 by the German physiologist Theodor Schwann, is responsible for converting sugar into alcohol in beer and wine. 1862: The California winemaker Agoston Haraszthy, credited with introducing about 300 grape varieties to California, publishes Grape Culture, Wines, and Wine-Making. With Notes Upon Agriculture and Horticulture.
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1862: The insect predator phylloxera vastatrix, which has caused the destruction of many grape vines in the United States, is accidentally imported into France. It spreads from the Rhône Valley to Bordeaux, and by 1874 it is causing such devastation to the French wine industry that the French Ministry of Agriculture offers a prize of 300,000 francs to anyone who can prevent its spread.
on urban Africans and remains in place until the 1930s. As in the United States, prohibition fuels the growth of organized crime and leads to the development of many illegal drinking establishments, known in South Africa as shebeens; a third result is the arrest and prosecution of many Africans for alcohol-related offenses (over 200,000 people annually were convicted of alcohol-related offenses in the 1950s).
1864: The first U.S. asylum to treat drunkenness is established in Binghampton, New York; a second opens in Kings County, New York, in 1869.
1898: In England, the Habitual Inebriates Act creates reformatories to serve the needs of habitual drunks and allows anyone convicted of crimes involving drunkenness four times in a year to be committed to a reformatory for treatment. Somewhat surprisingly, most individuals committed to the reformatories are female.
1873: In the United States, 4,131 breweries are in operation, producing 9 million barrels of beer annually, a substantial increase from both 1860 (1,269 breweries and 1 million barrels of beer) and 1867 ( 6 million barrels of beer). 1874: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is founded in the United States in 1874 during a convention of the Women’s Crusade for temperance. 1876: In England, the British Medical Temperance Association is founded; it has over 900 members by 1898. 1876: In the United States, the teetotaler Rutherford B. Hayes is elected president; he imposes an alcohol-free environment on the White House, serving only nonalcoholic beverages, even during dinners for foreign dignitaries. 1882: The first lager brewery in Great Britain is founded in Wrexham, North Wales. 1884: In England, the British Journal of Inebriety begins publication; the first British journal specializing in studies of alcoholism, it continues to publish today as the British Journal of Addictions. 1897: In California, 34 million gallons of wine are produced, a substantial increase from 1891 (20 million gallons); in fact, the quantity of wine on the market causes a price crash. 1897: In South Africa, prohibition (a ban on alcohol production and consumption) is imposed
1907: In the United States, 80 percent of federal taxes are collected through alcoholic beverage taxes. 1913: In the United States, the best-selling author Jack London publishes John Barleycorn, or Alcoholic Memoirs, describing his personal experiences with alcohol. 1914: In England, the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) gives the authorities the right to restrict pub hours and liquor sales to members of the armed forces, as part of the national effort during World War I. 1914–18: During World War I, alcohol consumption is an expected part of the military routine for English, French, and German soldiers, but American soldiers are not allowed to drink while in uniform. 1915: In England, the Central Control Board is established to regulate the sale of alcohol in areas deemed crucial to war work. 1916: In the United States, 23 states have introduced prohibition legislation or altered their state constitutions in favor of prohibition. 1917: The Canteen Act of 1901 is strengthened to prohibit sale or consumption of alcohol within a 5-mile radius of American military camps.
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1919: In the United States, the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution becomes law, imposing Prohibition on the entire country.
1939: Alcoholics Anonymous, also known as “The Big Book,” is published and sets out the principles of the Alcoholics Anonymous organization.
1926: The biologist Raymond S. Pearl publishes Alcohol and Longevity, arguing that moderate alcohol consumption is healthy because moderate drinkers live longer, on average, than either alcoholics or teetotalers.
1940: In England, 12.5 percent of national revenues are raised by taxes on liquor, a substantial decline from the 30 to 40 percent common in the 19th century.
1930: In the United States, 282,122 illicit stills are seized, demonstrating the influence of Prohibition on the creation of illegally brewed alcohol; by contrast, in 1921, only 95,933 illicit stills were seized, and in 1925, 172,537. 1930: England introduces its first drunk-driving legislation in the Road Traffic Act of 1930; however, the lack of a clear method of establishing that a driver is too drunk to drive safely limits the effectiveness of the legislation. 1930: The first reported use of aversion therapy to treat alcoholism; it becomes widely adopted in the next few decades. 1932: In Norway, the Act concerning Temperance Committees and the Treatment of Alcohol Addicts requires that Norwegian towns establish a temperance committee to deal with problems stemming from alcohol abuse, including providing treatment to alcohol abusers and assistance to their families and conducting alcohol education programs. 1933: In the United States, the Twenty-First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, repealing Prohibition. 1933: In Germany, alcoholics are included among those who may be sterilized in order to prevent them from passing their presumably defective genes on to the next generation; by 1935, 561 alcoholics have been sterilized, constituting 41 percent of the “biologically defective” people who have been sterilized. 1935: In the United States, Alcoholics Anonymous is founded by Bill Wilson (known as Bill W.) and Dr. Bob Smith (known as Dr. Bob).
1940: The Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, the first specialized journal in the field published in the United States, begins publication; it continues to publish today as the Journal of Studies on Alcohol. 1945: The film The Lost Weekend, based on a novel of the same name by Charles R. Jackson about an alcoholic writer, is released. Directed by Billy Wilder and starring Ray Milland and Jane Wyman, it is nominated for seven Academy Awards and wins four: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay. 1950: Alcoholics Anonymous, with chapters in 26 countries and about 90,000 members internationally, holds its First International Conference. 1950: In England, the long-running television soap opera Coronation Street first airs. Set in a northern British city, one regular filming location is a neighborhood pub, which is presented as a “home away from home” for the characters. 1951: Antabuse (disulfiram), a drug that causes severe discomfort to those who drink alcohol, is offered as a treatment for alcoholism in the United States. 1956: The American Medical Association classifies alcoholism as a treatable illness. 1961: In England, The Licensing Act of 1961 increases opening hours for pubs, allows supermarkets to sell alcohol during all opening hours, and allows pubs to have recorded music without applying for a special license. 1962: The first Guinness brewery outside the United Kingdom is opened in Lagos, then the capital of Nigeria; success of this brewery prompted
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Guinness to open a second African brewery in Cameroon in 1970, and by 2014, Guinness was operating 13 breweries in Africa. 1962: In England, the Road Traffic Act of 1962 allows the police to test for blood alcohol concentration and for this information to be used against drivers in court. 1964: The Kemper Insurance Companies become the first in the United States to provide coverage for medical treatment of alcoholism and drug abuse. 1965: In California, Fritz Maytag buys 51 percent of the almost-bankrupt Anchor Brewing Company; he proves to be a leader of the craft brewing revival in the United States, with his most successful product Anchor Steam beer. 1967: In England, the Road Safety Act of 1967 allows police to test anyone suspected of driving drunk with a Breathalyzer, and sets the maximum blood alcohol level for legal driving at 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood. 1968: In Germany, the Supreme Court recognizes alcoholism as a disease, the treatment of which covered by the nation’s statutory insurance plans. 1970: Over 51 million gallons of alcohol are sold annually in the United Kingdom, a substantial increase from 1950 (14 million gallons) and 1960 (28 million gallons). 1973: Fetal alcohol syndrome, a birth defect among children born to alcoholic mothers, is identified by two researchers at the University of Washington, Kenneth Lyons Jones and David W. Smith. 1975: In Great Britain, Jeffrey Bernard begins publishing his column “Low Life” in the Spectator. The column chronicles his drinking experiences in a Soho pub and continues until his death in 1997 from alcohol-related conditions. 1975: Parliament in Norway passes a law banning print advertising of alcoholic beverages. 1976: An English wine merchant, Steven Spurrier, arranges a blind tasting of California and
French wines in Paris. This event, later known as The Judgment of Paris, plays a key role in winning international respect for American wines, as many of the California wines are judged to be superior to the French. 1980: In the United States, Candy Lightner’s 13-year-old daughter is killed by a drunk driver, an event which leads Lightner to found Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). 1981: In Massachusetts, health educator and coach Robert Anastas develops a course to discourage students from driving while intoxicated, motivated by the deaths of two of his students in separate alcohol-related accidents. Students who complete the course form an organization known as Students Against Driving Drunk (SADD); the name is later changed to Students Against Destructive Decisions. 1981: At the urging of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD), the United States issues the first postage stamp intended to raise public awareness about alcoholism. 1982: In Great Britain, the Royal College of Physicians decides that the safe limit of alcohol consumption for an adult male is 56 units (a unit being 0.8 grams of pure alcohol) per week, equivalent to about nine bottles of wine; in 1987 this recommendation is lowered to 21 units for males and 14 for females. 1984: In the United States, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 requires all states to raise the drinking age to 21 or face a reduction in federal highway funds; the act is motivated in part by the high proportion of teenagers involved in drunk-driving accidents. 1987: During a Super Bowl commercial for Bud Lite, the character of Spuds MacKenzie (an English bull terrier) is introduced to the public as part of a responsible drinking campaign. 1989: In the United States, federal legislation requires warning labels be placed on alcoholic beverages, warning of the danger of alcohol
consumption during pregnancy and of the dangers posed by driving or operating machinery while drunk. 1991: In the United States, the Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act of 1991 requires that employees working in transportation industries (including mass transit, trucking, and aviation) be subject to random alcohol testing while on duty. 1991: The presumed health benefits of wine consumption are publicized through the U.S. television program 60 Minutes, which features an episode on the French Paradox: although French citizens eat more fat and smoke more than Americans, they have fewer heart attacks, a result attributed to the consumption of red wine. 1991: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, current drinking (in the previous month) among 18- to 20-year-olds in the United States dropped to 40 percent, as compared to 59 percent in 1985. 1993: In the United States, the final episode of Cheers, a television series set primarily in a pub in Boston, is the most watched television program of the year. 1994: K. K. Bucholz and colleagues in their Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism develop the Semi-Structured Assessment for the Genetics of Alcoholism (SSAGA), a diagnostic interview instrument for adults that allows assessment of an individual’s alcohol use and dependence, as well as manifestations of acute and chronic alcohol use in the physical, social, psychiatric, and psychological spheres. 1995: In Great Britain, the government recommends that men should drink no more than three or four units of alcohol (a unit being 0.8 grams of pure alcohol) per day, and women no more than one or two; the same recommendation defines binging as consumption of more than 10 units in one sitting for males, and more than seven units at one sitting for females. 1995: In the United States, for the first time the U.S. Dietary Guidelines include a cautious
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endorsement of the health benefits of moderate drinking for some people. 1997: In the United States, the voluntary Beer Institute Advertising and Marketing Code of 1997 instructs companies to promote responsible drinking; to avoid depicting intoxication, underage drinking, and drunk driving; and to not use cartoon characters in ads. 1998: In Great Britain, Helen Fielding’s popular novel Bridget Jones’s Diary features a female young adult character who regularly drinks in excess of the recommendations issued by the Royal College of Physicians. 1998: In Great Britain, 55 percent of male 14and 15-year-olds and 53 percent of female 14and 15-year-olds admit to having consumed an alcoholic drink in the previous week, a substantial increase from 1996 (29 percent of males and 26 percent of females). Some attribute this trend to the ready availability of sweet alcoholic sodas or “alcopops,” such as Two Dogs alcoholic lemonade. 1999: According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), alcohol is the most common drug for which Hispanic youth in the United States seek addiction treatment. 2001: According to the Pew Institute, American youth are exposed to more alcohol advertising in magazines than American adults: 45 percent more advertising for beer and ale, 27 percent more distilled spirits advertising, and 60 percent more advertising for low-alcohol refreshers. 2001: According to a study by R. A. Shults, R. W. Elder, D. A. Sleet, and colleagues, U.S. states that raised the legal drinking age to 21 experienced a median decline of 16 percent in motor vehicle crashes among young people under age 21. 2002: According to the Pew Institute, 12 of the 15 television programs (in either Spanish or English) most popular with Hispanic youth in the United States feature advertising for alcohol; in addition, the beer and ale industry has the
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seventh-highest industry spending on Spanish language television. 2003: In the United States, according to estimates by the Federal Trade Commission, the alcohol industry spent about $5.4 million on advertising and promotion in 2003. 2003: According to a research study by C. F. Garfield, P. J. Chung, and P. J. Rathouz, the number of ads for beer and distilled spirits has increased alongside increases in youth readership: for every 1 million readers age 12 to 19, ads for beer increased by 1.6 times and distilled spirits ads climbed by 1.3 times. 2003: Research published in Alcohol and Alcoholism indicates that per capital alcohol consumption in China increased over 50-fold between 1952 and 2002. 2004: The feature film Sideways, about two middle-aged men taking a trip through California wine country, is nominated for four Academy Awards and wins one, for Best Adapted Screenplay. 2005: In the United States, imported beers hold a 12 percent share of the market, with microbrews holding 3.5 percent, and the remainder of the beer consumed produced by 38 major breweries. 2006: In the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, excessive alcohol consumption costs $223.5 billion, which comes to about $746 per capita or $1.90 per drink. Most of the cost is due to declines in workplace productivity (72 percent), followed by health care expenditures (11 percent), criminal justice expenses (9 percent), and the costs of motor vehicle crashes (6 percent). 2006: In Texas, the campaign Operation Last Call allows undercover agents to require anyone drinking in a bar who appears to be drunk to take a breath test and allows agents to charge them with public intoxication if their blood alcohol content is too high. 2006: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2006 in the United States,
excessive drinking resulted in 2.7 million physician visits and 1.2 million emergency visits, with the total national economic costs of excessive drinking estimated at $223.5 billion. 2009: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about two out of three high school students who drink engage in binge drinking. 2011: Russia passes legislation that classifies beer as an alcoholic beverage, allowing it to be regulated by the government; previously, any beverage with less than 10 percent alcohol content was classified as food and hence unregulated. 2011: According to The Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health from the World Health Organization, almost 4 percent of all deaths globally are attributed to alcohol (2.5 million deaths per year), and alcohol is a causal factor in 60 types of diseases and injuries. Globally, alcohol is the third-largest risk factor for disease burden, the second-largest in Europe, and the largest in the western Pacific and the Americas. 2011: In August, the World Trade Organization rules that a tax on alcohol imports in the Philippines violates global free trade agreements. 2012: According to Nielsen, in 2012, online wine sales in the United States increased 15 percent over 2011 levels. 2012: In October, the British company Diageo began selling Ruut Extra, a beer brewed from cassava, in Ghana. 2012: The German Brewer’s Federation announces that imported beer made up 8.1 percent of sales by volume in 2012, double the level in 2004. 2012: According to the Brewers Association, the U.S. beer market in 2012 is about $99 million and 200 million barrels of beer (one barrel equals 31 gallons), with craft beers accounting for 15 percent of the volume and 17 percent of retail dollars. 2012: According to Jon Fredrikson of Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates, in 2012 the United
States is the largest wine market in the world, with wine sales of 360.1 million 9-liter cases, a 2 percent increase from 2011. Of that total, 58.8 percent of U.S. sales are of California wine. 2013: According to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, 335 out of 364 attempts by U.S. states to raise taxes on alcohol have been defeated since 2001, in marked contrast to the number of states that have increased taxes on tobacco products. 2013: In January, taxes on beer in France are increased by 22 cents per liter, a 160 percent increase, as part of an effort to fund social programs. 2013: In August, researchers at the University of Catania in Sicily announce a project to grow grapes and produce wine using techniques similar to those documented by the ancient Romans. 2013: In September, a draft of the Control of Marketing Alcohol Beverages Bill, which would restrict alcohol advertising and sponsorship in South Africa, was approved by cabinet and scheduled for public comment. 2013: In November, a team of American and Israeli architects announce they have found evidence that sophisticated winemaking techniques were used in a 3,700-year-old wine cellar in a Canaanite palace in Israel. 2013: In December, the Union of German Brewers apply for United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural (UNESCO) World Cultural Treasure status for the 1516 Bavarian law that states that beer can be made only from water, barley, and hops.
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2013: In December, the Advertising Standards Authority in the United Kingdom bans a television ad by the Coalition of UK Brewers on the grounds that it implies that alcohol can improve an individual’s popularity and confidence. 2014: According to the World Health Organization, alcohol consumption for people age 15 and older is highest in Belarus (with a per capita consumption equivalent to 37 pints [17.5 liters] of pure alcohol annually), Moldova (35 pints [16.8 liters]), and Lithuania (32 pints [15.4 liters]), and lowest in Mauritania, Kuwait, Libya, and Pakistan (all 0.2 pint [0.1 liter]). 2014: In April, Indonesia’s Ministry of Commerce issues a new set of regulations governing the sale of alcohol, including restricting the types of stores that can sell it, prohibiting consumption of alcohol at the place of purchase, and only allowing retail sales to persons age 21 and older. 2014: In August, authorities in the Kerala state of India announce plans to ban the sale and consumption of alcohol, with controls and eventual prohibition phased in more than 10 years. 2014: In October, a report by the Centre for Automotive Safety Research at the University of Adelaide indicates that alcohol poses a far greater risk, in terms of automobile accidents and deaths, on Australia’s roads than does drug use. 2014: In Karachi, Pakistan, at least 21 people die in a single week in October from drinking tainted alcohol, drawing attention to ongoing sales of illegal alcohol despite a ban on alcohol consumption for Pakistani Muslims in place since 1977. Sarah E. Boslaugh Kennesaw State University
A Abbey Ales Many of the world’s most celebrated beers come from Belgium. Abbey beers are beers that at one time were or presently are associated with a Roman Catholic religious order. In the Middle Ages, many monasteries brewed numerous varieties of beer for their own use, as the rules of these orders stressed self-reliance and sustainability. Some monasteries, in order to fund their mission, sold certain highly specialized brews to the public, usually ones containing higher alcohol content. Beer, due to the presence of grains and later hops, was easier to make than wine and safer to drink than water. Most abbeys stopped making beer during the turmoil of the French Revolution, when monasteries were destroyed and those in religious orders who did not flee were persecuted and some put to the guillotine. Production resumed in the 1800s and in some cases much more recently. In the interim, interlopers interposed beers using inferior products and labeled them as abbey or Trappist beers. Imitation Abbey and Trappist Beers In 1960, the Orval abbey finally sued to prevent a commercial brewery from using the label Trappist. In 1962, Belgian courts ruled that a distinction had to be made between Trappist- and abbey-style beers. This has not prevented the proliferation of
many fine abbey beers that are not affiliated with the Trappist order. Some abbey beers are made by commercial firms that have special arrangements with a religious order to use their “brand,” but the monks may have nothing to do with the actual process and may not even have furnished a recipe at the inception of the arrangement. Still, the order may benefit from receiving a percentage of sales of the product. Most true abbey products are brewed in Belgium and the Netherlands, but there is one authentic abbey ale, Ovila, that is made in Vina, California, by the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in conjunction with the monks of the abbey of New Clairvaux. Some are also brewed in Austria, but abbey-type beers have proliferated worldwide and are now widely brewed by microbreweries in the United States, having caught on as a style. While many of these beers are lacking in the traditional qualities that one associates with Belgian-style abbey products, some are wonderfully authentic and worthwhile. In this regard, the writings and opinions of beer connoisseur Michael Jackson have been extremely influential. Indeed, his work has spawned what might be termed “beer-drinking Baedekers,” which refers to guidebooks featuring the better Trappist and abbey-style breweries of Belgium for the discerning “beer tourist.” Today, an entire tourist niche has been created to feed, house, and 1
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serve beer drinkers who flock to rural Belgium to sample the local brews. Brussels and Bruges have many fine beer bars and stores featuring abbey, Trappist, and other fine examples of traditional Belgian brews. Abbey Ales Abbey ales are all top-fermented, producing notes of fruity and spicy flavors. Generally, the term abbey ale includes many dominant beer varieties. While it is assumed that most are dark, somewhat sweet, and strong, this is not invariably the case. Tripels are golden ales ranging from 7 to 10 percent in alcohol content and may be somewhat sweet and malty. Dubbels are dark ales whose alcohol content usually ranges from 7 to 7.5 percent. They often have a sweet, chocolate-caramelcoffee taste. Some ales, like Rochefort, have a distinctive fruity quality and little hoppy bitterness. Monks themselves usually drink the weaker singel, sometimes called table beer, and limit themselves to one beer per day. A few American microbrewers and some in Europe have ventured to produce quadruples. These ales are strong, at 14 percent alcohol, have a distinctive fruity and liqueurlike taste, and are not held in high regard by Belgian-oriented beer purists. It is noteworthy that these proclaimed beer connoisseurs insist that fine beers are to be drunk in glasses peculiar to the specific brewery and the type of beer to be sampled. Beer is to be lightly sniffed in the goblet or chalice before sipping; it is never to be gulped or guzzled. Trappist Beers A subset of abbey ales, usually considered categorically distinct, is Trappist ale. These ales, which carry a distinguishing hexagonal seal on each bottle, are brewed with the active participation or supervision of Trappist monks, though most of the actual work is done by people who are not in religious orders. These beers, of uniformly excellent quality and reputation, have had a significant influence on brewing in the Low Countries and on the innovations in microbrewing that took place in the United States during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The seven Trappist breweries in the Low Countries include Achel, Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Koninghoeven, Westmalle, and the legendary Westvleteren.
Trappist brews do not enjoy great antiquity, as they only date to the 1930s. Most breweries in monasteries produce three beers listed in ascending order of strength: a singel, a dubbel, and tripel. Although some Trappist breweries feature more variety, these three beers are the basis of their production. The most famous is the excellent Chimay, which produces four beers. The products of Notre Dame de Scourmont, or the Chimay abbey, are probably the most familiar to consumers in the United States, with distinctive blue, red, and tan labels, and can be found in all states that allow beers of higher alcohol content. The Koningshoeven
This prized Westvleteren Blonde abbey ale has a 5.8 percent alcohol level. Among abbey ales, golden ales known as tripels range from 7 to 10 percent in alcohol content, while dark dubbel ales usually range from 7 to 7.5 percent.
Absinthe
abbey is the only Trappist brewery located in the Netherlands, and it produces eight beers. The most fabled of the Trappist beers, probably the most legendary beer in the world, is Westvleteren. The Westvleteren Legend While Westvleteren is an excellent product, its status lies in its legendary inaccessibility, scarcity, and unavailability. Put simply, it is hard to get. The St. Sixtus Trappist abbey only produces 4,200 U.S. barrels per year and only brews once a week. All the work is done by monks, the abbey seldom allows guests, and it allots its output through a lottery that is based on telephone. The winners are limited to five cases of 24 bottles and must pick it up using their own vehicles. The license plates are cross-checked by monks to make sure that beer dealers are not getting unauthorized access. The monks do not actively market, label, or advertise the beer, and its fame has spread worldwide by word of mouth. Although the beer is not for resale, this stipulation is widely ignored. That notwithstanding, the beer is hard to find even in the best Belgian beer bars. Those who have been able to get a bottle (some may be fakes) treasure the distinctive caps as souvenirs and usually retain the memory of a great beer-drinking experience. However, while Westvleteren is truly an exceptional beer, many feel that it is in no way superior in quality to Rochefort or the other fine Trappist beers; the sentiment is that its scarcity and inaccessibility have created a legend that has perhaps unfairly elevated the product to an unmerited degree. Francis Frederick Hawley Western Carolina University See Also: Ale; Beer; Belgium; Europe, Western; Farmhouse and Belgian Ales; Religion. Further Readings Dubrulle, Bernard. Petit Futé Guide to Belgian Beers. Brussels: Neocity, 2005. Jackson, Michael. Michael Jackson’s Great Beers of Belgium. Boulder, CO: Brewers, 2006. Oliver, Garrett. The Brewmaster’s Table. New York: Ecco, 2003. Oliver, Garrett. The Oxford Companion to Beer. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
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Absinthe The beverage known as absinthe has a long and storied history that often obscures the reality of the drink’s properties as well as its origins. The name absinthe is derived from the plant Artemisia absinthium (popularly referred to as wormwood), native to temperate portions of Eurasia and Africa. Several medicinal texts from the ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman worlds make mention of early forms of absinthe. According to Pliny, beverages distilled with the essence of the plant caused contractions in the stomach, helped expel bile, acted as a diuretic, and helped eliminate gas. In the Middle Ages, absinthe was additionally believed to remedy illnesses particular to women. Some also argue that absinthe was used as an abortifacient, although this point is difficult to establish—it certainly was one of the many drugs available to women that might induce a miscarriage, but it appears that it was used with the intended goal of reestablishing a regular menstrual flow rather than ending a pregnancy. It was not until the 19th century that absinthe became the widely popular staple of French café culture that we are most familiar with today. There are several popular tales in France regarding the origins of modern absinthe production. Some argue that the monks of Saint Benoit, situated near the French–Swiss border, had been producing the beverage for quite some time before passing the recipe along to a Dr. Pierre Ordinaire, who had exiled himself from Paris to Couvet for political reasons following the revolution. In other accounts, Ordinaire, riding through Neuchatel, Switzerland, happened across a folk remedy that utilized absinthe, and he prescribed it to his own patients. The most popular version has it that Ordinaire learned the recipe specifically from women of the Henriod family, also Swiss. All three of these stories have the benefit of giving credit to the French for the spread of absinthe as we know it today. While Ordinaire did indeed live and practice medicine in Switzerland, the dates of his life do not bear out any of these stories. Instead, it was the matriarch of the Henriod family, whose name has not been preserved, who created and initially distilled modern absinthe in Neuchatel. There is also good evidence that Madame Henriod
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Absinthe
marketed the drink Extrait d’Absinthe as having medicinal qualities. In 1798, Major DanielHenri Dubied bought the recipe, and with the help of Abram-Louis Pernod, Dubied opened a distillery. Business was so successful that Pernod opened his own distillery, which quickly proved too small. In 1804, in order to avoid taxes applied to foreign goods, Pernod moved his facility across the border into Pontarlier, France. In 1805, Pernod established Pernod Fils, the first and best-known French distillery of absinthe. Marrying Dubied’s daughter in 1807, Pernod solidified his dominance in absinthe production, although other producers also rose up in the next 20 years. It was not until 1830 that absinthe began to be more widely popular, oddly enough as a result of the French invasion of Algeria, undertaken by the Bourbon Restoration monarch Charles X. Absinthe, which was still perceived to have medicinal qualities, was prescribed to soldiers in Algeria in order to prevent both dysentery and malaria. After the war, soldiers fondly recalled their consumption of absinthe in the hot, dry climate and its central role in breaking up the monotony of garrison life, and absinthe consumption continued at a high rate among French men in Madagascar in the subsequent invasion. Indigenous populations also came to drink absinthe regularly, much earlier than the French in the metropole, in fact. A number of French absinthe producers constructed factories close to the colonies as a result, and postcards from Algiers and other large colonial cities in the early colonial years show cafés papered with advertisements for the beverage. As these soldiers came back to Paris, they encouraged café owners and goers alike to take notice of the drink. Demanding it in the wellknown cafés of the grands boulevards, such as Café du Helder, while on medical leave, the soldiers simultaneously popularized the drink and continued to perpetuate the belief that absinthe contained medicinal properties. It also appears that many Parisians associated it with the exoticism that they believed defined life in Algeria. By 1870, absinthe was widely available in the chic cafés that lined newly widened Parisian streets, where a bourgeois public culture was asserting itself. In the final third of the 19th century,
fashionable, middle-class French men and women regularly spent a portion of their evenings at cafés, slowly drinking while socializing with their peers. Respectable women regularly drank absinthe in these settings, often saying that their physicians had recommended it for their poor stomachs, although no such excuse was strictly necessary to justify the drink’s consumption. Absinthe lent itself particularly well to this habit, as its consumption was drawn out by the traditions surrounding it. When a Parisian ordered absinthe in an upscale café, the waiter brought not only the drink itself in an elaborate glass chalice but also an absinthe spoon (a flat, wide, dull knife with decorative designs cut into it), several sugar cubes, and a carafe of water. The drinker would, at his or her leisure, place the spoon across the top of the chalice, position the sugar in the center, and pour the water over the sugar until it dissolved completely. This operation would be repeated several times as the glass became depleted. To drink absinthe without first diluting it in this manner was completely unacceptable by middle-class café standards. By 1880, it appears that this ritualistic consumption was popularly referred to as l’heure verte (the green hour, in reference to the color of absinthe), lasting from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Bohemian Culture The drink’s popularity, however, was not limited to the middle class. Absinthe was, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, associated with French artists who self-identified as bohemians. Manet, Van Gogh, and Picasso are some of the most wellknown enthusiasts of the beverage. By the end of the 20th century, absinthe was less expensive than wine, and some estimates put French consumption at 21 million liters. These painters, writers, and actors often congregated in specific cafés, defining a social world for themselves that, by necessity, included the consumption of alcohol. Congregating in the Latin Quarter until 1860, these artists began to explore the cafés of the grand boulevards, where they discovered the congenial nature of absinthe consumption, and to set up their own establishments in working-class Montmartre. Circles formed around specific artists and their favorite cafés. These bohemian artists not only socialized
in the cafés over absinthe, they also depicted them in their work. One of the most famous images of absinthe comes from Edgar Degas’s 1876 work, Dans un café, ou L’Absinthe (in a café, or Absinthe). The painting shows a young bohemian woman and man seated next to each other, each staring morosely off into the distance, totally disconnected from one another. A glass of absinthe sits before the woman. Degas, however, was far from the only artist to make absinthe a central character in his work—Jean Béraud’s Le buveur d’absinthe, Vincent van Gogh’s L’Absinthe, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Monsieur Boileau au café, all featured glasses of absinthe. Beyond providing subject matter, however, many believed that absinthe’s hallucinogenic properties also inspired artists. Albert Maignan’s 1895 work Green Muse, which shows a floating woman in a green dress placing her hands on a poet’s forehead, illustrates this popular belief. Temperance advocates pointed to the altered mental state associated with absinthe to argue in favor of a ban on distillation prior to World War I. Despite these claims, modern analyses of absinthe as it was commonly distilled in these years have given lie to the idea that wormwood inspired hallucinations. It appears that the psychoactive properties of the thujone in wormwood are negligible—instead, it was the high percentage of alcohol in the drink that caused an altered state of mind. The alcohol percentage of absinthe varied significantly between distillers, but anywhere from 45 to 75 percent alcohol by volume was common (for reference, traditional vodka today is distilled at 40 percent alcohol by volume). Nonetheless, popular culture portrayals of absinthe have continued to perpetuate the belief that absinthe induces hallucinations. While absinthe consumption was highest in France during these years, the beverage also began to spread throughout Europe, most notably to the Czech Republic (then a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire), Great Britain, Spain, and the United States. Well-known authors, such as Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, enjoyed the Sazerac, perhaps the first cocktail to incorporate absinthe, at The Absinthe Room in New Orleans and added to the impression that absinthe could aid the creative process. Additionally, many nonFrench who drank absinthe associated themselves
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Absinthe preparation at the Armand Guy distillery in Pontarlier, France, in 2013. A large absinthe “fountain” with spigots allows for a slow stream of water to pass through the sugar on the absinthe spoon and into the full-strength absinthe in the glass.
with the norm-rejecting bohemian culture of Paris and thus expressed their identity through consumption of the beverage. Absinthe’s association with the bourgeoisie was not nearly so strong outside of France, and the drink was best known for its ability to quickly and effectively intoxicate the drinker rather than for the congeniality that accompanied its consumption. Ban and Revival Despite the popularity of the beverage, some believed it was a dangerous substance that ought to be banned. Antialcoholism and temperance advocates seized on the claims of physicians such as Frenchman Valentin Magnan, who argued that absinthe was more harmful than other distilled alcohols. In cruel laboratory experiments, physicians injected rats and gerbils with wormwood,
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which induced seizures and death, in order to prove that absinthe was a neurotoxin. In the 30 years prior to the outbreak of World War I, some physicians embraced the name absinthism to describe a disease more dangerous and deadly than alcoholism. Initially banned in colonies such as the Congo Free State, most European nations, excepting Spain and Portugal, outlawed the production of absinthe prior to World War I. It was only in 1915, just after the beginning of the war and the accompanying concerns over the health of the young male population (many speculated that absinthe would ravage the bodies of potential soldiers), that the French banned absinthe. Following this ban, a number of anise-flavored liqueurs, known as pastis, became popular. Pastis, however, was bottled with sugar (hence the designation liqueur), did not include wormwood, and was distilled at a generally lower percentage of alcohol by volume. The popularity of these drinks grew quickly, particularly in the South of France, and today, pastis remains one of the most widely consumed beverages in France. In the years following the ban, an aura of mystery began to build around absinthe. Outside of Spain and Portugal, where distillation continued all along, absinthe did not begin to become available again until 1988, when the European Union passed a series of food and beverage regulations that effectively legalized the drink once again. Although there were initial attempts to prevent this, French producers sidestepped them through clever labeling, and in April 2011, the French Senate voted in favor of once again legalizing absinthe. The Swiss and Italians similarly re-legalized absinthe in the early 21st century, and the United States allowed distillation in 2007, with strict prohibitions against any thujone in the beverage. Although modern scientific experiments have demonstrated that the amount of wormwood in absinthe is not sufficient to induce hallucinations, an aura of mystery and danger continues to surround absinthe. Lauren Elizabeth Saxton City University of New York See Also: Aperitifs; Art; Cabarets; Cafés; France; High-Potency Drinks; Pernod Ricard; Wines, French.
Further Readings Adams, Jad. Hideous Absinthe: A History of the Devil in a Bottle. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004. Baker, Phil. The Book of Absinthe: A Cultural History. New York: Grove Press, 2003. Conrad, Barnaby III. Absinthe: History in a Bottle. New York: Chronicle Books, 1997. Delahaye, Marie-Cluade. L’Absinthe: Son Histoire. Auvers-sur-Oise, France: Musée de l’Absinthe, 2001. Noël, Benoît. A Comme Absinthe, Z Comme Zola. Sainte-Marguerite des Loges, France: Lieu Doré, 2006.
Adams, Samuel Samuel Adams was a historical politician from Boston, Massachusetts, who served as an inspiration for popular resistance to various British tax acts leading up to the American Revolution. He was one of the delegates who signed the Declaration of Independence and a representative in the Continental Congress, the governing body of the new United States during the American Revolutionary War. Although his radicalism led to his becoming less popular in the aftermath of the revolution, he was elected governor of Massachusetts in 1794. Because of both the politician’s strong association with Boston and his willingness to stand up to powerful political and economic forces, in the 1980s the craft beer pioneer James “Jim” Koch would choose the name Samuel Adams to use as the title of the signature label for the Boston Beer Company. Samuel Adams Boston Lager became one of the most prominent beverages during an innovation in craft brews that took place during this decade. In Koch’s vision, the beer Samuel Adams was the brew that emerged in the marketplace to do battle against large brewers like Anheuser-Busch and Miller, ushering in a microbrew revolution. Adams’s partial likeness graces the labels of most of the brewery’s bottles, along with the moniker “Brewer-Patriot.” The Historical Figure Adams was born in 1722 to Samuel Adams, a successful businessman and tax assessor in Boston,
Massachusetts, during the colonial era. The younger Samuel Adams received a Harvard education and considered careers in the ministry, law, and business. Despite the beer company’s claims, Adams had limited experience as a brewer, if any. One of his father’s businesses was a malt house in which barley was sprouted, roasted, and then grown, which turned it into the “malted barley” or “malt” that is then ground and used in the brewing process. The elder Adams turned over the management of the malting business to his son, who never excelled at the job and eventually turned to politics. In politics, Adams found his true calling. One of his jobs was actually working as a tax collector for the Town of Boston, an elected position. While he would later gain fame for resisting British taxation of the colonies, this position served a different function from that which he would protest, in that the taxes he collected were passed by the elected representatives of the colonists in Boston. Because he witnessed the destructive potential of taxation, Adams was particularly sensitive to the various British tax acts of the 1760s and 1770s and wrote statements condemning the various British schemes designed to raise revenue by taxing the colonists in the aftermath of the French and Indian War. Adams and the Revolutionary Movement Adams’s protests of the Stamp Act of 1765 helped propel him onto the political stage. As a leading member of the Boston Caucus, a quasigovernmental group that put forth candidates for the Massachusetts Assembly, he earned a reputation for being able to speak with and influence the “rabble,” or the lower and working classes. In some of the popular protest movements that were taking place at the time, tax collectors and other royal officials were burned in effigy or otherwise physically intimidated. While some leading governors attributed these events to Adams’s “rabble rousing,” many historians downplay his direct role in encouraging the street violence that accompanied these protests. The protests against the various tax laws eventually led to the Boston Tea Party, where some colonists, who were encouraged, if not accompanied, by prominent leaders like Adams and John Hancock, tossed tea owned by the British
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East India Company into Boston Harbor. This precipitated the Coercive Acts, a series of laws intended to punish Boston and the entire colony of Massachusetts for its rebelliousness. As part of their crackdown on colonial resistance, they sought to seize arms that were being stored in Concord, Massachusetts, and possibly to capture Adams and Hancock, who were seen as fomenting rebellion. These objectives were the motivation behind the British march to Concord, an act that resulted in the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. This event is considered to be the starting point for the American War for Independence. Throughout much of the war, Adams served as a Massachusetts representative to the Continental Congress. After the revolution ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the United States witnessed a backlash against the more radical elements of the revolutionary movement, and the states ratified the Constitution of the United States. When Samuel Adams died in 1803, he had become a symbol of the more radical elements of the revolutionary age. He had also burned many of his private papers, vexing his biographers in the coming centuries. Few monuments to him were built or biographies written until well into the 19th century. He had, however, been painted by John Singleton Copley in 1772, at the height of his popularity. Founding of Samuel Adams Boston Lager In 1984, Koch, a Harvard graduate, as was Adams, began to create Samuel Adams Boston Lager, which would eventually be the flagship label of the Boston Beer Company. Along with Anchor Steam, Sierra Nevada, and a few others, Samuel Adams Boston Lager was in a minority of beers that were produced by brewers pushing back against a nearly century-long trend in the United States of mass production of light lagers. Because of Koch’s personal connection with Boston and Adams’s brief association with the brewing industry, Samuel Adams was chosen as the name for the brand label. The image on the label, though it has changed over the years, depicts a markedly younger Adams than the one in the famous Copley painting. The vest and white shirt are remarkably similar to those in another Copley painting, that of Paul Revere, depicted in 1768.
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The resemblance has encouraged some to suggest that the label’s image of Samuel Adams is in fact an artist’s composite rendition of a younger Samuel Adams wearing the iconic garb of Paul Revere, another leader of the colonial resistance in Boston. Thomas J. Lappas Nazareth College of Rochester See Also: Beer Advertising; Brewing, History of; Brewing Beer, Techniques of; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 18th Century; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Industry Overview; Local Breweries. Further Readings Alexander, James K. Samuel Adams: America’s Revolutionary Politician. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. Boston Beer Company. “Samuel Adams: History.” http://www.samueladams.com/history (Accessed October 2013). Fischer, David Hackett. Paul Revere’s Ride. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Holl, John and April Darcy. Massachusetts Breweries. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 2012. Ogle, Maureen. Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2006. Young, Alfred F. The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution. Boston: Beacon, 1999.
Addiction and Alcoholism, History of Alcohol addiction and alcoholism have been prevalent terms referring to harmful, chronic drinking from which the individual drinker is unable to refrain. The term alcoholism only gained currency in the mid-19th century, yet concerns about persistent drinking and its negative personal and social consequences have been evident since the earliest textual references to the production and consumption of intoxicating drinks. Throughout history, the pleasures of drinking have been
celebrated, but anxieties have also been expressed about particular individuals’ apparently uncontrollable desires to become intoxicated. Since at least the early 17th century, such desires, often cast as a kind of self-compulsion, have been described as “addictions.” Nearly every society that has produced and consumed alcohol has had some conception of individuals who drink in a compulsive and uncontrollable fashion with the goal of becoming intoxicated, often despite an awareness of the harm caused by drunkenness and a desire to stop excessive drinking. Although the particular terms alcohol addiction and alcoholism arose in specific historical contexts, their contemporary resonance is attached to long-held conceptions of compulsive, excessive, and damaging drinking. Nevertheless, while general concerns about the character and costs of such types of drinking have persisted throughout history, the understandings of the causes of the problem and approaches to dealing with it have varied considerably over time and across differing societies. Although the extent and historical patterns of chronic drinking and its effects are unquantifiable, historians have developed a rich appreciation of the evolving conceptions of the nature of alcohol addiction. These diverse historical understandings of the causes, effects, and remedies for chronic alcohol intoxication have given rise to a variety of discourses and terminologies. Since the 18th century, in the English-speaking world alone, the problem of chronic drinking has been referred to as all of the following: alcoholism, alcohol abuse, alcohol addiction, alcohol dependence, chronic drunkenness, dipsomania, habitual drunkenness, inebriety, oinism, and so on. The Ancient World While scholars have not identified ideas directly corresponding to alcoholism or alcohol addiction in the ancient world, the compulsion to drink excessively, its impairment of judgment, and the personal and social harms arising from persistent drinking are matters that recur in the narratives about ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern societies. The loss of reason and self-control and the sometimes unredeemable enslavement of the will have been associated with the figure of
Addiction and Alcoholism, History of
Bacchus, or Dionysus. The importance of the figure in Greek and Roman mythology led to the cult of Bacchus. Possibly originating in the Near East, the cult was transmitted, along with viniculture, to the Mediterranean civilizations via Egypt, or the Levant. In classical thought, Bacchus acquired a significance extending well beyond simply being the god of wine. He was associated with madness born of pleasure, excess, and irrationality. His adherents became powerless and lost self-control through their devotion to him, which became like a kind of possession. It is not, perhaps, surprising that the literary or mythological signifier of such psychological states should be the symbolic bringer of wine whose power worked through alcohol intoxication. Thus, while the Greeks and Romans may have had no term directly corresponding to modern notions of addiction, they clearly linked many of its qualities to alcohol. Although they often celebrated drinking, classical authors frequently enough complained of habitual excessive drinking while warning of its dangers and the difficulty of breaking the habit. The ambivalence toward alcohol consumption found in the classical sources is also present in the Abrahamic tradition. Scholars of the Bible and the Qur’an note various passages in which either the pleasures of alcohol are acknowledged or the dangerous allure of excessive alcohol consumption is condemned. They point out a Psalm in which God is praised for the gift of wine “so that it may gladden the heart of man.” They similarly suggest that in the following passage from the Qur’an, wine is a promised gift from God: This is the similitude of Paradise which the God fearing have been promised: therein are rivers of water unstaling, rivers of milk unchanging in flavour, and rivers of wine—a delight to the drinkers. . . . But elsewhere they highlight instances where wine is described as: “an abomination, some of Satan’s work; so avoid it. . . .” They also suggest that the following passage from Isaiah is typical of the many condemnations of the effects of drinking: These also reel with wine and stagger with strong drink; the priest and the prophet reel
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with strong drink, they are confused with wine, they stagger with strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in giving judgment. . . . Historians have generally viewed this conception of drunkenness as a sin and the condition of the chronic drunkard as contemptible and a just consequence, or indicative, of a sinful nature as being quite contrary to modern notions of addiction. In recent thought, the chronic drinker is not made powerless to govern his or her desires by the nature of the substance consumed, but rather their behavior arises from a choice or bad character. Chronic drinking, then, was historically understood in terms of either a sin/vice paradigm, wherein drunkards’ behavior is seen as largely arising from their own nature, or a medicalized/ disease paradigm, according to which drunkards’ agency or will is seen as so compromised that they cannot be held responsible for their persistent, excessive drinking. It is generally held that it was the emergence of the medicalized/disease view in the later 18th century that paved the way for the modern understanding of chronic drinking in terms of alcoholism and alcohol addiction or dependence. Yet it should be noted that the premodern conception of chronic drinking, although redolent with notions of sin, does not necessarily impute intact moral agency and effective responsibility to the drunkard, as the latter thinking would do. While sin is most commonly thought of as involving the deliberate transgression of divine law, it is also understood as the inevitable consequence of the “fall of man” described in Genesis. After the fall, the temptations of sin are irresistible. Key here is the notion of humans’ inevitably sinful nature and, especially in the Calvinist tradition, the idea that because of the nature of sin, one is incapable of attaining salvation by one’s own efforts. As with other sins, one is thus entrapped or enslaved by drink as a consequence of one’s nature. The sinner must look beyond themselves, to God, to be redeemed from this condition. In this notion, one may see some degree of connection between the idea of the premodern drunkard’s enslavement to sin and the later conceptions of the impairment of the will by alcohol as exemplified by the teachings of Alcoholics Anonymous in the 20th century.
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The Medieval and Early-Modern Periods The preeminence of Christian belief in the medieval and early modern West meant that chronic drinking was inevitably understood in terms of sin. While the will of God was believed to be an indispensable factor in overcoming sin, the plight of the drunkard was thought to be of his or her own making and only possible to overcome through his or her striving in faith. Medical writers in the 17th and early 18th centuries frequently commented on the various physiological effects of spirituous liquors, wine, and beer, but they had little to say that might resemble modern understandings of alcohol addiction or alcoholism. Their pronouncements on chronic drinking read little differently than those of moralists and clergymen. They were unwilling to accept the espousal of any sort of materialist, determinist theory suggesting that the drunkard’s behavior, as a matter of sin, was the inevitable consequence of a chemical substance. There has been an ongoing debate as to when the notion of drinking as an addiction first occurred. In 1949, Joseph Hirsh asserted that the modern understanding of chronic drinking as a disease initially emerged in Benjamin Rush’s An Inquiry Into the Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body (1785) and Thomas Trotter’s doctoral dissertation titled “De ebrietate, ejusque effectibus in corpus humanum” (1788). Subsequently, some historians have challenged this view, arguing that the terms addicted and addiction appear in the 17th- and 18th-century writings on drunkenness. Others, however, have emphasized that medical writers’ uses of these terms before the late 18th century were not comparable with the pathological and clinical meanings applied to the word addiction in the 20th century. In the 17th and early 18th centuries, writers spoke of addiction to drink in the same terms as they might refer to one who is addicted to other vices, like fornication or gambling. Further, they also applied the notion of addiction to matters such as reading or singing. This very broad sense of ardent desire, along with the absence of a notion of physical or psychological dependence, constitutes a very different sense of addiction from that in use today. The scattered reflections on these matters did not, however, come together as a fully realized theory of addiction at that time. As the empirical,
iatro-mechanical approaches gained influence in the early 18th century, medical leaders like Hermann Boerhaave insisted that whatever connections there might be between the mind and body, they were beyond the physician’s ken. Doctors were concerned with the body only and thought that if it was well, the mind should be too. Yet, 18th-century doctors did not produce a coherent, compelling, and broadly accepted pathology of chronic drinking. There was no consensus among medical writers regarding the treatment of chronic drinking, and their therapeutic recommendations were neither reliable nor predictable. In these circumstances, moralist understandings of chronic drinking continued to prevail. Thus, the drunkard’s defective moral character and sinful choices continued to be the central explanations of the cause of his or her plight. The Emergence of Modern Medicine As Enlightenment critiques began to substantially weaken religious institutional and cultural authority, the search for scientific explanations of human behavior was becoming more acceptable. One important aspect of this was the elaboration of neurological theories, initially by David Hartley and Albrecht von Haller. Key to this line of thought was the belief that nerves played a central role in the processing of sensations and the generation and association of ideas in the mind. In the 1770s, the Edinburgh physician William Cullen applied these views in an influential work on the pathology of conditions like madness and delirium. Cullen held that damaged nerves interfered with or corrupted the association of sensations and ideas. The systematic study of the defective associations of ideas resulting from such damage to the nerves was a sufficient basis for diagnosis and therapeutic responses. As Roy Porter has observed, Cullen laid the foundation for a science of the mind that did not depend on an elusive neurophysiology to explain the mechanism of mental diseases or illnesses. It was enough to systematically observe the defective ideas and the patterns that arose in consequence of such neurological damage or malfunctioning. In 1804, the Scottish physician Thomas Trotter incorporated Cullen’s thinking into his own sweeping account of chronic drinking. For Trotter, the physical effects of drink on the nervous, or
“sentient,” system combined with habitual drinking, as something that was socially reinforced, damaged the drinker’s “mental part”—a term that Cullen had used to refer to the processing of sensations and the generation and association of ideas in the mind. Totter ascribed the damage done to the mental part as the cause for the state of the habitual drunkard and suggested that it was the mental part that should be the object of a medical, therapeutic approach. Like his contemporary Benjamin Rush, Trotter thus believed chronic drinking to be a disease of the mind. Other physicians in early 19th-century Britain and America began to adopt this view, asserting that, while there were moral consequences for chronic drinking, the habitual drunkard’s problem could not be remedied simply through moral admonition. This assertion of a mental dimension in the etiology of chronic drinking set it apart from the conventional understandings of disease. The difficulties of this special status were acknowledged by Rush when he admitted that he did not know where to the draw the line between free agency and necessity, or between vice and disease. Increasingly, 19th-century physicians were prepared to see chronic drinking as a disease with a key “mental component.” Nevertheless, divergent and underdeveloped conceptions of the mental component meant that there was no professional consensus on the illness’s causes. It was simply not known how chronic drinking produced neurological damage or disorder and how, in turn, that damage produced the compulsive desires and the knowingly damaging behavior that constituted drunkards’ mental illness. In the early 19th century, German physicians also began to conceive of chronic drinking as a disease. In 1819, Carl von Brühl-Cramer, a GermanRussian physician, published Ueber die trunksucht und eine rationelle heilmethode derselben. His approach was in many respects similar to that of Trotter’s 1804 study, the German translation of which was not published until 1821. Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland, an influential German physician and early temperance advocate, wrote the preface and did the translation for von BrühlCramer’s work, where the term dipsomania was introduced. For these writers, the dipsomaniac’s moral agency was destroyed through the excessive consumption of alcohol. They understood
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Two elderly drinkers during a village fair in Bidford-on-Avon, England, around 1900. Toward the end of the 19th century, after large institutional asylums had shown little success, lay practitioners tended to dominate attempts to treat chronic drinkers, often employing a spiritual approach.
the problem as a medical one: it was not the excessive drinker’s failed judgment or character that was the cause of their condition, and dipsomania could not be overcome by the assertion of the drinker’s will alone. The Swedish physician Magnus Huss was the first to use the term alcoholism. He did this in his two-volume work Alcoholismus chronicus (Chronic alcohol disorder, 1849–51). In this text, he acknowledged many elements of the disease conception of his British and German predecessors, yet his emphasis was on the damage caused by chronic drinking rather than its compulsive nature and causes. Huss’s influential work was important because the various medicalized
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understandings of chronic drinking that had emerged over the previous half-century were encompassed by the term alcoholism. Starting in the mid-19th-century, the use of terms such as alcoholism, dipsomania, and inebriety reflected the increasing perception of chronic drinking not only as a moral issue but also as a public health problem. Temperance advocates adopted these terms in their campaigns for alcohol regulation or prohibition on the grounds of promoting mental and physical health as well as moral and social well-being. The growing knowledge of the physiological damage done by alcohol together with what was understood as its attendant impairment of the will fostered the growth of medically run or supervised treatment facilities. “Homes” and “retreats,” under the supervision of doctors, came to be seen as important environments in which the chronic drunkard might be treated. While these places were typically of a smaller scale and used by middle-class people who could afford to pay for them, the establishment of larger staterecognized institutions for the care and treatment of chronic drinkers further underscored the growing importance of medical understandings. Dr. J. Edward Turner’s The History and Pathology of Inebriety (1854) proposed the establishment of a dedicated hospital or asylum for “poor and destitute inebriates.” In 1858, Turner founded the New York State Inebriate Asylum, which took in its first patients in 1864. The British government’s Habitual Inebriates Act (1879) allowed for the establishment of state-inspected treatment facilities (known as retreats) run by physicians. These medical and institutional responses to chronic drinking were predicated on understandings of addiction embedded within the assumptions of contemporary social and scientific thought. In her book Diseases of the Will: Alcohol and the Dilemmas of Freedom, Mariana Valverde shows how Victorian thinking on gender and class was evident in the period’s conceptions of natural predispositions to inebriety or alcoholism. Female insobriety was seen as arising from women’s frail nature, working people were considered to be vulnerable to inebriety because of their vicious characters, and occasional dipsomania was attributed to propertied gentlemen on account of the pressures they bore due to their social responsibilities and the hazards they were exposed to as a result
of the continual presence of alcohol in their lives. Biology research conducted during the 19th century also promoted notions that chronic drinking was symptomatic of degeneracy, and there were concerns about alcohol’s degenerating effect. While these concerns persisted into the 20th century, a compelling and reliable clinical approach to the treatment of alcohol addiction continued to elude physicians. The large institutional asylums for the most part failed to help chronic drinkers, and they increasingly came to be judged as failed experiments that were little more than expensive and unhelpful means of isolating chronic drinkers from their families and society. Among both medical practitioners and psychologists, interest in dealing with alcoholism declined. Alcoholism came to be seen not as a medical problem with a generalizable pathology but rather as a particular personal problem, the causes of which largely lay outside the sphere of professional medical expertise. Thus, by the later part of the 19th century, those people principally concerned with assisting chronic drinkers were not medical professionals. Very often the practitioners who were treating the problem in their stead approached it from a spiritual perspective while still retaining an appreciation of its medical dimensions, particularly the notion of an illness or a disease of the will. Organizations such as the Salvation Army in Britain (1865), the Salvation Army in America (1880), the Blue Cross in Switzerland, (1877) and Gold Cross in France (1910) all sought to provide spiritual and social support for alcoholics. Valverde suggests that the Salvation Army is a case of these social, moral, and psychological approaches anticipating the self-help ideology of Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) through the support of a fellowship of recovering alcoholics. Founded in 1935, and spreading rapidly thereafter, AA and the key publication it produced, Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More than One Hundred Men Have Recovered From Alcoholism (1939), were influential in establishing a popular conception of alcoholism as a disease, even though the organization espoused no particular medical theory of the condition. The Disease Concept In the later 1940s, the conception of chronic drinking as a disease was again taken up by academic
researchers. Most famously, E. M. Jellinek published the 1946 paper “Phases in the Drinking History of Alcoholics: Analysis of a Survey Conducted by the Official Organ of Alcoholics Anonymous,” outlining the physiologically and behaviorally distinct phases of alcoholism. Based on a study of Alcoholics Anonymous members, Jellinek’s work has been criticized for its reliance on an anecdotally derived typology to distinguish the various stages of alcoholism. In his later book The Disease Concept of Alcoholism (1960), Jellinek elaborates the phases of alcoholism, noting that only those people who had lost control of their drinking—which he designates as the second stage of progression out of five—suffered from a disease. His assertion of the criteria of “loss of self-control” and the individual’s “harm” to himself or herself and/or society afforded a model that, while somewhat systematic and scientific, seemed capable of embracing the broad range of people and ways in which chronic drinking was problematic. Jellinek’s views, though evolving and controversial, provided the basis for much subsequent thinking and debate on the matter of alcohol addiction. In this work, Jellinek essentially described chronic drinking, casting its more extremes manifestations as a disease. However, in the post–World War II era, neither Jellinek nor others could offer a medical account of the causes of alcoholism that would explain the variant reactions of individuals to chronic drinking or suggest a reliable, consistently successful course of therapy. Over the course of the 20th century, clinicians experimented with various treatments. In hopes of producing an aversion to drinking among alcoholics, there were experiments with electroconvulsive therapy and the use of various drugs. Apomorphine, disulfiram, and magnesium sulphate were variously recommended in the mid20th century. Hoping to shift alcoholics’ perceptions of themselves and thereby change the mental patterns that drove them to seek intoxication, medical hypnosis and even the use of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) were proposed. Additionally, a great variety of proprietary “medicines” were also offered. In the face of the general ineffectiveness of such measures and purported therapies, the approach of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the variants of it, remained the principal recourse for individuals suffering from alcoholism.
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In the 1960s, given the absence of a practical consensus on the etiology or a therapy for alcoholism, physicians and psychologists once again grew generally disinclined to see it as a particular disease within their purview. Nevertheless, a more widely held conception of alcoholism as a disease persisted and engendered concerns about excessive drinking as a public health matter. Even if alcoholism could not be reliably treated at the level of the individual patient, measures were taken with the aim of reducing its presence in communities and across national populations. There has been a considerable amount of studies done by historians looking at how various nations have imposed taxes and regulatory frameworks—extending occasionally to the point of prohibition—in order to diminish citizens’ exposure to the temptation of excessive drinking and to mitigate its impact across the population. Valverde has observed that, since World War II, these concerns have prompted the emergence of an “alcohology”—referring to the interdisciplinary study of alcohol use and its problems. Later Developments Despite this engagement of governments and social scientists, a consensus on chronic drinking as a disease has not become entrenched. Indeed, this lack of a conclusive opinion on the subject can be seen within the long history of the ambivalence and ambiguity in the language of this subject. The problems of etiology, the variable effects of alcohol on different people, and the challenge of ascribing the harm suffered in relation to drinking, as opposed to other factors, have made a definitive understanding of alcoholism as a discrete disease difficult. Jellinek’s own use of the phrase “disease concept of alcoholism” was an acknowledgement that the phenomenon in question did not entirely conform to the conventional understanding of disease. Valverde notes that in addressing the problem of drug classification for regulatory purposes in the 1940s and 1950s, the World Health Organization (WHO) drew a distinction between “physically addictive” substances and “habit forming” ones. Alcohol, however, was deemed a special case falling between the two categories since agreement on the nature of its effects could not be reached. Moreover, by the 1970s the terms alcoholism and addiction were beginning to
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bear stigmatizing or pejorative connotations that might impede the recovery of those to whom they were applied. Even as of 2000, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) made no reference to alcoholism, supplanting it with the more widely applied term substance abuse. In the 1970s, the WHO discontinued its use of alcoholism as a designation. In 1992, in its publication International Classification of Diseases the organization replaced the term abuse in reference to the taking of substances with “harmful use.” While the terminology and some of its significant implications changed during the 50 years following the publication of Jellinek’s The Disease Concept of Alcoholism in 1960, two key criteria for the identification of alcoholism or alcohol dependence have remained: harm and the loss of self-control. During the decades since the book was published, those concepts have persisted, albeit variously formulated, in the DSM and other medical and psychiatric manuals and texts. Yet, debates have flourished over what constitutes harm and if the harm arising from excessive chronic drinking can be unequivocally attributed to alcohol consumption alone. Similarly, just what loss of self-control means and the extent to which it is a consequence of drinking have been key but contentious elements of notions of addiction. Since the 1990s, work in neuroscience and genetics has begun to suggest that some resolution to these matters may be possible through gaining fuller understandings of individuals’ neurochemical reactions to addictive substances and genetic factors in terms of their particular neurological functioning and metabolism of alcohol. However, until such matters can be brought to bear on why addiction arises and produces the behaviors it does, it is likely that the long-standing debates over the extent of the moral agency of the compulsive, chronic drinker will persist. David Clemis Mount Royal University See Also: Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture; Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, History of; Disease Model of Alcoholism; Moral Attitudes Toward Alcohol Consumption; Religion; Trotter, Thomas.
Further Readings Clemis, David. “Medical Expertise and the Understandings of Intoxication in Britain, 1660 to 1830.” In Intoxication and Society: Problematic Pleasures, Jonathan Herring, Ciaran Regan, Darin Weinberg, and Phil Withington, eds. London: Palgrave, 2013. Hirsh, Joseph. “Enlightened 18th-Century Views of the Alcohol Problem.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, v.4/2 (1949). Levine, Harry G. “The Discovery of Addiction: Changing Conceptions of Habitual Drunkenness in America.” Journal of Studies on Alcohol, v.39/1 (1978). Sournia, Jean-Charles. A History of Alcoholism. Nick Hindley and Gareth Stanton, trans. London: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Valverde, Mariana. Diseases of the Will: Alcohol and the Dilemmas of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Adult Children of Alcoholics Adult Children of Alcoholics is a broad social movement that is part of the larger self-help recovery movement. It has profoundly impacted the development of the fields of addiction studies and alcoholism treatment. Adult Children of Alcoholics is also the name used by recovery support groups that meet regularly around the world. Some of these groups are part of 12-step self-help recovery fellowships, while others meet independently, either as unaffiliated self-help groups or as facilitated groups. There is also a best-selling book titled Adult Children of Alcoholics. Adult children of alcoholics also refers to the family systems within an alcoholic home, which are organized to both maintain and deny the fact of parental alcoholism. Attachment in such a system is altered, which adversely impacts the potential for the development of healthy, well-adjusted individuals. Claudia Black, Sharon Wegscheider, and other proponents of the adult children of alcoholics’ perspective asserted that the pathology and early parent–child and sibling relationships are such in these family systems that there is
a greater likelihood of vulnerabilities to forming close bonds later in adulthood. In short, growing up in what Stephanie Brown and others characterize as the traumatic environment typical of families with an alcoholic parent is seen as substantially increasing the likelihood of disturbances in adult functioning eventually resulting, including higher risks for exhibiting antisocial symptoms and for becoming a substance abuser. Adult Children of Alcoholics as a social movement started to coalesce in the late 1970s and early 1980s and emerged from discussions of alcoholism in family systems. Addiction treatment clinicians began to use the designation “adult child” in the early 1970s to refer to adults who were carrying the pain of childhood vulnerabilities. They began to recognize that some of their patients were experiencing what appeared to be a common set of behaviors related to shame-based beliefs developed while growing up in chemically dependent families that were adversely impacting their adult lives. Research conducted by Claudia Black, Steven Bucky, and Sandra Wilder-Padilla, for example, examined issues related to adults who had grown up in alcoholic homes. Some commonalities emerged from this research. For example, adult children of alcoholics self-reported that as children, compared to those who did not come from alcoholic families, they had substantially lower rates of utilizing interpersonal resources, such as forming close attachments to others, forging a strong sense of self-identity, and developing problem-solving and conflict-resolution skills; they had experienced higher rates of physical and sexual abuse and significantly more family disruptions, such as divorce and premature parental and sibling deaths. As adults, they reported greater emotional and psychological problems, and they tended to become chemically dependent themselves and/or to marry someone who was chemically dependent. This is a pervasive social issue as it is estimated that one in four children have at least one alcoholic parent; this amounts to over 30 million Americans alive today who grew up in alcoholic households. However, results from empirical research in this area are far from conclusive or uniform; many studies, in fact, have found no significant differences between children of alcoholics
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and the general population. Nevertheless, many adults who had alcoholic parents tend to feel that they are different from others and they generally identify with most of the items on the various lists of the common characteristics, like their being approval seekers, being overly concerned with the needs of others rather than themselves, and living their lives as victims. Organizations for Adult Children of Alcoholics Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) as an organization is an anonymous, 12-step, 12-tradition fellowship of men and women who grew up in an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional family. This organization is in the tradition of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and has its own world service organization (WSO) and its own version of the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous, the Adult Children of Alcoholics Fellowship Text, also known as the “Big Red Book,” which is available in print format and as an e-book. There is also a Twelve Steps of Adult Children Steps Workbook and an assortment of booklets and trifold pamphlets available. In addition, ACA distributes recovery chips and medallions. Some of the organization’s literature has been translated into other languages, such as Chinese, French, Hebrew, Japanese, Portuguese, Serbian, and Spanish, and is available for free download. ACA provides a “laundry list” of 14 traits that adult children of alcoholics commonly identify with. ACA is a self-help, self-supporting program that does not endorse any outside enterprise. A network of over a thousand autonomous meetings is affiliated with the World Service Office; these include meetings in countries other than the United States, such as Denmark, Germany, and Holland. These self-help meetings are safe places where adult children of alcoholics can share their fears, experiences, strengths, and hopes. Meetings provide a sense of community and a place where adult children of alcoholics can feel that they belong; they also provide unconditional support that may not have been experienced previously and an environment where interpersonal and coping skills can be developed. In addition to meetings, ACA hosts international conventions, regional meetings, retreats, and other special events. ACA considers family alcoholism to
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be a disease and that its 12-step fellowship can provide a program of recovery to address the problems created by growing up in one of these dysfunctional families. There are numerous other groups and meetings for adult children of alcoholics that are not part of the 12-step fellowship. For example, in 1983, the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACoA) was established primarily for the purposes of networking and disseminating information. It creates educational materials such as booklets, posters, periodic newsletters, and videos. It is headquartered in Kensington, Maryland, and has affiliate organizations in Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom. A popular self-help book that added to the momentum of this movement was Adult Children of Alcoholics, written by Janet Geringer Woititz and published in 1983. This book presents suggestions on how to deal with having had alcoholic parents. It was on The New York Times best seller list and has sold over a million copies as a trade paperback. Many other scholarly and popular books and articles have been written to contribute to the substantial momentum of this social movement, such as Charles Whitfield’s highly successful Healing the Child Within and similar works by other writers. However, there have been critiques of this movement as well, particularly from segments of the chemical dependence treatment community. For example, Frances L. Brisbane suggested that some of what has been described as dysfunctional alcoholic family adaptation might actually be culturally normative and appropriate within the families of members of certain ethnic groups. In this regard, it has been noted that eldest daughters in some African American families might adopt some executive functions that, from the perspective of an outsider, could appear to be taking on a role of what those in the movement refer to as the family hero/caretaker/fixer or responsible one. Similarly, in some newly arrived immigrant families, younger members who benefited from differential acculturation might exhibit what appears to be pseudoparental role-reversal by acting as a broker with the larger society and its bureaucratic institutions. On the surface, some of these behaviors could appear to be an alcoholic family adaptation rather than culturally normative
family roles. Nevertheless, many have gained solace from identification as being an adult child, which allows attribution of maladaptive patterns to family of origin and opens the possibility to dealing with such issues and resolving them. Victor B. Stolberg Essex County College See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Al-Anon; Alateen; Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture; Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Alcoholism: Effect on the Family. Further Readings Black, Claudia, Steven F. Bucky, and Sandra WilderPadilla. “The Interpersonal and Emotional Consequences of Being an Adult Child of an Alcoholic.” Substance Use and Misuse, v.21/2 (1986). Brown, Stephanie. Treating Adult Children of Alcoholics: A Developmental Perspective. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1988. Myers, Peter L. and Victor B. Stolberg. “CultureSpecific Analysis of Family Chemical Dependency Problems: Clinical Anthropology and Folk Psychotherapy.” Social Science Perspectives Journal, v.3/5 (1989). Whitfield, Charles L. Healing the Child Within: Discovery and Recovery for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families. Deerfield, FL: Health Communications, 1987. Woititz, Janet Geringer. Adult Children of Alcoholics. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, 1983. Woititz, Janet Geringer. Guidelines for Support Groups: Adult Children of Alcoholics and Others Who Identify. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, 1983.
Advertising and Marketing, History of Advertising and marketing are used in various media, including broadcast commercials on TV, radio, and online streaming video; printed flyers; direct mail and e-mail; Web banners and other
online ads; print advertisements in magazines and newspapers; displays in public/semiprivate locations ranging from billboards and bus stops to shopping cart handles; online videos; DVDs/ Blu-rays; and product placement in entertainment media. Online advertising alone encompasses a variety of forms, including the contextual ads in a Google search and ads that accompany an e-mail in services like Gmail; banner ads and other onscreen ads, which may take the form of text, text and photos, or rich media and include music or video; interactive ads and minigames; viral videos; e-mail marketing and spam; online classified ads; ads placed in social media; and traditional commercials embedded as part of streaming video delivery through services like Hulu. Product Web sites also act as multimedia advertisements. Advertising choices are impacted by both the varying needs of products and, especially in the case of alcoholic beverages, the regulatory environment. In the United States, advertising is regulated by the Federal Trade Commission (which also approves labels, perhaps the most basic form of advertising) and the Federal Communications Commission. History of Advertising As the modern printing industry began in the 18th and 19th centuries, print advertisements became increasingly common. Originally, other print products were the ones advertising in publications, much as books today sometimes include ads for other books by the same publishing house. Soon, patent medicines (most of contained alcohol) also began advertising in magazines in the United States and Europe. This was followed by more targeted marketing, with companies purchasing advertising space in magazines they believed would be read by the customers they wanted to reach. Early targeting strategies were very simple compared to the data mining and profiling underlying today’s efforts: they merely followed gender lines. Women’s magazines carried advertisements for cosmetics and women’s health products, while men’s magazines carried ads for shaving supplies, liquor, and beer. Modern advertising began in London in the 1860s with Thomas J. Barratt, the chairman of A&F Pears, which produced Pears Soap, the first
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legally registered brand of soap, and which pioneered many modern advertising tropes. Barratt eschewed simple sloganeering in favor of more subtle approaches that were soon picked up by the beverages industry. A typical approach of Barratt’s was to depict a carefully detailed slice of life that showed the kind of lifestyle he wanted consumers to associate with the Pears brand. He also popularized the use of branded merchandising, the celebrity endorsement, and the expert testimonial, all of which are often used by alcohol brands today. (In the case of beverages, expert testimonials involve not scientists attesting to a brand of soap’s bacteria-fighting power but bartenders praising a cocktail that is made of a particular product.) Many of these techniques have since been adopted by liquor and beverage brands in building up their identity. Maker’s Mark bourbon, for instance, offers a free ambassadors program to anyone of legal drinking age who signs up, in which so-called ambassadors receive special offers and promotions and a Maker’s Mark branded gift every Christmas. Liquor brands that compete with one another at the roughly $20-per-750-ml. price point—such as Jack Daniels, midshelf bourbon brands like Jim Beam and Wild Turkey, and rums like Bacardi and Captain Morgan—have made their logos and trademarks available for numerous clothing items, ashtrays, bumper stickers, and even laptop and smart phone covers. Such items promote the idea of the brand, and brand devotion, as a form of personal expression. Newspapers had begun including advertisements in the 1830s. The advertising industry became more sophisticated with the advent of advertising agencies that, in the simplest terms, acted as the middleman between businesses promoting products or services and businesses selling advertising space. More sophisticated agencies did more than develop and broker advertisements; they crafted a brand’s identities, performed marketing research to determine its strengths and opportunities, and guided the branding of the products featured in a company’s portfolio. By the dawn of the 20th century, advertising was firmly established as a professional industry, with multiple important agencies located in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and London, and the first major French agencies following.
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Modern Advertising In the transition from the 19th to 20th century, advertising became more and more important. The Industrial Revolution had changed the beer and liquor industries in ways that may not be immediately obvious: Technological advances originally developed for other industries made mass distilling easier and significantly improved the quality of the glass used for bottling, automated the process of corking or capping, and created the beverage can, used primarily for beer and soft drinks. Advances in chemistry led to the creation of food and beverage additives and improved the quality of yeasts used for fermentation. The development of refined sugars from multiple sources (cane, corn, beet, and others) made the mass production of beverages easier. Transportation advances made the ingredients of beer and liquor more accessible by, for instance, making it easier to brew beer in places far from where hops grew and making available the many exotic ingredients used in the formulation of cocktail bitters and vermouths. The changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution also made it increasingly common to market products on a national rather than local or regional level. By the end of the 20th century, national brands had eclipsed regional brands in their presence in households. While there certainly were persistent regional alcoholic beverage brands, such as local microbrews, regional breweries like Gennessee and Lone Star, and distillers with limited out-of-state distribution like Prichards (Tennessee) and Clear Creek (Oregon), in many cases they sought to expand to national distribution (as many formerly regional brands like Sam Adams of Massachusetts and Abita of Louisiana had done in the meantime). National brands like Budweiser, Coors, Jack Daniels, and Bacardi had become household names and category leaders. Budweiser and Jack Daniels even extended their brand identities to branded barbecue sauces. As Americans became less and less agricultural, leaving the farms for the city and later the suburbs, they also became less self-sufficient and more likely to work for an employer in exchange for the money to purchase nearly all of their necessities. This arrangement took the place of growing one’s own food, sewing one’s own clothes,
and building one’s own furniture and toys, all of which were once default activities of the vast majority of American households. At this time, advertising helped connect consumers to brands and provided a means by which brands within the same or similar categories could compete with one another. It was also viewed as a means of Americanizing a population that included vast numbers of immigrants who had arrived in unprecedented waves in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Much has been made by historians and those in the field of cultural studies of the messages, cultural values, and in essence, the cultural instructions implicit in advertisements. An advertisement intended simply to show a couple enjoying a romantic evening with a bottle of Champagne not only associates that brand of Champagne with romance and celebration but also establishes or reinforces ideas about gender, romance, sex, commerce, the public sphere, and high culture versus low culture. Modern advertising was grounded in modern social science. Edward Bernays, an Austrian immigrant and the nephew of psychologist Sigmund Freud, introduced his uncle’s ideas pertaining to human desires and psychology to the fields of public relations and advertising. Bernays was less concerned with advertising products than with social manipulation toward the public good, in the form of crowd psychology, group psychology, and propaganda. He coined the phrase “engineering of consent” to refer to a scientific approach to propaganda that seeks to understand how opinions are formed in order to direct their formation. He was involved, for instance, in the efforts under the Wilson Administration to turn public opinion to the favor of the nation as it entered World War I, one of the first major politically minded public relations efforts by the federal government (as opposed to health-information and consumersafety campaigns). He later worked for several major companies, including Procter and Gamble and many in the American automotive industry, in the public relations sphere rather than advertising. Nevertheless, advertisers paid attention to his ideas as much as propagandists did. National advertising was made possible in part by the arrival of new national mass media. It had become more and more common for newspapers and magazines to be distributed at the national
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level through national distributor chains. The early 20th century was dominated by the popularity of newspapers like the Saturday Evening Post. In the middle of the century magazines like Life took center stage, and the later 20th century saw publications like Time and Newsweek take the lead. These magazines were not only taste makers but also creators of the iconography of popular culture. Advertising in magazines was an important way to keep a brand identity alive or to introduce it to a targeted demographic. Magazines ads were followed by those on radio, television, and motion pictures—which, in the days before television, spawned a host of movie magazines that were widely read and hosted numerous advertisements. Product Placement Whereas advertisements in movies were a late development—product placement became common first, followed by a limited deployment of in-theater commercials that went along with the coming attractions in a prefeature package—the sale of air time for commercials was critical to the development of the radio and television industry. After all, magazines sell individual issues and subscriptions, and motion pictures sell tickets, but radio and television—especially in the decades when television was dominated by broadcast networks rather than cable companies—are free to whoever purchases the device that receives the signal. This meant that the millions of viewers watching I Love Lucy or listening to Jack Benny had not paid to do so in the same sense that the audience of a John Ford picture had. Advertising, whether through sponsorship—a model that public television still uses to subsidize the costs of some of its programs—or airings of commercials during broadcasts, provided revenue that paid for the cost of producing television shows and broadcasting other content. This model of broadcast television is not universal, however. In the United Kingdom, for example, the BBC is a public service broadcaster that operates more or less independently but with a royal charter and funded mainly by the British government. The government levies an annual television license fee on every household and business with a television. The BBC, which has historically been the United Kingdom’s most prominent television
Print advertising grew in the 19th century, with newspaper advertisements spreading in the 1830s. This late-19th-century print advertisement for H. & J. Pfaff lager features a likeness of popular actor Joseph Jefferson as Rip Van Winkle at top.
network, thus has elements in common with American cable television as well as with public television but does not serve as much of a niche audience as either. In the United States, licensing fees are assessed on broadcasters, not consumers, and do not fund television content production. One of the requirements of obtaining the licenses—applicable only to over-the-air broadcasters, not to cable networks—is to devote a certain amount of airtime to public service advertising. Product placement has been part of advertising and the entertainment industry since the beginning of the 20th century. It consists of the deliberate inclusion of a brand-name commercial product in a movie, television show, or other entertainment product for the purposes of promoting that brand. In some cases, especially in the modern age, the filmmakers are compensated
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by the brand for featuring its product. In other cases, they simply receive free use of the product. When product placement involves more than just displaying a product and actually incorporates the product into significant elements of the plot, it is usually called brand integration. For instance, in HBO’s TV show Sex and the City, Absolut vodka was integrated into the plot in the form of an advertising campaign one of the characters worked on, which was responsible for the resurgence in popularity of the cosmopolitan cocktail. Smirnoff vodka had a product placement arrangement with most of the James Bond films, from Dr. No (1962) to Die Another Day (2002). This is particularly notable given that vodka had low profile in 1962, having only been heavily marketed in the 1950s, and its popularity would increase greatly in later decades; at the time it was first used in the movie, vodka was still an up-andcoming spirit as far as the American market was concerned. Dr. No introduced vodka as a key component of James Bond’s signature drink, the martini. In the movies, James Bond often drinks a vodka martini, still a recent development in the American drinks scene at the time. When Smirnoff ended their arrangement with the films, the Finnish brand Finlandia was used instead. Heineken later paid $45,000,000 to have its beer featured in the James Bond feature Skyfall. While the product placement of alcoholic drinks is overall less common than all-ages food products in movies and television, it is often very prominent in music videos. Dom Perignon and Cristal Champagnes and Hennessy Cognac, for instance, are heavily referenced in hip-hop videos, while Stolichnaya vodka was featured in the music video for Eminem’s 2010 track “Love the Way You Lie.” Alex Cox’s 1984 film Repo Man parodied movie product placement by prominently featuring generic products bearing plain white wrappers with labels that were disturbingly vague, such as “Beer,” “Dry Gin,” and “Food, Meat-Flavored.” As with other alcohol advertising, one of the concerns over product placement is its effect on young and underage consumers. A 2013 study by the Dartmouth Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center finds that at that time the movies featuring alcohol product placement were being produced for younger and younger viewers. In its consideration
of 1,400 hit movies released between 1996 and 2009, the study finds 2,455 appearances of an alcohol brand (compared to 500 appearances of tobacco), with the appearances of alcohol brands in “youth-rated” movies (everything but R-rated movies) rising from 80 per year in 1996 to 145 per year in 2009. Beer was the most popular brand category featured. Budweiser alone was featured more often than well-known nonalcoholic brands like Pepsi, Sony, McDonald’s, and Cadillac. The alcohol brands most often featured in topgrossing movies from 2001 to 2013 are Budweiser (83 appearances), Heineken (26), Miller (19), Corona (18), Jack Daniel’s (16), Moët and Chandon (15), Dos Equis (13), Johnnie Walker (11), Michelob (10), Grey Goose (10), Bacardi rum (9), and Maker’s Mark (9). According to the brandwatch Web site Brandchannel, Adam Sandler’s 2012 movie That’s My Boy featured over 600,000 individual appearances of Budweiser products or logos. On the other hand, the 2012 drama Flight, about an alcoholic, drug-abusing airline pilot, prominently displayed the logos and products of many alcoholic beverage brands without paid placement. Budweiser and other brands complained about the unflattering way in which they were portrayed as contributing to a fatal airplane crash in the film. Blogs and Targeted Advertising The resurgent interest in cocktails in the 21st century has led to a plethora of blogs about cocktails and drinks. This has provided a new marketing opportunity for the industry. It has become common—though not every brand does it—to provide free samples of alcoholic beverages to bloggers to review and promote. Some brands limit their distribution of such samples to professional or semiprofessional blogs; others offer them to any blog with a wide following. The Federal Trade Commission has addressed this in its guidelines for digital advertising, and since 2009 it has required bloggers to disclose having received free products or other promotional consideration in exchange for a review or other inclusion in the blog. In 2013, the requirements became more specific, indicating that the disclosure needs to be presented in the same context as the content—that is, if the blog is in video form, for instance, the disclosure needs to be included in the video, not simply offered in
fine print on the page hosting the video. The #ad hashtag was recommended for use on Twitter as a way to identify sponsored tweets. Specific demographics are also targeted through print, outdoor display, and broadcast ads. Display ads in Latino neighborhoods are more likely to feature Latinos in the ads, for instance, and may include the Mexican flag or soccer stars. Alcopops, wine coolers, malt beverages, and some beers and wines—notably those that are flavored and low in alcohol—are generally marketed to younger drinkers, casual drinkers, and to a certain extent, women. Beer, in general, is marketed almost exclusively to men, especially men between 30 and 50 (though there is also a history of beer campaigns accused of targeting underage and college-age drinkers, especially those featuring animal mascots, such as Spuds MacKenzie or the Bud-Weis-Er frogs, both originating in Budweiser Super Bowl ads). Today, the advertising of alcoholic beverages is, along with the advertising of pharmaceuticals and tobacco, among the most heavily regulated areas of marketing. Both state and federal law address alcohol advertising. For instance, Budweiser’s Spuds MacKenzie campaign (beginning in 1987) was controversial because its focus on a beer-loving dog seemed tailormade not just for underage drinkers but also for children. The Federal Trade Commission did not find that the campaign was aimed at children, as alleged by groups such as Mothers against Drunk Driving, but did find that some of the ads violated state laws outlawing certain kinds of content. An example is a Christmas 1987 ad featuring Spuds in a Santa costume that was found to violate an Ohio state law against using Santa Claus in the promotion of any alcoholic product. Restrictions on Underage Advertising Although advertising age-restricted products to target underage consumers is against federal law, the laws are not strict enough to prevent contact between underage consumers and the advertisements. For instance, many jurisdictions permit billboard and subway display ads for alcohol, and at least one study has found that in such jurisdictions, train passengers, including children, encounter at least one alcohol-related advertisement a day. Other studies have found a correlation
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between underage drinking rates and exposure to ads, regardless of whether those ads are alleged to specifically target underage drinkers. Similarly, studies have shown that teenagers’ feelings about drinking are measurably more positive after viewing an ad for an alcoholic beverage. This is one of the reasons that alcohol ads on public transportation are banned in some jurisdictions, and billboard ads are banned in a small number of others. Alcohol advertising is mainly self-regulated, and in order to avoid being accused of targeting underage drinkers, the industry standard requires that alcohol ads be placed only in places in which at least 70 percent of the audience is of legal drinking age. For instance, the Super Bowl would be an acceptable to place advertise by this metric; an airing of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown would not. For that matter, there is a longstanding tradition against using cartoon characters to promote alcoholic beverages. Until 1997, distilled products were not advertised on television, and the sudden appearance of gin, vodka, whiskey, tequila, and other products in television ads—first on cable—prompted numerous attempts to outlaw them, though these attempts were unsuccessful (in part because more attention was paid to parallel, and ultimately successful, attempts to ban or limit tobacco advertisements). Most broadcast networks and affiliates continue to refuse ads for distilled spirits by choice, rather than regulation or law, though beer, wine, and malt beverage ads are common. Interestingly, there are regulations that prevent ads from promoting the effects of alcohol. The intent of this is to prevent advertisers from glorifying intoxication, in whatever form. As many have pointed out, though, the effect is the false idea that intoxication does not exist, or is an accidental side effect of alcohol, acknowledged only during the occasional public service announcement against drunk driving. Sponsorship of alcohol in sports is also a controversial area, because although the adult audience of most sporting events outnumbers the underage audience, sports are nevertheless very popular among underage males in particular. Alcohol advertising is most common in NASCAR racing, in which competitions, cars, and drivers may all be sponsored by various beer and liquor brands. Budweiser, Busch, Coors,
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Jack Daniel’s, Jim Beam, and Crown Royal are among the leading sponsors of NASCAR. Drivers under the drinking age are not permitted to display alcohol-brand stickers on their cars or persons. Outside of NASCAR, alcohol advertising is most prominent in baseball, where the Milwaukee team is even called the Brewers, and several parks (including St. Louis’s Busch Stadium, Denver’s Coors Field, and the Brewers’ Miller Park) are named for beer brands. Emotional Branding One of the techniques heavily relied upon by the alcoholic-beverage advertising industry is emotional branding. This a term is used in the marketing industry to refer to advertising and marketing practices that position the brand in a way that appeals to the consumer’s emotions, desires, and emotional needs rather than to practical considerations (as a discounted price does). This technique is particularly useful for advertising alcoholic products because many state laws either prohibit alcohol ads from mentioning prices at all, prohibit discounts and price drops as a sales incentive, or place a price minimum on products to limit the amount of competition that takes place between alcoholic products in reducing price. Emotional branding explains the attachment a drinker can have to Budweiser beer despite its low rating by any accepted standard of beer quality or one’s attachment to a mass-produced bourbon brand that is made in such quantities that it is impossible to guarantee a stable flavor profile. Within the alcohol industry, emotional branding was pioneered by Champagne houses, who played up the idea of Champagne as celebratory and romantic, and perfected by beer companies. Recent campaigns for Captain Morgan and Southern Comfort have focused on this technique as well. Historically, emotional branding has been especially useful in two areas: creating lifelong consumers of the brand rather than focusing on short-term gains and differentiating a brand from others making very similar products with very similar virtues. In actuality, there is little difference between any two $20 rums or vodkas on the shelf. The production techniques used for the mass production of beer or liquor at that price tier and the homogenizing effect of distilling massive amounts of feedstock inevitably result in products
that taste substantially similar and offer exactly the same intoxication and exactly the same hangover, should it come to that. (This is not as true with whiskeys, where distillers have choices in the ratio of grains they use in their mash. nor with gins, which are flavored with botanical blends that vary widely from brand to brand.) When forced to give a consumer a reason to buy one $20 rum over another, emotional branding makes the most sense as a solution. It creates a brand identity such that the consumer will choose the rum that best suits his or her self-image or emotional aspirations. Studies have found that men who have a specific brand of choice consume more beer than less particular beer drinkers and that men who say they “love” their brand consume 38 percent more beer than those who don’t. Adherents of beer and liquor brands are among the most loyal, unlikely to be swayed by promotions or tactics used by other brands. Even so, only about 25 percent of beer drinkers fall into the category of being a hardcore devotee. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Beer Advertising; Bourbon Advertising; Champagne Advertising; Cognac Advertising; Drinking, Anthropology of; Gin Advertising; Public Service Announcements; Rum Advertising; Scotch Advertising; Vodka Advertising; Wine Advertising. Further Readings Alaniz, Maria Luisa, and Chris Wilkes. “Pro-Drinking Messages and Message Environments for Young Adults: The Case of Alcohol Industry Advertising in African American, Latino, and Native American Communities.” Journal of Public Health Policy, v.19/4 (1998). Belk, Russell W., and Richard W. Pollay. “Images of Ourselves: The Good Life in Twentieth Century Advertising.” Journal of Consumer Research, v.11 (March 1985). Dade, Penny. Drink Talking: 100 Years of Alcohol Advertising. London: Middlesex University Press, 2008. Gobe, Marc. Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People. New York: Allsworth, 2001.
Lears, Jackson. Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America. New York: Basic Books, 1995. Miller, Mark Crispin. “Hollywood: The Ad—The Techniques and the Cartoon-Like Moral Vision of Television Advertising Are Exerting More and More Influence over American Moviemaking.” Atlantic (April 1990).
Africa, Northern The geography of north Africa is not easy to define. If one takes the lands that border the southern Mediterranean Sea to comprise north Africa, one has encompassed Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, but the Romans discarded this scheme early on, defining north Africa as Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. Egypt is another matter. Emperor Augustus and his successors retained it as their personal property. It was therefore not part of north Africa. With some dissent, this distinction has continued to the present. This essay will follow the Roman precedent by excluding Egypt from discussion. Alcohol consumption has deep roots in north Africa, parts of which—Tunisia for example—have inhabitants who have consumed alcoholic beverages since the 7th century b.c.e. The rise of Islam had different effects on different parts of north Africa. The Muslim holy book, the Qu’ran, prohibited the consumption of alcohol because it made one forget God. Libya continues to ban the consumption of alcohol, but Morocco and Tunisia are much more liberal. Historical Alcohol Consumption The consumption of alcohol in north Africa began around the 7th century b.c.e., predating the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans. The Phoenicians, known as the Carthaginians in north Africa, encouraged viticulture and the making of wine in north Africa. The Romans, who conquered the Carthaginians, were even more avid in promoting the consumption of wine, the universal beverage of the Roman Empire, in north Africa. Surviving Roman mosaics from north Africa depict the gods enjoying wine, and the number of bars must have
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been large. North African social life centered on the consumption of wine. The fragmentation of the Roman Empire in late antiquity left north Africa little respite from conquerors. In the 7th century c.e., the Arabs conquered north Africa, spreading Islam wherever they went. We have seen that Islam had a dim view of the consumption of alcohol, but tolerance did prevail in many areas of north Africa. The strictures against alcohol must have been the most fervent in the centuries after the Arab conquest, and even today north Africa is not an inordinate consumer of alcohol. Indeed, north Africa, along with the Middle East and south Asia has the lowest consumption of alcohol per person worldwide. Libya and Tunisia have banned the sale and consumption of alcohol, though in Tunisia the courts do not enforce this prohibition. The most zealous Muslims in Tunisia want prohibition, but this appears to be unlikely. Algeria permits the consumption of alcohol at a young age, and Morocco even allows children, presumably under parental supervision, to drink alcohol— that is, Morocco, unlike the United States, does not have a minimum age at which it is legal to consume alcohol. Modern Alcohol Consumption In 2013, the average north African drank fewer than two liters of alcohol per year. By contrast, the average American consumes nearly ten liters of alcohol per year, in Central Asia the figure is more than ten liters per year, and in Moldavia it is 18.2 liters per year. The Moldavian rate, as one can see, tops the north African rate more than nine-fold. Even though north Africans are not prodigious consumers, they respect the right of tourists, who are attracted to the beaches of the region, to drink what and how much they wish. Keeping tourists happy in Tunisia and Morocco is particularly important given that tourism makes up a large fraction of revenues in these countries. Hotels, grocery stores, bars, and restaurants serve tourists alcohol. Indigenous Tunisians and Moroccans can also buy alcohol at these venues. In other parts of north Africa, the locals encourage tourists to drink alcohol in their hotel rooms so as not to pollute Muslims with their customs. Some hotels reserve their rooms only for tourists so as to confine the consumption of alcohol to a
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discrete area. In other cases, the locals encourage tourists to bring alcohol into some of the countries of north Africa. Libya, however, is much more strict. Not only does it ban alcohol, it tries to prevent tourists from drinking. By law, once a ship with tourists enters Libyan waters, it must lock all alcohol in place. Once a ship has docked, Libyan security agents board it to ensure compliance. Tourists may not bring alcohol ashore. In much of north Africa, however, tourists benefit from the Muslim conception that non-Muslims may drink alcohol without criticism. If there is a trend in north Africa, it appears to be toward an increase in consumption. In 1997, the average Moroccan drank fewer than 2.5 liters of alcohol per year. By 2010, however, the figure had increased to 3.2 liters per year, before reaching 2.7 liters per year in 2013. Between 2005 and 2010, consumption rose in Algeria, which prohibits the drinking of alcohol only during the Muslim holy festival of Ramadan. Contrary to their heritage, many Tunisians view the consumption of wine and whiskey as inappropriate yet alcohol consumption in this country rose between 2004 and 2008. Viticulture and the making of wine remain important activities in Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. As long as one is discreet, there is little stigma attached to one’s drinking an occasional glass of wine or bottle of beer. To enable some flexibility in its prohibition, Libya tolerates the existence of a black market for alcohol, though participants must be cautious so as not to incur detection or punishment. Some Libyans simply cross the border into Tunisia to obtain alcohol legally. Industry European beer brewers, led by Heineken, have penetrated the north African market, though oddly, American brewers appear not to have had success. The fact that north Africa imports alcohol from Europe suggests that demand exceeds local supply in the region. Tunisians are reluctant to put a social or religious stigma on the consumption of alcohol and appear to be partial to beer. Even though prices have risen, Tunisians retain a thirst for alcohol. In the country, the Association for the Producers of Beverages promotes consumption. Between 2012 and 2013, the consumption of beer increased a small amount in Tunisia.
As do many governments, the Tunisian government derives revenues from taxing alcohol. In this context, a ban on alcohol would not be in the national self-interest. Some forecasters expect a 20 to 25 percent increase in beer consumption in the near future in Tunisia. Today, partly because of taxation, a single case of Heineken costs $35.50 in the country. Tunisians who cannot afford these prices make alcohol at home, though their products contain methanol, a type of alcohol known for its toxicity to kidneys and eyes. Too much methanol in the body may cause seizures and death. Morocco seems to be less dependent on imports, having its own brands of beer and wine. It does, however, import whiskey, vodka, tequila, and other alcoholic beverages. As is the case elsewhere in north Africa, excepting Libya, Morocco permits grocers, restaurants, bars, and hotels to carry alcohol. Cafes, however, may not serve alcohol. The country requires grocers to end the sale of alcohol one hour before a store closes, though some owners and managers bend this rule. Moroccans are not allowed to consume alcohol during Ramadan, but this prohibition does not extend to tourists and non-Muslims. Stigma One Moroccan tourist estimated that alcohol consumption is highest among people under age 30. Teens are avid alcohol drinkers. Moroccans stigmatize a drunk as a member of the lowest class. Public inebriation is shameful. Some Moroccans see drinking alcohol as a vice and are tempted to conflate it with other crimes. If a Moroccan has a bottle of beer or wine, he or she must keep it in a bag. There is a common assumption that a female tourist who consumes alcohol must be promiscuous. A woman, whether a tourist or native, who enters a bar, is thought to be a prostitute. In Morocco, more men than women appear to consume alcohol, perhaps because of this link to promiscuity. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: Africa, Sub-Saharan; Algeria; Egypt; French Colonial Empire; Islamic Law; Precolonial Africa; Roman Empire.
Further Readings B’chir, Nadya. “Alcohol Consumption High in Tunisia, Despite Prices.” Almonitor. http://www .al-monitor.com/pulse/culture/2013/04/alcohol -consumption-increases-tunisia-islamists.html (Accessed December 2013). Cook, Michael. Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Nauert, Nick. “Study Examines Alcohol Use Patterns Worldwide.” Psych Central. http://psychcentral .com/news/2013/03/05/study-examines-alcohol -use-patterns-worldwide/52234.html (Accessed December 2013).
Africa, Sub-Saharan Alcoholic beverages have been consumed in subSaharan Africa for centuries. As such, alcohol has historically played a central role in social, economic, political, and cultural life across the subcontinent. This remains the case today. Alcohol usage varies widely as well as historically across sub-Saharan Africa’s many cultures. As an offering and a medium for communicating with ancestors, alcohol has traditionally played a key role in religious ceremonies across the subcontinent. During the colonization period, alcohol became a key point of contention and a rallying point for the political struggles of Africans against the European oppressors. Today, in both urban and rural areas, alcohol is widely consumed for relaxation and socialization purposes. Alcohol is also a valued commodity. It has been an important source of income for women across sub-Saharan Africa, who have used it to support their own and their children’s needs. Academic Studies Early academic studies of alcohol in sub-Saharan Africa tended to assume that alcohol consumption was always destructive. This bias led early anthropologists to ignore evidence of culturally sanctioned alcohol consumption. It also served to justify the need to protect Africans from the acculturation that alcohol consumption was wrongly assumed to represent. More recent
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scholarship on alcohol in sub-Saharan Africa has tried to engage with the multiple uses and roles that alcohol plays in social, economic, cultural, and political life on the continent. Authors focusing on widely different contexts, such as Elizabeth Colson and Thayer Scudder in rural Zambia and Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong in urban Ghana, have, for instance, shown the implication of alcohol in processes of social change and political power. Types of Alcoholic Beverages Alcoholic beverages traditionally consumed in sub-Saharan Africa can be grouped into two categories: the beers made from grains such as sorghum or millet typically found in the savannah areas of east and southern Africa and the Sahelian zone; and the palm and banana wines of tropical areas typical of central and west Africa as well as coastal areas. The basic technique for producing beer from grains typically involves a two-step process. A small batch of grains—typically millet, sorghum, or maize—is soaked, sprouted, and ground in a container that has stored desirable yeasts and bacteria. A second batch of grains is then sprouted and ground. Fermentation occurs as the two batches of grains are mixed together. Many variations and innovations on this technique occur throughout the subcontinent. Banana wine is traditionally obtained by extracting the juice of sweet bananas, typically by squashing or treading. The juice is then turned into alcohol through natural fermentation. Palm wine is obtained by tapping the sap from coconut or oil palms, with the subsequent fermentation process requiring little input or work. Starting in the 18th century, the colonization process brought with it new alcoholic beverages to Africa, particularly spirits such as brandy and gin. Today, a wide variety of alcoholic drinks are consumed, traded, and produced in the sub-Saharan African continent. Traditional alcohols such as palm wines or grain beers are still widely consumed, particularly in rural areas. In addition, imported and locally made beers and spirits are today highly common in both rural and urban areas. Traditional Uses and Values Traditional patterns of alcohol consumption, production, and exchange in sub-Saharan Africa can
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be divided into three categories. First, in many cultures across the sub-Saharan continent alcohol has played, and continues to play, a major role in ritual and religious events. In traditional cultures such as the Akan, Ga-Adangwe, and Ewe peoples of southern Ghana or the Bena people in southwestern Tanzania, traditional wines and beers are used as offerings to the ancestors and as psychoactive substances with spiritual powers, often to facilitate communication with the ancestors and spirits through libation. Second, alcohol has also been traditionally used as a highly valued economic commodity. In societies such as the Duupa in northern Cameroon, for example, traditional beer was used as a means to recruit large numbers of workers to perform seasonal agricultural tasks. In such systems, alcohol becomes a valued commodity that supports an economy based on reciprocal exchange of labor. Third, across the sub-Saharan continent the consumption of alcoholic beverages has resulted in a key amount of time allocated to socialization and relaxation, with these beverages consumed primarily in the pursuit of enjoyment and recreation. Alcohol and the Colonization Process Alcohol played a pivotal role in the European colonization of sub-Saharan Africa. European colonial powers made systematic attempts to control the consumption and trade of alcohol across the subcontinent. Their attitudes were characteristically ambiguous: On one hand, colonial administrators were opposed to the consumption of alcohol by local populations on moral grounds; on the other hand, they were attracted to the substantial revenues that could be generated through the sale of drinks. Most European colonial powers introduced alcohol policies and laws restricting access—and sometimes prohibiting alcohol consumption altogether—for local populations. Colonial administrators widely viewed the control of alcohol as key to controlling social order at large and often resorted to violence in enforcing alcohol laws. Yet, they were not able to successfully control access and consumption of alcohol among local populations. Illegal brewing and drinking places were widespread in the colonized parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Places where alcohol was made and consumed often became key sites of opposition to colonial oppressors. Alcohol is
thus often seen as a symbol of the limits and failure of colonial powers and an example of African resistance to colonial rule. Urban Lifestyles and Drinking During the late 19th century, colonization and the process of industrialization led by colonial powers in order to meet their export needs resulted in new patterns of urban growth. Increasing numbers of migrants moved from rural areas to growing urban centers in search of work in factories and other industrial centers. Typically, these early economic migrants were individual men and women who found their traditionally organized social circles seriously eroded and changed in the cities in which they now lived. Drinking clubs and circles emerged as palliative modes of socialization and relaxation. This in turn led to growing
A bottle attached to a palm branch collects sap for the production of palm wine in Mtangani, Kenya, in 2013. Palm and banana wines are commonly found in tropical areas in central and West Africa as well as in coastal areas.
fears, particularly among traditional elders, of the corruption of youth and of the perceived disintegration of ancestral modes of drinking. This nostalgic vision of a more “integrated” past drinking culture reflects broader fears about current social changes rather than genuine evidence of problemfree drinking in the past. There is today some evidence of the widening availability of alcohol across the sub-Saharan continent, particularly focused on areas of urban growth. For many African urbanites, having a drink of alcohol for socialization and relaxation is part of their urban lifestyles and cultures. Yet, there are also clear movements, particularly those led by urban youth, against the consumption of alcohol. These zero-tolerance movements tend to be motivated by new forms of religious obedience, as well as reactions against the excesses and “heavy drinking” of earlier generations. Women and Children Alcohol has been a particularly important source of income for women in sub-Saharan Africa, both historically and more recently. Commercial brewing and distillation by women is often linked to the emergence of female-headed households—mostly in urban areas, but also in rural areas as a consequence of labor migration by men. In such a context, alcohol has often allowed women to gain some economic independence from their husbands and families. Most notably, women more than men have tended to invest the proceeds of the sale of alcohol in the upbringing of their children, using it to pay for school fees and supplies, for instance. It is, however, important to note the great ambivalence that exists with regard to women’s involvement in the alcohol trade. On one hand it is widely celebrated as an economic achievement, allowing women to gain more autonomy vis-à-vis men. Yet, there remain strong cultural norms against women’s use and exposure to alcohol in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Producing alcohol is taxing work. What’s more, many women who choose to brew and sell alcohol come up against social and cultural barriers and have to be prepared to face some of the consequences. Religion and Alcohol The history of religion and religious changes has been deeply intertwined with the social history of
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alcohol in sub-Saharan Africa. For instance, traditional religious practices often included the use of alcohol in rituals. Starting in the 8th century onwards, the spread of Islam in West Africa also had a major impact on the role played by alcohol in daily and ceremonial life in the region. As it spread, Islam tended to act as a strong control mechanism prohibiting the consumption of alcohol other than for medicinal purposes. However, in sub-Saharan Africa, as opposed to North Africa or the Middle East, Islam often cohabited with rather than supplanted traditional religious beliefs and rituals. This seriously reduced Islam’s ability to completely eradicate alcohol consumption for African Muslims, and in precolonial times many traditional drinks were not classified as alcoholic according to Islamic law because of their low alcoholic content. More recently, scholars such as Juha Partanen have continued to note the more mixed impact of Islam on alcohol consumption in sub-Saharan Africa compared to other parts of the Muslim world. Christianity, and particularly the recent rise of large and charismatic or more fundamentalist Christian movements, is also greatly changing attitudes toward alcohol in sub-Saharan Africa. Whereas traditionally Christianity was seen as more tolerant of alcohol consumption, these recent movements often assert a strictly abstinent stance on alcohol. These changing religious discourses toward alcohol whether from a Muslim or Christian perspective are often reflective of broader anxieties and concerns with regard to generational changes and certain forms of modernity. Clovis Bergère Rutgers University–Camden See Also: Africa, Northern; Drinking, Anthropology of; French Colonial Empire; Nigeria; Precolonial Africa; South Africa. Further Readings Akyeampong, Emmanuel Kwaku. Drink, Power, and Cultural Change: A Social History of Alcohol in Ghana, c.1800 to Recent Times. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1996. Bryceson, Deborah Fahy. Alcohol in Africa: Mixing Business, Pleasure, and Politics. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002.
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After-Dinner Drinks
Colson, Elizabeth and Thayer Scudder. For Prayer and Profit: The Ritual, Economic, and Social Importance of Beer in Gwembe District, Zambia, 1950–1982. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988. Douglas, Mary and International Commission on Anthropology of Food and Food Problems. Constructive Drinking: Perspectives on Drink from Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Willis, Justin. Potent Brews: A Social History of Alcohol in East Africa, 1850–1999. London: British Institute in Eastern Africa in Association With James Currey, 2002.
After-Dinner Drinks After-dinner drinks, which frequently contain alcohol, are meant to be consumed after the evening meal. Several varieties of drinks are appropriate for after dinner, such as brandies, dessert wines, fortified wines, rums, whiskeys, and various liqueurs. Savoring a drink after eating complements the meal, purportedly aids in digestion, and facilitates a mellow mood for the dinner. These drinks are sometimes referred to by the French word digestif, which means “digestive.” As a drink may help a meal settle in one’s system, it should also help ease away the day’s tensions, allowing for pleasant and amiable conversation among dining companions. Enhancing the dining experience in this manner has been practiced in Europe for hundreds of years and took root in North America in the mid-19th century. The custom, however, did not become firmly implanted with Americans today, largely preferring their cocktails before dinner (aperitif). While before-dinner drinks tend toward the lighter, drier end of the taste spectrum, afterdinner beverages are generally full, robust, and often sweet, and a host may elect to serve cocktails in place of dessert. These beverages are intended to be savored; overindulgence can be considered impolite. Guests who do not consume alcohol may prefer coffee, nonalcoholic cocktails, a carbonated beverage, juice, or water. For those who favor a stronger drink, selection
depends on what one has on hand or what a host or restaurant offers. Many base liquors can be served neat, which means straight from the bottle (unchilled), straight up (chilled but not served over ice), on the rocks (with ice), or mixed into a cocktail. Traditionally, a cocktail is a drink mixed with a distilled liquid (spirit), a sugar or syrup, and a bitter (although the ingredients of modern cocktails may vary). Bitters, once used medicinally, are employed in modern times as minimal ingredients in cocktails or, in the case of some, as drinks on their own. Recipes call for herbs, peels, roots, seeds, or spices macerated in spirits. Spirits are liquids made by distillation. Distillation is a process of capturing a condensed liquid produced from vapor during the heating or boiling of fermented liquids. Fermentation produces liquids that form during the breakdown (usually by the action of yeast) of mash, some plants and flowers, berries, or fruit. Wines Wine is a favorite after-dinner drink, especially the fuller, sweeter varieties. Some historians report that wine may have been produced as far back as the Neolithic period, but there is no clear evidence of where or when the first wine was made. When brandy or other spirits are added to wine during or after fermentation, the result is fortified wine, such as port, Madeira (Portuguese, sweeter varieties are usually consumed as after-dinner drinks), and sherry (sweeter versions are better suited as digestifs). Although fortified wines are generally categorized as one class, some varieties fall into the category of sweet wines. According to some studies, methods of sweetening wine dates back to ancient times. Also known as dessert wines, these are popular after-dinner drinks. Types of dessert wines include the following: • Late harvest: The grapes for this type are left on the vine longer than those picked for other wines; this practice increases the sugar in the grapes. • Ice wines: Sugar content is increased for these wines by letting the grapes freeze on the vine before they are harvested.
After-Dinner Drinks
• Sauternes: The grapes for these wines are allowed to shrivel on the vine as a result of a particular fungus; the sugar in the fruit becomes very concentrated. Brandy and Grape Spirits Distilling wine creates brandy. By some accounts, distillation of wine into brandy began in the 12th century. The word brandy originated from the Dutch word brandywine or brandewijn. When used alone, the word generally refers to grape brandy. Notable grape brandies include Cognac (yielded only in the regions around Cognac, France) and Armagnac (a lesser-known brandy from France made in the Armagnac districts of Gascony). Additionally, a product known as pomace, made from leftover grape scraps (skins, seeds, etc.), can be distilled into a beverage that can be consumed as an after-dinner drink and is often referred to as grappa (Italian) or marc (French). Fruit Brandies, Whiskey, and Rum The distillation of fruit wines (other than grape) creates fruit brandies often called eaux de vie (water of life). These after-dinner drinks can be made from almost any fruit. Popular choices include apple (of particular note are the apple brandies created by the distillation of hard cider, applejack, from America, and Calvados, produced in Normandy, France), apricot, blackberry, cherry, peach, pear, plum, raspberry, and strawberry. Distillation of the liquid produced from fermenting grains (basically, beer) produces whiskey. Some reports indicate that Scotch whisky was first distilled in the 15th century, and many claims are laid on the origins of American whiskey, which was first produced in Kentucky in the late 18th century. Bourbon, as it came to be known, evolved in the 19th century. Two well-known types (note the differences in spelling) include bourbon whiskey (American, often referred to as just bourbon) and Scotch whisky (Scottish, sometimes referred to as just Scotch). Rum, which is sugar cane juice or sugar cane syrup that is fermented and then distilled, is suitable for mixing. Some rums, however, may be taken straight. Aged rums may be darker and heavier. Distillation of molasses into rum began on Caribbean sugarcane plantations in the 17th century and then spread to the colonies in North
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America. Types include dark, aged long; flavored, infused with fruit flavors; gold (amber), aged longer than light rums but a shorter time than dark rums; light (white), mild flavored, most often used for mixing; and spiced, flavor enhanced by adding spices. Liqueurs In a category of their own, liqueurs emerged in history as concoctions designed for medicinal purposes (similar to bitters). According to some accounts, Italian monks began using herbs as medicines in the 13th century, thus bringing about the eventual evolution of various liqueurs. As time has progressed, many modern liqueurs now function as sweet drinks suitable for sipping after a meal or adding to a cocktail. They are often distilled spirits flavored with combinations of sweeteners, cream, flowers, fruits, herbs, nuts, or spices. Many are created from elaborate multi-ingredient recipes. Some selections include the following: • Amaretto—based on apricot pits or almonds (Italian) • Bailey’s Irish Crème—based on Irish whiskey and cream • Chartreuse—herb based, first made by Carthusian Monks according to a secret recipe (French) • Crème de menthe—mint flavored, available in white or green • Drambuie—based on malt whisky, honey, herbs, and spices (Scottish) • Galliano—herbal, includes anise, citrus, ginger, juniper, lavender, musk yarrow, vanilla and other ingredients (originally Italian) • Grand Marnier—a blend of Cognac, distilled bitter orange, and sugar • Kahlua—coffee flavored (Mexican) • Limoncello—based on a recipe calling for lemon peel steeped in a neutral spirit (Italian) • Midori—based on muskmelons, very sweet, mostly used for mixing • Sambuca—based on anise, elderflowers, liquorice, and spices (Italian) • Southern Comfort—made from fruit, spices, spirits, and whiskey flavorings (American)
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Al-Anon • Tia Maria—based on Jamaican coffee beans, Jamaican rum, sugar, and vanilla • Triple Sec—based on the dried peels of bitter and sweet oranges, often used as a mixer
After-Dinner Cocktails The origin of the word cocktail is the subject of many a tale. One story credits Betsy Flanagan, an 18th-century widow innkeeper, with the honor of creating the term when she decorated her customers’ drinks with chicken tail feathers. Others claim the drink was named after Xochitl, an Aztec princess, or assert the name is derived from the French word for mixed drink, coquetel. Modern cocktail recipes are abundant, and variations and methods of preparation exist aplenty. Some are shaken, some are stirred, some are served over ice, and some are chilled before serving. Addition of the appropriate amount of each ingredient and correct preparation are crucial to achieving the preferred taste. Some selections include brandy alexander (Cognac, chocolate liqueur, and light cream), Godfather (Scotch whiskey and Amaretto), Golden Slipper (yellow Chartreuse, apricot brandy, and egg yolk), Hurricane (dark rum, lemon juice, orange and passion fruit juices, and club soda), Irish coffee (brown sugar, Irish whiskey, hot coffee, and cream), Rusty Nail (Scotch whisky and Drambuie), sidecar (brandy, Triple Sec, and lemon juice) and old fashioned (bourbon, syrup, and Angostura bitters).
Jefford, Andrew. After-Dinner Drinks: Discovering, Exploring, Enjoying. New York: Ryland Peters and Small, 2003. Reed, Ben. The Art of the Cocktail. New York: Ryland Peters and Small, 2004. Rush, Colleen. The Mere Mortal’s Guide to Fine Dining. New York: Broadway Books, 2006. Southern, Michelle Dompierre. Dessert Cocktails: Classic and Contemporary After-Dinner Drinks. Portland, OR: Collectors Press, 2007.
Al-Anon
See Also: Aperitifs; Bourbon Cocktails; Brandy; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Cognac; Scotch Cocktails; Wines, Fortified.
Al-Anon Family Groups, known also as Al-Anon or Alateen, is an organization for the families of individuals struggling with alcohol abuse and addiction. Al-Anon describes itself as a “fellowship” of individuals whose lives by have been impacted by the alcohol use of others. The selfdescribed purpose of the groups is to help these individuals recover from the effects that use of alcohol by someone close to them has had on their lives through practicing the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), supporting family and friends of alcoholics, and providing understanding and encouragement to the problem drinker. Alateen was formed in 1957 and specifically designed for adolescents whose lives had been impacted by alcohol use. The first family groups for alcoholics were formed in 1939, but Al-Anon was not officially founded until 1951. The group was started by Anne B. and Lois W. Lois W., the wife of AA cofounder Bill W., formed the group after realizing that she could use the same model as the one used by her husband to engage in her own spiritual growth and recovery.
Further Readings Beckmann, Jon. After-Dinner Drinks: Choosing, Serving, Enjoying. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 1999. Calabrese, Salvatore. Classic After-Dinner Cocktails. New York: Sterling Publishing, 2001. Grimes, William. Straight Up or On the Rocks: The Story of the American Cocktail. New York: North Point Press, 2001.
Model As with AA, local Al-Anon groups are viewed as autonomous. Groups share their suggestions and assistance with each other through a central office. They hold weekly meetings, during which individuals share their experiences and provide support and encouragement to each other. There is no standardized protocol for meetings and the structure of meetings varies per group.
Glenda Jones Sam Houston State University
Al-Anon
As with AA, Al-Anon does not charge money for membership. In 2012, 98 percent of members reported that they had attended at least one meeting per week. Also similar to AA, Al-Anon holds itself to a standard of anonymity. Groups have policies of not discussing individuals outside of meetings or disclosing the identities of their members to others. Members are not supposed to approach each other outside of meetings. Al-Anon also maintains anonymity with regard to the press, media, and Internet. Al-Anon’s model considers alcoholism a “family disease” in that it impacts the entire family, not just one person. Although only the problem drinker can control his or her behavior, the behavior affects everyone. The model posits that friends and family of the problem drinker can become “ill” by taking that person’s shame, guilt, and responsibility onto themselves. However, the model also states it is possible for the other person to find contentment regardless of whether or not the problem drinker’s behavior continues. Furthermore, the organization promotes a model of “detachment” in which the other person recognizes that he or she cannot change the problem drinker and instead focuses on self-improvement and self-healing. One of the “three traditions” of the AA model is its Twelve Steps program. Al-Anon members also practice these steps, which are slightly modified from the version practiced by AA members. Members acknowledge the following steps: • “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.” This step involves individuals admitting that they have no control over the problem drinker’s alcohol use and that the alcohol use has also made their own life difficult or unmanageable. • “[We] came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” This step involves individuals affirming hope and faith that the problem drinker will recover and also that their own problems will improve. Often this is accomplished through spirituality, prayer, and meditation.
• “[We] made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” This step involves individuals deciding to put their trust in a high power and accept what this higher power has in store for them. • “[We] made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” This step involves individuals reflecting upon their past actions and recognizing all of the wrongs that they have committed. This can often include behavior related to the problem drinker. • “[We] admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” After recognizing these wrongful past actions, this step involves individuals admitting them to the group. • “[We] were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.” This step involves individuals accepting responsibility for committing wrongful actions. For example, the individual might have previously rationalized their behavior or placed all responsibility for it upon the problem drinker. • “[We] humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.” This step involves individuals using spirituality and prayer to overcome the factors involved in committing past wrongful actions. • “[We] made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.” This step involves individuals making a list of the people who were wronged by their past actions and forming a willingness to make amends with them. • “[We] made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.” This step involves individuals seeking out the people they want to make amends with and doing do through admitting wrongdoing and apologizing. • “[We] continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.” This step involves individuals continuing to
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Al-Anon monitor their actions, admit to wrong actions when necessary, and take responsibility for them. • “[We] sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.” This step involves individuals thinking about each day and figuring out what they can do better in the future, either through meditation, prayer, or self-reflection. • “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” This step involves helping others recognize when alcohol has impacted their life and assisting them with seeking help.
Demographics According to the most recent membership survey conducted by Al-Anon, the majority (86 percent) of members identify as female. Another 44 percent report that they are unemployed at the time of the survey. Of them, 58 percent report that they are married and 31 percent report that they are college graduates. The majority (91 percent) indicate that they are White, 5 percent indicate that they are Hispanic/Latino, and less than 1 percent indicate that they are Black. In the same survey, 3,232 respondents were asked about why they had joined Al-Anon. Out of them, 36 percent report that their husband led them to join the group, 12 percent indicate that their son had led to their joining, 10 percent indicate it was their ex-husband, and 7 percent indicate that it was their father. Results also suggest that members had multiple people in their lives whose drinking had led to negative consequences for them, as 46 percent suggest that their husband’s drinking and 45 percent suggest that their father’s drinking had negatively impacted them, regardless of whether it resulted in their joining Al-Anon. And 84 percent report that they had been in a romantic relationship with a problem drinker. Some of the respondents in Al-Anon’s survey also reported a history of mental health issues.
When asked if they have ever been diagnosed with a mental disorder, 80 percent report being diagnosed with depression, 39 percent with an anxiety disorder, 24 percent with posttraumatic stress disorder, 15 percent with a sleep disorder, 10 percent with a mood disorder, and 10 percent with an eating disorder. Another 65 percent indicate that they had been in psychological treatment prior to attending Al-Anon. Outcomes Al-Anon’s 2012 survey indicates that members generally report a subjective improvement in mental health. Out of the members, 49 percent report that prior to attending groups, their subjective mental health was significantly below average, and 28 percent report that it was slightly below. After attending meetings, 45 percent of the members’ self-reported mental health was significantly above average, 34 percent of their mental health was slightly above average, and 16 percent was average. Only 1 percent and 4 percent indicate that their mental health after meetings was significantly or slightly below average, respectively. Of the sample, 76 percent who had been in treatment prior to joining Al-Anon report no longer being in treatment after attending. Other research studies have examined the impact of Al-Anon on various outcomes for both the problem drinker and the Al-Anon member. Outcomes include knowledge about alcohol, family/marital stress and adjustment, psychological adjustment, treatment engagement by the problem drinker, and abstinence patterns in the problem drinker. Knowledge about alcohol. A 1965 study finds that individuals in Al-Anon were less likely to be moralistic and drank less than individuals who were not in the group. Members also define alcohol differently than individuals who were not in the group, with members identifying both a mental and physical component to alcoholism. Another study finds that attending meetings reinforced knowledge about alcoholism, although a similar result was found for individuals attending a non– Al-Anon alcohol education program. Family/Marital stress and functioning. Another study examines Al-Anon’s impact on family stress for AA members with a family member in Al-Anon
compared to its impact on the stress of AA members who did not have a family member in Al-Anon. It finds no difference between the two groups; however, it does find a correlation between increased length of Al-Anon attendance and family stress in both the AA and Al-Anon members. An additional study finds improvements on measures of family conflict, family cohesion, and relationship happiness after the problem drinker’s significant other had attended Al-Anon. However, similar results were also obtained with the Johnson Institute intervention and Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT). Yet another study also finds that the duration of wives’ Al-Anon membership is associated with a decrease in the behaviors that enable their husband’s alcohol use. Psychological adjustment. One study finds an improvement on measures of depression and anxiety in the substance user’s significant other. Once again, these improvements were also found in the groups that had received the Johnson Institute intervention and CRAFT. Several controlled studies also find that posttreatment improvement in functioning is greater in groups that had attended Al-Anon compared to the wait-list control group. In another study, individuals attending Al-Anon were interviewed. It finds that of the 25 percent of members who reported improvements after attendance, 20 percent report subjective feelings of improvement in themselves. Treatment facilitation and engagement. Another outcome that has been measured for Al-Anon is the impact of the member’s attendance on treatment engagement and change facilitation in the problem drinker. However, as changing the problem drinker is not a goal of the group, studies only tend to report percentages. One study finds that 20 percent of the 45 problem drinkers with a significant other attending Al-Anon were still engaged in treatment after 12 months. Another study finds that 13 percent of treatment-refusing problem drinkers engaged in treatment as a function of their significant others’ Al-Anon attendance. Alcohol abstinence patterns. Research has also examined the effect of Al-Anon attendance on the problem drinker’s alcohol use. A study conducted in 1978 found that problem drinkers tended to
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be abstinent when their wife attended Al-Anon or were involved with their husband’s treatment in some other manner. In summary, research conducted on Al-Anon indicates that it does have benefits, but these benefits may not be exclusive to the Al-Anon model, as they have also been observed in other facilitated treatment models, such as CRAFT and the Johnson Institute intervention as well as in problem drinkers whose wives were otherwise involved in their alcohol treatment. Furthermore, Al-Anon’s model is against trying to change the problem drinker, which could influence results in studies that compare it to other interventions such as CRAFT (which does involve promoting change in the problem drinker). The duration of Al-Anon attendance appears to be related to several important outcome variables, such as family stress and psychological adjustment in the Al-Anon member. It should also be noted that the concept of behavioral enabling has been criticized by researchers. Some researchers have disagreed with the view of behavioral enabling as negative and pathological, and instead hold the view that behaviors of the loved ones of problem drinkers are often nonpathological and perhaps even normal given the extreme family stress that alcoholism causes. They also have proposed that there are a variety of factors outside the home that also contribute to an individual’s drinking patterns. There has also been criticism of the notion of enabling behaviors, suggesting that the studies are possibly gender biased, as most of them examine enabling behavior in women, and that it tends to involve characteristics that are socialized in women. April Bradley Katie Thomas University of North Dakota See Also: Adult Children of Alcoholics; Alateen; Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Alcoholism: Effect on Family. Further Readings Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters. “Tenth Triennial, 2012 Membership Survey—Results & Longitudinal Comparison.” http://www.al-anon .org/pdf/MembershipSurvey.pdf (Accessed November 2013).
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can be due to the parent’s physical and mental impairments that occur while under the influence of alcohol or drugs; use of often-limited household resources to purchase alcohol or other drugs; and time spent seeking out, using, and recovering from the effects of alcohol or other drugs. Parental substance abuse can have enduring effects on children that continue into adulthood. These effects include a greater inclination toward developing a substance use disorder; interpersonal problems (for example, increased rates of divorce and violence in relationships); and mental health problems (for example, depression, anxiety, lower self-esteem).
Alcoholism and other drug use disorders have a broad impact on the individual who is drinking and using drugs as well as on their loved ones. Al-Anon Family Groups (Al-Anon) are the most widely used form of help in the United States for concerned family members and friends who are affected by another’s substance use. Alateen is an affiliate of Al-Anon that is designed specifically for younger people, mainly adolescents, who are impacted by another’s substance misuse. Alateen offers 12-step, mutual-aid groups in which peers who are a similar age and who are going through similar experiences provide each other support and understanding. It is one of the largest national programs to address the needs of young people affected by the substance use problems of a parent, relative, or friend. Research has shown that alcohol and other drug problems impact not only the person who is using; family members and friends of individuals with a substance use problem can experience “collateral damage.” These negative consequences can include financial problems, domestic violence, child maltreatment, and divorce. Parental alcohol and drug use, in particular, can have a detrimental impact on children. Young people impacted by parental substance use are more likely to experience symptoms of depression and anxiety, exhibit behavior problems and academic problems, and demonstrate other difficulties in school. Parental substance use can create home environments that are unstable and unhealthy. In families where a parent or caregiver is abusing alcohol or drugs, the basic needs of children, including nutrition, supervision, and nurturing, often go unmet. This
Goals and Guiding Principles The goal of Alateen groups is to help young people cope with the impact of a parent or other loved one’s substance use problems. The program provides support regardless of whether the family member or friend is actively using or is in recovery. There are no fees to join or participate in Alateen. The organization is self-supporting through its own voluntary contributions. Using a 12-step approach, it helps its members develop tools to respond to the stress, disruption, and other challenges related to alcohol and other drug abuse. Alateen groups are sponsored by Al-Anon and AA members who provide support and guidance for the groups. Although some communities have Alateen groups for preteens and young adults, most groups are focused on addressing the needs of teenagers. Some Alateen groups are focused specifically on helping children who have a parent(s) with alcohol problems. Alateen groups operate under 12-step principles similar to those of Alcoholics Anoymous (AA), Narcotics Anonymous (NA), and Al-Anon. The Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions, and Twelve Concepts of Service are considered to be Alateen’s three legacies or guiding principles. These legacies are united by a focus on the themes of recovery, unity, and service. The Twelve Steps are Alateen’s foundational concepts for personal recovery and urge members to carry the group’s message to others. The steps for Alateen and Al-Anon are the same and were adapted nearly word for word from the Twelve Steps of AA. They outline some of the distinguishing characteristics and beliefs of Alateen/
Rotunda, Rob J. and Kathy Doman. “Partner Enabling of Substance Use Disorders: Critical Review and Future Directions.” American Journal of Family Therapy, v.29/4 (2001). Timko, Christine, L. Brendan Young and Rudolf H. Moos. “Al-Anon Family Groups: Origins, Conceptual Basis, Outcomes, and Research Opportunities.” Journal of Groups in Addiction & Recovery, v.7/2–4 (2012).
Al-Anon groups, including the importance of understanding that one cannot control alcoholism, relinquishing concern over uncontrollable events to some higher force or the power or God, concentrating on changes in one’s own behavior, and helping others through a similar process. The steps also present Alateen’s view that alcohol problems are a family illness the consequences of which go beyond the person with the alcohol or other drug problem. The Twelve Traditions were adapted from AA and Al-Anon traditions to focus on the specific needs of young people. The traditions outline the basic governing rules, which are designed to protect the group from disruptive influences and help it to function effectively. These rules include maintaining members’ personal anonymity, ensuring that groups remain unaffiliated with outside organizations, and having an adult Al-Anon member sponsor each Alateen group. The Twelve Concepts of Service provide guidance for conducting service within the Alateen/Al-Anon fellowship. The concepts describe service on a global scale and discuss how groups can work together in efforts to share the message of Alateen/Al-Anon. In addition, the concepts refer to a system of conference delegates that operate a world service that is consistent with the traditions of Alateen. Meetings and Sponsorship Although each meeting has its own style, they generally follow a similar meeting structure. At some meetings, members of the groups will take turns reading one of the Twelve Steps, the group’s guiding principles. Typically, a different volunteer will serve as the leader or chair for each meeting. Although Alateen groups have an adult sponsor from Al-Anon, the meetings are led by young people who are members of Alateen. One of the meeting leader’s roles is to identify a topic for the group’s discussion, which are derived from personal experiences; emotions (for example, anger, fear, or pain); or Al-Anon slogans (for example “Just for today,” “Progress not perfection,” “You didn’t cause it, you can’t control it, and you can’t cure it”). Group members respond to the topic, speaking in the first person and sharing how the topic relates to their experiences. The discussion period is patterned after AA and Al-Anon meetings. The members share their
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experiences without giving direct advice (for example, telling another person what to think or do or how to act). Participants are encouraged to focus on their own life without gossip, questioning, or criticism of one another. The group provides encouragement to its members and helps teach healthier and more effective strategies to cope with problems. No one is required to participate, and the meetings are typically open to new members. When new members attend, a member of the group will often explain the goals, format, and approach of the group. Members will often provide new attendees with Alateen literature. At the close of many meetings, members may stand and recite the Serenity Prayer. Alateen meetings can generally be located online through Web-based directories or by contacting Al-Anon by telephone. Similar to AA, sponsorship is available to Alateen members, enabling a more personal connection between group members. Sponsorship is completely voluntary and is available for new members as well as those who have been involved in Alateen for a longer period of time. Sponsors share their experiences and explain how the Alateen program operates. They also help guide the sponsored member as he or she works through and applies the program’s 12 steps. Serving as a sponsor is in line with Alateen’s view that service is a key component in recovery. This view is captured in the Alateen/Al-Anon slogan “To keep it, you have to give it away.” History and Development The history of Alateen is closely tied to the history of AA and Al-Anon. AA began in 1935, and during the group’s early meetings concerned family members started meeting nearby. These unofficial gatherings were made up primarily of women who were waiting for their husbands who were attending AA meetings. Al-Anon was formally established in 1951 by group members Lois W. and Anne B. Lois W. was the wife of AA cofounder Bill W. and Anne B. was married to a man with chronic alcohol problems. Much of the membership during the early years of Al-Anon consisted of women who were married to men participating in AA. In the early days of AA and Al-Anon, teenagers often attended open AA meetings and family group meetings with their parents. Although
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young people were welcome at AA and Al-Anon meetings, the groups were not focused on their specific needs. In the mid-1950s, AA and Al-Anon began having public discussions addressing the unique needs of young people who were impacted by their family’s alcohol problems. The 1955 AA convention in St. Louis, for example, included presentations on the needs of young people who were the children of individuals with alcohol problems. The first official Alateen group formed in Pasadena, California, in 1957. The group was started by a teenager whose father was a member of AA and mother was a member of Al-Anon. Shortly thereafter, additional Alateen groups formed in South Africa and other parts of California. Alateen was developed to create a fellowship of young people impacted by another person’s alcohol problems, in which they could seek help and relate to each other. Today, Alateen groups have been established throughout the world. The groups are more specialized in their focus and consequently are not as widespread as AA or Al-Anon. The most recent Alateen membership survey, conducted in 2006, suggests there were approximately 945 Alateen groups in the United States, which represents a decline since the 1980s. In communities where there are no Alateen groups, teens are welcome to attend Al-Anon meetings. Additional Alateen Resources The principles of Alateen and views of its members are outlined in the group’s publications. To date, there are over 100 Al-Anon and Alateen publications, which include books (e.g., Hope for Children of Alcoholics; Alateen Talks Back); pamphlets (e.g., Facts about Alateen; A Guide for Sponsors of Alateen Groups); and other resources (e.g., newsletters, videos, pod casts, public service announcements). Some of these materials are available for free online or through local groups, while others are offered for a small fee. The Alateen Talks Back series, for example, includes collections of prose poetry and artwork from the “Alateen Talk” newsletter. In each volume, Alateen members reflect on a topic such as detachment, serenity, and Alateen slogans. The “Alateen Talk” newsletter is aimed at teenagers who have a family member or friend
struggling with alcohol problems. The newsletter is available on the Al-Anon Web site (http:// www.al-anon.org/alateen-talk) and contains narratives from young people who have participated in the Alateen program. Here, Alateen members describe the struggles that they and their alcoholic family members have faced and the ways in which Alateen has helped them to address these challenges. The newsletter also contains a section where Alateen participants share short stories that offer practical strategies for coping with day-to-day struggles. For example, one of the recent stories highlights how the Serenity Prayer, which is said at the Alateen meetings, has helped one particular teenager to stay motivated as she faces each day. Alateen pod casts are also posted on the AlAnon Web site and are available to the public. The pod casts address a variety of topics, including how alcohol problems affect family members, alcohol awareness month, and drinking issues during the holiday season. These pod casts help Alateen to reach out to current and potential members and highlight the types of support that participation in the program can provide. Several video testimonials from Alateen participants are also available on the Alateen and Al-Anon Web sites. These personal stories are told by Alateen participants and outline the challenges that they face in having a family member, often a parent, who is struggling with alcohol problems. In the testimonials, the teens describe the way in which they found and became involved in Alateen and the ways that the organization has helped them. Stella M. Resko Sarah Kruman Mountain Wayne State University See Also: Adult Children of Alcoholics; Al-Anon; Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Alcoholism: Effect on Family. Further Readings Fitzpatrick, Michael. We Recovered Too: The Family Groups’ Beginnings in the Pioneers’ Own Words; Hazelden Celebrates Al-Anon’s 60th Anniversary. Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2011. Timko, Christine, L. Brendan Young, and Rudolf H. Moos. “Al-Anon Family Groups: Origins,
Conceptual Basis, Outcomes, and Research Opportunities.” Journal of Groups in Addiction & Recovery, v.7/2–4 (2012). W., Lois. Lois Remembers: Memoirs of the Co-Founder of Al-Anon and Wife of the Co-Founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. New York: Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, 1979.
Alcohol Abuse, Symptoms of Alcohol is a socially acceptable and easy to obtain legal substance for adults. Drinking alcohol is a common practice in many social settings and is associated with a wide range of consumption patterns. For some individuals, the use of alcohol is simply an occasional drink with meals. For others, using alcohol may be a harmful behavior or even a life-threatening addiction. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) notes that over 17 million people in the United States—or one in every 12 adults—suffer from alcohol abuse or alcoholism, with millions more engaging in binge drinking and other risk-taking patterns involving alcohol. The process of becoming dependent upon alcohol can be gradual or quick, depending on many factors. Alcohol abuse ranks third as a global risk factor for diseases and is continually correlated to a variety of developmental and societal ills. Many of these alcohol-related problems extend far beyond the drinker and put others at risk of death, violent behavior, crimes, accidents, and disruptions in the home and work place. Yet, it is important to distinguish between drinking, alcohol abuse, and alcoholism. The symptoms of alcohol abuse and alcoholism can be very similar, but there are differences found in the areas of level of consumption, physical dependency, tolerance level, and withdrawal symptoms. Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Experts, specialists, and researchers working in the alcohol and drug dependency fields make an important distinction: there is a difference between alcohol abuse and alcoholism. It is not
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unheard of for someone who abuses alcohol to be highly functional in day-to-day living. Individuals can experience a problem drinking without it escalating to the level of an addiction. One of the key features of harmful drinking patterns is based in the frequency with which heavy drinking occurs. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a standard alcoholic beverage is measured and defined as 0.6 ounces of pure alcohol. This standard is often found in 12 ounces of beer (about 5 percent alcohol), 8 to 9 ounces of malt liquor (about 7 percent alcohol), 5 ounces of wine (about 12 percent alcohol), and 1.5 ounces (a “shot”) of 80-proof hard liquor substances (about 40 percent alcohol) such as gin, rum, vodka, or whiskey. Experts tend to agree, though, that problem drinking has little to do with the type of alcohol that is used and more to do with how often heavy drinking periods occur. The World Health Organization (WHO) summarizes heavy drinking as the consumption of over 60 grams (approximately 2.12 ounces) of pure alcohol during alcohol drinking. In the United States, heavy drinking can be viewed slightly differently for men and women. The CDC has determined that heavy drinking for men means drinking more than 2 alcoholic drinks per day or more than 14 alcoholic drinks in a week. It has defined heavy drinking in women as the consumption, on average, of more than 1 alcoholic drink per day or more than 7 alcoholic drinks each week. The Mayo Clinic suggests that heavy drinking for males would equate to more than five alcoholic drinks per day and more than four alcoholic drinks each day for females. Although there may be different ways to define heavy drinking, it remains one of the best examples of harmful drinking patterns. Alcohol abuse. The symptoms of moderate intoxication are often described as poor coordination, a reduction in reaction times, inability to concentrate, difficulties with memory, impaired judgment, and pinpoint pupils. Alcohol abuse involves frequent and high levels of alcohol drinking—to the point where the drinking interferes with responsibilities, relationships, health, and safety. However, the individual abusing alcohol still manages to maintain some semblance of control over the drinking. The individual can still set
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Alcohol Abuse, Symptoms of
some type of limit to the patterned drinking. And while the alcohol abuse may be problematic and harmful in a variety of ways, the abuse does not always lead to an actual physical dependence on alcohol, although the individual is at risk for progressing into a physical dependency. According to the NIAAA, alcohol abuse can be illustrated in the following situations, particularly if they occur repeatedly in a 12-month time period: • Missing work or skipping child care responsibilities because of drinking • Drinking in situations that are dangerous, such as before or while driving • Being arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or for hurting someone while drunk • Continuing to drink even though there are ongoing alcohol-related tensions with friends and family The typical symptoms associated with alcohol abuse are the following: • Loss of short-term memory and occasional “blackouts” • Irritability, depression, or mood swings • Ongoing use of alcohol to relax, to cheer up, to sleep, or to deal with problems • Headaches, anxiety, insomnia, nausea, or other unpleasant feelings when drinking is stopped When alcohol abuse crosses the line into physical dependency, the alcohol abuse becomes alcoholism. Alcoholism. Alcohol abuse and alcoholism have very similar symptoms. The defining differences between the symptoms are the physical dependency, the high tolerance level and need for higher levels of alcohol intake, and the subsequent withdrawal symptoms that alcoholism produces when the individual tries to stop drinking. When someone abuses alcohol, they may drink in excess, but they will not experience ongoing physical cravings and a consistent, daily compulsion to drink. Likewise, the person abusing alcohol will typically not experience withdrawal symptoms when they
stop drinking alcohol. On the other hand, when someone is dependent upon alcohol they will feel a strong compulsion to drink regularly along with a compelling need to drink in larger quantities in order to reach the desired effects and to ward off the oncoming withdrawal symptoms that occur when they try to stop drinking. The person who is dependent upon alcohol may truly want to quit drinking but simply cannot stop drinking despite repeated physical, psychological, interpersonal, or legal problems that may result from the alcohol dependency. The Mayo Clinic notes that certain risk factors are associated with alcoholism and can become early warning signs for potential alcohol abuse or alcoholism. The risk factors include the following: • Regular, consistent drinking over time: Consistently drinking too much over an extended period of time may foster physical dependence on alcohol • A person’s age: It is believed that the younger the age at which one starts to drink alcohol, the higher risk of experiencing problem drinking in the future • Family history: Research indicates that individuals with parents or close relatives who had problems with alcohol are at greater risk of alcoholism • Mental health issues: Alcohol, along with other substances, is often associated with individuals who experience mental health disorders • Social and cultural messages: The risk of alcoholism can increase through association with problem drinkers and their modeled behavior or through the messages we might receive through the media where drinking too much might be portrayed as socially acceptable The above risk factors outlined by the Mayo Clinic increase the likelihood that moderate drinking will become alcohol abuse, and that alcohol abuse will become alcoholism. According to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, the standard symptoms of alcoholism can be illustrated in the following ways:
Alcohol Abuse, Symptoms of
• Tolerance: The need, over time, to consume more alcohol in order to feel the desired effect • Withdrawal: Experiencing certain physical and mental symptoms that result when alcohol wears off and drinking alcohol stops (symptoms such as shakiness or trembling; sweating; nausea or vomiting; insomnia, depression or irritability; fatigue or loss of appetite; headaches) • Loss of control: An inability to limit the amount, the length of time for the drinking, despite the intention to do so • Desire to stop, but cannot: Despite a strong desire to stop, the individual finds that efforts to stop drinking are continually unsuccessful • Neglecting other activities: The use of alcohol takes priority over other activities that used to be enjoyable (such as spending time with family or friends or engaging in hobbies) • Greater time, energy, and focus on alcohol: Thinking about drinking, drinking, and recovering from drinking consumes most of the individual’s time and energy • Continuing to use alcohol despite negative consequences: Drinking continues despite the obvious problems that it is causing (such as a drinking and driving offense, but the individual continues to drink despite the problems it has produced) The Mayo Clinic has also offered this list of symptoms that can be associated with alcoholism: • Difficulty limiting the amount of alcohol you drink • Feeling a compulsion (a strong need) to drink • Developing a level of tolerance for alcohol—the point that you need to drink more alcohol to feel its effects • Drinking alone or going to lengths to hide the drinking • Experiencing physical withdrawal symptoms when alcohol is not consumed
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• Forgetting periods of time, ranging from conversations or appointments to blacking out entire sections of a day • Feeling annoyed when a ritual of drinking is disrupted • Experiencing irritability when alcohol is not available • Keeping a supply of alcohol in hidden places at home, work, or in vehicles • Drinking intentionally to feel good, to feel better, or to feel normal • Having legal, financial, or family problems as a result of drinking • Losing interest in the activities or hobbies that used to be enjoyable Withdrawal Symptoms and Alcoholism Individuals with a history of alcohol dependence (alcoholism) can find it difficult to stop drinking even when they want to stop. Withdrawal symptoms can range from being mild to severe, depending on the length of time and the intensity with which the individual has become dependent on alcohol. The general reactions of the body to cessation of alcohol, particularly in advanced stages of alcohol dependency, have been identified as follows: • Hand tremors, convulsions or uncontrollable shaking. Can begin within hours of stopping drinking (in advanced stages of alcoholism, delirium tremens, or late-stage tremors, can occur) • Extreme sweating, even in cool or cold temperatures • Agitation or anxiety caused by either the decrease of alcohol in the bloodstream or lack of adequate sleep or persistent insomnia • Nausea or vomiting, considered to be the body’s method of “housecleaning” • Seizures • Hallucinations Variance in Effects and Symptoms The effects of alcohol use can vary with a person’s gender, age, race, ethnicity, physical condition, the food intake prior to drinking, how fast the alcohol is consumed, the use of other medications or drugs, the individual’s family history
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Alcohol Abuse, Symptoms of
relating to alcohol, and even the setting or context in which the alcohol is used. The variance in effects across different populations and situations can also impact how the symptoms manifest and appear. Women are believed to differ from men in several significant ways that can impact their reactions to, and symptoms of, alcohol consumption. Fewer women than men drink. But according to the NIAAA, over 5 million women in the United States drink in a manner that puts their health and safety at risk. Although more men than women drink alcohol, the women have death rates that are 50 to 100 percent higher than their male alcoholic counterparts, including suicides, accidents, heart disease, strokes, and liver problems. As well, some researchers believe that heavy drinking is more risky for women than it is for men because
it can increase a woman’s chance of becoming a victim of violence or sexual assault. Even in small amounts, alcohol can affect women differently than men. For example, men have a greater ratio of muscle to fat than women, whereby blood flows more through the muscle tissue than the fat. Women’s bodies tend to contain more fat, less water, and process smaller amounts of alcohol in the stomach than men. A woman’s body is made up of approximately 45 to 50 percent water, while a man’s body is about 55 to 65 percent water. These differences can lead to more diluted levels of alcohol in men and much higher concentrated amounts of alcohol entering the bloodstream for women. Research also tells us that drinking over a long period of time tends to damage a woman’s health more than it does a man’s. Women, then, may show
A man observes an apparent binge drinker passed out in a public place after a festival. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reports that more than 17 million people in the United States—or one in every 12 adults—suffer from alcohol abuse or alcoholism, while millions more engage in binge drinking and other risk-taking patterns involving alcohol.
Alcohol Abuse, Symptoms of
signs of alcohol dependency sooner in the process than their male counterparts. Other segments of the population, such as the elderly, may exhibit the effects of problem drinking, but the signs and symptoms can be hidden, ignored, or even misdiagnosed by caregivers. The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence tells us that between 6 and 11 percent of all elderly patients entering hospitals exhibited symptoms of alcoholism, 20 percent of aging patients admitted to psychiatric services showed signs of problem drinking, and 14 percent of elderly patients seen in emergency room settings had symptoms of alcoholism. Veterans of military service are another group that may exhibit the effects of alcohol abuse or alcoholism, but these signs and symptoms can be ignored within a culture that has often glamorized drinking. The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse found that among 30 million veterans living in the United States, alcohol use affected 56 percent of the male and 41 percent of the female veterans. The symptoms indicated a range of problem drinking including alcohol use, abuse, binge drinking, and alcohol dependency (alcoholism). Facts about alcohol and employment also reveal how problem drinking may be present in another area of society: the workplace. The signs and symptoms of alcohol use and abuse can be seen in recent statistics provided by the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence: • Over 6 percent of full-time employees report signs or symptoms of heavy drinking • About 60 percent of work performance problems can be connected to employees who engage in alcohol use, abuse, or binge drinking on work nights or during a weekday lunch • Workers exhibiting drinking problems were 2.7 times more likely than workers without drinking problems to have injury-related absences • A study from hospital emergency rooms showed that 35 percent of patients with an occupational injury were problem drinkers • Breathalyzer tests in emergency room patients showed that alcohol was
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detected in 16 percent of patients who had work-related injuries • Workplace fatalities involved alcohol in at least 11 percent of the deaths, with 40 percent of industrial deaths being linked to alcohol use and alcoholism Another area where signs or symptoms of alcohol abuse or alcoholism can appear is in health problems. Alcohol is considered to be the third leading cause of death, with many alcoholrelated deaths remaining unknown and unreported. Alcohol is an irritant and has the ability to cause mild to serious damage to the body. Unfortunately, and all too often, the early problems associated with alcohol abuse are behavioral rather than physical. But once the use of alcohol reaches a habitual, chronic, and progressive stage, a number of physical signs in the form of health problems can appear. As the CDC notes, when there is excessive drinking or even periods of binge drinking, the individual may be facing numerous health problems that can also serve as signs or symptoms of problem drinking: • Diseases: Liver cirrhosis (damage to the liver cells) is one of the top 10 leading causes of death; other alcoholrelated diseases can include pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas; approximately 50 percent of all cases of pancreatic disease are believed to be alcohol related); various types of cancers; high blood pressure; and psychological disorders • Central nervous system: Impact on the central nervous system can include damaged brain cells (neurons), shortterm memory impairment, blackouts, seizures, hallucinations • Muscle-skeletal: Improper nourishment to muscle tissue can result in acute pain or weakness in some muscle areas; inflammation of the kidneys; bone mass loss and osteoporosis; and, for women, loss of menstruation due to an interference with absorption of calcium • Injuries: Unexpected and unintentional injuries that result from falls, burns,
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Alcohol Abuse and Crime, Sociology of drowning, traffic crashes, and firearm accidents • Violence: Assaults; domestic violence; child abuse and neglect; suicide; homicide • Pregnancy: Exposing an unborn fetus to alcohol puts the newborn at risk of physical and developmental problems that typically fall under the heading of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD)
The effects of alcohol use, abuse, and dependency can be seen and felt across a wide range of population segments and can also serve to reveal the signs and symptoms of problem drinking— individually and within society. Alcohol is the most widely used addictive substance in the United States. Consuming alcohol is a part of everyday life across many different populations and settings. Both alcohol abuse and alcohol dependency (alcoholism) can produce a variety of similar symptoms. What differentiates alcohol abuse from alcohol addiction is physical dependency, a higher tolerance level (and therefore a need for greater levels of alcohol intake), and the withdrawal symptoms that occur when the individual tries to stop drinking. Whether it is alcohol abuse or alcoholism, the many problems associated with hazardous or addictive drinking reach far beyond the drinker and put others at risk of harmful or even devastating outcomes. Patricia P. Dahl Washburn University See Also: Alcohol Abuse and Crime, Sociology of; Alcohol Abuse and Violence; Blackouts; Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder; Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse; Psychological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse; Serving Sizes; United States. Further Readings Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Alcohol: Frequently Asked Questions” (July 31, 2013). http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/faqs.htm (Accessed November 2013). Distance Learning Center for Addiction Studies. “Chronic Physical Effects of Alcoholism” (June, 2006). www.dlcas.com/MAAP (Accessed November 2013).
Mayo Clinic Staff. “Alcoholism” (August 9, 2012). http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/alcoholism/ DS00340/METHOD=print&DSECTION=all Accessed November 2013). National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc. “Signs and Symptoms.” http:// www.ncadd.org/index.php/learn-about-alcohol/ signs-and-symptoms (Accessed October 2013). National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. “Fact Sheets: Women and Alcohol.” http://www .niaaa.nih.gov (Accessed October 2013). World Health Organization. “Alcohol” (February 1, 2011). http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/ fs349/en/index.html# (Accessed October 2013).
Alcohol Abuse and Crime, Sociology of Alcohol has routinely been linked to criminal behavior; however, the precise nature of this relationship is ambiguous. Media portrayals and political reactions can undoubtedly be misleading, and both popular opinion and criminal justice responses are heavily influenced by these discourses. Criminological theorization of the relationship between alcohol and violence, on the other hand, should attempt to define the true aetiology of such behavior using sociological and psychological explanations and ensure that responses to alcohol and crime are understood in their cultural contexts (for example, based on the legal status and cultural locus of alcohol consumption). While medical models focus on the psychopharmacological properties of alcohol, sociologists have long purported that the relationship is mediated by situational factors, cognitive expectations, and sociocultural belief systems. Alcohol consumption is neither necessary nor sufficient for criminal behavior, and the strength of the association between alcohol consumption and crime type is not uniform, nor is it uniform across cultures. Thus, the relationship identifies itself as a complex interplay of biological, social, cultural, economic, and political factors, which can include individual attitudes and behaviors; relationships with friends, family, and
peers; and social environments. Thus, the aim of social scientists in the field is to understand how alcohol consumption is associated with different crime types and under what circumstances. From a policy point of view, identifying which crime types are associated with alcohol, how, and why enables a richer understanding of the alcohol–crime relationship, which in turn fosters an understanding of how it can be ameliorated. The Alcohol–Crime Relationship Alcohol use has been linked to crime variously: Not only can drunkenness itself be considered a crime, but alcohol may be related to offending of other types by exacerbating incidents, augmenting aggressive responses, or being used to summon the courage to offend. However, most drinking occasions do not result in crime, and even the most criminally inclined individuals do not commit crime on all drinking occasions. It is not, therefore, possible to suggest a direct causal link between the two. Crime is an exceptional outcome of drinking; high levels of drinking can result in surprisingly little crime and disorder given the quantities consumed and the volume of people drinking together in the same location. So, it is reasonable to posit that there are situational factors that increase the risk of offending and that certain population groups are also more at risk of offending due to lifestyle and other factors. Indeed, some kinds of alcohol consumption may be linked to some crime types in a variety of ways, under specific conditions, and among certain people. Thus, analysis in relation to specific crime types is required to tease apart how alcohol influences. It is noteworthy that alcohol-related harm and violence are not evenly distributed across crime types. While measuring the prevalence of alcohol in offending is riddled with difficulties, several studies allude to the proportion of offences that involve alcohol. The statistical association is routinely strongest when considering violent crime (including domestic violence and sexual offences), although it can also feature in driving offences (including manslaughter deaths) and acquisitive crime (such as burglary and theft), all resulting in high costs to communities, health, emergency services and the criminal justice system. Alcohol can also be linked to crime
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or violence by concomitant use of illegal drugs. Attributable fractions from the New-ADAM Arrestee Survey suggest that, in England and Wales, in between 12 and 47 percent of crime, alcohol is directly implicated, depending on the crime type, and figures from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (formerly the British Crime Survey) highlight that victims believe their assailants have been drinking in around 50 percent of violent offences. Other estimates suggest that victims believe their assailants have been drinking in 40 percent of all serious sexual assaults, and arrestees have tested positive for alcohol in 30 percent of burglaries. However, such abstracted single-impact figures do not necessarily show a meaningful association with crime or imply a causal role. Rather, they simply suggest that alcohol was absent or present and may simply be coincidence estimates: The observation that 50 percent of assaults were committed under the influence of alcohol does not mean that alcohol was the cause in those 50 percent of cases any more than its nonconsumption was the cause in the other 50 percent. However, such estimates can form the meaningful basis for further enquiry by identifying a statistical association to be explained. Indeed, one may be forgiven for assuming the alcohol–crime relationship was a simple causal one if accepting the simplified monocausal explanations offered by the media as well as many simplistic policy responses offered for dealing with offences where the offender has been drinking. The fact that many people consume alcohol for enjoyment and pleasure with no harmful criminal outcomes on most occasions is often ignored in media and political portrayals of the alcohol and crime “problem.” Indeed, alcohol can have positive effects and potentially reduce the propensity for crime by elevating mood as well as fostering companionship and frivolity. The pervading malevolent assumption regarding alcohol results in alcohol consumption being attributed directly to socially disadvantageous events occurring after alcohol consumption. In contrast, both government and the alcohol industry are quick to cite the economic benefits associated with alcohol consumption in legislative and policy responses concerning the development of the nighttime economy.
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Research A wealth of research on alcohol consumption, its links with crime, and its role in violence exists. This body of research is not conclusive in establishing the role of alcohol. However, most commentators agree that a causal connection between consumption and crime is unlikely. Rather, in relation to violence, there are likely to be common causes and intervening or mediating factors in the relationship between alcohol and criminal behavior that may lead to an increase in the probability of a criminal or violent outcome. Empirical research in this field has often been criticized for employing biased samples of arrestees, offenders, or violent incidents and for focusing on the cross-sectional identification of risk factors associated with violent offending and “risky” drinking patterns, offering only a limited explanation as to how these might operate. This is where sociological and criminological contributions come in: Their goal is to pinpoint how alcohol is related to crime and what factors mediate this relationship. Theoretical Models While some people may be more likely to commit a crime after drinking, especially violent crime, sociological or criminological approaches purport that behavior is dependent on the individual’s social characteristics (such as age, gender, and class) and the context in which the behavior takes place. Among people, an understanding of their own drinking and related behavior is likely, among other things, to be negotiated and reinforced by social interaction and networks as well as via peers, family upbringing, and social status. Several theories have been developed to explain variations in individual propensity for crime; some focus exclusively on individuals, and others focus on the wider environment, investigating the relationships between individuals and their economic and social surroundings. Early 20th-century positivist criminology identified the causes of crime as being the result of social or emotional deprivation or faults within the offender’s person. However, this approach has been considered to be insufficiently capable of explaining geographical concentrations of crime (such as rates of violence, including alcohol-related violence, in city centers) as well as explaining associations
between deprivation and crime rates (that is, why deprived areas have higher rates of violence). Consequently, a shift of focus from the offender to the nature of the offence has occurred, allowing for a consideration of the contexts in which offences occur. This ecological framework suggests a relationship between crime and contextual characteristics based on evidence that some areas and drinking locations suffer a disproportionate volume of violence and gives due consideration to the social structures and causal mechanisms that lead to criminal or violent behavior. Social factors such as inequality, disadvantage, deprivation, poor social integration, low social capital, high crime levels, availability of alcohol, demographic change, and weak governance all impact levels of offending. Social–structural inequality plays a role in the distribution of (alcohol-related) offending: social systemic marginalization and deprivation are likely to result in disproportionate rates of alcohol consumption as well as criminal behavior. Rates of harmful drinking and crime are consistently higher in disadvantaged areas, and alcohol is readily available in these areas as a result of high concentrations of licensed premises and outlets selling low-cost alcohol. Deprived areas are also often disproportionately targeted with off-license provision. On a more local level, there is also merit in considering the characteristics of “high-risk” environments, such as the nightlife hot spots in city centers and particular drinking venues. Indeed, many scholars have conducted empirical studies examining the impact of the structural layout, health and safety, and serving policies of venues on the proportion of alcohol-related violence associated with that venue. They systematically identify higher rates of alcohol-related violence associated with particular traits, such as poor management, lax serving policy, tolerance toward alcohol-related violence, and criminality or a culture of promiscuity associated with the drinking venue. Acknowledging the role of societal factors implies that sustained sociopolitical change is required to address the root inequalities from which much crime and alcohol consumption stems. This includes tackling poverty, inequality, and exclusion as frustrations and resentment are brought about by these conditions and are often precursors to alcohol consumption and
aggression. Indeed, de- and self-regulation of the alcohol industry and proliferation of licensed venues to attract economic growth in city centers in England and Wales provide useful examples highlighting how the sociopolitical environment can influence alcohol consumption and violence. Combined with the liminal governance of the nighttime economy, this has resulted in creating environments prone to excessive alcohol consumption and alcohol-related disorder. In addition to studying structural influences and the role of social inequality on crime and alcohol consumption, the propensity for involvement in (alcohol-related) violent offending is also subject to the presence of individual-level risk factors. These include being young (both alcohol consumption and criminal activity are likely to peak during late adolescence and early adulthood), being male (males are more likely to engage in criminal and violent behavior—or at least that which come to the attention of the authorities), having low educational attainment, involvement in antisocial behavior, prior violent victimization, being brought up within a problematic family, associating with deviant peers, and high levels of alcohol consumption. All these impact heavily on an individual’s (criminogenic) behavior. Indeed, there is a strong association between consumption and an individual’s risk of being either a perpetrator or a victim of violence, and alcohol is sometimes used by victims of violence to self-medicate and cope with their experience, which can lead to heavy and problem drinking. Analysis identifying such risk factors associated with criminal behavior and substance misuse has formed much of the evidence for the what-works paradigm and early intervention programs. But, alongside the outlined factors, individuals’ beliefs about alcohol consumption and the wider cultural context are also thought to mediate the alcohol–violence relationship. Cultural norms are constructed of individual and societal beliefs about appropriate values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors and are thus likely to play a role in shaping attitudes toward drinking and resulting drunken behavior. Indeed, many argue binge drinking and social acceptability of female heavy drinking in the UK ought to be studied as sociocultural phenomena, giving due consideration to these influences. As the strength of the association
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between drinking and violence is known to vary cross-culturally, it would seem plausible that alcohol-related behavior is to some extent mediated by people’s perceptions of their surroundings and their sociocultural backgrounds. For example, the binge drinking phenomenon seen in many Western developed nations can be explained, at least in part, by concepts such as “time out” (as originally proposed by Craig MacAndrew and Robert Edgerton) and more recently determined drunkenness (as defined by Fiona Measham). Variation and cultural norms associated with male and female drinking ought to be considered within gender constructions, prevailing norms, and stereotypes associated with masculinity and femininity and changes therein. These are likely to be important alongside biological differences in explaining the strength of the association between alcohol and crime. Indeed, cultural variance in patterns of alcohol use among men and women, different motivations for drinking, gender-specific roles in other areas of life, and how male and female drinking is regulated will all impact of the strength of this association. Furthermore, cultural definitions and norms change over time and vary across different jurisdictions and places and can be strongly influenced by depictions of alcohol use in the media and in advertising. Norms and attitudes are also likely to be shaped at an individual level by peer association and life events: That is, they are subject to change over the life course. Development The transition between childhood and young adulthood comes with challenges, such as establishing an identity, forming relationships with peers, and deciding on educational or employment pathways. Needless to say, this transition does not always go smoothly, partly because, for many, it is a period of experimentation with risk taking. This can include experimenting with both alcohol and crime. Many aetiological studies of crime adopt a life course or criminal career approach. These approaches acknowledge that levels of offending fluctuate during different stages in the life course and that criminal careers may have distinct phases and transitions, including the onset of offending, career duration, and desistance. There is considerable heterogeneity in drinking and criminal behavioral trajectories: Some grow
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out of problematic alcohol use and indeed crime, while others may persist; some may start early, while others come to drinking or crime later in life. It has also been noted that problematic behaviors adopted during this period can have repercussions in adulthood. For example, long-term negative health consequences have been associated with heavy episodic drinking during adolescence, and alcohol use during childhood and adolescence can lead to continued alcohol abuse and dependence in later life. Studies have also found that those who were aggressive in childhood or adolescence are more likely to be heavy drinkers and commit violent offences later in life, with significant continuity between childhood aggression and adult violence. Some longitudinal studies have found high-volume drinking to be a predictor of future violent behavior. Developmental pathways or trajectories of alcohol consumption and violent behavior routinely overlap in adolescence and young adulthood (both tend to peak in young adults). The onset of both offending and drinking tend to occur at similar stages in the life course: Drinking typically commences in late childhood or early adolescence and increases steadily during adolescence, peaking in young adulthood before tailing off to more moderate consumption in adulthood (although this typical pattern masks several different trajectories). Those between 16 and 24 are most likely to be learning to drink, drinking to excess, and frequenting nightlife venues; therefore, this is an age group disproportionately associated with public and nightlife violence. Many risk factors for violence operate at various stages of the life course, and delinquent careers have both proximal and distal antecedents, of which alcohol has routinely been found to be a common proximal risk factor: That is, at periods in which young people drink more, they are also more likely to behave violently. The association between drug and alcohol use and crime leads to natural questions about the sequencing of events and how these relate to possible developmental pathways, for example, from alcohol and drug use to offending. It is generally understood that trajectories to offending rarely follow such neat and orderly stages; rather, it is purported that they may run in parallel and be chaotic or overlapping. It is also unlikely that there is one developmental
pathway that captures such change—rather, there are likely to be multiple trajectory groups. Criminal Justice Responses, Crime Prevention, and Policing As the most widely used and misused psychoactive drugs in the UK, alcohol and its links with crime pose a significant challenge for public health and criminal justice agencies. Criminal justice responses tend to focus on targeting and controlling individual “irresponsible consumers” with fines, imprisonment, or treatment. The courts and probation service often divert those whose offending is alcohol related into treatment and clinical supervision to support their “recovery” and reintegration into society as well as reduce recidivism. Within the treatment paradigm, there is often an underlying assumption that alcohol abuse equates to alcohol dependency and so can be “treated” in a medical framework or approach (addiction-as-disease concept). However, many sociological scholars contend that problematic alcohol consumption (including alcoholism) may in fact be a historical and cultural social construction, in part, serving to legitimize repressive forms of power and social control over groups of individuals who have come to be defined as deviant or problematic. Indeed, debate is still ongoing in the field as to whether there is a disproportionate focus on problem drinking as opposed to the plentiful benefits of nonproblematic alcohol use. People may drink alcohol in order to disavow their deviance at a later stage, and this may serve to perpetuate normative excusing of bad behavior while under the influence of alcohol. This is known as the deviant disavowal framework, which purports the belief that alcohol reduces personal responsibility and is used as a predictor of and after-the-fact excuse for aggression or violence. Thus, blame and responsibility for certain behaviors are therefore relocated from the individual to the substance without challenging the deviant behavior. The plausibility of the deviance disavowal framework, however, depends upon the acceptance of these accounts of behavior by society. MacAndrew and Edgerton aim to reject the stereotype that aggressive and antisocial behaviors are inevitable consequences of heavy drinking. Instead, it has been argued that cultural norms define the typical behaviors that accompany
drinking situations, for example, a symbolic connection between alcohol use and hegemonic masculinity. Indeed, in sentencing theory and practice, there are tensions between considering alcohol or other intoxication a mitigating or aggravating factor, often dealt with in a haphazard manner based on personal sentencing philosophies. Crime prevention and policing efforts have often centered on environmental and situational crime prevention efforts (such as police patrols, street lighting, and closed-circuit television [CCTV]) in high-risk areas, such as city centers and drinking venues, to tackle the immediate “disorder” and consequences of heavy public drinking and reduce the likelihood of violence. Approaches aimed at modifying drinking environments can be useful in managing the immediate problem of alcohol-related violence by containing and minimizing immediate harm. However, some argue that this focus is misdirected as it locates explanations for alcohol-related crime in individual decision making without accounting for wider cultural, social, or economic influences. For example, the widespread availability of alcohol at the population level and the uncritical acceptance by policy makers and the alcohol industry of the irresponsible drinking behavior itself could be seen as letting the alcohol industry off the hook and pandering to the economic benefits of alcohol use at the expense of addressing the negative health and social consequences. Indeed, in direct contrast to policy surrounding illegal drugs, the alcohol industry in many jurisdictions seems to be subject to increasing liberalization and self-regulation (even privately policing the nightlife sphere using private security firms or bouncers). Given that most evidence points toward alcohol as a contributory factor in crime, especially violence, restricting alcohol availability (that is, through limiting advertising and taxation or regulating alcohol sales) is thought to be a promising avenue for prevention. However, in England and Wales, as in many other jurisdictions, the public health agenda remains absent in attempts to regulate licensing, with the immediate consequences of heavy public drinking being of prime concern rather than long-term health implications or the destruction of communities. Indeed, policies focused on restricting alcohol availability tend to be unfavorable as they oppose neoliberal
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economic policy, which promotes widespread expansion of the nighttime economy—in which alcohol plays such a big part. Thus, despite there being potential for more meaningful integration among economic, crime prevention, and public health policy, responses that focus on legislating and regulating consumers dominate. Carly Lightowlers Liverpool John Moores University See Also: Alcohol Abuse and Violence; Bars, History of Alcohol Abuse in; Binge Drinking, History of; Drunken Behavior as Culturally Learned; Psychological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse; Pubs. Further Readings Bennett, Trevor and Katy Holloway. Understanding Drugs, Alcohol and Crime. London: Open University Press, 2004. Deehan, Ann. Alcohol and Crime: Taking Stock. London: Home Office, 1999. Dingwall, Gavin. Alcohol and Crime. London: Willan Publishing, 2005. Fagan, Jeffery. “Intoxication and Aggression.” Crime and Justice, v.13 (1990). MacAndrew, Craig and Robert Edgerton. Drunken Comportment: A Social Explanation. Chicago: Aldine Publishing, 1969. Measham, Fiona. “The New Policy Mix: Alcohol, Harm Minimisation, and Determined Drunkenness in Contemporary Society.” International Journal of Drug Policy, v.17/4 (2006). Pernanen, Kai. Alcohol in Human Violence. New York: The Guilford Press, 1991. Sumner, Maggie and Howard Parker. Low in Alcohol: A Review of International Research Into Alcohol’s Role in Crime Causation. London: The Portman Group, 1995.
Alcohol Abuse and Violence The relationship between alcohol and aggression—and hence also violence—is often deterministically assumed given their frequent coexistence.
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However, while no causal connection has yet been conclusively established, the literature consistently points to heavy drinking as a contributing cause of violence alongside other factors. Indeed, alcohol is estimated to be a factor in around half of violent incidents. More specific estimates suggest that, in the United States, more than half of victims of intimate partner violence reported their perpetrators as having been drinking, and recent estimates from the United Kingdom (UK) suggest offenders drinking in 40 percent of serious sexual assault offences. Furthermore, a meta-analysis of nine countries found that alcohol was involved in 34 percent of homicide offences in which a firearm was used. This does not mean that alcohol consumption is the only or the primary determinant of whether violence will occur: Alcohol consumption is neither a necessary nor sufficient cause of violence. Rather, alcohol contributes to violence in some people under some circumstances, and researchers in the field are predominantly concerned with understanding these specific conditions as well as the individual and societal factors involved. This understanding may offer an insight into the nature of alcohol-related violence, which in turn fosters an understanding of how it can be ameliorated. Indeed, it is not necessarily alcohol consumption per se that is associated with violence; violence is more probable with excessive use or abuse of alcohol, and greater alcohol consumption can increase the severity of violent incidents or risk of injury. Nature of the Relationship Several theories have been forwarded to explain variation in alcohol-related violent offending; some focus exclusively on individual characteristics and the role of alcohol on impairing cognitive functioning and behavior, while others focus on the wider environment investigating the relationships between individuals and their surroundings. These include the following: • The disinhibition thesis suggests that alcohol directly affects the brain (frontal cortex) so that it cannot inhibit aggressive behavior. This theory is considered overly deterministic and has limited empirical support given that not all persons become aggressive when
they drink. Others have since tried to modify it, suggesting a theory of selective disinhibition in which the pharmacological properties of alcohol interact with social norms, allowing alcohol’s effect on individuals’ behaviors to vary conditional upon contextual factors (such as perceived normative expectations for behavior). • The expectancy model opposes the disinhibition thesis and purports that, rather than the pharmacological properties of alcohol influencing behavior, it is individuals’ learned beliefs about how alcohol consumption will influence their behavior that shape subsequent intoxicated conduct. According to this perspective, those who believe alcohol promotes violent behavior will be more likely to become aggressive as this is what they expect to happen. While support for this theory is limited in placebo studies, there is modest support from other studies to suggest expectancies interact with alcohol consumption to increase aggression. • The indirect cause model forwards the disinhibition thesis by suggesting alcohol can affect certain psychological and physiological processes, which could result in individuals responding aggressively or violently to social and situational cues that, if sober, they would have responded to differently. For example, alcohol may distort cognitive perceptions of risk and decision making, increase levels of aggression, and reduce self-control, which can lead to incidents escalating beyond what may have occurred if one or more individuals involved had not been drinking. However, the proportion of violent events that involve alcohol varies cross-culturally and in different settings, with varying strengths of association in different contexts, suggesting the relationship between alcohol and aggression is spurious based on a relationship between characteristics of drinkers or the drinking situation and aggression. Factors beyond overall consumption levels
contribute to the probability of a violent incident while alcohol is being consumed. The alcohol–violence relationship is mediated by contextual factors such as social norms, cultural expectancies, and the physical drinking environment. It would thus seem plausible that alcohol-related behavior is to some extent mediated by people’s perceptions of their surroundings and their sociocultural backgrounds. For example, Maggie Sumner and Howard Parker suggest that the drinking disorder connection in Britain is likely to be related to cultural factors, such as cultural norms and attitudes held about alcohol consumption. Furthermore, people drink and behave very differently depending on the environment and in different social settings: The effects of alcohol are thought to be mediated by personality, expectancies, situational factors, and social norms. In support of this hypothesis, poorly maintained and managed drinking venues have been found to be associated with increased aggression among drinkers, as are individual behavioral characteristics, such as risk taking or behavioral problems, which may serve as common risk factors to both drinking and violent behavior. Both alcohol misuse and criminal behavior can be related through common risk factors such as previous violent victimization, secondary exposure to violence, or behavioral traits such as antisocial personality disorder. Both increased consumption and prior violent victimization increase the risk of being involved in violence in the future, each exacerbating each other with a strong association between consumption and an individual’s risk of being either a perpetrator or a victim of violence. Indeed, alcohol is sometimes used by victims of violence to self-medicate and cope with their experience, which can lead to heavy and problem drinking. Furthermore, in addition to the toxicological effects of alcohol, alcohol may also be used in the purposeful preparation for violence—as seen among some gang members. Conversely, alcohol may reduce the propensity of violence by elevating mood as well as fostering companionship and frivolity or inadvertently preventing incidents of violence that may have otherwise occurred if the individual had not been too intoxicated (as identified in Kai Pernanen’s anthropological study on the drunken comportment behavior).
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Given the complexity of the alcohol–violence relationship, it is difficult to ascertain alcohol’s precise role. In order to understand this relationship in more detail, it is necessary to identify the many factors influencing the relationship at the individual level, the cultural factors involved, and the role of social and situational environs. Much of the existing research on alcohol and violence has focused on identifying the presence of alcohol in violent events. However, despite sustained research efforts, it is difficult to pinpoint any causal relationships. Thus, the hypothesis that alcohol consumption may not directly determine involvement in violence but, rather, is conditional on a number of other factors, which increase the probability of an interaction escalating into a violent incident (as originally forwarded by Pernanen) is now widely accepted. So, rather than looking for a single definitive explanation of alcohol-related violence, the complexity of social meanings, norms, and expectations of drinking ought to be acknowledged as in sociological and criminological contributions on the understanding of alcohol and violence. Such approaches acknowledge the relationship among personality traits, behavior, and the context in which behavior occurs and contend that behavior is dependent on individuals’ social characteristics (such as age, gender, and social class). Risk Factors While there is no biological or physiological evidence that alcohol unleashes preexisting aggressive or violent impulses, alcohol is known to impair cognitive functioning and thus the ability to process incoming information and develops suitable and appropriate responses to situational cues. Individuals may vary in their susceptibility to both these effects and aggressive impulses based on biological determinants, personality factors, and disorders. However, it is also recognized that, alongside such biological determinants, many responses for dealing with and managing aggression are fostered by social learning, upbringing, and gene–environment interactions. Indeed, alcohol-related violence is a complex problem resulting from the interaction of many factors—biological, social, cultural, economic, and political. At an individual level, being young and male, having low educational attainment, involvement
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in antisocial behavior, prior violent victimization, having delinquent peers, and high levels of alcohol consumption all increase the likelihood of both violent victimization and offending. Both increased alcohol consumption and prior violent victimization increase the risk of being involved in violence in the future. Unlike other forms of criminal behavior, the distinction between victim and offender is often blurred when considering violence. It would appear that, in the case of drunken brawls and some street violence, the notion of a culpable offender and an innocent victim is not always applicable. In such incidents, the victim is often an arbitrary label assigned to the party who lost, was more seriously injured, reported the incident, or required medical care as the result of an incident. Prior violent victimization or offending behavior can also increase the risk of violent offending in the future. While individual factors and explanations go some way to explaining the alcohol–violence link, they do not adequately explain why some areas and environments systematically see more alcohol-related violence than others. Ecological studies have consistently identified higher rates of alcohol-related disorder and violence within city centers and pointed to the fact that higher levels of violence can be found in more deprived communities. Contextual factors thus shape rates of violence (1) by affecting the development of individuals within an area (that is, by creating more individuals prone to offending) as well as (2) by shaping an area or environment itself, which may make it more criminogenic (that is, attracting higher rates of offending). Community and societal (macro-level) factors also shape the nature and prevalence of alcoholrelated violence. Factors such as inequality, disadvantage, deprivation, poor social integration, low social capital, high crime levels, alcohol availability, demographic change, and weak governance also impact levels of violent offending. For example, the decline of the manufacturing industry and development of the tertiary sector in many UK towns and city centers has given rise to the expansion and large-scale development of the nighttime economy—often centered around licensed leisure—to promote economic growth and development. This in turn has led to an increase in urban drinking venues and has shaped drinking
culture. In the UK, this has impacted traditional drinking practices and establishments previously based around local public houses and almost exclusively performed by men and young males. Drinking by young people is now increasingly concentrated in town and city centers as opposed to in their local communities. Combined with the liminal governance of the nighttime economy, this has resulted in the proliferation of environments prone to excessive alcohol consumption and alcohol-related disorder, which is highly visible in towns and city centers and has raised widespread concern surrounding binge drinking and alcoholrelated harm in England. Acknowledging the many societal factors that influence violence implies that sustained sociopolitical change is required to address the inequalities from which much violence stems. This includes tackling poverty, inequality, and exclusion as frustrations and resentment are brought about by these conditions and are often precursors to aggression and violence. Indeed, the recent financial crisis provides a useful example highlighting how the sociopolitical environment can influence alcohol consumption and violence. Concerns from experts warn of increased drinking, especially in the domestic sphere (as drinking at home is more affordable than in licensed establishments), and domestic violence, which may be triggered as a result of uncertainty and financial instability. Not only are there a number of different risk factors associated with alcohol-related violence, but alcohol abuse can be implicated in violence in a number of forms, including street violence, brawls in drinking venues, homicides (including those where firearms are used), intimate partner violence (often referred to as domestic violence), and sexual assaults, among others. Homicide Despite a well-established link between alcohol and violence more generally, there is a somewhat partial understanding of any potential contributory role of alcohol in firearm violence, which comprise most (attempted) homicides. While alcohol is likely to be implicit in many homicides— given links between alcohol and aggression more generally—firearms homicides may have different motives and dynamics that suggest alcohol is
less likely to be implicit. For example, these may include premeditated revenge attacks as a result of gang activity (gang-related homicides are more likely to involve firearms). A meta-analysis of studies from nine countries by Joseph Kuhns and colleagues estimated that nearly half of all homicide offenders and half of all homicide victims are under the influence of alcohol; however, this drops to 34 percent of offenders having drunk alcohol in homicide offences in which a firearm was used. Thus, homicides committed with another weapon are more likely to be committed by an offender under the influence of alcohol. However, it is likely that this proportion is subject to variability depending on gun availability in different countries. So, while it is clear that reducing or restricting alcohol consumption can help prevent homicide more generally, its impact on firearm homicides is debatable. Given a lower proportion of homicides involving alcohol for offences involving firearms, the recent
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decline in alcohol-related homicide offenders in the United States may, in part, be related to a shift toward more homicides being committed with firearms. Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Assault There is substantial evidence that points to alcohol abuse as a contributory factor in intimate partner violence independent of other factors (such as age, socioeconomic or occupational status, and race or ethnicity) and broad agreement that perpetrators are often heavy drinkers and heavy drinking often accompanies the violence. However, there is ongoing debate as to whether heavy drinking causes perpetrators to be violent or whether it is used to excuse violent behavior. There is tentative evidence to suggest intimate partner violence by the most violent of male perpetrators is not necessarily related to alcohol consumption but that alcohol consumption may increase the severity of the violent episode, but further research into
A rioter stands in front of a burning vehicle during the urban unrest in Vancouver, Canada, begun by hockey fans in June 2011. Overall, alcohol is estimated to be a factor in around half of all violent incidents, and a meta-analysis of nine countries found that alcohol was involved in 34 percent of homicide offenses in which a firearm was used.
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moderators of the alcohol–intimate partner violence relationship is required. Alcohol abuse and intimate partner violence are associated both in terms of the offender drinking and the victim turning to alcohol as a consequence of violence. Alcohol can serve to increase the risk of violence or severity of injury as well as be a potential trigger for disputes between intimate partners. Such disputes can also trigger further drinking and result in a cycle of violence and alcohol abuse in some relationships over extended periods of time. Although there is some disagreement about the role alcohol consumption plays in intimate partner violence (as causality cannot be established and associations are only suggestive evidence that intoxication per se has any association with intimate partner violence), one perspective argues that heavy alcohol consumption is a contributing cause of marital aggression; thus, a reduction in heavy drinking will often lead to a reduction in or cessation of intimate partner violence. Of course, the causes of the intimate partner violence may not lie directly in the alcohol abuse, and an understanding about the specific conditions under which alcohol contributes to violence is the aim of scholars in this field. Both within an intimate partnership and among acquaintances or strangers (although most sexual assaults occur among persons who know each other), alcohol abuse can increase the risk of sexual assault perpetration as well as victimization. This can occur as a result of both cognitive impairment in reading and responding to situational cues and the increased risk associated with coming into contact with others in settings in which alcohol is consumed. While a woman may face increased risk of sexual assault as a result of her alcohol consumption, she is in no way responsible for the assault: However, beliefs held about alcohol’s effects on sexual and aggressive behavior as well as stereotypes about females that drink (such as them being more sexually available or more promiscuous compared with women who do not drink) can contribute to alcohol-involved sexual assault, as can attitudes and practices that condone sexual exploitation of women. As in other forms of violence, alcohol abuse can also be a consequence of prior sexual assault— with individuals turning to alcohol to cope and
self-medicate. Alcohol intoxication on the part of the offender can increase the level of aggression in a sexual assault. Alcohol can also be used to facilitate sexual assault by intentionally getting the victim intoxicated so as to take advantage of them sexually. Alcohol-Related Violence Prevention As these many examples suggest, alcohol abuse can play a role in many forms of violent behavior. Reducing alcohol availability (and thus consumption) is central to reducing and preventing violence. Effective strategies to reduce alcohol consumption include increasing the price of alcohol (for example, higher taxation) and regulating alcohol sales. However, these can often stand in opposition to economic policies that promote the widespread expansion and development of the nighttime economy and de- and self-regulation of the industry, thus resulting in policy responses that focus on legislating and regulating consumers. Indeed, meaningful overlap and integration among economic, crime prevention, and public health policy remains an area that could be improved upon, and many commentators have suggested current policy focuses too much on the economic benefits of alcohol use at the expense of addressing the negative health and social consequences. Alongside measures to restrict alcohol availability, challenging dominant cultural beliefs held about alcohol consumption and its role in excusing bad behavior is also a potential avenue for violence prevention; such attitudes ought to be challenged alongside tolerance of violent behavior more generally. At the individual level, there is evidence to support differentiated, tailored, and targeted intervention at distinct groups of individuals that have similar attitudes and motives for drinking in order to prevent alcohol-related violence. Social marketing campaigns targeted at challenging the norms held about alcohol consumption among young people have also been the focus of many U.S. studies in recent years. These are thought to be beneficial in challenging beliefs about what constitutes normal, accepted, negotiated behavior and so aim to modify misapprehensions surrounding alcohol use and in turn influence attitudes and drinking behavior. As well as population-level prevention policies to reduce drinking and change attitudes,
modifying drinking environments and venues can be effective at reducing the likelihood of violence. Much good work has been done (in the UK, United States, and Australia) in trying to promote effective urban and premise management as well as regulation change (for example, by engaging local licensees, influencing licensing policy and practice, and implementing bar staff, server, and door staff training). Alongside such measures, situational crime prevention techniques are often employed in and around licensed premises (for example, police patrols, street lighting, and closed-circuit television [CCTV]) to enhance safety and manage violence when it occurs. While approaches aimed at modifying drinking environments can be useful in managing the immediate problem of alcohol-related violence by containing it and minimizing immediate harm, they can also displace the problem—for example, causing incidents to spill out onto the streets or upon returning home. They also tend not to focus on the wider social and cultural factors that shape drinking and violent behavior and the wider harms these can cause and fail to address the excessive and potentially irresponsible drinking behavior itself. At the individual level, treatment for problematic alcohol consumption (including alcoholism) ought to be offered to perpetrators of violence where appropriate to reduce recidivism. In criminal justice responses, structured behavioral programs (often relying heavily on cognitivebehavioral therapy as a method for tackling both substance misuse and violent behavior) are often targeted at offenders who have perpetrated a violent offence or whose offending is alcohol- or substance, misuse-related. However, in England and Wales, few community penalties are specifically targeted at addressing alcohol misuse, fewer still are targeted at young people, and approaches for doing so are not standardized across authorities or probation areas. Effective treatment and clinical supervision of people who offend require specific tailoring to individual circumstances, mental health needs, and offending patterns (such as instrumental or expressive violent behavior) to enhance public protection from repeat offending. For example, wrongly targeted therapeutic programs in rehabilitating violent offenders in a mental health
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context can actually increase the likelihood of recidivism for certain offenders. Delivering broad, generalized treatment packages to violent offenders in prison and correctional settings means the specific needs of individuals are not being met and may be inappropriate as violent offenders are a heterogeneous group. Thus, the support required ought to be evidence-based and targeted to individuals’ specific needs. Carly Lightowlers Liverpool John Moores University See Also: Alcohol Abuse and Crime, Sociology of; Bars, History of Alcohol Abuse in; Binge Drinking, History of; Drunken Behavior as Culturally Learned; Heavy Drinkers, History of; Psychological Effects of Alcohol Chronic Abuse; Pubs. Further Readings Abbey, Antonia. “Alcohol and Sexual Assault.” National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/ arh25-1/43-51.htm (Accessed August 2013). Fagan, Jeffery. “Intoxication and Aggression.” Crime and Justice, v.13 (1990). Felson, Richard, B. Teasdale, and K. Burchfield. “The Influence of Being Under the Influence: Alcohol Effects on Adolescent Violence.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, v.45/119 (2008). Graham, Kathryn. “Theories of Intoxicated Aggression.” Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, v.12/2 (1980). Graham, Kathryn, et al. “Current Directions in Research on Understanding and Preventing Intoxicated Aggression.” Addiction, v.93/5 (1998). Kuhns, Jospeh, et al. “The Prevalence of AlcoholInvolved Homicide Offending: A Meta-Analytic Review.” Homicide Studies (2013). Leonard, Kenneth. “Alcohol and Intimate Partner Violence: When Can We Say That Drinking Is a Cause of Violence?” Addiction, v.100 (2005). Lipsey, Mark, et al. “Is There a Causal Relationship Between Alcohol Use and Violence? A Synthesis of the Evidence.” Recent Developments in Alcoholism, v.13 (1997). MacAndrew, Craig and Robert Edgerton. Drunken Comportment: A Social Explanation. Chicago: Aldine Publishing, 1969.
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Pernanen, Kai. Alcohol in Human Violence. New York: The Guilford Press, 1991. Sumner, Maggie and Howard Parker. Low in Alcohol: A Review of International Research Into Alcohol’s Role in Crime Causation. London: The Portman Group, 1995.
Alcohol and Drugs History Society Multidisciplinary in focus, the Alcohol and Drugs History Society (ADHS) is an international group of approximately 250 scholars who study all aspects of the historic and cultural aspects of alcohol and drugs. ADHS began as the Alcohol and Temperance History Group in 1979, but the group changed its name to the Alcohol and Drugs History Society in 2004. While most members are English-speaking, ADHS boasts members from around the world. The stated purpose of the organization, which is headquartered in Toronto, is to promote scholarship and discussions about the history of alcohol and drug use, abuse, and production and to analyze efforts to control access to alcohol and drugs, including tobacco. ADHS publishes the Daily Register on its Web site to keep members and the general public abreast of current information on alcohol and drug scholarship. It also offers book and film reviews and information on current alcohol and drug trends and relevant news stories. Book chapters and links to online articles are also available via the Daily Register. ADHS biennially publishes the Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal. The journal was originally called the Social History of Alcohol Review. ADHS also publishes the blog Points, which is available on its Web site. As a member of the American History Association (AHA) since 1986, it participates in the annual AHA conference. Every other year, ADHS hosts scholarly conferences in different parts of the world. The ADHS Web site has become a major research tool for scholars, with a searchable archive for information on alcohol and drugs throughout the world. Since 2003, the Web site has also provided online access to the
Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Emerging Field The first academic and scientific studies on alcohol began in the 1940s. Scholars had a rich history to draw on at this time because of the years of Prohibition, which lasted from 1920 to 1933 in the United States, and the link between alcohol and organized crime that surfaced during that time. Passage of the Twenty-First Amendment, which repealed Prohibition and negated the need for the speakeasies that had come to characterize social life for many Americans, offered additional avenues of study. The first organized studies of the cultural significance of alcohol began at New York’s Bellevue Hospital and Yale University’s Laboratory of Applied Physiology and Biodynamics. These studies gave birth to the Yale Center of Alcohol Studies under the direction of E. M. Jellinek, who broadened his study of the impact of alcohol on the human body to include the study of all problems related to the use of alcohol. The center was relocated to Rutgers University in 1962, becoming the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies. In 1965, D. G. Mandelbaum published a groundbreaking article on alcohol studies in Current Anthropology in which he summarized existing scholarship and laid the groundwork for future scholarly works. By the 1970s, anthropologists had begun to articulate the ways in which anthropology and other scholarly fields could contribute to an understanding of alcohol throughout history and in modern societies. The establishment of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare provided additional legitimacy for the emerging field of alcohol studies. ADHS History Reflecting the group’s early focus entirely on alcohol, the Alcohol and Temperance History Group was established in 1979 to bring together scholars from around the world who were engaged in studying alcohol. Over the following decades, the need to study drugs as well as alcohol increased in importance, and in October 2004, the Alcohol and Temperance History Group announced that it was becoming the Alcohol and Drug History
Society. The name of the organization’s journal was changed from the Social History of Alcohol Review to the Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal (SHAD). As the name change suggests, the journal expanded to cover more scholarship and information on drugs than in the past. The previous spring, the group’s International Conference on Drugs and Alcohol in History had articulated the goal of adding the study of drugs to the ongoing studies on alcohol. David Fahey served as interim editor in chief of the new journal, and Jon Miller took on the role of executive editor. Dan Malleck, an expert on alcohol and drinking in Canada, joined the team as an editor, along with Scott Haine. At the same time, Northern Illinois University Press announced that it would begin publishing a series of books on the combined history of alcohol and drugs. When the group changed its name to the Alcohol and Drugs History Society, Ian R. Tyrrell, a history professor at the University of New South Wales, was serving as president. Tyrrell became the first president of ADHS. He was succeeded in 2006 by W. J. Rorobaugh, a history professor at the University of Washington. In 2008 Rorobaugh was in turn succeeded by David T. Courtwright of the University of North Florida. Joseph Spillane, a history professor at the University of Florida took over the helm in 2011. In 2014, the slate of officers included Scott C. Martin, of Bowling Green State University, as president and Cynthia Belaskie as secretary-treasurer. Dan Malleck of Brock University served as editor in chief of SHAD. The executive council comprised college professors from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Scotland, Sweden, and Germany and representatives from alcoholrelated societies such as Britain’s Brewery History Society and Canada’s Addiction Research Society. Academic and Cultural Relevance The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal is a peer-reviewed publication that attracts contributors from around the world. The journal includes reports of academic research, reflection essays, and reviews of books related to the study of alcohol and drugs. On the ADHS Web site, the Daily Register offers a blend of history, culture, and information about alcohol and drugs. It provides interviews with authors
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and scholars, reviews relevant books and films, and highlights current trends. One article highlighted by the Daily Register in the summer of 2014, for instance, linked to a Wall Street Journal article discussing the rising number of craft distilleries in the United States that were producing small-batch bourbons, vodka, and gin. That same edition of the Daily Register carried an interview with William L. White, the author of Slaying the Dragon: A History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America, which had been released in a second edition by Chestnut Health Systems in 2014. Another article, by Matthew Allen, examined alcohol attitudes and policies in New South Wales via an article published in History Australia in 2010. The AHDS blog, Points, is a group blog containing the contributions of scholars in the field of alcohol and drug studies. Usually from 500 to 1,000 words each, the blog entries cover historical, cultural, and political aspects of alcohol and drugs. The blog was launched in 2011 by Joseph Spillane and Trysh Travis. The Alcohol and Drugs History Society holds biennial conferences that give scholars in the field a chance to learn about ongoing research and establish contacts with fellow scholars. The 2007 conference was held at Guelph University in Ontario, Canada. Two years later, the group met at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. In 2011, ADHS scholars gathered in Buffalo, New York, for “The Pub, Street, and Medicine Cabinet” conference, which was supported by the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, the University at Buffalo (UB) Center for Clinical Ethics and Humanities in Healthcare, the Humanities Institute, and the UB Department of History. The conference opened with “A Dialogue Between History and Science.” Conference sessions included “Contemporary Theories of Addiction,” “Cycles of Temperance Reform,” Regulating the Licit Drug Market,” “Opium Dens and Grog Shops,” and “The Social History of Drink and Drinkers.” Members of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society demonstrate their relevance to 21st-century scholarship in a number of ways. Refusing to limit themselves to understanding the role of alcohol and drugs in history and culture, they have also become involved in expanding knowledge concerning contemporary issues related to
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the abuse of alcohol and drugs. For instance, David M. Fahey, a member of the board and a history professor at the Miami University of Ohio, is an internationally recognized expert on alcohol. Fahey has been involved in examining increased consumption of alcohol in Great Britain by both adults and children. The national rate of consumption in Britain almost doubled between 1981 and 2001. Children between the ages of 11 and 15 were reportedly consuming from five to 10 pints each week. Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Alcohol Abuse and Crime, Sociology of; Bourbon; Gin; Journal of Studies on Alcohol; United Kingdom; Vodka. Further Readings Alcohol and Drugs History Society. http:// alcoholanddrugshistorysociety.org (Accessed July 2014). Heath, Dwight B. “Anthropology and Alcohol Studies: Current Issues.” Annual Review of Anthropology, v.16 (1987). Mandelbaum, D. G. “Alcohol and Culture.” Current Anthropology, v.6 (1965). Musto, David F., ed. Drugs in America: A Documentary History. New York: New York University Press, 2002. O’Neil, Luke. “American Gins Go Their Own Way.” Wall Street Journal (July 18, 2014). Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies. http:// alcoholstudies.rutgers.edu (Accessed July 2014). Tracy, Sarah W. and Caroline Jean Acker. Altering American Consciousness: The History of Alcohol and Drug Use in the United States, 1800–2000. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004.
Alcohol Awareness Month In 1944, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD) was founded. The
organization has long targeted alcohol abuse as America’s chief public health crisis. In 1987, the NCADD designated April as Alcohol Awareness Month to bring to the fore concerns about the inappropriate use and overuse of alcohol and to spread a message of treatment and wellness. One may wonder how effective Alcohol Awareness Month is given what appears to be its low profile. Despite the efforts of Alcohol Awareness Month to bring a focus to the issues, alcohol abuse and alcoholism seem to be so widespread as to be intractable problems. The NCADD can issue frightening statistics during Alcohol Awareness Month, but it does not seem to be able to change hearts and minds. The consumption of alcohol has such a long history among humans that it may be that the use and abuse of alcohol will never be tamed. Alcohol Awareness Month in Perspective Alcohol Awareness Month celebrated its 26th anniversary in 2012. The theme for the year was “Healthy Choices, Healthy Communities: Prevent Underage Drinking,” which is particularly relevant given the prevalence of alcohol among high school and underage college students. The slogan for 2013 is “Help for Today. Hope for Tomorrow.” Through Alcohol Awareness Month, the NCADD aims to raise public awareness of the dangers of overconsumption of alcohol. It aims to examine the social, economic, and medical perils of excessive alcohol consumption. This effort comes at an apt moment, as there are reports of binge drinking on college campuses and a widespread problem of alcoholism, particularly among the poor and people of color. Perhaps the specter of the poor, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans gives alcoholism some of its stigma. The NCADD hopes that the increase in public awareness that results from Alcohol Awareness Month will reduce the stigma attached to overconsumption of alcohol so that more people will seek treatment for their addiction. Alcohol Awareness Month seeks to underscore the connection between one’s genes and the risk of alcoholism. For this reason, the council considers it important for one to know his or her family history. During Alcohol Awareness Month, the NCADD seeks to educate people about the pathology of alcoholism and its tendency to be fatal if untreated.
Alcohol Awareness Month emphasizes that, in contrast to the claims of the temperance movement in the 19th and 20th centuries, alcoholism does not result from poor morals or weak willpower. Rather, alcoholism is an illness that, like any other serious ailment, requires medical intervention. Like the temperance movement, Alcohol Awareness Month seeks to inform people that alcoholism is more than a disease of individuals; it affects families in social, economic, and pathological ways. Alcoholism may ruin a family’s finances and lead to divorce, which has its own deleterious effects on children and former spouses. Alcohol Awareness Month emphasizes that millions of Americans have, through medical and psychological treatment, recovered from alcoholism and lead productive lives. NCADD President and CEO Robert J. Lindsey notes the importance of Alcohol Awareness Month in bringing to public awareness the harmful effects of alcohol in terms of consumption and addiction. This message is important given the recent retrenchment of government funds for public programs, such as those treating alcoholism and related disorders. The United States needs events like Alcohol Awareness Month to try to establish local, state, and national priorities. Alcohol Free Weekend, the first weekend in April. is part of Alcohol Awareness Month. In this scheme, Friday must be tallied as part of the weekend. This idea may trouble some Catholics who consume wine as a symbol of Jesus’s blood at Sunday Mass. Abstinence, however, has a virtue. Any American who cannot abstain for 72 hours should recognize that he or she has a problem and may be in the early stages of alcoholism. Before one’s condition worsens, he or she should seek medical and psychological treatment. During Alcohol Awareness Month, the NCADD partners with the better-known Alcoholics Anonymous to raise the profile of alcoholism and the treatment needed to combat it. The emphasis on treatment may be the most conspicuous attribute of Alcohol Awareness Month. This emphasis distinguishes the month from the early temperance movement and from Alcoholics for Christ. The organization suggests that willpower or faith in God alone will not suffice to cure an alcoholic. Rather, an alcoholic should seek treatment from the medical and
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Alcohol Awareness Month has taken place every April in the United States since 1987. The photo shows a member of the U.S. Air Force experimenting with a breathalyzer test during an alcohol and drunk driving enforcement course in 2012.
psychological community, preferably early in his or her illness to prevent complications. One might visit a trusted primary care physician for guidance or enroll in an alcohol treatment center. In many cases, one’s medical insurance may dictate his or her options for treatment. Medicaid may cover part of the cost of treatment for low-income families, though the states are debating whether to expand the program, a crucial decision in the current climate of conservatism. Making Alcohol Awareness Month a Reality During Alcohol Awareness Month, the NCADD targets millions of Americans with its message of sobriety and treatment, packaging information in leaflets and handouts and giving them to the media, physicians, nurses, psychologists, hospitals, churches, government officials, and Americans from all walks of life. The NCADD begins preparing for the month in February, when it generates
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literature. This is not a one-size-fits-all exercise. The NCADD customizes literature to each community in the United States, an effort that must take time and thought. In February, the NCADD announces the approach of Alcohol Awareness Month, plans grassroots activities, reminds public officials that April is coming, and issues radio addresses about the coming of the month. In March, the NCADD assembles press kits for each locality, issues news releases, and calls journalists to gain their support. During Alcohol Awareness Month itself, the council attempts to attract large audiences to receive the message of hope through treatment. The staff write letters to newspaper editors and, if possible, op-ed pieces for inclusion in local newspapers. During the month, the NCADD attempts to carry its message to Congress, governors, and state legislators. The council determines which public officials are sympathetic to the organization and enlists their support and endorsement. It also works with the staff or press agent of a state representative or senator when it does not have direct access to the politician. It enlists support from physicians, nurses, psychologists, hospitals, and educators. Whenever the budget allows, the council sponsors television ads for a local audience. In the quest for political support, in late March or early April the council invites a public official to announce the beginning of Alcohol Awareness Month. This event becomes a photo opportunity. The NCADD uses statistics to give the public a sense of the magnitude and scope of the problems associated with alcohol abuse and alcoholism. During Alcohol Awareness Month, the council issues surveys to teens so that they may assess their own drinking habits, presents the narratives of people who overcame addiction to alcohol through treatment, reminds Americans that a single episode of binge drinking may be lethal, underscores the problem of underage drinking, presents narratives of rapes that occurred as a result of intoxication, underscores the link between drunk driving and tragedy, elaborates the ways to commit oneself to sobriety, and traces the link between heredity and a predisposition to alcoholism. Despite all the statistics it marshals of disorder and death, the NCADD refrains from advocating prohibition in relation to Alcohol Awareness
Month, probably because it knows that the United States has tried this experiment and failed. Instead, the month’s focus is on moderate, responsible drinking and abstinence for Americans under age 21. Alcohol Awareness Month also emphasizes the treatment of mental illness because the mentally ill appear to be particularly vulnerable to alcohol abuse and alcoholism. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: Mothers Against Drunk Driving; National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence; Students Against Destructive Decisions. Further Readings Century Council. “April Is Alcohol Awareness Month.” http://www.centurycouncil.org/alcohol -awareness-month (Accessed February 2014). MADD. “Alcohol Awareness Month.” http://www .madd.org/blog/2013/april/alcohol-awareness -month.html (Accessed February 2014). National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. “Alcohol Awareness Month.” http://www.ncadd.org/index.php/programs-a -services/alcohol-awareness-month (Accessed February 2014). National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. “NIAAA Recognizes Alcohol Awareness Month,” http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/news-events/alcohol -awareness-month.2013 (Accessed February 2014).
Alcohol by Volume The standard measure of how much alcohol (ethanol) is contained in an alcoholic drink is referred to as alcohol by volume (ABV or alc/ vol). This number is expressed as a percentage of total volume. In the 1700s, alcohol content was determined by using gunpowder. Alcoholic beverages were tested by pouring the liquid onto a pinch of gunpowder and lighting it. The gunpowder would ignite only if the alcohol content was 50 percent ABV or more. The alcohol was considered appropriate to purchase if it ignited. However, if it failed to burn, it was deemed
“underproof”; and if it burned too quickly, it was “overproof.” Currently, ABV is calculated using measurements obtained before and after the fermentation process. During fermentation, yeast organisms consume the sugars and produce alcohol. The density of alcohol in water is less than the density of sugar in water. A hydrometer is an instrument that is used to measure the density of liquid in relation to water. This instrument is calibrated to read 1.000 in water at 60 degrees F. The denser the liquid, the higher the hydrometer reading. To calculate the ABV percentage of beer, a brewer takes a measurement of the wort before fermentation at 60 degrees to obtain the starting specific gravity (SSG). After fermentation, the brewer takes another hydrometer reading at 60 degrees to obtain the final specific gravity (FSG). The SSG and FSG are used to calculate the ABV; the FSG is subtracted from the SSG and multiplied by 131. For example, if a brewer measures the SSG at 1.090 and the FSG measures 1.015, the ABV percentage is 9.825. More specifically, the calculation is (1.090 – 1.015) × 131 = 9.825 percent ABV. Other Designations Alcoholic beverages are not always marked by the ABV designation. Instead, a consumer may find a label indicating alcohol by weight (ABW). If the person is accustomed to understanding alcohol content in regard to ABV percentage, he or she may not realize that the alcohol content in a beverage labeled ABW is actually higher. To convert ABW to ABV, multiply ABW by 1.25. For instance, if a beer is labeled 5 percent ABW, the beer has an ABV of 6.25 percent. Some places around the world also identify alcohol content in units. A unit of alcohol is defined as 8 g (grams; 10 ml [milliliters]) of absolute alcohol. To calculate the alcoholic beverage in units, the consumer must know the strength of the drink (ABV) and the amount of liquid in milliliters (one pint is 568 ml; a standard glass of wine is 175 ml). Multiply the amount of drink in milliliters by the percentage ABV, and then divide by 1,000. For example, a pint of strong lager at 8 percent ABV is equal to 4.5 units. The calculation is so: 1 pint (568 ml) × 8 = 4,544/1,000 = 4.5 units. Weekly consumption of alcohol is suggested to not exceed 21 units (168 g alcohol) or 4 units per day for men
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and 14 units (112 g alcohol) or 3 units per day for women. The amount of alcohol can also be expressed as alcohol proof. In the United States, this is defined as twice the ABV percentage. In the United Kingdom, however, it is defined as 1.75 times the ABV percentage. For instance, a drink that is considered 100 proof (or 50 percent ABV) in the United States is considered 87.5 proof in the United Kingdom. Some beverages are almost 100 percent ABV. For example, Everclear is a liquor designated at 190 proof, or 95 percent ABV. Some countries identify the strength of beer by designations other than ABV percentages. For instance, in Germany, beer bottles can be labeled as schankbier (light), vollbier (medium), or starkbier (strong). Belgium has four categories, including Categorie III (weakest), Categorie II, Categorie I, and Categorie S (strong). Some other beer designations used include “low gravity” and “high gravity.” In the United States, beer manufacturers were not required to identify ABV percentages on their labels until 1996. There have been concerns that consumers may purchase beer based on alcohol content, or the identified ABV. More specifically, the lower ABV beverages may not be as attractive for consumers. In other countries, strides have been made to encourage the consumption of beverages with a lower ABV. In Scotland, an initiative called Drinkaware launched a campaign to persuade drinkers to switch their usual drink of choice to a lower ABV version. Consumers were asked to choose a wine at 10 percent ABV or less and beer at 3.8 percent ABV or less. Despite fears of people buying higher-alcohol-content beverages, low-alcohol-content beers have been shown to be a fast-growing segment of the beer market worldwide. For instance, the average sales in Europe climbed 50 percent from 2005 to 2010. Spain is the largest consumer of low-alcohol beers in the European Union. More specifically, 9.5 percent of the beers sold in Spain in 2010 were alcohol-free beers. In addition to beer, other countries have also demonstrated a decrease in ABV percentages in liquor over the years. For instance, in the United States, researchers determined that there was a decline in the average ABV percentages of spirits every decade from 1950 (42.7 percent ABV) to 2002 (36.9 percent ABV).
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Standard Drink In the United States, a “standard” drink is one that contains about 0.6 fluid ounces of “pure” alcohol. Depending on the type of beverage (e.g., beer or wine), a standard drink can vary greatly in size due to the ABV percentage. All of the following beverages are considered a standard drink: 12 fluid ounces of beer (about 5 percent alcohol); 5 fluid ounces of table wine (about 12 percent alcohol); 2–3 fluid ounces of cordial/liqueur (about 24 percent alcohol); and 1.5 fluid ounces of 80-proof spirits (about 40 percent alcohol). Sale Restrictions In the United States, there are restrictions on which beverages can be sold where, based on the ABV percentage. Some liquor cannot be sold at all in some states. For example, the sale of Everclear (95 percent ABV) is illegal in more than a dozen states. Table wine also has restrictions and it is to have a minimum alcohol level of 7 percent ABV and a maximum of 14 percent ABV. Alcohol can be difficult to measure precisely, and therefore the label variance of table wine can be up to 1.5 percent. For example, a wine labeled “Alcohol 12.5 Percent By Volume” can legally range from 11 to 14 percent ABV. Some states allow liquor to be sold in supermarkets and some require it to be sold in liquor stores only. Moreover, beers with a higher ABV percentage can also be sold at liquor stores. For instance, in Tennessee, beer over 6.25 percent ABV can be sold only in liquor stores. In Colorado, beer sold in a supermarket cannot be greater than 3.2 percent ABV. In Utah, only beer with 4 percent ABV or lower can be available on tap. Conclusion Alcohol by volume (ABV) is the standard measure of the percentage of alcohol contained in an alcoholic drink. The ABV percentages can vary drastically, depending on the type of beverage (e.g., beer, wine, liquor). Some countries designate alcohol content as alcohol by weight, units, and/ or proof. Consumers are urged to be cognizant of the alcohol content for health and safety reasons. Depending on the country, laws may restrict the sale of certain beverages based on the ABV percentage. In addition, there has been advocacy in many countries to reduce the ABV percentages of
beverages sold and to increase consumers’ awareness of alcohol content. Tiffany K. Lee Western Michigan University See Also: Beer; Booze; High-Potency Drinks; Proof, Alcohol. Further Readings Branyik, Tomas, et al. “A Review of Methods of LowAlcohol and Alcohol-Free Beer Production.” Journal of Food Engineering, v.108/4 (February 2012). Dasgupta, Amitava. The Science of Drinking: How Alcohol Affects Your Body and Mind. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011. Wilson, Jason. “Spirits: Understanding Alcohol Proof.” Washington Post (July 14, 2010).
Alcohol Management, Effective Techniques for Effective alcohol management is a term that encompasses a series of policies and procedures used by operators in the alcoholic-beverage service business to ensure responsible alcohol-service practices. Dram shop laws, in various strong and weak forms, originated in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century and have been in place in various parts of the United States for more than 150 years. These laws were originally used as leverage to keep pubs from serving minors and the “habitually intoxicated” by making the server and/or establishment liable for the off-premises actions of those who should have been forbidden alcoholic beverage service by law. Origins Formal, visible approaches to responsible alcohol service for all patrons were put in the forefront of public attention by the alcohol beverage service industry after the rise to prominence of neotemperance groups like Mothers against Drunk Driving (MADD) and Students against Drunk Driving (SADD) in the early 1980s. These groups used the expansion of tort law in the 1980s, which had
Alcohol Management, Effective Techniques for
been used successfully against companies that produced substances like asbestos, to create more stringent laws regarding driving while intoxicated and to pressure establishments that serve alcohol to make their practices more restrictive. Large financial judgments waged against establishments and servers serving patrons beyond the point of intoxication caused the beverage-service industry to take steps to protect their businesses from these large judgments. Nevertheless, today, operators who serve guests past the point of intoxication can still face both criminal and civil prosecution. Courses and Programs One of the first behavioral responses to the demands of the neotemperance groups was the creation of the program Training for Intervention Procedures (TIPS) by Dr. Morris Chafetz, the founding director of the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse. Other programs, such as the Screening and Intervention Programme for Sensible Drinking (SIPS) and the National Restaurant Association’s Alcohol ServSafe, soon followed. The training offered by these programs is intended to instruct servers in alcoholic-beverage service establishments in taking reasonable care to prevent guests from becoming intoxicated, thereby lessening the consequences of legal action against them. Alcohol intervention courses offer training and certifications to owners, managers, and servers of alcoholic-beverage service businesses. These courses are mandatory in some jurisdictions and optional in others. Currently, 28 states in the United States require some form of mandatory alcohol-server training or participation in responsible vendor programs. The aim of these intervention programs is either to keep the customer from ever reaching the state of intoxication so that the establishment does not have to cut him or her off or to arrange for alternative transportation in order to keep the guest from driving while intoxicated. Intervention Strategies Intervention models usually begin with policies regarding entrance to the alcoholic-beverage service establishment. Currently in the United States, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories and possessions require a person to be 21 years of age to consume alcohol. Servers are instructed to request a picture ID from all
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guests who are not clearly above the drinking age. Some individual establishments take this further, requiring a picture ID from all guests entering the establishment regardless of their perceived age and/or declared intention not to drink. Different jurisdictions in the United States have different rules regarding the age of patrons allowed into establishments where alcohol is served. Some forbid anyone under the age of 21 to be admitted into bars, but others allow minors entry but forbid them alcohol service. At a minimum, picture IDs are required to be visually inspected and some establishments are using computerized ID readers to check that the ID is valid and that it belongs to the person presenting it. Once a person has gained admittance and has proven legal age, intervention efforts are focused on keeping the customer from becoming intoxicated. One approach used by alcoholic-beverage service operations is to limit the amount of alcoholic beverage a guest may obtain at one time. A common strategy for doing this is to limit the amount of alcohol that is put in the drink. In some jurisdictions, the amount of alcohol allowed in one drink is restricted by either limiting the number of ounces allowed in a drink or by not allowing so-called double shots. Other restrictions include allowing guests to only have one drink at a time, requiring them to finish one drink before being served another and forbidding the sales of large containers of alcohol like pitchers of beer or buckets of bottles. A related strategy is known as drink counting. Drink counting requires that a server knows how many “drinks” are in each portion served, estimates the patron’s weight, and times the duration of alcohol consumption by the guest. How many drinks are in each portion served is calculated by adding up all the alcoholic components in the drink. A highball that contains one 1½ ounce pour of 86-proof liquor, for instance, would count as one drink. A margarita with 1½ ounces of 100proof tequila and 1 ounce of 80-proof orange liqueur would count as two drinks. A 15-ounce carafe of wine would count as three drinks. Combining this knowledge with an estimation of the weight of the patron and the rate at which he or she is consuming beverages allows a server to roughly calculate the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of the patron. By pacing the delivery
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of beverages to the customer, the server can keep him or her from becoming intoxicated. Servers can keep a tab on a bar mat or similar marking method and can keep a running guest check that can be consulted if concerns arise. Other factors that can influence this calculation include gender, age, the weight of the patron, his or her emotional state, any medication taken, and the carbonation of the drink. At events that have large numbers of attendees and those where the speed of service is critical, organizers sometimes use wristbands as proof of age. Special areas are designated for ID checking and when attendees have proved they are of legal drinking age, they get a wristband that shreds upon removal as an indication that they may buy an alcoholic beverage. Some event operators allow only a single beverage for each person with a wristband in order to thwart transfer of alcohol to minors through the purchase of multiple beverages. At sporting events, intervention may occur by having a cutoff time for alcoholic-beverage sales that coincides with halftime or a certain inning or some similar marker. This may aid in reducing the number of intoxicated patrons at the end of the event. Serving food is another method often used to slow down the rate of intoxication in patrons. Patrons who are eating often consume their beverage at a slower pace than those who are not. Food also keeps alcohol in the stomach for longer periods, allowing the small intestine to process alcohol into the bloodstream at a slower rate, thereby slowing down the rate of intoxication. Foods that are high in fat or protein are less quickly digested than carbohydrate-based foods and may therefore slow intoxication by keeping the small intestine from passing alcohol into the bloodstream. According to this knowledge, the server may offer alcoholic beverages with food to slow down the rate of alcohol consumption. Traditional bar snacks of salty nuts and chips are discouraged, as these may cause the guest to become thirstier and therefore consume more alcohol. Other Techniques Another alcohol-consumption intervention technique is for the server or bartender to assess behavioral cues given by the guest. If a server suspects that the customer has consumed alcohol
at another establishment prior to entering the establishment, this may prove more useful than counting drinks. People who are becoming intoxicated may exhibit behavioral signs that can be perceived by servers, though certain individuals who have developed a tolerance for larger quantities of alcohol may not always exhibit these signs. One of the first signs of intoxication is relaxed inhibitions. A person showing relaxed inhibitions may become overly friendly and loud or make rude comments. Servers need to use caution in observing a guest to make sure that this change of behavior is symptomatic of increased inebriation rather than his or her normal personality. As a person becomes more intoxicated, he or she may also begin to exhibit impaired judgment. In this state, a guest’s ability to make sensible decisions may be impaired. The intoxicated guest may begin buying drinks for strangers, become argumentative, or complain about the strength of drinks being served. Additionally, intoxicated patrons may show slowed reaction times. They may talk and move slowly, show signs of drowsiness, and be unable to concentrate. As patrons become more intoxicated, they may begin to lose motor function and coordination. Patrons in this stage of intoxication may have trouble picking up coins or lighting cigarettes, they may stumble or fall, and they may slur their speech. When a guest exhibits any of these behaviors, a server should make a decision regarding the discontinuation of alcohol. Training programs stress the need for this decision to be communicated to a manager and/or a coworker before stopping service for a customer. Should a patron become intoxicated in disregard of these techniques, servers and managers are taught that they should cut off all alcohol service and attempt to keep the affected party from leaving the establishment and especially from driving. If possible, a server should attempt to get an intoxicated person’s car keys and arrange for alternative transportation. Establishments may want to keep the person in the establishment and offer him or her food and nonalcoholic beverages until the customer’s BAC is at a safe level. Some colleges and universities offer free rides to students who have become intoxicated. Intervention training suggests that servers should never physically attempt to restrain guests from leaving but
Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test
instead should warn them that the police will be called if they attempt to leave without appropriate transportation being arranged. For a guest in this state, the server must make every effort to sound nonjudgmental and base comments in a concern for the guest’s well-being and physical safety. If an intoxicated guest threatens to become physically violent, a manager must be notified immediately and, ideally, the police should be alerted. Managers must consider the safety of other guests first and attempt to physically separate them from an incident before attempting to resolve it. Jeffrey P. Miller Colorado State University See Also: Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Alcoholism Treatment, Sociology of; Bars, History of Alcohol Abuse in; Detoxification, Health Effects of; Detoxification, History of; Identification, Checking of; Moderation Management; Server Responsibility Laws, U.S. Further Readings Katsigris, Costas and Thomas, Chris. The Bar and Beverage Book, 5th ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2012. Kotschevar, Lendal H. and Mary L. Tanke. Managing Beverage Operations, 2nd ed. Lansing, MI: Educational Institute of the American Hotel & Motel Association, 2010. National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation. ServSafe Alcohol: Fundamentals of Responsible Alcohol Service, 2nd ed. Chicago: National Restaurant Association, 2009.
Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) is a brief assessment that screens for harmful and hazardous drinking. It is the result of a collaborative project headed by the World Health Organization (WHO). This instrument is used in clinical settings as well as in research and has proven to be an effective screener across all age, cultural, ethnic, and gender groups. AUDIT
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is unique because it was the first instrument to be validated by cross-national standardization and is the only test designed for international use. AUDIT is used as a screening tool and is not a diagnostic. Clinicians use this measure in order to aid in the decision of appropriate action to address a person’s possible harmful drinking and dependence. Harmful or hazardous drinking can be defined as any pattern of consumption that can lead to a risk of consequences for the user or people around them. These consequences may include physical health consequences, mental health consequences, or social consequences. Alcohol dependence develops after repeated, frequent alcohol use. The user may lose control of their alcohol use, gain an increased tolerance, display continued drinking despite numerous consequences, or fail to meet obligations and participate in hobbies due to alcohol use. In 1982, the WHO Collaborative Project on Identification and Treatment of Persons with Harmful Alcohol Consumption was initiated in order to scientifically develop brief interventions and a screening process for persons with problematic drinking patterns. Phase I of this project involved a cross-national comparison study in six countries (Norway, Australia, Kenya, Bulgaria, Mexico, and the United States) to select the best attributes of each of these countries’ approaches to screening. The result of Phase I was the introduction of AUDIT. Phase II was a randomized controlled trial in which AUDIT proved to be a valid tool in detection of hazardous and harmful drinking. The measure was originally published in 1989 and republished with updates in 1992. Since its introduction, many researchers have studied AUDIT in specific subpopulation contexts as a way to evaluate the measure’s generalizable validity and reliability. Some of these subpopulations include university students, drug users, elderly patients, unemployed persons, emergency room patients, and primary care patients. The instrument has been shown to be a suitable means of detecting early harmful and hazardous drinking patterns within these populations as well as the various settings in which they are found. AUDIT has also been translated into various languages, including Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, Flemish,
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Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test
Table 1 Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test assessment measure
1. How often do you have a drink containing alcohol?
2. How many drinks containing alcohol do you have on a typical day when you are drinking?
(0) Never (1) Monthly or less (2) 2 to 4 times a month (3) 2 to 3 times a week (4) 4 or more times a week (0) 1 or 2 (1) 3 or 4 (2) 5 or 6 (3) 7, 8, or 9 (4) 10 or more
3. How often do you have six or more drinks on one occasion? 4. How often during the last year have you found that you were not able to stop drinking once you had started? 5. How often during the last year have you failed to do what was normally expected from you because of drinking? 6. How often during the last year have you needed a first drink in the morning to get yourself going after a heavy drinking session? 7. How often during the last year have you had a feeling of guilt or remorse after drinking?
(0) Never (1) Less than monthly (2) Monthly (3) Weekly (4) Daily or almost daily
8. How often during the last year have you been unable to remember what happened the night before because you had been drinking? 9. Have you or someone else been injured as a result of your drinking? 10. Has a relative, friend, doctor, or another health professional expressed concern about your drinking or suggested you cut down?
German, Dutch, Turkish, Greek, Hindi, Polish, Japanese, French, Italian, Chinese, Bulgarian, and Nigerian dialects. One of the attractions of this measure is the conciseness of administration and scoring. Test time is averaged at two minutes and AUDIT can be administered by self-report or by oral interview. This instrument consists of 10 questions with three subscales, including recent alcohol use (questions 1-3), alcohol dependence symptoms (questions 4-6), and alcohol-related problems (questions 7-10). Each question has a minimum score of 0 and a maximum score of 4. Questions 1-8 have five answer options associated with the values 0 through 4, and questions 9 and 10 have
(0) No (2) Yes, but not in the last year (4) Yes, during the last year
three answer options associated with the values 0, 2, and 4. The scores of each answer are summed with a total of 8 or greater, indicating a strong likelihood of hazardous drinking patterns. Additionally, in the 1992 instrument manual update, it was determined that AUDIT scores in the range of 8-15 represented a medium level of harmful drinking, and scores of 16 and above represented a high level of problematic alcohol consumption. In the event of a score of 20 or above, alcohol dependence is likely. Table 1 lists the 10 questions and their possible answers. Tiffany R. Glynn Brown University
See Also: Alcohol Abuse, Symptoms of; Psychological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse; Psychological Effects of Alcohol: Moderate Use. Further Readings Babor, Thomas F., John C. Higgins-Biddle, John B. Saunders, and Maristela G. Monteiro. AUDIT— The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test: Guidelines for Use in Primary Care, 2nd ed. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2001. Reinert, Duane F. and John P. Allen. “The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT): A Review of Recent Research.” Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, v.26/2 (2002). Saunders, John B., Olaf G. Aasland, Thomas F. Babor, Juan R. de la Fuente, and Marcus Grant. “Development of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT): WHO Collaborative Project on Early Detection of Persons With Harmful Alcohol Consumption: II.” Addiction, v.88/6 (1993). World Health Organization. “Screening and Brief Intervention for Alcohol Problems in Primary Health Care.” http://www.who.int/substance_ abuse/activities/sbi/en/ (Accessed September 2013).
Alcohol Violations, Penalties for There are many alcohol-related laws presently enforced around the world, but this article will focus on penalties in the United States. For instance, driving under the influence of alcohol or other drugs could result in an arrest with severe consequences, depending on whether the person has a prior conviction for the same offense; if there was a crash resulting in injury or death; and in which county, state, or country a person lives. Legal involvement can result not only from the behaviors one exhibits while drinking but also from the mere act of consuming the beverage. Minors under age 21 cannot possess, purchase, or consume alcohol in the United States. Therefore, individuals may incur penalties even if they did not drink alcohol but simply had it in their possession.
Alcohol Violations, Penalties for
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The potential penalties are discussed in the following sections regarding these alcohol violations: minor in possession of alcohol, use of fraudulent identification to purchase alcohol, driving while impaired, open container, and public intoxication. Some of these violations come with penalties specific to the population involved. The following are two examples: (1) college students in legal trouble because of alcohol-use infractions may have to fulfill requirements by their university to stay enrolled, and (2) first-time offenders could be given the opportunity to have their offense stricken from their criminal record if they are compliant with probation. These special issues are also addressed in the subsequent sections. Minor in Possession of Alcohol State laws in the United States dictate that a person under the age of 21 is not to purchase, attempt to purchase, consume, or possess alcohol. A minor who violates any of these proscriptions is guilty of a misdemeanor, often called a minor in possession (MIP), and is subject to fines and sanctions. For the first violation, an offender may be given a citation and fined no more than $100. In addition, he or she may have to complete a substance abuse assessment and potentially a treatment program/alcohol education classes. Minors may also be ordered to complete community service. If a person obtains another MIP violation, he or she has the potential to receive jail time. For instance, in Michigan a person can be sentenced to up to 30 days for the second violation and up to 60 days for the third. Some states have exceptions to this law and allow alcohol to be dispensed to a person under legal age within a private home and with the knowledge, presence, and consent of the parent or guardian. Use of Fraudulent Identification The use by a minor of fraudulent identification to purchase alcohol constitutes another category of violation. Most of the time, the offender must pay fines and/or perform community service, but he or she could be given probation or jail time (e.g., up to 93 days in jail) or be subject to driver’s license restrictions for up to a year. These alcohol infractions often result in probation, and the person must comply with the requirements ordered by the judge (e.g., pay fines and
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Alcohol Violations, Penalties for
complete random drug screens, a substance abuse assessment, classes, and community service). Diversion programs are available for minors convicted of alcohol infractions. If the minor completes probation requirements, the charge will be stricken from his or her record. College Student Drinking Simply having alcohol (but not consuming it) in a dorm room on campus is a violation of university policy/rules, and it is also against the law. However, this violation may not result in legal involvement. University staff may require the student to obtain a substance use assessment and/or complete an alcohol awareness class. Another violation common on college campuses is the intoxication of students, and this infraction may or may not involve police contact. Most of the time it at least requires a referral to the residence hall director or the office of student conduct. Students may be fined and/or required to complete community service. If the student fails to comply with the recommendations of the university staff, the consequences may include (1) inability to enroll in courses, (2) housing probation, or (3) expulsion from the institution. Some minors, including college students, that are guilty of consuming or possessing alcohol may not be cited or legally punished at all. The reason for the waiver is known as medical amnesty policies, or Good Samaritan policies. In many states, if a minor who has been drinking alcohol calls 911 requesting medical assistance, the person will not be punished for the offense. The person who receives the amnesty is usually the caller (but may include the victim in some states), and the caller may be requesting medical attention for herself/ himself or someone else. Medical amnesty policies were created to reduce the fear of punishment, thereby increasing the likelihood a minor will seek medical attention when it is needed. Driving While Impaired Approximately one in three traffic crash fatalities involve alcohol, and almost 30 people die each day in motor vehicle crashes involving an alcoholimpaired driver. This number equates to one death every 48 minutes. In an effort to reduce these numbers, penalties for alcohol-impaired driving are more extensive than other alcohol-related
crimes. Depending on the state, driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol also can be known as operating while impaired (OWI), operating under the influence (OUI), or driving while impaired or intoxicated (DWI). Blood alcohol content (BAC) limits for this criminal offense vary by country. The United States has one of the higher limits at 0.08. However, in Australia and Costa Rica, the limit is 0.05; in Sweden and Poland, it is 0.02; and in Brazil and Nepal, there is no tolerance. In many U.S. states, anyone under the age of 21 testing positive for alcohol (e.g., BAC of 0.02 or higher) can also be arrested for a driving offense. Moreover, any driver is subject to an arrest at any BAC level if the person exhibits signs of impairment. This article specifically focuses on alcohol violations, but it should be noted that drivers with any amount of a Schedule 1 drug (e.g., marijuana, heroin) who show signs of intoxication can also be arrested and charged with a driving offense. The penalties for a conviction can differ drastically by state. While there are sentencing guidelines for driving offenses, often sentences can also vary widely per the judge’s discretion. Most offenders are placed on probation, fined, and have their driver’s license suspended. Conditions of probation may also include alcohol testing and/or tether—an electronic device attached to the ankle that detects alcohol or is used for monitoring home confinement. In Michigan the first offense can result in a $500 fine, up to 93 days in jail, 360 hours of community service, and up to 180 days of license suspension. In Georgia, however, the first offense can result in a longer driver’s suspension, and the driver may lose license privileges for one year. If a driver is convicted with a high BAC (e.g., 0.15 or higher), most states impose harsher penalties. In Michigan a high BAC can result in a $700 fine, up to 180 days in jail, up to 360 hours of community service, up to one-year license suspension, mandatory completion of an alcohol treatment program, and installation of an ignition interlock device in the vehicle after 45 days of license suspension. An ignition interlock device analyzes a person’s breath; if alcohol is detected, then the engine is disabled. This requirement has been shown to be successful in recidivism rates. In Maryland, researchers found that repeat offenders whose cars had these devices reduced the risk
of committing another alcohol-related traffic violation by 64 percent. In addition to the interlock device, convicted drivers are subject to an extra fine called the “driver responsibility fee.” In some states, a driver can pay $250 each year for three years, totaling $750; in other states, an individual can be required to pay as much as $1,000 a year for two consecutive years, totaling $2,000. In addition to probation, fines, and license suspension, drivers may be required to complete other conditions, including a substance abuse assessment to determine the level of problem severity. Psychoeducational classes devoted to alcohol awareness and/or substance abuse therapy may be recommended based on the assessment. The content covered in psychoeducational alcohol awareness classes usually includes alcohol’s effects on the body, BAC levels, prevention planning, and harm-reduction strategies. Another probation requirement may be attendance at a victim-impact panel event. Often, this program is presented by Mothers Against Drunk Driving and is a face-to-face venue between those convicted of impaired driving and a panel of victims whose lives are changed forever because of someone’s choice to drink and drive. There is storytelling, dialogue, and reflection, and the event is designed to be a nonconfrontational and nonjudgmental learning process to make offenders understand and internalize the impact impaired driving has on the individual victims, their families and friends, and the community. If a person is convicted of a prior driving offense, the second or third offense may be considered a felony, depending on the state. In addition, the consequences are more severe. For example, a second violation in Georgia results in a minimum mandatory 48 hours in jail, with a possible 90-day to one-year sentence; a $600 to $1,000 fine; license suspension for three years; a minimum 30 days of community service; a $210 set license-reinstatement fee; a mandatory clinical evaluation; and, if indicated, completion of a substance abuse treatment program at the offender’s expense. A third offense within five years of the second offense includes a minimum mandatory 15 days of jail time, a fine of $1,000 to $5,000, license revocation for five years, a minimum mandatory 30 days of community service, and completion of treatment if applicable. Moreover, the
Alcohol Violations, Penalties for
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A officer with a military police unit searches a car after a driving under the influence arrest in Washington, D.C., in 2009. While as many as one in three traffic fatalities involve alcohol, penalties for drunken driving offenses vary widely by location.
violator’s name, photo, and address are published in the local newspaper at the violator’s expense, and he or she is declared a habitual violator. A driver who has two or more convictions may have the opportunity to participate in a specialty diversion court devoted to dealing with driving offenses. They are called DWI, DUI, or sobriety courts. These courts are based on the drug court model and can provide an alternative to traditional courts and probation. Judges have regular court contact with offenders, oversee their progress in alcohol treatment, and monitor their drug-testing results. Participants receive a team approach in which the sobriety court judge, probation officer, prosecution, defense counsel, and treatment providers work together. The program is usually 12 to 18 months in duration and is divided into (usually three) phases with various guidelines for each phase. These requirements may vary by sobriety court, but most of the time include attendance at
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Alcohol Violations, Penalties for
court hearings, treatment and self-help meetings, meeting with the probation officer/case manager, reported sobriety time, and maintaining months of clean drug testing. Often, the first phase is the most intense and lasts three to four months; the second phase is six to nine months, and the third phase is three to six months. Sanctions are provided if the participant is noncompliant with court requirements. Possible sanctions include a reprimand or warning from the judge, an order to remain in the courtroom for the remainder of the docket, written essays or speeches, increased community service, increased reporting with a probation officer, increased monitored sobriety, delay in a phase change, starting a phase over or regressing back to a previous phase, a Saturday work program, and/or a jail sentence of up to 30 days. Incentives are also given to reinforce progress in the program. Incentives are rewards offered by the sobriety court judge, and some examples are praise, encouragement, clapping, gift cards, bus passes, sports and special event tickets, fishbowl drawings for prizes, decreased court appearances, and decreased drug testing. These courts have grown over the years. In 2003, there were 42 DWI courts, and by 2011 there were 174. Researchers support the efficacy of these programs but do suggest the implementation of a sobriety court program that not only includes court-mandated counseling or treatment but also imposes licensing sanctions, requires education, and provides follow-up supervision or aftercare. Open Container Another alcohol-related legal charge a person can incur when in a motor vehicle is an opencontainer violation. If a person (i.e., driver or passenger) possesses any open alcohol-beverage container, or is consuming any alcoholic beverage in the vehicle, this is considered an open-container violation in many states. In addition, there are open-container laws specific to public areas (e.g., parks, streets). Most states and cities do not allow consumption of alcohol or open containers in public areas; however, there are a few exceptions such as on the Las Vegas strip or in New Orleans. Often, this violation results in a citation and a fine.
Public Intoxication Public intoxication, often referred to as “drunk and disorderly,” is a legal charge indicating that a person is visibly impaired in public (e.g., sidewalks, streets, stadiums) and causing a disturbance; usually, the offense is a misdemeanor. Some states require prosecutors to prove a person is so out of control that he or she presents a threat to the safety of others and cannot care for him or herself. Moreover, prosecutors may not have to prove an individual was indeed intoxicated but simply appeared under the influence. A public intoxication conviction is usually punishable by fines, jail time, probation (including drug testing), and/or community service. For example, a first offense for public intoxication in Alabama may be punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a fine of no more than $200. In California, if the person is suspected of being under the influence of alcohol only, rather than illegal drugs, the officer must bring the defendant to a “sobering facility,” where he or she will remain for up to 72 hours. Ultimately, no criminal charges will be brought based solely on the defendant’s intoxication. If a person is convicted, however, he or she can serve six months in jail and be fined up to $1,000. Three convictions within a 12-month period could result in a minimum of 90 days in county jail. However, the court can suspend this penalty requirement if the person spends 60 days in a treatment program. If under the age of 21, driving privileges can be suspended for one year. Some states, such as Montana, Nevada, and Missouri, do not have public intoxication laws. Differences in Other Countries The legal drinking age varies in countries outside the United States and most countries allow alcohol consumption for those under the age of 21. For instance, 18 years old is the minimum drinking age in most of the countries in Africa, South America, and Europe, and 16 years old is the minimum drinking age in Belgium and Germany. However, alcohol is banned at any age in several countries in the world, such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The illegal BAC levels for a driving offense also differ, with most countries having restrictions at levels below 0.08. In Australia, France, and Germany, the illegal BAC is 0.05; in Russia it is 0.02; and
in Japan it is 0.00. Researchers in Europe have demonstrated that lowering the legal limit (from 0.08 to 0.05) in Europe and Australia has reduced fatal car crashes up to 18 percent. In regard to the legal ramifications of driving offenses, many countries outside the United States provide more consequences to the offender if he or she has a high BAC level. For example, in Portugal fines are graduated according to BAC level. For a BAC between 0.05 and 0.08, the fine is normally a little over $100, but for a BAC between 0.08 and 0.12, the fine is almost 11 times that amount. Researchers suggest fines may be more of a deterrent than incarceration. In Norway and Sweden the change from imprisonment to a graduated tariff of fines and license suspension has led to a reduction of all crashes by 4 percent. Length of suspension is also graduated according to BAC level in many countries and the time can range from one month to two years, depending on the percentage of BAC level. Some countries have harsher penalties for the second offense. For instance, in the United Kingdom the first offense usually does not include any suspension of the driver’s license; however, the second offense includes a three year-minimum license suspension if there has been a previous offence in a 10-year period. Conclusion In summary, many alcohol-related violations are imposed by law enforcement in the United States. This article provides information on the following violations: minor in possession of alcohol, use of fraudulent identification to purchase alcohol, driving while impaired, open container, and public intoxication. Some of these violations come with stiff penalties if there is a conviction. Depending on the state an individual may only be required to pay a small fine, while another person may be ordered to pay a larger fine, receive drug testing, complete a substance abuse assessment and treatment program, and/or spend time in jail. Finally, in addition to the range of penalties imposed by judges, opportunities are available to some people depending on their location. For instance, people may have an advantage because they have the option of participating in diversion programs (e.g., for minors convicted of a first offense) or sobriety courts, while other offenders do not. Ultimately, consumers of alcohol must be
Alcohol Withdrawal Scale
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knowledgeable of the laws in their area and act in accordance with these laws. Tiffany K. Lee Western Michigan University See Also: Breathalyzer Test; Drunk-Driving Laws; Drunkenness, Legal Definitions of; Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Further Readings Babor, Thomas, et al. Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Chodrow, Brian and Hon. Peggy Fulton Hora. “DWI/ DUI Interventions.” In Handbook of EvidenceBased Substance Abuse Treatment in Criminal Justice Settings Series: Issues in Children’s and Families’ Lives, Carl Leukefeld, Thomas Gullotta, and John Gregrich, eds. New York: Springer, 2011. Elder, Randy, et al. “Effectiveness of Ignition Interlocks for Preventing Alcohol-Impaired Driving and Alcohol-Related Crashes: A Community Guide Systemic Review.” American Journal of Preventative Medicine, v.40/3 (March 2011). O’Daire, Jr., Alfred. Blood Alcohol, Breath Alcohol, Impairment and the Law. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2009.
Alcohol Withdrawal Scale Alcohol withdrawal is a cluster of symptoms (what a person feels) and signs (what is observed by others) that develops in people who drink alcohol heavily when they suddenly stop drinking or reduce how much they drink. In most cases, these people will feel mild symptoms that pass over time and do not require medical care. However, in approximately 10 percent of heavy drinkers, alcohol withdrawal includes severe, lifethreatening symptoms requiring medical monitoring and treatment. Alcohol withdrawal scales are tools used by medical professionals to establish the severity of withdrawal, to predict the risk for complicated withdrawal, and to determine the
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Alcohol Withdrawal Scale
need for treatment. This entry briefly discusses alcohol withdrawal syndrome in order to provide a basis for understanding the need for and use of alcohol withdrawal scales. Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates first described alcohol-related tremors and seizures in 400 b.c.e. In the 1950s, observations of alcoholics in hospitals led to the recognition of a group of symptoms that only began when alcohol was stopped. Today, these signs and symptoms are known as alcohol withdrawal syndrome. The signs and symptoms of alcohol withdrawal are the opposite of alcohol’s direct effect on the brain. In the brain, alcohol works as a depressant. With frequent and heavy alcohol use, the brain develops ways of adjusting to alcohol’s depressive effects. These include decreasing brain chemicals that cause inhibition and increasing excitatory chemicals. When alcohol is stopped suddenly, there is nothing to oppose the excitatory chemicals. The brain becomes hyperexcitable, the nervous system becomes overactive, and this state results in many of the signs and symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. For most heavy drinkers, stopping or reducing alcohol intake results in mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. Typical symptoms of mild withdrawal include: tremors, nervousness, insomnia, nausea, or lack of appetite. Heart rate and blood pressure may be higher than normal. Mild withdrawal may start within a day after the last drink and usually subsides in five to seven days.
Approximately 10 percent of alcoholics experience severe symptoms including seizures, hallucinations, and delirium tremens (DTs). DT is the most severe form of withdrawal. People going through DTs are highly confused, disoriented, agitated, and may be hallucinating. DT is a medical emergency, and if not treated, up to 25 percent of these people die. Alcohol Withdrawal Scales Once alcohol withdrawal syndrome and the dangers of untreated withdrawal were recognized, physicians began to search for ways to predict the severity of withdrawal and treat withdrawal before it progressed to advanced stages. Alcohol withdrawal scales were developed to fulfill this purpose. Administered by health care personnel, scales are tools that list some of the commonly observed mental and physical symptoms of alcohol withdrawal in conjunction with a numerical scoring system. Each symptom is scored based on severity. The sum of the scores indicates the severity of withdrawal at that point in time. Treatment is based on the score in conjunction with other information obtained from physical examination and laboratory analysis. People with higher scores are treated with medications including sedatives and antiseizure drugs. An ideal alcohol withdrawal scale should do the following: 1. Assist in the diagnosis of alcohol withdrawal syndrome.
Table 1 Signs and symptoms of alcohol withdrawal Vital Signs
Nervous System
Digestive System
Psychiatric
Other
Heart rate Blood pressure Temperature Respiratory rate
Tremor Agitation Snout reflex Tinnitus Headache Orientation Impaired consciousness Impaired gait Visual disturbance Seizures
Nausea and vomiting Eating disturbance
Anxiety Depression Tactile hallucinations Visual hallucinations Auditory hallucinations Thought disturbance Insight
Sweating Facial flushing Itching Muscle pain Sleep disturbance Nightmares Quality of contact
Alcohol Withdrawal Scale
2. Inform medical staff when medications are needed. 3. Provide information about the development of serious withdrawal symptoms. 4. Provide information regarding the course of withdrawal, including when symptoms are subsiding and medication can be tapered or withdrawn. 5. Be valid (the extent to which the scale measures what it is supposed to measure) and reliable (the extent to which the scale produces the same results when used by different administrators). One of the first scales was developed in the early 1970s. Since then, more than 30 different scales have been derived from this 20-item assessment. Several years later, the authors of the first scale developed the Total Severity Assessment in order to further describe the degrees of severity seen in all forms of alcohol withdrawal. Designed for research purposes, this scale contained 30 different signs and symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. Each was ranked in severity from zero to seven, with seven being maximal severity. Subsequent scales have used some combination of these signs and symptoms (see Table 1). From the Total Severity Assessment, 10 items (heart rate, body temperature, convulsions, tremor, sweating, agitation, eating disturbance, clouding of sensorium, hallucinations, and quality of contact) were found to correlate best with severe withdrawal. A subscale called the Selected Severity Assessment containing these items was developed for daily administration in real-world settings. As knowledge of alcohol withdrawal syndrome and treatment grew, alcohol withdrawal scales evolved to allow the accurate assessment of withdrawal quickly and at multiple time points. In 1981, a reliable and validated 15-item scale— the Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment for Alcohol (CIWA-A, pronounced SEE-WAH)—was developed and designed for up to hourly use by nurses in hospital settings. This scale modified the Selected Severity Assessment. It was developed at the Clinical Institute Addiction Research Foundation, a teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto. The CIWA-A was tested to ensure that regardless of who rated a patient’s symptoms, the score would be the same. Use of the
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scale helped hospital staff to become more familiar with the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, to communicate better with each other, to plan treatment effectively, and to evaluate the effects of treatment. Further refinement of this scale produced the 10-item Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment for Alcohol Revised (CIWA-Ar), which is the most commonly used alcohol withdrawal scale today. The CIWA-Ar is composed of the group of 10 symptoms that most predicted total score on the CIWA-A. Surprisingly, elevated pulse rate and blood pressure were not found to be the most reliable predictors of alcohol withdrawal and were not included. Total scores of eight to 10 points indicate minimal withdrawal. Total scores of 15 points or more indicate the need for treatment and suggest that the person may be at increased risk of severe alcohol withdrawal. Due to its brevity and reliability, the CIWA-Ar is a very useful scale. Further, not only do high scores indicate more severe withdrawal, but they also predict seizures and DTs. Alcohol withdrawal scales are used in a number of settings including hospitals, residential drug treatment centers, and alcohol detoxification clinics. Most of these settings have standard protocols for assessing and managing withdrawal using the CIWA-Ar. The CIWA-Ar, which takes about two minutes to perform, is administered initially and, as withdrawal progresses, sometimes as frequently as every hour. The goal of frequent administration is to provide symptomtriggered therapy. That is, to provide medications only when needed, in precise amounts, and to stop medications when symptoms wane. The following is an example of an alcohol withdrawal protocol using the CIWA-Ar: 1. Administer CIWA when the patient is admitted and every eight hours for a period of 24 hours. 2. Obtain blood alcohol level. 3. Perform a complete physical examination and obtain blood pressure and pulse. 4. Send blood and urine to the laboratory for evaluation. 5. If CIWA score is less than eight points and vital signs are stable, no treatment is necessary.
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Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture 6. If CIWA is greater than eight but less than 15, give lorazepam (Ativan, a common sedative used to treat alcohol withdrawal), 2 milligrams, repeat vital signs every two hours, and repeat CIWA every four hours. 7. If the CIWA is greater than 15, give lorazepam, 2 milligrams, every hour until CIWA is less than 15. 8. Call physician if the patient requires more than 6 milligrams of lorazepam. 9. When CIWA is less than eight for three consecutive eight-hour increments, discontinue CIWA protocol.
Studies have found that using the CIWA with an alcohol withdrawal protocol and treating withdrawal using a symptom-triggered approach lowers the total amount of medication required and decreases total treatment time. Alcohol withdrawal scales are essential tools in monitoring alcohol withdrawal. They allow health care personnel to determine the severity of alcohol withdrawal, identify possible complications, and give the appropriate treatment. The CIWA-Ar is the best tested, most well-known, and most commonly used scale today. Use of the CIWA-Ar as part of an alcohol withdrawal protocol allows effective treatment of alcohol withdrawal syndrome. This prevents further illness, death, and the use of unneeded medications as well as shortens total treatment time and improves overall care of people withdrawing from alcohol. Joan M. Striebel University of California, San Francisco See Also: Alcohol Abuse, Symptoms of; Detoxification, Health Effects of; Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse; Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Moderate Use. Further Readings Mayo-Smith, Michael F. “Management of Alcohol Intoxication and Withdrawal.” In Principles of Addiction Medicine, 4th ed., Richard K. Ries, David A. Fiellin, Shannon C. Miller, and Richard Saitz, eds. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, 2009.
Rogawski, Michael A. “Update on the Neurobiology of Alcohol Withdrawal Seizures.” Epilepsy Currents, v.5/6 (2005). Sullivan, John T., Kathy Sykora, Joyce Schneiderman, Claudio Naranjo, and Edward M. Sellers. “Assessment of Alcohol Withdrawal: The Revised Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment for Alcohol Scale (CIWA-Ar).” British Journal of Addiction, v.84/11 (1989).
Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture Throughout history, the visual representation of alcoholism and alcoholics in popular culture is almost entirely that of people in the grips of their addiction. Rarely do we see the people who are in recovery from alcoholism, despite the presence of a large, rich literature of recovery stories. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) has been supporting people in recovery from alcoholism for over 75 years, yet its direct presence in popular culture is largely absent or misrepresented. However, the influence of AA has been felt widely across many areas— from other mutual aid groups to professional addiction treatment to the self-help industry for many conditions beyond alcohol problems—and across the globe. Historical Temperance Movements Beginning in the early 19th century, the temperance movements in America and Europe used powerful visual images to portray their largely religious belief that people had lost their souls to the demon drink. Fearsome pictures of addicts were engraved in public consciousness by the new photographic newspapers of the 19th century. The images of the ruined alcoholic became cultural archetypes, known throughout the world. Temperance (and recovery) movements tended to be an amorphous mix of recovery community and antialcohol campaign group. The AntiSaloon League and the American Temperance Society in the United States and the Independent Order of Rechabites and the Band of Hope in the
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United Kingdom, for instance, welcomed membership from both prohibitionist campaigners and “reformed drunkards” (the term alcoholic was largely unused until the beginning of the 20th century). The movements were popular. The Washingtonians (formed in 1840 by former drinkers), for example, numbered between 300,000 to 600,000 at its peak and could boast at least 150,000 members in long-term recovery. The group’s early meetings were closed to outsiders and these gatherings are where we see the first widespread “closed meetings” of alcoholics bonded together for mutual support and recovery. However, due to growing interest from the wider public, by the late 1840s, the Washingtonians held additional meetings that were open to the public and received press attention as the result. In Scotland, numerous tearooms were under temperance management, and the movement was responsible for creating various public spaces for nondrinking activity. In Paisley, for example, a temperance tower containing a camera obscura, a tearoom, a concert hall, and an art gallery was erected by public subscription. In America, members of the Ribbon Reform Club wore ribbons on their clothing for the purposes of mutual identification and support within the recovery community but also as a means of conveying hope to a larger community that enduring recovery was not only possible but a living reality. However, not all of this high-profile activity was positive. Indeed, it has been argued that it was detrimental to the early recovery movement. For example, in Let’s Go Make Some History: Chronicles of the New Addition Recovery Advocacy Movement, William White argues that the Washingtonians died, in part, from overexposure and that one of the greatest threats to Alcoholics Anonymous came in the 1970s and 1980s at the very time that the rehab/recovery “fad” was generating explosive growth for the organization. He says that the threat was that the historical Alcoholics Anonymous would be drowned in a sea of treatment psychobabble and commercialized recovery paraphernalia. Indeed, within the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, tradition 11 states, “Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain
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personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and film,” thus excluding self-identification as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous in the public arena. In Let’s Go Make Some History, White explains that, historically, anonymity served three functions in Alcoholics Anonymous: (1) it protected individuals from the harm that can ensue from a stigmatized condition; (2) it protected the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous from the potentially discrediting behavior of its members; and (3) it served as a spiritual exercise, an antidote to narcissism and grandiosity. Growth of Alcoholics Anonymous and Popular Redefinition of Alcoholism It was the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in the mid-1930s, perhaps more than any other event, that solidified use of the term alcoholism and brought it into widespread popular use. By the late 1930s, the terms alcoholic and alcoholism were used frequently enough in the popular and professional press that Dr. Edward Strecher and Francis Chambers complained that the terms were losing their meaning as the result of overuse, as William White explains in Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America. As such, addiction professionals in the 1930s preferred to use terms such as “problem drinker,” believing “alcoholic” to be a stigmatizing term. Between 1930 and 1950, a radical redefinition of the nature of alcohol problems in America was forged, and this change is commonly attributed to what has been retrospectively called the alcoholism movement. As White describes in Slaying the Dragon, this multifaceted movement, which did not have a singular leader, unified strategy, or primary source of economic support, successfully initiated a remarkable revolution in American social thought. The 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous symbolized a revolutionary outlook on alcoholism, which had long been treated as a character flaw or moral failing, neither of which would normally be viewed as something people could “recover” from. The 12-step method of Alcoholics Anonymous represented a landmark reappraisal of alcoholism, with the unmistakable implication that alcoholics had an illness/disease that could not be recovered from.
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Consensus on the public and professional language to use in defining alcohol problems was slow in coming, but the growth of AA continued at a steady pace, reaching about 100 members in 1939—the year in which Alcoholics Anonymous (the book) was published. The “big book,” now published as Alcoholics Anonymous—Big Book, was written by the cofounder of AA, Bill Wilson, with contributions written by some of the early members. As described in Hazelden, the auction house Sotheby’s claims that Alcoholics Anonymous is one of the most influential books of the 20th century, which is exemplified by Time magazine’s 1999 decision to name Bill Wilson (whose life story has been portrayed in the Emmy- and Golden Globe–nominated TV movie My Name Is Bill W. in 1989 and the 2012 limited-release feature-length film Bill W.) one of the “Time 100 Persons of the Century.” Yet, familiar images of Alcoholics Anonymous depict it as a fundamentally oral and participatory culture, one with little interest in reading or contemplation. Membership in AA grew following the publication of the Big Book, largely as the result of publicity it generated. Articles appeared in popular print media such as Liberty magazine, and an article titled “Alcoholics and God” triggered a flood of 800 letters from alcoholics and their families, including 350 orders for the Big Book, as described in The Book That Started It All: The Original Working Manuscript of Alcoholics Anonymous. Numerous other articles followed, along with a constant stream of corresponding inquiries, but phenomenal growth really took place after a particularly positive article by Jack Alexander in the Saturday Evening Post in March 1941. AA membership numbered about 2,000 at the beginning of that year and rose to about 8,000 by the end of 1941. Interest in AA was international and the first UK meeting took place at the Dorchester Hotel in London in 1947. By the 1950s, Alcoholics Anonymous was receiving positive reviews in publications such as Readers Digest and Time magazines and attracted interest in films such as Days of Wine and Roses and Come Back, Little Sheba. During this period of growth, Marty Mann, the first woman to achieve lasting sobriety in AA, established the National Council for Education on Alcohol (NCEA), a public relations and public education venture housed at Yale University, with
the intention of popularizing the disease concept of alcoholism. Mann, a professional publicist, began a national campaign to destigmatize and prompt debate about humane rehabilitation treatment for alcoholics. Mann was made a Fellow of the American Public Health Association in 1952, and in 1954 was named one the 10 greatest living Americans by journalist Edward R. Murrow. Criticism of the Movement However, as the disease concept of addiction percolated within American popular culture, another discourse developed alongside it that characterized 12-step groups as strange religious cults. Trysh Travis explains that in a 1963 Harper’s magazine article, psychologist Arthur Cain describes Alcoholics Anonymous as “one of America’s most fanatical cults” whose controlling and antirational devotees believe the 12 steps to be the result of “divine revelation.” By the late 1960s, however, the “new” way of looking at alcoholism (as a disease) had gained institutional support from both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association and had paved the way for others to expand the validity of these assumptions and treatment concepts beyond alcoholics. In his book SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless, Steve Salerno argues that a discourse of “victimization theory” became engrained in the public psyche and the idea that we all had something to recover from was embraced by a loose coalition of pop psychologists, social scientists, and academics. He claims that victimization theory made people helpless against the forces that “made you what you are.” He also suggests that this period was the beginning of political correctness, or “clever semantics,” designed to make people feel unconstrained by anything. He says the goal was to “eradicate the problem by couching it in destigmatizing language.” Indeed, the 1960s saw the beginnings of the self-help industry. While AA did (and does) not directly engage in this commercial enterprise, the influence of the 12 steps were felt by it. Self-help books now covered alcohol and drug problems but also emotional problems, relationship problems, family problems, grief, and so forth. Many of these books were written by people in recovery
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and by professionals facilitating the 12-step program in their work with alcoholics. Over the following two decades, the industry grew and a proliferation of celebrity speakers and commercial “recovery” paraphernalia appeared. Travis notes that beyond the organized institution of Alcoholics Anonymous lies the larger, more fluid territory of recovery-infused popular culture. In that space, thousands of recovering people and professional therapists hawk their personal recovery philosophies in the form of textbooks, memoirs, and novels, as well as live, televised, and Webstreamed public appearances. Alongside (and as the result of) public attention and interest in recovery, the critics started to question its validity. The spark of academic criticism of recovery appears to suggest that recovery was becoming a “trend,” or what Publishers Weekly called “a rage for recovery”—a seemingly endless stream of best sellers (and would-be best sellers) touting an equally abundant array of 12-step and therapeutic principles and appealing almost exclusively to women, as proposed by Travis. As the rage wore on, recovery became a mainstream commodity. Where trade publishers had once turned up their noses at the idea of books by, for, and about addicted people, they came to realize the commercial viability of recovery discourse and fully exploited the seemingly insatiable public appetite for self-discovery and recovery. This was and remains a lucrative market, as noted in Publishers Weekly in 2004, and quoted by Salerno: “Self-help books are a Teflon category for many booksellers. No matter the economy or current events, the demand is constant.” Alcoholics Anonymous had developed its own writing, editing, and publishing enterprise in part so that it could maintain a distance from the larger world of for-profit commercial publishing. Recovery Groups After Alcoholics Anonymous It was during this period that the realization developed that families of alcoholics required their own support. Al-Anon was the first direct family mutual-aid fellowship to use an adapted version of the 12 steps (it was established by Lois Wilson, Bill Wilson’s wife, whose story was told in a 2010 DVD release, When Love Is Not Enough). Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA) was founded in 1978 and Co-Dependents Anonymous (CODA)
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was founded 11 years later. Both flourished, with ACOA holding almost 2,000 meetings worldwide by 1990 and CODA growing to just over 2,000 in its first year. Both groups rejected the spiritual approach to recovery of AA (though they were linked to the 12 steps), drawing instead on ideas from humanistic psychology and family systems therapy. Interestingly, around this time, there was a growing interest in women and alcoholism. Betty Ford’s 1978 public declaration of her own recovery from alcoholism and prescription drug addiction helped to bring women’s alcoholism into the spotlight. A few years earlier, Women for Sobriety (WFS) was formed as what Travis describes as a “woman-centred antidote to AA and a grassroots expression of the liberal feminist desire for equity.” The founder of WFS, Jean Kirkpatrick, has said that she had found it difficult to maintain sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous, as it was a male-dominated organization that emphasized conformity to a male ideal of femininity. Travis argues that during this time women’s bookshops were some of the first alcohol-free social spaces in the feminist community in America. It is worth noting that one of the only popular films to feature a realistic representation of an AA meeting has a female lead. In the 1994 film When a Man Loves a Woman, we see the lead character, played by Meg Ryan, enter residential treatment for alcoholism; there she is introduced to AA, which she continues to attend following her graduation from rehab in order to sustain her early recovery. It was revealed in 2008 that the film was based on the experiences of one of the writers, Al Franken, whose wife’s recovery was the inspiration for Ryan’s role. During the “rage for recovery” period, when professional debate had moved to the level of popular culture, Herbert Fingerette’s 1989 book, The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease, and Stanton Peele’s book of the same year, The Diseasing of America, declared that everything the popular culture had come to believe about alcoholism was a collection of myths. The authors not only attack the scientific foundation of the disease concept but also note that the concept is injurious, as it stigmatizes, infantilizes, and socially isolates the alcoholic. These claims received considerable public press and triggered a critical evaluation of the treatment industry. Yet, Travis notes that
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decades after these critical manifestos, a perpetual fountain of memoirs and tabloid news stories, along with television shows like Celebrity Rehab and Intervention, suggest that a broad cross-section of the public continues to believe that addiction is a disease for which treatment and recovery are appropriate responses. One notable example of acceptance of AA within the public sphere can be found in the hugely popular TV series Sex and the City. In 94 episodes, AA is mentioned in three separate scenarios. In one episode, we see the character Carrie Bradshaw meet “Andy” when he is standing outside his AA meeting, and we learn more about his early AA experience as the episode develops—his recovery flounders as he questions his AA sponsor’s advice until we see his relapse and the end of their short relationship. In a later episode, the character Miranda is handed the number of a local AA group when she gets drunk on a date. But in season six, we are introduced to Smith Jerrod who becomes the long-term partner of the character Samantha Jones. He discloses his membership in AA early on, and he occasionally mentions that he is going to “a meeting,” but the story line does not specifically focus on this part of his life. Instead we see his character grow with career success, a full life, and his role as a stable and supportive partner to Samantha (in particular, when she is diagnosed with breast cancer) up to the time when they end their relationship but continue to remain good friends. Emmy-nominated Days of Wine and Roses was originally broadcast as a teleplay in 1958. Written by J. P. Miller for Playhouse 90, it powerfully shows a young married couple, Joe (played by Cliff Robertson) and Kirstin Clay (Piper Laurie), and their descent into alcoholism, with Joe finding recovery via AA. The story unfolds through Joe’s share at an AA meeting interspersed with flashbacks of the previous 10 years of his life. In 1962, Blake Edwards directed a film version of the drama, with Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick in the leading roles. While not as powerful as the original version, the film does provide some realistic insight into the support of AA in helping to initiate and sustain recovery from alcoholism. This includes the importance of AA sponsorship as depicted in the film by the character Jim Hungerford (Jack Klugman) who, for the time this film was made, offers a great deal of insight into
the threats of codependency to recovery (as demonstrated in the film when Joe returns to drinking following an attempt to save the marriage only to find himself back in a sanatorium with an eventual realization that he cannot remain married to Kirstin while she continues to drink). The film received mixed reviews (though negative critics generally compared the film to the original teleplay, with the latter considered far more powerful). Largely, the film is considered to be one of the most accurate depictions of alcoholism and recovery, including the use of AA. Further rewrites include an off-Broadway production in 2003, a West End rework in 2005; it was (apparently) the inspiration for Smashed, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Multiple Emmy Award–winning Hill Street Blues was aired on NBC for 146 episodes from 1981 to 1987, with reruns in the UK throughout the 1990s. Hill Street Blues was the first of its genre to present a gritty crime drama that also focused on the characters’ lives and the human condition, including alcoholism. In season two, we saw the character of undercover Detective John “J. D.” LaRue (played by the late Kiel Martin, a recovering alcoholic) as his life and job spiral out of control due to his drinking. In the episode “Jungle Madness” (first aired May 26, 1981), we see the character of Captain Frank Furillo (played by actor Daniel J. Travanti, also a recovering alcoholic who has spoken publicly about his regular attendance at recovery support meetings) guide LaRue into seeking help. We then see LaRue attend his first AA meeting, to be welcomed by Furillo, who is also attending the meeting (though the episode does not differentiate as to whether the meeting is open or closed). Later in the series, an episode called “Nutcracker Suite” (season four, March 15, 1984), Furillo is shown to be close to relapsing. However, instead of drinking, he reaches out to his AA sponsor (only to find that his sponsor has returned to heavy drinking). Public Awareness Yet, the intellectual and cultural history of 12-step recovery and its offshoots is largely unknown to many otherwise well-educated academics and professionals. When it is known, it is frequently misunderstood. Watching the instruments of public media, one could rightly ask whether anyone
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goes to rehab other than celebrities caught in their latest indiscretion. Watching millionaire celebrities announcing their (re)entry into a private treatment center following their latest binge, one could rightly ask whether anyone ever really recovers from addiction to alcohol or other drugs. The faces of the barely sober addicts on television screens need to be replaced by the faces of people from all backgrounds who have survived addiction and live full lives. To present the floundering, newly sober celebrity as the cultural symbol of recovery is a gross misrepresentation of reality. The focus needs to shift from the addiction, the addicted, and the barely sober to those in sustained recovery. In Let’s Go Make Some History, White suggests that superficial lip service claiming that alcoholism is a disease will not change how the culture views the alcoholic if the reality of recovery is not brought into the direct experience of the public. Most people have heard of Alcoholics Anonymous—certainly many seem to have an opinion about it. But those opinions are not necessarily well informed. In 2009, the UK’s longest-running soap opera, Coronation Street, attempted to show an AA meeting in a story line about one of its most popular characters, Peter Barlow. Viewers had watched Barlow’s alcoholism spiral out of control and his numerous attempts to stop drinking. In a scene lasting about 10 minutes, Barlow, his father, stepmother, and her mother are shown attending Barlow’s local AA meeting. The scene draws on every negative stereotype that has developed around AA meetings—it is a miserable event to attend, it is critical and confrontational, it offers therapeutic responses outside the 12 steps, and so forth. Ultimately, the scene ends with a comedic family falling-out and provides very little authenticity as to an AA meeting. It was notable that following the airing of this episode (July 20, 2009), the character Barlow no longer mentioned his attendance at AA meetings, instead referring to his “recovery group.” Just because the culture of recovery fails to conform to the academic notion of “the popular” does not means that it is not “popular” in the laypersons’ sense of that term—widespread, well-known, and enthusiastically integrated into everyday life. Its adherents number in the millions, and it has a diverse and multifaceted
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cultural foundation with an intellectual history and an evolving aesthetic. The 12-step approach spawned an entire submovement—recovery—that profoundly influenced not just the self-help industry but also society as a whole. Twelve-step recovery meetings that do not often feature celebrity speakers or hoards of pricey ancillary products do have a strong and loyal following nonetheless. The 12-step movement developed as an outgrowth of Alcoholics Anonymous and encompasses a staggering range of problems, whether compulsive shopping or loving too easily or too much or overeating. According to Salerno, at the apex of the recovery phenomenon in 1992, American demographics reported that 12 million Americans belonged to at least one of the nation’s 500,000 support group chapters. Indeed, as William White describes in the article “The Future of AA, NA and Other Recovery Mutual Aid Organizations,” the “AA standard” is a benchmark of all other mutual-aid groups and philosophies due to its influence on the design of professionally directed addiction treatment, the quantity and increasing quality of the group’s related scientific research, and its growing visibility as a cultural institution and at no cost to the taxpayer, yet a true depiction of AA in popular culture remains elusive. The story of Alcoholics Anonymous from its inception to the present day is a fascinating tale of hope and optimism. It is a global community with a rich, unique literature and history. Its influence has been felt far beyond the diverse peoples it serves. The organization did not benefit financially from the self-help or the professionalized addiction industry it indirectly birthed. It has no opinion on younger mutualaid organizations that market themselves as an alternative to AA. Incredibly, in the climate of mass-marketing, the group, which shuns promotion, preferring attraction instead, has survived and has changed little in over 75 years. Yet, this story remains untold to those outside the recovery community. Laura Mary Graham Independent Scholar See Also: Al-Anon; Alateen; Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; History and Culture
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of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Smith, Robert Holbrook; Wilson, Bill. Further Readings Alexander, Bruce K. The Globalisation of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of Spirit. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. The Book That Started It All: The Original Working Manuscript of Alcoholics Anonymous. Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2010. Kelly, John F. and William L. White, eds. Addiction Recovery Management, Theory, Research and Practice. New York: Springer Science and Business Media, 2012. Salerno, Steve. SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless. New York: Three Rivers, 2005. Travis, Trysh. The Language of the Heart. A Cultural History of the Recovery Movement From AA to Oprah Winfrey. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. White, William. “The Future of AA, NA and Other Recovery Mutual Aid Organizations.” Counselor, v.11/2 (2010). White, William L. Let’s Go Make Some History: Chronicles of the New Addiction Recovery Advocacy Movement. Washington, DC: Johnson Institute, 2006. White, William L. Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America, 2nd ed. Bloomington, IL: Chestnut Health Systems, 1998. Yates, Rowdy and Margaret S. Malloch, eds. Tackling Addiction: Pathways to Recovery. London: Jennifer Kingsley, 2010.
Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), according to the preamble read at most meetings, is “a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement
for membership is a desire to stop drinking.” AA “is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution.” The AA fellowship dates from 1935, though the name seems to be three or four years younger. The same event that confirmed the name—the publication in April 1939 of the “Big Book” titled Alcoholics Anonymous—also gave the world the “Twelve Suggested Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.” These have largely been taken to compose the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, though the preamble emphasizes sharing experience, strength, and hope in personal narratives. From Six to 12 Steps Before the “Big Book” was published, there were six steps (in two or three versions). In the form developed by AA cofounder Dr. Bob S. in Akron, Ohio, in the period from 1935 to 1937, the six steps, according to the story “He Sold Himself Short” in the third edition of Alcoholics Anonymous, were (1) “Complete deflation, (2) Dependence and guidance from a Higher Power, (3) Moral inventory, (4) Confession, (5) Restitution,” and (6) “Continued work with other alcoholics.” Another version of the Six Steps from AA cofounder Bill W. in New York appears in an article by one Ray R. published on the Internet by Bill C. in September 1995: (1) “We admitted we were licked, (2) We got honest with ourselves, (3) We talked it over with another person, (4) We made amends to those we had harmed, (5) We tried to carry this message to others with no thought of reward,” and (6) “We prayed to whatever God we thought there was.” An alternative version, also from Bill W.’s papers, is found in Dick B., New Light on Alcoholism: The A.A. Legacy From Sam Shoemaker: (1) “Admitted hopeless, (2) Got honest with self, (3) Got honest with another, (4) Made amends, (5) Helped others without demand,” and (6) “Prayed to God as you understand him.” The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are as follows: 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for the knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and practice these principles in all our affairs.
In the version in the first edition of the “Big Book,” the word experience in Step 12 is used instead of the word awakening. Early Success After the publication of the “Big Book” in 1939, AA got its first national coverage (in Liberty magazine) and was the subject of a series of articles in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. In 1939, Clarence S. started the first group that called itself AA in Cleveland; Marty Mann, in Dr. Harry Tiebout’s
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sanitarium in Connecticut, first came into the fledgling fellowship; and AA started up in Washington, D.C. The fellowship received additional national coverage in The Sporting News in 1940, when Cleveland Indians’ catcher Rollie H. indignantly denied he had gotten sober through the Oxford Group and publicly credited Alcoholics Anonymous. John D. Rockefeller threw a dinner where members of AA met some of his friends at the Union League Club in New York on February 8, 1940, and AA brought a meeting into the Rockland State Hospital in New York that winter. In March 1941, The Saturday Evening Post published an article on AA by investigative reporter Jack Alexander that turned out to be strongly favorable. There is an AA legend that the fellowship got its final name when New York member Joseph H. W., having just seen the film Captains Courageous, remarked that the group couldn’t be Anonymous Alcoholics but had to be Alcoholics Anonymous. It has also been suggested that Bill W. had in mind the French phrase for a company societé anonyme, and it is certain he toyed with the idea of a designation of Fellow of the Society of Alcoholics Anonymous (FSAA), on the lines of the British Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA). This was before the full implications of anonymity were realized by those whom Bill called the “anonymi.” The fellowship initially was centered in Akron, where Dr. Bob S. emphasized personal contact (“one alcoholic talking to another”) and sponsorship in the sense that word was used in the early Christian Church, as the member who brought a newcomer (a “pigeon,” “candidate,” or “baby”) into full communion in a church. The New York members of the fellowship were more self-reflective, much more evangelistic, and widely traveled. Except for one or two traveling salesmen, who spread the word widely, and one Akron resident who moved to Indiana, the midwestern community of AA spread by attracting people to come to Akron and talk to Dr. Bob. Fitz M., Bill W.’s first permanently sober “pigeon,” founded groups in Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maryland, Philadelphia, and New Jersey, in addition to taking road trips to Akron. Fitz M.’s experiences are told in one of two stories (other than those of Bill W. and Dr. Bob) to
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appear in all four editions of the “Big Book.” A divorcé, Fitz M. had taught at the Landon School for a year, may have worked in the intelligence service, remarried (practically on his deathbed), and died of cancer in 1943 at the age of 45. The other story to appear in all four “Big Book” editions recounts the experiences of Arch T., who came from Detroit to Akron to live with Dr. Bob and get sober, eventually returned to Detroit, and started an AA group there with the assistance of one Mike E., already sober there through the Salvation Army program. Essentially, the AA pioneers who were sober before the fellowship was founded, got sober without the Twelve Steps but conformed with the basic program as developed by the founders. The Twelve Steps have been passed on to other fellowships, beginning with the Al-Anon Family Groups in 1951, and then with Narcotics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, and Cocaine Anonymous, as well as about 200 other anonymous fellowships. The 12-step program has also been a model for various rehabilitation and intensive outpatient programs. Some have questioned whether there is efficacy for attaining sobriety solely in the Twelve Steps or in the Twelve Steps as part of the entire AA program. In 1989, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism initiated Project MATCH, an eight-year study to determine how alcoholics respond to various types of treatment. Although AA meetings were not included in the study, Project MATCH investigated programs using 12-step facilitation therapy, as well as programs based on motivational enhancement therapy and cognitive behavioral coping skills therapy. The study concluded that all three programs had equal effectiveness, but the mode of treatment is far less important than an alcoholic’s continuing recovery in AA or any one of the 12-step-derived programs. Twelve Traditions After creating a workable sobriety program, Bill tried to find a way to keep it going. To be preserved, charismatic authority needs to be institutionalized. The initial members of AA included clergymen, doctors, and others familiar with institutionalized authority, but the most recent example available for the institutionalization and routinization of charismatic authority was that of
Mary Baker Eddy and the Church of Christ Scientist, although her religion failed to create this authority. Because AA was not to be a church and alcoholics do not like rules, Bill came up with the “twelve points of tradition,” which became the Twelve Traditions for the governance (but certainly not government) of AA They were developed during the period from 1945 to 1950. The Twelve Traditions in their final (1953) form are as follows: (1) “Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity; (2) For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as he may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern; (3) The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking; (4) Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole; (5) Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers; (6) An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose; (7) Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions; (8) Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers; (9) A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve; (10) Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy; (11) Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films”; and (12) “Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.” Bill believed the groups would obey the Traditions (and it may be worthwhile to emphasize that the word is obey) because if they did not, the group would fragment and the members would get drunk. They would begin by obeying the Traditions more or less out of the fear that this would happen, and evidence for the reasonableness of that fear comes in the history of groups that have failed to obey them. Bill believed the groups
Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs
would go on to obey the Traditions because they increasingly seem right—the groups work more smoothly, there is less discord, and members are better able to stay sober. Finally, members would obey the Traditions because, in essence (as with the Steps), they freely choose to do what they must do, for the pleasure of doing it. This obedience may be called “willing necessity,” or as it William James or Carl Jung would describe it, the result of the process of conversion or a higher education of the mind beyond mere rationalism. It may also be summarized by quoting Charles Reade: “Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit, and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny.” But always, for Bill W., the sowing and reaping in a field is watched over by God, and it is God who establishes Reade’s paradigms. Bill remarks in AA Comes of Age, that the reasons for obeying the Traditions (and specifically, in this context, the Fourth) “leads straight to Tradition Five, which states: ‘Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.’” This is sometimes known as the primary purpose or singleness of purpose statement. In its longer form it reads: “Each Alcoholics Anonymous group ought to be a spiritual entity having but one primary purpose—that of carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.” The difference between the two statements is that the longer form specifically describes the group as a spiritual entity, which is the implicit basis in Bill’s thought for AA’s successful treatment. “Narratization” for Recovery Bill W. created both his Twelve Steps and his congruent threefold approach to the threefold illness of mind, body, and spirit called alcoholism. In this approach, the Steps are read as a schema for organizing experience; that is, they are a model for the narrative that gives meaning to the AA member’s life and sobriety, what in some forms of therapy might be called “narratization” for recovery. Some members of AA, particularly at speaker’s meetings of “Step and Tradition.” “Step,” or “Step-study” groups, will be asked to tell their stories “in terms of the Twelve Steps.” Just as the medieval Christian Church seems to have turned to saints’ lives as exemplars of the process of sanctification, so
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Alcoholics Anonymous turns to “sober lives” as exemplars of the process of sobriety. The emphasis may have fallen on the wrong area in the process of sobriety or recovery. There is some considerable difference between the saints’ life described by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as, “Lives of all great men remind us / We can make our lives sublime,” on the one hand, and the cautionary or “war story” temperance narrative, on the other. But there is an even greater difference between both of these and the “healing narrative.” This healing narrative combines psychodynamic narrative, developmental narrative, and treatment narrative to use a formula common in AA: what the member’s experience was like, what happened, and what his or her experience is like now. The psychodynamic narrative of the member’s past and the narrative of the treatment itself are collapsed into a complex interwoven story, intertwining themes from the member’s past with themes from the treatment itself, the emphasis falling on the latter rather than the former. The therapeutic challenge, within narrative therapy, is to loosen the sense of inevitability carried by the narrative of one’s past, so that the chapters of one’s life that will extend into the future are more under the authorial control of the narrator. What does this have to do with the Twelve Steps? They are, at the very least, a mnemonic for the necessary stages in the narrative; that is, the stages which must be included if the narrative is to be complete and properly interwoven. In AA in the present day, some sponsors require those they sponsor to spend a month writing nightly reflections on the First Step, another month writing nightly reflections on the Second Step, and so on throughout a year. Members presumably reflect upon the steps from the Fourth—that is, they conduct the “fearless and searching moral inventory” of the Fourth Step; they admit to God, to themselves, and to another human being the pattern of their misdoings in the Fifth Step; and so on. It is commonly said in AA that “the steps are in order for a reason,” but there is not so much agreement on how long it should take to do each one and the entire 12, on whether it is permissible to make some amends (Step Nine) before completing the list of amends to be made (Step Eight), or to what degree one can do “Twelfth-Step work” (such as carrying the message) before one has done the
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first 11 steps, or do a nightly inventory and pray and meditate (Steps Ten and Eleven) before one has made amends. In general, it may be said that the more the Twelve Steps are considered to have some kind of mystic efficacy in and of themselves, divorced from the whole context of AA experience—the “experience, strength, and hope” that underlie the program—the less valuable the steps would seem to be for recovery from alcoholism. Whether that caveat holds true for non-AA applications, including those in “Twelve-Step model” rehabilitation, is far beyond the scope of this entry. AA Today Having been successful with the Twelve Steps, Bill W. went on to create his “twelve points of tradition,” which became the Twelve Traditions, and then Twelve Concepts for World Service— each roughly created at 12-year intervals. AA is widely known for its willingness to share its Twelve Steps with the world, and every time they are shared, they are further advertisement for AA. Anecdotal evidence exists for difficulties in fitting the Twelve Steps within a general model of benevolence, inasmuch as they are a very specific model for helping others in a specific way toward a specific goal. That they work within the AA context seems indisputable. That the Traditions work to preserve AA is far less certain, partly because it is not entirely certain they’ve been fully observed. But one fundamental problem observable in the history of AA over the last 20 years (when its North American membership numbers have stagnated at about 1.2 million) is simply this: During Bill W.’s lifetime (1895–1971), the phrase “a friend of Bill” was used by AA members to find out if another person was a member (“Are you a friend of Bill?”). Behind that phrase was the fact that all members of AA, and the nonalcoholic trustees, were actually or potentially personal friends of the living Bill W. Michael Alexander, for example, was the man who loaned Bill a copy of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America when Bill was writing the Twelve Concepts. But Michael, as trustee emeritus and legal adviser, was the last actual friend of Bill W. There are currently a few old-timers who met or knew Bill in the
fellowship, but even those who came in when he was alive but never met him must now have more than 40 years of sobriety (the average present length of sobriety in AA is in the neighborhood of six years). For most members, Bill W. is only a name, and one increasingly separate from his creation. This means AA is increasingly like other 12-step groups with largely or entirely anonymous founders, and whatever charisma there is attaches to circuit speakers, not to “leaders” in the AA service structure. The percentage of AA members who are women has risen over time; a little more than a third now, as comparted to very few at the beginning. In North Jersey in 1947, for example, women members in Bergen County had to meet at each other’s houses and might even need to have a male sponsor, since they needed someone who had performed the steps to take them through the steps. There were four prominent women in New York AA at that time, the four female “ink-stained wretches” who had started the AA Grapevine in 1944—Marty, the Countess Felicia, Lois K., and Priscilla P.—and perhaps a couple of women from Akron and a couple of others from New York, Annie C. and Nancy F., whose stories, edited from transcripts, are in the second edition of the “Big Book.” But only two or three of these women were available as sponsors. Since Bill’s death, the principal changes in AA have been twofold: The first is the advent of the “rehabs” and their blurring of the AA message in favor of a “recovery” message, and lately their decline; however, for a third of a century or more AA members who had been in rehabs tended to have a primary loyalty to the rehab (with rehab reunions and the like) and only a secondary loyalty to AA. The second is a continued expansion of AA abroad, although not matched by any great growth in numbers worldwide. Conor F., for example, carried AA from Philadelphia to Ireland after World War II, much as Joe F. carried AA from New Jersey to Vermont at pretty much the same time. AA is now in countries from Moldova to Mongolia (where the first-name-plus-initial anonymity founders on the fact that Mongolians have only one name). It is a worldwide fellowship. When Jack Alexander wrote his 1941 story for the Saturday Evening Post, he described a Yale
Alcoholics for Christ
graduate, a Princeton man, and a graduate of Penn near the bed of a mechanic in the hospital. But now the bed is likely to be in a detox unit or a rehab facility and the personal contact, veiled by forms to fill out, will be at a meeting at the rehab or detox, and both intimacy and fellowship are diminished, and it probably won’t be sobriety that is being discussed, but recovery. Jared Lobdell Independent Scholar See Also: Al-Anon; Alateen; Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Mann, Marty; Oxford Group; Salvation Army; Smith, Robert Holbrook; Washingtonians; Wilson, Bill. Further Readings B., Mel. Pass It On. New York: AA World Services, 1984. Kurtz, Ernest. Not-God: The History of AA. 2nd ed. Center City, MN: Hazelden, 1992. Leach, Barry and John L. Norris. “Factors in the Development of Alcoholics Anonymous.” In The Biology of Alcoholism, Vol. 5, Benjamin Kissen and Henri Begleiter, eds. New York: Pergamon, 1977. Lobdell, Jared. This Strange Illness: Alcoholism and Bill W. Berlin: Aldine-De Gruyter, 2004. Raphael, Matthew. Bill W. and Mr. Wilson. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000. Recovery.org. “About the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) 12-Step Recovery Program.” http://www .recovery.org/aa/misc/oxford.html (Accessed March 2014). Thomsen, Robert. Bill W. New York: Harper & Row, 1975. W., Lois. Lois Remembers: Memoirs of the Co-Founder of Al-Anon and Wife of the Co-Founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. New York: Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, 1979. Wilson, Bill. Alcoholics Anonymous–Big Book, 4th ed. New York: AA World Services, 2001. Wilson, Bill. Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age. New York: AA World Services, 1958. Wilson, Bill. Bill W: My First Forty Years. Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2000. Wilson, Bill. Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. New York: Harper, 1953.
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Alcoholics for Christ Alcoholics for Christ, though it does not have the renown of Alcoholics Anonymous, applies the same Twelve-Step model to sobriety. The distinction between Alcoholics for Christ and Alcoholics Anonymous stems from the former’s adamantine commitment to Christianity. Alcoholics for Christ emphasizes a particular brand of Christianity, one that is nondenominational but committed to a literal interpretation of scripture and to the need to be “born again.” By this phrase, taken from the Gospel of John in the New Testament, Alcoholics for Christ believes that a person must cultivate a personal relationship with Jesus, who it assumes to have raised from the dead. Salvation is possible only to those who have a personal relationship with Jesus, according the Alcoholics for Christ. Only through this relationship with Jesus can one find peace of mind and the possibility of recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction. Overview Alcoholics for Christ stresses that its early meetings were attended by non-Christians. Because these meetings were held in the United States and probably in Detroit, Michigan, the attendees likely would have been, at least demographically, Christians. This contradiction may be resolved by supposing that Alcoholics for Christ does not regard a person as Christian unless he or she is born again, though none of its literature states this premise. The seriousness of Alcoholics for Christ’s commitment to Christianity is evident on the organization’s Web site, which quotes liberally from scripture. Alcoholics for Christ is a nonprofit organization that serves alcoholics and drug addicts, the families of alcoholics and drug abusers, and adults who grew up in homes whose parent or parents were alcohol or drug abusers. The group has also launched a spin-off for teens. Like the temperance movement and the National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence (NCADD), Alcoholics for Christ recognizes that alcoholism is not merely a disease of individuals. Rather, it is a tragedy that envelops a family, ruining its finances, causing divorce, and traumatizing children and former spouses. The organization preaches the New Testament gospels, holding that Jesus has the power to assist alcoholics and drug abusers in their recovery.
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It believes in the Trinity, an ancient Christian dogma, and emphasizes the need for alcoholics, drug abusers, and people from all walks of life to turn over their lives to Jesus. At meetings and retreats, members try to convert all attendees into born-again Christians by seeking a personal relationship with Jesus. Christ heals the alcoholic and drug abuser, members believe, from the inside out: a person dies to the petty desires of the self and is reborn in Jesus. While stressing the importance of a Bible-based faith, Alcoholics for Christ does not dismiss the merits of other Christian churches. Obviously, the religious beliefs of the organization temper the group’s outlook of alcoholism, drug abuse, and what it regards as treatment. History The history of Alcoholics for Christ is not easy to assemble because the literature omits important names and locations, perhaps in the desire for secrecy. In 1976, a born-again Christian alcoholic (his name is unavailable) recovering from his disease attended a retreat for men sponsored by Alcoholics Anonymous. He had attended the meetings held by the group regularly over the previous 18 months and found both the meetings and the retreat helpful. At this 1976 retreat, the man claimed that God told him in a vision of the possibility that through belief in him, alcoholics and drug abusers could recover from their disease without the need for medical intervention (the medical community does not endorse this view, nor does NCADD). As the result of his vision, he felt called to create an organization that would help alcoholics stay sober without the necessity of seeking medical treatment. In late 1976, he organized the first retreat of this new group. All of the leaders were born-again Christians. They believed that two miracles occurred at this retreat: First, all attendees converted to born-again Christianity. Second, one attendee claimed to have had a vision from God, in which God told him to take a leadership role in this new organization, which was christened Alcoholics for Christ. In February 1977, Alcoholics for Christ organized its second retreat for men. Similar to the first retreat, most though not all attendees became born-again Christians. Two women, faithful attendees of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings,
learned of the success of Alcoholics for Christ. They asked the group’s leaders for guidance in organizing a retreat for female alcoholics. Again, attendees converted to born again Christianity. In June 1977, Alcoholics for Christ leaders convened a prayer breakfast for alcoholics, at which women outnumbered men because of the success of the women’s retreats. At this breakfast, male and female leaders came to believe that God was guiding them to create a ministry for alcoholics. This ministry spread throughout Detroit, Michigan. In fall 1977, Alcoholics for Christ launched a program of Bible study, holding the sessions in Ward Presbyterian Church and St. John’s Episcopal Church, both in Detroit. Whereas Ward Church concentrated on the Letter to the Romans, St. John’s studied the Gospel of John. The group that met in St. John’s transferred its allegiance to Zion Christian School in Clawson, Michigan. Alcoholics for Christ patterned its program after the Twelve Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous, combining it with Bible study. The group used scripture to illuminate each of the 12 steps and created a workbook that it held second in importance to the bible. Leaders admit that growth was not rapid at the outset, though by 1980 it held four breakfast meetings, one dinner meeting, and five group encounters. At the outset Alcoholics Anonymous attendees made up a large percentage of members in Alcoholics for Christ, though over time some people turned to Alcoholics for Christ first and did not necessarily have ties to Alcoholics Anonymous. In 1983, Ward Church invited family members of alcoholics to attend meetings of Alcoholics for Christ. That year, Alcoholics for Christ launched a radio ministry in Detroit. In 1986 and 1987, the organization welcomed children to its ranks and began the subgroup Alcoholics for Christ Teen situations, targeting high school youth whose parent or parents were alcoholics. As of 2013, the group has more than 100 chapters nationwide, 43 of them in Detroit. Members visit prisons, rehabilitation centers, and counseling centers. To the extent that Alcoholics for Christ has succeeded, it has attracted alcoholics who desire more than a secular, clinical approach to alcoholism. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar
See Also: Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Religion. Further Readings Alcoholics for Christ. http://www.alcoholicsforchrist .com (Accessed February 2014). Royal Oak Patch. http://royaloakpatch.com/listings/ alcoholics-for-christ (Accessed February 2014). Ward Church. “Alcoholics for Christ.” http://www .wardchurch.org/arena/default.aspx?page=3840 (Accessed February 2014).
Alcoholism: Effect on Family Alcoholism disrupts family life. It undermines relationships, interferes with the process of child development, and destroys economic capacity. When alcoholism is present in a family, risk to individual and familial welfare increases in a variety of areas: health and disease, economic security, domestic violence, birth defects, divorce, educational failure, and trouble with the law. How this plays out in the lives of family members is a complex matter of biology, social context, psychological vulnerability, temperament, and luck. The range of effects is extremely wide, from mild disappointment and low-level interference experienced at an intensity that can be concealed or managed to death from acute illness, chronic health conditions, suicide, or murder. The trauma of these experiences can be transmitted from one generation to the next. As societies and cultures develop, they adapt to these issues and effects, and attitudes toward the family experience change. At various points in history, depending on the social attitudes of the day, families have been ignored, treated as victims, or even as instigators of problem drinking. Families have roles in supporting the alcoholic’s efforts at sobriety or recovery. The recovery needs of family members have come to be recognized much more recently.
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Health Risks and Family Caregiving Burden At a minimum, family members of alcoholics must contend with a burden of caring for a loved one with a health condition. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control lists the following acute health risks associated with alcohol consumption: Injuries, including traffic injuries, falls, drownings, burns, and unintentional firearm injuries; violence, including intimate partner violence and child maltreatment; risky sexual behaviors, including unprotected sex, sex with multiple partners, and increased risk of sexual assault; unintended pregnancy; sexually transmitted diseases; miscarriage and stillbirth among pregnant women, and birth defects among children that last throughout life. Alcohol poisoning can cause loss of consciousness, coma, respiratory depression, or death. Over time, excessive alcohol use can lead to the development of chronic diseases, mental impairments, and social problems. Liver diseases, including alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis, or other gastrointestinal problems, including pancreatitis and gastritis, can result. Cardiovascular problems can also develop, as can cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, liver, colon, and breast. Chronic alchohol abuse increases the likelihood of neurological problems, including dementia, stroke, and neuropathy. Psychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety, and suicide, along with social problems, including unemployment, lost productivity, and family discord, also frequently accompany chronic alcoholism. Caregiving is stressful and has health effects on the caregiver, no matter what health problem the care receiver is experiencing. The American Psychological Association reports that family caregivers can have increased physical ailments, as compared to non-caregivers, including chronic pain, such as headaches and backaches, and weakened immune systems. Over time, caregiving may erode a person’s subjective experience of health. Caregiving can also have significant consequences on mental health. When compared to their noncaregiving counterparts, family caregivers report higher levels of stress/distress, depression, emotional problems, and cognitive disorders. Estimates suggest that 40 to 70 percent of caregivers have clinically significant symptoms of depression, with approximately one-fourth
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to one-half of these caregivers meeting the diagnostic criteria for major depression. Caregivers who experience strain in care provision have the greatest physical and psychological health effects, including symptoms of depression, higher levels of anxiety, and inadequate time for sleep, self-care, and other health-related activities. In fact, strained caregivers had a 63 percent greater chance of death within four years, as compared to noncaregivers. Female caregivers fare worse than their male counterparts, reporting higher levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms and lower levels of subjective well-being, life satisfaction, and physical health than male caregivers. Family caregivers also face financial burdens, as estimated caregiver out-of-pocket expenses are, on average, $2,400 per year to help care recipients. Further, family caregivers can experience loss in wages and other work-related benefits due to changes in work patterns. Alcoholism as a Family Disease The prevailing approach today views alcoholism as a “family disease.” According to the National Center for Alcohol and Drug Dependence (NCADD), One family member addicted to alcohol and drugs means the whole family suffers. Addiction is a family disease that stresses the family to the breaking point, impacts the stability of the home, the family’s unity, mental health, physical health, finances, and overall family dynamics. Without help, active addiction can totally disrupt family life and cause harmful effects that can last a lifetime. The effects of alcoholism on family life include those of family caregiving, plus exposure to acute risks related more directly to alcohol intoxication, plus other effects that relate to altered relationships among family members. Another side effect is stigma. Alcoholism may be a family disease, but it is not a casserole disease. The neighbors do not show up offering support. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, specific disruptions of alcoholism on family systems include negativism, parental inconsistency, parental denial, miscarried expression of anger, self-medication
through inappropriate use of drugs or alcohol, and unrealistic parental expectations. A parent may overcompensate for deficiencies of a substance-abusing spouse. Children may act as surrogate spouses for the parent who abuses substances. Children develop elaborate systems of denial to protect themselves against the reality of the parent’s addiction. The aging parents of adults with substance use disorders may maintain inappropriately dependent relationships with their grown offspring. The effects of substance abuse frequently extend beyond the nuclear family. Extended family members may experience feelings of abandonment, anxiety, fear, anger, concern, embarrassment, or guilt. They may wish to ignore or cut ties with the person abusing substances. Some family members even may feel the need for legal protection from the person abusing substances. The effects on families may continue for generations. Intergenerational effects of substance abuse can have a negative impact on role modeling, trust, and concepts of normative behavior, which can damage the relationships between generations. For example, a child with a parent who abuses substances may grow up to be an overprotective and controlling parent who does not allow his or her children sufficient autonomy. Neighbors, friends, and coworkers also experience the effects of substance abuse because the abuser often is unreliable. Friends may be asked to help financially or in other ways. Coworkers may be forced to compensate for decreased productivity or carry a disproportionate share of the workload. They may come to resent the person abusing substances. Substance abusers are likely to find themselves increasingly isolated from their families. Often they prefer associating with others who abuse substances or participate in some other form of antisocial activity. These associates support and reinforce each other’s behavior. Alcoholism and Codependency Different issues emerge based on the age and role of the person who uses substances in the family and on whether small children or adolescents are present. In some cases, a family might present a healthy face to the community while substance abuse issues lie just below the surface.
For partners of alcoholics, issues of codependency arise. The partner who is not using substances often assumes the provider role. Codependency means being overly concerned with the problems of another to the detriment of attending to one’s own wants and needs. Codependent people are thought to be controlling, because they believe that others are incapable of taking care of themselves. They typically have low self-esteem and a tendency to deny their own feelings. They are excessively compliant, compromising their own values and integrity to avoid rejection or anger. They often react in an oversensitive manner, as they are often hypervigilant to disruption, troubles, or disappointments. Codependent people are said to remain loyal to people who do nothing to deserve their loyalty. Although the term codependent originally described spouses of those with alcohol abuse disorders, it has come to refer to any relative of a person with any type of behavior or psychological problem. When a child is the alcoholic, another set of issues affects the family. According to the Ana Liffey Drug Project, an Irish drug treatment organization, whole “families can seem to go to pieces when there is a son or daughter using drugs or alcohol. Parents fall out with each other over how to handle the situation, while other sons or daughters can get blamed for being a bad example. The drug user gets so much attention that others are neglected. Rows and bad language upset the peace. If peace and love are the oxygen of life, then the whole family is gasping for breath.” The idea of codependence has been criticized for pathologizing caring functions, particularly those that have traditionally been part of a woman’s role, such as empathy and self-sacrifice. The Process of Family Recovery The NCADD sees the process of family recovery as involving the following steps. The first is to end the isolation by joining an education or support group. Next come education on addiction and the family, followed by learning communication skills. Next come a focus on detachment and responsibility for self. Further steps include stopping old dysfunctional behaviors, engaging with the children, and building resilience. The final stages involve working alone and together to find activities that serve as a source of personal and
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family fulfillment, and understanding and preparing for relapse. The NCADD stresses that recovery is a long-term process that often takes years. History, Culture, and Social Meaning Alcohol abuse has a long history but is largely absent from the historical record. Because society tends to shun and isolate alcoholics and addicts, their histories tend to disappear. Many physical, economic, psychological, social, relational, and other effects of alcoholism happen in homes, largely out of sight, and are not captured by historians. The complexity of alcohol and alcoholism, and the cultural blind spots that have developed over the course of thousands of years, created a set of disconnected social histories that are replete with gaps and partial understandings. Because alcohol use is not a simple issue but a complex bundle of biological, psychological, and social issues, history often oversimplifies. One such oversimplification is the notion that one type of alcoholic beverage is more dangerous or damaging than another. This simplification hides the cultural and social forces playing out beneath the surface of events. One well-documented example happened in England in the 18th century. In 1751, London illustrator William Hogarth produced two prints, Gin Lane and Beer Street. Designed to be viewed alongside each other, they depicted the evils of the consumption of gin in contrast to the merits of drinking beer. Beer Street depicted a sociable place, where happy people drank English ale and enjoyed robust health. Hogarth wrote that in Beer Street, “all is joyous and thriving. Industry and jollity go hand in hand.” But Gin Lane was an entirely different matter. Historian Patrick Dillon describes the central figure: There is only one picture of Madame Geneva. She is disguised as one of her devotees, sitting on some broken steps somewhere . . . too drunk to notice any of it. She is in a world of her own. Her fingers fumble for some snuff. She’s even forgotten about the child on her lap. . . . The child is falling off the steps onto the paving below. Not even maternal instinct has survived the ravages of gin. Nor has shame. Madame Geneva’s blouse hangs open. Sometimes she
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has to take to the streets to pay for her habit; her legs are covered with the sores of syphilis. Hogarth’s illustration and other social menace narratives are meant to be shorthand, compact pictures of the impact of a type of beverage on particular times, places, and cultures. What they actually show us is the capacity of a social system to safely handle new technologies and economies of intoxication. They depict social vulnerabilities. Societies adjust to alcohol in its various forms just as they do to any technology. Eighteenth-century English society was completely unprepared for the mass production and universal availability of cheap gin. It took more than a century, two rounds of prohibition, several tax statutes, plus a religious movement—John Wesley’s Methodist Church—for a comparatively safe culture of moderate distilled beverage use to develop. Early American Movements The first evidence of individuals turning their own negative experiences with alcohol into a mutual support social movement occurs within Native American tribes, as early as 1772. The physician Benjamin Rush, writing in the mid- to late 1700s, was one of the first Americans to view drinking as a combination of science, morality, and psychology. Between 1825 and 1850, American temperance movements began to frame alcohol as an evil and inherently addictive substance. These groups pursued a social goal of banning alcohol to produce families and communities free from the plague of drunkenness. The most successful of these was the Washingtonian Society founded in Baltimore in 1840. In 1841, 5,000 people marched in its first anniversary parade, including 1,000 “reformed drunkards.” The Martha Washington Society formed in New York City that same year. Its mission was “to provide moral and material support to reforming inebriates, and to provide special support to female inebriates and to the wives and children of inebriates.” Washingtonian groups provided food, clothing, and shelter, and served as employment clearinghouses for people trying to get back on their feet financially. The Washingtonian program of recovery included public confession, public commitment, visits from older members, economic assistance, continued
participation in experience sharing, acts of service toward other alcoholics, and sober entertainment. The Washingtonian Societies peaked quickly. Most disappeared by 1843. Other temperance movements came and went throughout the midto late 1800s. After the Civil War, a network of so-called inebriate asylums provided residential care to people seeking to regain sobriety. Historian William White notes that Nineteenth and early-20th-century inebriety literature expressed enormous ambivalence toward the family of the alcoholic and addict. Wives of patients often took up temporary residence in the city nearest the inebriate asylums, so they could provide daily support to their husbands. Although these wives were viewed as loyal angels by those undergoing treatment, the staff of the inebriate asylum often viewed them quite differently. They might have noted the importance of the family’s role in such activities as committing the alcoholic, taking guardianship of the inebriate’s financial affairs, visiting and supporting the inebriate in treatment, but it is obvious that many early treatment professionals and students of addiction saw the family as hostile interlopers. White noted that wives of inebriates received much more empathy and understanding in temperance societies of this period than in the treatment programs of the day. Many failures in treatment were attributed to what today would be called family enabling. In 1896, Charles Palmer was one of the earliest to suggest that wives had a hidden role in the alcoholism of their husbands. In 1905, one textbook noted “The kindest wife and most indulgent parents are very much in the way of numerous cures, and prove to be, instead of the best friends, the worst enemies the alcoholic has.” During this period, social denial affected alcohol treatment for women. Many women were initially able to hide their addictions to opiatecontaining remedies and to alcohol-laced “medicines.” However, as women began asserting a larger social role outside the home, social denial began to disappear. In the period from 1870 to 1920, women were considered to have different paths, presentations, and causes of addiction
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and alcoholism. Women were placed on a higher moral footing, so it was more likely for clinicians to attribute addictions to physical frailty or female anatomy or female life issues than to moral depravity. However, by 1900, the issue of female alcoholism could not be avoided. That year, there were 8,000 arrests of women for drunkenness in New York City alone. The issue of women’s drinking gained even higher importance because it affected children. One report from the “day nurseries” of the era noted that “the mothers are frequently under the influence of drink to such an extent when they call for the babies at night that the nurses are afraid to trust the little ones to them.” Researchers in this period also began to document social context. One study reported that young women began drinking alcohol-based tonics with their friends, then progressed to beer and distilled spirits. Another study noted the connection between women’s addictions and domestic violence. Of the married women in this study, one out of three had scars on their heads from violent assaults. Shame and stigma continued to be major factors in the lives of women alcoholics and addicts. During this period, women were felt to have gender-specific needs that were addressed within treatment. Part of the problem was the moral code of the period. Men had opportunities to claim redemption and rescue, but women did not. Inebriate asylums that catered to women featured separate entrances and housing to ensure anonymity. After Prohibition, this emphasis on gender-specific elements within treatment programs disappeared and did not reemerge for decades. Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon At its start in the 1930s, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) was much more than a meeting. It was a social group, a community of mutual support. The wives of drinkers were full participants. Anne Smith and Lois Wilson, the wives of founders Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, were very involved in conceptualizing and documenting what was unfolding within the group. William White notes, Anne’s support and counsel to many of the early alcoholics is legendary. The seeds of many key ideas that emerged within AA began in the
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pages of her journal and in her conversations with early members. During the early years of AA, alcoholics and their family members attended group meetings together. As these meetings grew larger, AA members made a decision to meet without family members present. As a result, the spouses of AA members were brought together in groups for the first time. This growth and separation occurred across the country. Meetings of family members evolved from a focus on their alcoholic spouses to a focus on their own emotional and spiritual health. In 1946, family members of the San Diego AA organized themselves as “Alcoholics Anonymous Associates.” This permitted family members to join AAaffiliated groups before the alcoholic did. Al-Anon was formalized in 1951 as “Al-Anon Family Groups.” Lois Wilson and her friend Anne B. laid out much of the design based on the early experience within AA. Al-Anon incorporates AA’s organization structure, its 12-step process, parallel traditions, and many AA slogans. Al-Anon made it possible for social science researchers and historians to access the experiences of family members of alcoholics. It created a participant pool large enough to permit researchers to test then-current theories about families and the lives of alcoholics. Alateen was founded 1957 to support children of alcoholics, growing to 3,300 groups by the mid-1990s. By 1960, AlAnon was recognizing the special needs of husbands of alcoholic women. By the early 1960s, objective studies began to call into question the 1950s portrayal of the alcoholic wife as having selected and remained with her husband out of her own deep emotional disturbance. By 1994, there were more than 32,000 Al-Anon groups meeting in 12 countries and distributing literature published in 30 languages. When once asked about the single most important lesson she had learned in Al-Anon, Lois Wilson stated: We cannot change another human being—only ourselves. By living our own lives to the best of our ability, by loving deeply and not trying to mold another to our wishes, we can help not only ourselves but that other also.
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Traumatic Effects The book Codependent No More and the emergence of a variety of 12-step-oriented self-help groups popularized the notion of “adult children of alcoholics” during the mid- to late 1980s. Many of these groups focused on the notion of childhood trauma altering one’s developmental trajectory, producing emotional turmoil, disorders of perception and thought, and self-destructive behavior that persisted into adult life. This helped people understand what they may have experienced but also generated backlash from the insurance industry, which refused to pay for treatment. Unfortunately, the refusal to pay for treatment did nothing to disprove or remedy the effects of trauma suffered during childhood in a family visited by alcoholism. Rather, it confirms and reinforces another typical social blind spot— the human tendency to avoid confronting traumatic experience. As Judith Lewis Herman writes in her 1992 work Trauma and Recovery, “The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud. This is the meaning of the word unspeakable.” The events of history periodically bring the effects of war, disaster, and domestic abuse into public consciousness, but the social and cultural habits of denial, stigmatizing, and avoidance just as frequently sweep trauma out of social view. Herman asserts that remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims. She notes that “children trapped in abusive environments must find a way to preserve a sense of trust in people who are untrustworthy, safety among those who are unsafe, all with an immature psychological and social capacity.” In the mid-1990s, the so-called ACE Study reported that adverse childhood events, including experiences commonly encountered in families affected by alcoholism, have long-term effects. Trauma reduces executive function, the capacity to create a path forward when circumstances are uncertain, as well as the capacity to form and maintain relationships. According to Judith Lewis Herman, the process of healing from trauma involves establishing safety, coming to terms with the traumatic
event, and reestablishing connection with the larger community. Another therapeutic approach focuses on the strategies used to cope with the traumatic experience. The story of victimization gives way to a survivor’s heroic story of resiliency and success. Paul Komarek Independent Scholar See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Adult Children of Alcoholics; Al-Anon; Alateen; Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture; Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Genetic Disposition, Alcoholism as a; Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse; Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Moderate Use; Psychological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse; Psychological Effects of Alcohol: Moderate Use; Temperance Movements. Further Readings Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. “Chapter 2 Impact of Substance Abuse on Families” (2004). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK64258 (Accessed June 2014). Drugs.ie. “Effects on the Family—Drug and Alcohol Information and Support in Ireland.” http://www .drugs.ie/drugs_info/for_parents_carers/effects_on_ the_family (Accessed June 2014). “Family Caregiving.” http://www.apa.org/about/gr/ issues/cyf/caregiving-facts.aspx (Accessed June 2014). Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, reprint ed. New York: Basic Books, 1997. National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. “Family Disease.” http://www.ncadd .org/index.php/for-friends-and-family/family -disease-and-recovery (Accessed June 2014). “Social and Cultural Aspects of Drinking—Culture Chemistry and Consequences” (2000). http:// www.sirc.org/publik/drinking6.html (Accessed June 2014). Tough, P. How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, reprint ed. Boston: Mariner Books, 2013. White, W. L. Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America. Bloomington, IL: Chestnut Health Systems, 1998.
Wolin, S. J. and S. Wolin. The Resilient Self: How Survivors of Troubled Families Rise Above Adversity. New York: Villard Books, 1993.
Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, History of The term alcoholism is no longer used in official medical and psychiatric classification literature. Rather, it has become a colloquial way of understanding the phenomenon that these manuals now call “dependence”—the inability to control one’s appetite for alcohol. One thing that is consistent across medical, historical, and cultural research on the causes of alcoholism and drug abuse is uncertainty. In fact, the cultural understanding of the causes of alcoholism—variously described as drunkenness, inebriety, intemperance, and dipsomania— has changed with the times. While drinking in moderation is an important part of many social and religious rituals, drunkenness is generally frowned upon. Early societies typically viewed chronic drunkenness as a moral failing, that is, as vice or sin. Later, the cause of habitual drunkenness or drug addiction was viewed as a product of the essential addictive properties of the substance itself. Vestiges of these beliefs continue to inform the cultural understanding of alcoholism and drug abuse, as does the persistent social stigma that associates alcoholism and drug abuse with immorality. The diversity of symptoms and causes of alcoholism raises doubt as to whether there can be any single condition called “alcoholism” or whether this condition should be understood as a disease or a symptom. Current medical terminology classifies alcoholism and drug addiction together as “dependence,” a disorder caused by any combination of genetic, psychological, physiological, and individual environmental factors. Ultimately, the understanding of the causes of alcoholism and drug abuse is tied to shifting cultural understandings of these phenomena. Historically, the criteria for what might be considered
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alcohol or drug abuse is the effect that the consumption has upon one’s life. Thus, what is considered heavy social drinking for some might be considered problem drinking for others. For many cultures, moderate consumption of alcohol is an important aspect of normative social relations, and wine drinking is an essential part of many religious rituals. In fact, in some cultures abstention from alcohol might be considered nearly as deviant as addictive consumption. Thus, the causes attributed to alcoholism and drug abuse are contingent on both historical and cultural factors. Drunkenness and Sin In colonial America, drinking throughout the day was common—even for children—and employers frequently included a weekly allotment of alcohol as part of their employee’s salary. Drunkenness was certainly a side effect of constant alcohol consumption and laws were passed to curb public intoxication, but there is little to suggest that habitual drinking was viewed as a social problem. The first objections to excessive drinking came from religious groups such as the Puritans, who viewed chronic drunkenness as an appetite for excess—typically in the lower classes. In other words, the condition currently known as “alcoholism” or “addiction” was yet to be coherently formulated, but early critiques of chronic drunkenness typically viewed the condition as a sin and/or a weakness of character; it was believed that the “drunkard” drank simply because he/she enjoyed the effect of drunkenness. Certain historical periods characterized by alleged epidemic levels of addiction have corresponded to the availability of cheaper versions of otherwise expensive intoxicants. For instance, England’s 18th-century Gin Craze—famously depicted in the Gin Lane print by artist William Hogarth—was linked to the proliferation of distilleries during this era and the subsequent availability of cheap gin. As would become a pattern in the regulation of addiction, the British tax reform that ended the Gin Craze was driven by concern with the consumption patterns of the lower classes and corresponding fears of increases in crime. The idea that chronic drunkenness was a disease that the sufferer had no control over began to form in the late 18th century.
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Temperance and the Foundations of the Disease Model of Alcoholism As the former colonies asserted their independence, the increased production and availability of distilled spirits—particularly whiskey—in the United States resulted in a significant increase in habitual drunkenness and per capita alcohol consumption. In the 18th century, Benjamin Rush, a medical doctor, as well as one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, became concerned about the potential effect of the surge in drunkenness on the new republic. Rush published the pamphlet An Enquiry Into the Effects of Spirituous Liquors Upon the Human Body, and Their Influence Upon the Happiness of Society, which laid the foundations for the modern understanding of alcoholism as a loss of control over one’s drinking. Rush considered chronic drunkenness a “disease of the will” that overtakes the drunkard gradually and becomes progressively worse throughout the drinker’s career. According to Rush, the only cure for this condition was complete abstinence from alcohol. In part, Rush attributed the cause of addiction to environmental factors such as a stressful occupation or habitual self-medication for physical pain. However, perhaps most importantly, Rush viewed alcohol as an inherently addictive substance. In other words, the root cause of addiction to alcohol was the substance itself rather than the moral character of the individual drunkard. Rush advocated the establishment of “sober houses,” sanitariums dedicated to the rehabilitation and, if necessary, confinement of the drunkard for the good of larger society. Some of Rush’s beliefs— including the efficacy of bleeding patients for almost any ailment—would become irrelevant with advances in medicine. However, his attempts to operationalize the phenomenon of alcoholism as a disease were influential. Rush is remembered today as one of the founders of the temperance movement in the 19th century. Temperance was a significant grassroots movement comprising multiple groups concerned with the pernicious influence of inebriety on society. Initially, through the work of Rush and other early supporters of the disease model of addiction, the early groups of the temperance movement viewed inebriates with sympathy. While early temperance groups advocated drinking in
moderation, as the movement progressed into the late 19th century, these groups increasingly lobbied for complete abstinence for all Americans and for legislation to prohibit alcohol production and sales. By the early 20th century, the sympathetic view of the inebriate was displaced by the demonization of all alcoholic beverages, often referred to collectively as “demon rum,” Once again, the idea that habitual drunkenness could be attributed to the powerfully seductive nature of alcohol itself and the moral weakness of the drinker eclipsed any cultural understanding of alcoholism as a medical disorder. Contemporaneously, the disease model was adopted by groups such as the Washingtonians, a temperance-era fellowship of men who provided each other mutual support in their struggles with alcohol addiction. The movement advocated total abstinence for reformed drunkards, and its thriving membership during the 19th century demonstrated that it was possible to recover successfully from alcohol dependence. Like its spiritual descendent Alcoholics Anonymous, the Washingtonians emphasized the sharing of personal stories at meetings in order to help each other remain abstinent. As the Temperance movement gained ground internationally, in North America, Great Britain, and some of the Nordic countries medical practitioners were increasingly interested in the phenomenon of habitual drunkenness. New medical terminology was used to describe the condition, including “dipsomania,” “monomania,” and “inebriety.” Physicians identified mental and physical conditions derived from chronic drunkenness, a development that supported the idea of problem drinking as a disease of the mind and body. For instance, the psychosis derived from alcohol withdrawal, delirium tremens, was identified during this period, and the powerful hallucinations of those afflicted fascinated contemporary physicians. Furthermore, the damage that excessive drinking caused to the liver—a condition that would come to be known as alcoholic cirrhosis— confirmed that chronic drunkenness also manifested itself as a physical disease. Finally, in 1849, Swedish physician Magnus Huss coined the term alcoholism to describe the neurological and physical damage associated with habitual drinking.
According to William L. White’s history of addiction treatment, Slaying the Dragon, 19thcentury practitioners and researchers explored the idea of alcoholism as an inheritable trait and investigated other physiological factors that might cause inebriety. Also, the consideration of environmental factors such as poor parenting, poverty, and the conditions of industrialization might be seen as an early understanding of the importance of cultural factors that contribute to addiction. At the same time, some of the other hypothetical causes explored by the medical professionals of the era, including tapeworms, weather patterns, and “sexual excess,” merely reflected the extent to which medical science was still struggling with the questions surrounding the causes of inebriety. In the late 19th century there was progress in the institutional treatment of alcoholism. Previously,
This print titled Facing the Enemy, featuring a man in a woodshop staring at a bottle of alcohol, was produced in New York around 1846. In the mid-1830s in the United States as many as half a million people, influenced by temperance movements, had agreed to abstain from alcohol.
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the habitual drunkard had been relegated to jails and asylums—a fact that likely reinforced the association of chronic drinking with immorality. The late 1800s saw the rise of “inebriate homes” and “inebriate asylums,” facilities devoted to the treatment of those who were unable to control their appetite for strong drink. The inebriate homes were run by temperance groups such as the Washingtonians, and their treatment philosophies reflected the religious and moral views of these organizations. On the other hand, the inebriate asylums were medical institutions, and their clinical treatment of inebriates helped to further operationalize medical approaches to excessive drinking. For a time, these institutions represented a promising sign of progress in the medical understanding of addiction. However, the inebriate asylums were largely defunct by the 1900s, and the prohibition movement’s antialcohol crusade reinforced the cultural understanding of intemperance as a moral rather than medical problem. The view of alcoholism and addiction as a vice or sin persisted in spite of the best efforts of those who argued for the medical nature of these conditions. The Prohibition Era By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, alcoholism had once again become a primarily moral issue. The prohibition movement was fueled by Protestant groups such as the Anti-Saloon League and women’s groups such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, which were newly empowered by the suffrage movement. The saloon, once an important cultural forum for the discussion of politics and community issues, became more notorious as a haven for gambling and prostitution. Consequently, public attitudes about drinking and intoxication lacked the sympathy for the alcoholic exhibited by the early temperance movement; the prohibitionists demonstrated little concern for the inner struggles of the alcoholic. The concern centered instead on the ill effects of drinking on the larger society. As the prohibition movement grew, the debate became a political battle between those who favored prohibition, the “drys,” and those who argued for alcohol to remain legal, the “wets.” Importantly, the prohibition movement relied partly on the exploitation of the xenophobic reaction to the influx of European immigrants
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in the early 20th century. The drinking habits of the largely Catholic immigrants were a source of anxiety for white middle-class Protestant Americans at the time, and this anxiety was utilized to sway public opinion in favor of national Prohibition. Similarly, the German names of many of the breweries and the beers they produced (e.g., Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser) made it easy for prohibitionists to exploit anti-German sentiment as the movement gained momentum following World War I. Thus, habitual drunkenness was associated with ethnicity in the minds of many Americans during this period. The ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment in January 1919 made the sale, transport, and manufacture of intoxicating beverages illegal, and the Volstead Act was implemented in October 1919 to enforce the new amendment and regulate the manufacture of alcohol for “lawful industries.” Although Prohibition is often seen as a failure, there were some short-term benefits from the “noble experiment.” Per capita rates of alcohol consumption were significantly lower after Prohibition’s repeal than they were before the adoption of the amendment. Also, hospitals reported a similarly significant reduction in patients admitted for alcoholism. These benefits point to a correlation between prohibitive policies toward drinking and lower rates of alcoholism. Of course, Prohibition also contributed to the rise of organized crime syndicates, and the social acceptability of alcohol consumption was seen to breed contempt for the law in average citizens. Ultimately, the decision to repeal Prohibition was largely economic; with the advent of the Great Depression, the taxes associated with alcohol sales were seen as valuable potential revenue. In 1933, the Twenty-First Amendment repealed nationwide Prohibition and the control and sale of alcohol was left in the hands of the states. However, the cultural influence of the prohibition movement on the way that society views alcohol and alcoholics should not be underestimated. Alcoholics Anonymous and the Disease Model of Alcoholism The founding of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in 1935 by stockbroker Bill Wilson (“Bill W.”) and physician Bob Smith (“Dr. Bob”) helped to reintroduce and repopularize the notion of
alcoholism as a disease. AA’s understanding of alcoholism was influenced by clinical work done by Dr. William D. Silkworth. Silkworth, who treated Wilson, conceived of alcoholism as both a mental obsession and a physical allergy. While the allergy model of addiction was later discredited, Silkworth’s contribution to the group’s canonical text, Alcoholics Anonymous—or “The Big Book” to members—lent the group medical legitimacy. AA rejected the suggestion that alcohol was universally addictive and argued instead that alcoholism was a condition that only affected a small fraction of drinkers. AA continues to believe that the disease of alcoholism is an illness of body, mind, and spirit that is chronic, progressive, and often fatal. The organization’s 12-step treatment program advocates total abstinence for the recovering alcoholic and emphasizes a spiritual solution to the problem of addiction. AA’s influence on society’s understanding of addiction has been significant. The group’s 12-step program for treating alcoholism has been adopted and adapted by dozens of similar mutual help groups, including those associated with substance addictions (such as Narcotics Anonymous and Overeaters Anonymous) and also those groups concerned with behavioral addictions (such as Gamblers Anonymous and Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous). The majority of both public and private medical addiction treatment facilities incorporate AA’s spiritual approach, and participation in 12-step recovery is often required by the criminal justice system when the offense is alcohol and/or drugrelated. The 12-step program’s policy of anonymity makes definitive statistics of these organizations’ success rates nearly impossible. However, AA remains the most culturally influential group regarding popular understandings of alcoholism and addiction. At times, the effectiveness of AA’s treatment program has been questioned by those who take umbrage with the organization’s adoption of the disease model of addiction, its spiritual approach to treatment, and its assertion that true recovery is achieved only by total abstinence from the problem substance or behavior. Vocal critics of the program argue that AA’s program of spiritual treatment retains the association with immorality that continues to stigmatize alcoholics and
addicts. Also, critics of the disease model point out that some addicts are able to stop without medical or therapeutic intervention and seem to “grow out” of the disease. For instance, psychologist Stanton Peele has been a prominent critic of 12-step recovery, authoring or coauthoring several books on the subject, including Diseasing of America (1989) and Resisting 12-Step Coercion (2001). Peele argues that some alcoholics can learn to moderate their alcohol intake, a view that directly contradicts AA’s suggestion that abstinence is the only means of recovering from alcohol addiction. Yet, the relative success of the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step method ensured that its operationalization of alcoholism would play a significant role in further research. Advances in Alcoholism Studies Beginning in the mid-20th century, alcoholism came to be understood as a phenomenon that affects a minority of the population. In 1957, the American Medical Association formally recognized alcoholism as a disease and urged hospitals to provide treatment to those who suffered from the condition. During the 1960s, the pioneering research done by Yale’s Center of Alcohol Studies—initially funded by the liquor industry— rejected the long-held belief that alcohol was universally addictive. At Yale, the influential work of E. M. Jellinek argued for the chronic nature of alcoholism and suggested that only some drinkers became addicted, while others were capable of moderation. Jellinek’s 1960 book, Disease Concept of Alcoholism, introduced the idea of classifying types of alcoholism by severity; the loss of control over one’s drinking became the essential characteristic that distinguished alcoholics from those who merely drank heavily. Jellinek’s model has been criticized for its lack of scientific rigor and its reliance on Alcoholics Anonymous members for his data, but his disease concept represented the apex of research into the phenomenon of alcoholism at the time of its publication. Dependence The World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Classification of Diseases (ICD) and the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
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Disorders (DSM) establish the criteria and classificatory scheme by which medical professionals diagnose and treat physical and mental disorders. The entries regarding addiction have evolved over time and both manuals have replaced “addiction” with the term dependence to describe the phenomenon of chronic substance use. Dependence has become a catchall designation that incorporates physiological, psychological, and environmental understandings of the behavior associated with the phenomenon of chronic substance abuse. The current medical model argues that dependency is caused by the repetitive consumption of a substance that leads to mental and sometimes physical dependence. Most addictive substances work by stimulating the brain’s pleasure centers directly via the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Repetitive consumption patterns can lead to a change in the brain chemistry of the addict that results in a tolerance. The user then requires ever greater amounts of the substance to satisfy the resultant cravings. Dependence is said to occur when subjects continue to use the substance in spite of adverse effects on their lives or the lives of those around them. There are indications that one can have a genetic predisposition to addiction. Some studies have shown that twin offspring of alcoholic parents who were raised by separate families show similar predispositions for problem drinking and/ or alcoholism. At the same time, while the drinking practices of up to 50 percent of the subjects of adoptive twin studies suggest some level of biological predisposition, the remaining percent rule out the possibility of genetics as a determining cause of addiction. In other words, while there is significant correlation between biological parents who are problem drinkers and children who become alcoholics, there are just as many alcoholics who do not have a significant family history of alcohol abuse. In fact, studies of children of alcoholics suggest that these children are just as likely to become teetotalers as they are to become alcoholics. So, while some may adopt drinking patterns modeled on their parent’s behavior, others remain abstinent, perhaps as a direct response to their parent’s alcoholism. Although attempts to isolate the genes that might predispose one to addiction have been unsuccessful thus far, research continues in this area.
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Researchers have identified several risk factors and conditions that correlate with higher rates of alcohol dependence; they include the following: • Those who experienced childhood trauma, including physical and sexual abuse • Those who begin to drink alcohol early in their lives stand a greater chance of becoming an alcoholic in adulthood • Those with significant others who drink heavily are more likely to develop a drinking problem themselves • Those who have a high tolerance for alcoholic beverages are more at risk for developing a drinking problem than those who feel the effects of drinking more quickly • Smokers and people with mental illnesses have higher rates of alcoholism While researchers identify these and other factors as potential contributors to alcohol and drug dependency, they have been unable to find a definitive explanation for why some people develop alcohol and drug dependencies and others do not. Also, medical science has yet to develop a universally effective treatment for addiction. For cultural theorists, these limitations suggest that medical science may be looking in the wrong place for the cause of alcoholism and drug abuse. Cultural Approaches Throughout the history of research on alcoholism, hundreds of theories have been adopted and discarded. Some of these theories evinced distinct cultural biases that reflected the dominant thinking of their respective eras. For instance, psychoanalysts in the beginning of the 20th century argued that alcoholism was caused by latent homosexuality. Similarly, the hypothesis that a man’s alcoholism could be caused by the neurosis of his wife remained unchallenged until the mid20th century when studies showed that the alcoholism of the husband was more likely the cause of the wife’s neurosis than the effect. In other words, the proposed “causes” of alcoholism and drug abuse often say more about the culture that produces them than the phenomena they supposedly explain.
While not dismissing the possibility that individual predisposition contributes to patterns of addiction, recent cultural research focuses on historical and cultural determinants as the primary cause of addiction in society. It is essential to note that alcohol and drug use begins as a cultural phenomenon, and addiction treatment—aside from pharmacological approaches—is also largely cultural (i.e., therapy and 12-step mutual help groups). As a result, some researchers believe that culture is the strongest determinant of the many factors that influence the likelihood of problem drinking. For instance, while some genetic studies show that certain ethnicities—including African Americans and Native Americans—are less likely to develop drinking problems biologically, the relatively high rates of alcoholism in the Native American population suggest that culture plays more of a determining factor in these higher rates. In other words, in the nature versus nurture debate, nurture may prevail when it comes to Native American drinking patterns. In turn, these higher drinking rates might be attributed to the oppressive social conditions experienced by the Native American population since the arrival of the first colonies in North America. Most cultural theory presumes a decisive shift in social conditions following the Industrial Revolution, and researchers have noted the correlation between the temperance movement and the early industrial era. Specifically, with industrialization and its new scientific approaches to labor, drunkenness in the workplace became a threat to worker productivity. In fact, early industrialists were often vocal proponents of the temperance movement—at least for their workers if not for themselves. Additionally, cultural theorists have noted the correlation between the emergence of a consumption-oriented society and rising rates of alcoholism and addiction. As industrialization produced a surplus of goods that were affordable to the middle class, industrialists made a concerted effort to stimulate the consumptive appetites of middle- and lower-class consumers via advertising and promotional culture. Cultural theorists have argued that the constant stimulation of consumer desire might contribute to a culture where overconsumption and addiction thrive. For these and other reasons, some cultural theorists call for a new approach to addiction treatment. While modern medical approaches regard
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addiction as an individual problem that requires individual treatment, many argue that the conditions of modernity engender addiction and, therefore, the spread of addiction must be addressed structurally. In other words, if substance abuse and addiction provide solace and escape in a global environment that many view as increasingly unstable and out of control, the only way to address the rising rates of addiction is by changing the conditions of the society that allow alcoholism and drug abuse to thrive. Conclusion In spite of over 150 years of alcoholism and drug abuse research, the definitive causes for these phenomena continue to elude researchers. Although several biological, psychological, environmental, and cultural conditions correlate with higher rates of alcoholism, it has proven difficult to determine why some develop a dependency while others do not. What is most certain is that alcoholism and drug abuse continue to affect millions globally, and research into the causes and effects of these conditions will continue. Brian MacAuley Pennsylvania State University See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Sociology of; Alcoholism Treatment, Sociology of; Stereotypical Depiction of Alcoholics; Temperance, History of. Further Readings Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous. New York: Alcoholics Anonymous, 1976. Alexander, Bruce K. The Globalisation of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5, 5th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 2013. Conrad, Peter. “Medicalization and Social Control.” Annual Review of Sociology, v.18/1 (1992). Crowley, John William, ed. Drunkard’s Progress: Narratives of Addiction, Despair, and Recovery. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
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Denzin, Norman K. The Alcoholic Society: Addiction and Recovery of the Self. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1993. Denzin, Norman K. Hollywood Shot by Shot: Alcoholism in American Cinema. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1991. Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New York: Vintage Books, 1965. Levine, Harry Gene. “The Discovery of Addiction: Changing Conceptions of Habitual Drunkenness in America.” Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, v.39/1 (1978). Manning, Paul, ed. Drugs and Popular Culture. London: Taylor & Francis, 2007. Room, Robin. “The Cultural Framing of Addiction.” Janus Head, v.6/2 (1969). Rotskoff, Lori. Love on the Rocks: Men, Women, and Alcohol in Post–World War II America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. Vaillant, George E. The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. Valverde, Mariana. Diseases of the Will: Alcohol and the Dilemmas of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. White, William L. Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America. Bloomington, IL: Chestnut Health Systems/ Lighthouse Institute, 1998.
Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Sociology of The Institute of Medicine defines addiction as a “brain disease.” The National Institute on Drug Abuse calls addiction a “chronic, relapsing, brain disease expressed in the form of compulsive behaviors.” A national survey recently conducted by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University found that two-thirds of Americans now believe that genetics and biological factors play a role in the development of addiction, while a third continue to view addiction as a lack of will power. The idea that addiction is a brain disease dates back at least to
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the 18th century, when Dr. Benjamin Rush published An Inquiry Into the Effects of Ardent Spirits on the Human Mind (1784). Rush argued that chronic drunkenness should be viewed as a disease and that physicians should be treating it as such. This was a radical idea at the time, and although it was slow to gain traction, it has now taken hold as the dominant paradigm for understanding and treating addiction in the modern era. But it was not always so. Prior to the 1700s, excessive and problematic alcohol use was predominantly seen as a moral failing, or to put it in religious terms, a sin. Accordingly, the treatment of choice was spiritual conversion. By the 1800s, people wondered if alcohol itself caused immoderate drinking, modeling this idea on the paradigm of infectious disease—“First the man has the drink, then the drink has the man”— in which case complete elimination of access to alcohol was the solution. The American Temperance Society was formed in 1826, and soon attracted 1,500,000 members. They advocated for total abstinence and legal rather than moral reforms to limit access, mirroring the increasing secularization of society, in which care for the “drunkard” was seen as the responsibility of the state rather than religious organizations. The Temperance Movement was successful in restricting or banning alcohol in many parts of the country and ultimately culminated in passage of the Eighteenth Amendment of the Constitution in 1920, which prohibited alcoholic beverages in the United States by declaring the production, transport, and sale of (though not the consumption or private possession of) alcohol illegal. The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed in 1933, the only instance in American history when a constitutional amendment was repealed, due to widespread popular dissatisfaction with the results of the amendment stemming from increased organized crime, corruption, and the inundation of new cases in the courts and prisons. Even as the Temperance Movement predominated, a minority of voices continued to proclaim addiction a disease, though their cry was drowned out by the din of teetotalism. Rush called for the creation of “Sober Houses” in 1810, a place where “confirmed drunkards” could receive treatment, and Dr. Samuel Woodward advocated for “inebriate asylums.” In 1864, the New York
State Inebriate Asylum opened in Binghamton, New York, the first of its kind in the country. Psychoanalysis and Self-Medication Just as the Temperance Movement was cresting and falling, the tradition of psychoanalysis began to capture the popular imagination. People had been questioning for some time the idea that alcohol itself caused intemperance, pointing out that many individuals could consume alcohol in consistent moderation even with unlimited access. The American psychoanalyst Sandor Rado offered an explanation in 1933 for why these differences between people existed—why some could consume alcohol in reasonable and safe quantities and frequencies, whereas others seemed unable to control intake. His explanation quickly took hold, rising in popularity even up until the present day. Rado’s idea is a medicalized notion of the cause of addiction, yet is at odds with the idea that addiction itself is a disease. In 1933, Rado published a paper, “The Psychoanalysis of Pharmacothymia (Drug Addiction),” in which he was the first to put forth the idea that substance use might be a response to psychological suffering. This idea resonated strongly with prevailing psychoanalytic theory, which maintained that all of human behavior could be understood or explained by an underlying psychological motivation, conscious or otherwise. From Rado’s idea easily followed the notion that individuals who are misusing or addicted to alcohol and other addictive substances are “self-medicating,” an underlying psychological problem. By the latter half of the 20th century, the notion of “self-medication” took on a progressively more biological hue, and references in the literature to a “self-medication hypothesis” of addictive disorders began to proliferate. In a paper published in 1977 titled “Psychic Dependence? A Different Formulation of the Problem With a View to the Reorientation of Therapy for Chronic Drug Addiction,” authors R. Cocchi and A. Tornati wrote: If we hypothesize that at the root of chronic drug addiction is an endogenous depression, going back to early childhood or even birth, either because the human organism is unable to synthesize enough of the neurotransmitter in question or because of an abnormal
Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Sociology of catabolizing activity thereof, we are faced with a form of illness structurally somewhat similar to diabetes. . . .
In a paper published in 1985 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, “The Self-Medication Hypothesis of Addictive Disorders: Focus on Heroin and Cocaine Dependence,” author Edward Khantzian made the claim that “drug-dependent individuals are predisposed to addiction because they suffer with painful affect states and related psychiatric disorders.” Khantzian further theorized that the “drug of choice” was nonrandom but targeted specifically toward certain symptoms: “Cocaine addicts might be medicating themselves for mood disorders and behavioral disturbances, including a preexisting or resulting attention deficit/hyperactive-type disorder.” Today, the idea of addiction as a form of “selfmedication” for an underlying psychiatric illness is inextricably interwoven into public perceptions about excessive alcohol consumption, influencing not only the treatment of addictive disorders but also the very language used to discuss addiction. A search of the phrase “self-medication” in all books printed in English since 1800 reveals that the phrase was virtually nonexistent in written texts before 1900; whereas after 1900, its usage exponentially increased, with the largest single increase occurring around 1985, when Khantzian published his influential work. Many people today believe that immoderate alcohol/drug use is a downstream effect of a psychiatric illness/emotional distress which, if treated or otherwise alleviated, will resolve the problematic substance use, inherently undermining the idea that alcoholism is itself a disease. Disease Model of Alcoholism The popularity of the self-medication hypothesis doused but did not extinguish Rush’s much earlier argument that addiction is a disease and physicians should treat it. The disease model of addiction ironically took refuge in what began as a small quasispiritual social movement that was clearly outside the purview of medicine and science—Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). AA was a started in 1935 by two confirmed alcoholics who alleged that addiction to alcohol was a disease and those with the disease of addiction to
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alcohol—“alcoholics”—were “allergic” to alcohol, such that even one drink would cause them, by virtue of their disease, to progress to intoxication and eventually death. AA was unique in that it proclaimed addiction an illness, yet called for a nonmedical remedy in the form of a spiritual awakening, thus bringing together two disparate traditions of thought. What began as a meeting of two individuals grew into one of the most powerful social movements of the last century. AA now boasts 4 to 6 million members across 500 societies worldwide, and is the most frequently utilized service for alcohol problems across the globe. Through most of the last century, the disease concept of addiction continued to be rejected by the scientific, medical, and lay communities. The recent shift to more widespread acceptance of alcohol addiction as a disease likely has something to do with increasing evidence for the genetic heritable of addictive behavior—for example, the work of Mark Shuckit and others showing that 50 percent of sons of alcoholics go on to become alcoholics, even if raised outside of the alcoholic home; studies by neuroscientists, such as George Koob and others, showing permanent structural and functional brain changes with chronic, heavy alcohol/drug use; and the rise of medical treatments for alcohol addiction, including medications to control alcohol craving and help individuals maintain abstinence. Over the past 200 years the etiologic explanation for addictive behaviors has morphed from the idea that addiction is caused by a spiritual/ moral problem, to the idea that intoxicants themselves are so inherently reinforcing that anyone who uses them will become addicted, to the idea that addiction is the downstream result of trying to self-medicate an underlying psychiatric disorder, to the idea that addiction itself is a disease, a chronic relapsing and remitting illness with a behavioral component, not unlike diabetes. Despite the sequential emergence of these ideas in the history of addiction, none of these hypotheses has disappeared from the fabric of modern thought, and all continue to influence contemporary belief systems. An important question that follows is how perceptions of addiction impact the use of substances, the progression to addiction, and ideas about treatment for addiction.
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Addiction as a Moral and Spiritual Problem The oldest idea, that addiction is a moral and spiritual problem, continues to resonate most strongly today within Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step groups for addiction, as well as certain religious subcultures, such as the Mormons, the Seventh-day Adventists, and Muslims, all of whom explicitly prohibit alcohol and other substances as a fundamental tenet of their religious faith. How does affiliation with these organizations impact substance use, in particular alcohol? Several decades of accumulated evidence demonstrates that AA is effective for reducing alcohol use, improving health outcomes, and enhancing overall quality of life. The data show those who actively participate—attend more meetings, get a sponsor, “work the Steps”—have better outcomes than those who marginally participate. A study by John Kelly and colleagues used a lagged mediational analysis (N = 1,726 participants) to assess AA attendance, spiritual/religious practices, and alcohol use outcomes using validated measures. Controlling for a variety of confounding variables, better alcohol use outcomes in AA was mediated in part by enhancing individuals’ spiritual practices. This is not proof that perceiving addiction as a spiritual problem is the sine qua non of recovery, but it does suggest that a spiritual orientation to the problem may help to promote abstinence. Are members of religions that prohibit alcohol and other addictive substances less likely to use substances and, in turn, less likely to struggle with addiction? The state of Utah, where about 70 percent of the people are members of the Latter Day Saints (LDS, or Mormon) Church, has one of the lowest rates of alcohol consumption in the nation. Nationally, 35 percent of the drinking age population abstains from alcohol; in Utah 66 percent abstains, according to the National Institute on Alcohol and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA). Rates of alcoholism in Utah are approximately 25 percent lower than in the rest of the nation. The 2000 National Alcohol Survey investigated the role of religion in alcohol consumption and found that belonging to a religion which forbids alcohol consumption promotes abstention among its members, although how religion mediates this
difference is not well understood, as religion variables frequently overlap with gender, age, ethnicity, and other demographic variables, making it difficult to determine whether religion plays an independent role or is merely a proxy for other factors. AA affiliation and affiliation to a religious faith that prohibits alcohol appears to reduce alcohol use and alcohol addiction, likely mediated in part by the emphasis on addiction as a spiritual problem. What impact does this view have on ideas about treatment? Fundamental to AA’s own understanding of how AA affiliation reduces alcohol use is the “spiritual awakening,” which according to AA can be achieved by working the Twelve Steps. The Mormon Church has readily adopted the Twelve Steps of AA into its own manual for those struggling with addiction but has modified the steps to specifically name the higher power of AA as Jesus Christ. M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a leader within the LDS church, gave a speech on addiction in October 2010 to all members of the Mormon Church. The speech is interesting because, although it mentions the idea that addiction may be a medical disease, it clearly conceptualizes addiction as a spiritual and moral problem, the solution for which is ultimately atonement through Jesus Christ: A recovering alcoholic told me that just one drink is the difference between addiction and sobriety. Satan knows this. Do not let him hook you with his artificial lures that can quickly turn into addiction. . . . Medical research describes addiction as a disease of the brain. This is true, but I believe that once Satan has someone in his grasp, it also becomes a disease of the spirit. . . . I have seen the marvelous blessing of recovery that can set one free from the chains of addiction. The Lord is our Shepherd, and we shall not want as we trust in the power of the Atonement. I know the Lord can and will free the addicted from their bondage. The perception of addiction as a moral and spiritual problem, requiring a spiritual solution, appears to decrease the risk of using and becoming addicted to alcohol.
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Addiction Caused by Intoxicants Themselves What of the idea that intoxicants themselves cause addiction, leading individuals who use them to inevitably and universally become addicted? Since the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, and the recognition that the majority of drinkers use alcohol in moderation without negative consequences, alcohol is not generally perceived by most Americans as inevitably and universally addictive, although, as above, many individuals continue to have strong prohibitions against its use. Nonetheless, the evidence is good that perceptions about the safety and inherent “addictiveness” of particular substances of abuse impact use of that substance. A public health campaign against cigarette smoking and tobacco use was launched in the United States in the 1960s, beginning with the Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health in 1964, followed by a huge media campaign which limited prosmoking messages in TV, radio, billboards, and package labeling, with a focus on reducing the exposure of young people to such ads. The campaign also included antismoking ads with graphic images of the negative health consequences of smoking, for example, a melting skull on a package of cigarettes, or a shriveled man in a wheelchair smoking out of the tracheotomy hole in his neck. The cumulative effect of years of antismoking messages has been substantial: In 1985, an estimated 56 million Americans were smokers. According to K. E. Warner in a paper published in the American Journal of Public Health, without the campaign, an estimated 91 million would have been smokers in 1985. Today, about 42 million adults smoke cigarettes, a decrease in the United States from about 42 percent of the population in 1965 to about 18 percent in 2012. The U.S. per capita rate of cigarette consumption is 1,000 cigarettes consumed per person per year, tied with the Israelis, the Australians, and the Irish, compared with 1,711 cigarettes per person in China, 1,958 in Korea, and 2,750 in Russia. A 1998 study by Martin McKee and colleagues published in the journal Tobacco Control found that Russian cigarette and alcohol consumption rates directly correlated with exposure to “Western influences,” such as Western tobacco companies marketing cigarettes as symbols of a “glamorous Western lifestyle.”
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The promarijuana movement in recent decades is the inverse example of the impact of public perception of inherent addictiveness and health consequences on use. Recent trends in public perception of marijuana have been dominated by the belief, especially among current users, that despite evidence to the contrary, smoking marijuana is not addictive and does not have adverse health consequences. Enough Americans in 21 states believe that smoking marijuana is not only not bad for users but has positive medicinal effects on health that they have voted to allow medical marijuana dispensaries, where individuals with approval from a physician can buy marijuana for supposed medicinal purposes. Marijuana use among adolescents has been on the rise since the mid-2000s, with 23 percent of 12th graders reporting marijuana use in the last month, and 6 percent reporting daily use. The increase in marijuana use among adolescents inversely correlates with perceived harmfulness, according to a 2014 National Institute of Drug Abuse report. Perceptions of the addictive nature and health consequences of substances impact use, with perceptions of high addiction and high harm leading to lower rates of consumption and vice versa. Addiction Resulting From Self-Medication What of the idea that addiction results from attempts to self-medicate an underlying psychiatric disorder? Data are sparse on how perceptions of self-medication impact use, but one study by R. D. Weiss and colleagues demonstrates that patients with bipolar disorder who believe substances are not helpful for bipolar symptoms are more likely to stop using substances than those who espouse the benefits of “self-medication.” Likewise, patients with bipolar disorder who believe they are effectively “self-medicating” their psychiatric symptoms with addictive drugs and alcohol receive more benefit and attain longer sobriety from a psychosocial intervention designed to discourage “self-medication” and to educate them about the impact of substance use on psychiatric symptoms, which the data unequivocally show is deleterious. On the treatment side, health care providers who embrace the self-medication hypothesis may be at risk to treat only the underlying psychiatric
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illness and ignore addiction, on the grounds that once the depression, mania, anxiety, etc., is treated, the substance use problem will resolve. Many studies have shown that the vast majority of health care providers, including psychiatrists and other mental health care professionals, do not ask about substance use problems or intervene to target these problems when they arise. The self-medication hypothesis, then, in contrast to the other paradigms discussed thus far on the etiology of addiction, may in fact be contributing to increased substance use. Addiction As Its own Disease Which brings this discussion full circle to the belief that addiction is its own disease. Many advocates of this concept are aggressively fighting for allocation of health care dollars, including Medicare and Medicaid dollars, for the treatment of addiction by medical doctors within the health care setting. The passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 provided millions more Americans with health care coverage, including guaranteed coverage for drug and alcohol abuse problems. The societal shift toward conceptualizing addiction as a medical disorder has certainly begun, and it is gaining momentum from the prescription drug abuse problem because health care providers are now complicit in this problem and can therefore no longer avoid serious consideration of how the health care system will solve this problem. There are as yet no data on whether embracing the idea of addiction as a disease actually decreases substance use and risk of addiction, but its recent impact on policy has been substantial. Some limited sociologic work suggests that the self-perception of addiction as a chronic and essentially incurable illness might in fact promote addiction by making the individual feel hopeless, and therefore powerless, about any possibility of recovery, introducing a fatalism that arises from his or her biological and reductionist view of the problem. The influence on treatment has been to emphasize pharmacologic treatment for addiction. There are now numerous Food and Drug Administration-approved medications for substance use disorders that a doctor can prescribe, further medicalizing the treatment of the problem.
Conclusion The understanding of addiction to alcohol and other intoxicants has changed substantially over the last 200 years in the United States, from a spiritual/religious formulation, to a chemical toxicity-inherent addictiveness explanation, to a psychoanalytical interpretation, to the biological disease model that is rapidly gaining momentum in the present day. All of these conceptual paradigms continue to be prevalent to varying degrees within diverse subpopulations and have variable impact on the use of substances and ideas about effective treatments. Those who espouse the spiritual formulation and prohibit any alcohol use have lower rates of alcohol use, lower rates of addiction, and emphasize a spiritual solution for recovery. Perceptions about the inherent addictive potential and general health consequences of a substance impact rates of use, with perceived increased addictiveness and health harms correlating with decreased use, and perceived decreased addictiveness and health harms correlating with increased use. The psychoanalytic interpretation of self-medication is less studied but may indirectly lead to increased use of substances by de-emphasizing treatment for addiction and encouraging other remedies for psychiatric symptoms. Finally, the jury is out on the impact of the disease model of addiction on substance use, but this paradigm is rapidly transforming the face of health care by encouraging health care providers to embrace addiction as a medical illness. Anna Lembke Stanford University See Also: Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Alcoholism: Effect on the Family; Alcohol and Drug Abuse, History of; Disease Model of Alcoholism; Eighteenth Amendment; Genetic Disposition, Alcoholism as a; Rush, Benjamin; Temperance Movements. Further Readings Cocchi R. and A. Tornati. “Psychic Dependence? A Different Formulation of the Drug Problem With a View to the Reorientation of Therapy for Chronic Drug Addiction.” Acta Psychiatrica Scandanavica, v.56/5 (November 1977).
Khantazian, Edward. “The Self-Medication Hypothesis of Addictive Disorders: Focus on Heroin and Cocaine Dependence.” American Journal of Psychiatry, v.142 (1985). Shaw, Victor N. Substance Use and Abuse: Sociological Perspectives. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. Weinberg, Darrin. “Sociological Perspectives on Addiction.” Sociological Compass, v.5/4 (2011). Weiss, Roger D., et al. “Substance Use and Perceived Symptom Improvement Among Patients With Bipolar Disorder and Substance Dependence.” Journal of Affective Disorders, v.72/1–3 (2004).
Alcoholism Treatment, Sociology of Alcoholism treatment has become an institutional presence in the United States since the early 1970s. As often occurs after a practice or technology has become normative, the fact that such treatment is a relatively recent social invention is not immediately evident. But despite treatment’s common presence today as the socially appropriate response to alcohol problems, it has existed in a very tiny slice of the scope of history during which humans have consumed alcohol. In order to fully understand why treatment of alcohol problems is present and socially supported today in U.S. and Western cultures generally, a relatively complex social history must be examined. Since the beginning of recorded history, alcohol use has occurred, for the dual reasons of its natural occurrence as organic material decays and ferments, and the apparently natural attraction of its intoxicating effects shortly after consumption for both humans and other animals. Intoxication, in turn, covers a myriad of intentions and behaviors. These are embedded in webs of social norms and expectations that have varied over time and across cultures. At the individual level, the setting where intoxication occurs determines whether it is encouraged and rewarded or is the basis for embarrassment and
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social sanctions. At the group level, intoxication can be associated with high levels of communal joy and celebration and also with violence, social breakdown and even death. Early Attitudes Toward Alcohol Despite alcohol’s potency and widespread availability, it is notable that up until the late 18th century, the existence of widespread alcohol use and its consequences was not an issue of major concern in human societies. Prior to this time, there is no evidence of the collective definition of a social problem. With the exception of the intense but relatively short-lived “gin epidemic” among the poorer classes in London, which was resolved through sharp price increases, a scan across the scope of history will reveal few incidents where widespread drunkenness or even individual impairments produced enough societal concern to even be added to the historical record. Prescriptions and proscriptions about drinking take many forms across different cultures, but with the notable exception of the large portion of the world adhering to Islam, drinking has been almost universally used as a cultural element accompanying collective celebration and community “time outs” such as holy days and rites of passage. Communities did however experience chronic drunkards. These people were likely obnoxious and disruptive as is true with intoxication everywhere, but they were defined as problematic to the community only in terms of the economic value that they failed to add. They were problematic because they did not perform adequately as workers, often did not contribute enough to maintain themselves, and rarely contributed to the well-being of others, an expectation vital in preindustrial community life. Conversely, people who may have been heavy drinkers by some standard but who sustained constructive community economic participation were not defined as problematic. One might expect that these noncontributors would be dealt with harshly or punished severely until they “shaped up.” While they were definitely outcasts and negative role models in the community, there is no historical record of chronic drunkards being executed or otherwise cut off from the community other than the isolated and tragic period where they were one of many targets
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Before the concept of treatment for alcoholism arose, communities found various ways to deal with disruptive or unproductive chronic drinkers. This structure was built in 1796 as a “village lock-up” to temporarily confine drunks or those who had committed crimes in Wavertree, Liverpool, England.
for extermination in the Nazis’ pursuit of racial purification through identification, segregation, enslavement and mass murder. Instead, as early as the 1600s, the norms of charity placed drunkards in a broad category of dependent people (“the poor”) who were beneficiaries of meager public support, usually in an almshouse or poorhouse. These collective dwellings, offering shelter, food, and clothing, grew rapidly throughout the American colonies and functioned as institutional forms well into the 20th century. From a sociological perspective, the granting of charity to chronic drunkards and others is notable, flying in the face of both Social Darwinism
and economic rationality. It is even more important to distill the sociological fact that there was no “treatment,” for example, no expectation that within these poorhouses, drunkards and other deviants would change their behavior, and that there no systematic community-based effort designed to coerce them into doing so. Surely it was expected that community members would not supply these dependents with alcohol, but alcohol was neither a rare or costly item in these communities. Thus, as with homeless and destitute populations in the United States today, they likely were able to “get by,” sustain their drinking, and maintain their roles in the community as drunkards. While it has never been explored in the context of drinking behavior, it may be that the continuing presence of chronic drunkards in the community was functional, serving as a valuable demonstration to others of the community’s normative boundaries. The universal attitude about the broad set of people who were disabled, chronically impaired, and unable to care for themselves was that they were a social inevitability, calling upon the stewardship of the competent to assure their survival, albeit at a marginal level and likely in a context of disdain. This responsibility imposed on the “normal” was directly linked to Christian religious beliefs, but it was viewed as a constant and unchangeable social fact to which resources must be allocated. Definition as a Social Problem While this low-key communal form of social control describes relative integration of those with alcohol problems into the fabric of the community, the definition of behaviors and activities as social problems changes this. It involves the development of specialized tools and expertise to address the problem, reducing the direct participation of most community members. The emergence of alcohol as a social problem has two important dimensions which define technologies for coping with the defined problem. While not occurring quickly, the first dimension to emerge was the goal of limiting alcohol availability, a goal that eventually was transformed into an ardent desire to rid the U.S. of alcohol manufacture and distribution altogether. Such a strategy is not a modern invention but was
demonstrated earlier in history by the concerns of royalty and other forms of collective control to rid societies of tobacco, opium, coffee and tea, and to attempt to prohibit many different types of individual practices and behavior. The second dimension of the emergent social problem definition is of unique importance, and that is that those who are the embodiment of the problem, in this case chronic drunkards, can be “changed back” into normal, functioning persons making full contribution to their own and others’ welfare. This is the concept of “treatment,” and it arose in both the United States and other Western societies, applied not only to alcohol abuse but to insanity, delinquency, and criminality. It reflected a broader vision of societal optimism that problems can be solved, people can be changed, progress can ensue, and the whole condition of humankind can be steadily improved. Why did this change occur and the resultant approach to the social problem of alcohol develop? Looking further at these two dimensions of the social problem solution, the emergence of the alcohol problem and the eventual emergence of treatment reflect a unique set of historical experiences. The United States was a new nation in its form and design, having been created on the basis on abandoning the old ways of hereditary authority, introducing a selective notion of equality, and selective participation in democratic government. At the same time, major changes in social organization were underway. The new United States faced at the turn of the 19th century the confluence of changes in ideology, growth of immigration and urbanization, and the emergence of technology-driven organized work. Essentially, each of these changes made a different demand for social action to bring alcohol use under social control. This movement focused on access to alcohol and of course led eventually to national Prohibition in the U.S. and in other nations, but the emergence of change was gradual. In a manner paralleling contemporary distinctions between the “hard” drugs of opiates and cocaine and the “soft” drugs, marijuana and Ecstasy, cultural definitions at the turn of the 19th century did not treat alcohol as a single cultural item.
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Emergence of the Alcohol Problem The initial articulation of societal concerns about alcohol differentiated distilled “hard” liquors from wine, beer and cider. These beverage categories are differentiated by their alcohol content and the comparative extent to which liquor consumption can lead to a very rapid rise and maintenance of blood alcohol levels and hence rapid and dramatic disinhibition of behavior. The “lighter” beverages are the product of natural fermentation which cannot exceed 12 to 15 percent alcohol content. These beverages, while not exactly in the category of food as is evident in many other cultures, were seen at the time as a life necessity, likely because of the absence of reliable pure water, the safety of which could be assured through diluted alcoholic beverages. The overall societal perspective in the new United States around 1800 on the use of alcohol is reflected in ciderkin, a drink specifically made for regular use as a beverage for children of all ages. The product of a second pressing of the apples that had been used to make cider, ciderkin naturally contains 4 percent alcohol. Again, the justification for children’s use was not to intoxicate them but to provide them with a beverage that would hydrate them but not infect them with the range of bacteria present in water supplies. A parallel to this practice today would be routinely serving children beer with their meals and when they were thirsty. Contrasted with this integrated use of light beverages, the production of distilled spirits had been widespread only for a few centuries. Liquor was definitely not a natural substance because of the technology required for distillation, but it had come to be consumed in very large amounts by the American colonists. A respected politician and physician, Benjamin Rush, wrote statements as early as 1784 about the dangers of “ardent spirits” and their use leading to what Rush called the “disease” of chronic inebriety. Of significance is that Rush extolled the lighter beverages as healthy and useful. Rush proposed only a vague treatment for his newly invented disease of inebriety whereby individuals would undergo self-imposed abstinence from spirits in “sober houses.” Implementing this recommendation today would suggest a treatment program where alcoholics give up
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hard liquor but are allowed to continue drinking wine and beer. Emergence of Treatment Scholar M. Keller observed in 1986 that “treatment” for alcoholism might be traced to the ancient Greeks, who recommended that owl eggs and other repulsive elements might be repeatedly placed in the cups of excessive drinkers to discourage their drinking. Building a history of alcoholism treatment around these artifacts or records from the Middle Ages of whipping chronic drunkards, putting them in stocks, or dunking them in cold ponds would be a mistake, for truly patterned and consistent treatment of alcohol problems did not emerge until the 20th century. “Treatment” is commonly used to describe an effort to alter or reverse an undesirable condition or illness. The essence of the concept of treatment is optimism that change can occur. Treatment can be used very broadly to include restraints and punishments as well as gently humane interventions, such as the administration of medications and other cures. In the 19th century, we see the beginnings of organized treatment for alcoholism that emerged around the definition of a problem. But treatment for alcohol problems that is prominent today has been in widespread use only since the 1960s. The dominant approach to the social problem of alcohol in the 19th century was essentially a public health model where alcohol was seen as the cause of alcohol problems, and alcohol problems would cease with the removal of alcohol use from society. Indeed the Temperance Movement that was the forerunner of Prohibition proffered an iconography of “King Alcohol,” an omnipotent force that would attract, then capture, and finally totally control the drinker who persisted in drinking. The power element in the model was that alcohol created this persistence that led ultimately to physical and spiritual destruction. Regardless of the factual basis for this caricature, Prohibitionists could always turn to the absolute truth that no one is victimized by alcohol unless they drink it. This approach draws all causal attention to alcohol itself and ignores the sociological conditions that may be leading people to find alcohol attractive. As time passed, the Temperance Movement’s influence was passed to the Anti-Saloon
League whose message was focused more broadly on the lures and pressures for heavy drinking embedded in saloon culture. The attractiveness of alcohol together with free food, gambling, and prostitution was a true escape for the workingman drained from a 72-hour work week in a filthy and dangerous factory environment. Yet instead of focusing upon the work conditions that created “readiness” to utilize the attractions of the saloon, concern was centered on the impairments and inability to continue to work produced by saloon patronage. Destruction of the saloon as an institution became the goal. Treatment, on the other hand, is based on an implicit assumption that persons will obtain alcohol if they want it. Given that alcohol occurs in nature, and that elaborations of these natural processes into distillation of “hard” liquor is not technologically challenging, the conclusion that Prohibition is a futile means of preventing alcohol problems is attractive. The treatment dimension of the social problem solution was attempted in the 19th century, but it did not become an institutionalized practice. Following the moral model of treatment described by D. Rothman in 1971, publicly supported asylums were established in several states where chronic inebriates lived quiet and orderly lives for long periods of time with the expectation that this separation from the stress and strain of community life would bring them back to normality and allow them to resume productive lives without alcohol. As specialized institutions, these died out or became integrated into insane asylums. The Keeley cure emerged in the late 19th century, using a different approach to changing individuals. Here injections of a special medication were said to curb the appetite for both alcohol and opiates, and Keeley patients furthered their abstinence by joining Keeley Leagues where they would gather and provide mutual support to each other. Institutionalizing Treatment Neither these or similar modalities persisted, and it was not until the invention of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in 1935 and its growth into the 1950s that a foundation was laid for institutionalizing treatment as the major solution to chronic alcohol problems. Notably this invention followed only two years after Prohibition was abandoned
as a costly failure, and legal alcohol consumption re-entered American society with vigor. While this re-entry included a massive number of laws regulating the distribution of alcohol, the efficacy of the Prohibition strategy had been publicly denied. This created a vacuum that was filled by the individual level approach that essentially says that drinking is harmful only to a small but unidentifiable subgroup of the population that possesses the predisposition to the disease of alcoholism. AA offers an ideology and an organizational structure that has proven to be a powerful fit with basic American cultural values. Most importantly, it emphasizes individualism and achievement based on self-control. This is in contrast to the model of Prohibition in which the government “protects” the population from the evils of alcohol. The AA model also appealed to common sense, since nearly all Americans who drank alcohol observed that relatively few became chronic drunkards, undermining the supposed universal powers of King Alcohol. Thus the dominance of the individualized treatment approach had three important supports: it filled an ideological gap to explain how American society could permit manufacture and distribution of a substance that had been labeled as potentially fatal to its users for nearly a century, it provided a distinct fit with American values on achievement and individualism, and it supported the belife that most people could drink alcohol without dire consequences. While AA was the foundation for what was to eventually emerge as treatment, the founders of AA were adamant that AA itself was not treatment and that many alcoholics required medical care for their drinking that was not available in AA but which could precede affiliation with AA. AA was totally noncommercial and totally voluntary. Affiliates progressed through its Steps at their own pace, not through coercion or pressure from other members. Finally, as an organization, AA did not accumulate wealth or property, and it took no positions on any issues other than its members’ desires to stop drinking. This irony is rarely recognized in recounting the history of how AA segued into formal treatment involving a great deal of money. In the mid1950s, a combination of physicians interested in treating alcoholism and persons who were AA
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members created the Minnesota Model of alcoholism treatment at a public hospital in Willmar, Minnesota. The inpatient regimen lasted 28 days and consisted of helping alcoholics gain physical and psychological strength through good nutrition, exercise, and medical attention. Their days were filled with education about the damages that alcohol could create, how it is best recognized as a medical disease, and how the Steps of AA could bring about the patients’ long term recovery. Patients attended AA meetings either in the hospital or in nearby communities. In the final week of the month-long experience, patients were allowed to meet with their family members who also received education as to how to best adapt to the recovery process. Counselors who guided the patients through this experience were mainly recovered alcoholics who had come through the AA program. Several other hospitals adopted the model, and all reported excellent results. Following the growth of funding and insurance availability that occurred through federal legislation in the 1970s, the Minnesota Model quickly diffused into a national collection of inpatient treatment centers, often making substantial fortunes for their owners. This treatment model was almost completely dominant until the late 1980s when concerns about medical care cost containment were focused on this particular treatment. It was strongly and effectively challenged on the basis that it was no better than briefer treatments and inordinately expensive. While it is axiomatic within the alcohol problem treatment literature that long-term recovery is highly correlated with the length of treatment provided, this has not been successfully translated into economic support for inpatient treatment similar to the Minnesota Model. Today the organization of treatment is almost exclusively based on providing outpatient services, accompanied by strong encouragement for post-treatment affiliation with and participation in AA. There is, however, optimism in some quarters that federal legislation calling for parity between the treatment of behavior disorders and other medical problems will substantially upgrade alcoholism treatment investments in the near future. It is notable that the public health approach implied by the model of Prohibition enjoys minimal attention and resource investment in the
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United States today. There is a well-developed literature on the association between alcohol availability and alcohol problems, but it has not had significant effects on social policy other than greatly increased scrutiny of the drinking driver. Alcohol not only remains widely available and relatively cheap, but there is both direct and indirect support for both its production and its orderly distribution. At the same, the research community is opposed to involving the production and distribution industries in the initiation or support of alcohol-problem research and generally rejects studies supported by industry funds as indelibly tainted with bias. Thus the treatment of alcohol problems in the U.S. and increasingly throughout the world has a highly individualized orientation. The unit of treatment is the diseased individual, not the family, group, community, or workplace that may be sources of distress and facilitators of both individual and collective use of drinking as a solution or salve for personal problems. Despite the apparent logic of the model, there is almost no attention to the roles of social factors in the genesis of chronic and destructive drinking. Such an approach is of course completely incompatible with the principles of AA, and novitiates in AA who attempt to blame others and their life circumstances for their troubles with alcohol are quickly and firmly corrected by older members. The sociological approach to explaining alcohol problems has never had a central place in American policy, and emphases on disease and medical approaches of the past several decades have rendered it nearly extinct. Paul M. Roman University of Georgia See Also: Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture; Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Anti-Saloon League; Rush, Benjamin; Temperance Movements. Further Readings Clark, N. S. Deliver Us From Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition. New York: W. W. Norton, 1976. Dillon, P. Gin: The Much Lamented Death of Madam Geneva. Boston: Justin, Charles & Co., 2002.
Erikson, K. Wayward Puritans. A Study in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1966. Keller M. “The Old and the New in the Treatment of Alcoholism.” In Alcohol Interventions: Historical and Sociocultural Approaches, D. L. Strug, S. Priyadarsini, and M. M. Hyman, eds. New York: Haworth, 1986. Knopf, A. “Bullish on the Treatment Industry.” Addiction Professional (March/April 2014). Roman, P. “Alcohol Studies and Science: Trapped in the Velvet Cage of Medical Research?” Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, v.75 Supplement 17 (2014). Roman, P. “The Disease Concept of Alcoholism: Sociocultural and Organizational Bases of Support.” Drugs and Society, v.2 (1988). Roman, P. “Seventy-Five Years of Policy on Alcohol Problems: An American Perspective.” Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, v.75 Supplement 17 (2014). Roman, P. M., T. C. Blum, and J. A. Johnson. “The Transformation of Private Alcoholism Treatment: Results of a National Study.” In Research in Medical Sociology, Vol. 7, J. Levy, D. McBride, and R. C. Stephens, eds. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 2000. Rorabaugh, W. J. The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. Rothman, D. The Discovery of the Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic. Boston: Little Brown, 1971. Smith, A. F. Drinking History: Fifteen Turning Points in the Making of American Beverages. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Wagner, D. The Poorhouse: America’s Forgotten Institution. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.
Alcopops “Alcopop” is a common name for premixes, ready-to-drink alcoholic beverages, flavored malt beverages, prepackaged spirits, or flavored alcoholic beverages. Made of a mix of spirits and nonalcoholic beverages such as juice, milk,
or soft drinks, they have a typical alcohol concentration of 4 to 7 percent by volume. They are often sold in individual serving-size bottles or cans, which typically hold more than a standard drink’s worth of alcohol. While they are not by definition artificially sweetened and do not always have a sweet taste, many alcopops mask the taste of alcohol with other flavors, thus contributing to their popularity among those who do not like or have not yet developed a taste for alcohol. Since their introduction to the global marketplace in the mid-1990s, alcopops have been a preferred drink for younger (including underage) drinkers, especially young women and teenage girls. Because of their favor with this demographic and the concerns over youth drinking, several nations have increased the rates of taxation on alcopops in an effort to curb consumption among a population considered vulnerable to the influence of savvy marketing. Coolers In some jurisdictions, such as the United States, where there are more restrictions on drinks made with premixed spirits, similar wine- or malt liquor-based beverages, often called coolers, take the place of alcopops. These drinks share many of the characteristics of alcopops but have been circulating in the marketplace since the 1980s. This difference in formulations and/or terminology has resulted in the implications of the two types of beverages being discussed separately, despite the fact that many of the products and brand names concerned are similarly marketed in North America, Europe, and Australia and New Zealand. Marketing When alcopops emerged in Great Britain around 1995, they were promoted as designer drinks. Sometimes, the manufacturers took advantage of the recognizability of an established brand name (for example, Smirnoff vodka’s use of “Smirnoff Ice” or Bacardi rum’s use of “Bacardi Breezer”) to use brand loyalty to retain market share. In other cases, the alcopop was positioned as a totally new product (as was the case with Mike’s Hard Lemonade) to encourage those looking for a change from existing beverage options. The flavor combinations, the appearance and color of the beverage itself, the addition of herbal supplements such as
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gingko biloba, the design of the packaging, the product names, and sophisticated, demographically targeted marketing campaigns cast the beverages as lifestyle drinks, which is to say drinks that associate the drinker with certain locations, activities, and an overall appealing image. For various alcopops, an image of being the preferred drink of rebellious youth, gourmet sophisticates, or the health-conscious imbiber has been cultivated. The identification of a target audience and crafting of both a product and a brand that will speak to this audience’s lifestyle aspirations is an essential part of alcopop marketing. Due to government and public health scrutiny over alcopop marketing, producers are keen to avoid the alcopop label and thus refer to their products by other names, such as “lifestyle drinks” or “premixed cocktails.” The term alcopop is mainly used in scholarly, regulatory, and public health settings. Women and girls are more likely to drink alcopops than their male peers, and younger girls are more likely to consume alcopops than other alcoholic beverages. Much of the marketing of these drinks therefore focuses on appealing to female consumers. The convenience of the single-serve packaging replicates the convenience of drinks such as beer, which, when sold in cans or bottles, requires no glassware, mixers, ice, and/or tools with which to serve it. Concerns Amid growing governmental and medical concern about increases in the frequency with which young people drink, the amount they consume when they do drink, and the age when they first begin to consume alcohol, alcopops have been identified as a particular threat. The gender bias that has emerged in relation to alcopop consumption has also been a motivating factor in the public if not the scientific perception of a crisis because there is generally less social acceptance for inebriated women and girls or for females as (problem) drinkers. The sweetness of many alcopops, and the masking of the taste of the alcohol, was perceived by public health officials to be a strategy to target young drinkers who did not care for the taste of traditional alternatives (beer, wine, or spirits). Alcopops are perceived as being an easy initiation
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into the consumption of alcohol and thus accelerate the time at which young people begin consuming alcohol. The fact that many alcopops disguise the taste of alcohol has raised concerns that inexperienced drinkers do not perceive the drinks to contain alcohol or believe that they are not as intoxicating as other alcoholic beverages. These beliefs have prompted some jurisdictions to require explicit labelling of alcopops and coolers as alcoholic beverages. Despite the prominence of such concerns in the media, epidemiological data has shown that not all such anxieties are well-founded. The introduction of alcopops into the marketplace has had an observable effect on total alcohol consumption among adolescents, with some studies reporting that alcopops replace other alcoholic beverages and others finding that alcopops add to the total amount of pure alcohol consumed. Alcopops have not, however, been proven to have had an impact upon the age of first intoxication (a predictor of future problems with alcohol), the frequency of alcohol use, the frequency of binge drinking, or the concurrent use of other drugs such as tobacco or cannabis. Comprehensive reviews of public health studies have determined that there is a false perception that alcopops in particular (as opposed to alcoholic beverages in general) are responsible for more harm to young drinkers than the evidence suggests. Although alcopops are part of a larger trend toward greater, younger, and more intensive youth drinking, their influence can neither be isolated nor found to be a driving force behind larger trends. Health professionals in other areas have nonetheless raised concerns about the effects of alcopops, although these issues are mostly attributable to the nonalcoholic components of the drinks. Dental practitioners have cautioned against the high sugar and acid content of these drinks due to higher rates of tooth decay among alcopop drinkers. Similarly, the sugar and/or fat content of certain alcopops have been found to be a contributing factor to health concerns such as obesity and diabetes. Taxation as Control In response to the perception that alcopops were responsible for negative trends in adolescent
alcohol consumption, several national governments—including France, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, and Denmark—have raised taxes on alcopops and other ready-to-drink beverages. In some cases, such as that of Australia, this increase brought the taxation rates in line with those of more heavily taxed spirits; in others, notably Germany, there has been a flat-fee tax added to every bottle of alcopop sold. The rationale for such initiatives stems from a combination of factors, namely the proven links between increased alcohol prices and decreased consumption. Since young people tend to have less disposable income than older drinkers and they are the primary purchasers of alcopops, they will be most likely to modify their consumption due to price controls. Despite the overarching intent to reduce overall youth alcohol consumption by making a drink identified as being especially seductive more expensive, the impact of these measures has been shown to be variable at best. Young drinkers in particular have tended to shift their consumption to other products (beer, spirits) rather than decrease their overall consumption. In response to what have been seen as punitive taxation rates, alcopop manufacturers have reformulated some drinks to be either wine or malt (beer) based. Long the norm in the United States, these reformulated drinks allowed the manufacturers to evade the special taxes and to thus sell the product for less. In European nations, where one must be 18 to legally buy spirits and spiritbased drinks but can buy beer and wine from the age of 16, the reformulations have enabled younger drinkers to legally buy and consume alcopops, thus increasing rather than shrinking the size of the legal market. Julie Robert University of Technology, Sydney See Also: Advertising and Marketing, History of; Gender and Alcohol Reform; “Girl” Drinks; Student Culture, High School; Taxation. Further Readings Jones, Sandra C. and Samantha Reis. “Not Just the Taste: Why Adolescents Drink Alcopops.” Health Education, v.112/1 (2012).
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Metzner, Cornelia and Ludwig Kraus. “The Impact of Alcopops on Adolescent Drinking: A Literature Review.” Alcohol & Alcoholism, v.43/2 (2007). Michel, P. A., A Loing and M. C. Manière. “Alcopops: Systemic and Dental Consequences.” Archives de pédiatrie, v.17/12 (2010). Vignali, Claudio and Sue Curland. “Liquid Applepie: Market Entry Strategy for a New Lifestyle Drink.” Journal of Food Products Marketing, v.14/2 (2008).
Ale In the modern world, ale refers to an alcoholic beverage made from malted barley, water, and hops and fermented between 65 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit using the top-fermenting yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This distinguishes ale from lager, which ferments between 33 and 55 degrees using the bottom-fermenting yeast Saccharomyces pastorianus. However, the usage can vary depending on the context. Fermented malt beverages require an adjunct to attenuate the sweet characteristics of the barley and make it palatable to humans. Prior to the widespread use of hops in the Middle Ages, brewers balanced the sweetness by introducing a mixture of herbs called gruit into the brewing process. In the historic sense, then, ale was distinguished from beer in that the former did not contain hops as a bittering agent. Though not technically correct, historians and others sometimes use beer as a generic term to describe ancient fermented malt beverages as well as both ales and lagers. Etymology of the Term By the early Middle Ages, Anglo-Saxons recognized four main fermented drinks: wine, mead, ale, and something called beor, which refers to various fermented juices and drinks, with usage varying depending on the location, time period, and author. Beor might have been a catchall term and is likely the etymological ancestor of beer. The etymological origins of the English word ale are very old, reaching back to the Old English ealu, and from there probably to the protoGermanic word aluth. Ale may have even older
This British jug glass full of ale displays a line marking the legal fill level for an Imperial pint. In the United Kingdom, “real ale” was originally understood to mean any ale, not lager, dispensed from a keg using only the pressure generated by the fermenting yeast and the action of a pump hand operated by the server.
origins, dating to a proto-Indo-European word and resembling the Latin word alumen, meaning bitter. It might also derive from a proto-IndoEuropean word alu-t, the root of which, alu, indicated magic and intoxication. The exact origins are unclear, but it seems certain that the modern word ale still resembles its far distant ancestral roots. Whatever the etymology, the use of ale to designate a fermented malt beverage entered English and appeared immediately in literature—references to “ale-cups” appear in Beowulf alongside mead and beer. Production of Ale The production of ale begins with barley. After harvest, professionals, now called malsters, dry and then rehydrate the barley until the moisture
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content reaches about 40 percent. Malsters then raise the temperature of the grain to between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit. The barley, which is dense with starch, begins to grow when the small plant shoot, called the acrospire, emerges from the tip of the kernel. As this occurs, enzymes in the plant convert the starch to water-soluble sugars. After a period of around seven days, the acrospire reaches between 75 and 100 percent of the length of the kernel, at which point it is considered fully modified. The maltster then dries the grain at high temperatures, in a process called kilning. Malted barley develops different sugar content and sugary flavors as well as different flavors and color profiles depending on the kilning temperature. Regardless of the sugar profile, brewers then place the malted grains and water in a sturdy vessel over heat and raise the mixture to the desired temperature of not less than 150 to 170 degrees. This procedure, called mashing, extracts the sugars from the grains, which are generally then rinsed to maximize sugar extraction. Next, the resultant liquid, called wort by brewers, is cooled and fermented. Prior to the advent of modern brewing techniques, brewers cooled the wort in open containers into which airborne yeasts fell and initiated fermentation. Historically, ale brewed in the ancient Near East would have contained remnants of the brewing and fermentation process, including the bits of fruit as well as the husks and bits of grain, and possibly even the whole grains themselves. Some historians have described ancient ale as resembling a kind of low-alcohol porridge. Drinkers in the ancient world therefore used straws with perforated ends to filter the residue and extract the ale. Counterbalancing the Malt By itself, fermented barley wort is too sweet for the human palate, and historically humans have modulated the sweetness through the use of adjunct ingredients. In much of the ancient world, brewers used fruit to balance the malty sweetness. In the ancient Near East and Egypt, for example, common ingredients used for this purpose include dates, grapes, and figs, as well as honey and plants such as lupine, safflower, coriander, fenugreek, and bitter orange peel.
By the early Middle Ages, European brewers used the word gruit, or variations of it in different languages, to describe the mixture of plants included in the brewing process to offset the sweetness of the malt. Some professional brewers, especially those in towns, cities, and monasteries, specialized in ale flavored with specific combinations of herbs and fruits and gained patent rights to their gruit mixtures. They could, in turn, license these rights out and sell their mixtures of gruit to brewers, paying a tax to local counts, princes, and emperors. However, brewers had only a partial understanding of the chemistry involved in brewing, and some of the ingredients in gruit, such as the psychoactive henbane, became dangerous during the cooking process. Others, such as the commonly used yarrow, caused extreme inebriation and even hallucinations. Though the flowering vine called hops had been known and possibly consumed as food since the time of the ancient Greeks, there is no evidence to suggest its use in the brewing process before the early Middle Ages. Its use accelerated during the Renaissance as European brewers began to use hops to replace gruit as the main ingredient for counterbalancing the malt. The brewing process only uses the small, resin-filled, cone-shaped flower, which, when boiled, releases bitter alpha acids and aromatic oils that serve to balance the malt flavor. Different varietals of hops contain varying concentrations of alpha acids, which brewers can use to contribute bittering, textured flavors, and aroma to the beer. The introduction of hops to the brewing process required extra boiling tanks not necessary for unhopped ale. Emergence of Beer As the use of hops spread, brewers in some parts of Europe began to call the hopped fermented malt beverage hoppenbier, and eventually just beer, to distinguish it from ale. The exact etymological origins of the word beer are uncertain, though the word itself predates the English language. Whatever its origins, by the 16th-century Europeans distinguished unhopped ale from hopped beer, though by the 19th century this distinction had lost its meaning. In the modern era, beer is a catchall term for any fermented malt beverage containing water, hops, yeast, and malted barley. Whereas
consumers might not understand the technical difference between ale and lager beers, professionals distinguish between the two based on the type of yeast used in the fermentation process. Although scientists did not isolate Saccharomyces carlsbergensis, the yeast used to make cold-fermented lagers, now called Saccharomyces pastoriuanus, until 1883, the yeast itself accidentally became part of the brewing process in the 15th and 16th centuries. Saccharomyces pastorianus is a hybrid of what is now known to be ale yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and a Patagonian fungus Saccharomyces eubayanus, and became part of the German tradition of brewing cold-fermented and stored hopped beers. Modern Ale The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is what makes modern beer an ale as opposed to a lager. It is a very old species of yeast, and humans have used it in the brewing and baking process for millennia. Most likely derived from the skins of grapes or plums during ancient brewing processes, ale yeast reproduces by metabolizing the sugar in the wort. In brewing a modern ale, the brewer follows the same basic steps handed down for thousands of years. To use hops, the wort is brought to a boil, the hops are added, and the wort boiled for at least one hour to extract the alpha acids. After the wort is cooled and transferred to a fermenter, the brewer then pitches the ale yeast into the wort. Ale yeast is “top-fermenting,” meaning that it forms a cake on top of the liquid, ferments the sugars, and then drops to the bottom of the fermenter, forming a cake called trub. The action of the yeast, called flocculation, mixes the wort, helping stir up unused sugars. As with lager yeast, the main byproducts of ale yeast are ethyl alcohol and Co2 as well as various phenols, esters, and diacetyl. Ale yeast, however, ferments best at temperatures of between 55 and 75 degrees. At colder temperatures, the yeast goes into dormancy. At higher temperatures, the yeast produces undesirable and sometimes harsh off-flavors. Styles of Ale The Brewer’s Association, a United States-based organization of brewers, distributors, wholesalers, and other members, recognizes more than 75 distinct styles of ale. The color and flavor range for
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ales spans the full spectrum of possibilities. The metacategories largely refer to the origins of the ales: British, Irish, North American, German, Belgian and French, other, and international styles. There are 21 ales of British origin, some of which, like English pale ale produced by Bass among other companies, are commercially popular. Others, such as old ale, are widely popular in the United Kingdom but less well-known elsewhere. English-style India pale ale (IPA) ranges in color from gold to a deep copper, with moderate or moderately high hoppiness. Samuel Smith’s India Pale Ale is a classic example. The amber or dark-copper scotch ales tend toward malty flavors, with the hops subsumed to the sweetness. McEwan’s brews a number of exemplars. With dark-brown to jet-black coloring, stouts and porters are the darkest ales. They are characterized by degrees of roasty, chocolate, or coffee flavors. Left Hand Milk Stout is probably the best known of the English sweet stouts, and Samuel Smith’s Taddy is a definitive example of a porter. Two of three of the Irish ales are stouts derived from English porters. The dry stout is dark brown or coal black and has a roasty flavor and a strong hop bitterness. The grains give it a background of coffee flavors. Murphy’s Irish Stout is an exemplar. The Foreign Extra Stout, developed by Guinness for distribution in the Caribbean and other warm places, is much sweeter than its dry stout cousin. It should also have some fruity flavors, and might taste mildly alcoholic. Both Jamaica Stout and Guinness Foreign Extra Stout are highly regarded versions of this style. The other style of Irish ale is Irish red, which is ruby colored, medium bodied and sweet and has caramel and very light roasted grain notes. Smithwick’s Irish Ale is a widely distributed representation of the style, as is Great Lakes Conway’s Irish Ale. The 20 North American Ales vary widely in color, flavor, body, and hoppiness. Most are adaptations of ales from other countries, with the main distinction being that American ales tend to use American-style hops, which differ from their British parentage in that they are more sharply acidic, with more citrus, floral, or pine aroma. American ales are also generally characterized by fuller, more robust flavors. An example is the difference found between and an American and an English IPA. Both the American and English
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versions contain about the same alcohol by volume and fall into the same color range. However, American IPAs have a much stronger hop aroma, which is reflected in a flavor that is not necessarily more bitter, though it can be, but rather have a hop flavor closely aligned with the character of the aroma. Samuel Smith’s India Ale, from England, and Stone IPA, from the United States, make for an excellent side-by-side comparison. The 13 German ale styles evolved within geographical contexts, and different German regions are home to specific styles of beer often not brewed anywhere else. For example, the recently resurgent style Gose emerged in the city of Goslar, near Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, centuries ago. It is light colored, sour, and spicy—not unlike a Belgian sour ale. For almost 500 years, despite the strictures of the German Purity Laws, brewers have added coriander and salt in the brewing kettle, giving the beer a unique flavor profile. Brewing then moved to Leipzig, and when that city became part of East Germany after World War II, the Communist government closed the last remaining brewery. The tradition continued, and was passed on from the only brewer who knew how to brew the style. In the 1960s, that brewer died, and with that event so did the true origins of the style. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, several brewers recreated the original recipes, and it has enjoyed a small renaissance. In that same regional spirit, Berliner Weisse is straw-yellow ale with a mild, balanced flavor. Paulaner Hefeweissbier exemplifies the style. Likewise, the city of Cologne brews Kölsch ale, which is a very light-colored but full-bodied beer with low hoppiness and a soft malty flavor. The ale yeast is fermented on the cold side, below 65 degrees. Likewise, altbier is classified as either a Düsseldorf or a Northern altbier, reflecting the link between place of origin and style. Where a Düsseldorf alt is hoppy, a Northern alt is mellow. A Düsseldorf alt has a medium body, where a Northern alt is lighter. The strong, malty aroma of the Düsseldorf alt contrasts with the mild Northern alt. Belgian- and French-style ales account for 16 of the 75 recognized types of ale, and include the French bière de garde, gueze, lambic, and saison, as well as the more familiar Belgian dubbel, tripel, and quadrupel. Leffe Blond is a nationally
distributed Belgian blond ale, and the Trappist abbey Westmalle produces highly regarded trippel and dubbel ales. Of all the Belgian ales, the St. Sixtus Abbey in Westvleteren, Belgium, crafts one of the most highly regarded Belgian Trappist ales, Westvleteren 12. In 1973, the newly established United Kingdom-based Campaign for Real Ale began using the term real ale to describe beers that are very specifically brewed using what is known as “traditional ingredients” and which undergo a second process of fermentation in the container in which they are served. While this definition could include lager in bottles, real ale was originally understood to mean any ale, not lager, dispensed from a keg using only the pressure generated by the fermenting yeast and the action of a pump hand operated by the server. Real ale under this definition is therefore not filtered and is usually stored at cellar temperature. In recent years, real ale has become less of a definition of style limited to the use of a specific kind of yeast and has expanded to incorporate lagers and in some cases cider and perry as well. Andrew McMichael Western Kentucky University See Also: Abbey Ales; Beer; Brewing, History of; Brewing Beer, Techniques of; Farmhouse and Belgian Ales; Fermentation, Ancient Era Through Middle Ages; Lager. Further Readings Brewer’s Association. “2013 Brewers Association Beer Style Guidelines.” http://www.brewersassociation .org/pages/business-tools/publications/beer-style -guidelines (Accessed November 2013). Campaign for Real Ale. http://www.camra.org.uk (Accessed November 2013). Fix, George. Principles of Brewing Science: A Study of Serious Brewing Issues. Boulder, CO: Bewers, 1999. Hornsey, Ian S. A History of Beer and Brewing. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2003. McGovern, Patrick E. Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. Palmer, John. How to Brew: Everything You Need to Know to Brew Beer Right the First Time, 3rd ed. Boulder, CO: Bewers, 2006.
Unger, Richard. Beer in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.
Alexander the Great Few people have lived lives of such passion and intensity as did Alexander the Great. The Oracle at Delphi and the city of Athens hailed him as a god, an idea that Alexander’s mother had also fixed in his head in childhood. Julius Caesar regarded Alexander as history’s greatest military leader. Throughout history, the world’s military elite have sought to emulate Alexander. Yet it is possible to praise him too much. Although he was moderate as a child, Alexander grew up, like his father, to be a drunk, and the ferocity of his consumption of wine must have contributed to his death. One of Alexander’s contemporaries described the Macedonians as people who never learned to drink moderately. Typically, on the feast day of a god or goddess, the Macedonians were drunk before the main meal had begun. In the Georgias, Plato referred to the immoderate consumption of wine among the Macedonians. The Greeks of Plato’s day diluted wine with water, in contrast to the Macedonians, to lessen the consumption of alcohol. The Greeks believed that only vulgar people got drunk. Alexander’s father, King Philip II, drank excessively, and perhaps through heredity and custom this trait was passed to Alexander. Some of Philip’s contemporaries believed that he fought in combat drunk, a practice that must have impressed Alexander. Wine was the reward for those who triumphed on the battlefield. In Macedonia’s warrior culture, intemperance was a virtue. From the outset, Alexander sought to surpass his father on and off the battlefield. According to Plutarch, when Alexander tamed the ungovernable horse Bucephalae, Philip predicted that his son would build a kingdom much larger than Macedonia. Alexander’s mother, Olympias, stoked his ambition. She convinced him of his greatness while still a child. Both Philip and Olympias were followers of the cult of Dionysus, the god of wine and revelry. According to Olympias, Alexander
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was a descendant of Achilles, Homer’s great warrior. As a child, Alexander appears to have disliked his father’s drinking, though in adulthood he would emulate his behavior. Although Philip had other children by other women, he appears to have fastened early on Alexander as his heir. About age 13, Alexander came under the orbit of Aristotle, whom Philip had induced to tutor his son. Aristotle may have heightened Alexander’s interest in Achilles by giving the youth a copy of the Iliad that he had annotated. At age 16, Alexander became his father Philip’s regent. There could thereafter be no doubt that Alexander would succeed Philip. Alexander’s cavalry charge at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 b.c.e. won the day, though Philip took credit for the victory. Alexander’s style of leadership was risky but successful. Always at the head of the cavalry, he was the first into the fray, the man who others had to follow at breakneck speed to ensure the survival of their leader from the swords, spears, and arrows that were arrayed against him. He was the first to mount siege ladders and the first to scale a defensive wall. Given these tactics, Alexander was lucky to survive into his 30s. Alexander’s Achievements Philip’s assassination in 336 b.c.e. left Alexander in command. Plutarch suspected that Alexander and Olympias had conspired against Philip, though elsewhere Plutarch defended Alexander against this charge. The consensus appears, however, to implicate Olympias. Alexander’s first act was the conquest of Greece, in the belief that he would need a united front at home if he were serious about the prospect of invading Asia, an action that Philip had contemplated but never undertaken. Alexander’s advisors saw no imperative to invade Asia and instead counseled him to choose a wife and have a son to secure the succession. Alexander refused, leading some historians to wonder about his sexuality. His closest companion was a man who, in Macedonian fashion, drank himself to death. Yet, Alexander had liaisons with women, though it is true that he was slow to marry. In 334 b.c.e., with 32,000 infantry and 5,100 cavalry, Alexander crossed the Hellspont into western Asia. That year, he defeated the Persians at the Granicus River. During the battle, Alexander rushed King Darius III’s son-in-law, killing
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him in hand-to-hand combat. Those who tried to defend his opponent met the same fate. Alexander and his army slaughtered the entire Persian force, killing even those who tried to surrender, an action that speaks ill about Alexander’s character. At the same time, Alexander insisted on tending to his own wound himself, perhaps having learned about medicine from Aristotle. He asked them how they had received their wounds and relived with them the glories of battle. As he moved east, Alexander announced that the towns that surrendered to him would remain free. In 333 b.c.e., Alexander used his sword to cut the Gordian Knot, which no one before him had discovered how to untie. That year, Alexander confronted Darius for the first time at the Battle of Issus. Though he had the smaller army, Alexander took the initiative at the outset. Charging through the Persian ranks, Alexander aimed his spear at Darius. A mosaic at Pompeii captures the tension of this moment. Darius turned his chariot and fled. Alexander emerged the hero and Darius the coward. The year 332 b.c.e. was monumental. The city of Tyre fell, and Alexander conquered Egypt, declaring himself pharaoh and founding the city of Alexandria. Yet Darius managed to reconstitute an army to await Alexander at Gaugamela, a plain that should have favored his large infantry and chariots. Outnumbered, as he had been before, Alexander again rushed Darius, who narrowly escaped death by fleeing a second time. Having twice defeated Darius, Alexander became king of Asia. Here, Plutarch related Alexander’s habit of drinking at night to help him sleep and awakening late the next morning. Decline and Death The year 332 b.c.e. marked the apogee of Alexander’s career. Thereafter, his personality began to deteriorate. Plutarch pointed the finger at Alexander’s fondness for wine. Alexander grew more impetuous and less willing to seek counsel with others. Drinking made him querulous and suspicious of others. He was especially suspicious of those who would not drink with him. He feared that the gods might abandon him or that fortune might change. According to Plutarch, at his worst, he would drink day and night. Perhaps Alexander had become an alcoholic.
Alexander adopted Persian attire and customs and paired off his officers with aristocratic Persian women in marriage, perhaps hoping to yield a new race of men and women. Whatever the effects of alcohol, Alexander fought his way to India in 326 b.c.e. He faced huge armies and elephants and lost Bucephalae to wounds. A grieving Alexander named a city after his dead horse. Finally, at the Hyphesis River his troops would go no farther. Alexander had to fight his way back west. At one siege, he alone raced up a ladder to the top of a wall and single-handedly fought the enemy until his men gathered the courage to follow him. During the fight, an arrow wounded him. Taking him back to the ground, a comrade cut the arrowhead out of Alexander’s chest with a sword. Alexander nearly bled to death on the spot. Seven days after the battlefield surgery, Alexander, hardly recovered, rode into camp on a new horse to prove to his men that he was alive. Aristotle had counseled the young Alexander against recklessness, but in battle after battle his rashness led him to take unnecessary risks. One historian believes that even in fragile health, Alexander continued to drink heavily. In 325 b.c.e., Alexander and his army blundered into the Gedrosian Desert. The soldiers were reduced to eating their dead horses. Some succumbed to thirst and heat. A flash flood killed others. Alexander needed 60 days to cross the desert. Although some 70,000 troops entered the desert, only 15,000 survived. The episode marked what was arguably Alexander’s worst mistake. His army limped back to Persia in 324. Alexander now dressed himself in the garb of Dionysus, so certain was he of his divinity. That year, he visited the tomb of Cyrus the Great, a warrior king he admired. Grave robbers had disturbed Cyrus’s remains, which Alexander ordered reinterred. In 324, Alexander took two Persian aristocratic women as wives, bringing to three the number of his marriages. The first had been to Macedonian noblewoman Roxane. That year, he demanded that Athens acknowledge his divinity. The idea repulsed many of Athens’ leaders, who had tired of Alexander’s ego. Yet, when passions subsided, Athens awarded him this distinction. Alexander’s end came quickly. At Opis, in what is today Iraq, he held a lavish party at which he again drank too much wine. Settling in Babylon, Alexander drank heavily with his
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men. He drank continuously between May 29 and May 31, 323 b.c.e. By the 31st, he was ill with fever. By June 7, he was too weak to speak. Alexander the Great died June 10. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: Ancient World, Drinking in; Europe, Central and Eastern; Greece, Ancient. Further Readings Lissarrague, Francois. The Aesthetics of the Greek Banquet: Images of Wine and Ritual (Un Flot D’images). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. O’Brien, John Maxwell. Alexander the Great: The Invisible Enemy; A Biography. London: Routledge, 1992. Plutarch. The Life of Alexander the Great. New York: Modern Library, 2004.
Algeria The people of Algeria have had the misfortune to be occupied by foreigners through long stretches of their history. The Romans, Muslim Arabs, and the French have all conquered Algeria. As part of the Roman Empire, Algeria participated in the production of wine and its trade as part of the Mediterranean Basin, in which wine along with bread and olive oil was a staple of the diet. The coming of Islam in the 7th century changed matters in Algeria. Faithful Muslims did not consume wine or other alcoholic beverages. Although this hostility toward alcohol did not characterize all of the Arab empire, Algerians appear to have been fastidious in their abstinence from alcohol. The French conquest complicated matters. The French colonists brought with them to Algeria the tradition of drinking wine and planted vineyards, but the masses clung to the Qur’an and refused to bow to French habits. Independent since 1962 Algeria has succumbed to fundamentalism, which has led its people to uproot many vineyards. At the same time, Algeria, wishing to attract tourists has made alcohol available to them.
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Evidence points to Homo erectus, an ancestor of anatomically modern humans, as the first settlers of Algeria, perhaps arriving about 2 million years ago. The Berbers, an ancient people of North Africa, may have been the earliest anatomically modern humans to inhabit Algeria. Because the Berbers lacked a written language, it has been too easy for scholars to overlook them. The Carthaginians, a people who lived on the sea in Phoenicia, established Carthage in what is today Tunisia and traded with the Berbers of Algeria. After Rome destroyed Carthage, fearing it as a rival, it came to dominate Algeria and the rest of North Africa. By the 2nd century c.e., Christian missionaries settled Algeria, converting the masses to Christianity, though religious beliefs may not have been deeply held for Islam to triumph so quickly and decisively. The Umayyad Dynasty was aggressive in converting Algerians, and North Africans in general, to Islam. The Arabs understood the strategic and economic importance of Algeria. In time, Islam turned much of its attention toward Egypt, using Algeria as a source of manpower. The Ottoman Turks and the French in turn ruled Algeria. Notably, the Nobel laureate in literature Albert Camus was born and spent part of his childhood in Algeria, though he seems to have felt like an outsider there. Roman and Islamic Algeria In the late Roman republic and throughout the empire, the country planted vineyards in North Africa, including in Algeria. The indigenous population of Algeria, different from the Arabs who now occupy Algeria, drank wine, and the Romans made enough wine to export from Algeria and other parts of North Africa to the empire’s major cities. Cities such as Rome, with 1 million inhabitants at the time of Jesus, consumed large quantities of wine from Algeria and other parts of the Roman Empire. The Mediterranean fare of bread, wine, and olive oil was the cuisine of people throughout the Mediterranean Basin, including Algeria. The disintegration of the Roman Empire in late antiquity and the arrival of Islam changed matters in North Africa, including in Algeria. Islam forbade the consumption of alcohol on the grounds that it made one forget God. But not all parts of the Muslim Empire were willing to forgo alcohol. Many vineyard owners claimed to produce table grapes and raisins, but the breeding of
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large, sweet, seedless grapes suggests that many of these Muslims were really growing grapes to make wine. Algeria, though, appears to have held firm to Islamic law. Most Algerians did not drink alcohol. Unlike Judaism and Christianity, Islam dissociated wine from religion. Algerians’ abstinence marked them as faithful Muslims, people obedient to Allah and the Qur’an. French Occupation France, a latecomer to the race for acquiring colonies, occupied Algeria in the 1830s. The new colonial power brought dietary habits that were contrary to Islamic law, including the drinking of wine. Algerians, taking the Qur’an to heart, abstained from French wines as we have seen. To the French, bread and wine were the simple fare of commoners. The French believed that the Algerian masses should eat and drink them. Early in its occupation, France angered Algeria by converting land from grain fields to vineyards. What grapes Algerians grew traditionally had been dried into raisins. After 1850, France began to export wine into Algeria, charging no tax on it to encourage consumption. Where Algerians did plant vineyards, they worried that French competition would hurt sales of local wines. In 1875, depredation caused by aphids in France devastated French growers. Many fled to Algeria to start new vineyards, and the increase in the supply of wine appears to have stoked local demand to an extent. By 1953, grapevines were planted on more than 400,000 hectares, about 10 percent of Algeria’s arable land. At that time, Algeria exported 20 million hectoliters of wine per year, suggesting that locals, apart from the French who had settled Algeria, did not drink as much wine as one might have supposed. French settlers were the primary consumers of Algerian wine domestically, and lands that had once yielded grain in Algeria now produced grapes for wine, citrus fruits, tobacco, and flax. To the Algerians, the French monopolization of Algerian land was sacrilegious. Before Algeria’s transition to oil and natural gas, wine accounted for half the gross domestic product (GDP). Perhaps more than any other product, wine made a differentiation between the faithful Muslims who would not drink it and the Jews and Christians who settled Algeria and took wine
regularly with meals. From its origin, Muslim Algeria regarded wine as a foreign product that Jews and Christians consumed but that was not suitable for Algerians, who considered wine, and alcoholic beverages in general, to be the luxury of foreigners who never integrated into Algerian society. The French, perhaps sensitive to Algerian sentiments, kept tight control of vineyards and wine production. True, some Algerians broke with tradition and drank wine, but this activity was largely secretive, confined to out-of-the-way storerooms, tourist restaurants, or wine cellars. Independence Algerian independence in 1962 returned Muslims to power, and in the 1990s fundamentalists decreed the destruction of many vineyards. These lands again supported grain. Yet, even in the 1990s wine was the third most lucrative Algerian export, trailing only oil and natural gas. The importance of tourism to modern Algeria, whose Mediterranean beaches attract Europeans, has led the country to make wine and other alcoholic beverages available to its visitors but encourages semisecretive consumption. Algeria sets aside hotels for Europeans, whom they encourage to drink alcohol in their hotel rooms. Restaurants and cafes, too expensive for the masses, serve alcohol to tourists. Alcohol consumption has thus emerged as a tourist phenomenon that has not penetrated the larger society to any great extent. Algerians regard the consumption of alcohol as a sign that tourists are intemperate and lack selfcontrol. At its core, the consumption of alcohol is a foreign activity with little effect on ordinary Algerians. To consume alcohol is to engage in a European ritual, an act that sets foreigners apart from faithful Algerians. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: Africa, Northern; Christianity; France; French Colonial Empire; Islamic Law; Roman Empire; Wines, French. Further Readings Cook, Michael. Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
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Nauert, Rick. “Study Examines Alcohol Use Patterns Worldwide.” PsychCentral. http://psychcentral .com/news/2013/03/05/study-examines-alcohol -use-patterns-worldwide/52234.html (Accessed Feburary 2014). Scholliers, Peter. Food, Drink and Identity: Cooking, Eating and Drinking in Europe Since the Middle Ages. Oxford, UK: Berg, 2001. Thomas, Martin. The French Colonial Mind. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2012.
Amarone Amarone is a very strong Italian dry red wine whose full name is Amarone della Valpolicella. It is made from grapes that have been partially dried, and it is this that accounts for its much higher alcohol content. The first references to what is believed to be Amarone date back to Roman times, with some writers believing that Amarone is the very strong wine that is mentioned by the writers Virgil, Columella, and Pliny, although this is by no means certain. The name Amarone was applied in the 1890s to a crystalline product unrelated to the drink, but the name Amarone, which means “the great bitter,” has been used for the wine for many years. By tradition, the first Amarone produced during the Italian renaissance, recognized on account of its high alcohol content, was made in a vineyard called Vaio Amaron, owned by Serego Alighieri, a descendant of the family of the Florentine poet Dante. Popularity Amarone was certainly not very popular before World War II, and although it was produced at that time, it was usually made in relatively small amounts for consumption by the vignerons themselves and their families and not offered for general sale. Up until the 1940s, in fact, Amarone was often considered a “failed” wine and was made in vineyards using grapes that the vignerons did not want to use for mainstream wines to keep them busy at times when other wine was not being produced. However, from the 1950s Amarone started to be marketed as a specific product and it gradually acquired a small but loyal following.
The strong Italian Amarone wine pairs well with mature sheep’s or cow’s milk cheeses, such as parmesan. The photo shows a glass of Amarone paired with a meal of eggplant parmesan and pork.
Largely produced in the area around Verona, some authors claim that Amarone had been consumed by the doges of Venice, which, due to their proximity to the site, is possible. However, the references to the wine in literature of the period make the connection possible but do not make it certain. Production The drink is generally made from the same grape varieties as grown in Valpolicella and in the same production zone. It was initially made from the upper lobes of bunches of grapes that were usually harvested during the first two weeks of October each year, at a stage when the grapes are very ripe. Experts tend to select the particular bunches where the grapes are further apart, and as a result of the airflow, these grapes usually have much
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stronger skins, which helps explain the slightly different taste that the finished beverage has. The grapes that were selected were traditionally placed on straw mats and then allowed to dry and shrivel. This process is called appasimento and it has been used since Roman times. Shriveling the grapes over time produced much more concentrated sugars and flavors. In this drying process, the acids of the grapes metabolize and the juices have much more contact with the skin, thereby changing the flavor. Branches must be removed, as these help encourage mold and can produced a major difference in the taste. After drying, the grapes are ready for producing Amarone. During the drying process, there is a major loss of weight in the grapes, and they are ready for being crushed in late January or early February, during the height of the winter. With the limited but increased demand for Amarone since the 1950s, a few vineyards around Verona specializing in its production decided to improve on the process. Rather than using straw mats for drying, the vintners placed grapes straight into purpose-built drying chambers or barns in order to reduce the handling. Minimal human handling makes the grapes became less liable to be affected by Botytis cinerea, which had emerged as a major problem in the 1970s and early 1980s. The standard method of preparing Amarone generally means that the grapes are left to dry for over four months, with little human contact. Amarone fermentation takes much longer than it does for normal wine because of the reduced water content of the grapes and the tradition of aging the wine in barriques made of French or Slovenian oak. The wine is often released five years later, although this is not a legal requirement. Amarone generally has an alcohol content of more than 15 percent—the legal requirement being that Amarone must have at least 14 percent alcohol. The amount of work involved in production has meant that Amarone is more expensive that regular wine, and as a result it has not been as popular as had been hoped when production started in the late 1950s.
manufacturer of Amarone came to its production by accident. Stefano Cesari of the Brigaldara estate told visiting American writer Jay McInerney that he had left grapes to dry for too long and then decided to make his first cask of Amarone. McInerney, who came to like Amarone, wrote of getting into “the Amarone mood” and suggested that he likes to think of Amarone as “the perfect primer wine for those who are suspicious of the cornucopia of flavor analogies that wine critics come up with.” During the late 1980s, with the increased affluence in Italy, there was a major rise in the consumption of table wine. In 1990, with many other wines getting sold out, there was promotion of Amarone and it became well-known quite quickly. In 2012, Kate Singleton wrote a book on the wine, although most of her narrative is devoted to the recollections of Sandro Boscaini, the founder and president of Masi Agricola, and his great love for Amarone. There are also references to Amarone in fiction, which generally refer to its strength and high alcohol content. Perhaps the most famous fictional drinker of Amarone is the psychopathic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in Thomas Harris’s horror story The Silence of the Lambs (1988). Although the drink is clearly identified in the book as Amarone, with Lecter liking the strength of the drink, when the film version was made three years later, directed by Jonathan Demme, the beverage was changed to chianti because the producers felt that there would be few people who would know that Amarone was a wine. There are also less sensational mentions of Amarone in fiction, such as its appearance in Maggie Gee’s Christopher and Alexandra (1992). For connoisseurs of Amarone, there are tours of the Veneto involving visiting the wine estate of Serego Alighieri. Critics state that Amarone complements mature sheep’s or cow’s milk cheeses, such as parmesan. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Europe, Southern; Italy; Wines, Red.
Literary References to Amarone Some of the early producers of Amarone include well-known houses such as Allegrini, Bertani, Bolla, and Santa Sofia. In at least one case, a
Further Readings Gee, Maggie. Christopher and Alexandra. New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1992.
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Harris, Thomas. The Silence of the Lambs. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988. McInerney, Jay. A Hedonist in the Cellar: Adventures in Wine. New York: A. A. Knopf, 2006. Morganti, Paolo and Sandro Sangiorgi. Der Amarone della Valpolicella. Verona, Italy: Morganti, 2003. Singleton, Kate. Amarone: The Making of An Italian Wine Phenomenon. San Francisco: Wine Appreciation Guild, 2012.
American Association for the Study and Cure of Inebriety The American Association for the Study and Cure of Inebriety (AASCI) was a relatively short-lived (1870–1919) but landmark scientific foundation established in the late 19th century specifically to provide a forum where professionals in the field of addiction treatment could discuss alcohol and drug addiction in the light of revolutionary advances in medicine. In contesting nearly 200 years of American public opinion and medical consensus that viewed such addictions as moral failings, vices, and even sins, the AASCI promoted the study of addiction as a medical condition, one influenced by lifestyle, certainly, but also partially determined by heredity. That perception of alcoholism was radical for the time, and the association briefly prospered. It was modeled on a number of quixotic scientific associations and reformation leagues of the time that were dedicated to a variety of disciplines from biology to evolution, from geology to astronomy, which each expressed a fin de siècle fervent faith in science as a means to improve life, explain the cosmos, and even alleviate entrenched social problems. Belief in Addiction as a Medical Condition The promotion of addiction as a medical condition, although radical at the time, actually drew on arguments made nearly a half century earlier, most prominently by Benjamin Rush, the Philadelphia-born medical doctor (and a signer of the Declaration of Independence). Rush’s fierce and very public advocacy in the promise of science to
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organize and understand the universe prompted him to theorize that all illnesses, among them alcohol addiction, were the result of imbalances in the body, specifically the brain, and that physicians and researchers, with patience and dedication to the work of scientific investigation, might someday structure cures for virtually every malady and condition. The doctor himself was not interested in pursuing the actual research, but his vision electrified colonial America. It was the kind of heady optimism typical of the waning years of the Enlightenment. More crucial, he pushed for better, more humane treatment of alcoholics, who were then housed in neglected wings of hospitals, incarcerated in public jails, or exiled and promptly forgotten in often-barbaric asylums designed to contain and control the insane (indeed, Dr. Rush was among the earliest advocates of improving the treatment of the mentally ill as well). The AASCI’s belief that alcoholism required medical treatment and that alcoholics themselves were best seen as victims of a disease rather than morally culpable weaklings bent on self-destructive excess or on decidedly public displays of antisocial behavior resonated in the nearly two-century-long cultural debate that America itself had engaged in trying to come to terms with alcohol consumption. In 1870, at the peak of America’s infatuation with reforms, science, and the promise of the scientific method, Joseph Parrish, a Philadelphia-born physician with a long and distinguished record of public service and a special interest in reforming treatment of the insane, proposed a charter for a society specifically designed to study alcoholism as a disease. In conceiving alcohol abuse as a treatable condition rather than a vice, Parrish introduced a new dimension into that long debate. At the time, Dr. Parrish served as the director of the Pennsylvania Inebriate Asylum just outside Philadelphia. Founding of the Association Parrish went on to charter AASCI, which he saw first and foremost as a forum for exchanging enlightened views on treatment options among asylum directors, staff, and doctors. He envisioned the association as a place to begin the appropriate scientific work of gathering research data on alcoholics and drug addicts as a way to start endorsing treatment regimens.
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Without a doubt, the association argued, abstinence from alcohol was the most secure treatment for those suffering from addiction. For them, alcohol was tantamount to poison. But the association emphasized tolerance of the victim, urging that drunkenness (or inebriety—their preferred medical term coined less than a century earlier that avoided moral, religious, and ethical judgements) constituted a social problem, certainly, but foremost was a disease and, thus, by definition, curable. In its charter, the association spoke of its responsibility to encourage the exchange of information but as well to take a vigorous public role in promoting legislation to establish hospitals designed specifically to treat inebriety. In addition, the association’s founders saw it as their duty to provide a print archive of the groundbreaking research in the field as well as treatises that addressed the difficult (and divisive) dilemma over the appropriate perception of alcoholism. The society founded the Quarterly Journal of Inebriety in 1876, and over the next three decades (it ceased official publication in 1914), it would publish more than 2,000 empirical articles that represent, even today, an invaluable trove of research data on the first generation of doctors interested in observing and treating, rather than confining or condemning, addicts. More than its actual organization, the AASCI is perhaps historically important for the journal. The journal rigorously screened submissions (it was, in its way, among the first referred medical journals in America) to weed out lengthy advertisements for particular facilities masquerading as research articles or self-serving promotional materials for individual doctors seeking to cash in on the public interest in addiction treatment (much like contemporary diet fads or quit smoking programs). In place of these submissions, it shamelessly extolled its own often-eccentric treatments (some, for instance, involving consuming large quantities of grapefruit juice, another advocating electric shocks). Because of its approach, the journal has become an important resource tool for historians interested in tracing the American cultural movement toward prohibition. Division Within the Association The association, however, faced an internal crisis almost from its inception: Its members were
divided on whether to define alcoholism as a disease. Indeed, newspaper reports from the era describe often-vociferous exchanges in public halls at what were promoted as polite debates on the merits of alcohol treatment. After all, many queried, What exactly is a disease? Should the lapse in judgment associated with the occasional binge drinking, clearly a departure from the person’s normal behavior, be considered a disease? Is it not more like a head cold or a migraine—a passing bodily failing that could be treated easily? And the chronic inebriates, are they not weak in character rather than in physical constitution? Is not the abuse of alcohol more a reflection of complex layerings of psychological experiences and traumas that created the craving for the easy escape of alcohol abuse? Is it not possible, some argued, taking their cue from groundbreaking work in both evolution theory and the burgeoning field of genetics, that alcoholism is inherited like, say, baldness or color blindness and hence a hereditary failing but hardly a disease? In any case, members of the association argued in passionate treatises published across the association’s first decade that redefining alcoholism as a disease simply flew in the face of commonsense. More critical to the association’s debate, however, was the traditional conservative reading of alcoholism as a devastating character flaw. Further dividing the association was its ongoing determination to classify alcoholics, a premise well in line with traditional scientific methodology but one that created a hierarchy of alcoholics that can appear to the contemporary mind as elitist and undeniably biased. The argument for classification, drawn from a number of treatises published in the association’s journal in the early 1890s, suggested that alcoholics might best be divided into two broad groups based on economic class: the “curables,” which consisted of professionals, such as lawyers, doctors, politicians, and businesspersons who were able to afford (and benefit from) private hospitalization and specific regimens, and the so-called “less curables,” which included the uneducated poor and the unskilled workers whose treatments could best be dispensed in the often-bleak conditions of public hospitals. The idea, so the argument ran, was that society had a vested interest in promoting the treatment of those in a position to direct its operations, the
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men (the studies largely ignored women) with demonstrably strong character in virtually every aspect of their lives save alcohol consumption, while it suggested that in essence society was best to cut its losses with the lower class inebriates. Further underscoring the divisive nature of the debate on alcohol addiction treatment, the association continued to publish articles that advocated traditional conservative methods for treating addicts, including spiritual counseling, moral revitalization, and religious awakening. It prescribed not medical regimens but rather inspirational testimonials and fire-and-brimstone sermons as treatment options. In short, the AASCI provided a robust forum for the very public debate over the definition and treatment of alcoholism, a subject that a scant generation earlier had been deemed socially inappropriate and had marginalized the alcoholics themselves as a social problem without a clear solution. The impact had been immediate. At the time that Parrish chartered the association, there were six hospitals in the country devoted to inebriety. Within a generation, that number had soared to 32, which is testimony to the impact that these doctors, hospital administrators, and researchers had on the treatment (and public perception) of alcoholics. But that perception just as rapidly changed. Medical progress, scientific observation, and the development of appropriate treatment methodologies take time. After the turn of the century, provoked by the apparently glacial pace of medical treatment for addicts, and prompted by a growing chorus of radical temperance advocates who returned the public debate over alcoholism to moral and religious dimensions, public outcry against the problem of excessive drinking began to call for nothing less than the complete ban of all liquor. These opponents saw in such simplification a quick and absolute solution to the problem. Of course, because calling for a prohibition of alcoholic consumption ignored the growing body of data that suggested alcohol addiction was a disease rather than a vice and ignored the appropriate place of limited alcohol consumption in the daily routines of Americans, by modern standards this growing chorus of prohibition advocates would be considered uninformed and shallow. But by the end of the first decade of the new century, this movement had the hearts
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and minds of much of America—and, in turn, membership in the AASCI began to drop rapidly. Those who defended alcoholism as an illness were seen as soft-hearted, idealistic, and dangerously disconnected from real problems, and their elaborate medical treatments were dismissed as coddling the reprobates and, far more damning, as simply ineffective. Public sentiment turned decidedly toward quick fixes. By 1914, the association was for all intents and purposes defunct although chartered chapters continued to meet in and around the New York City and Boston areas up until the passage of the Volstead Act in 1919. Despite its short life, the AASCI holds a privileged position in the history of addiction recovery treatment in America. If the Alcoholics Anonymous movement that would flourish between the wars can be seen as a gentler, more compassionate version of the temperance movement, with its emphasis on absolute abstinence and its stress on the moral, spiritual, and religious recovery of the addict, the AASCI, with its sweeping emphasis on medical treatments and its faith in the long-term supervised recovery of the addict, was instrumental in guiding the mission and vision of landmark treatment facilities in post–World War II, most notably the Hazelden Foundation in Minnesota and the Betty Ford Clinic in California. Joseph Dewey Broward College See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Alcoholism Treatment, Sociology of; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 19th Century; Rush, Benjamin. Further Readings Acker, Caroline Jean, and Sarah W. Tracy. Altering American Consciousness: The History of Alcoholism and Drug Use in the United States, 1800–2000. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004. American Association for the Study and Cure of Inebriety. The Disease of Inebriety [1893]. Forgotten Books, 2012. American Association for the Study and Cure of Inebriety. Quarterly Journal of Inebriety (1876).
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Blumberg, Leonard. “The American Association for the Study and Cure of Inebriety.” Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, v.2/3 (July 1978). Tracy, Sarah W. Alcoholism in America: From Reconstruction to Prohibition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. Weiner, Barbar and William White. “The Journal of Inebriety (1876–1914): History, Topical, Analysis, and Photographic Images.” Addiction, v.102 (2007).
American Council on Alcohol Problems The American Council on Alcohol Problems (ACAP) is a national organization with branches in 37 of the 50 states. In contemporary terms, ACAP focuses on reducing the number of alcohol advertisements available within the United States, decreasing the availability of alcohol and alcoholrelated products, and encouraging Americans to reduce alcohol consumption. The American Council on Alcohol Problems began as the AntiSaloon League (ASL), a federation of temperance organizations, in 1895 as the prohibition movement rapidly gained momentum in the United States and Europe. While the chief focus of the group never wavered from banning alcohol, which was blamed for spousal abuse, child abuse, prostitution, and unemployment, some ASL members also tried to ban smoking, shut down dance halls, outlaw syncopated music, and control the length of women’s skirts. The organization continued as the Anti-Saloon League until 1948, when it became the National Temperance League. With ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment in 1933, the focus of the group shifted to limiting the availability of alcohol and protecting young adults from the perceived evils of alcohol. Changing the name to the American Council on Alcohol Problems in 1965 reflected the group’s contemporary emphasis on dealing with the impact of alcohol problems and abuses. Throughout most of its history, the American Council on Alcohol Problems was known as the
Anti-Saloon League. The ASL has been compared to the Moral Majority, which attempted to force its own views on morals and politics on American society in the final decades of the 20th century. Operating in a different era, the Moral Majority attempted to attract converts on religious, moral, and political grounds. However, when other means failed, the ASL was willing to use strong-arm tactics. The ASL was so successful in exerting political pressure that it reshaped the culture of the United States to reflect the view that alcohol was responsible for most, if not all, the degradation present in America. As the first political lobbying group in the United States, the ASL paved the way for others who learned from their tactics. The roots of the ASL lay in Ohio, where the Ohio Anti-Saloon League had been established in Oberlin in 1893. The majority of the members of this group were evangelical Christians who were convinced that alcohol was the cause of everything from church absenteeism to murder. The first leader of the group was James Cannon, Jr., a Methodist bishop. In trying to ban alcohol consumption, the group was forced to fight an uphill battle, because alcohol was an integral part of daily life for many Americans. Furthermore, many taverns and saloons were closely tied to political machines such as Tammany Hall in New York City, where 15,000 saloons were open for daily business. National Temperance League The Anti-Saloon League had suffered a major defeat with the repeal of the Prohibition Amendment in 1933. By 1948, it had become necessary for the Anti-Saloon League to join forces with other temperance groups. The new organization was called the National Temperance League (NTL), and it maintained headquarters in both Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Bishop Ralph S. Cushman, who had been president of the ASL for the past decade, and George W. Crabbe, the general superintendent, both resigned to make way for new leaders. Younger members convinced the group’s leaders that becoming the National Temperance League would improve the reputation of the group and make it more effective. On November 22, 1950, Dr. Robert C. Lee, a Memphis pastor, was elected its first president.
In the 1950s, the NTL turned its attention to limiting alcohol advertising on television and to restricting access to alcohol on military bases. Beer and wine were being advertised at the time on broadcast television, but manufacturers of hard liquor had instituted a voluntary ban on television advertising in 1948, when television was still a novelty in American homes. The NTL was accused of trying to close down all liquor stores on military bases, but the group denied those charges. At the time, the only alcohol that was available on military bases outside those establishments was from privately owned bottles. On September 4, 1953, the U.S. military overrode the NTL’s objections and liberalized its alcohol policies, allowing military personnel over the age of 21 to buy alcohol by drink and by bottle. The NTL had little to show for its efforts during the 1940s or the 1950s, but the group remained committed to preventing the abuse of alcohol and to mitigating the negative impact of that abuse on American families. Contemporary Focus In 1964, the NTL changed its name to the American Council on Alcohol Problems. In 1996, ACAP became engaged in a new battle over the issue of advertising alcohol on television. In the spring and summer of 1996, Seagram’s broke the decadesold voluntary ban on advertising hard liquor on television and began running an ad on a local sports cable channel in Corpus Christi, Texas. Despite several years of congressional hearings and concentrated efforts by ACAP and other temperance groups, alcohol advertising on television continued. In December 2001, NBC announced that it had signed a contract with Guinness UDV, the producers of Tanqueray gin, Johnnie Walker scotch, Smirnoff vodka, and Smirnoff Ice, to advertise on the NBC network. The only concessions to ACAP’s concerns were efforts to limit advertising impacts on younger viewers. ACAP also became involved when fast food restaurants began selling beer. Burger King announced that it was selling beer in its Whopper Bar in Miami, Las Vegas, and Kansas City. In 2009, the Sonic chain also began selling beer at its Miami and Fort Lauderdale locations. Another campaign involved an attempt to have alcopops taken off the market. Alcopops are alcoholic
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products (3.2 percent alcohol by volume) that are designed to appeal to teenagers. They look like soft drinks, lemonade, or fruit punch. In a 2001 poll conducted by the Alcohol Policies Project, it was revealed that 41 percent of 14- to 16-yearolds had tried alcopops. In the 21st century, the American Council on Alcohol Problems works closely with George Hacker’s Alcohol Policies Project of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Other affiliates are mostly religious groups. Those affiliates include ALCAP, an Alabama-based interdenominational ministry group; American Character Builders; Arkansas Faith and Ethics Council; Christian Action Commission; Christian Action League of North Carolina; Florida Baptist Convention; and the Freeway Foundation. Working with groups that are opposed to alcohol consumption, drug awareness groups, and other temperance groups, the American Council on Alcohol Problems continues to endeavor to make the public aware that alcohol abuse is a major problem for the individuals involved, their families and friends, and society as a whole. Actions designed to combat alcohol and drug abuse continue to focus on monitoring all aspects of the use and control of alcohol and drugs in contemporary society. Significant efforts are being dedicated to helping young people avoid abuse of drugs and alcohol. At the national level and in individual states, ACAP groups have been engaged in lobbying for laws that control access to alcohol and drugs. Specific activities have been concerned with raising the legal drinking age back to 21 (it was reduced to 18 during the Vietnam era); ensuring that all alcoholic beverages carry labels that warn of the dangers associated with consumption; raising federal excise taxes on alcohol to make the cost of drinking less affordable, particularly for young people; and banning smoking on airplanes. Working on the assumption that glamorous print advertising and television commercials encourage people to drink, the ACAP has worked for strict control of alcohol advertising by attempting to remove all alcohol advertising from the airwaves. The group also wants any advertising and promotions that do appear to be accompanied by warning labels. Other efforts
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have been concerned with reducing the acceptable blood alcohol concentration (BAC) used to determine whether drivers are under the influence to be reduced from 0.8 percent to 0.4 percent in all states. The ACAP insists that the BAC for drivers under the age of 21 should be 0.00 percent throughout the United States. Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar See Also: Anti-Saloon League; Eighteenth Amendment; Prohibition Party; Temperance Movements; Twenty-First Amendment; Volstead Act; Willard, Frances; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Further Readings Alcohol Policies Project. “Chronology of Broadcast Liquor Advertising.” http://www.cspinet.org/ booze/liquor_chronology.htm (Accessed November 2013). American Council on Alcohol Problems. http:// sapacap.com/ (Accessed November 2013). Blocker, Jack S. Retreat From Reform: The Prohibition Movement in the United States, 1890–1913. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1976. Cherrington, Ernest Hurst, ed. The Anti-Saloon League Year Book: An Encyclopedia of Facts and Figures Dealing With the Liquor Traffic and the Temperance Reform. Columbus, OH: Anti-Saloon League of America, 1909. Farbay, Harvey Graeme. “The Anti-Saloon League.” The North American Review, v.197/562 (September 1903). Herzberg, Joseph G. “When Nation Went Dry and Took to Drink.” New York Times (October 27, 1969). Jackson, J. C. “The Work of the Anti-Saloon League.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, v.32 (November 1908). Kerr, K. Austin. Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985. Musto, David F., ed. Drugs in America: A Documentary History. New York: New York University Press, 2002. Odegard, Peter H. Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League. New York: Octagon Books, 1966.
Okrent, Daniel. “Wayne B. Wheeler: The Man Who Turned off the Taps.” Smithsonian Magazine (May 2010). Pegram, Thoma R. Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800–1933. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1998.
American Council on Alcoholism A nonprofit organization in Phoenix, Arizona, the American Council on Alcoholism aims to educate people about the dangers of alcohol abuse and to guide sufferers to affordable medical treatment. The organization does not appear to be prominent in the field of alcohol education and treatment. It has an annual budget of roughly $20,000, though it does fund research on alcoholism. Its Web site is virtually the only source of information about the organization. Scholars appear not to have studied the agency in detail. The American Council on Alcoholism offers a lucid definition of alcoholism, strategies for treatment, online tests to determine whether one drinks too much alcohol, and summaries of when one should and should not consume alcohol. Core Ideas The American Council on Alcoholism emphasizes that alcohol abuse is the leading drug addiction in the United States. The organization estimates that more than 10 million people (presumably in the United States) are addicted to alcohol. The council addresses a range of issues, including heredity and alcoholism, abstinence, the effects of alcohol on children who do not drink but whose parent or parents do, sobriety, the Twelve-Step program, the role of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the effects of alcohol on families. The council sells clothing and jewelry designed in the Twelve-Step theme to generate some of its revenues. A semisecretive organization, the American Council on Alcoholism is not especially transparent. One is not able to learn how the council raises or spends most of its money, though a portion does go to fund research on alcohol abuse.
The American Council on Alcoholism looks to religion for aid. The council stresses the importance of having a personal relationship with God and a reliance on this relationship to fend off the temptation to drink. The personal relationship with God appears in this instance to be equivalent to a personal relationship with Jesus. There may be a strain of Christian fundamentalism in these beliefs and in the need for a personal relationship with God. This approach may be effective; if one can place one’s abuse of alcohol outside oneself, the problem may be more easily approached. Alcoholics Anonymous appears to be the template upon which these beliefs are constructed. Yet, the American Council on Alcoholism cautions that alcohol is easy to misuse. In an attempt to appeal directly to the alcohol user, the council notes that one should not drink alcohol to escape tensions or anxiety or to block unpleasant feelings and doubts. This is pure escapism and has never been a successful coping mechanism. One should not rely on alcohol as the universal social lubricant in making a person feel more at ease among others. A person who needs a drink to approach a member of the opposite sex, as is often the case in bars, is misusing alcohol, notes the council. One should not use alcohol as a substitute for real relationships with others, as this behavior might have much to do with the disintegration of marriages. One should not rely on alcohol to give him or herself false courage in the face of crisis, which alcohol will only serve to worsen. Signs of Alcoholism The American Council on Alcoholism lists the signs that a person may be an alcoholic as follows: The alcoholic increases his or her consumption of alcohol and the frequency of drunkenness over time. The alcoholic thinks of little else than alcohol; this preoccupation comes at the expense of one’s relationships and finances. The alcoholic pledges to quit drinking but backslides at the first opportunity. An alcoholic always senses a new occasion for consuming alcohol. The alcoholic experiences episodes of not remembering his or her words or actions, which is known as a “blackout.” The alcoholic becomes tense and irritable and experiences mood swings. The alcoholic’s personality deteriorates, as was true of the male
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characters in American dramatist and Nobel laureate Eugene O’Neill’s masterpiece Long Day’s Journey into Night. O’Neill himself had once been dependent on alcohol. The alcoholic hides alcohol in the hope that no one will know how much he or she drinks. The alcoholic makes excuses for his or her mounting consumption. The alcoholic drinks alone, again as a method of concealment, or before a party or social gathering. He or she then drinks more at the party or gathering. The alcoholic refuses to admit the possibility that he or she might have a problem with alcohol. The alcoholic’s performance at school or work degenerates and conflicts with colleagues or students mount. The alcoholic is often absent or tardy and must change jobs frequently to avoid being fired or as a result of having been fired. The alcoholic loses interest in hygiene and grooming and is often in poor health. He or she drives drunk and commits other violations with alcohol, amassing a criminal record. The alcoholic’s marriage and finances deteriorate as he or she spends time and money on alcohol rather than on his or her spouse and expenses. Hangovers are a persistent state of affairs for the alcoholic. The council enumerates many of the difficulties that plague the alcohol abuser. The American Council on Alcoholism notes the rise of alcoholism among women, teens, and even children as young as age 10. The council also has witnessed a spike in drinking among Americans over age 60. The council advocates the role of family and friends in getting alcoholics to admit they have a problem and to seek treatment. The council affirms that alcoholism has no cure but can nonetheless be treated. The organization offers an online test to determine whether one drinks too much alcohol. The organization also offers testimonials from recovering alcoholics and posts the latest news on alcoholism and illicit drugs. In this regard, the council takes on drug abuse as well as alcohol abuse. Council-Sponsored Research The American Council on Alcoholism has sponsored a diversity of research. For example, it has sought to come up with a comprehensive definition of alcoholism, arriving at the idea that it is a chronic disease with genetic, psychosocial, and
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environmental elements. The disease, the council maintains, often has fatal consequences because of its addictive nature and the absence of a cure. Alcoholism impairs one’s judgment, causes alcohol to preoccupy one, causes one to consume too much alcohol even when he or she knows that such behavior is harmful, distorts cognition, and causes one to deny that alcohol is a problem. A second study led the American Council on Alcoholism to publish a 2005 book by researcher Percy Menzies titled Why Is Recovery From Alcoholism So Difficult? And Is There Hope for Successful Treatment? Menzies also distilled this book into a Web site article. His thesis is that alcoholism and the destruction it brings are among the most serious public health crises in the United States. The author wonders why modern medicine has had only limited success in treating alcoholism, a disease that costs the United States more than $100 billion per year in lost productivity. Government and private philanthropy invest millions of dollars on research into the causes and consequences of alcohol consumption, yet it is not always easy to see what progress this money has generated. Menzies takes a biological approach to alcoholism, which he defines as a distortion of the pleasure center of the brain. This center is important for survival. Without the pleasure center, humans would have no incentive to find water, food, shelter, or to engage in sex. Ceasing to reproduce, humans would have become extinct many millennia ago. The body, specifically the brain, thus has mechanisms to satisfy the instinct to seek pleasure. The brain releases neurotransmitters that heighten and sometimes anticipate pleasure. Alcohol stimulates the brain to produce some neurotransmitters while depressing others. In this case, the brain seeks alcohol to intensify pleasure and thinks that if a little is good, a lot must be better. This is the voice of instinct rather than logic. About 10 to 15 percent of people experience alcohol in this fashion and so are predisposed to develop alcoholism. Yet, one must note that predisposition is not destiny. Not all people who derive intense pleasure from alcohol become alcoholics. Other factors, including depression and other mental illnesses and stress, may also predispose one to inordinate consumption of alcohol. Worse, neurotransmitters that
were once stimulated by moderate consumption need more alcohol over time to achieve the same effect; that is, the magnitude of consumption must increase to meet the threshold of the pleasure center. Thus, alcoholism causes a progressive deterioration of neurological functions. Alcohol distorts memory, emotions, and motivation and can override the normal impulse toward seeking water, food, shelter, and sex. An alcoholic, in seeking the pleasure of alcohol, ends up neglecting the true necessities of life. Menzies worries that the alcoholic who seeks treatment may fall prey to misinformation. He blames American society for having so little compassion for alcoholics, suggesting that Americans tend to blame the victims for their own misery. This attitude leaves unclear whether alcoholism is a disease, a crime, or a vice. Moralists want to fault the individual. Although most medical practitioners agree that alcoholism is a chronic disease, too many addicts rely on episodic treatment or, worse, folk traditions. The alcoholic may be unaware of the state of medicine and its sometime successes in treating alcoholism, though Menzies admits that it is a difficult disease to treat, with a high failure rate. The desire for alcohol, even after successful treatments, will likely remain with an alcoholic for his or her entire life. In this sense, the American Council on Alcoholism may be right to insist that no cure exists for alcoholism. In the absence of a cure, one must struggle with the issue of control and craving. Sights and smells may trigger the memory to recall episodes of consumption, which may lead to fresh bouts of drinking, making alcoholism that much more difficult to treat. Because of the neurological nature of cravings for alcohol, a physician may treat an alcoholic with medicine. At the moment, the drug naltrexone is the therapy of choice, but this drug alone may be an inadequate response. Behavioral therapy may also be necessary to try to rid a person of the habits that precipitate alcohol use. In this context, individual or group counseling may be valuable. A goal of medicine is to reduce the stigma of alcoholism so that more addicts seek treatment. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar
See Also: Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture. Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs. Further Readings American Council on Alcoholism. http://www.aca -usa.com (Accessed February 2014). Menzies, Percy. Why Is Recovery From Alcoholism So Difficult? And Is There Hope for Successful Treatment? Phoenix, AZ: American Council on Alcoholism, 2005. Recovery.org. “About the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) 12-Step Recovery Program.” http://www .recovery.org/aa/misc/oxford.html (Accessed March 2014).
American Medical Association For as long as alcohol has been distilled, distributed, and consumed, the medical profession, like society in general, has struggled to understand the dynamic of alcohol abuse. Physicians and reformers have wrestled with how to categorize and understand the chronic overindulgence of alcohol. Is it a conscious choice and thus a moral failure or a psychological malfunction? Does persistent drunkenness demonstrate a significant lack of will power or an unwillingness to face the often difficult realities of life without the protective haze of alcohol? Does frequent inebriation constitute immorality or even a sin in which the drunkard willfully polluted the temple of the body? Was the overindulgence of alcohol a symptom of a medical disorder, a disease, like epilepsy or cancer, in which the drinker is more a victim than an offender? Is alcoholism the manifestation of a brain dysfunction triggered as much by environmental factors as by heredity, one that requires treatment and medical care? If a disease, is it ultimately incurable, only manageable? Essentially, all these questions ask whether alcoholism is a choice or a disease. In 1944, at the height of World War II, when both soldiers and their families faced increased evidence of alcohol abuse, the U.S. Public Health
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Service called alcohol abuse the fourth most pressing health problem facing America, behind cancer, heart disease, and influenza/pneumonia. But getting the medical community to accept alcohol abuse as a bona fide disease would take far more work. Reliable data, of course, was difficult to obtain, as drinking still carried with it a social stigma and participants in surveys were notoriously unwilling to admit alcohol intake and drinking habits. Although more than 40 percent of American adults drink regularly without incident, data indicate that 14 million Americans over 18 can be categorized as alcohol-dependent (about 7 percent of the adult population). Because dependency is reflected in poor school and/or job performance and domestic traumas, criminal behavior, and dire financial difficulties, and it plays a major role in traffic fatalities, defining alcoholism is not simply a matter of semantics. In 1956, under considerable public pressure, particularly from veterans’ organizations distressed that their members could not procure treatment for alcohol problems, the American Medical Association (AMA) officially designated alcohol dependency as a chronic and progressive disease. According to the AMA, alcoholism satisfied the five criteria traditionally applied to a disease: (1) alcohol dependency followed a pattern of symptoms, including uncontrollable craving, the inability to stop, and the inevitable onset of withdrawal anxieties; (2) alcohol dependency represented a chronic problem, with symptoms that returned and persisted throughout the drinker’s life; (3) alcohol dependency followed a fairly predictable progression without treatment; (4) alcohol dependency, like cancer, could return even after long periods of abstinence or treatment, the patient suffering the equivalent of a relapse; and (5) with appropriate medical attention, alcohol dependency, like pneumonia or even cancer, could be treated, not cured, but maintained, giving the patient a chance to reestablish his/her community identity and manage to live a relatively normal life. For the AMA, the bottom line was simple: although alcoholism resisted patterns of traditional illnesses, it was steady, subtle, but chronic and progressive, and if left untreated, deadly. The AMA pronouncement evoked much debate. Although several major health care organizations—including the American Psychiatric
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Association, the American Hospital Association, the National Organization of Healthcare Workers, the American Public Health Association, the American College of Physicians, the National Association of Social Workers, and the Organization of Clinicians and Emergency Room Workers—followed the AMA’s lead and designated alcoholism and alcohol dependency as a disease, the debate grew. In 1970, the Comprehensive Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Prevention, Treatment, and Rehabilitation Act made the designation of alcoholism as a disease federal law and outlawed job discrimination based on poor work performance directly related to alcohol abuse. Indeed, there followed in the wake of that legislation a decade of developing hundreds of rehabilitation programs, recovery centers, and outpatient programs for alcohol treatment, wresting alcoholics and their often violent and/or dangerous behaviors from the purview of the criminal justice system. After all, proponents of regarding alcoholism as a disease argued, alcoholics cannot be held responsible for, say, the damage done in a traffic accident any more than an epileptic can be held responsible for damage done during a grand mal seizure or damage done when a heart disease patient faints while driving. More than 50 years later, in 2008, the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) concurred with the AMA pronouncement, declaring alcohol addiction—like drug, nicotine, and gambling addictions—a chronic disease of the brain, rooted in genetics. Alcoholism, the ASAM held, disrupted the normative links of behavior and reward and the reliable logic of motivation and memory. It endorsed, as had the AMA in the 1950s, rehabilitation, medical treatment, physician care, and hospitalization, rather than social ostracism and/or arrest and imprisonment. In addition, copious data showed that, like cancer or strokes or diabetes, alcoholism impacted men and women, rich and poor, all ethnicities, and virtually all ages. The ASAM pronouncement proved just as controversial as the AMA’s earlier statement. Echoing the AMA, the ASAM argued alcoholics could not, indeed should not, be treated any differently from patients with chronic, progressive, and essentially incurable diseases such as stage 4 cancers or terminal heart disease. In the aftermath of both the AMA pronouncement and the
ASAM declaration, researchers found that terming alcoholism as a brain disorder did not alter the social perception of alcohol dependents: the designation as brain disease gave the public the idea that alcohol dependency was an intractable mental disorder with the potential for uncontrollable behavior. Later Research Since the AMA’s first pronouncement, much research has examined alcoholism as a disease. Across the nearly half century since the pronouncement, surveys of physicians have consistently indicated that more than a third of them see alcohol abuse as a personal weakness, not a disease. Dependency on alcohol, many physicians still believe, is a preference for those whose psychological profile resists accepting difficult realities, or a reflection of boredom, low self-esteem, and/or loneliness. Doctors prefer to see alcoholism within its socioeconomic context and place far more burden on psychological dysfunction than on the physiological pathologies. The analogy they draw is simple: smoking is not a disease, lung cancer is the disease; drinking is not the disease, cirrhosis is the disease. Excessive drinking, they maintain, constitutes a failure of will power, impulse control, and individual responsibility. The problem with defining alcoholism as a disease, researchers have argued, is the abundant evidence that while the addiction to alcohol is chronic, the pattern of behavior is patently and demonstrably not chronic. Diagnosed alcoholics sometimes can control their drinking, many (in some studies as many as three-fourths) even without treatment, self-help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous, or any regimen of medication or medically based rehabilitation. If data indicate so clearly that alcohol dependency can be controlled, even contained by the exertion of choice, how can it justifiably be defined as a disease? Cancer patients cannot will themselves to health, nor can sufferers from heart disease or diabetes simply decide to alleviate their symptoms. Indeed, given that alcoholics’ self-help groups emphasize spiritual guidance, personal resilience, and social support rather than medical intervention, how does the designation of disease fit? If reliance on the fellowship of other alcoholics or the spiritual guidance of a clergyman or
counselor constitutes an effective “treatment” for alcohol abuse, how does it qualify as a disease? Data indicate that certain categories of people— the better educated, those from stable families, those whose occupation did not involve high-risk decisions or high pressure—do not conform to any larger pattern of alcohol abuse. Did they not simply have the circumstances to better control their will power? Further Criticism At the center of the controversy over the AMA’s designation is the growing evidence that a significant percentage of diagnosed alcoholics have managed to curb, even contain, the “disease” with little, and in some cases no, outside assistance, medical attention, or group therapy. The AMA landmark designation of alcoholism as a disease has been seen in retrospect by its critics as more a boon for treatment providers, as often expensive rehabilitation and long-term, ongoing rehabilitation regimens now fall under most insurance coverage. Critics say, the designation represents a virtually unrestricted moneymaker for rehabilitation clinics now funded under government programs. But a far more germane objection centers on what happens, given the AMA designation, to the concepts of moral choice and ethical culpability. If alcohol abuse is a disease, a malfunction of the brain that is hard-wired into the genetic coding of its victims, then alcohol abuse carries with it no responsibility. In a kind of unintended logic, designating the abuse as a disease might actually give the drinker a feeling of inevitability, even license to drink because, so the thinking would follow, there is nothing really to be done about it. Does the disease designation not shift the blame and responsibility for managing alcohol abuse to families, care providers, clinics, and government services? Repeated studies, in fact, have indicated that alcoholics who experience catastrophic relapses most frequently cite (on average more than a third) their helplessness because their addiction is, in fact, a disease. Indeed, many see relapse as inevitable. Blame them, the argument goes, no more than a cancer patient, apparently in remission, who discovers a reoccurrence of the malignancy. The AMA’s interest in alcoholism stems from data that suggest how widespread the problem
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has become—reliable records again and again indicate that in the United States alone, there are upwards of 10 million alcoholics. Many medical historians have suggested the 1944 pronouncement might have been motivated as much by sympathy for the alcoholics as it was grounded in hard medical data. Designating alcohol abuse as a disease, the reasoning held, might help lessen the often harsh social stigma attached to drinkers who just a generation earlier had been labeled “drunkards” and “public nuisances.” But is the uncontrollable increase in the intake of alcohol inevitable? Data conflict, and research studies reach different conclusions. But the AMA’s declaration set in motion more than a half century of investigation into the dynamics, psychological and physiological, of alcohol dependency. Joseph Dewey Broward College See Also: Disease Model of Alcoholism; Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse; Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Moderate Use; Psychological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse; Psychological Effects of Alcohol: Moderate Use. Further Readings Fingerette, Herbert. Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Hanson, David J. “Is Alcoholism a Disease?” (2013). www.postdam.edu (Accessed June 2014). Jellinek, E. M. Disease Concept of Alcoholism. Eastford, CT: Martino Fine, 2010 [1960]. Valverde, Mariana. Diseases of the Will: Alcoholism and the Dilemma of Freedom. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
American Temperance Society The American Temperance Society (ATS) was formed in 1826 in Boston, Massachusetts, by ministers Lyman Beecher and Justin Edwards. It was formed as a first-wave temperance group—the
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first to organize nationally and one of the first temperance groups to advocate complete abstinence from alcohol. American temperance societies had first been formed in the 1780s and 1790s, the decade that traditionally dates the beginning of the Second Great Awakening: a significant and nationwide revival of Protestant religious fervor that saw both a spike in church membership at traditional churches and the advent of new religious sects and movements. Several such Great Awakenings have occurred in U.S. history. The Second Great Awakening, which lasted roughly from 1790 to 1840, was preceded by the First Great Awakening in the early 18th century, and followed by the Third Great Awakening in the late 19th century. Many aspects of the Third Great Awakening were closely connected to movements and trends introduced by the Second Great Awakening, which were interrupted by the Civil War and decades of turmoil surrounding it. Temperance was one such movement. The broader trend was one in which religious groups and individuals were stirred to take action to realize social reforms, including temperance and Prohibition, abolition, women’s suffrage, public schooling, reforms of the medical and legal professions, and reforms of the nation’s approach to the poor, the elderly, and the sick. As the nationwide argument over slavery became more heated toward the end of the Second Great Awakening, abolition in some sense stole the thunder of these other causes, as slavery seemed a more urgent concern. Consequently, with the end of the Civil War and Reconstruction, those energies that had been diverted to abolitionism were returned to temperance and other causes. Of course, this describes a general trend and should not be understood to mean that all temperance activists were also abolitionists, nor vice versa. It is true, however, that both the temperance movement and abolitionism were populated in large part by activists who were motivated by religious concerns. Similarly, the overlap between temperance and abolition led to temperance’s early popularity being primarily in the northern states. Lyman Beecher Cofounder Lyman Beecher (1775–1863) was one of the important early voices in defining
the temperance position that eventually became dominant: the advocating of abstinence from all alcohol. Other positions called for limits on consumption (such as instituting minimum drinking ages, prohibiting alcohol sales on Sundays or special days like election days, or limiting alcohol sales to specific establishments) or targeted only hard liquor rather than beer and wine. Other than political parties, the American Temperance Society (ATS) was the first organization in the United States that mobilized significant support for a cause on a national level. From its first chapters in Boston and New England (Beecher was from Connecticut, home to the first temperance group) it spread throughout the country. According to records, within five years, in 1831, it had 2,220 chapters and 170,000 members; five years after that, in 1836, it had 8,000 chapters and 1.5 million members. To put that in perspective, the 1840 United States Census determined the entire population of the country to be 17.1 million people. Its geographic spread was considerable as well: by 1830 it could be considered a true national organization, represented throughout the country. The work of the ATS resulted not only in national political and social efforts toward temperance reforms but in the popularization of temperance in media, from plays to songs to books. Born months before the signing of the Declaration of Independence and passing away days after the Emancipation Proclamation was put into place, Lyman Beecher was a major figure in the Second Great Awakening. He is probably most well known as the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin was an abolitionist classic that is still read today. Beecher was born in Connecticut and raised by his uncle, for whom he worked as a blacksmith before leaving to pursue his studies. His mentor at Yale Divinity School, Timothy Dwight, was the grandson of Jonathan Edwards, the central figure of the First Great Awakening. In the early 19th century, Beecher slowly gained fame as a lecturer while working as a Congregational minister. In addition to temperance, his sermons and lectures concerned the Hamilton–Burr duel of 1806 and the specter of Unitarianism, a Second Great Awakening movement that was drawing parishioners away from the Congregationalist Church.
His temperance work began around 1814, and his sermons were published in several languages and distributed throughout the United States and Europe. He was not himself an abolitionist, though several of his children were prominent abolitionist leaders. His son, Henry Ward Beecher, not only was a well-known abolitionist clergyman but joined his father in the temperance movement, also supported women’s suffrage and tolerance of Chinese immigrants (a major issue in the late 19th century), and argued in favor of Christians’ accepting Darwin’s then-novel theory of evolution. The ATS was cofounded by Justin Edwards, a Presbyterian minister. Other prominent members included Joshua Leavitt, the first secretary of the ATS, who also cofounded the New York City Anti-Slavery Society and was a well-known abolitionist. In the early decades of the ATS, most temperance groups were still advocating moderation, abstinence from hard liquor, or legal limits on liquor consumption, but had not adopted the teetotaling stance of the ATS. That began to change in the middle of the 19th century. Other groups, not affiliated with the ATS, began shifting their focus to total abstinence, and abstinence pledges became a popular way to demonstrate one’s commitment to the temperance cause. (Some forms of these pledges allowed exceptions for specific holidays—usually the Fourth of July—and commemorative occasions such as weddings, funerals, or baptisms. Most also considered drinking communion wine an exception, though this varied by denomination and region.) In 1851, the state of Maine passed the first statewide dry law, banning the sale of all alcoholic beverages except for medicinal or industrial purposes; 11 more states passed dry laws (sometimes called “Maine laws”) in the next four years. Neal Dow, an early member of the ATS and the mayor of Portland, Maine, sponsored the law. His bid for the governorship in 1856 was damaged by the Portland Rum Riot, which began as a result of rumors that he was storing rum at city hall (a charge of which he was later acquitted). Dow later cofounded the National Temperance Society and Publishing House, which published temperance books, and ran for president on the ticket of the Prohibition Party in 1880.
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Decline The ATS was eclipsed by later groups largely because it focused primarily on encouraging individuals to embrace teetotalism—and in this respect had a lot of overlap with the Washingtonian Movement, made up largely of reformed drunkards sharing their stories and encouraging others to give up drinking—while younger groups were more politically active and concerned with bringing about legislative reforms. The Women’s Christian Temperance Movement and AntiSaloon League, in particular, proved to be the most prominent and influential groups of the second wave of the temperance movement, corresponding with the Third Great Awakening and the last decades of the 19th century. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: American Temperance Union; Beecher, Lyman; Catholic Total Abstinence Society; Temperance Movements. Further Reading: Blocker, Jack S. American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989. Young, Michael P. Bearing Witness Against Sin: The Evangelical Birth of the American Social Movement. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
American Temperance Union For American cultural historians, the 1820s represent a kind of national coming of age. Perhaps because of the decisive victory over the British in the War of 1812 coupled with the bold pronouncement of the Monroe Doctrine that established, at last, the fledgling nation-experiment as a nation; perhaps because of the coincident deaths of the last Founding Fathers, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence (July
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4, 1826); perhaps because of the great influx of European immigrants, waves of foreigners, largely from Europe, certain that the American economic experiment represented their best opportunity to realize dreams of personal success and empowerment; perhaps because the hard-earned economic security as the industrial northeast found its dynamics of production and consumption of raw materials part of a global economic network and the south, albeit because of the horrific institution of slavery, established its own international reputation for agrarian success, by the 1820s the American experiment seemed ready to enter into its own. It appeared to be time to put the house in order. Certain that the democratic political theoretical model that had seemed a risk a scant two decades earlier was both resilient and sturdy, and the basics of a free market consumerism appeared workable and profitable, there grew a significant popular interest in attending to the sociocultural life of the new republic. The country, with significant Christian roots, could no longer abide its more disreputable elements. Not since the thunder and spectacle of the First Great Awakening more than a century earlier, when eloquent preachers used visions of hellfire to whip congregations into furious bouts of repentance and resolution, had the American continent seen the sort of vigorous call for moral reform that defined the 1820s. Seemingly overnight, crusading groups and moral reformation clubs were organized, largely in the major New England cities along the Washington to Boston corridor. Little of this fervent reform activism emerged south of the Mason and Dixon Line; there reformation took a largely religious and conservative form, partly because many southerners suspected that northern reforms were in some way linked to abolitionism. The New England groups, spearheaded most often by visionary clergy discontented with the moral condition of the new republic, targeted a wide variety of social ills, most notably the treatment of the mentally ill, the conditions of public jails, the lack of standardized expectations in public schools, the treatment of women, the rise in street crime, the woeful conditions in public hospitals, the lack of any public roadway system, the high percentage of illiteracy, the prevalence of slavery, and the extension of political rights to women. Most prominent among the social problems addressed was the
problem of public intoxication and the steady rise in alcohol consumption. Although historians record that the first grassroots temperance movements had their beginnings in the United Kingdom more than a decade before similar organizations began to appear in New York City and Boston, American temperance organizations had been part of the American experience since the first-generation English settlers arrived in Massachusetts. Devout, even fanatic Christians, they looked with admiration and thanksgiving at the gifts of God’s creation, including beer and wine, but considered the intemperate consumption of alcohol a sin, a vice, an affront to God as well as a public nuisance. This concern about excessive drinking persisted, in one way or another, for two centuries, becoming a central focus in a generation’s quixotic attempts to rid the new republic of all its vices. Alcohol, however, raised a practical question that went to the very heart of the experiment in democracy that was the United States: where does a community draw the line between the protection of free will and the American faith in the individual and the social and community problems resulting from destructive self-indulgence and lack of self-control? Increased liquor production, due to expanding amounts of surplus grain, along with the European immigration from countries like Ireland and Germany, which had rich drinking traditions, flooded both urban and rural America with hard liquor and beer. The first major temperance organization, the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance (MSSI), originated in Boston in 1813. An elitist group, the MSSI consisted of prominent Bostonians seeking to regulate the drinking of the lower orders of society. Its topdown approach and consequent lack of popular support led to its demise by the mid-1820s. Anxiety about increasing intemperance, however, did not fade along with the MSSI. By the mid-1820s the dimensions of the problem became clear to reformers: the average American male (statistics on female drinking would not be gathered for more than a decade) drank nearly seven gallons of alcohol a year, and this was before substantial modern improvements in refining and distilling. That level of consumption is more than three times the current estimates for American adults.
Moreover, Americans, urban and rural, started to drink at a young age, mostly between the ages of 13 and 15. The consequences of these patterns of consumption manifested themselves in job loss, decreased productivity, street crime, family disputes, divorce, poverty, murder, even suicide. In 1826, a group of evangelical Bostonians established the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance, better known as the American Temperance Society, to battle intemperance. The ATS took a more grassroots, national approach to spreading the temperance message, chartering local chapters across the country and supporting the temperance efforts of other societies. Though more geared toward winning popular support than those of the MSSI, ATS policies still reflected the opinions and preferences of the prominent New Englanders who provided its leadership. In particular, the emphasis on preventing intemperance rather than reforming drunkards, and of rejecting teetotalism, the condemnation of drinking any alcoholic beverages, sprang from the predilections of evangelical ministers and wealthy professionals. By the mid-1830s, new developments brought organizational changes to the ATS. At a conference in Saratoga, New York, in 1836, representatives from several state temperance societies changed the name of the organization to the American Temperance Union (ATU). The ATU would encompass the ATS membership and societies, while coordinating efforts with regional, local, and unaffiliated temperance societies. Over the next three decades, the ATU became the public voice of the temperance movement. It embraced teetotalism and later championed the crusade to prohibit entirely the manufacture and sales of all liquors, including ales and wine. During the 1840s, recognizing the broad appeal of the Washingtonians, a group of former drunkards who urged the temperate to sympathize with and help to reform the intemperate, the ATU also softened its condemnation of drinkers and welcomed the assistance and support of reformed inebriates. Initially, the ATU used public meetings and widely distributed pamphlets to warn the temperate against taking the first drink, and to call on drunkards to forswear drinking, urging that intemperance constituted a moral and ethical wrong. Ministers elaborated on such moral
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A detail from a lithograph published in 1878 in Boston, Massachusetts, as part of a Christian temperance tract. Intended to discourage the consumption of alcohol, the scenes depict a young man’s decline into heavy drinking and his early death.
suasion by excoriating drinkers from their pulpits, relying on selected Old Testament passages to exhort the congregation to abstinence. With the financial backing of wealthy New Englanders and factory owners whose worker productivity suffered from liquor abuse, the ATU began to publish a broadsheet, the Journal of the American Temperance Union, as well as the Youth’s Temperance Advocate, which incorporated more illustrations and easy-to-read captions. As time passed, the Journal published ever more caustic attacks on the production, sale, and use of liquor, the impassioned pleas of reformed drinkers, and scientific data on the medical consequences of intemperance. The increasingly vitriolic nature of the rhetoric in the Journal made it a lightning rod of public opinion as membership leadership recognized that the earnest and sincere logic of moral suasion was having only a minimal impact. The ATU’s temperance message quickly found its audience—more among the temperate than
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confirmed drunkards—but statistics indicate that by 1840 temperance societies numbered more than 8,000, with an estimated membership over a million. Given the gusto and robust rhetoric of temperance speakers, alcoholic excess became for many Americans as much of a social evil as slavery. Characterizing drinking as a sin and a social evil, the temperance movement adopted a more strident, uncompromising tone. Moderation simply did not work, and moral suasion alone did not appear to stem the tide of alcohol. Political approaches to ameliorating the liquor problem rankled some who feared governmental interference in the private life of citizens. Recourse to politics proved problematic for other reasons as well, for politicians concerned with fund-raising and reelection hesitated to alienate manufacturers, distillers, distributors, vendors, and drinkers. Localities, even states, regulated or prohibited the production and sale of alcohol, but liquor continued to be an integral part of electioneering, however much politicians might pay lip service to the ideals of the ATU. Faced with the difficulty of political action, the ATU supplemented civic advocacy with other means of swaying the public. Temperance advocates expanded their publication of tracts, periodicals, and broadsides intended for a mass audience. Using theaters, churches, and other public venues as forums for temperance crusades, the ATU combined showmanship, spectacle, and even entertainment to promote abstinence from alcohol. Temperance entertainment became a national phenomenon, attracting ultimately the attention and efforts of playwrights, actors, songwriters, lecturers, and the era’s greatest showman, P. T. Barnum, a committed temperance advocate who presented temperance dramas in his celebrated New York museum. Temperance “celebrities” emerged: John Bartholomew Gough, a failed actor, reformed drunkard, and quondam Washingtonian who in the 1840s delivered thousands of temperance lectures throughout the country. His signature style, which combined forceful personal testimony about his alcoholic sufferings with humorous anecdotes and gospel references, earned him wealth and fame as a champion of the antiliquor cause. By the 1850s, these temperance efforts had become even more sophisticated, incorporating temperance songs (with easy to sing-along choruses); melodramas that revealed the evils of
alcohol, most often on families; and always tempestuous speakers who vilified alcohol’s evils. The ATU’s effective public advocacy, wide support, and moral authority influenced politicians eager to benefit from a burgeoning mass movement. By 1850, the American Temperance Union began to have significant legislative impact, largely at the state level: in June 1851, the state of Maine passed the first of what would become 13 state acts prohibiting the manufacture and sales of liquor (although most would be repealed after the Civil War). These laws garnered significant opposition from the nascent liquor industry and from citizens concerned with state interference in matters of private morality and behavior. In addition, as America itself would discover in the 1920s, alcohol prohibition proved virtually impossible to enforce successfully. With the increasing tensions over slavery and the nation’s preoccupation with the bloody Civil War, the American Temperance Union faded from the national scene, its last board meeting occurring in 1866. By the mid-1870s it was largely defunct. Nonetheless, the ATU, and the broader antebellum temperance movement it represented, left a significant mark on the American scene. It cut alcohol use significantly, particularly among the American middle class, raised national awareness of alcohol problems, helped to convince state governments to pass prohibitory legislation, and encouraged the medical investigation of the consequences of alcohol abuse. Perhaps most importantly, it set the stage for the postbellum temperance movement and the adoption of national prohibition 50 years later. Joseph Dewey Broward College See Also: American Temperance Society; Anti-Saloon League; Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance; Moral Attitudes Toward Alcohol Consumption; Moral Suasion; Temperance Movements; Washingtonians; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Further Readings Beyer, Mark. Temperance and Prohibition: The Movement to Pass Anti-Liquor Laws in America. New York: Rosen, 2006.
Blocker, Jack S., Jr. American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989. Burns, Eric. Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2003. Tyrrell, Ian R. Sobering Up: From Temperance to Prohibition in Antebellum America, 1800–1860. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1979. Worth, Richard. Teetotalers and Saloon Smashers: The Temperance Movement and Prohibition. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow, 2009.
Amethyst Initiative The Amethyst Initiative, founded in July 2008, is an attempt to inspire college presidents to “rethink the drinking age” and its effect on campus drinking culture. Its history begins with the 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which required each state to adopt a minimum legal drinking age of 21. Prior to the act’s passage, some states allowed young people to drink at the ages of 18, 19, or 20. But the new law mandated that any state in which young people below the age of 21 purchased or publicly possessed alcoholic beverages would lose 10 percent of its federal highway funds annually. Supporters of the new law argued it would drastically reduce deaths from drunk driving, particularly young adult drunk driving near state borders. The founders of the Amethyst Initiative were not the first to question the law’s efficacy. Since 1984, many government agencies and private researchers have exerted tremendous effort in an attempt to determine whether or not the current nationally regulated drinking age of 21 had been effective in reducing youth and young adult drunk-driving offenses, as well as general youth and young adult drinking. In general, studies published from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s highlighted a new campus drinking culture in which students who were 21 or older drank on fewer days per week, and in fewer public places, than they did before the rise in the drinking age; however, the total volume of alcohol these students consumed per week remained the same.
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Using only quantitative data, the study designers depicted a new “binge-drinking” scene, characterized by a few nights of hard drinking in private places, such as dorms and campus parties. In general, studies tracking the efficacy of the 21-minimum-legal-drinking age painted a gloomy picture. Researchers consistently found that youth and young adults continued to drink the same quantity of alcohol as they did before the law was adopted. However, instead of spreading that drinking out over the course of the week, and perhaps consuming at least part of the alcohol in public places such as bars, clubs, and restaurants where help could be easily accessed if needed, young adults now drank quickly and privately in “binges.” Research on the effects of the new minimum drinking age law on alcohol-involved traffic crashes with youthful drivers was the only research to offer evidence that the law had attained positive results. Studies consistently found a postlaw reduction in alcohol-involved traffic crashes with youthful drivers. Although technically these results supported the continuation of 21 as the minimum legal drinking age as a means of saving lives, these authors were quick to note that one key reason for the decline in fatalities was the significant decrease in the number of intoxicated youth drivers, largely due to the significant shift in youth drinking location from public bar or restaurant to private dorm room, to which no driving was required. In addition to drunk driving, alcohol poisoning among young people has evoked popular concern. The number of deaths by alcohol poisoning—including alcohol poisoning as both a direct cause of death and as a contributing cause—has fluctuated between 1,300 and 1,400 persons per year since the late 1990s. A 2003 statistic noted that men accounted for 80 percent of these deaths. While few studies specifically focus on rates of alcohol poisoning, the popular press frequently covers such tragedies. For example, in November, 2004, New York Times reporter Mindy Sink covered the deaths of two students on Colorado campuses from alcohol poisoning during the fall 2004 semester. Sink focused on the increasingly common story of an 18-year-old freshman who died after a night of fraternity initiation drinking. His brothers had left him to “sleep it off,”
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and later found him dead. A similar March 2005 article by Kate Zernike highlighted the deadly “power hour” or “21 for 21” game often played on the eve of a student’s 21st birthday. The goal of this game was to down 21 shots during the first hour of turning 21. Zernike noted how often, and how quickly, this 21st birthday “game” could turn deadly. College Presidents’ Challenge to the Minimum Drinking Age In September 2004, the increasing incidence of alcohol poisoning—both fatal and near fatal— inspired John M. McCardell Jr., the immediate past president of Middlebury College in Vermont, to write an opinion piece for The New York Times titled “What Your College President Didn’t Tell You.” This article highlighted the continuing challenges for a college president created by the 21-year-old minimum drinking age. McCardell called the current drinking age mandate “bad social policy and terrible law.” He argued that since 1984, young adult drinking had become centered on college campuses, where binge drinking and other harmful drinking behaviors were difficult for college officials to appropriately address. McCardell chastised lawmakers for restricting him to proabstinence alcohol education classes rather than allowing him to offer practical classes focused on harm reduction and making safe choices. Perhaps most important, he clearly and succinctly separated the issue of the 21-mininum-legal-drinking age from the parallel issue of drunk driving. McCardell explained that he was a charter member of Presidents Against Drunk Driving, but legal drinking age “had nothing to do with drunken driving.” Rather, it was a legal barrier to effective education and responsibility training on campuses and, indirectly, a key cause of growing campus binge-drinking culture. In 2007, McCardell founded Choose Responsibility, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating awareness of the dangerous culture of college and young adult binge drinking. The organization pushes for a change in federal law that would allow individual states to lower the drinking age without threat of financial penalty. Choose Responsibility garnered quick national attention, most notably for its July 2008 Amethyst Initiative.
The movement’s founders chose the amethyst as the inspiration for their organization because, according to Greek legend, “the purple gemstone amethyst was widely believed to be an antidote to the negative effects of intoxication.” The Amethyst Initiative’s motto is “Rethinking the Drinking Age.” It claims to “support informed and unimpeded debate on the 21 year-old drinking age,” and to “call upon elected officials to weigh all the consequences of current alcohol policies.” Furthermore, it aims to better prepare young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol use and to take personal responsibility for their actions. Signed by over 100 college presidents pledging to “support an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21-year-old drinking age,” “consider whether the 10 percent highway fund ‘incentive’ encourages or inhibits that debate,” and “invite new ideas about the best ways to prepare young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol,” the Amethyst Initiative’s goals are based on inspiring renewed public debate not seen since 1984. Though it calls for debate about the legal drinking age, Choose Responsibility has already called for legislative changes that would preempt any such debate. The organization proposed to reduce the current drinking age to 18, grant 18to 21-year-old high school graduates provisional licenses to drive automobiles, and work toward “an overarching program that combines appropriate incentive and reward for responsible, lawful behavior by adolescents, and punitive measures for illegal, irresponsible behavior.” In effect, Choose Responsibility and the Amethyst Initiative emphasize a quantitative solution to a qualitative problem. Their legislative program emphasizes the use of law and the “magic number” 18 as the solution to the perils of youth drinking, as opposed to emphasizing changes to cultural norms, education, and enforcement. Additionally, its provisional licensing suggestion is not connected to any larger plan of creation, implementation, or enforcement. Choose Responsibility has put forth no plan for how to “license” those who do not graduate from high school, nor a plan for how high schools would regulate legal alcohol consumption by 18-year-old students. It has not identified a government agency to pay for this licensure system, nor outlined how this new
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system would be absorbed by an existing state agency’s budget. However, perhaps the biggest challenge facing both Choose Responsibility and the Amethyst Initiative is that they fundamentally fail to address the fact that states—regardless of the personal views of their legislators—are compelled to adopt the 21-minimum-legal-drinking age in order to access maximum available federal highway subsidies. Under the current 1984 statute, no state could lower its drinking age below 21 without losing 10 percent of its highway funding, a significant financial loss for ensuring that young people can legally drink alcohol for just a few years longer. Despite these challenges, Choose Responsibility has contributed to the creation of a new and emerging culture in which state legislatures do feel the need, if not the obligation, to question the legal drinking age. For a brief time, McCardell was successful at encouraging Americans to “rethink the drinking age.” Yet given the continued law linking receipt of federal highway funds to 21-minimum-legaldrinking age, and despite the valiant efforts of Choose Responsibility and the Amethyst Initiative, it is unlikely that any state will move to formally lower its drinking age below 21 in the near future. Joy Getnick State University of New York, Geneseo See Also: Drunk-Driving Laws; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Mothers Against Drunk Driving; Student Culture, College and University; Student Culture, High School; Students Against Destructive Decisions; United States. Further Readings Amethyst Initiative. “About.” http://www.the amethystinitiative.org/about/ (Accessed February 2014). Belluck, Pam. “Vermont Considers Lowering Drinking Age to 18.” New York Times (April 13, 2005). Choose Responsibility. “Proposal.” http://www .chooseresponsibility.org/proposal (Accessed February 2014). Hughes, Stella P. and Richard A. Dodder, “Changing the Legal Minimum Drinking Age: Results of
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a Longitudinal Study.” Journal of Studies on Alcohol, v.53/6 (November 1992). George, William H., Leif C. Crowe, David Abwender, and Jeremy B. Skinner. “Effects of Raising the Drinking Age to 21 Years in New York State on Self-Reported Consumption by College Students.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology, v.19/8 (1989). Kinzie, Susan and James Hohmann. “Lower Drinking Age Is Criticized.” Washington Post (August 21, 2008). McCardell, John M., Jr. “What Your College President Didn’t Tell You.” New York Times (September 13, 2004). Sink, Mindy. “Drinking Deaths Draw Attention to Old Campus Problem.” New York Times (November 9, 2004). Yoon, Young-Hee, Frederick S. Stinson, Hsiao-Ye Yi, and Mary C. Dufour. “Accidental Alcohol Poisoning Mortality in the United States, 1996–1998.” Alcohol Research and Health, v.40 (Winter 2003). Zernike, Kate. “A 21st-Birthday Game Can Be a Deadly Right of Passage.” New York Times (March 12, 2005).
Amstel The name Amstel is taken from the Amstel River, whose waters were exceptionally clean and suitable for use by breweries. The Amstel Brewery was founded on June 11, 1870, on the Mauritskade in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The two major figures in the brewery at its foundation were C. A. de Pesters and J. H. van Marwijk Kooy. They brought brewing experts from Bavaria to help establish the factory, which used steam power. They also decided to make two different types of beer—one marketed to “gentlemen” from the growing and increasingly affluent Dutch middle class and the other for workers. In 1872, when full-scale production of Amstel beer started, the production of the Amstel Brewery was 10,000 hectoliters of beer for the year. The beer that was not barreled and sold straight away was stored by the brewery, and it was kept refrigerated by ice from the canals. This ice was brought in during the winter and packed into specially built cellars.
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Growth of Amstel Beer The beer from the Amstel Brewery quickly became popular and it started winning a number of local awards. Up until that period, much of the beer in the Netherlands was produced by the Royal Netherlands Bavarian Beer Brewery, which had been established in 1866. Prior to that point, nearly all the beer consumed in the Netherlands had been imported, much of it from Germany and also from Belgium, which had been a part of the Netherlands until 1830. Soon Amstel was so popular that in 1883 it was also being exported to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands East Indies, where it proved to be popular with the Dutch expatriates. In 1886, Amstel had become the largest producer of lager beer in Amsterdam. To help with the expansion of the business, in 1892 the Amstel Brewery was transformed into the Beiersche Bierbrouwerij de Amstel (Amstel Bavarian beer brewery) and started to receive input from German industrialists. Disaster struck in 1902 when the brewery was burnt down in a fire. As a result, a much larger brewery was constructed. The production increased massively during World War I, and by 1926 products from the Amstel Brewery, especially their main beer Amstel, were responsible for a third of the beer exports from the Netherlands. Amstel marketed itself as the “largest exporters of Dutch Beer,” and by 1933 it was being sold in the United States of America. An advertisement for Amstel Pilsner Beer and Amstel Munich Beer in 1921 notes that the beer was so popular because it is brewed exclusively from the most exquisite Malt Scotland produces, crisp and aromatic, giving a clean, clear sparkling beer with a thick and creamy froth, while choicest hop adds flavour to a perfect drink. Fringhian held the agency for selling the beer in Constantinople, with Walker and Valois handling its sales in Cairo, the Holland-Bombay Trading Company and the Eastern Agencies for the Straits Settlements. A. Abreu & Co. were the agents in East Africa, G. H. Slot & Co. covered Penang, Brodie was the agent for Ceylon, Secler Euler & Co. represented Havana, and Tjon Akien
covered sales from Paramaribo, Suriname. In the Belgian Congo and West Africa, there were no specific agents. In 1941, during the German occupation of the Netherlands, Amstel and Heineken together bought another major brewery in Amsterdam, Van Vollenhoven’s Bierbrouwerij. This arrangement did not last and the newly purchased brewery was eventually closed down in 1961. During the 1950s, the Amstel Brewery became the first Dutch brewery to export beer in cans, and in 1961 Amstel beer was being sold in much of the United States by the Falstaff Brewing Corporation of St. Louis. Expansion Into Foreign Markets The major change in Amstel’s production came in 1954, when it expanded and established a brewery in Dutch Guiana (now Suriname). Prior to that, foreign sales had been handled by an agency house. Four years later, a subsidiary in Jordan started producing beer for the Middle Eastern market. The beer produced in Jordan—Jordan Amstel Beer—was first sold in October 1958 and was awarded the Gold Medal Highest Award in Paris in 1964 and again in 1968. It remains one of the few beers available in Jordan, where it is popular with tourists, with some exports also going to Lebanon. The subsidiary is now called Jordan Investments Co. Ltd., and since 1972 it has been involved in the sales of draft beer and also produces soft drinks. In 1960, Amstel established another subsidiary in the Caribbean, which started producing beer at the Antillian Brewery in Curaçao. This saw Amstel beer quickly dominate the Caribbean market and was marketed as the only beer to be brewed from pure distilled seawater. The demand was so great that another brewery was opened in 1963 in the Caribbean. This was located in Puerto Rico to take advantage of the low wages there and also the government incentives. Later, Amstel Bright was introduced in the Caribbean and it quickly gained much interest. Despite a long trade boycott of Cuba by the United States, Amstel was able to sell two weak ales, Cristal and Bucanero, to the country. At the same time as the expansion in the Caribbean, in 1962 Hadjivassiliou, a soft-drink bottler in Greece, approached Amstel on behalf of some
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travelogues of the period mention visits to the brewery. However, some of the technology used there was becoming antiquated and the company needed a new injection of funds. In 1968, the Amstel Brewery was bought by Heineken International, and four years later they moved the production of Amstel beer to the main Heineken plant in the Netherlands at Zoeterwoude. The old factory at Mauritskade was demolished, but the small administration building was preserved and is now a part of the Hogeschool van Amsterdam (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences). In 1981, the Amstel Brewery Canada (formerly known as the Hamilton Breweries) started operations and proved successful. Amstel Bier is now one of the five top-selling beers in the world, and it is the sponsor of the Amstel Gold Race, a cycling event through southern Netherlands, and many other community events. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School
Amstel beer packaged for the Spanish market. The brewery was founded in 1870 in Amsterdam in the Netherlands and was bought by Heineken in 1968. Today, Amstel is one of the topfive best-selling beers in the world.
Greek businessmen who felt that Amstel could open a brewery in Greece, which took place in the following year. This sought to challenge the control of the Greek market by Fix Brewery, and it was not long before Amstel bought out Fix Beer, which had started operations when King Otto of Greece (reigned 1833–62) brought a beer maker called Fuchs to the country. Although it did see off its main competition, this venture was less successful with beer consumption by Greeks being about half the average consumption in other parts of the European Union. Takeover by Heineken The brewery in Amsterdam remained a major producer of beer and during this postwar period, the Amstel Brewery encouraged tourists to visit the brewery, and a number of memoirs and
See Also: Beer; Europe, Northern; Europe, Western; Farmhouse and Belgian Ales; Netherlands. Further Readings Davidson, William Harley and José R. de la Torre. Managing the Global Corporation: Case Studies in Strategy and Management. New York: McGrawHill, 1989. Gourvish, Terry and Richard G. Wilson. The Dynamics of the Modern Brewing Industry Since 1800. London: Routledge, 2003. Robertson, James D. The Beer-Tasters Log: A World Guide to More than 6000 Beers. Pownal, VT: Storey Communications, 1996. Yenne, Bill. Beers of the World, Secaucus, NJ: Chartwell Books, 1994.
Amsterdam Group The Amsterdam Group is a lobbying group for the European alcoholic beverages industry. Along with the Portman Group in the United Kingdom and the International Center of Alcohol Policy,
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it is among the three most prominent lobbying groups for the drinks industry. Formed in 1990, the group describes itself as “an alliance of European leading producers of beers, wines, and spirits who work together as well as with governments and other interested groups to address social problems related to the excessive or inappropriate consumption of alcoholic beverages.” According to the group, it sponsors or funds nearly 400 social programs in 34 countries, including educational programs on responsible drinking, road safety groups, and an alcohol treatment center in Norway. Though it presents itself as a public health organization, it is actually an industry lobbying group devoted to preserving the interests of the alcohol industry and lobbying against public policy changes that could be detrimental to that industry. The Amsterdam Group was founded by Allied Domecq, Bacardi Martini, Berentzen Gruppe, Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Heineken, Interbrew, Moët Hennessy-Louis Vuitton (LVMH), Prips Ringnes, Remy Cointreau, and Scottish & Newcastle. Public Stance and Opposition In 1993, the Amsterdam Group presented a report to the EU’s governing bodies in response to the increased interest in alcohol- and drinkingrelated health and social issues raised or intensified by economic integration. Along with other lobbying groups, the group was concerned with discouraging the correlation between increases in alcohol consumption and increases in alcoholrelated problems, whether they be health issues, drunk driving, assaults, or other issues. The fear in the industry was that if such a correlation became widely accepted, it would lead the new regulatory bodies of the European community to enact legislation restricting the consumption and distribution of alcohol, whether through actual caps or discouragement measures like taxes, increased minimum drinking ages, or limits on alcohol sales. In opposition to the statement by the World Health Organization’s Regional Office, the Amsterdam Group stated in its report Alcoholic Beverages and European Community: Certain organizations have suggested a number of proposals intended to reduce the total consumption of spirits, beer, and wine within
Europe as an alternative policy for reducing alcohol abuse. . . . The Amsterdam Group is convinced that such a policy will not be successful. There is little reason to expect that measures aimed at lowering total alcohol consumption will reduce alcohol abuse. The European Alcohol Policy Alliance (Eurocare) is a network of 50 advocacy groups and nongovernmental organizations in Europe devoted to advocating for policies to reduce and prevent alcohol-related harm. The groups’ causes include alcohol research, counseling services, public information services, and workplace and school alcohol abuse support programs. As such, the alliance has often been at odds with the Amsterdam Group. In a statement from 1995 included in its report Counterbalancing the Drinks Industry, Eurocare sums up the relationship between promoting public good and promoting free trade as follows: It is necessary to recognize that there is potentially an intrinsic conflict of interest between policies designed to promote health and social well-being and policies designed to promote the free trade, sale, and consumption of products such as alcohol and tobacco. The Amsterdam Group began attempting to meet with Eurocare as well as its constituent members and similar groups in what has been an alleged effort to make itself appear to be an involved participant in the discussion of public health policy. The group similarly mobilized after the 2001 European Parliament Stihler Report was issued by the European Parliament blaming the drinks industry for being part of the underage drinking problem, specifically arguing that the manufacturers of alcoholic beverages have realized that adolescents constitute a new market. Such exploitation must be prevented. More binding European rules on advertising directed at young people for alcoholic beverages are necessary . . . these measures should also seek to reduce the supply of alcohol. Similar sentiments were echoed by the World Health Organization later in the year.
Although the Amsterdam Group has aggressively pursued partnerships with alcohol-abuse prevention groups, nongovernmental organizations, and governmental organizations, policy makers and activists, like Anders Ulstein of the Norwegian Policy Network on Alcohol and Drugs, have been critical of the Amsterdam Group, accusing it of presenting itself as a public health organization rather than as an industry lobbyist. Ulstein, in explaining why he refused to attend a lunch hosted by the group in 2004, called for guidelines on how NGOs should approach and interact with such industry groups in order to maintain a dialogue with them without being corrupted by them. In his view, industry lobbying was one of the obstacles to the EU forming a coherent and effective public health policy where drinking was concerned and the multilayered, complicated nature of formulating EU policy had made it easier for lobbying to interfere with the work of NGOs. Ulstein actually advised against extensive dialogue with the alcohol industry, pointing out that the concerns of public-health NGOs were different from those of other organizations and that the economic interests and motives of the business world need not have an equal voice in public health discussions. As he wrote in 2004, “Public health NGOs must take great care to preserve the legitimacy of the organisation [and] its values, and not undermine the essential and long term objectives.” Like others in Eurocare and the European Public Health Alliance, he rejected the idea promoted by the Amsterdam Group that the industry was a public health partner rather than a stakeholder. Ulstein has compared the relationship between Eurocare and other public health groups and the Amsterdam Group to the relationship between patient advocacy groups and the pharmaceutical industry. He suggests that the pharmaceutical industry regularly contributes to patient advocacy groups, even those that actively seek policy changes that would be detrimental to the industry. Industry watchdog and consumer advocacy groups believe that the NGOs and advocacy groups that collaborate with Big Pharma compromise their agendas and make concessions on issues that should not be open to change. The pharmaceutical industry was able to use its relationship with NGOs to pursue initiatives beneficial to it, such as streamlining the approval of
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pharmaceuticals and increasing patient access to them—it did this in the name of getting medicine to patients with as little interference as possible but obviously with the larger purpose of benefitting the industry by increasing sales. Health Advocacy In 2000, the Amsterdam Group commissioned a report on alcohol use to be written by the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), an NGO associated with the World Health Organization. ILSI has previously been criticized by scientists and groups such as the National Resources Defense Council for being heavily influenced by the tobacco industry and producing studies that allowed the tobacco industry to downplay links between smoking and cancer and other health concerns. The report commissioned by the Amsterdam Group, Health Issues Related to Alcohol Consumption, was circulated to the public and submitted for review to scientific and social issues journals without disclosing the role of the Amsterdam Group in commissioning and guiding the work, despite the fact that the first chapter of the report was simultaneously being circulated by the group in its lobbying efforts. In 2003, the Amsterdam Group produced and distributed a video, “Industry Partnership to Promote Responsible Drinking,” which is a brief documentary overview of programs encouraging responsible drinking in young drinkers implemented in partnership with public-sector organizations. In 2004, the group publicly censured Bacardi, Coors Brewers, and Interbrew for failing to abide by its regulations discouraging advertising strategies that target underage drinking. Of particular concern was Coors’s sponsorship of a music festival that seemed aimed at an adolescent audience, featuring bands like Limp Bizkit, which had limited appeal to adults of drinking age. This sort of self-policing has a simple goal: if the industry regulates itself, it reduces the motivation of government to restrict it, and government regulation is typically—and certainly has the potential to be—more restrictive than selfregulation. The underlying fear in the Amsterdam Group and the drinks industry as a whole, where advertising is concerned, is that if too much concern is raised over advertising that is perceived to target (or appeal to) underage drinkers, the baby will be thrown out with the bathwater, and all
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alcohol advertising will be banned. The example of the tobacco industry is frequently raised as an example, since television ads for tobacco (though not electronic cigarettes) have been banned completely, as have flavored cigarettes and rolling paper, after years of advertising and marketing initiatives that brazenly defied government warnings to avoid marketing to adolescents (most famously, the cartoon character Joe the Camel). A similar restriction on the drinks industry could not only restrict advertising but impact the types of beverages that could be sold. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Commodity Chain Analysis, Global; Europe, Central and Eastern; Europe, Northern; Europe, Southern; Europe, Western; Industry Overview. Further Readings Collins, Tony and Wray Vamplew. Blood, Sweat, and Beers: A Cultural History of Sport and Alcohol. New York: Berg, 2002. Eurocare. “Eurocare Publications: ‘Counterbalancing the Drinks Industry.’” http://www.eurocare.org/ resources/eurocare_publications (Accessed August 2014). Institute of Alcohol Studies. “The Amsterdam Group.” http://www.ias.org.uk (Accessed August 2014). Peters, Timothy J. Alcohol Misuse. New York: Taylor and Francis, 1996. Ulstein, Anders. “Lunch With the Industry?” Nordisk Alkohol & Narkotikatidskrift (English Supplement), v.21 (2004).
Ancient World, Drinking in the There is evidence that, as far back as 10,000 b.c.e., alcohol played varied and important roles in human societies. Throughout ancient times, the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages from diverse fruit, vegetable, and grain
sources was nearly ubiquitous. Ancient texts from across the world address the social and healthrelated consequences of alcohol consumption. There are variations in legends and texts about the origins of alcohol; the ways fermented beverages, with varying levels of alcohol content, were produced, distributed, and used in antiquity; the sociopolitical roles alcohol played in ancient Western and non-Western societies; and the health consequences of alcohol in ancient societies. But there are also common themes, across ancient cultural contexts. After surveying sources that address the introduction of alcohol in a sample of diverse ancient societies, these common themes will be the focus of this article. Historical and Scientific Perspectives Though many cultures lay claim to the invention of alcohol, it is likely that the genesis of alcohol occurred in multiple parts of the world, independently of each other. According to legend, the Persian King Jamsheed liked fresh grapes and stored them in jars so he could enjoy them throughout the year. A batch turned rotten; a harem consort who suffered from severe headaches drank from the jar, fell into a deep sleep, and awoke to find her headaches cured. The king then discerned that fermented grape juice offered medicinal effects and had more prepared, introducing wine. The Chinese character for alcohol, jiu, has been found on oracle bones from the earliest known Chinese writing. Some Chinese sources argue that “alcohol and the earth are contemporaries,” that alcohol was “discovered rather than invented.” Other scholars variously associate the development of alcohol in China with Yi Di and Du Kang, Xia Dynasty (2070–1600 b.c.e.) figures. In the biblical story (Genesis 9:20–27), after surviving the Flood, Noah planted a vineyard and then got drunk on its wine. This narrative locates the development and use of alcohol near the beginnings of Hebrew civilization. Mesopotamian administrative and literary texts and archeological evidence document alcohol production and consumption. The invention of alcohol is tied to a Sumerian goddess of brewing, Ninkasi, and links alcohol use to legal and administrative regulations with social, political, and economic dimensions.
Other archeological, anthropological, and historical sources document early production and consumption of alcoholic beverages in parts of Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Africa. Contemporary understandings of the genesis of alcohol go beyond uncertainties of ancient legends and texts. The Paleolithic hypothesis proposes that early humans may have found grapes growing in river valleys or upland forest regions and brought the fruit back to their villages. It was likely that, over time, the juices in containers would ferment due to natural yeast blooms on the skin of the fruit, accidentally producing wine with low alcohol content. Another theory suggests that early humans may have observed animals, particularly birds, after eating grapes fermented on the vine, exhibiting uncoordinated muscular movements. They may have experimented with the fruit, encountering alcohol in its most natural state. Contemporary scientific analyses find that the earliest biochemical evidence for plant material used in fermented drinks is from ancient China and the Near East. Using DNA evidence, P. E. McGovern asserts that the first cultivated grape originated in Eastern Turkey before 5000 b.c.e. Alcohol as a Source of Nutrients In premodern times, obtaining sufficient nutrients was a constant and fraught struggle for most of the population, and the food and water supply was most often unsafe. Because alcoholic beverages are often calorie dense and potentially sources of fluids not affected by the inadequacy of premodern sanitation systems, ancient societies may have used alcohol, in part, for its nutritional value. M. Dietler outlines anthropological and archeological evidence that alcohol served as a valued source of caloric intake and other nutrients in a variety of ancient societies. A. H. Joffe and D. J. Hanson document evidence that alcoholic beverages in ancient societies contained substantial proteins, fats, and vitamins and, when produced in sufficient qualities to be used widely, conferred benefits that helped prevent widespread nutritional deficiencies in societies with otherwise problematic food supplies. Beliefs about the benefits of consuming alcoholic beverages among
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ancient societies may well have stemmed, in significant part, from their observations of these phenomena. Anthropological and archeological evidence and surviving texts document that water supplies in ancient societies were often both unsafe and unpredictable, giving rise to widespread beliefs that drinking water was unwise and risky. While people in ancient times may not have known what was behind the association between drinking water from available supplies and negative consequences, their observations of a correlation were well founded; this impelled the development of sanitation and purification systems and methods, including production and consumption of fermented beverages among viable strategies. Motivations for the use of alcohol in the ancient world also included widespread acknowledgement of its value as a thirst quencher. Religious Uses Religion is not a precise descriptor for ancient systems of belief, values, value-based ways of living and interacting, spirituality, and ritual practice. Its etymology, from Latin elements meaning to retie or reconnect, makes the term less applicable in ancient societies that did not embrace mind/ body and belief-system/way-of-life dualities, as these are commonly understood and employed in contemporary Western and Western-influenced cultures. The term is used here for ease of common reference rather than technical precision. In polytheistic systems that predated or developed along separate lines from Judaism and Christianity in ancient Near Eastern, African, Asian, and some Amerindian cultures, alcoholic beverages were often understood as gifts to humanity from specific deities, or as natural products whose use was governed by deities. In pre-Christian European spiritual/belief systems, ready access to fermented beverages was seen as a reward obtained in the afterlife by those who lived as the nature-based religious systems urged. Because of the desirable and pleasing properties alcoholic beverages can have, practices in some ancient belief systems gave offerings of alcoholic beverages to placate or supplicate deities, spirit beings, or natural forces invested with supernatural powers. Some of these practices survive in religious systems with ancient roots in contemporary
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times. Specific preferred alcoholic beverages given to the various orishas, or supernatural entities, in African-derived systems of voudun and related syncretistic belief systems, such as Cuban Santeria and Puerto Rican espiritualismo, are believed to keep the spirits happy and attempt to enlist their help in the believers’ lives. Pouring libation offerings to honor ancestors and invoke their assistance is common in many African belief and ritual systems, as are uses of alcohol in life-cycle, initiation, and mourning rituals. In ancient (and contemporary) Jewish ritual, drinking alcohol demarcates distinctions in time and practices between the sacred and the everyday in Sabbath, other holiday, and life-cycle rituals. The use of wine in scriptural and other textual sources is tied to wine’s capacity to induce a pleasurable break from the ordinary that turns the participant-believer’s mind toward connection with the divine. In Christianity, communion wine is considered the medium through which the believer literally takes in the blood of the savior Jesus. The use of alcohol is as a sacrament—an act that has instrumental, communal, and inward meaning as a sign of obtaining a state of grace. In ancient religious systems, distinctions among supplicatory, deity-honoring, ritual, and sacramental uses of alcohol are not mutually exclusive; they also overlap with social, healing, political, and economic uses and societal understandings of alcohol use. Yet ancient religious uses of alcohol are also not synonymous with these other kinds of uses, and thus add important dimensions to understanding the rule and functions of drinking in ancient societies. Social Uses Use of alcohol in ancient societies had important social dimensions. Echoing modern sociocultural functions of alcohol, some of these uses involve community building and diminishing anxiety and awkwardness in interpersonal interactions; others demarcate distinctions of class and power. The biochemical properties of alcohol, when used in moderation by persons without a propensity for problem or addictive drinking, lower inhibitions, diminish anxiety, and ease social connection and camaraderie; these properties of alcohol were familiar in diverse ancient societies.
Thus, some ancient writers on religion and healing—not seen as lines of discourse distinct from social commentary and inquiry in antiquity—recommended moderate use of alcohol as a salutary “social lubricator.” On the other hand, in ancient societies, similar to the case today, the relative freedom from work and survival demands, and the differential access to disposable wealth privileged social-class groupings enjoyed, allowed those with class privilege greater access to alcohol, greater frequency of use, and socially visible use of alcohol (such as in feasts) as demarcators of privilege. Textual, historical, and archeological evidence document distinctions between ways privileged and disadvantaged persons used alcohol in earliest antiquity, in many parts of the globe.
Detail showing the face of a small figure at the base of an ancient Peruvian libation vessel known as a qero. Qeros were used for rituals involving maize beer in ancient Peru, Bolivia, and northern Chile. This qero is made from silver alloy and has been dated to around 1000 to 1470 c.e.
Alcohol in Ancient Healing Systems Premodern systems of healing beliefs, understandings, and practices in South America, Africa, Asia, the Near East, and elsewhere recognized that alcohol, used in moderation by those without problem or addictive drinking, can aid sleep and relaxation, provide pain relief, help in disinfection, and assist in other medicinal functions— objectives with both inherent/preventative health value and potential to promote recovery from illness. As with social uses of alcohol in ancient societies, such uses were guided by healers’ clinical observations of the effects of moderate alcohol use, rather than awareness of underlying neurochemical and physiological mechanisms. But as with modern notions of medical practice, it was often recommended that the use be guided and monitored by those with knowledge of dosage and other mechanisms of action. Some ancient uses of alcohol involved consumption of larger doses to help induce shamanic trances in those thought to have natural abilities and sufficient training. In trances, the shaman accesses altered states and levels of awareness to retrieve information that can be useful in healing, defined not in a narrowly Western biomedical sense but as activities that can promote the wellbeing of the person being served. While ancient cultures narrate shamanic healing in terms of traveling to spirit worlds to receive cures from spirits, shamans engaged in healing had similarities to physicians accessing scientific knowledge to understand their clinical observations, or mental health clinicians looking to unconscious potential meanings in what psychotherapy patients report. While shamanic healing trances are commonly associated with other psychoactive healing substances, alcohol was also widely used. Economic and Political Aspects In antiquity, alcohol became a vehicle for accumulating economic surplus as societies developed and a commodity used for exchange and wealth accumulation. Thus, ancient alcohol use has economic and political dimensions. Commodities are used for exchange as much or more than for their use value; for a product to become a commodity, it must be available for production in quantities greater than needed for immediate instrumental use. Because alcoholic
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beverages can be produced from diverse food sources by fairly simple technologies, they emerged as early commoditized products in ancient cultures, beginning with China and Mesopotamia. Economic theory has shown that the emergence of commodity production and trade leads to a society’s expanded economic development. Economic development invariably assumes political dimensions. Beginning with the production of Sumerian beer, alcoholic beverages—and the accumulated wealth of the elites who traded them—were taxed to fund state apparatuses and military ventures. Legal regimens, beginning with the Code of Hammurabi, regulated these practices. Wealthy elites, dependent on alcohol production and trade to retain power and privilege, developed independently in many ancient cultures; they often used their wealth and influence to promote state policies favorable to their economic interests in trading commoditized alcohol. The shadow side of this was the resort of disadvantaged populations to excess use of alcohol in order to attenuate the pain of disadvantage, often further depleting their economic resources. Such use often weakened their social and political power and facilitated their domination by wealthy elites. Ancient Abuse of Alcohol Both alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence are depicted in biblical texts and texts from other ancient cultures. Because the biochemical effects of excessive and habitual alcohol use have predictable health effects and psychosocial consequences, these accounts often are surprisingly familiar to modern readers. While some ancient texts speak of the benefits of occasional bouts of drinking for ecstatic catharsis, the emphasis is on warning populations of the health, moral, social, economic, and political dangers of excessive use of alcohol. Available texts, from diverse cultures, educate about differences between salutary and problematic consumption of alcohol and, less often, between types and degrees of excess use of alcohol. As in contemporary psychoeducational materials, the emphasis was on exhorting safe and healthy use and preventing patterns of excessive use, which, it was recognized, could over time become highly destructive.
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It is likely that alcohol abuse and dependence were less prevalent in ancient cultures because alcohol was not as widely or inexpensively available. Nevertheless, diverse ancient texts document that, despite these barriers to access, a combination of the problematic attractions of excess alcohol use, the multiple and synergistic motivating factors that can lead to excessive use, and the difficulties problem users can encounter trying to stop excessive use once developed, were parameters on the effects of limited supply. A feminist discourse highlights that women’s differential involvement in ancient alcohol production led women to be blamed disproportionately for problems of drunkenness and to have specific vulnerabilities to excess alcohol use. Conclusion It has not been possible in this article to review all the variances and nuances of drinking in ancient cultures. Instead, the article has attempted to delineate key dimensions and facets of drinking in ancient cultures, describe some of the common themes that characterize beneficial and problematic uses of alcohol in these cultures, and point to implications of these historical lines of development for alcohol professionals today. Richard Ruth Leslie Stelljes Nanson George Washington University See Also: Alexander the Great; Archeological Evidence; Brewing, History of; Egypt, Ancient; Fermentation, Ancient Era Through Middle Ages; Grain Alcohol: Ancient Era Through Middle Ages; Greece, Ancient; Religion; Rituals; Roman Empire. Further Readings Damerow, P. “Sumerian Beer: The Origins of Brewing Technology in Ancient Mesopotamia.” Cuneiform Digital Library Journal (2012). http://cdli.ucla .edu/pubs/cdlj/2012/cdlj2012_002.html (Accessed December 2013). Dietler, M. “Alcohol: Anthropological/Archeological Perspectives.” Annual Review of Anthropology, v.31 (2006). Eliade, M. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.
Hanson, D. J. “History of Alcohol and Drinking Around the World.” http://www2.potsdam.edu/ hansondj/Controversies/1114796842.html# .UpvXspWA2kw (Accessed December 2013). Hornsey, I. S. Alcohol and its Role in the Evolution of Human Society. Cambridge, UK: RSC, 2012. Joffe, A. H. “Alcohol and Social Complexity in Ancient Western Asia.” Current Anthropology, v.39 (1998). McGovern, P. E. Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. McGovern, P. E., S. J. Fleming, and S. H. Katz, eds. The Origins and Ancient History of Wine. New York: Routledge, 2005. Milano, L., ed. Drinking in Ancient Societies: History and Culture of Drinks in the Ancient Near East, Papers of a Symposium Held in Rome, May 17–19, 1990. Padova, Italy: Sargon, 1994. Owusu, H. Voodoo Rituals: A User’s Guide. New York: Sterling, 2002. Smith, N. Intoxicating Manchuria: Alcohol, Opium, and Culture in China’s Northeast. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2012.
Anstie, Francis Francis Edmund Anstie (1833–74) was an English doctor known for Anstie’s Limit, which established a figure for safe, moderate alcohol consumption. In the 1860s and 1870s, Anstie challenged medical orthodoxies on alcohol, insisting that a scientific case for moderate consumption should be made despite the fierce opposition of teetotalers. A careful and innovative experimental researcher, Anstie was convinced that alcohol was not simply food, medicine, or poison in and of itself; its effects depended on the size of the dose and the condition of the patient. Beyond the limit, it ceased to work as a food or stimulant, became a sedative with narcotic effects (that is, the drinker appeared to be or felt drunk), and began to be harmful. Anstie’s Limit was adopted by influential medical writers, shaping ideas of moderation in Anglophone medicine and was also used in unexpected places, like the British and North American life
insurance industries. Even without the limit, Anstie would still be notable for his commitment to a scientific, rather than moral, exploration of the problem, and his focus on the harm caused by drinking rather than the emerging disease theory of alcoholism. He was well known for his work on diseases of the nervous system and for his medical journalism, especially as editor of the journal The Practitioner as well as for his support for public health medicine and for the campaign for women’s medical education. However, it is possible that alcohol history’s emphasis on addiction and the problem drinker has led to a neglect of Anstie’s contribution to the science of what we now call alcohol harm. Research Anstie was born into a liberal and nonconformist family in Devizes, Wiltshire. Completing his medical education at King’s College London, Anstie took on positions with several London hospitals. He was most closely associated was the Westminster Hospital, where he lectured in forensic medicine and materia medica before becoming physician in 1873. At King’s, Anstie had been the clinical clerk of one of his teachers, Dr. Robert Bentley Todd. Temperance activists criticized Todd for prescribing alcohol to fever sufferers and other patients—though this practice was widespread— and Anstie sometimes justified his own research on alcohol as a defense and extension of Todd’s work. Anstie was also clearly spurred on by the work of Lallemand, Duroy, and Perrin. In Role de l’Alcool et des Anesthesiques dans l’Organisme (1860), Lallemand and his colleagues claimed to have disproved the German chemist Liebig’s conclusion that alcohol was a heat-producing food; they were certain that it passed through the body unchanged and could not therefore be a food. Anstie’s doubts drove him to test their work continuously throughout the 14 years before his early death in 1874. Dissatisfied with the methodology that Lallemand and his colleagues had devised to detect alcohol leaving the body, Anstie developed and improved his own, including the use of a chromatic acid test to detect minute quantities of alcohol in urine, breath, and sweat. He also published several papers exploring the use of Marey’s new sphygmagraph to mark alcohol’s effect on the
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pulse. He tested these methods on his colleagues and friends, on himself, and on animals. By 1867, he had identified the dose at which a healthy, active man reached the threshold at which intoxication occurred and harm was caused: a daily allowance of 1.5 ounces of absolute alcohol. Women should drink less, as should men in sedentary occupations, children, and the elderly, so the limit was really a range of between 1 and 2 ounces. Crucially, Anstie showed that the type of drink was irrelevant compared to the volume of pure alcohol when determining the consequences for the drinker. A woman who took two glasses of port at lunch and again at dinner would consume the equivalent of a bottle of brandy a week. In this way, he confounded much folk and medical wisdom about the dangers of spirits and challenged those who chastised beer-drinking laborers but not the wine-drinking middle classes. Anstie recognized that setting a limit on moderation created new opportunities and problems, anticipating many of the questions surrounding the contemporary unit or standard drink as well as health marketing campaigns designed to make drinkers take responsibility for their consumption. Anstie knew many respectable men and women drank more than his limit but wanted them—and their doctors—to confront this fact; his was not a moral position but a scientific one. He acknowledged that few drinkers knew how strong their drinks were and felt that glasses were getting larger and drinks stronger. When this debate resurfaced in the British press in the 1890s, correspondents suggested the compulsory labeling of drink vessels and beer pumps with information about alcoholic content so that drinkers could act accordingly. Legacy Anstie died in his early 40s, but his work was taken up by eminent medical writers like Edmund Alexander Parkes, who incorporated it into later editions of his influential Manual of Practical Hygiene (originally 1864) and took up some of Anstie’s research experiments. In 1872, Parkes acknowledged Anstie’s work as the first scientific definition of moderate drinking and set the boundary line of moderation at 1.5 ounces in his On Personal Care of Health (1876). Other adopters of Anstie’s work included his friend Sir Benjamin Richardson, a champion of medical temperance
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and pioneer of the sanitary movement. His 1878 essay “Moderate Drinking, for and Against” discusses a limit of 1 to 2 fluid ounces, though he gave the credit to Parkes rather than Anstie. In the 1890s, Anstie’s Limit and its interpretation by Parkes, Richardson, and others were discussed by the British Medical Journal in such a way that suggests that it was largely accepted by the medical mainstream. In the United States the Committee of Fifty, an influential research group that investigated drinking at the turn of the century, cited Anstie’s Limit to define the quantity that could be consumed by an average adult without adverse consequences. Given that the committee is thought to have established the idea of moderate drinking that dominated American policy after the repeal of Prohibition, it seems likely that Anstie had also been enormously influential in the United States. In the United Kingdom (UK) and North America, the limit found supporters within the booming life insurance industry. Actuaries were quick to seize upon anything that seemed to offer a more accurate assessment of risks to mortality and had been worrying about the consequences of excessive drinking since at least the 1840s. Several companies divided policyholders into separate sections for abstainers and moderate drinkers, and while the former certainly seemed to live longer, it was still difficult to check whether the moderate drinkers were a safe risk or not. The limit seemed to offer a way of dividing applicants into two classes, and those drinking more than the limit could be rejected or charged more to cover the extra risk. The limit is discussed in this way in Britain as early as 1893 and is quoted in a medical examiners’ handbook from 1908. These books were written to inform the growing army of general practitioners who supplemented their income by carrying out assessments of potential policyholders for insurance firms. Because they insisted that examiners stick to office guidelines, it did not matter whether doctors believed Anstie or not; practices may have changed even though opinions did not. In the United States, a review of the life insurance industry’s approach to these kinds of risky habits conducted before the beginning of Prohibition concluded that Anstie’s Limit could also be used to classify companies through
their interpretation of Anstie’s work; those who adopted a daily amount toward the lower end of his definition lost far fewer policyholders to drink than those with a liberal interpretation of the figure. Temperance Response Mainstream teetotalers, including those doctors associated with medical temperance, were hostile to Anstie’s research when it began to appear in the 1860s. For many years, teetotalers had relied on Joseph Livesey’s “Malt Lecture” (1836) to demonstrate that alcohol was not a food. Anstie’s work was a direct challenge to this consensus, and in his address to the International Temperance and Prohibition Convention of 1862, Dr. Henry Mudge used it as an example of the destructive stories spread by the medical profession to encourage the use of alcohol. Mudge went on to describe the prescription of alcohol by doctors as both frequent and flippant and criticized the way they gave their names to wealthy brewers to use in advertising—exactly the sort of attack guaranteed to enrage Anstie. The temperance response was not simply ideological, however, and this suspicion of alcohol was founded on other forms of evidence. Both Parkes and Richardson admitted that, while they were persuaded by Anstie’s argument, they were also swayed by the mortality statistics of temperance life insurance companies, which appeared to show that moderation could still be dangerous. Companies like the UK Temperance and General Provident Institution offered policies to abstainers and to moderate drinkers but kept track of them in separate sections. By the 1870s, the data from a generation of policyholders appeared to show that abstainers lived longer than those in the general section, and this was used by teetotalers to demonstrate that moderation reduced life expectancy and that only abstinence was safe. (Similar arguments were made about comparisons between the Rechabites and the Oddfellows.) For Parkes, Richardson, and others, this rival form of evidence suggested that there was a possibility that moderation was not as safe as teetotalism, even though it was safer than drinking beyond the limit. Lesser known figures like Dr. Markham Skerrit, a teetotal doctor from Bristol, also drew upon both the temperance and general’s figures and Anstie’s work, arguing
in 1881 that it was acceptable to use alcohol, though abstinence was always healthier. For his part, Anstie remained suspicious of temperance, particularly when it promoted outdated or erroneous medical ideas. In 1862, he had called upon the profession to resist becoming the obsequious mouthpiece of the teetotal party; in 1865, he described temperance efforts to sway medical opinion as a form of terrorism. Anstie was particularly angry about the “Medical Declaration Respecting Alcohol,” a letter published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in 1871 in favor of abstinence. The declaration was organized by the National Temperance League, drawn up by a committee lead by Parkes and signed by 269 eminent physicians and surgeons—but not by Anstie. He wrote to the Lancet to protest, expanding on this in an editorial in The Practitioner. Not only did the letter blame the medical prescription of alcohol for some part of the British drinking problem, which Anstie felt reflected badly on the profession, but it also seemed—to Anstie at least—to support the wrongheadedness of Lallemand and colleagues by stating that alcohol was always harmful in the hands of anyone other than a doctor. In short, the declaration disagreed with everything Anstie had been saying for a decade, and worse, it did not mention his work at all. Again, he claimed that the league’s “terrorism” had been assisted by the editor of the BMJ and that many doctors had signed because they could not publicly disagree with bad science when it was enrolled in a good cause. Anstie ended his editorial complaint by appealing to Parkes, who had supported the declaration even though his own research agreed with Anstie’s; Parkes attempted to mollify Anstie, though he was still unable to see how the latter had read all this into his harmless declaration. As this suggests, Anstie was popular and could be charming—he remained friends with Richardson, for example— but was also capable of a rather petty irascibility when discussing his hobbyhorses of medicinal prescription and moderation. His final publication on alcohol found time to accuse temperance groups of deliberately misleading the public with their gross misstatements, though he was able to agree that Parkes and he had arrived at similar conclusions from rather different starting points.
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Other Causes Anstie was also a supporter of what he called state medicine, or public health, and was one of the doctors appointed by the Lancet to their 1865 Sanitary Commission to investigate the state of the workhouse infirmaries. These were meant to treat those whose illnesses made them unfit for work as well as many more of the “infirm,” chiefly the elderly. Anstie played a significant role in the investigation and in the production of the commission’s reports, and it is possible that his own concerns influenced some of the commission’s criticisms of the use of alcohol in infirmaries. However, Anstie’s commitment to reform was genuine, and when the Joseph Rogers and others established an association for Poor-law Medical Officers, Anstie worked very hard to help as an honorary secretary; after Anstie’s death, Rogers claimed that few had been aware of how much Anstie had done for the association. Unlike some of the medical men of his day, Anstie was also committed to the education of women doctors. He tried for several years to get the Westminster to accept women, and the Provisional Committee for what would eventually become the London School of Medicine for Women met at Anstie’s house. Had it not been for his death, three days before the lease for the school was signed, he would have been its first dean. Death Anstie died in 1874, having contracted acute pleuropneumonia and septicaemia while investigating the unsanitary conditions that had led to the deaths of several children at the Royal Victoria Patriotic Asylum for Girls in Wandsworth. The Practitioner printed an account of his last illness and noted that he had effectively died in the service of state medicine. A fund raised by his friends provided for his son’s medical education and for a plaque in the chapel at King’s College, which noted that he was “ardent in love of truth and justice, strenuous in efforts for the poor and friendless.” He was no less ardent and strenuous in his commitment to alcohol research but is now largely remembered for the latter. It is worth noting that, while guidelines for moderate consumption vary widely from country to country, and definitions of alcohol units have
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changed since they were adopted, the UK government’s recommended limit for daily consumption is still within the range Anstie set for his limit, for men and women. James Kneale University College London See Also: Medicinal Use, History of; Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Moderate Use; Rechabite Friendly Society; Victorian England. Further Readings Anderson, Peter, et al. “The Risk of Alcohol.” Addiction, v.88 (1993). Anstie, Francis E. On the Uses of Wines in Health and Disease. New York: J. S. Redfield, 1870. Baldwin, Arthur D. “Anstie’s Alcohol Limit. Francis Edmund Anstie 1833–1874.” American Journal of Public Health, v.67/7 (1977). Bell, E. M. Storming the Citadel: The Rise of the Woman Doctor. London: Constable, 1953. Earles, M. P. “Anstie, Francis Edmund (1833–1874).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Anti-Saloon League The Anti-Saloon League (ASL) was one of the most important temperance organizations in American history and the association most responsible for the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment banning the production and sale of alcohol. The league was the first modern pressure and lobbying group modeled on big business and the standard for most successful 20th-century pressure groups. While the ASL consciously and openly noted its business structure, it retained the traditional core support of the temperance movement of evangelical Christians. Its most consistent slogan was “the Church in action against the saloon.” The ASL was a central, if often-unrecognized, part of the progressive movement. Like its fellow progressives, the league sought to remake society for the public good. Furthermore, it relied on an activist, centralized government willing to sacrifice individual rights for the interests of the whole.
Founding and Approach The founder of the ASL was Howard Hyde Russell. He was an experienced Iowa lawyer who had a religious conversion in 1883, renounced alcohol, and came to Oberlin Seminary in Ohio to study for the ministry. During his years there, a local group, upset with the impact of saloons and liquor upon the town, approached him to aid it in abolishing alcohol using the local option. From the group’s victory, Russell recognized the power of the middle class and local referenda. Russell spent the next five years ministering to missionary churches in the stockyards of Kansas City and Chicago. There, he perceived how the saloon had the potential to destroy individual lives and families and how the hierarchical structure of the meatpacking industry made it an efficient, powerful, and ruthless institution. Returning to Oberlin in 1893, Russell founded the ASL and began to travel alone around the countryside sharing his experiences of urban saloons and seeking support from evangelical Methodist and Baptist ministers and their congregations. Many of these churches had previously supported national temperance organizations. Yet, all of these organizations started out with strong beginnings only to stagnate. Russell promised a new organization that would deliver prohibition rather than simply promise it. The league differed from previous temperance groups in a number of significant ways: Earlier groups advocated Prohibition as the most important of a cluster of reforms; the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) even established a “Do everything” platform. The ASL developed “the Ohio idea,” in which it would push for the abolition of alcohol in isolation from all other issues; the ASL was purely a political association and even called itself a law enforcement organization. The ASL’s structure also differed greatly. Previous associations were composed of volunteers; the league had a professional full-time staff. By 1903, it had 31 paid employees. Each state organization had departments of agitation, finance, enforcement, and legislation. All decisions took place at the top level and filtered down. While the state and national bodies had numerous commissions and advisory groups with places guaranteed for temperance organizations and churches, none had any impact. The overall strategy was to
concentrate first on the local option, then on state prohibition, and finally on national prohibition. Direct elections would take place only locally; legislators would make all the other votes. This authoritarianism stemmed not only from the emulation of business methods but also from their inception in Ohio. Ohio was and is a state equal parts rural and urban, Democratic and Republican. Russell determined that a relatively small cadre of absolutely committed supporters could provide the swing votes in many close elections. The league thus devoted itself to rewarding its friends and punishing its enemies with their guaranteed votes. A friend was someone who voted the straight league ticket; an enemy was someone who failed to do so. Politicians’ other positions or even their personal life was inconsequential. By 1906, this control of legislators by electoral fear had spread nationally. Since they controlled many legislative bodies, including Congress, the ASL opposed referenda, especially the one proposed to repeal Prohibition. The ASL’s final difference was the most obvious. It was the Anti-Saloon League, not the AntiLiquor or Anti-Drinking League. While all of members of the leadership of the ASL opposed individual drinking, they saw the liquor interests, the fifth-largest industry in the nation, and its seedy representative the saloon as vulnerable targets. By 1900, the United States had 300,000 saloons, double the number of 20 years before. Despite the many unofficial slogans, the league’s official motto was “The saloon must go.” Replacement of Leadership Despite its originality, the league made little progress until 1903, when Purley Baker, a former Methodist minister and Ohio state superintendent, replaced the visionary Russell, who lacked strategic and financial sense. Baker surrounded himself with a younger generation of Ohio leaders, most notably the legislative superintendent and former minister Edwin Dinwiddie; the national counsel, Ohio superintendent, and 1920s legislative superintendent Wayne Wheeler; and the publications director, chief fundraiser, and electoral strategist behind the achievement of the Eighteenth Amendment, Ernest Cherrington. In the first year, the group targeted 70 Ohio legislators of both parties and defeated most of them.
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Wheeler achieved the first great victory for the ASL. In 1906, he and the league introduced a local option bill into the Ohio legislature. Voters strongly favored the bill, but the popular republican governor Myron Herrick, while supporting it in general, wished to amend certain sections overly favorable to the league. Herrick, the protégé of the Ohio political boss Mark Hanna, had won election with two-thirds of the vote, equally supported by business and reform interests. He had a strong Prohibition background and had received support from temperance groups in the past. Republicans had won the governorship 20 years in a row, and his democratic opponent was a dry nonentity. Wheeler, infuriated with Herrick’s incomplete allegiance to the ASL, nearly unilaterally determined to risk the league’s reputation on defeating Herrick. Throughout its history, the league had carefully chosen contests where the election would be close and the incumbent vulnerable. Herrick did not appear to be such a candidate, but the league pulled off a huge upset creating fear among other politicians throughout the nation. The local option strategy was also succeeding. By the year of Herrick’s defeat, 40 percent of Americans lived in dry areas. Two-thirds of counties in the south were dry. Twenty-seven states had joined the Prohibition’s ranks by 1910. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary churchgoers sent in their weekly pledges to the league, ranging from 25 cents to $2. Noting this, early contributor John D. Rockefeller scaled back his early commitment of 10 percent of all donations to a flat $5,000. The league had 100,000 reliable voters supervised by over 100 staff members. By 1914, the league was spending $2.5 million on national legislative elections alone. Ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment Local and state prohibition had limitations. Distilleries and express companies sidestepped it by relying on the interstate Commerce Clause to deliver liquor to Prohibitionist areas. In 1913, however, Congress passed the Webb-Kenyon Act giving states and localities the right to exclude the importation of alcohol. After numerous state and federal cases, in 1917 the Supreme Court accepted its constitutionality. While this represented a major victory for the league, it depended on the
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whim of a rapidly changing court. The scene was thus set for national Prohibition. Congress had not yet debated Prohibition, but the ASL had begun its campaign sending out speakers and gathering signatures. On December 10, 1913, 4,000 marchers bedecked in white ribbons followed a boy and girl down Pennsylvania Avenue to the tune of “Onward Christian Soldiers.” At the capitol, they handed a 150-foot petition of 6 million names to Representative Richmond Hobson of Alabama and Senator Morris Sheppard who would introduce the resolution. Witnesses insisted that it represented the largest crowd ever on the capitol steps. While the amendment did not pass, its majority in both houses surprised and delighted the league. One of the few who failed to celebrate was Hobson. A Medal of Honor winner and a brilliant if histrionic speaker, Hobson travelled around the country as an employee of the ASL. He approached his supervisor Cherrington and pointed out that in the census of 1920 the increase in immigrants and voting-age children of immigrants would create enough safe congressional seats to permanently block Prohibition. The league’s original 20-year plan needed revision. Cherrington, who was among the most sophisticated and moderate members of the leadership, developed a quietly efficient program. First, he increased the league’s already impressive propaganda wing. By 1914, the league’s newspaper had 16 million subscribers. The league press also published 1.4 million copies of books, 4.3 million pamphlets, and 67 million leaflets a year. It also published antisaloon literature in several languages to try to reach immigrants. Cherrington almost alone among the ASL leadership argued that any legislative victory would be pyrrhic if its opponents were not convinced of the evil of the liquor interest. The post office in Westerville, Ohio, the League’s headquarters, was the busiest nonurban location in the country. Cherrington also pioneered the use of more modern advertising techniques like billboards and streetcar posters. Electorally, the vote on the amendment allowed the league to identify its friends and enemies, and it concentrated on punishing its enemies in the 1916 election. Its ability to win a two-thirds majority in both houses demonstrated the power of the league’s strategy. Dinwiddie made certain
to point out the electoral results to those wavering senators who had not run that year. While Cherrington and the ASL deserved much of the credit for the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, its introduction during World War I played an important role. As the United States entered the war and young men prepared for combat, many Americans felt a need to sacrifice as well. The ASL insisted, without much evidence, upon a shortage of grain. Food for American and Allied soldiers was far more important than alcohol. German Americans owned almost all major breweries, and the national association conducted its business in German. August Busch of Anheuser-Busch owned a large hunting lodge in Germany where he and his father went for the summers. Two of his daughters had married German officers, and his wife, stranded in Germany by the war, remade the lodge into a military hospital for German soldiers. Such actions made the ASL’s goals easier to achieve. In 1917, Congress passed the Lever Food and Fuel Control Act prohibiting the use of agricultural products for alcohol. On December of that year, Congress passed the Prohibition amendment and sent it to the state legislatures for ratification within seven years. Again, the league turned to its staff, volunteers, and financial wealth to push for passage. By January 1919, two-thirds of the states, including such unlikely ones as New York and Massachusetts, ratified the amendment, making it the quickest ratification in American history up until that time. It was only Connecticut and Rhode Island that would never ratify the Eighteenth Amendment. Decline of the ASL History has many instances where movements, regimes, or individuals have begun their decline just as they achieved victory. The ASL fits this profile completely. Almost immediately, financial contributions fell off. Many former contributors felt that they no longer needed to sacrifice financially. Others, especially Midwestern grain farmers hurt by the Lever Act and Prohibition, could no longer afford their payments. The league would never regain its financial muscle. As it began to fight within itself over strategy, large and small contributors alike withdrew. The nature of the ASL’s leadership was a major problem. Until the late 1920s, all of its
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A large crowd gathered for a meeting with the Anti-Saloon League at the White House on January 16, 1924. The league peaked with the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, never regaining the strength that had helped it influence two-thirds of U.S. states to ratify the amendment in January 1919—the quickest ratification in American history up until that time.
leaders were Ohio evangelicals of roughly the same age and background. Three-fifths of the leadership were ministers and others, like Cherrington, were related to ministers. The Ohio state superintendent chose all other state superintendents, almost always from the Ohio staff. Even the most moderate of the league’s members could not conceive of a healthy individual wanting to take a drink. Since its business model precluded any democratic movement either from in- or outside the organization, the league lacked new approaches. Even as other temperance organizations, such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), were incorporated into the association, their ideas were ignored. Many members concluded that once Prohibition became law individuals would imitate the best people and stop drinking. A major problem, as has often been the case, was conflict within the organization especially over the
strategy to ensure the success of Prohibition. The league split into two warring factions. Wheeler, the aggressive legislative superintendent, led a leadership group favoring coercion of national legislators using the league’s political muscle through all legal and illegal means. Cherrington, on the other hand, led a bloc dominant in the membership especially among the churches and allies such as WCTU. Cherrington called for a return to a temperance organization that concentrated almost exclusively on education. Having little faith and less interest in law enforcement, he called for an educational program devoted not to the next election but to the next generation. Wheeler had used his power to place his followers in the positions of state superintendents across the country. Between this power bloc and the desertion by Cherrington’s allies and personal friends Baker and Russell, Wheeler dominated, sneering that it was time for men of action to take over from men of words.
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One of the major problems of Prohibition was its concurrent power, with the federal and state governments simultaneously having the same power. The league realized that its frugal supporters would never agree to the sum of money necessary for the enforcement of Prohibition. It declared that the states would be responsible for the payments. Many states, such as Maryland, never allocated anything for enforcement, while others, like New York and Massachusetts, stopped paying after several years. On a local level, New York City’s mayor Jimmy Walker argued that his policemen had far more important duties than patrolling for drinkers. New York provides an excellent example of the ruthlessness of Wheeler and his followers. William Anderson, former Maryland state superintendent and a rising star within the league, was made superintendent of New York. Anderson, the league, and many people from the Midwest and South regarded New York City as a den of sin and iniquity and felt Prohibition gave them the power to impose their viewpoint. In addition, Anderson was a bigot, reserving special venom for German Americans, Catholics, and especially Jews. Anderson went to any lengths to achieve his purpose. Deeming the speaker of the state assembly, a moderate dry and supporter of Prohibition, to be insufficiently zealous, he sent out private investigators into the speaker’s district to spread lies about him taking bribes from liquor interests and even forging a letter from a fictitious liquor dealer pledging his support. Forgery seems to have been a common ASL activity, as Wheeler’s research secretary reported that Wheeler commonly forged William Jennings Bryan’s signature to his letters. Wheeler was the face of the ASL in the 1920s. He had daily access to President Warren Harding and called himself “the legislative bully.” In one case, he blocked the nomination of a senator to the Supreme Court. The senator, although a supporter of Prohibition and the Eighteenth Amendment, had voted against the Volstead Act enabling the amendment. That was enough to earn Wheeler’s opposition. Wheeler insisted upon controlling all aspects of Prohibition. Recognizing that he could not control civil servants, he arranged for a separate agency, the Prohibition Bureau, to be placed in the Treasury Department. All of its
employees were political appointees hired under the assumption that they were dry and committed to the cause. In fact, the ill-paid individuals were incredibly corrupt. Some of them came to work in chauffeur-driven limousines; in New York City, they had to remove all the telephones so the agents would not warn bootleggers of raids. Wheeler was able to appoint Roy Hayes, an Ohio nonentity, as commissioner despite the league’s opposition. In 1924, Wheeler, fearing a diminution of his power, even barred the gifted Cherrington from succeeding Baker as national superintendent. The same year, Wheeler and the ASL worked at preventing the Democratic presidential nomination of Alfred “Alcohol Al” Smith. Their fears, and for some bigotry, were so great that they formed an alliance with the Ku Klux Klan. The support of Klan, which up until then the league had criticized, for Prohibition included vigilante attacks upon Catholics and Jews. In 1927, Wheeler died and James Cannon, a bishop in the Methodist Church, took his place. Cannon consistently referred to Catholicism as un-Christian and sinful and referred to the Klan in positive terms. When Smith won the 1928 presidential nomination, the allegedly nonpartisan league became Republican in all but name. The league’s demise paralleled that of Prohibition in general. New anti-Prohibition organizations, such as the Association against the Prohibition Amendment and especially the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform, took the Ohio idea and applied it to their goals. The growth of organized crime and political corruption challenged many previous supporters, and the outbreak of the Great Depression made the rediscovery of a tax base attractive. The league limped on until World War II, when it and other temperance organizations sought unsuccessfully to more strictly regulate alcoholic beverages. Today known as the American Council on Alcohol Problems, its agenda is now far closer to that of Cherrington than Wheeler. Mark C. Smith University of Texas See Also: American Council on Alcohol Problems; Cherrington, Ernest H.; Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition, The; Prohibition; Prohibition Party;
Temperance, History of; Temperance Movements, Religion in; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Further Readings Blocker, Jack S. American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform. Boston: Twayne, 1989. Hamm, Richard. Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment: Temperance Reform, Legal Culture, and the Polity, 1880–1929. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Kerr, K. Austin. Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985. Kyvig, David E. Repealing National Prohibition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979. Lerner, Michael A. Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007. Odegard, Peter H. Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League. New York: Columbia University Press, 1928. Okrent, Daniel. Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. New York: Scribner, 2010. Pegram, Thomas R. Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800–1933. Chicago: Ivan Dee, 1998. Timberlake, James. Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900–1920. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963.
Anton Proksch Institute Many critics of individuals with substance abuse problems such as alcoholism or gambling place sole responsibility, and essentially blame, on the afflicted individual. Throughout history, these problems were labeled as moral and social deviances and oftentimes used to separate individuals based on a strict class scale. In recent decades, practitioners in the fields dedicated to understanding the pathological genesis for such dependencies have counteracted previously popular arguments that indicate all dependencies are a choice. Institutions that have been successful in serving the greater population started by identifying a need within a community and then addressing that need while simultaneously assisting individuals
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who are affected. This has helped to define and establish the foundation for an institution that would assist thousands of individuals and do so in a manner that addresses many facets of the individual. Based on one man’s vision and unwavering determination to form what later became known as the Anton Proksch Institute, which was created in Vienna, Austria, in the 1950s, this organization set in motion an opportunity to change how issues in various fields would come to be dealt with in the following decades. Growth of the Institute After the catastrophic events of World War II, university professor Dr. Hans Hoff petitioned the Federal Ministry for Social Affairs to open an institution that would address the high incidence of alcohol abuse, separate from general institutions that also addressed other disorders, and have specialized physicians such as psychologists and psychiatrists to treat those afflicted. The 1960s proved to be a decade of quick and continuous growth for the institute, paving the way for it to become the organization it is today. Dr. Hoff was able to get support from Anton Proksch at the Federal Ministry for Social Affairs, and on December 5, 1956, Hoff was given permission to open a sanatorium dedicated to helping individuals with alcohol dependencies. In 1957, Dr. Hoff took over the management of the institute, which opened publicly in 1961, and it quickly became successful because the program was developed around three basic principles and treatment plans. Toward the middle of the 1960s, the institute started to broaden its scope and began to treat not only alcohol dependencies but individuals who use drugs as well. One of the factors that allows the Anton Procksch Institute to be very successful in the rehabilitation of its patients is the use of workshops that allow individuals to focus their time and energy on completing tasks. This not only helps them to become physically rehabilitated but, coupled with effective psychological care, has allowed hundreds of patients to be successfully treated in many problem areas of their life. Not adopted everywhere, this holistic approach to patient care allows the institute flexibility in creating unique and artistic endeavors to address all aspects of patients’ well-being.
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Many changes have occurred throughout the institute’s history, and the late 1960s and early 1970s proved to be an era of changes that many can still see today. The institute treated its first female clientele in 1968. While there were no separate dormitories at the time, the 1970s saw accommodations for female patients as the entire institute grew. It was not until 1975, when Proksch, died that the institute was renamed in his honor. The institute continued to grow under the supervision of Dr. Rudolf Mader, and additions to the structure of the facility grew just as did the number of personnel and various new innovations for reaching out to patients. The late 1970s and early 1980s were a time when the Anton Proksch Institute progressed not only in the form of new buildings erected to house more patients but also in the replacement and addition of doctors and ministers to attend to the needs of its patients. Every decade showed growth in the organization, which allowed it to become one of the leading institutes in its field. Approach of the Institute While the Anton Proksch Institute maintained a steady growth throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the mid-2000s focused on the evolution of the psychological and medical issues its personnel would soon be treating, illnesses that are now common in contemporary conversations. In 2005, other forms of addiction began to be treated at the institute, such as gambling and pathological lying. While at the genesis of the institute the social and medical ailments of the time in Austria were addressed, throughout its history it has evolved and transformed so that it could continue to do just that. In recent years, moral issues that were blamed on the individual have now come to light as being potential medical and psychological issues that may be alleviated and managed with proper care. The Anton Proksch Institute has maintained a keen awareness of such discoveries and has catered to the public in current years, just like when it first opened. Numerous clinics and rehabilitation institutes have various means of addressing the afflictions of their clientele. The prime goal of any rehabilitation clinic or institution that addresses alcohol, substances, or any various psychological or
physical ailments is to stabilize the individual and then assist him or her to reintegrate into society. In order to accomplish this goal successfully, a strategic management of resources and innovative methods must be coupled to ensure the patient’s quick and permanent healing. The Anton Proksch Institute has provided unique and innovative techniques for several decades because the staff has adopted an approach to health and well-being that moves beyond the confines of general and generic medicinal approaches to remedy the situation using holistic and artistic avenues. Because of this philosophy, the institute claims that its treatments are more artistic than they are scientific. Dr. Hoff envisioned a treatment facility that would cater to the needs of the community by addressing the cultural reasons for their existence, and the institute has remained aligned with this vision as it continues to seek out the cultural and social aspects that have contributed to its patients’ conditions, adopting new techniques as the culture changes over time. Additionally, the institute encourages patients to confront the effects of their illness(es) on their family, friends, and loved ones. Due to the corrosive attributes that mental, social, and psychological diseases such as alcoholism or drug abuse can have on those closest to the patient, the institute considers it to be an important part of their healing process to encourage patients to make amends with the people closest to them. This also addresses the sociocultural theme that drives the Anton Proksch Institute. Because of cultural and environmental factors that may have allowed the illness/disease to take root, the rehabilitation process also needs to address those areas. For many disorders that the institute addresses, such as alcoholism, the family plays a huge and significant role. Because of the importance of maintaining healthy family and social relationships, the Anton Proksch Institute offers a variety of courses and counseling sessions to help those closest to the patient deal with the condition for which he or she is being treated. Remarkably, one of the characteristics that makes the institute unique is that it offers various workshops aimed at helping people in the patient’s life; these workshops are strategically and artfully crafted so as to help the people closest to the
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patient address their personal difficulties and also to understand what the patient is going through. The workshops are aimed at helping people not only to cope with the situation but to make a full recovery, because the addiction or illness does not only affect the patient. Education has also been a key component that makes the Anton Proksch Institute so unique. The institute not only educates its patients or those nearest them, it also strives to educate and facilitate a successful cooperative learning environment for physicians. Physicians who participate in advanced training have the opportunity to receive credit for their certification, and they also become part of a committee that promotes preventive measures and educates the public. Along with the advancement in education for physicians and the campaign to educate the public, the institute also participates in numerous research endeavors. While some of these projects are selffunded, many of them are produced, carried out, and evaluated through an extensive cooperative network with partnering institutions. Through these research projects, a more nuanced understanding of the afflictions that caused its patients to seek help, in addition to a better concept of the culture in which these afflictions manifested themselves allow the Anton Proksch Institute not only to be innovative in addiction management but also to strategize these techniques based on a tailored understanding of the popular culture. Mariah Jade Zimpfer University of Edinburgh See Also: Alcoholism: Effect on the Family; Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, History of; Europe, Central and Eastern; Rehabilitation Centers, History of. Further Readings Anton Proksch Institute. http://www.api.or.at/typo3/ index.php?id=469 (Accessed February 2014). Keller M. “The Old and the New in the Treatment of Alcoholism.” In Alcohol Interventions: Historical and Sociocultural Approaches, D. L. Strug, S. Priyadarsini, and M. M. Hyman, eds. New York: Haworth, 1986. Knopf, A. “Bullish on the Treatment Industry.” Addiction Professional (March/April 2014).
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Aperitifs An aperitif is an alcoholic beverage that is generally served before a meal. The aperitif is believed to help stimulate the appetite, and accordingly, it is typically a beverage that is characterized as dry rather than sweet. The practice of serving an aperitif before a meal is incorporated into the cultural repertoire of many Mediterranean societies, particularly including those of France and Spain, and accordingly, the custom was thereby spread globally across the French colonial empire and that of the Spanish. Aperitifs are also very popular in many other countries, such as in Italy, where they are known as an aperitivo, Greece, Latin and South America, the Levant, and Portugal. The term aperitif refers not only to the alcoholic beverage served before a meal but also to the convivial atmosphere created as well as to the appetizers or light snacks, like crackers, nuts, or olives, consumed along with them. It is also generally customary for guests to clink their glasses together and to offer up a simple toast, like “Tchin, Tchin!” in French or “Salud” in Spanish. Many different types of alcoholic beverages are served as aperitifs, particularly certain wines and Champagnes, but there are several other types as well. Dry and still white wines, often served chilled and by the glass, are very popular aperitifs. These could include Chablis, Chardonnays, white Bordeauxes, unoaked sauvignon blancs, and Rieslings. Rose wines, such as a pink moscato, can also be used as aperitifs. Sparkling wines can be used as aperitifs as well; these include cava, a Spanish sparkling wine produced using the champenoise method, and prosecco, an Italian frizzante wine produced in the charmant style. Champagnes, particularly brut and extra dry varieties, and Cognacs are not uncommon aperitif offerings. Many aperitifs are wine-based concoctions. In Portugal, for instance, a common aperitif is known as the portonic, which consists of a Portuguese off-dry white port wine mixed with tonic water and served with a twist of lemon. Champagne can be combined with orange juice to make a mimosa. Vermouth, which has its origins in the 18th century, was typically flavored by wormwood, but various herbs, spices, and other botanicals are now used to flavor vermouth; these
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include cardamom, chamomile, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, ginger, juniper, marjoram, citrus peels, saffron, and vanilla. When used as an aperitif in Europe, vermouth is usually served chilled or with ice cubes. Italian vermouths are among the best known, and there are many different varieties, such as Punt e Mes, which literally means point and a half in reference to the practice of adding bitters that are measured in points. Dubonnet is a wine-based herb-infused aperitif that comes in red and white varieties. Joseph Dubonnet, a French chemist, introduced the beverage named after him in 1846 as a way of medicinally providing quinine, which helps fight malaria. In 1866, in Thuir, France, near the Spanish border in the eastern Pyrenees, Simon Violet created Byrrh, another French red wine and quinine-based tonic. Fortified wines, such as Madeira, port, and sherry, particularly dry sherry wines, are very popular aperitifs. Amontillado is a type of dry sherry wine that is characterized as being darker and more stable than fino but lighter than olorosa. Liquors and liqueurs, particularly those made from anise, such as absinthe (France), anis (Spain), anisette, arak (the Levant), mastica (Bulgaria and Macedonia), ouzo (Greece), pastis (France), Pernod (France), raki (Turkey), and Sambuca (Italy), are frequently served as aperitifs. Pastis, for instance, is a French anise liqueur originally from Provence that is also flavored with a maceration of assorted herbs, like armoise, centauree, and sage, and spices, such as badiane, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pepper. Several of these anise-based aperitif liquors and liqueurs, like arak, ouzo, pastis, and Sambuca, have the highly distinctive attribute of being clear in their pure and unadulterated state but when mixed with clear water, the resulting product has a characteristic white cloudy appearance. This spontaneous emulsification is known as the louche effect for the milky oil-in-water microemulsion that creates a stable homogenous fluid dispersion. Many non-anisebased liqueurs are also popular aperitifs, as are concoctions based on them combined with other ingredients. Lillet is an aperitif made from a blend of citrus liqueurs and Bordeaux wine grapes and consists of either white or red varieties. Suze, first created by Fernand Moureaux in 1885 in Maison-Alfort near Paris, is a French liqueur made by macerating gentian roots from Auvergne with
other aromatic plants and citrus flavors, and steeping this in alcohol. Many cocktails are served as aperitifs, particularly those including bitters, Campari, gin, or vermouth. Some of these aperitif cocktails are the Adonis, gimlet, Kir, martini, Negroni, Park Avenue, and Rob Roy. Each of these aperitif cocktails has its own cultural and historical background. For example, the Adonis is named after a musical of the same name that opened in 1884 at New York City’s Bijou Theater; the musical starred Henry E. Dixey, ran for more than 600 performances, and is reputed to have been the first Broadway musical. The Adonis cocktail is similar to the perfect martini but with sherry substituted for the gin. The Kir became popular during the middle of the 19th century in French cafés but was particularly popularized after World War II by Felix Kir. At the time, he was the mayor of Dijon, a city in the Burgundy region of France, and he regularly served the drink to help promote two of the major products of his region: dry white
Pastis, an anise liqueur flavored with other herbs and spices, is an extremely popular aperitif in France, especially in the Provencal region where it originated. As seen here, pastis becomes cloudy when diluted with water, an effect known as louche.
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wines and crème de cassis, a black, currant-based liqueur, which are the two main ingredients of the Kir. The Negroni is reputed to have been created by and named after Count Cammillo Negroni, who in the 1920s, ordered an Americano cocktail with gin at Café Casoni in Florence, Italy. There are, not surprisingly, local and regional preferences as to the type of aperitif enjoyed. In respective cities and regions of France, for instance, certain aperitifs are more popular than elsewhere. In Gascony, the Floc de Gacogne, which is a mixture of Armagnac liqueur and wine, is favored. Similarly, in the northeastern areas of France, the Picon is customarily served with beer; in Brittany and Normandy, Pommeau, created by mixing Calvados with unfermented apple cider, is traditional; in the Charentes, a department of central France, the Pineau, a combination of wine and Cognac is common; in the Provencal region, pastis is typical; and in the Vendee of western Loire Trouspinette, made from Prunus spinosa (blackthorn) berries, is a local treat. Victor B. Stolberg Essex County College See Also: Absinthe; After-Dinner Drinks; Campari; Champagne; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; France; Gimlet; Gin; Gin Cocktails; Wines, Fortified. Further Readings Brown, Jared and Anistatia Miller. The Mixellany Guide to Vermouth and Other Aperitifs. Cheltenham, UK: Mixellany Books, 2011. Olney, Bruce. Liqueurs, Aperitifs and Fortified Wines. London: Hills and Boon, 1972. Simon, Andre. Aperitifs Wines or Wines Served Before Meals. Irvine, CA: Dickens Press, 2011. Tritton, S. M. Spirits, Aperitifs, and Liqueurs: Their Production. London: Faber, 1975.
Appalachian Moonshine Culture “Moonshine” is the most popular name for a specific type of unaged and usually high-proof
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whiskey, less commonly known as “white lightning,” “hooch,” or “mountain dew.” Like the term “moonraker,” used to refer to a smuggler, the name reflects the idea of working at night to avoid detection. Properly speaking, moonshine should refer only to illegal whiskey prepared by the moonshiner, for this reason. In practice, the word has been repurposed by commercial interests to refer to unaged whiskeys for the sake of marketing. Where moonshine (legal or illegal) differs from other unaged whiskeys is that it is usually fermented from a mixture of corn and sugar without other grains. Even bourbon, which is predominantly made of corn, will usually be at least 20 percent and as much as 49 percent wheat and rye. Corn is significantly sweeter than the other grains used for whiskey but contributes little other character, so moonshine lacks the nuance of bourbon and the spice of rye whiskey. On the other hand, when unaged it has a sweetness and mellowness (relative to its proof) that bourbon obtains only after aging in wood. The strength, or alcohol content, of moonshine is indicated by “checking the bead”: after being shaken up until air bubbles form, the bubbles in a higher alcohol batch will dissipate faster than in a lower alcohol batch—almost instantly in the case of moonshine that is taken fresh from the still before being cut (diluted). Moonshine Ban Moonshine is an outlier among the banned intoxicants in the United States. It is not an illegal substance, nor is it one requiring a prescription, nor is it outlawed for public health reasons like specific alcohol-related activities. It is outlawed simply for tax reasons. A license to distill liquor is prohibitively expensive for the individual, and until recently it was not even affordable for a small company (microdistilleries have been made possible by changes to the law in certain states). Nevertheless, though the threat moonshine poses is principally a tax-related one, the punishment is severe, which accounts for the precautions moonshiners take in hiding their stills in camouflaged shacks in the woods, abandoned barns, tunnels, and other underground locations—the classic location is in an abandoned mine that has been tapped out. Moonshining to avoid taxation significantly predates Prohibition, and spirits have been
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A man demonstrates a moonshine still set up in his garage in West Virginia in 1996. While the punishment for moonshine production remains severe, it is illegal principally for tax reasons, because a license to commercially distill liquor is expensive and the liquor so distilled is subject to federal and sometimes state tax—an important source of revenue.
distilled in the Appalachians for virtually as long as people have inhabited them. One of the first armed rebellions against the federal government, the Whiskey Rebellion, was fought by farmers from western Pennsylvania between 1791 and 1794 over the first tax placed on whiskey. (Today, the American Whiskey Trail that promotes the whiskey heritage of the United States includes a number of Pennsylvania locations.) The folk song “Copper Kettle,” sometimes known as “In the Pale Moonlight,” written by Albert Frank Beddoe and popularized by Joan Baez in 1962, makes explicit links between modern moonshiners and the Whiskey Rebels and boasts of being the latest descendent in a long line of moonshiners: “We ain’t paid no whiskey tax since 1792.”
Production of Moonshine A moonshine variant that has long been popular is apple pie moonshine. Though there are numerous flavored moonshines produced through infusion, apple pie moonshine has traditionally been produced slightly differently. When it comes out of the still, moonshine is very high proof, usually close to 190 proof, roughly the same alcoholic content as grain alcohol. It is traditionally cut with water to bring it down in proof to the level of commercial whiskey—anywhere from 80 to 120 proof. Apple pie moonshine uses apple cider or juice instead of water to cut the moonshine and also adds large amounts of sugar and cinnamon (or commercially blended “apple pie spice”). The result is, in essence, a moonshine-based spiced apple liqueur.
Before the Internet, there were few written sources instructive in the production of moonshine outside of technical manuals on distillation that lacked details specific to the particular task. The key exception is The Foxfire Book. Originally published as a class magazine by high school students in North Georgia, this book preserves oral lore from the surrounding mountain communities taken from students’ interviews with their older relatives. In addition to providing information on traditional methods of gardening, sewing clothes, building log cabins, preserving meat, and putting up vegetables, the 1972 book, taken from the magazine articles, includes the chapter “Moonshining as a Fine Art.” This chapter consists of 44 pages of material from over 100 interviews. The articles, however, confuse several terms since the compilers were not themselves moonshiners. Moonshine and Popular Culture Moonshine is famously connected with the South, in particular the mountainous Appalachian region far more than the Gulf Coast or other parts. The modern-day sport of stock car racing, of which NASCAR is the governing body, originated among moonshine smugglers during Prohibition. Their need for fast cars in an age just becoming enamored of car culture led to recreational racing among smugglers during their free time. This, in turn, led to organized events after the end of Prohibition, resulting in the formation of NASCAR in 1948. Moonshine is considered a vital part of southern Appalachian heritage, and in some cases its illegal distribution is aided or even conducted by local law enforcement. In the backstory of the 1979–85 TV show The Dukes of Hazzard, Bo and Luke Duke have been convicted of smuggling moonshine distilled by their Uncle Jesse, who then made a plea bargain agreeing to stop production in return for the boys’ (apparently indefinite) probation confining them to Hazzard County. Hazzard is overseen by Jefferson Davis Hogg, a corrupt county commissioner who was himself Jesse Duke’s former bootlegging partner. The TV show aired at the tail end of a decade-long fascination with the South on American television; it had been preceded by the 1972–81 series The Waltons, which takes place in rural Virginia during the Great Depression. Two of the recurring characters on The Waltons are the elderly Southern belles Mamie and Emily
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Baldwin. The Baldwin sisters are famous for their production of “the recipe,” which their late father has devised. Believing it to be a medicinal remedy, the Baldwin sisters regularly produce the recipe on “papa’s machine,” selling it throughout the town without ever realizing that it is in fact moonshine. (They are the only ones who do not realize it.) One of the best-known modern moonshiners is Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton, who was a well-known moonshiner for decades before finally being convicted in 2009. An active moonshine producer in North Carolina and Tennessee since at least the 1970s, Sutton became famous in the early 21st century. In 1999, he self-published Me and My Likker, which is part autobiography and part moonshine production guide, followed by making an appearance in the documentary film This Is the Last Dam Run of Likker I’ll Ever Make in 2002. The cult film brought him to the attention of mainstream documentary and television producers and was reedited into The Last One, an Emmy-winning TV documentary, in 2008. Convicted after an ATF raid on his still, Sutton committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in order to avoid serving his 18-month federal prison sentence. (He had also recently been diagnosed with cancer and the court had rejected his plea to serve his sentence under house arrest.) After Sutton’s death, country singer Hank Williams Jr. contracted with Sutton’s widow Pam to produce Popcorn’s. Sutton’s Tennessee White Whiskey. Popcorn’s is a legal and licensed white— that is, unaged—whiskey. which claims to be distilled in stills designed by Sutton using his recipe. In October 2013, Jack Daniel’s filed suit against Popcorn’s, alleging that its bottle and label design too closely resemble its own. Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton was mentioned several times on the Discovery Channel’s reality series Moonshiners (2011–14). Though presented as a documentary series, Moonshiners is actually a partially scripted dramatization. Actual illegal liquor is not produced in the scenes presented. It is one of a number of reality series to blur the line of what the designation of moonshiner actually means and has been criticized by state and regional authorities for failing to make this clear. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar
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See Also: Applejack; Bourbon; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Dry Cities and Counties; Heavy Drinkers, History of; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Hooch; Moonshiners; Taxation; Volstead Act; Whiskey Rebellion. Further Readings Bondurant, Matt. The Wettest County in the World. New York: Scribner, 2008. Farr, Sidney Saylor. More than Moonshine: Appalachian Recipes and Recollections. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1983. Peine, Emelie K. and Kai A. Schafft. “Moonshine, Mountaineers, and Modernity: Distilling Cultural History in the Southern Appalachian Mountains.” Journal of Appalachian Studies, v.18/1–2 (Spring/ Fall 2012). Thompson, Charles D., Jr. Spirits of Just Men: Mountaineers, Liquor Bosses, and Lawmen in the Moonshine Capital of the World. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2011. Thompson, Neal. Driving With The Devil: Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels, and the Birth of NASCAR. New York: Broadway Books, 2007. Watman, Max. Chasing the White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw’s Adventures in Moonshine. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010. Woodward, Garret K. “In Search of White Lightnin’: Moonshine in Southern Appalachia.” Smoky Mountain News (July 13, 2013).
Applejack Applejack is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented apple juice. Though similar to the French apple brandy Calvados, applejack is an American product that originated in the Colonial era and began commercial production in the late 18th century. Both applejack and cider (its lower proof, undistilled cousin) were important to the culture and economy of the early United States and enjoyed a significant share of American imbibing before the rise in popularity of whiskey and rum. Though traditional European grapes (Vitis vinifera) are now successfully grown in the United
States, in the Colonial period settlers enjoyed little success in planting the vines, and the indigenous grapes (Vitis labrusca) did not produce satisfactory wines. (Even the Concord grape, a domesticated descendant of V. labrusca, is considered too bold and brash for most wines.) While expensive and fortified wines were imported from Europe for those who could afford them, since alcohol was considered a basic foodstuff, colonists turned to local options. Apples had been brought over to the colonies and planted in abundance, and the cultivation of American apple varieties proceeded quickly. They were an important foodstuff and were easily dried in order to provide a source of sugar and vitamins throughout the winter and spring. Colonists who were looking for new sources of alcohol production valued apples for the cider they produced. Cider has a number of different meanings, but to Colonial Americans it would have referred to the fermented unfiltered juice (which is cloudier, darker, and more tannic than today’s commercial apple juice). Apple juice will easily ferment on its own, though some stewardship and the addition of a source of yeast or old cider will help guide it in the process and prevent it from turning into vinegar. In the Colonial period, the alcohol content of such cider varied wildly, from about 1 percent to as much as 15 percent. Early Production The first applejack was produced by freeze distilling cider. Freeze distillation concentrates the alcohol in cider by freezing and “jacking” it—separating the frozen lower proof content from the liquid with higher alcohol content, where alcohol freezes at a lower temperature. This process could be as simple as putting a jug of cider outside in cold weather, waiting for it to freeze, and then decanting the part that stayed liquid. The technique was inefficient but effective, and many apple farmers developed a knack for it. Cider and applejack tended to be more common in the northern colonies (where farmers had difficulty growing the hops necessary for beer and the barley necessary for the whiskey they were familiar with), and whiskey was more common in the southern ones, but this was not a hard-and-fast rule. The applejack produced by freeze distillation contained more impurities than that produced by modern
evaporative distillation techniques, resulting not only in a different flavor but also in a much more likely and more powerful hangover. The evaporative technique was used when commercial applejack production began. Both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are known for their interest in applejack, and the Springfield, Illinois, tavern that Lincoln briefly ran included applejack on its menu. Applejack was served hot or cold, often added to toddies or similar drinks or diluted with cider. Apple orchards were planted all over the country, especially in the North, and used almost entirely for cider and applejack production. This certainly was Johnny Appleseed’s motivation when he spread apple orchards throughout the country. Later in American history, when the Temperance movement began, there were numerous reports of Temperance supporters cutting orchards down (their own or those of others) because they were seen as useful only for alcoholic beverages (later, apple pie would become emblematic of Americana). Like whiskey, applejack was often used as a bartering good—it might have been traded for clothes from a seamstress, for instance, or as part of a town’s payment to the local schoolteacher. Some of these early applejack distillers may have been distillers back in England; others may have learned the skill by trial and error. Applejack and Other Liquor The first commercial applejack distillery was opened by Robert Laird in Colts Neck, New Jersey, in 1780, three years before the opening of the first commercial bourbon distillery. The Laird family had been producing applejack on a smaller scale since 1698; the family believes the first American member of the Laird family, Robert’s grandfather William, had been a Scotch whiskey distiller in County Fyfe before moving to the colonies. Despite this synchronicity between two spirits, though, their history has been very different. Applejack never attained bourbon’s popularity, and for a long period of time after Prohibition, Laird and Company remained the only commercial producer of applejack in the world. Though there were nearly 500 applejack distillers in New Jersey alone in the 19th century, apple orchards proved a major setback during the Temperance and Prohibition periods. Planting and harvesting
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apple orchards took longer than planting a field of corn in order to make bourbon. Indeed, mid20th century apple growers owe more of their success and survival to the popularity of applesauce, apple slices, and apple juice than they do to alcohol. Laird’s operations were scaled down in the mid-20th century. The New Jersey distillery was closed, and its facilities were used only to age and bottle Laird’s products. The product would then be distilled in Virginia, from which the apples were sourced. Of the apple spirits Laird sells, the most common—Laird’s applejack—is not a true applejack in the historical sense, containing only a small portion of distilled apple spirit blended with neutral grain spirits. Confusingly, and frustratingly for many, this recipe actually constitutes the modern legal definition of applejack, with unblended apple spirits called apple brandy, instead. Laird’s Apple Brandy, commonly called Laird’s, is bonded in the drinks industry and is a true, 100 percent applejack, blended from spirits that have been aged for five or six years. The company also sells older apple brandies and has diversified into importing wine, olive oil, and vinegar. Contemporary Varieties In recent years, thanks to the cocktail revival and the increased interest in small-scale Americanproduced spirits, a number of smaller applejack/ apple brandy producers have begun distilling their products, usually with only statewide or regional distribution. Perhaps the best known is Cornelius Applejack, made by Harvest Spirits. For a time, the Tuthilltown Distillery in New York State offered two intriguing unaged apple spirits: the Heart of the Hudson and the Spirit of the Hudson. They were vodkas distilled from apples, with the twice-distilled Heart still possessing detectable apple characteristics, while the thrice-distilled spirit had only a faint echo of its foundation. Both have since been discontinued. Where applejack—and Tuthilltown’s apple products—differ from French Calvados is in the type of apple used. There are a great many different kinds of apples—more than 7,000 cultivars— all of which come from the Malus domestica species (while wild crab apples come from dozens if not hundreds of different species). They are often separated into categories like sweet, sharp, and
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bitter-sharp—terms that come from cider production. Ciders offer a wide variety of flavor profiles based on the apples used and may differ from year to year because some varieties prosper in certain kinds of weather or are more or less resistant to pests, meaning the cultivar makeup of the apple harvest differs from year to year. Applejack, on the other hand, usually uses fairly sweet apples that are of older pedigree than those found in most supermarkets for eating out of hand. Winesap is the most common applejack apple today, having developed in the first two decades of the 19th century. An older apple sometimes used in both cider and applejack is the Baldwin, which originated in the early 18th century in Massachusetts. The oldest-known apple cultivar still grown in the United States is also a cider apple, the Roxbury russet, which was Thomas Jefferson’s favorite apple, originating around the 1640s. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Brandy; Cider; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Hard Cider; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 17th Century; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 18th Century; History of Alcoholic Beverages. Further Readings Janik, Erika. Apple: A Global History. London: Reaktion Books, 2011. Proulx, Annie and Lew Nichols. Cider: Making, Using and Enjoying Sweet and Hard Cider. North Adams, MA: Storey Books, 1997. Weiss, Harry B. The History of Applejack or Apple Brandy in New Jersey From Colonial Times to the Present. Trenton: New Jersey Agricultural Society, 1954.
Aqua Vitae The expression aqua vitae (Latin for water of life) was created in the Middle Ages to designate the liquid distilled from the wine, which served as a technical base for all distilled beverages produced later. With its origins linked to alchemy
and medicine, aqua vitae quickly started to be used recreationally, attracting the attention of the modern rising states that saw in the new beverage a danger to the commercialization of traditional beverages but, at the same time, saw in it an important source of taxable resources. The new product also created completely new forms of ethylic practices and intoxication experiences because of its alcoholic potency, much higher than that of the fermented beverages produced by men for thousands of years. A New Kind of Beverage Although there are indications that some kind of distillation process was practiced by the Greeks since the 5th century b.c.e., stronger evidence points out the important role of distillation in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. Linked to alchemy and hermetical knowledge, distillation was seen as a method for improving metals and other mineral substances, within a paradigm that asserted that minerals were gestated in the soil and grew and developed as if they were living beings. Despite this mystical base, ancient alchemists had practical concerns, among which was the production of elaborate dyes manufactured by distilling sulfur, thus obtaining golden pigments that were then used in decoration and metallurgy. With the advent of Christianity, this ancient form of alchemy was gradually left behind and perceived as heretical, although some ancient alchemy texts describing distillation were preserved in Constantinople. The conquest of Egypt by Islam (641) allowed the technical knowledge about distillation to be extraordinarily developed by the Arabs. Although they weren’t the inventors of distillation, the Arabic heritage is clear in the European rediscovery of this technique. The word alembic, for instance, comes from the Arabic al-ambiq, which is a translation from the Greek ambix, this is, the receptacle in which occurred the boiling that would be condensed by the distillation process. Other words are also revealing, such as alcohol (from al-koh’l, antimony derivate that was used as a cosmetic) or elixir (from al-iksir, or philosopher’s stone). Although they perfected distillation processes and devices, Arabs were interested in the production of remedies, cosmetics, and the distillation of rose water, which was used in medicine and as a culinary ingredient.
Europe Rediscovers Distillation After the Arabic experience, and the translation of Greek texts preserved in Byzantium, distillation returned to Europe, probably in the 13th century. In many portions of the continent, but more specifically in Italy and in the Iberian Peninsula, physicians and apothecaries started to use distillation in the search for a long life elixir, supported by the invention of a more perfected alembic, with long tubes shaped like serpents placed in a refrigerant receptacle, which increased the process efficiency and allowed the attainment of a purer distilled product. Bologna, in the north of Italy, seems to be the place where the expression aqua vitae was first used. Between 1270 and 1285, many little treatises appeared written in Latin (probably translated from Greek originals), which spoke of a new and wonderful panacea called aqua vitae. The drug was recommended for treating influenza and colds as well as apoplexy, paralysis, trembling members, kidney stones, migraines, and eye problems, among many other uses. It was used by putting some drops in a glass of wine or applied externally as liniment. Above all, aqua vitae promised to restore youth because it “preserved flesh against corruption” and restored the memory. Although the authorship of these aqua vitae treatises is controverted, the fact is that the new panacea and its technology quickly spread. Monasteries were an important source of expansion for the technique, which motivated the first attempts of ceasing the distillation and fabrication of aqua vitae. The new substance’s identification with alchemy and therefore with the unfaithful Arabs and the ancient pagans made the new drug something quite questionable in the eyes of the Church hierarchy. In the Iberian Peninsula, which was more influenced by the Islamic culture than Italy, aqua vitae seems to have appeared around the same time. Alchemists such as the Portuguese Pedro Julião (c. 1215–77), the Catalans Arnaldo de Villanova (c. 1235–1311), and Raymond Lull (1235–1315), very well-known throughout Europe, helped making distillation popular from a very mystical point of view, seeing in aqua vitae a substance of divine origin because of its incorruptibility. Another Catalan (or Frenchman) even more involved in mystical and alchemist speculations,
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This 1512 illustration created in what is now Strasbourg, France, is a stylized depiction of complex equipment medieval alchemists might have used to distill aqua vitae.
the Franciscan John of Rupescissa (deceased in 1366), believed that aqua vitae was a genuine “quintessence,” eternal and incorruptible by the four humors that composed the human body, according to ancient medicine. To reach this state of perfection, however, in his treatise De consideratione quintae essentiae (only published in 1561), Rupescissa asserted that the wine had to be distilled at least seven times so that it would become purified from terrestrial influence and its exposure to divine influence would be increased. The Popularization of Aqua Vitae During the 14th century, aqua vitae (also known as aqua ardens, or burning water) ended up being spread beyond the alchemical speculations and outside the monastery walls. Aristocrats who had their own private physicians started to use the new and wonderful drug, which even if it was unable to cure any disease, certainly contributed to the psychological relief of the diseased. In Italy, distillers sold their distilled products to
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the public and even formed corporation offices, as was observed in Bologna in 1378. It is possible that the black plague epidemics that swept Europe during the second half of the century were an important factor in the expansion of aqua vitae: Desperate for any promise of a cure, the diseased certainly would not disregard a drug so acclaimed by physicians and philosophers. At the same time, the idea that aqua vitae had miraculous conservation powers encouraged those who sold weak and perishable medieval wines to mix them with aqua vitae, causing the authorities to put in motion a long and fruitless struggle to prohibit its fabrication. In the 15th century, the use of the wine-distilled beverage was largely spread, especially in northern Europe. The new beverage consumption increasingly became more recreational and provoked an intoxication explosion that would spread into the modern era, which led states to try to regulate the beverage’s consumption with prohibitions, many restrictions, and finally with its taxation. The medieval origins of distilled beverages become clear in the names by which most of these beverages are known in European languages, regardless of their bases. A typical example is whiskey. The word originated from the Gaelic uisce betha, which means “water of life.” In France, the distilled beverage was also translated literally as eaux-de-vie. In Scandinavia, the Latin word remained almost unaltered: aqvavit in Denmark and aquavit in Norway and Sweden. In the Iberian Peninsula, the surviving expression was aqua ardens, which originated as aguardiente in Spain and aguardente in Portugal. In Germany, one of the pioneer countries that made aqua vitae popular, the word that would name the new beverage followed a different path, referencing the fabrication method and not the original Latin expression. The wine-distilled beverage would be called branntwein (burned wine), which was translated by the Dutch as brandewijn, origin of the English word brandy. João Azevedo Fernandes Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Brazil See Also: Ancient World, Drinking in; Brandy; Drinking, Anthropology of; High-Potency Drinks; Medicinal Use, History of; Religion.
Further Readings Forbes, Robert J. A Short History of the Art of Distillation. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 1948. Lu, Gwei-D., Joseph Needham, and Dorothy Needham. “The Coming of Ardent Water.” Ambix, v. 9/2 (1972). Wilson, C. Anne. “Water of Life: A History of Wine-Distilling and Spirits (500 B.C. to A.D. 2000). Totnes, UK: Prospect Books, 2006.
Archeological Evidence Archaeology is the study of peoples and societies in the past through analysis of the material remains they left behind. It uses particularistic evidence from archaeological sites to reconstruct past human behavior and to make generalizations about cultural processes. Its particularistic focus provides insights into the more ordinary activities of daily life that are often left out of the written record, including the consumption and production of alcoholic beverages. The particularistic focus of archaeology and its ability to critically investigate the documentary record makes it a valuable method for exploring the role of alcohol in society. Evidence of Early Beer- and Wine-Making Archaeologists have identified the origins of alcohol production in a number of historical and regional settings. One of the primary debates in archaeology involves the cause of the Neolithic revolution, the period from 10,000 to 12,000 years ago when humans in the Near East shifted from a hunting and gathering style of subsistence to one based on the domestication and cultivation of plants. The shift was a major turning point in the rise of world civilizations. A subsistence style based on the selective breeding and cultivation of cereals for the preparation of flour for breadmaking fed and sustained larger populations than hunting and gathering and thus gave rise to more complex societies. According to many scholars, the overexploitation of wild food resources in the Near East and climate change forced hunter-gatherers to become sedentary grain cultivators.
However, in 1953, anthropologist Robert Braidwood speculated that the domestication of cereals, especially barley and wheat, during the Neolithic period was spurred by the desire for beer rather than bread. Braidwood posed the question, “Did man once live on beer alone?” to a symposium, and the responses were published in the journal American Anthropologist. Archaeological evidence of beer-making included stone sickles and blades for reaping grain, stone mortars and pestles for grinding grain, ceramic jars for storing grain, and seeds. Most of the symposium participants concluded that brewing was a serendipitous offshoot of bread-making and the question was largely put to rest. However, in 1985, archaeologists Solomon Katz and Mary Voigt revived the debate. They argued that beer was highly nutritional and probably had social and religious value in huntinggathering societies. According to Katz and Voigt, the selective cultivation of cereals for brewing provided surplus grain for bread-making and thus led to the emergence of large, complex societies during the Neolithic period. Wine-making requires distinct tools and materials that have allowed archaeologists to locate the origins of these operations in different contexts. Patrick McGovern has done chemical residue analysis on ancient jars and used paleoethnobotanical evidence, including the seeds and stalks of wild and domesticated grapes, to identify viticulture and wine-making at early sites in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East. The presence of wine residues, including tannin and tartrate crystals, in ancient jars led McGovern to conclude that the earliest evidence for wine-making comes not from the southwest Asia, but from China. Archaeologists have recovered evidence of wine presses at Minoan-aged sites (3500 b.c.e.) in Greece and hieroglyphs show wine presses in Dynastic Egypt. Archaeological evidence has also been used to investigate the early origins of alcohol distillation. For example, while many scholars believe that alcohol distillation emerged in late medieval Europe, archaeologist F. R. Allchin conducted a critical reading of ancient Sanskrit texts to argue that ceramic pots recovered from 2,500-year-old village sites in northern India and Pakistan may represent the earliest evidence of alcohol distillation.
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Alcohol Production and European Exploration Although the major technological advances in alcohol production—brewing, fermenting, and distilling—developed long before the age of European exploration, the origins of alcohol making in the modern Atlantic world are no less interesting, and archaeological research has helped shed light on these endeavors. Brew houses have been unearthed at a number of early 17th-century British and French colonial sites in North America. For example, at Jamestown, Virginia, the site of the first permanent English settlement in the New World, archaeologist John Cotter identified and described an early 17th-century brewery. According to Cotter, circular brick fireboxes, a portion of a copper kettle, lead fragments, and mortar analysis indicated a semi-industrial complex likely associated with brewing. Archaeological excavations have been conducted at a number of Spanish colonial wineries (bodegas) in the Moquegua Valley region of Peru, which have revealed insights into the material culture of early colonial winery operations. Archaeologists have identified and described rum distilleries at British colonial sites in New England and the Caribbean. Brandy distilleries have been excavated at urban Spanish colonial sites in Argentina and at Dutch colonial settlements in the Cape Coast region of South Africa. Archaeological excavations have also been conducted at a small 18th-century whiskey distillery at Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. Evidence of Alcohol Storage and Treatment Alcohol is a volatile fluid. If not consumed immediately after production, it must be stored in durable airtight containers. Alcohol has also been a valuable commodity and a prominent item of trade. The volatile and valuable nature of alcohol has led to the production of a rich material culture for its storage and transport. Glass bottles, ceramic jars, and ironbound wooden casks not only served the immediate purpose of storage and transport but also survived well in the archaeological record and have helped archaeologists identify patterns of trade. The most prolific research probably comes from archaeologists working at ancient and classical sites in Europe, the Near East, and the
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Mediterranean, who have used amphorae jars to trace the early wine trades. In the Americas, hand-blown glass bottles are ubiquitous on colonial European sites, which attests the magnitude of the Atlantic alcohol trade, especially from the Portuguese island of Madeira. Alcohol Production in North America North America was one of the few culture areas that did not produce alcoholic beverages prior to European contact. Once Native North Americans were introduced to alcoholic beverages, however, the European alcohol trade became central to the economic success of many on the early colonial frontier. Archaeologists have recovered glass bottles and wine jars from Native American sites throughout North America. The presence of these materials on Native American sites highlights the commercial nature of European-Indian relations and reveals the extent to which the Native American fur and deerskin trades helped fuel the emerging Atlantic economy. Archaeologists have identified and described the structures and dwellings used for alcohol consumption. Taverns, inns, ordinaries, saloons, cafés, brothels, fraternity houses, and other sites of social drinking provide archaeologists with many opportunities to explore alcohol use and its role in generating the appropriate atmosphere for sociability. Colonial American taverns have been particularly popular subjects of archaeological study. Tavern sites possess a distinct material culture, which makes them easily identifiable in the archaeological record. Unlike domestic dwelling sites, tavern sites usually have a high number of alcohol-related materials, including fragments of wine bottles, punch bowls, tankards, mugs, and wineglasses. Occasionally, archaeologists will recover complete wine bottles from archaeological sites (especially from underwater archaeological sites), which still contain remnants of their original alcoholic contents. Colonial tavern sites also tend to posses a high percentage of white kaolin clay tobacco pipes. As with alcohol drinking, tobacco smoking probably enhanced the sociable atmosphere of tavern life. Archaeological evidence has been used to highlight other aspects of tavern life. The discovery of checkers and garter pins at some tavern sites has helped reveal ancillary tavern activities, such as gaming and
This Greek rock crystal libation vessel on display in an archeological museum in Crete, Greece, dates from 1500 to 1450 b.c.e. Archeologists have recovered evidence of wine presses in Greece at Minoan-aged sites dating back as far as 3500 b.c.e.
prostitution. A circular pit feature found in the backyard of an 18th-century tavern site in Williamsburg, Virginia, was probably used as a ring for cockfighting. Moreover, archaeologists are in an excellent position to identify decorations and special amenities, such as mirrors, lighting, and furnishings, which tavern owners, and the owners of other types of drinking establishments, used to entice patrons. Archaeologists have used the material culture evidence of alcohol use to determine the economic class of residents at particular sites. For example, the recovery of porcelain punch bowls and crystal wine decanters from 18th-century domestic sites
in North America is usually a good indicator of wealth. The consumption of higher quality alcoholic beverages in fancy punch bowls, however, is not always an indication of economic status. Archaeologist Peter Pope explored how the 17thcentury fish trade between Newfoundland and Europe gave lowly fishermen at the margins of the Atlantic world access to expensive French wine and brandy. Old World Traditions in New Settings The massive movement of people to new environmental and cultural settings is one of the defining features of the modern world. Historical archaeologists have explored the survival of Old World cultural traditions in new settings, including traditions involving the use of alcoholic beverages. For example, archaeologist Leland Ferguson has hinted that large, locally made earthenware jars, otherwise known as Colono Ware, recovered from the sites of enslaved peoples in North America may have occasionally been used for brewing beer. According to Ferguson, similar jars were used for that purpose in west and west central Africa and, therefore, the presence of Colono Ware jars at those sites may reflect the survival of African brewing traditions in the Americas. At 19th-century urban domestic sites in New York City, archaeologists have attributed the discovery of whiskey-bottle fragments at Irish-immigrant sites and wine-bottle fragments at Jewish-immigrant sites to the survival of Old World drinking customs. Similarly, the discovery of a temperance cup, bearing the image of Irish temperance reformer Theobald Mathew, at a 19th-century Irish-immigrant dwelling in the Five Points neighborhood of New York may reflect abstinence from alcohol, as well as the sense of Irish nationalism felt by the residents at that site. The presence of alcohol-related materials at archaeological sites can no doubt provide insights into the ways people have used alcohol to cope with anxiety in different settings. For example, the high percentage of alcohol-related material recovered from 17th-century British colonial sites in Bridgetown, Barbados, underscores the colonists’ attempts to escape from the many anxieties they encountered on the Caribbean frontier, including loneliness, an unpredictable disease environment, and the constant threat of slave revolt. However,
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the presence of punch bowls, rather than individual bottles, highlights the Barbadians’ special preoccupation with social drinking events and alcohol-based hospitality. The presence of alcohol bottles at Native American sites may reflect the way Indians used alcohol to cope with the disintegration of traditional society and the rapid pace of culture change. The high percentage of alcohol bottles at military sites also suggests high levels of anxiety, as well as boredom, and the need for alcoholic escape. Frederick H. Smith College of William and Mary See Also: Ancient World, Drinking in; Drinking, Anthropology of; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 17th Century; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 18th Century; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 19th Century. Further Readings Braidwood, Robert J., et al. “Symposium: Did Man Once Live by Beer Alone?” American Anthropologist, v.55 (1953). Cotter, John L. “Archaeological Excavations at Jamestown, Virginia.” Archaeological Research Series 4. Washington, DC: National Park Service, 1958. Ferguson, Leland. Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America, 1650–1800. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992. Katz, Solomon and Mary Voigt. “Bread and Beer: The Early Use of Cereals in the Human Diet.” Expedition, v.28 (1985). McGovern, Patrick E. Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. Pope, Peter. “Fish Into Wine: The Historical Anthropology of Demand for Alcohol in Seventeenth Century Newfoundland.” In The Changing Face of Drink: Substance, Imagery, and Behaviour, J. S. Blocker and C. K. Warsh, eds. Ottawa: Les Publications Histoire Sociale/Social History, 1997. Reckner, Paul and Stephen Brighton. “‘Free From All Vicious Habits’: Archaeological Perspectives on Class Conflict and the Rhetoric of Temperance.” Historical Archaeology, v.33/1 (1999).
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Smith, Frederick H. The Archaeology of Alcohol and Drinking. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008. Smith, Frederick H. Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005. Smith, Frederick H. “Volatile Spirits: The Historical Archaeology of Alcohol and Drinking in the Caribbean.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, 2001.
Argentina The second-largest country in South America, falling only behind Brazil in gross domestic product and landmass, Argentina has a culture of alcohol consumption dating to the 16th-century arrival of Spanish explorers. The country’s capital, Buenos Aires, became a key port city for the Spanish empire after 1580 and a growing market for both imported and domestically produced alcoholic beverages. Wine, beer, and imported liquor represent the three most consumed alcoholic products in Argentina. Wine Argentina is perhaps most associated with its wine industry, primarily located in the country’s western province of Mendoza. The area’s experiment with viticulture began in the late 16th century, when Spanish colonists transplanted European vine cuttings to the Río de la Plata region. The plants thrived in the semiarid regions at the foothills of the Andes. By the end of the 16th century, a prospering wine industry began to concern the Spanish crown, as New World wines competed with Spanish imports and were more difficult to tax. In 1595, King Felipe II issued a ban on American grape and wine production, exempting only religious orders. While the ban was reestablished multiple times in the early 17th century, Argentine vintners largely ignored the ban, instead paying a harvesting tax and agreeing to halt vineyard expansion. The Argentine wine industry benefitted from the Spanish empire’s early administrative organization; by authorizing the viceroyalty of Peru
as South America’s only legal export port, the crown unwittingly promoted a profitable contraband market, including of wine, through Buenos Aires. Argentine vintners’ comparative advantage ended in the late 18th century, when King Carlos III embraced laissez-faire capitalism, increased colonial supervision by creating the viceroyalty of Río de la Plata, and allowed inter-American trade. These so-called Bourbon reforms resulted in a deluge of untaxed Iberian imports that, for wine, undercut Argentine prices by more than a third. In the early 19th century, wine production suffered as landholders shifted toward cattle ranching and Argentine’s independence struggle, and subsequent civil wars, disrupted the nascent state’s economy. The birth of the modern Argentine wine industry dates to the mid-19th century, when the exiled French agronomist Michel Aimé Pouget, armed with technical expertise and European cuttings, began to reform Chilean agriculture. Argentine politician Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, also exiled in Chile, and other Mendoza politicians recruited Pouget to modernize Argentine wine making. Among his many innovations was the introduction of the malbec varietal, a dark, flavorful grape from the Cahors region of France that has become synonymous with Argentine wine. Pouget helped Argentine wine making grow at a moderate pace, but the reputation of the industry suffered from poor capital investments and the widespread practices of adulterating wine, either by watering it down or adding preservatives like sulfur. Four late-19th century events, however, precipitated the rapid emergence of the Argentine wine as an internationally competitive product: First, British foreign investment funded the construction of national railways that connected provincial vineyards to Buenos Aires consumers. Second, a vine blight caused by an infestation of phylloxera lice severely crippled European wine production. Third, the provincial government of Mendoza funded a massive irrigation project that doubled, and made more attractive, the province’s arable land. Fourth, a massive wave of immigration, especially from Spain, France, and Italy, brought to Argentina millions of immigrants who had viticulture knowledge and who were used to consuming wine daily. On the eve of World War I, domestic wine represented Argentine
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families’ third-largest grocery expenditure, only surpassed by meat and bread. With the exception of the Great Depression, wine consumption continued to increase in the early 20th century. During the 1940s and 1950s, President Juan D. Perón’s labor policies increased the wages and purchasing power of a new urban working class, whose taste for wine increased average annual consumption from 66 liters in 1950 to 80 liters in 1960. Despite a growing domestic market, the lack of standards, inhospitable investment climate during the post-Perón military dictatorships, and outdated technologies resulted in wines that performed poorly internationally. The 1990s represented a moment of tremendous growth for the Argentine wine industry. Argentine vintners, following the recommendations of French and U.S. consultants, updated their facilities, refined growing and fermenting processes, and reemphasized malbec as a signature product. These improvements were made possible by President Carlos Menem’s economic policies, which pegged the peso to the dollar and increased the currency’s worth. As a result of these innovations, improved malbec wines began to receive international recognition; one brand received a 94-out-of-100 score from famous wine critic Robert Parker Jr. in 1996. With increasing international appeal, particularly from the tourist sector, the wine industry survived the 2001 currency crisis, generating just under $1 million in exports in 2012. Beer Despite wine’s prominence in the Argentine diet, beer has in the last 10 years surpassed wine in domestic per capita consumption. Argentina’s first breweries—many having been started by English immigrants—appeared in the late 18th century. Poor infrastructure, especially lack of transportation and refrigeration, initially retarded the growth of beer consumption. In the second half of the 19th century, however, railroad expansion and immigration, especially from Germany, revitalized the industry. Like wine, beer grew in popularity in the early 20th century, particularly among the youth and the urban working class. Though a few major brands dominated sales, a microbrewery movement initially based in the Patagonia region has since the mid-1980s had success in diversifying the Argentine beer market.
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Fernet Between 1876 and 1915, more than 2 million Italians immigrated to Argentina, a number roughly equivalent to the country’s total population in the 1870s. Along with a taste for wine, these immigrants brought with them a custom of drinking digestifs after large meals. One such import was fernet, an Italian amaro (bitter) made from macerated herbs, roots, fungi, and spices. Fernet cocktails became popular in the mid-20th century, as another wave of Italian immigrants arrived after World War II. Fernet’s ascendance to the national stage came in the early 1980s when university students in the city of Córdoba boycotted British whiskey during the Malvinas/Falkland Islands conflict with the United Kingdom. The nationalist campaign, along with the early 1990s invention of the “fernet con cola” cocktail, cemented fernet’s reputation as Argentina’s national liquor. Argentine consumption of fernet, especially by young adults, has increased steadily over the last two decades and now accounts for 90 percent of the liquor’s world supply. Taylor Jardno Yale University See Also: Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Latin America; Spanish Empire; Wine Tourism; Wines, Red. Further Readings Milanesio, Natalia. “Food Politics and Consumption in Peronist Argentina.” Hispanic American Historical Review, v.90/1. Mount, Ian. The Vineyard at the End of the World: Maverick Winemakers and the Rebirth of Malbec. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. Simpson, James. Creating Wine: The Emergence of a World Industry, 1840–1914. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011.
Art Like the brewing of alcohol, the history of alcohol and drinking in art extends back to the early days of human civilization. Depictions of the production and consumption of alcohol can be found in
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the artistic works of many cultures throughout history. A brief survey of alcohol and drinking in art from the Greeks through the Middle Ages and modern era in Europe up to the present reveals the value of this subject matter in the arts. Additionally, this examination offers insight into a range of social attitudes toward alcohol. Increasingly, alcohol brands, like Guinness and Absolut Vodka, have taken a proactive role in developing the relationship between art and alcohol by becoming patrons of the arts. Alcohol also has played a multifaceted role in the production of art and culture as the connection between creativity and alcohol has been fostered and romanticized. Early Depictions in the Visual Arts Depictions of the production and consumption of alcohol in art can be found in various cultures around the world. Sumerian decorative arts display the social roles of alcohol. Egyptian iconography shows the production of beer. Aztec codices capture illustrations of people drinking pulque, a fermented drink made from the agave plant. Mayan cups convey humorous scenes of intoxication. Greek vases are decorated with images of drunken jubilation. According to Iain Gately, classical Greece is the first civilization to provide extensive accounts of the social and cultural use of alcohol, which centered on wine. The consumption of wine is documented in theater, such as the drinking of wine to seal a female chastity pledge in Aristophanes’s comedy Lysistrata; in literature, including Homer’s The Illiad and The Odyssey; and in the visual and decorative arts. Drinking is associated with the god Dionysus—also known as Bacchus—who functions as an embodiment of the Greek attitude toward drinking: It can cause pleasure but can also introduce chaos and misery. He is commonly linked with the untamed side of humanity in contrast to the god Apollo, who represents order. He also serves as the Greek patron of theater, with many tragedies and comedies written in his honor. His image is found on kraters and other Greek wine vessels. Cult images of Dionysus typically display the god as androgynous and nude with a wreath of vine leaves and ivy. Dionysus would remain a source of artistic inspiration centuries after the height of his worship, and he figures into the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche in
the 19th century, who associates him with unrestrained aesthetic passion and intoxication. Depictions of feasting and drinking are prominent in secular and religious paintings from the European Middle Ages onward. Illustrations produced during the Middle Ages display wine making and beer brewing. Cocharelli of Genova’s The Treatise of Vices, a prose treatise on vices created between 1314 and 1324 and illustrated by Cibo monk Hyères, contains a tavern scene with men drinking above an image of a cellarer at work. Additionally, drinking is incorporated into the banquet scene of the famous Bayeux Tapestry— an embroidered cloth produced in the late 11th century that depicts the events leading to the Norman Conquest of England. With the emergence of Christianity and its increasing influence on artistic subject matters in Europe, wine is portrayed in association with the Eucharist, where it becomes the transubstantiated blood of Jesus Christ. Images of the last supper, including Leonardo DaVinci’s famous fresco created in the late 15th century, feature wine in this context. Also, monasteries in the Middle Ages took an active role in the production of wine and brewing of beer, and illustrations of this process exist, including one of an abbey cellarer testing wine by Aldorandino of Siena. Revived interest in classical culture during the Italian Renaissance brought about a return of themes and images from the Greek canon, including references to Dionysus or Bacchus. The Triumph of Bacchus (1628) by Diego Velázquez, Bacchus (c. 1597) and Self-Portrait as Bacchus (c. 1593), also referred to as Sick Bacchus, by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, serve as some examples. While their contemporaries in Italy were more interested in painting Greek-inspired, mythological images of intoxication, Dutch painters of the 16th and 17th centuries regularly created tavern scenes and other depictions of drinking in everyday life. Pieter Bruegel the Elder is celebrated for his images of peasant culture, including The Harvesters (1565), which incorporates illustrations of people drinking. Wine, beer, and drinking implements are also featured in other domestic scenes, such as Jan Vermeer’s At the Procuress’ (1656). The Old Drinker by Gabriel Metsu (c. 1660) shows an elderly soldier with a
pipe and pewter tankard resting on a beer barrel. Also, alcohol-related objects are found in numerous still-life works, including the images of 17th-century Dutch painter Willem Kalf and 18th-century French painter Jean Simeon Chardin. The ability to illustrate the effects of light on wine through crystal glass functions as a testament to an artist’s skill. The 19th Century During the 19th century, absinthe was a popular beverage consumed by artists and other creative intellectuals, including Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh and French artist Henri de ToulouseLautrec. Absinthe is a bitter liqueur made from the leaves and top part of the wormwood plant, which are combined with aromatics, including anise. It is pale green in color and believed to have hallucinogenic properties, which have
Edgar Degas’s L’Absinthe depicted absinthe drinking in a controversial manner for the 1870s. Heavy absinthe drinkers at the time in France became known as les absintheurs.
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contributed to its nickname, la fée verte, or the green fairy. Doris Lanier describes how absinthe greatly influenced art production, both in terms of artist consumption and as a subject matter for art. The drink has featured in works by Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, and Pablo Picasso. During this time, barroom and café scenes increasingly became popular subject matters for artists, who were interested in capturing the realism of their contemporary society. According to Doris Lanier, Degas’s L’Absinthe (1878) evoked controversy when it was first exhibited in London in 1893. Both the press and public were outraged by this painting that displays a couple drinking absinthe in a Parisian café, and it was lambasted in the media due to the realism of its subject matter. The debate it sparked seems to be more about the morality surrounding the consumption of the controversial liqueur than concerning the painting itself. With the advent of photography in 1839, the medium soon became a popular means of creating realistic images, including depictions of alcohol and drinking. William Henry Fox Talbot, who is one person credited with discovering photographic processes, included the image Articles of Glass (1843) in his published collection of images The Pencil of Nature. The image—a salted paper print from a paper negative, or calotype— displays shelves of crystal wine glasses, whiskey tasters, and decanters. As photography became a popular means of capturing the social spectrum and a tool of artistic expression, photographs of people imbibing in alcohol accumulated as works of art became more commonplace. Various photographers in the 20th and 21st centuries are recognized for such images, including Brassaï (Gyula Halász), Weegee (Arthur Fellig), Robert Frank, and Nan Goldin. Photographs of barrooms, dance clubs, parties, sports fans, rebellious teenagers, and aging alcoholics function as voyeuristic insights into factions of society commonly pushed to the margins. Not unlike the Greek dedications to Bacchus, medieval displays of feasting, Bruegel’s romanticization of peasant life, and Manet’s urban realism, the work of photographers capturing the drinking of alcohol participates in this tradition of using art to display the range of human social activities, including messier acts of intoxication.
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Live art, performance art, installation art, and conceptual art have increasingly become popular in the 20th and 21st centuries, with references to alcohol and alcohol consumption being featured in these types of work. In her 1975 performance Lips of Thomas, Marina Abramovic consumes an entire bottle of red wine as one of her ritualized actions. Native American performance artist James Luna regularly references beer and alcohol in his works, including The Artifact Piece, which was first staged at the Museum of Man, San Diego, in 1987 and involves the artist lying still in a glass case. In this work, museum labels attribute scars on the artist’s body to excessive drinking. In 1991, he presented an installation and photographs titled AA meeting / Art History that references the popular 12-step program, Alcoholics Anonymous. Beer bottles and cans are also featured in the installations of Thomas Hirschhorn and Damien Hirst. In 2001, an assemblage by Hirst—composed of beer bottles, overflowing ashtrays, and coffee cups—was inadvertently destroyed when a janitor at its exhibiting London gallery disposed of the work, believing it to be a pile of rubbish. Art as Social Moral Commentary At times, the inclusion of alcohol in art is intended to function as morality lessons—condemning (some) acts of drinking as unsavory or sinful. William Hogarth’s engravings Beer Street and Gin Lane (1751) are intended to show the merits of drinking beer over gin. In Beer Street, people live happily and prosperously in a neighborhood fueled by ale. In contrast, the residents of Gin Lane are miserable, slovenly, and destitute as a result of drinking too much gin. A woman in the center of Gin Lane represents Mother Gin, whose infant son is falling headfirst toward a cellar gin shop. Iain Gately describes how these Jekyll-andHyde images were used to sway public opinion during a time where there was a great debate in London over gin, where heavy consumption of the spirit—also referred to as the gin craze—was tied to rising crime rates throughout the city. George Cruikshank is another artist whose work merits a moral purpose concerning alcohol. Cruikshank was a heavy drinker until he turned 55, when he gave up alcohol and became a leader in the British temperance movement.
He expresses his sentiments in his art, including The Triumph of Bacchus (1860–62), which is a large, complex allegorical painting meant to convey the evils associated with alcohol. Human figures fill the landscape, participating in various scenes where revelers drink excessively and suffer the worst consequences of alcoholism—including institutionalization, the degradation of health, and premature death. At the center of the image is a statue of Bacchus with his goblet raised, fueling this explicitly detailed morality tale. Cruikshank continued to produce works preaching the dangers of drinking, including a series of eight prints titled The Bottle. In this series, Cruikshank illustrates the downward spiral of a once-prosperous Victorian mechanic and his family as he succumbs to alcoholism. Alcohol and the Art of Advertising In the 19th and 20th centuries, as illustrated advertisements came to prominence, posters created for the promotion and sale of alcohol by artists became quite common. For example, during the 1930s, John Thomas Young Gilroy, a graduate of the Royal College of Art in London, was hired to illustrate advertisements for two campaigns for the Irish porter Guinness. His first series is associated with the slogan “Guinness for Strength” and features people performing incredible feats of strength, such as a steel worker carrying a girder with ease and a farmer pulling a horse cart. The second campaign involves illustrations of zoo animals, including a bear, an ostrich, a pelican, a giraffe, and a sea lion, stealing pints of Guinness from a zookeeper—a self-portrait of the artist— who exclaims, “My Goodness! My Guinness!” These ads continue to be found throughout Ireland and beyond and are featured on posters and other memorabilia in souvenir shops, functioning as popular collectors’ items. Guinness has also taken an active role in financially supporting the visual arts, a legacy that extends back to the philanthropy of the brewery’s founder, Arthur Guinness. The Arthur Guinness Projects is a current initiative by the company sponsoring activities in the arts, music, sports, and food in Ireland. People submit ideas to the campaign and, if selected, can receive up to 50,000 euros in addition to mentoring from industry professionals and experts to execute proposed projects.
Another brand that has fostered a relationship with the arts community is Absolut Vodka. In 1980, Absolut introduced a long-running advertising campaign based on the unique shape of the bottle—most liquor bottles have long necks and square shoulders, while the Absolut bottle has a short neck and round shoulders. Developed by the advertising agency TBWA Worldwide, the ads feature objects shaped like the bottle, which is associated with the text ABSOLUT along with a word that references the image. This simple combination of pithy text with image is very successful as more than 1,500 have been created. Richard Lewis, who worked as account director for Absolut at TBWA and is referred to as the Absolut guru, points out that the campaign is not just recognized for its longevity but also its ingenuity. While the purpose of these ads is to create a healthy and enduring brand for the vodka, the campaign has taken on a cultural life of its own. Artists have been invited to create images, and the ads are collectors’ items. In 1983, Andy Warhol painted his interpretation of the Absolut bottle, which he gave to Michel Roux, then CEO of Carillon Importers, who is responsible for bringing Absolut from Sweden to the United States. Even though Warhol did not drink alcohol, according to Richard Lewis, he did claim to use the vodka as a perfume. After the ad ABSOLUT WARHOL successfully ran, Warhol was asked to recommend other artists for the project. The next artist to complete an Absolut ad would be Keith Haring, whose ABSOLUT HARING was unveiled at the Whitney Museum in 1986. This relationship between the art world and advertising resulted in a legacy of art patronage for Absolut, further blurring the lines between fine art and commercialization while entrenching the brand’s recognition in the art community. Richard Lewis points out that this relationship helped shaped Absolut as a brand that supports the arts, creativity, and freedom of expression. Shortly after the running of successful ads by recognized artists, like Warhol and Haring, Roux received many unsolicited works—a rich pool of submissions from artists that fueled the company for years. The only requirement for artists who create Absolut ads is that he or she includes the distinctive shape of the bottle somewhere in the work. Some other artists whose work is featured in Absolut ads are: Kenny
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Sharf, Armand Arman, Ed Ruscha, Al Hirschfeld, Chris Ofili, Damien Hirst, Louise Bourgeois, Nam June Paik, Maurizio Cattelan, and writer Kurt Vonnegut. Creativity and Alcohol Numerous artists and other creative workers have reputations as being heavy drinkers or alcoholics. Various studies have been carried out to explore the relationship between alcohol and creativity, including one by Arnold Ludwig in 1995. For this study, he assessed alcohol-related problems— including physical illness, work disruption or poor performance, personal and interpersonal problems, and police records—of 1,004 eminent people. He discovered that creative professionals and entertainers tend to have higher rates of alcohol dependence or abuse, although the relationship between alcohol and creativity is not clear-cut. Some artists drink before producing work, while others tend to become intoxicated after completing a major project. For example, Jackson Pollock believed that alcohol made it possible for him to paint, though he seldom drank while working. In spite of his own beliefs, Pollock experienced a burst of creativity during an extended period of sobriety, when he created some of his most renowned paintings. In contrast, Frederic Remington was a heavy, steady drinker throughout his life and managed to sustain a very productive career. Allan Beveridge and Graeme Yorston describe how alcoholism in creative individuals can be treated as evidence of artistic integrity. They differentiate between various ways that alcohol can be celebrated by artists: intoxication as a means of mystical transport, a way to rebel against polite society, an opportunity to instill suffering as inspiration for the creative process, and finally, heavy alcohol use as a function of evidence of the artist being too sensitive for this world. Vincent Van Gogh, who is believed to have suffered from a psychiatric illness coupled with heavy drinking of absinthe, illustrates this last category of the tormented genius—a sensitive soul not fit for the “horrors” of human existence. Arguably, as Steven Pritzker notes, these higher rates of alcohol abuse and dependency could be attributed to the nature of creative work, which tends to be more isolating and emphasizes the
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personal vision of the artist. Additionally, creative work is associated with high rates of rejection and limited opportunities, resulting in personal and professional stress and anxiety. Jesse Smith, Teresa Smith, and Ellen Yi-Luen Do have performed a psychological study intending to link alcohol consumption to creativity, arguing that drinking does appear to improve the creative output of a majority of their participants. Participants were offered drinks over a series of rounds, during which each was asked to produce a creative task, such as drawing, sculpting, or writing. However, the researchers admit that their conclusions are limited due to the small sample size of the group. Additionally, this study does not take extended alcohol consumption associated with heavy drinking and alcoholism into account, nor does it acknowledge the prolonged productivity necessary to being a successful artist. The relationship between alcohol and creativity is also perpetuated by social conditions. Many artists meet in bars, cafés, and restaurants, where drinking alcohol plays a major role in social gatherings. For example, as noted previously, absinthe drinking was popular among the French intelligentsia of the 19th century. Many artists were known to imbibe from time to time, while others became les absintheurs—heavy absinthe drinkers. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who is recognized for his images of the Parisian nightlife toward the end of the 19th century, many of which contain references to the green fairy, would succumb to an alcoholic death at the age of 37. During the 1950s, the abstract expressionist, or new school, painters of New York City, which include Wilhem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko, commonly gathered at the Artists’ Club on East 39th Street for socializing and heavy drinking. While these artists enjoyed successful careers, heavy drinking did take its toll, particularly for Mark Rothko, whose alcoholism and depression led him to commit suicide in 1970. As noted earlier, Jackson Pollock was also a heavy drinker, though he frequented the Cedar Tavern along with Franz Kline. Even though Pollock remained sober for two years, he resumed drinking again and, in 1956, died in an alcohol-related car accident.
Artists are not the only ones known to consume alcohol in the arts community—alcoholic beverages, especially wine, are commonly offered alongside cheese platters at gallery openings and museum events. Additionally, cocktail parties and galas function as fund-raising opportunities for arts organizations. Here, alcohol functions as a social lubricant as these events tend to emphasize networking and communal interactions. The artist Andy Warhol, who occasionally joined Pollock and Kline at the Cedar Tavern, did not drink alcohol but, during the 1960s, fostered a bohemian environment in his studio, The Factory. Drug use and excessive alcohol consumption regularly took place there, resulting in alcoholism and drug addiction in some of the eccentric “superstars” featured in Warhol’s films, including Edie Sedgwick, who died at the age of 28 in 1971 due to a combination of barbiturates and alcohol. Conclusion Some may romanticize the relationship between artists and alcohol, but Pritzker points out that research of noneminent creative professionals suggests that this perception is inaccurate. Alcohol may help the user overcome anxiety associated with creative production, but the actual benefits of prolonged or heavy use are quite limited, especially when considering the medical and social problems associated with alcoholism. In some cases, alcohol can help jump-start the artistic process, but it generally inhibits the discipline required to be a successful artist. Emily Lauren Putnam Independent Scholar See Also: Absinthe; Cruikshank, George; Films, Drinking in; Greece, Ancient; Literature, Role of Alcohol in; Popular Music, Drinking in. Further Readings Beveridge, Allan, and Graeme Yorston. “I Drink, Therefore I Am: Alcohol and Creativity.” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, v.92 (1999). Gately, Iain. Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol. New York: Gotham Books, 2008. Lanier, Doris. Absinthe: The Cocaine of the Nineteenth Century. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, Inc., 1995.
Lewis, Richard W. Absolut Book: The Absolut Vodka Advertising Story. Boston, MA: Tuttle Publishing, 1996. Ludwig, Arnold M. The Price of Greatness: Resolving the Creativity and Madness Controversy. New York: Guilford Press, 1995. Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pritzker, Steven. “Alcohol and Creativity.” In Encyclopedia of Creativity. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1999. Schildkraut, Joseph J., Alissa J. Hirshfeld, and Jane M. Murphy. “Mind and Mood in Modern Art: II. Depressive Disorders, Spirituality, and Early Deaths in the Abstract Expressionist Artists of the New York School.” The American Journal of Psychiatry, v.151/4 (1994). Smith, Jesse C., Teresa M. Smith, and Ellen Yi-Leun Do. “Alcohol and Creativity: A Pilot Study.” In Proceeding of the Seventh ACM Conference on Creativity and Cognition. New York: ACM, 2009.
Arthur, Timothy Shay (T. S.) In the course of a nearly 50-year career, during which he was among the most widely read American writers of his time, T. S. Arthur published more than 30 novels and over 150 short stories and poems. Despite this extended and prolific career, in 1885, when Arthur died from kidney cancer at age 75, he merited only a slender, 3-inch obituary in the New York Times. But that obituary, slender as it was, mentioned by name the single work that had established T. S. Arthur as a major name in American letters, and that still, nearly four decades after its publication, resonated with the reading public: Ten Nights in a Bar-Room. More than a century after Arthur’s death, Ten Nights remains the biggest selling and thanks to a melodramatic theatrical adaptation that toured American cities for years, the most influential temperance novel ever published in America. From boyhood, Timothy Shay Arthur burned to be a writer. Born June 6, 1809, in Newburgh,
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New York, a small town on the Hudson River 55 miles from New York City, Arthur grew up in the nearby hamlet of Fort Montgomery. Arthur began life as a sickly child who, despite poor eyesight, read voraciously, becoming particularly fond of the adventure tales of Sir Walter Scott. His father, a struggling miller, moved the family to the outskirts of Baltimore, Maryland, when Arthur was 11, hoping to improve his fortunes by tapping into the city’s trade. It did not work. Young Arthur stayed in school until he was 12 but demonstrated little propensity for learning. In light of his poor eyesight and the family’s precarious financial situation, he left school to help support his family as a tailor’s apprentice. Even so, his mother took it upon herself to continue his education at home, reading him Bible stories and teaching him history and arithmetic. Arthur would rather sketch stories than sew clothing—his employer quickly deemed him lazy and released him from his apprenticeship. He worked briefly as a wholesale merchandiser, a job that took him for a time to Louisville, Kentucky, then a burgeoning port on the Ohio River. As in his apprenticeship, Arthur resisted applying himself to his work because of his strong desire to write. Returning to Baltimore at age 21, he worked briefly for the Susquehanna Bridge and Building Company, a short-lived counting house that specialized in bankrolling high-risk building projects. At this time, Arthur began to submit stories to local magazines, popular publications that specialized in attracting middle-class, minimally educated women, wives and mothers, regarded at the time as a prime target for magazines. He enjoyed some success, publishing poems and sketches sometimes under his own name and sometimes, to disguise his own lack of education, under elaborate British-sounding pseudonyms that he thought better conveyed the sophistication of a professional writer. Eventually, he settled on T. S. Arthur. Needing a steady income, from 1833 to 1836 Arthur edited a small-circulation newspaper in Baltimore. When, in 1836, he married Eliza Alden, Arthur’s career expectations and life aspirations changed dramatically; Eliza was a descendant of the Puritan leader John Alden who had landed on the Mayflower. The Alden family’s wealth and social position motivated Arthur to
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strive for success. Over the next five years, he struggled to establish a name for himself in the competitive world of Baltimore publishing, finally accepting, in 1840, a position as editor of the Baltimore Merchants Journal, a newspaper that specialized in local business and economic news. His social life improved significantly—despite his minimal income as a newspaper editor, he and his wife traveled in the elite Baltimore social circles. His emerging regional reputation as an editor of some repute promoted a wide acquaintance with local authors and made him a fixture in the local literary world. For a time, he participated in a monthly meeting of writers, would-be writers, and editors who met in Baltimore’s Seven Stars tavern. The Seven Stars literary group introduced Arthur to many promising young writers, among whom was a sallow-faced southern journalist/ poet named Edgar Allan Poe. Temperance Work Arthur remained restless, despite his improved professional prospects, for he lacked the work ethic of a professional journalist. Things changed in 1840, when Arthur covered the Washingtonians, a growing temperance movement centered in Baltimore, for the Merchants Journal. Established by a group of lower income, working-class alcoholics (drunkards, to use the parlance of the era), the Washingtonians vowed abstinence from strong drink and encouraged other inebriates to join their group and support each other’s efforts to stay sober. “Experience” stories, or personal accounts by reformed men of the dire effects of drunkenness on their lives, constituted a central component of Washingtonian meetings. The melodrama of these real-life stories of how drink ruined families, destroyed marriages, and robbed individuals of their dignity and livelihoods fascinated Arthur. In response, he wrote a nine-part series on the Washingtonians that represented perhaps the best writing of his journalism career. In 1842, Arthur gathered the articles and published them in a volume titled Six Nights With the Washingtonians. Though his career by then spanned nearly two decades, Six Nights brought overnight renown, making him suddenly one of the most recognized and influential voices in the growing temperance movement.
Still, he wanted to write stories. By the late 1830s, Philadelphia, not Baltimore, had emerged as the center of American magazine publishing. In late 1840, when the Philadelphia monthly Godey’s Lady’s Book published one of Arthur’s stories, he made a bold decision. Godey’s, then America’s premier women’s magazine, numbered Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, and Poe among its contributors and boasted a readership of more than 100,000. Arthur calculated that achieving success as a writer of fiction required leaving Baltimore, and in 1841, he moved his family to Philadelphia, where he would remain for the rest of his life. Initially, on the strength of recommendations from his newspaper connections in Baltimore, he secured a job as managing editor of the shortlived Ladies’ Magazine of Literature, Fashion and the Fine Arts. With its elaborate illustrations, wide selection of new poetry and tales, and sketches of life among the influential and cultured, the Ladies’ Magazine epitomized the mass-market magazine that targeted women of class and sophistication. Over the next decade, Arthur struggled to find his niche—he published dozens of stories, most in Godey’s (he ultimately contributed more than 60 pieces to the magazine) and financed with his own resources the release of a few vanity novels and a series of children’s stories. These sold respectably, as did Arthur’s self-help manuals that offered conventional (and conservative) wisdom for proper, respectable, Christian social conduct and etiquette. In 1852, he went into partnership to serve as editor and publisher of the monthly Arthur’s Home Magazine, which used the Godey template. It proved a success, lasting more than 30 years and peaking at nearly 35,000 subscriptions per year. Novels Unsatisfied by these successes, Arthur wanted to be a novelist. In the late 1840s, he began to locate publishers for his manuscripts. Arthur’s novels related tidy moral tales with two-dimensional characters who learned simplistic and obvious lessons about hard work, faithfulness, or responsible child rearing. The novels sold moderately well, though their unobtrusively plain prose and lack of literary sophistication sometimes drew
derision from critics, including Arthur’s old acquaintances. It was not until 1853 that Arthur hit his stride with Ten Nights in a Bar-Room, and What I Saw There, a temperance novel based on his newspaper series on the Washingtonians. Published in 1854, Ten Nights fictionalized the tragic stories Arthur heard from the Washingtonians. Arthur’s chronicle of the decade-long decline of Simon Slade, a miller who opens a tavern called Sickle and Sheaf in the tiny hamlet of Cedarville, became an overnight sensation and a national best seller. The narrative follows the mounting misfortunes of Simon, his wife, Ann, and their two children, Frank and Flora, as the family and surrounding community descend into a maelstrom created by intemperance. In a memorable scene that betrays Arthur’s effort to capitalize on the emotional impact of Little Eva’s death in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Ten Nights incorporates a character, Joe, a habitual drunkard who must be led home each night by his dutiful and long-suffering daughter, Mary. On one errand to retrieve her besotted father from the Sickle and Sheaf, the unfortunate Mary stumbles into a bar fight and sustains a mortal injury when a thrown glass cuts her forehead. Over the decade covered by the novel, however, Arthur foregrounds the dissolution of the Slade family, in the process vilifying the liquor trade as morally and economically destructive. Son Frank becomes the town drunkard and kills his father with a brandy bottle, wife Ann goes quietly mad, daughter Flora marries an abusive drunk addicted to gambling, and the tavern itself slips into irretrievable debt. Drama and Later Works Ten Nights achieved such popularity that New York theatrical producers recognized the financial potential of a dramatic adaptation of the novel. They enlisted little-known playwright William W. Pratt to adapt the novel’s vignettes for the stage in what would become one of the most popular theatrical pieces in antebellum America. The moral lesson imparted by theatrical Ten Nights almost single-handedly rehabilitated American theater’s reputation as a cesspool of vice. Moral dramas like Ten Nights began to draw a middleclass, Christian audience that had long disdained
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theaters as sordid gathering places for thieves, degenerates, and prostitutes. Over the next two decades, Arthur tried to repeat the success of Ten Nights, turning his pen to other prominent social issues, most notably women’s rights to divorce abusive husbands and urban poverty among immigrants. He strove to instruct his readers in morality—each piece included a “Writer’s Preface” in which Arthur would state earnestly the didactic intentions of the narrative. His novels, though widely derided by critics as tedious parables with trite lessons written in purple prose, always sold well. In his later years, Arthur turned toward spiritualism, a move that alienated some of his middle-class, Christian readership and diminished both his sales and his literary reputation. His death on March 6, 1885, in his adopted Philadelphia elicited little notice or public expression of grief. Legacy Contemporary audiences may have difficulty appreciating the tremendous impact that Ten Nights had on its cultural moment. Modern readers may deride Arthur’s novel as self-righteous, two-dimensional, and maudlin, but these judgments fail to capture its influence on its antebellum audience. Although not on a par with Harriet Beecher Stowe’s indignant denunciation of slavery in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Upton Sinclair’s scathing indictment of the meat packing industry in The Jungle, or John Steinbeck’s heartbreaking portrait of Depression-era Oklahoma farmers in The Grapes of Wrath, Ten Nights boldly addressed a topical and controversial issue in American social and political life. Unflinchingly, if melodramatically, revealing dark aspects of the liquor trade that the polite middle-class American reading public did not recognize or would not acknowledge, Arthur fomented a wave of indignation and protest at the liquor trade. His message that only prohibitory legislation, not moral suasion, could stem the tide of alcohol’s destructiveness supported public sentiment that resulted in the passage of state prohibition laws during the 1850s. Ten Nights’ influence did not cease with the recession of temperance agitation during the Civil War. During Prohibition, a film version of Ten Nights resurrected Arthur’s moral indignation
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against liquor to promote public support for another era’s struggle with strong drink. Joseph Dewey Broward College See Also: Bars, History of Alcohol Abuse in; Drama, Drinking and Temperance in; Literature, Role of Alcohol in; Temperance Movements. Further Readings Baker, George Melville. The Temperance Drama: A Series of Dramas, Comedies, and Farces for Temperance Exhibitions, and Home and Entertainment. Charleston, SC: Nabu Press, 2012 [1874]. Blumberg, Leonard U. and William L. Pittman. Beware the First Drink! The Washingtonian Temperance Movement and Alcoholics Anonymous. Seattle, WA: Glen Abbey, 1991. Endres, Kathleen L. “Timothy Shay Arthur.” In Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. 79. American Magazine Journalists, 1850–1900, Sam G. Riley, ed. Detroit, MI: Gale, 1989. Frick, John W. Theatre, Culture and Temperance: Reform in Nineteenth-Century America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Ten Nights in a Bar Room. DVD. Dir. William A. O’Connor. 1931. Synergistic Entertainment, 2010.
Asia, East Alcoholic beverages have had a long history in east Asia. Archaeological sites in China’s Yellow River valley indicate the production of fermented beverages by 2000 b.c.e. Trade, warfare, and cultural exchange in the region spanning the centuries since have produced a distinctive array of local drinking cultures that nonetheless possess important similarities. The region shares a term for all alcoholic beverages, based on the Chinese character jiu—pronounced shu in Japanese and chu in Korean. Since ancient times, brews in east Asia have been predominantly grain based, offered alongside food, and associated with masculine socialization. While alcohol was prominent in religious
worship, social life, and cultural production throughout the region, Korea and Japan were associated more closely with heavy consumption than China in premodern times, a link persisting today despite rapidly globalizing trends in drinking culture and beverage production. China’s large population results in a modest per capita intake relative to its neighbors, but since the People’s Republic resumed full diplomatic and economic relations with the world in the late 1970s, alcohol production and consumption have soared. Asian demand is strong for foreign imports as well as traditional liquors; meanwhile, classic libations like sake and soju are on tap in bars around the world. At the same time, the negative consequences of excessive drinking have also become more apparent in the region, prompting criticism of lenient legal regulations over alcohol. Early History From the Bronze Age in Asia, alcohol has been offered to the gods and served as a necessary component of feasts and celebrations. Confucius (551–479 b.c.e.), whose influence shaped statecraft and philosophy in Japan and Korea as well as his native China, spoke of drinking properly—in quantities and settings appropriate to the occasion and one’s status—a metaphor for good morality and sound statecraft. Early fermented brews were based on a chewed mash of grain added to water, a practice continued into the 20th century by indigenous peoples throughout the region. By 221 b.c.e., the Chinese were creating fermentation starters from grain, usually wheat. A species of mold, called qu in Chinese, nuruk in Korean, and koji in Japanese, was grown on the base to break down its sugars for the brewing process. With the expansion of the Chinese empire southward, rice also began to be used for fermentation. Mold-based alcohol production spread by the 3rd century c.e. to Korea and Japan. Chinese and Korean brews sometimes use several grains, but in premodern times, nearly all Japanese alcoholic drinks were made entirely from rice. Though other ingredients and types of drinks did appear in medieval East Asia—including grape wines from Persia, palm and cane sugar-based distilled liquors from southeast Asia and the Middle East, and fermented milk from central Asia— grain-based ales were dominant. Elites in Japan
and Korea self-consciously patterned their societies and cultures after imperial China in the medieval period; jiu, chu, or shu was celebrated in all three places as inspiration for poetry, a tonic for health, and an indulgence marking festivals and feasts. Buddhism prohibited intoxicants, but in other Asian religious systems, liquor was key. Shinto ceremonies, for instance, culminated with the sharing of consecrated sake by participants. Technologies for production were also rapidly spread through the region. By the 13th century c.e., Mongol expansion facilitated the spread of distillation technology to Korea, where the product is called soju, and to Japan, where it is shochu. Grains were and remain the traditional base for these liquors, which can be as strong as around 60 percent alcohol by volume in some Chinese shaojiu. Changes After 1500 Trends toward commercialization, urbanization, and technological development during the early modern period allowed alcohol to become more widely consumed and integrated into popular culture. Eating out was accompanied by drinking, and venues catering to a range of budgets appeared in Asian cities. In Korea, alcoholic drinks were so popular that they were banned intermittently by royal decrees out of concern for depleted grain stores; in Japan, sake—since it is made from rice—has been long viewed as interchangeable with that staple in a meal. In fiction, drama, and song, liquor proved heroes’ mettle and set the mood for romantic liaisons. European maritime exploration brought exotic beverages and ingredients to east Asian drinking culture, such as sweet potato from the Americas, which could be used in place of rice and other grains in the fermentation process. Until the 19th century, however, Westerners were a relatively minor influence because of restrictions on their entry, especially in Japan, where Dutch traders, the only Europeans permitted entry after 1643, were segregated on an artificial island in Nagasaki. Grape wine, beer, and liquors like whiskey did not become widely available until after encounters backed by military force allowed Europeans to enter Asia in greater numbers. Western drinks gained a following as exotic proof of cosmopolitan consumption and markers of modernity. The
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Japanese in particular embraced wine and spirits as they came to participate themselves in armed colonial ventures, including the takeover of Taiwan from China in 1895 and the annexation of Korea in 1910. Larger, corporatized businesses, some of them jointly founded by Asian and European entrepreneurs, took over the production of alcoholic beverages. Some are highly profitable to this day, including Sapporo Brewery, the oldest whiskey distiller in Japan, and Tsingtao Brewery, maker of one of China’s most-popular beers. More traditional beverages also gained recognition as parts of a national heritage, but small producers were easily crowded out of the market. In 1934, for instance, the last independent domestic brewery closed in colonized Korea. Modern Trends World War II and its aftermath resulted in upheaval and resource shortages throughout the region, but as Japan and Korea industrialized from the 1960s on, the market for alcoholic beverages boomed.
This distilled liquor, which measures 54 percent alcohol by volume, is a type of baijiu, which is made from glutinous rice, wheat, and sorghum. This bottle was produced in Hunan Province, China.
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Between 1961 and 1988, per capita consumption roughly doubled. An even more dramatic surge was recorded in Korea, where between 1964 and 1977, the per capita rate more than tripled. When Mainland China reopened its markets to international trade in the late 1970s, its rapid economic growth was also matched by heavier drinking among its population, with a ninefold increase in per capita intake between 1978 and 1999. The social function of alcohol has even been seen as an aid in development in Asia by helping facilitate business deals and cementing connections. Even in isolated North Korea, liquor is an important commodity and sociopolitical tool. The state distributes liquor rations to its bureaucrats and military officers as well as to ordinary people on holidays; home brews and marked-up imports dominate the unofficial economy, and alcohol often serves as payment for services instead of cash. Contemporary Asian drinking habits and markets are a dynamic melding of new and old. A Tokyo izakaya, for instance, may serve sake or imported beer to its customers alongside a range of foods eaten alongside drink since the 18th century. Grape wines have gained a following among the middle class; in China, domestic producers turn out vintages of their own, including the stateowned Great Wall, designated the official wine of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Local brews, some supported by governments as cultural artifacts, have found overseas markets among not only expatriate communities but also foreign consumers. However, heavy drinking has also been a source of problems for public health and security in East Asia, though tea continues to serve as an alternative beverage. Koreans, who consumed nearly 15 liters of pure alcohol per capita on average between 2003 and 2005, also had the highest rates of alcohol dependency among men, at 13.1 percent of the total male population over 15 in 2004. By contrast, in that year, only 6.9 percent of Chinese men and 2.25 percent of Japanese men met similarly defined criteria. Rates of chronic disease as well as acute health risks have climbed, too. In Japan, drinking accounted for about half of all accidental traffic deaths in 2004, while the number of traffic accidents precipitated by drunk driving was 10 times higher in Korea than in any other developed nation in 2004. Historically, tolerant attitudes toward intoxication (in men) mean that
drunkenness is often publicly visible and that legal regulations over marketing and consumption are relatively weak. There is no legal minimum age for purchasing alcoholic beverages in China, and the set ages of 19 in Korea and 20 in Japan are rarely strictly enforced. As of 2011, there are no restrictions on where or when liquor can be sold. Y. Yvon Wang Stanford University See Also: Archeological Evidence; Asia, Southeast; China; Confucianism; Fermentation, Ancient Era Through Middle Ages; Japan; South Korea. Further Readings Chang, K. C., ed. Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives. Taipei: SMC Publishing, 1997. Chung, Haekyung, and Lee Yoojin (trans.). Korean Cuisine: A Cultural Journey. Seoul, Korea: Thinking Tree Publishing, 2009. Ishige, Naomichi. The History and Culture of Japanese Food. New York: Kegan Paul, 2001. Lankov, Andrei. North of the DMZ: Essays on Daily Life in North Korea. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007. Moeran, Brian. “Drinking Country: Flows of Exchange in a Japanese Valley.” In Drinking Cultures: Alcohol and Identity, Thomas M. Wilson, ed. New York: Berg, 2005. Pettid, Michael J. Korean Cuisine: An Illustrated History. London: Reaktion Books, 2008. Simoons, Frederick J. Food in China: A Cultural and Historical Inquiry. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1991. World Health Organization. “Country Profiles: China, Japan, and Republic of Korea.” WHO Global Status Report on Alcohol, 2004, 2011. http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/ global_alcohol_report/profiles (Accessed March 2014).
Asia, South The production and consumption of alcohol in South Asia is problematic. On one hand, they
supply governments with tax revenues; on the other hand, they are intertwined with issues of class, caste, religion, and gender. It seems clear that men drink more than women and that a stigma attaches to a woman who drinks alcohol. This stigma extends to children, though in both women and children this stigma may be on the decline in cities. The consumption of alcohol in South Asia is often on a small scale. There is a temptation to deem alcohol acceptable among the middle and upper classes and detrimental to the poor, an attitude one also sees in the West. The advertising and marketing campaigns that are so evident in the West are less common and less pervasive in India and other parts of South Asia. What little advertising that exists does not try to claim that the man who drinks alcohol will be more virile and the woman sexier. Beer appears to be the alcoholic beverage of choice, though there is a long history of consumption of palm wine, known in South Asia as toddy. An ancient beverage in South Asia, palm wine is not a true wine because it is not made from grapes. Instead, the sap of the coconut palm, the date palm, the oil palm, and the raffia palm is fermented into alcohol. This beverage is not potent, having only 3 or 4 percent alcohol. The sap is traditionally extracted from the flowers of palm trees in what must be an arduous process. Palm wine is particularly popular in southern India, especially the state of Kerala, and on the island of Sri Lanka. Palm wine is not just empty calories; it contains carbohydrates, amino acids, minerals, and the vitamins B12, pyridoxine, riboflavin, and thiamine. Like the United States, India had a temperance movement in the 19th century, but unlike the United States, the movement in India gained strength in the 20th century. As late as 1949, India contemplated banning the production and consumption of alcohol. The person most identified with this cause was Indian nationalist Mohandas K. Gandhi. A teetotaler, Gandhi believed that other Indians should follow his example. He envisioned prohibition as a way of uplifting India morally, socially, and economically. He saw alcohol as a curse and believed abstinence was a way of depriving Great Britain of the taxes that came from the sale of alcohol. Gandhi believed that if he could persuade the poor to abandon alcohol
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he could improve their finances and morality. He focused less attention, however, on the middle and upper classes, even though their members drank alcohol. In the 21st century, there has been a steady increase in alcohol consumption in India. The popularity of nightclubs and bars has increased alcohol consumption, particularly among young adults. Consumption has also increased among the rural poor. The intelligentsia notes that alcohol worsens poverty by leading the poor to spend what little money they have on alcohol. They see lessons to be drawn from the 2009 tragedy in Ahmedabad, India, where poisoned liquor killed 136 people. These attitudes toward alcohol may derive from ancient texts that considered alcohol a ritually impure commodity. For this reason, the Brahmans would not drink alcohol. Indians unaware of alcohol’s long history and stigma in India tend to put all the blame on Great Britain for polluting India with its alien beverages. Alcohol in this context was a means of subjugation and exploitation and was therefore a crime that Britain perpetrated on India. These ideas were prevalent among intellectuals in the immediate aftermath of the end of colonialism, but these notions have appeared to soften with the passage of time. Alcohol and Sri Lanka Despite the fact that Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam oppose the consumption of alcohol, Sri Lanka has a long tradition of drinking alcohol. As in ancient Greece, the warrior elite of Sri Lanka drew strength from alcohol. According to old customs, men could drink alcohol, but women and children should refrain. Production and consumption was local so that alcohol did not enter a larger market. This changed with the arrival of the Portuguese in the early 16th century. The Portuguese exported wine to Sri Lanka, though it is not clear that wine replaced the Sri Lankan preference for toddy. Wine was a commercial product that the Portuguese taxed. In 1964, an independent Sri Lanka empowered the government to regulate the production and sale of alcohol. Sri Lanka taxes the production and sale of alcohol, an action that has profited the government. Between 1992 and 2002, tax revenues from alcohol and tobacco
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increased fivefold. By 2002, alcohol alone provided 10.3 million rupees in revenues. The production and sale of alcohol tallied 3 percent of the gross domestic product in 2002. Between 1992 and 2002, alcohol consumption nearly doubled in Sri Lanka. Beer appears to be the beverage of choice, though the consumption of spirits has also increased. Between 1992 and 2002, per person consumption of beer more than tripled in Sri Lanka. The people of Sri Lanka drink domestic brands and imports. The government has kept beer prices lower than those of spirits in an attempt to prevent excessive drunkenness. As in the United States, malt liquor is popular in Sri Lanka. Of the more than 60 million liters of alcohol that Sri Lankans consume, about 3 million are imported beverages. Sri Lanka regulates the advertisement of alcohol on television and radio, though marketers may put whatever they wish in print. Because of government regulation television and radio carry few ads for alcohol. As in the United States, drunk driving has emerged as a problem in Sri Lanka. Drinking is inversely correlated with education and income. Contrary to the popular stereotype, women of all social classes drink, though not in large numbers. Female Buddhists are likely to abstain. When women drink, they usually choose beer or wine. As a rule, parents keep their children away from alcohol. Parents teach children to respect their elders so that even at parties the presence of a single adult is enough to deter them from drinking. At age 18, a young adult may drink. However, in cities underage drinking appears to have become problematic. Cultural traditions shame a person from going to work drunk. After work, however, one may join coworkers for a round of drinks at a local bar. As alcohol consumption has increased so have liver diseases. According to one survey the majority of women who drink had their first drink between ages 20 and 34, though 18 percent of respondents drank as early as age 15. The majority of men who drink reported taking their first drink between ages 10 and 24. Teenage drinking, where it occurs, correlates with heavy drinking in adulthood. According to this survey 94 percent of women and 47 percent of men had never taken a drink. In contrast to this trend, no Sri Lankan wedding is complete without alcohol, though apparently
few women indulge themselves. A woman who disapproves of her husband’s drinking will often relent on the occasion of a wedding. Even at weddings, however, a stigma is attached to drunkenness. Ninety percent of Sri Lankans believe that marketers should not advertise alcohol on any medium. They view the government as responsible for implementing policies that will decrease alcohol consumption. Ninety-three percent of women believe that alcohol promotes disunity in a family. Men and women agree that alcohol increases violence and crime. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: Asia, East; Asia, Southeast; India; Indonesia; Iran; Pakistan; Wine, Palm. Further Readings Doron, Assa and Alex Broom, eds. Health, Culture and Religion in South Asia: Critical Perspectives. London: Routledge, 2011. Hornsey, Ian S. Alcohol and Its Role in the Evolution of Human Society. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2012. Obot, Isidore S. and Robin Room, eds. Alcohol, Gender and Drinking Problems: Perspectives from Low and Middle Income Countries. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2005.
Asia, Southeast A vast area, southeast Asia does not have one dominant alcoholic beverage. Several are in contention. The Philippines in particular has a long tradition of varied consumption, though beer has gained ground in recent years. Because of rice’s importance, rice alcohols have played a leading role in several areas, including what was once Indochina, and also in Malaysia and the Philippines. As is true of Americans and Europeans, the peoples of southeast Asia connect alcohol with sexuality. Indochina Once called Indochina, the region is now the nations of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Many
ethnic groups influenced what the inhabitants of Indochina drank. The Chinese had the largest influence, but also important were the Cham, Khmer, Malay, and French. During French occupation, wine, Champagne, and nonalcoholic coffee became important beverages for urbanites with money. Before French rule, rice liquor was a ubiquitous beverage, which was produced by fermenting and then distilling rice into liquor. At 20 percent alcohol, rice liquor packed a punch. So ubiquitous was rice liquor that the Vietnamese called it simply “alcohol” because no other alcoholic beverage competed with it. This was natural for a people for whom rice was the dietary staple. Even before the French controlled the area, rice liquor was not produced by every household. Villages in the north specialized in producing a surplus of rice liquor for distribution throughout the countryside, and in the south Chinese producers quenched the thirst of local residents. Northern rice liquor, made from sticky rice, was particularly favored for its rich flavor. Among the products that he taxed, the emperor in Hue accumulated large stocks of rice liquor. Believing rice liquor to be an aphrodisiac, the Vietnamese linked rice liquor with sexuality. Prostitutes drank rice liquor and offered it to their clients. Unlike the custom with wine, the people of Indochina tended not to take rice liquor with a meal but rather consumed it during the many religious festivals throughout the year. Hospitality dictated that a family serve a guest rice liquor. Marriages, funerals, and agricultural festivals were all occasions for this beverage. The literati of Indochina wrote that rice liquor elevated one to state of philosophical contemplation. This view does not seem in keeping with the assertion that rice liquor was an aphrodisiac. Physicians counseled the aged to drink rice liquor for its putative health benefits. In religious ceremonies, one poured rice liquor on the ground, into which it would seep, apparently nourishing the remains of the dead. The French taxed the local production of rice liquor and tried to force the people of Indochina to drink an insipid version of rice liquor that the French produced. In 1902, France declared a monopoly on the production and sale of rice liquor, angering the Vietnamese, particularly those
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in the countryside who had long taken pride in making their own rice liquor. Because French rice liquor had some 40 percent alcohol, producers diluted it with water, making the beverage tasteless. People, particularly those in the countryside, refused to buy French rice liquor. Indochina had a temperance movement of sorts, which was directed against French alcohol. During French rule, France encouraged other European nations to export beer to Indochina. The onslaught of French and other European beverages put indigenous brewers and distillers out of business. The French rejected the sexual and religious connotations of rice liquor. To them it was nothing more than a commodity to be perfected by scientific and industrial techniques. The Indochinese, however, largely rejected imported beverages. (In what is today Vietnam, 60 percent of the people continue to drink homemade rice liquor even though it is illegal.) As in the United States during prohibition, bootleggers arose who sold traditional rice liquor. In the south, Chinese distillers hired lawyers to preserve their right to make rice liquor as they had for centuries. Even the French were divided: some missionaries wished to preserve indigenous traditions, including the making of rice liquor. By the 1920s, intellectuals like Vietnamese nationalist and communist Ho Chi Minh criticized his compatriots for drinking French wines. He maintained Vietnamese people should not ape French habits but rebel against them; to drink wine and Champagne was a sign people had forgotten their culture. True Vietnamese culture rejected wine for rice liquor. Malaysia Malaysians for generations had fermented rice into a type of beer they called borak. Not being the product of barley and hops, rice beer was an entirely different brew. One observer during World War II noted that Malaysians consumed as much rice in the form of alcohol as they consumed rice in the form of food. Hospitality dictated that a family serve a guest borak. Rice beer accompanied the many religious festivals. Malaysians could ferment borak in just five days, though some chose to do so for a longer period. The successful rice farmers brewed rice beer for their neighbors as a display of abundance. People who brewed
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rice beer were benefactors of the community and so gained status from their actions. The recipe was simple: boil rice, add yeast, cover the boiled rice with banana leaves, put the contents into a jar, and enjoy the product. On rare occasions Malaysians made millet beer, though it was never a competitor to rice beer. In fact, the more rice Malaysians grew, the less land they could spare for millet. The consumption of rice as food and beverage signaled that one was civilized. In some instances, parents gave borak to babies and children, though this action does not seem wise. Malaysians linked alcohol with sexuality; to consume borak was to announce one’s fertility. It was the beverage of husbands and wives, attesting to the fecundity and longevity of their marriage. A woman offered borak to the gods before joining a man in his bed for the first time. Traditionally, women brewed borak. Because borak was a social beverage, one could not properly drink it alone. During breaks, workers in a rice field shared a jar of rice beer. Packing a punch, borak had about 20 percent alcohol, much more than barley beers. If one believes observers, it seems surprising that Malaysians could drink so much rice beer given its high alcohol content. One observer marveled that the average Malaysian could drink three gallons of borak in two days. Borak accompanied weddings and funerals. Consumption was particularly heavy when one wished to honor the dead. After World War II, the penetration of Christian missionaries into Malaysia discouraged the consumption of borak. Even though Malaysia is not particularly Christian, borak has declined as the national beverage. Philippines Beer may be the national beverage in the Philippines, yet Filipinos view beer as a foreign product and a vice. They associate beer with drunkenness, gambling, and domestic violence. Filipinos believe that beer corrupts politicians. Before the arrival of beer, Filipinos drank many indigenous beverages. Tapuy is a rice alcohol beverage. Its preparation is quite similar to that of borak, and there seems to be little to differentiate the two. Binubudan is another rice alcohol, this one having the consistency and thickness of a food as much as a beverage. Made from the juice of sugarcane, basi is a kind of wine.
Tuba is a type of palm wine, though strictly speaking it is not a true wine because it is not fermented from grapes. Palm wine is also popular in Myanmar and Malaysia in particular and in Southeast Asia in general. Lambanog is distilled tuba. The rise of the San Miguel Corporation, which is headquartered in Manila, coincided with the ascent of beer. In 1999, San Miguel beer accounted for 84 percent of all alcohol consumed in the Philippines. The corporation also distills brandy and whiskey, and San Miguel Pale Pilsen is the principal beer in the Philippines. The corporation advertises its beers on radio and television, linking the consumption of beer to the attainment of manhood. Beautiful women, athletes, and movie stars advertise San Miguel beers on television, also making beer the drink of beauty and stardom. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: Asia, East; Asia, South; Indonesia; Malaysia; Philippines; San Miguel; Singapore; Thailand; Vietnam. Further Readings Hornsey, Ian S. Alcohol and Its Role in the Evolution of Human Society. Cambridge: RSC Publishing, 2012. Peters, Erica J. Appetites and Aspirations in Vietnam: Food and Drink in the Long Nineteenth Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012. Schiefenhovel, Wulf, and Helen Macbeth. eds. Liquid Breed: Beer and Brewing in Cross-Cultural Perspective. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2011.
Association Against the Prohibition Amendment At the heart of the movement to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment was a highly mobilized collection of prominent individuals and organizations. Mobilized by Prohibition’s detrimental results, including criminal activities and loss of tax revenue generated by alcohol production, the
Association Against the Prohibition Amendment
Association against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA) spearheaded political change toward returning America to “wet” nation status. Since the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment establishing Prohibition on January 16, 1919, the AAPA and their brethren organizations had two primary goals: to repeal Prohibition and in turn to dissolve their official associations; the former causing the latter. Unlike the social movement for Prohibition, the AAPA and other arms of repeal were not a “grassroots” force but driven by wealthy and prominent individuals. The inner circle of the AAPA contained business, financial, political, and cultural leaders, including, Pierre du Pont, John Raskob, Henry Curran, Pauline Sabin, Jouett Shouse, and United States navy captain William Henry Stayton. The AAPA began its mission even before the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. In 1918, Major Stayton established the repeal-aimed group in hopes of swaying public support for defeating Prohibition’s ratification, which had been initiated in December of 1917. Growing Membership Though the AAPA leadership was elite in status, membership eventually found inclusion from just about every social and economic sector of society. With dues set at $1 a year, over 100,000 people joined by 1921, and exponential growth exceeded 700,000 paying members by the end of 1927. The spendthrift days of the Roaring Twenties allowed many funding opportunities for the repeal movement, with the AAPA alone reporting contributions reaching over $800,000 by mid-1926. Having a considerable largesse and membership dole for the day, the AAPA supplemented its public information and legislative lobbying efforts with the help of the Molly Pitcher Clubs, the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform (WONPR), the Voluntary Committee of Lawyers (VCL), and other smaller organizations in what was considered an “antiProhibition society.” With a mission, money, and membership, anti-Prohibition forces promoted the return of alcohol production, sales, consumption, and most pertinent to a downward-turned economy, state and local control of alcohol taxation that they claimed would aid in returning America to economic stability. Anti-Prohibition public campaigns focused on repeal of the
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Eighteenth Amendment as a way for states to garner tax revenue and as an agent of reinstating the individual freedom that came with liquor consumption, which became standard AAPA organizational messages. The constitutional process of proposal, congressional passage, and state convention ratification presented a formidable task equal to shutting down all the speakeasies in New York City during Prohibition. Therefore, AAPA leadership initially focused on modification of the Volstead Act. Immediate Goals Though repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment was the focus of the AAPA’s mission, several other issues within the regulation of alcohol were also of concern to the anti-Prohibition movement leaders. Amending the Volstead Act so as to allow beer to be produced above 0.5 percent alcohol content and removing the antisaloon dictate from the act as well as striking down some state-based alcohol regulations were also targets of AAPA policy-reform endeavors. Accomplishing these goals circumvented a direct attack on the seemingly absolute nature of the Eighteenth Amendment. However, many notable “anti-dry” proponents, such as legendary academic Walter Lippman and union leader Samuel Gompers, expressed a conciliatory stance toward the staying power of the Eighteenth Amendment. Lippman went so far as to state that the “amendment is beyond effective attack” and “that avenue of reform is closed.” Therefore, state-based campaigning offered the AAPA and its associated organizations a plausible strategy toward reform. The first priority on the AAPA’s reform docket was to promote removal of state-based antialcohol laws that punished offenders on the same legal premises as federal standards. AAPA campaigners cited the very real possibility that an individual’s Fifth Amendment guarantee against double jeopardy could be infringed by having to face of state and federal punitive measures for the same crime. The Eighteenth Amendment’s second clause granted “concurrent power to enforce” to Congress and state legislatures. Because state authorities bared the brunt of Prohibition’s enforcement, repealing state enforcement acts lay the burden of enforcement on the doorstep of federal agencies. Repealing
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individual state laws was the only feasible incremental measure to be taken by the AAPA when in 1922 the United States Supreme Court (in U.S. v. Lanza) found the concurrent-powers allowance of the Eighteenth Amendment to comport with constitutional principles. Though AAPA leaders realized that removal of state prohibition laws would still allow federal authorities to arrest and prosecute for alcohol-related crimes, a symbolic victory could be claimed by demonstrating how the overall enforcement of Prohibition was an impenetrable legal bulwark, which was thus open to challenge and reform. Moderation and Continuing Opposition Coupled with the much-smaller membership holdings, moderation leagues in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota the well-funded and known AAPA were able to pass state laws allowing for the production and sale of “mild” beer. AAPA’s legal leadership promoted the idea that reform of the Volstead Act stood on firm constitutional grounds. Such advocacy painted a picture of the AAPA as being protemperance while appealing to policy makers and citizens believing that moderation was a more desirable goal. Most likely, this “middle ground” of Prohibition garnered the AAPA legislative allies. The cost of gaining many congressional and state legislative allies in AAPA membership was the promotion of the continuation of antisaloon laws. The AAPA’s official stance regarding saloons derived from that segment of their membership categorized as “modificationists,” who aligned themselves with protemperance and “dry” organizations and saw saloons as a breeding ground for alcohol abuse and immorality. Therefore, advocating a raise in the alcohol content of beer and wine while keeping saloons outlawed garnered the AAPA’s admiration by those favoring moderation instead of all-out prohibition and directed individuals to consume drinks of less potency than the distilled spirits found in drinking establishments. By 1924, AAPA leadership teamed with the Molly Pitcher Clubs (a group of all-female antiProhibitionists) in trying to persuade Congress to hold hearings regarding alteration of the Volstead Act. Primarily, the AAPA lobbied for increasing the legal limit of alcohol content in beer and wine. A joint committee heard testimony and
contemplated modifying the Volstead Act’s 0.5 percent alcohol content to a more intoxicating 2.75 percent. However, garnering public attention to its cause was to be the greatest accomplishment for the AAPA. Following committee debate, Congress found no apparent impetus for modifying the status quo concerning the Volstead Act’s limitation on beer and wine content levels. Some congressional and Prohibition historians assert the lack of Prohibition critics testifying before Congress during the 1924 hearings led to the Volstead Act being unaltered. However, the issue of alcohol content would be brought before Congress one last time when in 1926 AAPA leaders and other anti-Prohibitionists told of the corruption being practiced by many federal Prohibition enforcement agents as well as the collateral crime involved with speakeasies selling mostly highoctane distilled spirits. Those national legislators favoring the status quo held strong and were able to repel anti-Prohibitionist efforts once again. Though congressional leaders kept the door open to discussing the possibility of altering the Volstead Act, AAPA leaders would readjust their tactics and resources so as to make repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment more politically tenable. The Twenty-First Amendment Returning regulatory control over alcohol to state and local governments along with generating the tax revenue associated with liquor production and sales were two of the most persuasive arguments for repealing Prohibition. While congressional hearings to amend the Volstead Act in 1924 and 1926 offered the public and policy makers a new perspective from which to rethink the shortcomings of Prohibition’s practices, AAPA leadership had no significant reform to show for all of its lobbying efforts. While legislative campaigns to reform the Volstead Act would continue, AAPA organizers decided to dedicate the thick of the group’s resources and time to an all-out repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. While pointing out that lost taxes and federal agency corruption was alarming and garnered a good amount of public attention, the issue needed to have a metaframing or defining. AAPA directors decided to reignite the fight against Prohibition with rhetorical and legal inflammatory messages citing constitutional infringements.
Association Against the Prohibition Amendment
As early as 1922, Major Stayton had invoked such sentiment when he called the Eighteenth Amendment “a rotten insult to the American people” due to “the Constitution inherited from our Fathers [being] amended and mutilated.” He also cited Prohibition as an insidious mechanism that was antithetical to individual liberty when he claimed that outlawing alcohol was “the desire of fanatics to meddle in the other man’s affairs and to regulate the details of your live and mine.” Posturing the Eighteenth Amendment as unconstitutional and an affront to freedom, Stayton and the rest of the AAPA’s leadership aimed to build a fervor of dissent regarding national prohibition. While disseminating antiProhibition messages helped the AAPA garner public support, partnering with politicians was also necessary in order to promote and pass wet legislation. This called for organizational restrictions and strategies. The path of organized repeal efforts had some disruptions for the AAPA, namely accusations that the group was a front for alcohol producers, with Major Stayton and his inner circle taking payoffs from several wealthy brewers. To combat a less-than-accommodating largesse and image of elitism, AAPA leadership decided that reorganization was in order. In early 1928, Stayton and the other AAPA officers met to decide a reorganization scheme and to hone their goals. Stayton’s position changed from director to chairman of AAPA’s national board of directors. In turn, a five-to-seven member executive committee was appointed. It was decided that the committee would meet frequently to produce and analyze policy as well as give greater oversight to the supervision of organizational affairs. Henry Curran, a prominent Republican of the day, was selected to be president of the AAPA’s executive committee. Stayton’s authority was reduced drastically when Pierre du Pont was named chairman of the new executive committee. Wasting no time, a publicity campaign began under the guidance of well-known advertising aficionado Bruce Barton. Less than six months from finishing reorganization and beginning their efforts to raise salient issues regarding repeal, the new AAPA board of directors adopted a mission statement that questioned both the efficacy and constitutionality of federal Prohibition.
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The shuffling of AAPA leadership positions and direction also lent to a change in organizational strategy. Instead of focusing on federal and state legislative lobbying, anti-Prohibitionists angled their policy reform toward political party platforms, candidates, and the approaching critical elections. Though the AAPA attempted to curry favor with candidates in both major political parties while receiving the most public support from the Democrats’ candidate Al Smith, their efforts proved fruitless. Several reasons played toward making the AAPA’s political endorsements ineffective, none more than the controversy surrounding Al Smith’s Catholicism and his unabashed advocacy for Prohibition’s repeal. With an everspiraling downward economy, Herbert Hoover’s chances of winning reelection in 1932 decreased as the AAPA-fueled public dissatisfaction with Prohibition increased. The 1932 elections garnered Democrats both the presidency and the Congress, allowing anti-Prohibitionist proponents to acquire a firm institutional voice for their constitutional reform goals. On December 6, 1932, just one month following the liberal shift in American politics, the AAPA-crafted constitutional resolution for repeal was introduced in both houses of Congress. Demonstrating the power of the new majority and the favor of citizens in making the nation wet again, a two-thirds (63–23) majority in the Senate agreed with the repeal amendment on February 16, 1933, while four days later their counterparts in the House of Representatives overwhelmingly favored the amendment 289–121. Conclusion The AAPA stood as an organized force for more reasoned and less absolutist public policy regarding alcohol control. Just as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and other Prohibitionists had mobilized in the latter part of the 19th Century with little success, subsequently reenergizing their fight with more successful results following World War I, the AAPA, via reorganization and implementation of new tactics, rebounded from several defeats to reform the Volstead Act and eventually repeal the Eighteenth Amendment. Shifting control of the executive committee and tacking toward repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment breathed new life into
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the anti-Prohibitionists’ goals. Though wellresourced and represented by prominent individuals of the day, employing public campaigns and infusing their views into political party platforms proved more fruitful than defining the issue as one of “individual freedom” and enabling state governments to garner taxes from alcohol production and sales. Endorsing political candidates based on their willingness to repeal alcohol Prohibition paid dividends for the AAPA. When Democrats gained control of Congress and the presidency in 1932, modification of the Volstead Act and the processing of a constitutional amendment to repeal Prohibition took but a few months. By the end of 1933, the votes of the 36 states needed to ratify the TwentyFirst Amendment had found favor, making America a wet nation once again. Though many public officials called for the AAPA to help implement alcohol laws across the nation, the organization disbanded, saying their organization had reached its optimum course with the enactment of the Twenty-First Amendment. Victory, for the AAPA, in the form of America as a wet nation speaks to the power of political mobilization, policy reform, and citizens’ desires to drink alcohol legally. Jason S. Plume Independent Scholar See Also: Eighteenth Amendment; Prohibition; Twenty-First Amendment; Volstead Act. Further Readings Blum, Deborah. “The Chemist’s War: The Little Told Story of How the United States Government Poisoned Alcohol During Prohibition with Deadly Consequences.” Slate.com, http:// www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/ medical_examiner/2010/02/the_chemists_war.html (Accessed February 2014). Cherrington, Ernest H. The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America: A Chronological History. Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith, 1969. Hill, Jeff. Defining Moments: Prohibition. Detroit: Omnigraphics, 2004. Kyvig, David E. Repealing National Prohibition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979. Okrent, Daniel. Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. New York: Scribner, 2004.
Schhmeckebier, Lawrence F. The Bureau of Prohibition: Its History, Activities, and Organization. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1929.
Atlantic City Atlantic City is a resort city in New Jersey on the barrier island of Absecon, known for its casinos, for hosting the Miss America Pageant, and for inspiring the Monopoly board game. Incorporated in 1854, by 2014 the city had a population of about 40,000. Absecon Island was settled in large part because of the efforts of Dr. Jonathan Pitney, “the father of Atlantic City,” who believed the island had the perfect climate for a health resort and petitioned for a railroad to be built in the area. Real estate developers began developing the island into a resort town, and the picturesquely named Atlantic City was incorporated the same year that train service via the Camden and Atlantic began (connecting to Philadelphia). The first Atlantic City boardwalk was built in 1870 in an effort to keep sand out of hotel lobbies, and over time it was expanded and lengthened. It has since been rebuilt because of the 1944 hurricane that struck the region. By 1878, less than 25 years after the town’s founding, the Philadelphia and Atlantic City Railway was announced in order to keep up with the demand for tourist travel to Atlantic City. A boom period of construction followed, as many grand hotels were erected. Saltwater taffy was first invented in Atlantic City in 1883—by accident, according to legend—and has become a popular treat at resorts and tourist destinations along the East Coast. Early tourist attractions include the spectacle sport of horse diving, a water circus, rolling chairs, and Lucy the Elephant, a six-story wood and tin elephant constructed in 1881, complete with a spiral staircase leading into it. When Prohibition went into effect, Atlantic City hit its “golden age,” as local boss Nucky Thompson oversaw not only construction and political concerns (working with Mayor Edward Bader) but also liquor smuggling, gambling, and prostitution. While speakeasies were available nationwide, in
Atlantic City tourists could drink with little concern for being arrested, and at the better resorts and nightclubs, what they drank was name-brand liquor from Canada, Cuba, and Europe. Meanwhile, Mayor Bader successfully parlayed Atlantic City’s success as a resort into benefits for the yearround residents, including building a convention center, high school, and municipal airport. Bader was also behind the creation of the Miss America Pageant, which was held in Atlantic City from 1921 to 2006, and which was designed to attract tourists after Labor Day. Atlantic City went into decline after Prohibition, continuing through World War II, and by the 1970s, most of the grand hotels associated with the golden age had been demolished to make room for housing projects or commercial development. Notable exceptions are the resorts that now make up parts of Bally’s Atlantic City. The frame of the Ambassador Hotel was also retained, but the rest of the building was gutted and rebuilt as the Tropicana Casino and Resort. In 1976, the area was revived after voters approved legalized casino gambling in the city. Resorts International, when it opened in 1978, was the first legal casino in the eastern United States, and more followed along the same boardwalk where the grand Prohibition-era hotels had stood. Contemporary Atlantic City New Jersey has some of the most complex state alcohol laws in the country. The casinos are not under the jurisdiction of either the state or local alcoholic beverage control board but rather are their own jurisdiction, regulated by both the Casino Control Commission (an independent agency in the Treasury Department) and the Division of Gaming Enforcement. The DGE issues licenses to any casino serving or selling alcohol and any vendor doing so or storing alcohol for a casino. Regulations are divided into five areas: the casino floor, the hotel and its restaurants, package goods, room service, and storage. Casino nightclubs are prohibited from displaying full nudity. As of 2014, there were 12 Atlantic City casinos, and Atlantic City had gone through several residential and commercial housing booms. Though it failed to best Las Vegas as a gambling destination, for a time at the end of the 1980s it was the most popular tourist destination in the
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United States, thanks not only to its casinos but also to the same sorts of attractions Las Vegas has relied on: vast restaurant options, live entertainment, and boxing (Many of heavyweight champion Mike Tyson’s bouts were held in Atlantic City in the 1980s.) The boom period was slowed down by the construction of other East Coast casinos, notably Foxwoods in Connecticut, but Atlantic City remain a more prominent force in gaming tourism because of its vast billion-dollar casino resorts, with which few domestic destinations outside of Nevada can compete. In the 2010s, the state of New Jersey intervened to take over aspects of local regulation in what has been called the Atlantic City tourism district, which includes all of the boardwalk and marina casinos. Though New Jersey is one of the nine states that allows non–Native American casinos to serve free alcoholic beverages as an enticement to customers, the practice waned in the 2010s in response to diminishing profit margins. Popular Culture References Though it was not a hit of the same scale as The Sopranos, HBO’s Boardwalk Empire series, about the life and times of Nucky Thompson, increased interest in Atlantic City and especially its history and heritage. Renovations to hotels like the Resorts Casino Hotel bore this in mind, preserving and accentuating the art deco design of the resort. Tours were also offered of historic locations, and although the series was actually filmed in Brooklyn, a facade based on the series’ set was constructed on the boardwalk. The city was also memorialized in the 1982 song “Atlantic City” by New Jersey native Bruce Springsteen, in which the uncertainty about the future of the city’s attempts at revitalization mirror the uncertainty of a couple’s romantic future: “Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back.” Louis Malle’s 1981 film Atlantic City was made in the same period and is one of the few films to have been nominated for all “big five” Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director for Malle, Best Actor for Burt Lancaster, Best Actress for Susan Sarandon, and Best Screenplay for John Guare). In the film, Sarandon’s character seeks to better her life through work in the new gambling
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A photographer taking photos for tourists on the beach in Atlantic City, New Jersey, sometime between 1890 and 1910. The group poses with a donkey and a sign that reads “I could stay in Atlantic City forever.” The city’s first boardwalk was built as early as 1870 in an attempt to keep sand out of hotel lobbies; it became one of the symbols of the resort area along with saltwater taffy.
industry, which brings her into contact with Lancaster, a lifelong city resident. The locations in the standard edition of the Monopoly board game, first sold by Parker Brothers in 1935, are all based on places in Atlantic City. Marven Gardens is erroneously spelled Marvin Gardens in the game, while Arctic Avenue is renamed Mediterranean Avenue; the real-life Illinois Avenue has since been renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. (Marven Gardens was similarly misspelled in Bob Rafelson’s 1972 film The King of Marvin Gardens, which was filmed in the last months before the classic grand hotels of the boardwalk were demolished.) Though the B&O Railroad did not serve Atlantic City, it was the parent company of the Reading. The Short Line railroad refers to the Shore Fast Line streetcar service, now discontinued. The unofficial drinking game version of Monopoly calls for the player to drink when landing on someone else’s property (that person takes three drinks if he or she owns the whole
color block and a shot if landing on a hotel), when mortgaging a property, when rolling doubles, and when landing on “Go.” Some versions of the game call for everyone to take a drink if someone lands on free parking or goes bankrupt; others have a player paying tax or fines pouring beer into a common glass that is then quaffed by a subsequent player landing on “Free Parking.” There are harder drinking variants of the game, but given the length of the average game of Monopoly, they are rarely played. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Casinos; Cocktail Waitresses; Drinking Games; Prohibition; Resorts; Thompson, Nucky. Further Readings Johnson, Nelson. The Northside: African Americans and the Creation of Atlantic City. New York: Plexus, 2010.
Levi, Vicki Gold, Rod Kennedy, Susan Subtle, and Lee Eisenberg. Atlantic City: 125 Years of Ocean Madness: Starring Ms. America, Mr. Peanut, Lucy the Elephant, the High Diving Horse, and Four Generations of Americans Cutting Loose. New York: C. N. Potter, 1979. Painton, Priscilla. “Atlantic City, New Jersey: Boardwalk of Broken Dreams.” Time (September 25, 1989). Simon, Bryant. Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Australia and New Zealand Since the arrival of European settlers in Australia and New Zealand, alcohol has consistently been both an essential and a problematic substance. Despite a long-standing reputation and national self-image as drunken, beer-loving societies, Australia and New Zealand have rarely consumed more alcohol per head of population than other English-speaking nations, but alcohol has played a crucial role, both symbolic and instrumental, in the history of both societies. Alcohol Problems in Early New South Wales Prior to European settlement, there is little evidence of alcohol production or consumption among the indigenous inhabitants. In contrast, the British settlers who arrived in New South Wales (NSW) in 1788 came from a society where drinking was all but universal and drunkenness commonplace but also one where alcohol was increasingly perceived as a major social problem. As a consequence, in the experimental society of the penal colony, there was a consistent conflict between official attempts to restrict the supply of alcohol, especially to convicts, and widespread, popular demand. Spirits were among the most important commodities in the early economy, both as a form of remuneration to motivate the inefficient convict workforce and as a privileged article of barter. This dependable market for spirits, which were
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easy to store and preserve on the long voyage to the antipodes, made them an attractive cargo for the speculative traders who supplied the colony, defying the efforts of the early governors to control the trade. In fact, the major consequence of trade regulation was to artificially inflate the price of spirits, which were illegally distilled by local entrepreneurs and smuggled and hoarded by those with political influence, creating a de facto monopoly that helped enrich the early colonial elite. The so-called rum rebellion against Governor William Bligh in 1808 was a consequence of a much broader power struggle, but his renewed campaign against the spirit trade was one catalyst for his enemies. Colonial Drinking Habits Under Bligh’s successors, the status of alcohol in the colony was increasingly brought into line with British practice with free trade under high taxes, legalized distillation, and public houses increasingly brought under the control of a stricter licensing system. In keeping with these reforms, licensed premises grew in size, sophistication, and status, offering a broad range of entertainments to attract customers, while their public spaces were often used for the meetings of clubs and societies and even official business. Most importantly, public houses were crucial to working-class life, an escape from increasingly overcrowded urban living conditions but also drawing together the diffuse laboring populations of rural districts. During the 1830s, alcohol consumption in the expanding colonies reached a historical peak, largely driven by the enormous consumption of spirits. The colonial brewing industry was small and poorly regarded due to a climate adverse to traditional methods, a lack of skilled brewers, and the difficulty of growing hops, and while wine imports were significant, wine was a drink exclusive to the colonial elite. Drinking culture was also distinctive for its emphasis on binge drinking, a practice with its roots in British working-class traditions but particularly prevalent in frontier societies like Australia and New Zealand, where workers could only access alcohol during brief visits to town. Another distinctive feature of this drinking culture was its emphasis on a notion of egalitarian masculinity
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embodied in the shout—the practice of buying a round of drinks in turn. Temperance These peak levels of consumption declined substantially over the second half of the century, largely as a consequence of the temperance movement, which spread to the colonies from Britain in the 1830s. Early societies formed among the colonial elite and sought to use moral suasion to persuade the poor to pledge to abstain from spirits but were rapidly overtaken by a second wave of total abstinence or teetotal societies that attacked all kinds of drinking, called for legislative restrictions of alcohol and attracted a broader membership. Popular temperance offered an alternative to the public house for working-class recreation with innumerable meetings, banquets, concerts, and lectures and the construction of temperance hotels and coffee palaces offering sober accommodation and entertainment. The movement steadily grew in strength, and membership became a key symbol of respectability within a society obsessed with status and haunted by the stain of its convict origins. Not only were temperance supporters anxious to demonstrate their respectability, but drinkers, under the influence of increasingly sophisticated marketing, saw their consumption as patriotic, egalitarian, and manly, a symbolic embodiment of the cult of mateship, in contrast to the effete, effeminate, and unsporting image of the wowser—a word invented in Australia. Restrictive Regulation Temperance also contributed to significant changes in the regulation of alcohol. Facilitated by modernizing police forces, there was an increased focus on the crime of public drunkenness, which by 1840, was responsible for almost half of all arrests throughout the colonies at a significantly higher rates than in Britain. From the 1840s, there were also prominent regulations forbidding the supply of alcohol to Aborigines or Maori, a patronizing concession to the serious harm inflicted on indigenous culture by the introduction of alcohol. From the 1850s there were growing calls for a Maine law, and by the 1870s, advocates were campaigning for Local
Option, which was successfully introduced into all of the colonies in the 1880s. By the end of the century, temperance played a significant role in politics, soliciting politicians to pledge their support for stricter regulation and helping secure the pioneering enfranchisement of women in South Australia and New Zealand. As women were increasingly predominant throughout the movement, temperance campaigners advocated for female suffrage to increase the prospect of a successful referendum on prohibition. At the same time, the liquor industry grew and consolidated, forming a rival lobby. With the introduction of industrial refrigeration in the 1880s, the local brewing industry began to grow significantly, subsequently aided by wartime bans on the import of German beer, and beer consumption soon overtook spirits as the main alcoholic drink. Another important consequence of temperance power was the medicalization of alcohol, which was increasingly understood as a poison and inebriety officially recognized as a disease. By the turn of the century, most colonies had enacted legislation allowing for the committal rather than imprisonment of problem drinkers, often based on eugenic fears of racial degeneration as a consequence of drunkenness. But the peak of temperance influence came during World War I, when calls for austerity saw the introduction of six o’clock closing of pubs across most Australian states and in nowindependent New Zealand. Early closing shaped drinking habits for the next 50 years, creating the conditions for the infamous six o’clock swill in the brief hour following the end of the working day. The legislation only consolidated existing tendencies toward binge drinking and exacerbated gender divisions, with public bars becoming exclusively male spaces—albeit frequently operated by female staff. Female drinking in public was increasingly socially unacceptable and was driven into separate mixed lounges or conducted at home. Following the war, most jurisdictions also held referenda on the introduction of prohibition. In the closest result, in New Zealand in 1919, the campaign failed by less than 4,000 votes, and in every Australian state, at least a third of the population wanted alcohol banned. But, this near
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victory represented the high point of legislative temperance. Postwar Liberalization From the 1920s onward, temperance membership had declined as the growing middle class abandoned their long-standing hostility to alcohol. Consumption reached its lowest levels during the Great Depression but rose steadily during the long postwar boom to a 20th-century peak in the 1970s. Influenced by successful postwar marketing of a suburban lifestyle, respectable families increasingly embraced alcohol, now distinguishing their drinking habits by consuming alcohol at social gatherings in private homes and not among the disreputable swill of the hotel bar. By the 1950s, six o’clock closing was increasingly viewed as a flawed policy that actively encouraged the excesses it was designed to restrain. As jurisdictions progressively abandoned such regulations, drinking habits changed dramatically. Influenced by 1960s feminism, women increasingly drank with men in public, postwar European immigration encouraged a steady rise in wine consumption, now approaching parity with beer, and from the mid-1970s, police forces have effectively decriminalized drunkenness. But, as recent concerns about youth drinking coincide with official encouragement of the so-called nighttime economy, it is clear that alcohol remains both a blessing and a curse. Matthew Allen University of New England See Also: Asia, Southeast; Fosters; Local Option; Temperance, History of; Temperance Movements; United Kingdom. Further Readings Fitzgerald, Ross and Trevor L. Jordan. Under the Influence: A History of Alcohol in Australia. Sydney, Australia: Harper Collins, 2009. Kirkby, Diane. “Drinking ‘The Good Life,’ Australia c.1880–1980.” In Alcohol: A Social and Cultural History, Mack P. Holt, ed. Oxford, UK: Berg, 2006. Lewis, Milton. A Rum State: Alcohol and State Policy in Australia, 1788–1988. Canberra, Australia: Australian Government Publication Service Press, 1992.
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Ryan, Greg, “Drink and the Historians: Sober Reflections on Alcohol in New Zealand, 1840–1914.” New Zealand Journal of History, v.44/1 (2010).
Austria Austria is a small European country that has nine states and 8,300,000 inhabitants. Alcohol plays a dominant role in Austrian history as well as in contemporary times. It is part of the social fabric. Austrians by far prefer to drink local alcoholic beverages over imports. As the Austrians say, “Prost!” (meaning, “To your health!”). Historical Patterns of Alcohol Consumption In the 18th century, heavy drinking, particularly of wine and spirits, was part of everyday life. This was especially true for the upper class that relished drinking (and eating) in excess. Attitudes toward heavy drinking changed during the 19th century. Drinking became less of a norm and the type of alcohol consumed differed between classes. Whereas the upper class preferred beer, the working class drank cheaper, distilled spirits. By the 20th century, Austrians saw a noticeable albeit temporary shift toward the temperance movement that was pushed by the working class and frequently supported by the Catholic Church. Instead of punishing alcoholics, treatment was being promoted. After World War II, drinking once more increased and became part of daily life again for most Austrians. In the 21st century, alcohol remains a staple item of Austrian culture. The reported annual numbers of alcohol consumption fluctuate across centuries. Annual per capita consumption was approximately 11 liters in the 1880s, declined to 5 liters in the 1950s, and increased again to about 13 liters in the 2000s. In comparison, the World Health Organization European Region reports annual per capita alcohol consumption of about 12 liters. Although alcohol consumption has remained relatively stable, in the 1990s Austrians placed a greater emphasis on prevention, youth protection, treatment, alcoholrelated problems, and policies on consuming alcohol at work and in connection with driving.
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Beer is currently the alcoholic beverage of choice for Austrians and accounts for roughly 53 percent of all alcohol consumed. Wine consumption is about 32 percent, followed by spirits, at 13 percent, and “other” alcohol consumption, which account for 2 percent. Adults (15+ years) who drink alcohol consume about 16 liters per year, with men drinking more than double the amount of women (22 liters versus 10 liters). The rate of alcohol abstainers is approximately 15 percent overall, with 7 percent lifetime abstainers and 8 percent former drinkers who have not consumed alcohol over the past 12 months. Rates of alcohol use disorders range from 3.88 percent for men to 0.90 percent for women. Alcohol as Part of Everyday Life Austrians enjoy drinking alcohol while socializing in any situation, setting, and with almost any meal. Bars and restaurants as well as coffee shops are frequently crowded after work, after sports like skiing and soccer, and on the weekends. It is commonly expected and considered polite to offer guests wine, beer, and spirits. When visiting Austria during the winter months, visitors will inevitably be introduced to glühwein (meaning, “glow-wine”), which is hot, sweetened red wine with spices. During the summer months, the eastern states are known for their heuriger (seasonal taverns that serve the most recent year’s wine). Before enjoying the first sip of their favorite alcoholic beverage in a social situation, Austrians like to make eye contact, clink their glasses, and say, “Prost!,” “Prosit!,” or “Zum Wohl!” (all meaning, “To your health!”). Alcohol Production Austria is a self-sufficient country when it comes to alcohol. The production of beer, wine, and spirits covers and slightly exceeds the local consumption. These drinks are produced throughout Austria, and different regions are known for their specialties. Beer is produced in small breweries, with production being most industrialized. Well-known beers include Ottakringer produced in Vienna; Gösser, Puntigamer, and Murauer brewed in the state of Styria; Schwechater and Egger brewed in the state of Lower Austria; and Kaiser, Zipfer, Stiefl, and Villacher brewed in the state of Salzburg.
Red and white grapes are grown in Austria but mainly in three eastern states, including Vienna, Lower Austria, and Burgenland. Because of the climate and soil being more favorable for the cultivation of white grapes, white wine accounts for about 70 percent of production. Austrian wines have been produced and exported for centuries. Unfortunately, the wine scandal of 1985 (antifreeze was discovered as having been added to wine to produce a costly eiswein, or “ice wine”) greatly hurt the export of Austrian wines. Efforts have been made to control the damage to the alcohol economy in the form of both ensuring and endorsing high-quality Austrian wines. Two of the most recognized vineyards are Weingut Pichler and Weingut Hirtzberger. Spirits, known as Schnaps or Obstler (meaning, “made from fruit”), are mainly made from plums, pears, apples, apricots, and cherries. Schnaps is often served after a heavy meal to aid digestion and consumed in one small shot. Some wellknown spirits are marillenschnaps (made from apricots) and zwetschgenwasser (meaning, “plum water”). They are strong drinks with about 40 percent alcohol content. Alcohol-Related Laws and Policies Attitudes, laws, and policies related to alcohol have shifted back and forth over the centuries. Prior to the 19th century, strict laws existed regarding excess consumption of alcohol, public drunkenness, and drinking while working (for example, while operating a ship). In the 19th century, the pendulum shifted and alcohol-related policies became almost nonexistent. Today, alcohol-related laws and policies do exist although alcohol consumption is not considered an issue unless use becomes abuse. The legal drinking age is 16 years for beer and wine. Spirits are restricted to people who are 18 years or older. Excise taxes are charged on beer and spirits but not wine. There are no special licenses required for the sale of alcoholic beverages. Instead, the licenses that are compulsory for entities such as restaurants, coffee shops, hotels, gas stations, and supermarkets include the right to sell alcohol. Similarly, the production of alcoholic beverages requires minimum licensure. Opening and closing times of establishments that serve alcohol are up to the communities within each of the nine states.
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Regulations exist regarding advertisement of alcohol on television and radio (for example, no targeting of children, youth, or drivers nor promoting the abuse of alcohol). One of the strictest alcohol-related policies pertains to drinking and driving. The acceptable blood alcohol content (BAC) for operating a vehicle ranges from 0.1 percent, for both young drivers (for example, those that are under 20 years, newly licensed) and professionals (for example, truck and bus drivers), to 0.5 percent, for the general population. Consequences for driving over the BAC limits are based on the severity and situation and include monetary fines, suspension, or revocation of one’s license, mandatory driver improvement courses, and prison sentences. Another area that is of interest to policy makers is alcohol in the workplace. Drinking is prohibited at work. However, not all companies strictly enforce these policies. In addition, consequences related to drinking at work are minor compared to those for drinking and driving. Tanja C. Laschober University of Georgia
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See Also: Czech Republic; Europe, Central and Eastern; Germany; Hungary; Italy; Switzerland. Further Readings Bundesministerium für Gesundheit. “Handbuch Alkohol—Österreich.” http://bmg.gv.at/cms/ home/attachments/6/4/1/CH1039/CMS1305 198709856/handbuch_alkohol_-_oester reich_2009__zahlen,_daten_fakten_trends.pdf (Accessed October 2013). Eisenbach-Stangl, Irmgard. “Austria.” In Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: A Global Encyclopedia, Jack S. Blocker, David M. Fahey, and Ian R. Tyreell, eds. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Öesterberg, Esa and Thomas Karlsson, eds. “Alcohol Policies in EU Member States and Norway: A Collection of Country Reports.” http:// ec.europa.eu/health/ph_projects/1998/promotion/ fp_promotion_1998_a01_27_en.pdf (Accessed October 2013). World Health Organization. “Austria.” http:// www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/ global_alcohol_report/profiles/aut.pdf (Accessed October 2013).
B Bacardi Bacardi, a family-owned firm founded in Santiago de Cuba in 1862, is the largest privately held spirits company in the world. Currently headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda, the company’s connection to Cuba has continued to be celebrated as part of its history and lore even after 1960, the year Fidel Castro nationalized the company, and when most of the Bacardi family and many of the company’s executives fled the country. Bacardi manufactures gin, vermouth, whiskey, liqueurs, vodka, tequila, cognac, wine, and beer, but the company remains best known for the world’s best-selling rum, the first spirit it manufactured. As of 2013, the company is led by Facundo L. Bacardi, great-greatgrandson of the founder, and sells its products in more than 150 markets in regions including North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Latin America, and the Asia Pacific region. Bacardi in Cuba When Facundo Bacardi Massó, the Spanish-born son of an illiterate bricklayer, purchased a small dirt-floored distillery in Santiago de Cuba, for 3,500 pesos in 1862, he began manufacturing the mild, mixable rum that he had created after much experimentation. Bacardi’s light rum, filtered through charcoal to remove impurities and aged in oak barrels like wine, was unlike the
rums that preceded it. Facundo Bacardi’s hope was that it would rise above the spirit’s association as the brew of choice for Spanish Main pirates and for the patrons of working-class taverns, and take its place with the brandies and whiskeys consumed by wealthier drinkers. In 1876, Bacardi rum won a gold medal at the centennial exposition in Philadelphia. From the beginning, Bacardi was a family enterprise. Facundo Bacardi achieved his initial success with the financial support of his brother and his wife, Amalia, who proposed the bat, a symbol of good health, good fortune, and family unity in Spanish culture, as the company logo. When Facundo Bacardi retired in 1877, his three sons inherited the company. The youngest, José, was involved in sales and would become the company’s first “master blender.” Emilio, the eldest, was named president of the company. Under their guidance, Bacardi extended its success. When Bacardi representatives courted Spanish customers for their product, the Bacardi sons became known as Cuban nationalists and staunch advocates of independence. Emilio was the most involved in the struggle for independence from Spain, a cause for which he served four years in a Spanish prison. His brothers and Enrique Schueg, his brother-inlaw, ran the company in his absence. Bacardi continued to expand its operations and market in Cuba. In 1898, an American engineer 201
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Bacardi, which dates back to 1862, is now the largest privately held spirits company in the world, with a portfolio of more than 200 brands and labels, including Grey Goose vodka and Cazadores tequila. Its San Juan, Puerto Rico, facility, seen here, began operation after 1930 when some production moved there from Cuba; it is now included in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
working in Cuba who wanted a refreshing drink to serve his copper-mining crew added Bacardi rum to fresh-squeezed local lime juice, sugar, and shaved ice to invent the Bacardi daiquiri. Two years later, American soldiers celebrating victory after the Spanish American War asked for Coca-Cola mixed with Bacardi rum and drank the Original Cuba Libre. In 1910, the creation of the company’s first international facility, a bottling business in Barcelona, Spain, made Bacardi Cuba’s first multinational corporation. When the company became a limited liability corporation under the name Compania Ron Bacardi, S.A., in 1919, Emilio was given the role of president, and Facundo Jr. and Enrique Schueg were named vice-presidents. (José Bacardi died in 1907.) Schueg was instrumental in expanding Bacardi’s market first to wealthy visitors to Cuba and later to the tourists attracted to Cuba during Prohibition in the United States. He also moved
some production to Puerto Rico and Mexico. Schueg, who served as company president after the death of Facundo Jr. in 1924, two years after Emilio Bacardi’s death, added the production of Hatuey beer in 1927. He also pushed the expansion of Bacardi’s market to the island’s wealthy visitors and later to the ordinary American tourists, who considered Cuba, a mere 90 miles from U.S. shores, to be a haven for music, gambling, and drinking during Prohibition. Schueg was succeeded by Jose M. “Pepin” Bosch, his son-in-law, who was married to his daughter Enriqueta Schueg-Bacardi. Bosch continued the expansion policies of his father-in-law, building state-of-the-art facilities for Hatuey beer in Cuba, including Modelo Brewery in 1947 and Central Brewery in 1953, and facilities for Bacardi rum in Mexico, including La Galarza Distillery in 1956 and Tultitlán Bottling Plant in 1960, as well as in Puerto Rico, including Cataño in 1958. The
office building and bottling plant in Tultitlán were designed by renowned Spanish architect Félix Candela and famed German American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. One of Bosch’s most farsighted moves came in 1958 when he registered Bacardi’s trademarks in Nassau, Bahamas. When Fidel Castro confiscated Bacardi’s assets, valued at $76 million in 1960, the trademarks were protected. Bacardi Goes Global Bacardi would be forced out of Cuba, and during the first decade afterward, the company grew faster than any other maker of spirits. Bacardi’s sales grew by 10 percent annually throughout the 1960s, and the company earned a spot among the top 10 brands of distilled spirits. In 1964, Bacardi sold over 1 million cases of rum, a figure that doubled by 1968. Targeting the U.S. market, Bacardi promoted its rum jointly with Canada Dry ginger ale, Dr Pepper, 7 Up, Pepsi, Perrier, and Schweppes tonic water, but its most famous joint promotion was with Coca-Cola’s “Things Go Better with Coke” campaign, launched in 1965. By 1979, Bacardi rum posted worldwide sales close to 16 million cases, making the rum the world’s top-selling premium spirit brand. As the last decade of the 20th century began, Bacardi was still faithful to its founder’s rum. The company had expanded to four premium blends in addition to Bacardi Light, the original: Bacardi Dark (an amber-colored rum aged in blackened wooden barrels), Bacardi Black (later renamed Bacardi Select, it was charcoal filtered just once before it underwent elongated aging), Bacardi Añejo (a golden rum blend named for the Castilian word meaning “aged”), and Bacardi Reserve (a twice-filtered blend for brandy and cognac drinkers). But by the middle of the decade, the company known for more than a century for its rum began diversifying at an increasing rate. In 1993, the acquisition of General Beverage, owner of the Martini & Rossi Group, doubled the company’s size and made Bacardi one of the world’s five largest premium spirits companies. In 1995, Bacardi successfully launched Bacardi Limon, a blend of one-year-old rum with grapefruit, lemon, and lime flavoring that was bottled at 35 percent alcohol by volume. Three years later, Bacardi added Dewar’s Blended Scotch whisky and the
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Bombay and Bombay gin brands to its acquisitions, making Bacardi one of the world’s top four spirits companies. The 21st century has seen the pattern continue, with Bacardi forming a 2002 alliance with Anheuser-Busch to develop, market, and distribute Bacardi Silver, a clear malt beverage, in the United States. Other additions to the company’s expanding portfolio include Cazadores, a topselling premium tequila, in 2002 and Grey Goose, the world’s number-one super-premium vodka, in 2004. But despite a brand portfolio that by 2013 consisted of more than 200 brands and labels, Bacardi did not forget its heritage. In 2010, 134 years after Bacardi rum won its first award, the company received the International High Quality Trophy from the prestigious Monde Selection International Institute for Quality Selections for Bacardi Gold, Bacardi 8, and Bacardi Reserva Limitada. With 400 awards, Bacardi rum became the world’s most awarded rum. The Cuba Libre, a Bacardi and cola, is the number one cocktail in the world, with more than 6 million ordered every day worldwide. Bacardi also recently introduced OakHeart, a spiced specialty rum. On February 4, 2012, Bacardi celebrated its 150th anniversary. Wylene Rholetter Auburn University See Also: Daiquiri; Rum; Rum Cocktails. Further Readings Bacardi Limited. “About Us.” http://www.bacardi limited.com/our-company/about-us (Accessed October 2013). Foster, Peter. Family Spirits: The Bacardi Saga: Rum, Riches and Revolution. Hollywood, FL: Frederick Fell, 1991. Gjelten, Tom. Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause. New York: Viking, 2008.
Bacon, Selden D. Before the groundbreaking work of Dr. Selden Bacon during the 1940s, those researchers
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interested in studying the causes and effects of alcohol addiction regarded alcoholism itself generally in one of two ways: either as a personal flaw or as a medical condition. That is, researchers regarded alcohol abuse as a moral lapse, a vice, even a sin, or as a medical or psychological condition, defined either by dependencies structured at the molecular level as the result of genetic wiring or by traumatic events that often dated to early childhood. Bacon was the first researcher to propose that alcohol dependency was far more complicated. Born in 1908 in the hamlet of Pleasantville, New York, in affluent Westchester County just north of New York City, Selden Daskam Bacon grew up without any of the traumas typical of researchers who go into the field of alcohol studies: there were no alcoholics in his family nor did he show any signs of alcohol abuse, juvenile delinquency, or violence. His was a nearly idyllic middle-class childhood. A bright student fascinated by the rise and fall of civilizations, he studied sociology, earning his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees all from Yale University. After a brief stint teaching at Penn State, Bacon, with little significant research to his credit, returned as an instructor to Yale and began teaching undergraduate introductory courses in sociology. While casting about for a subject for his postgraduate work, Bacon received a call in 1943 from a judge acting on behalf of the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice. With World War II at its height, the federal government urgently needed men to work in the munitions factories and to serve in the military. The judge had noticed how many employable men were sitting uselessly in Connecticut jails for public drunkenness or other alcoholrelated offenses—the percentage of such inmates, he told Bacon, was more than half. Bacon had an interest in criminal justice and in crime—although not in alcohol-related crime—and agreed to look into the causes of such behavior. Over the next year, using the resources of Yale’s Laboratory of Applied Psychology, he and a small army of interns surveyed jails in the five counties of Connecticut and in nearby states, compiling a large set of empirical data about prison detention and alcohol abuse. Selden’s work broke new ground, for up to that time most studies of alcoholism relied on anecdotal evidence of a relatively small number of alcoholics, testimonials that
were often the treatment protocol of Alcoholics Anonymous and other such rehab groups. Drinking Behavior Focus For Bacon, alcoholism—that is, the abuse of liquor—was not the problem, drinking itself was not the problem, the medical impact on the body’s functions (particularly, the damage to the liver) was not the problem, nor was the economic impact of alcoholism and the devastation it could bring to families. Bacon preferred to approach the problem—he was the first researcher to do so—by focusing on drinking behavior. What defines alcohol-driven behavior? Where is the line between regular drinking and alcohol abuse? After all, more than 70 million Americans at the time admitted to drinking regularly, but of those, only 4 million, or roughly 1 out of 16, evidenced a lack of control. When, then, does alcohol become a problem? What factors actually create alcohol abuse? For Bacon, too much time and research monies were spent on tracing the problem of alcoholism and its narrow focus on treating individual alcoholics. To his broader vision, researchers focusing so exclusively on alcoholics would be akin to oncologists just focusing on pancreatic cancer or meteorologists just studying monsoons or geologists limiting their work to volcano eruptions. Although Bacon never disputed that alcoholism was in fact a profound personal problem, he resisted labeling it a disease. He rejected outright terming it a lapse in judgment or a sign of moral or ethical weakness, or the consequence of faulty genetic wiring, or childhood trauma. He dismissed as fantasy the notion that laws prohibiting the sales and distributions of liquor would solve the problems caused by alcohol abuse. In fact, Bacon spoke tirelessly of the responsibility of researchers in his field to avoid drawing such conclusions or taking public stands or advocating specific public policies or protocols, insisting that such assessments and conclusions simplified what was in fact a complicated behavioral pattern. To critics who found his approach cold and clinical, Bacon responded that the field needed just such dispassionate investigation: research and data held the key to understanding alcoholic behavior. In the years after the war, as the United States came to grips with widespread alcohol abuse among returning veterans and their families, the
prosperous but anxiety-filled 1950s produced a new cohort of alcoholics, and Bacon continued to lead his research teams. Yale Yale renamed its Laboratory of Applied Psychology, calling it the Center of Alcohol Studies (CAS; Bacon insisted on not using the pejorative term alcoholism, preferring to maintain the careful objectivity that by now defined his research approach). The CAS was the first such center devoted to alcohol and drinking. Rather than relying for data on drinkers who sought help at rehabilitation facilities or hospitals, Bacon pioneered fieldwork, sending researchers into the field to approach not drinkers but rather those who drank. Just as his contemporary Dr. Alfred Kinsey at Indiana University conducted similar work in the field of sexual behavior, Bacon gathered data to clear up popular misconceptions, stereotypes, and false assumptions about drinking behavior. Bacon investigated not only the dives and bars of skid row but also the drinking patterns of affluent neighborhoods and tony suburbs where, as his research detailed, alcohol use was just as rampant. For more than 10 years, Bacon ran a summer workshop that became world renowned, attracting not only doctors and psychiatrists but emergency room personnel, ministers, law enforcement officers, lawyers and judges, social case workers, probation officers, teachers, counselors, even brewers and distillers, as well as recovering alcoholics. The seminars discussed current issues and reviewed the latest research, but Bacon kept the program from committing to a particular course of treatment or even making recommendations. In his view, the summer seminars should disseminate information and promote discussion. Before Yale ended the program, more than 1,600 had attended. Rutgers Although Bacon’s work broke new ground, Yale administrators were not entirely happy with his methodology—the campus research labs, after all, would often be crowded with seedy-looking drinkers, not at all in keeping with the Ivy League image. In 1962, Bacon accepted a position to head up a research facility at Rutgers University
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in New Brunswick, New Jersey. A state university, Bacon reasoned, would be far less worried about its image and thus more inclined to support his particular approach. Over the next two decades, until his retirement in 1980 (and for years after that in his role as a public advocate for a better understanding of the complexity of alcohol dependence), Bacon pioneered an interdisciplinary approach to alcohol studies. In addition to doctors and psychiatrists, judges and law enforcement agencies, Bacon sought the expertise of anthropologists, other sociologists, theologians, biochemists, public health officials, prison administrators, parents groups, educators, and politicians, believing that the widest range possible of data would promise more usable results. The center at Rutgers gathered what would become a world-class archive of data, eyewitness testimonials, firsthand reports, and scientific research on all aspects of alcohol behavior. The center aimed not at driving public policy or making recommendations for programs or legislation. Bacon saw himself as a sociologist/philosopher, engaged in the widest possible investigation into alcohol within the broad context of its culture and its era. Of course, that frustrated many researchers in the field who believed quite passionately that given the sheer dimensions of the public problems directly related to alcohol dependency—job absenteeism and employment loss, domestic abuse, criminal behavior, a jammed-up court system, a variety of physical ailments, suicide, and premature death—research could not afford to stay unbiased and objective. Bacon refused to deal in hyperbole—was alcohol a poison, he would be asked. Yes, he would admit, but then so are mashed potatoes and heavy cream. With the inquisitive mind of the classic researcher, Bacon gathered reliable information that could, in turn, be used for specific purposes, treatment protocols, or even legislation. When Bacon died of a heart attack on Martha’s Vineyard at the age of 84, he was hailed as the first researcher to recognize that the logic of alcohol consumption and not alcoholism itself was far more important for society to understand. Joseph Dewey Broward College
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See Also: Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Sociology of; Drinking, Anthropology of; Jellinek, E. M.; Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies; Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies. Further Readings “Conversation With Selden D. Bacon.” British Journal of Addiction, v.80 (1985). “The Facts About Alcoholism: An Interview With Dr. Selden Bacon.” American Mercury (October 1953). Freed, Christopher R. “In the Spirit of Selden Bacon: The Sociology of Drinking and Drug Problems.” Sociology Compass, v.4/10 (October 2010).
Bands of Hope The Band of Hope, founded in Leeds, England, in 1847, became the most successful youth temperance movement in the United Kingdom (UK), spreading to Australia and New Zealand. In the United States and Canada, the organization also operated under the aegis of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. In its country of origin, it operated for more than 150 years and still exists as a modern charity. The Band of Hope trained millions of volunteers to work with children, reaching a high point in the UK of over 3 million members annually between 1897 and 1914. Springing up at a time when child drinking was a problem, the organization held regular meetings to inculcate temperance principles by a mix of instruction and entertainment and aimed to influence society through its young members. As well as signing a pledge to abstain from all alcohol themselves, children were encouraged to see themselves as agents, having the power to influence adult behavior. Alcohol was commonly used to sedate, pacify, or treat children until the early 20th century, and indeed weak beer or cider was a common children’s beverage before the provision of safe drinking water in the mid-19th century. However, the growth of temperance societies in the 1820s and 1830s led to concerns about children’s alcohol consumption, and in the UK, a number of children’s temperance groups already existed by the 1840s. Poor children in the industrial districts found warmth, companionship, and escape from
appalling living conditions in the public houses, and some, such as child brickmakers, were paid along with adult workers in these premises. Without any legislative protection, children were an easy target for drink sellers. The Founding of the Band of Hope The Band of Hope began as a response to the needs of poor children in Leeds, one of Yorkshire’s main industrial centers. In June 1847, the Baptist minister Jabez Tunnicliffe (1809–65) had visited a dying man, an ex-Sunday school teacher whose life had been ruined by drink and who asked the minister to warn young people against the first glass of alcohol. When a visiting Irish temperance speaker, Ann Jane Carlile (1775–1864), arrived in Leeds a few months later, she joined Tunnicliffe to establish a society for the many children under 16 at risk in the city. The first meeting in November 1847 attracted 300 children, all of whom signed the total abstinence pledge, and similar meetings mushroomed. A few months later, the Leeds meetings were being held in 16 districts, each with a woman visitor in charge, and it was claimed that there were more than 4,000 young members in Leeds alone. The movement rapidly spread, first to other industrial centers and villages in the north of England and thence to the rest of England. A band was founded in London in 1848, and many existing children’s temperance organizations and publications changed their names to incorporate the Band of Hope branding. This memorable and vivid name, coined by Carlile, was one of many strong factors in the organization’s growth. Structure and Organization Denominations, such as the Methodists, and secular societies would eventually set up their own Bands of Hope, but it was originally created and largely remained as a nondenominational Christian organization. As the number of bands grew, for organizational efficiency and support, they became linked into district and regional unions. The first district union was in Bradford, in 1851, and the first regional union in Lancashire and Cheshire was founded in 1863. The London district union, founded in 1855, took a leading role and started the publication of readings, recitations, and hymn books for use in meetings as well as supporting the periodical Band of Hope
Review (1851–1937). Under its first president, Stephen Shirley (1820–97), this union renamed itself the United Kingdom Band of Hope Union in 1863, attempting to organize and direct a national movement, which eventually became a mature organization that saw vastly increased numbers and scale of activity. Members were allowed to join by signing the pledge from the age of 7 (initially 6), although younger children were welcomed at meetings. Parental permission was nominally needed, although many meetings seem to have had an open-door policy. The focus on self-improvement and education and the weekly halfpenny fee meant that aspirational working- or middle-class children dominated in some areas, but the origins of the movement were in social concern for the poorest children, and in some districts, missionary outreach remained a characteristic of meetings, with fees waived. The upper age limit was usually 16, and frequently on reaching this age, children became voluntary workers, known as conductors, helping run meetings. They were not only supported by training but by many volumes providing teaching topics and advice as well as monthly periodicals such as the Band of Hope Chronicle (1878–1980s), which recommended innovative, interactive work with children. Growth and Sustaining Membership Numbers of members and volunteers increased dramatically: By 1878, half a million members were claimed nationally, by 1886, more than 1.5 million, by 1892, more than 2.5 million, and by 1887, the golden jubilee of the movement, membership was estimated at more than 3 million. Numbers increased to more than 3.5 million by 1901 and remained steady until 1914. This growth was sustained by regular local meetings and links with Sunday schools but also by support at the regional and national level. Full-time agents were employed to travel around regions, giving lectures and lanterns; slides and other equipment were available for sale or hire from the Band of Hope trading department. Children were given a copy of a monthly periodical as part of their membership, which sustained their Band of Hope identity outside meetings. Processions also supported group identity as well as provided welcome publicity, and the
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program of fetes, competitions, excursions, bazaars, and concerts kept the children entertained and the organization in the public eye. Huge national events were held in the Exeter Hall and the Crystal Palace, with 15,000 children performing in three choirs, for example. The wearing of badges and medals was a daily part of Band of Hope membership, and in the Holdfast system, adopted in the early 20th century, a member gained his or her medal after one year’s membership, a bar on the ribbon for each subsequent year, and then a long-service medal after seven years. But the core of membership was the local meeting, including hymns or songs, prayers, lectures (often illustrated by visual images on a magic lantern or blackboard), and activities by the children such as recitations or songs. Physical activities and first aid were added in the 1890s, and the Boys’ and Girls’ Life Brigades were incorporated into the Band of Hope. The organization was active in World War I, supporting young soldiers and maintaining most of its activities through a greater use of women conductors, and postwar campaigns, such as One Million More in 1929 and 1937, ensured that the Band of Hope remained a strong presence, particularly in the northern districts. In the Lancashire and Cheshire Union, numbers continued to grow until 1930, and nationally, the Scientific Temperance Instruction scheme, originally introduced in the 1880s, continued to provide temperance teaching in schools until the mid-20th century. Numbers attending meetings declined during and after World War II, although some meetings in the 1950s still recorded attendances in the hundreds. International Growth The Band of Hope arrived in Australia very quickly, with the first record of a band in Sydney in 1856 and in Auckland in 1863. It endured, although records are scarce; when the chairman of the Lancashire and Cheshire Union visited Sydney in 1932, he sent a letter back detailing the huge numbers present at gatherings, culminating with one in Sydney where many local dignitaries were former Band of Hope boys. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in the United States set up Bands of Hope in the 1870s, in some cases drawing young members from the existing Cadets of Temperance.
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The military metaphors commonly used by the UK movement in songs, poems, and illustrations took on increased importance in the American setting: Bands of Hope were organized on military lines as a temperance army, with activities such as demonstrations of marching. In Canada, the Band of Hope often operated as an afterschool club as part of the Dominion WCTU, and activities for children, as in the UK, were added to pledge signing (promising to abstain from alcohol, tobacco, and foul language) and temperance teaching as part of the regular meetings. The UK organization changed its name to Hope UK in 1995 and continues to advocate abstinence from intoxicants, drugs, and alcohol. Annemarie McAllister University of Central Lancashire See Also: Cadets of Temperance; Temperance Movements; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Further Readings Harrison, Brian. Drink and the Victorians: The Temperance Question in England 1815–72, 2nd ed. Keele: Keele University Press, 1994. McAllister, Annemarie. “The Lives and the Souls of the Children: The Band of Hope in the North West.” Manchester Region History Review, v.22 (2011). Shiman, Lilian Lewis. “Band of Hope Movement: Respectable Recreation for Working Class Children.” Victorian Studies, v.7 (1973).
Bar Bets Bars have long been an important and integral component of the social dynamic associated with alcohol consumption. Bar bets facilitate a social interaction around alcohol that is attractive for many because they serve as an affordable and cheap source of entertainment, can bridge the difficult friendship-initiation conversations and processes for those who are inhibited, and serve as an effective manner in which to expand an interpersonal network. A bar bet is a form of gambling in which a wager is made between two or more bar patrons related to consuming a certain quantity
of alcohol over a defined period of time or achieving a particular pattern of alcohol consumption (that is, binging). Drinking Games Gambling, or games of chance, and alcohol consumption have often been linked. Bar bets, wherein patrons gamble on common tricks, trivia, skills, and strength, best illustrate this relationship. When a player makes an error, that individual usually is penalized with the consequence of having to drink. As a player becomes more intoxicated and disinhibited, the frequency of errors and drinking consumption are inherently increased. In other games, players who are skilled gain the power to determine the amount their opponent drinks. The popularity of bar bets has increased over the years, inspiring the integration of technology with the creation of apps for phones and tablets—these devices help patrons identify bars with betting games, place bets on professional sporting events, and integrate gambling with alcohol consumption. Moreover, there are classes and workshops that teach the art of successfully winning through deception and strategy. Drinking games are popular on college campuses. Many drinking games follow set rules and guidelines that detail how many alcoholic beverages must be consumed and in what pattern. There are several types of drinking games that can be categorized by their own distinct features and tend to fall into six categories: games based on motor skills (for example, quarters, coin pyramid); on verbal ability (for example, repeating tongue-twisting phrases, “I’ve never . . .”); on teams/competition (for example, beer pong, flip cup); on physical strength (for example, arm wrestling); on mass media (for example, media cue, trivia); on endurance (for example, betting on alcohol consumption); and on gambling (for example, dice, and cards). Types of Games Drinking games like quarters and coin pyramid are the type of games that test players’ motor skills. Players that are unable to complete the given task are forced to drink. In the game quarters, the player has to try to bounce a quarter into a shot glass. For every miss, a drink must be consumed. In these games, certain motor tasks have
to be performed. Failure to do the task adequately results in being forced to drink. Verbal games are structured such that specific verbal responses and/or questions determine alcohol consumption for the players. In games that are associated with memory, players are given a task of repeating a long series of nonsensical words or challenging phrases, whose level of difficulty increase as players become more intoxicated. For example, fuzzy duck is a game where players are seated in a circle and each player take turns alternating between saying the phrase “fuzzy duck” and “ducky fuzz.” Players have the option to say, “Does he?” at which time the sequence of players reverses. If a player says the wrong phrase, speaks out of turn, or breaks the rhythm of the game, he or she must drink as much as the group has agreed on as being the penalty. Other verbal games include animal, little-known trivia games, the name game, and tongue twisters. Team games such as beer pong offer participants an opportunity to consume as many drinks as they can tolerate within a competitive environment. Beer pong is a competitive game that remains popular among college students, in bars, and even in drinking tournaments. The socially competitive team game usually is set up with 10 16- to 18-ounce cups filled with beer stacked in a pyramidlike formation. Teams of two take turns attempting to throw a Ping-Pong ball into their opposing team’s cups. Once a ball lands in the opposing team’s cup, the opponent has to consume the cup of alcohol. The team that dunks all of the opposing team’s cups wins the game. The winning team usually stays at the table to await its next opponent. The rules of this game may vary considerably, with the basic premise of forcing opposing team members to consume alcohol remaining constant. Among drinking games, mass media games tend to be the most passive. In these games, alcohol consumption is determined by the number of times a particular word or phrase either in a song or in a television show is mentioned. Endurance games are not based on particular strategies or guidelines; rather, the premise for these types of games is to see how many drinks can be consumed in a set amount of time. For example, in the game power hour participants have an hour to see how many drinks they can
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consume before time expires. The player that consumes the most drinks within the hour wins. Most players that participate in endurance games never finish the game because they meet physical limits (vomiting, passing out, or any other outcome due to intoxication) before the designated time expires. Gambling games are among the most common types of drinking games and are based on probability and chance, as well as decision making, in the form of utilizing cards, dice, or other gambling devices. For example, the aptly named game bet your liver consists of a least three players sitting in a circle. One person begins the game by pouring any amount of beer into a glass (this is the player’s wager for the game). He or she then calls out either “black” or “red.” The dealer, who is in charge of shuffling the stake, turns over one card and places it face down on the table. If the person calls out the correct color of the card, he or she passes the glass of beer to the next person, who then adds more beer to the glass, increasing the wager of the bet. The new player must guess the color of the next card in the deck. If the answer is wrong, he or she must drink the contents of the glass. This cycle is repeated for each player. The comorbidity between gambling and alcohol has been studied by a cohort of researchers, specifically, in terms of the addictive behavior associated with these two activities. Participants of bar bets are driven by their desire for a sense of adventure, escape, socialization, friendship, fun, and alcohol consumption. Bar bets are common among younger and older consumers of alcohol, and the patterns of consumption they promote may have longer-term health consequences. Christopher L. Edwards Duke University Medical Center Jaslynn Cuff North Carolina Central University See Also: Beer Pong; Drinking Games; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Student Culture, College and University. Further Readings Borsari, Brian. “Drinking Games in the College Environment: A Review.” Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education, v.48 (2004).
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Borsari, Brian, Dessa Bergen-Cico, and Kate B. Carey. “Self-Reported Drinking-Game Participation of Incoming College Students.” Journal of American College Health, v.51/4 (2003). Green, Joanna and Martin A. Plant. “Bad Bars: A Review of Risk Factors.” Journal of Substance Use, v.12/3 (2007). Snow, Ronald W. and Bradley J. Anderson. “Drinking Place Selection Factors Among Drunk Drivers.” British Journal of Addiction, v.82 (1987). Zamboanga, Byron L., et al. “Ping-Pong, Endurance, Card, and Other Types of Drinking Games: Are These Games of the Same Feather?” Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education, v.51/2 (2007).
Bar Hopping Bar hopping, also referred to as a pub crawl, bar crawl, bar tour, or shuffle, refers to an act in which one or more people drink in multiple bars and pubs over the course of an evening. Patrons typically walk, bus, or bike between different drinking establishments to check out the social scene and to keep the night lively and novel. Bar hopping is popular among college students and young adults, although drinkers among all age groups typically visit different establishments on a night out drinking. Although “bar hopping” and “pub crawls” are often used interchangeably, and can certainly refer to the same form of drinking activity, bar hopping has come to denote spontaneity while a pub crawl has come to refer to a previously planned event. Pub crawls are typically organized in cities and often require a fee and registration, involve previously planned routes, and encourage patrons to dress up in costumes reflecting different themes. The pub crawl occurs in cities across the world, where they are often organized by charitable organizations, coincide with specific holidays, or serve as an opportunity for people to meet others and/ or explore the city where the pub crawl is held. Bar hopping mainly refers to a group of friends and/or acquaintances gathering together spontaneously at a bar and then continuing to drink at different establishments. Bar hopping can also be loosely planned by a group of friends to celebrate
a birthday, wedding, friend leaving town, bachelor or bachelorette party, or almost any event with bars semimapped for the event. However, the distinction, and even allure, of bar hopping is that it is rarely a strictly structured event, leaving the evening of drinking open to countless possibilities. While pub crawls often have a time limit, a finish line, prizes, costume contests, and a party at the final stage, bar hopping is typically unplanned and open for any drinking schedule or anyone to join in along the way. Customs In the college party scene and the young adult party scene, bar hopping is almost a social requirement to meet new friends, potential romantic partners, a hookup, or simply survey the social scene. When being social, people do not want to be pinned down in the same bar or pub throughout the entire evening. Men typically are seen as being more mobile when bar hopping on college campuses or in downtown areas in cities. Women are often encouraged to avoid victimization while bar hopping and taught to stay together, not walk alone at night, and to care for overly intoxicated friends. Basically, women are held to the standard “We all go or we all stay,” while men are not typically held to these gendered standards and can bar hop in groups or alone. Cell phone technology has fundamentally changed the logistics of bar hopping. Prior to the commonality of cell phones, bar hopping operated via word of mouth. Typically, a starting bar, pub, or club was chosen prior to the night of drinking and friends waited for friends before bar hopping commenced. Without cellular phones, if someone was left behind at a bar or failed to leave with the group, depending on the number of potential bars in the areas, that person may have been lost from the group and left searching and bar hopping alone. Today, groups of friends who are bar hopping can easily maintain a cohesive group by staying in cell phone contact. Rules and Roles According to Kelly Frank Rich in the Modern Drunkard, a bimonthly periodical based out of Denver, Colorado, promoting the bohemian lifestyle of “functional alcoholics,” there are several rules to successful bar hopping. These rules include but are not limited to:
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1. Everyone in the group must be present for a shot to promote unity among the group and prevent the scattering of the group. 2. Bar hoppers must never spend 45 minutes in any one bar because the longer you stay, the less likely you are to leave. 3. People must accept losses gracefully, sneak away, head home, or hook up. Others should let them go; they will not be rejoining the group. 4. The group must let others join; eventually people may meet new friends or unexpectedly run into old friends, which will expand the group.
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See Also: Bars, History of Alcohol Abuse in; Binge Drinking, History of; Pub Crawls; Student Culture, College and University. Further Readings Montemurro, Beth and Bridget McClure. “Changing Gender Norms for Alcohol Consumption: Social Drinking and Lowered Inhibitions at Bachelorette Parties.” Sex Roles, v.52 (2005). Rich, Kelly Frank. “Bar Hopping for Beginners.” The Modern Drunkard. http://www.drunkard.com/ issues/05_03/05-03-barhopping.html (Accessed February 2014). Vander Ven, Thomas. Getting Wasted: Why College Students Drink Too Much and Party So Hard. New York: New York University Press, 2011.
Rich also identifies various roles, or a “hierarchy of leadership,” for a successful bar-hopping experience. These roles include but are not limited to: 1. The leader(s), who keeps the group together, makes decisions on which establishments to attend, and keeps energy levels high. 2. The treasurer, who collects money from the group at the bar and makes one order with the bartender, in order to facilitate the bar hopping experience. 3. The philosopher, who gives meaning to the bar-hopping experience and provides a central reason to rally around for continuing bar hopping. 4. The clown, who keeps the mood lighthearted and jovial with jokes and hijinks since nobody wants a depressing bar-hopping experience. Although these rules and roles are meant to be humorous and were written in jest, they do reflect the normative guidelines associated with bar hopping and also display the spontaneity and debauchery that can characterize bar hopping. Although bar hopping has traditionally been associated with binge drinking, it is a common drinking activity across the world, especially among college students and young adults in metropolitan areas, and has expanded into Western drinking culture. Patrick K. O’Brien University of Wisconsin, Whitewater
Barbera Barbera is the most widely planted red grape in its native Piemonte region, northwest Italy. Additionally, it is one of the top-five varieties planted within Italy; 20,789 hectares (51,348 acres) in 2010. Widely enjoyed for its capacity to yield darkly colored wines with fresh acidity and low tannins, which are ideal for everyday drinking, Barbera provides freshness and lively fruit flavors to heavier or less fresh wines. Moreover, Barbera has been successfully transplanted worldwide. In its homeland, Barbera has a cultural and economic value extending beyond ubiquity. Given the strong presence of Barbera in Piemonte, one imagines that it has existed here for centuries. Traditional historical references place Barbera’s origins in the Monferrato hills area, but the first reliable reference to the name Barbera comes from the end of the 18th century, placing it in the area of Asti, and by a synonym, Ughetta, near Vercelli, and as Vespolina near Novara, the latter two towns further north in Piemonte. While Ughetta was used as a synonym for Barbera and Vespolina, those are distinct varieties. Indeed, since the 19th century, Barbera has been strongly identified with the Asti region. The incursion of phylloxera in Piemonte at the end of that century sparked wide-scale replanting with the variety, as opposed to older, traditional
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These Barbera grapes were grown in the Columbia Valley of Washington State in 2011. Italian immigrants brought the Barbera variety to California in the 19th century; the state produced about 56,000 tons on 6,300 acres in 2012.
varieties, due to Barbera’s vigor and better adaptability to grafting on native American rootstocks. Yet, it is precisely this lack of mention before the late 18th century, combined with relatively recent expansion of plantings, that leads researchers to believe its origins are elsewhere than Piemonte. Furthermore, recent DNA analyses of Barbera show it has very little relationship to other Piemontese varieties. So far, DNA analyses have not determined the variety’s parents nor narrowed its origins. Barbera Within Piemonte Excepting Moscato Bianco, Barbera is the most widely planted and produced wine in Piemonte. In 2009, 434,000 hectoliters or hl (1 hl equals 26.4 U.S. gallons) of Barbera across all appellations were produced; about 300 percent more
than Dolcetto and 450 percent more than Barolo Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG). In prior decades in Piemonte, Barbera was often thin, acidic, and somewhat harsh in flavor, better for blending than drinking. Its saving grace was low tannins. Growers were paid by weight, not for quality. Barbera grows vigorously. As there are a number of good clones available in Italy and globally, Barbera’s principal drawbacks are its susceptibility to spring frost damage and to powdery mildew. Current DOC regulations continue to allow up to 70 hl/ht (4.4 tons/acre) in Alba, for example, but with today’s market demands for higher quality, producers are cognizant that yields below 50 hl/ht make the more concentrated, flavorful, and better balanced wines consumers desire. The average price for Barbera has risen commensurately as the grape regained reputation. When made by producers who lower yields and age Barbera in new oak barrels, the result is more concentrated wines with the tannic structure allowing for extended aging, though retaining the fruit-intense essence of the grape. Barbera in Piemonte grows principally in five specific DOC/DOCG production zones: Barbera d’Alba, Barbera d’Asti, Barbera del Monferrato, with the latter two also having Superiore DOC(G) versions. The generic Barbera del Piemonte DOC completes the official growing areas for the variety. The largest production of DOC(G) is that of Barbera d’Asti, more than half the total production. Some producers in the Alba district use high-quality Barbera fruit to craft a Langhe Rosso DOC, which blends Barbera with Nebbiolo or other international varieties. Wines such as Rivetti’s Pin and Clerico’s Arte combine the tradition of a century ago, when it was considered normal to blend Nebbiolo with Barbera for the best wines, and generally mature in small oak barriques. Barbera prefers these districts due to the clay-marl or calcareous-sandy soils on moderately steep slopes that are relatively porous and not too fertile. Barbera ripens about one to two weeks before the more famous Nebbiolo, when the fall fog is less problematic (late September to early October). It tolerates a wider range of altitudes, particularly lower slopes, yet will also do well much higher. In the Alba zone, where Nebbiolo grows on the most privileged sites, Barbera
traditionally has been relegated to the less ideal sections of a vineyard, below 250 meters or above 400 meters, which are considered the sweet spot for Nebbiolo. In the Asti and Monferrato hills, along with the nearby Roero zone, Barbera dominates these better mid-slope sites. Position Within Local Culture Barbera’s popularity in Piemonte results from at least two centuries of adaptability to the climate and soils of the area, along with the capability to act as a vinous foil to the rich, hearty local cuisine. As Luca Corrado, owner–winemaker of the venerable Vietti winery in Castiglione Falletto (Barolo Zone), remarked in a Wall Street Journal interview with Jay McInerney in 2010, “Barbera was the wine of the people.” Historically, Barbera’s high-fruit intensity and high acidity permits even semi-sparkling and slightly sweet versions in areas such as Monferrato. The fresh fruit intensity of the wine combined with high acidity and rapid drinkability promote its wide consumption. More frequently grown on less well-situated, less-expensive sites, good Barbera wines are far more affordable as well. Today’s producers often make a more affordable, non-oak-aged wine to satisfy regular early consumption, along with a more expensive, richer, age-worthy wine, which can stand alongside fine Nebbiolo-based wines at the apex of Piemontese wine culture. Outside of Piemonte, Barbera strongly figures in the DOC Oltrepò Pavese red wines like Sangue de Giuda, mainly because this region has cultural affinities with nearby Piemonte. Barbera is part of red DOC blends in Emilia–Romagna to the south, such as Gutturnio, and can also be included in Lombardy red blends such as Terre di Franciacorta. Barbera can be included in the lovely Veneto rosé wines called Chiaretto di Garda, where its firm acidity contributes freshness. Indeed, Barbera is found as far south as the Cilento DOC area of Campania. Grown in the hilly vineyards of the zone, it combines well with the local Aglianico and Piedirosso varieties, though it is unusual for so traditional a southern wine-growing appellation. Barbera in the Global Market California grows the most Barbera outside of Italy. Late-19th-century Italian immigrants
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brought the variety to the Golden State. With more than a century of experience and adaptation to its new environment, Barbera has become the most successful Italian grape in California. Originally planted in northern Sonoma County, acreage peaked at 20,000 acres around 1980 but as of 2012 stood around 6,300 acres, mostly in the hot San Joaquin Valley. In 2012, there were approximately 56,000 tons of Barbera harvested, out of approximately 4.4 million tons crushed. Most Barbera production today goes into inexpensive blends, where its dark color and good acidity enliven otherwise jammy, lowacid wines. The best growing regions—Amador Foothills, Sonoma and Mendocino, and Santa Barbara and Napa Valley—yield serious, flavorful individual wines. Only in blends, generally, can one enjoy inexpensive California Barbera. The cost of central California-grown Barbera is about 10 percent that of fruit grown in Napa Valley, which now means that a bottle of good Barbera costs $20 or more. Argentina has seen a recent increase in Barbera plantings as well, though it is far behind its Italiannamed compatriot Bonarda, with approximately 900 ht in 2007. One now finds limited bottlings of Barbera in Australia, particularly in Victoria, as part of general increase in the popularity there of Italian varieties. Joel Butler Independent Scholar See Also: Barolo; Italy; Wines, California. Further Readings California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). California Grape Crush Report Final 2012. Sacramento, CA: CDFA, 2013. Cernilli, Daniele and Marco Sabellico. The New Italy: A Complete Guide to Contemporary Italian Wine. South San Francisco: Wine Appreciation Guild, 2001 Il Cesimento ISTAT 2010. http://www.inumeridelvino .it/2013/07/i-vitigni-italiani-la-base-ampelografica -secondo-il-censimento-istat-2010.html#more -12503 (Accessed March 2014). McInerney, Jay. “Barbera, The Cinderella of Italian Reds.” Wall Street Journal (December 18, 2010). http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748
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703727804576017992615785206.html (Accessed March 2014). Robinson, Jancis, Julia Harding, and José Vouillamoz. Wine Grapes: A Complete Guide to 1,368 Vine Varieties, Including Their Origins and Flavours. New York: HarperCollins, 2012. Tourney, John, “Bring Out the Best in Barbera.” http://www.winesandvines.com/template.cfm? section=news&content=88890 (Accessed June 2011).
Barmaids Given the numbers of women who work in today’s premises licensed for serving alcohol, it might seem strange to think of a time when vociferous calls were made to prohibit the employment of women as barmaids. In Britain, in tandem with its colonies, such calls reached fever pitch in the early years of the 20th century. Broadly speaking, concerns about the social and economic status of young women were concentrated in a question of whether bar work was appropriate for the individual workers concerned and their male customers. Views on the Traditional Role of Barmaids The archetypal barmaid worked in the urban gin palace, that flashy, gaudy working-class leisure venue of the mid-19th century. One must be sensitive to the importance of context, to the changing layout of premises, and to the composition of clientele that frequented such establishments. Women worked in a variety of urban and rural licensed premises under different social pressures and expectations. Unlike the peripatetic alehouse attendant of earlier years, the 19th-century barmaid was contained and constrained behind a bar. In the foundational essay “Parasexuality and Glamour: The Victorian Barmaid as Cultural Prototype,” Peter Bailey argues that this physical divide between the barmaid and the customer framed the barmaid as part of a cultural display. Here she was on show, a kind of actress of the everyday. She drew men in to drink and into drinking, so goes the theory, and licensees were thus able to profit from carefully controlled
sexualized encounters. Bailey terms this “parasexuality,” emphasizing both the “nearly but not quite” status of this encounter and the importance of the bar counter and licensee in “controlling” and containing proceedings behind the bar. The sense that exchanges across the bar might be sexualized in this way was clearly important in shaping objections to the employment of women in public houses. Bailey reminds us that the barmaid’s ubiquity was part of her pull, but it was also part of the problem, particularly as the opportunities for female work and leisure diversified with developments to the late-Victorian city. This highlights one of the paradoxes of agitation against the barmaid, reflected in temperance work concerning females more broadly: Many of those campaigning against the employment of women as barmaids were middle-class female social reformers, stirring up a public campaign to defend their idealized vision of a private sphere. They argued that the public house was physically damaging and morally corrupting. Women would endure long hours and low pay and very often live in poor-quality accommodations. They would suffer poor health from the fetid atmosphere of the pub and from having to stand all day. Not only did they stand the risk of receiving the inappropriate attention of male customers, it was also felt that their presence encouraged those male hangers-on to spend too much time in pubs. Barmaid work was degrading for women and damaging to men. Restrictions on Women Serving as Barmaids In the early years of the 20th century, Glasgow’s licensing magistrates enforced a kind of practical prohibition on the employment of women as barmaids, with the exception of widower licensees and wives and daughters of existing license holders. The scheme imposed a certain double standard that was not lost on the Glasgow Herald, which complained that honest women workers were being punished in order to protect men. Supporters and opponents alike looked around for precedents. The Alliance News, the organ of the United Kingdom Alliance, reported a ban on European women serving as barmaids in Calcutta in 1901. Explaining the decision to the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), one Bengal government official noted that their
This 1808 print shows the daughter of a bar owner serving customers at a bar counter while her husband relaxes in comfort behind the bar. Regulations for women working as barmaids often provided exceptions for license holders’ family members.
employment was “injurious to the women themselves and also a cause of discredit to the European community.” The involvement of the WCTU here should come as no surprise. Though it would be wrong to suggest a consistent response to barmaid employment, we can also see its members taking an interest in the barmaid question in Britain and Australia. The battle over the barmaid is a signal example of the internationalism of late-19th- and early20th-century moral reform. Campaigners in Britain could look admiringly at the United States and, with a mix of pride and critical self-reflection, at developments in British colonies. In Australia, for example, age restrictions on female workers and hours of work had been introduced as early as the 1880s. From the turn of the century, Australia’s states introduced a mix of other regulations and prohibitions. Wives and daughters of licensees were often protected, as were barmaids that were employed at the time of new regulations. This was the case in New Zealand after 1910. The development of such measures was not necessarily inevitable and was often debated with
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an eye on the status of the issue in Britain. After the introduction of the ban in Glasgow, interested campaigners in Britain formed a joint committee to investigate the employment of barmaids. The committee was chaired by Margaret MacDonald, wife of the future first labor party prime minister Ramsay MacDonald. In 1904, the committee reported that the judgment of the civilized world and Britain’s own colonies was far advanced of Britain on the issue. It claimed that were 27,707 barmaids in the 1901 census, of whom 26,235 were unmarried. The imputation was clear: bar work was not appropriate for women. It was threatening morally and physically. The committee claimed it was common for barmaids to work in excess of 90 hours a week, almost twice the amount of time of some regulated industries such as textile manufacturing. If this seems far-fetched, we might note failed attempts—such as the 1896 Women Bar Assistants (Limitation of Hours) bill—to limit barmaids’ hours to 66 per week and 10 per day. The joint committee looked to Westminster, hoping that the government would follow the example of Glasgow and prohibit the employment of women as barmaids. But its campaign was challenged by a rival practical movement that was marshaled to defend the rights of women to participate in bar work. Matters came to a head when the Liberal government’s restrictive licensing bill in 1908 proposed to allow licensing benches to prohibit the employment of women as barmaids. Those defending barmaids, including the licensed trade, estimated that there were probably closer to 100,000 women employed on licensed premises. Their cause was taken up suffrage campaigners such as Eva Gore-Booth and Esther Roper, who founded the Barmaids’ Political Defence League and used letters, columns, and public addresses to defend women’s right to work. The clause, like the bill, withered in the face of public and parliamentary opposition. Britain would not follow the example of her colonies, where various scholars have traced the impacts of barmaid restrictions that remained in place well into the 20th century. Dan Malleck, for example, shows that Ontario’s licensing board allowed women to work in beverage rooms only after the outbreak of the World War II and only on condition that licensees provided medical
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certificates. The defense of national security was waged on many fronts, it seems, the certificates reflecting anxieties around women in public space. Such anxieties helped shape how people understood the barmaid. For Diane Kirkby, Australia’s coupling of segregated lounges for female customers with mandated early closing—the famous six-o’clock swill—only intensified the social construction of the bar as a masculine space. This continued to define the reputation of the barmaid into the 1960s. To assess the agitation against barmaids, we have to trace the broader reform impulses around social purity and the rights and freedoms of women to choose where they worked. We also have to examine the space of the public house, not simply in terms of the containment of the barmaid behind the bar or the atmosphere and language of the premises; instead, the barmaid has to be understood in the context of, and indeed as part of, the social construction of drinking and drinking environments. Seen in this way, we might even suggest the too-slow death of this construction of a “barmaid,” to be replaced, simply but no less significantly, by women who work on licensed premises. David Beckingham University of Cambridge See Also: Bartending; Cocktail Waitresses; Gender and Drinking in Popular Culture; Temperance Movements; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Further Readings Bailey, Peter. “Parasexuality and Glamour: The Victorian Barmaid as Cultural Prototype.” Gender and History, v.2/2 (1990). “Barmaids Abolished in Bengal.” Alliance News (September 12, 1901). Joint Committee on the Employment of Barmaids. The Barmaid Problem. Kensington: James Wakeman, 1904. Joint Committee on the Employment of Barmaids. Women as Barmaids. London: P.S. King, 1905. Kirkby, Diane. Barmaids: A History of Women’s Work in Pubs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Malleck, Dan. Try to Control Yourself: The Regulation of Public Drinking in Post-Prohibition
Ontario, 1927–44. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2012. Mullin, Kathryn. “‘The Essence of Vulgarity’: The Barmaid Controversy in the ‘Sirens’ Episode of James Joyce’s Ulysses.” Textual Practice, v.18/4 (2004). “Page Six.” Glasgow Herald (April 23, 1902). Tiernan, Sonja. Eva Gore-Booth: An Image of Such Politics. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012.
Barolo Considered the “wine of kings” and the “king of wines,” Barolo is one of Italy’s finest red wines. Barolo wine, a protected and guaranteed appellation designated by the Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG), a quality-assurance, label-guaranteeing, controlled designation of origins, takes its name from the small town of Barolo in Piemonte, located south of the city of Alba and founded by the Roman consul Pompeius Strabone in the 1st century b.c.e. Produced from the Piemontese nebbiolo variety of grapes, Barolo represents the ultimate expression of the variety, due principally to the distinctive and diverse terrain of the appellation. With limited production, Barolo provides a profound drinking experience for those who have patience in acquiring it. Geography and Terroir Geologically, Barolo’s origins are relatively recent; during the Miocene era, 7 to 15million years ago, the area was completely under sea. Millions of years of sedimentation of sandstones, clays, and rock built up to the current soils. About 1.5 million years ago, during the Quaternary, the current soils formed in the Helvetian and Tortonian epochs. They are characterized by layers of sedimentary clays, sandstone and calcareous marls. The Langhe region where Barolo is located consists of myriad alternations of modestly steep hills and valleys (see map of zone). The Alps form a wide arc starting from 125 to 150 kilometers (75–90 miles) to the west and continuing around to the northeast. Another smaller range of mountains to the south sufficiently blocks humidity
from the Mediterranean sea, so that Barolo’s climate is moderately continental, with cold, snowy winters, warm summers, and generally temperate autumns. Barolo can be affected by severe spring and summer hailstorms and rain in autumn that ruins harvests in a very short time. The best sites for late-ripening nebbiolo in Barolo are located midslope on various south-facing exposures, generally between 300 and 370 meters altitude. Over time, the best vineyards (crus) were identified and named, with differences that experienced producers could taste. Most producers today make both a “classic” blended wine and single vineyard designations, similar to producers in Burgundy. Unique Nebbiolo Grape Fundamentally, Barolo is the singular product of Piemonte’s most famous variety, nebbiolo. First cited in a document from the State Archive of Torino in 1266 and called “nibiol,” nebbiolo is a very old variety. Today, DNA analysis has located nebbiolo’s origins in Piemonte or the Valtellina zone further northeast in Lombardy. The name nebbiolo most likely derives from nebbia-, meaning fog and referring to the white bloom that appears on the grape skin of ripe berries. Nebbiolo is one of the most difficult wine grapes to grow and to make wine from since it is very vigorous—it is “a weed,” as Angelo Gaja remarked to the author. Early to bud and late to ripen, nebbiolo is harvested in mid- to late October. It has naturally high acidity, high tannin content, and ripens to high sugar levels, yet has relatively low anthocyanins (color compounds) and lower dry-extract levels than barbera. While nebbiolo challenges winemakers, success leads to a deeply aromatic, firmly structured wine with layers of flavor exhibiting myriad red fruits, anise, autumnal earth accents, balsamic notes, and a lasting finish found nowhere else. An old variety, nebbiolo is genetically unstable and mutates easily, similar to pinot noir. By law, the DOCG permits Barolo four nebbiolo clones, one of which, nebbiolo rosé, is now considered a separate variety. Another clone, nebbiolo bolla, is in decline and rarely recommended now. The two principal clones are the lampia and michet types In 2011, there were 5,500 hectares (13,585 acres) of nebbiolo planted in Italy, 90 percent of which
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are in DOC/DOCG zones (similar to the DOCG, DOC also suggests that the designation of origins is controlled but the DOCG is not guaranteed). In Piemonte, average production in recent years was 90,000 hectoliters (2.4 million gallons) from 1,747 hectares (4,310 acres) in 2011. History of the Barolo Zone Modern Barolo’s history begins in the mid-19th century. Prior to that period, nebbiolo was made in various styles—dry, light, or sparkling, the latter being slightly sweet. When Count Camillo Benso Cavour took over his family’s estate at Grinzane between Alba and Barolo in the 1830s and began to produce wine, he ultimately employed two different wine consultants, General Carlo Staglieno and Louis Oudart. Both were instrumental in changing production methods, including fermentation in closed vats, the use of sulfur dioxide to help preserve the wine, fermenting grapes to dryness, and aging them in different-sized wood (oak or chestnut) vessels. Oudart’s style emphasized aging wines for several years with frequent rackings before selling them, while Staglieno’s was crafted for more immediate consumption with less body. Documents show that Oudart’s wines were among the earliest bottled as “Barolos” (1844 vintage). Later, other aristocratic families, including the royal House of Savoy, created wine estates in the Barolo area, and one began to see bottles with the name Barolo on the label. Barolo’s reputation as a fine wine on par with those of Bordeaux or burgundy began to rise. Writing in 1879, enologist Lorenzo Fantini said, “If Nebbiolo is the prince of vines, then Barolo is the king of wines” The early years of the 20th century saw repeated efforts by local government and some farsighted producers to delimit the production zone and control the “purity” of Barolo wine in light of clearly fraudulent wines cut with outside blending wines. Some progress was made with the creation of the Consorzio per la Difesa dei Vini Barolo e Barbaresco in 1934. The establishment of the DOC for Barolo in 1966, followed by DOCG status in 1980, has assured the purity, boundaries, and authentic nature of Barolo. Production Methods Barolo DOCG regulations mandate a maximum yield of 52 hectoliters per hectare (3.25 tons per
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acre), a minimum alcohol content of 13 percent, and three years of aging before bottling, (which comes to five years of total aging for Barolo Riserva,) two years of which must be done in wood vessels. Top producers achieve lower yields by shorter pruning, summer green harvesting of less mature clusters, and careful selection of grapes at harvest. Barolo requires several years of aging to achieve maturity and complexity. The most important factors for producing Barolo besides grape quality are fermentation and aging regimes. From the early 20th century until perhaps 30 years ago, the grape must was fermented at fairly high temperatures in large wooden or concrete vats, further macerated for several weeks postfermnetation by submerging the cap of grape skins to extract a lot of tannin, and then aged for four or more years in old 25- to 100-hectoliteroak or chestnut botti (casks). These casks were old and did not impart aromas or flavors but slowly oxidized the wine. Over time, the wine would become garnet-orange in color, and the aromas and flavors less primary, the tannins softer, and the flavors more complex. Often, however, the result was an oxidized, astringent wine that could not improve even after many years in the bottle. The great practitioners of this style in the 20th century like Violante Sobrero, Bartolo Mascarello, Giovanni Conterno, and others did make magnificent wines when the vintage conditions allowed. Subsequently in the late 1970s, a group of younger producers rethought this traditional approach. They studied how some of the original creators of Barolo in the late 19th century made their wines, striving to create Barolos with more fruit, less astringent tannins, nonoxidated flavors, and even more color. Decisively revisionist, producers like Renato Ratti and Angelo Gaja, and later Elio Altare and Luciano Sandrone, began to reduce yields and ferment the wine at cooler temperatures and for shorter periods to extract more color and retain the primary fruit. They aged the wine for the minimum period required by law in smaller botti of 6 to 10 hectoliters, or in barriques of French oak holding 225 liters. The results were wines that show more freshness and a riper fruit character, with perhaps less of the “classic” tar and floral quality of roses of the older style. These
wines also had softer tannins and the capacity to age gracefully for up to 20 years. Inexperience and exuberance with this methodology resulted in some wines that were overoaked and did not taste of their terroir origin. With time and experience, most contemporary producers have started using fewer new oak barriques and returned to using smaller botti. Slightly longer macerations have improved the structure of their wines. The last few years have also seen older, more traditional producers adapting modern techniques to make fresher wines and a return to fermenting individual vineyard parcels in smaller casks. Overall, the great improvements in viticulture, better cellar hygiene, more understanding of terroir, and a higher technical capability (many current producers or their children have attended the local Alba Enology School) have made Barolo the most widely appreciated, praised, and collected wine from Italy according to global experts and consumers. Position Within Local Culture Barolo’s prestige stems from its introduction to the market by aristocratic families as the one wine that could compare with the best French wines. Barolo was savored with honored guests or close friends. Barolo is most widely appreciated when drunk with a meal and served with traditional, richly flavored dishes such as manzo brasato, which is braised beef simmered in Barolo wine for hours, or aged cheese. Contemporary Barolos are generally more approachable, however, helping to create a global market and appreciation for the appellation’s wines. Joel Butler Independent Scholar See Also: Barbera; Bordeaux; Cooking With Alcohol; Fine Dining; Italy. Further Readings I Numeri Del Vino. “Superfici vitate DOC-DOCG (ha) Piemonte.” http://www.inumeridelvino .it/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/piemonte -docdocg-2008-2.jpg. (Accessed March 2014). Petrini, Carlo, ed. A Wine Atlas of the Langhe: The Great Barolo and Barbaresco Vineyards. Bra: Slow Food, 2002.
Robinson, Jancis, Julia Harding, and José Vouillamoz. Wine Grapes: A Complete Guide to 1,368 Vine Varieties, Including Their Origins and Flavours. New York: HarperCollins, 2012. Rosso, Maurizio. The Mystique of Barolo. Turin: Omega Arte, 2002. Zanfi, Andrea. Piemonte. . . Noblewoman of Wine. Poggibonsi: Carlo Gambi, 2005.
Bars, History of Alcohol Abuse in Bars and other public drinking establishments have long been scrutinized as contributors to alcohol abuse among their patrons. Alcohol abuse is considered to be any use of alcohol that produces detrimental consequences for an individual’s health and well-being, relationships, ability to earn a living, or tendency to harm others. In the past, medical professionals have distinguished between alcohol abuse and dependence. In the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association, alcohol abuse and alcohol dependency have been united under a single disorder, alcohol use disorder. Abuse is at one end of the spectrum and dependence at the other. However, in addition to definitions changing over time, what constitutes alcohol abuse varies from person to person and from context to context, often according to the drinker’s age, race, gender, nationality, and other factors. Thus, the history of alcohol abuse in bars becomes comprehensible only through the history of public condemnation of drinking spaces and drunkenness. Since their inception, bars have been viewed as abetting abuse of alcohol in various ways, and specific steps have been taken to remedy the problem. Moreover, issues of race, class, and gender inflected conceptions of alcohol abuse, especially in public places. Inns, Taverns, and Beerhouses Elites in every culture have been concerned about alcohol abuse by marginalized people since the beginning of civilization, and regulating the public drinking establishment to limit alcohol abuse
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has a long history. Ancient Egyptians worried that frequenting beerhouses and inns would lead to personal and social problems. The Code of Hammurabi of 2225 b.c.e. provided extensive regulation of the tavern, including measures meant to discourage alcohol abuse among its patrons. The Roman conquest of Great Britain brought with it a system of roadside taverns, changing the native population’s relationship with alcohol. Most common people in classical India did the bulk of their drinking in taverns as well. Traditionally, public drinking establishments have been frequented by the so-called lower classes, while the elites drank at home and in private clubs. Inns, taverns, and beerhouses were the first public places to be scrutinized as public drinking places. Primarily a necessary institution to accommodate travelers, inns offered the food and drink of taverns as well as overnight lodging. By the 12th century, England had instituted a system of licensing, both to ensure accommodations for visitors to the realm and to control the sale of intoxicating beverages. However, especially in Western civilizations, the home and the church were the primary loci of alcohol production and consumption. In 16th-century England, churches produced and sold ales to support their parishes. Drinking at church-ales was an essential part of the common person’s social life. This changed later in the 16th century, when the Protestant Reformation modified Catholic patterns of leisure, leading to the end of church-ales and the divorce of public drinking from church social life. As a result, social drinking moved from the church to the inn and tavern. Puritans took issue with these establishments as well, arguing that the tavern fostered not only drunkenness but crime in general. Women, especially widows and the unmarried, often brewed ale and set up alehouses that were open only when the grain harvest could support beverage production. The 17th century saw European governments attempting to legislate drunkenness through increased licensing of “public houses,” those institutions—whether tavern, inn, or alehouse—that sold alcoholic beverages. During the American colonial era, taverns were often the first public buildings erected in a town. While colonists used these public places for a variety of communal purposes, drinking was an important part of early Americans’ lives. During
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this time, taking drams—small amounts of alcohol—throughout the day was the predominant mode of imbibing. Drinking was done at home, at work, and at the tavern. In some of the colonies, tavern keepers were forbidden to sell to “known drunkards,” as contemporary Americans believed not only that drunkenness was a sin but also that it led to crime. Dram drinking and drinking with each meal discouraged alcohol abuse, as it limited quantities and routinized the behavior. However, colonial people also engaged in occasional episodes of binge drinking on special occasions like holidays and festivals. The growth of trade in distilled spirits led to increased alcohol abuse and, subsequently, greater condemnation and decreased tolerance of public drunkenness. Colonial governments sought additional regulation of taverns, citing concerns about alcohol abuse, but they also suspected that taverns provided gathering places for political rebels. As the Industrial Revolution swept through the United States in the 19th century, new patterns of work and leisure revolutionized drinking habits in public places as well. Discouraged by their employers from drinking during working hours, working-class men (and, less frequently, women) sought relaxation and conviviality at taverns after working hours. This compression of leisure time into a few hours is perhaps responsible for a concomitant rise in drunkenness. American farmers’ large-scale conversion of excess grain into nonperishable and easily transportable whiskey contributed to increased consumption during the early 19th century. Increased production resulted in abundant and inexpensive alcohol at taverns, which further facilitated alcohol abuse. From the 1810s until the 1830s, Americans drank more distilled spirits per capita than they had ever before or have ever since. However, with the increase in alcohol consumption (and alcohol abuse), taverns began to lose their prestige, and those who frequented them their respectability. While elites have always treated alcohol abuse as a problem of the lower social orders, during the 19th century, state and local governments increasingly regulated alcohol abuse in public bars according to the drinker’s race and class. In the United States, United Kingdom, and elsewhere, reformers sought to control the drinking habits of the working class and racial or ethnic groups by arguing that they
were, by virtue of their race or class, predisposed to alcohol abuse. The Industrial Revolution affected drinking practices in other ways too. The mass production of beer produced intense competition between brewers by the second half of the 19th century. The desire for a stable market led to the rise of “tied houses,” or bars that were required to purchase only from specific breweries. A tied house was frequently owned by the brewery, with the barkeeper renting it and perhaps its furnishings and décor as well. This practice was common in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. In addition to the economic and social problems that often attend such monopolistic enterprises, tied houses could also result in fomenting alcohol abuse through aggressive marketing. Where an independent barkeeper might cut off customers or refuse to sell to minors, those who managed tied houses had to fulfill quotas and could only secure a profit for themselves by selling more, as operating costs were inflexible. National prohibition in the United States and Canada virtually eliminated the tied houses there as most major breweries went out of business forever. Post-repeal, legislators were sensitive to the impact tied houses could have on encouraging alcohol abuse and cited this as a reason for restricting them in the new era of alcohol regulation. Saloons and Public Houses Industrialization also contributed to the rise of the saloon or public house, the 19th-century AngloAmerican bar that focused almost exclusively on serving alcohol, usually spirits. Of all the public drinking establishments, none was so frequently or harshly maligned as the saloon for its contributions to alcohol abuse by its patrons. In the United Kingdom, the term saloon was frequently applied to middle-class establishments and the terms public house (“pub”) or dram shop were reserved for what Americans called “saloons.” Regardless of the name, these bars were distinct from inns and taverns in several key aspects. They provided no overnight accommodations. They frequently did not serve food, though during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States, many saloons offered a “free lunch” of especially salty and thirst-inducing fare to patrons and required that they purchase a drink. Often saloons did not
have tables and chairs but, instead, a long wooden counter for patrons to lean against and order and a brass foot rail for them to rest on as they drank. “Perpendicular” drinking allowed more drinkers to be served more rapidly, thus increasing the amount of alcohol each customer could be served in a short amount of time. Reformers charged that saloons were havens for vice: alcohol abuse, gambling, prostitution, violence, and political corruption. Furthermore, working-class men overwhelmingly patronized saloons, sometimes for the promise of the “free lunch,” but often simply for the camaraderie, relative comfort, and other services (indoor plumbing, mail collection, information about jobs) that the establishment provided. Some saloons offered credit to their customers in an effort to encourage them to drink more; others flouted laws regulating mandatory closing times, sales to minors, and the suppression of prostitution and gambling. Over time, saloons became linked in the public imagination with all alcohol-related problems. A full-scale attack on the saloon provided an important impetus to the anti-liquor campaign that ultimately resulted in national prohibition. Drinking practices and rituals within the saloon also contributed to its bad reputation. For reformers, one of the most common and troubling of these was “treating.” When treating, an individual buys a round of drinks for his companions at the bar, with the expectation that he will be treated in turn by each of the recipients of his purchase. To refuse to purchase a round or to decline a drink purchased by another member of the group would be taken as an insult. The larger the group of men at the bar, the greater the potential for alcohol abuse to occur, though in small groups individuals might be obligated to purchase multiple rounds. The pressure to keep pace with one’s fellows and to “break even” by consuming drinks equal to the size of the round one purchased frequently led to alcohol abuse. Less controversial was the practice of drinking healths or “toasting.” Wine and spirits have been drunk in honor of gods, kings, and special occasions for millennia. The specific ritual and name toasting may have developed in medieval Britain, as a gesture of trust among drinkers. However, the practice as it evolved included displays of wit and boasts that could encourage competitive drinking
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and thus alcohol abuse. As with treating, the refusal to drink a toast proposed by a fellow bargoer was considered a serious faux pas. Reformers considered toasting and drinking healths to be promoters of alcohol abuse, and some regions banned the practices in the 18th century. Both treating and toasting could be practiced in the payday ritual of the “spree,” an episode of communal binge drinking common among workingmen who usually received their week’s wages on Saturday and were given Sundays off. Men who indulged in the spree were often accused of neglecting their responsibilities to their families and/or jobs. Employers frequently complained of Monday absenteeism due to payday sprees. Speakeasies and Other Underground Bars Alcohol abuse was the ostensible motivation for the steps nations took worldwide to limit public drinking in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, whether by eliminating retail sales as in Russia, forbidding sale of alcohol to minors as in France and Japan, limiting the hours of operation in several nations, or total prohibition as in the United States. In parts of colonized Africa, officials attributed alcohol abuse in part to the proliferation of bars, which changed drinking culture by encouraging binge drinking with strangers. In every nation that attempted to enforce some version of prohibition against alcohol, underground, illegal establishments emerged to satisfy popular demand for alcohol. In urban areas of the United States during the Prohibition era, these were often called speakeasies (denoting the need to speak carefully of and inside the establishment) or “blind pigs.” In more rural areas, they might be called roadhouses or juke joints. In Ireland and some parts of Africa, they were called shebeens. Regardless of the name, they were frequently the target of criticism by opponents of Prohibition, who argued that their clandestine nature encouraged or even glamorized excessive drinking, crime, and a host of other vices. Historians argue that Prohibition legitimatized public drinking, and thus the possibility of alcohol abuse, for American women and young people. Drinking in speakeasies, permissible because of their illicit character, allowed these groups to defy authority, assert their independence, and take part for the first time in public drinking culture. Drinking in speakeasies or roadhouses might also have
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been an escape and means of forgetting trauma for veterans of World War I. Additionally, wartime rationing had limited bar hours in some nations and created de facto prohibition in the United States even before the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. After the Great War, the United States’ economy became consumer driven. The relative peace and prosperity of the 1920s further encouraged a flourishing of youth culture, of which heavy drinking in public was a significant part. As Gina Hames points out, in some parts of the United States, there were more bars during Prohibition than before; the nation’s largest metropolis, New York City, saw its total number of bars double. It was during the Prohibition era that the concept of “happy hour” gained popularity in the West. The practice of drinking at speakeasies in the late afternoon, before dinner, evolved as drinkers could no longer enjoy alcohol with their meals. After repeal, bars used happy hour as a marketing strategy, frequently offering drink specials during the afternoon. Recently, happy hour has been criticized for encouraging alcohol abuse and drunk driving. Happy hour specials were criticized by anti-drunk-driving advocates in the second half of the 20th century and are currently illegal in some parts of the United States and Ireland. A related phenomenon, that of the “six o’clock swill,” developed in Australia around the same time as happy hour. Though that nation never attempted total prohibition, several state governments did institute a mandatory 6 p.m. closing time for pubs during World War I. Rather than discouraging alcohol abuse, however, the measure led to a rush to consume as much alcohol as possible in the short time most working-class men had between the end of the workday and the early closing time. Extending bars’ hours has more recently been seen as a way to combat alcohol abuse by fostering a more relaxed and leisurely attitude toward drinking. Bars in the Contemporary Moment Post–World War II understandings of alcohol abuse have centered on the person (e.g., the alcoholic, the problem drinker) to the neglect of studying the substance or the place in which the drinker drinks. Alcoholism was defined as a disease in the West after World War II, and even while differentiating abuse from dependence, researchers have
been guided by this disease paradigm. Thus, studies of alcohol abuse since the mid-20th century have focused primarily on describing the alcoholic/alcohol abuser. Post-Prohibition bars in the United States and Canada were notable for their efforts to avoid duplicating the atmosphere of the saloon rather than inhibiting alcohol abuse. Saloons were so closely associated with alcohol abuse that President Franklin Roosevelt, in his address on repeal, admonished the nation not to allow the saloon to be reborn. This led to a number of interesting developments in bars. In some parts of the country, the physical appearance of bars was regulated to ensure they would look nothing like the old saloon. David W. Gutzke has convincingly argued that in Great Britain, where prohibition was never implemented, a spirit of transatlantic progressivism inspired British brewers to make improvements to the pub to address the social ills of alcohol abuse. Though pubs, like American saloons, had a bad reputation around the time of World War I, due to the brewers’ efforts they became a bastion of respectable middle-class leisure by the end of World War II. After the short-lived experiment with national prohibition in Canada, the government, still leery of the oft-maligned saloons, allowed the creation of “beer parlours.” These establishments were designed to be the antithesis of the saloon; patrons were required to sit at tables, no hard liquor was served (but neither was any food or nonalcoholic beverage), all forms of entertainment were banned from the premises, and the establishment could not call itself a saloon, bar, or tavern. The result of such extreme proscription, Robert A. Campbell notes, was to make drinking the only viable activity in beer parlours, which obviously increased the potential for abuse. Beer parlours were also relatively short-lived, as increasingly liberal regulations allowed more establishments to serve a variety of alcoholic drinks. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that prohibitory attitudes about alcohol lead to abuse. As cities in the United Kingdom and United States made efforts to reinvigorate urban areas, they extended bar hours. Some also hoped that this move would discourage alcohol abuse that resulted from attempting to drink one’s fill before last call. However, some scholars note that the creation of
a “nighttime economy” has led to increased tolerance of behaviors related to alcohol abuse, including greater levels of public intoxication and violence in and around bars. In Britain, the creation of “superpubs,” large, multifloor bars that catered to a younger clientele, have been thought to contribute to alcohol abuse. Researchers have found that the size of the superpubs has created a sense of anonymity among their young patrons, which in turn can lead to drinking more and behaving more destructively under the influence. Recent research suggests that as the per capita consumption of alcohol increases, so does the proportion of heavy drinkers in a population and that drinking in bars is related to heavier drinking. Nonetheless, drinking in bars and pubs began to decrease in the Western world in the 1970s and early 1980s, as a generation raised in the era of television, refrigerators, and canned beer increasingly drank at home. Drunk driving (or as it is sometimes called, “drink-driving” or “drinkingdriving,” to emphasize the fact that one does not have be “drunk” to be charged with the offense of driving under the influence (DUI) is a behavior associated with both alcohol abuse and bars that received intense scrutiny during this time, perhaps also contributing to the overall decline in bar attendance. Activism by groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) led to decreasing tolerance of drunk driving and legislation to define impairment by lower and lower blood alcohol content levels. Significantly, drunk driving also became seen at this time as both evidence of alcohol abuse and a symptom of alcoholism. While most efforts have focused on educating and preventing the potential drunk driver from driving, there have been some efforts in bars to address the problem, including installing breathalyzer machines and providing free nonalcoholic drinks to a party’s “designated driver.” In recent years attendance at bars has continued to decline as young people participate in what is variously called “predrinking” or “prepartying/gaming,” a practice in which drinks are had before going out to the club, bar, or sporting event, where drinking continues. This strategy is appealing to college students and young people who are often not able to purchase alcohol legally. For those who are, however, it is more cost-efficient to drink at least part of one’s alcohol intake at home. The
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result, however, is that predrinkers arrive at the bar already somewhat intoxicated, increasing the amount of alcohol they drink at the bar and lowering their inhibitions. Predrinking can lead to alcohol abuse and encourages drinking for intoxication only. This has perhaps been a factor in the rise in binge drinking in several nations while their overall alcohol consumption rate has decreased. Ashleigh Hardin University of Kentucky See Also: Alcohol Abuse, Symptoms of; Binge Drinking, History of; Drinking Establishments; Moral Attitudes Toward Alcohol Consumption; Rituals. Further Readings American Psychological Association. “SubstanceRelated and Addictive Disorders.” http://www .dsm5.org/Documents/Substance%20Use%20 Disorder%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf (Accessed May 2014). Campbell, Robert A. Sit Down and Drink Your Beer: Regulating Vancouver’s Beer Parlours, 1925–1954. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. Clark, Walter B. and Michael E. Hilton, eds. Alcohol in America: Drinking Practices and Problems. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. Gutzke, David W. Pubs and Progressives: Reinventing the Public House in England, 1896–1960. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2006. Hames, Gina. Alcohol in World History. London: Routledge, 2012. Plant, Martin and Moira Plant. Binge Britain: Alcohol and the National Response. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Rorabaugh, W. J. The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.
Bartenders Against Drunk Driving Bartenders Against Drunk Driving (BADD) is a national nonprofit organization with a presence in states such as Maryland, New York, Oklahoma,
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Pennsylvania, and Texas. It was founded in 1985 by Keith Gracey and Ray Salamone, the comanagers of the Phillips Harborplace bar in Baltimore, Maryland. The official U.S. patent and trademark of the organization, however, was not obtained until October 2011 in Plano, Texas. BADD’s logo includes an upside-down wineglass with the image of a car and a car key inside the glass. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that over 10,000 persons in the United States died in 2012 as a result of drunk driving and over 300,000 were injured. Further, drunk driving injuries occur every 90 seconds. In particular jeopardy are adolescents, among whom alcohol use is more lethal than all illegal drug use, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Goals and Activities BADD seeks to reduce incidents of drunk driving by encouraging the responsible consumption of alcohol in bars and restaurants. The basic idea is that bartenders can monitor their customers and do what they can to prevent customers from driving drunk. The organization promotes the notion that serving customers responsibly is actually good for business. BADD’s goals include teaching club owners, bartenders and servers, waiters and waitresses the signs of dangerous drunkenness. It discourages club owners from using promotions that encourage greater consumption of alcohol, such as selling drinks by the pitcher and bargain drinks. On the other hand, in some cases BADD promotes the sale of more expensive drink mixes to customers that have already purchased several drinks as a means to subtly discourage additional purchases. The organization’s goals are designed to be both moral and legal. BADD attempts to educate bartenders in order to protect them from engaging in actions that could lead to lawsuits for overserving their customers, because overserving puts the customer at increased risk of traffic accidents. BADD publicizes the following statistics: One in three persons is likely to be in an alcohol-related crash at some point; the average drunk driver drives drunk about 87 times before a first arrest; someone is killed every 48 minutes as a result of drunk driving; and Texas leads the nation in drunk driving fatalities and accidents, with over 1,000 such deaths annually in recent years.
The organization’s techniques for preventing drunk driving are proactive and crafted to minimize customer inconvenience and embarrassment. This includes offering customers an alternative to alcohol such as tea, coffee, or soda. Another technique is to encourage the customer’s friend or social companion to discourage his or her further drinking; bartenders can also offer an alternative way for a customer to get home instead of the customer driving him/herself. BADD usually partners with radio stations to educate the public about responsible drinking through interviews and public service announcements. It also depends on radio stations to announce when free rides are available for intoxicated drinkers, often on major holidays; these free rides are usually made available through sponsorship. BADD also partners with taxicab companies to have alternative means of transportation available for bar and restaurant customers. BADD’s members might also participate in parades and wear special T-shirts, wristbands, and other items of clothing to promote the organization’s message. Currently, BADD offers scholarships for bartenders to attend a bartending school and to receive bartending certification. In addition, it encourages community support of its goals and attempts to expand the number of bartenders who are members in order to advance its goals of responsibility and accountability by both servers and patrons. Perhaps most significant is BADD’s contributions toward introducing into the U.S. consciousness the ideas of not letting friends drive drunk, taking the car keys away from intoxicated and impaired friends, having a designated driver who does not drink, and having bartenders call a taxi as needed for impaired customers. BADD’s efforts to curb the ills of drunk driving are in conjunction with states’ efforts, such as law enforcement undercover work to enforce laws against serving intoxicated patrons and minors, laws that revoke the license of a driver who refuses to take a blood alcohol test, general enforcement of blood-alcohol-level laws, and, the use of sobriety checkpoints, especially on major holidays. Related legislation designed to offer protection from drunk driving includes the mandatory use of seat belts, child restraints, and motorcycle helmets. The Pacific Institute for Research and Development concluded that drunk
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drivers are less likely than sober drivers to use these safety measures. BADD’s members have been criticized for being too contradictory to be effective, that is, for both serving drinks and attempting to discourage drinking and driving. A 2013 simulation study in the Netherlands by J. F. Gosselt and colleagues concluded that only 4 percent of bartenders refused to serve persons who were acting intoxicated; usually, these people were the most obviously drunk. Indeed, most bartenders seemed to notice their customers’ intoxication but continued serving drinks. In another observation study of bartenders overserving in Norway, Kristen Buvik attributed the phenomenon to skepticism about the related laws, a culture of drunkenness, and bartenders’ working conditions that facilitate continued service. Whether or not the situation would be similar in the United States has yet to be determined. Camille Gibson Prairie View A&M University See Also: Bars, History of Alcohol Abuse in; Bartending; Mothers Against Drunk Driving; Server Responsibility Laws, U.S.; Students Against Destructive Decisions. Further Readings Bartenders Against Drunk Driving (BADD). http:// baddusa.org (Accessed February 2014). Buvik, Kristin. “How Bartenders Relate to Intoxicated Customers.” International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research v.2/2 (2013). Gosselt, J. F., J. J. Van Hoof, M. M. Goverde, and M. D. De Jong. “One More Beer? Serving Alcohol to Pseudo-Intoxicated Guests in Bars.” Alcohol Clinical Experimental Research, v.37/7(2013). Kelley, Krista. “Two Local Bartenders Organize Crusade Against Drunk Driving in Maryland.” Baltimore Afro-American (April 13, 1985).
Bartending Bartending is simply the preparation and serving of drinks. What skills this involves varies
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considerably by the establishment and the era. Many of the 19th- and early-20th-century cocktail guides now important to the cocktail revivalists were written by bartenders, and while much of that revival has been driven by writers like Gaz Regan and Ted Haigh, bartenders have been critical in ways that go beyond their role as simply fixing the drinks. Murray Stenson, of Seattle’s Zig Zag Cafe (and 2010 Tales of the Cocktail’s Bartender of the Year), for instance, is responsible for rediscovering the lost cocktail classic the Last Word (equal parts gin, green chartreuse, maraschino liqueur, and lime juice), which in turn revitalized interest in green chartreuse. Phil Ward of New York’s Death and Company subsequently developed the new Last Word variant, the Final Word, which substituted rye whiskey for the gin and lemon juice for the lime. This inspired the slew of Last Word variants built on that same principle, substituting different base liquor, which has become its own subgenre at revivalist bars. Origins of Modern Bartending and Cocktails Bartending, as we currently think of it, dates to the 19th century. At that time, restaurants were not yet as numerous and varied as they are today—inns and boarding houses offered meals, and as the century wore on, meals or snacks became available at drugstores, lunch counters, and near railroad depots in part because of the new frequency and importance of travel. But establishments dedicated to serving food were a predominantly middle-class and urban phenomenon and became more widespread toward the end of the century. Establishments serving alcohol, on the other hand, were commonplace. There are numerous reasons for segregating the activity of drinking from other activities, and the temperance movement actually encouraged the de facto segregation of saloons and restaurants by discouraging restaurants from expanding their alcoholic offerings. This may in part be where the practice of maintaining bartending and cooking as separate positions in a restaurant originates. The first bartenders were cocktail innovators and originators. Many of the ingredients used in classic cocktails, including many of those cocktails that never went out of fashion, were not intended for cocktail mixing. The fundamental premise of cocktails—using the word
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in the modern generic sense of “mixed alcoholic drinks,” and thereby encompassing slings, smashes, sours, highballs, cobblers, and all the rest—is that an American drink combines in one glass ingredients invented in other countries for other purposes (along with domestic ingredients, of course). The cocktail, in this sense, is the melting pot, and it is not a surprise, and maybe it is inevitable, that bartenders developed it (through bartending) in the 19th century amid enormous waves of immigration. Vermouth originated as a medicinal wine infused with wormwood and other herbs, fortified in order to make it less perishable. Chartreuse and many other concoctions of monasteries similarly served both medicinal and pleasurable purposes, and when they were consumed for pleasure, prior to the advent of the American cocktail, it was on their own or with water or ice. So too for Amari, made of the bitter liqueurs of Italy, it is for that reason that Italy’s drink made from the Amari Campari with vermouth and soda water is called “the Americano” (when it was strengthened with gin instead of soda water, it became the Negroni). Bitters, though offered in numerous flavors, originated to soothe stomach complaints, cure headaches, and treat hangovers, in addition to numerous snake oil claims made about them. Gin originated in the Netherlands, rum in the tropics, and absinthe and fortified wines, like Lillet, in France. To this cabinet of ingredients, bartenders added fruit juices, bottled sodas, sugar, eggs or egg whites, and milk or cream, creating a plethora of flavors. Jerry Thomas and Bartenders Guide The first published guide to cocktails was Jerry Thomas’s Bartenders Guide, published in 1862. Thomas, aka “the professor,” codified the oral lore of bartending, and he combined various types of drinks from numerous traditions—the American tavern drinks that had survived since the colonial era, the punches that served in Jefferson’s day, the rum drinks of the British Navy and the gin of its empire, and the drinks that originated to make patent medicines more palatable—in one place. It was a remarkable feat, and an unexpected one, given that there was then no modern drinks industry, no understanding among the various manufacturers of bartending ingredients
that they shared a common interest. It was also, of course, a guide that lacked many of the drinks we think of as classic drinks today since it preceded them, and even made them possible. Whiskey was still only a rising star, and tequila virtually unheard of. Brandy featured heavily, and wines were used often. Even the martini did not yet exist, and the manhattan would appear only in the revised version of the book, published two years after Thomas’s death. Thomas was born in New York, but worked as a bartender in St. Louis, New Orleans, Chicago, Charleston, and California. He was like a Johnny Appleseed planting seeds of cocktail culture. He was only 32 when he published his drinks guide, which appears to be comprehensive for its era, and died at 55. His era is sometimes called, notably by cocktail writer/historian Dave Wondrich, the “baroque era of cocktails,” in contrast with the modern era he ushered in. Drink categories were more rigid at the time and provided Thomas blueprints from which to construct new drinks. The cocktail was a drink with bitters and sugar. The cobbler was a drink in a long glass of fine ice, garnished with fruit. The collins was a long drink served with club soda. The Crusta was a drink sweetened with maraschino liqueur and curacao, with lemon juice and bitters, a sugar rim, and the rind of a whole lemon as a garnish. The Daisy was a long drink with lemon juice and grenadine. The Fix was a shaken cobbler over crushed ice. The Fizz was a long drink with both citrus juice and club soda, and often including egg white, as with the Ramos Gin Fizz. The flip was a drink with both sugar and egg yolk. The julep was a drink with mint and sugar over ice. The sour was a tart drink with spirit, lemon juice, and sugar. The toddy was a hot sour, more or less. Many drinks and drink types originated as an attempt to scale down drinks that had previously only been served in punch bowls for 20 or 30 people. One pre-Thomas bartender deserves mention: in 1830, Antoine Amedee Peychaud, an apothecary who had moved to New Orleans from Saint Domingue (present-day Haiti), created Peychaud’s bitters, a gentian-heavy formulation completely different from Angostura bitters and one of the few competing brands to survive the gradual attrition of bitters offerings after World War II. To serve his new bitters, he
combined them in a glass with a little sugar, a little absinthe, a lemon peel, and rye whiskey, a drink that became more popular than bourbon at the time. The official cocktail of New Orleans, the Sazerac was thereby born. Coming after Thomas, Harry Craddock was a figure who cannot be quickly glossed over. Bartending at the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel in London, Craddock published the Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930, which remains one of the best cocktail guides. Like Thomas before him, Craddock summed up a world of cocktails. But 60 years had passed in between them—by the time Craddock came along, martinis had gone through several permutations and were at the peak of their popularity, whereas in Thomas’s time only their antecedent, the Martinez, was known. Craddock either popularized or reflected the popularity of the dry martini (originally a sweet drink), and introduced the Corpse Reviver #2, the most famous and well-balanced of the corpse reviver hangover remedies, as well as the Pegu Club Cocktail, made with gin, Cointreau, lime juice, and bitters. Drinks like “mixed shots” and “shooters” came later, though the idea of the layered drink, exploiting differences in the specific gravities of different ingredients, far predates the layered shooter popularized in the last third of the 20th century. The drink class called the Pousse Cafe was a popular after-dinner drink around the turn of the century, and like the modern version, it often resulted in a drink that was overly sweet, with clashing flavors, but that looked impressive if carefully poured. Flair Bartending Another modern aspect of bartending with a historical origin is flair bartending. Thomas was a garrulous personality, bigger than life and soon a celebrity among drinkers. He was equal parts showman and scientist, exactly the sort of person patent medicine salesmen attempted to be, but his medicine show featured brandy Crustas (whole rinds of the lemon that are impressive garnishes) and fire dancing between his hands as he tossed streams of flaming whiskey diluted with water between two mugs. His Blue Blazer was the first flaming cocktail, and consisted of Scotch and water lit on fire, poured back and forth until the fire extinguishes itself, and mixed with sugar and lemon peel.
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Jerry Thomas, who wrote the first published guide to cocktails, Bartenders Guide, which was published in 1862, also created the first flaming drinks. These drinks have recently experienced a revival in modern cocktail culture.
Flaming beverages have survived in two forms—the flamed orange (sometimes lemon) twist, which is made by squeezing an oily piece of peel to spray the oil through the flame of a match or lighter before it hits the glass, and the flaming beverages served by flair bartenders. Flair bartending has become a pursuit unto itself, one arguably divorced from any concern for the drinks themselves. Flair bartending focuses on producing spectacle and entertainment and relies heavily on juggling shaker glasses and other bar implements. Though always present in the world of bartending, it gained popularity and prominence in the 1980s (immortalized in the Tom Cruise movie Cocktail). Though often disdained as representing the opposite of the aims of “modern mixology,” there was a rise in the 2010s of bartenders who espoused interest both in flair and in attentive, well-made modern cocktails. Flair bartenders distinguish between working flair, which takes a shorter time and is focused on producing a drink
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for a customer within a reasonable window of time, and exhibition flair, which applies the skills of flair in a longer exhibition. The difference is similar to that of the cheerleading done during a game versus the cheerleading done at cheerleading competitions. Exhibition flair is usually done with near-empty bottles. Confusingly, perhaps, there are actually working flair competitions as well as exhibition flair competitions, and in fact, working flair competitions predate exhibition flair. In working flair competitions, flair must not noticeably slow down service speed. Flair bartending has been popularized by T.G.I. Friday’s, which hosted the first national flair bartending competition, the Bar Olympics, in 1986. Five years later, it founded the World Bartender Championship, a global competition. On the local level, there are hundreds of flair competitions each year as well as a pro tour organized by the Flair Bartenders Association in 2005. Flair has become an international sensation, with major events in Italy, Indonesia, Russia, Japan, and Poland, in addition to the United States and the United Kingdom. Cocktail Revival In contrast with flair bartenders, some of the bartenders associated with the cocktail revival have put the emphasis back on mixing drinks (as opposed to pouring them from commercially prepared bottles of margarita mix and the like), adopting the title mixologist. Molecular mixologists employ some of the techniques of molecular gastronomy, the avant garde school of cooking techniques pioneered in Spain and the United States in the 2000s. (Pioneer and researcher Nathan Myhrvold, formerly chief technology officer of Microsoft, has popularized the term modernist cuisine instead, but modernist mixologist has not caught on as a complementary term.) The word mixologist actually dates to the 19th century, used largely by newspapers reporting on the quickly changing world of cocktails. The revival of interest in traditional cocktails— in the sense of both the cocktails from Thomas’s and Craddock’s period and the new cocktails constructed along similar philosophies—began in the 1990s. It was a reaction against the decline in cocktails that had been seen since the end of World War II, if not earlier. The decline had
several phases and components. Bitters went into serious decline, until it was nearly impossible to find anything but Angostura and Peychaud’s in most of the country, even in specialty stores. Ingredients like crème de violette, Picon, and Lillet ceased production. Amari other than Campari became difficult to find outside of heavily Italian neighborhoods as did liqueurs like maraschino. Vodka received a major marketing push in the early Cold War era and in particular was promoted as an alternative to gin, one that was less assertive and could be mixed with anything since it had a neutral flavor. With this in the arsenal, it was easy for bartenders and drinkers to concoct drinks that tasted like nearly anything, since the simple addition of vodka would make them alcoholic. At the same time, “tiki” drinks drove up interest in sweet drinks that were heavy on fruit juice, and although authentic tiki drinks are carefully crafted with powerful rum, this is not what all their imbibers necessarily sought. Fruit-forward, sugary drinks dominated the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, whether in the form of the Cosmopolitans drunk by the women of Sex and the City or the margaritas made in suburban Cinco de Mayo celebrations with bottled margarita mix. For most bartenders, the job is focused on getting drinks poured quickly and efficiently. New innovators included Toby Maloney of the Violet Hour bar, whose Juliet and Romeo combines gin with lime juice, simple syrup, rose water, bitters, cucumber, and mint, and Audrey Saunders of New York’s Pegu Club, who contributed the Earl Grey MarTEAni, using Earl Grey-infused gin shaken with lemon juice and egg whites. In some bars, especially the new bars opening up to meet the needs of the new generation of cocktail enthusiasts, the bartender was expected to be more like a chef than a drink server. The bartender was traditionally more than a drink maker; he was a confidante, and—as the only sober man in the room—the moderator of lively debates. Something might be implied about the diminished role of the bartender in American social life by the trends in popular culture over the last 30 years: in the 1980s, one of the most popular sitcoms was Cheers, which (like Archie Bunker’s Place before it) was set in a bar. This was a way of recognizing that the bar was as much a center of social life as the two great stalwarts of
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sitcom sets—the office (the setting of Mary Tyler Moore, Dick Van Dyke, and WKRP in Cincinnati) and the living room (the setting of Donna Reed, Golden Girls, The Cosby Show). When the Cheers character Frasier spun off into his own series in 1994, he wound up spending his after-work hours not in a bar but in Cafe Nervosa having coffee—just as the lead characters of Friends, which premiered the same year, spent their time at Central Perk. When sitcoms finally returned to the bar, it was in the 21st century with How I Met Your Mother, in which the bartender is only an occasionally recurring character with a handful of lines. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: After-Dinner Drinks; Barmaids; Cocktail Waitresses; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Fine Dining; Happy Hour; History of Alcoholic Beverages; Liquor Licenses; Server Responsibility Laws, U.S. Further Readings Bolton, Ross. The Saloon in the Home. New York: CreateSpace, 2008. Cecchini, Tony. Cosmopolitan: A Bartender’s Life. New York: Broadway Books, 2004. Grimes, William. Straight Up or On the Rocks: A Cultural History of American Drink. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993. Haigh, Ted. Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. New York: Quarry Books, 2009. McElhone, Harry. Barflies and Cocktails. New York: Mud Puddle Books, 2008. Regan, Gary. The Joy of Mixology. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2003. Thomas, Jerry. Bartenders Guide: How to Mix Drinks, or, The Bon Vivant’s Companion. New York: Mud Puddle Books, 2008. Wondrich, Dave. Imbibe! New York: Perigee Trade, 2007.
Beaujolais Beaujolais is a light-bodied French wine that is popular across France and around the globe.
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Relatively low in tannins, Beaujolais is a red wine that is well liked by many who otherwise drink white wines exclusively. A variety of wines are marketed and sold using the appellation, and it claims its name from France’s Beaujolais province. Beginning in the 1960s, the wine became increasingly popular internationally, with aficionados of the wine waiting each year for the release of a new vintage in November. Made from the Gamay grape, Beaujolais is often paired with a variety of foods, including salads, fruit, poultry, fish, and stews. Background Grapes were first cultivated in what is now the Beaujolais province by the Romans, who used the grapes produced in vineyards such as Brulliacus to produce wine. Throughout the Middle Ages, Benedictine monks operated vineyards in the region, which acquired its present name during the 10th century from the town of Beaujeu. Located in eastern France, the Beaujolais province has long been one of the major wine-producing areas in France, although its wines were sold almost exclusively in local markets in towns adjoining the Rhône and Saône rivers until the 19th century. At that time, expansion of French railways permitted wines produced in Beaujolais to be transported inexpensively to the important and lucrative Paris market. Soon after becoming available in Paris, Beaujolais wines came to the notice of the public, both in France and abroad. The noted English wine writer Cyrus Redding wrote favorably of Beaujolais, recommending that its low-priced offerings be consumed young. Beaujolais is made using the Gamay noir grape, which is hybrid cross between the Pinot noir and the ancient white varietal Gouais. Popular with local growers because it ripened two weeks earlier than the Pinot noir, the Gamay was also less difficult to cultivate. Known also for producing stronger, fruitier wines, the Gamay was once used in many regions in France. During the 14th century, vintners in Burgundy petitioned the Duke of Burgundy, Phillippe the Bold, to issue an edict banning cultivation of the Gamay so that more Pinot noir could be produced. This pushed the cultivation of the Gamay further south, where the grape thrived in the Beaujolais province’s granite-based soil.
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Region and Appellations France’s second-largest wine-producing region, Beaujolais has over 44,000 acres of vines planted. Located south of the Burgundy wine region, Beaujolais enjoys a semicontinental climate with some temperate influences from the Mediterranean Sea. As a result, vintages produced in Beaujolais are more consistently ripened than those in many other regions in France. While many refer to Beaujolais as a single wine, there are 12 official appellations, adopted in 2011, which vary greatly. Approximately 50 percent of the wine produced in the region is sold as Beaujolais AOC, the most basic of the appellations. It includes Beaujolais nouveau, is bottled and sold six weeks after harvest, and constitutes over 75,000,000 bottles per year. Beaujolais-villages, the midtier appellation, is released in the March after the harvest and has the potential to be of higher quality than the basic Beaujolais AOC. The 10 appellations of Cru Beaujolais, the highest classification, refer to 10 individual sites where the wine is produced and are darker in color, more full bodied, and have a longer life than Beaujolais AOC. In addition to these 12 appellations, Beaujolais blanc and Beaujolais rosé are produced in relatively small amounts in the northern part of the region. Place in Popular Culture As the producer of relatively inexpensive wines, vintners in Beaujolais had long produced a vin de l’année (wine from the current year) as a means of celebrating the harvest season. Until the end of World War II, however, this wine was solely produced for local sale. After the Beaujolais AOC was established in 1937, vin de l’année could only be sold after December 15, a release date that was changed to November 15 in 1951 for the wine that would become known as Beaujolais nouveau. Beaujolais nouveau is a purple-pinkish wine that is bottled six to eight weeks after the grapes used to produce it are harvested. This timeline results in a wine that is very low in tannins, the diverse group of chemical compounds that affect the aging ability, color, and texture of wine. Dominated by fruity ester flavors such as banana, fig, grape, pear drop, and strawberry, Beaujolais nouveau is served slightly chilled at 55 degrees F. Intended for immediate consumption, Beaujolais
nouveau does not improve with age and can be kept for only a few years. During the 1960s, members of the Union Interprofessionnelle des Vins du Beaujolais (UIVB), a trade organization focused upon promoting Beaujolais wines, began promoting the vin de l’année. Led by vintner Georges Duboef, these efforts made Beaujolais nouveau an international phenomenon. A race to Paris carrying the first bottles of the new vintage was initiated and had become a national event by the mid-1970s. During the 1980s, the race to deliver new bottles of Beaujolais nouveau to restaurants, wine shops, and aficionados had spread to other parts of Europe, North America, and Asia. In order to better capitalize on the holiday season, the release date for Beaujolais nouveau was moved to the third Thursday in November. This initiative proved highly lucrative for the producers of Beaujolais nouveau, as it made it possible to sell large amounts of ordinary table wine at a good price and increased cash flow dramatically. Beginning in the late 1990s, however, resistance to the promotion among certain wine critics grew, as they believed Beaujolais nouveau was overhyped and of low quality. In Beaujolais, over 120 festivals celebrate the arrival of the new vintage of Beaujolais nouveau. The most famous such celebration, Les Sarmentelles, is held in the town of Beaujeu and begins the night before the wine is released and lasts for five days, featuring dancing, music, and wine tasting. French embassies around the globe celebrate the release of Beaujolais nouveau and use the occasion to promote French food, wine, and other products to those who attend. In addition to the popularity of “Beaujolais day,” the wine has become increasingly popular as a way of welcoming the holidays. In the United States, Beaujolais has been promoted as a great pairing with turkey on Thanksgiving, which falls a week after Beaujolais day. In Swansea, Wales, thousands turn out each year for Beaujolais day, which is seen as the beginning of the Christmas season. Cooking With Beaujolais Beaujolais nouveau has grown in reputation for its use in cooking, as it can be used easily as a substitute for other red wines. When used, Beaujolais nouveau imparts a brighter, lighter, and simpler flavor than other red wines and can change the
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color of foods to a more pink hue. Beaujolais is often used as an apéritif and complements a variety of lighter menus. Beaujolais has increasingly become popular paired with fish and other seafood, especially in Scandinavia. Popular with younger drinkers, Beaujolais seems positioned to remain popular for years. Stephen T. Schroth Knox College See Also: Bordeaux; Burgundy; Chardonnay; France; Holidays; Rituals; Wines, French. Further Readings Chelminski, Rudolph. I’ll Drink To That: Beaujolais and the French Peasant Who Made It the World’s Most Popular Wine. New York: Gotham Books, 2007. Demossier, M. Wine Drinking Culture in France: A National Myth or a Modern Passion? Cardiff, UK: University of Wales Press, 2010. Mereaud, Pau; and Jacquemont, Guy. Beaujolais: The Complete Guide. Boston: Little, Brown, 1987.
Beck’s Beck’s is the world’s best-selling German beer. It was first manufactured in 1873 by a small brewery located on the riverbanks in Bremen, a city in the North of Germany. The brewery was owned by local families until 2002, when Interbrew, a Belgium brewing company, purchased it for $1.6 million. Two years later, Interbrew merged with Brazilian brewer AmBev to form InBev, making the company the new largest brewer in the world by volume. In 2008, InBev merged with American Anheuser-Busch to form Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev). Known since 1987 for an association with contemporary art through its limited-edition artist labels, Beck’s garnered the attention of the general American public in 2013 with advertising. Beck’s Sapphire was introduced in one of Anheuser-Busch’s Super Bowl ads by a talking fish. Beck’s was originally produced in Bremen, a city with a long tradition of beer brewing. As
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early as the 13th century, beer from the city’s more than 300 breweries was exported to Scandinavia, England, and Holland. By the late 15th century, the city’s breweries had formed the Bremen Brewers’ Society to regulate the production and export of beer. Bremen’s beers were in high demand, but many beers could not withstand the long sea journeys. Only those that could do so survived. After a decade as an immigrant in the United States where he learned the brewing trade, Heinrich Beck returned to his native country of Germany. When Luder Rutenberg, Heinrich Beck, and Thomas May founded their brewery on June 27, 1873, under the name Kaiserbrauerei Beck & May, Beck brought to the company a method he had developed for keeping beer fresh longer, a development that would give the new company a decided advantage in the export market. Beck’s rapidly gained recognition in foreign markets. It won the gold medal for Best Continental (European) Beer at the 1876 World Exposition in Philadelphia. In the late 19th century, the Beck brewery merged with two other local breweries, Bierbrauerei Wilhelm Remmer and Hemelinger Aktienbrauerei, and was incorporated as Brauerei Beck & Co. In 1921, the brewery of Beck and company formed a partnership with another Bremen brewery, Brauerei C. H. Haake & Co. The two companies divided the market, with the Beck brewery agreeing to produce beer for the export market under the brand name of Beck’s, while Haake-Beck brewery would sell its products under the names Haake-Beck, Remmer, and Hemelinger in the domestic German market. Beck’s Bremen-brewed beer was not available in Germany until 1949. The Haake-Beck brewery was later made a subsidiary of Beck & Co., and Brauerei Beck became the largest privately owned brewery in Germany. The sight of horses pulling carts holding beer barrels to restaurants delivering the regional brand Haake Beck in the historic city center was common until 2005, when InBev executives decided the bottom line was more important than tradition. Not all tradition was discarded though. From its earliest advertising campaigns, Beck has followed the Reinheitsgebot, or Purity Law, which dates to its enactment by the Bavarian Court of
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Duke Wilhelm IV in 1516. The law specifies that only malted barley, yeast, hops, and water can be used in beer brewed in Germany for the German market. Many German beer exporters stressed this law and its ancient history and placed themselves in the long tradition of excellence of German beers. Not all German brewers have continued to comply with the Reinheitsgebot, but Beck still prides itself on beer that contains only hops grown in the nearby Tettnag and Hallertau regions, water from Geest-area springs and the reservoirs of the Harz Mountains, and a particular strain of yeast cultivated for decades by the brew masters at the Bremen plant. Buyouts and Mergers By the 21st century, Brauerei Beck & Co., the parent company of Beck’s, was owned by 67 family shareholders, who decided that the company needed a global brewer to continue its international growth. As one of Germany’s largest breweries with an established name, operations in 120 countries, and sales of around $800 million as of the year 2000, Beck’s was an attractive target for companies looking to expand. The front-runners included St. Louis, Missouri–based AnheuserBusch and Britain’s Scottish & Newcastle Brewery, but the winner was Belgium-based Interbrew, the second-largest brewery in the world, which offered to pay $1.58 billion. Two years after the purchase, Interbrew merged with the Brazilian group Companhia de Bebidas das Americas (AmBev) to create InBev, which would be the largest brewery in the world, with 14 percent of the global beer market and a presence in 140 countries. The new company announced that it would focus on three brands. Beck’s was one of the three. Much of that focus went to Beck’s Premier Light, touting the brew’s German beer-making credentials and its 64 calories, which made it the “lowest calorie beer in America.” In 2008, in a hostile takeover, InBev acquired Anheuser-Busch, a company that had been in the hands of the Busch family for more than a century and home to some of America’s iconic beers. St. Louis became the North American headquarters for InBev, responsible for U.S. and Canadian operations, and in 2012, St. Louis became the site of all the production of Beck’s for the U.S. market. Neither change was greeted with enthusiasm
by American beer drinkers. Some were unhappy that a foreign company now owned Budweiser, America’s beer, and Beck’s loyalists were angry that their favorite pilsner that had been brewed in the city of Bremen in accordance with the German Purity Law of 1516 now tasted like Budweiser. Advertising in Art and Music Beck’s involvement with art bridges the company’s identity changes. It began in 1985, when Beck’s sponsored German Art in the Twentieth Century at England’s Royal Academy. The bestknown efforts are the beer’s art labels introduced in 1987, after Beck’s approached the collaborative duo Gilbert and George about designing a limited-edition art label for Beck’s green bottle. Other artists who created Beck’s labels include Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Yoko Ono, and Andy Warhol. The bottles, produced in batches of a few thousand and given away free to trendsetters, have become collectors’ items, some of them selling for more than $5,000. The project expanded to include musical artists such as the English Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A. (Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam), the French alternative rock band Phoenix, and Ladyhawke, a singer-songwriter from New Zealand. In the first 25 years of Beck’s Art Labels program, more than 70 independent art labels were created for more than 500 million bottles of Beck’s. The beer also became associated with competitions for emerging artists, first in England and later in many other countries. Beck’s also combined art, of a sort, and music of the R & B genre in a $3.7 million 30-second television ad titled “Serenade,” which introduced Beck’s Sapphire to more than 1 billion Super Bowl viewers in 2013. The ad features a black goldfish circling a distinctive black bottle of Sapphire singing “No Diggity,” Australian singer Chet Faker’s remix of a 1996 hit by American R & B group Blackstreet. Billed as the “perfect pilsner,” Sapphire looked like a golden beer, but the red stone on the bottle sent enough puzzled “I thought sapphires were blue” viewers to the Web site of the Natural Sapphire Company looking for information to create an incredible spike in the number of visitors. Someone should have told the searchers that the name of the 6 percent, high-end beer comes from one of its ingredients, German Saphir
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aroma hops, which are traditionally used as a finishing or conditioning hop. Wylene Rholetter Auburn University See Also: Beer; Beer Advertising; Europe, Central and Eastern. Further Readings Bamforth, Charles. Beer: Tap Into the Art and Science of Brewing. New York: Oxford, 2009. Behar, Hank. “Reinventing Beck’s North America.” Beverage World, v.122/11 (November 15, 2003). Gibbons, Joan. “Celebrity: The Art of Branding and the Branding of Art.” Art and Advertising. London: I. B. Tauris, 2005.
Beecher, Lyman Lyman Beecher was an evangelical Presbyterian minister in New England. He became involved in the temperance movement after preaching a passionate series of six sermons on the subject. Beecher helped to found the American Temperance Society, and in 1830 he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to serve as president of Lane Theological Seminary, where he prepared ministers to aid conversion efforts in the western territories. While in Ohio, conflicts over slavery and charges of heresy tainted Beecher’s reputation, causing him to move to New York in the early 1850s. Beecher was born in 1775 in New Haven, Connecticut, to David and Esther Lyman Beecher. His father worked as a blacksmith, and his mother died only two days after his birth. Beecher was raised by an aunt and uncle who farmed for a living. As a child, Beecher discovered his fascination with God and the sacred. He was educated at Yale University, influenced greatly by the teachings of Timothy Dwight, Yale’s president, who moved the university in a more evangelical direction. After graduating from Yale in 1797, Beecher studied at Yale Divinity School under Dwight, and he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1799.
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Beecher took his first ministerial post in East Hampton, New York, in 1799. By 1810, however, he had moved his family to Litchfield, Connecticut, and began preaching at the town’s Congregational church. It was in Litchfield that Beecher began to preach the new school of Calvinism. Beecher helped to found the Connecticut Society for the Reformation of Morals in 1813, and most moral reform societies that organized in the 1810s and 1820s recognized Beecher as a prominent leader. A Temperance Crusade Through these moral reform societies, Beecher hoped to bring secular life into agreement with the beliefs held by Calvinists. He believed that public sins, such as breaking the Sabbath, swearing, or failing to attend worship, as well as private vices such as intemperance, were in direct defiance of God and the sacred. Beecher contended that if sin was allowed to continue unabated, the freedom of civic life in New England might be endangered. As a remedy, Beecher viewed voluntary societies as a means of moral discipline, a full enforcement of existing regulations against breaking the Sabbath, intemperance, and other moral infractions. Beecher’s Calvinism emphasized the sins of intemperance, and thus he became a vocal critic of the drinking habits of contemporary society and supported total abstinence from beer, whiskey, and other ardent spirits. He saw temperance as a way to reform the masses. In the fall of 1825, Beecher preached a series of six inspiring sermons on temperance. He believed that to drink any amount of alcohol was to be intemperate. In these sermons, he found it important to reveal the early symptoms of intemperance in order to stop the problem from getting worse. He noted that individuals who traveled the path to drunkenness went from drinking only on special occasions to daily imbibing, resulting in hiding their habit from others. Physical signs of drunkenness were also outlined in these sermons, including reddened eyes or flushed skin. Personality changes, such as irritability, also were telling symptoms. Beecher believed that intemperance was politically dangerous in that it nurtured irreverence and could potentially undermine the church, which in turn threatened the political stability of the nation. He noted that intemperance depleted the energy of the
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nation, potentially destroying the national intellect, weakening the military power of the country, and possibly destroying patriotism. Beecher was also concerned that a social underclass of drunkards might develop if the temperance movement was not embraced. The sermon series also offered potential solutions. Beecher realized and told his congregants that merely abstaining from liquor or pressuring consumers, manufacturers, and traders of liquor would not be successful. He also believed that laws regulating sales and consumption would fail since local officials likely would not enforce them if the public demanded the legal ability to drink. Moral suasion, according to Beecher, would ultimately fail if consumption and the trade of liquor were implicitly endorsed by laws. In his sermons, he demanded a strong attack on alcohol by voluntary associations in order to shift public sentiment toward endorsing prohibition and then called for legal prohibition once mass opinion was in favor of such a move. He advocated for ministers to fill their sermons and newspapers their columns with the disturbing statistics on intemperance. Presses should print promotional literature to spread the word. Employers should offer alternatives to using liquor as a reward for their workers. He even went as far as to suggest that churches should exclude from membership those who drank or sold alcohol. These sermons had remarkable impact on the broader temperance movement and were published in 1827, which extended their influence to a broad readership. Beecher continued the crusade, wishing to increase the number of temperance societies across the nation, as well as to develop a national organization that would offer centralized leadership and direction. This national society would also be responsible for sponsoring publications and lecturers and overseeing the development of auxiliaries. Beecher was influential in forming the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance, also known as the American Temperance Society (ATS), in 1826. ATS members, like Beecher, favored abstinence from hard liquor. In 1826, Beecher moved from Connecticut to Boston, Massachusetts, to minister to the Hanover Church congregation. By this time, Boston had been increasingly involved with the Unitarian
A portrait of Reverend Lyman Beecher from sometime in the late 1850s or early 1860s. Beecher helped start the influential American Temperance Society in 1826.
movement, and Beecher’s strict Calvinist teachings made some in Boston suspicious. Nevertheless, Beecher used his pulpit to preach against Unitarianism. While in Boston, Beecher led revivals and continued to preach against intemperance. The Move to Lane Theological Seminary By the early 1830s, religious groups had become more concerned with the importance of winning over the developing western part of the nation to Protestant Christianity. In response, theological seminaries were founded away from the East Coast, one being Lane Theological Seminary near Cincinnati, Ohio. Beecher accepted the office of the president at Lane, moving his family from Boston to Cincinnati in 1832. In addition to his duties as president, Beecher also taught as a professor of theology and became pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati, where he
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preached for the first ten years of his presidency at Lane. During this later phase of his career, Beecher spent less time focusing on the evils of intemperance, turning his attention to preparing ministers to evangelize the western areas of the United States. Beecher’s tenure at Lane Theological Seminary was fraught with divisive issues, most significantly slavery, which threatened to break apart not only the Presbyterian Church but the United States as well. Arthur Tappan, a leading abolitionist and generous donor to Lane, sent the seminary students a copy of an address given by reformers at an abolitionist convention held in Philadelphia in 1833. As a result, students at Lane began to discuss the issue of slavery that plagued the nation, and debated it for 18 consecutive evenings. Many students took up the cause of abolitionism. Due to the seminary’s geographic location near Kentucky, many of Lane’s students hailed from the south and made an attempt to stop the conversations and meetings. Kentucky slaveholders heard what was happening at Lane and incited riots, causing Beecher to be concerned whether the seminary and residences of the professors would survive the violence. Beecher himself opposed radical abolitionism and refused to admit African Americans to Lane. He hoped, however, to contain the debate on abolitionism in order to prevent discord in the seminary. In 1834, Beecher traveled to Boston, and in his absence Lane’s conservative board of trustees forbade all discussion of slavery at the seminary. Despite Beecher’s attempts to mediate the dispute between the students and the trustees, approximately 50 students, angry at Lane’s stance on slavery, withdrew and went to Oberlin College. The events at Lane Theological Seminary were just a few instances of the growing national debates and violence that erupted over slavery in the decades leading up to the Civil War. In addition to the slavery controversy, Beecher was faced with charges of slander and hypocrisy set forth by religious opponents, and he even faced a trial for heresy. By the time he moved west, he began advocating new forms of evangelism that were not in alignment with his former teachings of Calvinism. A fellow Presbyterian pastor, Joshua Lacy Wilson, charged Beecher with heresy in 1835. The heresy trial took place in Beecher’s
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own church, where he defended himself. He was acquitted in the trial, and again acquitted by the general synod when his opponents appealed the original decision. The controversy between the old-school Presbyterian teachings and the new-school theology eventually led to a split in the Presbyterian Church a few years later, with Beecher adhering to the new-school branch. Beecher remained in Cincinnati until the early 1850s, when he moved to Brooklyn, New York, to live with his son Henry Ward Beecher. There he worked on publishing many of his religious sermons. Lyman Beecher died in Brooklyn in 1863. Erica Rhodes Hayden Vanderbilt University See Also: American Temperance Society; Moral Suasion; Temperance, History of; Temperance Movements; Temperance Movements, Religion in. Further Readings Abzug, Robert H. Cosmos Crumbling: American Reform and the Religious Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Harding, Vincent. A Certain Magnificence: Lyman Beecher and the Transformation of American Protestantism, 1775–1863. New York: Carlson Publishers, 1991. Walters, Ronald G. American Reformers, 1815–1860. Rev. ed. New York: Hill and Wang, 1997.
Beer Beer is a generic term for a fermented malt beverage made from malted barley, hops, water, and yeast. While the general process for making it has remained the same for millennia, some of the ingredients, and their proportions, have changed over time. The most notable change has been the introduction of hops, which occurred in the Middle Ages. Prior to the use of hops, the term ale described fermented malt beverages, while the word beer was used to delineate hopped ale. Humans have been making beer since the beginning of recorded history, and beer is the thirdmost-commonly consumed beverage, per capita,
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in the United States, trailing carbonated soda and water. Beginning in 1994, per capita beer consumption in the United States declined from 22.3 gallons to 20.3 gallons and then rose slightly in 2012, driven largely by sales of craft beer. Overview The modern word beer mostly likely descends from the Anglo-Saxon beor, the usage of which varied by time and place but originally referred to fermented juices and even nonalcoholic drinks. The exact origin of when and how humans learned to ferment malted barley into what is now called beer is unknown, but the process is much older than recorded history, and the basic ingredients and their functions have changed very little. The most important ingredient in fermentation is malted barley. After the harvest, grain is first dried then rehydrated until it reaches greater than 40 percent water by weight. In the modern era, professionals called maltsters germinate the grain at temperatures between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit, allowing the small shoot, called the acrospire, to grow up to 100 percent of the length of the kernel. During this process, called modification, the starch inside the grain converts to fermentable sugar. Once complete, the maltster kilns the grains at temperatures varying from 120 to 190 degrees to create what is called a base malt. Other subsequent higher kilning temperatures result in adjunct malts with varying amounts of fermentable sugars, which impart different flavors in the finished beer. To extract the sugar from the malted barley, the brewer steeps the grain in water at temperatures between 150 and 170 degrees, depending on the desired final style of beer, and performs a final rinse, called sparging, in order to extract as much sugar from the grain as possible. The local water chemistry profile will also affect the final flavor. The useful part of the vined hops plant is a small cone-shaped flower from the family Cannabaceae, genus Humulus, and species Lupulus. The oily, ester-filled resin in each flower contains alpha and beta acids that are released through boiling the dried flowers. There are more than 100 varieties of hops in use around the world, each marketed according to the available percentage of alpha acids in the flower.
Brewers can achieve varying levels of bitterness through the use of hops. Boiling the hops for an hour or more results in full isomerization as the oils evaporate out of the fermenter, leaving behind the acids. The drinker senses the acids as a bitter flavor, helping offset the malty sweetness. Flavoring hops, introduced within 30 minutes of the end of the boil, partially isomerize and appear on the palate with varying levels of citrus, pine, spice, and/or fruit flavors, depending on the varietal. Finishing hops, added within 15 minutes of the end of the boil, isomerize less, and so retain most of the esters, which appear as strong aromas. Brewers achieve unique flavor and aroma profiles through a combination of varietals bred to impart specific characteristics at different stages of the boil. Once cooled, the hopped wort is ready for the introduction of yeast. Three species account for the vast majority of yeasts used by brewers around the world, and many commercial breweries maintain their own proprietary species of those three yeasts. Recent genomic sequencing shows that yeasts at individual breweries adapt to their local environments, giving each brewery’s yeast a distinctive genetic sequence and flavor profile. The first yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, known as brewer’s yeast, originated on the skins of grapes, plums, and other dark-skinned fruits. It is thought to be the oldest yeast used in brewing and probably found its way into fermentation through the accidental mixing of barley and fruit. Used to produce ales, S. cerevisiae ferments best at temperatures between 50 and 75 degrees. The organism consumes the sugars and produces carbon dioxide, alcohol, and some chemicals as byproducts. The yeast goes dormant when the supply of sugar runs low, and brewers often transfer a portion of yeast from one batch to start the next. Scientists believe that S. pastorianus, isolated in the 1880s and used to ferment lager beers, evolved in Europe in the 17th century as a hybrid of S. cerevisiae and S. eubayanus. A bottom-fermenting yeast that works best at temperatures between 32 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit, S. pastorianus produces more sulfur compounds but fewer esters, diacetyl, and phenols during fermentation. The resulting beer is lighter and more refreshing. Brewers consider a third category, called spontaneously fermenting yeasts, an undesirable wild
infection in many styles of beer. The most common yeast, of the genus Brettanomyces, imparts sour flavors, and brewers introduce it specifically into French saisons, farmhouse ales, and some traditional Belgian ales. Brewers often use “Brett” in conjunction with S. cerevisiae in order to reach a desired level of off-flavor. Modern beer is usually either classified as lager or ale, though regional designations play a part as well. The vast majority of beer consumed in the world is lager, with Anheuser-Busch/InBev the leading producer. Lagers tend to be light in color and body, refreshing, and moderately hoppy. The exceptions are German bock-, dunkel-, and schwartz-style beers, all of which are darker and more full-bodied beers. Some popular lagers include Bud Light, Coors Light, Corona, Blue Moon, Sam Adams, Heineken, and Yuengling. Because ale yeasts produce a wide range of flavors, and because ales use a wider variety of grains, the differences in flavor profiles can be profound, ranging from very light-colored but full-bodied wheat beers to dark, dense Imperial Russian stouts. Commonly available ales include Guinness Extra Stout, Bass Pale Ale, Dogfish Head 60 and 90 Minute IPA, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. American brewers tend to produce a wide variety of beers, focusing on brewer preference, experimentation, or market forces instead of the brewery’s region of origin. Continental European brewers, on the other hand, frequently brew to a regional style. For example, Dusseldorf, Germany, is known for Altbier, which is malty and bitter but has a low hop aroma. Cologne, Germany, produces light-bodied Kölsch, and there are several regionally based variations on wheat beers. Belgian beers comprise their own styles, which, aside from wheat or white beers, tend to be dark and full bodied and generally have higher levels of alcohol. Belgian Lambics take their characteristics from the wild yeasts, as do French Biére de Garde- and saison-style beers. History Before the modern era, the concept of beer culture spoke more to the appearance of beer within specific cultural contexts than it did to cultural elements dominated or defined by beer and beer drinking. One important beer-related cultural
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manifestation in the ancient world, however, is the Hymn to Ninkasi, a 3,800-year-old prayer that serves as a recipe for making beer. Though older recipe fragments exist, as do lists of ingredients used in brewing, many archaeologists and historians consider the Hymn to Ninkasi the earliest example of brewing instructions. Written in the style of a religious chant, the hymn details the Sumerians’ brewing process, beginning with bread making and proceeding through mashing the bread with grains, followed by fermentation and storage. At about the same time that the Hymn to Ninkasi was written down, the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi enshrined several laws, which provide a glimpse into beer drinking in that culture. Brewers who sold low-quality beer or who overcharged for their product could be put to death, as could barmaids who sold underfilled mugs of beer. These and other sections of the law, along with archaeological evidence, imply a culture in which heavy beer drinking occurred in public and private spaces and as part of religious and public ceremonies. The Egyptians had what could be called the earliest recognizable beer-related drinking culture. As far back as 7,000 years ago, ancient Egyptians used beer as a religious offering, in ceremonies, and as a form of payment for labor. All social classes drank beer at every occasion. Funerary wall paintings of the time depict drunken gatherings, servants carrying people home from parties, and combinations of sex and drinking, while hieroglyphics describe ancient brewing techniques alongside bread making. For upper-class Egyptians, excessive beer drinking occurred at banquets, while lower sorts drank in public spaces. The prevalence of drinking, drunkenness, and sex in Egyptian art led Greeks and Romans to condemn Egyptian culture and drinking habits and reinforced their view of wine as the drink of high culture and beer as indicative of lower culture. The conquest of Egypt, first by the Greeks and then by the Romans, brought wine to the forefront of drinking culture in the Mediterranean world. Beer remained the drink of choice in areas of Europe held by Germanic tribes, the members of which, according to Julius Caesar’s account of his conquest of Gaul, initially refused to drink
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wine. According to Greek and Roman records, the Germanic tribes grew large amounts of grain but ate very little bread, further indicating widespread brewing practices. Despite a trend toward the importation of wine that followed the Roman conquest of western Europe, brewing traditions remained strong, with the same basic techniques and ingredients in use—malted barley, water, yeast, and flavorings—by Late Antiquity as had been used for thousands of years before. Historically, brewers used fruit, honey, and different herbs to attenuate the unpalatable sweetness of pure malted-barley wort. Common ingredients in the ancient Middle East and Europe through the European Middle Ages include dark fruits, honey, safflower, heather, the rind of bitter oranges, and other plants that would attenuate the malts. Because of a lack of understanding about chemistry, brewers included dangerous ingredients in their beer, particularly henbane and yarrow, which could cause psychoactive hallucinations, extreme inebriation, and even death. The earliest reference to hops as an ingredient in beer comes from a Benedictine monastery in 9th-century France. Hops create a more stable product with greater preservative qualities, which can therefore be stored longer and shipped over greater distances, which gave rise to industrial brewing in Europe. The use of hops carries through to the modern era—the vast majority of brewers today use hops as a bitter agent. Prior to the introduction of hops, Europeans used the word ale, or one of its linguistic antecedents such as ealu or alu, to refer to alcoholic beverages made from malted barley. The introduction of hops created a new drink, which Europeans called hoppenbier, to distinguish it from unhopped ale as well as from other fermented fruit juices. For several hundred years, beer and ale were considered separate drinks, though in the modern era beer is a generic word for a fermented malt beverage made with barley, hops, water, and yeast. Though some industrial brewing had begun by the 16th century, women conducted most brewing as part of the household economy, while monasteries and convents accounted for the bulk of the rest. By the 17th century, beer drinkers continued to distinguish between hopped beer and unhopped ale, though by the 18th century hops
A 7 percent alcohol content beer, 1686 Jubiliejinis Alus, in a special one-liter keepsake bottle. The beer is the product of the Biržu Alus brewery, one of the oldest breweries in Lithuania, established in 1868.
had become the most common adjunct flavoring ingredient in beer. By the 19th century, beer had become a generic term for any fermented malt beverage, distinguished by top-fermented lagers and bottom-fermented ales. Culture William Hogarth’s mid-18th century prints Beer Street and Gin Lane survive as an early yet enduring commentary on a perceived beer culture. In the late 17th and early 18th century, the British Parliament passed a series of acts designed to promote gin distilling at the expense of French brandy imports. The result was an increase in gin consumption and with it a host of social problems. Gin came to be seen as a danger to English society, and Hogarth’s prints portrayed the fictional Gin Lane as a scene of debauchery, anarchy, and general societal decay. In contrast, the residents of Beer Street were happy, well fed, and content amid a scene of economic prosperity. The prints carried the message that gin drinking threatened
the social fabric while beer reinforced positive social, economic, and cultural values. By the 19th century in the United States, largescale corporate brewing emerged in a milieu of greater competition for market share as well as a growing prohibitionist sentiment. Midcentury beer gardens gave way to national distribution and an attempt to create greater brand identification. Breweries gave away bottle and can openers to customers and place trays, signs, and glasses with logos in saloons. After the end of Prohibition and World War II, television gave brewers a new medium by which to recapture earlier sales figures, and many responded by promoting beer culture as sophisticated and upscale. More important, in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s breweries worked to associate their products with sports culture, and some of the most successful efforts in this regard combined product appeal with celebrity marketing. The success in the 1980s of Miller Brewing Company’s “Tastes Great, Less Filling” campaign for its light beer signaled a more aggressive attempt to define beer culture as something more appealing to a broad swath of Americans. The 25-year period from 1985 to 2010 saw the birth of a craft beer industry and culture in the United States driven by dissatisfaction with a perceived lack of flavor and variety in commercially produced beer. In 1979, as a result of several decades of steady consolidation, 44 companies, including two “specialty breweries,” brewed beer in the United States. The majority produced light American lagers meant to be served at very cold temperature. Sales figures pointed to a trend of ever lighter beers. Inspired by the earlier efforts of Jack McAuliffe at New Albion Brewery in Sonoma, California, in 1977, and Fritz Maytag at Anchor Brewing, some home brewers began to open microbreweries in the mid-1980s. The success of a few of these—most notably Sierra Nevada and Samuel Adams—prompted what came to be called the craft beer revolution. The number of specialty breweries grew to 37, out of the 71 total breweries in 1985. By 1995, that number had grown to 997, while the number of industrial breweries continued to shrink to 29. In 2005, there were 1,591 specialty breweries and 21 industrial breweries, and by 2010 specialty breweries accounted for 2,111 of the 2,131 breweries
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in the United States. By contrast, in 2012 there were around 3,500 breweries in the combined member states of the European Union. There is no legal definition of craft beer, and any brewery is permitted to label its beer as such. However, brewers generally abide by the Brewers Association definition that in order to be called a craft, the brewery must fall into all of the following categories: “small,” which is defined as a company with an annual production of fewer than 6 million barrels; “independent,” defined as a company in which less than 25 percent is owned or operated by a company that is not a brewer; or “traditional,” defined as a company in which the main beer contains at least 50 percent malted barley. This category excludes very few except the largest breweries. No Anheuser-Busch/InBev product can be considered craft beer because the company produced more than 60 million barrels in 2012, and the parent company is itself not a brewer but rather a corporation of breweries. Goose Island, which until 2011 was considered a leader in the craft beer industry, is now owned by Anheuser Busch/InBev. Despite remaining under local management and producing under 200,000 barrels, it is no longer considered a craft brewery. By contrast, industry giant Samuel Adams, considered one of the leading and most successful craft breweries, sold just over 2.5 million barrels of beer in 2012—about equal to the combined sales of all of the microbreweries and brewpubs in the United States. The label craft beer carries with it positive cultural imagery and the connotation of innovative, sometimes unusual beers, which is crucial for marketing. A leader in this field is the Delawarebased Dogfish Head Brewery. The success of its several flagship beers has enabled its founder, Sam Clagione, to experiment with a number of unusual and well-received beers. The Ancient Ales series includes several recipes reproduced from evidence found in archaeological excavations of ancient beer containers. While the term craft beer can oftentimes indicate that the beer is unusual in popular culture, many craft brewers focus on the steady production of one or two classic styles. Other definitions used by craft brewers include brewpub, which refers to a restaurant that produces beer, at least 20 percent of which must be
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sold on-site; contract brewer, which designates a brewer that hires another brewery to brew and package the beer; large brewery, indicating a brewery with sales of more than 6 million barrels of beer per year; microbrewery, defined as a brewery that produces fewer than 15,000 barrels per year with 75 percent of its sales off-site; regional brewery, which indicates that a brewery has sales of between 15,000 and 6 million barrels per year. Andrew McMichael Western Kentucky University See Also: Ale; Archeological Evidence; Beer Advertising; Brewing, History of; Brewing Beer, Techniques of; Budweiser; Dark Beer; Farmhouse and Belgian Ales; Light Beer; Sporting Events; Taverns. Further Readings Bennett, Judith M. Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Brewers Association. http://www.brewersassociation .org (Accessed November 2012). Hornsey, Ian S. A History of Beer and Brewing. Cambridge, UK: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2003. Lender, Mark Edward and James Kirby Marin. Drinking in America: A History. New York: Free Press, 1987. Lynch, Patrick and John Vaizey. Guinness’s Brewery in the Irish Economy, 1759–1876. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1960. Nelson, Max. The Barbarian’s Beverage: A History of Beer in Ancient Europe. London: Routledge, 2005. Ogle, Maureen. Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer. New York: Harcourt, 2006.
Beer Advertising Beer advertising is pervasive in American culture today in everything from billboards, to magazine advertisements, to television commercials (and now in social media as well). Many sporting events, especially baseball, basketball, and football, are often sponsored by beer companies, and some beers are considered (thanks to sponsorship, dating as far back to at least 1947) to
be the “official beer” of the sport. Particularly in America, large companies such as Budweiser (now owned by the global giant InBev) have sponsored advertising so ubiquitous that it is hard to escape it in public places. Television, specifically televised sports, has long been a place where beer commercials dominate as the chief form of advertising, and most Americans are well aware of the current ad campaigns for beers such as Budweiser, Coors, Heineken, and others. While most of the these brands are no longer owned by American companies, they usually attempt to associate their product with American values and often use particularly American imagery and ideas about masculinity to sell beer. Twentieth Century While early on in the 20th century, most beer advertising was limited to stating the virtues of the product or the associated social class of the drinker, advertising grew more sophisticated by the middle of the century. Many themes in modern beer advertising are still similar to those of the past in terms of trying to sell beer with variations based on social concerns such as health and associations with more current events such as holiday seasons and festive events such as the Super Bowl. Many beer ads since the 1940s have tried to use catchy slogans to differentiate their beer from others beers. In particular, they have connected a sense of ownership with a particular beer or an allegiance similar to that of a sports team, through creating associations with geographic areas, sports rivalries, or even sense of self. An early Rheingold beer jingle tells the viewer, “My beer is Rheingold the dry beer/Think of Rheingold whenever you buy beer,” indicating that it is the beer drinker’s preference for the product that counts, rather than the perceived benefits or social status associated with the beer. Beer advertising has also long been prevalent in many other countries, and in Ireland, ads for Guinness, the beer that is more associated with Ireland than any other, often try to associate the beer with the idea of national identity (either as a resident of Ireland, or as an Irish American who can still identify with Ireland). Many recognizably “Irish style” vintage ads cleverly emphasize how closely a pint of Guinness should be guarded against marauding animals (a typical tag line is,
“My goodness, my Guinness!”). This illustrates that beer is something with a personal connection to the consumer and should be associated with a sense of self. Many modern Guinness ads (even those designed for an American market) associate the beer with images of rough-and-tumble sports, such as rugby or European football, implying the overall ruggedness and masculinity of the Guinness drinker. Such ads are also prevalent in print, television, and magazines around the St. Patrick’s Day season in an attempt to single-handedly monopolize the “proper” beer to drink on the holiday. Often, these ads are geared to make a connection, real or imagined, with Ireland. To drink Guinness is to be connected to one’s Irish roots, whether symbolically or in reality. But the reality matters less than the idea of an association of drinking the beer with something greater than just a beer. This is particularly true in terms of beer and sports advertising. By the late 1940s, beer commercials had started to become ubiquitous on early television. As Carl Miller has noted, by 1947, the Hyde Park brewery was advertising prerecorded commercials during St. Louis Cardinals games featuring “perhaps history’s first prerecorded beer spots— [with] ‘Albert, The Stick Man,’ an animated cartoon character with a knack for finding trouble. Whatever Albert’s dilemma, a bottle of Hyde Park Beer always brought relief.” Soon, competing beer companies were noting the popularity of television programming and beer, which lead to them bringing their own advertising to television. These companies include Blatz beer (which spent over $250,000 sponsoring the new television version of the Amos and Andy radio show), Carling Black Label, Labatts, and Hamms. Perhaps one of the most surprisingly intellectual and subversive campaigns was the Piels duo Bert and Harry (voiced by the popular radio duo Bob and Ray) on both television and radio, which ironically increased the ratings for the programs their commercial was on but did not raise beer sales. The rise of beer conglomerates and the gradual disappearance of local beers led to many large companies, such as Budweiser and Miller, dominating the market by the 1970s and the rise of new products such as light beer. A new health consciousness about alcohol consumption led to pithy
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but unexciting slogans such as “Tastes great/Less filling” that also dominated the airwaves in the 1970s and 1980s. From the 1990s until the advent of the “microbrew revolution,” led by brewers such as Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada, most beer advertising was sniping among several large conglomerates for sales. However, themes that were prevalent in early beer advertising have become much more apparent in the past few decades. Subconscious Advertising Beer commercials, like most forms of advertising, are not simply pitches for a product. Many beers ads, particularly commercials, do not rely so much on the merits of taste, or the quality or purity of the beer being advertised, but instead emphasize deeper themes designed to appeal to consumers on an unconscious level. By insinuating such qualities as masculine prowess or how attractive women will find the beer consumer (who is male in almost all beer commercials), viewers are led to believe they will be more attractive if they regularly consume the approved beer. Increasingly in the 1990s up until the new century, this tack was taken up by advertising in magazines, on the radio, and especially on television. With markets shrinking due to beer company consolidation and increased government regulation, many companies were not as free to cross these type of lines as in previous years and needed new ways of advertising that were more subtle. In the 1990s, some critics argued that beer advertising had crossed the line in the form of advertising directly (or more overtly) to underage drinkers; in particular, many were critical of the 1990s campaign using the “Budweiser frogs,” a series of cute animated characters that rhythmically changed their names (conveniently they were named “Bud,” “Weis,” and “Er”) in a reoccurring series of commercials that started in the Super Bowl in 1995 but were off the air by 1998 due to studies that found that the three frogs were more familiar to small children than Smokey the Bear. Like Joe Camel, the Budweiser frogs had taken beer advertising just a little too far in terms of appealing to an underage audience. Advertisers also grew more sophisticated and learned to target consumers in different ways from the 1980s onward. One of the key things that advertisers have found out over the years is
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the relationship between not just how but also when people use products. In his book Advertising: The Uneasy Persuasion, Michael Schudson suggests that many successful ad campaigns, particularly those that target users of alcoholic beverages, tried to tie alcohol consumption into the idea of alcohol as a reward after a hard day of work. Schudson notes that regarding the famous Miller High Life commercials of the early 1980s, research by the advertisers found out that “two thirds of all beer consumed in the United States is consumed at home and is consumed between 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.” This more precise insight into when and where Americans were drinking beer led Miller to advertise using the slogan “It’s Miller time, when it’s time to relax, one beer stands clear; if you’ve got the time, we’re got the beer.” While the advertising slogan did not outlast the decade, the term “Miller time” has worked its way into the popular mindset to represent time off from work to relax and has appeared in comic strips and even the last season for the show Breaking Bad under that connotation. While it is clear that beer advertising is done with the express purpose of increasing sales of specific beers, most consumers do not make a direct connection between advertising and the purchase of a product, including beer. This does not mean that advertising is completely ineffective but that people use it as part of a selection process for making a choice that applies to many products and not just beer. The overall concerns among social critics and health officials is not just that underage drinkers will drink more, or that heavy consumers will be more affected by advertising. The question for critics about beer advertising is not about its effect but how it works as part of an overall environment. In recent years, most media studies scholars have made connections between advertising as part of an environment, and as an indirect link, and many other factors in affecting consumer behavior. As Schudson, a noted scholar of advertising and American culture, suggests, advertising may affect not so much consumer choice but rather what goods are available to purchase by a consumer. This is because usually only those products, especially beer with advertising budgets, also have the benefit of mass production and distribution. This has for several decades helped large beer companies to dominate
the market regardless of the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns. However, other scholars have noted that the effects of individual advertisements, no matter what the products, were never the true problem. To many modern media studies scholars, the problem is not the effects of advertising but rather that advertising itself is so ubiquitous and helps form an overall environment that naturalizes conspicuous consumptions. Douglas Kellner has noted “how advertising forms part of a whole promotional culture that shapes citizens into consumers, transmitting endlessly the message that buying and consuming will solve problems, and bring about happiness, social and sexual.” To scholars such as Kellner, advertising is not so much a device to entice a consumer into a particular brand of beer as it is a device to sell beer by appealing to the overall happiness of the consumer. To Kellner, “Ads are important cultural texts that should be subjected to cultural criticism.” Beer ads are not simply commercials but part of an overall way of looking at the world. In particular, beer commercials have changed from advertising the virtues of the product, such as having “great taste” or being “less filling,” to emphasizing benefits outside of the product to the consumer. Media scholar Lance Strate has examined the way in which beer commercials appeal to men in particular. While is seems obvious that most beer commercials are by demographic necessity geared toward a male consumer who statistically dominates the market, it is also evident that these ads sell their product not simply by talking about the virtues of the particular beer but by associating the beverage in question with larger myths about masculinity itself. To Strate, beer commercials are not just about a product but a virtual handbook on what it means to be a man. In them, drinking is associated with a variety of occupational and leisure pursuits . . . which in one way or another, involve overcoming challenges. In the world of beer commercials, men work hard and they play hard. In the modern beer commercial, sporting events are not just watched, they are participated in as well; men are seen playing sports, acting ruggedly,
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Beer advertising has long been nearly ubiquitous in public spaces in the United States. The photograph shows a convenience store, bar, and gas station featuring many beer and liquor advertisements at a crossroads in Melrose, Louisiana, around 1940. Beer commercials and sponsorship of sports teams grew in the 1940s; some of the first prerecorded beer spots were likely those that appeared in 1947 during St. Louis Cardinals games and advertised the Hyde Park brewery.
and pursuing the opposite sex with vigor. This is nothing new as the traditional association of beer with sports and the great outdoors has long been a staple of beer commercials. Numerous beer commercials are targeted specifically to sports fans or hunters, campers, or fishermen, and beer is often associated directly with nature and outdoorsmanship. As Strate also points out, in many beer commercials, “nature is closely associated with both masculinity and beer, as beer is presented as equivalent to nature. Often beer is shown to be a product that is natural and pure, implying that its association is not harmful and perhaps even healthy.” This is particularly true today due to the rise of the microbrew market and the subsequent rise of the phrase “Locally sourced” in advertising for organic foods and beer. The only real difference in how this advertising is done is whether it’s done on Twitter, Facebook, or other forms of social media, or in print and television campaigns.
Overall, despite change in forms of media over the years, beer commercials function as most of advertising does—to try and create an environment that appeals not on a rational level but on one that helps the consumer sell himself or herself based on ideas of masculinity and control. Beer advertisements work in terms of creating an overall mythology of a product rather than marketing based on the taste or nutrition associated with the product. In particular, as beer commercials are not allowed to show the actual consumption of the product in the United States, all effects, including overall satisfaction must be alluded to instead of shown. In addition, because the majority of beer advertising is targeted toward men, there are indications that much beer advertising, if not overtly sexist, creates unrealistic stereotypes and perceptions of presumed masculine or feminine behavior. Beer commercials, like most commercials, do not represent the reality of the product but instead allude to presumed myths about human behavior.
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As Naomi Klein has noted, one of the things about advertising is that in the 20th century, advertisers started to believe that brands were “spiritual” and “could conjure a feeling,” a feeling of ownership, or control, or masculinity. In the latter half of the 20th century, familiar beer advertising tropes such as “Tastes great/Less filling” began to disappear in favor of advertising that worked based on mythology, masculinity, and in particular the suggestion that the consumer of beer was not simply a better beer drinker but a better, much more complete person because of the beer they drank. Brian A. Cogan Molloy College See Also: Advertising and Marketing, History of; Beer; Beer Containers and Sales; Sporting Events, Sponsorship of. Further Readings “Budweiser’s Frogs Beat out Smokey in Study of Kids.” San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate .com/business/article/Budweiser-s-Frogs-Beat-Out -Smokey-In-Study-of-Kids-2985200.php (Accessed February 2014). Kellner, Douglas. “Advertising and Consumer Culture.” In Questioning the Media: A Critical Introduction, John Dowing, Ali Mohammadi, and Anabelle Sreberny-Mohammdi, eds. London: Sage, 1995. Klein, Naomi. No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. New York: Picador, 1999. Miller, Carl H. “Beer and Television: Perfectly Tuned In.” http://www.beerhistory.com/library/holdings/ beer_commercials.shtml (Accessed February 2014). Schudson, Michael. Advertising: The Uneasy Persuasion: Its Dubious Impact on American Society. New York: Basic Books, 1984. Strate, Lance. “Beer Commercials: A Manual on Masculinity” In Men, Masculinity, and the Media, Steve Craig, ed. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992.
Beer and Foods Beer and food are closely intertwined. Over the course of recorded history, beer has served as
a substitute for impure water and as a type of alcoholic porridge served in the ancient Near East. Beer has been an ingredient in the making of food, including bread, from the earliest points in history. In the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Enlightenment periods, beer served as a substitute for food during times of fasting. In the 19th-century United States, beer also gained a place as a cooking ingredient, and prior to Prohibition, saloons generally offered free food with beer. After World War II, as brewers marketed beer as a companion to backyard cookouts and food at sporting events, it became more common to think of ways that beer complemented foods. More recently, the craft beer movement has influenced the ways that various styles of beer could be paired with specific foods. Historical Relation Between Beer and Food Beer production predates recorded human history, and some of the earliest written records refer to beer, beer production, and the use of beer as food. Because the archaeological evidence for beer dates to the beginning of agricultural production, some historians and archaeologists have suggested the possibility that humans settled down and formed civilizations due to a desire to grow grain or grapes for beer and wine production. At some point, early humans discovered that watering down cereal grains and allowing them to germinate for a few days—to the point that the sprout reached the overall length of the grain— had two positive effects: First, it made the grains more flavorful through the conversion of starch to sugar inside the grain, a process unknown to ancient humans. Second, the softened grain could then be worked into a mushy dough, which could produce two nutritious and enjoyable products: If the dough was heated rapidly in a dry oven, it became bread. When soaked in water, heated more slowly, and left to sit for a few days, the dough fermented and became beer. So, the earliest relation between beer and food would have been a literal, direct, and intended result of the linked production of beer and bread. Although there is some debate about the exact nature of the Sumerian Hymn to Ninkasi, most historians and archaeologists agree that it is a prayer chanted to the goddess of beer. It also appears to be a set of instructions for brewing.
The written passage on the clay tablets, which dates to 1800 b.c.e., describes the way to mix dough with what was likely fruit, honey, and spices to offset the sweetness of the grains, bake the dough, and then soak the mixture in a vessel with water. After fermentation, the dough was roughly strained into the liquid beer and grainy residue and then transferred to different vessels for consumption. The evidence for the link between beer and food is much stronger and older in ancient Egypt, where beer was served alongside grain as a form of currency with which to pay the laborers who built the pyramids. It was also a common drink among Egyptians. Archaeologists date the production of beer to at least 5500 b.c.e. in Egypt, where Egyptian women and professionals brewers started with a portion of wheat and then coarsely ground three-quarters of it so that some whole grains remained. The ground wheat would then have been turned into dough. After adding yeast and shaping the dough into loaves, the brewerbaker baked the loaves at a low-enough temperature so as not to kill the yeast or any enzymes. The result would have been a kind of beer-bread. The remainder of the wheat was moistened and exposed to the air and then crushed. As with modern malting techniques, the wheat kernels would begin to sprout, and enzymes in the interior of the husk would convert the starch to fermentable sugar. The loaves of bread and the moistened wheat were then put into a jar with water, and fermentation began. After fermentation ended, the moistened grains were run through a coarse sieve, which retained the whole grains but let pass a fermented malt beverage with some grains pieces still in it. Ancient Egyptians drank the beer and grain through straws. Aside from household production, beer was a staple food alongside bread in the Christian monasteries of the first millennia. Monks brewed their own beer to sell as a means of supporting their ministries, to consume as part of their daily food ration, and to offer to thirsty and hungry travelers. Records from the Middle Ages indicate that a standard diet for monks and nuns included beer. By the early modern period, possibly spurred by refinements in brewing techniques that produced beer devoid of grains and other detritus of the brewing process, the idea of beer as food
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receded, replaced by the more-conscious use of beer as an ingredient in food production. Beer Used in Cooking Using beer as a cooking ingredient has a long history, even predating the establishment of formal recipes and cookbooks. Among elites in Europe, beer and ale had an association with the lower classes, who did not keep recipe books that have survived. Elites drank wine. Beer could serve as a substitute for water in the production of soups, stews, and porridges for the lower and middling sorts in the same way that medieval cooks used wine in preparation of meals for elites. Medical texts touted the positive effects of wine consumption, associated with aristocratic foods, while peasant food consisted of root vegetables, bread, and beer. The most direct use for beer in making food would have been using the yeast from beer production as a leavening for bread. The earliest cookbooks in Europe, which come from the winedrinking regions of the Mediterranean, seem to regard wine as a natural ingredient in cooking, while beer is almost entirely absent. The earliest cookbooks in the United States follow medieval and early-modern trends. American Cookery, printed in 1796, only mentions beer, specifically ale yeast, once—in a recipe for cake. By 1829, however, The Frugal Housewife, which drew upon an older British cookbook printed in 1765, recommended the use of ale in recipes for jugged rabbit, in a type of ketchup made from anchovies, and as a marinade for ham, among many other recipes. The theme of The Frugal Housewife was less concerned with beer as an ingredient that helped enhance flavor than with efficiently using any old or stale ingredients left in the kitchen. Later cookbooks followed this trend. Following World War II, both beer and food underwent a transformation in the United States. As American companies focused on marketing time-saving, prepackaged foods, food became more bland. Brewers followed suit with an increased reliance on adjuncts such as rice and corn sugar. While still common as a cooking ingredient in recipes such as pancakes, postwar marketers touted beer as a drink to be taken at mealtimes rather than as a meal to be shared on social occasions.
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Beer With Food Alcohol as a companion to food dates back to the earliest Egyptian banquets, although no records exist of ancient recommendations for pairing beer with specific foods. Beer was simply a daily beverage. Most households produced a light, refreshing table beer through a second and third rinsing of the malted grains during the brewing process. Women and children could consume this loweralcohol beer with little deleterious effect. By the late 19th century, saloons in the United States began to offer free food to customers who bought drinks. The meals could range from oysters, to a sandwich, to a full meal, and had less to do with the meal itself than with attracting customers who would purchase alcohol. After the repeal of Prohibition in the United States, most beer-and-food pairings likely occurred during sporting events or at backyard barbeques and were the less the result of a conscious marriage of specific beer and foods than of availability. Budweiser, Miller High Life, Pabst, Coors,
A beer and cheese pairing on display for a tasting in Abruzzo, Italy. For European beers, cheeses may be paired by country or region. For instance, strong French saison pairs well with Roquefort or Epoisses, while Belgian IPAs and strong ales can be matched with Limburger cheese.
and other regional standard American lagers dominated the market. With little or no hop bitterness and high carbonation that provides a dry bite and brewed with adjuncts such as corn sugar to promote a slightly grainy flavor, these beers did not have the full-bodied flavor or variety of preProhibition beers. Standard American lagers are meant to be light and refreshing and without too many overwhelming flavors that would obscure the taste of foods. Pairing alcohol with food was the domain of wine connoisseurs. The “craft beer revolution” that began in the 1990s brought changes to the American beer palate. As craft breweries produced beers with ever-more-complex flavor profiles, the idea of pairing specific beers with specific foods gained traction. Borrowing from the long-established practice of wine and food pairings, specialists calling themselves beer sommeliers began to suggest that certain styles of beer could complement the flavor of some foods and, likewise, have a negative impact on the flavor of others. Most obviously, the newer, hoppier ales prevalent in the United States would overwhelm the flavor of lighter foods such as fish, mild cheeses, and steamed vegetables. Unlike the professional sommelier schools established in the 1960s and 1970s in the United Kingdom, little in the way of formal training existed for beer in the United States until 2008, when noted beer author Ray Daniels created a specialized cicerone program to certify restaurant waitstaff and others to, among other things, recommend pairings of beer and food. As with wine and food, it is thought that beer and food pairings should balance the flavors of each. A general rule of thumb is to match the strength of the beer to the intensity of the food. If different beers are to be served throughout the meal, each course should be paired with a specific style of beer. Lighter appetizers and salads, for example, work well with pilsners, saisons, and wheat beers. Heavier appetizers demand beers such as India pale ales (IPAs) or heavier Belgian ales. The composition of the main courses will dictate the style of the beer. Light fish, specifically if steamed, poached, or served as sushi, would normally be paired with American lagers, Munich helles beers, or German pilsners. Matching like
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flavors works well when pairing beer with main courses. Smoked beers, or rauchbier, works well with barbecued meat, with the smoky flavors complementing each other. Likewise, the caramel flavors of heavy Belgian ales, English bitter ales, and brown ales balance the flavors in grilled meats. Most Asian cuisines, such as Thai, Chinese, Japanese, or Indian, are enhanced by the crisp, hoppy flavors in pilsners, light lagers, or even English IPAs. Both beer and cheese contain a wide range of flavors, textures, aromas, and mouthfeel, and the combinations of pairings is endless. One excellent rule of thumb with European beers is to pair beer and cheese by country or region. Strongly flavored beer such as French saison pairs well with Roquefort or Epoisses. Belgian IPAs and strong ales match up with Limburger cheese. Strong English cheeses such as Stilton and Stinking Bishop English can be paired with barley wines. Pairing by country is not a firm rule. American IPAs go well with strong cheeses, and feta pairs nicely with California common ale. Some brewers, such as Mardesous and Chimay, make their own cheeses using ingredients from their beers. As with other foods, the key is to create a balance of flavors between the beer and food. Andrew McMichael Western Kentucky University See Also: Ale; Ancient World, Drinking in the; Beer; Brewing, History of; Brewing Beer, Techniques of; Egypt, Ancient; Fermentation, Ancient Era Through Middle Ages. Further Readings Adamson, Melitta Weiss. Food in Medieval Times. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2004. Civitello, Linda. Cuisine & Culture: A History of Food and People. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Hornsey, Ian S. A History of Beer and Brewing. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2003. Saunders, Lucy. The Best of American Beer and Food: Pairing & Cooking With Craft Beer. Boulder, CO: Brewer’s, 2007. Skilnik, Bob. Beer and Food: An American History. Jackson, TN: Jefferson, 2007.
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Beer Containers and Sales Beer is a beverage fermented from malted barley and hops. It is stored and sold in a wide variety of containers, the sizes and manufacture of which have changed drastically over time. The earliest artificial containers were simple clay pots— often the same containers used for fermentation. Clay pots gave way to wooden barrels for mass storage, and advances in glassmaking technology eventually enabled storage in bottles. Metal manufacturing provided the ability to store and sell beer in cans and metal kegs, although brewers have begun to use plastic containers as well. The invention of pasteurization and artificial refrigeration provided significant advantages for longterm storage and transportation. Ancient Origins Humans have fermented malted barley for thousands of years, and the invention of pottery allowed for a place to store the alcohol. The earliest evidence of the human production of alcohol dates to 7000 b.c.e. in Jiahu, China, where chemical analysis of clay pottery indicates the presence of a fermented beverage composed of honey, rice, and other fruits. While not technically beer in the modern sense, the ancient Chinese also fermented local grains such as millet, storing the alcohol in similar containers. Archaeologists often point to the presence of calcium oxalate, a naturally occurring chemical compound found in many plants that forms on the inside of beer storage containers, as evidence of beer production and storage. Shards of ancient pottery as well as modern kegs and casks often contain this compound, which manifests as a scale on the inside walls of the storage vessel. Pottery from the late Uruk Period in ancient Iraq, from around 4000 to 3100 b.c.e. shows extensive signs of calcium oxalate in the fine grooves cut into the inner walls of the pottery meant to trap sediment. Because calcium oxalate occurs naturally in many plants, the weight of evidence suggests an early, though not definitive, date for the storage of beer in fired clay pots. Ancient serving vessels reflect a brewing and storage process that often resulted in the presence
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of sediment. Their typical construction, carried out on a potter’s wheel, featured a wide, pearshaped bottom, a narrow neck, and a fluted opening, with a handle for ease of carrying and pouring. In some parts of the ancient Middle East, the side of the container would have a number of holes drilled into it prior to firing, and a trough in the shape of a half tube that extended outward from underneath the holes. Drinkers could thus filter the excessive sediment found in ancient beer. Ancient peoples also consumed the beer through filtered straws made from copper or reeds. There is also historical evidence that later Babylonian law helped regulate beer sales. Bartered goods helped determine the amount of beer in a serving, and tavern keepers, usually female, who cheated cash-paying customers could be put to death. Likewise, the law brought the death penalty upon brewers who sold substandard beer, tavern keepers who permitted customers to conspire against the government, and priestesses who drank in taverns. Casks and Kegs While some ancient peoples no doubt stored alcohol in the hollowed-out trunks of trees, Roman and Greek records provide evidence that by the 2nd or 1st century b.c.e. the Gauls had developed the technology of joining wooden staves into what the Greek historian Strabo called “wooden jars.” Although the records suggest that Europeans almost certainly used the earliest barrels for storage and transport of wine, accounts of the life of the Irish St. Columba, who lived in the 6th century c.e., describe the use of barrels in conjunction with beer. The use of wooden barrels had a number of advantages over pottery and represents a turning point in beer storage. Wooden barrels are sturdier than clay pots and were therefore able to withstand rougher handling. Likewise, barrels could be sealed with a bung and rolled and stacked, creating more efficient opportunities for longer storage and transportation. Finally, beer continues to ferment as long as the yeast is present and alive, and when stored in a tightly sealed barrel it will begin to carbonate. The size of a wood barrel is largely dependent on the length and density of the tree from which the wood comes as well as on the skill of the cooper. Indeed, archaeologists have
recovered barrels of more than 250 gallons from excavation sites in Europe. The advent of hops as an ingredient went hand in hand with the commercialization of the industry and with the use of barrels as the main method of storage. Prior to the Middle Ages, beer was made from fermented malted barley, water, yeast, and a variety of ingredients meant to attenuate the unpalatable sweetness of the malt. Common ingredients in Europe included fruits, honey, and the flowers of various plants, some of which caused hallucinations, sickness, and even death when cooked. In contrast, the acids derived from boiling the hops during cooking imparted bitter flavors that balanced the malt, helped stabilize the production of beer, and made it more refreshing to drink. The acids also allowed for long-term storage, opening up previously unreachable commercial markets for brewers. Wooden barrels provided an excellent storage medium in which to ship this more stable beer over longer distances. By the 14th century, European brewers had begun to create specialized guilds to professionalize the trade, and beer barrels served as a handy means of identifying a product as being from a specific brewery or region. Clearly identifiable barrels could also help with laws designed to protect a city or region’s beer trade. For example, in the 14th century the port town of Wismar, part of the medieval Hanseatic League in Germany, standardized the size of its barrels and required brewers to mark their barrels in order to regulate the beer trade in favor of local breweries. These same regulations also served to protect against fraud. Once empty, taverns shipped barrels back to the original brewer. Despite a trend in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries toward standardization in towns and small regions, a wide variance in barrel sizes remained across Europe. The largest barrels, coming from Hamburg in the 14th century, carried 175 liters, while barrels from Holland could contain anywhere from 100 to 160 liters. Barrel size could also vary by style of beer. In 16th-century England, a standard barrel for unhopped ale contained 32 imperial gallons (144 liters), while a barrel with hopped beer held 36 imperial gallons (162 liters). The larger English barrel size for hopped beer might indicate the existence of an export market. Wooden kegs remained the most common method of shipping and storage until the 20th century.
Storage and Dispensing Methods To store the beer, a brewer filled a wooden cask through a small hole in one end of the keg, which was then sealed with a bung made of cork or wood. The porous nature of the wood and the method of dispensing resulted in beer with little or no carbonation. Wooden barrels or kegs usually relied on one of two methods for dispensing liquid, both of which are still in use for metal kegs. In the gravity method, a server opens the bung hole and inserts a wooden tap. The opposite end of the barrel is then tilted upward slightly, allowing gravity to push the beer through an opened tap while simultaneously trapping sediment in the bottom-front corner of the cylindrical keg. In the late 17th century, John Lofting invented a method of pumping water for fire engines that Joseph Bramah would later modify by adding hydraulic pressure for use in serving beer. In this method, casks stored in a cellar are connected via a long tube to a hand pump at the bar. The server pumps a handle connected to the line, drawing the beer from the cask up through the line and into the glass. The process gave the device its original name, the “sucking worm engine.” This technique is more common in the United Kingdom and Ireland than elsewhere. In the early 20th century, metal-fabricating technology advanced to a point that prompted some experimentation with metal kegs, but shortages during World War I and World War II hampered the widespread adoption of metal kegs. By the 1960s, however, metal had completely replaced wood as the material of choice for keg construction. The ease of sanitation and mechanized manufacturing facilitated the process. Metal kegs could be sealed more tightly, which in turn permitted greater pressurization and therefore carbonation of the beer, matching the levels of carbonation found in bottles and cans of popular lager beers. Beer in a metal keg is stored at full pressure, which varies by style, and then dispensed through a tap. The serving method depends on the style. Cask ale, called “real ale” in England, is dispensed using the methods previously described for wooden kegs and casks. In the United States, beer is more commonly stored and served at higher pressures. As the server pours the beer and the volume of liquid decreases, the headspace inside
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the keg is replaced with pressurized carbon dioxide, which simultaneously helps push the beer out of the tap, maintains carbonation, and prevents oxygen from contaminating the beer. Carbon dioxide in the headspace also inhibits the growth of bacteria in the beer. Another method attaches to the dispensing unit a small hand pump, which the server uses to pump air into the kegs as a means of maintaining dispensing pressure. Handpumped kegs have a shorter shelf life. In some darker stouts, brewers artificially carbonate the beer using a mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. This beer is dispensed through a specialized tap that pushes the beer through a plate with small holes. The nitrogen, which precipitates out during storage, is forced back into the beer. As the nitrogen quickly rises back to the top of the glass, it forms a creamy, thick head and gives a full creamy mouthfeel to the beer. Guinness pioneered the method in Ireland, although more craft brewers in the United States are experimenting with it. The PET keg, developed in the 20th century, is constructed of a type of polyester called polyethylene terephthalate. Often designed in the shape of a bottle, a PET keg can handle most standard beer pressurizations and is lighter and recyclable. Additionally, the manufacturing process permits a variety of customized dispenser configurations. Because retailers can dispose of the kegs once emptied, PET kegs are sometimes referred to as “one-way kegs.” International Variation in Size Keg or cask sizes have changed over time, and little exists in the way of global standardization. Since the adoption of the imperial system in the United Kingdom in 1824, a standard barrel of beer has equaled 36 imperial gallons (43 U.S. gallons), while in the United States it equals 32 gallons (26 imperial gallons). Because of the difficulties involved in moving barrels by hand, few breweries sell beer in these quantities. More common is the keg. In the United Kingdom, the standard keg size is 11 gallons (13.2 U.S. gallons). Some brewers, especially smaller craft brewers, in the United Kingdom ship beer in 36-liter (6.6-imperial-gallon) kegs called “half barrels.” In Europe, standard keg sizes are 20, 25, 30, and 50 liters (10.99 imperial gallons).
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A standard commercially available keg in the United States, often called a half barrel, is 15.5 gallons. Other common sizes in the United States include 7.75-gallon quarter barrels, sometimes called “pony kegs,” while craft brewers in the United States have come to use 5.17-gallon “torpedo kegs” or “sixtels.” These smaller capacity containers allow the content to be used more quickly, thus maintaining the freshness of the product. In the United States, United Kingdom, and Europe, brewers also sell beer in smaller, single-use containers called “beer balls” or “party balls” that hold a few gallons of pressurized beer meant to be consumed within a few hours or a day of opening. Some designs include an external tap and pump similar to larger kegs, while others, usually smaller in size, are essentially large cans of gravity- and pressure-dispensed beer. Another unit called a “Cornelius keg” holds five gallons. Originally designed to hold fully pressurized soda in the manner of a bottle or a can, the design of the keg features either pin- or balllock posts extending from the top. Carbon dioxide enters through a tube attached to one post and helps maintain pressure as the volume of liquid decreases. Liquid emerges from a tube attached to the second post. Long favored by home brewers who brewed beer in five-gallon batches, Cornelius kegs became much harder to get in the second decade of the 21st century as the soda industry moved to the use of bagged syrup, which is mixed with soda water during dispensing. Technological Development The laborious technology of glassmaking limited the use of glass as a means of storing, transporting, and serving beer. Prior to the 19th century, all glass was handblown and corked by hand with a metal cage affixed over the top of the cork to hold it in place. This laborious process increased the price of beer to a level that few but the most wealthy could afford. Mass-produced glass entered the market in the second half of the 19th century, lowering the price for beer bottles. Several technological developments in the late 19th century transformed the way that beer was packaged and shipped. In 1872, Adolphus Busch incorporated the newly discovered principles of pasteurization into the brewing process and began shipping beer across the country. A few
years later, Busch also developed refrigerated railroad cars, greatly extending the reach of his brewery. Other brewers soon followed suit. In 1892, William Painter patented the disposable metal crown bottle cap, which proved especially useful for sealing bottles of newly popular lager, which is more highly carbonated than pale ales. With the invention of the crown cap, the manual process of siphoning and corking beer in bottles gave way to the development of high-capacity bottling lines capable of filling thousands of bottles per hour, which could in turn be pasteurized and then refrigerated. Beer that had previously been available only by cask at a local tavern or pub could, by the 1890s, be mass marketed for home consumption. Cans In the early 20th century, brewers began searching for a more efficient way to package, store, and market their beer. Building on technology already in use for canning food, the American Can Company in 1909 began research into the use of cans for beer. After much testing, the company developed a plastic-lined can that did not impart off-flavors to the beer. Major brewers were reluctant, however, to commit their beer, and reputations, to an untested technology. In 1934, the Newark-based Kreuger Brewing Company tested the products in 1,000 Richmond, Virginia, households with positive results. On January 24, 1935, the first canned beer reached the general market and by February Kreuger was outselling larger brewers such as AnheuserBusch. By late 1935, Felinofel Brewery in Wales introduced bottle-shaped cans to the country, but with less successful results. Originally constructed of tin-plated steel that could withstand the pressure of carbonated beer, early beer cans came in the cylindrical, flat-ended style that is still in use in the early 21st century, and the bottle shape fell out of favor. Flat-top cans initially required an additional opener—colloquially known as a “church key”—to slice a triangular hole in one end. In the 1950s consumers could access beer in flat-top cans via a pulltab attached to a ring that, once removed, left a wedge-shaped hole in the top of the can. By the 1970s concerns about pollution and the danger from sharp-edged remnants of discarded pull-tabs
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prompted the invention of a tab that remained on the can after opening. World War II interrupted the production of steel cans, and in 1959 Coors introduced a lighter weight, cheaper aluminum can. By the late 20th century, the major brewers sold beer in cans. The use of cans has a number of advantages over glass. Cans, which weigh less than bottles and do not shatter, can be packaged, stacked, and shipped more efficiently. Earlier cans were meant to be disposable, as opposed to glass bottles, which required inspection for chipping and cracks before reusing. Thinner walled cans also chill more easily. In the late 1960s, the Guinness Brewery invented a system for infusing canned beer with nitrogen in order to imitate the taste, appearance, and mouthfeel of nitrogenated draught Guinness Stout. To infuse the beer, a hollow ball called a widget resides in the bottom of the can and is filled with beer and a mixture of carbon dioxide and liquid nitrogen. Once the can is sealed, the liquid nitrogen warms and turns to gas, and the pressure of the carbon dioxide keeps the nitrogen inside the widget. The nitrogen is released once the can is opened. Technological developments in the 21st century have eliminated the metallic taste earlier cans seemed to impart to beer, and environmental concerns have driven more brewers to eliminate bottling lines in favor of canning. While standard cans contain 12 fluid ounces of beer, brewers have also introduced unique cans in a range of sizes mean to set their products apart from others. The Beer Institute, an industry membership organization focused on information and advocacy, maintains annual sales figures for beer shipped in three types of containers. In 1981, the earliest year for which information is available, beer shipped in cans accounted for 53 percent of the market. That number rose to a high of 60 percent in 1991, dropped to 48 percent by 2003, and then rose steadily back to 53 percent in 2012. Beer in nonrefillable bottles initially made up 23 percent of all shipped beer, rose to a high of 42 percent in 2004, and slid back to 36.5 percent by 2012. Draught beer in kegs stood at 12 percent in 1981, rose to 13 percent the next year, and then dropped to 9 percent in 1999 before rising to 10 percent in 2012. The institute began tracking beer
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shipped in plastic in 2005, but the total has never accounted for more than one-half of 1 percent of all beer shipped in the United States. Andrew McMichael Western Kentucky University See Also: Ale; Ancient World, Drinking in; Archeological Evidence; Beer; Guinness. Further Readings Hornsey, Ian S. A History of Beer and Brewing. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2003. McGovern, Patrick E. Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. Nelson, Max. The Barbarian’s Beverage: A History of Beer in Ancient Europe. London: Routledge, 2005. Ogle, Maureen. Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2006. Smith, Frederick H. The Archaeology of Alcohol and Drinking. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008. Unger, Richard. Beer in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.
Beer Pong A drinking game popular particularly among college and high school students, beer pong is believed to have originated at a college in Eastern Pennsylvania in the very late 1970s, or perhaps as late as 1980. An earlier version—traced by some to Dartmouth in the late 1950s—actually may have involved hitting a ping pong ball with a paddle, but as beer pong has developed, it is a kind of cross between this and the old drinking game of quarters. The purpose in both cases is to get the object (whether a ping pong ball or a quarter) into the opponent’s cup or glass of beer, in which case the opponent chugs the beer in the glass or cup. Beer pong was originally played on a ping pong table, but now there are regulation beer pong tables: In fact, any flat surface of sufficient size will do. Cups of the size of a red or blue Solo cup are commonly used. The idea is to arc, line, or
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Participants at the third annual 2008 World Series of Beer Pong in Las Vegas, Nevada. The World Series of Beer Pong determined that a regulation beer pong table should measure 8 feet by 2 feet by 27.5 inches. Beer pong is thought to have emerged at a college in Eastern Pennsylvania in the late 1970s or in 1980, and it now has sets of standard rules that differ by region or university.
bounce the ping pong ball into one of the opposing team’s cups, filled initially to a certain level with beer: If the ball stays in the cup, an opposing player quickly drinks the beer. At the beginning of the game (generally played with two or four to a side, though a singles game is possible), the teams are at either end of the table behind their cups. The cups (usually 10 on each side) are arranged in equilateral triangles, with the single-cup point of the triangle pointing at the other team. Cups are usually disposable plastic red or blue Solo cups of 18 U.S. fluid ounces. The table may be a regulation ping pong table or—now more likely—a regulation beer pong table of 8 feet by 2 feet by 27.5 inches. (The regulating agency is the World Series of Beer Pong [WSOBP].) The balls used are regulation ping pong balls of 38 mm (1.5 in.) or 40 mm (1.6 in.) diameter. Game play has developed standard regional rules (for example, Ivy League or West Coast) and house rules (specific to a college or university or other venue, including private cellars and recreation rooms). To minimize arguments, these rules
should be posted, though arguments are likely to ensue anyway. The beer used is most commonly a pale lager or light beer. Rules define the order of shots—in the common four-person game, either both players on one team and then both on the other, or alternating single shots, one team and then the other. They define what happens when a cup is made—that is, when the ball enters and stays in the cup—the beer in the cup generally being drunk off immediately and removed from the table. Rules may allow reracking (or rearranging or reforming or consolidation) of remaining cups after some have been removed. Rules may also allow blowing or fingering (or finger-batting) the ball out of the cup if the ball is spinning around the rim. Rules may also allow a rollback (or reshoot or bonus shot) if a team (of two) makes both shots during its turn. There are three common ways of shooting the ball—the arc, the fastball (or, regionally, the laser, the snipe, or the laser snipe), and the bounce shot. The most common is the arc shot, though under rules where knocking over the opposing teams
cups is permitted, the fastball is said to be sometimes preferred, possibly in games where root beer is substituted for beer or the game cups contain water with beer in a separate set of drinking cups. (Obviously, no one wants to waste beer by knocking over the cups and spilling the beer.) Under rules where a bounce shot may be swatted away on the bounce, it may count double if made, though this has not been observed to be common. Observation suggests that arc shots and bounce shots are the most common, though snipe or laser or fastball shots, if successfully made, seem to confer greater immediate prestige. Rules may also provide for special penalties for a shutout (10 cups to nothing loss). The most common penalty for the losing team may be to fill the cups again and drink them down. The whole question of penalties is confused by the fact that the purpose of beer pong is to have the contestants drink beer, so a penalty requiring additional drinking is not exactly a penalty. If a Solo cup is two-thirds filled with a beer that is 5 percent alcohol by volume (ABV), each cup contains 0.6 ounce of alcohol, and 10 cups divided equally by a two-person team will provide each player with three ounces of alcohol. If there are 12 players (thus, 6 two-person teams), and each team plays the other five, there will be 15 games and 3 ounces of alcohol per person per game, with four players per game, or four times 45 ounces of alcohol for the 15 games divided among 12 players, or 15 ounces of alcohol per player. (Customarily, the beer left in the winning team’s cups is consumed by someone.) Evidence suggests that the most common age group for beer pong players (except perhaps in WSOBP matches, which are public) is 18 to 21, though 17 to 22 would of course make up a higher percentage of the total. Players are mostly male. The motion, athleticism, and rowdiness of the game seem to be considered as pluses by the participants. The question for underage participants is why it is preferable to drink beer through playing beer pong rather than simply drinking beer. The answer seems to be that it provides a degree of organization for the endeavor, besides making it more fun and adding competition. Past beer pong games are remembered as happy drinking occasions, mostly even by the losers (who probably got to drink more beer).
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The old game of quarters, now largely replaced by beer pong, was more sedate, less athletic, more (as one observer once said) like beer tiddlywinks than beer pong—and besides, there was always the danger of swallowing the quarter in the bottom of the glass. Ping pong balls do not often get swallowed. Younger beer pong players seem to disdain the use of water, except for the water cup kept to dunk (wash) the ball before a throw. Because beer pong is a beer-drinking game, the general belief is that the cups should contain beer rather than having water in the target cups and beer cups on the side. In some instances, the alcohol content of the cups may be raised significantly by an admixture of some liquor, and stories have been heard of adding grain alcohol. Although there are publicity pictures for beer pong showing tables with tablecloths in brightly lit, aboveground surroundings, research suggests— at least anecdotally—that the ambience of the game is more often that of cellars or back rooms at fraternity houses. Devotees claim it is a sport, not a game—which fits in with its athleticism and the age cohort of those involved, so the ambience of the game should probably be amended to the ambience of the sport. There is also at least one local brew called Pong Beer, and several recent films have beer pong in their titles or subtitles. Jared Lobdell Independent Scholar See Also: Bar Bets; Beer Runs; Drinking Games; Student Culture, College and University. Further Readings Applebaum, Ben and Dan DiSorbo. The Book of Beer Pong. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2009. Borsari, Brian. “Drinking Games in the College Environment: A Review.” Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education, v.48 (2004). BPong.com. http://www.bpong.com (Accessed March 2014). Zamboanga, Byron L., Barbara D. Calvert, Siobhan S. O’Riordan, and Elan C. McCollum. “PingPong, Endurance, Card, and Other Types of Drinking Games: Are These Games of the Same Feather?” Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education, v.51/2 (2007).
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Beer Runs Beer Runs are distance-running competitions where participants consume alcoholic beverages at set points before and during the race. Currently, beer runs are a popular subset of interval runs, 5Ks, and half marathons, and are held in both the United States and abroad. All beer runs involve a combination of distance running and alcohol consumption; both the distance of the race and the level of beer consumption vary. One type of race is a “beer mile”; here, a runner must begin the race by drinking a 12-ounce beer with a minimum alcohol content of 5 percent. Then, the runner must consume three more beers, at quarter-mile intervals. This type of interval race is physically challenging for a runner because of the dehydrating effects of alcohol. In many races, if a runner vomits before finishing the mile, he or she must complete an additional quarter-mile lap as a penalty. In 2011, an Australian man broke the world record for the fastest beer mile, completing the race in just over five minutes. Another variant of a beer mile requires a runner to consume all four beers before the start of the race. Beer mile competitions have strict rules regarding the types of beer and beer containers that runners may use. According to rules posed on Beermile.com, competitors must drink cans of beer that hold no less than 355 milliliters, and bottles may only be substituted if they are the equivalent of 10 ounces, or 355 milliliters. In addition, the beer used in the competition must be no less than 5 percent alcohol by volume, and hard ciders and hard lemonades are not permitted. In addition, competitors are prohibited from using wide-mouth cans and may not engage in “shot gunning” (puncturing the bottom of the beer for faster consumption) or “frommeling” (repeatedly hitting the beer can against one’s forehead until its opens). Other beer runs are modeled after traditional distance races; here, participants run distances of 5, 10, or 15 kilometers, with beer stops available during the race. At the conclusion of these races, runners participate in a celebration, often held at a local bar or pub. For example, the Oldsmar 5K held in Oldsmar, Florida, offers participants the opportunity to “run for 30 minutes and drink beer for 2 and a half hours.”
As with traditional running competitions, in beer runs participants are classified into divisions based on age. The following divisions are widely used: “masters,” which includes runners age 30 and up; “super masters,” applying to people 40 and up; “grand masters” for people age 50 and up; and “super grand hash masters,” for people age 69 and up. A separate division is reserved for “clydesdales,” namely runners who are at least 35 years old and weigh over 200 pounds. Beer runs take place throughout United States as well as internationally. Some cities that host popular beer runs are Cincinnati, Ohio; New York City; Sacramento, California; and San Francisco, California. History of Beer Runs Although there is no definitive opinion regarding the origins of contemporary beer runs, they are closely modeled on the runs conducted by the Hash House Harriers, a running club created by British soldiers stationed in Malaysia in the 1930s. The club, which defined itself as “drinking club with a running problem,” created a cross-country running activity modeled after the children’s game of hare and hounds; in the game, a “hare” first marks a trail by leaving clues, such as dashes of flour, chalk marks, or a circle of quarters. Then, the other participants (the “hounds”) must follow the trail and find the hare. In the game, the hare will engage in misdirection by planting false clues that lead to dead ends. In the variants practiced by the Hash Hound Harriers, alcohol is consumed before, during, and after the run. The club derived its name from the Hash House, an establishment across the street from a popular bar in Kuala Lumpur. Currently, there are thousands of hash clubs globally. Modern clubs hold hash runs in both rural and urban areas; runs are typically five miles in length, and are held monthly. One of the most popular hash runs is the Red Dress Run; hash clubs host these runs annually in the United States, Australia, Malaysia, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom. This tradition began in 1987 after a woman in a red dress celebrated with a group of hashers after a run; the next year, the San Diego Hash House Harriers held its first Red Dress Run, requiring both male and female participants to wear a red dress.
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Health Effects Though competitions featuring beer have become popular with both competitive and amateur runners, there is no definitive conclusion regarding the impact of alcohol on athletic performance. In the past, many athletes believed that alcohol would enhance performance, and coaches often gave runners alcohol mixed with egg whites. In fact, in 1904, Thomas Hicks, the gold medalist in the Olympic Marathon used a mixture of brandy, protein, and the stimulant strychnine to improve his energy in the hot and humid conditions. A 2000 study by C. P. O’Brian and F. Lyons found that alcohol was the most commonly consumed drug among athletes; however, alcohol consumption appears to increase the frequency of sports injuries. Specifically, the study found that among athletes who drank, the rate of injury was 54.8 percent, while nondrinking athletes had an injury rate of 23.5 percent. In addition, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends that athletes refrain from drinking 48 hours prior to an athletic competition, since alcohol impairs motor skills, such as hand-eye coordination, and its diuretic properties can inhibit aerobic performance in athletes. Other researchers note that drinking prior to a race may cause fatigue and sleep disruption while ultimately diminishing athletic performance. Kelly McHugh Steven Bramley Florida Southern College See Also: Bar Bets; Beer; Drinking Games. Further Readings Aschwanden, Christie. “Beer Run!” Runner’s World. http://www.runnersworld.com/drinks-hydration/ beer-run (Accessed November 2013). Beermile.com. “Frequently Asked Questions.” http://www.beermile.com/faq.beer (Accessed November 2013). O’Brian, C. P. and F. Lyons. “Alcohol and the Athlete.” Sports Medicine, v.29/5 (2000). “Oldsmar 5K.” Oldsmar5k.com. https://old smartaphouse5k.com (Accessed February 2014). Sekula, Sarah. “A Drinker’s Guide to Running the World.” CNN Travel. http://www.cnn.com/ 2013/05/28/travel/hashers-running-around-the -world (Accessed November 2013).
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Beerhouses The free trade in beer that existed in England and Wales between 1830 and 1869 is a noteworthy episode in the history of an activity—the retail sale of alcoholic drinks—more usually associated with forms of regulation. Under a single piece of legislation, the Beer Act of 1830, householders could open premises for the sale of beer—beerhouses—without the hitherto necessary license from magistrates, which remained a requirement for public houses selling spirits and wines. The measure affected the drinking scene in a number of more or less unpredicted ways, itself perhaps a salutary lesson for framers of laws over drinking and drinking places, until after many years of complaint, the power of licensing such establishments was returned to the magistracy. The origins of the Beer Act lay in the early 19thcentury movement for free licensing and, more broadly, free trade. Critics focused upon the alleged arbitrary conduct of licensing magistrates in their grant or refusal of licenses to trade in liquor and the growing practice of control, and with it supply, of public houses by brewery companies, the so-called tied-house system. In a period when beer was regarded as a necessity of life and consumed by all sections of the population, it was argued that its sale should be as unrestricted as that of bread. Furthermore, it was asserted, the law of supply and demand would ensure that no man would enter the trade just to be ruined. More immediate reasons for the act’s passage included the government’s desire to assuage the then-distressed state of agriculture by giving a boost to barley production, to wean people away from drinking unwholesome spirits and not least, to provide a much-needed lift to its own popularity. Despite a considerable degree of opposition to the proposed measure, notably from existing publicans and brewers worried about the competition and, more broadly, by those fearful of the consequences for public order, the government pressed ahead, bolstered by the findings of a committee of members of parliament largely favorable to its introduction. The measure itself then duly inaugurated free trade in beer. The aspiring beerhouse keeper no longer needed to apply to magistrates for a license to trade; a fee to the excise was now all that was required. There were some rules,
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however. The proposed house had to be of a minimum value; a surety for good conduct had to be provided; stricter opening hours than for licensed public houses had to be observed, although at 4 a.m. until 10 p.m., these were still generous; and the house had to display a sign bearing the proprietor’s name and the words Licensed to sell Beer by Retail. The act itself did not actually use the term beerhouse, but as this was already used to describe public houses that did not sell spirits, it naturally became common, along with beershop or beerseller or retailer of beer as well as nicknames like tom and jerry or simply jerry shop. The new houses also quickly adopted the sorts of names in use for existing public houses—Red Lion, Royal Oak and the like. The effect of the new law was dramatic. In the first full year of its operation, almost 32,000 beer licenses were granted to trade alongside some 50,500 publicans. Thus, more than one in three retailers of drink was a new beerseller. Without them, there would have been one drinking place for every 275 inhabitants of England and Wales; with their introduction, that now rose to one for every 168. They opened throughout the country, but their incidence was broadly relative to the existing provision of public houses. Rural communities hitherto with just one public house, or even none at all, might now have two or three new beerhouses. Established towns and cities all now were furnished with these new establishments; more than 1,200 opened in London. But, the most dramatic effect was in the growing towns and cities of industrializing England; in towns such as Birmingham, Bradford, Leeds, Manchester, and Salford, the number of beerhouses within just a few years exceeded that of licensed public houses. No one seems to have foreseen the extent to which the opportunity afforded by the act would be grasped. Critics were, however, quick to point to the baleful consequences of the new measure for public order. In addition to drunkenness, immorality, and petty criminality, riot and subversion were said to emanate from them, compounded by the very lack of oversight exercised over them by magistrates and by their class exclusivity, frequented as they were by working people, without the leaven of respectability said to be found in public houses. But, this is certainly not the only story. The system did indeed create business opportunities for
some working men, usually, but not wholly, from among the more skilled or small tradesmen. Typical were the six men who took out beer licenses within the first month at Hedon, in the East Riding of Yorkshire: a mariner, horse breaker, baker, tailor, shoemaker, and laborer. Many indeed continued their previous occupations alongside the beer trade, in which case, the wife would run the business. For this reason, beerhouses often took the name of the landlord’s occupation or that of many of the customers, like the Mason’s, Miner’s, Butcher’s, or Farmer’s Arms, among many. The framers of the legislation also had hoped to give a boost to brewing by individual beerhouse keepers. Although this happened, it was more common for the new traders to be supplied by wholesale breweries, as had been predicted by some brewers. Brewers also often provided the necessary money to set up in business, and in this way, and also through ownership or leasing, they in fact expanded the tied-house system, which free trade had sought to inhibit, in another of the legislation’s unforeseen consequences. Because they were opened in private houses, beerhouses were small, often just one or tworoomed premises. But larger ones were created by combining two or more cottages into one beerhouse or by converting an existing shop. Some came to be purpose built, especially if the proprietor aspired to apply for a license to sell spirits, as many did. All adopted, if on a more modest scale, the internal layouts of existing public houses, with their bars, taprooms, and parlors. In these rooms, predominantly working men, but some women too, gossiped, played games like dominoes or cards, or made music. They also offered space for meetings of workers’ organizations, such as trade unions or friendly societies. Criticism and Decline Despite this picture of usually trouble-free conviviality, the beerhouse was from its creation subject to criticism by the respectable and governing classes, who of course, it must be said, did not frequent them. But, notwithstanding the volume of this opposition, the system endured, with only minor modifications in respect of the value of the premises and, more importantly, in the creation of a separate off-license for some 40 years. By the late 1860s, by which time there were around
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49,000 beerhouses, enthusiasm for free licensing had waned. At the same time, magistrates had come to be more highly regarded than their predecessors of the 1820s. Parliament was therefore disposed to support a private member’s proposal in 1869 to restore the requirement for a magistrates’ license to sell beer as well as spirits. That there were indeed a minority of badly run houses is perhaps suggested by what followed. At the first licensing sessions after the new act came into force, magistrates throughout the country refused to grant them on various grounds relating to applicants’ conduct: permitting drunkenness, disorder, prostitution or thievery. Some 13 percent of existing beerhouses were closed as a result. The new law met with general approval, and its effect in weeding out the most disorderly houses was praised by another parliamentary committee. The beerhouse as an entity continued to trade, but their numbers now reduced progressively as some were granted full licenses to sell spirits, but as many more fell victim to the redevelopment of town centres and slum clearance. By 1901, there were just over 29,000 beerhouses. Licensing legislation in 1904 to permit the closure of pubs no longer deemed to be suitable or required by the public affected the more humble beerhouses disproportionately. By 1939 a little more than 17,000 remained. In the postwar period, they disappeared. During their existence, they were an important, if sometimes overlooked, feature of the drinking scene, but while the United Kingdom has seen since the 1960s a progressive relaxation of licensing regulations, there has been no innovation as dramatic as free trade in beer. Paul Jennings University of Bradford See Also: Drinking Establishments; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 19th Century; Pubs; Taverns; Victorian England. Further Readings Harrison, Brian. Drink and the Victorians, The Temperance Question in England 1815–1872, 2nd ed. Keele, UK: Keele University Press, 1994. Jennings, Paul. The Local: A History of the English Pub. Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2007.
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Belgium While is it true that Belgium has some small reputation in wine circles and enjoys a vibrant tradition of imbibing various spirituous liquors, it is celebrated among beer aficionados as the home of the world’s most interesting beers. Nestled among Germany, The Netherlands, France, and Luxembourg, little Belgium is heir to many influences and pressures. Out of that nexus flow some of the finest and most complex beers in the world. Abbey ales and Trappist beers are the most commonly known among that fraternity, but various other beers are now becoming justly celebrated for their subtlety and variety. In cities like Brussels, Bruges, and Antwerp, vast numbers of labels and taps are on display in beer outlets and bars. In the neighboring Netherlands, Belgian-style beers and beer bars proliferate. The In de Wildeman and Café Mokum beer bars in Amsterdam feature Belgian beers and cheeses and are as well known to beer fanciers as the Bulldog Coffee Shop is to cannabis fans. Belgian-style beer bars have quite recently proliferated in the United States as a result of the microbrew revolution of the 1990s and early 21st century and the raising of beer alcohol limits by state legislatures. Today, almost all major American cities have at least one faux Belgian-style beer bar featuring many bottled beers and beers on tap, though not all are Belgian or even Belgian-style brews. Even a minor city but major beer pilgrimage site like Asheville, North Carolina, has three bars with a Belgian motif. It should be noted that beer tourism is a growing industry in the United States as well as in the Low Countries, and beer Baedekers exist that discuss breweries, beer-drinking terminology, and etiquette and amplify on the different varieties of beer to be found in Belgium. A Belgian-Style Beer Bar From the outside, a typical Belgian-style beer bar looks like any other café in the Low Countries. However, there may be a sign signifying that certain brands of Belgian Trappist or abbey ales are sold within. The ubiquitous signs promoting Heineken, Palm, or Bavaria are nowhere in evidence. The walls are typically of wood paneling, much like a Dutch brown café; there is a modest wooden bar and a chalkboard on the
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wall listing various beers that are on tap. Special offerings of rare and prized bottled beers may be listed there as well. More mundane but still exotic bottled beers will be listed on a separate menu, and there will typically be many from which to choose. Some customers prefer the consistency of a bottled product to tap beers, which may be seen as somewhat watery. One will not expect to see Budweiser, Miller, or even more-common European beers such as Palm or Heineken on that bill of fare. Food offerings will be limited to excellent local or Trappist cheese plates and various sliced meats. Cooking is unusual in this context, as people come to sample beer, clear their palate, and sample yet more higher quality beers. Accordingly, the cost of the beers is high, and the appropriate demeanor is one of appreciative and thoughtful sipping, not gulping or manifesting rowdy raillery. Most, though not all, customers are male, and the conversation is quiet and predominately concerns beer. It is not uncommon for some customers to sip beer, read the local paper, and chat quietly for hours. The bartender or owner is expected to be extremely conversant with quality beers and to provide new beers for the locals and tourists alike. Beer is almost always served in relatively small amounts (as it can be quite strong) in a glass emblazoned with the name of the appropriate brewery and shaped in a distinctive manner. Some glasses are like a typical Champagne glass, while others are like a goblet or chalice. Each shape is seen as appropriate to the flavor and texture of the beer. To serve such a beer in a small pub glass would be seen as a great faux pas. Belgian Beers Abbey ales or beers are beers that may be brewed presently or in the past by a religious order of monks. Such beers include Affligem, Corsendonk, Grimbergen, Maredsous, and Val-Dieu, to name only a few. These beers may be singles, doubles, or triples. Singles are generally lower in alcohol content, while doubles usually vary from 6 to 7 percent. Triples are often at least 9 percent alcohol and are considered for tourists or connoisseurs. They may be as high as 13 percent, have quite a kick, and taste more like a liqueur than a beer. In centuries past, monks would make three runs of beer through the barley malt mash. The
first run would produce the triple, the second, the double, and the third would produce small beer, or the single. The single was most frequently drunk with meals and used most regularly by the monks. Double beers would be reserved for feast and saint days (of which there are many in the Roman Catholic calendar), and the triple would be sold in markets. This distinction remains today. Some abbey beers, usually singles, are blond, but most doubles are brown (bruin). Most triples in the past were brown, but many are now blond. Trappist beers are beers that are presently certifiably brewed by monks in specific Belgian Trappist monasteries and bear a distinctive seal attesting to such provenance. Contemporary Trappist brews are Achel, Chimay, Orval, Westmalle, the rare and almost unobtainable Westvleteren, and the exquisite Rochefort. These beers are regarded as the finest beers available and are the subject of books, Internet sites, and blogs, much conversation in beer bars, and the destination of many a beer pilgrim. Saisons, also known as farmhouse beers, are beers that are reputedly brewed from a variety of sources but are thought to be seasonal, that is, summer, beers emanating from rural origins. They are typically weaker than abbey beers (about 5 percent alcohol) but have a sharpness and hoppy quality not found in abbey beers. A few saisons are de Pipaix, Dupont, Regal, Voisin, and Straffe Hendrik. They are considered easier to drink and less heavy than other Belgians. White beers, usually brewed with a high wheat content, are increasingly popular in the United States. They are light, refreshing, and often spiced and are often considered summer beers. They include Hoegaraarden, Blanche de Buxelles, Blanche de Namur, Limburgse Wit, and Wittekerke, to name only a few. Kriek, and other beers sometimes called lambics, also enjoy popularity in the United States. They are brewed with sour cherries in a rather involved and complex process and are somewhat syrupy. Oddly, they appeal to some beer fanciers as a dessert beer and have appeal to younger drinkers. They range from 5 to 7 percent in strength. Some well-known brands are Timmermans, Lindemans, and Mort Subite. Other Belgian beers include the very popular Palm, Duvel and Sloeber (Joker). Excellent brown
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ales are a staple, and some British- and Scotchstyle ales are also making some headway in Belgian markets. The categories and brands outlined here do scant justice to the great range and variety within the various Belgian brewing traditions. Belgian beers are currently profoundly influencing brewing in the United States. Francis Frederick Hawley Western Carolina University See Also: Abbey Ales; Europe, Western; Farmhouse and Belgian Ales. Further Readings Dubrulle, B. Petit Fute’ Guide to Belgian Beers. Brussels, Belgium: Neocity, 2005. Jackson, M. Great Beers of Belgium. Boulder, CO: Brewers, 2006. Oliver, G. The Oxford Companion to Beer. New York: Oxford, 2012.
Belvedere Belvedere, which is produced in Poland, is the best selling vodka in the United States. Millennium Import of Minneapolis began importing it for American consumption in 1996. A luxury product, Belvedere vodka is intended to be drunk straight and very cold. Since 2010, the company has begun referring to itself as “Belve,” which is pronounced like the word bell followed by the word vie, the French word for life. The name is often written as “BELieVE.” These variations on the Belvedere name result from efforts to expand Belvedere’s customer base and heighten its appeal to discriminating drinkers. These concepts are integral to Belvedere’s ongoing advertising efforts. The Belvedere brand has become closely associated with the music industry, particularly with the hip-hop element. The company worked with Apple to launch the Rolling Stone application for the iPhone and maintains a presence at the annual Cannes Film Festival. Belvedere has a strong presence on social media, claiming over 1 million
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“Friends” on Facebook and more than 10,000 followers on Twitter. Additionally, Belvedere has been involved with the battle against the HIV/ AIDS epidemic in Africa. In 2003, Belvedere partnered with RED, an organization created in 2006 to raise funding for the organization by musician Bono and activist Bobby Shriver, to produce the Belvedere Vodka RED Special Edition Bottle. Belvedere is also an official sponsor of the PGA tour, which helps attract sports fans to the product. The Vodka Belvedere was originally established at Polmos Zyradów, Poland, in 1910 as the Distillery and Rectification of Spirit and Vodka by Dawid and Mejer Pines. The company did not begin producing Belvedere vodka until 1993. Under communism, the state and Millennium had jointly run the company. It was privatized in 2001, and Millennium became the major shareholder. In 2005, LVMH (Moët Hennessy), a Paris-based company that produces luxury products that include everything from spirits to leather goods, acquired a 70 percent share in Millennium. Like all vodkas, the basic ingredients of Belvedere vodka are ethanol and water. Belvedere handcrafts its vodka using Dankowskie Gold Rye, which is grown entirely in Poland using artesian water from its own wells. Belvedere distills its vodka four times, a technique that has been used in Poland for six centuries. Belvedere products include a range of fruit-flavored vodkas such as black raspberry, pink grapefruit, and citrus orange. While Belvedere enthusiasts drink the product straight, the company’s Web site offers a range of vodka recipes to make drinks such as the Belvedere Vodka Mule, the Belvedere Mediterranean Pitcher, the Belve Beat, and the Puebla Punch. In 2012, the company introduced Lemon Tea vodka, which contains lemon, honey, ginger, lemongrass, chamomile, and both black and green tea. In 2001, Belvedere sold 160,000 cases of vodka. Within a year, sales had climbed to 320,000 cases. The company’s growth was due in great part to the $3.8 million spent on advertising media but was also the result of an overall pattern of growth within the liquor industry. In a 2002 advertising campaign produced by Clarity Coverdale Fury based in Minneapolis, Belvedere promised consumers that “the only shortcut we use is from the
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distillery to the tasting room.” Designed to convince consumers that Belvedere appeals chiefly to discriminating customers, the ad appeared in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. In 2003, a $20 million campaign designed by Wiedon + Kennedy of Portland, Oregon, asked vodka drinkers, “Do you need a drink or do you deserve a Belvedere?” A 2013 campaign produced by BBDO, a global advertising entity, focused on the quality of Belvedere vodka and emphasized its Polish origins. Commercials ran on TBS, Comedy Central, ESPN, and Spike TV. Some aspects of the campaign targeted the print media while others promoted links to the music industry. The Music Scene In order to appeal to the hip young crowd that frequents music festivals and buys popular music, Belvedere has become ubiquitous at music festivals. For instance, in 2007, Belvedere became an official sponsor of MTV’s Video Music Awards, which were held in Las Vegas. Belvedere also hosted a party for Best Group winner, the rock band Fall Out Boy. Three years later, Belvedere sponsored branded lounges at the Winter Music Conference, which took place at the Raleigh Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida, and the Ultra Music Festival held at Miami Bicentennial Park. In 2012, Belvedere set up the Belve Music Lounge at Lollapalooza. The artist that was most closely associated with Belvedere vodka in the 2000s was Jay Wayne Jenkins, popularly known as “Young Jeezy.” In 2007, the Atlanta-born hip-hop artist took part in Belvedere’s “Luxury Reborn” advertising campaign that built on the notion of Belvedere as the vodka of choice for upscale customers. Two years later, as part of the promotion for Young Jeezy’s Recession album, Belvedere collaborated with the artist on a national tour. The tour was launched at a lavish party held at Love Nightclub in Washington, D.C. Young Jeezy, Jay-Z, and TI performed, and artists such as Beyoncé, Bow Wow, Nelly, and Ashanti attended. Belvedere has also established collaborative relationships with artists including the experimental musician and actor Vincent Gallo and the rapper RZA. Ad Scandal Belvedere has always had a reputation for edgy ads, and the company has sometimes been accused
of being over the top in their advertising. In 2012, the company faced major outrage and a lawsuit in response to an ad that appeared to make light of rape. In March of the year, an ad appeared on Facebook depicting a frightened female who appeared to be held against her will by a male who was fondling her. The tagline read, “Unlike Some People, Belvedere Always Goes Down Smoothly.” The ad, which had been taken out of context, was a screen grab (“Awkward Moments #543) from the Web site of Strictly Viral Productions featuring actress Alicyn Packard, a voice actress who is best known for her performances in animated features and video games, and her friend Chris Strickland. The two were performing a comedy sketch in which Packard’s character is forced by her parents to recreate a scene from childhood. Packard sued Belvedere for emotional distress and for misappropriating her image. Within 45 minutes, Belvedere responded to the uproar by pulling the ad from Facebook and admitting that it was clearly inappropriate. The company also announced that it was making a generous donation to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network. Belvedere has weathered the scandal and continues to produce a high-quality product. The company has won more awards from Vodka Masters than any other vodka distiller in history. In 2013, for example, Belvedere won five gold medals for Belvedere Citrus, Belvedere Unfiltered, and Belvedere Vodka. Vodka Masters acknowledged the quality of Belvedere’s vodka by naming Belvedere an Overall Master based on the superpremium quality of Belvedere Unfiltered. That same year, at the International Spirits Challenge, Belvedere carried home 23 medals and trophies. Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar See Also: Advertising and Marketing, History of; LVMH Moët Hennessy; Poland; Popular Music, Drinking in; Vodka; Vodka Advertising. Further Readings Belvedere Vodka. “About.” http://www.belvedere vodka.com/believe/about (Accessed October 2013). Clarke, Renfrey. A History of Vodka. New York: Verso, 1992.
Goodson, Dave. “Blame It on the Darn Alcohol.” Amsterdam News, v.100/32 (August 6, 2009). Grimes, William. Straight Up or on the Rocks: The Story of the American Cocktail. New York: North Point, 2001. Hein, Kenneth. “Belvedere Catch Is in the Rye.” Brandweek, v.43/14 (April 8, 2002). Mason, Kerri. “Move to the Beat.” Billboard, v.122/13 (April 13, 2010). Mullman, Jeremy. “What’s in a Nickname? In Spirits World, an Implied Warm-and-Friendly Relationship.” Advertising Age, v.81/16 (April 19, 2010). “Vodka Maker Sued Over Ad That Mocked Sexual Assault.” Toronto Star (April 3, 2012).
Betty Ford Center The Betty Ford Center is a recovery center located in Rancho Mirage, California, that offers services for patients dealing with alcohol and other drug addictions. Cofounded by former U.S. first lady Betty Ford, the center was one of the first such treatment centers to receive national publicity. Over the years, many celebrities have undergone treatment at the Betty Ford Center, keeping the facility in the public eye. Many of the approaches used at the center have been popularized through extensive public outreach in such forms as publications, broadcast appearances, the Internet, and other media. The Betty Ford Center continues to be a leading addiction treatment center and has recently announced a merger with the Hazelden Foundation, which will create a new organization to be known as the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. Betty Ford Elizabeth Ann “Betty” Ford was born in 1918, and served as first lady of the United States from 1974 to 1977 during the presidency of her husband, Gerald R. Ford. Popular and outspoken, Ford became known for her willingness to voice her opinions on a variety of matters, including the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), equal pay for women, abortion rights, and gun control. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1974, Ford was one of the first women with this condition to publicly
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acknowledge it. Credited with dramatically raising public awareness of the disease, Ford also became an advocate for self-examinations and other screening processes that allowed for early detection of breast cancer. These behaviors made Ford one of the most popular women in the United States and gave her a sense of credibility and authority that was independent from that of her husband. In 1978, concerned that Ford was drinking to excess, her family staged an intervention, which was a group attempt to get her to confront her addiction and to seek professional help. She underwent treatment for addiction to alcohol and opioid analgesics, which she had originally received a prescription for during the 1960s as treatment for a pinched nerve. At the time she entered treatment, few options existed for those battling with alcoholism or addiction. Alcoholics Anonymous groups provided a variety of services, and several for-profit groups offered treatment options, most of which were very expensive. As with her battle with breast cancer, Ford sought to increase public awareness of the problems of alcoholism and addiction as well as to provide solutions that were accessible to all. She was therefore open about her struggles, discussing her treatment for chemical dependency on television, radio, and through a variety of articles and public appearances. She received treatment for her addictions at the Long Beach Naval Hospital in Long Beach, California. While she was very happy with her treatment, she wanted to ensure that such services were available to a much broader swath of the population. She also believed that women had specific needs in addiction treatment that were not always met in traditional settings. In order to achieve these goals, in 1982 Ford along with Leonard Firestone and James West founded what was then known as the Betty Ford Clinic. History of the Center The Betty Ford Center opened in October, 1982. From the beginning, its mission was to provide effective treatment services for alcoholism and other drug dependencies. Providing in-patient services that typically lasted for 30 days, from its founding the center sought to assure that both women and men had access to first-rate addiction treatment services. To that end, the center reserved
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half of its beds for women and the other half for men. The Betty Ford Center pioneered providing gender-specific services so that the special needs of men and women would be addressed. As a result, since 1989 men and women reside in separate residence halls, where gender-specific issues may be addressed. The Betty Ford Center takes the approach that addiction affects the entire family. Thus, family members of clients are offered services through a five-day family program, and special programming is directed at children aged 7 through 12, who, although not addicted themselves, live with family members who are chemically dependent, such as parents, siblings, or grandparents. Starting out with two male and two female residential clients receiving in-patient services, the center offered services through its family program and intensive outpatient program from the beginning. Within a year, the center was housed on a campus consisting of four buildings and offered 60 beds for inpatient services. By the time of the center’s one-year anniversary, over 400 alumni of the inpatient treatment programs came to celebrate the event. By 1985, the Betty Ford Center had initiated a professional-in-residence (PIR) program. The PIR program allowed health care professionals from around the globe to come to Rancho Mirage and learn about the disease of alcoholism and its treatment. Access to individual clients also helped the PIR program participants to glean insights into how alcoholism and addiction affect the lives of those so afflicted. The PIR program has always worked to meet the needs of specific groups. As a result, special PIR programs have been developed for athletes, women, ethnic minorities, and other groups. By 1986, the center had expanded to 90 beds. International interest in addiction treatment continued to grow, with the president of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, visiting in 1987. By the end of the 1980s, the Summer Institute for Medical Students was started. This program permitted future physicians to attend classes and seminars at the Betty Ford Center in an effort to increase their knowledge about alcoholism, addiction, and treatment. This initiative was undertaken in the hope that more family doctors would recognize alcoholism and addiction as a disease that negatively impacts the health of many
in order to make physicians more amenable to referring patients to treatment facilities and outpatient services. By the early 1990s, the leaders of the Betty Ford Center were contemplating other initiatives to better serve what was seen as an unmet need. To that end, in 1991 an outpatient facility was established in Los Angeles as a means of broadening the scope of the center’s mission. Although it was in operation for little more than a year, the outpost in Los Angeles helped the center to better target services to the needs of those afflicted by addiction. Expansion Throughout the 1990s, the Betty Ford Center worked to expand the services it offered as well as the number of individuals who were aware of and able to take part in those services. The center published several books, brochures, and other articles in an effort to make known the approaches used on-site as well as suggestions for those general people dealing with addiction. An in-residence program was established at the University of California, Irvine Medical School to better train third- and fourth-year medical students in ways of treating patients dealing with addiction. The Children’s Program, under the leadership of Jerry Moe, developed an award-winning curriculum for children dealing with a family member’s addictions. By 1998, the center opened an office in Dallas to provide services to children in Texas. The campus continued to expand, permitting inpatient services to be provided to an increasing number of people at any given time. A pilot program, Focused Continuing Care, began to provide support and encouragement to those who had completed the in-patient program. Focusing upon telephone contact with counselors, the Focused Continuing Care program sought to check in and check up on those who were battling addiction on their own. After 2000, the Betty Ford Center continued to add programs and to expand its campus. The Professional Recovery Program was initiated for health care professionals who are dealing with personal addiction issues, and residential facilities were obtained to house participants. The Chronic Relapse Program was also initiated in an attempt to provide intense levels of support to those who continue to struggle with addiction despite
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repeated efforts to become clean and sober. The 20th anniversary of the Betty Ford Center’s opening was celebrated with a gala attended by former presidents Gerald Ford and George Bush and former first ladies Betty Ford, Rosalyn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, and Hillary Clinton. The Children’s Program expanded to Colorado, and emphasis was placed upon providing health professionals effective ways of detecting addiction so that it could be addressed. In 2005, Betty Ford stepped down as chairman of the Betty Ford Center and was succeeded in this role by her daughter, Susan Ford Bales. The following year, the Betty Ford Institute was formed to provide support for research on addiction and effective means of treatment. Continued renewal of the campus took place, and by the end of the decade the Betty Ford Center was reorganized into three separate divisions: the Betty Ford Recovery Hospital, the Betty Ford Institute, and the Betty Ford Foundation. Beginning in 2010, the Betty Ford Center began offering a pain management track, based upon the realization that many addictions begin when patients become hooked on painkillers or attempt to self-medicate with alcohol. Ford passed away in 2011, but the center that bears her name has continued to begin new initiatives and programs. The Young People’s Track was begun in 2011, in an effort to better meet the needs of young adults between the ages of 18 and 25. Demand for an intensive outpatient program has led to continued modifications regarding how those services are provided. In 2013, the Betty Ford Center received accreditation from the American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM), a step that will permit it to offer a wider range of services.
(ABC) televised The Betty Ford Story that same year, again spending a substantial amount of time detailing her struggles with addiction. In 1990, Ford appeared in the Emmy–award winning documentary Athletes and Addiction: It’s Not a Game, which focused upon the treatment and recovery needs of those involved in sports. The center’s Financial Assistance Program has benefited from celebrity-sponsored events that serve both to raise funds and to make those unable to afford treatment aware of the support available, featuring such stars as Liza Minnelli and Whoopi Goldberg. In 2013, the center announced its decision to merge with the Hazelden Foundation, a Minnesota-based organization with lengthy experience in treating addiction. Like the Betty Ford Center, Hazelden provides a variety of services designed to treat those battling with alcoholism and addiction. Hazelden offers inpatient services in Minnesota, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Oregon. The similar focus upon assessment, treatment, and aftercare made the merger a logical choice, and the newly named Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is now a national leader in addiction therapy.
Outreach and the Future Since it opened, the Betty Ford Center has worked to raise both money for its operation and public awareness of addiction and treatment. To support these efforts, the center has undertaken a variety of initiatives. The center sponsors an annual invitational golf tournament, which raises funds for those unable to pay for treatment services themselves. Ford published her autobiography in 1987, and this best seller deals extensively with her problems with addiction and her subsequent recovery. The American Broadcasting Company
Further Readings Ford, Betty. Healing and Hope: Six Women From the Betty Ford Center Share Their Powerful Stories of Addiction and Recovery. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2003. Greene, John Robert. Betty Ford: Candor and Courage in the White House. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2004. West, James W. The Betty Ford Center Book of Answers: Help for Those Struggling with Substance Abuse—and for the People Who Love Them. New York: Pocket Books, 1997.
Stephen T. Schroth Knox College See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Alcohol Awareness Month; Alcohol Withdrawal Scale; Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture; Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, History of; Detoxification, Health Effects of; Disease Model of Alcoholism; Hazelden Foundation; Rehabilitation Centers, History of; Republican Party, U.S.; Stereotypical Depiction of Alcoholics.
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Binge Drinking, History of
Binge Drinking, History of Binge drinking is the heavy consumption of alcohol over a short period of time with the effect of becoming significantly intoxicated, possibly to the point of inducing blackouts or risking serious medical repercussions. The term in this sense, especially to refer to a public health concern, dates to about the 1980s; “a binge” had previously referred to an extended period of time spent drunk, particularly a period of days, such as is immortalized in Bruce Robinson’s 1987 film Withnail and I. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the noun binge as “a period of excessive indulgence in an activity, especially drinking alcohol,” and dates it to the middle of the 19th century. “Binge drinker” first appears in print in 1969, coined as a contrast with the “heavy drinker,” a chronic alcoholic who drinks steadily but is rarely heavily drunk. The term did not become common until the 1980s. A typical benchmark for binge drinking is five drinks for a man, or four drinks for a woman, in a single session. In its present usage, the term ultimately refers to a level of alcohol consumption considered in excess of what is safe or acceptable as social lubrication. Regular heavy consumption is associated with serious medical problems on virtually every bodily system, including the gastrointestinal, immune, musculoskeletal, cardiac, and neurologic systems. Adolescent binge drinking is associated with adult alcoholism, and statistically, adolescents who binge drink are more likely than their peers to use other drugs as well. Essentially, the purpose of coining the term binge drinking is to characterize different kinds of problem drinking. Interestingly, the 1969 coinage, in a Times of London article, was to draw attention to the fact that binge drinking was not the only kind of problematic drinking—that steady chronic drinkers should also be considered alcoholics, even if they do not “binge.” However, popular culture depictions of alcoholics often focus on the functional alcoholic who drinks frequently but rarely binges, which made it easy to construct “binging” as a normal activity. Just as the 1969 article was concerned with the chronic drinker unaware of his alcoholism, public health
concerns since the 1980s have focused on the weekend binge drinker who similarly considers his behavior normal and unproblematic. Beginning in the 1980s and especially the 1990s, references to binge drinking begin to show up in public health documents and newspaper articles on public health concerns. A large body of research in the 1990s began to develop concerning binge drinking among American college students, while a separate body developed studying binge drinking in Russia and eastern Europe (not exclusively among college students). In contrast with the steady nonstop drinking characteristic of chronic alcoholics, binge drinkers suffer from repeated withdrawal effects, which results in accelerated and more pronounced damage to the brain. Adolescents in particular sometimes believe that regular weekend binge drinking is less irresponsible than chronic drinking, but they may not be aware of the serious effects they face. Brain damage is particularly severe among adolescent brain drinkers, whose brains are still developing until about age 23. Historical Context That said, while the term binge drinking may be new, neither heavy episodic drinking nor concerns over such as a public health problem are new phenomena. The episodic drinker as much as the chronic drinker was a focus of concern for Temperance activists, who pointed out correlations between “drinking bouts” and domestic violence, brawling, and public nuisance behavior (such as rowdiness or public urination). The first wave of Temperance groups focused not on the prohibition of all alcohol but on the advocacy of moderation in alcohol consumption, and so these wild binges were of bigger concern than were chronic alcoholics. Raucous heavy drinking by young people has been common in the West for centuries, particularly after the cost of distilled liquor fell, and it has long been associated with sailors (civilian or Navy) celebrating their brief time on land. A 12th-century history of England, William of Malmesbury’s History of the Kings of England, describes binge drinking (as we would now call it) as endemic to England at the time of the Norman Conquest and even ascribes the Norman victory to the tendency of the English soldiers to drink to excess. Later, in the magazines of the 18th and
19th centuries, frequent references can be found to drinking binges, from fictional portrayals of them to lists of slang terms for drunkenness. This indicates that, while it may not be clear how common binge drinking was in that age before sociological research and public health statistics, there was clearly considerable public interest in discussing binge drinking. Numerous sources attest that heavy drinking at funerals was common in the Anglo-American world in the same period, and in some regions and social circles, this was also true at weddings, baptisms or christenings, and wakes. Drinking also had a different social value in the time before germs were well understood (which did not happen until the 19th century) and drinking water could be kept sterile and safe. Today, an alcoholic beverage for breakfast or even lunch may be taken as a sign of problem drinking, though it remains common in many parts of Europe. In ancient times, alcohol consumption was often considered acceptable at any time of day as long as it accompanied food. This was the practice of the Romans with wine, and debauchery—“problem drinking”—was associated mainly with public drunkenness or drinking excessively without food to soak it up. This attitude was spread by Roman conquest through much of old Europe. For some, the difference between distilled and brewed alcohol was more important. The 18thcentury British illustrations Gin Lane and Beer Street famously caricatured spirits drinkers as decadent and depraved, while beer was a healthful and strengthening tonic. This portrayal was affected in large part by the change to the taxation of gin and beer that resulted in an increased production of gin and reduced cost. While the same situation did not transpire in the United States, the same sort of message was still common: distilled liquor allowed one to become drunk faster, while many beers were low enough in alcohol content that it would take effort to become seriously drunk on them. Early concerns over the widespread consumption of distilled spirits are very similar to those expressed over binge drinking in the 21st century, or drinking in general by Temperance activists in the late 19th century. What is common throughout the history of alcohol in the West, and especially since the late Middle Ages, is that some form of drinking is highlighted and made the subject of a moral
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panic. These moral panics consume the public with concern and are driven by media portrayals, which in some cases exaggerate either the prevalence of the marked behavior or its ill effects. In addition to binge drinking, the 21st century has witnessed moral panics focused on other aspects of youth drinking, from the Internet mail-order purchase of alcohol by minors to the use of the Internet and computers to procure or create fake ID for the purpose of drinking to the use of YouTube and other online video-hosting services to allegedly popularize behaviors like the consumption of vodka through the eyeball. Binge Drinking and Students In the 21st century, more than three-quarters of underage college students have consumed alcohol. Forty-four percent of them binge-drink, and alcohol-related injuries result in 600,000 injured students and 1,800 deaths among students every year. At the University of Arizona, Director of Health Promotion and Preventive Services Koreen Johannessen conducted a survey of the university’s students and discovered that most expressed discomfort with excessive drinking. While this at first seemed to bode well for her efforts to curtail binge drinking on campus, it raised the question of why the binge drinking was happening in the first place if the majority of students were uncomfortable with it. She decided the answer was the difference between private thoughts and public behavior, or in the parlance of educators: peer pressure. Each student drinking more than he’s comfortable with, or encouraging drinking that he’s uncomfortable with, is unaware that the students around him are equally uncomfortable with it. Their lack of awareness of others’ discomfort leads them to continue drinking in order to keep up. The strength and prevalence of binge drinking owe a lot to the public nature of it as a behavior, particularly among college students, binge drinking tends to be associated with parties and gatherings rather than solo or couple actions. Public and observable behaviors are more likely to be discussed, lionized, and made the stuff of anecdotes of the sort that the conventional narrative tells college students they are supposed to be accumulating. Author Jonah Berger, in his book Contagious, a study of how behaviors catch on, contrasts shirts with socks. Shirt styles are
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more subject to changes and trends; a new shirt style introduced by a clothing company will be observed by others and may appeal to them, resulting in more people wearing that kind of shirt. This rarely happens with socks, which are offered in far less aesthetic variation. Shirts are public: socks are, comparatively, private. The power of social influence is easy demonstrated in a study of car purchases conducted by Berger with his colleagues Blake McShane and Eric Bradlow, in which it was shown that people were more likely to purchase cars similar to the cars around them in sunny cities where people commute by car, like Los Angeles and Miami—cities where people have the best view of the other cars in the city—in contrast to New York, where car commuting is less common, or Seattle, where rain and fog more often interfere with visibility. The phenomenon of these college students privately uncomfortable with binge drinking while publicly going along with it is one social psychology calls pluralistic ignorance, the most famous cases of which are the public support for Prohibition, segregation, and the Soviet Union’s communist regime. In these three cases, speaking out against what the individual perceived to be the majority carried a serious stigma. The consequences of college students’ opposing binge drinking might not be as severe or long-lasting, but peer pressure operates by assigning a value to popularity and “coolness,” which can only be bestowed on the individual by the group. Pluralistic ingorance’s role in campus drinking culture was the subject of a 1993 study by Deborah Prentice and Dale Miller, which found, as Johannessen discovered independently later, that private comfort levels with drinking (in this case, among Princeton undergraduates) were much lower than the perceived average, resulting in young men pressuring themselves to drink as much as their cohort, and in the alienation of young women, who—because of an attitude emphasizing drinking as a masculine behavior— experienced less pressure to engage in heavy drinking but were equally uncomfortable with its prevalence. “Subjects’ ratings indicated a sharp divergence between their own comfort and their subjective estimates of the comfort of others,” Prentice and Miller wrote of one of the four studies in their overview. “Although their own
comfort ratings spanned the entire 11-point scale in a relatively uniform distribution, their estimates of the average student’s comfort assumed an almost perfectly normal distribution, with high agreement on an average of approximately 7.” One of the effects of pluralistic ignorance is the experience of the individual in feeling outcast or stigmatized when they deviate from the perceived norm, which can cause nondrinkers or light drinkers to experience self-inflicted social isolation. Further, among enthusiastic heavy drinkers—those who genuinely deviate from the private norm, but uphold the public norm of binge drinking—it leads to the false consensus effect, in which people wrongly believe most people agree with them and feel as they do. The process by which the minority opinion becomes perceived as dominant due to this difference between private and public thought is what political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann calls the spiral of silence. Fear of isolation, whether stemming from anxiety (in the case of binge drinking) or actual threats (as during the south’s battle over segregation), drives the individual who privately condemns a behavior to publicly endorse it or participate in it. This is the centrifugal force that drives the spiral, as the more prevalent the public participation, the deeper the feeling of the individual that his private misgivings are the minority, even deviant, opinion. Binge drinking is a classic example of a situation in which the spiral of silence occurs, as the spiral requires a moral component (discussions of binge drinking are tinged with moralism in a way that sports fandom is not, for example) and significant media coverage. Because it depends on the individual’s fear of social isolation, the spiral also makes sense as something college students—many of whom have just left the comfort of their hometowns and childhood social groups—would be particularly susceptible to. While binge drinking is often seen as a form of rebellion against social norms—that is, the norms of the outside world, the authoritarian and paternal world—it is in fact driven in no small part by the desperate need to conform with the social norms of the young collegiate community. Johannessen’s solution to on-campus binge drinking was to make the private public, by putting ads in the school newspaper citing statistics about student drinking showing that, though
prevalent, binge drinking was not the norm, with a thorough statistical breakdown of drinking habits. While she was concerned with the 31 percent of Arizona students who had five or more drinks in a session, the idea was to focus on social information rather than health consequences, in order to show students who felt uncomfortable that their feelings jibed with the majority. Johannessen’s approach is one that is sometimes called social norms marketing, which originated in public health campaigns in the 1980s, after sociology professors Wesley Perkins and A. D. Berkowitz discovered that students consistently overestimated the average alcohol consumption on campus. Social norms marketing against binge drinking has attracted many advocates, and some efforts have been funded by the Department of Education. Similar campaigns have been extended to address smoking, drunk driving, safe sex, and seat belt use as well. Megabrewery AnheuserBusch funds the National Social Norms Resource Center at the University of Virginia. Social Influences Mass media play a significant role in forming the perception of public opinion. Scare stories and moral panics about collegiate binge drinking actually contribute to it, according to these phenomena, by reinforcing the idea that binge drinking is normal, popular, and has public support. “The public” here means the individual college student’s peers as a whole; knowledge of the disapproval of the off-campus, adult public does nothing to insulate the individual from the stigmas and ostracizing he fears, nor does it offset his feeling of deviation from the norm). One important difference in the moral panic over binge drinking compared to earlier concerns over drinking is that collegiate binge drinking is primarily a middle- and upper-class phenomenon. The “Gin Lane” panic centered on the effect of drunkenness on the poor, who were newly able to get excessively drunk due to the price drop of gin. Temperance, while widespread enough to address concerns of every class, frequently invoked the specter of the idle drunk who was a public menace, and the availability of alcohol to the poor or unemployed. The 20th- and 21st-century concern with high-alcohol “bum wines” like Mad Dog 20/20 and Night Train ostensibly focused on
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concern for the poor and homeless, while often being motivated by fears that the drunken poor would linger in well-off neighborhoods. Concerns about college drinking are fundamentally middleclass concerns, given the minimum costs of college and the small percentage of students who are able either to work their way through college (increasingly more difficult compared to 60 years ago) or attend on a full scholarship. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Amethyst Initiative; Blackouts; Drunken Behavior as Culturally Learned; High-Potency Drinks; Pub Crawls. Further Reading: Berger, Jonah. Contagious: Why Things Catch On. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013. Berridge, Virginia, Rachel Herring, and Betsy Thom. “Binge Drinking: A Confused Concept and Its Contemporary History.” Social History of Medicine, v.22/3 (December 2009). Kimmel, Michael. Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men. New York: Harper Perennial, 2009. Measham, Fiona. “The Decline of Ecstasy, The Rise of ‘Binge’ Drinking, and the Persistence of Pleasure.” Probation Journal, v.51/4 (December 2004). Nuwer, Hank. Wrongs of Passage: Fraternities, Sororities, Hazing, and Binge Drinking. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. Prentice, Deborah A. and Dale T. Miller. “Pluralistic Ignorance and Alcohol Use on Campus: Some Consequences of Misperceiving the Social Norm.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, v.64 (1993). Rotgers, Frederick, Mark F. Kern, and Rudy Hoeltzel. Responsible Drinking: A Moderation Management Approach For Problem Drinkers. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, 2002. Weschler, Henry and Toben F. Nelson. “What We Have Learned From the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study: Focusing Attention on College Student Alcohol Consumption and the Environmental Conditions That Promote It.” Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, v.69 (2008).
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Black Sheep Bitter
Black Sheep Bitter The Black Sheep Brewery, the producer of Black Sheep Bitter, was established in 1992 in Masham, Yorkshire, England, by Paul Theakston, whose family had been brewing beer in the area for generations. Despite the fact that it is more expensive than many other beers, Black Sheep Bitter is one of the top-selling beers in Britain and is a topselling session beer—a beer with a low alcohol volume—in the United States. The methods used to produce Black Sheep products had their roots in the Theakston Brewery, which was founded in Masham in 1827 by Robert Theakston, who had purchased the Black Bull Pub and Brewery. In 1984, family disagreements led to Theakston Brewery being sold outside the family Three years later, the firm was acquired by Scottish and Newcastle, which in turn was acquired by Courage, and ultimately became part of the Heineken spirit empire. While he initially stayed with the company after the sale, Paul Theakston eventually decided to establish his own brewery. That endeavor became the Black Sheep Brewery, which also contains a Visitor’s Center that is used for beer tastings. Visitors can tour the brewery to learn how products are produced. In the early 21st century, the Black Sheep Brewery underwent major renovations, and Paul Theakston added another brew house and a new cask conditioning plant and installed new equipment. The renovations resulted in a 65 percent increase in output. By the 21st century, Black Sheep Bitter and other Black Sheep Brewery products were being sold throughout the United Kingdom in both pubs and retail stores and were being exported around the world. The brewery’s best-selling product continues to be Black Sheep Bitter, which is 3.8 percent alcohol by volume (ABV) and is considered a type of traditional English ale. Fans of Black Sheep Bitter associate its amber straw color with a hoppy, malty, fruity aroma a smooth, fruity taste, and a long, bitter finish. Another major product is Black Sheep Ale (4.4 percent ABV), which is one of the top-10 bottled ales in Britain. The company also specializes in seasonal beers that include Christmas Imperial Russian, Progress, All Creations, and Ruddy Ram.
Background The town of Masham, which is often referred to as the “beer mecca of England,” is located in the Yorkshire Dales, a 680-square-mile (1,762-squarekilometer) stretch of land that straddles the Pennine Mountain Range that runs through northern England and southern Scotland. Masham lies at the junction of Wensley Dale and the Vale of York. With a population of some 2,000 people, the town hosts four pubs. In 1968, at the age of 23, Paul Theakston took over the position of managing director of Theakston Brewery from his father. The Campaign for Real Ale, which had been established in 1971 as a means of improving the quality of British beer products, had helped to increase demand for traditionally produced ale. Trying to meet those demands, Theakston had been forced to allow outsiders to invest in the company in order to finance an additional brewery. That move ultimately proved to be the end of Theakston’s independence since shareholders subsequently voted to sell the company. Disagreements between Paul Theakston and his cousin Michael led to the takeover by Matthew Brown, which was acquired by Scottish and Newcastle in 1987. The following year, Paul Theakston decided to leave Theakston and set up his own brewery. Because the Theakston family has strong ties to the area, Paul Theakston was sure he wanted the new brewery to be situated in Masham. When searching for a new location, Theakston remembered the building that had originally been Lightfoot’s Brewery, which his grandfather had acquired in 1919 and promptly shut down. In 1988, the building was being used to manufacture animal feed. Because Scottish and Newcastle had obtained the right to both the Theakston and Newcastle names, Paul Theakston could not use either name for his new brewery. Consequently, he chose to name his brewery after something that was associated closely with Masham. The town’s sheep-tending history led his wife Sue to hit on the idea of naming the brewery Black Sheep. Paul Theakston managed to avoid the issue of access through Theakston land by having the feed store owners obtain access rights before selling him the property. Theakston financed the endeavor largely through a Business Expansion Scheme.
A view inside the Black Sheep Brewery showing a giant copper vessel used in brewing. Black Sheep Bitter, a top-selling beer in Britain, was the first beer produced by the brewery when it began operations in 1992 using traditional methods.
Determined that his brewery would be traditional, Theakston searched Britain for the kinds of equipment that had been used in brewing English ale for centuries. He located brewing copper, a mash tun, a hop-back, and fermenting vessels at breweries that had been forced to close in the 1990s. The first brew produced by the new brewery in 1992 was Black Sheep Bitter, which was marketed as a classic beer in the Yorkshire tradition. Products Black Sheep Bitter is made from Black Sheep Brewery’s own wells. Maris Otter malted barley, considered the Rolls Royce of barley, and wheat are used to add color and flavor. The company uses a blend of hops that include Challenger, Progress, and the Fuggle that gives the product its famous bite. Black Sheep uses whole English hops rather
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than the hop pellets that have become common in many breweries. The company recommends that pubs use the Dazzler illuminated hand pump to dispense Black Sheep Bitter in order to keep it constantly at the right temperature. In addition to Black Sheep Bitter, the company’s cask ales include Black Sheep Ale, Golden Sheep, and Rigg welter. Products sold by the bottle include Black Sheep Ale, Riggwelter, Golden Sheep, Yorkshire Square Ale, Holy Grail, and All Creatures. Progress Limited Edition and Imperial Russian Stout are special offerings. Black Sheep Bitter has continued to garner awards for Black Sheep Brewery. In 2000, Black Sheep Bitter was named Beer of the Year by the Good Beer Guide. In 2004, Black Sheep Brewery won a Bronze Award at the Brewing Industry International Awards. In 2007, Black Sheep Bitter was named North East’s Favorite Cask Ale at the Best of British Beer Awards. In 2009 and 2010, the company was the winner of the Publican Licenses Choice for Cask Ale Four Percent and Below. In 2009, the company also won the Great British Pub Supplier Award/North Regional Cask Beer Brand and came in second for the Castle Rock Beer of the Year. Contemporary Setting Like most English pubs, Black Sheep has expanded its range, selling a wide variety of bar accessories and creating a more family-friendly atmosphere. Since the mid-1990s, most English pubs have been transformed into family settings that include gardens, restaurants, and various rooms where children are welcome. In the bar areas, cask-conditioned real ales continue to reflect the centuriesold traditions of English pubs. Some pub restaurants have found a new use for Black Sheep Bitter by adding it to fish batter. Black Sheep Brewery maintains a strong presence in local affairs and is regularly involved in the Boots and Beer Walking Festival, where participants are given goody bags containing Black Sheep T-shirts and accessories. The brewery also offers the Black Sheep trophy at the annual Yorkshire Champions Cricket Final. Black Sheep is also present at most book signings in the area. Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar
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See Also: Ale; Beer; Heineken; United Kingdom. Further Readings Beer Hunter. “Paul Theakston Is Brewing Again in Masham: Michael Jackson Hears What the Vicar Thinks of the New Beer.” http://www.beerhunter .com/documents/19133-000133.html (Accessed November 2013). Birdwell, Scott. “Those ‘Old Ales’ Are Unique Beers.” Houston Chronicle (November 17, 2000). Black Sheep Brewery. http://www.blacksheepbrewery .com (Accessed November 2013). Protz, Roger. “The Best of British Pubs.” London Observer (July 27, 1994). Theakston Legendary Ales. http://www.theakstons .co.uk (Accessed November 2013).
Blackouts A blackout is a kind of self-induced amnesia brought on by the sudden, rapid introduction into the bloodstream of a high concentration of alcohol, pharmaceuticals, or some combination of the two. The sudden disruption to the body’s system by the quick ingestion of alcohol (taking a rapid number of shots of high-proof liquor quickly, for instance, or using a device that allows chugging beer or downing multiple glasses of wine on an empty stomach) causes a brain dysfunction in which what brain researchers term the “working memory,” or “short-term memory,” is simply and entirely disengaged. That person, however, is only minimally impaired—he or she can still maintain apparently normal behaviors, carry on conversations, walk about, cook or order and eat food, make decisions, even drive—and yet the brain will shut down any memory processes. These periods of nonmemory can be sporadic, termed “brownouts,” in which the person still maintains the ability to recall patches of events and even bits of conversations with the help of others; or these periods of amnesia can be entire block lapses, termed “en bloc,” in which whole hours or entire evenings or, in extreme cases, days of drinking are not recorded by the memory process. Whether fragmentary or en bloc blackouts,
the person experiences a disconcerting, even frightening feeling of not remembering events that have just happened sometimes just hours earlier. Extensive research has been done in this area of alcohol abuse because the people who experience these blackouts are still able to maintain function, unlike someone who has drunk to the point of passing out and whose body simply and completely suspends operations and enters into a coma-like sleep state. The people who experience blackouts exist in what researchers term the “unsponsored now,” that is, they live entirely within the present tense with little recollection of past behavior and no sense of potential future consequences. Although their judgment is severely impaired, they can nevertheless continue to appear in control of their decisions. Under these conditions, researchers have concluded, a person is capable of ultimately poor judgment. People who experience blackouts, their normative inhibitions gone, have been known to engage in atypical behaviors, including excessive drinking or experimenting with drugs, engaging in unprotected sex, running up enormous bills on credit cards, operating motor vehicles while impaired, engaging in often harmless prankish behavior (often on dares), provoking fights, revealing things to friends or strangers they would have preferred, if sober, not to, and in extreme cases, engaging in violent or even criminal behavior. Indeed, the criminal justice system struggles with how to handle these incidents. People who undergo blackouts have been known to pass polygraphs because they honestly cannot remember their level of involvement in an event, or, as is far more often the case, to confess to criminal activity they did not actually do because they try to fill in the gaps or are convinced because of overwhelming physical evidence to have what is termed “faux recall.” Researchers have tirelessly pointed out that persons impacted by blackouts have not forgotten what happened—their brain has not even stored those events. The reality is those drinkers will never remember on their own what happened. Chemical Process The chemical processes that create blackouts have long been familiar to biochemists and doctors. The process is similar to regular amnesia
and even mimics the symptoms of an epileptic seizure, minor stroke, or any major body trauma that produces memory loss, such as surviving a catastrophic car accident. The quick flood of alcohol interrupts normative information-relaying processes; technically, the alcohol stops the NMDA receptors located in the hippocampus region of the medial temporal lobe, just under the cerebral cortex, from reacting to the glutamate neurotransmitter. The NMDA receptors act as a kind of message relay station that, among many functions, provides inhibitions, so disabling them with alcohol effectively disrupts the short-term memory (indeed the term blackout has come to describe a massive failure in any urban or suburban electrical power grid). This disruption or shorting out means that the person is temporarily acting on impulse, reacting without appropriate judgment or normative controls. Indeed, researchers hotly debate whether, with the brain’s ability to weigh actions effectively disconnected, a person can be held entirely responsible for whatever actions ensue. Moreover, research shows that blackouts do not demonstrate the same patterns or dynamics in all drinkers. Social drinkers, those who drink only on occasion, can be subject to blackouts if they indulge in a relatively minor binge. Blackouts happen more frequently to alcoholics, but habitual or problem drinkers develop a higher tolerance for their intake of alcohol and can require far more alcohol to create amnesiac conditions. Generally women, even when they drink less than men, are far more susceptible to blackouts because of the weight difference and ability to metabolize alcohol. Women generally have less water in their bodies and water is critical in leavening the alcohol as it enters the bloodstream. There are no genetic markers to indicate that some people may be predisposed to blackouts, though people with genetically inherited irregularities in metabolism may be prone to blackouts. Any drinkers who have undergone gastric bypass surgery, which impacts the operations of the digestive system, can be susceptible. Although some drinkers find the occasional blackout more of an annoyance than a concern, researchers have agreed that the tendency to blackouts may indicate a long-term anatomical problem with processing alcohol, in small
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or massive doses, an indicator of alcohol dependency, and even a forewarning of alcoholism. Doctors counsel patients that blackouts are the body’s way to warn the person away from binge drinking and even to avoid alcohol entirely. Cultural Representations Since the dramatic rise in alcohol studies after World War II, blackouts in popular culture, such as songs, films, and eventually television, have been associated with frightening, traumatic, even tragic consequences in which drinkers, unable to recall events, have forever altered their lives or the lives of friends and family. Dozens of pop and country & western songs have portrayed the frightening consequences of blackouts, including barroom fights (even killings) and unintended promiscuity. Postwar American films, most notably Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend (1945), a multiple Oscar-winning portrait of an alcoholic writer, played by Oscar-winner Ray Milland, portrayed the consequences of blackouts as grim and even tragic. Other examples include crooner Bing Crosby’s Oscar-nominated turn as a seedy, alcoholic out-of-work actor trying for a comeback in The Country Girl (1964), and Lee Remick’s heartbreaking Oscar-nominated performance as a housewife seduced by her husband into a downward spiral into alcoholism in Blake Andrews’s Days of Wine and Roses (1962). Police dramas, from Jack Webb’s hugely successful 1950s police show Dragnet to Dick Wolf’s Law & Order franchise in the late 1990s and early 2000s, often used the plot device of alcoholic blackouts to raise significant questions about legal responsibility for heinous criminal behavior. In 2009, however, a wildly successful comedy, The Hangover, altered the depiction of blackouts as tragic, opting instead to treat alcoholic excess and memory loss comedically. The film follows three men (played by Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper, and Zack Galifianakis) who survive a blow-out bachelor party in Las Vegas but cannot remember the chain of events that led to bizarre consequences. Their hilarious struggles to piece together the events of the night-before party found a very receptive audience, particularly among college students, and quickly made blacking out, or total amnesia, part of the comedy of getting really
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drunk. The movie generated two hugely successful sequels as well as a female counter-version (2011’s box office smash and Oscar-nominated Bridesmaids) and the usual echoes in a host of sitcoms and reality shows. Suddenly, blacking out was hip, even cool. Unlike Animal House, a film that a generation earlier had certainly portrayed with much humor drinking binges among college students that led merely to increasingly goofier pranks, these movies dismissed the negative consequences of drinking to the point of blackouts, opting instead to trivialize blackouts as humorous and relatively harmless. Student Culture Dozens of studies conducted over the last five years, many of them commissioned by large universities concerned about the alarming rise in binge drinking among underclassmen, confirm that college students (and underage drinkers in high school) show increasing tendencies to drink to the point of mental collapse. According to these studies, the prevalence of blackouts is alarming: on average, half of college students admit to experiencing a blackout at least once a semester, and one-third admit to experiencing a blackout more than a half dozen times in a single semester. Statistics indicate that students who drink to the point of blacking out are responsible for upwards of $500,000 worth of vandalism on large campuses each year and are more than three times more likely to be injured in drinking-related accidents, vehicular or otherwise. In addition, those students regularly cited for binge drinking by campus police are more than 25 times more likely to have serious academic problems and even drop out of school. The problem is exacerbated by factors particular to the under-25 demographic—many are particularly vulnerable to peer pressure, easily influenced by what they see in movies and on television, and unconvinced of their own vulnerability to blacking out. Irregular or unhealthy dietary habits in this age group represent another contributing factor to blackouts. Drinking on an empty stomach, for instance, greatly increases the blood alcohol content ratio and the chance of blacking out. Because physicians and medical researchers do not consider blackouts to be medical
problems—many in the medical profession view alcohol-related blackouts as the result of poor judgment and excessive behavior—there are no “treatments” per se. Over the past few years, most major universities have set up special counseling centers and health services that provide nonjudgmental environments to help students who experience blackouts because the inability to remember can cause real stress. Unlike hangovers, which can be addressed through hydration and mild painkillers such as aspirin, blackouts are a permanent erasure of memory. One emphasis in alcohol counseling urges that the only real treatment is prevention— drinkers must decide beforehand how much they will drink and when they will stop. Eating within two hours of drinking helps the stomach control the distribution of alcohol into the bloodstream— an empty stomach simply acts as a conduit and the alcohol enters the bloodstream much quicker. Drinkers can avoid the problem entirely by slowing down the pace of drinks consumed, avoiding drinking games that encourage reckless imbibing, and not succumbing to the classic problem with party-drinking, consuming alcohol takes time to register its effects. Drinkers who do not immediately feel the elation associated with alcohol drink more quickly, usually shots, thinking that will bring on the effects quicker. Universities, interested in demonstrating to parents their concern about binge drinking, have posted on Web sites strategies for pacing alcohol consumption, including drinking water, alternating alcoholic drinks with soft drinks, using a watch to time accurately the period between drinks (a half hour is recommended), and even cutting drinks with extra nonalcoholic mixers. Binge drinking, which can lead to blackouts, researchers find, often results from low self-esteem and the desire to fit in. Drinking with friends helps—being surrounded by strangers increases a person’s normal apprehensions over meeting new people and in turn encourages drinking faster. Most important, drinkers are advised to avoid mixing alcohol with any medication, over the counter or prescription, particularly antihistamines and sleep aids. Simply getting enough sleep the night before the drinking event would help—a rested mind is less likely to make the kind of errors in judgment typical of binge drinking. Unofficial underground Web sites, often run by
Bloody Mary
students themselves, even recommend smoking marijuana rather than drinking—marijuana has never been shown to cause blackouts. Ultimately, drinking responsibly is the best prevention of the trauma of a blackout. Joseph Dewey Broward College See Also: Alcohol Abuse, Symptoms of; Binge Drinking, History of; Detoxification, Health Effects of; Films, Drinking in; Heavy Drinkers, History of; Peer Pressure; Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse; Psychological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse. Further Readings Storm, Jennifer. Blackout Girl: Growing Up and Drying Out in America. Center City, MN: Hazelden Publishers, 2008. Sweeney, Donal F. The Alcoholic Blackout: Walking, Talking, Unconscious & Lethal. Santa Barbara, CA: Mnemosyne Press, 2004. Volkmann, Christ and Torren Volkmann. From Binge to Blackout: A Mother and Son Struggle With Teen Drinking. New York: NAL/Penguin, 2006. White, Aaron M. “What Happened?: Alcohol, Memory Blackout, and the Brain” (June 2004). National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/ publications/arh27-2/186-196.htm (Accessed August 2014).
Bloody Mary The Bloody Mary is arguably the most famous breakfast and/or brunch cocktail in the world. Although countless recipes abound, the drink basics consist of vodka and tomato juice or premade Bloody Mary mix. Numerous additions, such as lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce (or hot sauce of choice), horseradish, steak seasoning, bitters, and salt and pepper, may be included in the tomato juice mix. Garnishes may include olives, pickles, celery, cheese curds, mushrooms, lemons, limes, and hot peppers. Meatoriented garnishes can include shrimp, beef jerky,
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crab, bacon, sausage, or oysters. Bloody Mary mixes can be meat, seafood, or veggie based, and gin, tequila, bourbon, or beer can be substituted in various recipes for the traditional vodka Bloody Mary. Furthermore, many establishments offer Bloody Marys prepared with vodkas infused with pepper, hot peppers, or olives. A major appeal of the Bloody Mary is that it is not a spirits-driven drink, as the tomato juice and vodka provide a blank canvas from which to create a diverse and complex cocktail. Origin Although the Bloody Mary’s origin is debatable, the beverage was said to be created and first served by the bartender Fernand “Pete” Petoit of the Paris-based Harry’s New York Bar. The basic recipe of the time consisted of vodka, tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, lemon, salt, and cayenne pepper. Although the creator of the Bloody Mary is more or less agreed upon, the naming of the cocktail is far more disputed. In one account, the concoction was said to be named after the Catholic queen Mary I. She was remembered as “Bloody Mary” due to her rigid persecution of Protestant dissenters whom she burned at the stake. The story follows that the tomato juice symbolizes the blood of her many victims. In another account, one of Petoit’s customers, an unknown American, stated that the fiery red drink reminded him of the Bucket of Blood Club from Chicago. This same man said that the drink reminded him of a girl he knew from that club. Her name was of course, Mary. In another story, the drink was named after Mary Pickford, a movie star after whom another red-colored cocktail has been named. The most plausible story is that the drink originated from Fernand Petoit of Harry’s New York Bar. As the story has it, Petoit, a Frenchman, became familiar with vodka while in Paris. He was friendly with Russian exiles from the 1917 revolution who introduced him to the liquor. He also knew members of the Smirnoff family. Vodka was consumed in Paris much earlier than in America. The Bloody Mary of today is an extension of the earlier drink most likely invented by Petoit, which consisted of crushed-up tomato and spices but no alcohol. Later, he took that concoction, added vodka, and the Bloody Mary was born. However, the Bloody Mary was able to achieve popularity
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and widespread consumption with the arrival of tinned tomato juice, which left obsolete the laborintensive job of crushing and liquefying tomatoes. After American Prohibition ended, a tycoon named John Jacob Astor tried the Bloody Mary, loved it, and brought both the recipe and Fernand Petoit to America. The Astor family owned the Regis Hotel in New York and they needed someone who could make a drink. Astor talked Petoit into coming to the United States and the Frenchman brought with him his recipe for the Bloody Mary. Although the Astor family asserted he rename the cocktail the Red Snapper, since they felt the original name was too dark and crude for their high-end establishment, the name remained. The Bloody Mary quickly became a popular drink in New York City’s numerous watering holes and eventually became known worldwide.
One of the most popular spin-offs of the Bloody Mary is the Bloody Caesar, invented by Walter Chell. In 1969, the owners of the Calgary Inn, in Calgary and Alberta, Canada, asked him to invent a cocktail recipe to represent their new Italian restaurant. Chell, of Italian ancestry, stated that his inspiration came from Italy, which led him to the name “Caesar.” The recipe consists of vodka, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, clam juice, and tomato juice. The Bloody Caesar became an extremely popular drink in Canada, with Canadians consuming 300 million of the concoctions annually. The Bloody Caesar is Canada’s national cocktail. Hair of the Dog Said to be the perfect hangover cure, the Bloody Mary has been associated with the hair of the dog, or the contraction of “the hair of the dog
A Bloody Mary garnished with bacon, celery, lemon, olives, and pepperoni in Lexington, Kentucky. Other garnishes may include pickles, cheese curds, mushrooms, limes, and hot peppers, as well as other types of protein, including shrimp, beef jerky, crab, bacon, sausage, or oysters. Additions to the tomato juice mix may also include such ingredients as lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, horseradish, steak seasoning, bitters, and salt and pepper.
Blue Laws
that bit you.” Basically, the idea is that consuming alcohol, especially with healthy tomato juice, will relieve one of a hangover. The term hair of the dog is derived from early English medical theory that prescribed rubbing the hair of the dog that caused a bite on the wound in the belief that this would heal it, which is clearly a crude and outdated form of homeopathy. The phrase eventually came to be associated with a hangover cure, with the notion that a few drinks after a night out will remedy the headache and demons of the previous night. Given the Bloody Mary is the most popular brunch drink in the United States, it is also the drink mainly associated with the hair of the dog hangover cure. Though many recipes and hybrid cocktails exist, the Bloody Mary remains one of the most popular breakfast and brunch drinks across the world along with the mimosa and the screwdriver. Patrick K. O’Brien University of Wisconsin–Whitewater See Also: Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; France; Hair of the Dog; Vodka Cocktails. Further Readings Degroff, Dale. The Craft of the Cocktail. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2002. Jack, Albert. What Caesar Did for My Salad: The Curious Stories Behind Our Favorite Foods. New York: Perigee Books, 2011. O’Hara, Christopher B. The Bloody Mary: A Connoisseur’s Guide to the World’s Most Complex Cocktail. New York: Lyons, 1999.
Blue Laws Blue Laws were derived from the Sabbatarian laws existing in Europe as a result of Scottish and English church reformers who believed that the Christian Sabbath (Sunday) should be a day of rest in accordance with the biblical injunctions of Exodus 20:8-11. The Scottish Presbyterians and the Puritans took this view to the American colonies, where Sunday restrictions were first called
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“blue laws.” The genesis of the term is obscure. Claims that the laws were so named because they were originally printed on blue paper have proven untrue. The first documented use of the term is found in Rev. Samuel Peters’s book A General History of Connecticut (1781). Claims that the book was printed on blue paper or that it had a blue cover have proven unlikely. There is some speculation that the term derives from an 18th-century usage of the word blue as a disparaging reference to something perceived as “rigidly moral,” or that the term originates from the expression “true blue,” a derogatory term for Puritans that expressed the general perception that they were overly self-righteous and excessively strict in the pursuit of their convictions. As crafted for the first time in America by the Puritans of Connecticut in 1610, blue laws required everyone to “repair in the morning to the divine service and sermons preached upon the Sabbath day, and in the afternoon to divine service and catechising.” Diffusing through the colonies, blue laws evolved over time to prohibit work, retail activities, amusements, and “worldly pursuits,” including unnecessary travel, sports, gaming, fishing, fowling, hunting, horse racing, conducting “games of chance,” the “frequenting of tippling-houses,” and the sale of alcoholic beverages on Sunday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, The particular combination of restrictions depended upon the degree of religious rigor resident in the particular colony. In all of the colonies, however, blue laws were taken seriously as an effort to promote “religious and pious exercises.” Accordingly, blue laws were enforced most commonly through the levying of substantial fines and were so far-reaching that George Washington, while president, was prosecuted for traveling on the Sabbath to attend worship services. Statutory duties to attend church did not withstand the First Amendment’s antiestablishment mandate. Prohibitions on “worldly pursuits,” however, persisted and were cast more and more in terms of the societywide advantages ensuing upon “moral reflections” and “relaxation from labour and the cares of business.” By the end of the 18th century, blue laws were cast almost exclusively in secular terms, primarily as public health measures taken to provide a day of rest and recuperation from the rigors of working an entire
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week, thereby reducing the workloads of police departments and, in the case of laws restricting alcohol sales, a panoply of potential personal, family, and social problems. Current Status While blue laws have been relaxed or repealed in most states, they are still present and enforced in a few. In these few states, some of the laws that still exist apply to commerce generally, while others target specific business practices, including the sale of motor vehicles, the operation of pawnshops or adult-oriented businesses, and the sale of alcohol on specific days. Nearly all states permit some exemptions, including personal or public necessity, charitable endeavors, people who worship on days other than Sunday, and those involved in pursuits that contribute to relaxation, recreation, and religious observance. In light of their overtly religious origins, blue laws have frequently been challenged as unconstitutional establishments of religion. Although the Supreme Court recognizes that these laws were originally designed for religious purposes, it has repeatedly upheld Sunday closing laws, accepting the rationale that these laws currently serve secular ends with advantageous social impacts. Although only a few broad restrictions on Sunday commerce remain, laws targeting the sale of alcohol persist in 38 states. Some states ban alcohol sales altogether, others restrict sales prior to noon or between noon and 5 p.m., and still others delegate authority for the regulation of alcohol sales on Sunday to localities. Blue laws pertaining only to alcohol sales have not been directly challenged at the Supreme Court level, but if they were contested, they would need to withstand due-process and equal-protection challenges. This would undoubtedly entail showing that alcohol sales on Sunday affect the public welfare significantly more, or in a qualitatively different way, than does the sale of other retail items or commercial activities, while also balancing the secular benefits of these bans against their entanglement with religion. Debate Over Continuation The secular reasons advanced for prohibiting the sale of alcohol on Sunday most often include enhancing traffic safety on weekends, promoting
domestic tranquility, shielding children from the effects of drinking, and accommodating the reduced number of law enforcement officers working on weekends. Additionally, some argue that repealing the ban would require small retail outlets to be open on Sundays, which would incur extra costs, the biggest of which is labor, in order to compete with supermarkets, which are regularly open seven days a week. Opponents of upholding blue laws argue that government should not be protecting business from competition or regulating the market to sustain certain interests instead of allowing market forces to work and that the laws place local business at a competitive disadvantage, as potential customers need only drive a few minutes to the next city or state to make purchases. They suggest that as Sunday is the second-most active grocery shopping day of the week, and as shoppers tend to spend more money on this day, blue laws also restrict the access of alcoholic beverage producers and retail outlets to a significant customer base. Additionally, it is argued that the combination of high excise taxes and limited shopping opportunities depress state liquor sales, translating into reduced profits for the state’s liquor businesses and consequently decreasing revenues. Some research indicates that while blue laws do increase productivity, they have a small positive correlation with church attendance, and increase both relative wages and productivity in some sectors of the economy; their effect on wages, productivity, and employment is negative either overall or in other sectors of the economy depending on local business. Research further indicates that restricting alcohol sales on Sunday proves to have a small effect at best on fatal accident rates and that the group whose driving behavior is most affected is underage men. There are, however, substantial gaps in the research literature concerning other social problems related to alcohol use on Sunday, and local community responses to alcohol policies are complex and diverse, sometimes reinforcing and sometimes mitigating the effects of blue laws. Research does indicate that women achieve higher concentrations of alcohol in the blood and become more impaired than men after drinking equivalent amounts of alcohol and that women
Blue Ribbon Movement
are more susceptible to alcohol-related organ damage and trauma resulting from traffic crashes and interpersonal violence. Charles Frederick Abel Stephen F. Austin State University See Also: Alcoholism: Effect on the Family; American Temperance Society; Catholic Total Abstinence Society; Drunk-Driving Laws; Fifteen Gallon Law; Holidays; Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance; Regulation of Alcohol; Temperance Movements, Religion in; Women’s Temperance Crusade (1874). Further Readings Burda, Michael and Philippe Weil. “Blue Laws.” http://spire.sciences-po.fr/hdl:/2441/8843/ resources/burda.pdf (Accessed February 2014). Laband, David N. and Deborah Hendry Heinbuch. Blue Laws: The History, Economics, and Politics of Sunday-Closing Laws. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 2008. Lawrence-Hammer, Lesley. “Red, White, but Mostly Blue: The Validity of Modern Sunday Closing Laws Under the Establishment Clause.” Vanderbilt Law Review, v.60 (2007). Lovenheim, Michael F. and Daniel P. Steefel. “Do Blue Laws Save Lives? The Effect of Sunday Alcohol Sales Bans on Fatal Vehicle Accidents.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, v.30/4 (2011).
Blue Ribbon Movement The Blue Ribbon movement was briefly the primary focus of American “gospel temperance” around 1880. It was a Protestant (evangelical) movement advocating total abstinence begun in Northern New England by a Roman Catholic Irish-born bartender named Francis Murphy, who converted when he found himself facing a prison term for violating the “Maine Law” in 1870. The movement expanded rapidly in the early and mid-1870s and was strong not only in the United States but also in Great Britain and Canada by 1880.
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Growth of the Movement Those who signed the pledge wore a blue ribbon to signify their commitment to total abstinence, after the passage in the book Numbers in the Old Testament, where the “riband of blue” signifies remembering God’s commandments. The Blue Ribbon movement came out of the New England reform club movement, in which those who had stopped drinking and those who wanted to stop drinking formed mutual support clubs to assist members in keeping their pledge. Murphy essentially took over the New England Reform Club and Blue Ribbon Association for his evangelical Protestant version of temperance, holding several-day-long revival meetings aimed at drunkards, with extensive use of personal testimony and music. After Murphy would give one of his rousing temperance speeches, those seeking sobriety or salvation (construed in this context as largely the same thing) would come forward. They would sign the pledge and be directed to a local Blue Ribbon Club. In these respects, the Blue Ribbon movement bore some resemblance to the Washingtonians, an American movement of reformed drunkards that originated in the early 1840s. Murphy’s great strengths in his speeches, besides his evangelism and his charismatic presence, were his use of his own story and his unreserved belief in the efficacy of Christian charity (sometimes not only in the biblical sense of love but in the ordinary sense of almsgiving). The appeal was to the drunkard’s heart, but there might occasionally be a handout as well. As happened in Alcoholics Anonymous later on, so in the Blue Ribbon clubs, members found that helping others get sober helped them maintain their own sobriety. But in one respect Murphy differed from his Washingtonian predecessors and AA successors: he gladly accepted the support of other anti-alcohol and prohibitionist groups, such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. The WCTU brought him to Chicago in 1874, where he started 11 reform clubs and where immediately thereafter 15 saloons were closed down by their owners within a few days after his arrival in Sterling, Illinois. But this was relatively small stuff compared to his great crusade in Pittsburgh in the centennial year of 1876. In Pittsburgh, where Murphy gave his first speech on November 26,
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1876, more than 40,000 people signed the pledge by the beginning of February. Murphy’s Pittsburgh crusade brought in D. I. K. Rhine, who took the movement to Erie, Pennsylvania, and then into Canada in 1877. Similarly, William Noble took the movement back to Britain after hearing Murphy in the United States. But Rhine (who founded Rhine Reform Clubs) turned out to have problems above and beyond alcohol (sexual assault, for example), and in London Noble’s Blue Ribbon clubs wound up in competition with Richard T. Booth’s Blue Ribbon clubs. This happened after Noble’s wealthy supporter, W. J. Palmer, had bought him a hall, Hoxton Hall, in London, where he established a permanent Blue Ribbon mission. Noble was later associated with the Society of Friends; whether or not he was originally British or American is not entirely clear. Booth, though he died in Yorkshire, was an American and a veteran of the Union Army in the American Civil War. He and Noble collaborated on taking the Blue Ribbon movement to Australia in 1883. But in England, although more than 1 million people took the pledge, it seems always to have been considered the American Blue Ribbon movement. Meanwhile, John Wanamaker brought Murphy to Philadelphia in 1877, but in fact very little new Blue Ribbon evangelism took place in the United States once attention shifted to Canada and Great Britain and Australia. It seemed that the Blue Ribbon Movement had either to expand—and apparently expand rapidly—or stultify and decline. In the end, the Blue Ribbon Movement passed away just as quickly as had the Washingtonians. Jerome Murray, an American observer, writing in 1879, left us a comparison of the two, suggesting that the Blue Ribbon Clubs might satisfactorily remedy the Washingtonian dichotomy between “experience” temperance and Gospel temperance. However, they did not. The Blue Ribbon Movement was a one-person creation, far more than the Washingtonians, but the Blue Ribbon decline had begun a score of years before Murphy’s death, and it would appear there was a fundamental flaw in the movement. Decline The decline was not only the result of there being accusations of financial mismanagement—though there certainly were—or that Murphy was accused
of overcharging for his appearances—which he was. Nor did the resentment of temperance workers already in the field toward the success and enthusiasm of the Blue Ribbon Movement precipitate its demise; earlier alcohol reformers had also resented the success and enthusiasm of the Washingtonians. Even the backsliding of some Blue Ribbon evangelists who “fell off the wagon” did not doom the movement: Washingtonian orator John B. Gough survived a resoundingly public relapse in 1845. It was not merely because the established temperance workers in the field became disenchanted—or were always disenchanted—with Blue Ribbon “moral suasion,” as they had been earlier with Washingtonian “moral suasion.” It may simply have been because—in part—enthusiasm is easier to build than to maintain. It may have been that Murphy lacked organizational skill to establish a viable and durable movement. In particular, Murphy’s distinctive relationship to evangelical Protestantism appears to have undermined the lasting success of the Blue Ribbon movement. That can be seen by comparison with the pioneers—the Pioneer Society of the Sacred Heart—the Roman Catholic (Irish) total abstinence movement that sobered up Irish Americans (and before them Irish in Ireland) within the bounds of Roman Catholicism and Irish patriotism. For Murphy’s model to work, these Irish and Irish Americans would have had to leave the Church and culture of their fathers and the Church and culture of the Old Country and turn Protestant. It could be done, of course. Murphy did it (in jail). But without the cataclysm of jail and the “snatched from the fire” sense of immediate personal salvation, the more likely pattern for a Catholic Irishman getting sober (though in his case it was carried to the limit) was that of the Blessed Matt Talbot, and it is noteworthy that Matt Talbot Retreats are still held in the United States and are not only for Roman Catholics. What is left from the Blue Ribbon Movement is only the name, and it is more likely that the phrase “blue ribbon” in connection with alcohol in the popular mind in the United States would bring thoughts of Pabst beer rather than temperance. Jared Lobdell Independent Scholar
See Also: Catholic Total Abstinence Society; Christianity; Gough, John Bartholomew; Temperance Movements, Religion in; Washingtonians; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Further Readings Birrell, A. J. “D. I. K. Rhine and the Gospel Temperance Movement in Canada.” Canadian Historical Review, v.58 (1977). Daniels, William Haven. The Temperance Reform and Its Great Reformers. New York: Nelson and Phillips, 1877. Johnstone Murphy, Rebecca. Memories of Francis Murphy, the Great Apostle of Gospel Temperance, by His Wife. Long Beach, CA: Graves and Hersey, 1908(?). Murray, Jerome. Ruminations of an Ex-Inebriate. Toledo, OH: Jerome Murray, 1879. Shiman, L. L. The Crusade Against Drink in Victorian England. London: Macmillan, 1988. Vandersloot, J. Samuel. The True Path, or Gospel Temperance. Chicago: Palmer, 1877.
Body Shots Drinking games have been a part of imbibing from the earliest times. Nearly every society has some variation of the “toast”: a drink to celebrate some person, event, or even a country. Many of them may have come into usage via the simple expedient of circumstance and might have been invented by anyone. The undergraduate college experience in the United States, however, has generated a host of games in the past 150 years or so that seem particularly tied to youth and therefore, perhaps, to sex. The invention of the “body shot” (among other college drinking games) is likely to have come out of the “spring break” culture. Spring break as the world knows it today did not exist before 1958 and the publication of Glendon Swarthout’s novel Where the Boys Are. The concept of the modern spring break gained even more popularity when Time magazine published an article in 1959 titled “Beer and the Beach.” A year later, Swarthout’s book was turned into a movie, and college students across the country
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turned the fictional goings-on in Swarthout’s movie into reality. Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the setting of the fictional happenings of both the book and the movie, quickly became the “it” place to be for spring break, and with that, alcohol (and later, recreational drugs) became synonymous with the yearly rite of spring. As time went on, Fort Lauderdale declined to accommodate the number of spring breakers that flocked to the city every year, and spring break activities moved to Daytona Beach, Florida, where the modern day spring break grew into what it is known as today. Rowdy college students, who brought with them an increased number of arrests, naked revels, drunken fights and general mayhem, presented a problem for any host city. Daytona Beach’s less stringent laws, and its willingness to accommodate riotous youth for profit, made it an ideal location. Yet as the drinking age in the United States continued to rise after 1960, spring break destinations again grappled with widespread underage drinking. Spring breakers were then drawn to other destinations; Mexico, with its lower drinking age, became popular. College Party Culture The competition among possible spring break locations bred a whole new marketing scheme: alcohol companies competed sharply for the attention of the drinking crowds, and bars and pubs fiercely fought for clientele through promotions as straightforward as the “wet t-shirt contest” and as odd as boozing upside-down out of leaky sombreros. Body shots probably made their appearance around this time—commingling the two major draws of spring break: booze and sex. A body shot is a shot (or other drink) taken directly from, or at least off of (perhaps in a container) another person’s (preferably naked) body—by drinking directly from the navel, or by picking up a shot glass with the lips alone from some part of the body. As with the other promotions and games, body shots were gleefully brought home for adoption on the home campus at the end of break. While many drinking games originated during spring break times, their growing presence in bars and clubs can be attributed to the growing spring break/college party culture in the United States. Body shots and beer pong, among other drinking activities, have become staples not only for spring
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breakers but also for college parties around the country, especially among members of fraternities and sororities. Drinking in college has become a rite of passage, and taking part in various drinking activities sometimes declares a college student’s place in the social structure. Students’ affinity for partaking in body shots could earn him or her respect among the social group they aspire to join. Often, these groups are members of a Greek organization on the college campus, but this behavior is not confined to fraternities or sororities. Participating in drinking games can be seen as risk taking. Body shots can be sexualized extremely quickly, and this is often the point of taking part in the activity. While activities differ among social groups and types of students, there is an overall theme to college socializing involving alcohol, sex, and finding a place in college social hierarchy. Body shots facilitate all these aspects of college life. Bruce Anderson Catherine Aquilina Florida Southern College See Also: Alcopops; Ancient World, Drinking in; Beer Pong; Drinking Games; Sexual Activity and Aphrodisiacs; Student Culture, College and University; Student Culture, High School. Further Readings Beccaria, Franca and Allan Sande. “Drinking Games and Rite of Life Projects: A Social Comparison of the Meaning and Functions of Young People’s Use of Alcohol During the Rite of Passage to Adulthood in Italy and Norway.” Nordic Journal of Youth Research, v.11/2, 2003. Borsari, Brian. “Drinking Games in the College Environment: A Review.” Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education, v.48 (2004). Workman, Thomas. “Finding the Meanings of College Drinking: An Analysis of Fraternity Drinking Stories.” Violence and Abuse Abstracts, v.8/3, 2002.
Boilermaker A boilermaker is a beer cocktail consisting of a glass of beer and a shot of whiskey. Agreement
about the drink ends with that statement. Disagreement abounds about the kind of beer to be used, the kind of whiskey, and how they should be served and consumed. The origin of the term is uncertain, and while most experts concede that it began as a workingman’s drink, basic and unadorned, contemporary versions of the story consist of combinations that would have been received with contempt by the laborers who may have given the drink its name. As of 2010, boilermakers were illegal in Nebraska, although many Nebraskans disagreed with the law, and the British, who define a boilermaker as a beer drink consisting of half mild draft and half bottled brown ale, even disagree with the American definition. Origin of the Drink and Name According to one account, the boilermaker originated in the 1890s in the mining camps of Butte, Montana. Known in the camps as the “Sean O’Farrell,” presumably because a majority of Butte’s bartenders were Irish, the beer and whiskey combination, which cost the miners 10 cents, could be served only to miners carrying their lunch buckets as evidence they had completed their shifts. The potency of the whiskey was supposed to cut the copper dust the miners had inhaled during their shift, and the beer was meant to quench the thirst that was the result of hard labor in a hot environment. From that beginning, the drink has been associated with male, working-class drinkers. The term boilermaker in its original sense of a maker and repairer of boilers for engines entered the lexicon in 1814. Some sources say the term was first applied to a shot of whiskey poured with a glass of beer in 1910, whereas the full term boilermaker’s delight was used to designate the strong, cheap alcoholic combination that was jokingly described as strong enough to clean the scales from the interior of a boiler. Others suggest that boilermaker is a reference to the “head of steam,” or the heady feeling, generated by imbibing the cocktail. James Jackson Jeffries, the United States heavyweight boxing champion from 1899 to 1905 bore the nickname “the Boilermaker.” Another possibility is that the drink was named in his honor. Purdue University’s football team has been known as the Boilermakers since 1891. Perhaps the drink’s name is a reference to the manly
mix of contact sports and bars and beer with a little whiskey. How to Drink a Boilermaker Purists insist that a boilermaker deserves the name only when whiskey is served in a shot glass with beer in a separate glass, and the drinker consumes the whiskey followed by the beer as chaser and repeats as necessary. Others prefer the whiskey and beer mixed. One way to do this is to prepare the glass of beer, leaving enough room for the shot to be added. The bartender may do the actual mixing before serving the customer or pour the liquor into the beer glass after the serving. The latter method allows the customer to see the amount of liquor added. The mix served in this manner may be called a sidecar boilermaker. The most dramatic manner of serving is to drop a shot glass filled with liquor into the beer. The carbonation content of the beer creates a distinct fizzing, which is the drinker’s signal to begin chugging the boilermaker. This approach is known as the depth charge boilermaker. Some even pour the shot of liquor directly into an open beer can from which some beer has been poured already. Some connoisseurs of the boilermaker insist that the drink only becomes a boilermaker when the liquor is drunk in one gulp and chased immediately by the beer, with the drinker consuming the beer in one long draw. Although not insisting on the single draw, most who favor boilermakers agree that they should be guzzled in order to receive an immediate rush. The aim in drinking a boilermaker, according to one mixer’s guide, is to get drunk as quickly as possible. Those who adhere to this rule argue that without the rules of proper consumption, a boilermaker becomes nothing more than a shot and a beer. But there are dissenters who say the boilermaker should be sipped rather than downed quickly. A fairly recent addition to the boilermaker menu, the designer boilermaker, is clearly meant to be sipped. The whiskey and beer are carefully paired to bring out the flavors of the other alcohol in the mix, and drinkers should sip them in order to fully appreciate how the flavors mingle. Such drinks seem a long way from the workingman’s drink that offered a cheap way to get drunk in a convivial atmosphere.
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How to Make a Boilermaker With only two ingredients, it seems that a boilermaker should be the simplest of cocktails to make, but regional, ethnic, gender, and class variations offer a multitude of choices for preparation. With an eye toward the American-working-class roots of the drink, there are those who say both the whiskey and beer should be of American production: an inexpensive bourbon or Tennessee whiskey for the shot and a mass-market American pilsner for the beer. Some prefer to prepare the concoction as it is served in a particular place, such as a shot of brandy, probably Coronet, with beer in Milwaukee; peppermint schnapps and beer in Buffalo; or Scotch and beer in Boston (Irish whiskey and beer if it is South Boston). The Jimmy & Guinney consists of a pint of Guinness and a double shot of Jameson in a whiskey snifter glass. The ruffe is a Russian version made with vodka and lager, and a Virgin Islands boilermaker pairs a shot of dark Cruzan rum with a Heineken. Other variations add something to the original ingredients. The politically incorrect Irish Car Bomb uses Irish whiskey and Guinness stout with Baileys Original Irish Cream, the Lunch Box uses Southern Comfort and lager with amaretto and orange juice. Contrary to popular opinion, boilermakers are not just for men. In the movie Airport 1975, Mrs. Devaney, played by Myrna Loy, gets a shocked response when she asks for bourbon on the rocks with a beer chaser. Mrs. Devaney would no doubt approve of the female bar owners who offer their patrons different combinations of craft beer paired with quality whiskey, concoctions like the Chubby Mr. Berns (Seven Grand Bernheim wheat whiskey with Old Chub scotch ale) or the Abominable Scot (Bowmore “Legend” Islay malt with Great Divide Yeti stout). Still Illegal After All These Years Even though Nebraska allows bar patrons to order a Long Island Iced Tea, a cocktail that combines five different kinds of liquor, as recently as 2010, it was illegal for Nebraska bartenders to serve a boilermaker or any other drink that mixes liquor with beer. Given that a 12-ounce Long Island Iced Tea contains 33 percent alcohol by volume and a 12-ounce boilermaker contains about 10 percent alcohol by volume, the law seems illogical in the
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21st century. However, its sponsors had reasons that made sense to them. A byproduct of Prohibition, the law was intended to prevent spiked beer or “needle beer.” During Prohibition, most Nebraska communities (and many other communities across the nation) made illegal the consumption of spirits in public, including alcoholic beer. However, nonalcoholic beer (that with less than 0.5 percent alcohol by volume) was legal, and some people, seeking a way to evade the prohibition of spirits, injected liquor into beer bottles, then corked like wine battles, with a syringe. Even though Nebraska rarely enforces its boilermaker law, and determined drinkers can evade the restriction by ordering the required ingredients and doing their own mixing, many Nebraskans would like to see the law changed. Several attempts to do so have been made, but they have been undermined by groups working to prevent underage drinking. These groups want Nebraska to classify and tax flavored alcoholic beverages commonly known as alcopops, which the groups see as targeting young consumers, as hard liquor instead of beer. They are convinced that the alcohol industry and its supporters are using the boilermaker bill to distract Nebraskans from the alcopop battle. Nebraska’s alcopop battle was news as the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled in March 2012 that alcopops are distilled spirits and should be classified and taxed as such, instead of at the tax rate for beer that the state has been using. One month later, state legislators overturned the Nebraska Supreme Court’s decision with LB 824, which reinstated taxing alcopops at the beer rate and keeping the products available wherever beer is sold. The boilermaker law proved less newsworthy. Wylene Rholetter Auburn University See Also: Alcopops; Beer; Prohibition; Shot and a Beer; United States. Further Readings International Brotherhood of Boilermakers. “Why is Whiskey with a Beer Chaser Called a Boilermaker?” http://www.boilermakers.org/ resources/what_is_a_boilermaker/whiskey_and_a_ beer (Accessed October 2013).
Randall, Jessy. “Boilermaker.” In The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink, Andrew F. Smith, ed. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007. Selyukh, Alina. “Legislators Fight Nebraska’s Boilermaker Alcohol Ban.” ABC News (February 17, 2010). http://abcnews.go.com/Business/ nebraska-alcohol-law-bans-mixing-beer-liquor -repeal/story?id=9850898 (Accessed October 2013). Stelzer, Howard and Ashley Stelzer. Beer Cocktails: 50 Superbly Crafted Cocktails That Liven Up Your Lagers, Ales, and Stouts. Boston: Harvard Common Press, 2012.
Booze Booze is a slang term meaning “alcoholic beverage” when used as a noun, and “to drink alcohol” as a verb; the latter referring to drinking socially and to the point of drunkenness. Generally, booze is used to refer to alcoholic beverages that, while not necessarily bottom shelf or cheap, are affordable everyday fare; expensive bottles of Scotch or Champagne are also sometimes ironically referred to as booze to imply that alcoholic beverages all share a common function, no matter how rarefied or refined. Folk etymology claims that booze originated with a 19th-century American distiller named E. C. Booz, but the word is actually much older. Etymology Boozy, meaning drunken, and boozily, its adverbial form, are recognized derivatives of booze. A now old-fashioned term in New Zealand is boozeroo, referring to what Americans would call a drinking binge. In its verb form, the word is very old and may not have referred specifically to drinking alcohol originally but rather to guzzling or drinking gustily. It was originally spelled “bouse,” and it is not clear if booze originated as a variant spelling or a separate word. The noun did not appear until 500 years after the word’s origin, in the 18th century. Bouse could have entered English through several means. It is similar to the Dutch word buizen
and the German word bausen, both meaning to consume a drink, which are rarely used now. There is also the Dutch word buisen, meaning “to strike or knock”; the Norwegian word baus, meaning “irascible”; and the Dutch word boos, meaning “wicked” or “angry.” Boos is related to the English word busy, which originally had more meanings than “preoccupied” but has fossilized in the surviving word “busybody.” This set of somewhat similar, possibly related, words comprise a type that linguists (using a term introduced by the Germans) call a lautgebarde, or sound gesture. It is not entirely clear how the words progressed from one to another, particularly since they all date from a time when literacy was not widespread and printing was expensive, suggesting that the order in which they appeared in print should not be assumed to signify a timeline of their appearance in speech. But, viewed as a group, the relationship of the words suggests that the verb bouse had a meaning or connotation something along the lines of “to drink a beverage in the context of a noisy revelry, with the possibility of becoming obnoxious or violent.” That the pronunciation of bouse eventually changed to booze is not surprising; even apart from the well-known “great vowel shift,” many English words have shifted in pronunciation over time as the preference for one dialect or another became adopted either by the general public or by dictionary writers. In any case, after being introduced sometime in the 13th century, the verb to booze was adopted in thieves’ and beggars’ cant in the 16th century, and passed there from into general slang usage. After the word dollar, booze is identified by the British Council as the second-most-common word in English that has been introduced from another language. The Election of 1840 The Philadelphia distiller E. C. Booz has long been associated with a folk etymology of “booze,” and although the word may have much older origins, the 1840 presidential election may have popularized the term in the United States. Supposedly, Booz was a supporter of President William Henry Harrison and supplied his political rallies with hard cider. Supporters of Harrison touted him as a war hero (having commanded the troops at the Battle
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of Tippecanoe in 1812) and frontiersman, perhaps in part trading on the memory of Andrew Jackson, to whom Van Buren had been vice president. Harrison was dismissed by the Democrats as the “hard cider candidate,” taking the rough-and-tumble image ascribed to him and making it pejorative, so that he was depicted as an idle rube, or what we might now call “white trash.” (In actuality, Harrison came from a blue-blooded Virginia family and had been tutored in the classics as a child.) Accusing Harrison of drinking hard cider was not the same as calling him a lush, per se. Cider was a common drink. It was not refined the way wine or brandy were. Though Harrison eventually won the election, it was a bittersweet victory: he died of pneumonia one month into office, probably as a result of delivering his two-hour inaugural address outdoors on an unseasonably cold day. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Ancient World, Drinking in; Drinking, Anthropology of; Fermentation: Ancient Era Through Middle Ages; Hooch. Further Readings Babor, Thomas. Alcohol Customs and Rituals. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. Barr, Andrew. Drink: A Social History of America. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1999. Barrows, Susanna and Robin Rooms, eds. Drinking Behavior and Belief in Modern History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Bennett, Linda A. and Genevieve M. Ames, eds. The American Experience with Alcohol: Contrasting Cultural Perspectives. New York: Plenum, 2005. Burns, Eric. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004. Gately, Iain. Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol. New York: Gotham, 2008. Grimes, William. Straight Up or on the Rocks: A Cultural History of American Drink. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. McElhone, Harry. Barflies and Cocktails. New York: Mud Puddle Books, 2008. Sayers, William. “Three Anglo-Norman Etymologies: Booze, Gear, and Gin.” Notes and Queries, v.57/4 (September 2010).
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Bordeaux Located in southwest France, around the city of the same name, Bordeaux is one of best-known wine regions in France and the world. Bordeaux wines—reds and whites, with a small volume of rosé and sparkling wines—are almost always blends of more than one grape variety, and the varieties permitted in wines labeled “Bordeaux” are often known as “the Bordeaux varieties.” Some wines from Bordeaux, especially reds from prestigious estates such as Château Margaux, Château Pétrus, Château Mouton Rothschild, and Château La Tour, are among the most expensive wines in the world at the time of their release for sale. Because of the status of Bordeaux, the quality of each vintage in the region is keenly watched by wine professionals. Although vines were first planted in some areas of Bordeaux more than 2,000 years ago, the region came into its own in the Middle Ages, when it began to export large volumes of young red wine to England (where it was known as claret), as well as to markets in other parts of northern Europe. In the early 1300s, exports from the wider Bordeaux region amounted to almost 900 million liters a year, but in the 15th century they stabilized at about a tenth of that amount. Bordeaux wines became popular in the royal courts of England, Scotland, and other northern European states, and were widely sold to the public in taverns throughout the early modern period. As the popularity of Bordeaux’s wines grew, the area of the region planted in vines expanded in size. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Dutch engineers drained the swampy Médoc region, the part of Bordeaux closest to the Atlantic Ocean, and made it suitable for viticulture. The Bordeaux appellation (officially designated wine region) now covers an area of 120,000 hectares (about 296,526 acres), where 8,500 producers make an average 700 million bottles of wine a year, nearly all of which is exported outside France. Bordeaux accounts for about a quarter of France’s appellation contrôllée wines—wines made according to the most rigorous rules. Nearly all red wines from Bordeaux are aged in 225-liter oak barrels, called barriques, for periods ranging from several months to a year or more. The barrels contribute to the tannins in the wine,
A chef presents a range of Bordeaux wines. The Bordeaux appellation (the officially designated wine region) covers an area of 120,000 hectares, where 8,500 producers bottle an average of 700 million bottles of wine every year.
and some red Bordeaux are so tannic that they need to be cellared for 10 or more years before they are drinkable. Bordeaux wines are among the most long-lasting in the world, but the great majority are made for early drinking. Within Bordeaux there are a number of welldefined subregions. Two broad areas, the Left Bank and the Right Bank, refer to the vineyards on the right (northern) side of the River Garonne, as it flows to the Atlantic, and the left (western) side of the Gironde Estuary. Although all parts of Bordeaux are planted with a range of grape varieties, the Left Bank (most of which is the Médoc appellation) is primarily planted with Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. Some of the best-known appellations within Médoc include Margaux, St Julien,
and Pauillac. On the Right Bank, which includes prestigious appellations such as St-Emilion and Pomerol, merlot is the main red grape. The other red grape varieties permitted in Bordeaux wine are Cabernet Franc, malbec, petit verdot, and the much rarer carmenère. More than 80 percent of Bordeaux’s wines are red, and almost all are blends of two or three varieties. The main grape varieties used for making Bordeaux’s white wines are semillon, sauvignon blanc, and muscadelle. Another six varieties, including ugni blanc and colombard, are permitted but are rarely used. Other important subregions of Bordeaux include Entre-Deux-Mers, located between the Garonne and Dordogne Rivers, which is known for red wines made from Cabernet Sauvignon and merlot. To the south, across the Garonne River, Graves (named for its gravelly soils), is well known for its red and white wines, and it was the original source of many of the clarets that established Bordeaux’s reputation in the Middle Ages. Within Graves is the Sauternes appellation, where the specialty (a white wine called sauternes) is one of the world’s most famous unfortified sweet wines. Sauternes is made principally from the semillon variety, and from grapes that have been attacked by a fungus called botrytis cinerea, which not only causes the grapes to shrivel (thus concentrating the sugar content) but also adds a distinctive, pungent flavor note to the wine. Bordeaux wines are classified in several tiers, and some regions have their own classifications. The best known is the 1855 Classification, which ranked 87 wines from the Médoc and Graves regions into crus or growths that indicated quality, with First Growth (Premier Cru) wines being the highest quality. The original categorization was based on the per-barrel price in 1855, on the assumption that wines that fetched the highest price were the best. The classification has been changed only once since 1855 when, in 1973, a Second Growth wine, Château Mouton-Rothschild, was promoted to First Growth status. Wines rated First Growth in 1855 still generally command higher prices than those ranked Fifth Growth. Although wines in the 1855 Classification dominate any list of Bordeaux’s most prestigious wines, other producers have earned a high reputation. One is Château
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Pétrus, a merlot-dominant red from Pomerol, an appellation on the Right Bank. In addition to the 1855 Classification, other Bordeaux appellations have established their own. In 1954, St-Emilion began to rank its top wines into three classifications: Great First Growths (with an A and B ranking) and First Growths. Currently there are 15 wines in the first category and 57 in the second. In the Graves region, 16 estates are recognized as superior and are called crus classes. One of them, Château Haut-Brion, is also in the 1855 Classification. A further classification ranks wines from the eight appellations in the Médoc region on the basis of quality and value. They are labeled “Cru Bourgeois,” and represent 250 estates and about 40 percent of the wine produced in these appellations. Bordeaux is not only important in its own right, but it has been a model for world wine production. Not only are Bordeaux’s winemaking techniques regarded as a standard, but the common Bordeaux-style blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and merlot has been adopted in places as diverse as California and South Africa. No matter where they are made, red wines made from the grapes permitted in Bordeaux are known as “bordeaux blends.” To this extent, Bordeaux is regarded as one of the world’s most prestigious and influential wine regions. Rod Phillips Carleton University See Also: Beaujolais; Burgundy; Cabernet Sauvignon; Europe, Western; France; Merlot; Wines, French; Wines, Red; Wines, White. Further Readings Anson, Jane and Isabelle Rozenbaum. Bordeaux Legends. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2013. Brook, Stephen. The Complete Bordeaux: The Wines, The Château, the People. London: Mitchell Beazley, 2012. Clarke, Oz. Bordeaux. New York: Sterling Epicure, 2012. Lewin, Benjamin. Claret & Cabs: The Story of Cabernet Sauvignon. Dover, UK: Vendange Press, 2012.
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Bourbon
Bourbon Bourbon is a category of distilled whiskey. It is native to Kentucky and has origins in the whiskey distilled by early Scots-Irish frontier settlers in America. Under U.S. law and international trade agreements, in order to market a distilled spirit called bourbon in the country, the spirit must be fermented and distilled domestically from a grain mixture of at least 51 percent corn; aged in previously unused, charred oak barrels; distilled to not more than 160 proof; barreled at not more than 125 proof; and bottled at not less than 80 proof. Bourbon is a $220-million industry in Kentucky, not counting dollars associated with local, industry-related tourism, including the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. Ninety-five percent of all bourbon produced in the United States comes from Kentucky. All bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon. Bourbon is a particular style of whiskey, which is itself a generic term for liquor distilled from the fermented mash of cereal grains. Three types of whiskey are determined by the grain making up the largest proportion of the grain bill in the recipe: Generic whiskey is distilled from a mash consisting of mostly fermented barley; rye whiskey is distilled from fermented rye (itself a type of wheat); and bourbon is fermented from a mash of majority corn. Scotch, Tennessee, and Irish whiskeys are geographic designations that are determined by international trade agreement and national laws, and each must have been distilled in its respective place of origin. Aside from corn, bourbon is fermented with differing proportions of malted barley and rye. If the distiller includes wheat in the grain bill, the final product is often called a wheated bourbon. Overview Unlike beer, in which the brewer mashes all grains simultaneously, bourbon distillers add different grains in sequence in order to maximize the extraction of sugars. The style of cooking determines the timing for each stage, with some distillers cooking the grains under pressure and at higher temperatures for shorter periods. Others cook the grains in kettles at ambient pressure. Generally, corn and water are first added to an unpressurized cooker and heated to around 220
degrees Fahrenheit. The distiller then lowers the temperature to around 170 degrees and adds rye, and then lowers the temperature again, this time to around 150 degrees, and adds malted barley. With allowances for temperature and pressure, the process takes around 30 minutes. Next, the mash is cooled and placed in a fermenter. The distiller proceeds to add mash from a previous fermentation to create what is called sour mash. The older mash, called stillage, helps balance the pH of the water. Sour mash is, therefore, part of the production process and not a flavor. After the introduction of yeast, fermentation converts the sugar to alcohol in three to four days. The resultant liquid is called distiller’s beer for its look, taste, and smell. Most American distillers use a “column still” for the actual distilling. At the base of the column, the distiller’s beer heats to just below boiling temperature. The vaporized liquid then rises through a series of perforated “floors” to the top of the column, where it cools, returns to liquid form, and falls back down the column. At this stage, the liquid is called “high wine.” The successive floors in the column catch the high wine and divert it either for a second distillation or into a container from which it is placed into charred white oak barrels. The height of the column determines the proof of the liquid sent to barrels. The process of charring the oak barrels in turn refines the flavor and color of the eventual bourbon. Subjecting white oak barrels to intense flame caramelizes the sugars in the wood cellulose, bringing out oak, caramel, smoke, and vanilla flavors in the bourbon. The flame also blackens the inside of the barrel. The longer the application and the higher the heat, the more the stored bourbon will assume the characteristics of the barrel. Distillers order barrels charred to exact specifications depending on the flavor profile they hope to achieve. Because each batch of bourbon, by law, must be aged in a new barrel, used barrels are sold to winemakers, brewers, and scotch distilleries in the United States, Ireland, Canada, England, and Scotland. Whiskey Rebellion While many historians consider the 1791 to 1794 Whiskey Rebellion to be the seminal event in the history of bourbon whiskey, the production in
Kentucky of distilled spirits in general and whiskey in particular predates that event, and Europeans had long aged whiskey in charred oak barrels. It is more likely that a number of events and local circumstances combined to give birth to the new form of liquor. White settlers, many of them Scots-Irish, began migrating to Kentucky in the 1770s, bringing with them a long tradition of converting fermentable sugar into alcohol. The farmers began distilling as soon as fermentable sugars became available, and the majority of early distilling focused on peach brandy and hard apple cider. Plagued with the twin problems of grain storage and transport to market, as well as having a desire to drink alcohol, early distillers focused less on a particular style than on an easily producible liquor. Though not yet producing a distilled liquor labeled bourbon, by the 1780s, archival records from Kentucky contained names still familiar in the industry today, including Elijah Craig, Evan Williams, James Pepper, and others. Diaries from this period also contain recipes that closely mirror, but do not exactly match, modern bourbonmaking processes. By the early 1790s, a number of Kentucky distilleries sold distilled spirits they called whiskey as well as other distilled liquor down the Ohio River in New Orleans. If not a proximate cause, the Whiskey Rebellion did accelerate the process of bourbon distilling in Kentucky. Seeking a new source of revenue for the federal government, Alexander Hamilton’s Treasury Department imposed an excise tax on distilled spirits. Western farmers, long accustomed to turning leftover corn into whiskey, felt targeted. Northern and eastern Kentuckians protested, and in a number of cases either refused outright to pay the tax or harassed revenue collectors into submission, but the locus of rebellion occurred on Pennsylvania’s far-western frontier. As a result, many Pennsylvania farmers migrated into Kentucky to further evade federal collectors, bringing their Scots-Irish distilling traditions and expertise with them. A series of events between 1794 and 1797 brought stability to the region and spurred the evolution of a distinct bourbon industry. In 1794, Jay’s Treaty removed the existential British occupation of the northwest territories, and in 1795 Pinckney’s Treaty secured commerce along the
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length of the Mississippi river for American traders. Farmers and distillers could look forward to open commerce with New Orleans, unthreatened by British forces and international politics. The easier transit down the Ohio and Mississippi would bring more profit than the difficult journey over the Allegheny and Appalachian mountains. The modification of the excise tax on whiskey in 1797 to exclude stills producing less than 400 gallons pushed distilleries to create smaller batches albeit with more frequency. Because home distillers tended to use surplus grains for distilling, and tended to sell surpluses to distilleries, little in the way of standardization existed in late-18th- or early-19th-century whiskey recipes, with merchants simply using catchall phrases such as “liquor” or “spirits” to describe their products. By the start of the 19th century, local corn production began to favor its use as a main ingredient in Kentucky whiskey. Likewise, farmers grew barley and rye for animal forage, the excess of which could be sold to distilleries along with the excess corn. Rye became an especially popular ingredient in Kentucky whiskey, although in the late 18th through mid-19th century, no standardized recipe existed for a distinct type of whiskey called bourbon. The 19th Century and Beyond The early 19th century saw the founding of a number of commercial distilleries powered first by waterwheels and then by steam. Increased efficiency and specialization occurred at roughly the same time as a greater focus on marketing, with Kentucky whiskey coming to be called first old bourbon whisky, then bourbon whisky, and then simply bourbon. Popular legend and local lore disagree on the exact origin of the word bourbon, with some arguing that it derived from Bourbon County, Kentucky, and others alleging that canny marketers used the word bourbon to induce New Orleans–area Francophiles to buy their whiskeys. Indeed, Americans in the late 18th and early 19th centuries named many places and objects after the French Bourbons in honor of their help during the American Revolution. However, the weight of evidence favors the former explanation, though the two are not mutually exclusive. The earliest use of the word bourbon to refer to whiskey as a local Kentucky product appeared 1821,
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in Maysville, Kentucky, which at one point was part of Bourbon county. After redistricting created several new counties, the area was frequently known as “old bourbon county,” or simply “old bourbon.” Whiskey from the region then carried the designation “old bourbon” until the middle of the 19th century, with the phrase clearly intended to indicate location instead of age. Although the process had begun earlier, by the second half of the 19th century the designation had been shortened to “bourbon.” As the reputation of Kentucky bourbon grew, so did efforts to sell counterfeits. In the last half of the 19th century, so-called rectified whiskeys, created by blending several whiskeys as well as, oftentimes, coloring and flavoring agents came to dominate the whiskey and bourbon market. In 1897, with the strong support of bourbon distillers, the Bottled-in-Bond Act for the first time standardized what could be called whiskey. It required that the spirit be distilled by a single distiller in a single distilling season, bottled at 100 proof, and then stored in a federally bonded warehouse for four years. In 1909, a modification to the law defined bourbon and rye by the grains used in mashing. Modern U.S. legal code, the Fair Standards of Identity for Distilled Spirits, has modified this still further to bring bourbon to its current definition. Prohibition and Beyond The passage of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the Volstead Act meant to enforce it, created hardship for the bourbon industry. Unlike brewers, who often had the ability to fall back on sales of related products, bourbon distillers had fewer options. Legal sale but not production of medicinal alcohol continued under the Volstead Act, and a number of distilleries consolidated into medicinal whiskey-distribution warehouses in order to remain viable. As bourbon distilleries sold their ever-dwindling supplies as medicinal alcohol during the 1920s, Canadian companies thrived on the illegal trade. The end of Prohibition saw a much-reduced bourbon industry trying to reclaim its former market share. A few new companies began distilling, including Heaven Hill in 1935. The trend, however, was toward consolidation, as formerly strong brands now joined forces. The included W. L. Weller and Sons and A. Ph. Stitzel, which
together formed Stitzel-Weller. While distilleries made strides toward recovery in the 1930s, the entry of the United States into World War II required distilleries to focus on war-related industrial alcohol. Distillers once again relied on warehoused stock. During the 1950s, bourbon gained an international reputation, led by Jim Beam and Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey. Domestically, bourbon distillers such as Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark tried to battle the image of bourbon as a cheap alternative to Scotch, while refining their marketing campaigns to include specially designed holiday bottles. Jim Beam, among other distillers, focused on an array of ceramic custom decanters in the form of ships, animals, and famous people. After a decline that began in the 1960s, bourbon consumption surged dramatically over the decade from 2002 to 2012. As with craft beer, the strongest increase in bourbon sales have come from the application of upscale labels. Those bourbons designated “high-end premium” saw a 41 percent jump in sales, while sales of “super premium” labels rose more than 200 percent. Brands such as Four Roses and Maker’s Mark found strong international markets, particularly in Asia. This trend mirrored that of all other spirits except gin. Other popular upscale brands include Pappy van Winkle, Evan Williams, Woodford Reserve, Basil Hayden’s, and W. L. Weller. Popular Culture In popular culture, bourbon is strongly associated several cocktails, including the mint julep and the manhattan. A standard mint julep consists of several spearmint leaves muddled with a small amount of bourbon in the bottom of a glass. After a short rest, the liquid is strained into a highball or collins glass, or into a silver cup if at the Kentucky Derby. To this mixture is added one part simple syrup, one part bourbon, and one part water, which is then stirred and poured over ice. A manhattan combines bourbon, sweet vermouth, and Angostura bitters, and is like a martini in that the proportions are a matter of individual taste. However, many recipes call for those ingredients in a proportion of between one-quarter to one part vermouth to two parts bourbon, with between one and four dashes of bitters. The drink is usually garnished with a maraschino cherry and an orange peel.
Bourbon Advertising
Bourbon has enjoyed cultural prominence for several decades, and many references appear in music. The most culturally prominent might be Rudy Toombs and Amos Milburn’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer,” which reached the Billboard R & B top ten in 1953, and was covered in the 1960s by Johnny Lee Hooker, and then again by George Thorogood in the late 1970s. Each artist arranged the melody differently, but retained the alcoholic emphasis. In 2011, the song appeared in an episode of the popular television series Glee. Country musician Hank Williams Jr. has had perhaps the closest association with bourbon, mixing it into his songs and in 1985 appearing on a commemorative Jim Beam decanter. Filmmakers have used Wild Turkey to suggest a character with deep flaws who is engaged in severe personal struggles, is a rough or “manly” character, or who comes from low socioeconomic status. Bourbon was also notoriously the alcohol of choice for Hunter S. Thompson. Andrew McMichael Western Kentucky University See Also: Appalachian Moonshine Culture; Bourbon Advertising; Bourbon Cocktails; Brown-Forman; Fortune Brands; Popular Music, Drinking in; United States; Whiskey Rebellion. Further Readings Carson, Gerald. The Social History of Bourbon. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1963. Crowgey, Henry G. Kentucky Bourbon: The Early Years of Whiskeymaking. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008. Veach, Michael. Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey: An American Heritage. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2013. Zoeller, Chester. Bourbon in Kentucky: A History of Distilleries in Kentucky. Louisville, KY: Butler Books, 2009.
Bourbon Advertising Generally, bourbon has been marketed to white businessmen, with advertising dollars spent
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largely on holidays and sporting events. Branding focuses on longevity, quality, and production. With the recent focus on well-crafted cocktails, bourbon advertising has widened. The advertising now includes women, blacks, and more youthful drinkers, although the target audience continues to be white, sports-oriented males. Early History According to the Kentucky Encyclopedia (1992), Stout and Adams of Maysville, Kentucky, placed the first known ad for bourbon in the 1821 edition of Western Citizen, offering it “by the barrel or keg.” Early magazine advertisements rarely used the word bourbon, but it was reflected on packaging. The word was not used officially until 1840. It was not until 1964 that Congress defined what could be called bourbon and deemed it “America’s Native Spirit,” officially making it an American product. A lack of workers during the Civil War halted bourbon production and, thus, advertising. Bourbon was not exported for sale until 1870, when bottling became a practical means for distribution. Prior to Prohibition, advertising was minimal and mainly promoted bourbon as medicinal. Bourbon advertising ceased during Prohibition (which lasted from 1920 to 1933). Sugar rationing caused a decline in bourbon production during the world wars. Distilleries used advertising to keep brands before the consumer until bourbon was again available. Restrictions Bourbon advertising in the United States, as with other spirits, is regulated by federal, state, and local regulations. There have been a number of restrictions on advertising over the years. Several states did not allow prices to be mentioned in ads until 1996 when the Supreme Court overturned such laws as unconstitutional. Advertising spirits to women also was prohibited in a number of states, as was billboard advertising. Restrictions also were placed on brand names and social settings. Even references to holidays were prohibited in certain states. Because of the spirit industry’s self-imposed ban on radio advertising in 1936 and television advertising in 1948, print media was the main focus of the ads, including newspapers, magazines,
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and billboards. The ban eventually was formalized by the Television Code Review Board of the National Association of Broadcasters and the Distilled Spirits Council (DISCUS). Although it was not illegal to advertise in these mediums and there were not enforceable repercussions for violations, the practice continued until a 1982 court ruling overturned it. Recognizing the lost sales potential, Seagram’s broke the ban in March 1996 by placing a television ad on a small sports cable network, which opened the door for the entire industry. In November 1996, DISCUS amended its code to officially allow advertising. Wild Turkey was the first to begin airing radio spots in 2000. Jim Beam placed the first television ad in 2005. Most other major brands have followed suit and have seen increased sales as a result, including overseas. Product placement in television and film also was, and continues to be, used to market bourbon. Gender and Race Marketing efforts for bourbon target primarily affluent white males. Blacks appeared in early ads mainly as servants. With the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, advertising efforts broadened, including the “Ingenious Americans” campaign in Ebony, which focused on the role of prominent blacks in American history. As early as the 1940s, women consumers were targeted with lighter proofs and cocktails, including old fashioneds and manhattans. Yet women were prohibited from appearing in ads until the 1960s because of another self-imposed industry ban. Recognition of female bourbon drinkers has increased, including through organizations such as Bourbon Women. The appearance of flavored bourbons also is aimed at women. A 2013 ad for Red Stag bourbon, a Jim Beam affiliate, features an interracial couple and the tagline “Never be afraid to migrate into unfamiliar territory.” Advertisers also have started appealing to younger consumers. Themes One of the most prevalent and ongoing themes in bourbon advertising is the producer: its history, location, and method. Names, labels, and copy frequently note the heritage of the producer, often use the word old, and often include detailed information on the location where the
An 1860 advertising label for Bininger’s Old Kentucky Bourbon shows a woman bearing a bundle of grain across her shoulder. While bourbon was not exported until after 1870, bourbon advertising began as early as 1821.
bourbon is produced. Bourbon continues to be marketed as an affordable luxury and a highquality product for a reasonable price. Jim Beam’s first television ad in 2005 focused on the brand’s history and quality, with the tagline “The stuff inside matters most.” Recent advertising focuses on craft producers and small batch bourbons, even for larger producers, including Four Roses and Jim Beam. Except when prohibited, the holiday and seasons also have been a large focus of bourbon’s advertising dollars since the early 1930s. Four Roses, the best-selling brand from the 1930s to the 1950s, encouraged consumers to drink bourbon after a Thanksgiving meal. Ads from The Bourbon Institute featured bourbon as an ingredient in summer cocktails. Campaigns featuring bourbon as a Christmas/year-end gift also have been highly successful. Individual producers tend to spend the bulk of their multimillion dollar advertising budget on these periods.
Bourbon Cocktails
Sporting events also play a large role in bourbon advertising, including horse racing, golf, baseball, football, and pool. In 1938, the bourbon-based mint julep became the official drink of the Kentucky Derby, although Churchill Downs used whiskey instead of bourbon. Since 1986, Woodford Reserve has sponsored the Kentucky Derby and, through a 1998 contractual arrangement with Churchill Downs, became the “official bourbon” for that event. Beginning in 2008, Woodford Reserve also entered into a marketing deal with the Belmont Stakes. Similarly, television advertising for the liquor was aimed at sporting events and late-night programming with male audiences over the age of 21. Male-targeted channels, such as ESPN, Comedy Central, TBS, TNT, FX, FXX, and Spike TV, have been a focus. In 2010, Jim Beam partnered with ESPN to launch a program airing on television and online. In 2011, Evan Williams also sponsored a grilling sweepstakes aimed at football fans. The synergy between food and bourbon has deep roots and continues to expand. An Old Forester ad from the late 1950s featured men drinking bourbon and grilling on the weekends after a hard week in the office. In 2013, Jim Beam announced a deal with Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s to promote a bourbon burger. The supermodel and TV personality Heidi Klum was featured in the television campaign. Celebrities have, in fact, been used to promote brands throughout the history of bourbon marketing, including internationally. Joe Louis, the famous boxer, even ventured into the market with his own brand, which lasted only a year. Buying bourbon as an American-made product also has been a selling point in the United States and internationally, including an ad referencing the 1964 World’s Fair held in New York. Bourbon also is advertised extensively in international markets, including Japan and Australia. Kara Headley New York University See Also: Advertising and Marketing, History of; Bourbon; Bourbon Cocktails; Fortune Brands; Gender and Drinking in Popular Culture; Mint Julep; Social Media; Television.
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Further Readings Bourbon & Banter. “Archive: Bourbon Advertising.” http://www.bourbonbanter.com/category/bourbon -advertising (Accessed February 2014). Carson, Gerald. The Social History of Bourbon. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1963/2010. Delis Hill, Daniel. Advertising to the American Woman, 1900–1999. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2002. Pennock, Pamela. Advertising Sin and Sickness: The Politics of Alcohol and Tobacco Marketing, 1950– 1990. Northern Illinois University Press, 2009.
Bourbon Cocktails Bourbon is a category of distilled whiskey native to Kentucky. To qualify as bourbon under U.S. federal law, the grain bill must contain at least 51 percent corn, with malted barley filling out the balance—although distillers sometimes use wheat and rye to influence the body and flavor. Bourbon cannot be distilled to more than 160 proof and must be barreled at not more than 125 proof. It is aged in previously unused charred oak barrels and then bottled at not less than 80 proof. A cocktail is a mixed drink consisting of alcohol, usually distilled, and a mixer. The term seems to date to the early 19th century and might have its origins in the work of Antoine Peychaud, a New Orleans apothecary who developed a recipe for bitters. He mixed the bitters with brandy to make toddies, which he then served in an egg cup, called a coquetier in French. Cocktails are still served in small containers such as glasses or a cup. While other people disagree on the exact source, there is general agreement on the first appearance of the word in print—1806—and that the idea of a cocktail originates in the United States. Americans have consumed mixed drinks since the earliest period of colonial history. Colorfully named drinks such as bogus, mimbo, rattleskull, flip, syllabub, blackstrap, punch, and stone fence were all popular in taverns up through the early 19th century. Whiskey, brought to the Americas by Scots-Irish settlers, was a standard ingredient in cocktails. With the standardization of bourbon
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recipes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which distinguished it from other whiskeys, many cocktail recipes that utilized whiskey were adjusted to use bourbon instead. In the late 19th century, mixed drinks lost their popularity, as Americans chose to instead consume straight liquor, and beer gained popularity. Despite the onset of Prohibition in the 1920s, many Americans continued to drink alcohol. The need to disguise the smell and flavor of the spirits led to a resurgence in the popularity of cocktails, and the drinking culture of the 1920s promoted evermore creative mixtures of spirituous liquors and mixers. In his 1948 classic The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, David Embury suggests that cocktails are divided into the main alcohol, the mixer, and a flavoring. Together, the three should highlight and balance the flavor of the others. Multiple types of alcohol can be blended into a cocktail, and mixers include ice, water, fruit juices, other liquids and even solids such as sugar. Bourbon Cocktails While bourbon is often taken “neat,” with water, or over ice, a number of classic cocktails utilize bourbon as the main alcoholic ingredient. The oldest of these is likely the hot toddy, which originates in Scotland. It combines boiling water, bourbon, and a measure of sugar or honey to taste. Some versions of the recipe call for lemon juice to balance the sweetness and attenuate the bourbon. The hot toddy is often touted as a medicinal drink intended to soothe sore throats, act as a cough suppressant, and promote sleep. Several bourbon cocktails have entered into popular culture as iconic bourbon drinks. Embury lists two bourbon drinks among what he categorizes as six basic drinks. A traditional manhattan is related to the martini but is instead made with bourbon and bitters. It is mixed in proportions of one measure of sweet vermouth to four to five measures bourbon, depending on taste, with a dash of Angostura bitters. The mixture is then strained over ice into a glass. A dry manhattan eliminates the bitters. Alternate versions mix sweet and dry vermouth to accentuate the flavors. The old fashioned is a classic bourbon cocktail that has donated its name to the type of glass in which it is made. It is mixed in a ratio of twelve parts bourbon to one part simple syrup, with a
few dashes of Angostura bitters added to taste. The simple syrup and bitters are first muddled in the glass, and to this is added one part whiskey, which is then stirred. Cracked ice and the remainder of the whiskey follow. A variant of the old fashioned called a Sazerac first appeared in New Orleans in the early 1800s, reputedly invented by Antoine Peychaud. One part simple syrup gets muddled with bitters, to which ice and four parts bourbon are added. A small amount of absinthe is poured into a chilled old fashioned glass, swirled to coat the sides, and then discarded. The bourbon mixture is then strained into the glass. Classic versions use Peychaud’s bitters, which the Sazerac company still makes. The mint julep is another classic and is strongly associated with springtime and, most specifically, with the running of the Kentucky Derby horse race. Churchill Downs, home of the derby, recommends a recipe of two ounces bourbon, one tablespoon simple syrup steeped overnight with mint, and ice. Other traditional recipes call for the mint to be muddled in the bottom of a julep cup with simple syrup and then bourbon and water to be added in equal proportions, but at two to three times the amount of syrup, to taste. A traditional julep cup is made of silver or pewter. The whiskey sour, possibly invented in the 19th century, is a simple cocktail composed of four parts bourbon, to two parts simple syrup and sweet-and-sour mix, to one part either orange or lemon juice. Variations can include egg whites or substitute grenadine for the simple syrup. One final method of making bourbon cocktails involves the use of infusions. In these, bourbon is added to some type of flavoring agent, such as a fruit, vegetable, or spice and left to rest. Over time, the bourbon takes on characteristics of the additive and can then be used in cocktails or consumed over ice or neat. Andrew McMichael Western Kentucky University See Also: Bourbon; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; History of Alcoholic Beverages. Further Readings Carson, Gerald. The Social History of Bourbon. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1963.
Crowgey, Henry G. Kentucky Bourbon: The Early Years of Whiskeymaking. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008. Embury, David. The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. New York: Doubleday, 1948. Perrine, Joy and Reigler, Susan. The Kentucky Bourbon Cocktail Book. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2009.
Brandy Brandy is distilled wine. As such, the quality of grapes is crucial to the quality of brandy, and nations that specialize in viticulture are also the regions where brandy is distilled. Although the process of distillation was familiar to the ancients, the distillation of wine into brandy did not occur until the late Middle Ages. Premodern methods used the pot still to make brandy, and the patent still replaced the pot still in the 19th century. At present, California and the Mediterranean Basin, both areas that specialize in viticulture, appear to be the leaders in brandy production. The ancients made wine from grapes before the beginnings of recorded history. The ancient Egyptians were familiar with the process of distillation, though they apparently did not try to distill wine. Indeed, the distillation of wine into brandy would only become popular in the early modern era. In about 800 b.c.e., the Chinese experimented with distilling what they called a rice and sugar wine. One should note two points: First, this beverage was not a true wine because it was not made from grapes. Second, it must have been a beverage of the South because northern regions of China were too cold to support the culture of sugarcane. One cannot rule out the possibility of South-to-North trade of this beverage. In the 4th century b.c.e., the Greek philosopher and pupil of Plato, Aristotle, was familiar with the process of distillation, though nowhere is there evidence that he knew of brandy. The Romans and Moors were also familiar with the process of distillation, and it is curious that the Romans, so interested in viticulture and the making of wine, did not also make brandy.
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Early Modern Era In the 15th century, at the dawn of modernity, the Spanish French alchemist Arnold de Vila Nova was possibly the first to distill brandy. He believed it a cure-all and was more interested in its medical than recreational possibilities. A pupil of Vila Nova, Raymond Lully also made brandy, which he believed to be a gift from God. Over the 15th century, brandy was beginning to gain traction in southern Europe, where grapes were ubiquitous. In 1514, a Parisian company spurred the distillation and trade of brandy. By the mid-17th century, brandy may have been second in importance in France only to wine. At about this time, the Dutch coined the term brandewijn, meaning burned wine, which in English simply means brandy. The name brandewijn may be a poor one because the wine is not burned but instead heated to the point of evaporation. The pot still was the earliest method of making brandy. One boiled a pot of wine, the rising steam from which entered a chamber, where it dissipated energy, cooled, and finally condensed. This condensate had a potent alcohol content. The process of distillation of wine into brandy does not differ in principle from the distillation of gasoline or kerosene from crude oil. Yet the pot still was slow and inefficient. Much steam undoubtedly escaped the pot before it could be captured in the chamber. The pot still’s deficiencies spurred innovators to look for a new apparatus in the 19th century. The result was the patent still, which was superior to the pot still. That is to say, the patent still was more efficient than the pot still. The pot still yields a liquid of 65 to 70 percent alcohol. California uses large patent stills that yield 85 percent alcohol, and it is possible to produce 97 percent alcohol. All these percentages are too strong for human consumption and so must be distilled with water. France markets brandy with 40 percent alcohol, a potent beverage. One need not consume much brandy to become intoxicated. Aging The best brandy retains the fruitiness and aroma of wine. Brandy taken directly from the still is colorless and has too potent a concentration of alcohol. It must be aged for the flavor and aroma to mature. Brandy is aged in wooden casks. Because the wood is porous, it admits oxygen
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into the brandy to oxidize it and yield a fine flavor. Wood also imparts flavor to brandy as well as color, which may range from pale yellow to amber. Aged in glass, brandy does not receive oxygen and will emerge with little flavor. There appears to be little consensus about the type of wood to be used for aging brandy, though oak appears to be the preference of many. California brandies, for example, are aged in oak derived from trees grown in the hills of Arkansas and Tennessee. Young oak imparts the most color in the least time. In an ideal world, brandy would be aged for more than 10 years to achieve the best color. As it stands, 90 percent of brandy is aged less than 10 years to make a quick profit. In these cases, distillers add caramel to brandy to simulate color. The longer brandy is aged, the longer the manufacturer must wait for profits, a fact that discourages long aging. As a rule, long-aged brandy commands a higher price than brandy aged for short durations. California brandies reach the apex of flavor, aroma, and color in 10 to 15 years. Too long an aging process imparts too much flavor from wood, leaving a bitter brandy. It is possible but unconventional to age brandy between 20 and 50 years, though one suspects that the wood used for this purpose must be old. The average California brandy is aged just four years. Some manufacturers age brandy for two or three years, one assumes in young oak. At this stage, a rather tasteless brandy may emerge. Manufacturers have solved this problem by adding 1 to 2 percent sugar. Others add vanilla, wine, and citrus to flavor brandy. Some manufacturers blend brandies of different ages to obtain a product with a range of flavors. It is common to add small amounts of an aged brandy to brandy that has undergone considerably less aging. In some instances, different brandies are combined before aging. Most brandy is 40 to 45 percent alcohol. During aging, 3 to 5 percent of brandy evaporates through wood per year, another incentive to minimize aging. The constituents of brandy do not evaporate at the same rate. Wherever the alcohol evaporates rapidly, the percentage of alcohol obviously declines, lessening the amount of water that must be used to bring brandy within the 40 to 45 percent alcohol range. This occurs in humid climates, where it is possible, through evaporation
of alcohol, to obtain brandy with 40 to 45 percent alcohol without the addition of water. Brandy must be filtered or it will turn cloudy during refrigeration. This cloudiness puts off consumers even though the flavor might be acceptable. Once aged, brandy, as long as it is not exposed to oxygen, is chemically inert. It will not change despite the passage of years. Once a bottle is opened, however, brandy will oxidize, losing flavor and aroma. For this reason, it is best to buy brandy in small quantities. The age of a brandy is often difficult for a consumer to determine. One manufacturer claims to have brandy that has aged since the reign of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte of France in the early 19th century. This story is difficult to believe. Tasting and Traditions of Use Brandy can only be appreciated in small doses. The alcohol content is too high to allow one to drink it in quantity. The alcohol quickly overwhelms the senses of taste and smell. Even professional tasters will not sample brandy without first diluting it with an equal part of water. The professional taster devotes more time to assessing the aroma than to tasting the brandy. Brandy that does not retain a hint of grapes is not worth the purchase price. The professional taster who wishes to sample several types of brandy will take a sip of but will not swallow each brandy for fear of being overpowered by alcohol. Water should be gargled to prevent the taste of one brandy from lingering before another sample is taken. The consumer should pour a small amount of brandy into a glass, which one grasps in the hand. The hand heats the brandy, which causes it to release its aroma. By tradition, one takes brandy after a meal, a practice the French believe aids digestion. The tradition of taking brandy with a cigar is counterproductive because the tobacco will dull the palate and nose. Sellers, of course, want to expand the range of times when one might consume brandy. They recommend taking brandy before meals to prepare one for a glass of wine during the meal. They also recommend brandy as the base from which mixed drinks may be made. A young, relatively flavorless brandy is best for this purpose. Brandy may be used to flavor sauces and complements a meal in which meat is the main course. Fully aged brandies are best taken after a meal.
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Brandy taken in the evening may aid one’s sleep, though the insomniac should consult a physician rather than self-medicate with brandy. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: After-Dinner Drinks; Ancient World, Drinking in; Aqua Vitae; Cognac; Cognac Advertising; Europe, Western; High-Potency Drinks; Wines, California. Further Readings Forbes, Robert J. A Short History of the Art of Distillation. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 1948. Hannum, Hurst and Robert S. Blumberg. Brandies and Liqueurs of the World. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1976. Southern, Michelle Dompierre. Dessert Cocktails: Classic and Contemporary After-Dinner Drinks. Portland, OR: Collectors Press, 2007. Wilson, C. Anne. Water of Life: A History of WineDistilling and Spirits (500 B.C. to A.D. 2000). Totnes, UK: Prospect Books, 2006.
A selection of cachaça (sugarcane liquor) brands from Brazil. Cachaça dates from around the 1630s and has become somewhat better known today around the world as an ingredient in the popular caipirinha cocktail.
Brazil Alcoholic beverages occupy a privileged position in Brazil’s history and culture, representing a central aspect of the cultural exchanges that marked this country’s discovery and conquest by the Europeans. Beverages functioned as social differentiation symbols and as instruments of ethnical identity construction, as well as being crucial elements for colonial economy development. After the country’s independence, and especially during the 20th century, the beverages industry went through a considerable expansion, making Brazil one of the greatest producers and consumers of beer and distilled beverages in the world. The Colonial Period Upon discovering Brazil, in 1500, the Portuguese encountered a vast population of native people, speakers of Tupi languages and cassava growers, in large villages by the seaside. These tribal
societies fermented fruit beverages and a cassava beer called cauim (from Tupi ca’o-y, or water of the drunk). Produced with techniques such as chewing and insalivation, cauim was essential for the execution of great parties in which anthropophagical rituals occurred and warrior expeditions against other Indians and the Portuguese themselves were planned. Descendant of a society in which wine was one of its main lifestyle symbols, the Portuguese systematically compared it to cauim and other native beverages, regarding them as barbarian or dirty because they were manufactured using a method that they considered to be nauseating. The ceremonial and warrior roles of cauim, on the other hand, made the fight against this beverage one of the main forms of establishing the European dominance over the native people, especially by means of the Jesuits’ missionary action. The fast process
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of native peoples’ extinction from the Brazilian coastline, caused by epidemics, wars, population displacement, slavery, and a profound miscegenation, provoked the disappearance of cauim in the most important colonization areas of Brazil, although similar beverages are still produced and consumed by many reminiscent indigenous societies, especially in the Amazon. The Portuguese that lived in Brazil tried to maintain their wine consumption habits, and the country became one of the biggest markets for Portuguese wine during the 16th and 18th centuries. However, the wine supply and conservation deficiencies during the long transatlantic journeys caused the product to become extremely expensive in Brazil, and as a result, it was mostly consumed by the colonial elites, barely reaching the great population mass composed by poor free men, mixed-race people, African slaves, and natives. Meanwhile, Brazil became, in the mid-16th century, the world’s biggest sugar producer. The exact date in which sugarcane juice and molasses started to be distilled for the production of sugarcane liquor (called cachaça in Brazil) is unknown, but all documental elements show that it is unlikely that this occurred prior to 1600. The fact is that, from the 1630s on, cachaça started to be increasingly consumed of the underprivileged inhabitants of Brazil. It is almost impossible to understand colonial Brazil without cachaça because of its central role in the local economy, in the slave traffic with Africa (where it was so well accepted that it eliminated the competition of European distilled beverages), and in the relationship between the colonial society and the indigenous peoples, who were deliberately attracted to the Portuguese–Brazilian sphere by cachaça offerings. From 1636 onward, the Portuguese crown tried many times to ban the manufacturing and selling of cachaça in order to put an end to its competition with Portuguese wine in Brazil itself and to stop the African slave traffic control by Brazilian cachaça manufacturers. These failed attempts forced the Portuguese government to accept the fact and to impose taxation on sugarcane liquor. By the end of the colonial period, cachaça was Brazil’s most consumed beverage. While the local elites continued to consume wines from Portugal, Spain, and Madeira Island,
the poor, the black slaves, and the Indians used to drink sugarcane liquor, which made them, in the eyes of the elite, cachaceiros (cachaça drinkers), which represented one of the most traditional forms of class discrimination in Brazil up until very recent times. The 19th Century In 1808, the Portuguese royal family, escaping from Napoleon Bonaparte, who had invaded Portugal, migrated to Brazil, making Rio de Janeiro the Portuguese Colonial Empire’s capital. This fact represented a great change in the Brazilian lifestyle because it allowed Brazil to become one of the focuses of international commerce. The habits of the Brazilian people, especially the richer ones, underwent great changes with the new economic openness. While the poor continued to consume sugarcane liquor, the rich now had a great variety of beverages at their disposal. The cultural and economic influence of Englishmen and Frenchmen allowed the elite to consume a beverage that had never been popular in the country: beer, especially English ones of the porter kind. Besides that, the traditional Iberian wines were replaced by French wines, port wine, and brandies of many origins, a phenomenon that became more noticeable with the country’s independence in 1822. On the other hand, the 19th century was also known for the arrival of European immigrants, mostly Italians and Germans, who from midcentury on, started producing their own traditional beverages in Brazil. The Italians started producing wine in the mountains of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil’s most southern state), while the Germans built the first Brazilian breweries. While wine remained for a long time a local product, consumed almost exclusively by the rural communities of Italian descent, the new breweries of German origin made the lager beer a beverage increasingly more common in the urban centers, especially when refrigeration techniques became more common. In the meantime, cachaça was still manufactured using archaic techniques and seen with much prejudice by the elites and the state. Considered an Afro-Brazilian beverage, sugarcane liquor was described by the Brazilian medical literature as one of the main public health concerns from a eugenic point of view. Although temperance and
prohibition movements have never been successfully installed in Brazil, the Afro-Brazilian (or Indian) cachaceiro image has contributed much to the maintenance of the class cleavage that marked the whole society. The 20th and 21st Centuries The 20th century brought great changes for Brazilian society, which became increasingly more urban and more industrial. This modernization process affected the beverage economy in Brazil as well as the habits of the Brazilian people. Undoubtedly, the most important fact in this process was the extraordinary emergence of beer as the country’s most consumed beverage. Beer, always lager and always extremely cold, became a cultural symbol for Brazil as much as Carnival or soccer, with which the country is often associated. From humble principles in the hands of German immigrants, Brazilian breweries became gigantic industrial and commercial conglomerates, favored by the relative closing of the Brazilian economy up until the 1990s and by the consumers’ fidelity to light and not-so-bitter beers, which are the specialty of the Brazilian beer industry. The industry’s growth process culminated in 1999 with the merge of Brahma and Antarctica breweries, and the creation of AmBev (America’s Beverage Company), the largest open-capital company in Latin America. In 2004, AmBev merged with the Belgian giant Interbrew, creating InBev. In 2008, InBev obtained control of the American company Anheuser-Busch, manufacturer of Budweiser beer, creating AB InBev, the world’s biggest brewery. AB InBev’s CEO and nine of their 14 executive board members are Brazilian. Although on a smaller scale (which represents the supremacy of beer as national beverage in Brazil), national wine producers also performed merges and purchases that have created important national companies, such as Miolo and Salton, composed by descendants of the first Italian immigrants. Brazil has distinguished itself by producing good sparkling wines and by becoming an important market for Chilean, Argentine, and Portuguese wines. The same can be said about the cachaça industry. Although it is the base for the famous caipirinha cocktail, cachaça is still very little known outside of Brazil and is frequently confused with
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Caribbean rum. Yet, Brazilian sugarcane liquor occupies, among the distilled beverages, third place worldwide in volume production, only behind vodka and Korean’s soju, although only 1 percent of its production of 1.5 billion liters per year is exported. An industrialization process that improved the quality of popular cachaça brands, combined with the work of distillers specializing in producing high-quality (and high-priced) sugarcane brandies, has made the stigma that haunted the beverage to decrease very much over the last years. With more than 200 million inhabitants, and very little cultural restrictions in regard to alcohol consumption, Brazil is an increasingly relevant market for the beverage industry. Colonized by a Mediterranean culture linked to wine, Brazil’s historic development created a new market, based on its own distilled beverage, highly marked by its identification with the poorest spectrum of the society and by the conversion of beer from a practically unknown beverage in the country up until the 19th century into a real symbol of the Brazilian connection with alcoholic beverages. João Azevedo Fernandes Universidade Federal da Paraíba See Also: Ethnic Traditions; Latin America; Portugal; Portuguese Empire; Slavery. Further Readings Cabral, Carlos. Presença do Vinho no Brasil: Um Pouco de História; Wine Presence in Brazil: a Little History. São Paulo, Brazil: Editora de Cultura, 2007. Curto, José C. Enslaving Spirits: The PortugueseBrazilian Alcohol Trade at Luanda and Its Hinterland, c. 1550–1830. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 2004. Fernandes, João A. Selvagens Bebedeiras: Álcool, Embriaguez e Contatos Culturais no Brasil Colonial (Séculos XVI–XVII); Wild Revelries: Alcohol, Drunkenness and Cultural Contacts in Colonial Brazil (16th–17th Centuries). São Paulo, Brazil: Editora Alameda, 2011. Figueiredo, Luciano and Heloisa Faria, eds. Cachaça: Alquimia Brasileira; Cachaça: Brazilian Alchemy. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Editora 19 Design, 2006.
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Breathalyzer Test Breathalyzer is the trade name of a specific product. It is also a general term used to refer to all the different models that attempt to measure blood alcohol concentration (BAC). A Breathalyzer is a type of device used to estimate the level or amount of alcohol on the breath. It is an indirect measure of BAC. The alcohol in the body or bloodstream will show up on an individual’s breath, which can give an indication of the alcohol level in the blood. The device is usually fitted with a disposable straw or mouthpiece through which the individual provides a sample breath. It is just one of several ways in which law enforcement checks drivers’ and other individuals’ sobriety. The development of alcohol testing dates back to the 1930s. Robert F. Borkenstein is credited with the invention of the Breathalyzer. He developed the device in 1954. Since then, the Breathalyzer models have become more sophisticated and more reliable than older models. The device is now used in almost all police departments, where officers are trained in how to operate it on the scene. In general, police officers are expected to make careful observation of the scene and the individual before administering the test. Blood Alcohol Content According to a report prepared by Mack Cowan, many states and jurisdictions have adopted laws specifying a legal limit for the BAC reading, which indicates impairment in the driver or individual. The current legal BAC limit is set at 0.08 percent or above. It is worth noting that the American Medical Association currently supports a BAC limit of 0.02 percent for individuals under 21 years old and 0.05 percent for adults. According to the Driving under the Influence (DUI) Foundation, the officer needs to ensure prior to administering the test that the suspect has not burped or vomited because such factors could interfere with the test results. In addition to doing so, the officer must document any observed sores, blood, or liquid in the mouth, all of which can produce a higher alcohol level in a sample breath than under normal circumstances. Without proper procedures, an early administration of the test can also lead to inaccuracy. In regard to a DUI prosecution, the defendant’s BAC level at the time of the
offense is of critical importance. Many states require that the test be taken within a certain time frame, either at arrest or at the time of offense. Based on the same report, a review of most publications looking at the time test indicates that the time frame is critical, and so state law requirements are affirmed. Accuracy of the Breathalyzer Test Lawrence Taylor states that there are a number of factors that can influence the test results of a Breathalyzer. As such, it is important that the results of the test be read and accepted with caution, given the probability of error. He explains that it has been proven that the temperature of the breath corresponds with the level of moisture, which is likely to affect the concentration level of alcohol. For example, an individual with a higher temperature is likely to have more moisture on his or her breath and thus has imbibed more alcohol. The manner in which a suspect breathes prior to the test may also adversely affect the results. The officer is expected to closely monitor the suspect’s breathing pattern because a change in breathing due to holding one’ breath or even exercise can produce a faulty BAC reading. As such, it is evident that the Breathalyzer test is not always accurate. The British Medical Journal suggests that time is the only thing that can consistently remove or get rid of alcohol from the mouth. It states that the presence of water or even washing the mouth with water will not eliminate alcohol. However, from a legal perspective, any one of these factors is likely to produce spurious results. The flaws associated with the Breathalyzer test have also led many states to pass laws requiring officers to conduct additional tests, which are likely to produce more accurate readings. For example, officers can now conduct a breath analysis test at the station or request a urine or blood test to confirm results. Other states have prohibited the use of the on-site Breathalyzer because of disagreement over its accuracy. In such cases, the state may rely on a urine or blood test for accuracy, thus reassuring those who are innocent. The Breathalyzer may also produce faulty results due to maintenance, human, or other factors. Some of these factors, as identified by the DUI Foundation, include moisture, cleaning products, electrical wire interference, cell
phones, police radios, and so on. Although the accuracy of the Breathalyzer test is questionable, it is normally accepted in DUI investigations if proper testing procedures have been followed. It is worth noting that prior to the Breathalyzer test, officers had to rely on clear and visible signs of impairment in the suspect when investigating an accident. Breathalyzer Devices There are different types of devices that may be used to estimate BAC. Andrea Cohen discusses some of the different types of devices, including the breath tester, infrared testers, fuel cell technology, and semiconductor devices. Each one of these devices uses a different technology, but the overall goals are the same in that they are all used to estimate the level of alcohol in the blood as indicated by the sample breath. Cook and Gearing discuss a newer form of Breathalyzer—the Breathalyzer behind the Wheel. They explain that this device is attached to the dashboard and connected to the ignition. It uses fuel-cell technology to measure the BAC on an individual’s breath. If an individual exceeds the limit after producing a sample breath, the engine is unlikely to start. These devices are reportedly effective in reducing the number of drunk drivers, but there are ways around them. For example, and as pointed out by Cook and Gearing, the intoxicated individual might switch to a car that does not have the device installed. Breathalyzers are available not only for law enforcement but also for consumers’ personal use. In the case of consumers, however, the devices have to be certified by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These devices tend to be handheld, smaller, portable, and inexpensive when compared to the ones used by law enforcement, costing less than $100 in some cases. They use chemical-silicon-oxide sensors. Unfortunately, the devices available for consumers are not quite as accurate or reliable as those used by law enforcement. Consumers also have to ensure that their personal devices meet the basic standards set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), if the devices are to be depended on. On the other hand, the Breathalyzer used by law enforcement, which may be handheld or for a desktop (nonportable), have to be approved by the
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NHTSA. The NHTSA guidelines should meet the basic standards set by the United States Department of Transportation. Cohen explains that these devices use infrared spectrophotometer technology or electrochemical fuel cell technology to operate. The Breathalyzer is used to help address safety concerns by protecting other drivers and bystanders from drunk drivers. Failing a Breathalyzer test may result in an arrest, although citizens can refuse to take the test when stopped by an officer although there are possible consequences. In some cases, other evidence could be introduced in court or in states such as California or the individual’s driver’s license could be automatically suspended irrespective of the outcome of a trial. It is important to note that even as Breathalyzer models continue to develop and become more commonplace, they still remain imperfect. More important, however, they are helpful in protecting the safety and well-being of citizens in general. They serve as a reminder of the potential dangers associated with excessive alcohol consumption. Marika Dawkins University of Texas, Pan American See Also: American Medical Association; DrunkDriving Laws; Drunkenness, Legal Definitions of. Further Readings American Medical Association. “1997 Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association: Reports of the Council on Scientific Affairs.” http://www.ama-assn.org/resources/doc/csaph/csaa -97.pdf (Accessed November 2013). “Breathalyzer Tests.” British Medical Journal, v.23 (November 1968). Cook, Philip J. and Maeve E. Gearing. “The Breathalyzer Behind the Wheel.” New York Times (August 30, 2009). http://www.nytimes.com/ 2009/08/31/opinion/31cook.html?_r=0 (Accessed November 2013). Cohen, Andrea. “Breathalyzer Test Guide.” Tests. com. http://www.tests.com/Breathalyzer-Testing (Accessed November 2013). Cowan, Mack. “National Safety Council Committee on Alcohol and Other Drugs: Alcohol Technology, Pharmacology, and Toxicology Subcommittee Report.” National Safety Council. http://www .nsc.org/get_involved/divisions/Documents/
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Scientific%20Soundness%20of%20Time-of -Test%20Laws.pdf (Accessed October 2013). DUI DWI Foundation. “Breathalyzer.” http://www .duifoundation.org/drunkdriving/testing/chemical/ breathalyzer.php (Accessed November 2013). Hlastala, Michael P. “Physiological Errors Associated with Alcohol Breath Testing.” Champion (July 1985). Martin, Douglas. “Robert F. Borkenstein, 89, Inventor of the Breathalyzer.” New York Times (August 17, 2002). http://www.nytimes.com/ 2002/08/17/us/robert-f-borkenstein-89-inventor-of -the-breathalyzer.html (Accessed November 2013). Taylor, Lawrence. Drunk Driving Defense, 6th ed. New York: Aspen, 2006.
Brewing, History of The history of beer is frequently regarded as the history of human civilization, inextricably linked to humankind’s social, cultural, and political interactions. In ancient times, beer nourished kings and slaves alike, and the transformations that occurred during brewing practices were frequently attributed to deities and forms of divine intervention. Historically considered a mundane household chore, brewing has at other times seen unrivaled regulation and mechanization. It has served as a tool of political unrest and revolution and as a symbol of peacetime and creative expression. Controlled fermentation, which selects for certain ingredients and environmental conditions, remains an integral part of cultures throughout the world. Converting starches to sugars, and the subsequent fermentation of those sugars is a specific process known as brewing; the resulting product is known as beer. Brewing in Ancient Times The human-mediated brewing process is thought to have emerged roughly 5,000 years ago between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a region now identified as Mesopotamia or the Fertile Crescent. There is some debate about the technical origins of beer and brewing, but it is believed that grain supplies, buried underground or simply left outdoors, interacted with moisture and began to
sprout. Sprouting grain initiates an enzymatic reaction that begins to convert starches into sugar. When heated and dried again, perhaps naturally or by an individual attempting to bake bread, the enzyme-modified starches break down into simple sugars ready for fermentation. Historians credit ancient Sumerians as the first creators of a human civilization; lower Mesopotamia’s capacity to produce ingredients for beer appears to have shaped their decision to settle there. The earliest literary accounts of brewing date to 1800 b.c.e., when the ancient Sumerian “Hymn to Ninkasi” glorified the Sumerian goddess of beer. Ninkasi, represented by an ear of barley, provided fermented beverages to the temples and religious centers of Sumeria. Composed of two Sumerian songs, the hymn represents one of the oldest discovered works of literature. One song provides instructions for brewing, while the other sings praises of Ninkasi for her generous bounty, capable of altering moods and bringing great joy. Ninkasi taught her followers how to brew beer, which was known as kas. Early literary records are not the only Sumerian relics found still bearing the stamp of beer and brewing traditions. Shards of Sumerian pottery bear deposits of calcium oxalate. Also known as beer stone, these deposits are a known by-product of brewing processes. Furthermore, the clay jars used to brew and hold beer also serve as the Sumerian symbol for beer, one of many pictographs that compose the Sumerian written language. Codified soon after the Sumerians praised Ninkasi for her abundant and fermented gifts, the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi illustrates the economic importance of beer. This early legal code regulated the price of beer sold in taverns, classified beer into 20 different categories, based on ingredients, and established other rules for the production and sale of beer. Strictly and ruthlessly imposed, the Code of Hammurabi marks the beginning of a long line of brewing regulations and beer laws. Around 3000 b.c.e., Sumerian brewing culture had also diffused into Egypt. Being healthier and heartier than water, beer became the most commonly consumed Egyptian beverage. Funerary offerings such as beer jugs and beer straws showcase beer as consumed by social elites, while descriptions of beer as payment frequent the
records that shed light on lower castes. Like their Sumerian and Babylonian contemporaries, Egyptian women were the primary producers of beer, and they brewed several different styles from several different varieties of grain. Barley and emmer, an ancient wheat cultivar, were ingredients in everything from peasant libations to Osiris’s beer of truth. This rich brewing tradition continued even after the Greeks conquered the region under Alexander the Great in 332 b.c.e. Preferring wine, which they consumed in great quantities, the ancient Greeks and Romans were not primarily beer drinkers. Instead, they associated beer production and consumption with the conquered people of Egypt and with barbaric Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic tribes, for whom beer was an important element of subsistence. Roman scribes provide the first written accounts of Germanic brewing, noting its corrupt resemblance to wine and an aromatic likeness to goats and livestock. Yet, even the Romans eventually succumbed to beer drinking, for beer was easier to produce than wine and provided a more reliable source of energy for Rome’s wayward troops. Evidence of Rome’s brewing history lies near Regensburg, Bavaria, where a recently unearthed brewery indicates the earliest known “modern” brewing facility—complete with mash tuns and boil kettles. Reinheitsgebot, the Beer Purity Law of 1516 With the collapse of the Roman Empire in 476, monasteries began producing beer in order to sustain themselves and traveling guests, and by the early 800s, St. Gallen monastery of Switzerland had constructed the first full-scale brewery in Europe. At this time, beer was produced with gruit, the assortment of herbs used to flavor and preserve beer before the introduction and widespread adoption of hops. Composed primarily of bog myrtle (also known as sweet gale), yarrow, and wild rosemary, gruit may be made of any number of herbal constituents, including wild hops. Throughout this early period of European history, the Catholic Church controlled the sales and taxation of gruit until the surfacing of the Reformation in the early 16th century brought with it a new law that would forever change the face of beer. In 1516, the German Reinheitsgebot, otherwise known as the Beer Purity Law, restricted the use
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of anything but malted barley, hops, and water for all bottom-fermented (lager) beers. As yeast’s relationship to fermentation was not discovered until 1857, the law would later be amended so that the microorganism would also be allowed. At the time of Reinheitsgebot’s inception, brewers and bakers competed for grain and other ingredients. The Purity Law effectively insured that specialty grains such as wheat and rye went to bakers rather than brewers. While the law initially applied only to lagers, most ale brewers eventually adopted it as well. Reinheitsgebot has endured numerous revisions and amendments and is now part of the modern German tax law, but it is important to note that two versions of the Beer Purity Law exist. A Bavarian version allows for additions of malted wheat and malted rye but only for top-fermenting ales. A German version is more lenient, allowing for various adjunct sugars and coloring additions made from those sugars. The historical validity of the name Reinheitsgebot is also frequently misunderstood. While the law is more than half a millennium old, the current name was coined in an act of the Bavarian Parliament in 1918. Even so, Reinheitsgebot is the world’s oldest, continuous example of food and consumer safety legislation. Colonial America and Brewing Roughly 100 years after the establishment of Reinheitsgebot, when British colonists settled in the Americas, small beer (beers around 2 to 3 percent alcohol by volume [ABV]) existed as a staple beverage. Indeed, the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620 chiefly because of dwindling beer supplies. Much like Ancient Babylon and Egypt, women were the primary domestic producers of beer in the colonies, producing small batches for consumption by individual families and social units. After a short period of acclimation in which adjustments to the American climate and lack of proper equipment interfered with brewing processes, male brewers and tavern keepers began producing beer on a more commercial scale. As a significant amount of commercially produced beer was sold as military and ship rations or was traded for goods from other colonies, domestic brewing continued to produce the majority of beer consumed by colonists. Not until the mid-1800s did commercial breweries replace
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home brewers as the main producers of domestically consumed beer. Colonial brewing ingredients varied as widely as those used by contemporary brewers. Imported ingredients were a precious commodity and prohibitively expensive, and resourceful colonial brewers were forced to use unconventional adjuncts. Brewers used molasses as a common wort supplement, and frequently added new world fruits and vegetables for flavor and to further boost the amount of fermentable sugars. Occasionally they used peaches and persimmons, for example, and spruce was a common preservative. Pumpkin, in particular, was a common addition to the mashing process. A squash of plentiful proportion, its starches easily converted into simple sugars ripe for the production of alcohol. Knowledge of these indigenous brewing alternatives would prove important in the tumultuous era brought on by the impending revolution. Frothing with patriotic pride, colonists relied on domestic brewing and beer to negotiate a turbulent time. Political centers such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia thrived on beer, which was prized by both royalist and rebel alike, and taverns frequently served as hotbeds of philosophical discussion and political unrest. Even the student bodies of Harvard University and the College of William and Mary, the colonies’ two oldest academic institutions, had breweries on site or otherwise included beer in the students’ daily rations. Colonial patriots such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams were also great proponents of beer; they not only consumed beer in great quantities but also brewed their own. Samuel Adams, the namesake of the Boston Beer Company, came from a long line of malsters and brewers. Many of these founding fathers recorded beer recipes that survive today, and several of these recipes have been brewed by or adapted by modern brewers in order to pay homage to colonial brewing traditions and revolutionary era leaders. Industrialization and Brewing In London, where the Industrial Revolution began, factories and widespread manufacturing introduced the dark porter as a new style of beer. The scientific revolution of the late 17th century began to divorce brewing from its domestic
settings, and the introduction of the steam engine to the brewing process in the late 18th century solidified beer’s place as a beverage of the industrial era. As boons of the brewing trade, advances in refrigeration and transportation would also help increase the efficiency of production and distribution practices. These advancements would soon diffuse throughout the Western world and would aid in the transportation of beer to locations as far away as India. The mid-19th century saw an increase in German immigration to the United States. As a result, German and Czech lagers began to replace English-style ales. By 1873, the golden era of American brewing peaked with more than 4,000 breweries. Around 1900, Michael Joseph Owens’s invention of the first automated glass bottle manufacturing machine spurred the industry ever closer to complete commercial production. People could now cheaply purchase small quantities of beer for consumption at home, thus saving the time and energy associated with home brewing. In response to the rapid industrialization of the United States, the mechanization of the brewing and bottling industries was able to provide an increasingly stressed population with an ever-growing supply of cheap alcohol. Back in Germany, the 19th century was an age of new beer styles. Paulaner Brewery first produced its Salvator doppelbock in 1835. In 1838, the Düsseldorf-based Schumacher produced the first modern iteration of the altbier. By the end of the century, the Vienna lager, German and Bohemian pilsner, märzenbier, and Oktoberfest were all distinct styles. With the advent of railroad networks, pasteurization, thermometers, and hydrometers, among other advances, German brewing culture experienced incredible growth, ultimately leading to Germany’s distinction as a brewing powerhouse. Prohibition and Brewing Booming as it was, the alcohol industry in the United States did not grow unchecked. Temperance advocates began to demonize alcohol as a major cause of pandemic immorality. After a few decades of lobbying, antialcohol laws were passed on a national scale. The introduction of Prohibition, the period between 1919 and 1933 when the production and distribution of alcohol were illegal
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In the United States, commercial breweries began to replace home brewers as the main producers of domestically consumed beer around the mid-1800s. The print shows delivery wagons leaving a Philadelphia brewery around 1870. While a number of modern industrial brewing companies have recently merged with transnational corporations, more than 2,000 smaller craft breweries have reemerged around the country since 1978 and now account for approximately 7 percent of the U.S. beer industry.
in the United States, hamstrung the growth of the United States beer industry. Ironically, the Noble Experiment (another moniker for the period of Prohibition) was also responsible for the resurgence of home brewing and home distilling. With commercial production outlawed, individuals returned to the largely unmonitored and unregulated realm of domestic alcohol production. While home brewing practices increased, Prohibition crippled the American beer industry. Out of the estimated 1,400 breweries in operation before Prohibition, barely 100 remained afterward. Upon Prohibition’s repeal, a generation of Americans who had known nothing but soft drinks and other sugary beverages rejected traditional, frequently bitter beers in favor of modern, sweeter beers made of corn and rice adjuncts. Using this cultural shift in taste as a foothold, American macrobreweries with flagship light lagers began to emerge as industry leaders. The mass-marketed beer produced by these industry giants had far less flavor than its pre-Prohibition
counterpart. Forty to 50 years after the repeal of Prohibition, American brewers and consumers once again began to champion the diversity of pre-Prohibition brewing. Contemporary Brewing In the 1970s and 1980s, England saw a resurgence of microbreweries, whose flavorful and unique beers inspired the development of the United States’ own microbrewery renaissance. With the legalization of home brewing in 1978, American brewers began slowly producing all-malt flagships and small batches of ales and lagers. Since then, more than 2,000 breweries have opened around the country. Though these craft breweries account for approximately 7 percent of the U.S. beer industry, they represent a quickly growing market segment and a global brewing trend that favors creativity and self-expression over strict style guidelines. In response to craft beer growth, large industrial brewing companies have merged into even larger, in some cases
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transnational, brewing corporations. While craft beer remains primarily a North American phenomenon, the concept is beginning to find favor among British producers and consumers and is even starting to emerge in the more traditional German market. Chris Maggiolo Independent Scholar See Also: Brewing Beer, Techniques of; Craft Brewing Culture; Grain Alcohol: Ancient Era Through Middle Ages; Local Breweries; Prohibition. Further Readings Dornbusch, Horst. Prost! The Story of German Beer. Denver, CO: Brewers Publications, 1997. Hornsey, Ian S. A History of Beer and Brewing. London: RSC Publishing, 2003. Meussdoerffer, Franz G. “A Comprehensive History of Beer Brewing.” In Handbook of Brewing: Processes, Technology, Markets, Hans M. Esslinger, ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley and Sons, 2009. Milano, L., ed. Drinking in Ancient Societies: History and Culture of Drinking in the Ancient Near East. Padua, Italy: Sargon, 1994. Smith, Gregg. Beer in American: The Early Years 1587–1840. Boulder, CO: Brewers, 1998.
Brewing Beer, Techniques of Modern brewing requires heating malted grains in water to extract the sugar from the grains (called mashing), separating the water from the grain (called lautering), boiling the resultant liquid (called wort) with hops, and then cooling the wort to a temperature that allows yeast to convert the sugar to alcohol in a process called fermentation. Because malted barley is usually too sweet for the human palate, various herbs, spices, and roots have been used to attenuate the malty sweetness. The widespread use of hops as a bittering agent dates to the Middle Ages. Except for the addition of hops to the brewing process and the scale of production that have
taken place in the modern era, brewing techniques have changed little in the 8,000 years since humans discovered beer. Overview There are four main ingredients that contribute to the flavor of beer: barley, hops, yeast, and water. The brewing process begins with barley, a grain that contains starch bound up in proteins that are not water soluble. Barley grows in two-row, four-row, and six-row varieties, in reference to the number of grains around the head of the stalk; only the two-row and six-row kinds are suitable for brewing. Two-row barley, with larger and more symmetrical kernels, contains more starch and is more commonly used in brewing. After harvest, barley is cleaned and dried. Professionals called malsters begin the malting process with the rehydration of the malt until the water content is greater than 40 percent of the weight of the grain. Frequent changes of alkaline water prevent bacterial growth and early fermentation. The grain begins to germinate at temperatures between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit, with the small plant shoot, called the acrospire, allowed to grow for around seven days. Until recently, the process was done on enormous “malting floors,” with the grain spread out in a thin layer, sprayed with water, and raked frequently to expose the grain to oxygen and prevent bacterial growth. In modern industrial malting houses, grain is malted in a large drum that rotates slowly to achieve the same effect. As the malt germinates, it releases enzymes that break down the protein matrix surrounding the starch and transforms the hard barley into softer kernels in a process called modification. Once the barley reaches its maximum state of modification, which is at about the point where the acrospire reaches 75 to 100 percent of the length of the grain, the barley is dried, or “kilned.” A variety of kilning techniques produce malts of different sugar content with different enzymes left in the malt. Basic kilning calls for the temperature in the kilning room to be raised to 90 degrees Fahrenheit and maintained for 24 hours and then raised to between 120 and 150 degrees for 12 hours. A final increase in temperature to between 170 and 190 degrees completes the process. The result, depending on the temperatures of the second and third stages, is either a light or pale malt.
Because these two styles of malt retain the most starch and are therefore the most useful and most common malts to use for fermentation, brewers refer to these malts as base malts. This process is also used to produce wheat malt and rye malt. Higher malting temperatures and increased malting times destroy the starches in the malt but also create grains with a wide variety of flavor and color profiles. For example, malts roasted at about 330 degrees Fahrenheit become darker and contribute flavors of biscuit and nuttiness to the beer, while malts roasted above 400 degrees turn black and develop chocolate and coffee flavors. The darker malts also result in darker, more fullflavored beer. Hops Hops are a flowering vine that produces a small, female, conelike flower that contains resin comprising alpha and beta acids. Boiling the dried hop flowers isomerizes the resin, releasing the bitter alpha acids. Hop cultivars contain differing concentrations of alpha acids, and hops are marketed based on the percentage of alpha acid present in the flower. Brewers utilize hops in three ways—for bittering, flavoring, and aroma—and the bitterness present in beer is measured in International Bitterness Units (IBUs). Bittering hops provide a balanced, more refreshing drink. Optimum bittering occurs when hops are boiled in the sweet wort for between 45 and 90 minutes, at which point most of the alpha acids have been released. While most commercially available beer contains bittering hops, some styles contain more than others, and each style can exhibit a range of bitterness. For example, imperial India pale ales (IPAs) have a high range from 60 to 120 IBUs, while lagers, including Budweiser, are much lower, at 8 to 40 IBUs depending on the substyle. Brewers introduce flavoring hops around 30 minutes before the end of the boil, depending on the hop varietal and style of beer. This gives complexity to the character of the beer through piney, citrusy, floral, or earthy flavors. Hops with lower alpha-acid ranges are more commonly used for flavoring. In order to achieve “nose” with aromas similar to flavoring hops, brewers add aroma hops within the final 15 minutes of boiling. Brewers can also
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enhance the hop aroma through a process called dry hopping, in which hops are added during a late stage of fermentation in order to maximize the hop aroma. This process recalls the development of IPAs, where brewers added dry hops to barrels of pale ale bound for India in order preserve the freshness. Yeast Yeast is a fungus that metabolizes sugar and produces alcohol and carbon dioxide as waste byproducts. The most commonly used yeasts in brewing are in the family Saccharomycetaceae, genus Saccharomyces, having been used since ancient times to produce beer. There are two main species of Saccharomyces used in brewing— S. cerevisiae and S. pastorianus. When used in brewing, S. cerevisiae is referred to as an ale yeast, or top-fermenting yeast. It was most likely originally isolated from the skins of grapes or plums—the yeast is a component of the thin white film on the skins of some dark-colored fruits. At temperatures of between 50 and 75 degrees, the yeast organism produces ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide, and floats to the top of the liquid, forming a cake, or head, on top of the fermenting beer. Aside from the ethyl alcohol and CO2, ale yeast also produces other compounds, including esters (which give beer a fruitiness), phenols (which can cause spiciness), and diacetyl (which give beer a bit of buttery or butterscotch flavor). As brewers have transferred yeast from one batch of beer to help start the next over the centuries, hundreds of strains of S. cerevisiae have evolved and each contributes distinct flavors to specific styles of beer. The second species of yeast, S. pastorianus, is used in lagers and ferments best at temperatures between 32 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The low temperatures result in slower fermentation, less surface foam, and when used with pale base malts, a clearer beer. During fermentation, the yeast settles to the bottom, which is why lager yeasts are often referred to as bottom-fermenting yeasts. S. pastorianus produces fewer of the fruity esters, diacetyls, and phenols found in ales but can give off sulfur compounds that usually disappear during aging. S. pastorianus is a more recently evolved yeast than S. cerevisiae, first appearing in Germany and Bavaria about 400 years ago. Recent discoveries
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seem to indicate that the yeast is a hybrid of S. cerevisiae and S. eubayanus, another species of yeast native to a fungus in the Patagonia area of South America. Saccharomyces yeast can produce other alcohols at higher fermentation temperatures. One of these is fusel alcohol, which is similar to the ethyl alcohol found in beer but with extra carbon atoms. The presence of fusel alcohol in beer contributes to off-flavors, especially spicy or hot flavors. These are usually unpleasant flavors and the word fusel is used in Germany to denote bad liquor. A third category of yeasts are often referred to as “spontaneously fermenting yeasts.” These are in the family Saccharomycetaceae, with the genus Brettanomyces being the most commonly used in brewing. Although Brett, as it is colloquially known, has been found in beers for centuries, the strain was only isolated in 1904 by a brewer at the Carlsberg brewery. Unlike lager and ale yeasts, which the brewer deliberately introduces, spontaneously fermenting yeasts are considered wild infections in the brewing process. For most of the history of brewing, these yeasts worked alongside ale yeasts, metabolizing sugars and contributing sour, “off”-flavors to the beer. These are desirable flavors in some traditional Belgian ales, French saisons, farmhouse ales from the Flanders area, and fruit lambics. The chemical ions in water have a profound impact on the final flavor of beer. The most important of them are bicarbonate, calcium, chloride, magnesium, sulfate, and sodium. Bicarbonate water is more alkaline. Because darker malts have higher acidity, brewers in areas with more bicarbonate, such as London and Dublin, gravitated toward darker beers such as porters and stouts. High calcium makes water hard, which facilitates enzyme activity, helping convert starch to sugar. Yeasts convert sugar to alcohol more efficiently in hard water. Sulfates also contribute to hardness and react with acids in hops to produce a more sharply bitter beer. Sodium in water highlights the sweet malts, while chlorides help give more body. Magnesium, a yeast nutrient, facilitates the conversion of sugars to alcohol during fermentation. Brewing Process For most of the history of humans brewing beer, the process followed the same basic pattern
regardless of the wide regional variation in ingredients. Prior to the advent of hops and industrial brewing, beer was produced by women in the home, or in Christian Europe in monasteries and convents. Barley and other grains would be brought to a temperature of around 150–170 degrees Fahrenheit, which converts the starches to sugar and had the beneficial side effect of killing most of the bacteria in the water. The liquid, called wort, was then drained off into a vat for fermentation. Brewsters then repeated the process several more times, with fewer sugars being produced in each successive “running” of the grains. Each running would be fermented separately in open containers. The high sugar content in the first running produced a strong ale, which would be served on social occasions or sold to supplement the household income. The second running produced a weaker “common beer,” while a third running produced a “small beer,” consumed by laborers, women, and children. This process remained unchanged in Western brewing for many centuries. To counteract the sweet malted barley and create a distinctive flavor, brewers mixed herbs, wild plants, fruits, and berries into the grains before mashing. The imprecise household nature of beer production meant that each batch ended up with a different flavor. A general lack of understanding about water chemistry also meant that the addition of some herbs caused nausea, hallucinations, and even death. The common additive henbane, for example, contains hallucinogenic alkaloids that are released more easily in the heating process. The widespread use of hops as an adjunct flavoring began in the early Middle Ages, though their recorded use dates back to the 8th century c.e. Aside from their antiseptic and bittering properties, hops forever changed the nature of the brewing process. Prior to their advent, brewers mashed the gruit-infused grains in a kettle and drained the liquid into a large vat for fermenting. The introduction of hops radically changed commercial brewing. Brewing with hops requires a kettle to mash the grains and then a second kettle for boiling the hops in the resultant wort. It also requires some way to strain the hops flower from the wort. For most households, this extra equipment was an
unaffordable and mostly unnecessary expense. For industrial brewers, however, the extra equipment represented a long-term investment and a means of standardizing their product. The process of extracting the sugars from the malts in one vessel and then boiling with hops in a second vessel has remained largely unchanged since the Middle Ages. The preservative nature of hops allowed for longer storage and transportation as well as a more precise balancing of the sweet malts. It was also safer than herbal mixtures. Modern brewing techniques differ largely in their efficiency and use of technology, such as the use of steam engines to power grist mills and pump liquid to refrigeration. Brewers also developed more efficient methods of extracting sugar from the grains. The most important advance was sparging. After the water is drained from the mash, hot water is sprayed over the malt bed and allowed to soak through it, exiting into the boiling tank. Home Brewing After Prohibition, brewing beer at home remained illegal until 1978, when federal law allowed states to regulate home brewing. Modern home brewing differs from industrial brewing only in scale. The simplest method of home brewing beer is to purchase a preassembled kit of ingredients that includes yeast, hops, and concentrated malt extract. Home brewers combine the extract with water and then, as in industrial brewing, bring the water to a boil, add hops, cool the resultant wort, and ferment the liquid. Extract brewers can also add adjunct grains and ingredients to fine-tune the style and enhance the flavor, color, or alcohol strength of the beer. In some cases, this would mean steeping grains, like tea, in the brewing water at about 170 degrees Fahrenheit, while in other cases the adjuncts might be added to the boil. A more complex home brewing technique is allgrain brewing. A scaled-down version of industrial brewing, all-grain brewing requires crushing the grains, mashing the grains in water, sparging the mash to extract the wort, and then boiling with hops and any other adjuncts. Because of the added steps of mashing, all-grain brewing generally takes longer than extract brewing. Finally, in an intermediate home brewing technique called partial mash, the home brewer might
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start with malt extract and then mash a smaller amount of grain than in an all-grain recipe. Less complex than all-grain brewing, partial mashing gives the home brewer a fixed amount of readymade sugars in the malt extract but allows for the flexibility of fine-tuning some of the flavors through mashing. While making any size batch of beer is possible, home brewing generally occurs in multiples of five-gallon batches to accommodate the standard size of food-grade buckets and glass carboys used for fermentation and aging. Andrew McMichael Western Kentucky University See Also: Ale; Beer; Brewing, History of; Dark Beer; Lager; Light Beer. Further Readings Barth, Roger. The Chemistry of Beer. New York: Wiley, 2013. Fix, George. Principles of Brewing Science: A Study of Serious Brewing Issues. Boulder, CO: Brewers, 1999. Hieronymous, Stan. For the Love of Hops: The Practical Guide to Aroma, Bitterness and the Culture of Hops. Boulder, CO: Brewers, 2012. Hornsey, Ian S. A History of Beer and Brewing. Cambridge, UK: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2003. Palmer, John. How to Brew: Everything You Need to Know to Brew Beer Right the First Time. 3rd ed. Boulder, CO: Brewers, 2006. Palmer, John. Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers. Boulder, CO: Brewers, 2013. Zainasheff, Jamil. Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation. Boulder, CO: Brewers, 2010.
Brooks, Foster Widely known as the “lovable lush,” entertainer Foster Brooks was so closely associated with his inebriated stage persona that most people were convinced he was an actual alcoholic. In reality, Brooks did not drink at all by that point. Before the 1960s, he had been a heavy drinker who began drinking on Friday nights and did not sober up
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until Monday morning. As a relatively unknown actor, he was also broke. Accepting a $10 bet that he could not stop drinking and smoking, in 1964 he stopped for good and never had another drink in his life. His career peaked in the 1970s and 1980s when he became a staple of American television. He also continued performing his lovable lush act on the Las Vegas stage. Brooks regularly appeared on TV shows such as The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and The Steve Allen Comedy Hour and was a regular guest on Dean Martin’s Celebrity Roasts. In 1974, Brooks was nominated for an Emmy Award for “best supporting actor” on The Dean Martin Show. Despite his image, or perhaps because of it, Foster Brooks also served as a spokesperson for Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), appearing in a number of public service announcements. Early Life Foster Brooks was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on May 11, 1912. Brooks was one of eight sons of the local sheriff. He dropped out of school after completing the sixth grade. He married Loretta Brooks on April 14, 1934, and subsequently fathered four children. They divorced in 1950, and he married Teri Brooks that same year. The couple had two daughters, Teri Brooks Elmendorf and Scotti Brooks. Foster and Teri Brooks remained married until his death in 2001. Brooks launched his career in his childhood by singing on the radio. He honed his skills by working as both a newscaster and disc jockey on local radio and television stations. As soon as he could afford it, he moved to New York State and took on the same jobs in both Rochester and Buffalo. It was while living in Buffalo that Foster Brooks met Robert Schmidt, who is better known to Baby Boomers as Buffalo Bob, the host of The Howdy Doody Show, a popular television show that ran from 1947 to 1960. Brooks and Schmidt formed a country-western group, the Hi-Hatters. Big Break In 1960, Brooks and his family left for Hollywood so that he could pursue a film career. In addition to acting in bit parts to support his family, he took on odd jobs that include delivering telephone books and delivering packages during the Christmas season. He also worked as an
apartment manager, living rent free in return for caretaking duties. Brooks also served as a security guard for the Los Angeles Dodgers. After moving to California, Brooks attended a celebrity golf entertainment with his friend Dennis James, a popular television personality. James offered Brooks $50 to entertain the crowd. Since the request had not been anticipated, Brooks had not prepared an act. While walking to the stage, he remembered his father entertaining the family with a lush routine, and Brooks adapted it for his own purposes. The routine of a lush who is well aware of his drunken state but does not want others to know became the linchpin of Brooks’s career. The initial act was so successful that singer Perry Como invited him to open for him at the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas. When hotel management balked at having an unknown appearing on its stage, Como threatened to walk out, and management allowed Brooks to appear at the Hilton. The general public first saw Brooks’s routine when Johnny Carson invited him to appear on The Tonight Show in 1962. Achieving Success Brooks found his home on television, and he had roles in a number of television shows in the 1960s. He began to be recognized in public in 1962 after appearing in the long-running Western Gunsmoke, which starred James Arness as sheriff Matt Dillon, and in situation comedies such as Bewitched (1964–72), I Dream of Jeannie (1966– 79), and The Munsters (1964–66). In 1966, he appeared in Tammy, which was based on the film of that name starring Debbie Reynolds. Brooks also had roles in Laredo (1966), Mr. Terrific (1967), The Monkees (1967), The Flying Nun (1967), The Beverly Hillbillies (1969), The Mod Squad (1969), The Survivors (1969), and Bonanza (1969). Brooks continued his career in the 1970s with roles on Daniel Boone (1970), Here’s Lucy (1973), Super Seal (1976), Police Woman (1977), Switch (1977), Fantasy Island (1978), and B.J. and the Bear (1979). He also reappeared on earlier shows as different characters. The 1980s found Brooks appearing in roles on Quincy, M.E. (1983), Small Wonder (1986), The New Mike Hammer (1987), and Murder She Wrote (1987). He also provided voices for animated films that include The Jetsons (1985) and
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GoBots: War of the Rock Lords (1986). In 1990, Brooks appeared on The Munsters Today and followed that role with appearances on What a Dummy and The Giant of Thunder Mountain the following year. His last television role was on The Cosby Show in 1996. In addition to these guest appearances, Brooks appeared as a panelist on the original Match Game (1962–69) hosted by Gene Rayburn. In 1981, Brooks spent a year playing Miles Sternhaggen on Mork and Mindy (1978–82), the show about an alien from outer space that introduced comedian Robin Williams to television audiences. Brooks played a drunk in a number of television shows, including roles on It Takes a Thief (1968), Green Acres (1969), The High Chaparral (1970), The Bill Cosby Show (1972), and Starsky and Hutch (1976). Although never a major film star, Brooks appeared in a number of movies, including The Villain (1979), Cannonball Run II (1983), Cracking Up (1983), and Oddballs (1984). Legacy Brooks continued to perform until the age of 86. His last appearance was on a celebrity roast for actress Zsa Zsa Gabor in 1999. He died on December 20, 2001, at his home in Encino, California, at the age of 89. The man who proved he could stop drinking after decades of weekend imbibing is now best remembered for his appearances on Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts, in which he regularly stole the show from some the world’s best-known celebrities with his drunken lush routine. Brooks’s most popular routine about a drunken airplane pilot is still available on YouTube. In the skit, Brooks and Martin appear at a bar. Brooks, who has come to the bar “to settle his nerves” before going to work appears to be so drunk that he constantly slurs his words. He tells Martin that he used to be a bus driver but quit because there were so many drunks on the road. Ever the consummate professional, Brooks remains in character throughout the skit, but Martin constantly breaks up, and he keeps wiping away tears of laughter from his eyes. Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar
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See Also: History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Martin, Dean; Mothers Against Drunk Driving; Television. Further Readings IMDB. “Foster Brooks: 1912–2001.” IMDB. http:// www.imdb.com/name/nm0111983/?ref_=nv_sr_1 (Accessed October 2013). Lueck. Thomas J. “Foster Brooks, 89, Comedian Known for His Tipsy Persona.” New York Times (December 24, 2001). McLellan, Dennis. “Comic Foster Brooks—Famed for Drunk Act.” Los Angeles Times. http://www .sfgate.com/news/article/Comic-Foster-Brooks -famed-for-drunk-act-2836258.php (Accessed October 2013). “Salute to Drunken History.” Journal-Inquirer (July 9, 2013).
Brown-Forman Before George Garvin Brown, a pharmaceuticals salesman, and his half-brother, John Forman, started the Brown-Forman Distillery in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1870, whiskey drinks were drawn and sold right out of the barrel. In an innovative marketing move, Brown and Forman cautioned tavern owners that selling whiskey from brokensealed barrels was harmful to their customers. They began bottling, corking, and labeling their whiskey Old Forester bourbon and convinced sellers to purchase their product. Their labels, having a handwritten guarantee of being high-quality whiskey, resulted in a significant sales increase. Forman was, however, unconvinced of the longevity on this strategy and sold all of his company shares. Old Forester, which was actually a blend of other whiskies the Browns had purchased, continued to be successful under the Brown family through the end of the century. The BrownForman business soon became a private company owned by the Brown family, which currently holds about 70 percent of the company’s voting shares. Prohibition and World War II The Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, better known as Prohibition, outlawed the
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production, sales, and transportation of alcohol in the United States. It went into full effect in January, 1920. Brown-Forman, in the attempt to remain in business, secured one of only 10 federal permits, allowing whiskey to be stored and distributed to pharmacists for medical reasons. Rather than advertising its products as alcoholic drinks, the company shifted its message, saying its products were medically relevant. With the repeal of the Prohibition in 1933, Brown-Forman again adjusted its marketing and image away from advertising health products to reflect legal sales of their alcohol products. In 1936, Dr. Frank Shipman, a University of Louisville professor, was hired by Brown-Forman and turned the company into a complete whiskey factory. With the start of World War II in the 1940s, Brown-Forman again experienced decreased sales. The company also suffered as a result of the popular image that soldiers’ alcohol consumption was hampering the war effort. Realizing the threat to its business, the company began investigating ways for its products to be seen as beneficial to the war effort. Soon, it began producing and providing alcohol that was used to manufacture gunpowder and rubber products. As the company again gained stability, it positioned its efforts toward benefiting from the war’s end. Predicting that the war would end in four years, it set its course to provide a quality four-year-old bourbon. Growing the Business The Browns began diversifying and expanding their business by purchasing their competitor’s existing brands. For instance, in about a 21-year span, beginning in the 1950s and lasting well into the 1970s, Brown-Forman bought three top liquor producers: Jack Daniels, Canadian Mist, and Southern Comfort. With its existing and newly acquired products, the company increased its marketing campaign. Although its products had specific targeted markets, such as Southern Comfort that was sold only in England, Australia, and Canada, once Brown-Forman began its advertisement efforts, its sales significantly increased worldwide. These three brands resulted in about half of the Brown-Forman total $1 billion annual sales. With the successful growth, the company acquired Lenox, a New Jersey-based
fine-china manufacturer. With Brown-Forman’s power of marketing and distribution, the Lenox business substantially grew and its products were also sold internationally. The range of Lenox merchandise was just as profitable as BrownForman’s wine-and-spirits products. The steady growth of the Brown-Forman business is directly related to its model in which the business comes first and the Brown family comes second. Brown-Forman in the 21st Century Today, Brown-Forman continues to be a successful business model, providing its products worldwide. Its total brands include over 25 different wines and spirits. It has six different types of whiskey (for example, Woodford Reserve, Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, Early Times Kentucky Whisky, Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, Old Forester Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, Canadian Mist Blended Canadian Whisky, and Collingwood Canadian Whisky); two wines (for example, Korbel Champagne and Sonoma-Cutrer Wines); vodka (for example, Finlandia); tequila (for example, Pepe Lopez, Tequila Herradura, and Don Eduardo); and liqueurs (for example, Chambord raspberry, Southern Comfort New Orleans liqueur, and Tuaca Italian vanilla liqueur). The current chairman of the board, George Garvin Brown IV, is a descendant of the founder, carrying on five generations of Brown family control. Brown-Forman employs over 4,000 people in more than 100 different countries. Its corporate headquarters remain where they started, in Louisville, with over 100 locations around the city. The Brown family continues to maintain ownership of the company and is a member of the Distilled Vintner’s Council and the Wine Institute. It is actively involved in legislation that ensures its strong market demand and its protections against laws that prohibit the rights of adults to consume its products. In August 2013, the Brown-Forman Corporation reported that the company grew net sales by 2 percent, to $896 million an increase of 5 percent over the previous quarter. Corporate Responsibility While Brown-Forman was able to persist through Prohibition and poor social image periods by
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marketing its product as having medical benefits, today its products are not marketed with any health advantages. Excessive alcohol drinking has both short- and long-term risks. Drinking alcohol can result in alcohol poisoning, impair judgment, and interfere with prescribed medications. Long-term alcohol use can result in serious health problems such as cirrhosis, high blood pressure, and addiction. Brown-Forman has discussed the health and public health hazards of its products. Learning from the actions in which tobacco industry leaders denied that their products were not harmful or addictive, Brown-Forman has acknowledged they have a corporate responsibility as producers of alcohol. With long-term research data showing the individual and social impacts of excessive alcohol consumption, the corporation provides resources to campaign against underage drinking and the responsible use of alcohol products. For instance, Brown-Forman has provided funding to universities that support high school youth education programs, college campus education programs that encourage safety and responsibility, and their off-campus partnerships with housing facilities providing alcohol education. The University of Louisville, located in the city where Brown-Forman’s corporate headquarters is located, receives funding to administer the Building Resiliency in Campus Community Coalition. The goals of the coalition are to increase resiliency and reduce high-risk drinking and substance use. The coalition’s work targets multiple levels of participation, such as individual, group, organization, and the broader Louisville community. Brown-Forman also provides funds to the University of Kentucky. This statewide initiative uses evidence-based strategies endorsed by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to reduce underage and high-risk drinking. Along with another wine and spirit corporation, Brown-Forman contributed $600,000 in 2012 to fund alcohol education efforts throughout the state of Kentucky, totaling more than $1 million since 2008. David A. Patterson Silver Wolf Erin Stringfellow Christina Drymon Washington University, St. Louis
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See Also: Eighteenth Amendment; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Twenty-First Amendment. Further Readings Brown-Forman. http://www.brown-forman.com (Accessed February 2014). Fromson, Brett Duvall. “Fortunes: Keeping It All in the Family.” Fortune (September 25, 1989). Hannum, Hurst. “The Dublin Principles of Cooperation among the Beverage Alcohol Industry, Governments, Scientific Researchers, and the Public Health Community.” Alcohol & Alcoholism, v.32/6 (1997). Parrino, Heather. “Opinions: Building Resiliency at U of L.” Our Thinking About Drinking. http:// ourthinkingaboutdrinking.com/opinions-detail .aspx?id=978 (Accessed November 2013).
Bryan, William Jennings William Jennings Bryan is a noted American politician, lawyer, and renowned orator who, perhaps, is best known today for his role in the infamous Scopes “Monkey” trial. He was a teetotaler throughout his life and became an ardent Prohibitionist, actively campaigning for the Eighteenth Amendment. William Jennings Bryan was born on March 19, 1860, in Salem, Illinois, to Silas and Mary Ann Bryan. Silas Bryan served a term in the Illinois State Senate and then, the year William Jennings was born, he won election as a state circuit judge. William Jennings Bryan was a devout Presbyterian from the time he was 14 years old; Presbyterianism was then temperance based and preached total abstinence. He attended public schools as well as the Whipple Academy in Jacksonville, Illinois, and in 1881 he graduated as valedictorian from Illinois College in Jacksonville. Bryan then studied law at Union College of Law in Chicago and graduated in 1883. He taught high school while studying for the bar exam. In 1884, he married Mary Elizabeth Baird, who had been one of his students. Bryan began practicing law in Jacksonville in 1883, and in 1887, seeking greater opportunities, he
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moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, where he continued to practice law. In 1890, Bryan became the second Democrat elected to Congress from Nebraska, which was then a predominantly Republican state. During the campaign of 1890, he expressed temperance leanings but was not a full-fledged Prohibitionist; he ran on a platform that supported high license fees for selling alcohol and the choice of local option for either the sale or the prohibition of alcoholic beverages. Bryan was reelected to Congress in 1892, but he declined to run again in 1894. He thus served in the U.S. House of Representatives as a member from Nebraska’s First Congressional District from March 4, 1893, to March 3, 1895. Bryan served as the editor of the Omaha WorldHerald from 1894 to 1896. He sought nomination to the U.S. Senate and widely advocated for the free coinage of silver. In 1896, at the Chicago Democratic National Convention, he delivered his famous and fiery “Cross of Gold” speech, in which he eloquently argued for free silver minting. After this speech, Bryan won the nomination as presidential candidate of four political parties, the Democratic, Populist, National Silver, and Silver Republican parties respectively. Nevertheless, he was defeated by William McKinley, who won in 1896 by a margin of 271 to 176 electoral votes to become the 25th U.S. president. In May of 1898, Bryan volunteered for service during the Spanish American War and raised the Third Regiment of the Nebraska Volunteer Infantry; he was commissioned a colonel in the Nebraska militia but never saw combat, as he was posted to Florida. In 1900, he ran as an antiimperialist and antiexpansionist candidate for president but was again unsuccessful against the McKinley and Roosevelt ticket. In 1901, he started publishing a weekly newspaper, the Commoner, out of Lincoln, Nebraska, and actively engaged in writing editorials. He then started speaking on the Chautauqua circuit and became involved with numerous organizations composed of theological liberals. For example, Bryan served on the temperance committee of the Federal Council of Churches. In 1908, he again ran unsuccessfully for president of the United States, losing to William Howard Taft. Bryan supported the nomination of Thomas Woodrow Wilson at the 1912 Democratic Convention to break a deadlock after 46 ballots had
been cast. This secured the nomination of the progressive governor of New Jersey who, with campaign assistance from Bryan, went on to become the 28th president of the United States. Wilson repaid Bryan’s aid by appointing him to his cabinet as secretary of state, in which capacity Bryan served from March 4, 1913, until his resignation on June 9, 1915. Bryan, who was a fierce peace advocate and deeply committed to American neutrality, resigned in protest over Wilson’s hard-line approach against German submarine warfare, which, in fact, ultimately led to America’s entry into World War I. Interestingly, Bryan was initially reluctant to accept Wilson’s offer to serve as secretary of state, as he felt his personal abstinence ideology would interfere with duties of the office, specifically when hosting state events where alcoholic beverages were traditionally served. However, Wilson promised that he would accede to Bryan’s decisions over such matters. Prohibitionist Stance Bryan first declared himself to be a Prohibitionist in 1912, but he did not endorse the national prohibition movement until 1914. However, once he made that move he became one of the leading figures in the campaign for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. Bryan’s Prohibitionist efforts culminated with the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1918 and its subsequent ratification on January 16, 1919. He, however, did not overly concern himself with the enforcement issues associated with prohibition. In 1921, Bryan moved his residency to Miami reportedly to avoid conflict with the “wets” of Nebraska, who were predominantly German Americans and very anti-Prohibitionist. At any rate, Bryan continued to pursue lecturing and writing, from which he earned a handsome living; he, in fact, died a millionaire. Political Viewpoint The late 19th and early 20th centuries were tumultuous times in the United States, and many Americans were desperately looking for guidance. Bryan offered himself as a champion of the common man and endeavored to serve as a political, economic, and moral reformer. He was, in fact, called “the great commoner” due to his belief in
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the goodness and rightness of common people, as well as “boy orator of the Platte,” due to his widely acknowledged oratory skills. He was a populist and a Christian fundamentalist who mixed ideals of Jacksonian democracy and Protestant revivalism, a combination that was consistent with his rural upbringing. However, conditions were changing fast in American society and there was no consensus as to what was right or wrong in both the public and private spheres. Bryan often espoused disharmonious dictates, which garnered him both legions of very devoted followers and numerous political enemies. For example, he lobbied actively in support of state laws that would ban the teaching of evolution in public schools. Bryan was deeply concerned that the materialism cosmology of social Darwinism would subvert the moral underpinnings of the country’s Christian background and he thus spoke and wrote prolifically against this emerging trend. This stance led to a request by William Bell Riley of the World Christian Fundamentals Association for Bryan to serve as its counsel for the prosecution in the Scopes trial. John T. Scopes was a Tennessee teacher who had been charged with violating the Butler Act of 1925, which prohibited teaching that humans had evolved from animals. Charles Seward Darrow was the lead defense attorney in the Scopes trial who actually put Bryan on the witness stand to defend his literal interpretation of the bible. Bryan passed away on July 26, 1925, at the age of 65, which was five days after the end of the Scopes trial. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington, DC, and the epitaph on his tombstone reads “He kept the faith.” Victor B. Stolberg Essex County College See Also: Democratic Party, U.S.; Eighteenth Amendment; Prohibition; Temperance Movements; Temperance Movements, Religion in. Further Readings Cherny, Robert W. A Righteous Cause: The Life of William Jennings Bryan. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994. Kazin, Michael. A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan. New York: Random House, 2007.
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Leinwand, Gerald. William Jennings Bryan: An Uncertain Trumpet. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. Levine, Lawrence W. Defender of the Faith— William Jennings Bryan: The Last Decade, 1915– 1925. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987.
Budweiser Like the Model T, Levi Strauss, and Hershey chocolate, Budweiser beer has become part of Americana. It is the most widely recognized beer worldwide and probably the most successful in sales. It is not the only beer that Anheuser-Busch sells, but it is easily the most popular. Budweiser has inspired popular art and has become part of pop culture. Recently, however, it has come in for criticism for the low quality of its hops, jeopardizing Budweiser’s long-standing appeal as the besttasting beer. Overview and History Eberhard Anheuser was the owner of a brewery whose business was in debt. He had loaned money to another beer maker, Georg Schneider, a decision that further stretched his finances. In 1855, he labored to pay off his creditors and bought the Bavarian Brewery of Saint Louis, Missouri. The decision was risky because many German immigrants had left the city, making breweries in oversupply. Adolphus Busch, a young man eager to make his way in the world, courted and married the daughter of Anheuser. Anheuser found his new son-in-law to be a man able to make friends easily and thought that Busch would be a talented salesman for the brewery. This assessment was correct. Busch believed that the key to business was to make more than just beer. A popular young man, Busch realized that the secret lay in cultivating new friendships. Busch did not leave a client with a business card as other salespersons did but instead gave them a pocketknife with the name the Bavarian Brewery emblazoned on the handle. The knife contained a peephole through which one could see the image of Busch. He bought draft
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horses and a wagon to evoke the nostalgia of a simpler time and to excite the public’s curiosity. Adolphus Busch’s Rise and Innovations As the company’s fortunes improved, Busch rose through the ranks, becoming president of the Bavarian Brewery and founder of AnheuserBusch, one of America’s iconic companies. He used an old German recipe for brewing beer. The kraeusening process involved the addition of wort to beer as it began to turn to lager. This wort caused beer to ferment a second time, yielding beer that is naturally carbonated. Moreover, Busch added beech wood chips to give beer greater clarity and flavor. Making beer was only part of the business cycle. Busch was a pioneer in marketing beer nationwide. This was perhaps his greatest contribution to Anheuser-Busch. He used St. Louis’s railroads to transport beer throughout the United States. Nationwide distribution posed the problem of the deterioration in the quality of beer during transit. Busch solved this problem by being the first beer maker to pasteurize beer to eliminate microbes. He used refrigerated cars to keep beer as fresh and cold as possible. Busch named his new beer, America’s first national beer, Budweiser. He turned the German slogan, “The Beer of Kings” into “The King of Beers,” a label that Budweiser has since retained. Unlike other brewers, who embraced cost-cutting measures, Busch was willing to spend money on the best barley, to which he added rice rather than cheap corn. It is worth noting that Busch did not need to go to Asia to buy rice. The crop had a long history in the Americas and is still grown in parts of the U.S. South. His hops were the best in Europe and the American West. Again, Busch did not need to go to Europe for hops because farmers grew them in the West. This formula remained unchanged until recently, when the parent company of Anheuser-Busch slashed costs by buying cheap hops, as Busch had not. Critics have responded that the quality of Budweiser has declined. Were he alive today, Busch would surely dislike the new Budweiser. Judges at the 1876 World’s Fair in Philadelphia agreed that Budweiser was superior even to European brands, with a long tradition of success. Later world’s fairs in Paris, France, Amsterdam,
the Netherlands, and Vienna confirmed this judgment. In a macabre but characteristically successful moment, Busch commissioned an artist to illustrate the Battle of the Little Bighorn and distributed these images throughout American taverns. The public, fascinated with the debacle of U.S. Army general George A. Custer, filled taverns to see these illustrations. Busch did not rest on his laurels. He brewed a new beer, Michelob, with even more hops. It would be a more expensive alternative to Budweiser. By 1901, the 25th anniversary of the founding of Anheuser-Busch, the company had sold more than 1 million barrels of Budweiser and Michelob. At the elder Busch’s death in 1913, August Busch Sr. became the new chief executive officer (CEO), but the company quickly found itself in peril. Prohibition The temperance movement dating to the 19th century was beginning to gain traction. In March 1913, Congress granted states the power to enact prohibition. Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and Virginia promptly enacted prohibition. Ten other states followed by 1915, and temperance advocates began to petition the federal government for a constitutional amendment to end the consumption of alcohol in all but the tiniest doses. America’s entry into World War I put a premium on U.S. farmers’ ability to feed Americans at home and Allied troops in Europe. A consensus formed that it was unpatriotic to divert grain to the making of alcohol. In 1917, the year of America’s entry into World War I, Congress passed national prohibition, and in 1919 the states ratified the Eighteenth Amendment. Anheuser-Busch, unable to make Budweiser, turned to making baker’s yeast and marketing corn. The company even made trucks and refrigerators. Through these trying times, August Busch Sr. never doubted that Prohibition would end and that Budweiser would one day be successful again. August Busch Jr. shared his father’s optimism. He bought Clydesdale horses to draw the company’s wagons, keeping Anheuser-Busch in public view. In 1933, on the eve of the repeal of Prohibition, Busch marched a team of eight Clydesdales and a wagon down Fifth Avenue in New York City to the Empire State Building, where he delivered a
case of Budweiser to former New York governor and democratic presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith, a tireless opponent of Prohibition. Through his own efforts at horse breeding, Busch amassed the largest herd of Clydesdale horses in the United States. He established breweries in Newark, New Jersey; Los Angeles; Tampa and Jacksonville, Florida; Houston, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; Merrimack, New Hampshire; Williamsburg, Virginia; and Fairfield, California. Busch made these breweries tourist attractions. The Tampa brewery hosted an exhibition of exotic birds. It would grow into a zoo with African birds and mammals. Twentieth Century and Today In 1950, Budweiser was the first brand to advertise on television. Sales quickly doubled. In 1955, Busch added a third beer to its line, Busch beer. But neither Michelob nor Busch would rival the success of Budweiser. In the 1960s, Budweiser appeared in ads in Life magazine. Advertisements in other magazines followed. The new Budweiser label became a type of pop art that collectors displayed at home. One homeowner even emblazoned the Budweiser label on the bottom of his swimming pool. In the 1970s, August Busch III launched a theme park and real estate business next to his brewery in Williamsburg, attracting more than 2 million visitors per year. Tourists received a tour of the brewery. Other parks followed, attracting more than 7 million visitors per year. Allying with sports and leisure that increasingly occupied the middle class, Budweiser became the sponsor of baseball, football, basketball, boxing, hockey, golf, tennis, soccer, fishing, sailing, rugby, auto racing, and running. Budweiser came to colleges, a questionable decision given the tendency of young people to binge drink, to sponsor a super sports competition. The rise of the fitness movement and the quest to cut excess calories led Anheuser-Busch to introduce Natural Light and Michelob Light. These beers attracted women worried about maintaining a trim figure. Women now accounted for 20 percent of Anheuser-Busch’s customers. This percentage led Budweiser and its lighter kin to advertise in women’s magazines. The days of marketing Budweiser primarily to German immigrants were long gone. Budweiser had become a beer of sports enthusiasts, concert promoters, and
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even ecologically minded people from all walks of life. In the 21st century, Budweiser has cultivated an image of wholesome fun and responsible consumption. Promoting drunkenness is bad for business and for the image of Budweiser. Curiously, Budweiser does not appear to play up the link, known since antiquity, between beer and sexuality; rather, it emphasizes the quality of the beer, though, as we have seen, this commitment to quality has come under recent scrutiny. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: Beer; Beer Advertising; Budweiser Budvar; United States. Further Readings Budweiser Beer. http://www.budweiser.com (Accessed February 2014). Cleary, David Powers. Great American Brands: The Success Formulas that Made Them Famous. New York: Fairchild, 1981. Ghebremichael, Asmara. “Will the Real Budweiser Please Stand Up?” New Presence: The Prague Journal of Central European Affairs, v.7/4 (2006).
Budweiser Budvar Located in the southern Bohemian town of Ceské Budejovice, Czech Republic, Budweiser Budvar is one of the most famous breweries in the world. Beer has been brewed in the city since the 13th century, when the Czech king Premysl Otakar II chartered the town’s first brewery. Budweiser Budvar (or Budejovický Budvar in Czech), the company’s flagship lager—known for its hoppy taste, sustained head, brilliant gold color, and complex flavor—is one the country’s most popular beers and is exported around the globe. Budweiser Budvar has waged a seemingly interminable battle with the American brewer Anheuser-Busch over the right to use the term Budweiser, a fight that, despite the current era of détente, is far from over. Formerly known by its German appellation Budweis, Ceské Budejovice is world renowned as
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a beer-producing city. For a time, the city served as center of beer production for the Holy Roman emperor, thus giving suds from the town the nickname the Beers of Kings. Originally founded by the Czech politician August Zátka as the Czech Share Brewery in 1895, the Pivovar Budejovický Budvar (B.B.N.P.) enjoys the right to market its wares under the name Budweiser across the European Union under a protected geographic indication measure. The city’s other brewery, Samson (previously known as Budweiser Bürgerbräu), possesses a similar distinction. Reflecting the rising nationalism of the Habsburg Empire, the predecessor of Budvar was established as an ethnically Czech-owned company to compete with the historically ethnic German-owned Samson, which produced the “first” Budweiser beer in 1795. The right to call a beer a Budweiser has a tortured history, with Budvar at its center. Budvar began exporting its beer to the United States in 1872, entering a robust and highly competitive market that benefited from a generation of expatriate Germans and other central and eastern Europeans who had fled their homelands in search of political freedom and economic opportunity in America’s Middle West. Among these immigrants were Carl Conrad and Adolphus Busch, who introduced a Bohemian-style beer to the marketplace in 1876, calling it Budweiser (playing on the Beer of Kings motif, the product carried the sobriquet the King of Beers). Following Conrad’s bankruptcy 1882, Busch gained exclusive rights to the beer, which soon became the cornerstone of his growing beverage empire known as Anheuser-Busch, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Despite Busch’s initial claims that Budweiser simply referred to a process of brewing based on the southern Bohemian model (similar to the pilsner style, which takes its name from the western Czech city Plzen), the entrepreneur later sought to register Budweiser as a trademark in the United States; however, the U.S. Patent Office rejected this petition due to the geographical character in 1906. Five years later, Budvar and Anheuser-Busch inked a deal that the latter would not market its product in Europe (though no legal injunctions were established) and that the former would refer to its beer as imported Budweiser. In the
Budweiser Budvar beer, seen here, is marketed as Czechvar in North America because of a century-long trademark dispute over the name Budweiser, which has resulted in almost 100 lawsuits in the United States and the Czech Republic.
wake of American Prohibition (1920–33), Budvar once again began selling its beer in the United States, now labeled the Imported Original Bohemian Budweiser Beer from Budweis City. This slogan prompted concerns from Anheuser-Busch as it sought to regain market share (at the same time, a Pennsylvania brewer also entered the market with its own now-defunct Budweiser). In 1939, an agreement was signed between Budvar and Anheuser-Busch stipulating that the latter’s use of the term Budweiser would be restricted to North America; however, post–World War II, the expansion of American overseas markets put Anheuser-Busch in a position where it was able to sell American Budweiser far and wide. The so-called Bud Wars took on a political patina after Czechoslovakia came under Soviet domination in the late 1940s as Anheuser-Busch began aggressively marketing its products in
Europe and Asia, conveniently forgetting previous agreements with the (now) state-owned Bohemian brewery. Not surprisingly, Budvar—one of only two Czechoslovakian breweries permitted to export their products (the other being Pilsner Urquell)—moved to block such practices, particularly in its stronger markets including (West) Germany and Austria. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, AnheuserBusch—now part of the Belgian–Brazilian multinational corporation AB InBev, the world’s largest beer producer—repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempted to purchase the Budvar brewery to secure the worldwide rights to the Budweiser brand. However, such offers were rebuffed, in part due to the Czech Republic’s national pride in the storied brewery. Reportedly, Czechoslovakia’s first post-Communist president, Václav Havel, personally intervened at one point to keep the brewery out of American hands, dutifully backed by the Britain’s Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), which counseled the Czechs that even a minority stake by Anheuser-Busch would ultimately result in a full takeover based on their analysis of similar partnerships in England. Over the past century, there have been nearly 100 lawsuits filed over the disputed rights to Budweiser in the United States and the Czech Republic, many the result of the Czech company’s increasingly international business profile since improving its facilities in the mid-1990s. Under a provisional deal between the two countries in 2007, Budejovický Budvar is marketed as Czechvar in North America (and distributed by AB InBev), while American Budweiser is labeled as Bud in continental Europe (Ceské Budejovice’s other brewery, Samson, markets its product as Budweiser Bier in Europe, but as B. B. Bürgerbräu in the United States). According to the U.S.-based Czechvar Web site, the name is a portmanteau of Czech and pivovar (Czech for “brewery”): “It is a symbolic name of a beer coming to you from the Czech lands, from a city famous for its beer” (curiously, the name Budvar is never mentioned, though the labeling does include the iconic B used in the company’s European branding). In the United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan, and some other countries, both brewers enjoy the right to use the name Budweiser in their labeling and marketing.
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The World Trade Organization has rejected Budvar’s geographic indication claim based on the old German name for the city, Budweis, thus strengthening Anheuser-Busch’s position to market its wares as Budweiser in countries outside of Europe (a nontrivial outcome as the beer industry’s growth engine is the developing world, while consumption in western Europe continues to decline). Budvar produces 1.3 million hectoliters (34.3 million gallons) of beer per annum, up from 40,000 barrels in its first year of production in the late 1800s. The brewery prides itself on not licensing its name and brews all its beers in the Czech Republic, using local Žatec (Saaz) hops, Moravian malt, and water from 300 meter-deep Artesian wells. Budvar also adheres to the Reinheitsgebot or Germany Beer Purity Law (unlike American Budweiser, which is 30 percent rice based). The brewery attracts some 40,000 visitors per year. Besides the world-famous Czech Premium Lager (5 percent alcohol), Budvar also produces a premium dark lager (4.7 percent alcohol), a pale beer (4 percent alcohol), and other styles under the Budweiser label. In 2007, the brewery launched its new product line Pardál (Panther), which differs from the traditional Budweiser Budvar due to its stronger bitterness and amber color. Since 2003, the brewery has owned and operated a number of Budvarka beerhouses in Ceské Budejovice and other parts of the country, including Prague, Tábor, and Kolín. There are also several (Czech) Budweiser-themed restaurants in other nations, including Mongolia, Russia, and Switzerland (though not all of these are formally associated with the Budvar brewery). A strong supporter of various causes in southern Bohemia, Budvar is particularly known for its association with the International Music Festival in the neighboring town of Ceský Krumlov. Until recently, the company also funded the local ice hockey team, HC Ceské Budejovice. However, following a dispute over beer sales in Extraliga (the Czech premier league) stadiums, known as the War of the Beers, the team relocated to the northern town of Hradec Králové in 2013, thus allowing Radegast to be sold at its games. Robert A. Saunders Farmingdale State College
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See Also: Beer; Beer Advertising; Budweiser; Europe, Central and Eastern. Further Readings Ghebremichael, Asmara. “Will the Real Budweiser Please Stand Up?” New Presence: The Prague Journal of Central European Affairs, v.7/4 (2006). Muchlinski, P. T. “A Case of Czech Beer: Competition and Competitiveness in the Transitional Economies.” Modern Law Review, v.59/5 (1996). Protz, Roger. “Budweiser Budvar.” In The Oxford Companion to Beer, Garrett Oliver, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has a long and convoluted history dating back to the formation of the Treasury Department in 1789. The modern agency vows in its mission statement to protect the United States from “violent criminals, criminal organizations, the illegal use and trafficking of firearms, the illegal use and storage of explosives, acts of arson and bombings, acts of terrorism, and the illegal diversion of alcohol and tobacco products.” This involvement and articulation of the declaration is a long way from the statements made at the agency’s founding. Origins Due to an accrued debt from the Revolutionary War and an increasing abundance of alcohol importation from Europe and Caribbean colonies, early American federal governmental officials, influenced by Alexander Hamilton’s economic insight, thought it prudent to enact numerous tariffs on imported wine and spirits. Also, a burgeoning domestic production of alcohol warranted governmental regulatory containment. Thus, the need for bureaucratic personnel dedicated to tracking and collecting these importation taxes was established within the Treasury
Department. Those early Americans responsible for regulating and collecting alcohol taxes were the forerunners to today’s ATF. The ATF’s official formation and separation from the Internal Revenue Service would not take place until July 1, 1972, with its reassignment from the Treasury to its contemporary home in the Department of Justice not taking place until 2003. How alcohol tax collectors transformed into law enforcement personnel with inherent dangerous duties is a history filled with bureaucratic alternation and development. Along the way, ATF agents have also played a role in various broad federal policies, innovative criminal investigatory technologies, and controversial operations. History Newly independent America suffered from various rebellions due to what many believed was unjust taxation, causing the removal and reenactment of various alcohol taxation schemes until 1862, when, by an act of Congress, the Bureau of Internal Revenue within the Treasury Department was established. A primary concern for the neophyte agency and its commissioner was to garner and track revenues from alcohol and tobacco products, both domestic and foreign. One year later, in 1863, the new bureau’s investigators were given not only collection duties but also enforcement responsibilities. Thus, the personnel predecessors to today’s ATF agents were born. After the Civil War and during Reconstruction, agents from the Bureau of Internal Revenue continued their work collecting and enforcing taxes on America’s favorite pastimes of vice: alcohol and tobacco. The bureau’s responsibilities and resources broadened with congressionally ordered collaboration with other federal departments. In 1886, an investigative researcher for the Department of Agriculture was assigned to the bureau’s laboratories to investigate tainted oleomargarine. Though primitive by contemporary technologies, the building blocks regarding forensic evidence examination and processing were thus founded. The development of forensic evidence under the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and then the ATF, would eventually advance to identifying criminal tendencies and endeavors with the aid of numerous scientific breakthroughs, including
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DNA gathering, latent fingerprinting analysis, and microfiber testing, as well as detailing the chemical and physical properties pertaining to explosives. The bureau encountered many challenges in the form of alcohol and firearm smuggling throughout the latter part of the 19th century. In 1919, alcohol laws were impacted by the passage of the Volstead Act and by the American age of Prohibition constitutionally imposed by the Eighteenth Amendment. These two milestone prohibitive measures caused a shifting of many bureau resources from collection of taxes to wider ranging powers of enforcement. Included with the newly congressionally endowed powers came a moniker for Internal Revenue agents serving under the auspice of Treasury Department and having specific duties to alcohol, tobacco, and firearms law enforcement. Matching in name and aim of the Eighteenth Amendment’s primary goal, the development of the eventual ATF continued when law enforcement personnel, called “revenoors,” were appointed to carry out the Volstead Act’s tenets. The Treasury Department’s Bureau of Internal Revenue was once again reconfigured in 1920 to form the Prohibition Unit. In 1927, in the thick of America’s “noble experiment,” this short-lived unit was elevated, in terms of resources and administrative status, to the Bureau of Prohibition, while continuing to be under the auspices of the Treasury Department. While Prohibition agents were often found to be less than honest in arresting bootleggers and organized crime members for the illegal production of alcohol, the Bureau of Prohibition was furthered compromised. Congress, under the authority of the National Prohibition Act (an accompanying piece of legislation to the Eighteenth Amendment), transferred control of Prohibition’s penal code to the Department of Justice and a new Bureau of Prohibition was created in July of 1930. However, the garnering of all tax revenue, or “permissive provisions” generated from Prohibition, stayed under the control of the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Industrial Alcohol, leaving the Bureau of Prohibition to law enforcement investigations and arrests. Though now diluted in authority, Prohibition Bureau agents, including Eliot Ness and his “Untouchables,” made spectacular headlines by breaking criminal rings dedicated to producing
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and selling illegal liquor as well as to operating thousands of “speakeasies.” Ness and his fellow federal agents attempted to uphold Prohibition by confiscating and destroying thousands of gallons of illegal “hooch” and identifying those responsible. One of the more notable criminals Ness brought to justice was Chicago Kingpin Al Capone. Capone’s capture and prosecution is an example of future ATF dealings, with the mob boss being sought for liquor crimes but eventually brought to justice for tax evasion. Later Agency Development Proprietors of the New Deal, and a new “wet” age of America, would cause further alteration to the eventual ATF by adding to the layered bureaucracy responsible for regulation of alcohol production and sales. With Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first presidential victory in 1932 came significant reform legislation regarding federal liquor laws and their enforcement. Nearly a year after Roosevelt’s presidential election victory, on December 5, 1933, ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment returned America to the ranks of wet nations by repealing the Eighteenth Amendment. Though states now had the authority to enact and implement regulatory controls regarding liquor production and sales, the federal government acted quickly so as to ensure equality of the economic opportunities associated with alcohol commerce. Fearing backlash from congress, FDR issued an omnibus executive order titled the National Industrial Recovery Act. With that order, FDR mandated formation of the Federal Alcohol Control Administration (FACA) to work side by side with Department of Agriculture for the overseeing of commercial and production guidelines, or “codes,” for fledging wine, beer, and spirit manufacturers. These codes were reminiscent of German beer codes dating back centuries. The seemingly ever-changing alphabet of bureaucratic agencies associated with alcohol regulation would be altered once again when two years later FDR signed the Federal Alcohol Administration Act into law in August of 1935. With the swipe of his presidential pen, Roosevelt removed FACA from the national ledgers, never to be heard from again. The Federal Alcohol Administration (FAA), though a bureaucratic infant, was laid at the doorstep of a parent
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department well acquainted with alcohol regulatory control, the Treasury. At the forefront of FAA responsibilities were economic regulations: tracking data, creating apt licensing requirements, and issuing permits related to alcohol production and distribution. To further ensure the collection of tax revenue from alcohol profiteers, the FAA worked extensively with another of many bureaus within the Treasury Department; this time collaborating with the Alcohol Tax Unit (ATU). Though each bureau was independent of one another, their collaborative efforts presented a formidable force of federal authority regarding alcohol quality, price control, and consumer protection. This association served in supplemental and complementary practices so well that in 1940 the two bureaucratic entities merged. Though America’s on-again, off-again legal status regarding alcohol greatly lent to the ATF’s various iterations and authorities, firearms played an influential role in the agency’s shaping as well. Just as major alcohol legislation of the 1920s and 1930s, especially New Deal policies, dictated ATF form and function for years to come, the Roosevelt Administration put their stamp on weaponry regulation when Congress approved the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934. Four years later, that piece of legislation would be reconfigured into the Federal Firearms Act (FFA) so as to guarantee federal collection of taxes assigned to firearm sales. Initially, tax-garnering responsibilities were given to the Miscellaneous Tax Bureau and the Bureau of Internal Revenue; however, this authority under the banner of “firearms programs” was passed along to the ATU in 1942. In another bureaucratic transformation, the Miscellaneous Tax Bureau was dissolved in 1952 with its tobacco taxing regulatory controls turned over to a now modestly powerful ATU. The same year found the Bureau of Internal Service renamed with the well-known, if not infamous, moniker of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Now having more investigative, taxing, and penal code authority than ever before, the ATU was once again renamed as the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division of the IRS. Though still having responsibilities concerning enforcement of criminal codes, the majority of the new agency was tax based.
Another series of major transformations affecting the historical development of the ATF transpired over a four-year span. First, authority for explosive regulation and testing was shifted to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division’s laboratories with congressional passage of the Federal Gun Control Act in 1968. Two years later, when Congress enacted the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, Title 9 of that act renamed the division as the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Division of the IRS. Then, in 1972, in what can be seen as an example of the Nixon Administration’s propensity to reform all things regulatory, the Treasury Department issued Order No. 120-01 granting the ATF more administrative autonomy and complete release from IRS bureau chiefs. Another broadening of the bureau’s investigatory fields transpired in 1982 when Congress enacted the Anti-Arson Act, calling on ATF agents to employ their field and laboratory expertise to help solve incendiary crimes. In 2003, the bureau found yet another bureaucratic home when it was removed from the Treasury Department and placed within the Department of Justice. Removal from IRS control also lead to a significant shaping of ATF resources and personnel as experts in explosives, specifically concerning arson-related events. The ATF-inspired innovation in a “point of origin” arson investigation led to agents becoming expert witnesses in numerous arson crimerelated investigations. Controversy and Scandal The various duties Congress mandates to ATF administrators and agents sometimes complicate assignments and results. Tracking weapons, regulating tobacco, testing explosives, enforcing the law, and capturing criminal offenders, as well as other duties, are all part of the daily life of those working for the bureau. However, at times, longterm and articulated investigations warrant the employment of a multitude of ATF functions. As can be assumed, with various personnel and directives, operations do not always go according to plan. By the 1990s, the bureau’s administrative chiefs and agents were well-known for their expansive realm of expertise and investigative authority. However, it was not its everyday law
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enforcement practices, laboratory acumen, or specialized training that garnered the ATF the most media and public attention. In early 1993, dozens of agents from the bureau converged on a Waco, Texas, compound occupied by members of a pseudoreligious group known as the Branch Davidians. Led by the charismatic David Koresh, some members had been formally accused of child abuse and possessing illegal weapons (firearms and explosives). Following multiple requests from ATF representatives, the Koresh-led group failed to comply and allow agents access to the highly guarded and armed compound. Eventually, officers from the bureau, under orders from federal supervisors, engaged in gunfire, explosives detonation, and armored-vehicle attacks upon on the group of uncooperative zealots. Though this episode has marred public opinion regarding the bureau’s practices and personnel, there is great dispute as to which side is to blame for turning a 51-day standoff into a firefight in which over 80 Davidians and four ATF agents lost their lives. Eight members of the Koresh-led organization were tried and found guilty of various crimes, while two ATF administrators were terminated, rehired, and reassigned to different posts. A noted controversy once again struck the ATF when between 2006 and 2011 the bureau ran a series of sting operations in which legal gun retailers were allowed to sell weapons to “straw buyers” who would, in turn, sell the firearms to Mexican drug cartel members. This operation, termed “Fast and Furious,” failed to result in the capture and arrest of targeted individuals. Instead of leading the ATF to drug kingpins, ironically some of the weapons were employed by narcotic traffickers to commit crimes on both sides of the Mexican–U.S. border. In one deadly instance, a U.S. border patrol agent was killed. This led to a congressional investigation and ATF agents being questioned during a series of hearings. Though no ATF agents were indicted, Attorney General Eric Holder became the first sitting member of a presidential cabinet to be held in contempt by Congress, while President Barak Obama saw necessary to invoke executive privilege in order to refrain from answering congressional inquiries regarding this ill-conceived and controversial operation. Though highly controversial and politically charged events such as the 1993 Waco incident
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and the Fast and Furious scandal seemingly paint the ATF in a bad light, the bureau has also implemented various long-term programs to address incessant social problems and national defense issues. Included in its less publicized but influential programs is a highly developed computerized defense operation termed the “integrated ballistic missile identification system.” Domestically, the ATF works with urban-area community members through GREAT (Gang Resistance Education and Training), which identifies and pursues illegal firearm purchases within and between organized gangs. The ATF also collaborates with, as well as regulates, industry manufacturers to craft and implement safety and educational standards. Conclusion Since given its contemporary moniker and bureaucratic station in 1972, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms has had but four directors: Rex Davis, G. R. Dickerson, Stephen Higgins, and John Magaw. With offices in Washington, D.C., throughout the United States, and even overseas, the ATF collects nearly $13 billion in tax revenue annually. Due to America entering the global War on Terror, the ATF’s responsibilities have increased and diversified. Costwise, the ATF is one of the most efficient federal agencies, with a reported 35-to-1 dollar return to spent ration. Arms smuggling, taxation of tobacco products, investigation of both domestic and international illegal explosives, and technological evidence gathered, along with compliance of federal gun registration requirements, are but some of the large-scale yet everyday responsibilities charged to the ATF. Jason S. Plume Independent Scholar See Also: Eighteenth Amendment; Mafia; Presidents, U.S.; Prohibition; Taxation; Twenty-First Amendment; Volstead Act. Further Readings ATF: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. http://www.atf.gov (Accessed February 2014).
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Detty, Mike. Guns Across the Border: How and Why the United States Government Smuggled Guns Into Mexico. New York: Skyhorse, 2013. Kurian, George, ed. A Historical Guide to the U.S. Government. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Miller, Wilbur R. The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2012. Schhmeckebier, Lawrence F. The Bureau of Prohibition: Its History, Activities, and Organization. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1929. U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. ATF: Our Future, Your Role/United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Office of the Director. Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Office of Public Affairs, 2004.
Burgundy Burgundy, or Bourgogne, was woven into French history over 1,500 years ago, taking its name from the Burgondes, an invading Teutonic tribe who pushed into Roman Gaul from the east around 450 c.e. The tribe’s influence was steadily swamped by pursuing Frankish tribes, and it was to be the Franks who would gave their name to the whole of France. The Burgondes, however, lent their name to one of France’s most prestigious and exclusive forms of alcohol—the wines of Burgundy. How that particular style evolved in the intervening years, influenced by social and cultural perspectives, is the focus of this entry. The Burgundian vineyards today comprise five distinct areas—Chablis, Cote d’Or, Chalonnais, Maconnais, and Beaujolais. The most prestigious area—the Cote d’Or—amounts to no more than 10,000 acres and 75 miles, running northsouth down a thin escarpment between Dijon and Chagny-s-Soane. It is divided into the Cote de Nuits, which makes mostly reds, and the Cote de Beaune, which makes reds and whites. There could be no greater contrast with the vast district of Bordeaux, where huge vineyards planted
with completely different varieties cover nearly 70,000 acres, sweeping over more gentle gravelled slopes. Origins Nowhere in France was the evolution of distinctive viticulture and winemaking more dynamic than in Burgundy. Today, Burgundy is a department of France that is very much smaller than its original sweep, which included a large part of northern Italy and northern France and Champagne-Ardennes. In the early days, the wines of Burgundy were decidedly unworthy of either the term prestigious or the term exclusive, but they were abundant and fulfilled a stable purpose. Over the past millennium, all that changed. It took first the Catholic Church, then Napoleon, and finally a natural disaster to tease out the quality potential from the mass of ordinaire and worse. First, the Church exploited the significance of slope and soil to give an intensity of flavor. There was hunger for flavor for flavor’s sake, epitomized by a growing and unquenchable trade in salt and spices. It is no coincidence that Corton Charlemagne, once owned by the Holy Roman Emperor himself, is on the prime slope and aspect of a rounded spur above the village of Aloxe Corton just to the north of Beaune, giving it the firmest style of all the white burgundies. The contemporary understanding was that France was not warm enough to grow adequately ripe grapes in every vintage (unlike southern Italy, Greece, or Spain). In this view, the best wines demanded sufficiently positioned south-facing slopes to concentrate the sun’s rays and soils that drained well. So it happened that Le Chambertin, Clos de Tart, Clos de Vougeot, Romanée-Conti, Beaune Clos des Ursules, and most of the best names in Burgundy were once owned by the Church. The Church established the importance of correct pruning techniques (to avoid dilution and loss of concentration), attention to soil regeneration, and determining the optimum times to pick the grapes. Church officials discovered fundamental nuances of fermentation and maturation, first introduced the cork to the wine bottle, and encouraged the better use of glass imported from England. Second, the social and cultural upheaval erupting from the French Revolution had a particularly strong effect in Burgundy, where all the
Church’s lands and buildings were confiscated and auctioned off. The effects of the Code Napoleon, which decreed that all inheritance should be shared equally among offspring, were vigorously enforced within the vineyards of Burgundy. The already small parcels within each commune were broken up into even-smaller pieces, and famous lieux dits became owned by a dozen growers or more, each making their own particular style of wine. Thus, the growers’ names became as important as those of the vineyards. This is still the case today and totally unlike the case in Bordeaux. Third, after 1850, there arrived two natural predators that required technological solutions well beyond the clerical reach. The first one, oideum, was a powdery mildew that destroys leaves and fruit and proved resistant to all contemporary remedies. The eventual solution was to spray the vines
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with copper sulphate (a Bordeaux mixture). The second, Phylloxera vastatrix, arrived in 1863 as a multistaged aphid, fed off the sap in the roots, and was even worse, requiring a solution that was far more drastic. Every existing vine had to be grubbed up and replaced with vines grafted onto resistant rootstocks imported from America. These extreme measures meant that, within a decade, the landscape and distribution of vineyards throughout France (and Europe) were irreversibly changed. The old practice of planting vines everywhere and anywhere they would grow was no longer viable once a complete replacement was needed. The costs were prohibitive, and naturally the vignerons only bothered to replant the land in which the wine quality was known and recognized commercially. It was as if a coolheaded arbiter had walked through the vineyards of France sorting out the sheep from the goats.
A pinot noir served in the Burgundy wine region of Cote de Nuits in 2010. Pinot noir, along with gamay, césar, and tressot, is one of the distinctive red grape varieties found in Burgundy. Burgundian vineyards are made up of five distinct areas—Chablis, Cote d’Or, Chalonnais, Maconnais, and Beaujolais. Cote de Nuits, along with the Cote de Beaune, is part of the most prestigious area, known as the Cote d’Or, which covers 10,000 acres near Dijon, France.
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Varieties As the grafting was taking place, vintners took the opportunity to reevaluate which grape varieties needed to be grafted. By that point, the distinctive vinous style of each region, so passionately pursued for hundreds of years, had been firmly established. The northeast favored spicy Germanic varieties (like sylvaner and riesling); the Bourgogne—including Champagne—favored pinot noir and Chardonnay; and the Loire favored sauvignon blanc in the upper reaches and chenin blanc and Cabernet Franc in the center and Muscadet at the mouth. Bordeaux favored a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, merlot, Cabernet Franc, malbec, and petit verdot for claret and semillon and sauvignon blanc for the whites. The Rhone favored syrah and viognier in the north and grenache blanc and grenache noir in the south. Jura, Gascony, and many other regions all tended to stick to their own grape varieties, which they believed in fervently. These preferences are still in place today, enforced by the Appellation Controleé system established in 1935, making it impossible to grow unauthorized varieties at random throughout France without losing the protection of geographical nomenclature. The regulations also prohibited the use of hybrids and discarded inappropriate varieties. So unbending were the regulations that consumers were assumed to know precisely which grape variety was used in each appellation. They even prohibited the growers from declaring the appellations on the labels for fear of undermining the importance of terroir and provenance. Interestingly, growers have only been permitted to state the grape varieties in the last decade. The distinctive grape varieties for Burgundian reds are pinot noir in the north and gamay around Beaujolais in the south, with césar and tressot being “also-rans.” The pinot noir gives a unique vegetal, savory style rather than a fruity one. It is the world’s most fickle grape variety and—to many—the most rewarding. The color pigments in the grape skins are low, meaning the wines are not usually deep in color and can quickly change from ruby red to brick red during maturity. It is capable of great aging but is generally best drunk after five years. There is a saying “Bordeaux appeals to the head whilst Burgundy appeals to the heart” and another “You are lucky to have three good pinot noirs in your life
and once you find the first, you spend the rest of your life looking for the other two.” The gamay of Beaujolais (and parts of Maconnais) is a light and fruity variety with plenty of color, often best drunk very young, although it is capable of aging. The regulations do not allow these two varieties to be blended together, except under a qualified appellation called passe tous grains (meaning “all grape varieties allowed,” which is one-third pinot noir to two-thirds gamay). The distinctive white grape variety of Burgundy is Chardonnay, where it is in its element. In the Cote de Beaune and the Maconnais, it is capable of flavors not easily found elsewhere. The best Chardonnay has a huge repertoire of styles, from light and crispy in Chablis to buttery and Rubenesque in Meursault. It will respond well to oak or stainless steel, depending on the grower, and will always give a lasting finish to the palate. Other permissible white grapes are the pinot blanc and the aligoté. The latter is easy to grow but has a coarser, more acidic style. It was the aligoté that had prompted the Burgundians to develop Cassis (a liqueur made from distilled black currants) to blend with it and tone down the citric bite. If the past has given Burgundy the advantage it has enjoyed for centuries, the future is far less certain. Breakthroughs in technology from the new wine world have brought competition into play, and they are targeting pinot noir and Chardonnay with extraordinary success. California, Australia, South America, and above all, New Zealand are all nipping at Burgundy’s heels. For the wine lover, things could not be more exciting, but for Burgundy this is the moment to reassert itself. James John Bath Wine School See Also: Ancient World, Drinking in; Beaujolais; Bordeaux; France; Wines, French; Wines, Red; Wines, White. Further Readings Coates, Clive. An Encyclopedia of the Wines and Domaines of France. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Goode, Jamie. Wine Science: The Appreciation of Science in Winemaking. London: Mitchell Beazley, 2005.
Loubere, L. The Wine Revolution in France: The Twentieth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. Ordish, George. The Great Wine Blight. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1996. Robb, Graham. The Discovery of France. London: Picador, 2007.
Burgundy Seward, Desmond. Monks and Wine. New York: Crown, 1979. Wilson, James E. Terroir. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
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C Cabarets The term cabaret immediately brings to mind the Berlin avant-garde nightclub scene of the 1920s and early 1930s made famous in the classic 1972 film Cabaret starring Liza Minnelli and Joel Gray. The term cabaret originally meant a shop that sold drink and food and emerged in the Low Countries (modern Holland and Belgium) in the 12th century and crossed into the Picard region of France and to Paris by the 13th century. By the early 19th century, the term meant “rural taverns,” but then in 1881, the opening of the legendary Chat Noir in Paris created the modern meaning. This avant-garde nightclub hosted a wide variety of art forms from the bantering satire of the club’s host, singing, dancing, poetry, mime, art, and multimedia presentation within the setting of a drinking and eating establishment where the line between performer and spectator was often blurred. From Paris, cabaret spread around Europe to the United States and to Shanghai, with its greatest renown before World War II, but the cabaret style has reemerged when nations have shaken off repressive regimes such as Spain after Franco (1975) or in eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989). As with most terms for drinking establishments, there is much debate not only on the origin of the term but on how particular establishments should
be classed. For example, Ramponneau’s cabaret outside of Paris in the 18th century is often called a guinguette (rural tavern) but was known in his era as a cabaret. Scholarly consensus holds that the word cabaret originated on the border between modern France, Belgium, and Holland. Picardary in this region had the word camberete, meaning small room (1190 c.e.). The first expression in the context of a bar dates from 1275 (tenir cabaret, from Dutch). The word remained in the Walloon and Picard regions and then diffused down to Paris by the 15th century and created a new type of drinking and eating establishment at which local inhabitants could consume on the premises. (During the reign of Louis [1226–70], official statutes allowed travelers to eat and drink on the premises of taverns, inns, and hotels.) In the 15th century, the wine merchants guild added cabarets and allowed them, as long as they paid higher taxes, to provide customers with seats, tablecloths, and plates. With the arrival of cabarets, the French upper classes deserted taverns, and they became associated with the lower orders. French writers from François Villon (ca. 1431–63) to Francois Rabelais (ca. 1483–1553) to Nicolas BoileauDespréaux (1636–1711) frequented the legendary cabaret Pomme de Pain on the Left Bank. Jealous tavern owners won the same right in 1680, and henceforth the legal distinction between 327
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taverns and cabarets disappeared. After 1700, however, the fashion of cafés resulted in cabarets declining in status, becoming increasingly associated with the rural lower classes. Still, some suburban Parisian cabarets became renowned across France in the 18th century. The most famous was the aforementioned Ramponneau’s (today, the Parisian district of Belleville, east of Montmartre). In the mid to late 18th century, being outside the city limits allowed cabaret owners to avoid the heavy wine and food taxes of Paris. Thus, the lower classes flocked to these places on Sunday and Monday (Saturday remained a day of work in this century). Ramponneau’s Au Tambour Royal (at the royal drummer) was so famous that his name became a verb meaning both a cabaret owner and the act of drinking to excess. A 1760 engraving asserted that his was the most fashionable cabaret in the world. Indeed, even the French aristocracy, including Marie Antoinette, flocked to this early modern form of slumming in a liminal space where social status was suspended amid drinking, dancing, singing, jesting, and swearing. Ramponneau’s tavern did not do well during and after the revolution, when social contestation turned serious. Indeed, the term ceased to be used much in Paris across most of the 19th century. The best-selling Parisian novelist during the first half of the 19th century, Paul de Kock, noted that wine shops had replaced cabarets. The germ of the modern cabaret emerged, only in the late 1870s, among iconoclastic Parisian writers known as the Hydropaths (water haters). The bohemian writer Emile Goudeau and his group first met in cafés on the Left Bank. Then Rodolphe Salis, a distiller’s son, who, after having served in the army and crafted religious relics, opened a drinking establishment on the hills of the Parisian Right Bank at Montmartre. He created a cabaret after the style of the great Renaissance French writer who celebrated food, drink, and joy, Francois Rabelais, and often dressed in period costume. But, Le Chat Noir (The Black Cat) had a highly modern, avant-garde sensibility that mocked cultural tradition and entrenched power. Salis defined himself as a gentleman cabaretier who wished to create a space for artistic creation. He welcomed painters, writers, and musicians along with the wealthy and the powerful along with the strollers about town (flaneurs), hoping
This illustration shows a procession of acrobats arriving at Ramponneau’s cabaret in the 18th century in what is now the Belleville district of Paris. The famous cabaret was then at the outskirts of the city proper, which allowed for lower taxes.
that the stimulating and eclectic sociability thus generated would ensure innovation. Whereas the Hydropaths held literary nights, Salis hosted literary mornings each Wednesday. Salis achieved immediate success. As a result, he moved to bigger quarters, from 84 Boulevard Rochechouart to 12 Rue Victor-Masse. An evening at Le Chat Noir included drinking, conversation, idling, music, repartee between the host and the audience, and in general, an ambiance in which the distinction between performer and customer shrank. Toulouse Lautrec immortalized the singer Aristide Bruant, and writers such as Paul Verlaine and August Strindberg and composers Claude Debussy and Eric Satie were part of the festive atmosphere. The shadow plays, which featured projecting images on a screen, provided an important transition from magic-lantern shows to modern cinema. The shadow plays toured the world and helped inspire cabarets in cities such as Barcelona, at The Four Cats, whose clientele included Pablo Picasso. But by 1896, the theater critic Leo Claretie already noted Le Chat Noir’s
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decline, and the following year, it closed after Salis’s death. By the time Christopher Isherwood, upon whose writing Cabaret is based, arrived in Berlin in the 1920s, this French invention had become a staple wherever artistic and political avant-gardes gathered. Cabarets emerged in Amsterdam (1895), Berlin (1901), Warsaw (1905), and Vienna (1907) and crossed the English Channel to London (1910) and the Atlantic to New York by 1912. After Le Chat Noir, the most important one was the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich Switzerland (1916). It spawned the Dada artistic movement, which in turn inspired Surrealism. The Voltaire provided a space to deliver a savage indictment of a culture producing mass slaughter in the trenches rather than elevating the human species. Its clientele included much of the artistic vanguard of the first half of the 20th century: the founder of Dada, Tristan Tzara; painter and poet, Jean Arp; founder of Futurism, Filippo Marinetti; and W. Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Giorgio de Chirico, and Max Ernest, all future giants of modern painting. By 1917, the Voltaire was already in decline, but its hatred of war and traditional middle-class culture would be carried to Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Shanghai, and wherever cabaret emerged after 1918. From their origins in the 15th century Paris to their present diffusion around the cities of the world, cabarets have provided a space where the consumption of drink, food, and a mixture of writers and the ordinary and extraordinary of the city’s population could gather to stretch the limits of the permissible and thinkable. The fact that these spaces lie outside the constraints and regulations of formal public institutions and morals and proprieties of the home has allowed time and again new ideas, images, and music to be created all under the direct and indirect influence of alcohol and food. W. Scott Haine University of Maryland University College See Also: Art; Cafés; France; Literature, Role of Alcohol in. Further Readings Brennan, Thomas. Public Drinking and Popular Culture in Eighteenth-Century Paris. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
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Dion, Roger. Histoire de la vigne et du vin en France des origines au XIXe siècle. Paris: Roger Dion, 1959. Field, Andrew. Shanghai’s Dancing World: Cabaret Culture and Urban Politics, 1919–1954. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2011. Jelavich, Peter. Berlin Cabaret. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. Nowicki, Ron. Warsaw: The Cabaret Years. San Francisco: Mercury House, 1992. Rearick, Charles. Pleasures of the Belle Epoque. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985. Richard, Lionel. Cabaret, cabarets origines et decadence. Paris, France: Plon, 1991. Segal, Harold B. Turn-of-The-Century Cabaret: Berlin, Munich, Paris, Barcelona, Vienna, Krakow, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Zurich. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987.
Cabernet Franc The origin of Cabernet Franc is believed to be 17th-century France. It was first grown in the Libournais region of Bordeaux after Armand-Jean du Plessis (1585–1642), better known as Cardinal Richelieu, brought cuttings of the Cabernet Franc grape from the Abbey of Bourgueil to the area. By the 18th century, Cabernet Franc was also being grown in the Loire Valley and was spreading to other parts of France. Cabernet franc tends to ripen more quickly than Cabernet Sauvignon, but the two are often planted together in order for the hardier Cabernet Franc grapes to protect the Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. While Cabernet Franc is sometimes drunk on its own, particularly in France and Italy, it is most often used in blends with other wines, particularly with Cabernet Sauvignon and merlot. The best known of these blends is Meritage, which is a blend of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and merlot. Italy has also developed a significant reputation for producing high-quality Cabernet Franc, and Cabernet Franc is the dominant wine in many blends produced in that country. Both the United States and Canada produce Cabernet Franc for use in ice wines, which are dessert wines made by freezing grapes before harvesting them.
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In Germany and Austria, these ice wines are called eiswein. Interest in growing Cabernet Franc has also been increasing outside of California, and other American growers are now producing wellreceived Cabernet Franc wines. Background The best soil for producing Cabernet Franc is sandy or chalky, and the grape does well in cool, rainy climates. The blue-black Cabernet Franc grapes tend to produce a pale red wine, which is rich in depth and has the flavor of black cherry or raspberry. Cabernet Franc may have the aroma of fruit, flowers, spices, or vegetables, and common aromas include pepper, tobacco, raspberry, licorice, gooseberry, cassis, violets, and graphite. Processing bouquets include vanilla, coconut, and sweet wood from light oak barrels and oak, smoke, and toast from heavy oak barrels. Unlike Cabernet Sauvignon, which ages well, Cabernet Franc is best drunk while it is young. Cabernet Franc is lighter than Cabernet Sauvignon and less tannic than sauvignon blanc. Cabernet franc goes well with a range of foods. Markets and Brands In the 21st century, France continues to be the world’s major producer of Cabernet Franc, with more than 35,000 acres devoted to the grape. Cabernet Franc grown in Bordeaux and in the Loire Valley are considered to be the best produced anywhere in the world. Loire Valley wines that use Cabernet Franc include Bourgueil, Chinon, and Anjou. Other areas of the world are also making inroads into the Cabernet Franc market. In California, the growth of Cabernet Franc has been particularly significant. In 1993, only 1,500 acres of the grape were planted; by 2002, the number of acres had climbed to 3,941. Cabernet franc is the major grape used in the wines produced by Napa Valley’s Lang & Reed winery. Other California winemakers using Cabernet Franc in their products include Pride Mountain, La Jota, Robert Sinskey, and Rubicon Estate. Cabernet franc winegrowing is not limited to California. Winegrowers in Washington State, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Colorado are also producing Cabernet Franc. In New York, Cabernet Franc is produced on Long Island and in the Finger Lakes area. The Schneider Vineyards of Long Island
have chosen Cabernet Franc as its major focus. In Canada, Cabernet Franc is generally produced in Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Pelee Island, and British Columbia. In addition to France, Italy, the United States, and Canada, other countries that have entered the Cabernet Franc market include Italy, Hungary, Spain, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Australia, Chili, Argentina, and New Zealand. Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, was a wine connoisseur, and he dedicated prodigious efforts to establishing vineyards in Virginia that were capable of producing fine wines. Although Jefferson never realized his dream, the state is now a major producer of Cabernet Franc. Cabernet Franc produced in Virginia tends to have aromas and flavors of cherry, black current, and berries and offer a tobacco/cocoa finish. Most Virginia vineyards pay homage to Jefferson in some way. Known as Monticello, the winegrowing region covers over 1,200 miles. At the annual Monticello Festival, winners are awarded the Monticello Cup. The Barboursville Vineyards, which also promotes the Jeffersonian link, receives more than 80,000 visitors each year. Virginia also hosts the James River Wine Festival, which attracts participants from all over the United States. Wines from all over the world are available in tasting areas. Some of the best Cabernet Franc vintages that sell for less than $50 have been identified as 2009 Pulenta Estate Cabernet France XI Gran Mendoza; 2010 Domaine de Pallus Chinon Les Pensees de Pallus; 2009 World’s End Cabernet Franc Reserve Against the Wind, Napa Valley; 2007 Tranche Cabernet Franc Estate Walla Walla Valley; 2009 Domaine de Pallus Chinon; and Raats Family Wines Cabernet Franc Stellenbosch. Top-rated Cabernet Franc produced in California includes Paradigm, Chappellet, Cosentino Winery, DARE by Diader, Eponymous, Steven Kent, and Ehlers Estate. Two Cabernet Franc wines produced in Maryland are also receiving attention: Boordy Vineyards Cabernet Franc Reserve 2010 and Old Westminster Winery Cabernet Franc 2011. Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar See Also: Cabernet Sauvignon; France; Merlot; Sauvignon Blanc; Wines, French; Wines, Red.
Further Readings Bowers, John E. and Carole P. Meredith. “The Parentage of Classic Wine Grape: Cabernet Sauvignon.” Nature Genetics, v.16 (1997). Coates, Clive. The Wines of Bordeaux: Vintages and Tasting Notes, 1952–2003. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. LaMar, Jim. “Cabernet Franc.” Professional Friends of Wine. http://www.winepros.org/wine101/grape_ profiles/cab-franc.htm (Accessed October 2013). Lawtler, James. The Finest Wines of Bordeaux: A Regional Guide to the Best Chateaux and Their Vines. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. McLaughlin, Lisa. “A Cabernet Challenger.” Time, v.161/10 (March 10, 2003). Shriver, Jerry. “Virginia.” USA Today (July 4, 2006). Steinberger, Mike. “The Sad Plight of Cabernet Franc.” Slate. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_ and_science/wines_world/2006/05/the_sad_plight_ of_cabernet_franc.html (Accessed October 2013). Sullivan, Charles L. A Companion to California Wine: An Encyclopedia of Wine and Winemaking From the Mission Period to the Present. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
Cabernet Sauvignon Cabernet Sauvignon has often been called the best red wine in the world. The Cabernet Sauvignon grape is believed to have originated in the Bordeaux region of France sometime in the 17th century. The term sauvignon is derived from the French word sauvage, which means wild. By the 19th century, Cabernet Sauvignon had become a favorite wine of consumers around the world. In 1976, at the Judgment of Paris wine-tasting event, which is legendary among wine growers and wine connoisseurs, the 1976 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon, produced in the Napa Valley, was voted the best of all red wines entered in the event. Cabernet Sauvignon is still the most successful wine produced in California. Grapes Since Cabernet Sauvignon grapes are resistant to rot and most other diseases, and because they
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stand up well to frost, they are grown in virtually every wine-growing region around the globe. The grapes do not do well in cold climates because they need a lot of sun. They are also slow to ripen, but the wines made from these grapes age well. Cabernet Sauvignon grapes are often planted in conjunction with Cabernet Franc grapes, which are hardier and less resistant to cold and heat, protecting Cabernet Sauvignon from the elements. British winegrowers evade some of the problems associated with Cabernet Sauvignon grapes by growing them in plastic tunnels. In countries where cool weather overlaps with harvest season, these grapes may be harvested early and used in blended wines. Early harvesting may result in a peppery flavor. The flavors in this variety of wine are a response to the conditions under which they are produced, and the wine may carry the flavor of black currant, blackberry, black cherry, asparagus, green olive, ginger, pimento, or anise. Cabernet Sauvignon is most frequently blended with Cabernet Franc and merlot. Cabernet Sauvignon tends to be big, dry, and complex. Since it is full bodied, it may overwhelm lighter foods. In the 1990s, merlot replaced Cabernet Sauvignon as the world’s top wine. The Cabernet Sauvignon grape grows best in soil that is well drained, and it thrives in moderately warm and semiarid conditions. Its growers suffered a setback in 1852, when France was beset with a major epidemic of powdery mildew, a fungus that can affect almost any plant. Growers turned to merlot as an alternative, and it began replacing Cabernet Sauvignon as the most popular grape in many vineyards. Cabernet Sauvignon was first grown in the United States in the late 1950s. California growers were thwarted in 1980 when the grapes were attacked by phylloxera, a blight that is a constant threat in vineyards. The setback was temporary, and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes would again flourish, and continue to do so, in the United States. Geneticists who study wines have long understood that the Cabernet Sauvignon grape is parented in part by the cabernet blanc grape, but many questions remained unanswered such as what grape the other parent is. Some experts suggested that the other parent may have come from Spain, the Adriatic, or somewhere in Central Asia. Then, in 1997, John Bowers and Carole Meredith
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of the University of California, Davis discovered that the other parent is sauvignon blanc. DNA evidence clearly indicated that the Cabernet Sauvignon grape is a result of combining the red cabernet blanc grape with the white sauvignon blanc grape. In 1989, Australians discovered cygne blanc, a new version of the Cabernet Sauvignon grape that spontaneously grows from a chance seedling taking root. Another hybrid was discovered in Switzerland a few years later. In 2004, the Institute of Masters of Wine hosted an international wine-tasting event that pitted some of the finest wines in the world against one another. Among 62 Cabernet Sauvignon offerings, 25 of them had been produced in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and France. Like other red wines, this wine contains resveratrol, which aids in fighting heart disease, cancer, and may delay aging. Blending Winemakers have had many successes in blending Cabernet Sauvignon with other grapes. In 1961, for instance, Frenchman Paul Truel combined Cabernet Sauvignon with grenache to produce marselan, which was named after the Marseillan region in which it was created. In the 21st century, marselan is still grown in Larguedoc, France, and in vineyards located along the coast of Northern California. In the 1970s in Tuscany, winegrowers rebelled against restrictions imposed on the ingredients used in blended wines, creating what came to be known as super Tuscany wines. Popular blends that resulted from the rebellion include Riccardo Baracchi Toscana Ardito, which combines Cabernet Sauvignon with syrah, and argiano toscana solengo, which contains a blend of petit verdot, Cabernet Sauvignon, syrah, and merlot. The most popular blending of Cabernet Sauvignon is meritage, which also contains Cabernet Franc and merlot. Markets and Brands In France, Cabernet Sauvignon is most often grown on the Left Bank, while Cabernet Franc is more common on the Right Bank. The soil is different in these areas, with Cabernet Sauvignon thriving in gravel-based soil. In California, the grape is predominantly grown in Napa Valley and the Santa Cruz Mountains. Washington
is the second highest-producing state in America. Other states that produce the grape are Oregon, New York, Texas, and Virginia. In Canada, it is mostly grown in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. Chili, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, and Uruguay also produce it. In addition to most European nations, Australia and New Zealand have established reputations for producing Cabernet Sauvignon of high quality. Cabernet Sauvignon is the major wine produced in California, and prices for wines from this region range from a few dollars to several hundred dollars per bottle. Experts rank wines on a 100-point scale, and the best wines are ranked from 95 to 100. Those ranked below 60 are considered to be of inferior quality. The highest ranking brands of Cabernet Sauvignon sell for at least $100 a bottle. However, some wine experts offer suggestions on vintages that do well without wrecking a budget. Examples include Lewis Cabernet Sauvignon and Joseph Phelps Cabernet Sauvignon. Both of these Napa Valley wines consistently rank high. Other recommended brands
A Cabernet Sauvignon from Sonoma in California. At the historic 1976 Judgment of Paris wine-tasting event, a Napa Valley, California, Cabernet Sauvignon was voted the top red wine.
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include Brand, Corison, Robert Mondavi Winery, Beaulieu, Beringer, Charles Krug, and Duckhorn Vineyards. The price of Cabernet Sauvignon may vary greatly because of collectors’ inflating prices. Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar See Also: Cabernet Franc; France; Merlot; Sauvignon Blanc; Syrah (Shiraz); Wine Tasting; Wines, California; Wines, French; Wines, Red. Further Readings Bampfield, Richard. “Tasting of Cabernet SauvignonBased Wines from the New World.” Journal of Wine Research, v.15/2 (August 2004). Coates, Clive. The Wines of Bordeaux: Vintages and Tasting Notes, 1952–2003. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. LaMar, Jim. “Cabernet Sauvignon.” Professional Friends of Wine. http://www.winepros.org/ wine101/grape_profiles/cab-sauv.htm (Accessed October 2013). Lawtler, James. The Finest Wines of Bordeaux: A Regional Guide to the Best Chateaux and Their Vines. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. Miller, Jon R., Ismail Ginc, and Angela Driscoll. “Wine Price and Quality: In Search of a Signaling Equilibrium in 2011 California Cabernet Sauvignon.” Journal of Wine Research, v.18/1 (April 2007). Robinson, Jancis, ed. Oxford Companion to Wine. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Taber, George M. Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine. New York: Scribner’s, 2005.
Cadets of Temperance The Cadets of Temperance is an organization that was formed in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the middle of the 19th century. An auxiliary of the large Sons of Temperance and smaller Daughters of Temperance movements, the Cadets of Temperance was designed to instil the values of abstinence and
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self-control in children between 10 and 17 years of age. The aim of the organization was to educate young people on the value of temperance and at the same time, create a future generation of adults who would not be tempted by the vice of alcohol consumption. The first section of the order of the Cadets of Temperance was established on December 6, 1846, in Philadelphia. Established by a leader of the Sons of Temperance known as Grand Worthy Patron Wyndam H. Stokes, the cadets were founded on the premise that the young men of the United States required guidance and leadership in matters of abstinence. Stokes himself had become concerned about an instance in which young members of his community had become intoxicated, and he decided it was necessary to form a structured organization for young people that would establish strict rules regarding appropriate behavior and also occupy young men in the community with regular meetings, games, and events. The parent group of the cadets, the Sons of Temperance, was itself established in New York in 1842 in order to “reform drunkards and prevent other men from becoming drunkards” and to protect its members and broader society “from the evils of Intemperance, afford mutual assistance, and elevate our characters as men.” As a group, the sons was based on the principle that it would keenly participate in shielding its members from vice, promote abstinence, generate fraternity, and offer financial support to its members. The sons proved to be a highly successful abstinence society in the middle of the 19th century, with the order claiming that it had over 220,000 members in the United States in 1849. Like members of its parent group, a recruit to the Cadets of Temperance was required to make a pledge upon joining, promising that he or she would not “make, buy, sell, or use any spirituous or malt liquors, wine or cider, except [if they had been] administered to him for medicinal purposes, by his parents, guardian, or physician” and promising “not to use tobacco in any form.” Also similar to its predecessor, the cadets gained a following in the United States, spreading from Pennsylvania across each state in the country and establishing four grand sections, with at least 300 subordinate sections. Each section was under the guardianship of three members of the Sons of
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Temperance, a worthy patron, and two worthy deputies, whose role was to instruct the cadets in their duties, administer discipline, and ensure that members abided by the rules of the order. Within the Cadets of Temperance, members were given the leadership titles of grand worthy archon, past worthy archon, vice archon, usher, and watchman. The Cadets of Temperance was established in 1850 in Liverpool, England, with membership restricted to children aged 16 and under, who were typically the children of members of the Sons of Temperance. As in the United States, the youth were overseen by members of the Sons of Temperance, who educated their juniors in the qualities of good citizenship and held regular meetings, ran competitions, and organized group activities. While aimed at younger members, the structure and organization of the Cadets of Temperance bore many similarities to the Sons of Temperance, with specific membership rites, rituals, passwords, songs, and regalia. Members were required to pay a joining fee and make a weekly financial contribution to the organization. The regalia of the cadets included a crest in the form of a blue shield with the words “Cadets of Temperance” written diagonally across it and a membership card that typically included the banner “We educate to love truth and temperance.” Meetings of the group usually followed a structure that included talks on the value of temperance, readings from inspirational texts, hymns, and songs. Each section of the cadets had its own constitution and bylaws outlining the rules of the order and regulations for member behavior, as well as publications with more detailed instructions like the Cadets of Temperance: Entertainment for the Christmas Holidays, published in 1852, and the Revised Ritual of the Cadets of Temperance: Embracing the Forms of Opening, Closing, Initiation, and Installation of Subordinate Sections, published in 1877. The growth and development of the order of the Cadets of Temperance was regularly reported in the teetotalers’ publications the Journal of the American Temperance Union and the National Temperance Magazine.
Twain, who joined the organization in his adolescence. In his autobiography, Twain states that he joined the cadets for only three months and that while he enjoyed wearing the group’s regalia, which included a red merino sash worn on public holidays and parades, he soon tired of the organization’s smoking ban and its strict moral code. Twain later incorporated these experiences into his novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which saw the character Tom joining the cadets, also enticed by the opportunity to wear red sashes at special events, but then resigning after only three days of membership, “tormented with a desire to drink and swear.”
Mark Twain’s Membership One of the more well-known members of the Cadets of Temperance was the author Mark
Most depictions of the prototypical French café begin with quotes from Emerson, Marx, Hugo, or other well-known artists and intellectuals,
Rebecca Bishop Independent Scholar See Also: American Temperance Society; American Temperance Union; Congressional Temperance Society; Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition, The; Daughters of Temperance; National Temperance Society and Publication House; Sons of Temperance; Temperance, History of. Further Readings Cadets of Temperance (Michigan); Sons of Temperance of North America. Grand Division of Michigan. Revised Ritual of the Cadets of Temperance: Embracing the Forms of Opening, Closing, Initiation, and Installation of Subordinate Sections, Under the Jurisdiction of the Grand Division S. of T. of Michigan. Detroit: Herald Publishing House, 1877. Thompson, John Sparrow David. Cadets of Temperance: Entertainment for the Christmas Holidays, Sanctioned by the Grand Section of the Cadets of Temperance of Nova Scotia. Halifax: James Bowes and Son, 1852. Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Hartford, CT: American Publishing, 1876.
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extolling the centrality of the café to social life in Paris. It was in the café that social connections could be made, politics discussed, daily life observed, and healthful food and drink consumed. Indeed, the café was at the heart of why Paris was known as the social and artistic center of Europe. While definitively labeling these establishments is an impossible task, most cafés in mid19th century Paris (where the first establishments appeared) could be classified as either middle class, working class, or bohemian. Middle-Class Cafés Middle-class cafés arose as part of the expanding boulevard culture made possible by George Haussman, Napoleon III’s prefect of the Seine. Begun in 1853, Haussman’s plans to modernize the city continued until the end of the 19th century, although his reforms are traditionally associated with the Second Empire, which fell in 1870. The most important of these reforms was the creation of long, straight, wide boulevards. These cut through the zigzagging, narrow alleys that had defined the city’s geography since the Medieval Ages. The French middle class continued to grow and move into the city center as Haussman completed his reforms, and cafés and restaurants sprang up along the boulevards to serve as social outlets for this newly arrived bourgeoisie. While cafés had a great deal of indoor seating, in middle-class establishments it was the outdoor tables and chairs, positioned so that one’s back was never to the street, that were most popular. These small tables, pushed closely together in order to maximize the number of patrons, allowed a café’s clients to take part in boulevard culture while seated outside. Indeed, watching the flaneurs (people strolling) on the grand boulevards became a common activity in bourgeois Pairs. Waiters and waitresses typically served these spaces, and customers generally placed their orders while sitting at tables. These small, tightly wedged-together, street-facing tables and chairs were a defining characteristic of middle-class café culture and have survived into the present day, particularly in Paris. The middle-class cafés of the late 19th century were places of limited consumption, where drinks were consumed slowly over the course of several hours. Men and women frequented these spaces
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with no compunctions—women were welcome in these cafés and faced no social stigma, even when present without a male escort. While wine was the staple beverage of the Parisian café, beginning in the 1860s, aperitifs, specifically absinthe, gained in popularity, particularly as they encouraged slow consumption. By the end of the 19th century, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. in Paris was commonly referred to as the green hour (l’heure verte) in reference to the green hue of absinthe, which in these middle-class establishments was tempered with water in order to prevent rapid intoxication. After 1915, when production of absinthe was outlawed, a number of similarly flavored liquors, such as Pernod Ricard, was introduced and quickly became café staples. As these middle-class families moved into the center of the city in the second half of the 19th century, the working class was pushed outward. Their homes destroyed, or now too expensive to afford, they found themselves in increasingly cramped quarters, which provided few spaces for socializing. As a result, cafés that were both owned and patronized by the working class also became wildly popular in the second half of the 19th century. This cross-class popularity meant that there were a huge number of cafés in Paris prior to World War I. While censuses were far from perfect in these years, in 1909, it appears there were at least 11.25 cafés for every 1,000 Parisian inhabitants. In the same year, New York City could claim only 3.15 similar establishments for every 1,000 and a mere one café, pub, or bar for every 1,000 in London. Working-Class Cafés Working-class cafés were significantly different from the sedated, respectable establishments of the middle class. In the working-class café, the staff typically stayed behind the bar rather than providing waiters to service customers and generally consisted of the proprietor and any family members available to help. These businesses, which were commonly called marchand de vin (wine merchants), had begun to appropriate parts of middle-class café culture as the old regime ended in 1789. By making newspapers available, decorating interiors, and purchasing elegant furniture, working-class café proprietors were not merely making their cafés more appealing, but they were
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also creating spaces that could serve a wide variety of functions. Working-class cafés, however, did not typically include the large sections of outdoor seating seen in more bourgeois establishments as the streets in these neighborhoods were not nearly so wide, manicured, or sedate. Despite the limited space available to customers, for the working class even more so than the bourgeoisie, cafés were indispensable to daily life in the mid-19th century. This was in large part a direct result of the poor quality of most working-class housing options. For the poorest of Paris, apartments were vermin ridden, poorly ventilated, and so small that eating in them was often uncomfortable, and socializing was almost entirely out of the question. Although commentators across the political spectrum in fin-de-siècle Paris believed that the café was supported by young bachelors who lacked kitchens, the reality was that men, women, children, and occasionally teenage youths all frequented these establishments. The questionable sanitary nature of Parisian drinking water meant that consuming wine or distilled alcohols, which were undoubtedly free from bacterial taint, was often the safest option. Soaring rents combined with the onslaught of immigrants in the post1880 years meant that the French Third Republic’s failure to construct or encourage affordable working-class housing not only made cafés more attractive, in fact, these conditions necessitated their existence. The café very much acted as a pressure valve, one that made the difficulties of a cramped existence bearable. Cafés facilitated a variety of social and professional relationships among the Parisian proletariat. A café was often the best place to inquire about potential factory employment opportunities when out of work. It was also common for workers to leave payment for drinks on a tab for their factory supervisors at the end of a workday (at least one of Emile Zola’s Rougon-Marcquat series characters succumbs to alcoholism through this practice). It was also common for workers to begin their days in the café with a glass of wine. These drinks often continued throughout their long shifts. Very often, employers would sell wine on work premises, partially to discourage long café breaks and partially to make back some of a worker’s wages, but endof-day trips to the café remained the norm.
There is a solid body of evidence to support the belief that many working-class café goers established regular tables and hours to visit, in a sense creating a type of domesticity around these public spaces. This domesticity was also augmented by the fact that owners and their families typically lived either in the backrooms or above their cafés. While food was typically available at cafés, it was often costly and of low quality, like nearly all the other food options available to the working class. As a result, many workers drank in order to supplement calories and find nourishment and believed, along with French physicians, that wine was a hygienic beverage. Because of the café’s centrality to workingclass daily life, police surveillance of these establishments invoked particular ire. Despite not infrequent physical attacks by patrons against monitoring officers, police watched cafés closely in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Paris, weekly reports were regularly produced both during the Second Empire (1851–70) and the Third Republic (1871–1940) summarizing activity in working-class neighborhood establishments. Police, not only in Paris but throughout all of France, believed that these spaces were hotbeds of insurrection, and their suspicions were not entirely unjustified. Late 19th- and early 20th-century French socialists met almost exclusively in cafés, and when socialist party leaders lost their jobs, they were likely to open their own cafés. This did little to discourage the associations among the working class, alcoholism, and revolution. It seems that opening a café was a common dream among the largest class of French citizens despite the high rate of bankruptcy that went along with most cafés’ long lines of credit. The commonality of this aspiration was perhaps partially due to the great deal of social capital that café owners accrued in Paris. Throughout the late 19th century, the café in any working-class neighborhood took on the functions of the town square, and owners made possible, and even to a certain extent shaped, the social world that revolved around their establishments. With the installation of bars in working-class cafés in the 1820s, the amount of contact proprietors had with customers skyrocketed, and close relationships between owner and patron were
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This 1846 print by artist Abel Damourette (1842–78) emphasizes the wide range of class backgrounds that might be encountered over breakfast in 19th-century Parisian cafés. Cafés were such important spaces for city residents that by 1909, it is estimated that there were at least 11.25 cafés for every 1,000 Parisian inhabitants, as compared to only one café, pub, or bar for every 1,000 in London.
common. It became routine for a café owner to act as a customer’s witness for passports, weddings, and baptisms. Because coming to the café was the centerpiece of working-class Parisian social life, it was also imperative for customers to maintain a friendly enough relationship that proprietors would extend their credit through leaner times. Without such extensions, nearly every patron of such neighborhood establishments would have found themselves excluded at times. The café, then, was a place for the working class to both create and maintain a variety of relationships that were made possible only by the owner’s goodwill. Bohemian Cafés There was a third major type of café in France, which is best labeled as bohemian, or artistic.
Just as political groups would often come to see one café as their unofficial headquarters, artists would similarly congregate around one establishment, often in Montmartre. The neighborhood, situated on a hill overlooking Paris, was considered outside the city (although today, it is considered well within the city limits) and thus escaped a significant share of taxation. Just as importantly, the local nuns made a high-quality, relatively inexpensive wine. Today, Le Moulin Rouge and Le Chat Noir are the most popularly known establishments in the neighborhood, but these would be more accurately termed cabarets, as both included live music and dance. The popular Café des Variétés, also in Montmartre, attracted artists, including Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Salvador Dali, Suzanne Valadon, and Langston Hughes, and is exemplary of the
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bohemian café. The cafés of this area were so central to his life that Vincent Van Gogh once wrote his brother that he was considering exhibiting some of his work in one. In the final years of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, these cafés overflowed with aspiring painters, actors, writers, and artists of every other genre. By the post–World War II era, however, the area had become fashionable and touristy, famous for its connection to the successful artists it had welcomed. The cafés and cabarets, as well as the housing, became too expensive for the struggling artists, who were pushed further to the edges of Paris. Mass consumerism, which rose after World War II, significantly changed the French café as an institution. The lower cost of food, rising wages, and wider availability of affordable nonslum housing meant that the working class no longer had to rely on the café for meals. Changing patterns of sociability decentered the institution, and the café owner in particular lost his or her centrality to daily life. Nonetheless, cafés are still a significant part of the landscape in any Parisian neighborhood, and they continue to offer an unparalleled position from which to observe daily life. Lauren Elizabeth Saxton City University of New York See Also: Absinthe; Art; Cabarets; Drinking Establishments; France; Literature, Role of Alcohol in; Pernod Ricard. Further Readings Barrows, Susanna. “After the Commune: Alcoholism, Temperance, and Literature in the Early Third Republic.” In Consciousness and Class Experience in 19th-Century Europe, John Merriman, ed. New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1979. Barrows, Susanna. Distorting Mirrors: Visions of the Crowd in Late Nineteenth-Century France. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981. Garrioch, David. Neighborhood and Community in Paris, 1740–1790. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Haine, W. Scott. The World of the Paris Café. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Campari Campari is the name of a bittersweet Italian liqueur typically served as an aperitif. It is also the name of the multinational corporation that produces it. Gaspare Campari was born in 1828 in Cassolnovo, Lombardy, Italy, as the 10th child of a farmer. By the age of 14, he was a master drink maker at the Bass Bar in Turin, Italy. He created his eponymous product, Campari, which is made from about 60 natural ingredients such as barks (for example, quinine); roots (for example, ginseng); herbs, spices, fruit (for example, orange and lemon) peels; and other miscellaneous ingredients. Until 2006, the drink’s distinctive red color was achieved by adding carmine dye, which is derived from crushed cochineal insects. During the 1840s, he sold his concoction throughout Italy. In 1860, he perfected the recipe, which is now a closely guarded trade secret, and established the Campari Group in Novara, Italy. In 1862, he married his second wife, Letizia Galli, who was from Milan, and he relocated operations there. He ran a café in front of the Duomo, the famous Gothic cathedral of Milan (that is, Metropolitan Cathedral-Basilica of the Nativity of Saint Mary) that was located right in the center of the city, from which he served his eponymous beverage to many visitors. Gaspare died in 1882 and his two sons, Davide and Guido Campari, took over the company. They both died without having children and passed the company on to their nephew, Antonio Migliavacca, who was also childless; he left the company to his widow, who, in turn, left it to two long-term employees. In 1887, Davide Campari opened a production unit on Via Corsico, and then in 1890, he relocated production of Campari products to Via Galilei, both in Milan. Under his helm, he also did much in the realm of product diversification, which launched the Campari Group to international prominence. The first large-scale industrial production plant for the Campari Group line of products was opened in 1904 in Sesto San Giovanni, outside Milan. The Campari Group is today the sixth-largest producer of premium alcoholic beverages. The Liqueur and Its Cocktails Campari is a bittersweet and spicy liqueur that varies from 20.5 percent to 28 percent alcohol
by volume depending on the country where it is sold. Campari is generally referred to as an aperitif, such as in Italy, where it is known as an aperitivo, but aperitifs are also very popular in many other countries, such as in France, Greece, Latin, and South America, the Levant, and Portugal. Aperitifs like Campari are traditionally served before a meal and popularly thought to help stimulate the appetite. Many cocktails are made with Campari, most of which can be served as an aperitif. Each of these Campari cocktails has its own historical and cultural background. Some of these are the Americano, bicicletta, Garibaldi, and Negroni. The Americano cocktail was first created in the middle of the 1800s by Gaspare Campari himself, but it only got its current name in the early 1900s due to its popularity with American tourists in Milan. It consists of a combination of equal parts of Campari, sweet vermouth, and chilled club soda. The bicicletta is another classic Italian cocktail made with Campari, purportedly named after the elderly men who swerved all over the road on their bicycles after being out for an evening of drinking; it consists of a blend of Campari, a dry white wine like a pinot grigio, and club soda. The Garibaldi cocktail is named for Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian military leader and politician who fought for a unified and independent nation of Italy and whose followers wore characteristic red shirts, reflected in the red Campari that is mixed with orange juice to make this beverage. The Negroni cocktail is said to have been created by and named for Count Cammillo Negroni, who in the 1920s entered the Café Casoni in Florence, Italy, and ordered an Americano cocktail with gin substituted for the club soda. Campari is distributed worldwide to more than 190 countries. The leading international markets are in Brazil, Italy, Germany, France, and Japan, although it is sold in many other places as well. This amounts to more than 2.8 million nine-liter cases of Campari sold around the globe each year. The largest per capita consumption of Campari is in St. Lucia, where the preferred way to consume it is mixed with condensed milk. Campari Group The Campari Group headquarters is located at 161 Via Antonio Gramsci in Milan. It offers
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three free guided tours of the premises, referred to as “Galleria Campari,” on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoons, with two guided morning tours only by prior booking for groups of at least 15 people. The Campari Group operates in four major business domains: spirits, wines, soft drinks, and others. Its spirits, which are beverages with an alcohol content at or above 15 percent, include the signature and eponymous Campari along with other products like Aperol, Appelton Estate Jamaica Rum, Cabo Wabo Tequila, Druhry’s, Frangelico, Glen Grant, Gregson’s, Old Eight, Old Smuggler, Skyy Vodka, Wild Turkey, and Zedda Piras. These spirits represent about 73 percent of the total sales for Campari. Wines, a category which covers sparkling and still wines as well as aromatized wines like vermouth, account for about 15 percent of the Campari Group’s sales and include product brands like Cinzano, Enrico Serafino, Lamargue, Liebfraumilch, Mondoro, Riccadonnia, and Sella & Mosca. Soft drinks produced by the Campari Group include Crodino, an aperitif, and several fruit-based sodas like Lemonsoda, Oransoda, and Pelmosoda, which amount to about 10 percent of the Campari Group’s sales. Other products only amount to about 2 percent of Campari Group’s revenues. Historically, the Campari Group has established and maintained its image and brands through distinctive promotional campaigns. Advertising has long been utilized by the company to project attractive and original images for its products, attempting to convey characteristic sensations and emotions for each respective product. The Campari Group, particularly under the leadership of Davide Campari, commissioned now-classic posters by professional artists like Cappiello, Depero, Dudovich, Grego, Metlicovitz, Mora, Munari, Nizzoli, and Sacchetti, which are now highly collectible but were part of pioneering advertising campaigns. In 1932, the Campari Group, under Davide Campari, started selling Campari Soda in a now classic bottle designed by Futurist artist Fortunato Depero. The advertising and promotional expenditures overall now amount to about 18 percent of annual net sales. Today, the Campari Group hopes to gain continued success in international markets. It holds an extensive brand portfolio that is well balanced
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globally both by market areas and by its highly distinctive brands. Victor B. Stolberg Essex County College See Also: Advertising and Marketing, History of; Aperitifs; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Italy; Liqueur Advertising. Further Readings Brown, Jared and Anistatia Miller. The Mixellany Guide to Vermouth and Other Aperitifs. Cheltenham, UK: Mixellany Books, 2011. Bruss, Jill. “Campari Takes to the Skyy.” Beverage Industry, v.8 (2002). Dringoli, Angelo. “Campari: Product Diversification and International Expansion Through Acquisitions.” In New Perspectives on the Modern Corporation: Corporate Strategy and Firm Growth Creating Value for Shareholders. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2012. Heekin, Deirdre. “Ode to Campari.” Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, v.6/3 (2006). Olney, Bruce. Liqueurs, Aperitifs and Fortified Wines. London: Hills and Boon, 1972. Tritton, S. M. Spirits, Aperitifs, and Liqueurs: Their Production. London: Faber, 1975. Wisner, Penelope. Summer Cocktails and Other Refreshing Drinks: 50 Tantalizing Recipes. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2001.
Canada Alcohol was present in Canadian society at the beginnings of 17th-century settlement, and it remained woven into the economic and social framework of the nation that followed. Today, alcohol production is a key part of the nation’s economic structure, and booze is a major component of Canadian culture. As such, antidrink movements have also been a part of alcohol-oriented expressions of culture. Historians generally consider the founding of New France, which began after Samuel de Champlain’s voyages in the first decade of the 17th century, as the start of a European-oriented Canada.
As early as that time, the Jesuits, representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, were already concerned with alcohol that was present in the new territory. They noted the abundance of alcohol among fur traders, which they saw as a preventative to their missionary work. These religious groups, nevertheless, had to give way to alcohol as being an economic necessity to the success of the colony as merchants and government officials were not supportive the Jesuits’ claims. By the mid-18th century, Britain had secured control of New France, later forming the colonies of what would become Canada. In each British colony, alcohol production was encouraged by government officials, and so, it became permanently built into the fabric of colonial infrastructure. As part of the development of the early colony of upper Canada (present-day Ontario), for example, colonial officials supported the licensing of taverns and inns so that farmers and travelers would be able to find respite along their journeys. They implemented a plan that allowed for licenses to be granted to early entrepreneurs on the provision that, in exchange for being allowed to sell alcohol, tavern- and innkeepers would also supply rooms for travelers and stables for horses. In order for trade to be encouraged in the colony, early governments were willing to encourage the provision of booze. The Canadian British colonies were built upon the trade of alcohol even more so as the production of various forms of booze was a major part of their internal economies. As the colonies began intensive farming during the first half of the 19th century, farmers began to produce surpluses of grain beyond pioneer household consumption needs, including barley, rye, and other cereal crops. Grain surpluses made their way into the hands of brewers and distillers, who formed a major component of early industry. Many brewers became prominent businessmen and members of their communities as a result of the successes of this trade relationship. The Molson family of Montreal, Quebec, and in Ontario, the Labbatts and Carlings of London, the O’Keefes of Toronto, and the Sleemans of Guelph are examples of this tradition. Temperance A coinciding development with the growing prevalence of booze, brewers, and distillers in
Canadian society was the growth of the Canadian wing of the temperance movement. By the 1867 Confederation of Canada, when the colonies became a single governing unit and nation officially called Canada, the temperance crusades were well under way. They had begun as part of the evangelically oriented millennialist movement in the Atlantic colonies as early as the 1820s. These temperance evangelicals spread the word of teetotalism throughout the colonies, moving from the Atlantic colonies to Quebec and then into upper Canada. At this time, the form of temperance that they encouraged relied upon moral suasion, voluntary abstinence from drink, which they spread via temperance parades, open-air gatherings akin to religious revivals, the written media, and other social gatherings and groups. While religious leaders, particularly Methodists and Presbyterians, remained at the helm of the movement, temperance eventually became a cross-class social phenomenon. Drinking behavior had declined during the preConfederation era, particularly in the rural regions of Canada, where temperance became a key part of maintaining social respectability. Though successful in their mission of lessening the evils of drink, the temperance movement adopted methods apart from moral suasion after the Confederation and moved onto other, more direct tactics. By the 1870s and 1880s, the Canadian provinces had begun experimenting with government control of the alcohol trade and supply in an effort to continue the temperance movement’s mission. Though alcohol continued to be supplied in wet areas and through prescriptive, alcohol-based tonics and medicines, many regions became dry through legislative efforts. The 1878 Canada Temperance Act, known as the Scott Act, allowed municipalities and counties the right to hold votes to decide whether or not they would stay wet or prohibit the sale and public consumption of booze. Such enforcement attempts were the beginning of the prohibition era, extending to 1918, when national prohibition was brought into effect. Prohibition-supportive groups felt that the enforcement of a country-wide, antidrink policy would encourage Canadian soldiers to become fitter and more likely to be successful in the theater of war. Soon after the war’s completion, the
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Canadian provinces began to repeal prohibition. Nevertheless, the pattern of drinking behavior in the nation was changed by the effect of the prohibitory period. Controlled Drinking As the provinces desired to allow the provision of alcohol once again, they remained determined to control the modes and pattern of drinking behavior and founded various liquor control boards across the country that managed booze consumption. The Liquor Control Board of British Columbia, for example, allowed for the provision of alcohol but only in beer parlors. Licensed establishments had to refrain from using the words bar, saloon, or tavern, in their names, and no dancing or entertainment could be offered. Drinkers also had to sit and drink their beer rather than stand and associate with one another as 19th-century tavern goers had. This extended the prevention of the working-man’s pub, which had relied upon masculine singing, association, and gathering at urban saloons and bars. The pattern of controlled public drinking marked the mid-20th-century form of alcohol consumption. Today, the legacy of controlled drinking can still be felt across the nation as most provinces have their own liquor boards that monitor and control the sale of alcohol. In Ontario, for example, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), established in 1927, runs retail stores throughout the province, where spirits, wine, and beer can be obtained. Aside from the LCBO, restaurants, and bars, Ontarians can only buy alcoholic beverages at The Beer Store, a chain of brewery-run retail stores, or brewer and vintner retail locations. However, there have been recent calls for corner stores to be allowed to sell such items. Despite restrictions, Canadians consume significant quantities of alcohol. In the 2012 fiscal year, beer and liquor stores sold $20.9 billion (CAD) worth of alcoholic beverages. Most of the consumption was in the form of beer, which accounted for 44 percent of the market share, while wine had 31 percent. More than threequarters of beer consumption is of domestically produced beverages, though imported beer has gained in market share recently. More than threequarters of wine is imported. Canada is, in this sense, a beer-drinking nation.
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Canadians have maintained a long and difficult history with alcohol. Though many domestic breweries have become international, including Molson’s, which today is part of the Canada– American-based company Molson Coors, booze remains a part of the economic and social fabric of the nation. Nicholas Van Allen University of Guelph See Also: Controlled Drinking, History of; Moral Suasion; Temperance Movements; United States. Further Readings Campbell, Robert A. Sit Down and Drink Your Beer: Regulating Vancouver’s Beer Parlours, 1925–1954. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. Heron, Craig. Booze: A Distilled History. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2003. Warsh, Cheryl Krasnick, ed. Drink in Canada: Historical Essays. Montreal: MQUP, 1993.
Capone, Al Al Capone was an American mobster known for his propensity for violence. He epitomizes the ruthlessness of the Prohibition era gangster and he is perhaps best known by his nickname, Scarface. Alponse Capone was born on January 17, 1899. His father, Gabriele Capone, a barber, and his mother, Teresina Capone, emigrated from Naples, Italy, in 1894 and became naturalized U.S. citizens on May 25, 1906. Al was the fourth of nine children; he had six brothers and two sisters, all of whom lived with their parents in a small apartment in the Navy Yard area of Brooklyn, New York. He only attended public schools until the seventh grade, when he struck and knocked down his female teacher who was chastising him for his truancy; the male principal apparently gave him a good thrashing. At any rate, Capone at the age of 14 years stopped attending school and earnestly continued acquiring a diverse set of street skills. By the time he was 11 years old, Capone got involved with the juvenile gang life of New York
City. The gang that he first joined was known as the “Bim Booms,” or the Navy Street gang. Capone later graduated to the infamous Five Points gang of New York City. Capone became a local pool shark, an expert at knife fighting, and a deadly marksman. One of his criminal mentors was Johnny Torrio, who was a subboss of the Five Points gang, then headed by Paul Kelly. Capone worked his way up the criminal hierarchy strong-arming victims of loan sharks, pimping prostitutes, and then serving as a bouncer at the Harvard Inn, run by the Italian mobster Francesco Ioele, whom everyone knew as Frankie Yale. On December 30, 1918, Capone, then 19 years old, married Mae Coughlin, a 21-year-old Irish American young woman; their first and only child, Alphonse Albert Francis “Sonny” Capone Jr., had already been born on December 4, 1918. Sonny was born with congenital syphilis and a serious mastoid infection; he survived the necessary surgery but was left partially deaf. Capone worked for a while in Baltimore, Maryland, as a bookkeeper for a construction firm run by Peter Aiello. Capone eventually admitted that he had previously contracted syphilis but thought that it was in remission. His illness was never treated and would eventual lead to his death. Rise as a Gang Czar Johnny Torrio had moved from New York to Chicago in 1910 and became involved in running a large brothel and other underworld operations there. In 1921, Torrio sent for Capone to come and work for him. Capone was by then a suspect in several murder cases in New York City and was eager to move. One of Capone’s first tasks was to relocate the group’s activities to Cicero, Illinois, as there was then a major criminal justice effort to crack down on racketeering in Chicago. With the assistance of two of his brothers, Salvatore “Frank” and Ralph Capone, Capone infiltrated the Cicero city government and police departments. On May 11, 1920, either Capone or Frankie Yale allegedly assassinated James “Big Jim” Colosimo; he had been Torrio’s uncle and boss, but he was against bootlegging. This opened the way for Torrio to take control of organized crime on the south side of Chicago and for Capone to be his chief lieutenant. Prohibition had begun in 1920, and consequently
bootlegging operations commenced and rapidly became highly profitable. The Torrio-Capone gang battled rivals for control of this lucrative enterprise. In 1924, they killed the head of the Irish North Side gang, Charles Dion O’Bannion. Torrio retired in 1925 after a failed assassination attempt in which he was seriously wounded, and Capone, at 26 years of age, stepped up to become crime czar, with immense profits rolling in from bootlegging, gambling, and prostitution rackets. Capone used threats and violence to intimidate rivals, and he either absorbed or eliminated competing gangs in order to expand his territories; it is estimated that he had 1,000 gunmen under his command while he controlled this sophisticated crime organization. There were, not surprisingly, several assassination attempts made against him. Interestingly, Capone was apparently an equal opportunity employer who, unlike most other Italian and Sicilian mobsters, hired Jews, Poles, African Americans, Slovaks, and other ethnics as long as he felt they were trustworthy. In May of 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court had declared that bootleggers had to pay income taxes on their illegal profits. Armed with this ruling, the Special Intelligence Unit under Elmer Irey of the Internal Revenue Service began building their case against Capone and several of his associates, including his brother Frank, Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik, and Frank Nitti. On February 14, 1929, Capone’s soldiers, presumably under his orders, conducted the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre at a warehouse used by one of his rival bootlegger mobsters, George “Bugs” Moran. Moran was known to be attending a meeting there, and several of Capone’s gunmen, dressed as police officers, showed up and lined up the seven men on the premises against a brick wall and executed them with machine guns and other firearms. However, Bugs Moran on arriving at the warehouse saw what he thought was a police car pulling up in front and he quickly walked into a nearby store, avoiding his intended death. Criminal Investigation and Imprisonment The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation of Capone arose due to his failure to appear before a federal grand jury on March 12, 1929, in response to a subpoena. His defense attorneys filed for a formal postponement of appearance on
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March 11, submitting an affidavit from a physician attesting that he had been confined to bed suffering from bronchial pneumonia in Miami from January 13 to February 23 and that it would be dangerous to his health to travel. The FBI sent special agent Elliott Ness to Chicago to investigate Capone and other bootleggers. Ness later wrote a book titled The Untouchables, which described his efforts to catch Capone. At the request of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, FBI agents acquired statements that Capone had attended racetracks in Miami, flown to Bimini, and taken a cruise to Nassau at that time, as well as having been questioned by the office of the Dade County solicitor, and he appeared to be in good health. As a result, Capone went before the federal grand jury from March 20 through March 27; after completing his testimony, he was arrested while leaving the courthouse by agents for contempt of court. He posted a $5,000 bond and was released. On May 17, 1929, Capone was arrested in Philadelphia for carrying a concealed and dangerous weapon; within 16 hours he was sentenced to a year in prison. He served his time in Eastern State Penitentiary and was released for good behavior on March 17, 1930. On February 28, 1931, Capone was found guilty in federal court of the contempt of court charge and sentenced to six months in the Cook County Jail. Capone and his lawyers tried unsuccessfully to appeal that decision, but the appeal was subsequently dismissed. On June 16, 1931, Capone pled guilty to tax evasion and other prohibition charges in exchange for a plea deal for a two-and-a-halfyear sentence. However, Capone changed his plea to “not guilty” when informed by the presiding judge that he was not bound by any such deal. Nevertheless, on October 18, 1931, Capone was convicted, and on November 24 he was sentenced to 11 years in prison, fined $50,000, and charged with $7692 in court costs, as well as $215,000 plus interest that was due for back income taxes. His earlier six-month sentence for contempt of court was allowed to be served concurrently. He was held in the Cook County Jail until his appeals were denied, and then he was sent to the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta; at both places, he was able to acquire special privileges and apparently was still able to rule over his illegal empire. In 1934, Capone was transferred to Alcatraz, the prison
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island off San Francisco, where he could not get the smallest special consideration. In 1939, after having paid all fines and back taxes and interest, he was transferred to the U.S. Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Finally, on November 16, 1939, he was released, having served seven years, six months, and fifteen days. Capone’s health declined precipitously while he was incarcerated. He had long been infected with syphilis, and it finally reached its tertiary stage, where he experienced mental confusion and disorientation. His prison sentence had been reduced due to his suffering from the ravages of neurosyphilis as well as for good behavior, and he was consequently paroled and released. His condition progressively deteriorated, he became increasingly mentally incapacitated, and he was kept in seclusion with his wife and immediate family. He died of a stroke and pneumonia at his Palm Island estate in Biscayne Bay off Miami Beach on January 25, 1947 at the age of 48 years. He was originally buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Chicago and later reinterred at Mount Carmel Catholic Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois, where his two older brothers, Ralph and Salvatore “Frank” Capone, are also buried. Victor B. Stolberg Essex County College See Also: Alcohol Abuse and Violence; Mafia; Prohibition; Untouchables, The. Further Readings Allsop, Kenneth. The Bootleggers: The Story of Chicago’s Prohibition Era. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House. Bergreen, Laurence. Capone: The Man and the Era. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1994. Kobler, John. Capone: The Life and World of Al Capone. New York: Da Capo, 2003.
Caribbean Islands The Caribbean islands stretch from the Bahamas in the north to Trinidad in the south. They include the large islands of the Greater Antilles, including
Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico, and the smaller islands of the Lesser Antilles. Despite its great cultural, racial, and linguistic diversity, the Caribbean exhibits broad social and economic similarities born of its history of colonialism and slavery. These two institutions have also shaped the social history of alcohol and drinking in the Caribbean islands. Historical Alcohol Use The Carib and Taino were the two most numerous indigenous groups in the Caribbean islands at the time of European contact. The Taino are the Arawakan-speaking Amerindians of the northern Greater Antilles who greeted Columbus when he reached Hispaniola in 1492. It is generally believed that they had no knowledge of alcohol production or use. In contrast, the Caribs had a strong tradition of alcohol use and they made a variety of fermented alcoholic drinks. At the time of European contact, they occupied the Caribbean from the Orinoco Delta region of mainland South America through the island chain of the Lesser Antilles, perhaps as far north as the eastern tip of Puerto Rico. Carib drinking centered on cassava-based alcoholic drinks made from the root of the manioc plant. In the French Islands, the Caribs called their drink oüicou. However, early settlers in the British colony of Barbados called their cassava-based alcoholic drinks perino or parranow. Carib women were responsible for making oüicou and perino by chewing the manioc and spitting it into a large earthenware vessel where it was allowed to ferment. The Caribs also produced a drink called mobbie made from sweet potatoes. They incorporated these drinks into a variety of social and religious ceremonies, and they were especially important at drinking feasts that were held at regular intervals throughout the year. In the historic era, these feasts were called vins, and they sometimes preceded raids on neighboring settlements. European Settlement In the age of European exploration and settlement, foreign drinks entered the repertoire of alcoholic beverages available to Caribs. The wind and ocean currents of the Atlantic led many European sailing ships headed for the New World to Carib centers in the Leeward and
Windward Islands. These islands represented the first landfall after weeks at sea, and they provided travelers with a place to rest and recover from long voyages. As a result, an important trade developed between Caribs and Europeans in the early years of exploration and settlement. In exchange for iron axes, glass trade beads, and other goods, Europeans received fresh water and food provisions. It was through this sort of informal exchange that Caribs were first introduced to European alcoholic beverages. Privateers, explorers, settlers, and missionaries usually carried huge stores of alcohol on their voyages. They esteemed European alcoholic beverages for their novelty as well as their higher alcohol content, and they incorporated foreign alcoholic beverages into traditional Carib ceremonies. Before the large-scale transition to sugar production in the 1640s, British, French, and Spanish colonists in the Caribbean experimented with the alcoholic potential of various local plants. They even tapped the knowledge of Caribs to meet their alcohol needs. In the British island of Barbados and the French island of Martinique, early colonists drank the cassava-based oüicou but preferred the sweet potato–based mobbie. Colonists eventually became skilled at the art of making mobbie. Colonists fermented a variety of other local plants and fruits to make alcoholic drinks, including pineapple, plantains, bananas, plums, oranges, limes, wild grapes, the fruit of the tamarind tree, and the apple of the mahogany. The colonists’ desire for alcohol in the Caribbean led to experiments with a variety of available plant resources, and the new arrivals even exploited the Caribs’ knowledge of alcohol production. Early colonial writers often compared the drinks they made in the Caribbean to the European alcoholic beverages they left behind in Europe. With the shift to sugarcane cultivation in the 1640s, Europeans in the Caribbean began to distill and consume rum, especially in Barbados and Martinique. Early alcohol distillation in the Caribbean islands was a conservative art and the level of distillation technology in the 17th-century Caribbean was probably comparable to that of distilleries in contemporary Europe. Colonists used molasses and the scum that bubbled up from the sugar boilers for making rum. Despite the
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A 2011 winter carnival participant in costume in Guadeloupe in the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles. The Caribbean’s history of colonialism and slavery has influenced the diverse region’s society and economics, as well as the islands’ social history of alcohol and drinking.
use of relatively small stills and the heavy reliance on inferior ingredients, especially the scum from sugar boilers, rum making in Barbados and Martinique was not simply a cottage industry. Caribbean rum found some markets in the Atlantic world in the 17th century, especially in North America, and most of the rum produced in Barbados and Martinique never left the islands. Consumption It is likely that about 10 percent of the rum produced on Caribbean sugar estates was consumed by indentured and enslaved workers for a high per capita consumption rate of around eight or nine gallons per year.
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The tropical climate and new epidemiological environment of the Caribbean heightened European colonists’ concerns about health. In order to alleviate their worries, they embraced longstanding traditions about the medicinal value of distilled spirits, which fostered a routine of heavy drinking. Fear of tainted, or potentially tainted, water was especially great in Barbados, which lacked sufficient mountain streams. Early colonists also saw distilled spirits as a counter to chills, which made it a powerful antidote against damp weather. Distilled rum was universally consumed in the Caribbean, but in the 17th century, its use seems to have been especially concentrated among enslaved peoples, indentured servants, and Carib Indians. Wealthy whites in the Caribbean drank a variety of alcoholic beverages, but when they had the opportunity, they settled largely on imports of expensive madeira and canary wines. Many believed that the hot climate of the Caribbean brought out a particularly pleasant taste in madeira. The only real exception to elite rum use was the consumption of rum punch, a special variety of mixed drink made with spirits, lemon juice, spices, sugar, and water. The heavy emphasis on punch drinking reveals that colonists were preoccupied with hospitality and the sociable art of drinking. Alcohol use was widespread in the Caribbean and the enormous amounts of alcohol, especially rum, available contributed to a climate of excessive drinking. The drinking patterns of particular social groups also conveyed messages about the underlying tensions that existed in the Caribbean, which were driven by the coercive exploitation of labor and set within a highly contentious social hierarchy based on class, race, religion, and ethnic identity. Moreover, these tensions were magnified by epidemic disease, poor living conditions, natural disasters, international conflicts, and unstable food supplies. While nearly everyone in the Caribbean drank, the differing levels of alcohol use by different social groups highlights the ways in which drinking became a physical manifestation of, and a means to confront, anxiety. The Atlantic trades brought rum to the coasts of west and west central Africa. If enslaved peoples were not already familiar with rum in
Africa, they were quickly introduced to it during the middle passage or upon their arrival in the Caribbean. Caribbean sugar planters provided large amounts of rum to their enslaved workers as part of weekly plantation rations. Men, women, and children received allotments of rum for its caloric value, as a work incentive, and as a prophylactic against colds and wet weather. Enslaved peoples got rum through barter and purchase, and planters dispensed rum on holidays and special occasions. Excessive Drinking The colonists’ fears about drinking among enslaved peoples frequently led to legal restrictions against slave drinking, but those laws were often evaded. In reality, slave drinking was probably no more excessive than that found among most other social groups. Binge drinking among enslaved peoples appears to have been confined largely to ceremonial occasions, weekend events, and plantation holidays. In general, enslaved peoples, often drawing on alcohol-based traditions from their respective African ethnic groups, incorporated rum in their social and spiritual world. Probably no other group in the Caribbean had a worse reputation for excessive drinking than indentured servants and other poor classes of whites. Their excessive drinking was seen as a primary cause of the colonists’ poor health and various social disorders within the islands. Colonial Assemblies occasionally attempted to curb the intemperance of poor whites through tavern restrictions and other social controls. Seamen and other maritime traders also drank heavily in the port-town taverns that catered to their needs. Pirates, buccaneers, and privateers typically came from maritime backgrounds and also had a reputation for excessive drinking. Excessive drinking was typical of Caribbean port towns, which in the late 17th century were havens for pirates, buccaneers, and privateers. Before being razed by the earthquake of 1692, Port Royal, Jamaica, was a center of pirate activity and it had numerous taverns. Pirate life has been a romanticized part of Caribbean lore, and rum drinking has been a central theme in those narratives. European soldiers and seamen in the Caribbean had a reputation for intemperance, and liberal attitudes toward drinking were granted to
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troops stationed in the numerous forts that dotted the Caribbean landscape. Rum was considered a necessary ration, especially in the British army and navy. The growth of the British navy in the 17th century, due in large measure to the settlement of the New World colonies, led to the structured implementation of rum rations. Rum benefited from maritime customs, beliefs about its salubrious qualities, and Parliamentary incentives aimed at promoting the growth of the Caribbean colonies. Drinking among the sailors stationed in the Caribbean was legendary, and commanders often blamed the intemperance of their troops for the loss of battles. Frederick H. Smith College of William and Mary See Also: French Colonial Empire; Rum; Slavery; United States. Further Readings Smith, Frederick H. Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005. Smith, Frederick H. “European Impressions of the Island Carib’s Use of Alcohol in the Early Colonial Period.” Ethnohistory, v.53/3 (2006). Smith, Frederick H. “Spirits and Spirituality: Enslaved Persons and Alcohol in West Africa and the British and French Caribbean.” Journal of Caribbean History v.38/2 (2004). Smith, Frederick H. The Archaeology of Alcohol and Drinking. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008. Smith, Frederick H. “Volatile Spirits: The Historical Archaeology of Alcohol and Drinking in the Caribbean.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Florida, 2001.
Carling Carling is a Canadian beer company that was established by Thomas Carling in what is now the city of London, Ontario. Originally from Etton, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, where the family had lived for generations, Thomas Carling
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moved to Canada in 1818. Ten years later, he married Margaret Routledge from Cumberland, England, and they had five sons, two of whom died young. In 1840, Carling started home brewing some ale that he sold to soldiers in a local camp. In 1843, he established a brewery and started producing beer using a recipe from Yorkshire. This was successful and in 1849 the company was passed to two of the sons of Thomas Carling—the other surviving son, Isaac, became a farmer. Original Brewery William and John Carling founded the brewing business that became a major part of the W. and J. Carling Company. Both of the brothers were born in Canada and were teenagers when their father set up his brewing company. They worked with him as he developed the business from home brewing through the stages to running a company. They lived together in the same house in London. In many ways, the two brothers were unlikely inheritors of the business. Both are listed in the 1861 Census of Canada as being Wesleyan Methodists, and John, the younger of the two, never drank any beer—in fact, he said that the drink did not agree with him. The company was initially not restricted just to brewing; it was also involved in other ventures, including buying and selling real estate, but the brewing remained the central part of the business. In 1857, John Carling was elected a member of the legislative assembly and remained a member until 1867. He was the receiver general in the Macdonald-Cartier government in 1862. He became active in moves to Confederation in Canada, which took place in 1867. He then represented London in both the provincial and the federal parliaments until 1872, when this was made illegal. From 1872 until 1891, he was a conservative member of Parliament, serving as postmaster general from 1882 until 1885, and minister of agriculture from 1885 to 1891. Fire and Rebuilding In 1875, John Carling’s oldest son, Thomas Henry “Harry” Carling, born in 1850, entered the business as a partner, along with Joshua D. Dalton, who was also appointed a partner. Joshua was the brother of John’s wife, Hannah Dixon (née Dalton), and he was also a Methodist. John’s other
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three sons were between the ages of eight and 13 at this time. The three Carlings and Joshua Dalton then decided on an expansion and they built a massive new brewery on Talbot Street on the banks of the Thames River. This took advantage of the Great Western Railway connecting London with other parts of Canada and the United States. When it was completed, it was four stories tall and had a capacity of 2.5 million imperial gallons, making it the largest single brewery building in the country. On February 13, 1879, a massive fire destroyed the brewery. While he was fighting the fire, William Carling contracted pneumonia and he died on March 1, soon after the fire. John Carling supervised the rebuilding of the brewery, managing to begin operations in April 1879. In the first month of operation, the new plant was able to produce 150,000 gallons (3,488 barrels) of ale, lager, and port. In 1880, to try to help the company expand quickly and overcome the loss of the original brewery, the Carlings bought a brewery in Cleveland, Ohio. They held it for three years, and even after they sold it, it continued to produce Carling brands under a license. With the need to expand, in 1882 the Carlings restructured the company as a joint stock company and it became the Carling Brewery and Malting Company of London Limited. The company faced some minor local battles, with the Canada Temperance Act of 1878 allowing some areas to introduce prohibition in their locality after a plebiscite. In 1889, the new firm was producing 1.38 million gallons (32,000 barrels) of ale, lager, and port and was expanding rapidly. Indeed, by 1900, it had managed to secure a large part of the Canadian market and started to produce the Bavarian Stock Lager, later changed to Imperial Club Lager before the onset of World War I. John Carling was an astute businessman; although he never drank beer himself, he was a brilliant manager of the brewery. He recognized that the business had to be more integrated and became a director of the Great Western Railway. The service operated in Ontario and brought much of the barley, malt, and hops to his factory, and transported the beer to markets in the province and also elsewhere including the United States. Knighted in 1893, Sir John Carling was a Canadian senator until his death on November 6, 1911. He was to lose two grandsons in the last
year of World War I, and one of his great-grandsons was killed in Italy in World War II. Prohibition and Illicit Supply of Alcohol For a while, the brewery continued being run by the family, with Harry Carling as the company president. The early 20th century brought major problems. World War I forced production cutbacks, and the Ontario Temperance Act, in force from 1916 to 1927, reduced demand for beer. This allowed some areas to become “dry” and meant that brewing had to cease. The effects of Prohibition in the United States, however, caused the most difficulties. John Harry Innes Carling, the son of Harry Carling, after serving with Canadian forces in World War I, took over the running of the company. Known as Innes Carling, he was quite happy to produce large quantities of beer without being troubled that much of it was being smuggled into the United States. The extent to which the Carling management took part in actively circumventing Prohibition laws in the United States is debatable, but they certainly did nothing to prevent smuggling. Supplying the United States market illicitly was so profitable that the company quickly overextended itself, purchasing a bottling plant in Montreal for $400,000. The debt-ridden company was purchased by the newly formed Canadian Breweries Limited, a conglomerate established by E. P. Taylor, in 1930. In 1936, the brewery in London closed, and Carling Black Label and its other brands were manufactured at the Kuntz Brewery, which had been established in Waterloo, Ontario. Carling Black Label became the main product of the company, and this led to the Canadian Breweries Limited being renamed Carling O’Keefe. Taylor was eager to sell Carling overseas and started licensing production in the United States and the United Kingdom from the 1950s. Hope and Anchor started brewing Black Label in Britain in 1954 and at that time it accounted for only 2 percent of the British market. Very aggressive marketing followed and by the mid-1970s, around 1 million barrels of Carling were being sold every year in Britain, climbing to 2 million in 1988. Contemporary Market Rothmans had owned a 50 percent share in the company and in 1987 sold this, with the company
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briefly controlled by Elders IXL from Australia. It then merged with Molson in 1989 and was bought by Adolph Coors Company of Golden, Colorado, for 1.2 billion pounds. This gave the U.S. brewer around 18 percent of the British market with Carling now made by the Molson Coors Brewing company. In 2001, Carling Black Label became the bestselling beer in South Africa. In 1999, some 1 billion pints were sold in Britain, and by 2007 this had risen to 2.3 billion pints (6 billion worldwide). This number rose phenomenally in 2009 to 4.1 billion pints sold in Britain (and 11.6 billion worldwide), and in the following years rose to 17.6 billion pints sold worldwide in 2010; and then to 24.9 billion pints in 2011. Although Carling is so well-known in Britain, it ceased to be so popular in Canada where it had emerged in the second half of the 19th century. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar Schoo See Also: Beer; Beer and Foods; Canada; Prohibition. Further Readings Armstrong, F. H. The Forest City: An Illustrated History of London, Canada. Northridge, CA: Windsor, 1986. Bowering, Ian. The Art and Mystery of Brewing in Ontario. Burnstown, Ontario: General Store, 1988. Dembski, Peter E. Paul. “Sir John Carling.” In Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. 14. Toronto: University of Toronto/Université Laval, 1998. Phillips, Glen C. “Carling Brewery.” In Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia, Jack S. Blocker, David M. Fahey and Ian R. Tyrrell, eds. Santa Barbara, CA: ABCCLIO, 2003.
Carlsberg Carlsberg is a Danish brewery founded near Copenhagen in 1847 by Jacob Christian (J. C.) Jacobsen. It is one of the five largest brewing companies in the world and known most prominently
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for its Carlsberg Pilsner lager. Carlsberg was the first brewery to install a laboratory for research, making brewing into a science, which led to the first isolation and propagation of a single yeast cell, a very important scientific feat in the history of brewing. While the Carlsberg Brewery was founded in 1847, the first Jacobsen brewery in Copenhagen was founded by J. C.’s father Christen Jacobsen in 1826. Modern science and technology fascinated Christen and he sought to incorporate them into his brewing. J. C. followed his father’s lead in these subjects when he took over the brewery in 1835 with the goal of making exceptional beer by utilizing new technology and scientific knowledge. After trying Bavarianmade lager beer, J. C. decided to concentrate his brewing efforts on producing lagers instead of the dark, top-fermented ales that were being made in Denmark at that time. In the 1840s, J. C. Jacobsen visited Germany several times to learn more about the brewing of lager beers. During an 1847 visit to the Spaten Brewery in Munich, the head brewer Gabriel Sedlmyr gave Jacobsen some of Spaten’s lager yeast to take back with him. Using this yeast, Jacobsen produced the lager that would be the label of the Carlsberg Brewery, named after his son Carl. The first brew was the Carlsberg Lager Beer, released on November 10, 1847. J. C. Jacobsen’s son, Carl Jacobsen, followed in the family brewing legacy and studied brewing across Europe to learn the latest science and technologies of brewing in preparation for continuing the family profession. When Carl returned, his father decided not to retire and hand over the Carlsberg Brewery to his son. Instead, J. C. Jacobsen established a separate brewery for his son called the Annexe Brewery that would focus on brewing ales for domestic and foreign markets instead of the more popular lagers. The demand for lagers became so great, however, that Carl switched his production and he and his father became competitors. This competition led to Carl Jacobsen to founding the Ny (New) Carlsberg Brewery in 1882, the original Carlsberg becoming known as Old Carlsberg. Later in the 19th century, the competition and enmity between father and son relaxed and the tension eased, eventually leading to the official
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merger of the Old and New Carlsberg breweries in 1906, a few years after the death of the elder Jacobsen. Prior to this, the two largest breweries in Denmark, Carlsberg and Tuborg United Breweries, entered in 1903 into a 100-year agreement to cooperate instead of compete. They agreed to share in any profits or losses but maintain independent ownership over their respective breweries. In 1970, however, they officially merged into a single company, which is currently known at Carlsberg A/S. Scientific Brewing In 1871, J. C. Jacobsen established the Carlsberg Laboratory to study the science of malting, brewing, and fermentation. Emil Christian Hansen, a botanist, was hired in 1874 to head the laboratory’s physiological department and study the science of fermentation. The Carlsberg Laboratory set out to build on the work done by Louis Pasteur, who had demonstrated that the yeast used for brewing was actually a living single-celled organism responsible for the fermentation of sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. While bottom-fermented Bavarian-style beers had been produced at Carlsberg since 1847, there were still problems with the spoilage of beers. In 1882, during the development of mechanized refrigeration, Carlsberg began brewing beer all year round instead of during the usual time period from October to June; the cold weather of these months having been necessary for optimal fermentation prior to refrigeration. However, large amounts of beer were becoming spoilt for unknown reasons in spite of the new refrigeration technology. Emil Christian Hansen was asked to solve the problem. Hansen’s background in botany led him to go against the favored bacteriological–chemical approach of Pasteur, who believed diseases in lager beers resulted from bacterial infection. Hansen instead adopted a botanical approach that identified the culprit in species of airborne and insect-born “wild yeasts.” He hypothesized that brewery yeasts—as long as they were propagated under conditions particular to respective breweries—could be considered separate and specific types of yeast and that a greater constancy in brewing could be possible by cultivating pure yeast strains from single yeast cells.
In 1883, Hansen became the first person to isolate and propagate a single yeast cell using yeast from the Carlsberg brewery’s strain, which he named Saccharomyces carlsbergensis after the brewery. Hansen’s process revolutionized the brewing industry and is seen today as a landmark moment in the history of brewing and the science of fermentation. Instead of keeping these findings secret for the brewery, J. C. Jacobsen insisted that the results be published publicly in scientific journals and that descriptions of Hansen’s process be shared with the brewing world. This way, anyone could build equipment for the isolation and propagation of their own brewery’s yeast using Hansen’s methods. In addition, samples of the Carlsberg yeast were sent on request to breweries around the world and brewers were allowed to visit Carlsberg to learn the new methods. In addition, J. C. Jacobsen founded the Carlsberg Foundation to manage the laboratory and support the sciences and culture of Denmark. Once New Carlsberg and Old Carlsberg merged, the foundation also began support for the arts through Carl Jacobsen’s interests. The Carlsberg Foundation holds controlling interest in the Carlsberg Brewery to this day. Carlsberg and the World Carlsberg began exporting small amounts of their beer to Scotland in 1868 and established itself in the West Indies and South America over the following decades. The United Kingdom, however, was Carlsberg’s strongest export market, so much so that in 1955, 55 percent of all beer exported to the United Kingdom from the continent was Carlsberg. After World War II, Carlsberg signed agreements with breweries in Ireland, Gibraltar, and Malta to bottle Carlsberg beer for local markets in order to cut down on transportation costs. The first Carlsberg brewery outside of Denmark, however, was built in Malawi in 1968 to brew Carlsberg Pilsner. In 1974, another Carlsberg brewery was opened in Northampton, England, to cater to the UK market. Today, Carlsberg A/S is one of the top-four breweries in the world in quantity; the others being Anheuser-Busch InBev, SAB Miller, and Heineken. Malcolm Purinton Northeastern University
See Also: Beer; Brewing, History of; Denmark; Germany; Lager; Pilsner. Further Readings Aerts, Eric, L. M. Cullen and R. G. Wilson. Production, Marketing, and Consumption of Alcoholic Beverages Since the Late Middle Ages: Proceedings, Tenth International Economic History Congress. Louvaine, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 1990. Carlsberg Bryggerierne. Carlsberg: 125 Years, 1847– 10. November–1972. Copenhagen, Denmark: Carlsberg Bryggerierne, 1972. Carlsberg Group. “Timeline (1811–2013).” http:// www.carlsberggroup.com/Company/heritage/ Pages/Timeline.aspx (Accessed September 2012). Swinnen, Johan F. M., ed. The Economics of Beer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Unger, Richard W. A History of Brewing in Holland, 900–1900; Economy, Technology, and the State. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2001.
Carnival The term carnival refers to three linked things. The first is a historical, festive culture associated with revelry and misrule, largely associated with Europe but also with the Americas and elsewhere; the second is a set of ideas based on Mikhail Bakhtin’s analysis of one form of this festive culture, originally published in 1965 but translated into English as Rabelais and His World in 1984; and the third is the investigation of the transgressive, perhaps even revolutionary, potential of contemporary and historical popular culture, drawing on Bakhtin’s ideas, filtered through the discipline of cultural studies and literary theory. However, each of these three elements, and the connections among them, have been subject to some discussion, particularly whether carnival could be truly disruptive or simply a licensed safety valve to safely release social tensions, whether this potential has been diminished or lost in modern societies, and whether carnival could be truly inclusive. There has also been much discussion of the fate of carnival since the Renaissance. Alcohol is present in each of these ideas of carnival: as
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historical fact, symbol, and part of the analytical framework, respectively. It possesses the ability to transform ordinary events into something else, and as a consequence, it has attracted the attention of those charged with keeping order. As a result, the history of alcohol control has sometimes been seen as part of the taming of carnival. Historical Phenomenon As a historical phenomenon, the carnival of early modern Europe took place in the period before Lent, which might begin as early as the New Year. As this suggests, this festive culture had strong associations with the Catholic Church as well as elements of local folk cultures. As a period of excess that celebrated all those things forbidden by the Lenten strictures of fasting, piety, and sobriety, it is not surprising that contemporaries saw carnival and Lent as opposing forces, as depicted in Pieter Breughel the Elder’s painting The Battle of Carnival and Lent (1559). Clubs or societies, often composed of young noblemen, organized formal activities like processions of floats, games and races, and plays and farces in the main streets and squares of cities. But, this formal carnival was only the most obvious and most tightly constrained form of the broader festive culture that Bakhtin would describe as carnivalesque. Away from the center of the city and starting well before the high point of carnival, the city’s population would indulge in feasting, drinking, music and dancing, elements of masquerade (most famously at the Venice Carnival), innuendo and insult, satire, and ritualized violence. This carnivalesque culture was unevenly distributed in time and space. Broadly speaking, it was strongest in the great Catholic countries bordering the Mediterranean (Italy, Spain, and France), significant in central Europe, and weakest in northern and northwestern Europe (Britain and Scandinavia). Temporally, carnival was strongest before Lent, but saints’ days, other religious ceremonies, and even folkloric festivals were celebrated throughout the year, again with some geographical variations. In England, for example, Shrove Tuesday was relatively quiet, while May Day was rowdy; the Hunting of the Wren is still celebrated on St. Stephen’s Day (December 26) in Dingle, County Kerry, in Ireland. Beyond the festive calendar, other kinds of
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This detail from Pieter Breughel the Elder’s 1559 painting The Battle of Carnival and Lent shows a figure representing carnival astride a beer barrel set to oppose an unseen figure representing Lent. With the colonization of the Americas and the addition of cultural elements from West African traditions, carnival took on new forms, as now seen in such cities as New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro.
special occasions—public executions, the entry of important visitors into cities and towns, and celebrations of good fortune—could become carnivalesque celebrations, often accompanied by drinking. The charivari, or Skimmington Ride— the public mocking of those who had offended community norms, usually accompanied by the rough music of pots and pans beaten together— was also important. Carnival became a hybrid, traveling, festive culture with the colonization of the Americas. On slave-worked plantations, Catholic European and West African traditions combined to create new syncretic forms now visible in the famous carnivals of New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro. These elements returned to Europe in the 20th century. London’s Notting Hill Carnival, one of the largest in Europe, takes place outside the old festive
calendar but contains influences from Europe, the different islands of the Caribbean, and many of the hundreds of other cultures found in this cosmopolitan city. Bakhtin’s Analysis The second form of carnival reflects the influence of Bakhtin’s Rabelais and His World. He argued that Francois Rabelais’s 16th-century Gargantua and Pantagruel was merely part of a wider Renaissance festive culture characterized by what he called grotesque realism, a utopian philosophy linked to cycles of death and rebirth, the celebration of change, and the body. In this way, Bakhtin made Rabelais part of his overall philosophy, which would come to be called dialogism. For Bakhtin, drink played several key roles in the carnivalesque: Along with food, it represents human
mastery over a hostile nature, celebrated in banquets; it imparts some of the character of table talk, a free, frank, and philosophical conversation with the potential to regenerate social relations; finally, good wine was a symbol of truth, generosity, and reciprocity that liberated the drinker from fear. However, Marty Roth argues that Bakhtin does not credit intoxication as the force behind the carnivalesque and spends very little time discussing alcohol. Bakhtin was, of course, a philosopher of literature and language rather than a historian or sociologist, and his book studies the cultural expression of the carnivalesque, not its causes. Intoxication takes different forms in different times and places, and the drunkenness described by Rabelais is not formless but takes on the particular, established forms of the wider festive culture to invert or mock the established truths of the Lenten world. Similarly, Bakhtin was not really interested in the specificity of erotic imagery in the carnivalesque but in their symbolic sense as signs of transformation and renewal. Transgressive or Revolutionary Potential The emerging field of cultural studies was quick to seize on Bakhtin’s argument as it identified a political, perhaps even revolutionary, potential within popular culture while also explaining why this culture had long been a cause for concern for those in authority. Bakhtin’s argument, filtered through this later work but divorced from his wider philosophy, has received a qualified response from historians of early modern Europe like Natalie Zemon Davis, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, and Peter Burke, as well as from cultural theorists. Critics have pointed out that carnival was often safely contained in time and space, that it may well have acted as a sanctioned safety valve to relieve social tensions that might otherwise have led to more serious protest, and that it occasionally served as an opportunity to persecute outsiders or the weak. Kevin Hetherington is clear that these heterotopic moments do not lead to an absence of social order but to a different form of ordering. Certainly, some aspects of carnivals did require organization, and even the liveliest riot involved elements of ritual. The suggestion, developed by Peter Stallybrass and Allon White, of a history of tightening
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control over the carnivalesque, culminating in the Triumph of Lent, also informed British social histories of the social control of leisure and popular culture in the 1980s. Despite this apparent attenuation of the carnivalesque, there has been some discussion of its contemporary survival. Rob Shields’s study of the English seaside resort of Brighton presents a well-developed example of this, covering everything from the mood of the intoxicated holiday crowd to the dirty postcard. Developing, alongside transgression, liminal, and moral panic, as part of the critical vocabulary of Anglophone cultural studies, the carnivalesque has also been applied to analyses of contemporary binge drinking, though few have argued that it possesses the transformative power Bakhtin ascribed to the carnivalesque. In summary, carnival, and the intoxication that goes with it, remains important in many societies today, and the historical and sociological interpretations of carnival that have developed over the last four decades continue to offer both useful insights into and controversy over the nature of contemporary drinking. James Kneale University College London See Also: Binge Drinking, History of; Brazil; Catholicism; Europe, Central and Eastern; Europe, Southern; Europe, Western; France; Heavy Drinkers, History of; Holidays; Italy; Mardi Gras; Slavery; Spain; United Kingdom; United States. Further Readings Bakhtin, Mikhail M. Rabelais and His World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. Burke, Peter. Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe, 3rd ed. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009. Davis, Natalie Zemon. Society and Culture in Early Modern France. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Hetherington, Kevin. The Badlands of Modernity: Heterotopia and Social Ordering. London: Routledge, 1997. Holloway, Julian and James Kneale. “Philosophy: Dialogism (After Bakhtin).” In The International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Rob Kitchin and Nigel Thrift, eds. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2009.
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Jackson, Peter. “Street Life: The Politics of Carnival.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, v.6 (1988). Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. Carnival: A People’s Uprising at Romans, 1579–1580. London: Scolar Press, 1980. Muir, Edward. Ritual in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Roth, Marty. “Carnival, Creativity, and the Sublimation of Drunkenness.” Mosaic, v.30/2 (1997). Shields, Rob. Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity. London: Routledge, 1991. Stallybrass, Peter and Allon White. The Politics and Poetics of Transgression. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986. Thompson, Edward P. Customs in Common: Studies in Traditional Popular Culture. London: Merlin Press, 1991.
Casinos The casino industry in the United States is a multibillon dollar business. Since the 1990s, there has been a rapid growth in the number of both commercial casinos and tribal casinos. For many casino patrons, alcohol consumption is a key part of the gaming experience; as such, many major casinos offer visitors complimentary beverages. Critics of casinos, however, note that the consumption of alcoholic beverages at casinos can exacerbate compulsive gambling tendencies and also increase the risk of alcohol-related traffic incidents. The word casino comes from the Italian word casa, which means house or villa. The first recorded gambling houses were located in Venice, Italy, and gaming establishments quickly spread to other European countries. In the United States, the first wave of competitive gaming occurred during the colonial period; it ended in the 1800s after religious groups succeeded in lobbying for gaming bans in many states. The second wave commenced with the Gold Rush in California. But although this state experienced a gambling boom, the activity remained illegal in much of the
rest of the country. The modern era of legalized gambling began in the 1930s in Nevada; although the state had banned gambling in 1909, after suffering economically during the Great Depression, it reinstated legalized gambling. Nevada’s industry underwent a major expansion in the 1960s, when it passed the Corporate Gaming Acts, which permitted major hotel chains to enter the gaming industry. In 2012, casinos in Nevada had $6.2 billion in revenues, making Las Vegas the top casino market in the United States. In 1976, New Jersey became the next state to legalize casino gambling, after voters supported a referendum that permitted casinos in Atlantic City only. Gambling expanded rapidly in the state in the 1980s, and for a brief period of time, the Atlantic City casino industry eclipsed that of Las Vegas. In 2012, with $3 billion in revenues, the Atlantic City casino market was the second largest in the United States. During the following decade, there was a wave of casino legalization in the states, with elected officials seeking to raise tax revenues for investment in education and infrastructure. Specifically, there was a major expansion of the commercial gambling industry during the period from 1990 to 2000, with 131 new casinos built. There was another boom during the period of 2007 to 2009; during this time, states licensed new casinos in an effort to offset the effects of the economic downturn. Tribal Casino Industry Currently, there are two types of casinos. The first is commercial casinos, which are regulated by individual state governments; currently, 22 states allow some form of this type of casino to operate within their borders. In 2012, commercial casinos in the United States accounted for more than $37 billion in revenue. The second type of casinos is tribal casinos, located on Indian reservations. Since Indian land is considered semisovereign, tribal casinos are regulated by the federal government and are not subject to state law. In 2008, tribal casinos were located in 29 states, and accounted for a total of $26 billion in revenue. Although small-scale gambling establishments had existed on many Native American reservations
for decades, the modern Native American gaming industry did not emerge until the late 1980s. Specifically, the origins of the multibillion dollar tribal casino industry are in the 1987 Supreme Court case California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians. In this case, two California tribes challenged the legality of California’s attempt to ban commercial bingo and card games held on a reservation. In a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court sided with tribes, holding that since Native Americam reservations are sovereign, they are not subject to state or local regulation. In the wake of the Cabazon decision, there was a rapid expansion of the tribal casino industry; specifically, from 1987 to 2005, Indian casinos opened in 33 states. By 2007, there were over 305 Indian casinos nationwide, with revenues totaling over $25 billion. Casinos and Alcohol Policy Modern casinos are designed as “destination resorts,” intended to be inclusive establishments where visors can gamble, and also dine, shop, and consume alcohol. The primary attraction for casino visitors is games, and casinos typically offer table games, electronic gaming machines, and random-number ticket games. Table games such as blackjack and poker, played on a table with a live dealer, are classics. Another popular option is electronically controlled slot machines. Finally, casinos offer patrons the opportunity to play traditional ticket games, such as bingo. In addition to an array of gaming options, many casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City offer complementary beverages to reward patrons for wagering money on games; the level of complementary beverages is linked to the amount of money a patron spends on games. In 2009, casinos in Las Vegas gave patrons $3.1 billion worth of free drinks. Patrons who place large wagers may also receive additional complementary goods and services in the form of free meals, entertainment, and hotel suites. That year, casinos in Atlantic City offered a total of $1.55 billion in complementary foods and services. Not all casinos offer free drinks to patrons. Currently only the following 13 states permit commercial casinos to offer free alcohol to patrons: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and
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West Virginia. Many of the states that ban free alcoholic beverages, including Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Kansas, are located in the Midwest. In addition to banning free beverages, individual states have also established regulations on the length of alcohol service; for example, Connecticut requires casinos to stop serving alcohol at 1 a.m. on weekdays and 2 a.m. on weekends. Similarly, when Ohio allowed casinos in 2009, the legislature did so with the stipulation that casinos were not permitted to offer free drinks, nor were they allowed to provide 24-hour alcohol service. Although there is no federal policy on alcohol service by casinos, the American Gaming Association, the gaming industry’s professional association, issues a “Code of Conduct for Responsible Gaming.” Commercial casinos endorsing this code pledge to practice a “responsible beverage service policy”; specifically, they pledge to “refrain from serving visibly intoxicated patrons,” and also promise to “make a diligent effort not to permit casino gambling by a visibly intoxicated patron.” Critics of Casinos Supporters of casinos argue that they meet a consumer demand while at the same time providing an economic stimulus in the form of job creation and tourism dollars. Critics, however, point to a litany of social ills caused by gambling; in particular, they note that the high levels of alcohol consumption that occur at casinos have negative effects on individual gamblers as well as the communities surrounding the casino. For example, a study by Chad Cotti and Douglass M. Walker finds a link between the establishment of casinos and the rate of drunk-driving accidents. The rate of accidents was highest when casinos were located in more sparsely populated areas. They attribute this to a “destination effect”; specifically, rural casinos tend to attract patrons from surrounding areas who travel to the casino by car and subsequently drive home while intoxicated. Other studies have pointed out a strong correlation between gambling addiction and alcoholism; like alcoholism, gambling addiction is a type of impulse control disorder, and the comorbidity of these diseases can have disastrous social effects. For example, on average, gamblers are four times more likely to consume alcohol on a daily basis
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than are nongamblers. This increased alcohol consumption has clear effects on gambling behavior; patrons who consume alcohol while gambling are likely to place higher wagers and also spend greater amounts of time gambling. These patterns of alcohol consumption have led critics to charge that casinos distribute free drinks so as to encourage irresponsible gambling behavior. Courts, however, have so far rejected the idea that casinos are liable for the losses incurred by intoxicated patrons. In the 1995 case Hakimoglu v. Trump Taj Mahal, the New Jersey Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that an individual could not sue a casino to recover gambling losses due to intoxication. The court noted that while a casino has an obligation not to serve intoxicated patrons, it is impossible to establish a direct relationship between alcohol consumption and gambling loses. Kelly McHugh Kassandra Galvez Florida Southern College See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Alcohol Abuse and Crime, Sociology of; Atlantic City; Cross-Addiction; Resorts. Further Readings American Gaming Association. “2013 State of the States: The AGA Survey of Casino Entertainment” http://www.americangaming.org/sites/default/ files/uploads/docs/aga_sos2013_fnl.pdf (Accessed November 2013). Cotti, Chad D. and Douglass M. Walker. “The Impact of Casinos on Fatal Alcohol-Related Traffic Accidents in the United States.” Journal of Health Economics, v.29/6 (2010). Goss, Earnest P. and Edward A. Morse. Governing Fortune: Casino Gambling in America. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007.
Cassiday, George On the April 7, 1926, the Washington Post reported the story that the “man in the green hat” was due to face court on that day. The newspaper
went on to inform its readers that George “Cassidy” had “allegedly” dropped a suitcase that contained whiskey on the House office building stairs. The story also reported that the suspect was originally described by the phrase that led to his nickname. This was the beginning of public recognition of probably the most famous nonviolent bootlegger of the American Prohibition era, George L. Cassiday, who was to continue to have his name misspelt as Cassidy in the Washington Post until after his second arrest in 1930, when he published his own account in five front-page stories in the same newspaper. As Washington historian Garrett Peck has discussed in his volume on prohibition in Washington, D.C., the fame of “the man in the green hat” was recaptured in the 21st century. In 2012, shortly after Peck’s book was published, and a television documentary on the subject aired, a local D.C. distillery decided to adopt the name “green hat” for its new brand of gin. It would advertise the gin by telling the story of Prohibition and George Cassiday in Washington and providing a link in its April newsletter to a Wikipedia page on Cassiday that was originally created by Peck. The stranger-than-fiction narrative of Cassiday’s bootlegging enterprise in the very halls of the American government during Prohibition provides an important window into the hypocritical world of the very legislators who had voted for this measure. Career as a Bootlegger George L. Cassiday was born in West Virginia to a teetotal father and a mother who was a member of Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Cassiday drank alcohol for the first time during his military service in France, where he received cognac rations along with his French comrades in arms. His later notoriety, together with his own published accounts, have led World War I historians, like Paul Dickson and Thomas Allen, to discuss Cassiday’s experiences in context. As these historians often note, Cassiday, like so many others, was away at war when Congress passed the bill to outlaw the sale and distribution of alcohol. Cassiday later reported that upon his return to the United States, he took a straw poll on Prohibition among 2,200 returning American troops, and all but 98 men voted against it.
After returning from the war, Cassiday could not return to his previous employment on the railroad due to an injury he received in battle. Cassiday soon married, but he continued to be unable to find stable employment. According to his own subsequent account, a friend asked him to supply liquor to two members of the House of Representatives, both of whom had previously voted in favor of Prohibition. After this initial successful exchange, his supply list grew rapidly until he was making an average of 25 deliveries a day. Delivering to both House and Senate offices, at all hours of the day, where Capitol police allowed him access and freedom on the basis of an established policy of searching neither individuals entering the government offices nor members of the government upon leaving. So lucrative and active was this business that Cassiday soon set up an office in the Cannon Building itself. The office was very discreet, and if someone entered unannounced they would never be shown liquor bottles. Anyone interested in securing Cassiday’s illicit wares was able to obtain them easily on a regular basis. Arrest and Imprisonment After five years of successful deliveries, a Capitol policeman whom Cassiday had assumed was sympathetic to his enterprises arrested him. Newspapers around the world printed the story of Cassiday, celebrated as “the man in the green hat.” This publicity led the House to ban Cassiday from the Cannon Building. He then moved his office to the Senate and Russell Building, where he continued bootlegging for another five years. In November 1929, police raided Cassiday’s home, seizing large quantities of liquor. In the raid’s wake, government officials sought to uncover the nature and extent of the operations of the government’s personal bootlegger. The young undercover Prohibition Bureau agent Roger Butts noted that he did not expect to find a well-tailored man in a tan hat. In time, Cassiday himself grew suspicious of the teetotaling Butts, who was later to become known as the “dry spy.” On February 18, 1930, Butts arranged for another Senate employee to receive a delivery of liquor in the parking lot, where Prohibition agents arrested Cassiday with six bottles of gin, along with his client list. Several senators demanded that the list
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George L. Cassiday in October 1930, the month he was to publish his story in five front-page articles in the Washington Post; however, the list of those in the House and Senate who bought bootleg liquor from him was never made public.
be published in an attempt to clear their names, but they were not successful. Cassiday received an 18-month prison term. Apparently, he never spent a night in prison, being allowed to sign himself out each evening and back in each morning. In October 1930, Cassiday was to publish his story in five front-page articles in the Washington Post. He did not name names, and his list was never made public. He did, however, often say that his client list included most members of Congress. Peck reports that Cassiday went on to work in a shoe factory and a number of hotels in the Washington area, dying in 1967 at the age of 74. His second wife said she destroyed her late husband’s list, and therefore we will never know exactly who and how many members of the House and Senate were among Cassiday’s customers. Today, both the U.S. senate and the House of Representatives feature Web pages that discuss the story of George Cassiday’s bootlegging. The Senate Web page also points out that Cassiday went
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on to work for the CIA and was involved in the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs operation. They also discuss a 1970s lively restaurant/drinking stop near the senate called the Man in The Green Hat that memorialized Cassiday and his exploits. Clearly, the American legislature has embraced this interesting, albeit somewhat contradictory past. Tanya M. Cassidy University of Windsor See Also: American Temperance Union; Anti-Saloon League; Post-Prohibition Bootlegging; Prohibition; Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform. Further Readings Cassiday, George. “Cassiday, Capitol Bootlegger, Got First Rum Order From Dry.” Washington Post (October 24, 1930). Dickson, Paul and Thomas B. Allen. The Bonus Army: An American Epic. New York: Walker & Company, 2004. New Columbia Distilled Gin. http://greenhatgin.com/ (Accessed November 2013). Peck, Garrett. Prohibition in Washington, D.C.: How Dry We Weren’t. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2011.
Catholic Total Abstinence Society There were a number of Catholic Total Abstinence Societies (CTAS), or branches of the societies, formed in the United States in the wake of the first Irish temperance efforts of Father Theobald Mathew (1790–1856) in 1838. The Cleveland Society, for example, was formed in 1840 (but was changed to the Cleveland Father Mathew Total Abstinence Society after he visited Cleveland in 1851). The original Catholic Total Abstinence Society (or societies) originated at about the same time as the first great growth of the Washington Temperance Society of Baltimore (the Washingtonians). The timing of their origins—before the Irish famine and the Great Migration, but after
Father Mathew began his crusade in Ireland— deserves notice. Fundamentally, the question to be decided in the period from the Famine to (at least) World War I, was whether and by what means Irish American drinking would become respectable. A related issue concerned whether respectability could be achieved short of adopting total abstinence. The answer seemed to be that abstinence not only conferred respectability, but that, at least later, with the Irish Pioneers, it was patriotic. Though there were Irish American temperance advocates before his great crusade (for example, William K. Mitchell [1801–75] of the Washingtonians), this part of the story really starts with Father Theobald Mathew (1790–1856), the Irish Total Abstinence reformer, popularly known as Father Mathew. Father Mathew Father Mathew was born at Thomastown, County Tipperary, on October 10, 1790, and later studied in Dublin before joining the priesthood and entering the Capuchin order in Cork. The movement with which his name is associated began on April 10, 1838, with the establishment of the Cork Total Abstinence Society, which relied on one enduring act of will to keep a person sober for life. It was called simply The Pledge. The Pledge, which could be made by anyone was as follows: I promise to abstain from all intoxicating drinks except used medicinally and by order of a medical man and to discountenance the cause and practice of intemperance. Father Mathew’s movement peaked with an enrollment of about 3 million people, or more than half of the adult population of Ireland, before the famine began. On July 2, 1849, he arrived in New York. Mayor Woodhull, not a Catholic, placed City Hall at his disposal. For two weeks the crowds besieging its chambers practically eliminated all city business. Father Mathew also dined at the White House with President Zachary Taylor. The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously admitted him to a seat on the floor of the House. Father Mathew continued to tour the United States for two
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years, despite being ill. Everywhere there were crowds and enthusiastic receptions. When he left in 1851, temperance societies, including Father Mathew Societies, carried on the work. Father Mathew died on December 8, 1856, in Cobb (then known as Queenstown), County Cork after suffering a stroke. Taking note of Father Mathew’s warm reception by the American Protestant establishment, a number of Catholic Total Abstinence societies (or branches) changed their name to the Father Mathew Total Abstinence Society, and some retained that name thereafter. In the 1870s, these CTASs and FMTASs mostly merged into the Catholic Total Abstinence Union, but at the end of the century a number were replaced by—or, if they survived, turned themselves into—Pioneer Total Abstinence Societies. James Cullen When Father Mathew died, the man who was to some degree his successor in Ireland was 15 years old and beginning studies for the priesthood. James Cullen (1841–1921) was ordained in 1864. In 1881, Cullen entered the Jesuits, taking his first vows at Miltown Park in 1883. The following year he served as spiritual father in Belvedere College, founded sodalities of Our Lady not only in the college but throughout the country, and was much in demand as a preacher and as a director of priests’ retreats. In November 1887, he was appointed director for Ireland of the Apostleship of Prayer, which marked the beginning of the countrywide spread of devotion to the Sacred Heart—and thus among the Irish diaspora. To that end Cullen founded the Irish Messenger of the Sacred Heart which, once circulation was secured, he used to promote temperance as an expression of one’s devotion to the Sacred Heart. In 1898 he established The Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart, as in Ireland, and to a lesser degree the United States, the earlier movement of Father Mathew was fading from memory. In the 20th century, the term Pioneer became synonymous with total abstinence among Irish Catholics, in Ireland, and in the Irish diaspora, including among Irish Americans. But because Cullen linked temperance to patriotism— he had a deep love of country, was an advocate of the Gaelic League, and after 1916 became a warm
An 1848 portrait of Father Theobald Mathew printed in New York and dedicated to temperance society members worldwide. Father Mathew toured the United States from 1849 to 1851. At its height, his movement had about 3 million people enrolled.
sympathizer with the Sinn Féin struggle—so too were the Pioneers linked. Catholic Total Abstinence Union Meanwhile, in the United States, there was the Catholic Total Abstinence Union. The Catholic total abstinence societies of Connecticut formed a state union in 1871 and the next year 177 societies from 10 more states (Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Georgia, Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, and New Mexico) and the District of Columbia formed a National union in a February 22 (Washington’s Birthday) convention at Baltimore. During the two decades after Father Mathew’s return to Ireland in 1851, concerned Catholics made what one historian calls “many spasmodic
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efforts” to stem the rising tide of intemperance in the Civil War years. The CTAU held its annual conventions held in various states between the Convention in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1872, and the Convention in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1906. In those 35 years, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Connecticut and Minnesota each hosted at least two meetings, while Maryland, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia each provided the venue for one conference. Thus, of the first 36 conventions, 32 were held in the original 11 states and the District, leaving only Michigan, Missouri, and Iowa, while New Jersey, Georgia and New Mexico of the original states had none. The greatest strength of the CTAU was in the band of states from Pennsylvania, through Ohio and Indiana, to Illinois, up through Iowa into Minnesota—with outposts in the Catholic enclaves of Massachusetts and New York. Wisconsin with a heavy German Catholic and low Irish Catholic population had relatively little CTAU strength. The Union obviously declined in value and importance after Prohibition began: the decline and near-destruction of the Great Philadelphia Centennial CTAU Fountain in Fairmount Park— with its statue of Father Mathew—is emblematic of the diminished relevance of Catholic temperance efforts. Jared Lobdell Independent Scholar See Also: Catholicism; Ireland; Mathew, Father Theobald; Temperance Movements, Religion in. Further Readings Doogan, James. Manual of Temperance. New York: Thacker Spink, 1896. Gibbs, Joseph. History of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union. Philadelphia: n.p., 1907. McGowan, Philip. “The Intemperate Irish in American Reform Literature.” Irish Journal of American Studies, v.4 (1995). Quinn, John F. “Father Mathew’s Disciples.” Church History, v.65 (1996). Stivers, Richard. Hair of the Dog: Irish Drinking and its American Stereotype, rev. ed. London: Continuum, 2000.
Catholicism Catholicism is an ancient religion that arose in the Roman Empire. Although its members suffered occasional persecution, the relative peace and stability allowed the religion to spread through the empire. From an early date Catholicism had a special relationship with alcohol, notably wine. This relationship stems from the canonical Gospels that relate the story of the Last Supper, in which wine featured prominently. According to the church doctrine of transubstantiation, the wine blessed during the sacrament of communion transforms, literally, into the blood of Christ, of which Catholics partake as a fundamental aspect of their membership in the church. This interest in wine as a liturgical element survived the demise of the Roman Empire and persists to the present day. The Canonical Gospels Catholicism traces its lineage to Jesus, who the church regards as the Son of God. Catholicism was known simply as “the Church” until the 11th century split with the eastern branch of Christianity. The western church took the name “Catholicism” to emphasize its universality. The eastern branch of Christianity took the name “Orthodox Church” to emphasize that it, not the Catholic Church, had the correct opinion about religious matters. The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century further divided the unity of the Catholic Church, though today it claims 1 billion members worldwide. The Catholic Church appears to be growing more rapidly in Latin America and Africa than in the United States and Europe. Catholic attitudes toward alcohol trace to the canonical Gospel stories of the Last Supper. It is important to note that the Last Supper story appears to have influenced the creation of the Christian canon. Some gospels that the church did not admit into the New Testament, the Gospel of Thomas for example, record no Last Supper. According to the canonical Gospels. Jesus wished to have a last meal with his apostles. Bread and wine were prominent in this meal. The inclusion of wine is not surprising given that it was the universal beverage of the Roman Mediterranean basin, including Palestine in the eastern Mediterranean where Jesus lived. Wine was also an important beverage in Judaism. As a Jew, Jesus
would have played a part in this tradition. At the Last Supper Jesus imbued wine with special significance, telling his apostles that in drinking wine they were really drinking his blood. Ever since the Last Supper took place, the Catholic Church has reenacted it in the Mass. At the Mass, Catholics, adhering to the canonical Gospels, believe that in drinking wine they are really consuming Jesus’ blood. In the 13th century, theologian Thomas Aquinas explained the transformation of wine into Jesus’ blood in the language of transubstantiation. Borrowing Aristotelean categories, Aquinas explained that the substance of a thing is its essence; it is what a thing is, be it a shirt, a chair, a table, a tree, or any other item. The essence of wine is to be fermented grape juice. All of the qualities of wine, its flavor, aroma, and so on, can vary just as a shirt may be torn or discolored. In the case of wine, however, Jesus changed its essence into blood while preserving its accidental qualities like flavor and aroma. Although Catholics smell and taste wine at Mass, they are really drinking Jesus’ blood. The importance of wine to Catholicism led monasteries to preserve Roman traditions of winemaking even after the empire ceased to exist. They also preserved the Roman treatises on winemaking, notably the works of Cato the Elder, Columella, and Varro. The split between Catholicism and Orthodoxy had little to do with the sacrament. Both churches continued to believe that Jesus transformed wine into his blood at Mass. However, controversy arose during the Protestant assault on Catholicism, when some Protestant sects maintained Jesus had not really turned wine into his blood and the story of the Last Supper was symbolic, not literal. Protestants believed that wine in the Mass served as a symbol of Jesus’ blood; no one actually drank Jesus’ blood. The Catholic Church branded this idea heresy and affirmed at council after council that Catholics, in keeping with a literal interpretation of the Last Supper, actually drank Jesus’ blood in the guise of wine. In short, the Catholic Church did not change to accommodate its critics but rather restated an old doctrine about the role of wine in the Mass. Contemporary Catholicism Despite the importance of wine to Catholics, the church has always been firm in denouncing
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immoderate consumption of alcohol. Surveys have shown that Catholics are more likely to consume alcohol than are members of the several Protestant sects that promote abstinence. Irish Catholics have long had a reputation for being heavy drinkers. Playwright Eugene O’Neill captured this sentiment in his autobiographical masterpiece, Long Day’s Journey into Night. The play concerns the journey of a single Irish Catholic family through one day. Symbolically, it is also a journey from birth to death. The father and his two sons are all alcoholics and the mother is addicted to morphine. Growing up in an Irish Catholic family, O’Neill drank heavily as a young man, and his brother drank himself to death. By contrast, Italian Catholics developed a reputation for moderate consumption, often taking wine with meals. Italian Catholics, accordingly, are less likely to abuse alcohol than are Irish Catholics. In many respects, Catholic drinking patterns resemble those of the larger population. Lowincome Catholics are attuned to price, cutting consumption when prices rise but increasing consumption when prices fall. Higher income Catholics may be more likely to abuse alcohol because they have the resources to buy in quantity. The more education Catholics have the less likely they are to abuse alcohol. In some regards, though, Catholics do deviate from the general population’s patterns of consumption. According to one survey, 66 percent of Catholic men over age 18 consume alcohol; only Jews have an equal proportion of alcohol consumers. In comparison, 59 percent of Protestant men drink alcohol, though the percentage is lower for Baptists; 57 percent of atheist and agnostic men consume alcohol; and only 21 percent of Mormon men drink alcohol. Despite church teaching, 31 percent of Catholic men drink immoderately, the highest proportion of any religion, atheism, or agnosticism. Sixtyone percent of Catholic women drink alcohol, the highest proportion of any religion, atheism, or agnosticism; 17 percent of Catholic women drink too much, a figure that atheist and agnostic women surpass by only 1 percent. Irish and Italian Catholics are more likely to drink than Catholics of other ethnicities. It seems surprising that German Catholics are not included because of their heritage of drinking beer, but this may reflect the smaller percentage of Germans
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who profess Catholicism. Catholics are partial to wine and beer; they drink as much as 26 percent more beer than non-Catholics. In a larger sense, Catholics are more likely to drink alcohol of all types than are non-Catholics. No evidence exists, however, that Catholics are more likely to die of liver diseases or to be guilty of drinking under the influence or drunk driving. Curiously, Catholics educated in parochial schools are more likely to abuse alcohol as adults than are Catholics who attended public schools, though the reason for this divergence is not clear. Some Catholic adults who attended Catholic schools took as many as six drinks of alcohol per day; few Catholics who went to public schools reported such a high rate of consumption. As a rule, few Catholics abstain from alcohol. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: Catholic Total Abstinence Society; Christianity; Literature, Role of Alcohol in; Religion; Rituals. Further Readings “Catholic Encyclopedia: The Last Supper.” New Advent. http://www.newadvent.org/ cathen/14341a.htm (Accessed February 2014). Sander, William. The Catholic Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. Slick, Matt. “Transubstantiation and the Real Presence—Christian Apologetics.” CARM: Christian Apologetics &Research Ministry. http://carm.org/transubstantiation (Accessed February 2014).
Chamberlain, Joseph Joseph Chamberlain was a successful British industrialist who turned to politics after having made a fortune. A self-made man and commited reformer, eager to challenge the supremacy of England’s landed elite in general and the leadership of William Gladstone and his aristocratic Whig allies in particular, one of his first political
acts was to demand state-funded, universal, nondenominational primary schooling through the National Education League. This position placed him in conflict with the first Gladstone government over the 1870 Education Act and the privileged position it awarded Anglicanism. Sometimes described as England’s first modern professional politician, he bears the distinction of being the only man to split two major political parties. A man who altered his position on many issues, including prohibition, he was unfaltering in his commitment to British imperialism. Early Political Career Chamberlain’s first foray into politics occurred in Birmingham, England, his adopted city. He joined the city council in 1869 and served as a member of Birmingham’s first school board in 1870. From 1873 to 1876, he served as mayor. His administration bought waterworks, gasworks, and sewage farms at a time when provision of utility services by a local government was revolutionary. Contacts with leaders of other cities provided Chamberlain a platform that allowed him to share his reform ideas, as did his position as chairman of the National Education League. Chamberlain himself drank alcohol, but he joined the prohibitionist organization United Kingdom Alliance in 1871. When he stood for Parliament in 1873, he endorsed the local veto, but he stopped short of subscribing to all the policies advocated by the alliance. Skeptical that the working-class districts most in need of reform would vote for local prohibition, Chamberlain insisted that other restrictions were required to supplement local veto. He also argued that if local voters imposed prohibition for a district, the public houses within the district should receive financial compensation for their loss of custom. He lost the election. His next bid for the House of Commons proved more successful, and in 1876, he became one of Birmingham’s members of parliament. Gothenburg System In July 1876, Chamberlain was sworn in as Birmingham’s duly elected representative. That same year, Chamberlain toured Sweden to examine the practice of municipal control of public houses. Known as the Gothenburg System for its adoption
by the town of Gothenburg, Sweden, the system awarded a single license for spirits to a trust. The shareholders of the trust received a maximum of 5 percent annually, and all other profits passed into the town treasury to be used for the benefit of the local community. Chamberlain’s term as mayor had persuaded him of the need to remove the drink trade from electoral politics, and he saw municipal ownership and management of the retail sale of alcohol for on-premises consumption—the Gothenburg System—as a means of achieving this goal. Chamberlain published an article in the Fortnightly Review in May 1876 and won support for a Gothenburg experiment in Birmingham, but when, in 1877, he introduced a bill in the House of Commons to authorize such an experiment, he was ridiculed. Efforts to persuade the House of Lords committee on intemperance fared no better. He was more successful in other areas. The same year that his Gothenburg proposal was soundly defeated, he set up the National Liberal Federation, a Birmingham-based body that sought to unite the many local liberal associations that had emerged in large population centers throughout Britain. The existence of the federation helped Chamberlain to join Gladstone’s second cabinet as president of the board of trade, following the liberal general election victory of 1880. With only four years in the House of Commons, he knew this was a significant personal achievement. Chamberlain had established himself as an important figure on the radical wing of the Liberal Party. Enfant Terrible of British Politics As a radical, Chamberlain felt little sympathy for Gladstone’s moderate policies, but he was pleased that, as president of the board of trade, he was able to introduce significant legislation, including the Electric Lighting Act in 1882, the Bankruptcy Act and the Patent Act in 1883, and the Merchant Shipping Bill in 1884. He routinely provoked the queen with the public expression of his radical views, flirting with republicanism and openly criticizing the House of Lords. In 1885, he frightened the propertied classes with rhetoric that included the use of “ransom” in a context that questioned the security and emphasized the obligations of property owners.
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Unquestionably, Chamberlain’s most provocative behavior came with his opposition to Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill in 1885. Gladstone proposed the creation of an Irish parliament, and Chamberlain opposed the bill on the grounds that it diluted the powers of the national parliament. He advocated a form of revised local government instead. Their differences led Chamberlain to resign from the cabinet. He then joined Lord Hartington in leading the newly formed Liberal Unionist Party, which formed an alliance with the Conservative Party to oppose Irish Home Rule. On June 8, 1886, the bill was defeated, and in the general election the next month, the Conservative Party returned to power. Chamberlain had split the Liberal Party, and in the process had removed any possibility that he would succeed Gladstone as prime minister. Tariff Reform and After The Conservatives, supported by the Liberal Unionists, dominated British politics from 1886 until 1906. Chamberlain used his power within the ranks of Liberal Unionists to push a more progressive social policy, and he was successful in seeing some social reforms adopted. But a shift within the Conservative Party and within the nation generally was placing a new emphasis on foreign affairs. Chamberlain too was becoming more conservative. He travelled to the United States and Canada in 1887 and 1888 to negotiate an agreement on fishing rights in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Although the Bayard-Chamberlain Treaty failed to be ratified by the U.S. Senate, its provisions were upheld by an international tribunal. He praised the federalism of Canadians, calling them a model for the British Empire, and moved them away from the possibility of commercial union with the United States. He laid the groundwork for close relations among Britain, Canada, and the United States later. During a visit to Washington, D.C., Chamberlain fell in love with Mary Endicott, daughter of the U.S. Secretary of the Army. They were married in late 1888. The year of his third marriage was also the year of a political defection that Chamberlain could ill afford. Proposals to license public houses were angering the temperance forces, and in 1888, W. S. Caine, Chamberlain’s whip in the House of
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Commons and president of the United Kingdom Alliance, broke with him. Chamberlain regretted Caine’s departure, but he did not change his position on the issue. He had accepted that temperance reform was impractical, although he still took temperance stances on occasion. In the mid-1890s, Chamberlain again spoke out for the Gothenburg System, but Lord Salisbury, the Conservative Party leader, rejected the system as part of a Conservative-Liberal Unionist joint program. As colonial secretary, he opposed the sale of alcoholic beverages to black Africans, but when his brother Austen, as chairman of the licensing justices, presided over the body that drastically reduced the number of Birmingham public houses in the early 20th century, Chamberlain took the side of the alcoholic drink trade. In 1895, Chamberlain joined the conservative cabinet of Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, and served as secretary of state for the colonies, a position that placed him in the middle of South African affairs. Accused of complicity in the Jameson Raid, an abortive invasion of the Boer republic of Transvaal by British settlers from the neighboring Cape Colony in December 1895, he was later cleared by a commons investigation, but his anti-Boer stance was clear. He enthusiastically supported the South African War. Returning from his negotiation of the peace settlement in South Africa in 1902, Chamberlain announced a new tariff scheme. Concerned about what he saw as Britain’s increasing isolation and Germany’s increasing aggression, he saw the maintenance of stiff tariffs without and preferential tariffs within as the best method of adding to Britain’s international security, in that these policies protected manufacturing threatened by new competition from the United States and Germany and raised revenues for social projects at home. But the idea was as divisive as home rule had been two decades earlier. The Conservative Party split up, and both it and the Liberal Unionists were defeated in the next election. Birmingham remained loyal to Chamberlain, reelecting him to his seat by a substantial majority. Even this limited victory was brief. In July 1906, he suffered a paralytic stroke that left him an invalid for the remainder of his life. Joseph Chamberlain never became prime minister, never attained the leadership of one of Britain’s two main political parties, and never held a
cabinet post more prestigious than that of colonial secretary. The stroke that incapacitated him for the last eight years of his life crippled him politically as well as physically just when he was poised for his last crusade. His sons, Austen Chamberlain, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and Neville Chamberlain, a prime minister, achieved heights he never did. Yet Winston Churchill described him as the man who “made the weather,” and suggested that Chamberlain anticipated a pattern of political reinvention that became common in a later era. Wylene Rholetter Auburn University See Also: Prohibition; Sweden; South Africa; United Kingdom. Further Readings Crosby, Travis L. Joseph Chamberlain: A Most Radical Imperialist. London: Tauris, 2011. Fahey, David M. “Joseph Chamberlain.” In Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia, Vol. 1. Jack S. Blocker, David M. Fahey, and Ian R. Tyrell, eds. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2003. Goodlad, Graham. “Joseph Chamberlain: ‘The One Who Made the Weather.’” History Review, v.51 (March 2005). Marsh, Peter T. Joseph Chamberlain: Entrepreneur in Politics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
Champagne A sparkling wine from France’s Champagne region, Champagne is one of the most famous protected food and beverage appellations, though not all countries acknowledge the protection. Other protected appellations sometimes require only that, in order to be called by a certain name, a product is produced in a certain region (such as cognac being brandy made in France’s Cognac region, or Vidalia onions being a particular cultivar of onion grown within a short radius of Vidalia, Georgia). In the case of Champagne, however, the wine must not only come from the Champagne region but must also
be made by a specific method. As a result, there are three closely related groups of wine: those that originate in Champagne but are not made by the Champagne method, those that are made by the Champagne method but do not originate in Champagne, and Champagne itself. Still (nonsparkling) wines from the Champagne region are covered by the Coteaux Champenois AOC (Appellation d’Origine Controlee) and are made with the same grapes, though in considerably fewer quantities. Rose des Riceys wine, a rosé made from pinor noir grapes, originates in the same region, in the villages of Les Riceys. The first wines of Champagne were in fact red still wines, and modern sparkling white Champagne originated as an attempt to compete with the neighboring Burgundy region by developing a wine distinctive enough that they did not need to beat the Burgundians at their (big bold red) game. Champagne’s climate is one of the coldest climates permitting the growing of wine grapes, especially using Medieval viticulture techniques, and so the grapes that were harvested were usually low in sugar and high in acidity. In the 17th century, when the English glass-making industry developed glass bottles strong enough to withstand the pressures of containing a carbonating liquid, the first sparkling Champagnes began to be developed, though the modern method of producing them came in the 19th century, in response to the wine’s growing popularity. Early sparkling Champagnes were quite sweet. Brut, or dry, Champagne, to which little or no sugar is added, was first developed by Champagne producer Perrier-Jouet in the mid-19th century for export to the British market. Over time, drier flavor profiles became the norm. Regulation The term Champagne is reserved for sparkling wines of the Champagne region according to the 1891 Treaty of Madrid, but defining the region and the procedure for making its wines was a gradual process. The regulation of what Champagne refers to in France began early, with a 1908 announcement by the French government stating that geographic limits would be applied to the Champagne appellation. This initially excluded the Aube district, even though Aube was home to Troyes, the historic capital of Champagne.
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This limitation was one of several factors motivating the 1910 to 1911 Champagne Riots, which came after several years of crop loss to weather and phylloxera, with the government decree exacerbating the economic challenges of the grape growers in the region. Phylloxera reached the Champagne region late—its decimation of grape crops in much of western Europe from the 1860s through the early 20th century was instrumental in increasing the popularity of bourbon in the United States, Scotch in the United Kingdom, and rum worldwide, as wine shortages led in turn to brandy shortages. Further, Champagne had grown considerably in popularity in the Gilded Age, for numerous reasons including the expansion of world trade; the growth of a new monied class of consumers; and the spread of restaurants, bars, and hotels interested in stocking the very best products for its customers, especially in large cities like New York and London. This growth in popularity and economic significance to the region is exactly what prompted the government to take an interest in regulating what could and couldn’t be sold as Champagne, as there was a long history of using prestige product names being used to sell low-quality goods, which over time can dilute the value of the real thing. But restricting grape growers’ ability to benefit from Champagne’s popularity at exactly the time when they were facing such difficult conditions would have been a controversial move no matter how fair or sensible the restrictions were, and there were legitimate objections to some of the parameters the government specified. The season before the riots began, more than 90 percent of the crop had been lost, and Champagne producers were left with little choice other than to use other grapes for their product— in some cases, grapes that weren’t even French but were grown in Spain and Germany. Both the Champagne houses and the local growers were frustrated. The Champagne houses were seeking ways to survive successive crop losses while meeting demand for the product. The local growers had legitimate concerns that if Champagne producers used foreign grapes in troubled times, they might continue to do so even when local supply was sufficient, and they successfully petitioned the government to strengthen regulation of the Champagne appellation—requiring
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that the Champagne not simply be produced in the designated region but that more than half of the grapes used to produce it must have been grown in that region. Nevertheless, tensions between growers and producers led to riots at the end of the year and throughout the first months of 1911. When the violence died down, the French government worked with a group of vineyard owners and Champagne producers to define the Champagne AOC. Further, a new pricing structure for grapes was established in order to prevent collusion among Champagne producers. Method of Wine Making The two elements of the Champagne method are the types of grapes used and the process of secondary fermentation that results in Champagne’s bubbles. Champagne may be made with pinot noir (a red grape), Chardonnay (a white grape), and pinot meunier (a red grape related to pinor noir). In some cases, other grape varieties (arbanne, pinot blanc, and petit meslier) may be used if their presence in the vineyard is historical, but they cannot be replanted. The grapes marketed in the United States as “Champagne grapes” have no relation to Champagne, and in fact are black Corinth grapes—which, confusingly enough, are sold as “currants” or “Zante currants” when dried, despite having no relation to the Ribes genus in which black, red, and white currants (“real” currants) are found. Champagne grapes take their name from the small and uniformly round shape of the thin-skinned grapes, which is reminiscent of bubbles. The particular combination of grapes naturally affects the flavor. Most Champagnes are predominantly Pinot and about one-third Chardonnay; they stay white because the skins of the red grapes are not used. A small percentage of Champagnes are either 100 percent white grapes (blanc de blancs) or 100 percent red (blanc de noirs). Chardonnay is responsible for the delicacy of the Champagne, while the floral aromas come from pinot meunier, and the structure and complexity of flavor come from the pinot noir, which of the three grapes is the one most impacted by terroir, allowing for a wide variety of expression. Pinot meunier is a fast-maturing wine, and so Champagnes intended to be aged for a long time are less likely to use it, while
nonvintage Champagnes (which reach the market fastest) benefit from its inclusion. The process by which Champagne is made is one of several ways to produce sparkling wine, and is called the traditional method, Champagne method, or methode champenoise. With this method, the wine is bottled with a small amount of yeast and sugar, temporarily capped, and stored on its side while it ferments a second time. (Today, both the amount and type of yeast—Saccaharomyces cerevisiae, a common yeast in brewing, baking, and winemaking—and the amount of sugar are specified by EU regulations.) The second fermentation—which lasts for a minimum of 15 months— results in carbon dioxide being trapped in the wine. The 15-month minimum applies to nonvintage Champagne, made up of a blend of wines from different harvests; unlike most wines in the same price range, most Champagne is nonvintage. Vintage Champagne—produced in years when the harvest is exceptionally good, and consisting of only wine from that harvest, and labeled with the year—must age at least five years, and most producers age it longer. When it is done aging on the lees, it is disgorged (a process of removing the lees), a small amount of sugar is added, and it is corked. Champagne that is sold without the lees being fully removed remains cloudy, and is called methode ancestrale; this is how all Champagne was made before the invention of the disgorgement process in 1816. Methode champenoise is the traditional labeling for non-Champagne wines produced by this method—Spain’s cava wine, notably, uses it—but may no longer be used within the EU region. Outside the EU, laws are much more lax, and sometimes nonexistent. The amount of sugar added during disgorging determines the Champagne’s sweetness level, which is reflected by its label. Doux Champagne is the sweetest, followed by demi-sec, sec, extra sec, brut, extra brut, and brut nature (also called brut zero or ultra brut, meaning no sugar has been added). The sugar may be added not in the form of sucrose but according to the Champagne producer’s secret recipe, which usually involves either old vintage Champagne or candi sugar, a form of sugar used in brewing beer. Nineteenthcentury Champagne recipes sometimes called for the addition of liqueurs like framboise (raspberry) or port wine.
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This wine growers’ protest photographed in France in 1911 was part of the 1910 to 1911 Champagne Riots, which came after several years of crop loss from poor weather and phylloxera, with the government decree exacerbating the economic challenges of the grape growers in the region. The season before the riots began, more than 90 percent of the crop had been lost.
Contemporary Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines There are nearly 20,000 independent grape growers in the Champagne region, most of whom sell their grapes to larger Champagne producers. Grower Champagne, or les Champagnes de vignerons, are Champagnes produced by the vineyard that grew the grapes. Traditionally, and particularly since the rise of Champagne’s popularity in the 19th century, Champagne houses have dominated Champagne production. Champagne houses are responsible for many of the world’s best-known Champagnes, including Bollinger (established 1829), Brun (1898), Krug (1843), Moet and Chandon (1743), Mumm (1827), Perrier-Jouet (1811), Tattinger (1734), and Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin (1772). Using grapes from a variety of vineyards allows them to meet the demand for their products, while also tailoring
the mix of grapes to suit a particular flavor profile. Grower Champagne, on the other hand, is terroir focused and varies more from release to release, rather than reflecting a house-flavor profile. They are typically less sweet than house-produced Champagnes, which lets the individual character show through. Grower Champagne accounts for about 3 percent of the Champagne market, and many of the brands are not exported, or exported only throughout the EU. Major sparkling wines from other parts of the world include prosecco, an Italian sparkling wine made with glera grapes; asti, an Italian sparkler made with muscats; crémant, a sparkling wine from Champagne’s former regional rival of Burgundy; and cava, from Spain. In the United States, wines using labels approved before 2006 may be called Champagne if their actual origin is clearly
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indicated. Once a common practice—California Champagne was one of that state’s most popular exports to the rest of the country—it has become less popular as consumers have become better educated not only about the strict definition of Champagne but about the variety of sparkling wines available. Most American producers feel it is no longer necessary to piggyback on Champagne’s brand identity in order to attract interest in their sparkling wine. The general public, though, will frequently use “Champagne” and “sparkling wine” interchangeably, especially in informal conversation. Traditions A great deal of etiquette, traditions, and conventions have developed around Champagne, one of the most prestigious beverages. Studies have even been done to determine the best method of pouring the wine into a glass to preserve the bubbles (the recommendation is to tilt the glass at an angle so that the Champagne pours along the side). Champagne is today conventionally served in a Champagne flute with a long stem, prolonging the life of the bubbles, which are key to the wine’s flavor. The Victorian coupe, as the glass is known, is no longer commonly used for Champagne as it provides too much surface area for aromas and bubbles to dissipate, was allegedly molded from the shape of Marie Antoinette’s breast—not the vastly different flute, as some people occasionally misunderstand. At formal occasions, Champagne may be opened with a sabre, which is used to remove the cork. Champagne is always served cold, about 15 degrees above freezing, whether it is to be consumed by itself, with food, or as part of a cocktail. The colder temperature helps prevent the bottle from foaming over once opened. Though rarely invoked today, there is a century-old practice of drinking Champagne from a woman’s shoe. It may have originated with a visit to the United States by Prince Henry of Prussia in 1902, during which trip he visited Chicago’s highclass brothel the Everleigh Club, and spotted one of the prince’s entourage drinking Champagne from the slipper of one of the prostitutes, after it fell off while she was dancing. Though mentions of the practice of a young man drinking Champagne from the slipper of a woman only four years later describe it as dating from the “age of
gallantry,” earlier mentions of the habit have not been attested to. Somehow, word of the practice simply spread quickly, tinged with decadence and more than a hint of sexuality. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Champagne Advertising; Champagne Cocktail; Chardonnay; France; New Year’s Eve; Pinot Noir; Wine Connoisseurship; Wines, White. Further Readings Guy, Kolleen. When Champagne Became French: Wine and the Making of a National Identity. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Kladstrup, Don and Petie Kladstrup. Champagne: How the World’s Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times. New York: Harper, 2006. Liger-Belair, Gerard. Uncorked: The Science of Champagne. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.
Champagne Advertising Modern Champagne originated as a marketing effort, in essence. The neighboring region of Burgundy had been extremely successful at selling its red wines, but the climate of the Champagne region had typically resulted in grapes too acidic to produce Burgundy-like wines—attempts to emulate the style resulted in a thinner, blander, less complex product. Gradually, rather than attempt to compete with Burgundy by making Burgundy-like wines, Champagne settled on a new and distinctive style of wine, which underwent two stages of fermentation (accounting for the famous bubbles), with sugar added before corking in order to make up for the fact that the fermentation process consumed most of the sugar in the grapes. Champagne is a sparkling white wine made up primarily of red grapes with added sugar, it is served at near-freezing temperatures, and the vast majority of Champagnes sold are blends produced by Champagne houses that buy the grapes in bulk
rather than growing them, putting the emphasis on the blender’s art rather than the terroir that doubles as the brand identity for almost every other premium wine. When the English glassmaking industry developed sturdy bottles that would hold up to the internal pressures of carbonated liquids, Champagne houses began making concerted efforts to appeal to the export market. This included, for instance, Perrier-Jouet’s 19thcentury development of Brut Champagne (a less sweet Champagne) to suit the palate of the English, who were an important wine market because they lacked their own commercial viticulture. Growth in Popularity of Champagne International demand for Champagne coincided with the birth of modern consumer culture. Toward the end of the 19th century, advertising was becoming a popular marketing technique throughout many industries, and the Champagne house of Laurent-Perrier used the form to boast of its Champagne’s popularity with the kings, queens, and nobility of Europe. Champagne advertising essentially depended on positioning the product as an aspirational one: it was pitched as something royalty consumed but that the middle class had access to, much as a Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner celebrated the occasion through a great feast resembling those of the aristocracy and upper classes. Celebrity endorsements began with entertainer George Leybourne in 1866, when he was commissioned by Moët to write and perform songs praising its Champagne. One of the conditions of his contract was that whenever he was in public and imbibing, it must be Moët Champagne he was drinking. It was during the subsequent end of the 19th century that Champagne became de rigueur throughout the Western world to serve for formal celebrations from the personal (weddings, for instance), to the professional (with businesses treating employees to Champagne in conjunction with good news about a new contract or sales report), to the public (with Champagne being served at inaugurations and bottles of Champagne used to launch ships). Various Forms of Advertising Champagne producers have taken various approaches to promoting their brands. In addition
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to associating Champagne with luxury and indulgence, the femininity of Champagne is often played up. Laurent-Perrier, for instance, employed coloratura soprano Adelina Patti, a popular touring singer in the 19th and early 20th centuries and one of the most accomplished sopranos in history, as a celebrity endorser. The association of Champagne with romantic celebrations like engagements, weddings, and anniversaries was also promoted by (if not invented by) Champagne advertisements aimed at women. Interestingly, the Champagne business was notable for being one of the first in which French women were an important force in leadership. Women were not even allowed to vote in France until 1944, but in 1804 the widow Clicquot— Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin—inherited her husband’s winery, becoming the first woman in a male-dominated industry. She remains one of the most important people in Champagne history, and she developed today’s clear Champagne (prior to her invention of the riddling method of removing lees, Champagne was sold cloudy). Artists hired to produce advertisements for Champagne include Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, the Czech Art Nouveau illustrator Alfons Maria Mucha, the English children’s book illustrator Walter Crane, and the impressionist painter Pierre Bonnard. Advertisements were placed in some of the popular periodicals of the day, like Le rire and Punch. Champagne has even been advertised to specific political factions, with anti-Semitic marketing accompanying some Champagnes during the age of the Dreyfus affair, bottles with the flags of the importing country offered by exporters during World War I, and both pronobility and pro-Revolutionary labels used in 1889 to commemorate the centennial of the French Revolution. The political nature of Champagne advertising is especially notable given that this is an area where advertising nonpolitical products has traditionally been avoided. Long associated with celebrations, Champagne’s association with sports victories is so strong today (with coverage of postchampionship locker room celebrations always including players spraying Champagne on each other and around the room in addition to drinking it) that it is sometimes forgotten that the tradition is only a
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few decades old. Driver Dan Gurney was the first to spray Champagne in celebration, after winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1967. The practice has been promoted by Champagne producers, and originated as part of Moët et Chandon’s marketing push that included giving free Champagne to race-car victors and later to other athletes. Recent Advertising More recently still, Champagne as a signifier of luxury, conspicuous consumption, and indulgence has been featured in the hip-hop scene. As with expensive cigars, the association was originally one-way: hip-hop employed Champagne, along with luxury cars, cigars, and jewelry, as an ostentatious symbol of achievement and indulgence. But importers and brand managers cultivated the relationship, issuing superpremium “blinged-up” bottles decorated with gold leaf and falling in line with the turn of the century hip-hop aesthetic. Cristal, Dom Perignon, and Armand de Brignac have been among the most successful Champagne brands in attracting hip-hop interest. The Champagne is better known as the “Ace of Spades” because of its logo, and is a brand coowned by Sovereign Brands in New York City, and the Champagne house of Cattier. The Champagne was featured in Jay-Z’s video for “Show Me What You Got” in October 2006, coinciding with the Champagne’s first release on the market. Cattier had appealed to Jay-Z (and presumably provided him with free Champagne both for the video and his own consumption) in response to the negative comments he had recently publicly made about Cristal, the Champagne featured in most hiphop videos to that point. It was therefore the first Champagne produced specifically for hip-hop videos, conceived with that marketing in mind. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Advertising and Marketing, History of; Beer Advertising; Champagne; France; Popular Music; Wine Advertising. Further Readings Guy, Kolleen. When Champagne Became French: Wine and the Making of a National Identity. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.
Kladstrup, Don and Petie Kladstrup. Champagne: How the World’s Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed over War and Hard Times. New York: Harper, 2006. Liger-Belair, Gerard. Uncorked: The Science of Champagne. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.
Champagne Cocktail The Champagne cocktail is a simple cocktail made with Champagne and served in a Champagne flute, consisting of Champagne (and often brandy) poured over a sugar cube onto which several dashes of Angostura bitters have been added in order to dissolve the sugar. Because the drink is mostly Champagne by volume, it is low in alcohol by cocktail standards. Today, it is often associated with female drinkers—in the fish-out-of-water comedy Blast From the Past (1999), Brendan Fraser’s time-displaced character comments that his mother always drinks Champagne cocktails, only to be told by another character that she’s only known prostitutes to drink them, demonstrating not only the change in Champagne’s availability but perhaps the its standing in as a symbol of changes in society. In The Godfather Part II (1974), Michael Corleone’s drinking of Champagne cocktails is mentioned in an offhand way that uses the cocktail as a symbol of the way Michael is alleged to have removed himself from the manlier, dirtier side of the business. But one of the notable early mentions of the Champagne cocktail in popular culture is in Casablanca (1942), when Victor Laszlo and Captain Renault both partake in drinking them. The reading here is perhaps ambiguous: it is true that, as masculine as these characters are, they are meant to be seen as less masculine than Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine. Recipe The proportions and recipe of the Champagne cocktail vary by bartender. Today, the official International Bartending Association (IB) recipe uses 30 milliliters of brandy, for instance, but there is no mention of brandy—and the included
cube of ice—in the cocktail’s description in Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) nor in Jerry Thomas’s Bartenders Guide (1862), two of the most important vintage cocktail books. In fact, it seems likely that a version with brandy would have been considered a completely different cocktail: the casino, for instance, floats cognac on top of a Champagne cocktail in which absinthe replaces the bitters. The Angostura Bitters Guide (1908) lists several near relatives of the Champagne cocktail, including the Champagne cobbler, which leaves the bitters out and garnishes the glass with berries and citrus; the Champagne julep, which substitutes fresh mint for the bitters; and the Champagne sour, which substitutes lemon juice for the bitters. Because of the simplicity of a proper brandyfree Champagne cocktail, it is a perfect drink for highlighting different kinds of bitters. Thomas called for Boker’s Bitters, which are not only long out of production but were made from a recipe that has since been lost. Angostura is and has for a century been the dominant brand of “aromatic” bitters—the default bitters for most drinks, but the anise-based notes of Peychaud’s, its nearest thing to a competitor, are equally well-suited to the drink. The racier options available thanks to the cocktail revival, ranging from revived older styles like cherry or celery bitters to modern concepts like cardamom or hopped grapefruit bitters, accentuate different notes in the Champagne. Other Champagne Drinks In addition to the Champagne cocktail, Champagne is used in a number of drinks, more than any other specific wine, though to be fair, other sparkling wines are often substituted, especially in home preparations. A relative of the casino is the “death in the afternoon,” one of several wellloved cocktails introduced or popularized by Ernest Hemingway, which accounts for its evocative name. Hemingway contributed the cocktail to So Red the Nose, or Breath in the Afternoon, a 1935 cocktail book that featured contributions from various celebrities. Of those, Hemingway’s is the only that endures, and it could not be simpler: a jigger of absinthe is added to a Champagne flute, over which very cold Champagne is poured until the absinthe opalesces. (Absinthe is
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very high proof, which is the source of its reputation for driving its imbibers mad. When it is diluted, whether with water in the traditional preparation or with Champagne, it turns opaque and opalescent as dissolved botanicals precipitate out of the solution, changing the flavor as well. The effect in Champagne is shimmering and almost pearlescent, especially after the “three to five” drinks that Hemingway instructs the reader to consume.) The bellini was invented in Venice, Italy, in the 1930s, at the famous Harry’s Bar (where Hemingway, it happens, was a regular). It took a simple concoction of two or three parts dry sparkling wine to one part peach puree. The drink originally used prosecco, an Italian sparkling wine, but today it is often found made with Champagne, especially in American restaurants where it may be offered for brunch. A similar drink is the mimosa, named for the flower, consisting of Champagne and orange juice. Depending on the proportion of juice to Champagne, it might more properly be called a buck’s fizz, but the mimosa has become so well known that it usually retains the name even when other juices (such as tangerine, grapefruit, cranberry, or pineapple) are used, and without regard to the ratio. Most of the drinks thus far mentioned can be thought of as adulterated Champagnes, with the exception of the death in the afternoon and the IBA’s version of the Champagne cocktail. They are suited to drinking with meals, even breakfast, because of their low alcohol content. Somewhat rarer, but enjoying a renaissance, are Champagne cocktails which use full-strength liquors. The French 75, for instance, dates to 1915, and is named for its powerful kick (similar to the 75-millimeter field gun). It consists of an ounce of gin and a combination of lemon juice and sugar added to dry Champagne (though drink historian David Embury has claimed that it was originally a cognac drink, not a gin drink). Numerous variations are possible by substituting another liquor for the gin, and perhaps lime for the lemon. Champagne can also “lengthen” any other cocktail, which is usually then called a such-and-such royale. A last word royale, for instance, would consist of equal parts gin, green Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur, and lime juice, added to a Champagne flute and topped with Champagne.
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English author P. G. Wodehouse’s best-known contribution to the culture of drinking is his list of hangovers in The Mating Season: the Broken Compass, the Sewing Machine, the Comet, the Cement Mixer, and the Gremlin Boogie. But in Uncle Fred in the Springtime, part of his lesserknown Uncle Fred series, much of the plot is driven by a drink called the May Queen, the full name of which is “Tomorrow’ll be of all the year the maddest, merriest day, for I’m to be Queen of the May, mother, I’m to be Queen of the May.” It is a concoction of dry Champagne to which armagnac, brandy, kummel, yellow Chartreuse, and old stout are added. Wodehouse fans sometimes suggest a ratio of two parts Champagne to one part each of the rest of the ingredients, though the book’s description of it as a Champagne drink would suggest five parts Champagne, in order to result in a drink that is half Champagne and half liquor and stout. Throughout the book, the drink provides a sort of enhanced “Dutch courage” to its imbibers, inspiring them to propose marriage. The inclusion of Champagne may serve a symbolic purpose here, not only because as a drink with a sophisticated and refined reputation it lends its respectability to what is otherwise an expensive version of trashcan punch, but because it has long been associated with romance, courtship, and celebrations of love. In the 2010s, as the 21st-century cocktail renaissance enters its middle stage, a number of bars have begun offering “build your own” options. While the first iterations of this referred to cocktails—pick a spirit or a liqueur and the bartender will build a cocktail around them—more recently it has referred to specific drinks that are presented to the customer in component form in order to be assembled as desired. Brasserie S&P in San Francisco began offering a build-your-own Champagne cocktail bar in 2013, where patrons are presented with a glass of Champagne and directed to a table of numerous bottles of bitters, along with sugar cubes, several kinds of citrus peels, liqueurs, and fresh juices. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Champagne; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; France; Holidays.
Further Readings Guy, Kolleen. When Champagne Became French: Wine and the Making of a National Identity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Kladstrup, Don and Petie Kladstrup. Champagne: How the World’s Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times. New York: Harper, 2006. Liger-Belair, Gerard. Uncorked: The Science of Champagne. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. Parsons, Brad Thomas. Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2011.
Chardonnay Chardonnay is a green-skinned grape that is used to make white wine. Originating in France, Chardonnay grapes are easier to cultivate than many other varieties, making them popular in almost all winegrowing regions around the globe. Present in many other wines, such as Chablis and Champagne, Chardonnay has also been produced as a wine named for the grape itself. Long popular in France, Chardonnay is also cultivated in such well-known wine-producing nations as the United States, Australia, Chile, Italy, New Zealand, and South Africa. Wines made from the variety were prominent in the growing popularity of wine in the United States during the 1980s, and Chardonnay remains one of the most popular grapes for winemaking. Chardonnay grapes are believed to have derived from a hybrid of pinot blanc and gouais blanc grapes. The ancient Romans are believed to have found the gouais grape in the area that is now Croatia and brought the grapes with them to Gaul, the region now known as France. As with many hybrids, Chardonnay grapes were very hardy and proved able to thrive in a variety of climates and different types of soil. Technological advances have permitted the use of cloning as a means of developing varieties of Chardonnay that are better suited to certain locations. For example, 34 different clonal varieties of the Chardonnay grape are present in France today, and others have been developed around the globe.
Qualities of the Grape Chardonnay grapes are popular for several reasons: First, the grape is able to easily adapt to different conditions, making it possible to grow it in many areas. Second, the grape is relatively easy to cultivate, proving resilient in the event of temperature fluctuations and capable of thriving with varying amounts of precipitation. Third, Chardonnay grapes reflect and take on distinctive tastes as a result of the soil in which they are grown and the practices of the vintner who uses them. Although these grapes can grow in almost any soil, they produce the best fruit for winemaking if the soil has a heavy percentage of chalk, clay, or limestone. One of the reasons the Chardonnay grape is so hardy is the significant leaf cover and robust vines that are associated with the variety. Vintners may use pruning and canopy management to counter growth when it gets excessive, as too-much growth impedes the production of quality grapes. Native Region and Expansion The Chardonnay grape gained its reputation when it was used in wines made in France, such as Chablis and white burgundy. These names are associated with specific regions in France. In an effort to protect the reputations and market share of its winemakers, beginning in the 1930s the French government designated wines from specific geographic locations as appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC). AOC amounts to a certification that a wine is made in a certain region, and has become a way that French vintners can prohibit winemakers in other parts of the world from labeling their wine using French appellations. As a result, in other parts of the globe, the dry white wines that the French term Chablis and white burgundy are frequently named Chardonnay. The Chardonnay grape gained renown because of its use in producing some of France’s most famous wines. After winemaking was introduced in the Chablis region by the Romans, for example, most wine was produced by Cistercian monks through the Middle Ages. Chardonnay grapes were first planted in the Chablis region during the 12th century, and soon became used to produce a dry white wine. Annexed by the dukes of Burgundy, Chablis is the northernmost region of that province. The cool climate of the region causes the wine now known as Chablis to
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be more acidic and less fruity than wines grown with the Chardonnay grape in warmer climates. Chablis is known for having a “flinty” taste, and unlike wines made with the Chardonnay grape in other areas, is almost exclusively vinified in stainless steel tanks. Chablis’s proximity to Paris and the Seine River gave its white wine a stranglehold on that important market. When the English became interested in drinking wine beginning in the 17th century, they began importing Chablis in large volumes. The inauguration of French railways during the 19th century increased competition for Chablis. This competition, in conjunction with a devastating powdery mildew that afflicted Chardonnay grapes, led to the decline of Chablis production. Beginning in the mid-20th century, however, Chablis producers began planting more acres with Chardonnay grapes, and production of the wine has grown. AOC Appellations Chablis’s sister wine, white burgundy, is considered by many to be the globe’s premiere white wine. Burgundy also produced wine beginning with the Romans, but unlike Chablis cultivated both red and white wine. Beginning in the mid-19th century, an appreciation of the quality of some of the Burgundy wines grew. As a result, classification systems were devised that rated the wines of one Burgundian vineyard against others in the region. After white burgundy became an official AOC in 1936, a more sophisticated system of classification emerged. Those white burgundies designated Grand Cru are produced in small amounts in some of the best vineyards in the region, the name of which is added to the appellation. Premier Cru wines are also produced at a single vineyard, and are of high quality, though considered of slightly lower quality than Grand Cru vintages. Village appellation wines are the product of several different vineyards within the boundaries of 42 separate villages. Finally, regional appellations, such as AOC Bourgogne, refer to generic whites or reds produced in Burgundy. The more prestigious appellations are among the most expensive wines in the world. The Grape and Its History of Production Chardonnay grapes are also used in the production of Champagne, along with pinot noir and
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pinot meunier grapes. Chardonnay grapes provide some of the finesse and balance that many Champagne producers seek. The varieties of the grape cultivated in the Champagne region of France rarely attain full ripeness, which results in their not lending the “fruit flavors” to the sparkling wine that the grape is known for in other regions. Chablis, Burgundy, and Champagne account for over 60 percent of the Chardonnay grape cultivation in France. The remaining 40 percent is used in other regions, often mixed with other grapes to produce chenin blanc, arbois, jura, and other wines. In response to practices of vintners in other parts of the world, French wine producers have begun experimenting with aging Chardonnay in oak barrels. California was the first region in the United States to cultivate the Chardonnay grape successfully. The grape was first planted widely during the 1940s, and during the 1950s the vintner James David Zellerbach founded Hanzell Vineyards. Hanzell Vineyards worked to produce a wine that could compete with the white burgundies, and developed certain winemaking techniques that would later be widely emulated. Hanzell Vineyards developed or refined barrel aging, malolactic fermentation, anaerobic winemaking, and using inert gases to produce a better white wine than California had been able to produce previously. By 1976, a California Chardonnay produced by winery Chateau Montelena won a wine competition. This event, known as the Judgment of Paris, was the first time American white wines using the Chardonnay grape had been rated higher than those produced in France. California Chardonnays became known for having a “buttery” and “oaken” taste, the latter a result of the wine being vinified in oak barrels. This led to a Chardonnay boom during the 1980s, and the acreage devoted to Chardonnay grapes in California soared. By the 21st century, California was home to 25 percent of the globe’s Chardonnay grape production with over 100,000 acres devoted to the grape. The popularity of wines using the Chardonnay grape, coupled with the grape’s adaptability to many climates, led to a boom in production around the globe. In the United States, Chardonnay wines began being produced in quantity in New York, Washington, Texas, Virginia, and
Oregon. Chardonnay has also started to be produced by other states, albeit in smaller amounts, including Alabama, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Vermont. North of the border, Canadian wineries began producing Chardonnay, with British Columbia, Quebec, and Ontario all producing well-regarded wines. Australia and New Zealand first began planting the Chardonnay grape during the 1950s, with the Australian wine industry especially being poised to meet the demands of the Chardonnay boom of the 1980s. Certain Australian Chardonnays are noted for having a citrus or lime taste, while others are considered smoky and rich. South Africa began production of Chardonnay during the 1970s, and soon became a major exporter of the wine. Chile has recently emerged as a well-regarded producer of Chardonnay. Other areas will certainly join these as they begin to experiment with wine production. Stephen T. Schroth Knox College See Also: Burgundy; Champagne; France; Sauvignon Blanc; Wines, French; Wines, White. Further Readings Johnson, Hugh and Jacis Robinson. World Atlas of Wine, 7th ed. London: Mitchell Beazley, 2013. Robinson, Jacis. American Wine: The Ultimate Companion to the Wines and Wineries of the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012. Robinson, Jacis. The Oxford Companion to Wine, 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Chartism In the 1830s, political authority in Great Britain seemed to be far out of the reach of the average working-class man. Women of all classes lacked political authority because female suffrage had been repealed by the 1832 Reform Act and would not be regained until 1918, when females over the age of 30 would win suffrage rights. By seeking to ensure the rights of the working class,
chartism appeared to have the potential for extensive growth. An example of this is when, in May 1838, Chartists under the auspices of the London Working Men’s Association published the First National Charter, commonly known as the People’s Charter. This association had been established at the Anchor Tavern, and Chartist meetings were regularly held in public houses. However, teetotal Chartists were opposed to drinking alcohol in any form. They believed that total abstinence was essential to equipping the working class for the inevitable battle against the British aristocracy. Since other members saw no harm in drinking alcohol, and some even owned pubs, there was often a good deal of infighting within the Chartist movement. The teetotal element was stronger in northern Britain than in any other area of the country, but there were groups located throughout the country, including five groups in London. Teetotalism, particularly in Scotland, was often associated with Christianity. This link between religion and abstinence angered some members, including both Feargus O’Connor and Peter McDouall, who worried that chartism was becoming more associated with religion than with politics. They maintained that it threatened to derail the political goals of the movement. Ernest Jones, a radical lawyer and journalist who led the most militant wing of the Chartists, famously contended that teetotalism would never bring passage of the charter. Despite the appeal to the general British populace, the teetotal element within chartism alienated many potential supporters who had no intention of giving up alcohol. Even other teetotalers found fault with teetotal chartism, arguing that abstinence should not be used as a tool for forcing the government to act on political issues. Between 1839 and 1851, Chartists submitted three major national petitions to Parliament, and none was accepted. Beginnings The Chartist organization was established in 1836 under the leadership of William Lovett, a well-known radical, who became the first secretary of the group. Lovett is credited with writing the First National Charter (the People’s Charter), with assistance from Francis Place, a master tailor and a free-press advocate. From the beginning, the motivating force within the Chartist
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movement was Feargus O’Connor, a charismatic Irish Protestant. Despite the fact that he was a wealthy landowner, O’Connor was well aware that major discontent was brewing among the British working class in response to passage of the Poor Law of 1834. An amendment to the Poor Law of 1815, the 1834 law forced the poor into workhouses since it had been deemed too expensive to provide them with financial assistance. O’Connor, who had been elected to parliament in 1832, was the publisher of the Chartist newspaper the Northern Star. He was willing to use physical force to achieve his goals. Although the London Working Men’s Association had begun as a vehicle for bringing skilled artisans together to lobby for universal political rights, the leaders of the Chartist movement were generally radical intellectuals from a variety of backgrounds. In February 1839, Chartists presented the People’s Charter to parliament. It bore the signatures of 1,280,958 individuals. Many of those signatures belonged to women who had no political voice. The People’s Charter called for voting by ballot, universal male suffrage, annual meetings of parliament, equal distribution of voting districts, the abolition of property requirements for members of parliament, and the institution of salaries for all members of parliament (MPs). Parliament predictably rejected the charter, and that action led to the July Riots, which took place in Birmingham, England, on July 13. A number of Chartist leaders were arrested. A second petition presented in 1842 with 3,315,752 signatures was also rejected. However, Chartists remained devoted to their cause. Some Chartists who had not started out as proponents of the antialcohol movement joined the temperance movement as it began to gain momentum. They did so for various reasons that ranged from personal conviction to a desire to escape paying liquor taxes. By 1840, some teetotalers had split off into their own groups, forming local groups of Teetotal Chartists. One of the leading Teetotal Chartists was John Fraser, who felt that alcohol consumption was responsible for many of society’s problems. Henry Vincent, who had joined the temperance movement in 1836, became the major voice of teetotal chartism. On January 9, 1841, Vincent convinced the Glasgow-based Chartist Circular to issue a
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demand for total abstinence. Over 100 Chartists signed the pledge. William Lovett had been arrested on charges of seditious libel in 1839 and remained in jail until 1840. He became a teetotaler while in prison, and after his release, he insisted that all Chartist meetings be held at locations where no alcohol was served. Through his New Move educational initiative, Lovett advocated the need for universal education in Britain, viewing it as means of empowering lower classes. Jeremiah Yates offered an alternative to pubs by opening a temperance hotel that specialized in a drink that was made with a coffee substitute and contained no alcohol. In 1843, Robert Cranston opened a similar establishment in Edinburgh, Scotland, calling it the Old Waverly Hotel. It remains in operation in the beginning of the 21st century. Within London, two of the chief proponents of teetotal chartism were Charles and Elizabeth Neeson, the leaders of the East London Chartist Total Abstinence and Mutual Instruction Society. Neeson had also founded the London Female Democratic Association and was active in the East London Female Total Abstinence Society. End and the Legacy By 1839, many Chartist leaders were languishing in jails. During a Chartist revival in 1848, a planned demonstration was blocked. When the Third National Petition, believed to have been written by Robert Kemp Philp, a member of the militant wing of the movement, was presented that same year with 5.7 million signatures, the Chartists were accused of falsifying many of the signatures. After these events, the Chartist movement began a steady decline. In retrospect, it appeared that Chartists had become greedy, wanting change to occur all at once when history dictates that it is more likely to occur in increments. Chartists have also been criticized for ignoring the needs of the middle class. Whatever its weaknesses, chartism did succeed in raising political consciousness in Great Britain. In 1855, rioting broke out when proalcohol supporters clashed with temperance activists and the government subsequently relaxed licensing laws, making alcohol more readily available. In 1870, parliament passed the Elementary Education Act, which began the process of making
education compulsory for all British children. With the passage of the Reform Bill of 1884 and the Redistribution Act of 1885, parliament essentially granted universal male suffrage. All were rights for which Chartists had fought so diligently. Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar See Also: Ireland; Scotland; Taxation; Temperance Movements; United Kingdom. Further Readings Bloy, Marjie. “Chartism.” http://www.victorian web.org/history/chartism7.html (Accessed November 2013). Burton, Antoinette M., ed. Politics and Empire in Victorian Britain: A Reader. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Chase, Malcolm. Chartism: A New History. New York: Manchester University Press, 2007. Harrison, Brian. “Religion and Recreation in Nineteenth-Century England.” Past and Present, v.38 (December 1967). Harrison, Brian. “Teetotal Chartism.” History, v.58/193 (June 1973). McWilliam, Rohan. “Liberalism Lite?” Victorian Studies, v.48/1 (Fall 2005). Taylor, Miles. Ernest Jones, Chartism, and the Romance of Politics, 1819–1869. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. “Teetotal Chartists: Looking for the Charter at the ‘Bottom of a Glass of Water’?” Chartist Ancestors. http://chartists.net/Teetotal-Chartists.htm (Accessed November 2013). Yeo, Eileen. “Christianity in Chartist Struggle, 1838– 1842.” Past and Present, v.91 (May 1981).
Cherrington, Ernest H. Born in Hamden Ohio on November 24, 1877, Ernest Hurst Cherrington was the youngest of the Ohio group to control the Anti-Saloon League, the most powerful political lobbying group in the United States in the early 20th century and the
main force behind the passage of the Prohibition amendment in 1920. An able individual of moderate temperament, Cherrington alone among the original leaders escaped the personal and political scandals that helped bring them and the league down. After ratification, he headed that section of the league favoring education, working against those individuals organized behind national legislative director Wayne Wheeler, who favored coercion and ruthless politics. He remained in the temperance field 20 years later than did his peers, who died or faded from the scene. Personal History The son of a Methodist minister and Civil War veteran, Cherrington remained a committed Methodist all his life. He attended Ohio Wesleyan University but never graduated; he then taught for two years at a local country school in Ross County, Ohio, before becoming an editor of a village newspaper. He became increasingly concerned with the impact that alcohol had upon youth, especially in an industrial society. Not long after, he began working for the Anti-Saloon League and soon became the superintendent of the Canton district, then the assistant superintendent of Ohio, and finally the successful state superintendent of Washington. By the age of 23, all the themes of Cherrington’s working life had been established—Methodist ethics, an absolute belief in education, skill as a journalist and editor, and commitment to temperance reform. Leadership at the Anti-Saloon League Howard Hyde Russell founded the Anti-Saloon League in 1893 at Oberlin College. The league reached out to evangelical Christians, primarily Methodists and Baptists. It departed from previous temperance organizations, such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition Party, in several ways. Unlike the others, it focused completely upon the one issue of prohibition and ignored all other issues and reforms. It was a completely political group and rewarded or punished candidates on this one issue. It operated as a business with a top-down structure and an absence of democracy. It also paid its staff, like Cherrington, a small but living wage, while the other organizations had relied on volunteers. Finally, while all the leaders personally opposed
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drinking, this group made the strategic decision to concentrate on the saloon and all of its negative associations. In 1903, Cherrington became the protégé of Purley Baker, another Methodist minister who had replaced Russell, a man of considerable vision and insufficient administrative skill. By 1909, Cherrington had taken charge of the publishing section of the league. By 1914, the league’s newspaper had 16 million subscribers. The press also published 1.4 million copies of books; 4.3 million pamphlets; and 67 million leaflets. The post office in Westerville, Ohio, the league’s headquarters, was the busiest nonurban location in the country. Cherrington also pioneered the use of modern advertising techniques like billboards and streetcar posters. By this time, he had also become secretary of the national committee, financial manager, chief fundraiser, and head of the speaker’s bureau. It was the last, apparently insignificant position that led to Cherrington’s greatest contribution to Prohibition. Richmond Pearson Hobson, the league’s most popular and expensive speaker, an Alabama representative, and the introducer of the first Prohibition amendment, approached Cherrington after its defeat. He had noted that the growth of immigrants and urban voters would insure over one-third safe wet seats after the 1920 census. Thus, the league needed to push the amendment through by 1920. Under Cherrington’s leadership, it began to target more vulnerable opponents and in 1914 alone spent $2.5 million. Fearful of the league’s power incumbents, it shifted its positions, and by election night 1916 the league knew it had a guaranteed majority. The central flaw with the achievement of the Eighteenth Amendment is that the league itself had prepared a 20-year plan based on massive education and an extensive political machine with knowledge of each voter. Yet, the league’s educational outreach had been limited to rural evangelicals, and it lacked any political presence in many states. Moreover, its political success lay in fear and could change in an instant. In addition, the league split into two warring factions. Wayne Wheeler, the legislative superintendent, led a leadership group favoring coercion of national legislators using the league’s political
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power through all legal and illegal means. Wheeler himself blocked the Supreme Court nomination of a senator who had consistently voted for Prohibition but voted against the Volstead Act by personally threatening President Warren Harding. Cherrington, on the other hand, led the bloc dominant in the membership especially among the churches and allies such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Cherrington called for a return to a temperance organization that concentrated almost exclusively on education. Having little faith and less interest in law enforcement, he called for an educational program devoted not to the next election but to the next generation. Wheeler had used his power to place his followers in the positions of state superintendents across the country. Between this power bloc and the desertion by Cherrington’s allies and personal friends Baker and Russell, Wheeler dominated, sneering that it was time for men of action to take over from men of words. Cherrington continued his position with the league, accumulating an extensive library on Prohibition that would become the basis for the six-volume Standard Encyclopedia of Alcohol Problems (1924–30). Also, in 1919 he founded the World League Against Alcoholism. Cherrington reflected his belief in the need to take an international approach when he opposed the Treaty of Versailles for not outlawing alcohol everywhere in the world. The world league, in fact, opposed all drinking and not just alcoholism. He spent $5 million on this endeavor, much of which came from financial angels like the retail titan S. S. Kresge, who withdrew his regular contributions to the league in protest against the coercion strategy. In 1924, a dying Baker retired as national superintendent, and Cherrington was the leading and only viable candidate. The ruthless Wheeler, fearing a diminution of his power, conspired against him and arranged the election of Francis Scott McBride, the inexperienced Illinois state superintendent and Wheeler’s pawn. Cherrington remained with the league, using his financial ability to stave off bankruptcy as contributors removed their pledges. Finally, in 1936 he moved to Washington and became head of the board of temperance of the Methodist Church, the position the rabidly anti-Catholic
Bishop James Cannon, Wheeler’s replacement after his death, had occupied before his manifold personal, economic, and sexual scandals had helped bring down the league. Cherrington returned to Westerville shortly before his death in 1950. Mark C. Smith University of Texas at Austin See Also: Anti-Saloon League; Eighteenth Amendment; Prohibition. Further Readings Blocker, Jack. American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform. Boston: Twayne, 1989. Cherrington, Ernest H. The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America: A Chronological History of the Liquor Problem. Westerville, OH: American Issue Press, 1920. Kerr, K. Austin. Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985. Okrent, Daniel. Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. New York: Scribner, 2010.
Chianti Chianti is both an Italian wine region and a style of red wine. Most of Chianti, the region, is located in Tuscany, in the northern part of the Italian peninsula, between the cities of Florence to the north and Siena to the south. The style, grape varieties, and presentation of Chianti, the wine, are regulated by Italian and European wine laws, and the prescriptions have changed a number of times during the 20th century. Chianti is arguably the best-known Italian wine region and style, and the wine is exported throughout the world. Origins Wine from Chianti was first mentioned in a document from 1398, but it was a white wine, whereas all Chiantis are now red. The modern style of Chianti can be dated to the mid-19th century, when Baron Bettino Ricasoli (who had been prime minister of Italy and was owner of the Brolio wine
estate) set down the first definitive blend. Having toured French vineyards in the 1850s, Ricasoli believed the region of Chianti could be the equal of more prestigious wine regions like Burgundy and the Rhône Valley in France. To that end, he decided that Chianti should be made predominantly from sangiovese, an indigenous Tuscan black grape variety, with minor contributions from two white grapes (malvasia and trebbiano) and other black varieties, one of which (colorino) would add depth to the color of the wine. The Chianti region, the territory within which Chianti can be produced, was officially delimited in 1716, making it Italy’s first officially recognized wine region. Over time, it was expanded, until in 1932 a new national wine law fixed the boundaries that, for the most part, exist today. The 1932 law identified a number of subregions within the broader Chianti region, including Chianti Classico, whose territory roughly coincided with the original Chianti area of 1716. Other important subregions include Chianti Rufina, in the northeast and Chianti Colli Senesi, near Siena, in the south. Required Components and Deviations Over time, the permitted components of the Chianti wine have varied, but Sangiovese, the key variety in Baron Ricasoli’s recipe, has always remained dominant. Currently, Chianti must be made of at least 70 percent Sangiovese, with the remainder made up of any of the red grapes permitted in the region, while Chianti Classico must be at least 80 percent Sangiovese. Although some producers use only Sangiovese, “international” grape varieties such as merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah are often used for the rest of the blend, while the indigenous grape varieties have faded in importance. As of the 2006 vintage, white grapes are no longer permitted in Chianti Classico. For many years, from the 1960s through the 1980s, much of Chianti’s production was Chianti Superiore, a fairly acidic wine of mediocre quality that was sold in squat, bulbous bottles of 1.5 liters wrapped in a straw basket called a fiasco. This ordinary and quite inexpensive wine was very popular on international markets (the bottle and its straw basket were very popular as candle holders), but it did little for the reputation of Chianti as a producer of quality wines.
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From the late 1960s, a further blow to the region was struck when several producers, frustrated by the restrictions of Chianti’s wine law, began to make high-quality wine from grape varieties that were not permitted in wines labeled “Chianti.” These wines (such as Tignanello and Sassicaia) became known as “super Tuscans” and were initially classified as Vino da Tavola (table wine), the lowest tier in Italian wine law that usually denoted poor-quality wines that did not meet the criteria for the higher classifications. But many of the super Tuscan wines soon won international recognition and began to sell for prices much higher than Chianti and Chianti Classico wines, even though they were labeled “Vino da Tavola.” The eventual result was a revision of Chianti wine law that eliminated grape varieties considered inferior, and permitted the use of international varieties, such as merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. From 1992, super Tuscan wines were given IGT (Indicazione Geografica Tipica) status, a classification that focused on the region of production, not the grape varieties. Current Recognition of Types Currently, Chianti’s wine law recognizes several tiers of Chianti: Chianti, Chianti Superiore, Chianti Riserva, Chianti Classico, Chianti Classico Riserva, and the most recent classification from 2013, Chianti Classico Gran Selezione. In general, the rule is that wines in higher classifications come from lower-yielding vineyards, have a higher minimum alcohol level, and are aged longer in barrels and bottles before being sold. A wine labeled simply “Chianti” is a wine made from grapes grown anywhere in the Chianti region and that follows the Chianti rules governing grape varieties, vineyard yields, and aging in barrels and bottles before being released for sale. Chianti Riserva must be aged a minimum of 24 months, while Chianti Superiore has lower yields and a higher minimum alcohol level than simple Chianti. Chianti Classico (which is identified by the black rooster on the neckband of the bottle) must be made from grapes grown only in the Chianti Classico region, and the wine must have a higher minimum alcohol content. Chianti Classico Riserva has an even higher minimum alcohol level and must be aged at least 24 months before release.
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Chile could be used for Chianti Classico wines. Some of the vines produce grapes with thicker skins that are less prone to disease and lend more color to the finished wine. Overall, the Chianti region produces wines of very variable quality, particularly at the level of generic Chianti. In the upper tiers of the classification, such as Chianti Classico, there is much less quality variation, and the new tier, Gran Selezione, can be expected to raise the bar even higher. Overall, Chianti’s producers have been successful in raising the reputation of their region to a level considerably higher than before the 1990s. Rod Phillips Carleton University See Also: Italy; Sangiovese; Wines, Red.
Chianti Classico bottles in traditional straw covers known as fiascos and displaying the identifying black rooster on the neck. Chianti may be the best-known Italian wine region and style.
To be labeled “Gran Selezione,” now the highest tier, a Chianti Classico Riserva must be made from grapes grown on the producer’s estate (that is, they can neither be purchased from another grower nor grown on leased vineyards), and it must be aged even longer (30 months) than Chianti Classico before being released for sale. Whereas all Chianti Classico and Riserva wines are tasted by a panel of enologists to ensure that they meet a minimum standard of Chianti Classico quality, Gran Selezione wines are specifically tasted to guarantee that they are suitable to represent the best that Chianti can produce. The quality of wines produced in Chianti has improved markedly since the 1990s. Although much Chianti is quite ordinary, some of it reaches high levels of quality, and Chianti Classico, in particular, is now widely recognized as having consistently superior quality. With a view to improving the quality of vines in Chianti Classico vineyards, the Chianti Classico 2000 Project identified clones, or variants, of Sangiovese vines that
Further Readings Lynch, David and Joseph Bastianich. Vino Italiano: The Regional Wines of Italy. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2013. Malorgio, Giulio and Cristina Grazia. “Quantity and Quality Regulation in the Wine Sector: The Chianti Classico Appellation of Origin.” International Journal of Wine Business Research, v.19/4 (2007). Patchell, Jerry. The Territorial Organization of Variety: Cooperation and Competition in Bordeaux, Napa and Chianti Classico. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011.
Chile Chile was settled by the Spanish in the early 16th century. It is known that the Conquistador Herman Cortés brought either vine cuttings or seeds with him from Spain to Mexico, with vines being planted in Mexico by the Spanish in 1524. It is not known whether it was cuttings or seeds from Mexico, or ones that were brought from Spain or Portugal, that led to the establishment of the Chilean wine industry. By tradition, the conquistador Francisco de Aguirre is regarded as the “founder of the Chilean wine industry.” Certainly, Juan Jufre and Diego García de Cárceres established a vineyard in the Central Valley of
Chile in 1554. The latter, a convert from Judaism, had been one of the early settlers in Chile, and his landholdings, which included his vineyards, were to remain in the hands of his family until the land reform of 1967. Viticulture and Wine Exports Part of the impetus of establishing a vineyard was to provide wine for communion services—the importation of wine from Europe being expensive for a growing Christian population in Chile. The vineyards in Chile were quite successful, especially those around Santiago, and there are documented cases of the local Native American community attacking vines that they associated with Roman Catholicism. The Spanish government were, however, worried about the growth of the Chilean wine industry and regulated it during the mid-17th century to prevent the establishment of new vineyards in South America. In 1641, the Spanish government went further, banning wine imports into Spain from Chile and also Peru. The latter country, a strong Royalist area, enforced this, bringing down much of the Peruvian wine industry. However, in more liberally ruled Chile, the new regulations were only partially enforced and that more vineyards were actually planted. In 1678, Juan Henríquez de Villalobos, the Royal Governor of Chile urged for this ban to be lifted to allow the local economy to recover after the Mapuche revolt in the early 1670s. By the 18th century, Chilean wine was being sold around Latin America and elsewhere, with most wine exported through the port of Valparaiso. In 1741, John Byron (grandfather of the poet Lord Byron) was shipwrecked and managed to make his way to Chile, where he enjoyed drinking the Chilean Muscatel and, when back in Britain, compared it to Madeira wine. In 1828, Claude Gay, a French botanist, moved to Santiago, Chile’s capital, to teach physics and natural history. He went back to France in 1832 but returned to Chile two years later, and spent much time travelling around the country, having been granted Chilean citizenship. He persuaded the Chilean government to establish the Quinta Normal, which became an experimental garden for all types of plants and was soon used to try out European vines and see whether they could adapt to the Chilean climate. This resulted in Chile establishing its own vines in isolation from
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the rest of the world before the onset of powdery mildew and phylloxera, which were to devastate vineyards in many other countries. By this time, most of the wine growing was concentrated in the Central Valley of Chile. As this area is crossed by many rivers, irrigation is easy. Charles Darwin had travelled in the area during the 1830s and had seen that the Chilean wine palm sap from this species was often used to produce a fermented beverage popular with poorer people; Darwin famously described the wine palm as a “very ugly tree.” In 1851, Ochagavía Echazarreta imported some French vines and also introduced a number of French winemaking techniques. His cuttings were to prove crucial in the next hundred years as the French influence gradually took over from what had been a largely Spanish-run industry, with Ochagavía becoming known as the “father of modern Chilean winemaking” in newspapers of the period. The economy of Chile improved considerably during this period and the emergence of a larger middle class in Latin America led to much local demand for Chilean wine. Twentieth Century to Modern Day Most of the vines in Chile are planted on flat and fertile land that is heavily irrigated, and as a result, the roots of the vines do not go that deep into the soil. Traditionally, the vines had been unstaked, in the Spanish style, to allow them to grow into a goblet shape, but gradually the French influence led to more vineyards being planted in the same manner as vineyards in Bordeaux. The Chilean wine industry continued to prosper, with most of it controlled by 10 families and their descendants. Most of these were of Basque ancestry, with these dynasties of vignerons being celebrated in local literature. However, taxation on wine gradually increased after World War II, and when the price of wines from Chile (and elsewhere) fell dramatically in the 1970s, the industry was devastated. This came at a time of political instability in the country as well as some boycotts of Chilean products associated with political concerns over the Pinochet government. Until the 1980s, many foreign wine writers felt that Chilean wine was not of a very good quality, but this changed with new regulations and more foreign investment. In 1995, Chile
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introduced their appellation system and divided winegrowing in the country into four regions of wine labels: Atacama, Aconcagua, Central Valley, and Southern Chile. There were, however, no restrictions placed on the grape varieties or other viticultural practices. For wine produced and consumed within Chile, the grape content had to be at least 75 percent, with 85 percent of the grapes having to have come from a particular region of the country for it to be listed on the wine label. There are now over 20 grape varieties that go into wines in Chile, and Chile ranks as the fourth major exporter of wine into the United States (after France, Italy and Australia). Since the 1990s, wine tours in Chile have become popular both with Chileans and with foreigners. Most of them focus on the Central Valley because of the quality of the wine and because of its proximity to Santiago, the country’s capital. There has also been much interest in Casablanca on account of its series of microclimates, which have led to the pinot noir and merlot coming from this area winning some awards. The wineries of William Cole, Viña Mar, and Casas del Bosque are probably the most popular locations to visit in wine tours in that region, but those in Maipo remain the most famous internationally. Wine is readily available around the country, and Chilean beer has also emerged after many complaints about the blandness in its taste. The largest brewer in Chile, located in Santiago, is Compañia Cerveccerias Unidas SA (CCU). Its main brewery was originally located in Santiago but has expanded by buying out regional breweries and standardizing production. CCU’s Cristal Pilsner, a “gold, off dry malt,” remains the bestselling beer in the country, with some preferring Escudo Chilean Pilsner, also made by CCU, because of its more full-bodied taste. Its other beer, Andes Chilean Pilsner, has a “gold, faintly skunky nose at first, thence good hops,” and Royal Guard has a more flowery flavor. Prior to all the recent mergers, the other major brewery in Chile was Creveceria y Embotteladora Austral SA, located in the southern port city of Puenta Arenas in Patagonia. Its main beers were Imperial Polar Beer and Austral Polar Beer. Another beer popular in Chile is Bática. Other alcoholic beverages produced in Chile include eguindado, which is made from cherries,
and vaina, a mixture of brandy, egg, and sugar. Chicha is the term still used for alcoholic drinks that have been made from fruit. The minimum legal age for buying and consuming alcohol in Chile is 18. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Argentina; Colombia; Mexico; Semillon; Spain; Viniculture, Global History of. Further Readings Hernandez, Alejandro and Gonzalo Contreas. Wine and Vineyards of Chile. Santiago: Ediciones Copygraph, 1992. Read, Jan and Hugh Johnson. Chilean Wines, London: Sotheby’s Publications, 1988. Robertson, James D. The Beer-Tasters Log: A World Guide to More Than 6,000 Beers. Pownal, VT: Storey Communications, 1996. Ureta, Fernando and Philippo Pszczólkowski T. Chile: Culture of Wine. Santiago, Chile: Kactus, 1995. Van Waerebeek-Gonzalez, Ruth. The Chilean Kitchen: Authentic, Homestyle Foods, Regional Wines, and Culinary Traditions of Chile. New York: HP Books, 1999.
China Alcoholic beverages have been produced and consumed in China since earliest recorded history. Known as jiu, alcohol has an important part in religious ceremonies, festive celebrations, and everyday life to this day. Indigenous liquors range widely in strength and composition, from baijiu, typically more than 50 percent alcohol by volume and distilled from sorghum, to grape wines and light beers. During the imperial period, alcoholic beverages were central to the high culture of poets, scholars, and artists and served to cement social and political bonds for princes and peasants alike. Constant contact with the rest of the world brought new ingredients and types of liquor. As successive waves of foreigners entered China from the mid-19th century on, their drinks came to occupy an increasingly
visible place in the economy and culture of jiu. Yet, older beverages remained popular through the conflicts and upheavals of the 20th century. In the decades since mainland China resumed international diplomatic relations, the jiu industry has grown dramatically. The annual per capita consumption of alcohol by people 15 and over has more than doubled between 1978 and 2009. The largest population in the world is matched by China’s world-leading production of beer by volume and growing demand for imported beverages. This surge in alcohol use has not been matched by health and safety measures, resulting in rising rates of chronic disease and alcoholism, industrial and traffic accidents, and deaths from tainted, black-market liquors. Meanwhile, traditional liquors like baijiu are beginning to break into international markets among both Chinese diaspora and non-Chinese consumers. Alcoholic drinks were being produced in China by 2000 b.c.e., per the evidence of pottery excavated from Neolithic settlements in the Yellow River valley. Though traces of fruit have been detected in containers from breweries of the Shang period (c. 1200–1046 b.c.e.), brews made from fermenting grains, especially millet, were more common and influential in early China. Jiu was used in cooking, served with meals, and played a key role in rituals and sacrifices to gods and ancestors. During the feudal Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770–221 b.c.e.), liquor lubricated treaties between rival realms and cemented oaths of fealty between vassals and lords. Thus, many sayings attributed to the philosopher Confucius (551–479 b.c.e.) concern the proper way to drink, including using vessels appropriate to one’s rank; alcohol culture was a synecdoche for ethical conduct and correct government. Imperial Diversity During the Han period (206 b.c.e.–220 c.e.), as the more centralized imperial state expanded its territory, Yellow River valley jiu culture came into contact with a diversity of drinking traditions. These ranged from that of the steppe nomads in the northwest and central Asians over the Silk Road to the peoples of northern Vietnam. Cakes of starter ferment for grain brews were used as trade currency by the empire, while imported ingredients gave rise to a new assortment of
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beverages, such as grape wine produced with fruit from Persia and fermented milk, or kumis, from the steppes. In succeeding centuries, the central ingredient in jiu shifted from the millet and wheat of northern China to the rice produced in and south of the Yangtze River. By the time of the Tang dynasty (618–907), alcoholic drinks were being made from an even wider array of ingredients, often further enhanced by flowers, spices, and fruits. Regions within the empire developed specializations. Jiu connoisseurship became associated with the leisured and lettered: In the imperial capital, wealthy customers patronized taverns staffed by central Asian waitresses, while one of China’s most famous poets, Li Bai (701–762), is well known for his use of jiu as muse and subject. Technological changes also occurred. Some textual evidence points to the appearance of distilled liquor, or burnt jiu, around the mid-7th century; technologies for producing liquor were available as early as the 3rd century. Though pinpointing the invention of distillation in China remains controversial, potent distilled liquors were widely available by the 13th century. Artists and scholars were far from the only ones who drank. With rising urbanization and commercialization, as well as refinement of production technology, ales and liquors became more widely available. During the Yuan period (1271– 1368), Marco Polo and other European visitors to the Mongol realm noted that, though the rulers preferred kumis for feasts and rituals, a bevy of other beverages, including the venerable grain ales, could be had as well. As a measure of the cosmopolitanism of the medieval period, distilled liquor was sometimes called halachi, a transliteration of the Arabic ’araq, derived from palm or cane sugar and produced in southeast Asia and the Middle East. The invention and expansion of printing also helped spread a popular culture inflected by jiu. Strong liquors became the beverage of choice for heroes like Wu Song in The Water Margin, a late 14th-century novel. In it, Wu drinks 18 cups of a liquor supposedly capable of incapacitating a man after three then kills a tiger with his bare hands. Luxurious brews were common indulgences in the erotic fiction of the Ming (1368–1644), most famously the Plum in the Golden Vase, first
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published in 1618, in which an upstart merchant and his concubines fuel their dalliances with drink and delicacies. Scholars composed histories of jiu, and brews with medicinal properties appeared in physicians’ manuals as well as household almanacs. Late Imperial Change and Continuity Foreign interactions had long contributed to the diversity of Chinese jiu culture, but with the expansion of European power and reach from the 16th century came even more intense exchanges. New World crops like maize and potato as well as European-made grape wines reached China through East Indies trade routes, while highly specialized local vintages like Shaoxing’s sherry-like rice jiu were exported, even reaching Australia and California. During the 19th century, Europeans sought to expand their influence in the Qing empire (1644–1911), often by force of arms. In defeat, the Qing court allowed commercial and political concessions in many major cities. Imperial ambition mingled with the mercantile interests of both Chinese businessmen and their foreign counterparts in producing and distributing beverages like Champagne and brandy. Despite the difficulties of business in a century of conflict and social transformation, some of these ventures continue to prosper today. The history of the Tsingtao (Qingdao) Brewery is an illustrative example. Founded in 1903 as an Anglo-German joint venture in the port city, the brewery transferred to Japanese ownership during Germany’s rout in World War I and was taken over by Chinese owners following World War II. Soon after the 1949 victory of the Communists in the Chinese civil war, the brewery became a stateowned enterprise, becoming privatized again in 1990. While early consumers were mostly expatriate foreigners, Japanese owners between 1915 and 1945 began promoting beer in local markets. Since the late 1940s, drinking Tsingtao’s products has been linked with patriotic fervor, securing the brand’s popularity. Today, the brewery is the second largest in China.
beverages like baijiu and Shaoxing rice brew continued in the PRC even as it was removed from international politics and global trade under Communist rule. Cold War ideology and nationalism made traditional drinks more appealing than the foreign beers and wines that had been commercially successful in earlier decades. Poverty and hardship were, however, widespread on the mainland, and jiu became especially luxurious in times of famine and upheaval from the 1950s to the late 1970s. In 1978, the recorded per capita production of alcohol was only 2.5 liters, compared to 22.9 liters in 1999. In the 1980s, with the PRC’s resumption of international diplomatic and trade relations, consumption and especially production of jiu has risen significantly. Rapidly rising incomes and economic growth have propelled demand for not only domestically produced beverages but also foreign brews, from boutique beers to high-end cognac. Black markets are highly active in rural areas and in transporting prized liquors—around 30 percent of all alcohol consumed per capita in 2000 were not formally recorded by the government. An older jiu culture in which alcohol served to mark special occasions and worship has been overlaid with more casual, market-driven consumption patterns. Alcohol is more widely available than ever, but particular brands and types also carry extra meaning as markers of socioeconomic status and connoisseurial insight. Grape wine, for instance, has gained major popularity, especially among the urban, educated middle class, though it had been overshadowed by grain-based drinks for centuries. Imported vintages from France, Chile, and Australia dominate a boom market—more than $7 billion in 2009—in which Chinese and foreign investors work jointly to bring in foreign brands as well as to cultivate Chinese wineries. In pubs throughout Chinese cities, patrons enjoy an international array of spirits and a globalized bar culture of mixed drinks unaccompanied by food that is distinct from the meal-centered jiu tradition.
Expansion in the Late Twentieth Century From 1949, alcoholic drinks were produced by government-owned industries in both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the mainland and the Republic of China on Taiwan. Venerable
Current Trends Such rapid growth has come with little policy oversight. European observers of Chinese drinking habits since the 13th century had commented on their relative moderation in imbibing. Tea may
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have served as an alternative social lubricant; certain spiritual practices forbade alcohol, and Confucian ethics and social pressure urged gentlemen to avoid getting drunk. But, in contemporary China, alcohol may be causing major problems for public health and safety. There is no legal minimum age for buying and consuming alcoholic beverages in mainland China and no licensing required for selling them. Alcohol dependency has risen sharply: National surveys showed that rates of alcohol dependency as defined by world health standards had risen more than 40 times between the early 1980s and 1993. Drinking culture is heavily masculine: Data from 2004 indicates that there are 31 men for every woman with the symptoms of alcohol dependency. Men also fill many jobs in the booming construction and transportation sectors with the highest rates of alcohol dependency, such as mining and truck driving. Drinking to excess has also been linked, in China as elsewhere, to domestic violence, child abuse, and accidents, both on the roads and in the workplace. The government has campaigned against liquor counterfeiters and tax evaders, but enforcement of drunk-driving laws and specialized addiction recovery care have been limited to major cities even as around half of the population remains rural. In the 21st century, alcohol continues to play a pivotal role in the Chinese economy as well as in its politics. Foreign beverages have been very lucratively assimilated by domestic producers, who often use references to the ancient culture of jiu as a marketing device. Top domestic grape wines in 2009, for instance, included Great Wall, Dynasty, and Grand Dragon. At the same time, drinks with celebrated histories like baijiu are appearing on foreign markets. Though baijiu represented more than a third of all alcohol drunk in the world in 2012, its potency and taste may present obstacles to its marketing outside China. Nonetheless, some in the liquor business see potential profits from making baijiu more available to growing expatriate Chinese communities; as an increasingly global economy diversifies tastes, perhaps China’s liquors will join Mexican tequila, American bourbon, and Russian vodka on bar counters all over the world. Y. Yvon Wang Stanford University
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See Also: Archeological Evidence; Asia, East; Confucianism; Fermentation: Ancient Era Through Middle Ages. Further Readings Chang, K. C., ed. Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives. Taiwan: SMC Publishing, 1997. Cochrane, Johanne et al. “Alcohol Use in China.” Alcohol and Alcoholism, v.38/6 (2003). Needham, Joseph and Hsing-Tsung Huang. Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 6, Biology and Biological Technology, Part 5: Fermentations and Food Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Simoons, Frederick J. Food in China: A Cultural and Historical Inquiry. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1991. U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service. “Global Agricultural Information Network Report: National Wine Market, People’s Republic of China.” http://gain.fas.usda.gov (Accessed March 2014). World Health Organization. “Country Profiles: China.” WHO Global Status Report on Alcohol 2011. http://www.who.int (Accessed March 2014). Yang, Zhiguo. “‘This Beer Tastes Really Good’: Nationalism, Consumer Culture and Development of the Beer Industry in Qingdao, 1903–1993.” Chinese Historical Review, v.14/1 (April 2007).
Christianity Christianity has had a complicated relationship with alcohol. On one hand, wine has played a central role in Christianity’s most sacred ritual, and Christian countries have been the world’s leading centers of the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Yet on the other hand, Christianity’s sacred texts contain injunctions against drunkenness and addiction to alcohol, and some Christian groups forbid the consumption of alcohol altogether. Today, the world’s 2 billion Christians are divided in their attitude toward alcohol. More than 1 billion belong to traditions in which wine is consumed in nearly all religious services,
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but millions of others belong to denominations that treat alcohol as a forbidden evil. Early Christianity Christianity originated in the 1st-century eastern Mediterranean world, where wine was a dietary staple that people of all ages and social classes consumed regularly. It is thus not surprising that the New Testament records several instances of Jesus drinking wine. The Gospel of John says that the first miracle that Jesus performed was the transformation of water into wine. Shortly before his crucifixion, Jesus gave a small group of his chosen disciples bread and wine at the Last Supper and told them that they were his body and blood. With this action, Jesus made wine a central part of the most sacred Christian ritual, a ritual that Christians of nearly all denominational traditions still celebrate as the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, or communion. The New Testament documents, most of which were written to Christian Church communities in the second half of the 1st century, assumed the use of wine as a common table beverage but also warned against overindulgence. They condemned inebriation and drinking parties, which were an impediment to being filled with the Holy Spirit and to being properly prepared for the Second Coming of Christ. The qualifications for church officers contained in the New Testament books of 1 Timothy and Titus state that a presbyter, or bishop, must not be addicted to wine. These same letters enjoin older widows not to indulge in wine too frequently. At the same time, the letter of 1 Timothy included a personal directive to Timothy to no longer limit himself to drinking water but instead to drink some wine in order to strengthen his digestive system and prevent some of the ailments to which he was prone. After the New Testament era, other Christian writers of late antiquity, including the late-2nd-century writer Clement of Alexandria and the late-4th-century bishops Augustine of Hippo and John Chrysostom of Constantinople, echoed this New Testament view of wine, saying that it was a healthful beverage that was acceptable in moderation but that Christians should take care to avoid getting drunk. The wine of the 1st-century Greco Roman Mediterranean world was almost always diluted with water (often in the ratio of one part wine
to three parts water) before being served, so the table beverages that the early Christians consumed may have had an alcohol content of only 3 or 4 percent after they were diluted. Nevertheless, even with these low-alcohol beverages, the early Christians exhorted one another to take care to avoid drunkenness while still enjoying wine as a blessing from God. Medieval Period When Christianity moved into the beer-drinking regions of central and northern Europe, beer, along with wine, became an important part of Christian life, and traditional Christian injunctions against drunkenness were sometimes honored more in the breach than in the observance. In the 8th and 9th centuries, monasteries operated the largest breweries in Europe, producing beer not only for their monks but also for visiting pilgrims and local indigents as an act of charity. In some English monasteries during the High Middle Ages, each monk was given a personal daily allowance of between one and two gallons of ale. Because of the poor water supply in the medieval period, many Europeans considered beer a particularly healthful beverage—far preferable to water, which could cause digestive problems. Arnulf of Metz, an early-7th-century bishop in what later became the country of France, is reported to have mounted a public health campaign to get his parishioners to substitute beer for water in order to curb a local plague, which had likely resulted from a contaminated water supply. After his death, Arnulf became one of the many patron saints of brewers and is credited with miraculously providing beer to thirsty Christians. Indeed, given medieval Europeans’ beliefs about the health benefits of beer, it is not surprising that they on occasion credited their favorite saints— those that they regularly looked to for healing— with the miraculous provision of beer. Ireland’s St. Brigid, for instance, is said to have miraculously created beer from water and to have multiplied a small supply of beer through her supernatural power. Many other saints were said to have performed similar miracles in order to give gifts of beer to the thirsty. If beer was a staple of life in the Christian Latin West, wine continued to play a similar role among members of the Orthodox churches in the East.
When Islam emerged in the 7th century as a major competitor with Christianity in the East, one of the many ways in which Christians and Muslims differentiated themselves from each other was in their attitude toward alcohol. The Qur’an proscribed the use of all alcoholic beverages, but Christians continued to drink wine and other intoxicants. According to the medieval Russian Primary Chronicle, the 10th-century Russian ruler Vladimir the Great chose to convert Russia to Orthodox Christianity rather than Islam because he insisted that his people would never give up drinking and thus could never be Muslims. After the Reformation The 16th-century Protestant Reformation, and the subsequent Catholic Reformation, led western European Christians of all theological positions, whether Catholic or Protestant, to give renewed attention to Christians’ personal holiness, a theological move that in some cases made them less tolerant of drunkenness. Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other Protestant reformers condemned drunkenness as a sin, while also lauding the regular consumption of wine and beer. The 17th-century New England Puritans frequently preached against drunkenness and made inebriation a public offense. Nevertheless, they complained that intoxication was common even among their ministers; indeed, of all the moral regulations enacted by the Puritans, the proscription against drunkenness was probably the most commonly violated. When distilled liquor first became available on a widespread scale in Europe and North America during the 16th century, church leaders did not at first treat it any differently than they had beer and wine. But after observing the high rate of drunkenness among the poor during London’s “gin epidemic” of the mid-18th century, some Christian reformers in Britain launched a successful campaign to impose higher taxes on gin in order to discourage the poor from drinking it. In the early 19th century, the campaign against distilled liquor turned into a crusade against all alcoholic beverages. Temperance Movement The temperance movement, a grassroots campaign to address the problems that stemmed
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from excessive alcohol consumption, emerged in the 1820s among Protestant Christians in Britain and the United States who viewed their work as a public health campaign to curb the use of a substance that they viewed as inherently addictive and harmful. At first, organizations such as the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance (founded in 1826) differentiated between wine, which they thought was healthful if used in moderation, and hard liquor, which they viewed as intrinsically dangerous. But in the 1830s, many temperance advocates decided that all alcoholic beverages, including wine, were addictive drugs that were harmful to people’s health, and that the only safe stance was total abstinence. Some British Protestant temperance advocates made the same claim. The Protestants who created the temperance movement launched their campaign on public health grounds, not because of a biblical warrant. They had seen firsthand the effects of drunkenness. In the 1820s, America’s per capita alcohol consumption was three times as high as it would become in the early 21st century, and much of the alcohol was consumed in the form of undiluted spirits, which led quickly to inebriation. The temperance advocates believed that they could protect families, improve the lives of workers, and reduce poverty by convincing people not to drink. In the 1840s, temperance organizations in the United States claimed well over 1 million members at a time when the total American population was only 20 million. By 1850, after a quarter century of temperance campaigns, America’s per capita alcohol consumption was less than half of what it had been in 1820. Because the Protestant campaign against drinking was a public-health reform movement, it was closely connected with other social reform efforts, including the campaign to abolish slavery. Lyman Beecher, for instance, a prominent temperance organizer and author in the 1820s and 1830s, was also an antislavery advocate. His children— including Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin—were even more outspoken in their denunciations of slavery. One of the nation’s most vocal Abolitionists, William Lloyd Garrison, was a temperance crusader before launching his antislavery newspaper the Liberator. Some African American Abolitionists, including Frederick
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Douglass, were also attracted to the temperance campaign. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first African American denomination in the United States, adopted a resolution at its founding in 1816 that required members to abstain from liquor. Partly because of its connection with the antislavery cause, the temperance movement attracted far more support in the North than the South during the antebellum era. Congregationalists, Methodists, Quakers, and Unitarians—all of whom came from denominational traditions—demonstrated an interest in antislavery and social justice in the early 19th century and were particularly strong supporters of the temperance movement. The new belief among some Protestants that alcohol was an addictive substance that should be avoided in any form led some to search for a nonalcoholic substitute for communion wine. Some Methodist groups began using grape juice for the Lord’s Supper before the Civil War, but in the era before refrigeration, keeping grape juice fresh was difficult. The Methodist minister Thomas Welch solved this problem in 1869 by using pasteurization to produce a grape juice product that could be stored indefinitely without the risk of fermentation. “Dr. Welch’s Unfermented Wine”—which later became Welch’s Grape Juice—was originally marketed expressly for communion use in temperance churches. Several of the new denominations that developed in early-19th-century America adopted a commitment to teetotalism because of their roots in the new evangelical Protestant culture of total abstinence. The Seventh-day Adventists, a group that emerged in the mid-19th century, proscribed the use of all alcoholic beverages. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which Joseph Smith founded in 1830, originally tolerated some use of alcoholic beverages in moderation, but it eventually made a proscription on alcohol binding on all members—a stance that it maintains today. The Salvation Army, a Wesleyan denomination that formed in Britain in the 19th century, adopted a similar ban on alcohol use. After the Civil War, the temperance movement continued to grow in the United States, with the Women Christian’s Temperance Union becoming the largest women’s grassroots political organization in America in the late 19th century. The
temperance movement also spread to the South and gained many converts among Baptists. By 1900, Baptists and Methodists in all parts of the nation were committed to total abstinence from alcoholic beverages, and their pastors were generally supportive of legal Prohibition as well. The Anti-Saloon League, founded in Oberlin, Ohio, in 1893, organized thousands of Protestant ministers across denominational lines to lobby for nationwide Prohibition. Indeed, by the beginning of the 20th century, American clergy from most denominational traditions—especially from Methodist, Baptist, Wesleyan Holiness, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist denominations but also many from other denominational traditions—decried alcohol use and, in many cases, supported legal restrictions on its production and sale. Many Protestant
A “wandering preacher” who had given up drinking seen in Belle Glade, Florida, in 1939. While the Southern Baptist Convention continued to insist on abstinence from alcohol in 2006, a Pew Research study that year found that only 29 percent of American Christians believe that it is wrong to drink alcohol.
congregations, particularly among Baptists and Wesleyan Holiness groups, began requiring pledges of abstinence from alcoholic beverages as a condition of membership. For approximately a century, from the 1820s to the 1920s, the campaign against alcohol was the leading social campaign of American Protestant churches, uniting Protestants from all political parties, theological traditions, and denominational affiliations. Only a few Protestants, such as Episcopalians (for whom the sacramental use of wine was important) and Lutherans (whose churches consisted mainly of German and Scandinavian immigrants, who saw no reason to join an Anglo-American campaign that targeted their breweries), resisted the influence of the temperance movement; most other Protestants, whether they were African American Pentecostals, white Southern Baptists, or New England Congregationalists, expressed their disapproval of alcohol. They rejoiced when the Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited the sale or manufacture of alcoholic beverages, became part of the United States Constitution in 1919. A few American Catholic priests, such as Archbishop John Ireland of St. Paul, Minnesota, supported the temperance movement, but because of the anti-Catholic views of many Protestants in the movement, most American Catholics were wary of it. The Catholic Church, which continued to require the use of alcoholic wine in the Eucharist, rejected the commitment to total abstinence that some Protestant churches required, though a few Catholics did advocate a teetotal position. In various parts of Europe, both Protestant and Catholic Christians also campaigned for temperance in the 19th century, with a few—including the Irish Catholic priest Theobald Mathew—urging total abstinence. But for the most part in Europe, the temperance movement advocated moderation in the consumption of alcoholic beverages, rather than total abstinence, partly because in the Catholic parts of Europe, the temperance movement was a Catholic-led campaign. By contrast, in Protestant Britain, the 19th-century temperance movement did entail a commitment to total abstinence, and British Methodists abstained from the use of alcoholic beverages in the 19th century, just as their American counterparts did.
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After the Temperance Movement By the mid-20th century, the temperance movement was moribund in Britain, and it fell on hard times in the United States as well, largely because of the popular perception that Prohibition, which was repealed in 1933, had been a failure. Yet the commitment to total abstinence lived on in the evangelical churches of the United States. Though liberal Protestants abandoned their commitment to total abstinence almost immediately after Prohibition, evangelical Protestants—particularly, Baptists, Pentecostals, Wesleyan Holiness Christians, and most fundamentalists—continued to condemn the use of alcohol until the late 20th century. For most of the 20th century, the nation’s leading evangelical colleges and seminaries, such as Wheaton College and Moody Bible Institute, required faculty and students to abstain from alcohol. Even some denominations, such as the United Methodist Church, that abandoned their historic commitment to total abstinence retained a vestige of the temperance tradition by continuing to serve grape juice, rather than wine, in communion. In the last three decades, there has been a rapid rejection of total abstinence among evangelical Protestants in the United States, as a younger generation of evangelicals has argued that there is no biblical or historical warrant for proscribing the use of alcohol. Wheaton College and Moody Bible Institute, along with a host of other evangelical institutions, rescinded their proscriptions on faculty alcohol use in the early 21st century. There are a few major exceptions to this trend: the Southern Baptist Convention reiterated its official commitment to total abstinence from alcohol in 2006, and a number of Wesleyan Holiness denominations and fundamentalist colleges likewise continue to proscribe drinking. Yet the number of American evangelicals who view all alcohol use as a sin is far smaller than it was a half-century ago. A 2006 Pew Research study finds that only 29 percent of American Christians believe that it is wrong to drink alcohol. Although they have largely abandoned the 19th-century temperance movement’s view that alcohol is an inherently addictive substance, Christian churches of many denominational traditions nevertheless recognize the problems that result from alcohol addiction for the minority of drinkers who do become chemically or psychologically
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dependent on the drug. Many churches have created addiction-recovery programs and have made alcohol-addiction treatment a central component of their mission work. Some churches that have abandoned their historic commitment to total abstinence nevertheless continue to use nonalcoholic grape juice in their communion services because of their sensitivity to the needs of recovering alcoholics, pregnant women, children, and others who may wish to abstain from even small amounts of alcohol. While alcohol consumption is becoming increasingly acceptable among American Protestants, and while it is continuing unabated in Catholic and Orthodox churches (which account for more than half of the world’s Christians), hundreds of millions of Christians around the world continue to shun alcohol. Most Pentecostals and charismatic Christians, who now account for 500 million of the world’s 2 billion Christians, maintain a strong antipathy to drinking as a reflection of their origins in the teetotalling early-20thcentury Wesleyan holiness movement. In recent decades, many American Pentecostal and charismatic Christians have begun drinking alcohol, but in the developing world, Pentecostals still believe in total abstinence. In Africa, where Pentecostalism and charismatic Christianity account for approximately one-third of the continent’s 400 million Christians, most devout Protestant Christians—whether Pentecostal or not—consider it sinful to consume an alcoholic beverage. The vast majority of Pentecostals in Latin America and Asia also consider it a sin to drink alcohol. Christianity’s complicated relationship to alcohol thus continues in the 21st century. Whether alcohol is an essential component of worship, a blessing from God, or an evil that must be shunned continues to be a matter of debate among some Christians—just as it has been for the last two centuries. Daniel K. Williams University of West Georgia See Also: Alcoholics for Christ; Anti-Saloon League; Catholic Total Abstinence Society; Catholicism; Mathew, Father Theobald; Non-Partisan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union; Religion; Temperance,
History of; Temperance Movements; Temperance Movements, Religion in. Further Readings Abzug, Robert H. Cosmos Crumbling: American Reform and the Religious Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Bailey, Sarah Pulliam. “Moody Bible Institute Drops Alcohol and Tobacco Ban for Employees.” Christianity Today (September 20, 2013). http:// www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2013/ september/moody-bible-institute-drops-employee -alcohol-tobacco-ban.html (Accessed March 2014). Clark, Norman H. Deliver Us From Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition. New York: W. W. Norton, 1976. Cook, Christopher C. H. Alcohol, Addiction and Christian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Patterson, Jeremy James. “Wine (Greek and Roman).” In The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed., Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, eds. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Pew Research Religion and Public Life Project. “Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals.” http://www.pewforum.org/2006/10/05/spirit-and -power (Accessed March 2014). Raymond, Irving Woodworth. The Teaching of the Early Church on the Use of Wine and Strong Drink, 2nd ed. New York: AMS, 1970. Unger, Richard W. Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
Churchill, Winston Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was British politician and statesman, Nobel laureate in literature, prime minister from 1940 to 1945 and 1951 to 1955, and a leader of the free world in World War II. He is the son of a possible alcoholic, Lord Randolph Churchill, whose early death was, however, not ascribed to alcoholism and who spoke out against heavy drinking, and the father of a probable alcoholic, Randolph Churchill. He
is the subject of a famous White House anecdote involving alcohol: When Churchill was visiting the White House during World War II, it was sometime around 2 a.m. and he was prowling the halls. When asked why, replied that he was thirsty. The White House aide offered to get him some water, to which Churchill reportedly replied, “I said thirsty—not dirty.” Since Churchill was known to drink both brandy and Champagne (and, by the way, eat oysters) for breakfast, his connections with alcohol have been the subject of some speculation (as indeed, given his consumption of cigars, have been his connections with tobacco). The editor of Churchill’s correspondence with Franklin Roosevelt has suggested that Churchill could not have been an alcoholic because he drank too much, too long to have survived even as a functional alcoholic (in other words, if alcoholism is a disease that destroys, which by definition it is, he couldn’t have had it because he was not destroyed by it) but that he was in a curious way alcohol dependent. Alcohol dependency may be—and is—distinguished from alcoholism, but beneficent alcohol dependency would be problematic if not paradoxical. Churchill did, on a bet with H. S. Harmsworth, the first Viscount Rothermere, abstain from hard liquor for a year, but Champagne is not hard liquor, and the bet leads to suspicions that he himself might have been worried about his drinking. As a young man, Churchill began drinking what his daughter called his papa cocktail—a smidgen of Johnnie Walker Scotch Whisky covering the bottom of a tumbler that was then filled with water and sipped from throughout the morning. He began this practice in India and continued it in South Africa, because, according to him, the water there was unfit to drink without adding the whisky to cleanse it, and “by dint of careful application” he learned to like it. The “cocktail” was more akin to mouthwash than to scotch and water, in the words of one observer, John Colville. He did drink copiously at meals—but when he was well into his 80s (and he was prime minister in his 80s) his blood pressure was 140/80, leading to suggestions that his body chemistry may have been altogether extraordinary. He was known to tell men who drank their whisky neat that they were not likely to live long lives if they went on drinking like that.
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His sense of humor makes it difficult to trace what he actually thought about drinking in general and his own drinking. He is reported to have told the King of Saudi Arabia (whose religion proscribes alcohol) that his rule of life required drinking before, during, and after meals. He was reputed to have been able to outdrink Joseph Stalin, but he himself said the stories were exaggerated, and that he did not engage in drinking bouts with Stalin, having been properly brought up. His father, he said, taught him to have the utmost contempt for drunkards, a statement not uttered humorously and, if taken literally, suggesting a principle that was his guide for life. His strictures on drinking Champagne are not those of an alcoholic but simply of an intelligent observer: “A glass of Champagne lifts the spirits and sharpens the wits but a bottle produces the opposite effect” lacks the desperation of “One drink is too many and a thousand never enough,” though it is a similarly balanced sentence. The famous interchange supposed to have taken place between Churchill and Nancy Lady Astor or Bessie Braddock MP—“You are ugly”/“Winston, you’re drunk”/“But in the morning I’ll be sober”— was reported by his bodyguard Ron Golding to have taken place when Churchill was simply tired. Or he may have borrowed the whole thing from Lord Birkenhead or someone else (possibly the American actor W. C. Fields) as part of his public and perhaps self-mocking persona. Recognition in the United States Churchill was made a full U.S. citizen by vote of Congress in 1963, and the last honor he is known to have accepted, in December 1964, was the Nathan Hale Award of the Yale Political Union, given to “that citizen of the United States who has done the most to advance the causes of parliamentary debate and representative democracy.” His mother’s cousin was the New York district attorney William Travers Jerome, and his maternal grandfather was the financier Leonard Jerome of Jerome Avenue. Both of his mother’s sisters married in Britain, so that his Anglo-Irish cousins Sir John Randolph (Shane) Leslie and Hugh and Oswald Moreton Frewen were in fact his American cousins. Perhaps, Americans understood him at least as well as—and in some cases better than—the British,
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and they may have admired him more: His greatest admirer may have been Dwight Eisenhower, who took up painting because Churchill painted and whose descriptions of Churchill’s wartime lunches conspicuously lack any account of any alcohol at all. Ike, of course, was known, in the words of Stephen Ambrose, for going weeks without taking a drink, not because he had any thought that a man in his position ought not to touch alcohol, but simply because he was too busy to take the time for a pre-dinner cocktail, ate too fast to have any wine with dinner, and worked too late in the evening for a nightcap. This may overlook the strength of Ike’s Mennonite heritage, but the point here is that Churchill drank with meals, Ike did not, and when they ate together, apparently neither did—which strongly suggests neither needed to. Probably the bestavailable conclusion is that Churchill was on guard against alcoholic drinking but that he did not drink alcoholically—and that some of his apparent behavior was merely apparent. The parallel with his cigar smoking is instructive: one might reasonably say that his affinity to the bottle was a stage prop, like his cigars, which he mostly allowed to go out, rarely smoked beyond a third of their length, and then discarded after chewing the remaining butt. There seems to have been a period—perhaps from the time of Abraham Lincoln—when political leaders found it necessary to have a well-built public persona, perhaps to protect them from the public. An instructive example would be Churchill’s American contemporary, the apparently monosyllabic “Puritan” (John) Calvin Coolidge, whose built-up persona concealed the fluency of a garrulous student of the classics who could quote Vergil by the running yard, staying up late over the White House dinner table with the writer and statesman John Buchan, which mostly concealed the astringent wit of Amherst 1894’s “Class Humorist.” Of course, the drinker who pretends to be much more of a drinker than he is—like the late singer/actor/comedian Dean Martin—is a familiar-enough figure. Dean Martin played it for laughs—and so, apparently, did Churchill.
Utmost Acclaim When Time magazine took a poll at the end of the 20th century, Churchill was reckoned as the second-greatest man of the century, behind Albert Einstein. From the days when the British humorist Saki caricatured him (as Quinston) before World War I to the time when the signal went out to the ships in World War II announcing “Winston is back!” Churchill was accorded the distinction of being known by his first name. If someone referred to “Winston Churchill,” he or she might have meant the American novelist of that name. If he or she referred to “Winston,” there was no doubt who was meant. The humorist and independent MP, Sir Alan Patrick Herbert recalled standing by Churchill after an all-night session of Parliament during the war, seeing the “great man” smile, and feeling himself to be on intimate terms with a god in good humor. A man so extraordinary as Churchill might well have an extraordinary metabolism—a man whose fame and success came when most of his generation were dead; a man who stood for Parliament when Victoria was queen; a man who outlived John F. Kennedy (by more than a year); and a man who charged with the British cavalry at Omdurman against the dervishes, directed British tanks in World War I, directed the defense of the free world in World War II, and was prime minister during both World War II and the Korean War, and who served more than 60 years in the House of Commons (and refused the title and honor of Duke of London to stay there). Was he an alcoholic? There are many in AA who would say yes; some would say no. There are a number of historians who would say yes, but more—apparently—who would say no. Did he himself know the answer to the question? To that question itself, it may be that the answer is no. One thing seems clear: if he was a functioning alcoholic, he seems to have functioned on a higher level than any other known alcoholic in history. Jared Lobdell Independent Scholar See Also: Functional Alcoholic, Sociology of; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; United Kingdom.
Further Readings Ambrose, Stephen. Eisenhower: Soldier and President. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. Churchill, Winston. History of the Second World War: Their Finest Hour. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985. Churchill, Winston. My Early Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010. Cooke, Alastair. General Eisenhower on the Military Churchill. New York: Norton, 1970. Herbert, A. P. Independent Member. London: Methuen, 1950. Mather, John H. “Sir Winston Churchill: His Hardiness and Resilience.” In Proceedings of the International Churchill Society. Hopkinton, NH: International Churchill Society, 1989. Richards, Michael. “Churchill: Alcohol Abuser?” http://www.winstonchurchill.org (Accessed February 2014).
Cider Cider, also known as sweet cider or apple cider, has a brief history. Before the 20th century, cider and hard cider were interchangeable, referring to any apple juice fermented to produce alcohol at room temperature. There was no such thing as nonalcoholic cider. Matters changed in the 20th century for two reasons. The more important is that refrigeration arrested the process of fermentation and allowed cider makers to create a new beverage: nonalcoholic or sweet cider. Cider is popular in autumn and as a festive beverage during Halloween. The other reason was the rise of the Temperance movement and the shortlived success of Prohibition. During Prohibition, Temperance advocates counseled Americans to forgo hard cider for nonalcoholic cider in keeping with the law and the perpetuation of morality and sobriety. According to some authorities, cider and indeed hard cider have grown in popularity in recent years as Americans have become more willing to experiment with their taste buds. Making of Cider Several variables determine the quality of cider: the acidity of the apple juice; the weather; the
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varieties of apples; the size of the cider-making operation; the type of equipment; the addition of sugar, honey, or other sweeteners; and the preference of consumers. The process of cider making begins with the harvest in late summer or autumn. The cider maker must be sure the apples are ripe by slicing one. If it has brown seeds, it is ripe. Unripe apples ruin the quality of cider. It is ideal to have several varieties of apples on hand to make the most palatable blends of cider. Apples that have fallen to the ground should be discarded because they may harbor toxic microbes if they have lain on the grass several hours. Rotten apples should likewise be discarded. One author recommends the uses of apples with worms, but this suggestion may strike one as repulsive. Surely, the presence of worms must cause the flavor to deteriorate. Apples should not be stored on the ground once picked. A tarp, concrete, or a wooden platform should instead be used. Apples should be allowed to soften to the point that a firm squeeze will leave finger marks. This should take seven to 10 days. Apples at this stage have maximum sugar content and so yield the best flavor. The varieties Jonathan, Newtown, and Rome Beauty do not benefit from storage and should be crushed and pressed as soon as they are picked for maximum flavor. One should wash apples to remove leaves, twigs, bacteria, insects, and any pesticide residues. Apples with a few brown spots can be used, but one should cut out these spots. This author recommends washing apples in a large tub outdoors. The next step calls on the cider maker to grind or crush the apples. This is a separate step from pressing. The goal of crushing is to make available the maximum juice from apples. Crushing turns apples into a type of pulp called pomace. An old hand grinder is satisfactory, but the yield of juice is higher with a motor-operated hammer mill. The finer the pomace, the higher the yield of juice. The traditional dessert apples emerge from grinding with the consistency of applesauce. Crab apples yield a more granular texture. On a small scale, the homemaker may crush apples with a kitchen blender. In all cases, apples should be added to the grinder whole. They should not be peeled. Not all grinders will accommodate crab apples, which might jam the machine because of
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their smallness. One should crush different varieties of apples in separate mills. The grinding stage is too early to combine various varieties. One should proceed to the stage of pressing as soon as apples are crushed. The pomace, if not immediately pressed, will attract wasps and flies. Whereas grinding releases the juice, pressing extracts it from the ruptured fruit cells. Pressing, as the name suggests, applies pressure to the pomace, causing juice to flow out of the press. The pressure is increased in increments until all juice is extracted. Pressing takes only about a half hour, though one may maintain pressure for several hours or perhaps even overnight to be sure of extracting the maximum juice. The juice is known as must. At this stage, one blends the juice from different varieties of apples to achieve a balanced flavor. One must refrigerate the juice so that it does not ferment into hard cider. Cider may be stored in glass or polyethylene containers.
The Apple The most important determinant of the quality of cider is the quality of the varieties of apples. One should smell and taste a potential cider apple to be sure it is pleasing. Tasting an apple is particularly important when one encounters a new or unfamiliar variety to be sure of its palatability. The same tree will yield apples of different sizes so it is incumbent on the cider maker to choose the best size for crushing and pressing. In this context, any apple smaller than two inches in diameter is by definition a crab apple. As a rule, European cider makers tend to prefer a smaller apple than do U.S. cider makers. The skin is as important as any other part of the apple save the pulp because it yields essential oils and the chemicals that produce aroma. The skin also imparts color to cider. Some cider makers believe that apples with a rough texture make the best cider, though there appears to be little empirical evidence for this belief. In the parlance of cider
Pressing apples for cider in Germany in 2010. The juice that is extracted from the pulp, which makes up 95 percent of an apple, has a higher density than water and will therefore sink if mixed with water. The juice is mostly water, along with the sugars glucose, laevulose and saccharose, malic acid, tannins, pectin, starch, albuminoids, oils, ash, nitrogenous compounds, and a few minor elements.
making, these apples are known as leather coats. The belief in the utility of leather coats dates to the 17th century. The varieties Rosbury Russet and Golden Russet are rough textured. Apple flowers that are incompletely pollinated yield fewer than 10 seeds and may have an irregular shape. Fortunately, an apple’s shape should not affect the quality of cider. In fact, a dearth of seeds should diminish the hint of bitterness in cider. The seeds of the apple may impart bitterness to cider, much as hops impart bitterness to beer. Some cider drinkers find this hint of bitterness palatable. Others dislike it. The process of grinding pulverizes the apples, seeds, and all. The pulp of an apple is the most responsible component in the quality of cider. Depending on the variety of apple, the pulp may be dry, juicy, hard, or soft. The English prefer to use dry apples to make cider. The pulp comprises 95 percent of an apple. The juice that is extracted from the pulp has a higher density than water and will therefore sink if mixed with water. The juice is 75 to 90 percent water. The remainder is the all-important sugars glucose, laevulose and saccharose, malic acid, tannins, pectin, starch, albuminoids, oils, ash, nitrogenous compounds, and a few minor elements. Apples picked from the same tree may vary in sugar content by as much as 30 percent. The juice derived from pressing is about 8–14 percent sugar. Malic acid gives cider its tartness. The more malic the acid, the lighter will be the color of cider. Conversely, the less malic the acid, the darker will be the color of cider. The presence of malic acid is therefore important. An apple with a pH higher (less acidic) than 3.8 will not make good cider because it does not have enough malic acid. Tannins are important to prevent diseases from plaguing apples and to slow the conversion of cider to vinegar. Crab apples tend to be higher in sugar and tannins than dessert apples, though they seldom taste sweet. As the tastes of consumers changes, so do the varieties of apples favored for cider. Europeans once placed great stock in the Red Streak, Bromesbury Crab, Red Must, White Must, Harvey, Pearmain, Foxwhelp, and Genmet Mayle varieties. All are now out of fashion. In the United States, the Baldwin apple has fallen out of favor. Even the once-popular varieties Harrison, Campfield, American Hagloe Crab, Grindstone, and Hewe’s
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Virginia Crab have fallen by the wayside. The fickleness of taste has kept scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the land grant universities, and the agricultural experiment station busy breeding new cider apples in the hopes of captivating the public with something novel and tasty. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: Applejack; Fermentation: Ancient Era Through Middle Ages; Hard Cider; Wines, Fruit. Further Readings Janik, Erika. Apple: A Global History. London: Reaktion Books, 2011. Proulx, Annie and Lew Nichols. Cider: Making, Using and Enjoying Sweet and Hard Cider. North Adams, MA: Storey Books, 1997. Stewart, Amy. The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World’s Great Drinks. New York: Algonquin Books, 2013.
Civil Damage Laws Civil Damage Laws, sometimes referred to as “dramshop laws,” became common throughout the United States in the 1870s as a means to allow those harmed by the actions of a drinking individual to sue for damages. During the saloon period, these lawsuits were rarely aimed solely at the drinker; instead, they were generally filed against the saloon keeper at the establishment where the imbibing individual had obtained or was known to obtain alcohol. Today, in most states, those who have been the victim of damages inflicted by an intoxicated person are still able to file lawsuits for damages against the establishment that served the alcohol as well as the individual who caused the damages while intoxicated. Origins In their inception, civil damage laws appeared to simply be about justice or perhaps encouraging more responsibility from saloon keepers and bartenders; in reality, such laws were brought about as part of a larger strategy aimed at the
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destruction of the saloon. The 1872 Illinois Temperance Law serves an excellent example of this. By its very name, this law denotes that its goal was to curb drinking rather than help individuals recover damages that were rightly owed to them. The law was typical of the types of civil damage laws that became common in the late 19th century. Under such laws, individuals could sue saloon keepers for damage done by their customers under several different circumstances. First of all, spouses and other family members who relied on support became entitled to sue dispensers of alcohol for lost wages and damages done to their families by a family member’s habitual drinking. In other cases, individuals who were wronged by a drunken individual were entitled to sue the establishment where that person obtained alcohol. In some cases, the individuals who became intoxicated could sue their saloon keeper for damages done to them by their own drinking. In many cases, civil damage laws also applied to the serving of minors, allowing lawsuits to be filed against saloon keepers who served underage customers. Early Lawsuits In the wake of such laws, many a courtroom featured what came to be familiar scenes. One of the most common was as follows: a female plaintiff claiming that her husband had become a drunkard as a result of frequenting one or more saloons, with a saloon keeper sitting at the defense table accused of providing liquor to the plaintiff’s husband. This individual, the plaintiff charged, now dead, injured, or unable to work, came to this result due to his alcohol consumption at that particular saloonkeeper’s establishment. If the drunkard in question was indeed still alive, he would usually take the witness stand in order to prove that indeed he was a helpless and pathetic individual who was no longer able to control his own behavior as a result of a drinking habit he had acquired at the saloonkeeper’s place of business. In some cases, the wife might claim that she had in fact warned this saloon keeper to no longer serve her husband, but he had continued to do so anyway. While this was the most common sort of dramshop lawsuit during the saloon period, other similar scenes featured sons who had a mother to
support but as a result of an acquired drinking habit could no longer do so. In other lawsuits, an individual may have had an accident inside of or upon leaving the saloon while intoxicated leaving him dead or maimed. In others, an intoxicated individual might have harmed another person who then sought damages. While some proponents of civil damage laws may have claimed that they were simply trying to better regulate the saloon business, in reality these laws had the effect of making a saloon keeper’s business a more precarious enterprise, as many saloon keepers found themselves the subjects of lawsuits brought as a result of their customers’ behavior, something that in reality they oftentimes had very little control over. First of all, those tending bar were required to have a sense of who had become too intoxicated to continue drinking or might have already been in such a state upon entering the establishment. Second, as a result of civil damage lawsuits, saloon keepers had to be aware of their customers’ drinking proclivities, knowing who was fine to serve and who should not be served. For instance, many local statutes prohibited saloon keepers from serving “habitual drunkards.” A saloon keeper might be made aware that a person in the community was a habitual drunkard in a variety of ways. In some cases, a family member of that individual might inform the employee of this, expecting that he would therefore voluntarily stop serving that person. In some cases, this worked, but in others saloon keepers went right on serving him anyway. Another way that saloon keepers found out that an individual should no longer be served was through a visit by an officer of the law. In some communities, a list of the town’s habitual drunkards was kept and distributed to saloon keepers by local law enforcement. However, it would have been very challenging even for a saloon keeper who attempted to observe the list to do so, especially in an age before laminated identification cards. After all, a person on the list might not be a regular customer and might wander in seeking a drink like any other person. Also, a bartender on duty might serve that individual unknowingly, which could ultimately land his employer in court. While the primary purpose of civil damage laws may have been to hold those who served alcohol
accountable, they also had an impact on American attitudes about an individual’s volition, in terms of his ability to be accountable for his own actions. As historians of the period have demonstrated, one of the most important principles that saloon-goers prized was the ability to tend to their own business. A saloon-goer who stepped over the line of saloon etiquette by involving himself in another customer’s business was likely to encounter trouble. Also, an excessively intoxicated customer who was seen as “not holding his liquor” could face exclusion and ostracism by his saloongoing peers. For an individual to be the subject of a civil damages lawsuit indicated that he was not responsible for his own behavior. Instead, such lawsuits demonstrated that the drinker in question did not live up to the saloon’s masculine code of independence and discretion. Furthermore, they made another person, in this case the saloon keeper, responsible for the personal decisions of his customers. Contemporary Lawsuits While civil damage lawsuits originated in the saloon period, they have continued to play a role in society. However, there are fewer civil damage lawsuits today that relate to habitual drunkards. The majority of these suits now relate to automobile accidents caused as a result of driving while intoxicated. According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, there were 10,322 drunk-driving fatalities in 2012, composing 31 percent of all traffic deaths that year. In some states, a victim of an intoxicated individual can sue every establishment who sold the individual alcohol during a bout of drinking. Most states, however, only allow a lawsuit against the vendor who sold alcohol to an obviously intoxicated person or to a minor. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, there are now 30 states that allow plaintiffs to sue businesses that serve alcohol to individuals who then cause harm to others as a result of intoxication. In 22 of these states, the drinker in question must have been “obviously intoxicated” or underage. Nevada and South Dakota exempt establishments serving alcohol from any liability, while Louisiana only holds an establishment liable if the drinker is underage. The legal principle that allows such lawsuits is “proximate cause,” which describes a party that is not the direct cause of the
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incident that leads to death or injury, but bears some responsibility nonetheless. In most cases, the intoxicated individual is also held responsible for his or her actions. Under such circumstances, once damages are awarded, the establishment and the individual who caused the damage will share in the financial responsibility of the judgment. In some cases, the individual who caused an accident while intoxicated is able to sue the establishment where he or she consumed the alcohol. Such cases harken back to the first civil damage cases. In order to avoid such lawsuits, many establishments train their servers to recognize signs of intoxication and when and how to stop serving intoxicated individuals. During civil damage lawsuits, establishments that have engaged in such training will use this fact in their defense, also known as the Safe Harbor defense or sometimes the Trained Server defense. It is, of course, in an alcohol-serving establishment’s interest to carefully avoid lawsuits in the first place, which can help lower insurance rates and lessen the likelihood of being called as a defendant in a dramshop lawsuit. Steven D. Barleen Northern Illinois University See Also: Drunk-Driving Laws; Drunkenness, Legal Definitions of; Server Responsibility Laws, U.S. Further Readings Blocker, Jack S. American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform. Boston: Twayne, 1989. Cook, Philip J. Paying the Tab: The Cost and Benefits of Alcohol Control. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. Hamm, Richard F. Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment: Temperance Reform, Legal Culture, and the Polity, 1880–1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Illinois General Assembly. The Temperance Law of the State of Illinois: Being a Correct Copy of the Law as Passed by the General Assembly and Approved by the Governor, 1872. Springfield, IL: Sturges & Reynolds, 1872. Mothers Against Drunk Driving. “Drunk Driving Deaths Increased in 2012.” Mothers Against Drunk Driving. http://madd.org/blog/2013/ november/2012-fatality-data.html (Accessed November 2013)
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National Conference of State Legislatures. “Dram Shop Civil Liability and Criminal Penalty State Statutes.” http://www.ncsl.org/research/financial -services-and-commerce/dram-shop-liability-state -statutes.aspx (Accessed November 2013). Parsons, Elaine Frantz. Manhood Lost: Fallen Drunkards and Redeeming Women in the Nineteenth-Century United States. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2003. Sloan, Frank A. Drinkers, Drivers, and the Bartenders: Balancing Private Choices and Public Accountability. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
Cocktail Parties “The cocktail hour is one of our American inventions,” a hostessing guide from 1940 says. “The first requisite for a party is good liquor. The second is plenty of it. Don’t try substituting the second recommendation for the first.” The cocktail itself was an American invention, combining ingredients both foreign and domestic in new concoctions that balanced sweet, sour, bitter, and “strong” (the flavor of the alcohol itself). According to the same guide, the most popular drinks at cocktail parties—the six any hostess should be prepared to provide—were bacardi cocktails, daiquiris, dry martinis, manhattans, old-fashioneds, and whiskey sours, but trends varied over time, and more than 20 years before this guide, martinis were all but dismissed as “old-fashioned.” One of the advantages to cocktail parties is that they provided women with an environment in which to drink (and to have more options than the wine customarily acceptable with dinner) without stigma. Historically, cocktail parties have included finger food in the form of hors d’oeuvres, canapes (small spicy or salty snacks with a base of bread or cracker over which is draped a “canopy” of savory ingredients like meat or cheese), and crudites (raw vegetables for dip). Unsurprisingly, many foods incorporating the term cocktail in their name have also been popular inclusions at cocktail parties, from fruit cocktail (a sweetened fruit salad which at one point would have often
included maraschino liqueur or Angostura bitters as a flavoring) to shrimp cocktail (cold-boiled shrimp served with horseradish-spiked, tomatobased sauce in a cocktail glass). Origins Legend has often contended that the cocktail party was invented in London in 1925 by the author Alex Waugh (the older brother of Evelyn), but legend is, in this case, only that—though it is possible that Waugh threw the first cocktail parties known to his social circle. The cocktail party seems to have originated, or at least first been popularized, by Mr. and Mrs. Julius S. Walsh of St. Louis. The Walshes’ cocktail parties were first reported on in 1917 (by the Washington Post) as an idea for other couples to emulate; it’s unclear how long they may have been hosting them at that point. The Walshes hosted 50 people on Sundays for cocktails prepared by a “white-coated professional drink mixer” before serving a 1:00 p.m. dinner. Specific cocktails mentioned include Sazeracs (whiskey with bitters and absinthe), clover leafs (gin with lemon, grenadine, and an egg white), bronxes (a perfect martini with orange juice), gin fizzes, mint juleps, highballs, and “a few who had been to church were old-fashioned enough to order a Martini or a Manhattan.” The Post article compared the cocktail parties, which apparently caught on in the Walshes’ social circle, to an earlier St. Louis society fad from the 1900s, the “early morning eggnog parties.” The Walshes themselves had also previously organized a “baby party” at the St. Louis Country Club, at which attendees dressed as toddlers and drank cocktails prepared in baby bottles. There is little mention of the institution of the cocktail party in the New York papers—one of the cities most associated with cocktails—until the coverage of the “cocktail party case” in the New York Times in 1926. With Prohibition still in force, Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler, who had served as director of public safety in Philadelphia (and was charged with enforcing the Prohibition law) before taking command of the Marine Base at San Diego, charged Colonel Alexander Williams with intoxication and serving cocktails at the dinner the colonel held in honor of Butler’s new command. Though it is widely assumed that Williams was guilty, for Butler to charge him went
against basic etiquette and the good behavior of a guest, and Williams’s fellow officers did their best to protect him, testifying that he had been “ill,” not intoxicated. He was found guilty of intoxication but acquitted on other counts, and demoted four numbers in grade. He died shortly thereafter in a car accident. For his part, Butler later became famous for exposing a 1933 plan by businessmen to overthrow the American government by military coup, and for his outspoken criticism of war profiteers. New York’s mayor Fiorello La Guardia coined the term cocktail putsch to describe the conspiracy theory (though a Congressional investigation upheld Butler’s claims): a straight-faced suggestion made as a joke at a cocktail party, which in La Guardia’s view Butler was wrong to have taken seriously. Early Consumption of Cocktails in Society The cocktail party was probably introduced at just the right time to become popular: the electric refrigerator had been invented in 1913 and gradually made its way into American homes in the years after World War I, when the United States enjoyed a period of prosperity due to the strength of the dollar compared to the currency of war-torn Europe. Though Prohibition began shortly thereafter, the well-to-do were still able to acquire bootlegged alcohol for their homes, often in the form of imported brands rather than the moonshine and bathtub gin the working classes were forced to turn to. Prohibition also introduced the practice of serving small finger foods with drinks, as speakeasies provided food for their customers in order to slow down their intoxication and sell more drinks. Often these foods were salty; they included salty nuts, olives, pickles, cheese, cured meats, pretzels, or vegetables stuffed with ham. Though cocktails had been around for decades (the first drinks guide to include them by name was published in 1862, and many drinks we now consider cocktails in the broad sense were decades old by then), articles on cocktail parties in the 1930s continued to report on them as though they were a recent innovation. Prohibition had essentially mainstreamed the cocktail. In 1935, about 13 months after Prohibition’s end, the New York Times reported:
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One of the odd developments of our thirteenyear “drought” was the increasing popularity of the cocktail habit: the mixing of this potent drink was always a favorite topic of conversation. Today, with foreign lands and our own distilleries contributing more and more varieties of liquors to its concocting, the mixing of cocktails is becoming more of an art than ever before. And the cocktail party, which usually begins late in the afternoon and lasts for a few hours at least, is now an established institution. . . . The “cocktail hour” not only whets the appetite for food, but also satisfies it. With the many drinks are eaten delicate gastronomic bits: caviar, anchovies, rare cheeses, red salmon roe, crisp crackers and biscuits, constant processions of tempting canapes and hors d’oeuvres passed on trays, in seemingly undiminished numbers. The cocktail hour has qualified as a social institution. In the course of 18 years, then, the cocktail party had shifted from an after-church Sunday matinee affair to a preevening ritual. Common foods served at cocktail parties have varied with era and with region but usually have focused on hors d’oeuvres, which may include dips for pretzels, chips, or crudites; fondue; cocktailsized meatballs (small enough to eat with a toothpick); shrimp cocktail; oysters on the half-shell, whether raw or in a preparation like Oysters Rockefeller; smoked salmon; devils on horseback; and deviled eggs. Often these foods were served buffet style or by waiters carrying snack trays rather than served directly to guests congregating at a dinner table to eat. This also allows for a larger number of guests than could be accommodated if it were necessary to seat them at the table. It also became common to serve cocktails before dinner at dinner parties, an area that overlaps somewhat with the cocktail party itself. A 1934 Washington Post article gives very specific instructions about the serving of small snacks with predinner drinks: With cocktails before dinner, very dainty canapes should be served. These can be decorated with caviar and flavored with chopped hardboiled egg, cooked mushrooms, lemon juice, or just a little minced onion. Canapes of anchovy
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paste or other fish pastes are appropriate. Little pearl onions, stuffed olives, or sweet pickles can be served. Toasted crackers with little dabs of Welsh rarebit, served hot, are delicious. The article further discusses appropriate foods for cocktail parties (where the author, interestingly, believes highballs will be the drink served): Thin slices of buttered bread, with a layer of chopped water cress seasoned with a little lemon juice or mayonnaise are rolled up and tied with a green ribbon [often such “ribbon” was the green part of a scallion]. Cucumbers marinated in French dressing and flavored with a tiny bit of chopped onion make an excellent sandwich filling. Another good filling consists of a cup of finely chopped celery with a tablespoon each of chopped apples, nuts, or olives, mixed with mayonnaise. No sweet sandwiches are appropriate. On the eve of World War II, James Beard published a cookbook of hors d’oeuvre and canape recipes intended for hostesses throwing cocktail parties, which he praised for serving foods drawn from many ethnic and cultural backgrounds. His recipes included stuffed beets, tongue sandwiches, and hot nut burger balls. After World War II, many returning soldiers retained their hunger for the tropical foods and drinks they had had while serving in the Pacific, which led to the craze for Polynesian-themed foods, drinks, and restaurants in the 1950s and 1960s, spearheaded by the Trader Vic’s restaurant chain. During this time, tiki drinks flourished, featuring blends of rums, liqueurs, and tropical juices; the exotica genre of music was popularized by Martin Denny, Yma Sumac, and Les Baxter; and cocktail parties might feature piña coladas and other tiki drinks, or add paper umbrellas to traditional cocktails, while serving tropical fruit, sweet-and-sour chicken skewers, and rumaki. The last is a Trader Vic invention that remained a cocktail party staple for decades, consisting of water chestnut and chicken liver wrapped in bacon or pastrami and marinated in a sweet soy sauce before broiling or grilling. Other tropical touches included using coconut shells as cups and turning pineapples into centerpieces or serving dishes.
Mid-Century to Today By the 1960s, James Beard’s cookbooks scolded hostesses for hosting cocktail parties that were too formal, recommending that these parties were best suited as informal get-togethers with a few snacks. By the 1970s, though cocktail parties were certainly still occurring, they were frequently talked about as something old-fashioned or something that used to happen. Before-dinner drinks remained common at dinner parties, but a tendency toward sweeter and sweeter drinks put traditional cocktails out of favor. Seagram and National Distillers also released lines of bottled or canned premixed cocktails, from margaritas to mai tais to manhattans, removing much of the mystique from the cocktail experience. In the same decade, packaged cheese spreads ranging from Kraft’s pineapple cheese to the pimiento cheese and Benedictine spreads of the south were also introduced, and making preparations for guests could be as simple as opening a few cans of mai tais and spreading jarred cheese onto celery stalks. One of the enduring legacies of the cocktail party is the cocktail dress, a style that varies in formality from a just slightly less formal (and slightly less long) dress than the evening gown to the shorter and more casual cocktail dress that used to be called the late-afternoon dress. Designer Christian Dior coined the term cocktail dress in the 1940s to describe semiformal early evening wear for women. The little black dress, though it originates in the work of Coco Chanel before the cocktail dress term was coined, is now considered a type of especially short cocktail dress. The popularity of TV’s Mad Men (2007–15) encouraged a revival of the cocktail party, dovetailing with the resurgent interest in cocktails themselves, which made many long-obscure ingredients easier to find. Many of these cocktail parties are self-consciously theme parties, even costume parties, with a 1960s theme. The Walsh mansion, home to the first cocktail party, still stands in St. Louis. Purchased by the Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis in 1924, it now serves as the archbishop’s residence. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar
See Also: Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Manhattan; Martini. Further Readings Beard, James. Hors D’Oeuvre and Canapes With a Key to the Cocktail Party. New York: M. Barrows, 1940. Draper, Dorothy. Entertaining is Fun! How to Be a Popular Hostess. New York: Doubleday, 1941. Felten, Eric. “St Louis—Party Central.” Wall Street Journal (October 6, 2007). Harrington, John W. “Our Cocktails Travel Far: They Influence Habits, Manners, Even Arts.” New York Times (January 20, 1935). Lovegren, Sylvia. Fashionable Foods: Seven Decades of Food Fads. New York: Macmillan, 1999. Mills, Susan. “Capital Kitchen.” Washington Post (March 9, 1934). “Sunday Inspiration: Cocktail Parties Latest St. Louis Society Diversion.” Washington Post (May 19, 1917).
Cocktail Waitresses Though there is no formal difference between a “waitress” and a “cocktail waitress,” Traditionally, the latter term is used for waitresses who wear a particular style of outfit (which is typically revealing and fancy in the same sense that showgirl attire is fancy—possibly including fishnet stockings or evening gloves) and serve drinks in casinos; clubs with live entertainment (music, comedy, strippers or dancers); and possibly bars and lounges, especially if they are located in or near casinos. As with other waitressing jobs, tips provide a substantial part of the server’s income. The selling point offered by employers and recruiters is usually that because of the nature of the establishment where the cocktail waitress is working, there will be a lot of “high rollers” and generous tippers. Tips are particularly important in establishments that offer free drinks (as casinos sometimes do, though this is not as common an enticement as it once was) because many customers will neglect to tip at all, making it critical that a number of generous patrons make up for this lack in
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order for the wages of waitresses to work out in the end. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual cocktail waitress earnings are $15,261 (because waitresses are tipped, their minimum wage is less than half of the minimum wage for nontipped jobs: $2.13 an hour). Playboy Bunnies As the name indicates, cocktail waitresses are nearly always women, while cocktail-serving men work as bartenders—itself a job that at many establishments involves little more than serving drinks and talking to customers. The best-known cocktail waitresses for years were the Playboy Bunnies. The bunnies were cocktail waitresses at the Playboy Club, which first opened in Chicago in 1960 and expanded to multiple locations before closing in 1991. (A revived club opened in 2006.) Founded by Hugh Hefner only a few years after the launch of his Playboy magazine, the Playboy Club was aimed at the same demographic: middle- to upper-class men with money to spend. Membership was required for admission and was proven by showing a Playboy Club key with the Playboy brand’s distinctive rabbit. The original club enforced a dress code, and distinguished itself as a “gentleman’s club” rather than a strip club. Live entertainment in the form of musicians and comedians was available in both the club room and the living room, food in the dining room, and drinks and cigars throughout, served by Playboy Bunnies. Some of the bunnies were featured in nude Playboy pictorials, though this was not a requirement, and there were far more bunnies than nude models. Still, the possibility of meeting a woman who had been featured in a Playboy pictorial was an undeniable if usually unstated part of the Playboy Club’s sales appeal. The Playboy Club casinos in the United Kingdom actually provided most of the Playboy company’s revenue in the 1970s. This stopped when the gambling licenses were not renewed after 1981, leading to a gradual financial slide that eventually resulted in the closures of the clubs and restructuring of the company and its brand. Though there were once about 30 Playboy clubs in the United States, today there are only a handful of clubs, with most of them operating overseas,
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one of which is in India, where it has had to be drastically redesigned to conform to local obscenity laws (which ban Playboy the magazine, for instance). The Playboy Bunnies were costumed in “bunny suits” of rayon-satin corseted one-pieces with cottontails (the first service uniform to be trademarked), accessorized by cuffs, bunny ears, and a bow tie collar. They were trained in recognizing 100 brands of liquor and dozens of cocktail garnishes in order to ensure that orders were delivered correctly. They were also trained in body poses. These included the “bunny stance,” the position (legs together, back arched) in which a bunny stood in front of customers; the “bunny dip,” the way the bunny bent her knees and leaned backward in order to lower a cocktail tray without dislodging her skimpy costume; and the “bunny perch,” the position a bunny was expected to sit in while waiting to perform her service. Playboy bunnies who went on to become famous include actresses Sherilyn Fenn and Barbara Bosson, Bob Dylan’s wife Sara Dylan, and musician Debbie Harry. The former Playboy Bunny who would become the most famous is Gloria Steinem, who before cofounding Ms. magazine in 1969, wrote a 1963 article for Show magazine about her experiences as a Playboy Bunny at the New York Playboy Club. She notes that the application consisted of little more than contact information, age, and measurements, and that she and other bunnies were regularly subjected to sexual harassment by patrons. Behavioral restrictions including not allowing husbands or boyfriends within two blocks of the club—“Customers must never see us meeting other men,” Steinem wrote. This instruction was given in the same orientation as instructions about tips and drink orders—a basic part of the bunny’s job functions. Much later, Steinem’s article was adapted into the 1985 movie A Bunny’s Tale, with Kirstie Alley as Steinem. Though bunnies were repeatedly told they did not have to “go out with” number-one keyholders (Playboy Club VIPs), for instance, they were scolded and possibly fired for not doing so when keyholders requested them. Further, the attention the bunnies were expected to lavish on customers pushed the boundaries of what the law did and did not consider prostitution.
Transformation of the Industry In addition to serving drinks, traditional cocktail waitresses have often bussed tables (retrieving glasses, wiping down the table, emptying an ashtray in jurisdictions where that’s applicable, and preparing the table for new customers) and may have been involved in some of the duties of setting up at first shift or closing down at the end of the day. Choice cocktail waitress positions with privileges such as serving VIPs with a chance for making especially high tips usually require significant service experience, sometimes including bartending or card-dealing experience (because of the nature of customer interactions in those jobs). Traditionally, customer interaction has been an important component of a cocktail waitress’s work, and in general, the more money is changing hands, the more this is true. Casino Resorts In recent years, casino resorts in Atlantic City have been changing the cocktail waitress paradigm. In the late 1980s, 10 years after legalizing gambling and opening its first legal casino, Atlantic City was the most popular tourist destination in the United States. But the spread of other casinos in the subsequent years, especially Indian-owned casinos in the northeast, which competed for some of the same regional business, along with the revitalization of Las Vegas and a series of well-funded Las Vegas marketing campaigns, led to a significant-enough decline in Atlantic City that after the contraction of the housing market and subsequent global financial crisis of 2008, the state of New Jersey was forced to seize regulatory control of Atlantic City’s tourist district in order to restore its economic health. Attempting to recover from that decline has meant belt tightening in many areas, whether required by the state or not. In 2009, for instance, the Showboat in Atlantic City introduced the position of beverage ambassador, which was then introduced at the rest of the Atlantic City casinos owned by the corporate parent Caesars Entertainment. The beverage ambassador, dispatched with an iPad, assumed some of the duties of the cocktail waitress—namely taking drink orders, which were wirelessly transmitted to the bartenders. Cocktail waitresses, now given timers, were deployed
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simply as drink deliverers, and although the distance from bar to customer is as long as a football field in some cases, the waitress was expected to take no longer than six-and-a-half minutes to deliver the drinks, with warnings and disciplinary action accompanying overages. The system forces the waitress to put her attention on efficiency, leaving no time to chat with customers (and little chance of leaving enough of an impression to earn a significant tip). Long billed as a personality-driven job, the cocktail waitress position at the Caesars-owned Atlantic City casinos was reduced to one of simple drink server, a change considered drastic enough that one of the redefined waitresses was invited to address the Culinary Union (which represents cocktail waitresses) to talk about her experiences. Union officials subsequently lodged a complaint with New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement (one of the two bodies with jurisdiction over liquor in Atlantic City casinos), alleging that the beverage ambassador program violated state liquor laws. As of this writing, the matter had not been resolved. Caesars has waited on an agreement with the union before rolling the program out to its Las Vegas properties. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Atlantic City; Barmaids; Bartending; Casinos; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Drinking Establishments; Gender and Drinking in Popular Culture. Further Readings Kirkby, Diane. Barmaids: A History of Women’s Work in Pubs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Komenda, Ed. “Atlantic City Cocktail Waitresses Warn Local Servers: Don’t Allow Bosses to Replace You With iPads.” Vegas Inc. http://m .vegasinc.com/news/2013/sep/20/atlantic-city -cocktail-waitress-warn-local-servers (Accessed March 2014). Steinem, Gloria. “I Was a Playboy Bunny.” Gloria Steinem. Show (May 1, 1963 and June 1, 1963). http://www.gloriasteinem.com/storage/I%20 Was%20a%20Playboy%20Bunny.pdf. (Accessed March 2014).
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Cocktails and Cocktail Culture The exact origins of the word cocktail are lost to history, but cocktails are known to be a distinctly American drinking phenomenon and to date from early in the nation’s history. The earliest known appearance in print of the term cocktail is in the May 6, 1806, edition of the newspaper The Balance and Columbian Repository, in Hudson, New York, in which it was listed alongside other drinks (specifically rum grogs, “brandy do,” gin slings, and glasses of bitters). The following week’s edition printed a letter from a reader inquiring as to the definition of the term, which noted that the reader was familiar with the other drinks named. The newspaper responded, “Cock tail, then is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters it is vulgarly called a bittered sling, and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head.” Etymological connections have been suggested to the use of the word cock to refer to a liquor cask’s spigot, or to the French term for egg cup, coquetier, but they are only guesses, and absent the uncovering of new textual sources, the word’s origins will remain mysterious. Today, “cocktail” is generally used synonymously with “mixed drink” to refer to any preparation of alcoholic ingredients with other alcoholic and nonalcoholic ingredients, but originally it referred to a narrow subclass, one that is bittered, sweetened, and watered down (though this includes drinks watered down through dilution with ice, as with shaken or stirred drinks or drinks served on the rocks). The Flourishing of Bitters Key to the development of the cocktail in this original sense is the availability and popularity of bitters. Bitters are alcoholic mixtures (usually multi-ingredient tinctures or blends of tinctures, though in theory they could be distilled after infusion as gin is), which possess a characteristic bitterness and a blend of flavors from botanicals. Common bitterants include gentian, cinchona, bitter orange peel, and cassia. Some of these are used to bitter other beverages: cinchona is the
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A bartender in Bloomington, Indiana, finishing his newly invented port cocktail, which won a national competition in 2012. It is known as the “sporting chance” and is served in a silver cup in the manner of a mint julep.
source of quinine, used to flavor tonic water and a number of fortified wines, while gentian is used in the soft drink Moxie and many vermouths. Bitter tinctures have been used for medicinal purposes since the Middle Ages, when distilled alcohol’s use as a solvent was put to use in preparing pharmacological remedies. Beginning in the 17th century, and especially in the 19th century, bittered preparations were sold as “patent medicines,” branded mixtures of dubious medicinal virtue. The use of spices and other flavorings in these patent medicines, either for their supposed medicinal value or to cover up other, less pleasant ingredients, is the antecedent both to cocktail bitters and to soft drinks: The earliest commercial sodas were sold as patent medicines or “nerve tonics,” including many brands still around today (Dr Pepper, Moxie, Coca-Cola). One of the important antecedents to the cocktail is punch, which similarly combined several ingredients (often including more than one
full-strength liquor, a rarity in cocktails) to create a complex alcoholic beverage. Punches were introduced to England from India (via the sailors of the British East India Company) in the 1600s, and originally consisted of alcohol, sugar, lemon, water, and tea. Most of the earliest British punches are similar to a cold mulled wine, using wine or brandy in conjunction with tea or a simple spice tisane. Rum-based punches became popular in the Caribbean with the advent of the rum trade and later in the United States, usually using lime juice rather than lemon and adding nutmeg. Punches continued to be popular in the cocktail era and overlapped with them considerably—planter’s punch, for instance, appears in the early 20th century and includes orange liqueur and Angostura bitters among its ingredients. The spice trade was integral to the flourishing of bitters and related products in these centuries, as exotic ingredients from far-away countries were newly available or newly affordable. In Europe, preparations now called digestive bitters or potable bitters in order to distinguish them from cocktail bitters developed along similar lines. These were often lower in alcohol than cocktail bitters, higher in sugar, and less bitter, allowing them to be consumed in larger doses. While cocktail bitters are traditionally used in a few drops or dashes per drink, digestive bitters may be consumed neat, on the rocks, with soda, or—more and more frequently as cocktail culture took hold—as a cocktail ingredient. Digestive bitters hail from all over Europe: the amari (bitter liqueurs) of Italy include Amaro Montenegro, Aperol, Campari, Averna, and Fernet Branca, while Spain has Calisaya, France contributes Suze and Amer Picon, and Germany’s Krauterliquors include Ratzeputz and Underberg. Many liqueurs prepared by European monasteries also possess a characteristic bitterness, including Chartreuse and Benedictine. In the United Kingdom, “cups” were becoming popular in the mid-19th-century at the same time cocktails surged in the United States. They were low-alcohol punches served at upper-class social events such as hunting parties, garden parties, and tennis matches, and often included fruit, fruit juice, or soft drinks. The best-known cup today is the Pimm’s Cup, which uses Pimm’s flagship (No. 1) liqueur and lemon soda, garnished with
fruit and cucumber. Pimm’s No. 1, which was introduced commercially in 1851, is a gin-based liqueur flavored with spices and citrus fruit. No. 2 was a similar recipe using Scotch whisky; 3, 4, 5, and 6 used brandy, rum, rye whiskey, and vodka, but only 1, 3, and 6 are available today. Interestingly, the two most popular brands of bitters—the only two to remain in production from the 19th century to the present day— were not invented until after the coining of the word cocktail. (It is difficult to guess how old cocktails were at the time the term appeared in print.) Angostura bitters were developed as a tonic in 1824, in the town of Angostura (now Ciudad Bolivar) in Venezuela (production soon relocated to Trinidad). The bitters are named for the town, not for angostura bark, which is actually an ingredient in many other bitters. Angostura bitters were marketed as a stomach remedy, not a cocktail ingredient, showing that some two decades after the term appeared in print, cocktails were not yet the dominant use of bitters. The same is true of Peychaud’s Bitters, developed in New Orleans by Creole apothecary Antoine Amedee Peychaud in 1830. Peychaud’s bitters, which have a strong anise flavor, deep red color, and derive their bitterness from gentian, became the key ingredient in the Sazerac cocktail, which has since been adopted as the official cocktail of New Orleans. Other than the basic description of the cocktail in The Balance, it is the oldest known cocktail, originating sometime in the 1850s. The Sazerac and Similar Drinks The Sazerac is prepared by combining rye whiskey with a sugar cube and three dashes of Peychaud’s bitters in a chilled glass, while a second chilled glass is “rinsed” with absinthe (a small amount of absinthe is added, the glass is twirled in order to coat the interior, and the excess is poured off). Once the drink has been stirred with ice in the first glass, it is poured into the second glass and a piece of lemon peel is twisted over it in order to add the flavor of the oils. It was originally made with Sazerac cognac, but rye whiskey replaced it and remained the more popular option when the mid-19th-century phylloxera epidemic in Europe created a cognac shortage. After absinthe’s 1912 U.S. ban, New Orleans’s anise-flavored Herbsaint liqueur became the most popular substitute.
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It is not clear how innovative the Sazerac was upon its introduction. It is possible that most cocktails consumed in the previous several decades had consisted of a called spirit with the simple addition of water or ice and a little sugar dissolved in bitters. The old-fashioned cocktail, traditionally made with whiskey, consists of exactly that, and the term was not used until the 1860s, when asking for an “old fashioned cocktail” meant this simpler style rather than the post-Sazerac cocktails that included liqueurs as flavorings. It is also possible that there were many cocktails flavored with liqueurs—orange liqueur was common, because its manufacture is simple and it was produced in the nearby Caribbean—which were simply never named and immortalized the way the Sazerac was. The Sazerac also benefits from the specificity of the bitters it calls for; the heavy anise notes of Peychaud’s particularly complement the use of absinthe. The “rinse” introduced by the Sazerac remains a technique used in a small number of other cocktails today, usually with either absinthe or Green Chartreuse; the Corpse Reviver #2 is the most notable of these, as it shares the absinthe rinse in common with the Sazerac but is otherwise a radically different drink, combining equal parts gin, lemon juice, orange liqueur, and fortified wine (originally Kina Lillet) in a shaken drink. Thomas’s Cocktail Recipes In 1862, bartender Jerry Thomas published Bartenders Guide: How to Mix Drinks, or, the Bon Vivant’s Companion, the first cocktail recipe book. Only 10 of the drinks included were then called “cocktails”; in keeping with the usage of the time, the rest of Thomas’s drinks were identified as sours, slings (alcohol with sugar and flavorings, essentially cocktails without bitters), flips (drinks with egg), toddies (hot drinks), and cobblers (alcohol, sugar, and fresh fruit). Thomas had traveled across the country, learning the bartending trade in New York before heading to California during the gold rush and eventually moving back to New York to open a bar in the same building as Barnum’s American Museum in 1851. He had a tendency to go on the road for a year or more at a time and worked in a dozen different states, as well as touring Europe. An elaborate showman, he was highly paid for his work, likely the most
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highly paid bartender in the country. Later editions of his guide included the first published recipes for the Tom Collins and the Martinez. Iced Cocktails Cobblers were one of the most popular drink categories in the 1830s, when bitters and cocktails were still on the rise. Just as cocktails were built on the novelty of the many flavors of bitters available, and sours on the availability of sour citrus fruit, the cobbler exploited the growing availability of ice. Today, Americans do not always realize that the preference for ice in drinks is considered, by the rest of the world, to be peculiar to the United States, and that the taste for cold drinks developed in the 19th century when Frederic Tudor founded the ice trade in 1806. Tudor harvested ice from the North American northeast, insulated it, and shipped it around the world, originally targeting the wealthy Europeans suffering through the heat in their new Caribbean plantations. By the middle of the century, ice was available throughout the United States at more affordable prices than at more distant locations, and Americans became accustomed to the luxury of cold drinks. Cobblers played to that strength, serving fresh fruit mixed with alcohol (originally sherry, a fortified wine available in a variety of sweetness levels) and copious amounts of ice. This style of drink remained a fixture even long after most Americans forgot the name for it, and many cocktails originally served straight up or ungarnished were served with copious ice and fruit in the 20th century, especially after World War II. Contributing to that popularity was the 1888 development of the modern drinking straw (using paper sealed with wax to waterproof it), which prevented the ice from being an obstacle to the act of drinking. Because bars were such steady customers of ice, some bartending guides even included recipes for ice cream, which enjoyed a surge of popularity in parallel with that of cocktails. The spread of the railroads and refrigeration contributed to the popularity of “sours”— cocktails using lemon or lime juice (or, more rarely, sour orange juice). The key lime was the original lime used for cocktails, including the margarita; a shortage of key limes following bad weather led to the popularization of the Persian lime in the middle of the 20th century, and it remains the dominant lime
on the U.S. market today, though it is usually sold when it is still underripe so that its rind remains dark green. One of the most popular of these sour drinks is the whiskey sour, which combines whiskey, lemon juice, sugar, and often (at least in the classic cocktail era) egg white in a shaken drink served over ice. This seems to date from around 1870. Other classic drinks followed similar formulas with other base spirits and minor adjustments: the daiquiri with rum and lime (from around the turn of the 20th century); the gimlet with gin and lime cordial (from the 1920s); the Aviation with gin, lemon, maraschino liqueur, and creme de violette (from 1916); the sidecar with brandy, orange liqueur, and lemon (from the 1920s); and the margarita with tequila, lime, and orange liqueur (from the 1930s or 1940s). Virtually every combination of base liquor and citrus was introduced as a classic cocktail somewhere between Reconstruction and World War II. In the gin drinks alone, there are the aforementioned gimlet and Aviation, the White Lady (a gin sidecar), the Tom Collins (a gin sour with soda water), the gin rickey (a lime Tom Collins, traditionally made less sweet), and the Clover Club (gin, lemon juice, egg white, and grenadine or raspberry syrup). The 1870s also saw the introduction of the manhattan, a stirred drink of whiskey, vermouth, and bitters. The manhattan is one of the first significant vermouth drinks, and led to the Martinez, a gin manhattan, in 1887, which in turn led to the martini, using dry rather than sweet vermouth, in the early 20th century. In contrast to the bone-dry martinis after World War II, which used miserly doses of vermouth and often eschewed the bitters, these early vermouth drinks depended on the vermouth for their characteristic flavor. Vermouth is a class of fortified wines flavored with numerous botanicals, including the wormwood from which the word vermouth is derived. It is almost too pat to characterize the cocktail as an American innovation combining disparate European elements: British gin and lime cordial, French and Italian vermouth, Mexican limes (and later, tequila), and Asian and Caribbean spices in the forms of bitters. There is something to be said for the idea that the cocktail is the melting pot wrought literal, though. Never as popular overseas as in the United States, cocktails flourished in Europe during the 1920s, due in part to the
number of expatriates living abroad and in part because of American bartenders like Harry Craddock, who fled Prohibition in order to find work in more hospitable climes. Craddock allegedly mixed the last legal cocktail before Prohibition— of course, there is no way to pick a single drink as “the last”—before relocating to London, where he took a job with the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel. “American bar” was a term used in London since 1878 to refer to bars serving cocktails. Craddock became the head barman in 1925, succeeding Ada “Coley” Coleman, the first female head barman at the hotel (though not its first female bartender), and the inventor of the Hanky Panky, which combined gin, vermouth, and the bitter Italian liqueur Fernet Branca. Craddock remained the head barman until 1939 and published the hotel’s first cocktail book, The Savoy Cocktail Book, one of the most important cocktail guides of the early 20th century. Prohibition and Beyond Prohibition struck the first major blow to cocktails and cocktail culture. Ironically, misinformed popular histories sometimes credit Prohibition with the birth of the cocktail, supposing that cocktails originated in order to cover up the taste of the lower quality alcohol available during the period. Though this account clearly errs by over a century on the birth of the cocktail, those factors may have contributed to sweeter drinks, which could be drunk more quickly and required less finesse to prepare properly, especially in the face of an inconsistent ingredient supply. Furthermore, many manufacturers, especially those based in the United States, closed down during Prohibition and were not always able to resume operations after repeal. The variety of bitters, in particular, dwindled from 1920 to the end of World War II, by which point Angostura and Peychauds were the only brands easily available throughout the country, compared to the literally dozens of brands which had been on shelves before Prohibition. Vodka became more popular in the 1950s and 1960s due to a concerted marketing push. Because it is almost entirely flavorless, it blends easily with anything, and the cocktails at the singles’ bars of the 1960s and 1970s tended to be fruit-forward drinks like the seabreeze and the cosmopolitan,
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both of which combine vodka with cranberry juice. The first tiki bars opened in 1934, and introduced a new style of cocktail, one that developed flavors using multiple rums, fruit juices, and specially prepared syrups. Though many tiki drinks are as complex as the earlier cocktails, in the latter half of the 20th century they tended to be found in a more simplified form, reducing the number of rums and flavorings in order to focus on simple combinations. Premade commercial mixers contributed to this, and tiki drinks became more associated, at many establishments, with the accoutrements that tiki pioneers like Trader Vic and Don the Beachcomber had introduced: coconut shell drinking glasses, elaborate flower garnishes, and cocktail umbrellas. Around the end of the 20th century, though, a revival of interest in traditional cocktails began and with it a renewed interest in gin, rye whiskey, and bitter liqueurs, all of which had suffered prolonged slumps in the American market. The Internet assisted both with disseminating knowledge—including public-domain troves of information like Jerry Thomas’s cocktail guide—and with providing mail-order sources for-hard-to find ingredients, at least in states permitting alcohol shipments. Cottage industries in bitters manufacture soon developed, and old ingredients like creme de violette and Kina Lillet were revived or replaced with new taste-alikes. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Bourbon Cocktails; Champagne Cocktail; Cocktail Parties. Further Readings Haigh, Ted. Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. Minneapolis. MN: Quarry Books, 2009. Museum of the American Cocktail. “The Balance and Columbian Repository.” (May 7 and 13, 1806). http://www.museumoftheamericancocktail.org/ museum/TheBalance.html (Accessed May 2014). Parsons, Brad Thomas. Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2011. Wondrich, David. Imbibe! New York: Perigee, 2007. Wondrich, David. Punch: The Delights and Dangers of the Flowing Bowl. New York: Perigee, 2010.
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Cognac Since antiquity, humans have fermented grapes into wine. In the late Middle Ages and early modern era, people distilled wine into brandy. Cognac is a type of brandy. It can be distilled only from grapes grown in Cognac in southwestern France, in the same way that scotch can be distilled only from barley and other grains from Scotland. Authorities appear to have reached a consensus that cognac is the best type of brandy. It is the standard against which judges rate all other brandies. It has the highest renown for quality. Because cognac, like other brandies and wines, depends on grapes, the quality of the grapes determines the quality of cognac. Several grape varieties are popular for making cognac, though it is important to remember that the use of grapes varies over time. Today’s wine or cognac grape may be tomorrow’s table grape, as has happened to several wine grapes in California. Because of its renown, cognac commands a high price, possibly having the effect of pricing itself out of some markets. Yet the worldwide demand for cognac appears to be robust. Overview and Early History The region of Cognac consists of about 250,000 acres of vineyards, some of which go to wine, others to Champagne, and still others to cognac. Of this region, special significance attaches to Charente and Charente-Maritime in the southernmost region of Cognac. The region borders Bordeaux, France, known for its wines. In Roman antiquity, Cognac comprised three regions: Angoumois, Saintonge, and Aunis. The Romans did not know cognac, or brandy in general, and so prized these regions for wine. Wine was the universal beverage of the ancient Mediterranean, though centuries would elapse before the innovation of cognac, the brandy. These Roman regions also grew wheat. French trade with England and Scandinavia in the Middle Ages established the commercial ties that the brandy would later exploit. Trade then involved wine, fish, and salt. Curiously, Cognac was among the last regions of France to distill wine into brandy; in this case, cognac. Not until the early to mid-17th century was Cognac distilling cognac. In 1643 arose the first company in Cognac to distill wine into
cognac. Other parts of France had predated Cognac in the distillation of brandy by a century. Armagnac, France, in particular, had produced brandy since the 15th century. The religious wars of the 15th and 16th centuries in France had harmed vineyards and must have slowed progress toward making cognac in Cognac. After the wars, farmers overplanted grapes in Cognac. According to one theory, these grapes were inferior in quality, causing wine to deteriorate in flavor and aroma. It also maintains that these wines were not competitive against other vintages and so Cognac began to distill wine into cognac in hopes of opening a new market. Another theory holds that the wines of Cognac did not store well, causing grape growers to turn to cognac. The repute of these wines throughout France appears to contradict both hypotheses. The wines of Cognac are characterized as thin with a hint of acidity. These wines have formed the basis of the cognac industry. Modernity In 1751, the French philosopher Denis Diderot’s Encyclopedie, a landmark of the Enlightenment, noted the renown of the region of Cognac in the production of cognac. One may infer that by the mid-18th century cognac was an important beverage in France. Initially, cognac was aged only a short period. The alcohol content was quite high, overpowering consumers who were accustomed to wine. Like brandy in general, cognac is not a beverage to be consumed in quantity. It is too easy to become drunk on the beverage. From the outset, cognac was not merely a domestic product. France exported it by way of the Netherlands throughout northern Europe. In the 18th century, the Dutch created a number of companies that specialized in the cognac trade and that still exist today. Between 1718 and 1736, 500,000 barrels of cognac passed through the port of La Rochelle. England and Scandinavia were the leading importers in the 18th century. The Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century interrupted the cognac trade, which resumed after the peace of 1815. Specialization ensued quickly. The grower focused only on the quality of grapes. The distiller owned no vineyards but concentrated on the quality of cognac. Because of the natural link between grapes and cognac, this specialization appears
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to put downward pressure on sales. The French drink about 20 million bottles of cognac per year. England is the principal importer, with Scandinavian countries not far behind. Germany is also an importer, though high cognac prices have kept in check the country’s potential as a market for cognac. Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan also import cognac. The United States imports cognac, though again high prices have taken a toll and imports have fallen since their apogee in 1970 and 1971. In the United States, cognac faces competition from cheaper California brandies. In any case beer appears to be the national beverage. The trend toward free trade should provide opportunities for cognac to reposition itself in the global market.
Cognac accompanying a dessert of petit fours in Barcelona, Spain. France produces over 100 million bottles of cognac a year. Domestic consumption averages about 20 million bottles per year, leaving the remainder for export.
curious. In the 19th century, sellers began to age cognac in oak casks and to lengthen the period of aging. By midcentury, aged cognac was bottled in glass and sold to consumers. By the mid-19th century, more than 100,000 acres in Cognac were growing grapes, but the depredations of an aphid in the 1870s curtailed this acreage. Only with new plantings of aphid-resistant grape vines in the 1960s would cognac regain its stature. The trend in Cognac has been a decline in wine production, with grapes going to make cognac. Strong cognac sales worldwide have strengthened this trend. Cooperatives, partly funded by government, have arisen to establish production quotas, much like the Organization of Petroleum Exporters (OPEC) establishes quotas on the production and export of oil. Cooperatives also invest in the latest science of viticulture and cognac production. France exports about 80 percent of its cognac and annually distills more than 100 million bottles of cognac. High cognac prices, however, tend
Importance of Climate and Soil Climate and soil determine the quality of grapes and thus of cognac. The chalky (that is to say, basic) soils of Cognac are ideal for grapes and cognac. This land has historically been bereft of trees, so it has been easy to plant grape vines. Just below the town of Cognac are the white grapegrowing regions that authorities rate the best for making cognac. The aroma of this cognac has been compared to the fragrance of violets. The cognac from this area is generally aged the longest and commands the highest price. Other southern regions of Cognac are nearly equal in reputation. Part of these regions yields grapes for Champagne, making it easy to confuse land designated for cognac and that designated for Champagne. In Cognac, there has long been a rivalry between cognac and Champagne for market share. The south dominates cognac production. The region just north of the town produces only about 5 percent of Cognac’s cognac. The soil contains less lime and so is less basic. The quality of grapes may not be as high, though they have desirable qualities. They make a fragrant cognac and are used primarily in blends. They age well and quickly. Because grapes can tolerate a range of soils, they may be grown even in nutrient-poor sandy soils. This plasticity gives the cognac producer flexibility, though one wonders about the quality of these cognacs. The Saint Emillion grape is an important cognac grape, though this is not to imply that a wine or cognac grape cannot be pleasurably eaten as a table
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grape. Another popular cognac grape is colombard, yet folle blanche has probably surpassed it in appeal. Unfortunately, folle blanche is susceptible to fungal diseases. Ugni blanc may be the king of cognac grapes. It is planted on as much as 95 percent of white-grape acreage in Cognac. Ugni blanc yields well and is largely resistant to diseases. Cognac grape growers often use ugni blanc as breeding stock to obtain disease-resistant progeny. Curiously, one would not know of the importance of cognac by reading French literature. Neither Albert Camus nor Andre Malraux made cognac a household name. In the 19th century, American writer Edgar Allen Poe, much admired in France, described the effects of alcohol in stories like “The Black Cat,” but we do not know whether he was partial to cognac. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: After-Dinner Drinks; Brandy; Cognac Advertising; France; High-Potency Drinks; Viniculture, Global History of. Further Readings Hannum, Hurst and Robert S. Blumberg. Brandies and Liqueurs of the World. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976. Pessey, Christian. The Little Book of Cognac. Pullina, France: Flammarion, 2002. Spivak, Mark. Iconic Spirits: An Intoxicating History. Guilford, CT: Lyons, 2012.
Cognac Advertising Named after the town of Cognac in the Charentes region of France, where it has been produced by a process unchanged for over three centuries, cognac has traditionally been associated with elegance and exclusivity. This image translated into advertising that, for decades, sold the story of the privileged class enjoying a luxury reserved for a deserving few. Frequently, the image was of a white male in a distinctly male environment, conveyed as such either by atmosphere or by implication of control. That image was radically altered in the
21st century when cognac began to be associated with African American rappers. Between 1993 and 2010, cognac sales in the United States more than tripled, largely due to the cognac consumed in hip-hop clubs. The white male pictured in much cognac advertising may have been replaced by an African American male, but cognac’s story has remained one of success and privilege, of the person who has acquired much and is thus worthy of envy. But another shift in cognac marketing may be emerging. Some advertising campaigns from the industry’s largest companies suggest they are looking toward a more diverse market. Traditional Ads The quintessential representative of the oldschool cognac advertising image may be a 1979 print ad for Baron Otard cognac that appeared in Playboy. The ad shows an elegant man with a snifter of cognac in one hand and a book with a leather-tooled cover in the other. He is seated in a leather chair in a library filled with leather-bound books. A small insert shows a bottle of the cognac in the foreground and a group of casks in the background. The copy in the largest font simply names the cognac with the tag “Taste acquired through time.” Another block of text stresses the aging process that cognac must undergo, ending with the name of the cognac and the tag “Being the best takes time.” The implication is that it took generations to produce both the aristocratic gentleman and the cognac, and that the taste of both is consequently superior. A more middle-class consumer was targeted in a Hennessy ad from the 1960s that shows a woman seated on the sofa in a suburban living room, examining the cover of a record album with others scattered around her, a cabinet phonograph player to her left, and a St. Bernard resting on the floor beside her. In the foreground, a man’s hand holds a snifter into which he is pouring Hennessey cognac. Golden tones wash the full image, and the caption reads, “Your golden hours call for the luxury of Hennessey V.S.O.P. (Grande Fine Champagne Cognac).” Although the man’s presence is indicated only by his hands, the impression is clear that this golden world, just like the bottle of Hennessy, is in his hands. In its 1986 ad for “The world’s most civilized spirit,” Hennessey chose a sexier image to
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promote their cognac, one that reflects changing sexual standards and gender roles. In this one, the woman gets a snifter too, and the seminude male and female are on the same level. But the bottle of Hennessey is still in the man’s hands, and the story still suggests that the “unwrapping” of both objects of his eye will be done by him. Courvoisier introduced its Napoleon ads in the 1950s and remained faithful to promoting that association in its ads until the 1990s. The company’s claim to be Napoleon’s cognac rests on the fact that the emperor supposedly visited the Courvoisier cellars in 1811 and took two bottles with him into exile on St. Helena. The semiotics of the Courvoisier ads may be less complex than those of Baron Otard and Hennessy, but an emperor is an effective image to appeal to white, upper-class, male consumers. But by the 1990s, Courvoisier and the other major cognac companies were looking for a new market.
in magazines. Bon Appetit and GQ readers were accustomed to seeing cognac ads in their pages, but Ebony, Essence, and other African American magazines were seeing a larger slice of the advertising pie. The new connection did not end with increased advertising. Tupac Shakur praised Hennessey, the top-selling cognac in the United States and the number-one brand among African American men, in one of his songs, and the company introduced Hennessey 44, a limited-edition cognac, in 2009 to commemorate the inauguration of Barack Obama. Rapper/producer Swizz Beatz helped launch a new limited line of cognac called Hennessy Black, which was the company’s first major launch since 1961, in 10 markets throughout the United States. In 2007, rapper Jermaine Dupri became the face of a major Courvoisier campaign, “Find Greatness Within.” Landy Cognac entered a “marketing partnership” with Snoop Dogg.
Hip-Hop Culture and Cognac Hip-hop music may trace its beginnings to the 1970s, but it was in the 1980s that the music became more complex and more diverse and began attracting a worldwide audience. As the music became more and more commercially successful, the leading hip-hop artists moved from outlaw to cultural-hero status and acquired immense wealth in the process. Many of them were interested in possessing products that the larger culture saw as exclusively designed for those with enviable tastes and abundant resources. High-end cognac was one of those products. The United States imported 1.3 million cases of cognac in 1993; in 2010, the figure was nearly 4 million. Between 60 to 80 percent of that cognac was consumed in hip-hop clubs. There is widespread agreement that “Pass the Courvoisier,” a 2001 song by rappers Busta Rhymes and P. Diddy, marked the turning point in the relationship between cognac advertisers and African American consumers. Courvoisier sales increased dramatically after the song was released, as much as 30 percent by some accounts. Courvoisier began sponsoring R & B concerts and advertising in African American magazines. Other cognac companies took note. In 1998, more than 80 percent of the $9.4 million the cognac industry spent on cognac ads went for ads that appeared
A More Diversified Market Spokespersons for various cognac companies have been careful to express their appreciation of their African American base, but several big-buzz advertising campaigns since 2006 signal an interest in reaching a more diverse group of consumers. Rémy Martin Cognac admitted their “Things are getting interesting” campaign was designed to be “fun” and “lively” in order to appeal to younger consumers. The campaign has incorporated such elements as an interactive, street-level billboard that resembled a nightclub, complete with muffled dance music, sponsorship of an Usher tour, and print ads with provocative story. The 2008 ads stirred considerable controversy: one shows a racially diverse group of a men and two women, perhaps, involved in a threesome, and one shows two women in a scene that suggests both lesbianism and light bondage. A Rémy Martin representative insisted that the ads did not depict a ménage à trois or homosexuality unless the individual made that interpretation. Rémy Martin’s first American TV commercial featuring singer Robin Thicke and his wife, actress Paula Patton, is also part of the campaign. Hennessy attributed the 2.2 million cases the company imported into the United States in 2012 to their almost $70 million “wild rabbit” campaign that features singer/songwriter Erykah
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Badu, boxer Manny Pacquiao, and director Martin Scorsese in the initial advertisements. This campaign celebrates aspiration and the pursuit of goals, issues of concern to the company’s core consumers, men ages 21–34. Consumers must be paying attention. In 2013, North America was the fastest-growing market for cognac, with sales up 9.7 percent at 53.4 million bottles. Wylene Rholetter Auburn University See also: Advertising and Marketing, History of; Cognac; France; Popular Music. Further Readings “Courvoisier and Hennessy Advertising: From Napoléon to Hip-Hop.” Cognac Expert (March 20, 2010). http://blog.cognac-expert.com/ courvoisier-hennessy-advertising-marketing -hiphop-napoleon (Accessed October 2013). Curtis, Wayne. “Cognac’s Identity Crisis.” Atlantic (May 21, 2012). http://www.theatlantic.com/ magazine/archive/2012/06/cognacs-identity -crisis/308982 (Accessed November 2013). Frith, Katherine Toland and Barbara Mueller. Advertising and Societies: Global Issues. New York: Peter Lang, 2010. Spivak, Mark. Iconic Spirits: An Intoxicating History. Guilford, CT: Lyons, 2012.
Cold Turkey Most commonly, the term cold turkey applies to quitting drugs or overcoming addiction without tapering off or taking substitutes to ameliorate symptoms. It can also apply to the breaking of any habit, but the drug/alcohol connection is most prevalent. “Talking turkey” or “talking cold turkey” means talking bluntly or straightforwardly, calling a spade a spade, a usage that dates to at least May 1914, when the Des Moines Daily News mentions Billy Sunday’s booze sermon as bringing forth tears from a stone, a powerful cold turkey talk. Nobody knows why turkeys have this association with getting to the point or that they
don’t beat around the bush, but it may be from the iconic role of the turkey in Puritan New England, the Puritan lifestyle being characterized as plain and simple. Some think that cold turkey refers to the postholiday times, when the traditional high alcohol use fades and leftover turkey remains. Traditionally, cold turkey is a dish that’s served as is, without preparation or modification. Under this logic, cold turkey means suddenly or without preparation. Cold turkey in the drug-withdrawal sense came first in Canada’s the Daily Colonist for October 1921, which noted a physician’s drug-addicted patients who received a “cold turkey” treatment. Time magazine for February 26, 1951, referred to withdrawing cold turkey, an early reference in American print media. Mickey Spillane referred to cold-turkey drug withdrawal in I, the Jury (1947). Heroin withdrawal was the initial usage. During withdrawal, the drug addict’s blood is routed to the internal organs, and the skin is white and commonly has goose bumps. A raw turkey’s skin appears to have similar bumps, so some theories associate the cold turkey carcass with the addict’s goose bumps and cold sweats and call the condition cold turkey. There is no evidence that this is the basis for the term though. Rather, the no-nonsense context seems to be the basis for the term. In 1928, the English Daily Express used cold turkey in the sense of speaking plain truth. This usage ties neatly into talking turkey, the older term that meant heading straight for business without any messing around, or lying, or other delay in the business at hand. Cold turkey in American usage means to speak plainly or to quit suddenly. In the context of ceasing a bad habit or addiction, going cold turkey means going straight to the deep end, with no nonsense. Cold turkey is the term that applies when a heavy or habitual drinker or drug user elects to give up the habit/addiction without a transition time of tapering off. Millions of people go cold turkey each year despite the risks. They may be arrestees who detoxify in prison with no treatment because the staff does not recognize the symptoms of withdrawal. Or they can be on a no-alcohol international flight. Sometimes alcoholics simply run out of alcohol and money to buy it with. Regardless, cold turkey is painful enough that the sufferer is
likely to relapse without an adequate support system. Those who choose this route should notify all around them that they are doing so. That way, others can help fight the temptation as well as respond when danger appears. Withdrawal Generally, cold turkey involves withdrawal symptoms, which can range from the moderately annoying to the life threatening. Dependency occurs in those who drink moderately every day or those who binge drink, consuming large amounts but not every day. Chemical dependency is likely in all cases. The degree of withdrawal depends on the level of dependency the drinker has developed, with those who drink heavily each day being more dependent than those who drink less or less often. Alcohol is a depressant and slows down the rate of brain functioning. Frequent and/or heavy drinking accustom the brain and liver to alcoholladen blood, and over time the body develops a “tolerance” that requires increasing amounts to reach the same effect. The greater the tolerance, the greater the difficulty of going cold turkey, with withdrawal symptoms beginning as soon as a few hours after the last drink (as in the hangover). Even having a hangover the morning after drinking in an occasional heavy drinker is a mild case of alcohol withdrawal, with the symptoms appearing as the level of alcohol in the blood decreases. All too often, the heavily hungover drinker, embarrassed or damaged by a bout of heavy drinking, vows to quit “cold turkey.” To throw away the alcohol forever, to never drink again is the pledge. Then, withdrawal begins. Denied alcohol, the body protests, and over time the protest grows. Eventually, often, the drinker finds that taking a drink is less painful than resisting one. So cold turkey fails once more. Failure is not a matter of weakness though. In the heavy drinker, the dependency is so great that the withdrawal symptoms can be severe, and the withdrawal itself life threatening. Withdrawal from moderate dependency can bring about sweats, nausea, headache, accelerated heartbeat and elevated blood pressure, anxiety, or the shakes. Symptoms include hangover; sweats; shakes; nausea; vomiting; cramps; headache; bad appetite, sleep, or sexual performance; anxiety;
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nonclinical depression; and mood swings. These symptoms are uncomfortable and annoying but not normally life threatening. But when they accompany the craving, they make successful cold turkey withdrawal more unlikely. More severe symptoms include psychosis, paranoia, disorientation, memory lapses, clinical depression, epileptic seizures, and hallucinations. Additional severe symptoms that may occur within six to 48 hours include hallucinations— visual or including sound and smell—which may last from a few hours to several weeks. During the same six to 48 hours, convulsions or seizures may occur. This is the onset of danger, with medical treatment called for. After three to five days of abstinence, the cold turkey patient may experience delirium tremens (DTs), involving confusion, hallucination, disorientation, and cardiovascular stress of a severe level as well as hyperactivity, paranoid ideas, and psychosis. These symptoms in alcoholic withdrawal may be more severe than those associated with heroin or other drug addiction withdrawal, and the symptoms may last up to 10 days. DTs may include potentially fatal heart attacks, strokes, or grand mal seizures. To alleviate symptoms associated with cold turkey, diet and thiamin will work in the mildly dependent. Severely dependent people will require medication administered by a physician. Valium sometimes works as a substitute for alcohol, with decreasing dosages as the patient moves past dependency. Cold turkey also involves psychological disturbance, but it doesn’t have the life-threatening potential of the physical dislocation. Conclusion Cold turkey is a difficult method of ending an alcohol dependency because of the discomfort, which provides an incentive to resume drinking in order to eliminate the discomfort. With no tapering off or substitution, it is not an easy route, and it is risky and fatal if the system cannot withstand the shock. Moderate drinkers should be able to quit cold turkey with no major symptoms. Those with a stronger addiction are more likely to suffer more dangerous symptoms. A case of the shakes or a fainting spell can be dangerous when handling hot
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water or food. Sufferers should also leave the bathroom door unlocked just in case, take vitamins— B12 and folic acid especially—drink lots of fluids, and eat and sleep sufficiently. They should also avoid dark because it’s disorientating and caffeine, cola, and chocolate because those stimulants exacerbate the jitters. After three days, the worst part should be passed, and life will become normal. Withdrawal is dangerous, and sometimes cold turkey is less viable than tapering off or the substituting of medication during detoxification. Tapering off can involve cutting down the number of drinks and establishing new and lower levels each three to four days until the level is zero, usually in two stages. Switching to a lighter drink is another option, say from bourbon to Bordeaux or beer. There can be no cheating, despite the temptation. Detoxification, with the use of medications as a substitute, is also known as drying out. Dosages are reduced over time to zero. A doctor’s care is mandatory for the latter process, usually through a clinic rather than simply the family doctor. Regardless of type of withdrawal, the sufferer should have moral support and maintain regular contact with the health care provider, should not be alone for extended time, should not operate machinery or drive, and should be extra cautious when working in the kitchen. Those who do experience significant withdrawal symptoms have a dependency that probably will involve a longterm course of action. Alcoholics Anonymous, family, the health care community, friends, and coworkers can all help maintain the recovering alcohol abuser on a steady path. John H. Barnhill Independent Scholar See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Detoxification, Health Effects of; Hair of the Dog; Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse; Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Moderate Use. Further Readings Alcoholadvice.com. “How Do I Withdraw from Alcohol Safely?” http://www.alcoholadvice.com/ withdrawal.html (Accessed November 2013). Phrase Finder. “The Meaning and Origin of the Expression: Cold Turkey.” Phrase Finder. http://
www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/cold-turkey.html (Accessed November 2013). T., Buddy. “Alcohol Withdrawal; Symptoms Can Range from Mild to Life-Threatening Updated.” About.com. http://alcoholism.about.com/ cs/withdrawal/a/aa000125a.htm (Accessed November 2013).
Cold Water Army The phrase cold water army was both a colloquial expression with two related meanings and the name of an organized children’s group in the United States during the antebellum period. “Joining the cold water army” referred to an individual signing a pledge not to drink distilled spirits, which was a popular tactic used by a variety of early 19th-century temperance organizations. The phrase cold water army was also used to refer collectively to all of the numerous temperance organizations that had been developed. Most specifically, however, it was a children’s temperance organization founded by the Rev. Thomas P. Hunt in 1839 as part of the American Temperance Society (ATS). Hunt’s organization Cold Water Army published a book and a monthly magazine aimed at children that used the organization’s name as its title. Founding The ATS was founded in Boston in 1826 by two prominent Protestant ministers, Justin Edwards and Lyman Beecher, who were active in a wide variety of social reform groups during the antebellum period. Beecher was an important national cultural figure because of his diverse range of reform interests and activities. Within five years of its founding, ATS had 2,200 local chapters and 170,000 members nationally, and it continued its strong growth, exceeding 8,000 local chapters and more than 1,500,000 members by its 10th year. It was only one of a number of organizations that promoted temperance—the limited use of alcoholic beverages, especially spirits. Later, many of these groups switched from temperance to promoting the prohibition of all alcoholic beverages and abstinence from them.
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Organization, Publications, and Parades In his autobiography, Rev. Hunt writes, This army swelled by recruits throughout the land to a mighty band. It was then customary to let the boys who procured the most signatures to the pledge, carry the Banner and make the speeches on the Fourth of July which was the day of gathering and feasting and rejoicing throughout the land. Hunt goes on to say he founded the organization to influence the future by enlisting children and educating them to avoid alcohol and oppose the industry generally. He was not interested in receiving credit for the idea and welcomed other organizations that shared his goal—enlisting children into the temperance movement. In this way, both the future of the temperance movement and its long-term success would be assured. The Cold Water Army not only published a book by that name but a magazine of the same title as well. They were staples in early-19thcentury Sunday schools for 20 years. Combined, they reached untold thousands of children. The army and its publications were an important component of the temperance movement in the United States. Not only did the group seek to educate children against the use of spirits from an early age but children were regular participants in its temperance parades, rallies, and other events attracting a great deal of attention. The name came from its effort to encourage the substitution of cold water for alcoholic beverages. The children often marched in temperance parades organized by other groups as well as the ATS. One such group was the Washingtonian Society, organized after the Cold Water Army to work with individual problem drinkers. As Alice Felt Tyler describes, Conspicuous in the Washingtonian parades were throngs of children wearing white satin badges and carrying banners on which appeared pictures of fountains and people wending their way through leafy groves. Such spectacles, particularly in the form of parades, emerged as important part of America political discourse during the decades following the revolution.
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As the franchise expanded to be more inclusive, parades and rallies became more common as regular parts of public life in communities both large and small across the nation, most commonly in the northeast where the movement was strongest. The “military” aspect of the organization was its participation in parades with massed marchers, flags, torches, and floats. There were local units with large membership all across the country. Joseph Bates, an early Seventh-day Adventist leader, noted in his autobiography: “As I examined my papers the other day, I saw the book containing the names of nearly three hundred children which had belonged to our ‘Cold Water Army’ at Fairhaven.” Poetry and Singing Poetry and singing played a large role in both adult and children’s temperance groups and their activities. Both the book Cold Water Army and the magazine of the same name featured poetry and songs as well as short moral tales, all designed to warn of the dangers of alcohol, especially spirits, and encourage children to take the cold water pledge, which was also rhymed. Rhyming verse was a common feature of all children’s school and other books of the time, so it is not surprising that the format was used here as well. Those who took the pledge received certificates and pins to show their membership. The pledge had several forms from the very simple “We pledge eternal hate, to all that would intoxicate” to more elaborate statements of the same sentiment, such as: This youthful band Do with our hand— The pledge now sign To drink no wine, Nor brandy red To turn the head, Nor whiskey hot Which makes us sot Nor fiery rum To turn our home into a hell, Where none can dwell, Whence peace would fly, Where hope would die, and love expire ‘Mid such a fire:
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So here we pledge eternal hate To all that would intoxicate. Temperance songs for children were in the Cold Water Army’s book and monthly magazine as well as songbooks produced specifically for the temperance cause. Music and singing were important components of meetings and rallies. The children’s singing could be especially effective when they were massed in large numbers, wearing large white bows with bucolic scenes on them. Children as young as 4 participated in singing songs that stressed the virtues of pure, cold water as a beverage and stressed the evils of alcohol. Bates writes that the children’s innocence and their singing . . . especially when assembled in their society meetings, seemed to give a new impetus to the cause, and re-arouse their parents to the work of total abstinence from all intoxicating drinks. As the tactics of the temperance movement shifted from moral suasion on individuals to limit their consumption of alcohol to an effort to completely prohibit the manufacture and use of alcoholic beverages, the Cold Water Army, as an organized children’s wing of the movement, declined. William H. Mulligan, Jr. Murray State University See Also: American Temperance Society; Beecher, Lyman; Temperance, History of; Temperance Movements. Further Readings Bates, Joseph. The Autobiography of Elder Joseph Bates. Battle Creek, MI: Steam Press of the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association, 1868. Hunt, Thomas E. Life and Thoughts of Rev. Thomas P. Hunt: An Autobiography. Wilkes Barre, PA: Robt. Baur and Sons, 1901. Lender, Mark Edward. Drinking in America: A History. New York: Free Press, 1982. Pegram, Thomas D. Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800–1933. New York: Ivan R. Dee, 1998. Tyler, Alice Felt. Freedom’s Ferment. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1944.
Colombia This South American country Colombia developed a small local wine industry during the 20th century. It was the conquistador leader Herman Cortés who brought with him from Spain either vine cuttings or seeds that were planted in Mexico by the Spanish in 1524. This led to the establishment of the wine industry in Mexico, which later spread to Chile and then to Argentina. History of Importing Alcohol Wine was used in communion services and also as table wine in Colombia from the start of the Spanish settlements in the region, which started with Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada establishing Bogotá, the Colombian capital, in 1538. Most of the early wine was imported from Spain, and this proved to be expensive because of the distances involved. Although this trade with Spain was initially supposed to be routed through Lima, the capital of Peru and at that stage the administrative capital of Spanish South America, significant quantities of wine, rum, and spirits were imported through Colombia’s main Caribbean ports of Cartagena de las Indias and Santa Marta, which were obviously much closer to Europe. After independence, when the Spanish no longer were able to force goods to arrive through Lima, Cartagena de las Indias and Santa Marta emerged as major ports not only for importing alcohol into Colombia but also for transporting wines through Colombia to Ecuador. The Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez is famous for writing of the French capital, Paris, “I wanted to eat all the things I had not eaten, drink all the wine I could not afford to buy. And I hated it. I hate Paris.” He himself did not drink much alcohol and preferred drinking coffee, which during Spanish rule had emerged as a common beverage in Colombia. However, a fashion was emerging in which coffee was served with a shot of spirits added to it to make it stronger. In one of his stories, Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981), Márquez wrote about the main character Santiago Nasar—who is murdered—being served every morning by his daughter “a mug of mountain coffee with a shot of cane liquor . . . on every Monday, to help him bear the burden of the night.”
In Colombia, until the 20th century most of the wine was still being imported from Spain, although rum and beer was sourced from the Caribbean. These imports included that amount of alcohol that was needed for the taverns and hotels in Panama—a part of Colombia until independence in 1903. These establishments in Colon and Panama City gained a notorious reputation in the period from 1849 to 1852, when large numbers of people travelled through Panama to the goldfields in California. Wine Industry In the 1920s, the Colombian wine industry started, with the first vines being planted near Santa Marta and also in the southeast of Colombia, where it was hoped that the climate would be conducive to establishing a local wine industry. From an economic angle, it was hoped that a local wine industry would prevent costly imports from Spain and also provide employment in these parts of Colombia. The initial wine produced in Colombia was sweet and fortified, with much of it was being favorably compared with some Spanish wine and thought to be close in taste to Málaga wine. This Colombian wine proved successful and there was much demand for it. With some initial success, many more vines were planted through the 1930s. However, the wine industry in Colombia remained relatively small during this time, and there was still wine being imported from Spain, and also Argentina and Chile, with spirits coming to Colombia from the United States. Smuggling of alcohol to avoid high taxation also became common in Colombia, especially through the Caribbean. The major boost to the Colombian wine industry came in 1984 when the government of Belisario Betancur Cuartas introduced a regulation that stopped the importing wine from non-Latin American countries. Initially, this saw a large spike in importing table wine from Chile and to a lesser extent Argentina. However, there were complaints from local wine connoisseurs that much of the Chilean wine that was being imported was of a low quality. This served as a further spur to the local producers and led directly to the planting of many more vines, which in turn resulted in dry wines from Vinifera vines. In the north of Colombia, near the Caribbean port of Santa Marta,
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hybrid varieties proved successful and a substantial amount of Colombian table wine came from this region of the country. However, the vineyards remain in the southeast of the country, in the upper Cauca valley, amounting to about 3,700 acres (1,500 hectares). Most of the grapes are of the Isabella and Italia table variety. The vineyards have remained successful, with vines taking about 15 months to reach full production, and the periods from June to September and from December to March being dry. The main problem facing winegrowers remains the downy mildew, with vines being defoliated by hand to provide a short “winter” dormancy. The increasing affluence of Colombia has resulted in a major increase in wine consumption. Indeed, consumption rose by nearly 30 percent in 2011 alone. Much of this came from heavy promotion of wine by supermarket chains and regular wine tastings. There has also been a large move into wine being sold in Tetrabrik cartons to make it easier to transport. This is in spite of wine in Colombia often being sold for higher prices than in neighboring countries. The main brewer of beer in Colombia has traditionally been Cerveceria Bavaria SA, which has breweries in Bogotá, the country’s capital, and also in Santa Marta. As its name implies, the beer tastes similar to German beer, with its Club Colombia Pilsner being the most popular and the Cerveza Clausen Export and Columbian Gold Beer also being readily available. The other main brewer, Cerveceria Aguila SA, operating from the city of Barranquilla, brews Cerveza Aguila. Other brewers in the country include Cerveza Ancla, the Bogota Beer Company (B.B.C.), Cerveza Colón, and Cerveza San Toma’s. The minimum legal age for buying and consuming alcohol in Colombia is 18. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Argentina; Brazil; Chile; Latin America; Spain. Further Readings Robertson, James D. The Beer-Tasters Log: A World Guide to More than 6,000 Beers. Pownal, VT: Storey Communications, 1996.
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Robinson, Jancis, Julia Harding, and José Vouillamoz. Wine Grapes: A Complete Guide to 1,368 Vine Varieties, Including Their Origins and Flavours. New York: HarperCollins, 2012. Román de Zurek, Teresita. The Cuisine of Cartagena de Indias: Legacy of the Spanish Cooking in Colombia. Bogotá: Gamma, 2001.
Columbia Winery Columbia Winery is the first premium winery to have opened in Washington state. It is located at Woodinville, in King County, close to the Canadian border. The winery was founded in 1962 as Associated Vintners by 10 retired professors, six of whom were from the University of Washington. The first wine they made was in the garage of Dr. Lloyd Stuart Woodburne in Laurelhurst, a residential suburb in the city of Seattle. Born and raised in London, Ontario, Dr. Woodburne is the son of Clarence William Alexander Woodburne and Agnes Maud (née Robertson). He completed his doctorate in psychology at the University of Michigan, working there as a lecturer. In 1950, he left that university’s Ann Arbor campus to move to Seattle to become the dean of the University of Washington’s College of Arts and Sciences. Establishment of Original Winery A year after Dr. Woodburne arrived in Seattle, he met Angelo Pelligrini, a connoisseur of fine food in the Northwest. Pelligrini suggested that the climate and the soil around parts of Washington State would be ideal to establish a wine industry. There had been a wine industry in the region in the 1910s, but it had ended with Prohibition and also because it was felt that the wine from the area was far too sweet for many people. Dr. Woodburne liked the idea of producing wine and discussed it with colleagues, but it was not until 11 years later that they finally got together and bought grapes from the Yakima Valley. They used these grapes to make wine in Lloyd Woodburn’s garage. The wine they produced was good, and Dr. Woodburne and his associates decided to buy many more grapes for wine, which was then consumed by the members and ordered by a few
restaurants. They did not make any money, with many of the professors heavily involved in university work. Although this remains debatable, the grape growers of the Yakima Valley decided to stop selling large numbers of grapes to Dr. Woodburne and his colleagues in the hope that they might be able to make the wine themselves. At this juncture, rather than source large numbers of grapes from California, Dr. Woodburne and the others decided to establish their own vineyard. They initially took over 5.5 acres near Sunnyside in 1962 and planted a number of different varieties of grapes, including Riesling, Chardonnay, Sémillon, and Cabernet Sauvignon, registering themselves for the first time by forming a company they registered as Associated Vintners. The winemaking process was done at a winery in Kirkland, a suburb of Seattle, where they produced the wine. The first significant crop of grapes was harvested from Sunnyside in 1967, and the first wines that they made, a riesling and a gewürztraminer, were released in 1969 and were very well received by wine critics. Even though the wine venture was reasonably successful, they were keen on improving their wine. In 1976, Dr. Woodburne retired from the University of Washington and became a full-time manager and head winemaker for Associated Vintners. He realized that an expert vigneron was needed, and in 1979 the winery hired David Lake as the head winemaker. Known as the “dean of Washington wine,” as he had been labeled by Wine Spectator magazine, Lake was born in England to Canadian parents and worked in the British wholesale wine industry. He had achieved some success in Oregon, where he studied under David Lett. With a reputation for success through experimentation, he was then headhunted to go to work for Woodburne and his colleagues. Columbia Winery Name The winery was so successful that it became necessary to buy a larger property to plant with vines. The property that they bought was at Woodinville, the land having previously belonged to a pioneer lumber baron, with the area named after the early settler Ira Woodin. There, Lake managed to establish the vineyard that would go on to become the site of the Columbia Winery. At Woodinville, Lake
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used his skill and knowledge and managed to produce the varietal wines Cabernet Franc, Pinot Gris, and Syrah. The wine produced was regarded as very rich and with a strong fruit flavor. In 1983, the winery changed its name to Columbia Winery and five years later the production facility moved to occupy its current location in Woodinville. In 1988, the Columbia Winery produced the first syrah in the Pacific Northwest, and four years later it was able to release the first Red Willow Cabernet Franc followed by the first vintage of the Red Willow sangiovese in 1995. Sale of Winery Woodburne died on June 21, 1992, and 14 years later Lake was forced by ill health to retire in 2006 and died three after that. Lake’s retirement saw Kerry Norton of Covey Run Winery moving to take up the stewardship at the Columbia Winery, and two years later, in June 2008, Columbia Winery as well as Covey Run Winery and some other wineries were bought by Constellation Brands and Ascentia Wine Estates was established. Four years later, Columbia was sold to E. & J. Gallo Winery. Chateau Ste. Michelle of the winery is designed to look like a French chateau, and is set within 87 acres. It is now included on a large number of wine tours, which also go to the nearby French Creek Cellars and the Tegaris Winery as well as the Redhook Ale Brewery, one of Washington State’s first microbreweries. The Columbia Brewery offers its own tours three times on weekends, and two a day on weekday afternoons, also providing a venue for picnics and some jazz concerts during the summer. It also offers a number of limited-edition wines, including its small-lot series, its vineyard designate series, its stonecutter series, and its core series. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Cabernet Sauvignon; Chardonnay; Riesling; Semillon; Wine Tourism. Further Readings Columbia Winery. http://www.columbiawinery .com/history-columbia-winery (Accessed November 2014).
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Doerper, John. Washington Wine Country. New York: Compass American Guides, 2004. Drake, Albert Nathaniel. Washington State Winemakers: Nature Produces and People, Create, New York: iUniverse, 2006. Parker, Tom. Discovering Washington Wines: An Introduction to One of the Most Exciting Premium Wine Regions. Seattle: Raconteurs Press, 2002. Pinney, Thomas. A History of Wine in America: From Prohibition to the Present. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Purser, J. Elizabeth and Lawrence J. Allen. The Winemakers of the Pacific Northwest. Vashon Island, WA: Harbor House, 1977. Reynolds, Robert M. and Judy Peterson-Nedry. Washington Wine Country. Portland, OR: Graphic Arts Center, 2000. Whitely, Peyton. “Educator Lloyd S. Woodburne Spurred Washington Wine Industry.” Seattle Times (July 4, 1992).
Commodity Chain Analysis, Global Global commodity chain (GCC) analysis, also referred to as global value chain (GVC) analysis, is a method of study that systematically investigates and maps the process by which firms gather raw materials, process them, and eventually turn them into consumer goods. GCC analyses take the form of historical case studies, where investigators detail the development of a particular industry; moreover, in their analyses, researchers seek to highlight the inequality and power relations in the global economy. Studies of the commodity chains involved in alcohol production have established that the creation of this commodity is distinct from other consumables. Specifically, unlike most food and beverage items, in the alcohol industry, the marketing component of the commodity chain is a key driver of global demand; moreover, most of the production process of alcohol takes place in developed countries rather than in the developing world. The concept of GCCs was popularized by Immanuel Wallerstein and Terence Hopkins as a
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A liquor trader selling from the back of his truck at a market in the Kyrgyz Republic. Unlike beer, spirits companies tend to cater to local preference and to be dominant only in one geographic region or single country. In general, however, a small number of firms control a large share of the global alcohol market. For example, in 2006, the 10 largest global beer companies accounted for 66 percent of the global market share. Of these 10 companies, seven were located in the United States and western Europe.
component of world systems theory. More specifically, proponents of world systems theory take a multidisciplinary approach to the study of the global economy, examining the historical forces that have determined the current distribution of wealth as well as the global division of labor. Its proponents posit that since the 1500s, an increasing number of countries have become enmeshed in a geographically expanding international capitalist system. The primary beneficiaries of this system are the “core” countries, namely economically developed and militarily powerful states. Citizens in the core countries consume goods produced in the underdeveloped “peripheral” states; these states possess the raw materials for many commodities, and are also a plentiful source of inexpensive labor. Consistent with world system theory’s focus on the interactions between the developed and
underdeveloped world, GCC analysis examines the transnational nature of commodity production, with the key stages of production dispersed globally. Specifically, although the process of defining a GCC is historical and sociological in nature, Wallerstein and his followers sought to examine how the production of many commodities reinforces the unequal distribution of wealth between the core and the periphery, and prevents the periphery from developing. The process of constructing and analyzing GCCs was formalized in a 1994 work by sociologists Gary Gereffi and Miguel Korzeniewicz. Their edited volume, Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism, presents GCC analysis as a new paradigm suitable for analyzing an increasingly interconnected global economy. Constructing a commodity chain analysis for a particular item requires a researcher to work
backward and identify the geographically dispersed “nodes” or “hubs” that serve as key points in the commodity chain. Gereffi and Korzeniewicz outline the key stages in the commodity chain: The first stage is product design, when the idea for a product is developed, whether it is the blueprint for an electronic item or the recipe for a food item; this node is located in the core. The next stage is the acquisition of raw materials for the commodity; this may occur in either the core or the periphery. Following this is the manufacturing stage, with many firms relying on low-wage workers in the underdeveloped periphery. After the goods are finished, they must then be transported to a core county for sale, which is the following stage. In the next stage, the commodity must be distributed to vendors in the destination country, with this distribution subject to national regulations. The final stage in the commodity chain is “marketing,” where firms cultivate a brand image and advertise the product in order to create consumer demand. In addition to examining the geographically dispersed nature of commodity production, the study of a particular commodity chain will encompass multiple levels of analysis. For example, a researcher will examine factors such as international agreements that govern trade and commerce, national level regulatory policy, and the dynamics of local labor markets. Notably, researchers do not expect that a commodity chain will remain static; the location of the nodes in the chain may shift, based on factors such as labor costs and trade restrictions. Nature of Alcohol Commodity Chains A particular focus of GCC analysis has been food and beverage items; these items tend to have considerable similarities in their commodity chains. More precisely, the commodity chains of consumable items are characterized by a wide geographical scope, since many food items are grown in the periphery, for transport, sale, and eventual consumption in the core. In his analysis of the global alcohol industry, David H. Jernigan notes several distinctive features of this commodity chain not generally shared by other food and beverage items. First, unlike many consumable goods, the nodes in the commodity chain for global alcohol brands are concentrated
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in the developed core. More precisely, the agricultural inputs needed to produce wine and beer are grown mainly in the countries where the commodity is eventually purchased and consumed. For example, hops for beer are produced in Australia, the United States, and Germany, while grapes suitable for making wine are grown in Europe, the United States, South America, Australia, and New Zealand. Moreover, the next node, the processing of the raw materials, is also located in the core; in recent decades, many global beer manufactures have decentralized the brewing process by creating a global network of brewers that produce beverages that are sold locally. Another unique feature of alcohol commodity chains is the dominant role of the final node, focused on marketing. For instance, in 2001, in the United States alone, the alcohol industry spent $1.6 billion on advertising. Global alcohol firms engaged in 22 distinct types of marketing, including television advertising, print advertising, viral marketing, celebrity endorsements, and sports sponsorship. Trends in the Alcohol Commodity Chain One of the most notable features of the modern global alcohol industry is an increasing trend toward the centralization of the industry; this consolidation process began in the 1960 and 1970s, and has accelerated in the last decades. According to research by Thomas F. Babor, since 2000, there have been 280 mergers and acquisitions among the major breweries. In addition, many of the largest global beverage firms have diversified their offerings, with spirits and beer producers acquiring winemakers. As a result, a small number of firms control a large share of the global alcohol market. Overall, the global beer industry is the most centralized; in 2006, the 10 largest global beer companies accounted for 66 percent of the global market share. This represented a sharp increase from 1979 to 1980, when the top companies controlled only 28 percent of the global beer market. Of these 10 companies, seven were located in the United States and Western Europe. In contrast, the top spirits companies tended to be dominant only in one geographic region or single country, producing a beverage suited to local tastes. For example, although the beverage company and maker of soju, Jinro, which accounted
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for nearly 3 percent of all global spirits sales in 2005, is the top-selling global spirit, it does not have a market in the West and is primarily consumed in South Korea. The wine industry is the least centralized; in 2006, the top 10 producers controlled only 15 percent of the market. Since there are few wine producers that command a significant share of the global market, in this sector of the alcohol industry, the barriers to entry are lower than in the beer and spirits sectors. At the same time that the global alcohol industry is centralizing, large firms are seeking to reach consumers in the developing world. Currently, only 38 percent of the alcohol consumed globally consists of “branded” beverages produced by major firms; instead, most alcohol is unregulated, and produced and consumed locally. The consumption of unregulated alcohol is the most prevalent in the developing world, constituting two-thirds of the alcohol consumed in the Indian subcontinent, and half of the alcohol consumed in Africa. In order to capture this market, alcohol companies have taken a two-pronged approach. First, global alcohol producers have developed targeted products, which mimic traditional local beverages. In addition, the industry has focused on creating lines of luxury beverages and marketing these products so as to make them globally recognized status symbols. In particular, firms are targeting the BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China. Each of these countries is undergoing rapid economic growth and the concomitant emergence of a consumer culture interested in Western goods, including Western alcohol brands. Kelly McHugh Florida Southern College See Also: Advertising and Marketing, History of; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Industry Overview. Further Readings Babor, Thomas F. Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Bair, Jennifer, ed. Frontiers of Commodity Chain Research. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press 2008.
Gereffi, Gary and Miguel Korzeniewicz, eds. Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994. Jernigan, David H. “Applying Commodity Chain Analysis to Changing Modes of Alcohol Supply in a Developing Country.” Addiction, v.95, Supplement 4 (2000).
Confucianism Confucianism is entangled with a long tradition of the widespread use of alcohol, according to specific etiquette, in the performance of rituals in public and private life. Rituals rooted in Confucianism include those around the formation of contracts, business negotiations, and the marking of life events. In contemporary times, Confucianism has been drawn upon to explain gendered patterns of drinking and health behavior. The influence of Confucianism on the consumption of alcohol remains of wider significance, however, through its use in the maintenance of guanxi, that is, personal relationships and networks, and in the idea of the creation of social harmony that is one of the philosophy’s important elements. Confucianism has an important place in the cultures of much of East Asia, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Singapore, as well as China. System of Thought and Its Teachings Confucianism has been understood variously as a philosophy, a set of ethics, ideals of governance, and a system of social organization providing a framework for people’s relationships and roles in society. The concerns of Confucius were largely around moral values in public and private life and the marking of a person’s place in the world through the performance of rituals. Alcohol had a central role in rituals ranging from official state sacrifices, made by the emperor to heaven and earth, to the marking of life events such as weddings and funerals. Confucianism has a complex history. The teachings of Confucius were brought together to form the Five Classics, covering rituals, history, poetry, cosmology, and divination, and later the Four Books, which included the
Analects and the work of Mencius, an important follower of Confucius. Confucian thought underwent many reinterpretations over time and was influenced by other traditions such as Buddhism. Confucianism and Buddhism have been linked to low alcohol consumption in society overall, which, in regard to Confucianism, is attributed to associations made between responsibility and social status. Over time, as Confucianism changed and developed, more emphasis was placed on hierarchical relationships such as parents over children, husbands over wives, and rulers over subjects. The notion of this hierarchy has been used to explain gendered drinking patterns in the past and present, for example, in the idea of alcohol being a resource drawn upon in the performance of masculinity. Contemporary Confucian Movements In recent times, intellectual movements such as New Confucianism and Political Confucianism have emphasized the political tradition in Confucian thought and what Confucianism offers as a moral foundation for political rule. This has been done in contributions to intellectual political thought, which have been related to addressing a moral vacuum in Chinese political discourse following the discrediting of Marxist ideology. While the newer intellectual movements emphasize the role of Confucianism in contemporary political life, the revival of Confucianism has involved the quoting of Confucius at recent state ceremonies, and Confucianism continues to influence drinking customs in East Asia, especially in China. The sharing of food and drink that was an important part of traditional rituals continues to shape how alcohol is consumed today. Influence on Alcohol Consumption In contemporary times, however, Confucianism has been co-opted to pursue explanations for health behavior. Confucianism has been drawn upon to explain both the causes of drinking problems and responses to treatment for those problems. It is claimed that Confucianism, and also Buddhism, were related to low alcohol consumption historically, possibly due to links made between drunkenness and loss of social status, and formed sociocultural protective factors against unhealthy alcohol consumption. Drinking
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patterns have differed in Confucian-influenced cultures, however, with some arguing, for example, that in Korea heavy drinking by men received tacit approval whereas in China moderation, even for men, was encouraged. Much of the health-focused discourse is based on claims about the role of Confucianism in gender identities and the understanding of Confucianism as subordinating women to men (wife to husband). It is argued that drinking alcohol was traditionally a masculine activity and that alcohol remains a resource that men can use to demonstrate their masculinity, while women were traditionally excluded from drinking or engaged in limited drinking. In contemporary discourse, women’s drinking is represented as problematic. It is argued that women are using alcohol to claim equality and position themselves as modern, and that “high-risk” drinking can arise when women who have been constrained within traditional Confucian gender norms make a transition to lifestyles with unfamiliar drinking practices. At the same time, Confucianism is linked to responses to treatment for problematic drinking. In health-focused literature, Confucianism is associated with being emotionally reserved and not accessing mental health services due to the Confucian emphasis on social harmony, which is claimed to inhibit the expression of emotional distress, and due to associated notions of shame around seeking help outside the family. This emphasis on the influence of Confucianism on health behavior underplays the extent to which alcohol continues to have a central role in the enacting of social relationships. This is the case both on special occasions and in day-today life. Alcohol is used on special occasions and especially in rituals demonstrating filial piety such as offerings at funerals, in ancestral halls, and on ancestral altars in the home. Alcohol is also used in rituals around births and weddings. Confucianism is understood to provide the framework for relationships of obligation and trust and for guanxi. At formal dinners and banquets, alcohol is drunk only in toasts with others. Moreover, Confucianism is linked to an understanding of drinking in which a moderate degree of consumption is important but in which mood alteration is associated with virtue. In traditional Confucian rituals, consumption of alcohol is pleasant and
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enjoyable and part of creating social harmony. A traditional image is of scholars who were studying the Confucian classics for the civil service examinations in Imperial China reciting or composing poetry while drinking alcohol. Emily Taylor Open University See Also: Asia, East; China; Hong Kong; Japan; Singapore; South Korea; Taoism; Vietnam. Further Readings Chang, Yanrong Yvonne. “It’s All Because of Guan Xi: Group-Based Alcohol Drinking in China.” China Media Research, v.7/2 (2011). Sterckx, Roel. Of Tripod and Palate: Food, Politics, and Religion in Traditional China. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005 Szto, Mary. “Contract in My Soup: Chinese Contract Formation and Ritual Eating and Drunkenness.” http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_ id=2148829 (Accessed March 2014). Yue, Isaac and Siufu Tang. Scribes of Gastronomy: Representations of Food and Drink in Imperial Chinese Literature. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013.
Congressional Temperance Society The Congressional Temperance Society was established in 1833 for current and past members of Congress, civil and military officers, and heads of government departments who wished to promote temperance. It enhanced the status and credibility of the temperance movement. Before 1840, temperance was generally understood to refer to moderation in all things, including the consumption of alcohol. The misconception that a typical drink of distilled spirits contained much more alcohol than a typical drink of beer or wine led early proponents of temperance to promote the consumption of beer and wine in place of spirits. With the passage of time, temperance groups tended to call for abstinence
from all alcoholic beverages rather than moderation. Therefore, the term temperance generally began to refer to total abstinence. The first temperance organizations used moral suasion to discourage either the consumption of spirits or of any and all alcoholic beverages. They emphasized religious and moral arguments and encouraged people to sign total abstinence pledges. Temperance groups later became frustrated with the uneven success and frequent relapse associated with voluntary abstinence and called for coercion backed by the full force of government legislation. That is, they began to call for prohibition, both in the form of local license laws that permitted localities effectively to prohibit alcohol and as state prohibitory legislation. Origins of the Society In 1831, Rev. Justin Edwards of the American Temperance Society preached a sermon against liquor to an audience of government officials that was enthusiastically received. In January 1832, John Marsh, a fellow temperance worker for the American Temperance Society, came to Washington to promote interest in temperance among those in the government. In that same year Marsh, along with Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen, Senator Felix Grundy, and Secretary of War Lewis Cass, organized a meeting hosted by the House of Representatives. The distillation of spirit beverages was denounced in a resolution. Daniel Webster also attended and offered a resolution praising temperance societies for their beneficial effects. In September, Edwards persuaded Cass to abolish the ration of spirits for the U.S. Army. This was a major victory for the temperance movement. Founding of the Society February 26, 1833, was designated a national day for temperance meetings and a group gathered in the Senate chambers to form the American Congressional Temperance Society. Cass was elected president and Senators Freilinghuysen and Grundy and Representative George N. Briggs were elected to other offices in the new organization. The stated goal of the society was to discourage the consumption of liquor in Washington, D.C., by example and moral influence. The statement promised that no legal action to enforce the
resolution would be taken, but that the legislators asserted the right to pass laws on temperance matters if the national well-being required it. Although the group was composed largely of lawmakers, it considered temperance a cause too sacred to be sullied by government force and expressed great confidence in the power of logic and moral example. The society believed that voluntary temperance would spread from community to community, from state to state, from country to country, and from continent to continent. Contributing to world temperance was a lofty ambition, but hopes were high and members saw evidence, although only anecdotal, of what they believed were concrete signs that the consumption of spirits by members of Congress and residents of Washington was on the decline. To maintain their common focus, members prohibited any political, sectional, religious, or other controversy within the society. Although idealistic in their goal, they remained pragmatic in their organization and its rules. They were wise because earlier temperance advocates had taken on additional moral issues such as gambling, had became entangled in bickering, and had seen their fledgling movements stall. Because of the rising temperance sentiment, politicians tended to see political advantage, with virtually no downside risk, in being identified with the society and membership grew to over 100. Presidents John Quincy Adams, Franklin Pierce, and Millard Fillmore were members or participants in the society at various times. The organization was most popular among northern congressmen, especially those from New England, but it attracted members from throughout the country. Membership could provide protection from the threat, periodically voiced, that efforts should be made to remove intemperate members of Congress. Although Representative Henry A. Wise had long supported temperance, he had refused to join the Congressional Temperance Society until he learned of a rumor that he was drinking heavily. As he signed the society pledge card, he noted that even the most sober person could be mistaken at a distance for a drunkard. A few members, such as Representative Thomas F. Marshall, joined and signed the temperance pledge in an effort to control their personal use of alcohol. Such members tended to be especially enthusiastic.
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Many temperance advocates portrayed liquor as a waste of national resources, both human and material, that undermined morality. Supporting temperance became patriotic because liquor threatened the public welfare and prevented the republic from achieving the full greatness of its promise to which it aspired. Supporting temperance might also please constituents who were members of churches, many of which increasingly viewed drinking as immoral, if not sinful. Constituents concerned with the innumerable problems associated with saloons, which they viewed as harmful to marriage and family life, might also look favorably on members of Congress who were publicly associated with temperance. In spite of the noble ambition of the society, it generally met only once a year and was otherwise inactive as a group. Nevertheless, it was symbolically important to the temperance movement because it demonstrated support for the cause from the highest levels of government. This unofficially gave it the imprimatur of government approval and support. Thus, it conferred legitimacy and status to the growing temperance movement. Transformation Individual members continued to promote temperance measures. In 1837, a joint resolution of Congress established that no spirituous liquors could be sold within the Capitol or the surrounding grounds Nevertheless, by that time the national movement had lost momentum, a fact reflected in the decline in the Congressional Temperance Society. Disillusionment had gradually replaced idealistic enthusiasm. However, in 1840, the country was swept up by the Washingtonian revival that injected renewed zeal into the temperance movement and led to the widespread adoption of a new goal by most temperance groups. That new goal was the complete abstinence from all forms of alcoholic beverages. A second phenomenon occurred in 1842, concurrent with the continuing growth of Washingtonian Societies. Dr. Thomas Sewall was making graphic presentations about the physical consequences of drunkenness. Illustrated with a series of large, lifelike color drawings that supposedly showed the eight stages that a human stomach goes through—from normal as a result
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of not drinking alcohol to terminal as a result of drunkenness. Many people who attended the presentation were visibly shaken by this “scientific” lecture. Decline The enthusiasm for total abstinence generated by the Washingtonians and the horrors portrayed by Sewall’s presentations combined to revive the Congressional Temperance Society. A series of meetings during January, February, and March 1842 resulted in the reorganization of the society. But in its metamorphosis it emerged with a new goal and a new name: the Congressional Total Abstinence Society. This change reflected the increasingly prevalent view in the national movement that temperance was virtually impossible. Indeed, it was a dangerous snare that entrapped those who tried to consume even small quantities of what had come to be viewed as a poison. By 1850, the society had again become inactive. After the Civil War it was periodically resuscitated. Representative Nelson Dingley, Jr., was elected president in 1886 and served in that capacity until his death in January 1899, after which time the society ceased to exist and never experienced another renaissance. Although the Congressional Temperance Society failed to create national temperance and the Congressional Total Temperance Society failed to achieve its grand vision of national prohibition, they gave important early status and credibility to the temperance movement beyond that which could be gained by the contributions of their individual members acting alone. Therefore, the two societies contributed to the movement for national prohibition, which was ultimately achieved in 1920. David J. Hanson State University of New York, Potsdam See Also: American Temperance Society; Edwards, Justin; Marsh, John; Temperance Movements; Washingtonians. Further Readings Sprunger, Keith L. “Cold Water Congressmen: the Congressional Temperance Society Before the Civil War.” Historian, v.27/4 (1965).
Ward, Henry. “Congressional Temperance Society.” In The Cyclopaedia of Temperance and Prohibition: A Reference Book of Facts, Statistics, and General Information on All Phases of the Drink Question, the Temperance Movement and the Prohibition Agitation, Walter W. Spooner, ed. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1891.
Controlled Drinking, History of In the United States, the acceptability of controlled drinking as an outcome for alcohol problems has been the subject of intense debate dating back to the days of the 19th-century temperance movement. Contemporary evidence shows that both moderate drinking and abstinence are common outcomes for those who recover from alcoholism and that offering clients a choice of treatment goals is more successful than imposing a goal of abstinence on clients against their wills. However, controlled drinking is still considered heresy by the vast majority of addiction treatment providers in the United States. The National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) is the largest study of alcohol-related conditions ever carried out in the United States; it was conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and data gathering was completed in 2002. NESARC categorized alcohol use disorders into the categories of Alcohol Dependence (commonly called “alcoholism”) and Alcohol Abuse according to the DSM-IV classification system. Many of the NESARC findings clearly contradicted the traditional assumption that alcoholism is a chronic and progressive disease that is inevitably fatal unless treated with a 12-step program and total abstinence. NESARC found that the vast majority of people with alcohol dependence (“alcoholism”) recovered on their own without treatment and without Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and, moreover, that approximately half of all people who recovered from alcohol dependence did so by reducing their drinking and about half recovered by quitting completely. NESARC
found that the lifetime recovery rate for alcohol dependence is over 90 percent. A joint study by the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services and The Partnership at Drugfree.org estimates that there are over 23 million Americans currently in recovery from drug or alcohol addiction; only a little over one million of them are members of AA. However, in spite of the fact that half of people who recover from alcohol dependence do so via controlled drinking, a 2014 study by Harold Rosenberg and Alan K. Davis found that only 12 percent of addiction treatment providers in the United States believed that controlled drinking was acceptable as a final goal for clients diagnosed with alcohol dependence, and only 30 percent believed that controlled drinking was acceptable as a final goal for clients diagnosed with alcohol abuse. This is in sharp contrast to results found for providers in other countries: in Australia, 72 percent of providers offer controlled drinking treatment and 86 percent endorse it for some clients; in Great Britain, 91 percent of providers found controlled drinking acceptable for some clients; and in Switzerland, two-thirds of treatment providers found that controlled drinking was an acceptable final treatment goal for alcohol abusers. The idea that abstinence is the only possible successful outcome for alcoholism has its origin in several sources, including the folk wisdom of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and the model of alcoholism as a chronic, progressive, and incurable disease that was developed by E. M. Jellinek as a result of his studies of members of AA. These ideas ultimately culminated in the Minnesota model of alcoholism treatment developed at the Hazelden alcoholism treatment center in Minnesota. Hazelden opened in 1949 under the assumptions that 12-step programs were the only possible treatment for alcoholism and that abstinence was the only possible outcome. The founders of Hazelden were strong believers in AA and several were AA members themselves. Studies and Controversies In 1962, David L. Davis published a paper titled “Normal Drinking in Recovered Alcohol Addicts” in the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, which reported that 7 out of 93 patients who had been treated for alcoholism at Maudsley
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Hospital in London prior to 1955 had shown a return to normal drinking. This report set off a storm of controversy; no less than 17 follow-up commentaries on this article were published in this same journal, nearly all of which declaimed that such results were impossible and that Davies had been mistaken. This was the first instance of major controversy over controlled drinking in the modern scientific literature and was a mere precursor of things to come. In 1970, Mark and Linda Sobell conducted an experimental trial to compare the efficacy of controlled drinking treatment with standard 12-step abstinence-based treatment for alcoholism. The experimental pool consisted of 40 alcoholic subjects at Patton State Hospital in California; 20 of the subjects were assigned to an experimental controlled-drinking treatment and the other 20 were assigned to the standard abstinence-based 12-step treatment protocol in use at the hospital. Assignment to treatment groups was randomized. One-, two-, and three-year follow-ups of both groups were carried out and published. Not only did the controlled drinking group fare as well as the abstinence group on all follow-up measures, the controlled drinking group performed significantly better than the abstinence group on the following outcome measures: more days abstinent (year two attained significance, years one and three showed a trend), fewer days drunk (years two and three attained significance, year one showed a trend), and more days of controlled drinking (years one and two attained significance, year three showed a trend). Not only did the subjects who were trained in controlled drinking do better than the abstinence group at controlling their drinking, they also had greater success than the abstinence group at abstaining. A surprisingly one-sided attack on the work of the Sobells by Mary Pendery, Irving Maltzman, and L. Jolyon West was published in Science in July 1982. Pendery, Maltzman, and West’s entire focus in this article was on the number of rehospitalizations undergone by the subjects in the controlled drinking group in the 10 years following the experiment and on the fact that four members of the controlled drinking group were dead. No mention was made of the fact that the abstinence group had undergone just as many rehospitalizations or that six members of
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the abstinence group had died. CBS’s 60 Minutes picked up on the story and in March 1983 broadcast a tour of the graveyard to visit the graves of the four men killed by what was represented by CBS as an irresponsible experiment. 60 Minutes failed to mention the six men who had died after undergoing the standard abstinence-based treatment or the poor outcomes that abstinence-based treatment programs have in general. Instead, the story left the viewer with the false impression that abstinence-based treatment is always successful and that controlled drinking treatment always fails—in other words, the exact opposite of what the experimental results demonstrated. Although Pendery et al. went so far as to accuse the Sobells of fraud, they were exonerated of these charges both by an investigation conducted by the Addiction Research Foundation in Toronto and by the federal funders of their study. Ironically, Mary Pendery was murdered by her lover George Sie Rega in a drunken rage in April 1994. Sie Rega was a graduate of an abstinence-only alcoholism treatment program where Mary Pendery had been employed—this was how they had met. The Rand Report and Beyond In 1976 the so-called Rand Report was released; the actual title of this report is Alcoholism and Treatment, by D. J. Armor, J. M. Polich, and H. B. Stambul. The Rand Corporation is an independent research company that had been hired by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), a U.S. government agency, to report on the outcomes of alcoholism treatment at facilities that it funded wholly or in part. It was reported that at the 18-month follow-up period, 24 percent of clients were successfully abstaining, 22 percent were moderating, and the rest had relapsed. These results were immediately attacked by the National Council on Alcoholism (NCA), a private agency that promotes abstinence and the 12 steps. The NCA called the report “dangerous, misleading, and not scientific.” With the NCA in the lead, proponents of abstinence and AA as the only possible treatment for alcoholism launched attacks on the data in the report. A study published by Martha Sanchez-Craig in 1980 compared the outcome of assigning a goal of abstinence to problem drinkers with that of offering them a choice between a goal of abstinence
and one of moderation. Subjects were 70 socially stable problem drinkers. Although the received wisdom of the alcoholism treatment field would suggest that everyone in the choice condition would opt for moderation, drink alcoholically, and fail, the actual results were the exact opposite. Sanchez-Craig reported that the subjects assigned to the abstinence group drank significantly more frequently and consumed significantly more per occasion than did subjects in the choice group. Goal choice was found to be a significantly more effective than coerced abstinence. William Miller conducted a number of studies of controlled drinking training between 1977 and 1981 and found that a diagnosis of alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence was irrelevant to successful moderation or abstinence as an outcome. Miller divided outcomes into four categories: abstinent, moderate, improved, and unimproved. Miller found that people with a diagnosis of alcohol dependence were just as likely to successfully moderate their drinking as were those with a diagnosis of alcohol abuse. Likewise, there were just as many successful abstainers among those with a diagnosis of abuse as with a diagnosis of dependence. Miller also looked at severity of dependence in terms of MAST scores and found that severely dependent subjects were significantly less likely to succeed with moderation than were moderately dependent subjects. However, even severely dependent subjects were as likely to fall into the category of ‘improved” as were those with moderate dependence or those with abuse only. Miller also found a significant negative correlation between exposure to AA and controlled drinking; the more that subjects had been exposed to AA, the less likely they were to succeed at moderating their drinking, regardless of the severity of their alcohol problem. In 1981 Nick Heather and Ian Robertson published their groundbreaking book Controlled Drinking, which discusses the contents of 77 papers published in the scientific literature describing successful controlled drinking outcomes, including the studies discussed above. George Vaillant of Harvard University is the author of the book The Natural History of Alcoholism. This book includes a long-term follow-up study of abstinence-based alcoholism treatment; however, when Vaillant compared the results
of the treated sample with an untreated control group of alcoholics, there were no significant differences between the two groups: at the two-year follow-up point, 20 percent of the treated sample were abstinent or drinking moderately and 13 percent were improved, whereas 17 percent of the untreated sample were abstinent or drinking moderately and 15 percent were improved. Vaillant summed this up by saying, “[T]he results of our treatment were no better than the natural history of the disease.” In 1993, a woman named Audrey Kishline started a support group called Moderation Management (MM) and in 1994 published a handbook called Moderate Drinking. In January 2000, Kishline made a public confession that she had been exceeding the moderate drinking limits set by MM and announced her resignation from MM and her intention to join AA on the MM listserv. Two months later she killed two people while driving drunk. The press had a field day announcing that MM founder Audrey Kishline killed two people driving drunk; the fact that she had joined AA was missing from virtually every news report of the tragedy. Kishline shared her story on NBC’s Dateline in 2006 after her release from prison. Project MATCH was a $27 million project conducted by the NIAAA and designed to measure the comparative effectiveness of different types of abstinence-oriented treatments on alcohol-dependent subjects. The primary outcome measures used to evaluate outcomes were total number of abstinence days and number of drinks on drinking days. Almost no subjects had outcomes of continuous abstinence, nearly all had reductions in the number of drinking days and number of drinks per day—in short, controlled drinking outcomes. A 2013 literature review by Danish researchers Jan van Amsterdam and Wim van den Brink found that significantly better outcomes were attained when clients were offered a choice of abstinence or nonabstinence treatment goals than when a goal of abstinence was imposed on them by the treatment provider. The approach discussed in this paper is reduced risk drinking (i.e., harm reduction) rather than the traditional notion of moderate drinking. Interventions are aimed at all categories of drinkers experiencing problems, ranging from problem drinkers to those with alcohol abuse to those with alcohol dependence.
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The authors note that not only does offering a choice of goals engage far more clients than does presenting abstinence as the only acceptable goal but, additionally, clients who are given a choice of goals have higher success rates overall. A number of mainstream American alcoholism researchers are also coming to embrace the idea that goal choice is the optimal way to approach alcohol problems. A 2007 paper by David R. Gastfriend et al. suggests that reduction in heavy drinking is a meaningful public health strategy as well as a viable treatment goal. Janet A. Ambrogne in 2001 also wrote about the importance of integrating both abstinence and nonabstinence goals as part of a comprehensive continuum of treatment for clients with alcohol problems. These recent trends in the literature suggest that we are coming to a time of less vehement argument and greater acceptance of the importance of both harm reduction and abstinence as valuable outcomes in dealing with alcohol problems. A new support group, HAMS Harm Reduction for Alcohol emerged in 2007 to support people in these goals. Kenneth Anderson Harm Reduction for Alcohol See Also: Alcohol Management, Effective Techniques for; Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Alcoholism Treatment, Sociology of; Disease Model of Alcoholism; Moderation Management; Temperance Movements. Further Readings Allen, J. P., M. E. Mattson, W. R. Miller, J. S. Tonigan, G. J. Connors, R. G. Rychtarik, C. L. Randall, et al. “Matching Alcoholism Treatments to Client Heterogeneity: Project MATCH Posttreatment Drinking Outcomes.” Journal of Studies on Alcohol, v.58/1 (1997). Armor, D. J., J. M. Polich, and H. B. Stambul. “Alcoholism and Treatment, Prepared for the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.” Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 1976. Davies, David L. “Normal Drinking in Recovered Alcohol Addicts.” Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol (1962). Donovan, Mark and Nick Heather. “Acceptability of the Controlled-Drinking Goal Among Alcohol
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Treatment Agencies in New South Wales, Australia.” Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, v.58/3 (1997). Gastfriend, David R., James C. Garbutt, Helen M. Pettinati, and Robert F. Forman. “Reduction in Heavy Drinking as a Treatment Outcome in Alcohol Dependence.” Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, v.33/1 (2007). Heather, Nick and Ian Robertson. Controlled Drinking. London: Methuen, 1981. Miller, William R., A. Lane Leckman, Harold D. Delaney, and Martha Tinkcom. “Long-Term Follow-Up of Behavioral Self-Control Training.” Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, v.53/3 (1992). Pendery, Mary L., Irving M. Maltzman, and L. Jolyon West. “Controlled Drinking by Alcoholics? New Findings and a Reevaluation of a Major Affirmative Study.” Science, v.217/4555 (1982). Rosenberg, Harold and Alan K. Davis. “Differences in the Acceptability of Non-Abstinence Goals by Type of Drug Among American Substance Abuse Clinicians.” Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, v.46/2 (2014). Sanchez-Craig, Martha. “Random Assignment to Abstinence or Controlled Drinking in a CognitiveBehavioral Program: Short-Term Effects on Drinking Behavior.” Addictive Behaviors, v.5/1 (1980). Sobell, Mark B. and Linda C. Sobell. “Alcoholics Treated by Individualized Behavior Therapy: One Year Treatment Outcome.” Behaviour Research and Therapy, v.11/4 (1973). Vaillant, George E. The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995. van Amsterdam, Jan and Wim van den Brink. “Reduced-Risk Drinking as a Viable Treatment Goal in Problematic Alcohol Use and Alcohol Dependence.” Journal of Psychopharmacology, v.27/11 (2013).
Cooking With Alcohol Alcohol, a volatile and flammable organic compound, has been consumed for millennia. It is often crafted into beverages that are ingested
directly, such as beer, wine, and various spirits. A defining characteristic is that these drinks contain some (variable) percentage of ethyl alcohol. These beverages, though, also frequently serve as ingredients for cooked dishes. Given that alcohol consumption is a shared cultural ritual in many societies (for example, toasting to newlywed couples, kiddush, the ritual blessing of the wine during the Jewish Sabbath), it is logical that alcohol would also be used for culinary preparations. Many well-known dishes utilize alcohol to some extent. Indeed, the culinary use of alcoholic beverages has a long and storied history, extending across many different regions and cultures. However, cultural reasons are not the only motivation for using alcoholic beverages. Alcohol is employed in cooking for its chemical properties (it is acidic) and to add extra elements of flavor. Processes and Reactions Flavoring food is the primary reason for the addition of alcohol in a culinary manner. Alcohol, when joined with oxygen and an acid, generates aromatics. The boiling point of ethanol (grain alcohol) is 173.1 degrees F (78.4 degrees C), lower than that of water, which is 212 degrees F (100 degrees C). Therefore, the cooking process means that some portion of the original alcohol dissipates or burns off. This dissipation can continue even if a dish is cooked at a simmer (with few bubbles breaking the surface) rather than a rolling boil, owing to the reduced boiling point. A common misconception is that all alcohol will evaporate during cooking; rather, some portion stays behind in a dish, an important consideration for those avoiding alcohol. The actual amount remaining is a function of several factors, including the proportion of alcohol, the cooking technique (for example, flambéing or stewing), the size of the cooking vessel (and amount of surface area exposed to air), the amount of heat, and the length of time during which heat is applied. For example, adding alcohol to flame a dish, such as is done in Steak Diane or Crepes Suzette, two preparations in which brandy is poured over the dish and ignited, still leaves approximately 75 percent of alcohol. Simply leaving food in a container overnight (sans heat) actually results in less retention of alcohol (70 percent). The application of heat exacerbates the evaporation process, and longer cooking times
Coq au vin involves marinating chicken and vegetables in Burgundy wine, herbs, and spices. It originated in France as a method of tenderizing poultry. When used as a marinade, alcohol acts to denature (break apart or unwind) the proteins in foods.
lead to more alcohol burning off. Once an alcoholic beverage is stirred into a food mixture, 30 minutes of cooking will leave approximately 35 percent of the alcohol, whereas cooking it for two hours leaves only 10 percent. Therefore, a cook cannot assume that the alcohol will completely evaporate by the time a dish is finished. Uses How alcohol is used in cooking depends in part on its proof. Beverages with lower alcoholic content (by volume), such as beer or wine, are usually cooked for some time. Those with higher alcohol contents, like different spirits or liqueurs or even alcohol-based extracts, are often added at the end of the cook time. An exception to this is baked goods, in which the batter or dough is subject to the heat of an oven after the alcohol is added.
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Culinarily, alcohol is also a widely used extractor and carrier of flavor, a more efficient solvent than water. After all, wooden barrels used in the winemaking process contribute flavor to wine. Alcohol is also used as a base for many flavorings. Many commercially available natural vanilla flavorings, for example, utilize alcohol to draw out the flavor compounds; this generates a liquid infused with vanilla fragrance. Indeed, a minimum volume of alcohol (35 percent) is mandated for vanilla extract sold in the United States (as of 2013). Alcohol is used in a similar fashion for other flavorings, such as orange or lemon extract, which are then added to food mixtures, with or without subsequent heat application. If used properly, alcohol, specifically wine, can also be used as a tenderizing agent. It acts to denature (break apart or unwind) the proteins in foods. One way to tenderize meats, poultry, or fish is to place them in a flavorful alcohol marinade for a certain period of time (which will vary, depending on the type and cut of a protein), although the absorption is typically concentrated near the surface. Marinades require either enzymes or some sort of acidic component, which is necessary to break down the tough connective tissues. While wine may be used as the acid in a marinade, it is somewhat less effective than stronger acids like lemon or other citrus juices or vinegar. However, wine adds its own distinctive flavors in addition to the herbs and spices that are incorporated into the marinade. Still, care must be used, as overmarinating in the acidic environment provided by the wine may actually result in tougher meat; this occurs because the newly unwound proteins now join together and the water molecules are expelled, “cooking” the meat. Alcohol as a Flavor Additive in Recipes Even when not a central ingredient, small amounts of alcohol are frequently added to recipes to impart a unique flavor as an enhancement or provide a counterpoint to other ingredients. A small amount of bourbon, for example, is often used in recipes for barbeque sauces. Shaoxing (Chinese rice wine) may be added to balance stir-fry dishes by adding a tart flavor to a sauce and incorporating sweet elements such as sugar. Wine, both red and white, is often used as a deglazing agent (that is, used to facilitate the removal of flavorful food
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bits that are often left on a pan after the searing process), which, then, serve as the basis of a sauce. Small amounts of distilled spirits, such as brandy or cognac, are frequently incorporated into desserts, adding flavor complexity to sweets including chocolate mousse and custards. Kirsch (cherry brandy) is often added to provide an additional flavor note to cheese fondue. Historical Examples of Cooking With Alcohol Examples of the culinary usage of alcohol can be found throughout much of history. Oenogarum, a type of fish sauce (garum) enhanced with wine, was a popular sauce and condiment in ancient Rome; it was composed of a whisked mixture of wine, fish sauce, oil, and perhaps some herbs or spices to impart additional flavor. Indeed, oenogarum was an ingredient in recipes found in Apicius’s De re coquinaria, a compendium of Roman recipes dating back to 400 c.e. Ancient Greeks used wine as a dipping sauce, flavoring the barley bread that was a staple breakfast and lunch. The ancient imperial Chinese used rice wine as an ingredient as well as a beverage. Mirin, a Japanese cooking wine, has been in existence for hundreds of years. Cheese fondue, the classic Alpine dish of melted cheese with white wine, dates back to at least the late 1600s. Alcohol as Major Ingredient Alcohol in various forms is an integral part of many traditional and well-loved recipes, particularly in wine- or beer-producing regions. French cuisine, often thought of as one of the world’s finest, features many recipes using wine as a foundation flavor. Braising and stewing, two forms of slow cooking, require foods to be cooked with some liquid over a long time period (depending on the food being cooked); this is done to break down the collagen and tenderize tougher cuts or older poultry. Because of the long cook time, braised foods (especially meats and poultry) take on the flavor of the braising liquid. For many famous dishes, this liquid is some sort of wine. Wines are especially suited to long cooking methods, as the alcohol will be largely cooked off, concentrating the other flavorful compounds. Boeuf bourguignon (beef burgundy), or beef braised in red wine, is a classic French dish. Its Italian counterpart
brasata al barolo consists of beef (a large cut, such as a roast) braised with Barolo wine. Coq au vin (rooster with wine), one of the quintessential dishes in French cuisine, involves stewing a chicken in a local wine; this dish has peasant roots and was a way to tenderize a tough older rooster or “retired” laying hen through the combination of heat and acid from the wine. Though associated with the Burgundy wine region, variations can be found in other wine-producing regions of France (for example, Alsace). Beer can also be used as a stewing liquid. In the famous Belgian dish carbonnade flamande, a beef and onion stew, the meat is cooked with beer. Although employed in savory concoctions, alcohol also serves to flavor sweets. Several desserts utilize wine as one of the primary ingredients. Having a lower alcohol content compared to spirits (8–15 percent for regular wine and 16–22 percent for fortified wines), it can be employed in larger quantities than spirits (though the latter frequently enhance the flavor of sweet dishes). Several traditional desserts are based on wine. The French dessert sabayon (or the Italian version zabaglione) is a whisked combination of sugar, egg yolks, and sweet wine such as marsala or madiera. Wine, sherry, or cider forms the basis of the English syllabub, which features the addition of sugar and cream as well as other flavorings. Sweet gelées (jellied desserts) are frequently made with wine, both still and sparkling. Even frozen desserts, such as sorbets and granitas, may feature wine as the foundational element. Wines also serve as poaching liquids for fruit desserts; pears poached in red (or white) wine, a classic preparation, is one example. Flavorful spirits, such as cognac or eau-de-vie (fruit brandies), often play a starring flavor role in pastries. The renowned German cake Schwarzwälder kirschtorte (black forest cherry cake) relies on kirsch, a cherry brandy, for its signature taste. Derby pie, created and trademarked by the owners of the Melrose Inn in Kentucky combines Kentucky bourbon with chocolate and walnuts in a crust, and the bourbon is an integral part of the pie. The classic Italian dessert zuppa Inglese (English soup) is a trifle in which one or more types of alcohol (such as rum or vin santo, a dessert wine) imbue their flavors as they soak into pieces of pound cake or ladyfingers.
Coors
Cooking Wine The cooking wines (as opposed to “drinking wines”) and cooking sherries often sold in North American supermarkets are made from inexpensive wines to which salt has been added. This renders the wine unpalatable for use as a beverage. Thus, when preparing any dish that utilizes saltenhanced cooking wines, care must be taken to reduce (or even omit) any added salt. These wines are generally sold in smaller bottles than those of drinking wines. One advantage of cooking wines is the ability to sell them to people who are under the local legal drinking age. These wines are, however, considered a poor substitute at best. A commonly held view among cooks and chefs is that one should cook with a wine that one would drink. Other Culinary Uses for Alcohol Alcohol can be used to preserve foods, though it will impart its flavor, which can be considered an advantage if that is the intent. Alcohol’s anaerobic environment retards spoilage, although it will result in textural changes. Perishable meats and fish can be preserved in alcohol for shorter periods of time. Fruits are often preserved for longer periods, though sugar is added to the mixture to help maintain the fruit’s taste. One example of this is the traditional German dish rumtopf (rum pot). Fruits are mixed with rum and sugar as they come into season and ripen, starting with spring berries; other fruits are added over the course of summer, again mixed with the alcohol and sugar. This preserves the fruits so that they can be eaten in winter. Petra A. Zimmermann Ball State University See Also: Beer and Foods; Jewish Traditions; Wines, Red; Wines, White. Further Readings Davidson, Alan. The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Grainger, Sally. Cooking Apicius: Roman Recipes for Today. Totnes, UK: Prospect Books, 2006. McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. New York: Scribner, 2004. Nutrient Data Laboratory (U.S.). USDA Table of Nutrient Retention Factors. Release 6. Beltsville, MD: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2007.
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Coors Coors, known today as Molson Coors Brewing Company in Canada and as MillerCoors in the United States, has been brewing beer in Golden, Colorado, since 1873. Up until the 1970s, Coors beer was only available in 11 states, all of which were west of the Appalachian Mountains. Despite the product’s lack of national circulation, it fluctuated between the third- and fourth-most-purchased beer in the United States during the late 1960s and the early- to mid-1970s. However, even with the company’s successes, the Coors family and its company have seen tragedies, controversies, and failures. These include the suicide of Adolph Coors in 1929 and the company’s refusal to submit to union pressure during the 1970s and the 1980s as well as the company’s failure to overtake Anheuser-Busch or Miller Brewing as one of the two largest brewers in the United States. This article will outline the history of the Coors family, its company, and how Coors beer has played an influential role in both the cultural and social makeup of the United States. Adolph Coors and Founding of the Brewery By the middle portion of the 19th century, massive German immigration was occurring in the United States. Many of these German immigrants had become accustomed to drinking a style of beer known as pilsner, which differed greatly from the ales that were being produced in the United States at the time. Therefore, German immigrants with the last names of Pabst, Schlitz, Anheuser, and Busch, as well as Coors, saw a business opportunity and took advantage of it. Today, these names continue to dominate the beer industry. Adolph Coors, the founder of Coors Brewing Company, was born in Prussia, Germany, in 1847. At the age of 21, Adolph stowed away on a ship that was headed for the United States in an attempt to avoid conscription into the German military. After arriving in the United States, Adolph spent three years in Naperville, Illinois, working in a brewery. Finally, at the age of 24, he decided that he no longer wanted to work for someone else and moved west to Denver, Colorado. When Adolph arrived, Colorado was still not a state and Denver had only been a city for 14
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years. After running a bottling company in Colorado for two years, he wanted to return to the brewing industry. Therefore, he took the $2,000 that he had saved, convinced Jacob Schueler to invest an additional $18,000, and in 1873 the Schueler and Coors Golden Brewery was established in Golden, Colorado. Adolph was an astute businessman and was always focused on producing a quality product. Therefore, despite the fact that the United States economy crashed in 1873, he was able to survive the economic downturn. He bought out Schueler in 1880, renamed the company Adolph Coors Golden Brewery, and continued to supply work for his employees. Foreseeing the coming of the prohibition of alcohol in the United States, Adolph began diversifying his assets as early as the 1890s. He began investing in real estate, cement, and the malted milk industry, as well as porcelain, in an attempt to keep himself, his family, and his company economically solvent despite the fact that they could no longer produce beer after the passing of the Volstead Act in 1919. Unfortunately, Adolph did not live to see the end of Prohibition in the United States, taking his own life in 1929. Prohibition ended in the United States in 1933, and with that the Coors family started to produce beer again. However, Coors continued to be a regional beer supplier, with no production facility other than the one that was located in Golden. Although this decreased the company’s overall profits during the middle decades of the 20th century, it allowed Coors to develop a cult following. Celebrities, such as Paul Newman, President Gerald Ford, and Clint Eastwood, were all supporters of Coors. The beer became a novelty item in states in which it was not sold, and it would be common to see tourists bringing several cases of Coors home with them after being in the American West. This practice was reflected in the 1977 film titled Smokey and the Bandit, which starred Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason, and Sally Fields. In the film, Reynolds’s character is hired to illegally ship 400 cases of Coors from Texas to Georgia, and Jackie Gleason’s character is determined to stop him. Films such as this one, having celebrities support Coors beer, and its being very difficult to acquire throughout the East Coast added to the
product’s appeal. However, the company’s conservative political views and its refusal to borrow money meant that the company began to struggle in the late 1970s. Challenges The problems for Coors began in 1975 when Miller Brewing Company nationally debuted their new beer called Miller Lite. In this regard, Coors had two major problems: The first was that Coors Banquet, the only beer produced by Coors, was also a light beer, but it did not say “light” or “lite” on the label, and the second problem was that Miller had more money to advertise its product. In turn, after 32 straight years of continuous economic growth, sales of Coors began to slow in 1975. Coors eventually responded by producing Coors Light, which appeared on stores shelves in 1978. However, Miller still had more money to advertise its nationally sold product and by 1978, had already acquired the brand loyalty of millions of consumers. Coors took another blow to its popularity in 1977 when William Coors, the CEO of the company, fired approximately 500 union workers for going on strike and replaced them with nonunion workers. The AFL-CIO became involved in the strike and vowed to boycott Coors. This meant that as the company was slowly attempting to sell to a larger geographic area, it was also being adversely affected by the AFL-CIO boycott. William Coors’s treatment of his unionized workers also brought to light the family’s right-wing political beliefs. Members of the family were accused of being racists, as well as antigay, anti-gender equality, and antienvironmental. These accusations, as well the uncovering of the family’s donations to the John Birch Society and the Moral Majority, continued to erode the company’s profits. Contemporary Company In 1987, the AFL-CIO boycott of Coors came to an end. In 2005, Coors merged with Molson, a Canadian company, to create Molson Coors. In 2008, in an attempt to counteract the market strength of Anheuser-Busch, InBev, SABMiller, and Molson Coors joined to create MillerCoors, although both parent companies still control their own operations. Coors products are now produced throughout the world at a variety of
Craft Brewing Culture
different facilities. Although Coors has have become the third-most-consumed beer in the United States, the company’s refusal to borrow money in the 1970s and its poor public relations during the late 1970s and 1980s never allowed it to seriously challenge the two major brewers in the United States, Miller and Anheuser-Busch. Gregg Michael French University of Western Ontario See Also: Beer; Budweiser; Germany; Lager; Light Beer; Miller Brewing Co.; Pilsner; United States; Volstead Act. Further Readings Baum, Dan. Citizens Coors: An American Dynasty. New York: HarperCollins, 2000. Burgess, Robert J. Silver Bullets: A Soldier’s Story of How Coors Bombed in the Beer Wars. New York: St. Martin’s, 1993. Hartley, Robert F. Marketing Mistakes and Success, 8th ed. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2001. Van Munching, Philip. Beer Blast: The Inside Story of the Brewing Industry’s Bizarre Battles for Your Money. New York: Random House, 1997.
Craft Brewing Culture The Brewers Association defines craft beer as any beer that is produced in “small, independent, and traditional” conditions. Small, meaning it has an annual production of 6 million barrels or less; independent, meaning that less than 25 percent of the company is owned by an entity that is not a craft brewery; and traditional, meaning it is an all-malt flagship beer or where at least 50 percent of the brewery’s volume is in done all-malt brewing. By this definition, craft beer accounts for approximately 6.7 percent of the United States’ beer sales. There are currently an estimated 2,360 craft breweries in the United States and 55 noncraft breweries. Roughly 1,300 craft breweries planned to launch in 2013. Fluid and diverse, the rising tide of craft brewing has brought with it distinct and notable changes in the culture of beer drinking and brewing.
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History of Craft Brewing During the Prohibition era in the United States, the brewing industry all but disappeared. The only survivors were large macrobreweries that, rich in capital and lobbying resources, responded to a growing consumer base who favored sweeter sodas over bitter beverages. Throughout Prohibition, macrobreweries had produced “near beer,” a beer substitute under one-half of 1 percent alcohol by volume, which was the only “beer” that could be legally sold. Under the reign of these industry giants, the “light American lager,” a beer style characterized by corn or rice adjuncts that lighten the body and subdue flavor, flooded the post-Prohibition market. In contrast to industrial brewing, craft beer frequently refers to those small, independent brewing operations producing flavorful, bold, and unique beers. While craft beer means different things to different people, the term usually refers to breweries that have opened in the 1990s or later. Craft beer grew out of a microbrewing renaissance that began in the United Kingdom in the 1970s. By the 1990s, the microbrewing movement witnessed widespread success in the United States. American entrepreneurs traveling abroad in the late 1970s visited countries that harbored thriving beer traditions. Excited by the flavors and variety found in European beer, they sampled hand-pumped British ales, traditional German lagers, and unique Belgian brews. Returning home, they were underwhelmed by bland industrial lagers. The legalization of home brewing in 1978 by President Jimmy Carter gave hobby brewers an opportunity to explore different production techniques and styles, and the first microbreweries were born. Beginning with New Albion brewery in 1976, the craft beer movement quickly grew to include brewpubs and packaging breweries, and a small handful of craft breweries even realized national distribution. Craft brewing has also seen considerable growth outside the United States. In England, where the microbrewing renaissance first took hold in the 1970s, craft brewers are just starting to experiment with the vast variety of styles championed by American brewers. Most United Kingdom (UK) craft brewers, though, remain firmly grounded in traditional UK styles and frequently produce cask ale (or real ale). Barrel-conditioned cask ales refer
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to any number of beer styles served directly from their conditional vessel, which results in fresh ale with less carbonation and no filtration. While German and Bavarian brewing is still governed by Reinheitsgebot, the Beer Purity Law of 1516, it is difficult to consider the strict and traditional German brewing techniques as anything but craft brewing. In Scandinavia, another location with a rich brewing tradition, modern craft brewers frequently explore historical brewing styles, such as Finnish sahti, flavored with juniper berries and filtered through juniper branches, and the Scandinavian gotlandsdricka, a traditional Viking brew featuring juniper and honey. Ingredients and Styles of Craft Beer If agro-industrial brewing is known for its reliance on corn and rice adjuncts and its almostexclusive production of light American lagers, craft brewing is known for its experimentation with varied and unique ingredients and its penchant for pushing the boundaries of traditional style guidelines. Much akin to the colonial brewing practices of Revolutionary Era America, contemporary craft brewers use everything from pumpkins to peppercorns and beyond in order to add flavors and fermentable sugars to their brews. Grains used for brewing include traditional barley and wheat, rye, oats, and also the more exotic sorghum and millet. American hops join conventional British and German varietals and have become known for bright citrus and floral characteristics. These flavors are evident in the American India pale ale (IPA), a bold and flavorful hop-forward style that has achieved a prominent place in the rosters of American brewers across the country. In addition to the American IPA, craft brewing has resulted in the development of several new beer styles. The Brewers Association recognizes over 125 unique styles and substyles, many of which have been defined in the last 40 years. American versions of lagers are distinct from their German cousins, while barrel-aged, herb- or fruitinfused, and smoked beers also have their own place at the craft beer table. Imperial versions of standard styles offer options with a higher percentage of alcohol by volume. With each new style come new brewing techniques, serving guidelines, and food pairings.
Craft Beer and Glassware As craft brewers sought to distinguish themselves from industrial brewers, and as craft beer drinking evolved to be a taste-driven experience, glassware became a vital aspect of craft beer consumption. Visually, proper beer glassware creates an air of distinction and helps separate craft beer from mass-produced beer. In restaurant and bar settings, unique glassware indicates a special beverage, one that is to be sipped and savored rather than simply quaffed. Sensuously, proper glassware enhances a beer-drinking experience. Not all beers are built the same, and understanding how a correct glass can augment or diminish aspects of a brew has become an important part of craft beer culture. In European restaurants and bars, matching beer to glassware remains unquestionably essential, though when around the house and in a pinch, a solid wine glass can gracefully manipulate a beer’s subtle flavors and aromas. Glassware can be functional and symbolic, and several styles of glassware developed in conjunction with cultural habits of beer production and consumption. Belgian tulip glasses are commonly used for general connoisseurship, with a stem that helps prevent temperature fluctuation, a bulbous body that traps aromas and flavors, and a tapered lip that directs beer flow onto the palate. Tulip glasses are particularly appropriate for complex and high-alcohol beers reminiscent of fine wines and the rich beers produced by monks. Highly carbonated beers may do well in a flute, while tall cylindrical weissbier glasses catch and cradle the cloudy style’s characteristically heavy foam. In German beer halls, mugs may continue to prevail. The sturdy glass and handle compliments the boisterous environment and frequent glass clinking that often occurs. Craft Beer and Food Even more numerous than the types of glassware used to consume beer are the various foods and cuisines now specifically paired with beer. As craft beer culture evolved, proponents of craft beer began to challenge the assertion that wine is the exclusive companion to good food. Beer has often been likened first and foremost to cooking, rather than winemaking or alternative forms of alcohol production. Ingredients are as varied as a complex meal and range in flavor characteristics from
Cross-Addiction
bacon to cherries and bananas. Since beer is carbonated, it is dually purposed for lifting flavors and aromas across the palate while also scrubbing the palate clean of fats and oils. As craft beer entered the restaurant industry, adventuresome chefs began hosting beer-pairing dinners and tasting events. As the caramelization of sugars is an important aspect of both cooking and brewing, beer tends to pair particularly well with seared and roasted foods. This synergy, or harmony, is one potential avenue for pairing. Citrusy or herbal hop flavors may similarly pair well with citrus-inspired or herb-friendly dishes. The chocolate and coffee notes of roasted malts may pair well with blackened fish or roasted vegetables. The balance of malt sweetness and hop bitterness also lends beer to pair well with desserts. Many chefs will use craft beers as ingredients in sauces to further enhance its synergy with a dish, and beer batters and marinades have also become quite popular. Craft beer culture grew up alongside the development of an artisanal cheese industry, and the pairing of beer and cheese has received considerable attention. Full of milk solids, cheese practically beckons for the carbonation of beer to help cleanse the palate. As craft brewers strive to place their beers in high-end restaurants and on the plates of distinguished palates, they frequently use cheese pairings to call attention to flavors and aromas. Sour beers pair well with stinky washed-rind cheeses, brie with Belgian ales, and blue cheese and cheddars with porters and stouts. Chris Maggiolo Independent Scholar See Also: Beer; Beer and Foods; Brewing, History of; Brewing Beer, Techniques of; Local Breweries. Further Readings Acitelli, Tom. The Audacity of Hops: The History of America’s Craft Beer Revolution. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2013. Brewers Association. http://www.brewersassociation .org (Accessed November 2013). Perozzi, Christina and Hallie Beaune. The Naked Pint: An Unadulterated Guide to Craft Beer. New York: Perigree Trade, 2012.
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Cross-Addiction Cross-addiction refers to a person’s propensity to be chemically dependent on more than one psychoactive substance or even addictive conduct, such as a dual addition to alcohol and disordered gambling, sex addiction, shopping addiction, or food addiction. Cross-addiction commonly manifests itself when persons who are dependent on a substance believe that they are not vulnerable to other substances or addictive conduct, when in fact they are, and thus commence another addiction. The danger is that these individuals’ tendency to addiction is broad. It might be inadvertently activated by a seemingly benign medical prescription, and then once the addictive conduct is reengaged, the individual commonly finds him or herself also taking part in the original addictive behavior or others. Such being the case, cross-addiction is a push into and, possibly, the leading reason for relapse. The likelihood of susceptibility to addiction and cross-addiction is partly genetic, partly attributable to long-term changes in the brain given repeated drug use, and partly learned. The learning occurs when dopamine projections to the cortex and basal ganglia areas of the brain include an encoding of associations necessary to facilitate the addictive conduct. Environmental triggers or cues can become associated with the addictive conduct, such that being in contexts associated with the addiction or having feelings associated with it can trigger a relapse. In other words, if a person used to do drugs in his or her green car, getting into this green car while in recovery has the potential to trigger a relapse. The trigger could be by any of the senses—such as sight or smell. The triggers or cues are so powerful that exposure need only last a fraction of a second to have an impact. This being the case, some persons with addictions may not be able to identify the trigger that leads to a relapse. Vulnerability to cross-addiction is also facilitated by long-term abstinence—meaning that persons might abandon their activities and other supports for a lengthy period without relapse but not appreciate their risk of long-term vulnerability to addictions. Persons are also vulnerable to cross-addiction when they require treatment for sleep disorders, anxiety, and pain relief, and many patients are not aware of their risk for cross-addiction.
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Additionally, many physicians have not been instructed on cross-addictions and so do not make this a part of their efforts to administer treatment to their patients with addiction. Etiology Addiction is a chronic illness that becomes most alarming as it progresses and manifests in behavior that interferes with normal life processes and causes concern among family and friends. It involves a loss of control that includes powerful cravings that lead to a drug-seeking compulsion or behavioral compulsions despite associated negative consequences. Physiologically, when ingesting drugs is a part of the problem, the addict tends to take increasing amounts of the drug and builds up a tolerance to its effects. If he or she does not have the substance for some time, withdrawal symptoms can occur. Addiction to substances is a public health problem that has its etiology in a person’s neurotransmitter chemical level composition. In particular, persons born with levels of neurotransmitters that are less than average are more prone to addiction than persons with average neurotransmitter levels; hence, two persons might try a chemical with an addiction potential, but the person with the imbalance in neurotransmitter levels is the one more likely to find him or herself manifesting an addiction. For the addicted person, exposure to an addictive substance can increase the flow of dopamine to the basal ganglia. When this occurs, the dysregulated excitary transmission reinforces the addictive conduct. Areas of the brain that are impacted are the prefrontal cortex, the amygdala, and nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumbens impacts ideas of motivations and rewards ideas. The stages of the addiction are (1) experiencing the powerful effects of initial exposure, (2) repeated use, and (3) development of an intense desire for the drug or addictive conduct coupled with reduced pleasure from the drug or activity and lowered inhibitions. Where an addictive conduct is concerned, it appears that an irregular reward can be more addictive than a consistent reward. Addictive behavior involves persons taking the substance on which they are dependent more often and in larger doses than it is prescribed and even seeking unnecessary refills or alternative means of accessing the drug. Common drugs
seen in cross-addiction cases include alcohol, zolpidem (Ambien prescribed for trouble sleeping), diazepam (Valium), alprazolam (Xanax), hydrcodone (Vicodin), lorazepam (Ativan) and oxycodone (Oxycontin). These substances release the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain and the sense of pleasure reinforces the desire for continued use of the addictive substances. The addiction is so powerful that persons will neglect their normal duties in repeated pursuit of the dopamine pleasure stimulation of their brain. The intense perceptions of reward associated with changes in dopamine levels that fuel addictions undergo a change with continued addictive consumption to a cellular adaptation. The resulting pathophysiological plasticity diminishes the ability of the prefrontal cortex to control the person’s pleasureseeking conduct to engage the addiction. Identification and Populations At Risk For many persons, the initial addiction is to alcohol or nicotine (often cigarettes); not surprisingly so given that these two substances are legal. Alcohol addiction or dependence might be assessed by a screening instrument like the Michigan Alcohol Screening Test (MAST). Disordered gambling might be identified using the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS). A population in which the cross-addiction of alcohol and disordered gambling is of particular concern is among university athletes. Typically, for them heavy drinking is not uncommon, and the social context also encourages gambling. Indeed, researcher Stephen Weiss reported in 2010 that the occurrence of these two activities is greater among student athletes than among the general student population. Other common substances in addictions include inhalants, hallucinogens, opiods, phencyclidines, and sedatives. Other research indicates that cross-addiction is more likely in persons with diminished executive functioning, indicating a neurocognitive problem in the frontal lobe. The anterior cingulated gyrus and the orbitofrontal cortex, which are connected to limbic structures, are most often involved in addictions. Binging, intoxication, and craving activates these areas. The frontal lobe regulates motivation and higher order thinking. When altered by an addiction, inhibitions are lowered and positive reinforcements associated with the
addiction are magnified. This effect is called an impaired response inhibition and salience attribution, or I-RISA. Other Cross-Addictions Sex addiction is also commonly involved in crossaddictions. This has been an increasing occurrence with the popularity and ease of access to pornography available via the Internet. Early exposure to pornography apparently has the potential to alter normal neurochemical processes triggering a sexual addiction. The addiction is often preceded by childhood abuse and attachment difficulties. Alcohol and cocaine addiction is another common cross-addiction pattern. Cocaine addiction is more likely in persons with a close relative with alcohol dependence than persons without this family history. Cross-addictions involving food are also fairly common. Food addiction occurs because eating food can activate pleasure areas in the brain. Eating certain processed foods often enough can increase the likelihood of being addicted to the food. These foods tend to be high in fat, white flour, sugar, and salt. Manifestations of this addiction include increased intake, tolerance, and noticeable irritability when the food is not consumed. Similarly, compulsive shopping, a behavioral addiction, is often categorized as an emotional impulsivity problem. It is present when persons continue to shop for items that they do not need despite the negative consequences of such shopping. The behavior is associated with responding to negative feelings. The aftermath of the conduct, however, often includes feelings of shame and guilt. Treatment involves a very individualized therapeutic approach. Responding to Cross-Addiction The negative consequences that result from both addiction and cross-addiction may include the development of other health problems including contracting the human immunodeficiency virus, loss of family, employment, education, a home, life and limbs. Persons with a history of addiction need to be educated about their vulnerability in recovery including the threat of cross-addictions. It should be clear that this vulnerability can exist for years. During recovery, persons might subconsciously find themselves in search of another addictive substance
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to fill the void left by their previous addiction and its comforts. After giving up an addiction, physical and emotional discomforts might be felt and these may be uncomfortable. Persons need to be cautioned against turning to things like alcohol. Alcohol is often a cross-addiction drug given its social acceptability; for others, the choice may be cigarettes and for some, marijuana. Persons should also be taught to avoid their environmental triggers, given the power of conditioned stimuli to trigger a dopamine release, and to be very cautious consumers of medicines including prescribed ones. Some therapists advocate a behavioral approach that includes a reward system of services or things encouraging positive dependence. Also helpful are techniques like journaling, having peer support, managing stress, and regular exercise. Finally, physicians need to be instructed on the nature of cross-addictions and practice care toward avoiding its occurrence. Camille Gibson Prairie View A&M University See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Alcoholism: Effect on the Family; Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, History of; Casinos; Sexual Activity and Aphrodisiacs; Tobacco and Drugs, Alcohol’s Interaction With. Further Readings Goldstein, Rita Z. and Nora D. Volkow. “Drug Addiction and Its Underlying Neurobiological Basis: Neuroimaging Evidence for the Involvement of the Frontal Cortex.” American Journal of Psychiatry, v.59/10 (2002). Kalivas, Peter W. and Nora D. Volkow. “The Neural Basis of Addiction: A Pathology of Motivation and Choice.” American Journal of Psychiatry, v.162/8 (2005). Köpetz, Catalina E., Carl W. Lejuez, Reinout W. Woers, and Arie W. Kruglanski. “Motivation and Self-Regulation in Addiction.” Perspectives in Psychological Services, v.8/1 (2013). Riemersma, Jennifer and Michael Sytsma. “A New Generation of Sexual Addiction.” Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity, v.20/4 (2013). Weiss, Stephen. “Cross Addiction on Campus: More Problems for Student Athletes.” Substance Use and Misuse, v.45 (2010).
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Cruikshank, George George Cruikshank (1792–1878) was a popular 19th-century British editorial cartoonist, illustrator, and caricaturist who turned, in midlife, from a hugely successful career as a caustic political commentator and one of the most respected book illustrators of his era (among the authors for whom he worked was Charles Dickens) to become one of his generation’s most passionate and ardent temperance advocates. Taking up at the age of 55 the crusade against alcohol as a social evil, Cruikshank used his considerable reputation and artistic talents to produce two of the most celebrated temperance publications of the 19th century and to deliver a series of popular (and inflammatory) temperance speeches. Employing firsthand knowledge of the evils of drink in his own family and in the streets of London, he championed total abstinence as the only logical solution to one of his era’s most pressing and widespread social problems. Cruikshank appears to have inherited his artistic talent and scathing wit. His father, Isaac Cruikshank (1756–1811), a Scot, spent his career as a London illustrator, known as much for his illustrations of children’s tales, sheet music, advertising, and poetry chapbooks as for his own brand of biting political and social satire and editorial caricatures. The elder Cruikshank enjoyed a reputation as a legendary drinker, most likely what modern medicine would call an alcoholic, though the term did not exist in that era. Indeed, when Cruikshank was 19, his father, then at the height of his own creative powers, took up a trivial tavern wager and consumed so much alcohol in such a relatively short period of time that he died that night from what would today be called alcohol poisoning—he was only 55. Showing a remarkable proclivity for sketching early on, Cruikshank dreamed of studying painting at the Royal Academy, an ambition his father had also entertained in his youth. But Cruik shank’s father pulled him out of school after the sixth grade to begin an apprenticeship in the family business, an etching studio. As time passed, the elder Cruikshank’s alcohol dependency compelled him to rely increasingly on the help of his young son, subjecting the future temperance advocate to arduous and taxing work, including handling
heavy copper plates and adding detailed background work for his father’s etchings. When Britain’s war broke out with Napoleon and his older brother joined the navy only to be reported missing in action, Cruikshank wanted to enlist—but his father refused. By then, Cruikshank’s father could barely work because of his drinking, and this, along with the older man’s rapidly deteriorating condition, motivated Cruikshank quickly to come into his own as an artist. He evolved into a confident and accomplished illustrator who, by the time of his father’s death, had already established his own reputation. For the next two decades, Cruikshank enhanced his reputation as one of his era’s most accomplished political satirists and then as one of its most highly regarded book illustrators. Critics favorably compared his etchings to William Hogarth’s, commending Cruikshank for his fine-line etchings, unflinching portrayal of controversy, and haunting sense of exaggeration and grotesquerie. Few rivaled Cruikshank at his height— indeed, his attacks on Britain’s hapless monarch George IV and the antics of the royal family grew so vitriolic (and so popular) that rumors held that a government official representing the king himself offered Cruikshank a bribe of more than £100, a considerable amount at the time, to cease pillorying the king in his cartoons. Known widely for his attacks on the foibles of the monarchy and his conservative misgivings over the supposed promise of the new age of industry and machinedriven commerce, he also played a major role in the emerging free press initiative. Frequently, a Cruikshank pamphlet sold in excess of 100,000 copies in just a few days of street sales. In the 1820s, when he turned to the far more lucrative business of illustrating popular novels, he enjoyed similar success; by some accounts, he worked on close to 900 books. Cruikshank won special acclaim for his work on several volumes of the dark fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and several of Charles Dickens’s titles, including Oliver Twist. Indeed, Dickens’s biographers relate the author’s jealousy when Cruikshank’s illustrations garnered as much critical praise as did his prose (it probably did not help that in no less than the London Times, Cruikshank publicly claimed a large share of the credit for the plot itself).
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Detail from a large, 1864 engraving based on an oil painting by George Cruikshank titled The Worship of Bacchus, or, The Drinking Customs of Society, in which the use of alcohol in social situations and at every stage of life is depicted and critiqued. Cruikshank was a temperance advocate for much of his later life, and the abuse of alcohol was a frequent theme in his works.
Temperance Works Amid his artistic triumph, financial success, and social influence, Cruikshank drank as excessively as did his father. Indeed, he lived a kind of shadow life: he married and had three children, presenting a solidly respectable appearance. Long after his death, scholars learned that he also kept a mistress with whom he fathered 11 children, splitting his time between the two homes. Cruikshank’s drive to succeed and notorious bouts of drinking earned him, in the world of British publishing, a reputation for being difficult, petty, tyrannical, demanding, egotistical, and temperamental. His habits and life trajectory changed dramatically in 1847, when Cruikshank accepted a lucrative offer to illustrate a temperance pamphlet that was to be titled The Bottle. The pamphlet told the dramatic, tragic story of a model middle-class family’s quick descent into poverty, violence, and madness after
the father succumbs to the evils of alcohol and introduces his family to drinking as well. In perhaps the story’s most compelling scene, the dissipated father, driven insane by drink, kills his wife, in a heavy-handed plot device, with an empty liquor bottle, in front of their two children. The project required eight illustrations, which Cruikshank, although still a chronic drinker, provided. Both supporters and detractors of temperance lauded Cruikshank’s illustrations, helping the pamphlet sell more than 75,000 copies in a single day. The publishers, recognizing a sensation, brought out issues in both the United States and Australia. The pamphlet catapulted Britain’s nascent temperance movement into the political and social limelight. Adapters quickly turned the story into a full-fledged novel and a popular stage melodrama complete with a music score full of heart-rending tunes. Promoters transferred
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Cruikshank’s illustrations themselves to glass slides and mounted a narrated magic lantern show that played to sold-out audiences for more than a year. Nonetheless, Cruikshank continued to drink with abandon. The pamphlet’s publishers quickly sought out Cruikshank for a sequel and the next year released a similar illustrated temperance story. This one, titled The Drunkard’s Children, provided more drama and pathos than its predecessor, picking up the story of the family’s children, who grow up hopelessly traumatized by witnessing their father’s descent into alcohol-induced madness and their mother’s bloody death by his hand. The son, a drinker ensnared by gambling losses, participates in a failed robbery intended to clear his debt. After the police arrest and incarcerate him, he dies in prison. His beautiful sister, lacking family, friends, or resources, endures homelessness and desperation, eventually committing suicide by throwing herself off a bridge into the Thames River. The two temperance works constituted a most powerful cautionary tale and led Cruikshank to take a hard look at his own alcohol abuse. In the preface to The Drunkard’s Children, Cruikshank vowed to abstain from alcohol entirely. He was 55—the same age at which his own father had succumbed to alcohol poisoning. Now a teetotaler, Cruikshank quickly adopted a fanatical stance against drinking and smoking. With the uncompromising zeal of a reformed drinker, Cruikshank decried in public forums the evils of alcohol and the misery it brought to individual families and to the entire London community. He provided illustrations for the publications of the National Temperance Society, particularly stressing the impact of alcohol abuse on the family, and especially on children. The reformed drinker transformed into one of Britain’s most sought-after public speakers, who filled halls with audiences eager to hear his fiery diatribes against drinking and strident defenses of the wisdom and logic of sobriety. For the next 20 years, Cruikshank tirelessly championed the temperance cause before the British public. Tragically, he spent his last years in decline, his health deteriorating and his financial status uncertain, since his illustrations had never been protected by copyright. His last decade
suggests the persistence of significant psychological traumas resulting from his own upbringing in the home of an alcoholic father. A publisher approached Cruikshank with a lucrative offer to bring out his autobiography. Although in his seventies, Cruikshank suffered from no debilitating mental incapacities—and yet he would struggle for more than eight years with his memories, unable finally to put any shape, any clear narrative to his own upbringing. He died at the age of 86, broke and largely forgotten. Joseph Dewey Broward College See Also: Adult Children of Alcoholics; Alcoholism: Effect on the Family; Art; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 19th Century; Temperance Movements; United Kingdom; Victorian England. Further Readings “George Cruikshank: 1792–1878.” Artcyclopedia. http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/cruikshank_ george.html (Accessed August 2014). Simkin, John. “George Cruikshank.” Spartacus Educational. http://archive.today/0SlU6 (Accessed August 2014). Smolden, Thierry, Bart Beaty, and Nick Nguyen. The Origins of Comics. Hattiesburg: University of Mississippi Press, 2014. Volger, Richard A., ed. Graphic Works of George Cruikshank. New York: Dover Pictorial Archive, 1980.
Cullen-Harrison Act The temperance movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries claimed its most important but brief victory in 1919, when Congress passed and the states ratified the Eighteenth Amendment, outlawing all but the lowest-alcohol-content beverages. To implement this amendment, Congress passed the Volstead Act, overriding President Woodrow Wilson’s veto in 1919. The act took effect January 1, 1920. This amendment and act ushered in a period known as Prohibition. Not all Americans were happy with this state of affairs.
Many drank alcohol illicitly at speakeasies. Respect for law enforcement declined, and then the Great Depression struck in 1929. Cash-poor local, state, and federal governments needed tax revenues. What better way to capture revenues than to legalize alcohol, which people were drinking anyhow, and tax it? The Republican presidents of the 1920s would not countenance such action, but the Democrats who came to office in the 1932 elections were eager to act. They passed the Cullen-Harrison Act in 1933 to repeal the Volstead Act, allowing the legal consumption of alcohol once again. But only low-alcohol-content beer and wines were legalized, and the federal government wondered whether Americans would actually buy these beverages. On the first day of legalization, the resounding answer was yes. The U.S. Treasury that day recorded more than $7 million in revenues collected from the taxation of alcohol. The repeal of Prohibition was a success, though it is clear that many of the problems that the temperance movement feared have lingered into the present. Alcohol abuse has had a tragic effect on families, businesses, the homeless, the poor, and underage drinkers. Prelude to the Cullen-Harrison Act In the 19th century, temperance advocates were of two types: The first group did not seek to impose prohibition. Its members were minimalists who did not wish to enlarge the role of the state or federal governments. They believed that an appeal to morality and sobriety was more effective than government intervention. Accordingly, they sought to persuade drinkers to consume alcohol in moderation. The second group, more militant, did not believe persuasion worked. As they saw it, the appeal to persuasion and morality was timid and ineffectual. Only the government had the power to restrain the consumption of alcohol. This group of temperance advocates, starting at the state level and progressing to the federal government, appealed to the government to impose prohibition by banning the production, sale, and consumption of alcohol. By the early 20th century, this wing of the temperance movement came to the forefront. It could boast of some successes at the state level, but these were insufficient actions because the states
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did not always enforce their laws about prohibition. These temperance advocates (women played a notable role in the temperance movement), approached the federal government to enact nationwide prohibition to forever ban alcohol abuse and the evils that came with it. By the 1910s, a reform-minded Congress—after all this was the heyday of the progressive era—moved in the direction of Prohibition. By the end of the decade, not only did a majority of Congress support Prohibition but a supermajority was able in 1919 to override President Woodrow Wilson’s veto. Congress and the states that year ratified the Eighteenth Amendment, which empowered Congress to set the amount of alcohol, if any, that beverages could contain. The Eighteenth Amendment took effect January 1, 1920, the year that Congress passed the Volstead Act. The act did not abolish the production, sale, and consumption of alcohol, but its limit on alcohol content was so stringent that it had the effect of outlawing the consumption of alcohol. Beer that ordinarily would have had 5 or 6 percent alcohol now, under the Volstead Act, had only one-one hundredth of this amount. This level ensured that even the most avid drinkers could not get drunk. There is evidence that many Americans had not expected the Volstead Act to be so strict, and soon cracks manifested in the colossus of Prohibition. During the 1920s, a series of Republican presidents, beginning with Warren G. Harding and ending with Herbert Hoover, had as part of their job the duty of enforcing prohibition. Harding seems to have had no qualms about drinking more than his share of alcohol, and even Hoover visited the Belgian embassy where, technically on foreign soil, he could have a round of drinks with friends. Hoover, however, did discard his expensive wine cellar and as president was adamant in enforcing Prohibition. Meanwhile, many Americans evaded the law. Some people made their own alcohol at home. Bootleggers bought alcohol in Canada and sold it to speakeasies in the United States. Even though they were charged with enforcement, the police were either ineffectual or looked the other way. Respect for the law declined, and even Hoover by 1932 came to see Prohibition as a liability rather than an asset. In the election of 1932, he reversed
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course, signaling his willingness to have Congress overturn the Volstead Act and along with the states enact a new amendment to supersede and invalidate the Eighteenth Amendment. Toward the Cullen-Harrison Act The Great Depression and the election of 1932 were significant events in truncating Prohibition. In bankrupting businesses and ending the tenure of banks, the Great Depression deprived local, state, and federal governments of revenues. If Americans were already drinking alcohol, it seemed to the government that it would be best to legalize alcohol again so as to derive a source of tax revenues. Moreover, the election of 1932 swept away the Republican majorities in the U.S. House and Senate and ended Hoover’s tenure in the White House. Democrats replaced them and, unlike Republicans, showed from the outset a willingness to experiment. The end of Prohibition would be just one achievement of the multifaceted and energetic New Deal, whereby President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress attempted to combat the Great Depression. The legislative effort focused on the House and Senate. The naming of the Cullen-Harrison Act honored two supporters of the bill to end Prohibition: Congressman Thomas H. Cullen from Mississippi and Senator Pat Harrison. Yet, Harrison was actually a latecomer to the bill that would bear his name. The initial impetus for the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act came from the Mississippian James Collier, chair of the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means, and Thomas Cullen, who took up legislation to end Prohibition even though House finance chairperson Reed Smoot of Utah threatened to quash any bill that sought to end it. At this juncture, Harrison joined the fray, voting for immediate repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act even though Mississippi senator Herbert Stephenson threatened to derail such a bill. Harrison drew allies to his cause, and on February 16, 1933, the Senate voted to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment. On February 20, the House concurred. In early March, President Roosevelt asked Congress to repeal the Volstead Act and legalize the production and consumption of low-alcohol-content beer and wine. The
House applauded Roosevelt and repealed the Volstead Act on March 14. The vote, 316 to 97, had never been in doubt. The Senate Finance Committee cleared the way for a full Senate vote on March 15. After only one hour of debate, the Senate repealed the Volstead Act, replacing it with the Cullen-Harrison Act. The Cullen-Harrison Act banned the sale of beer to anyone below age 18 and forbade radio from advertising beer. The new alcohol content of beer, 3.05 percent, matched the alcohol content in British beer but was still below the 5 or 6 percent that had been typical of American beers before the advent of Prohibition. The bill passed 43 to 30 and now moved to a conference committee, where House members, dismayed at so low an alcohol content, wondered whether such beer would sell and thereby generate tax revenues, as the government had hoped during the Great Depression. The conference committee settled on beer with 3.2 percent alcohol content as well as low-alcohol wine on March 21. The president signed the act within five minutes of it reaching the White House on March 22. By April 17, 21 states and the District of Columbia passed similar laws and so could legally sell beer and wine. That day, the U.S. Treasury bulged with $7.5 million in tax revenues from the sale of beer and wine. The experiment of Prohibition had ended at last. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: Eighteenth Amendment; Prohibition; Presidents, U.S.; Volstead Act. Further Readings “The Cullen-Harrison Act.” World News. http:// wn.com/Cullen-Harrison_Act (Accessed February 2014). “The Cullen-Harrison Act: Beer Flows Again in the United States.” Examiner.com. http://www .examiner.com/article/the-cullen-harrison-act -beer-flows-again-the-united-states (Accessed February 2014). “Cullen-Harrison Act: Define, Explore, Discuss.” http://www.museumstuff.com/learn/topics/Cullen -Harrison_Act (Accessed February 2014).
Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition, The
Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition, The The Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition was an ambitious defense of temperance and prohibition compiled in the late 19th century. Its thesis is that the temperance and prohibition movement was gaining strength throughout the United States and Europe. Although the work may claim international scope, having treated Africa, Asia, and Australia, most of the material is about the United States. Although the cyclopedia may have attempted some form of gender neutrality, the biographical entries are almost always about men, with the exceptions of Lucy Hayes, wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes, and Lucretia Mott. Although it might have tried to be evenhanded, the book expresses the prejudices and stereotypes of women, Jews, African Americans, and Muslims that were common to its time. Aside from a few entries, this work is not history; its preoccupation is with contemporary events of the late 19th century. At its core this cyclopedia is really a prohibition tract because of its denunciation of even moderate consumption. Contents Funk and Wagnalls published The Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition in London, New York, and Toronto in 1891. The work is a single volume that runs to 688 pages. Its subtitle, A Reference Book of Facts, Statistics, and General Information on All Phases of the Drink Question, The Temperance Movement and The Prohibition Agitation, reminds one of the verbosity of 19thcentury prose. The cyclopedia cites numerous examples of the prohibition movement in Europe, suggesting an admiration for Europe and perhaps a desire to emulate it. The cyclopedia has nothing good to say about alcohol. It considers any consumption, however moderate, to be evil. Alcohol emerges from this work as an unredeemable vice that can only corrupt the mind and body. Many entries in this work are similar to those in The Cyclopedia of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Morals (1917). Both begin with an entry on absinthe. The Cyclopedia of Temperance
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and Prohibition traces U.S. and European efforts to strengthen the temperance and prohibition movements in Africa, an entry that betrays a hint of paternalism. The book compliments the efforts of Sweden and Norway to strengthen the temperance and prohibition movements. Abstinence, according to the cyclopedia, is the mark of intelligence, and temperance and prohibition, the editors assert, are part of a larger economic program, although the reader does not learn the specifics of this program. The cyclopedia approvingly quotes the U.S. Supreme Court for declaring that citizens have no innate right to consume alcohol; however, it fails to name the decision in which the court expressed this opinion and the year in which the decision was issued. The cyclopedia also gives the impression that nearly everyone in the United States supported temperance and prohibition in the late 19th century. This was certainly not true. Many immigrants clung to local traditions in the consumption of their favorite brew. In addition, the cyclopedia notes that some U.S. businesses required sobriety of their workers; one would expect this desire to be universal. The book also notes that insurance companies charged higher premiums to people who consumed alcohol. It refers to labor leaders who pledged abstinence, though one does not learn the names of these leaders. Role of the Bible and Christianity Nearly every Christian denomination, especially Protestant, receives generous treatment, largely because of their support for temperance and prohibition. The federal government receives praise for not selling alcohol on Native American lands. The cyclopedia lists a roster of writers who supported temperance and prohibition, though no name seems particularly distinguished. The book admits that a few writers opposed temperance and prohibition but judges them inconsequential. The editors note that the cyclopedia does not replace other works on the subject but rather complements them. The editors also offer a practical rather than theoretical guide to the temperance and prohibition movements. The cyclopedia has a long article on the deleterious effects of alcohol, a physiological tour of alcohol as it passes through the body. The editors calculate the mortality rates in various countries
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from immoderate consumption of alcohol. The cyclopedia ranks the contributions of the Democratic and Republican Parties to the causes of temperance and prohibition, noting the strength of these movements among Kansas Republicans. In various entries, the editors compare the temperance and prohibition movements with the earlier abolition movement. The editors are at pains to clarify the place of alcohol, particularly wine, in the Bible, coming to the conclusion that many references to wine are really references to a nonalcoholic grape beverage. They do not provide evidence for this view. Among the biographies is one of James Black, the first presidential candidate of the Prohibition Party. Prohibition and the Prohibition Party receive glowing endorsements from the editors. At times the cyclopedia appears to lose focus. An entry on the opium trade between China and the United States seems far afield, as do entries on cocaine and tobacco. Perhaps the intent was to show that alcohol was, like opium, tobacco and cocaine, a vice. An Attempt at Statistics and Science In the cyclopedia, temperance and prohibition emerge as the products of rationalism and science. The book marshals a large number of statistics on the consumption of alcohol by state where the focus is on the United States and by country where the focus is international. The editors even counted the number of cases of beer exported from one country to another. As have many temperance advocates, the cyclopedia links alcohol and crime. Farmers receive significant coverage because of the strength of the temperance and prohibition movements in the American countryside. The editors acknowledge the role of heredity in predisposing one toward alcoholism, though, written in the period before the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel’s laws in 1900, this entry could not have any conception of genes, the units of heredity. The editors attempt to link alcohol to illiteracy, though because one learns to read and write as a child and before the onset of alcohol consumption, at least in most cases this link appears to be difficult to prove. The cyclopedia treats Abraham Lincoln as a hero of the prohibition movement, partly because he did not drink alcohol and because of
his sympathy toward the temperance and prohibition movements. The entry on Islam, on the other hand, is not a laudatory description of the religion. It depicts Islam as a religion that supported slavery and polygamy and was suited only to uncivilized countries. Nonetheless, the entry notes the Qur’an’s prohibition on the consumption of alcohol. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: Democratic Party, U.S.; Dry Cities and Counties; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 19th Century; Prohibition; Prohibition Party; Republican Party, U.S.; Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem; Temperance, History of; Temperance Movements; Temperance Movements, Religion in. Further Readings Burns, E. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple, 2004. Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition: A Reference Book of Facts, Statistics, and General Information on All Phases of the Drink Question, the Temperance Movement and the Prohibition Agitation. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1891. The Cyclopedia of Temperance, Prohibition and Public Morals. New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1917.
Czech Republic In the Czech Republic, beer is culture, and perhaps it is the only place in the world where a draft beer is cheaper than a bottle of water. The country is home to a number of world-famous beers (as well as the birthplace of the international style known as pilsner), and revenue from beer-related tourism and foreign sales are important to the national economy. The Czechs are world renowned for their love of beer, leading all other nations in the amount quaffed per year as well as ranking number one in total alcohol consumption among European Union countries. Despite high consumption levels, alcoholism and
binge drinking remain minor problems in the country due to social pressure to drink responsibly and the national predilection toward lowalcohol beverages. Beer Brewing The history of beer brewing in Bohemia dates back to the first millennium when the Brevnov Monastery began production in 993. Today, the Czech Republic is known for its high-quality Saaz hops as well as its fine Moravian barley (theorized to be the origin of all modern varieties). The Czech people are so strongly attached to beer that is has long been said that, if the government raises the price of beer, it will soon fall. Not surprisingly, the price of domestic beer remains low (despite a steady increase in price since the late 1990s). Even in the center of the heavily visited capital Prague, a half liter of high-quality brew can be found for 25 Czech korunas (or about $1.25). Prices in countryside taverns are even lower, making beer significantly cheaper than any other beverage, including water. Such embedding of beer culture in the Czechs’ national heritage partially explains why Czechoslovakia’s brewing industry remained robust, competitive, and innovative even under state socialism (1948–89), only to suffer consolidation following the end of state subsidies. While the entry of foreign firms into the marketplace during the 1990s buttressed some flagging breweries, others were forced to close in the face of new competition and changing tastes. Following the so-called Velvet Divorce of 1993, the Czech Republic emerged as the uncontested leader in per capita beer consumption (Slovaks enjoy wine almost as much as beer, thus historically weakening Czechoslovakia’s position vis-àvis Germany). Today, the average Czech consumes more than 160 liters of beer per annum, about twice that of their American counterparts. The most popular brands, also the only two approved for export during the Communist period, are Plzenský Prazdroj (Pilsner Urquell)—named after its town of origin (Plzen), which also gives its name to the international style of light beer known as pilsner, pilsener, or pils—and Budvar (known as Czechvar in the United States) in the southern city Ceské Budejovice; both towns’ histories are rooted in royal charters to brew beer. Other major brands include Gambrinus, Radegast, Staropramen, and
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Krušovice, though there are more than 100 local and microbreweries in the country today. In the Czech Republic, beer (which is often called liquid bread) is rather uniquely labeled according to the percentage of malt extract used in the brewing process. This system, originally established by the Bohemian scientist Karl Balling, uses degrees Plato: light (lehké) is below 8 degrees; tap (výcepní) is 8 to 10 degrees; lager (ležák) is 11 to 13 degrees; and special (speciál) is anything above 13 degrees. This classification system often leads to confusion among foreigners as a percentage symbol is sometimes substituted for the degree glyph. Additionally, beer styles include light (svetlé), dark (tmavé), and black (cerné) beers. Czechs brewers have recently added Radler (a lemonade–lager mix) to their offerings. Czechs tend to be unflinchingly loyal to their chosen brewer, thus explaining why there has been limited penetration by foreign brands in the current era of globalization. Like Great Britain, the Czech Republic has a strong pub culture, and also like the UK’s tradition of the tied house, most establishments tend to offer beers from a single brewer, thus linking pub going to brand loyalty (external signage will often clue potential patrons to the libation on offer). Although, in recent years, certain bars have begun to provide a so-called fourth pipe for new offerings unaffiliated with the larger breweries. Beer tourism is vital to the Czech economy. Both the Budvar and Pilsner Urquell breweries attract large numbers of visitors every year, as do the many beer-centric street festivals around the country. Certain breweries, including U Rybicek and Purkmistr, even run their own hotels, catering to serious aficionados. The Chodovar brewery in West Bohemia has developed a spa retreat that centers on the medicinal properties of beer, including beer baths among other “healthy” applications of beer to the body. Pub crawls are a mainstay of Prague’s nightlife, often shepherding American, English, and other visiting connoisseurs from one tavern to another, while other beer enthusiasts choose to take one of several party trams that spirit their riders across town as they imbibe. Prague is packed with historical pubs such as U Medvídku and U Zlatého tygra as well as a host of new, chic drinking establishments. However, the most famous watering hole of all
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is undoubtedly U Fleku, billed as one of Europe’s oldest brew houses, dating back to 1499. Becherovka Besides beer, the most well-known alcohol in the Czech Republic is undoubtedly Becherovka. This strong herbal bitters has long been produced in the western Bohemian town of Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad), known for its thermal springs. The recipe for Becherovka is a closely guarded secret, with reportedly only two living persons who know the complete production process and are allowed permission into the famed Drogikamr room, where the various ingredients are mixed. Fernet Stock, a competing digestif, is also a favorite. The same distillery also produces a suite of low-cost, brightly colored liqueurs including the traditional green (Peprmint). Bohemian-style absinthe, an anise-free variant of wormwood bitters, is also popular, and Czechs have their own fire ritual for consuming the Green Fairy, which involves setting an absinthe-drenched sugar cube alight above the liqueur. Southern Moravia, which borders Slovakia and Austria and accounts for 95 percent of the country’s viniculture, is gaining increasing recognition as a producer of high-quality wines. During the cold winter months, Czechs enjoy drinking mulled wine (svarák). Consumption of hard spirits is comparatively low among Czechs, though a number of vodkas are produced in the country. In recent decades, rum has also gained in popularity. In 2012, the Czech government temporarily banned the sale of all spirits above 40 proof following the poisoning deaths of three dozen people due to presence of chemical methanol in bootleg rum and vodka. Among European countries, the Czech Republic has one of the lowest levels of lifelong abstainers from alcohol, combined with one of the
highest rates of citizens who drink four or more drinks per day. However, despite Czechs’ reservations about the nation’s reputation for downing suds, binge drinking and alcoholism are not considered to be pressing problems as is the case in nearby countries like Ukraine and Russia, though the toll on public health is recognized. Generally speaking, Czech attitudes toward consumption is rather liberal, and it is not uncommon to see people drinking beer at all hours of the day in almost any setting, though there is little tolerance for public drunkenness. However, the ubiquity of beer creates issues with drunk driving (the country has a zero-tolerance policy) as well as alcohol abuse among the youth (the legal drinking age is 18). Alcohol advertising in the Czech Republic is partially regulated, but given that one of the nation’s premier football league sports the Gambrinus logo, such measures are clearly limited in scope. Robert A. Saunders Farmingdale State College See Also: Brewing, History of; Budweiser Budvar; Europe, Central and Eastern; Pilsner. Further Readings Kubicka, Ludek. “Alcohol Use in the Country With the World’s Highest Per Capita Beer Consumption—The Czech Republic.” Addiction, v.101/10 (2006). Parízková, Jana and Martina Vlkova. “Beer in the Czech Republic.” In Liquid Bread: Beer and Brewing in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Wulf Schiefenhövel and Helen M. Macbeth, eds. Brooklyn, NY: Berghahn Books, 2011. Rail, Evan. Good Beer Guide Prague and the Czech Republic. St. Albans, UK: Camra Books, 2007.
D Daiquiri The daiquiri is an alcoholic beverage that shares its name with both a town near Santiago, Cuba, and an iron mine in that area; the word is of Taino origin. There are numerous takes on the daiquiri, including selections that are served straight up, on the rocks, or frozen. Like many classic cocktails, the daiquiri was first concocted because a resourceful individual ran out of his usual bartending accouterments. The daiquiri was created by an American mining engineer named Jennings Cox. In the late 1800s, Americans began to exploit Cuba’s ironore mines shortly following Commander Theodore Roosevelt’s victory at the Battle of San Juan Hill. Cox led a team on one of the first exploratory expeditions in the Sierra Maestra Mountains on the southeastern shore of Cuba, where the small town of Daiquirí lies. In exchange for leaving the comfort and safety of their U.S. homes and braving the substantial risks of mining and yellow fever in Cuba, mining engineers were provided with considerable salaries and generous benefits that included rations of tobacco and widely available local rum. In the blistering summer of 1896, Cox reportedly ran out of gin when expecting important guests. Aware that the locals avidly consumed a concoction of rum and lime juice, Cox decided to add
granulated sugar, offered it to his guests, and named it a daiquiri after the town. The daiquiri was eventually introduced to the United States by Admiral Lucius W. Johnson, who was treated to one of these concoctions when he first met Jennings. The admiral so thoroughly enjoyed the beverage that he later introduced it to the Army and Navy Club in Washington, D.C. Today, a plaque memorializing the daiquiri hangs in the club’s Daiquiri Lounge, which is celebrated as the location where the daiquiri was first introduced to the United States. The beverage gained popularity when President John F. Kennedy proclaimed it to be his favorite drink, and it was further glamorized when Ernest Hemingway declared it to be among his favorite liquor-laden libations. World War II helped add to the popularity of the daiquiri. Wartime rationing made spirits like whiskey and vodka hard to come by, though rum was easily obtainable due to President Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy, which opened up trade and travel relations with Latin America, Cuba, and the Caribbean. Also known as the “PanAmerican Program,” the Good Neighbor Policy helped make Latin America and the area’s rums seem fashionable. As a result, rum-based drinks that were once frowned upon and deemed a popular choice among sailors and lowlifes eventually became trendy. 449
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Jennings Cox documented the original sixserving daiquiri recipe in his personal diary. The recipe calls for combining and shaking the juice of six lemons, six teaspoons full of sugar, six cups of Bacardi Carta Blanca rum, two small cups of mineral water, and plenty of crushed ice. There are two caveats to this original recipe: First, because Carta Blanca rum is no longer available, the similar Bacardi Superior rum should be used when trying to emulate the original recipe. Second, although this recipe specifies the use of lemons, Cox was more likely referring to limes because they are native to Cuba and because the common Cuban term for lime is limón. The original daiquiri recipe is similar to the grog that British sailors drank aboard ship from the 1740s onward. By 1795, the Royal Navy supplied a daily grog ration replete with rum, water, a splash of lemon or lime juice, and two ounces of sugar. This was a common drink throughout the Caribbean. As soon as ice became available, it was used instead of water. Recipes and Variations There are several traditional daiquiri recipes. In his seminal 1948 book titled The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, David A. Embury describes an 8:2:1 daiquiri recipe that calls for eight parts (two shots) of white-label Cuban rum, two parts (onehalf shot) of lime juice, and one part (one-quarter shot) of sugar syrup. Once combined, the ingredients are mixed with plenty of finely crushed ice, shaken vigorously, and strained into chilled cocktail glasses. Another classic version calls for the beverage to be served in a tall glass filled with cracked ice. A teaspoon of sugar is first poured over the ice with the juice of one or two limes then squeezed over the sugar. Next, two or three ounces of white rum are added and the mixture is shaken to complete the chore. Like many popular cocktails, the daiquiri has numerous variations. The daiquiri blossom is a refreshing option that adds the delicate taste of orange. This is made by combining two ounces of white rum, one ounce of fresh orange juice, and a dash of maraschino liqueur into a shaker with ice. After shaking the mixture, it is then strained into a cocktail glass and garnished with a twist of orange. The grapefruit daiquiri is another modification typified by its slightly bitter taste
of grapefruit. This beverage is made by combining two ounces of white rum, one ounce of fresh grapefruit juice, and a dash of gomme syrup. The mixture is shaken with ice, strained into a cocktail glass, and garnished with a twist of grapefruit. The raspberry mint daiquiri has a distinctive fragrance from the addition of mint and raspberries. This tipple is made by combining one-andtwo-thirds ounces of white rum, a handful of fresh raspberries, and six fresh mint leaves. The ingredients are then placed into a shaker with ice, shaken, and strained into a double cocktail glass. The masterpiece is finalized by garnishing the drink with three raspberries and a sprig of mint on a cocktail stick. A vanilla daiquiri can be made by mixing two ounces of vanilla-flavored white rum, twothirds of an ounce of fresh lime juice, and onethird ounce of gomme syrup. All ingredients are poured into a shaker with ice, shaken, and strained into a cocktail glass. If vanilla rum is unavailable, it can be fashioned by scraping the inside of three vanilla pods into a bottle of white rum, replacing the cap, and leaving for a week, shaking occasionally. Frozen daiquiris are undisputedly the most popular derivation of this versatile beverage. The most common flavors are strawberry and banana, but frozen daiquiris can essentially be blended with any soft fruit and can then be liquefied. Whichever fruit is utilized, the identical flavor liqueur should be mixed with it. Frozen daiquiris are made using blenders and are consumed through straws. Bars selling a lot of daiquiris often mix them in commercial machines that produce drinks with a consistency similar to a smoothie. Bars specializing in daiquiris often have a dozen or more of these machines, each delivering a different flavor. They dispense drinks through a tap similar to the process used for serving keg beer. Although frozen daiquiris come in an inordinate number of flavors, most are fruity. Because Ernest Hemingway named the daiquiri as one of his favorite drinks, there is a frozen daiquiri named after him in return. The Hemingway daiquiri is made using two-and-ahalf ounces of white rum, the juice from two limes, half a grapefruit, six drops of maraschino liqueur, and ice. Hasty consumers beware, as
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guzzling these abundantly palatable frozen beverages undoubtedly leads to an uncomfortable but temporary case of brain freeze. Daiquiri Stands and Related Laws Louisiana is known for its legendary drivethrough daiquiri stands. According to Louisiana’s Title 32, Revised Statute 32:300, produced by the Motor Vehicles and Traffic Regulations, it is illegal for the vehicle operator to be in possession of an alcoholic beverage in the passenger area of a motor vehicle. The law stipulates: It shall be unlawful for the operator of a motor vehicle or the passenger in or on a motor vehicle, while the motor vehicle is operated on a public highway or right-of-way, to possess an open alcoholic beverage container, or to consume an alcoholic beverage, in the passenger area of a motor vehicle. The law further specifies that an “open alcoholic beverage container” shall not mean any bottle, can, or other receptacle that contains a frozen alcoholic beverage unless the lid is removed, a straw protrudes therefrom, or the contents of the receptacle have been partially removed. Before 2004, passengers in Louisiana automobiles could freely enjoy cocktails en route to their destination. Though Louisiana’s laws were changed and currently prohibit the consumption of alcohol in vehicles by passengers and drivers alike, such drive-through operations still exist throughout the state, with daiquiri sales essentially unhampered by the open-container loophole concerning frozen beverages. When serving up daiquiris to go, law-abiding drive-through attendants provide straws on the side instead of inserting them into the cups, as this helps ensure that no open container laws are broken. As an additional precautionary measure, many diligent drive-through clerks stick a small piece of tape over the straw hole to further thwart consumption on the road. M. Scott Young University of South Florida See Also: Bacardi; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; “Girl” Drinks; Grog and the British Royal Navy; Rum; Rum Cocktails.
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Further Readings Bristol Publishing Staff. The Best 50 Daiquiris and Mojitos. Hayward, CA: Bristol Publishing Enterprises, 2003. Embury, David. The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. New York: Mud Puddle Books, 2008. Grimes, William. Straight Up or On the Rocks: A Cultural History of American Drink. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Dark Beer “Dark beer” is first and foremost a color descriptor of the alcoholic beverage beer, though a vague one that belies the nuanced differences of the many styles of beer that exist. The darkness of a beer can be measured objectively, but it is also infused with subjective judgment; the extent to which a beer is considered dark is relative to history and to a culture’s tastes and preferences. Among ancient brewing cultures, we find beer intertwined with religious rituals, and a dark beer was one of several types brewed to appease the gods. Thousands of years later, dark beer calorically fueled the working class and the rise to modernity in Great Britain. But most intriguingly, the moral judgment of beer color was introduced with the apotheosis of the American brewing experiment, the light lager. As the antithesis of that highly commercial and mass-produced beer, dark beer has returned to the United States in a renaissance of beer brewing and is representative of increasingly extreme dichotomies in American culture. Determination of Color A beer is judged first by its color, with flavor following closely behind. A visual inspection of a beer can provide a quick determination of its color, which in general is defined by the beer’s lightness or darkness, its hue, and also its clarity. The average global consumer may rely on the binary “light” or “dark,” or “yellow” or “black,” to describe beer, but professional brewers and connoisseurs go a step beyond with the use of several scales that quantify beer color, especially its lightness or darkness. The scales most commonly used today are the standard reference method (SRM)
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and European Brewing Convention (EBC). Both scales measure the lightness or darkness of a beer by using spectrometry to measure the extent to which the beer absorbs light. In its style guidelines, the Brewers Association recommends the use of either scale but specifically provides SRM measurements ranging from 1 to 40+ with corresponding color descriptions. On this scale, water is considered 0 SRM. At the lowest end of the scale is “very light” (1–1.5 SRM), followed by “straw” (2–3 SRM), “pale” (4 SRM), “gold” (5–6 SRM), “light amber” (7 SRM), “amber” (8 SRM), “medium amber” (9 SRM), “copper/garnet” (10–12 SRM), “light brown” (13–15 SRM), “brown/reddish brown/chestnut brown” (16–17 SRM), “dark brown” (18–24 SRM), “very dark” (25–39 SRM), and “black”
German dark beer served in Berlin. Beer color is often measured on a Standard Reference Model (SRM) scale of 1 to 40-plus. While dark beer may have peaked in popularity in the 18th century, it has recently had a renaissance in the United States.
(40+ SRM). Two famous beers, the Americanstyle lager Budweiser and the Irish stout Guinness, fall into the categories at opposite ends of the SRM scale. The ingredients used to make a beer are what determine its color. The primary ingredient of beer is cereal grain, most commonly barley. The bulk of beer color is derived from the drying, or malting, of germinated barley grains in a kiln. The longer and hotter the barley is kilned, the darker it becomes. This process is used to produce a wide array of specialty beer-brewing grains with names reflective of their darkness, such as amber, chocolate, or black patent. During the brewing process, the color of the grains is extracted as enzymes are released by hot water through the procedure known as mashing. In the kilning process, fewer active enzymes are left in the barley the longer it is malted, so the darkest grains most often serve to provide only coloration rather than fermentable sugars, and thus have less influence on flavor and alcohol levels than more lightly malted grains. Darkness is also sometimes achieved through the caramelization of lighter grains during a longer brewing process. Outside of the use of malted grains, beer brewers often use adjunct ingredients to add color. One example is candi sugar often used in dark Belgian beers. Dark beers have also historically been brewed with a wide range of fruits, molasses, maple syrup, honey, and varieties of spices. It is common knowledge among brewers and beer connoisseurs that a beer’s color says little about its flavor, mouth feel, or strength, and so using “dark beer” as a descriptor is inadequate at describing any specific style entirely. Though the SRM seeks to objectively measure beer color, beer brewers insist on the subjectivity of perception of color, and the Brewers Association recommends deferring to the SRM color descriptors when in doubt of quantifiable results. What’s more, beer color and our perceptions of beer darkness are at least partly cultural constructs. At least in the United States, the subjective darkness of a beer is most often contrasted to the color standard created by the lightest of all beers, the American light lager. For instance, the idea that the black Irish stout Guinness tastes like “motor oil” is a common American misperception. In fact, Guinness is not especially strong tasting, is low in alcohol, and
has a light mouth feel, but American assumptions about dark beer, driven by the history of American beer culture and marketing, influence the average beer drinker’s expectations. Names of styles, too, such as pale ale, can be misleading, since pale ale can be as dark as 12 SRM, or garnet. Indeed, it once was pale compared to the very dark English porter style, but it is now dark by American standards. In this vein, a dark beer may be considered dark simply because it is flavorful—usually “hoppy”—or high in alcohol. This subjectivity makes the history of dark beer complex. History Ancient Sumerian and Egyptian brewers made beer part of day-to-day life. Rather than assuming an either/or attitude to beer color, these brewers understood that beer color had a time and a place. In particular, religious ritual determined what color beer was brewed, and both civilizations even had a recipe called dark beer. Beer color was dependent on the ingredients available at the time, and the first-known Sumerian beer recipe highlights the use of grapes, date juice, and toasted barley. In several recreations of that recipe by American brewers, the resulting beer color in objective terms is roughly 11.1 SRM, or copper/ garnet, a moderately dark beer when compared to the American lager standard. The brewing of dark beer reached its peak in 18th-century Great Britain and assisted in birthing the modern world by fueling the workers of the burgeoning Industrial Revolution. Using evolving industrial technologies, British brewers developed the innovative beer style known as porter, which is a dark-brown to black ale that was popular with the British working class. From the porter developed the stout porter, an evendarker version that today is simply called stout and includes the famous Guinness. British brewers even formulated the intensely dark and alcoholic imperial stout, which was made for Russian royalty in the 18th century. Return to Light Beers Eschewing the dark ale creations of Great Britain, American brewers using German lagering techniques deferred to consumer tastes in the mid20th century to create a brew that is the antithesis of dark beer. As postwar Americans sought
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the modern and refined in an increasingly consumerist society, they also demanded a brightly colored, bland beer that reflected their new standards. American brewers of the biggest-selling beers, such as Anheuser-Busch, pushed the limits of lightness by brewing beer with rice and corn adjuncts to create the light lager. Uniquely, over time Americans infused beer color with moral significance, as light lager became ever part of American drinking culture, and it was considered un-American to drink anything but. Increasingly, the divide over “light versus dark” in American beer culture has also been a sociological divide. As a country often split down the middle, beer color is enmeshed in the extreme bipolarity that has become the 21st-century American experience: Democrat vs. Republican, rural vs. urban, black vs. white, and so on. The light/dark beer split is especially indicative of the growing class divide in America, and between popular and elite culture. The American light lager long ago became the preferred beer of the American working class. The ever-growing microbrewing industry, led by companies like Samuel Adams and Sierra Nevada, is popular among the upwardly mobile urban elite. They proudly quaff dark ales in city bars and renounce the tasteless American light lager—unless they are drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon lager to ironically act like the lower classes. More than just a difference in affordability between two social classes, the difference between a light beer and dark beer in America is the difference between entirely separate cultural experiences. Though seemingly just a colorful alcoholic beverage made from cereal grains, dark beer is a perfect example of how history and cultural meaning are infused into every aspect of the human experience. Wesley W. Roberts Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh See Also: Adams, Samuel; Ale; Beer; Brewing, History of; Brewing Beer, Techniques of; Egypt, Ancient; Guinness; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Lager; Light Beer. Further Readings Bamforth, Charles. Beer: Tap Into the Art and Science of Brewing. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
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Ogle, Maureen. Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2006. Papazian, Charlie. “Beer Style Guidelines.” Brewers Association. http://www.brewersassociation .org/pages/business-tools/publications/beer-style -guidelines (Accessed September 2013).
Daughters of Temperance The Daughters of Temperance was a women’s temperance organization founded in the United States in 1843 as an affiliate of the Order of the Sons of Temperance. Membership was restricted to women over the age of 15; however, in 1841, the daughters established the Juvenile Daughters of Temperance for girls between 10 and 18 years and later became affiliated with the children’s organization, the Cadets of Temperance. Both the Sons and Daughters of Temperance were based on the same principle of eradicating the use and abuse of alcohol in the United States; yet, while the Sons of Temperance grew into a widespread international temperance organization, the Daughters of Temperance was eventually disbanded and subsumed into other U.S. temperance organizations. The original Sons of Temperance movement was formed on the evening of September 2, 1842, at the Teetotalers’ Hall in New York. The organization’s charter stated that it was established “to reform drunkards and prevent other men from becoming drunkards” and to protect its members and broader society “from the evils of Intemperance, afford mutual assistance, and elevate our characters as men.” While there was initially some debate over the suitability of allowing female members into the fraternal organization, women were finally permitted to join the organization in 1866. In the interim, however, a group of women established the Daughters of Temperance. With more than 30,000 members by 1850, the Daughters of Temperance became one of the largest women’s organizations in the United States in the mid-19th century. Both the Sons and Daughters of Temperance organizations were founded on the common
principles of promoting total abstinence from alcohol, educating the public on the evils of intemperance, and organizing regular meetings for the dissemination of ideas and generation of campaigns. Like the Sons of Temperance, the Daughters of Temperance was based on a principle of paid membership, with a $1 joining fee and ongoing contributions of several cents a week. For this fee, members were entitled to receive insurance payments on the illness or death of a loved one and to seek financial support from the organization. Like the fraternal society of the Sons of Temperance, members of the female society possessed secret passwords and actively monitored the behaviors of their current and future members in order to ensure that none engaged in disreputable behaviors. While the Sons of Temperance operated under the motto, “Love, Purity and Fidelity,” the daughter’s creed was “Virtue, Love and Temperance.” The constitution and bylaws of the women’s organization required that all members must be in possession of a “good moral character” and that any woman who followed “wicked practices” or earned her living through “unlawful means” would be expelled from the organization. Yet, there were key differences between the Sons and Daughters of Temperance, differences that reflected the prevailing gender norms and ideals of the mid-19th century. On a structural level, the Sons of Temperance were organized into a complex network of regional, national, and later, international divisions, while the Daughters of Temperance were organized into local unions. The elaborate rituals and regalia of critical importance to membership in the Sons of Temperance were absent from its affiliate women’s organization. While the sons were actively engaged in public processions and speaking events, members of the Daughters of Temperance were actively discouraged from independent public appearances or rallies. Instead, it was maintained that the women’s group should support male temperance societies by providing moral guidance to local communities, adding decorum to public Sons of Temperance events with refined feminine behavior, providing food and decorations for temperance festivities, and presenting Bibles or other offerings to male speakers. While it was deemed unacceptable for female temperance union members to publicly advocate
This mid-19th-century lithograph published in New York promotes the Daughters of Temperance and features their motto “Virtue, Love and Temperance” at bottom.
their cause, members of the Daughters of Temperance were nevertheless determined to generate social change through a quiet support of both family members and the female population at large. In an era in which many young women were migrating to the cities in order to seek work, the Daughters of Temperance offered the newly arrived émigrés moral guidance, advice, and information on the destructiveness of alcohol, the temptations of vice, and how to avoid engaging in illegal activity. The group held regular meetings to discuss how best to promote abstinence in the home and in society at large and to scrutinize potential new candidates for membership. By 1846, disagreement over the constitution of the organization saw the Daughters of Temperance split into two groups, the Original Daughters of Temperance and the Grand Union, Daughters
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of Temperance. While both groups operated on the same founding principles, dissension had emerged over who should control the burgeoning movement and how the principles and practices of their temperance organization should be structured. While the original founders of the Daughters of Temperance sought the status quo, with a central national body overseeing the society, newer members argued for regional controls and the power to create region-based charters. In the early 1850s, dissent among the ranks of the members of the Daughters of Temperance was coupled with a continued frustration with not being recognized as an organization with the social and political power of the Sons of Temperance. In 1852, an event took place that would transform the Daughters of Temperance and, eventually, play a role in transforming the status of women in American society. In 1848, advocate of the rights of women Susan B. Anthony joined the Daughters of Temperance. In 1852, she attended a meeting of the Sons of Temperance in Albany, New York, as a representative of the Daughters of Temperance. There, she was denied the right to address the congregation based on the principle that it was not befitting of her gender to speak to an audience on stage and that members of the Daughters of Temperance should not be seen as full participants in the discussions of the fraternity. As a result of this, Anthony went on to found the New York State Women’s Temperance Society, an organization that would lay some of the groundwork for the U.S. suffragette movement to follow. The organization known as the Daughters of Temperance quickly became defunct, its members affiliating with other women’s temperance movements and continuing a process of proposed social reform that would last for decades to follow. Rebecca Bishop Independent Scholar See Also: American Temperance Society; American Temperance Union; Congressional Temperance Society; Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition, The; Loyal Temperance Legion; Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance; National Temperance Society and Publication House; Sons of Temperance; Temperance, History of; Temperance Movements, Religion in.
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Further Readings Epstein, Barbara Leslie. The Politics of Domesticity: Women, Evangelism and Temperance in Nineteenth-Century America. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1981. Fletcher, Holly Berkley. Gender and the American Temperance Movement of the Nineteenth Century. New York: Routledge, 2008. Kerr, Austin Kerr. Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985. Mattingly, Carol. Well-Tempered Women: NineteenthCentury Temperance Rhetoric. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998.
Delavan, Edward C. Edward Cornelius Delavan was one of the most prominent New York Prohibitionists of the 19th century. His vast fortune and a stint as a printer’s apprentice gave him the funds and the knowledge to become a prolific distributor of antiliquor literature, and he sent out tens of millions of newspapers and pamphlets as well as copies of a colored lithograph depicting the damage alcohol caused to the human body. A single distribution of antiliquor material in 1846 targeted every household in the state. Delavan was involved in the establishment of both the New York State Temperance Society and the American Temperance Union. When he determined that his publication, the Temperance Recorder, was not reaching enough people, he kept reducing the price. When it reached $0.10, circulation rose to 220,000. Delavan traveled both the United States and Europe promoting the goals of teetotal temperance. In 1848, Delavan established a temperance hotel in Albany on the grounds of a former rum tavern but was unable to make it profitable. His personal convictions were so strong that he was able to convince others, including politicians, to acknowledge the need to severely limit alcohol consumption. Personal Life Delavan was born in Westchester County, New York, on January 6, 1793, to Stephen and Hannah Wallace Delavan. He was left an orphan while
he was still young. Growing up, he spent most of his time at the home of his maternal grandfather, James Wallace, a farmer of Scottish ancestry. His paternal grandfather had come to the United States from France to fight in the Revolutionary War. In 1802, Delavan moved to Albany. Four years later, he served as an apprentice to printers at Whiting, Backus, and Whiting and remained there for four years. The skills he learned during that period provided him with the knowledge he later needed to print tens of thousands of pieces of antiliquor literature. The only real schooling that he obtained was between the ages of 14 and 16 when he attended the school of the Reverend Samuel Bratchford in Lansingburgh, New York. By the time young Edward had become a teenager, his elder brother Henry had opened his own hardware store, and Edward became a clerk, which gave him the opportunity to learn different aspects of the business. It was at this point in his life that Delavan had a personal epiphany. He saw a number of bright young men from good families ruining their lives by excessive drinking and gambling at local taverns. Delavan decided that alcohol would not be his own downfall. When he reached the age of 21, his brother made him a partner in the hardware store. As part of the company’s import business, Delavan traveled to England, where he remained for seven years. By 1820, he was back in the United States, where he subsequently married Abigail Marvin Smith. The couple gave birth to five children. Because Delavan was both bright and ambitious, he was determined to expand his financial holdings. The time was ripe for amassing great wealth in that the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 led to a major economic boom in the Northeast. In addition to owning a wholesale package store, Delavan dabbled in real estate. He became wealthy quickly, and in 1827, he decided to retire to Albany at the age of 23 but continued to engage in land speculation. Abigail Delavan died in 1848, and Delavan married Harriet Ann Schuyler two years later. By 1853, he owned a block of eight stores that were located on the very spot where he had had his epiphany years earlier. Delavan often spoke of his feeling of personal triumph at being able to demolish the taverns that he blamed for ruining countless young men. Over the next seven years, his fortune grew to $625,000.
Involvement in Prohibitionism In 1785, Dr. Benjamin Rush, a prominent Philadelphia physician, had released scientific evidence concerning health problems associated with excessive alcohol consumption. Churches throughout the United States jumped on the bandwagon, endeavoring to convince Americans that alcohol was a tool of the devil. As a result, support for temperance spread rapidly. The American Temperance Society was founded in 1826 in Boston. The movement was also growing in New York, and his return to Albany provided Delavan with the opportunity to meet some of New York’s leading Prohibitionists, including Reverend Nathaniel Hewitt, who recruited Delavan to the temperance movement. In 1929, Delavan was involved in establishing the New York State Temperance Society. At the time, the focus of the group was the abolition of hard liquor, and many Prohibitionists continued to drink wine and beer. In 1831, however, Delavan was convinced by his footman, Patrick Roney, to give up wine. This move placed him at odds with other members of the society, and he abruptly left the group. In 1836, the American Temperance Union was established in Saratoga, New York, using a $10,000 donation from Delavan to fund its early efforts to ban all forms of alcohol. Throughout the rest of his life, Delavan was often at odds with those around him. When the Presbyterian Church to which he belonged refused to eschew the use of wine in its communion services, Delavan decided to become an Episcopalian. He enraged many of his closest friends, including Abolitionist Gerrit Smith. In 1853, Delavan aroused the ire of local brewers when he accused them of using polluted water from slaughterhouses and glue factories to make their products. The brewers responded by bringing suit for $300,000, but Delavan was able to prove his claims in court, and he won the lawsuit. Delavan spent considerable amounts of time and money on distributing antiliquor literature, and between 1832 and 1857, he was involved in publishing a number of newspapers and journals, including the Journal of the American Temperance Movement, the Temperance Recorder, the American Temperance Intelligencer, the Enquirer, and the Prohibitionist. In 1860, in Temperance of Wine Counties: To the Reverend Dr. E. Nott, Delavan
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lambasted European wineries for their role in promoting the sale and consumption of alcohol. Delavan’s antiliquor campaign was so effective that he succeeded in efforts to force the state legislature to endorse local option prohibition, which allowed local governments to ban liquor sales within their borders. Politically, Delavan was often in disagreement with other party members. For that reason, he traveled among political parties, briefly joining both the Whig and Know Nothing parties. Delavan died in Schenectady, New York, on January 15, 1871, at the age of 78. Somewhat surprisingly, he chose to leave his fortune to his family rather than to the antiliquor movement. Nevertheless, his legacy continued to have an impact on the movement, which won a major victory in 1919 with the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment establishing Prohibition. Delavan would no doubt have been outraged to learn that the amendment was repealed in 1933 with ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment. Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar See Also: American Temperance Society; Rush, Benjamin; Temperance Movements. Further Readings Childress, Diana. “From Wet to Dry.” Cobblestone, v.14/8 (October 1983). Delavan, Edward C., ed. The Family Fireside Book of Monuments of Temperance Containing Temperance Tales, Biography, Sketches, Poetry, Essays—Pleasing and Amusing. Philadelphia: Leary and Getz, 1853. Delavan, Edward C., ed. Temperance Essays and Selections from Different Authors. New York: National Temperance Society and Publication House, 1866. Musto, David F., ed. Drugs in America: A Documentary History. New York: New York University Press, 2002. Nicholls, James. The Politics of Alcohol: A History of the Drink Question in England. New York: Manchester University Press, 2011. Salem, Frederick William. Beer, Its History and Its Economic Value as a National Beverage. New York: Arno, 1972.
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Democratic Party, U.S. The U.S. Democratic Party’s interactions with alcohol policy have spanned a broad gamut from prohibition to relegalization to restriction at both the state and national levels. Along the way, the Democratic Party has addressed issues of taxation, regulation, and age limitation. During the 19th century, Democratic legislative involvement signaled a willingness to leave states to their own devices regarding acceptance or rejection of alcohol. With the onset of Progressive reform in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, however, the party eventually moved toward national-level initiatives banning alcohol manufacture, distribution, and use. When it became politically expedient to change course, the Democratic Party did so in turning against prohibition. Following the enactment of Prohibition, the Democratic Party was influential in devising legislation to ensure the efficient collection of revenue from alcohol taxation as well as the establishment of safety standards to protect consumers. Prior to national-level legislation on alcoholrelated issues, individual states had wide latitude to determine whether to permit or prohibit alcohol use within their borders. In the latter half of the 19th century, several states chose to ban alcohol under Democratic governments. During the 1850s, Maine, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Nebraska all adopted prohibition measures under the leadership of Democratic governors and Democratic Party-led legislatures, while Indiana did the same under a Democratic governor. However, Democrats at the national level demonstrated that they were not averse to more broadbased approaches to supporting prohibition. In Leisy v. Hardin (1890), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the states could not prohibit the sale and distribution of alcohol arriving in its original packaging. The Democratic Party did not pose any noteworthy resistance to the Republican-controlled 51st Congress’ response: passage of the 1890 Wilson Act. The Wilson Act made alcohol entering a state (whether packaged or unpackaged) subject to that state’s laws, providing states with the legal impunity to enforce state legislation banning alcohol sale and distribution. By the time the 62nd Congress was in place in 1911, control of the House of Representatives
had shifted to the Democrats, but the status quo of allowing states to maintain strong controls over alcohol distribution continued. Under the bipartisan 1913 Webb-Kenyon Act, intoxicating liquors could not even be transported into states that prohibited alcohol, demonstrating a continued political consensus over noninterference into states’ abilities to restrict access to alcohol. In strengthening prohibition options for the states, the Wilson Act and the Webb-Kenyon Act laid the groundwork for broader efforts against alcohol that would eventually coalesce around the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The Prohibition Era The 65th Congress, convened in 1917, featured Democratic control of both the Senate (directly) and the House of Representatives (in coalition with third-party representatives), yet this did not dramatically alter the trajectory of alcohol control. In 1917, Congress voted to present the Eighteenth Amendment to the states for ratification. The Eighteenth Amendment outlawed the production, distribution, and sale of alcohol for human consumption upon taking effect in 1920. As before, the Democratic Party demonstrated solidarity with the prevailing political consensus on alcohol, voting nearly in lock agreement with the Republican Party in favor of the prohibition language that would shortly thereafter be approved by the vast majority of the states and incorporated into the U.S. Constitution. Without waiting for what would become the Eighteenth Amendment to undergo consideration by the states, the Democratic Party-led Congress moved forward with what amounted to a national ban on alcohol for the first time via passage of the 1918 Wartime Prohibition Act. Under this act, no intoxicating beverages were to be produced using food products (such as wheat for beer or grapes for wine) or sold except for the purposes of exportation. Though ostensibly a food regulation law designed to preserve resources for American efforts in World War I, the law served the function of furthering the spirit of the Eighteenth Amendment even before that amendment became the law of the land. The Democrats then lost control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Nevertheless, in a Republican-controlled 66th Congress,
the majority of Democrats joined with the party in power to pass the National Prohibition Act (otherwise known as the Volstead Act) over a veto from President Woodrow Wilson. While it allowed for alcohol manufacture, sale, and use for religious purposes, prescription of alcohol by doctors with appropriate permits, and use of legallyobtained alcohol in the home, the 1919 National Prohibition Act banned most other forms of alcohol production, distribution, and use and clarified penalties unstated in the Eighteenth Amendment. Again, Democrats and Republicans, though in disagreement on a number of other important issues, had continued the trend of mutual support for a scale-back of alcohol in America. Support for this series of legislative moves in favor of prohibition was a reasonable step for the Democratic Party given the shifting views of its electorate. Whereas during the 1880s and 1890s, Democrats largely disfavored state prohibition via referenda, support among self-identified Democrats for such measures had risen dramatically by the 1900s. Moreover, support for national prohibition via the Eighteenth Amendment cut across party lines. However, political pragmatism would dictate a different direction by the late 1920s. In order to avoid alienating either proponents or opponents of national prohibition, the Democratic Party decided on a party platform in favor of enforcing prohibition but nominated Alfred E. Smith, who was against prohibition, in their preparations for the 1928 presidential election. Despite Smith’s ultimate loss to prohibitionist Herbert Hoover, the Democratic Party started to become associated with the anti-Prohibition movement because of Smith’s candidacy. Moreover, Smith’s selection of John J. Raskob, a member of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment’s board of directors, as Democratic National Committee chair further solidified that association. Raskob made a number of efforts to push antiprohibition forward, suggesting that a plank of the Democratic Party platform call for a constitutional amendment allowing voters in each state to determine whether that state would exempt itself from national prohibition. In 1932, the House voted on a similar proposal that, though unsuccessful, came close enough to success to suggest the possibility of repeal in the future.
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During the 1930s, public opinion polling suggested a strong move by the American people against Prohibition. Although in entering the nominating convention for the 1932 election Democratic leaders were divided over whether or not the party should advocate for repeal, they ultimately adopted support for the end of Prohibition as part of the party platform. Despite his earlier reticence toward pushing for repeal, the newly chosen standard-bearer of the Democratic Party, Franklin D. Roosevelt, assured antiprohibitionists that he would take up their cause. Roosevelt’s landslide win in the 1932 election and the widespread success of antiprohibition congressional candidates convinced the now Democratic Party-controlled Congress that it had a mandate to begin the process leading to repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. By 1933, not only did a majority of Democrats in the Senate and House support the Twenty-First Amendment repealing the Eighteenth, but so, too, did their Republican counterparts. In large part due to the position shift of the Democratic Party, alcohol was on track for widespread relegalization. In line with the dominant party’s new willingness to pursue antiprohibition, Congress passed an amendment to the Volstead Act allowing the sale of beer and light wine while waiting for the ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment. After Prohibition With the Twenty-First Amendment ratified, implementation guidelines were needed. The overwhelmingly Democratic-controlled 74th Congress ushered in the Federal Alcohol Administration Act of 1936. This act aimed both to regulate the alcohol industry, addressing tax collection and control of permit issuance, and to ensure alcohol consumers access to safe, unadulterated products. Codes covered brewers, distillers, winemakers, wholesalers, importers, and a variety of other persons involved in the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcohol. The establishment of taxes enforced under legislation like the Federal Alcohol Administration Act also occurred initially under Democratic congresses. The Democratic-controlled 73rd Congress brought forward the Liquor Taxing Law of 1934. Other alcohol taxation policies would follow under the Democratic-controlled 76th
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Congress in the form of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939. Although the Democratic Party had moved from generally supporting prohibition to ushering in the repeal of prohibition and the regulatory and tax structures underlying the reintroduction of alcohol into mainstream society, the question of accepted boundaries for alcohol use in society posed an additional challenge. One political issue surrounding alcohol use that has arisen concerns the acceptable minimum drinking age. After the collapse of Prohibition, the majority of states established a minimum legal drinking age of 21. However, in response to concerns over a number of states reducing the minimum legal drinking age to as low as 18 during the 1970s, the federal government passed the Uniform Drinking Age Act of 1984. The act empowered the federal government to withhold highway funding to the states if they failed to maintain a minimum legal drinking age of 21. Given that the 98th Congress responsible for the passage of the Uniform Drinking Age Act featured a Republican-controlled Senate and a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, this represented a willingness across the political spectrum to curtail youthful consumption of alcohol. Recent Democratic policy positions have generally reflected an overall support for the right of citizens to produce, sell, and consume alcohol coupled with belief in the need for proper regulation to ensure governmental collection of revenue and consumer safety. At times reacting to societal trends and, at other points, influencing them, the Democratic Party has been an important player in American approaches to alcohol. Steven L. Foy The University of Texas, Pan American See Also: Eighteenth Amendment; Prohibition; Prohibition Party; Republican Party, U.S.; Roosevelt, Franklin D.; State Regulations After Prohibition, U.S.; Twenty-First Amendment; United States; Volstead Act; Webb-Kenyon Act. Further Readings Cherrington, Ernest H. The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America: A Chronological History of the Liquor Problem and the
Temperance Reform in the United States from the Earliest Settlements to the Consummation of National Prohibition. Westerville, OH: The American Issue Press, 1920. Kyvig, David E. Repealing National Prohibition. Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 2000. Martis, Kenneth C. The Historical Atlas of the Political Parties in the United States Congress: 1789-1989. New York: Macmillan, 1989. Szymanski, Ann-Marie E. Pathways to Prohibition: Radicals, Moderates, and Social Movement Outcomes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.
Denmark The small country of Denmark may rightly claim its place at the table when it comes to the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Dubbed by many as a beer-drinking culture, Denmark sports a variety of popular beers. Pale lager is by far the most popular, dominating the market with 95 percent of the country’s total sales. Other beers, such as stouts, are now becoming quite popular, too, as microbreweries vie for a share of the market. Danish beer production increased by 20 percent between the years 2001 and 2005, with domestic beer dominating. By 2006 imports gained ground, with German beers taking on 14 percent of the Danish market. The two most famous Danish breweries, Carlsberg and Tuborg, merged to become one megabrewery, and its dominance put a damper on the growth and following of many microbreweries, a trend that in recent years has begun to reverse itself. Many traditional holiday beers make their appearances on the market near appropriate holiday periods, notably Hvidøl, or White Beer, which is sold during the Christmas season. Other Christmas beers include Julebryg, Juleøl, and Nisseøl, named for the mythological Christmas elves—nisser—from Scandinavian folklore. Wine Consumption Not only a beer culture, Danes also produce and drink wine. Some might find it surprising that
wine can be cultivated in such a northern clime, but what began as a hobby for some has evolved into a thriving business. Just 15 minutes from downtown Copenhagen, one can visit the suburb of Avedøre, whose vineyards were begun in 1999, marking Denmark’s first viniculture. Predictions that it would be impossible to produce wine in Denmark have proven to be unfounded. Over the last 10 years, between 2,000 and 7,000 bottles of wine have been produced annually. Some might attribute climate change to this growing trend, but more likely it is due to new varieties of grapes used that are well-suited to the Danish climate and that ripen early. One of the most famous winegrowers in Denmark is Prince Henrik, consort to the Danish Queen Margrethe. Spirits Consumption of spirits ranks in importance with that of wine and beer. Often, spirits such as the popular Aalborg Akvavit, are consumed along with beer. Aalborg Akvavit (aqua vitae, “water of life”) is extremely popular and is probably the world’s largest-selling brand. This and other brands of akvavit are distilled in Aalborg, which has a long-standing tradition of distilling spirits. In 1551, King Christian III established a distillery there, and the tradition has continued. No longer in Danish hands, however, Aalborg Akvavit and other Danish spirits were acquired in 2012 by the Norwegian multinational ArcusGruppen, which also acquired the popular Gammel Dansk (“Old Danish”). This herbal bitter is sometimes served at breakfast and is similar to Germany’s Jägermeister. Traditionally, Gammel Dansk was served as a remedy for various digestive ailments, whereas it now serves as an apéritif to stimulate the appetite for typical Danish snacks. For some, the Danish consumption of spirits trumps both wine and beer consumption, although frequently spirits are consumed as chasers to beer. Some spirits are geared to young, female drinkers, who tend to be less inclined to beer drinking. Recent taxes imposed on alcoholic beverages due to increased consumption among the young often lead to the choice of spirits over beer. If purchased in a grocery store, a six-pack of beer might cost 40 to 50 kroner, whereas a bottle of spirits containing some 30 units of alcohol costs about 70 kroner.
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Danish Hygge One important factor in Danish culture is the notion of hygge, which has no real English translation. Probably the closest word to it (which also falls far short of it) would be coziness, which very much lends itself to a description of the type of circles in which Danes often do their drinking. The other values include democracy and egalitarianism, balance and moderation, and welfare and social responsibility. Interactions among the Danes—whether in the form of drinking or not—often underscore their egalitarian notions about themselves and each other, particularly in work-related issues. Union members—unskilled workers—have developed a sense of competence and self-respect vis-à-vis their work roles, and they do not sanction anyone “putting on airs.” They might drink with a physician, a professor, or a count, but they would not hold that person’s rank against them. The core value of hygge ties in with one that is closely related to it, namely that of festlighed, or a festive orientation. Steven Borish points to the use of hygge as both a noun to refer to an abstract quality or mood as well as a verb that occurs most often as a reflexive pronoun, as in Vi hygger os: “We hygger ourselves,” or, as in a typical drinking context, Lad os nu bare hygger os! meaning “Let’s just have a really good time now!” Treatment and Research One estimate puts the number of people who are dependent upon alcohol in Denmark at 140,000; of this number, only 6,000–12,000 receive treatment. The most prevalent treatment approaches in Denmark are cognitive, socioeducational, and solution focused. Most facilities are outpatient based, unless inpatient stays are deemed necessary. Most of the treatments focus on mood-altering substances other than alcohol, which may be due in part to what was previously noted as the tendency to minimize problems with alcohol. Since the 1970s, 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous have experienced huge growth, with numerous groups forming in Sweden, Iceland, and Finland; Denmark and Norway have both seen these groups dwindle in both size and number. Contemporary research into alcohol issues is ongoing at the Centret for Rusmiddelforskning (the Center for Research into
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The landmark Elephant Gate and Tower, built in 1901, marks the entrance to the original Carlsberg Brewery site in Copenhagen, Denmark. Carlsberg merged with another famous Danish brewery, Tuborg, in 1970. Between 2001 and 2005, Danish beer production increased by 20 percent, and domestic beers, especially the pale lagers that dominate 95 percent of the market, are generally preferred.
Mood-Altering Substances) through the School of Business and Social Sciences at Aarhus University. Masters and Ph.D. courses surrounding alcohol and drug-related issues are offered through multifaceted curricula. Conclusion As previously noted, problems with alcohol are often minimized or attributed to other things. Goodwin finds that Danish hospitals tended to avoid diagnosing alcoholism when any other diagnosis might be available. Appropriate treatments might therefore be lacking. Consumption of alcohol has decreased somewhat in the general Danish population, and parents and educators are experimenting with ways to help their children avoid problems with alcohol. Teaching abstinence does not seem a part of their experiments. The organization of parties both at school
and in the home that involve the introduction of alcohol is gaining ground. Alcohol has been a part of human culture since the earliest known fermentation of honey. In the ancient epic poem Beowulf, Danish warriors drank mead. It would appear that alcohol has attained a fairly permanent place in the Danish consciousness and environment—for better or worse—and that it will not be disappearing from that world any time soon. Virginia Ione Folsom Iowa State University See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Aqua Vitae; Europe, Northern; Gender and Alcohol Abuse: Genetic Disposition, Alcoholism as a; Mead.
Further Readings Aagaard, Jan. “Winegrowing at the Northern Limit— The Art of the Possible.” Focus Denmark, v.3 (2012). http://denmark.dk/en/lifestyle/food-drink/ winegrowing-at-the-northern-limit (Accessed February 2014). Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. “Youth, Family, and Values: The Culture of Alcohol in Denmark.” (2012). http://berkleycenter .georgetown.edu/letters/youth-family-and-values -the-culture-of-alcohol-in-denmark (Accessed February 2014). Borish, Steven. The Land of the Living: The Danish Folk High Schools and Denmark’s Non-Violent Path to Modernization. Grass Valley, CA: Blue Dolphin, 1991. Lewis, R. “Teen Drinking: A Comparison Between Danish and American Views on Alcohol.” DisPATCH: Danish Institute for Study Abroad (February 25, 2013). Mills, Joshua. “Aalborg is the Toast of Aquavit Drinkers.” New York Times (December 9, 1984).
Depression, History of Alcohol and In history, alcohol has served a myriad of medicinal and social functions. Alcohol has been integrated into societal mores and celebrations ranging from consumption during religious procedures such as Christian communion to toasts at religious and social functions like weddings. Alcohol has been present in nearly every culture whether its use was considered positive or negative, was endorsed and sanctioned by societal structures, or was prohibited by law. For some people, issues with alcohol are a part of everyday life. These issues may impact these individuals biologically, socially, and/or psychologically. Many conditions may be present in individuals who have problems with alcohol use. Of these, depression has received extensive study and attention. Depression and alcoholism are both common and costly to treat, and they either directly or indirectly impact the lives of many people from all ages, races, gender groups, and cultures.
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Contemporary Dependence and Use Approximately 140 million people worldwide and an estimated 15 million Americans suffer from alcoholism, and 40 percent of all deaths by car accident in the United States involve alcohol. Alcoholism is a widely used term that refers to the maladaptive use of alcohol that generates a myriad of problems that affect not only the life of the individual using alcohol but also the lives of those around them. These issues may include but are not limited to declines in physical and mental health, destruction of the family unit, social isolation from those who don’t share the habit, unemployment, and legal consequences such as DUI violations and domestic violence. Even though alcoholism is a term used to describe the habitual and uncontrolled use of alcohol, it does not have a formal definition. In the psychiatric diagnostic system generally used in the United States, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the criteria for alcohol dependence are the most parallel to the characteristics commonly referred to as alcoholism. An individual must meet three or more of the seven criteria that refer to amount and duration of alcohol consumption, indications of physical dependence, and psychological and behavioral elements that coexist with drinking alcohol to qualify for the diagnosis. Alcohol abuse also encompasses the negative effects of alcohol use on multiple facets of daily living. In order to assign this diagnosis, one of four of the criteria that include characteristics of a maladaptive drinking pattern occurring over a 12-month period must be met. One of the primary features of alcohol dependence and alcohol abuse is the destructive consequences alcohol consumption has on several facets of an individual’s functioning in life. As a result, some individuals have succumbed to the deleterious effects of the dependence and/or abuse of alcohol. Of consequence are the psychological and social issues impacted by an individual’s alcohol consumption. Not only can heavy drinking associated with alcoholism be present with psychiatric syndromes but it can also contribute to or occur as a result of these psychiatric disorders. Because of this, making accurate psychiatric diagnoses may be more difficult, as alcoholism can complicate or mimic practically any psychiatric syndrome. Some of the symptoms of depression,
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such as low mood, anxiety, issues with sleep, and changes in appetite, are also affected by alcohol. The misuse or abuse of alcohol can oftentimes lead to intoxication. Alcohol intoxication is characterized by short-term impairment to both psychological and psychomotor functions. The consumption of alcohol can temporarily produce a pleasant or relaxed state of mind. That temporary state of disinhibition is often attractive to one who is experiencing depressive symptoms and who may feel a sense of relief, social connectedness, and elevation of mood when drinking alcohol. However, shortly thereafter, disinhibition and social facilitation is replaced with dysphoria, sedation, crying spells, social withdrawal, erectile dysfunction, suicidal ideation, and unconsciousness. This chain of events may lead to a cyclic pattern of behavior that only intensifies both the condition of depression and the issue with alcohol abuse and/or dependence. With continued use of alcohol, a tolerance to its immediate effects can lead to increased consumption to produce the positive effects, and longer-term deleterious physical and emotional consequences. Co-Occurrence One major factor linked to alcoholism is depression. Because of the chronic nature of their consumption, problem drinkers have considerably less time to demonstrate independent episodes of depression. Therefore, due to the natural course of the two conditions, people who have issues with alcohol may be more vulnerable to depression and have no demonstrably independent episodes of depression. There is also evidence that genes that influence clinical depression may also influence susceptibility to alcohol dependence. Major depression and alcohol dependence frequently occur at the same time. Individuals with depression are at a significantly higher risk of alcohol dependence than those in the general population. Alcohol is also a known central nervous system (CNS) depressant and clinical depression and alcohol are often comorbid with shared course and disability. Though widely studied, it has not been determined if alcoholism leads to depression or if the opposite is true. Some studies indicate a causal relationship between the two; however, there are just as many
studies that suggest the two conditions overlap in symptomology. Depression is a serious medical illness and a common psychiatric disorder. Depression is characterized by a combination of several negative affective symptoms that interfere with an individual’s daily life and can range from mild to severe. Although most people experience feelings of sadness at some point, the duration of these feelings signifies the prerequisite for a formal psychiatric diagnosis. Changes in mood, such as sadness, loss of interest, pessimism, negative cognitions, and thoughts of suicide, are components that constitute negative affect. Physical symptoms are also indicative of depression and can include changes in appetite and/or weight, issues with sleep, and increased fatigue. When these symptoms persist for a period of at least two weeks and are of significant severity to produce interference an individual’s daily life, the field of psychology recognizes this as an episode of clinical depression. Approximately one out of every four women and one out of every 10 men will experience some form of depression. Although women suffer from depression more often and make more attempts to commit suicide, men make more successful suicide attempts, according to scholar Jim Haggerty. According to research, the average age of onset of depression is decreasing. The first episode of depression for most people is between the ages of 20 and 40, with the average age being in the mid-20s. Specific stressful events for children, adolescents, and the elderly are often followed by unique symptoms of depression. These stressful events may predispose these populations to depression. No ethnic group is immune to depression. Depression has been named the fourth-most devastating illness in the world today according to the World Health Organization. Cultural and ethnic differences often impact the ways people express their thoughts and feelings as well as their willingness to seek treatment, though the illness of depression may occur at the same rate in different groups. Depression has been named the fourth most devastating illness in the world today according to The World Health Organization. According to researchers Ramesh Shivani, Jeffrey R. Goldsmith, and Robert M. Anthenelli,
alcoholism and depression co-occur in about 80 percent of patients. Jacob claims that of those suffering with alcoholism, 30 to 50 percent also suffer from a major depression. Haggerty states that individuals with a family history of either alcoholism or depression have a higher risk of developing either illness. Oftentimes, it is difficult determine which of these conditions precedes the other. Nearly onethird of individuals with a major depression also have a problem with alcohol, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Those with a history of alcohol dependence have more than four times the risk of a major depressive episode than those without a history of alcohol dependence. Common problems associated with depression and alcohol are often complicated by social problems. Problems with employment due to absenteeism, sickness, and underperformance are often associated with alcoholism. An individual’s job loss can also have an impact on one’s financial status and family life. Also, though it may be difficult to determine which of the two was present first, marital problems can arise due to problems with alcoholism. Several different physical problems are also caused by alcohol. In addition, many of the body’s organs are affected by heavy use of alcohol. These may include liver problems such as hepatitis, cirrhosis of the liver, and liver failure. In some cases, depression may occur before alcoholism. Environmental as well as genetic factors can influence phenotype in both conditions. Life with a parent who suffers from alcoholism can be difficult for a child who is subjected to the sexual, physical, or emotional abuse, sequelae that can occur in a household where alcohol is abused. That child may have brought out poor coping and increased stressors in the parent that manifest in an increased likelihood of the child growing up to abuse, according to researcher Christopher Edwards and colleagues. Abused children, children whose parents model poor coping, and some children raised in chronic adversity seem to be more likely to develop both depression and problems with alcohol, according to scholar Carolyn Sartor and colleagues. The National Association for Children of Alcoholics claims that children of individuals that suffer from
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alcoholism are four times more likely to develop a chemical dependency on alcohol or drugs than any other group of people. These children may also have issues with clinical depression, dysfunctional relationships, maladaptive styles of parenting, and anhedonia. Studies have shown that children with depression may be more likely to develop problems with alcohol as teenagers. Adolescents who have experienced major depression are two times more likely to begin drinking alcohol than those who are not depressed. Women are also twice as likely to begin to drink heavily if they have history of depression. Compared to men, women are more prone to selfmedicate with alcohol. Stressful life events can be linked to both issues with alcohol and depression. Alcohol abuse can exaggerate depression and increase impulsivity. Depression is often associated with thoughts of suicide. Compromised judgment, decreased self-control, and impulsivity related to the use of alcohol can increase the likelihood of an individual making a suicide attempt. Conclusion Alcohol can temporarily produce a pleasant or relaxed state of mind. With continued use of alcohol, a tolerance of its immediate effects can lead to increasing consumption to produce the same positive effects, and there are longer-term deleterious physical and emotional consequences. Alcohol is a depressant drug and its presence in a depressed person has serious implications for disease progression and treatment. Whether one comes before the other is not yet clearly defined by science, but seeing their comorbidity and shared symptom complex is important for disease management and resolution. Research on alcoholism has suggested that individuals who suffer with alcoholism who participate in group therapy with their families have the highest success rates. Specialized psychotherapy can be used to address the treatment requirements for the individual’s issues with both alcoholism and depression. Stabilization of the psychiatric illness should be the immediate goal of treatment. Treatment also works best when the individual’s family is involved. Relapse can happen at any time and recovery is a lifelong process. Rehab centers offer a way for individuals suffering with
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alcoholism to disconnect from some of the triggers and pressures to drink. Christopher L. Edwards Duke University Medical Center Shentelle Livan North Carolina Central University Elwood Robinson Cambridge College See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Alcoholism: Effect on the Family; Alcoholism Treatment, Sociology of; Ancient World, Drinking in; Disease Model of Alcoholism; Egypt, Ancient; Fermentation, Ancient Era Through Middle Ages; Greece, Ancient. Further Readings Edwards, Christopher L., et al. “Parental Substance Abuse, Reports of Chronic Pain, and Coping in Adult Patients with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD).” Journal of the National Medical Association, v.98/3 (2006). Haggerty, Jim. “Risk Factors for Depression.” Psych Central (2006). http://psychcentral.com/lib/ risk-factors-for-depression/00058 (Accessed March 2014). Jacob, Mark. “Why Alcohol and Depression Don’t Mix.” Psych Central (2008). http://psychcentral .com/lib/why-alcohol-and-depression-dont -mix/0001322 (Accessed March 2014). Sartor, Carolyn E., Michael T. Lynskey, Andrew C. Heath, Theodore Jacob, and William True. “The Role of Childhood Risk Factors in Initiation of Alcohol Use and Progression to Alcohol Dependence.” Addiction, v.102/2 (2007). Shivani, Ramesh, Jeffrey R. Goldsmith, and Robert M. Anthenelli. “Alcoholism and Psychiatric Disorders: Diagnostic Challenges.” Alcohol Research & Health, v.26 (2002).
Designated Driver The designated driver initiative was launched in the late 1980s in an attempt to limit the number of drunk drivers on the road. The term designated driver refers to an individual who assumes the
responsibility of staying sober, while other members of the group are drinking, for the purpose of driving everyone home safely. The earliest mention of the designated driver concept can be traced to Scandinavia in the 1920s. However, it was not introduced to the United States until much later. In 1987, the year before the designated driver campaign formally began, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported that 23,630 people died in alcohol-related motor vehicle accidents, accounting for 55 percent of all traffic accident fatalities. Alcohol-related traffic deaths at this time were also the leading cause of death among youth age 15 to 24. The designated driver concept became widely known beginning in 1988 with the launch of the Harvard Alcohol Project, sponsored by the Harvard School of Public Health’s Center for Health Communication. The project, led by Jay Winsten, initiated a wide-scale campaign to introduce and popularize the designated driver concept. This undertaking was noteworthy not only because of the message, but it was also the first time a public health organization had collaborated with the media to intentionally incorporate positive references to a public service initiative into television shows. In addition to the traditional public service announcements aired on radio and TV, organizers convinced television writers to include positive messages about designated driving in popular television programs such as Cheers, L.A. Law, and The Cosby Show. Over the next four years, more than 160 uses of subplots, messages, and dialogues were incorporated into the scripts of TV shows, helping popularize and mainstream the concept of using a designated driver. The designated driver concept also had active endorsement from President Bill Clinton, who taped public service announcements (PSAs) every year at the request of the Harvard Alcohol Project. During the early 1990s, the U.S. Department of Transportation launched the widely recognized phrase that is still used today, “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.” It is estimated that, in the first decade of implementation of the designated driver campaign, 50,000 lives may have been saved. In 1982, several years before the launching of the designated
driver initiative, 26,173 people were killed in alcohol-related traffic accidents, accounting for 60 percent of all traffic fatalities, according to the NHTSA. This rate has decreased significantly in the subsequent decades: 1990—22,084, alcohol related traffic deaths (50 percent of all trafficrelated deaths); 2000—16,653 alcohol related traffic deaths (40 percent); and 2010—10,228 alcohol related traffic deaths (31 percent). It is difficult to know the impact of a single initiative, since during this time period, the legal drinking age increased to 21 in many states, drunk driving laws and sentencing had become stricter, and other advocacy programs such as Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) had been operating as well. It should also be noted that studies investigating the effectiveness of designated driver programs have been flawed or inconclusive. Designated Driver Promotion Programs Since the creation of the designated driver campaign in 1988 by the Harvard Alcohol Project, the campaigns used to promote this message have used various venues including television, radio stations, and newspapers, and more recently social media and the Internet. These campaigns mainly have used messages that appeal to consumers’ awareness of the legal, social, or health consequences of drunk driving. However, some campaign messages have attempted to positively influence peer attitudes and social acceptance of the concept. Many of the early PSAs focused on the dangers of driving under the influence and the risks of harming others or oneself. Newer initiatives have recently been highlighting more empowering and positive messages about the benefits of being a designated driver. Recently, alcohol producers such as Anheuser Busch, Dos Equis, and Smirnoff have created campaigns that encourage responsible alcohol consumption. There have also been several popular messages in PSAs by the NHTSA’s messages: “Buzzed driving is drunk driving” and “drive sober, or get pulled over.” Social Initiatives Worldwide Many countries besides the United States have been attempting to shape the social climate regarding drunk driving and to encourage the use of a designated driver. By 2006, 16 European countries had
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implemented educational campaigns encouraging the designated driver concept. One such campaign in Poland involves giving designated drivers a badge to wear at social events, signifying their pledge to abstain from alcohol. In France, there is a popular phone application that has been used to select the designated drivers in the group. In many countries, including the United States, there are incentives by local businesses who serve alcohol to encourage individuals to be the designated driver by offering free nonalcoholic beverages, food, admission, small gifts, or special raffles for the designated drivers present. Some corporations who manufacture alcohol such as Bacardi and Anheuser Busch have recently created mass media PSAs that encourages drivers to take the pledge to drink responsibly. Public Policy In the United States, there have been several public policy initiatives that serve to encourage the use of designated drivers. For example, there have been increases in many locales in the number of police officers on the road during hours when inebriated drivers are suspected to be most prevalent, indirectly encouraging and rewarding the use of designated drivers. In the United States, Australia, and several European countries, there has also been an increased use of sobriety checkpoints. At these checkpoints, law enforcement officers require all drivers to be screened via Breathalyzer for blood alcohol content before being allowed to pass, also providing an incentive to utilize designated drivers. Program Concerns Several concerns have been raised about the designated driver concept to reduce drunk driving. First, S. M. Ditter have discovered that, because the designated driver is often responsible for watching over their drinking peers, they may feel or experience an unwanted burden or problematic situation if their passengers become verbally or physically aggressive. Second, because the designated driver assumes responsibility for driving, it is possible that personal diffusion of responsibility among drinkers in the group will occur. In other words, if the drinkers believe they can drink in excess with little or no consequences, it may encourage binge drinking or other alcohol-related
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problems. Third, policy makers may place responsibility mainly on the consumers of alcohol instead of also focusing on the environmental factors that may contribute to alcohol use and abuse. Assigning a designated driver may serve as a socially supportive and accepting perspective on individuals who have made it a personal choice to abstain from drinking. Often, a group of peers will rotate designated drivers so that everyone in the group can take turns. However, failing to choose a designated driver may lead to the group choosing the most-sober person in the group to get everyone home safely. In some countries such as Australia, a risk- and harm-reduction strategy is adopted. This approach means that the designated driver may consume alcohol but must attempt to maintain a blood alcohol content (BAC) at less than the legal limit. This is not the traditional or recommended version of designated driving and may result in drunk driving. Safe Ride Programs Although not formally designated driver programs, safe ride programs have also arisen during this time period to help reduce drunk driving. Many colleges and universities provide bus and cab services to offer students an alternative to driving home inebriated, and some military bases offer designated driver services for their service members. Many cities and municipalities offer safe ride programs or free cab rides to intoxicated bar patrons on specific days such as New Year’s Eve. Some programs are publically funded, whereas others are privately funded. One example is the HERO Campaign in the Northeast, which partners with local bars and restaurants to provide safe rides. These options allow individuals who may be new to the city to find a safe way home due to their difficulty in finding peers to use as designated drivers or challenges in navigating the city to make it home safely after alcohol consumption. Katie Penny John C. Wade Emporia State University See Also: Drunk-Driving Laws; Mothers Against Drunk Driving; Server Responsibility Laws, U.S.; Students Against Destructive Decisions.
Further Readings DeJong, W. and L. Wallack. “Perspective the Role of Designated Driver Programs in the Prevention of Alcohol-Impaired Driving: A Critical Reassessment.” Health Education and Behavior, v.19/4 (1992). Ditter, S. M., et al. “Effectiveness of Designated Driver Programs for Reducing Alcohol-Impaired Driving: A Systematic Review.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, v.28/5 (2005). Winsten, J. A. “Promoting Designated Drivers: The Harvard Alcohol Project.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, v.10/11 (1994).
Detoxification, Health Effects of Alcohol detoxification results from either a major reduction in drinking or the sudden and complete cessation of all alcohol use. There are a wide range of alcohol use disorders that exist on a continuum of severity, but the diagnosis of alcohol dependence represents the most concerning and relevant problem when discussing the health implications of detoxification. By definition, alcohol dependence is characterized by physical withdrawal symptoms in the absence of consumption. The risk for developing dependence and the resulting health effects of detoxification vary based on genetics, personality, behavior, and environment. Detoxification can result from a deliberate attempt to change a pattern of drinking but can also be based on unplanned events such as imprisonment, surgery, or other medical reasons for hospitalization. The health effects represent a change in homeostasis after the brain has adapted to heavy and prolonged use of alcohol. There are widely accepted treatment protocols aimed at reducing the symptoms and preventing the serious conditions that follow the cessation of alcohol. If untreated, the effects can lead to death from respiratory and/or cardiovascular collapse. The following sections will discuss the causes and health effects of alcohol detoxification.
Pathophysiology and Causes The exact mechanism of neurochemical adaptation and detoxification is quite complex and includes a variety of neurotransmitter systems, including various ion channels, N-methyl-Daspartate (NMDA) receptors, and gamma amino butyric acid (GABA) receptors. NMDA is an excitatory set of neurotransmitters that is suppressed with alcohol use; the receptors are subsequently increased in number (up-regulated) with prolonged alcohol use. GABA, in direct opposition to NMDA, is a neurotransmitter with a vital role in the inhibitory mechanism within the brain. Alcohol potentiates the effect of GABA and hinders the excitatory functions of the central nervous system. To compensate, GABA receptors become internalized (down-regulated) over time. After heavy prolonged alcohol use, there becomes an imbalance between the inhibitory and excitatory functions of the brain. Over time, the brain becomes desensitized to the effects of alcohol and GABA, which results in the phenomenon known as physiological tolerance. Upon cessation or significantly reduction of alcohol, a reversal of the pattern occurs leading to a hyperexcitable state, and this is thought to be the underlying cause of the symptoms associated with alcohol detoxification. Acute Symptoms The acute symptoms of alcohol detoxification vary from person to person, and the severity is usually directly related to the amount of alcohol consumed and the duration over which heavy alcohol use has occurred. While alcohol withdrawal symptoms mostly occur in adults, they have been noted in teenagers and younger children as well. These symptoms can start as early as two hours after the last drink and can even be present while there are detectable amounts of alcohol still in the blood. These symptoms vary widely but include tremulousness, anxiety, insomnia, headache, sweating, gastrointestinal upset, and heart palpitations and affect up to 2 million Americans yearly. Alcohol Hallucinosis Alcoholic hallucinosis refers to auditory hallucinations that may occur during the course of alcohol detoxification and usually appear within the first 48 hours of abstinence from drinking. As opposed to hallucinations resulting from other causes, this
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type generally occurs without an alteration in consciousness. These hallucinations can begin as simple sounds such as buzzing and can progress into more complex sounds such as voices. In contrast to hallucinations associated with delirium tremens, patients experiencing alcoholic hallucinosis are generally aware that their hallucinations are not real. This condition normally lasts for a couple of hours and rarely persist for weeks to months. Most cases will resolve spontaneously or in combination with treatment with benzodiazepines to address the bigger alcohol withdrawal picture. Antipsychotics are used sparingly and are reserved for only refractory alcohol hallucinosis, as antipsychotics may lower the seizure threshold and precipitate a seizure. Alcohol Withdrawal Seizures Alcohol withdrawal seizures, commonly known as “rum fits,” are one of the most potentially serious sequelae of alcohol withdrawal. In contrast to other CNS seizures, alcohol withdrawal seizures begin in the brainstem (as opposed to the neocortex). As discussed earlier, the suppression of GABA and the up-regulation of NMDA leaves the brain in an excitatory state upon the withdrawal of alcohol, setting the stage for seizure activity. Withdrawal seizures are most commonly observed in people who have undergone alcohol detoxification on a number of occasions. Furthermore, alcohol withdrawal seizures typically occur within the first 48 hours of the last drink. Seizures occurring outside of this time frame are less likely to be alcohol-withdrawal related. The most common seizure presentation is the tonicclonic seizure. The best treatment for alcohol withdrawal seizures is prevention. Monitoring alcohol withdrawal closely and using a medication that is cross-reactive with alcohol (for example, benzodiazepines) to taper is highly effective. Whether an inpatient or outpatient treatment setting is used is dependent upon the patient’s presentation, treatment compliance, history, and risk factors. Older anticonvulsant medications have proved to be ineffective in the prophylaxis of alcohol-withdrawal seizures, but new anticonvulsants such as carbamazepine and valproic acid have also shown beneficial in the prophylaxis of seizures related to alcohol withdrawal.
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Delirium Tremens Delirium tremens (DTs), commonly known as alcohol-withdrawal delirium, is one of the most severe complications of alcohol withdrawal. While only 5 percent of patients undergoing alcohol detoxification will experience DTs, it carries a high mortality rate, especially if untreated. Unfortunately, even if properly treated, the mortality rate of patients with DTs ranges from 5 to 15 percent. Delirium tremens typically presents itself around 72 hours after the patient’s last drink but may evidence itself up to 10 days out. DTs are characterized by agitation, global confusion, disorientation, and severe disturbances of the cardiovascular system. As with the treatment of alcohol-withdrawal seizures, the best treatment is prophylactic. Depending on the patient’s presentation, history, and results of examination, prophylactic treatment with benzodiazepines may stop alcohol withdrawal from progressing to full-blown DTs. Treatment of the patient who has progressed to DTs may require control of psychosis with antipsychotics, beta-blockers for tachycardia or elevated blood pressure, maintenance of electrolyte and fluid status with intravenous fluids, and heavy use of benzodiazepines to treat the withdrawal. As the doses of benzodiazepines used in this patient population may be quite high, airway protection may be necessary to ensure proper ventilation and to help mitigate against aspiration. Wernicke’s Encephalopathy Wernicke’s encephalopathy is a constellation of neurologic symptoms caused by central nervous system lesions precipitated by vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency. In its classic presentation, the triad of opthalmoplegia, ataxia, and confusion are all seen together. While this condition can certainly occur in an alcoholic who is chronically malnourished, it can be precipitated by inappropriate medical treatment of alcohol detoxification. Caution must be used when treating alcohol withdrawal medically, especially when administering intravenous fluids containing glucose. As the body utilizes the glucose, thiamine is also rapidly consumed. Therefore, concomitant thiamine should be proactively given to avoid this potential complication.
Conclusion Alcohol withdrawal differs widely in presentation and severity. In its more severe forms, there are potentially life-threatening complications. A careful history and physical examination coupled with appropriate treatment can greatly reduce these risks (but not eliminate them altogether). Jeremy Matuszak University of Nevada, Reno Alexander Brooks University of Nevada School of Medicine See Also: Alcohol Withdrawal Scale; Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture; Alcoholism Treatment, Sociology of; Detoxification, History of; Rehabilitation Centers, History of. Further Readings Adinoff, Brian. “The Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome: Neurobiology of Treatment and Toxicity.” American Journal on Addictions, v.3/4 (1994). Amato, Laura, Silvia Minozzi, and Marina Davoli. “Efficacy and Safety of Pharmacological Interventions for the Treatment of the Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome.” Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, v.6 (2011). Bayard, Max, Jonah McIntyre, Keith R. Hill, and Jack Woodside Jr. “Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome.” American Family Physician, v.69/6 (2004). Ghazi, Asaad. Understanding Mental Disorders Due to Medical Conditions or Substance Abuse: What Every Therapist Should Know. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1994. Krishel, Scott, Daniel SaFranek, and Richard F. Clark. “Intravenous Vitamins for Alcoholics in the Emergency Department: A Review.” Journal of Emergency Medicine, v.16/3 (1998). O’Connor, Patrick G. “Alcohol Abuse and Dependence.” In Cecil Medicine, 23rd ed., L. Goldman and D. Ausiello, eds. Philadelphia: Saunders Elsevier, 2007. Rogawski, Michael A. “Update on the Neurobiology of Alcohol Withdrawal Seizures.” Epilepsy Currents, v.5/6 (2005). Thomson, A. D., Irene Guerrini, E. Jane Marshall. “The Evolution and Treatment of Korsakoff’s Syndrome.” Neuropsychology Review, v.22/2 (2012).
Detoxification, History of Detoxification of alcohol involves the cessation of alcohol followed by a period of time in which the body rids itself of the substance. As the body rids itself of alcohol, many detox symptoms will begin to occur: tremor, anxiety, irritability, insomnia, loss of appetite, hallucinations, and seizures. How these detoxification symptoms have been dealt with have varied throughout history. Over the centuries, there have been various treatments developed to help those detoxing and recovering from problems with alcohol. Among these are medical and pharmaceutical interventions, selfhelp groups and mutual aid societies, and psychotherapy or individual therapy. Each of these types of treatments can be performed while the client is in an institution or in the community. Whether the client is institutionalized or in the community can impact the treatment efficacy. Medical and Pharmaceutical Treatment Medical and pharmaceutical interventions are increasingly used to help alcoholics detox from alcohol at the beginning of the recovery process. As previously discussed, those detoxing from alcohol suffer from a tremendous number of symptoms that can include hallucinations and even death. A medical intervention while detoxing from alcohol may include anesthesia to help prevent negative symptoms, close monitoring to help the patient through seizures, and even prescription drugs to decrease negative symptoms. Bupropion, an antidepressant, has been successful in reducing the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. Although pharmaceuticals have been shown to be useful in the initial detox phase of recovery, some recovery professionals and groups supporting recovery are concerned that the alcoholic may be exchanging one drug for another. For instance, Sigmund Freud recommended in the 1880s that cocaine be used in detoxing and recovering from alcohol. The recovery industry today would not recommend this “solution,” as an addiction to cocaine would simply replace the alcohol addiction. In addition to cocaine, morphine was once used to help people detox as were elixirs with strychnine and arsenic.
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Self-Help and Mutual Aid Self-help groups have been around for centuries. In the United States, around the time of the American Revolution, Native American people were forming “sobriety circles,” some of which would ultimately become abstinence groups similar to Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step groups seen today. Twelve-step groups provide mutual aid to those trying to overcome a common addictive problems (e.g., alcohol, overeating). Those suffering from alcoholism have recognized that meeting regularly with others who have the same problem can be useful in reducing alcohol consumption over the short run and long run. In the short run, those detoxing from alcohol may be supported by group members who understand the physical and mental symptoms. In the long run, groups may offer meetings and sponsors, who all encourage the alcoholic to reduce alcohol intake if not completely refrain from drinking alcohol. Twelve-step groups can help those who are institutionalized or those living in the community. No matter the setting, 12-step groups encourage the individual to remain abstinent, take personal responsibility, behave in prosocial ways, and generally repair his or her life from the damaging effects of addiction. According to William White, in addition to the Native American sobriety circles a variety of other protemperance societies have existed in the United States. In the 1840s, the Washington Society and the Fraternal Temperance Society developed to help men who were trying to reform themselves and remain sober. In the post–Civil War era, theBlue Ribbon Reform Club developed as a mutual-aid society for people to help each other beat alcohol addiction. During this same time, the Walter Street Mission opened in New York City and was the beginning of an urban movement to help men who were primarily poor. By the late 1930s, the organizers of Alcoholics Anonymous were forming and creating the “big book,” a publication to be used in this mutual aid organization. Alcoholics Anonymous is the forerunner of any number of addiction, self-help, and mutual-aid groups today. Psychotherapy Psychotherapy, or individual-level therapy, focusing on one’s life course with a trained practitioner
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The New York State Inebriate Asylum opened in Binghamton, New York, near the end of the Civil War to treat those suffering from alcoholism and mental illness. The building, shown here while closed in 2010, is now a U.S. National Historic Landmark.
is another way that alcoholics may begin the recovery process. While having little specific contribution to the detox process (that is, ridding the body of alcohol), psychotherapy attempts to find the individual reasons in a person’s life as to why he or she is addicted, specifically to alcohol. In the 1880s, Sigmund Freud dealt with alcoholics and even suggested that cocaine be used in the process of helping someone recover from alcohol. By meeting with a counselor, one on one, the individual is encouraged to explore the reasons behind why he or she started abusing alcohol in the first place. By uncovering the reasons behind the abuse and dependence on alcohol, a person, according to psychotherapy, is more readily able to stop using alcohol. The idea is that psychotherapy will help a person refrain from alcohol forever, or at least for longer, than he or she would be able to do without psychotherapy.
Institutionalized and Community Treatment According to White, Dr. Benjamin Rush first developed the idea of a home, or an institution, where people detoxing from alcohol could live. This idea, developed over 200 years ago, laid the groundwork for today’s institutions for people detoxing from alcohol. Twenty years after the establishment of institutions, Dr. Samuel Woodward would call for the development of asylums for those with mental illness. In the years prior to the Civil War, homes were opened in Boston that housed men who were addicted to alcohol. Toward the end of the Civil War, in Binghamton, New York, a state-run asylum was opened for those who had problems with alcoholism as well as mental illness. Eventually, institutions would also be opened for women. In 1867, just after the Civil War, the Martha Washington Home for the treatment of women with alcohol problems opened in Chicago. The opening of residential facilities was also accompanied by the growth of self-help groups in the surrounding areas and the nation. In 1879, Dr. Leslie Keeley opened the first of a chain of 120 private, for-profit institutions to treat people who had problems with alcoholism. By the 1920s, most of the institutions dealing with alcoholism were closed or were closing. By the 1930s, the federal government had begun dealing with the problem of addiction to alcohol when it opened two Bureau of Prison medical facilities in Lexington, Kentucky, and Ft. Worth, Texas. By the 1950s, the Veterans Administration developed treatment for alcoholism in its hospitals. In the early 1990s, insurance changes made it difficult for anyone to afford inpatient alcohol treatment, which caused many facilities to close. There was a shift toward community treatment. For each of these therapies, people could receive help while either remaining in the community or inside an institution, such as in a special unit of a general hospital or in a specialty hospital (i.e., a hospital that specializes in mental health and/ or substance abuse). The benefit of staying in the community has been that it is much cheaper than being institutionalized and potentially less stigmatizing, allows patients to remain in their family unit, and does not require the patient to have to change locations. Unfortunately, being treated while remaining in the community can also hinder someone’s recovery. When a person stays in the
Diageo
community, he or she is more likely to stay in a social situation that encourages drinking; to stay near bars; and to be distracted by family, work, and personal concerns and is less likely to keep showing up each day for treatment. Also, while living in the community medical treatment is not immediately available for those who are detoxing. Conclusion Alcohol detox and recovery fall into a few categories: medical/pharmaceutical treatment, self-help and mutual aid, psychotherapy. These treatments can take place inside or outside an institution. Sometimes, these treatments are at odds with each other. For instance, some detoxing alcoholics use other drugs (cocaine in the 1880s, bupropion today) to help mitigate the sometimes very serious withdrawal symptoms (for example, seizures, hallucinations) of alcohol detoxification. Abstinence self-help groups help the individual detox and recover from alcohol by supplying social support with an accompanying change in values. These groups are cautious of replacing alcohol addiction with another drug (for example, bupropion) dependence. Individual therapy provides an alcoholic with a trained mental health professional to uncover the reasons for drinking in the first place. Institutionalization during detox allows the professionals to have more control over the process. Community treatment, however, is less expensive and less disruptive to a person’s life. Daniel W. Phillips III Lindsey Wilson College Jennifer Cundiff Center for Criminal Justice See Also: Alcohol Withdrawal Scale; Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture; Alcoholism Treatment, Sociology of; Rehabilitation Centers, History of; Rush, Benjamin. Further Readings Angres, Daniel H. and Kathy Bettinardi-Angres. “The Disease of Addiction: Origins, Treatment, and Recovery.” Disease a Month, v.54/10 (October 2008). Rayner, Samuel G., Craig R. Weinert, Helen Peng, Stacy Jepsen, Alain F. Broccard, and Tudy
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Institution. “Dexmedetomidine as Adjunct Treatment for Severe Alcohol Withdrawal in the ICU.” Annals of Intensive Care, v.2/12 (2012). Stock, Christopher J., Lindsay Carpenter, Jian Ying, and Tom Greene. “Gabapentin Versus Chlordiazepoxide for Outpatient Alcohol Detoxification Treatment.” Annals of Pharmacotherapy, v.47/7–8 (2013). Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Detoxification and Substance Abuse Training. Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2008. White, William. Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America. Bloomington, IL: Chestnut Health Systems, 1998.
Diageo The public limited company (PLC) Diageo is a global/multinational alcohol conglomerate that boasts being the world’s largest producer of spirits and a major producer of beer and wine. Diageo originated in 1997 as a result of a merger between the London-based Grand Metropolitan Limited Company and Guinness PLC, both of which separately were owners of many major drinks brands, although the former also had major food holdings that were sold early in the 21st century. Many of the brands under Diageo corporate control have long fascinated historical researchers, while the current corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate citizenship (CC) programs have been the topics of social scientific studies. Diageo’s recent expansions into global markets, first in parts of Africa, and more recently in China, India, and Brazil, have resulted not only in new brand acquisitions but also the building of production facilities. Moreover, Diageo has extended its social responsibility programs in these areas, attempting to be a policy influencer. The name Diageo was a marketing creation by the consultancy group Wolff Olins. Composed of the Latin for day (dies) and the Greek for world (geo), the slogan suggests that the company represents pleasure everyday, everywhere. The Guinness name has continued to exist, however, and not just to refer to the beer, but as a
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separate trading company under the Diageo parent company rubric. In a number of countries around the world, the name Guinness continues to be used to refer to subsidiaries of Diageo. This is also true of a number of the other brands that had enjoyed global reputations prior to joining the Diageo group. Although a comparatively recent creation, Diageo and its subsidiaries draw heavily on their historical associations, with particular reference to a number of their products, going back to the 18th century. The oldest, Justerini & Brooks, of the famous J&B whisky range, dates back to 1749. The traditional date of Guinness’s foundation is 1759, when the first Arthur Guinness signed the lease for the site where the famous Dublin brewery is located. Another product, Jose Cuervo, which is only half owned by Diageo, also traces its roots back to the 18th century (1795). These historical linkages, and their commercial uses in the present, have been the subject of study by anthropologists, sociologists, and historians and have been linked to a number of major controversies in which Diageo has been involved around the world. Controversy Controversies have surrounded Diageo almost from the beginning. In Ireland there was considerable controversy associated with the changing of the name of the brewery, which resulted in a decision being made to keep the name and those of its affiliated Irish subsidiaries. Controversies in Ireland continue, especially in relationship to sponsorship. Sporting sponsorships have provoked increasingly high-profile controversies in the country and an increasingly vocal anti-alcohol lobby has been especially concerned about the role of Diageo in Irish life. In 2009, Diageo initiated “Arthur’s Day” as a way of commemorating the 250th anniversary of Arthur Guinness’s signing of the St. James’s Gate lease in Dublin. A seemingly arbitrary Thursday in September was chosen, with the suggestion that at exactly 17:59 p.m., Arthur Guinness would be toasted. Since 2009, attempts have been made to make “Arthur’s Day” a recognized date in the national calendar. This was established as a yearly commemoration, and Diageo linked it to a music and arts celebration. However, in 2013, this campaign was the subject of extensive
criticism, bound up with wider social criticism of alcohol sponsorship in general. One of Ireland’s most highly regarded traditional singer-songwriters, Christy Moore, composed a song attacking Diageo’s attempt to initiate an “alcoholiday,” and as a consequence, the day passed in somewhat more muted and subdued terms than had originally been anticipated. In addition, controversies have appeared in other countries and with other brands. For instance, in 2003 there was a major controversy associated with the planned change of Cardhu Scotch whiskey from a single malt to a vatted or pure malt while retaining the original name and packaging. The Scotch whisky industry opposed the change, arguing that consumers would be confused and that misunderstanding could damage the reputation of single malts in general. Although the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) refused to intervene, smaller distillers campaigned and managed to convince Diageo to change their decision. This had the long-term effect of diminishing the power of the SWA in general. Another example occurred with Scotland Diageo in 2009, which was also highly criticized for its decision to close the century-old distilling premises of Johnny Walker in Kilmarnock. In addition, many other countries around the world where Diageo has been looking for new markets, including some countries in Africa, China, India, and Brazil, have argued that their “social responsibility” campaign is much more about corporate expansion, and the opportunity to influence policy, than about any moral or ethical considerations. Corporate Social Responsibility Both sociologists and anthropologists have looked extensively at corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its underlying concept of corporate citizenship (CC). Since the mid-1990s CSR has become a major part of promotion within the alcohol industry. Currently, Diageo’s CSR supports three streams: economies, society, and environment. Economies is designed to provide funding, resources, and expertise to assist with local projects primarily in developing countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe. The society stream specifically develops projects countering the misuse of alcohol, and encourages responsible drinking,
Disease Model of Alcoholism
arguing that this is linked to the sustainability of their business. Part of this stream involves community activities. Third, the environment stream connects with the policy of making drink products sustainable, and encouraging consumers to dispose of packaging responsibly. In the wake of the legislative and legal difficulties associated with the tobacco industry, the alcohol industry initiated a number of programs that have become defined as Corporate Social Responsibility. Almost from their inception, these programs were argued, somewhat counterintuitively, to lead to increased profits by appealing to investors’ sense of social responsibility. Diageo and its predecessor Guinness were active participants in the American-based International Center for Alcohol Policies (ICAP) that began in 1995. More recent incarnations have appeared in a number of countries around the world, including drinkaware.com in Ireland and the United Kingdom. In a recent study, researchers Sungwon Yoon and Tai-Hing Lam discuss ICAP and other alcohol industry CSR initiatives that, they argue, employ three key tactics: • CSR is used to frame issues, define problems and guide policy debates. • CSR promotes voluntary regulation to delay or offset legislative controls. • Philanthropic sponsorships are a means of indirect brand marketing. A Cambridge University ESRC funded working paper specifically about Diageo’s CSR ethos and CC programs argues that a discernible bias and increasing shift of emphasis in the direction of programs that might help develop a market for Diageo has become evident. The paper concludes not by castigating Diageo but rather by alerting government public bodies to the reality that corporations such as Diageo cannot be expected to replace government’s role with regard to civic and societal responsibilities. Tanya M. Cassidy National University of Ireland, Maynooth See Also: Guinness; Scotch; Tequila; Vodka; World Health Organization.
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Further Readings Bek, David, Ian W. Jones, and Michael G. Pollitt. How Do Multinationals Build Social Capital?: Diageo’s Corporate Citizenship Programme. Cambridge: ESRC Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge, 2005. Diageo, PLC. “Annual Report.” http://diageoreports .com (Accessed October 2013). Grant, Marcus and Joyce O’Connor, eds. Corporate Social Responsibility and Alcohol: The Need and Potential for Partnership. ICAP Series on Alcohol in Society. New York: Routledge, 2004. Yoon, Sungwon and Tai-Hing Lam. “The Illusion of Righteousness: Corporate Social Responsibility Practices of the Alcohol Industry.” BMC Public Health, v.13/630 (2013).
Disease Model of Alcoholism The concept of a disease model of alcoholism was advanced by E. M. Jellinek in his influential book, Disease Concept of Alcoholism, published in 1960. Since the book’s publication, references to the disease model of alcoholism have increased, though it is not entirely clear whether the disease model is the same as the disease concept. Jellinek himself argued against the phrase disease concept of alcoholism, saying that alcoholism was a concept, disease was a concept, but alcoholism as a disease was, more accurately, a conception, but he could get neither the public nor his publisher to accept this argument. His word conception seems to approximate in meaning the word model as now used. “The New Disease Model of Alcoholism,” an article published in the Western Journal of Medicine in 1990, gives a meaning to disease model that is possibly more exact than Jellinek’s book but perhaps: not markedly different. The new disease model is multidimensional: biological, psychological, and sociocultural. That is, alcoholism is increasingly being viewed as a biopsychosocial illness in which genetics, neurochemistry, pharmacology, behavior, and social environment are all part of the picture.
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The author of the article goes on to make six points: (1) research in genetics has contributed strong evidence in favor of a disease model of alcoholism; (2) various predispositions, risk factors, or vulnerabilities to the disease are inherited, though alcoholism does not appear to be; (3) these genetic predispositions or risk factors come into play as people consume more and more alcohol; (4) environment must also play a role in causation because not everyone in whom alcoholism develops has a positive family history of the disease; (5) in many cases of alcoholism, the roles played by culture and society must be explored; and (6) differences among various alcoholics may be related to underlying differences in neurochemistry. Origins of the Disease Model Although Jellinek is properly given credit for the disease concept of alcoholism, the idea that alcoholism is an illness and not a sin or lapse in an individual’s morality dates back to the late 19th century. Barry Leach and John Norris maintain that the notion of alcoholism as an allergy had been set forth as early as 1896. Dr. William Silkworth further advanced this theory in an article published in the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), in which he maintained “the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy . . . and unless [the alcoholic] can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.” The idea that alcoholism is an allergy has since been scientifically discredited. However, the idea that alcoholism is a disease suggests the need for treatment. This medicalization of alcoholism was, in part, a response to the obvious failure of Prohibition. It also came about also as a by-product of a new attitude to medicine and science, at the time when new drugs were actually able to cure diseases, or at least stop their progress. In the 1944, the newly created National Council for Education on Alcoholism (now the National Council on Alcoholism) provided a four-element definition of alcoholism: (1) alcoholism is a disease; (2) alcoholics gradually develop “loss of control” over drinking, so that once they begin drinking, they may be unable to stop; (3) alcoholism is a permanent and irreversible condition, so that alcoholics can never drink safely; and
(4) alcoholism is a progressive disease which, if untreated, can lead to insanity or death. Current Medical Definitions of Alcoholism The current medical definition of alcoholism, as approved by the Board of Directors of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc. (NCADD), on February 3, 1990, and by the Board of Directors of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM, affiliated with the American Medical Association), on February 25, 1990, is as follows: Alcoholism is a primary chronic disease with genetic, psycho-social, and environmental factors influencing its development and manifestations. The disease is often progressive and fatal. It is characterized by continuous or periodic impaired control over drinking, preoccupation with . . . alcohol, use of alcohol despite adverse consequences, and distortions in thinking, most notably denial. The definition goes on to explicate individual words. “Primary” means that alcoholism is a disease entity separate from other patho-physiological states that may be associated with it, and is not a symptom of some other underlying disease state. “Disease” refers to an involuntary disability that is the sum of the abnormal phenomena displayed by a group of individuals, by which they differ from the norm, and which places them at a disadvantage in relation to the norm. Often progressive and fatal” means that the disease persists over time, and that physical, emotional, and social changes are often cumulative. Also, the disease of alcoholism “causes premature death through overdose, organic complications involving the brain, liver, heart, and many other organs, and by contributing to suicide, homicide, motorvehicle crashes, and other traumatic events.” “Impaired control” refers to inability to limit alcohol use, indicating excessive focused attention given to alcohol, its effects, and its use. “Adverse consequences” are alcohol-related problems or impairments in physical health, psychological functioning, interpersonal functioning, occupational functioning, and legal, financial, and spiritual problems. “Denial” refers to a range of psychological maneuvers designed to reduce the
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individual’s awareness that alcohol is a cause of problems rather than their solution: the word is not used in the limited psychoanalytic sense of a single psychological defense mechanism disavowing the significance of particular events. To this 1990 definition may be added the 1971 statement by the House of Delegates of the American Medical Association (quoted in Three Talks to Medical Societies by Bill W.): The American Medical Association identifies alcoholism as a complex disease with biological, psychological and sociological components, and recognizes medicine’s responsibility in behalf of affected persons. The Association recognizes that there are multiple forms of alcoholism and that each patient should be evaluated and treated in an individualized and comprehensive manner. One difficulty in talking about alcoholism as a disease is precisely the question raised by Jellinek when he defines alcoholism as a permanent and irreversible condition, so that alcoholics can never drink safely; and as a progressive disease which, if untreated, can lead to insanity or death. Which one is the disease condition—the fact of being (genetically) unable to drink safely, or the fact of irreversible damage from drinking and the progressivity of the disease? The trench-coated bum with a bottle in a paper bag, sleeping under the railroad viaduct, may have both conditions, but the permanent condition is being unable to take a drink safely, or at least the preconditions(and any treatment for the preconditions) for this disease condition. Jared Lobdell Independent Scholar See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, History of; Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Sociology of; Alcoholism Treatment, Sociology of; Jellinek, E. M.; Oxford Group; Wilson, Bill. Further Readings Leach, Barry and John L. Norris. “Factors in the Development of Alcoholics Anonymous.” In The Biology of Alcoholism, vol. 5, Treatment and
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Rehabilitation of the Chronic Alcoholic, B. Kissen and H. Begleiter, eds. New York: Pergamon 1977. Lobdell, Jared. This Strange Illness: Alcoholism and Bill W. Berlin: Aldine-De Gruyter, 2004. Roizen, Ron. The American Discovery of Alcoholism 1933–1939, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California Berkeley, 1991. Roizen, Ron. “Paradigm Sidetracked: Explaining Early Resistance to the Alcoholism Paradigm at Tale’s Laboratory of Applied Physiology 1940–1944.” http://www.roizen.com (Accessed March 2014). Wallace, J. “The New Disease Model of Alcoholism.” Western Journal of Medicine, v.152 (1990). White, William L. Slaying the Dragon. Normal, IL: Chestnut, 1998.
Doctor Bob S. See Smith, Robert Holbrook
Domaine Weinbach Domaine Weinbach is one of the best-known wine estates in Alsace, France. Established in 1610 by the Capuchin monks, the estate, located just outside of the medieval town of Kaysersberg, takes its name from a small stream that runs through the property. In the dialect of Alsatian, weinbach is literally translated as “wine brook.” The domaine has belonged to the Faller family since 1898. For more than three decades, Colette Faller and her daughters Catherine and Laurence have been in charge. The original, walled-in vineyard where monks developed the vineyards more than 1,100 years ago still serves as the spiritual heart of the estate, but in 2013, the domaine has 72 acres of vineyards. Domaine Weinbach’s vineyards include three grand cru, or “great growth,” parcels, one of which is about 40 acres on the Schlossberg and was the first grand cru terroir in Alsace. Wine critics use words like “dazzling” to describe the Rieslings, gewurtztraminers, pinot gris, pinot blancs, and muscats produced by the Domaine
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Weinbach. These wines appear on the wine lists of the best restaurants in Paris, the Crillon, the Tour d’Argent and Guy Savoy among them, and are exported to the United States, Japan, and Germany. The American wine magazine Wine & Spirits named Domaine Weinbach a top-100 winery of the year in 2012. History In 890, the Holy Roman Empress Richarde gave a parcel of land in Alsace to a group of Augustinian monks, who, in turn, gave a portion of that estate to some Capuchin Franciscan friars in 1612. The Capuchins built a convent and church on the property, but they also continued to develop the farms and vineyards that were already there. A 17th-century inventory compiled by the Capuchins listed 14,000 to 15,000 vines, riesselin (Riesling) among them. During the French Revolution, the monastery was seized and sold as a national property. After passing
through several hands, the Faller brothers, Theodore and Jean-Baptiste, purchased the domaine and five hectares of vineyards in 1898. They then passed it on to Theo Faller, their son and nephew. A prominent figure among Alsace winegrowers, Theo Faller developed and expanded Domaine Weinbach. He was also a loyal advocate for the wines of Alsace and influential in the move to see Alsatian vineyards receive Appellation d’Origine Controllê (AOC) status in 1962, followed by the recognition of the Alsace Grand Cru AOC in 1975. The first and largest grand cru in Alsace is Schlossberg. Domaine Weinbach owns about 40 acres of the Schlossberg, a parcel that produces the domaine’s best Riesling. Theo Faller died in 1979. The Women of Domaine Weinbach Theo Faller was the domaine’s winemaker, but his widow, Colette, took charge after his death. With the help of a family friend, Jean Mercky,
The vineyards of Domaine Weinbach, including the Grand Cru Schlossberg, seen on the hill in the background, in 2012. In 2013, the domaine’s vineyards covered 72 acres and included three grand cru, or “great growth,” parcels, one of which is about 40 acres on the Schlossberg, which was the first and largest grand cru terroir in Alsace and now produces the domaine’s best Riesling.
and her elder daughter, Catherine, in her early 20s at the time, she made Domaine Weinbach a name to be reckoned with among the wine names of northeastern France. Although Colette Faller was treated courteously as the widow of a prominent winemaker, viniculture was still very much a man’s world in 1979. The widow Faller was fully aware of the prejudice against women in positions of authority and of the struggle she faced to persuade the skeptics that the wines of Domaine Weinbach were as good, if not better, than they had been under her husband’s tenure. Madame Faller admits that the doubts spurred her to even greater efforts, and she believes the unfaltering belief in the domaine’s grapes and their potential that she and her daughters held also contributed to the success they achieved. She also considers the attention to detail and the hospitality they offered their customers, characteristics perhaps stronger in women winemakers, were factors in the domaine’s prosperity. Catherine Faller, whom her mother describes simply as always having been part of the business, worked in the business and marketing end, eventually becoming marketing director. With her mother as titular winemaker and winery hostess, it was left to Catherine to use the Faller history and philosophy of winemaking to grow the name of Domaine Weinbach. The Fallers believe in letting the grapes make the wine with minimal intervention. They harvest the grapes by hand and use old, upright oval casks, ranging from 3,000 to 6,000 liters in capacity, for aging and fermenting the wines. Laurence Faller, the younger daughter of Theo and Colette Faller, initially was not certain she wanted to become a winemaker. She studied chemical engineering and spent time at the Sanoma-Cutrer Vineyards in California before returning to Domaine Weinbach in 1993. By 1996, she was making many of the winemaking decisions, and two years later, she had become the domaine’s enologist. The domaine has long grown grapes according to organic principles as much as possible, using only animal compost as fertilizer and employing no chemical treatments or pesticides. From Laurence’s return, she began to use the principles of biodynamic farming, a holistic, organic approach that combines conventional ecological concerns with less conventional,
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metaphysical methods such as planting according to the astrological calendar. The 2005 vintage was the first 100 percent biodynamic vintage at Weinbach, and the domaine received its organic and biodynamic certification in 2010. The Wines of Weinbach Although all the wines of Domaine Weinbach bear the name of the Clos des Capucins, the domaine’s original and most cherished vineyard, only a small portion of them actually originate from the ancient site. The varieties of grapes planted in the clos are used to make Riesling réserve, Tokay pinot gris réserve particulièe, cuvée Sainte Catherine, gewurztraminer réserve, and muscat. Colette Faller buried her husband near their home in the vineyards he loved. She called the Riesling and gewurztraminer that grow there Cuvee Theo. (“Cuvee” commonly refers to a particular batch or blend of wine, but it can also refer to its high quality.) Because France does not allow a single-owner clos to be designated a grand crus, Weinbach’s Clos des Capucins wines do not bear this distinction even though many experts consider them among the best wines in Alsace. Aside from the historical and sentimental significance of the Clos des Capucins, the Fallers’ most prestigious wines come from the grand crus of Schlossberg, Mambourg, and Furstentum. Schlossberg is one of the oldest recorded vineyard sites in Alsace, and its soil is ideally suited for Riesling. Following the Faller tradition of naming cuvees after family members, both the Riesling from the upper slopes of Schlossberg and the grand cru Riesling from the middle slopes are known as Cuvée Sainte Catherine, rich Riesling vintages. Grapes from the more recent Faller purchases of plots on the Furstentum and their tiny plot on the Mambourg of Sigolsheim go into the making of their gewurztraminer. Pinot gris comes from the unclassified but still praised Altenbourg site. Laurence Faller, who died in 2014, lent her name to both pinot gris and gewurztraminer. Wylene Rholetter Auburn University See Also: France; Gewurztraminer; Riesling; Wines, French; Wines, White.
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Further Readings Dawes, Gerry. “Domaine Weinbach and the Faller Femmes.” Underground Wine Journal v.19/6 (October 2000). http://www.domaineweinbach .com/presse/winejournal/winejournal.htm (Accessed November 2013). Matasar, Ann B. Women of Wine: The Rise of Women in the Global Wine Industry. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. Prial, Frank. Decantations: Reflections on Wine by The New York Times Wine Critic. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2002.
Domestic Beer The United States is a beer-drinking nation. It is the largest producer and one of the 20 largest consumers of beer in the world. More than three-quarters of alcoholic beverages sold in the country are beer—nearly all of them are domestic beers and nearly all of those domestic beers are made by a small number of giant companies. Beer has been part of American culture from the beginning, as one of the most popular beverages in the Colonial period. Early Styles of Beer and Breweries Traditionally, Americans were ale drinkers, thanks to their British rootstock. This changed with the waves of European immigration in the 19th century, with lagers (especially the pale lager known as pilsner) becoming popular nationwide after being introduced by German immigrants and the breweries they established. The pilsner style was also the first in the United States to regularly rely on flavor-neutral additives like rice and corn. German Americans were instrumental in establishing commercial breweries and large-scale distribution in the United States, The Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company (the maker of Schlitz), the Miller Brewing Company (now part of MillerCoors), and the Anheuser-Busch brewery were all founded by German Americans in the middle of the 19th century, and soon English-style ales were a relative rarity. The oldest continuously operating brewery in the country, Yuengling (pronounced “yingling”), was established by one such German
American. David Gottlob Jungling moved to the United States in 1823 and anglicized his name to David Yuengling, opening the Eagle Brewery (now Yuengling and Son) in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Yuengling, like some other breweries, survived Prohibition by producing “near beers” of 0.5 percent alcohol, which were within the range accepted by the law at the time. Yuengling has become more popular nationwide since a revival in the history of American beer, which began with its involvement in the United States bicentennial celebration. President Obama has repeatedly referred to it as his favorite beer. The first beer style to originate in the United States was steam beer, starting out in San Francisco. More effervescent than most beers, it was made by fermenting beer at warm temperatures with lager yeast. Written references to steam beer imply that it originated as a slapdash effort to brew beer for the communities that sprang up during and after the Gold Rush and that it was likely not prized for its quality, at least originally. None of the steam beer breweries survived the closures of Prohibition, but the Anchor Brewing Company has since introduced Anchor Steam beer, their version of the style, in 1981. This modern variant of steam beer is formally known as California common beer. The origins of the name “steam” beer aren’t clear, though there is likely some connection to the beer’s distinctive characteristic: the relatively high temperature at which it is fermented. Without a source of ice or sufficiently cold water in California, brewers using lager yeast were unable to chill the fermenting wort to the traditional temperature. At least some of the steam beers sold at the turn of the century used many of the same techniques later used by America’s beer giants: raw sugar was added in lieu of more expensive malt in order to stretch the malt to create larger batches of beer, and caramel coloring was added to darken the color of the final product. A similar beer is made in North Korea, where a lack of access to electricity for refrigeration has created similar brewing conditions to those of Gold Rush San Francisco. Twentieth Century World War II came soon enough after Prohibition, and the brewing industry was far from fully
recovered. In order to keep operating amid rationing (not to mention a reduced male workforce and customer base), many American brewers turned to the cost-cutting techniques that continue to define most American beer today. Adjuncts— grains like corn and rice that provide starch and can be fermented into alcohol but add little to no flavor compared to more expensive options like malted barley, wheat, or rye—became common ingredients in the pilsnerlike beers produced by Coors and Anheuser-Busch. The resulting beers all tasted fairly similar to each other, creating the mild, mellow, low-alcohol flavor profile characterizing American beer. The style is sometimes called American or North American lager, of which the most popular version worldwide is Budweiser, the flagship beer of Anheuser-Busch. Other major brands include Coors Light, Michelob, and Miller Genuine Draft. Though associated with the United States, American lager is also the most common style among Canada’s major breweries and is represented by Molson Canadian, Labatt Blue, and Carling Black Label, among others. These were the beers that became enshrined in images of American life in the second half of the 20th century, as television and radio advertising reinforced the dominance of national brands like Budweiser over regional favorites and as the growing suburbanization of the country popularized terms like “lawnmower beer”—referring to the low-alcohol, easy-to-drink beer that an American suburban dad could drink ice-cold while mowing the lawn in the summer. It was also the first beer many Americans tasted, often as children sneaking or being snuck a sip of dad’s beer. One of the few notable styles of beer made at the time other than the American lager is the cream ale, which is similar to pale lager but uses top-fermenting yeastlike ales. Genesee Cream Ale, which was introduced in Rochester, New York, in 1960, is the best-known example, and was a beloved regional beer for many northeasterners in the days before craft-beer options. Microbrew Revolution The microbrew revolution that would change American beer consumption began with the passage in 1978 of H.R. 1337, a federal law repealing excise taxes and restrictions on home brewed beer that had been in place since Prohibition. Because of
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the moderate controversy over reintroducing home brewing, the law only repealed federal restrictions rather than specifically creating a right to home brew—state laws were allowed to remain in place, or to be passed in response to the absence of federal restriction. Home brewing acted as the minor leagues for the microbrew revolution: Hobbyists spent enough money on equipment to support a side of the industry by providing beer ingredients and equipment in smaller quantities than the beer giants used, without needing to make that money back. Over time, enough of these hobbyists developed legitimate skill, and they were able to experiment with techniques and flavor profiles in ways that the beer giants were unlikely to do. A small number of those hobbyists eventually applied for licenses to open commercial breweries or brew pubs. These new smaller breweries became known as microbreweries, though in recent years the term craft beer has been used, in part because it puts the emphasis on the attention paid to production rather than on the scale of operations. No sooner had home brewing been legalized than Charles Papazian founded the American Homebrewers Association, which provided networking and knowledge-sharing possibilities to home-brewing hobbyists. Guides to home brewing soon followed, even kits of ingredients that could be assembled into beer with little difficulty. Meanwhile, the first microbrewery since Prohibition, the New Albion Brewing Company of Sonoma County, California, was opened in 1976. In its seven years of business, New Albion offered Americans domestic stouts, porters, and pale ales. Contemporary Variety of Styles The beer giants still dominate the industry: Four breweries out of the more than two thousand operating in the United States are responsible for 95 percent of the sales. In that sense, it is difficult to conceive of microbreweries as having had much of an impact, but the breadth of beer options available even in a typical suburban supermarket or convenience store is staggering compared to the 1990s, much less the 1950s. Many American beers, especially craft beers, now use American hop varietals developed since the 1970s, including Cascade, Citra, Simcoe, and Warrior.
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A number of modern American styles have been developed as well. The Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, today one of the largest craft brewers, developed the American pale ale style in 1980, characterized by the use of high levels of American hops in a pale ale. The line is sometimes blurred between American pale ales and American India pale ales, a style that has exploded in the 2000s and 2010s. American IPAs are characterized by extensive bitterness and a resinous character resulting from the abundant American hops. They can be subdivided into East Coast IPAs, which are maltier; West Coast IPAs, which are drier and foreground the hops of the Pacific Northwest; and Double IPAs, which have a higher alcohol content. (Even this subdivision does not account for the idiosyncrasies of craft brewers: Dogfish Head’s 120 Minute IPA is its hoppiest offering, but in terms of sweetness and very high alcohol content it would be considered a barley wine, and indeed must legally be sold under that name in some states.) American IPAs have grown in popularity overseas, and a few European brewers have begun making beers in the style. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Ale; Beer; Beer and Foods; Budweiser; Coors; Craft Brewing Culture; Dark Beer; Hard Cider; Light Beer; Pilsner; 3.2 Beer. Further Readings Acitelli, Tom. The Audacity of Hops: The History of America’s Craft Beer Revolution. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2013. Baron, Stanley. Brewed in America: A History of Beer and Ale in the United States. New York: Little Brown, 1962. Papazian, Charles. Microbrewed Adventures: A Lupulin-Filled Journey to the Heart and Flavor of the World’s Great Craft Beers. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
Dow, Neal Neal Dow was a noted American temperance advocate who is best known as the creator of the
“Maine Law,” the first state alcohol prohibition law, passed in 1851. Dow worked to clean up the liquor trade in Portland, Maine, and he thereby gained a national, even international, reputation for his temperance efforts and leadership. Many have called him the “Father of Prohibition.” Personal and Political History Neal S. Dow was born on March 20, 1804, in Portland, Maine. His parents were Quakers and Neal attended the Friends Academy in New Bedford, Massachusetts. His father, Josiah Dow, was a tanner, and after graduating high school Neal worked industriously alongside his father in the leather industry and eventually progressed to become a wealthy and prominent leather manufacturer in his own right. Neal married Maria Cornelia Durant Maynard Dow. Neal Dow was an ardent Prohibitionist throughout his life. He became a volunteer fireman to become exempt from serving in the local militia, primarily because its musters were reputed to largely be little more than drunken outings. He then persuaded his local firefighting company to not drink liquor at its annual celebrations, which gained him considerable local notoriety. In 1827, Dow became a founding member of the Maine Temperance Society, which he left in 1837 to form the Maine Temperance Union. The former society permitted the consumption of wine, while the splinter group promulgated total abstinence from all alcoholic beverages. In 1849, Dow and other temperance reformers persuaded legislators in Maine to pass a bill prohibiting the sale of distilled alcoholic beverages; however, Governor John Dana refused to sign the bill into law. In April of 1851, Dow was elected mayor of Portland, Maine, having campaigned successfully as a member of the Temperance Whig slate. He then persuaded legislators in Maine to pass a revised bill that he had drafted forbidding the manufacture and sale of distilled alcoholic spirits even though many of these legislators expected that the bill would be vetoed. However, Dow had secured the promised support of the newly elected governor John Hubbard, who signed the bill into law on June 2, 1851. This law, known as the Maine Liquor Law, or simply as the Maine Law, became a model of coercive temperance legislation. Dow saw the elimination of alcoholic
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Temperance advocate Neal S. Dow sometime between 1850 and 1860. Dow ran for president on the Prohibition Party ticket in 1880 and has been called the “Father of Prohibition.”
but only by a 47-vote margin. Dow had run this successful campaign as a candidate of the newly formed Republican party and he was also supported by the nativist Know Nothing Party. On June 2, 1855, on the anniversary of the imposition of the Maine Law, a large riotous crowd gathered outside city hall in Portland. Rumors were circulating that Dow was hiding a large supply of alcohol there. It turned out there was a small supply of alcohol stored intended for distribution to the local medical professionals for medicinal use as stipulated in the Maine Law. The militia was called out by Dow to establish order, but the crowd refused to disperse. Dow ordered the militia to open fire, and one man, a sailor named John Robbins, was killed and seven others wounded. This became known as the Portland Rum Riot. Dow was put on trial, defended by William P. Fessender, a cofounder of the Maine Temperance Society, and the prosecutor in the case was Nathan Clifford, a former U.S. Attorney General. Dow was acquitted of all charges but the stigma of the riot and trial severely damaged his public image and reputation. He subsequently campaigned unsuccessfully as governor of Maine. In 1856, the Maine Law was repealed, but he was able to get it reenacted in 1858 and it stood until 1933 serving as a model for other jurisdictions.
beverages as a part of the way that American citizens could fulfill their virtuous potential, as he believed was in full accord with the true ideals of republicanism that were formed during the founding of the nation. New England Federalism shaped Dow’s political views. He supported Federalist political causes, voted for John Quincy Adams in the election of 1824, embraced abolition ardently, and opposed Jacksonian democracy vehemently. These tendencies were rather typical of the Yankee elite class who formed the core of the early temperance movement in America. Neal Dow lost his initial bid for reelection as mayor of Portland. He nevertheless traveled widely across the United States and Canada campaigning for alcohol prohibition laws modeled on the Maine Liquor Law. He again ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Portland in 1854, but finally in 1855 he was successful in getting reelected
Military Employment and Resignation By the Civil War, temperance reformers like Dow were determined not only to advocate moderation but to establish legal restrictions that would force recalcitrant drinkers to cease and desist. Many temperance regiments were created for the Union Army during the Civil War. Dow raised several temperance regiments from Maine. On November 23, 1861, he was made a colonel of the 13th Maine Infantry and he participated in the capture of New Orleans. On April 28, 1862, he was promoted to brigadier general and he then assumed command of two forts, at Jackson and St. Philip respectively, captured from the Confederates south of New Orleans. He was later given command of forces in the District of Florida. During the siege of Port Hudson, which began on May 21, 1863, Dow was in command of the First Brigade in the Second Division of the XIX Corps; on May 27, he was wounded in the left thigh and right arm and sent to a nearby
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plantation for convalescence. In July of 1863, he was captured by Confederates and imprisoned for eight months initally in the infamous Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia, and then in Mobile, Alabama; he was eventually released by means of a prisoner exchange on February 25, 1864, for the son of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, General William Henry Fitzhugh Lee. Dow’s health declined due to his incarceration and he resigned his commission in November 1864 and returned to Portland. Continuing Political Activity Dow continued to be a national figure in the temperance movement. In 1865, he partnered with James Black of Pennsylvania to establish the National Temperance Society and Publishing House. Their publications were focused on promoting total abstinence from drinking all alcoholic beverages. Dow ran unsuccessfully as the U.S. presidential candidate for the Prohibition Party in the election of 1880, with Henry Adams Thompson as his running mate. Their Prohibition Party ticket came in fourth place behind James Baird Weaver of the Greenback Party, Winfield Scott Hancock of the Democratic Party. The winner was James A. Garfield of the Republican Party. Nevertheless, Dow and Thompson garnered a total of 10,305 votes. Dow passed away in Portland on October 2, 1897, at the age of 93 years. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in the city. Dow’s residence on Congress Street in Portland was willed to the Maine Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and served as their headquarters. It now serves as an historic tourist attraction. Dow’s son, Fred N. Dow, continued his father’s legacy of promoting temperance issues. Victor B. Stolberg Essex County College See Also: Maine Law; National Temperance Society and Publication House; Prohibition; Prohibition Party; Temperance Movements. Further Readings Byrne, Frank Loyola. Prophet of Prohibition: Neal Dow and His Crusade. Magnolia, MA: Peter Smith, 1969.
Clubb, Henry S. The Maine Liquor Law: Its Origin, History, and Results, Including a Life of Hon. Neal Dow. New York: Fowler and Wells, 1856. Dow, Neal. The Reminiscences of Neal Dow: Recollections of Eighty Years. Portland, ME: Evening Express, 1898.
Drama, Drinking and Temperance in It is certainly one of the ironies of antebellum popular culture—in the United States, the United Kingdom, and even Europe—that the theater would become one of the most effective vehicles for spreading the uncompromising gospel of temperance amid a generation bent on reforming social vices and creating a more Christian culture. Indeed, whereas European cultures had a long history of theater, cultural historians have argued that the early temperance movement in the three decades leading up to the Civil War actually legitimated the position of the theater in American culture. Before 1830, “respectable” Americans regarded the theater world as a bastion of immorality in America’s burgeoning cities. Evangelicals, the prosperous middle class, and various stripes of social critics viewed actors, like prostitutes and petty thieves, as denizens of the urban underworld, known for their disreputable character and scant regard for the conventions of acceptable Christian behavior. Theaters themselves evoked suspicion as gathering places for the working class, largely immigrants, who sought unsophisticated entertainment—bawdy songs and flashy dances— as a way to escape their perceived dead-end lives. Alcohol played a major role in the theater world, American society stereotyped actors as eloquent, even educated, but for the most part drunkards and moral reprobates. Even theatrical conventions promoted drinking: by design, the intermission allowed theater patrons the opportunity to exit quickly to any nearby tavern and get fortified for the rest of the evening. That such a perceived sordid and immoral institution later emerged as the bully pulpit for Christian
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temperance marks one of the most important, if not ironic, developments in antebellum American culture.
actually acted out with props, sets, and costuming. Closet dramas could be read in parlors or presented in churches or small halls, providing a relatively inexpensive way to preach the temperance message using the theatrical medium. Often, hymn sings, a guest lecturer, or even personal testimony from reformed drinkers accompanied these closet dramas. Temperance movement leaders quickly noted that full-fledged dramatic productions produced greater emotional impact than readings and moved to create a body of temperance dramas to promote their message. The first great success came in 1841 with the premiere in Boston of W. H. Smith’s The Drunkard: Or the Fallen Saved, the story of a nondescript middle-class family man who, after taking the fatal first glass, spirals downward into alcoholic degradation. In the process, he attempts to kill a saloon keeper who refuses to serve him any drinks and nearly kills himself during a bout of delirium tremens. He gains redemption through a sober friend who convinces the drunkard to pledge never to drink again. As the plot indicates, temperance dramas did not aim at sophisticated character development or intricate plot devices. The dramas purveyed melodrama and overwrought emotion unapologetically, with actors indulging in histrionic excesses, replete with exaggerated expressions and gestures that encouraged audiences to cheer and boo at appropriate moments. Although some comedies included a tipsy character enacting a series of pratfalls and social embarrassments (actors loved to mimic the slurred speech, the swaying, and the stumbling typical of drunks), most 19th-century American and European temperance dramas inclined more toward tragedy, tracing the downfall of the protagonist. Playwrights, producers, and actors made little effort to understand the psychology of addiction or to generate sympathy for the drinker, whom they depicted, at best, as morally weak and irresolute. Indeed, the attempt to develop more complex central characters, probe the content and causes of their addictions, and offer a more complex vision than the “abandon liquor or face damnation” dichotomy so common in 19th-century dramas constitutes the signature differences in 20th-century dramatic treatments of alcoholism.
Early Temperance Drama Early-19th-century American temperance advocates insightfully recognized the theater’s potential for spreading their message. Though born and sustained in churches, the temperance movement needed other public forums to reach the unchurched. Because the movement flourished initially in a line of northeast cities from Baltimore to Boston, inclement weather often prohibited large outdoor events. Churches, while effective venues, had limitations for taking the temperance message to the general public—after all, congregations rarely contributed to the problem. Public rallies did attract significant crowds and temperance societies regularly sponsored parades and published propaganda broadsheets, but the theater offered particularly attractive advantages. In the theater, reformers could reach the very underclass population that most needed to hear the temperance gospel, even as cheaper and more easily accessible alcohol tempted them to excess. As early as 1825, the temperance movement recognized the emotional impact on audiences actually watching characters, most often men, descend into the moral degradation of alcohol addiction. Live theater made the drunkard’s irresponsibility to his employer, and his abysmal treatment of his wife and children, immediate and vivid. In the standard five-act melodrama, the temperance movement found a vehicle for classic parables. Temperance dramas introduced the prelapsarian world threatened by the introduction of alcohol, explored the seduction and decline of the drunkard, showed the devastating impact of drunkenness on family and community, limned the depths of alcoholic degradation, and, in the final act, either redeemed the fallen central character through his conversion to abstinence or consigned him to a terrible fate of suicide, death, or madness. During the 1820s and 1830s, the temperance theater often employed what are known as closet dramas: dramatic readings, most often in verse (it aided in the memorization), with parts that would be delivered by a variety of performers or sometimes by a single talented thespian, but not
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Especially in the United States, these early temperance plays drew huge crowds. Temperance dramas rivaled repertory company productions of classic Shakespearean pieces for ticket sales. The Drunkard ran for an unprecedented 144 performances in its first year alone, thanks in part to the advertising acumen and financial support of P. T. Barnum, himself a teetotaler. Long after the Civil War marked the decline in the momentum of the temperance movement, Smith’s cautionary play remained a popular presentation in theaters, its reputation spreading nationally as the railroad developed traveling repertory companies bringing the message of temperance to frontier towns where alcohol abuse had become not a social problem but simply a way of life. Later Temperance Drama The unexpected success of The Drunkard went a long way to establish the temperance melodrama as a genre that dominated American theater in the 1850s. These morality plays—among the more prominent Ten Nights in a Bar Room, The Bottle, Aunt Dinah’s Pledge, More Sinned Against Than Sinning, The Drunkard’s Warning, The Fruits of the Wine Cup, The Temptation, and The Way Home—attracted middle-class Protestant audiences to venture into the theater, which, less than a generation earlier, they had regarded as a den of immorality. Indeed, the plays themselves were often the centerpieces of an evening’s entertainment that featured songs and speeches and inevitably a speaker calling on the audience to come forward and actually sign the pledge not to drink. The emotional excitement and catharsis of these events resembled that common at religious revivals or political conventions. Despite their popularity, temperance dramas produced no memorable characters or unforgettable dialogue. Playwrights, often hack writers, churned them out as propaganda pieces for the temperance movement, which theatrical producers and managers knew would swell box-office receipts. As the nation hurtled toward the Civil War, however, temperance receded as a political and social issue as sectionalism and slavery took center stage. But even after the popularity of temperance dramas waned, alcohol remained a significant theme of theatrical productions, given its dramatic impact on everyday lives. The
19th-century temperance melodrama evolved into far more psychologically probing plays that often tested the moral vitality of the drinker and created sympathy for those who sought the easy escape of alcohol. These plays worked as well as cautionary tales—the alcoholic’s lifestyle was seldom portrayed as anything but unsavory and unappealing, but playwrights guided audiences to a more sophisticated and expansive view of alcohol abuse. Beginning in the late 19th century, most notably with the social problem plays of Henrik Ibsen and Bernard Shaw, and in the 20th century, with the psychological dramas of Eugene O’Neill, the angry working-class domestic tragedies of John Osborne, and the caustic postmodern anticharacter absurdism of Edward Albee, the legacy of the temperance dramas comes into focus. Joseph Dewey Broward College See Also: Arthur, Timothy Shay (T. S.); Films, Drinking in; Literature, Role of Alcohol in; Music Halls; Television; Temperance, History of; Washingtonians. Further Readings Frick, John W. Theatre, Culture, and Temperance Reformation: Nineteenth Century America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Richards, Jeffrey H. Early American Drama. New York: Penguin, 1997. Sanders, Paul D. Lyrics and Borrowed Tunes of the American Temperance Movement. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006. The Temperance Archive: The Lost Museum. http:// www.lostmuseum.cuny.edu (Accessed June 2014).
Drinking, Anthropology of Alcohol has formed a major part of many cultures throughout history, and therefore it is not surprising that references to drinking have long been a part of anthropological fieldnotes from around the world. An early example is offered by
Claude Levi Strauss (1908–2009), whose work famously helped shape the anthropological study of food and drink in general. In the 1940s he described seeing two male strangers sharing wine in a working class café in Marseilles and went on to argue that this convivial exchange with alcohol should be viewed as a very condensed ritualization of social solidarity, the very underpinning of society itself. Today the study of cultural practices associated with drinking continues to increase in popularity, with more contemporary researchers working in this area, suggesting that the cultural artifact that is alcohol can and should be viewed as a prism into understanding cultures in their totality. Early Anthropological Work on Drinking The recognition of the cultural importance of drinking has a long history, often cutting across social, cultural, and historical disciplines, involving qualitative, usually ethnographic methods being applied to cross-cultural and/or crossnational comparisons. Proto-anthropological work, including early travel narratives, often discusses drinking behaviors. For instance, in 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville’s journey to Ireland makes a passing remark about two “very drunk” young Irish men in Cork, whose laughter and jokes reminded him of France. His emphasis and interest is not so much the drunken comportment itself as the degree of social tolerance for such an exhibition demonstrated by passing Corkonians. Such comments indicate the routinized nature of convivial consumption in many cultures throughout history. Some contemporary anthropologists who have studied drinking have found historical data that they analyze using ethnographic methods, useful in exploring national stereotypes, and the broader politics of national identity. In addition, medical anthropologists have also used these historical and ethnographic methods to add to the global health debates regarding alcohol. The formal academic study of alcohol in anthropology and other social sciences has links with the post-American prohibitionist era, and in particular with the establishment of the interdisciplinary Center of Alcohol Studies, which started at Yale University in the latter part of the 1930s and 1940s before moving in 1962 to Rutgers University, where it is still housed. The cultural aspects
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of drinking were a part of this research from the beginning. As part of the interdisciplinary trend in the social sciences, particularly in America in the mid-20th century, the earliest ethnographic works that concentrated on alcohol specifically were often conducted by authors who were later more identified with sociology than anthropology. One of the earliest contributions to this center on culture and alcohol was Donald Horton’s 1943 study, which used the Human Relations Area Files, a collection of edited fieldnotes gathered from around the world. Horton looks at alcohol consumption in what were still termed “primitive societies” and applies a very diagnostic measure— attempting to posit as a “universal truth” the idea that alcohol is designed to alleviate anxiety and fear. This foundational work in the anthropology of drinking indicates that peoples from around the world have very different practices and beliefs when they consume alcohol, resulting in very different social and cultural practices. Horton’s conclusions, however, lack anthropological awareness of the extent to which individuals are constructed and realized by their cultural context and his generalizations about societies read like a simple aggregate of individual diagnoses. Although a number of culturally interested sociologists (notably Selden Bacon and Robert F. Bales) argue for the cultural understanding of drinking in the 1940s, often considered in this post-Prohibition era “the problem of alcohol,” it was not until 1956 that anthropologist Dwight Heath wrote up his Bolivian ethnographic work specifically in relation to alcohol. Heath controversially treated a culture of high consumption of alcohol that did not appear to have visible effects on the individual nor create social problems. The publication of this work provided the first clear indication that not only did patterns and beliefs about consumption differ cross-culturally, but drunkenness itself might be considered as a cultural variant rather than a biological determinant. Shortly after this study, in 1958, Charles Snyder published his celebrated cultural study of Jewish sobriety, and then early in the 1960s he coedited with David Pittman Society, Culture and Drinking Patterns. The collective effect of this work was to establish the idea that the definition of intoxication is internally recognized and regulated by specific cultural systems.
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Symbolic Cultural Object and Ritualized Exchange The cultural turn in alcohol studies was significantly influenced by David Mandelbaum’s 1965 “milestone” article titled “Alcohol and Culture”: “Where alcohol is known, patterns for its use and for abstention are prescribed, usually in fine detail. There have been very few, if any, societies whose people knew the use of alcohol and yet paid little attention to it. Alcohol may be tabooed; it is not ignored.” Mandelbaum discusses a cultural continuum of drinking patterns from “avid immersion” to “abject rejection,” making the argument that alcohol should be considered an important cultural artifact whose symbolic role creates social solidarity. Published a few years later in 1969, Craig MacAndrew and R. B. Edgerton’s Drunken Comportment continues to be one of the only global systematic surveys of “drunkenness” rather than drinking. They argued that there was a general reluctance on the part of alcohol researchers of the time to look beyond the “alcohol as disinhibitor” theory, arguing that the disjunction between the conventionally accepted formulation of alcohol’s effects upon man’s comportment, and presently available fact concerning what people actually do when they are drunk is even now so scandalous as to exceed the limits of reasonable toleration. MacAndrew and Edgerton argue for the following cross-cultural categorization of drunk behaviors around the world: 1. Societies in which drunkenness does not result in any “disinhibited” behavior at all 2. Societies in which the type of behavior associated with drunkenness has undergone radical changes over time 3. Societies in which drunken behavior varies dramatically according to the circumstances in which alcohol is consumed 4. Societies in which apparently “disinhibited” drunken behavior remains within well-defined, culturally sanctioned limits.
Testing this categorization inspired the gathering of additional cross-cultural evidence from around the world, resulting in most anthropologists who study drinking now recognizing the social constructions surrounding alcohol cross-culturally. Earlier work has argued that these constructions reflected social organization, or were linked to deep cognitive structures, or were simple expressions of cultural identity. As a consequence, it has a special relationship with the notion of personal identity. More recently, anthropologists have concentrated on alcohol as a cultural artifact, an important part of material culture, unusual in that it has such a close relationship with the human body, by which it is actually absorbed. Thomas Wilson and his colleagues have specifically looked at regional, national, and cosmopolitan identity links to alcohol practices. Alcohol serves to sometimes define and sometimes confuse boundaries, social categories, and identity, in effect testing the difference between the self and the social. Perishable commodities owe their existence to recognition and repetition. The habit of consuming particular commodities is therefore tied to habitual repeated patterns. In many cultures, anthropologists have argued that drinking alcohol offers a specific form of embodied material culture. Specifically, this means a cultural object, which has been created for the express purpose of being destroyed by being consumed by humans. These relations are perceived as representative of the cultural links to identity that these objects inhabit. Moreover, because of the psychotropic qualities of ethanol, alcohol often has a premium place within cultural ritual interactions. This offers additional cultural constructions linked to specific and often emotionally charged rules and beliefs. Indeed, such rules and beliefs may do much to define what is understood to mean acting like a man or a woman. Gender The consumption of alcohol may be variously gendered, anthropologically speaking. D. GefouMadianou and her colleagues produced one of the first anthropological volumes to concentrate on alcohol and gender. Various cultures may all but proscribe the consumption of alcohol by women, or else lay down firm rules or expected practices governing how much alcohol women should
drink and in what form. Such regulations, official and unofficial, have the inevitable and generally intended effect of masculinizing alcohol and making the “successful” or “measured” consumption of alcohol a highly homosocial rite of passage, the key to a very gendered form of acceptance. The successful management of significant alcohol consumption may copper-fasten perceptions of an individual’s incipient masculinity by his peers. The embodied nature and gendered features of drinking have contributed not only to spatial constructions regarding who is allowed to consume alcohol and where but also to temporal constructions, meaning when people are allowed to consume and how much they may imbibe. Gender is considered to be the most widely identified role in which alcohol plays a central feature of distinction. Masculine drinking often indicates links to heavy consumption, whereas in many societies women are expected to drink less than men, if not to abstain totally. These gender practices may also differ by class and by other markers of social stratification such as race or ethnicity. At the same time, these distinctions are not static and are open to change and fluctuations as societies themselves change. Another important and interesting gendered feature of alcohol has been that in many societies women have been the producers of this commodity, which is subsequently consumed primarily by men. As Gefou-Madianou (1992) says, “women cook, men drink,” although she also points out that cooking involves the use and production of alcoholic beverages; it may also involve an avenue to female political and religious power in some cultures. This exchange may afford these women considerable status and confer upon them a certain spiritual preeminence, as those with authority over those powerful and ritualized fields of hospitality and feasting. Furthermore, many of these women, as with female brewers, may find sustainable income associated with their production and serving of alcohol. In some countries, particularly in the developed world, women’s ability to consume large quantities of alcohol may be regarded as a deliberate assertion of gendered equality, a statement of defiant authority. The extent to which such assertions may appear to be sadly at odds with certain
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gendered biological realities governing the relative extent to which men and women can metabolize alcohol has been the subject of intense public and government health debates. The heavy-drinking so-called ladette cultures in the United Kingdom and Australia have spurred a lot of media and government discussions, often calling on anthropological arguments about the respective drinking cultures and their influence on gender in the modern world. Gendered expectations of drinking norms inform behaviors even when (especially when) such norms are being defied. Anxieties regarding the apparently asocial context of women’s drinking have significant cultural implications. Whereas attitudes toward drink are largely forged by reactions to different gendered presentations of public drinking, private solitary drinking may be the subject of greater public concern, since it hints at a form of drinking that is harder to judge, predict, or regulate. This is especially true when we consider women who are mothers and their role of being primary caregivers for children. The debate as to whether alcohol consumption should form part of a private domestic space or a public communal space is similarly invested with highly gendered cultural expectations and fears. An individual drinker may be both solitary and secretive, but the figure and figuration of the individual drinker generally possesses powerful cultural resonance. Power The archaeology of alcohol reinforces the deep antiquity and near ubiquity of alcohol. These studies also show the longevity of class distinctions associated with alcohol, in particular, wine and beer in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. When it comes to either positing or challenging universalisms, archaeology offers a temporal axis with which to plot the persistence of behaviors, one that complements the geographical axis supplemented by anthropological fieldwork. Another area that is ripe for future research (although aspects of it can be traced back to the 1960s and the original expansion of the anthropology of drinking) is what has been called “drink talk.” As Dwight Heath has pointed out, people talk when they drink, and they often talk about drinking itself. A number of anthropologists have discussed the ways in which people talk about drinking in a
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number of cultures around the world. This aspect of the anthropology of drinking is a form of ethnosemantic studies. The anthropological gaze concerns itself not merely with so-called traditional societies but also and urgently the ritualized, cultural components of everyday life throughout the so-called modern world. Within the context of globalization and mass media saturation, therefore, the role of the commodity takes on a special significance. Perceptions of national or communal or gendered consumption may organize themselves around particular commodities (branded or otherwise), which help reinforce certain kinds of identification. Certain kinds of drinks provide various forms of identification. Beer as a relatively cheap and sociable relaxant may be associated with a communal celebration of the end of a workweek (or day). Other drinks project a more aspirational quality. Advertisers market different forms of drink accordingly, associating some with known, familiar, even working-class lifestyles and others with a glamorous lifestyle that is obviously beyond the economic means of consumers but that might be experienced in some measure vicariously by the, at least, occasional consumption of a particular associated beverage. This evokes the quote from Oscar Wilde that “work is the curse of the drinking classes.” Politics Anthropologists who study drinking have shown that alcohol has long been a prime political tool. The long-standing traditions associated with hospitality and ritual have meant that it is key to understanding social markers throughout cultures and history. With their specific links to displays of prestige and social capital, anthropologists who study drinking occasions argue that these interactions can establish the basis of leadership influencing group decisions and actions. Major debates regarding anthropology’s supposed overemphasis on nonproblematic consumption of alcohol were to arise. Specifically Robin Room in 1984 criticized the researchers who study drinking using ethnographic methods of concentrating on nonproblematic consumption, leading to research that deflated the problematic aspects of drinking. Those advocating a dispassionate study of the “role” of alcohol were
accused of willfully ignoring the destabilizing impact of alcohol on society(ies) and the underlying problems associated with drinking in many cultures. This debate was published in an American anthropology flagship journal and received a number of comments from anthropologists who had long studied alcohol and drinking in cultures from around the world. Room, himself a sociologist who has written extensively on the cultural and historical study of drinking, acknowledged Selden Bacon’s call not to concentrate only on problem drinking but also to consider alternatives, without privileging conspicuous abuse. Mac Marshall, a medical anthropologist who has long discussed problematic alcohol use, felt that Room gave a signal to ethnographers to potentially integrate data collected in alternative ways. At the same time, ethnographers remind us that around the world and throughout history only a small percentage of the population are ever dysfunctional drinkers. In 2012, Laura Schmidt and Room conducted a survey of 33 ethnographic studies from low- to middle-income countries in the late 20th century, arguing that epidemiological evidence can provide only broad overviews, whereas ethnographic data gives details that can be used more widely in policy discussions. Specifically, they found three crosscutting themes, including how the global alcohol industry viewed developing countries and emerging markets with commercially produced products having higher status and changing sociocultural dynamics, in particular gender relations, becoming a source for political tensions and class divisions. As a result, they have argued that women-led social and cultural countermovements have developed to counter the elites and work against global market interests. The tense balance of intellectual prestige between the so-called wets and drys has often involved very personal dynamics and experiences while remaining an intransigent definitional and foundational research issue in itself. Work on the sociocultural issues associated with temperance has also been conducted within the anthropology of drinking. Often interdisciplinary in scope, such work has countered the earlier antitemperance work of some of the postprohibitionist researchers from the 1930s onward. A culture of temperance is seen to shape an entire culture rather
than merely reflect and aggregate individual behaviors. Those nations that experienced prohibition, such as the United States and Finland, develop long-term drinking patterns, it is argued, that are permanently shaped by the temperance legacy. Accordingly, anthropologists study temperance organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in terms of their ability to synthesize biomedical and cultural explanations to sustain a highly structured sense of problematic drinking. The issue of harm reduction in respect of alcohol “abuse” is itself problematic, often depending on culturally inflected definitions of what constitutes harm. Different societies may have radically different views as to what constitutes “proper” drinking (or drunk comportment) and may disagree as to the extent, nature, or even existence or particular examples of harmful drinking. Indeed, not only is aberrant problematic drinking interpreted very differently by different cultures, but so called normal drinking is defined variously. Some anthropologists have found that individuals in cultures such Haiti did not even recognize their favorite spirit-based beverages as alcoholic drinks. Other Issues The anthropology of drinking demands placing the problematics of alcohol within larger cultural contexts. Allen Feldman, a specialist in conflict resolution, made a special study of testimonies given at the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). In the context of violent acts, including murder, carried out by various official and semiofficial policing units under the apartheid regime, alcohol played a central role. In order to “facilitate” the violent actions committed, alcohol would be purchased in advance and carefully and deliberately consumed before the beatings, tortures, and murders took place. In such cases, it cannot be argued that drink was responsible for the crimes, since the intent to commit them preceded any consumption of drink. Indeed, these narratives provide very clear, if extreme, examples of the ritual significance of drinking. The biological effects on ethanol within the bloodstream have far less compelling explanatory power than the enabling effect of ritualized drinking within a grim liturgy of violence. In more general terms, a discussion of the use of alcohol
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serves as a critique of the traditional limits of “intentionalism” in terms of cultural practice. Another recent example in a Routledge book series on the Anthropology of Stuff, Janet Chrzan presents a short anthropological study of American college drinking, a topic long discussed among American alcohol researchers. Her work offers a new discussion of how the meaning and understanding of drinking is framed by educated American youths. Alcohol plays a critical role in how students collectively construct the idea of “student culture.” She presents her book as an opportunity for college students to explore their own drinking beliefs and practices but also provides a template for teaching introductory anthropological methodology. In other words, such cultural objects not only tell us about the sociocultural world we inhabit but also teach us how to study culture generally. Since Room’s criticisms of anthropologically informed “problem deflation,” a number of anthropologists have sought to understand both the cultural and historical forms of abnormal or dysfunctional problem drinking, often within normal drinking patterns. Accordingly, at the turn of the 21st century Dwight Heath published a manuscript on drinking “occasions,” offering an alternative to the individual pathologizing of alcohol. One of the key aspects to the anthropology of drinking is the ethos that anthropologists seek to avoid “ethnocentric moralizing,” the superimposition of a frequently over-individualized ethical paradigm upon cultures that do not accept either the foundations or the structure of moralized discourse. In addition, anthropologists have looked at differences in traditional treatments of those dependent on alcohol, in particular, among aboriginal peoples of North America, such as the Navaho and the Hopi. It is important to consider contexts where alcohol is not a traditional feature of a particular culture but rather a colonialist destabilizing influence upon a traditional society. Furthermore, macroeconomic contributions to the anthropology of drinking have argued that alcohol is an important trading commodity, which has helped develop the great trading (and military) empires. Alcohol therefore may serve to accelerate as well as resist the homogenizing impact of globalization.
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Conclusion Given the plenitude of social meanings that alcohol manages to encode, the anthropology of drinking continues to expand and looks to be an increasingly important area of cultural study. Not only an area of concern for medical anthropologists, historically grounded anthropologists have significantly added to the framing of nonproblem as well as problem drinking. Although ethnographic methods of data collection may be used by researchers from a number of fields to study drinking, key cultural interpretational differences between anthropological as opposed to sociological and other disciplines ways of studying drinking are related to the Durkheimian notion of anomie. One could argue that anthropologists would argue that drinking does not lead to anomie but rather anomie leads to drinking. There is a tendency for anthropologists to look for larger cultural explanations for personal disorders. Therefore, if anthropology seems unwilling to attempt to “solve the problem” of alcohol, then alcohol is not infrequently enlisted to solve the problem of anthropology. Tanya M. Cassidy University of Windsor See Also: Ancient World, Drinking in; Archeological Evidence; Bacon, Selden D.; Gender and Alcohol Abuse; Gender and Alcohol Reform; Gender and Drinking in Popular Culture; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 19th Century; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Jellinek, E. M.; Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies; Stereotypical Depiction of Alcoholics; Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies. Further Readings Chrzan, Janet. Alcohol: Social Drinking in Cultural Context. London: Routledge, 2013. Deitler, Michael. “Alcohol: Anthropological/ Archaeological Perspectives.” Annual Review of Anthropology, v.35 (2006). Douglas, Mary, ed. Constructive Drinking: Perspectives on Drink From Anthropology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Gefou-Madianou, Dimitra, ed. Alcohol, Gender and Culture. London: Routledge, 1992.
Heath, Dwight B. Drinking Occasions: Comparative Perspectives on Alcohol and Culture. Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel, 2000. Heath, Dwight B. “Drinking Patterns Among the Bolivian Camba.” Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, v.19 (1958). Horton, Donald. “The Functions in Primitive Societies: A Cross-Cultural Study.” Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, v.4 (1943). MacAndrew, Craig and Robert B. Edgerton. Drunken Comportment: A Social Explanation. Chicago: Aldine, 1969. Mandelbaum, David G. “Alcohol and Culture.” Current Anthropology, v.6/3 (1965). Room, Robin. “Alcohol and Ethnography: A Case of Problem Deflation?” Current Anthropology, v.25/2 (1984). Wilson, Thomas M., ed. Drinking Cultures: Alcohol and Identity. New York: Berg, 2005.
Drinking Establishments The origins of drinking places are lost in time. No documentation exists to establish when drinking establishments started, and most historians categorize them as spaces of informal social interaction where alcohol is expended and consumed. In fact, they probably began as places to provide travelers and passersby with refreshment for the road and occasionally a resting place. Ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece all had differing types of drinking places, some of which provided hot food and even overnight hospitality and others which allowed people to buy alcoholic beverages, such as early forms of beer and wine, to take on their way. Selling to travelers was always an important part of trade, including the ancient “taberna vinaria.” The taberna vinaria were early forms of inns that catered to travelers offering drink and food. Later inns also offered a bed to spend the night, which was often shared with other travelers. Among the first recorded instances of alcohol regulation by government is a royal decree by King Edgar the Peacemaker, allowing only one alehouse per village. In fact, during the feudal era the overlords profited from the wine and ale sales at roadside and village inns,
so they encouraged their villagers and farmers to frequent local drinking establishments. Although the church often took a stance against inns and drinking, many monasteries brewed liquor as an important source of revenue. From the medieval to the modern era, many different kinds of taverns developed in Western society. The British pub, for example, was born in working-class neighborhoods of 19th-century Britain. The word pub is a shortened form of the term public house, a term coined around the 1850s. These places were the modern version of the Roman taverns, established along British roadsides in order to feed and provide drink for the Roman legions. The American version of the pub was called a bar. Some historians believe the term originated from old inns in which alcoholic drinks were dispensed from behind a bar that separated it from the public. Taverns, pubs, or bars are social hubs and have been so for hundreds of years. They are more than places where people gather to drink alcohol. Church and moral authorities often viewed them with displeasure and often considered them as places of iniquity because they provided ample opportunities for drinking, betting, and prostitution. These constantly shifting conflicts between authority control, drinking establishments, and moral authorities would be a hallmark of the drinking place throughout most of its history to the present day. Saloons The saloon arose around the late 1820s and lasted, in its original form, until the establishment of Prohibition in 1920. In American culture, the saloon is related to the opening up and early development of the Wild West and was meant to serve soldiers, fur trappers, cowboys, miners, and all other entrepreneurial and adventurous types exploring the West. As such, saloons became an important hub of social mixing and economic activity. The first saloon reportedly opened in Wyoming in the 1820s. As the West developed into more residential towns and cities, residents began to view saloons as threats to family life, public peace, and economic stability. These fears plagued saloons throughout the 1800s and early 1900s. Saloons offered a socialized space where locals and travelers could water their horses, play cards
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or billiards, gamble, rest, enjoy companionship, and often be better protected from the elements than in their own primitive lodgings. Moreover, saloons often offered newspapers and were a source of recent gossip and news. Politicians and community leaders used them as gathering spaces in which to address a captive crowd. Saloons soon diversified and evolved into many different types of drinking establishments, such as beer gardens and beer houses, among others. They could be small family-owned establishments, elegant clubby institutions, or commercial chain-operated saloons, which catered to a wide variety of people from all social classes and ethnic backgrounds. In some cities, such as Boston, they were carefully regulated, while in others, such as Chicago, regulation and alcohol control were lax. Saloons became popular in cities across the nation. By 1913, there were over 12,000 saloons in New York City. In many towns and cities, due to the high price of license fees and competition, saloons formed partnerships with brewers. Many saloons also encouraged the presence of prostitutes in order to attract more customers and improve alcohol sales. Despite some of their most unsavory activities, saloons played an important role in many communities. They often served to create a sense of community and socialization for many men, fomented market interactions among traders and farmers, encouraged some employment connections, and served as a hub of informal information and political participation. As an example of many such historic incidents it is worth mentioning that George Washington bid his farewell to his troops at one such tavern. On the other hand, some scholars also argue that saloons were places of illegal gambling, prostitution, and political corruption, and sometimes operated illegally. Although there were many kinds of saloons, they mostly catered to working-class males. As such, they carried the reputation of places in which sobriety, work ethic, and productivity were actively discouraged. Businesses and factories often tried to prevent bars and saloons from opening near their workplaces. Temperance groups, considering them a threat to the family unit, strove to proscribe saloons from residential neighborhoods and even from within the town limits.
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Some historians, such as Perry Duis, explain that at the time the temperance movement and Prohibition closed them down, their reputation among the public was deeply unsavory. In some cities affluent residents used their influence to proscribe saloons from opening in the wealthier neighborhoods and suburbs. Thus, saloons were either trapped in the poorer sections of the inner cities or banished to out-of-the-way margins, and their social importance and profits had declined accordingly. Speakeasies The heyday of the speakeasy was during Prohibition, the period from 1920 to 1933. During Prohibition, alcohol sales, production, consumption, and transportation were legally banned in the United States and Canada. A great many people, however, refused to comply with the law, giving rise to a proliferation of speakeasies, or establishments that secretly sold liquor to the public. Although it is difficult to know the exact number of speakeasies due to their secretiveness, some historians have calculated that, during the Prohibition period, as many as 10 speakeasies opened for every saloon or bar that closed. As was the case with saloons and bars, there were many types of speakeasies. Some took the form of nightclubs, in which there was live music and dance. Others were secret bars that opened after hours, regular storefronts that sold liquor in the back, or households in which liquor was secretly brewed and sold. At almost all levels, however, speakeasies were tied to organized crime. In fact, Prohibition gave way to a surge in organized crime, known as the Mafia, which became empowered by illegally trading in and transporting alcohol. Prohibition also brought about conflict between authorities and politicians. Measures against illegal beer, for example, provoked a jurisdictional conflict between federal and local authorities. Jurisdictional confusion, alongside other administrative dysfunctions such as corruption and insufficient personnel, rendered inefficient much of the authorities’ anti-alcohol work. Some cities, such as New York and Chicago, earned the reputation of being laxer in alcohol control and having more speakeasies than others. Repeal of Prohibition, which went into effect in 1933, effectively ended
the need for the speakeasies and most closed or became legal. The speakeasy had already left its imprint on American popular culture, however, becoming an indelible hallmark of the Jazz Age not only historically, but also in its representations in literature, film, and other products of popular culture. Drinking Places Today In postwar America, two particular types of drinking places became popular: taverns and cocktail lounges. In the 1950s, cocktail lounges were seen as drinking establishments that targeted the professional and more affluent classes, while taverns catered to lower-middle classes. Studies at the time show that upper-middle-class people reported spending between four to seven hours a week at a cocktail lounge, while lowermiddle-class patrons of taverns reported seven to 12 hours. As neighborhood institutions, taverns usually became more important as social centers than did cocktail lounges. A majority of tavern customers resided within a few blocks of the tavern they frequented. Often, taverns catered to a crowd that shared the same ethnicity and religion. As such, whereas a tavern in the 1950s that accommodated mostly local Polish American workers, for example, reported beer pints and whiskey as its main alcohol staple, another tavern that catered to southern white immigrants reported bourbon shots as its most popular staple. Cocktail lounges were usually established in more affluent neighborhood hotels or restaurants, as well as airports, and often offered live music as background entertainment as well as more sophisticated drinks, such as fine wines, cocktails, beer, and imported liquors. The rise of Las Vegas casino hotels made cocktail lounges popular in American culture and provided a stage from which many artists propelled their music careers. In time, some taverns began to cater to wealthier patrons and cocktail lounges diversified into other forms, such as strip bars, singles bars, gay bars, nightclubs, and many others. Much like the taverns of working-class neighborhoods, many bars have become cultural hubs that cater to a specific group of people. One of such may be the college campus bar, a staple of American culture. Campus bars may be taverns,
pubs, lounges, or other drinking places that cater to the academic community. Some offer a purely recreational atmosphere for the student crowd, which may include billiards, electronic games, darts, and loud music (live or recorded). Others cater to the academic crowd that is more interested in socialization and conversation with peers and other likeminded individuals. The latter tend to be frequented by graduate students, professors, and university administrators. Either way, the majority of patrons of college bars share an affiliation with the university that may include nonacademic interests, such as following college sports teams. Some college bars may cater to a mixed crowd that includes a variety of academic and nonacademic groups. Studies show that since the 1980s, reported drinking levels overall have been gradually declining. Lifestyle drinks such as wine or artisanal beers, presented as beverages to be drunk appreciatively and in moderation, have been making strong inroads in the U.S. drinking culture. This has given rise to more intimate types of bars, such as wine bars and microbreweries, and a new trend in drinking places. Drinking Places and Alcohol Control Studies show that a large number of alcohol establishments in an area correlates with a higher incidence of alcohol-related drunk-driving incidents and accidents, injuries, and violent crime, among other adverse outcomes in that same locality. In order to control for such activities and under pressure of citizen groups and lobbyists, governments have long sought to implement policies aimed at making it costlier for drinking places to operate and customers to purchase by way of zoning restrictions, limits on the amount of alcohol that can be sold, costly license fees, and taxes on alcoholic beverages, among other measures. All of these measures usually have the added value of being an important source of revenue for state governments. Other measures have included banning alcohol sales in some counties permanently or on specific days of the week, and the federal law establishing the drinking age at 21 nationwide. More recently, some states have legislated monopoly over the wholesale distribution of some alcoholic beverages through their own state liquor stores.
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Drinking places tend to be more numerous in lower income areas as well as in areas popular with young adults. It is important to note that a proliferation of drinking establishments cannot be the sole cause of excessive drinking. Lifestyles and drinking habits among individuals must also be taken into account, and these are hardly unchangeable. Social research shows that people tend to move as they become more prosperous and as they age, and they tend to move away from areas with a proliferation of bars and alcohol sellers. Trudy Mercadal Florida Atlantic University See Also: Bar Hopping; Barmaids; Bars, History of Alcohol Abuse in; Bartending; Beer and Foods; Beerhouses; Casinos; Keggers; Legal Drinking Age: Rite of Passage; Pub Crawls; Pubs; Roadhouses; Saloons, Modern; Saloons, Wild West; Server Responsibility Laws, U.S.; Shebeens; Speakeasies and Blind Pigs; Sporting Events; State Liquor Stores; Taverns. Further Readings Acitelli, Tom. The Audacity of Hops: The History of America’s Craft Beer Revolution. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2013. Cannon, Eoin F. The Saloon and the Mission: Addiction, Conversion and the Politics of Redemption in American Culture. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2013. Caudill, Maries Dennison. “McSorley’s: John Sloan’s Visual Commentary on Male Bonding, Prohibition and the Working Class.” American Studies, v.47/2 (2006). Conroy, David W. In Public Houses: Drink and the Revolution of Authority in Colonial Massachusetts. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Duis, Perry. The Saloon: Public Drinking in Chicago and Boston, 1880–1920. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998. Gottlieb, David. “The Neighborhood Tavern and the Cocktail Lounge: A Study of Class Differences.” American Journal of Sociology, v.62/6 (1957). Lindquist, Julie. A Place to Stand: Politics and Persuasion in a Working Class Bar. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002.
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Mitchell, Joseph. McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon. New York: Pantheon, 2001. Schorow, Stephanie. Drinking Boston: A History of the City and Its Spirits. Boston: Union Park Press, 2013. Sismondo, Christina. America Walks Into a Bar: A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Drinking Games There is a long history to the use of games that have sets of often-complicated rules, tasks, or challenges to encourage and facilitate the drinking of alcohol. However, it is only in recent years that drinking games have taken on an increased prominence in the public imagination based on their frequent and widespread use on university and college campuses. The format of drinking games is highly varied and may necessitate players to test their motor, verbal, or cognitive skills; to compete directly against other participates in games of chance; or, in some cases, to merely drink assigned quantities or types of alcohol in the quickest amount of time. While participation in games is motivated by the desire to get oneself or others drunk, a range of social functions are corollary to this, such as the easing of social anxieties and the fostering of a sense of group solidarity and belonging. Negative consequences are varied but can extend to an increased likelihood of sickness or personal injury, illegal activity such as driving while intoxicated, and unwanted or unplanned sexual activity. History Throughout history, the tendency for drinking establishments to provide entertainment and leisure as well as alcoholic beverages has readily led to the convergence of playing sports and games and participating in the various customs associated with sociable drinking. Many traditional games played in public houses and other drinking locations have been easily adapted to include an element of alcohol consumption. This might be incidental to the game itself, as in drinking beer
while playing a game of pool or darts, or may be structured into the game more systematically, such as when the loser of a game is required to pay for the next order of drinks for game participants. The British journalist and author Richard Boston supplies an illustrative example of a drinking game once commonly played in British public houses but which has since faded from use: The game Spoof involves three or more players concealing between zero and three coins or similar small objects in a clenched fist that they hold in front of their body or place on the bar counter or table. Players are then prompted to correctly guess the total number of coins held by all players. As the game progresses, correct guesses allow players to drop out until the final round, in which the “loser,” determined by making an incorrect guess, is punished by being required to buy the next round of drinks. A thorough review of popular contemporary drinking games by Brian Borsari identifies six categories of drinking games played among American college students. The author suggests that common drinking games can involve: motor skills, such as when participants are challenged to throw coins into glasses (for example, in the game Quarters); verbal skills, such as when participants are required to memorize and repeat particularly complicated or nonsensical verbal phrases (for example, “Fuzzy Duck”); gambling, often involving chance and the use of decks of cards or combinations of dice to designate specific drinking activities; naming of media, such as participants using cues in popular motion pictures or music to instigate the imbibing of particular drinks (for example, repeating 20 times the phrase “Have a drink on me,” originally by the rock band AC/ DC); team competition, involving fixed teams completing tasks such as bouncing ping-pong balls into the drinking cups of opposing team players (Beer Pong); and consumption games, often involving drinking challenges based around quantity or pace, such as drinking a measure of beer every minute for 100 minutes (100-Minute Club). A good example of the latter category would be one of the simplest drinking games, and one that is widely played to the point of rarely being considered a drinking game, namely the “downing” or “chugging” of a fixed amount of alcohol, such as a pint of beer, without pausing.
Winners and Losers The relative proficiency of players at a chosen game is variable, and it is usually the players who lack the required competencies who drink in the greatest quantities. As such, a feature common in many drinking games is that as participants incur forfeits and have to consume alcohol, their motor, verbal, and cognitive skills become impaired causing their competency at the game to diminish and further penalties to be sustained as a result. This dynamic can result in the quantity of alcohol being consumed by some participants increasing exponentially as the game goes on. The winning of drinking games, depending on the specified game and the rules adhered to by particular participants, will usually involve the winning player or team succeeding in the completion of tasks or demonstrating greater skill than do others. However, notably, there are also often “losers” and “winners” in a further sense: the players who become notably intoxicated and
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whose behavior demonstrates their inability to “handle their drink” may suffer a loss of status while those who manage to remain in control may achieve status and considerable “bragging rights” in spite of the fact they may have lost at some of the substantive components of the game. Many games can involve the “targeting” of other players. Targeting involves a player who has successfully completed a task or scored a point allocating which other player or players are required to drink a fixed measure of alcoholic drink. Common targets for such singular treatment appear to be players who have previously boasted of their drinking ability, first-time players of the game, or new members of the particular club or social group where the game is taking place. Thus, drinking games in various forms appear to be common elements of college and military “hazing” rituals, which initiate new members and symbolize group belonging and acceptance.
Bar patrons playing a dice game called “horses” to win drinks in Pilottown, Louisiana, in 1938. Many traditional games force the loser to buy rounds of drinks, while consumption games have now become common. Current game types favored by American college students may be divided into motor skills, verbal skills, gambling, naming of media, team competition, and consumption games.
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Motivations for Playing Although numerous reasons for participation in drinking games have been identified, the most commonly observed motivations include the desire to make oneself or another intoxicated, often very quickly. Drinking games may also act as preparation for attending events or social gatherings where alcohol is either expensive or, due to legal drinking age restrictions, hard to come by. A further aspect of motivations to participate in drinking games is the easing of social anxiety and, through the loss of social inhibitions, the creation of a sociable and gregarious atmosphere. More generally, the convivial nature of many drinking games means they serve the social function of increasing feelings of camaraderie and affiliation felt between players. Drinking games are thus notably common in settings such as universities, sports, and social clubs, and some professions and trades where an emphasis is placed on sociability and group solidarity. While this is often noted as having an important and positive social function, it also means that peer pressure can be a frequent, and for many uncomfortable, aspect of studying or working in settings where drinking games are common. Consequences Consequences of playing drinking games are closely associated with their ability to prompt the rapid and/or copious consumption of alcoholic drinks often to a degree either not anticipated or beyond the control of the players. As such, common negative outcomes of playing drinking games include the physical symptoms of a hangover, such as headaches, nausea, and fatigue, as well as the loss or fragmentation of memory. Some studies have shown links to illegal behavior such as driving while drunk. Further potential negative outcomes relate to social interactions giving rise to feelings of embarrassment or guilt due to behavior during or following the playing of games. Similarly, unwanted or unplanned sexual attention or activity is a frequently reported consequence of intoxication achieved through participation in drinking games. Research has indicated that this latter point is particularly associated with male players “targeting” female players with penalty drinks in order to increase intoxication and result in a loss of inhibitions.
Recent decades have seen drinking games become an often-controversial fixture on American college campuses with a resulting upsurge in academic interest in the phenomenon. Such studies have generally identified female and nonwhite students as participating less frequently in drinking games. Suggestions of how best to regulate or mitigate the more detrimental and dangerous consequences of drinking game participation have included awareness-raising campaigns targeting new students and assertiveness training to encourage students to resist the pressure from peers to participate in drinking games and continue playing beyond a level of intoxication they are comfortable with. Thomas Thurnell-Read Coventry University See Also: Bar Bets; Beer Pong; Drinking Songs; Peer Pressure; Student Culture, College and University; Student Culture, High School. Further Readings Borsari, Brian. “Drinking Games in the College Environment: A Review.” Journal of Drug and Alcohol Education, v.48/2 (2004). Borsari, Brian, et al. “Characterizing High School Students Who Play Drinking Games Using Latent Class Analysis.” Addictive Behaviors, v.38/10 (2013). Boston, Richard. Beer and Skittles. Glasgow: William Collins, 1976. Johnson, Thomas, Julie Wendel, and Scott Hamilton. “Social Anxiety, Alcohol Expectations and Drinking-Game Participation.” Addictive Behaviors, v.38/1 (1998). LeBrie, Joseph, Phillip Ehret, and Justin Hummer. “Are They All The Same? An Exploratory, Categorical Analysis of Drinking Games Types.” Addictive Behaviors, v.38/5 (2013).
Drinking Songs Drinking songs (or rounds) blending alcohol, music, and revelry date back to ancient festivals. Many sing praises to Bacchus, the Greek god
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of the grape harvest, wine, and ritual madness. Although drinking songs are typically convivial and unsophisticated in theme, they transcend class and borders and speak of shared labors, politics, and myths; boast of heroism; and lament over separations or exiles from loved ones. Geography is reflected in drinking songs, which were more popular in northern Europe (especially in Germany and Ireland), describing a love for beer or ale, than in the Mediterranean, where wine was the common drink, perhaps because people gathered indoors to drink in the colder climates. The earliest recorded drinking song is traced to the “Epitaph of Seikelos” from the first century c.e. found in what is today Turkey. Carmina Burana, a medieval collection of 254 poems, love sonnets, and entertainments included drinking and gaming songs sung by students and clergy written in 1230. Carl Orff (1895–1982) set some of the songs to music, reigniting interest in the text. Written in a mixture of Latin and vernacular French and German with a quarter of the verses set to unstaffed musical neumes, the manuscript revealed the composers’ affections for drink and love and preference for spending free time at a tavern in the company of topers and gamesters rather than focusing on theological studies. Some are gaming, some are drinking, Some are living without thinking; And of those who make the racket, Some are stripped of coat and jacket; Some get clothes of finer feather, Some are cleaned out all together; No one there dreads death’s invasion, But all drink in emulation. After the grim toll of the pandemic plague known as the Black Death (1348–50), drinking songs flourished during the Renaissance, when composers drafted drinking songs often sung in rounds. The lively French dance tune called the “Tourdion” (1530) was later embellished with lyrics that encourage the attack of a wine flagon while eating juicy ham. Spanish composer of villancisos Juan del Enzina (1468–1530) penned, “Hoy comanos y bebamos” celebrating food and drink during carnival time before the fasting. Franco–Flemish composer Arnold Von Bruck
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(1490–1554), the Kapellmsister to Emperor Ferdinand I and known for his motets and Maginificats of the Protestant Reformation, also wrote in the vernacular and contributed “So trinken wir alle.” Let’s all drink this wine up with gusto! For it is a prince among wines! Drink, my dear little Dieter, so you will never thirst! Drink up, then! Florentine composer Francesco Corteccia (1502–71) held the highly influential post of director of music to Cosimo de’ Medici and wrote music for court festivities including the de’ Medici weddings. Corteccia’s “Bacco, Bacco e u o e” (Bacchus, Bacchus e, u, o, e), published in Musiche fatti nella Nozze dello illustrissimo Duca di Fierenze (1539), would have been performed as entertainment. French composer Pierre Certon (1510–72), master of the boys’ choir of Sainte-Chappelle in Paris and influential in the development of chanson spirituelles (sacred vocal music), his “C’est trop parle de Bacchus” was similar to a madrigal with a clean musical texture conveying a happy yet defiant spirit that asserts that there is too much fuss over Bacchus and his drinking cup, and that’s old fashioned; Certon instructs his drinking companions to drain their tankards, flagons, pitchers, and mugs without complaint throughout the day to make the most of it. Venetian composer Andrea Gabrielli (1532–85), instrumental in bridging the polychoral style that bridged Renaissance and Baroque music with motets and madrigals, wrote “Canta, Canta, Festa, Festa” that, to paraphrase, asserts singing and spirits dispel sad spirits so that pleasure and delight fill our hearts. . . . Let’s live forever happy, always singing the praises of Bacchus. Drinking songs evolved as urban folksongs sung in conjunction with alcohol consumption. Vaudeville songs, for instance, date back to France in the 1400s, when a miller named Oliver Basselin lived in Normandy; the series of ballads he wrote were called Vaux-de-Vire (for Valley of the Vire), and the songs provided a light form of comedy. English-language drinking songs date back to the Anglo–Norman 12th century and were published beginning in the 1500s.
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Here’s a health to the king and a lasting peace, To faction an end, to wealth increase; Come let’s drink it while we have breath, For there’s no drinking after death. And he that with this health deny, Down among the dead men let him lye. Rounds, Call-and-Response, and the Pentatonic Scale A round can mean drinks served at one time to each person in a group with the phrase “this round is on me” or can be a musical round where two or more voices sing the same melody and words with each voice starting at the same time yet remaining harmonious together, like the 19thcentury shanty or march called “What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor?” The pentatonic scale bridging East and West became a natural sound to drinking songs. Ethnomusicologists equated the Chinese scale to the rustic Scots scale that resonated like the drone of a bagpipe. Classical composers, including Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelsohn, and Chopin, utilized the pentatonic scale as a call to provoke feelings and memories of merriment and, conversely, distance, absence, regret, and loneliness. Drinking songs were incorporated into 19th-century operas and operettas with solos and choruses joining in with choral refrains and repeats to convey the exotic or primitive. Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) became the master of imbedding drinking songs in operas with La dona e mobile (1851), Libiano, Brindisi (1853), Anvil Chorus (1854), Hola, Hola, Hola (1862), and Inaffia (1887). Call-and-response songs reflect patterns of human communications with a succession of a call phrase followed by a direct comment or response in work songs, street cries, sea shanties, military cadence, jody calls, and protest songs that were carried into social settings with alcohol like parties or bars. Some work songs for miners, lumberjacks, sailors, cowboys, and factory workers were sung in rhythmic a cappella in groups that relieved loneliness or boredom, as a means to synchronize group action in bars during off hours. Living Folk Music With Local Lyrics The Pacific sea shanties “Santy Anna” from the Mexican War (1846–48) and “Johnny Kanaka”
became popular drinking songs during the California gold rush (1848–55). Popular tunes written by Stephen Foster (1826–64), who wrote “Oh! Susanna” (1848) and “Comrades Fill No Glass for Me” (1855), and Daniel Decatur Emmett (1815–1904) who wrote “Old Dan Tucker” (1843) and “Dixie” (1859), were sung in the streets, bars, and music halls. Minstrel tunes like “Oh! Susanna” and Emmett’s “Over Jordan” with catchy tunes, were quickly embellished respectively as “Oh, California!” and “California Humbugs,” and miners carried the words in small books in pockets or saddlebags. “Whiskey Johnny,” “Frisco Ship,” “The Five Gallon Jar,” and “Shanghai Brown” warned sailors of the dangerous shanghai industry operating in bars in West Coast ports. English-born composer, writer, and singer Stephen C. Massett arrived in San Francisco carrying about $6 in Mexican coin in 1849. Massett earned $500 performing his own songs and doing female impersonations in a room crowded to suffocation in San Francisco’s first grand concert on June 22, 1849. However, he earned more for providing the auctioneer’s voice than as a singer, garnering the nickname Spizeruktum Bang with his stylistic culminations to bidding: “Once, twice, three times . . . Spizeruktum bang!” Massett wrote the first advertising jingle “Song of Dry Manopole” (1856) in California for a popular brand of Champagne that was a frontier drinking song. The Western folk ballad “Oh My Darling, Clementine,” telling a gold rush story, has become a forlorn addition to drinking songs. During the Great Famine in Ireland (1845–52), a dance reel named “Muirsheen Durkin” sung to the Irish air “Cailíní deasa Mhuigheo” told the story of leaving Ireland to find opportunity in the California gold fields. During the 20th century, a number of folk groups like the Dubliners incorporated drinking songs into repertoires. The Limeliters popularized the song “Those Were the Days” by Gene Raskin based upon the Russian ballad “Dorogoi dlinnoyu” (translated to mean by the long road) in the United States. Karaoke now makes singing in bars universal and easy. Meredith Eliassen San Francisco State University
See Also: Humor; Music Halls; Songs About Alcohol and Drinking. Further Readings McLean, Albert F., Jr. American Vaudeville as Ritual. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1965. Petti, Anthony, G., ed. Chester Books of Madrigals: 6. Smoking and Drinking. London: Chester Music, 1984. Sandys, William. Festive Songs Principally of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. London: Printed for the Percy Society, 1848.å Slide, Anthony. The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville. Westport, CT.: Greenwood Press, 1994. Snyder, Robert W. The Voice of the City: Vaudeville and Popular Culture in New York. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Symonds, John Addington. Wine, Women, and Song: Medieval Latin Students’ Songs Now First Translated Into English Verse With an Essay. London: Chatto and Windus, 1907.
Drunk-Driving Laws Drunk-driving laws reduce drunk-driving-related injuries and fatalities by deterring drivers through increased certainty of detection and severity of sanctions if detected. The first laws against drunk driving, enacted over a century ago in New York and California, were vague and ineffective. Since then, drunk-driving laws have become increasingly stringent and every U.S. state, territory, and the District of Columbia have various laws prohibiting and penalizing drunk driving. A constellation of state laws and federal standards aim to reduce drunk driving through some combination of per se blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limits, administrative license suspensions, ignition interlocks, sobriety checkpoints, vehicle forfeiture, license plate laws, mandatory alcohol treatments, special driving-under-the-influence/driving-while-intoxicated (DUI/DWI) courts, deferred prosecution, and emergency response fee laws. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were 9,878 fatalities in crashes involving a legally intoxicated driver in 2011. While fatalities in crashes involving
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a legally intoxicated driver have declined by 21 percent from 13,096 in 2003 to 10,322 in 2012, reducing the harm caused by drunk driving remains a priority of special interest groups (such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving), law enforcement, the judicial system, and public health agencies. Enforcement of drunk-driving laws requires proactive police action in deterring, detecting, and arresting offenders through DUI emphasis patrols and checkpoints. The Federal Bureau of Investigation estimates that law enforcement made 1,282,957 DUI arrests nationwide in 2012. Blood Alcohol Concentration Laws A major challenge in drunk-driving legislation has been establishing a legal definition of an impaired or intoxicated driver. All states now have illegal per se BAC laws that make it a criminal offense to operate a vehicle at or above a specified alcohol concentration in the blood. State laws specify BAC levels by measures of grams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood (stated as grams per deciliter, or g/dL). If the operator has a BAC level at or above the per se limit, a violation has occurred—no additional proof of actual impairment is needed for conviction. In other words, having a BAC above the per se limit is itself a violation. Thus, drunk driving is an inchoate offense for which a driver can be found guilty regardless of harm inflicted on persons or property. While critics have raised concerns about the relationship between BAC level and impairment, BAC is nevertheless considered to be the most accurate and reliable measure of driver impairment. To determine a person’s BAC level, law enforcement may request a preliminary breath test prior to an arrest for a drunk-driving offense. If there is probable cause based on test results and other evidence, such as field sobriety tests, an arrest can be made. All states now have implied consent laws that provide that a driver consents to submit to a chemical test of blood, breath, or urine if requested by law enforcement. Implied consent agreements are made when a driver is licensed through a state licensing agency (i.e., Department of Motor Vehicles). Results obtained from these BAC tests are then used as evidence in court and test refusal usually triggers automatic license suspension.
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A member of the U.S. Navy places a sign on a wrecked car as part of a larger public awareness campaign at the U.S. Naval Base in Guam on November 30, 2005. The naval base also operated a shuttle bus to avoid drinking and driving by sailors on weekends. Between 2003 and 2012, fatalities in crashes involving drunk drivers in the United States have fallen 21 percent from 13,096 to 10,322.
By 1985, all but eight states adopted per se BAC laws that made it an offense to drive a motor vehicle with a specific blood alcohol concentration at or above 0.10 g/dL. During the late 1990s, many states reduced BAC limits to 0.08 g/dL after Congress passed legislation to withhold federal highway funds from states with a 0.10 BAC limit. From July 2004 onward, all 50 states and the District of Columbia had per se 0.08 BAC limits for adult drivers. A per se 0.08 BAC limit is also used in Canada and the United Kingdom; while other countries have lower limits, such as Sweden (0.02), Australia (0.05), and Mexico (0.04-0.08 , varying by state). Since 1999, all states specify lower per se BAC limits (usually 0.00-0.02 BAC) and enhanced penalties for drunken drivers under the legal drinking
age of 21. Several states have zero tolerance laws, specifying that any detectable amount of alcohol constitutes an offense. Violations of these laws can bring severe penalties including lengthy mandatory license suspensions and alcohol treatment programs. Many states set a lower per se BAC, such as 0.02, and severe sanctions for members of certain groups, such as school bus drivers or drivers of day care vehicles. Additional penalties and/or separate offenses may apply when a person violates a drunk-driving law and one or more persons under the age of 18 are in the vehicle or while operating a commercial vehicle regardless of occupants’ status. License Suspension Administrative per se license suspension laws allow a state’s drivers’ licensing agency to suspend
or revoke a driver’s license upon failing or refusing a BAC test. These sanctions are prior to and independent from any licensing penalty that may be part of a criminal conviction. Administrative per se license suspension is swift and takes effect immediately after the driver fails or refuses a test. Forty-two states and the District of Columbia have administrative license suspension laws for first-time drunk-driving offenders with suspension durations ranging from three months to one year. The duration of license suspension increases for high BAC and repeat offenders. Most states allow limited driving activities with a provisional license during the period of suspension. Ignition Interlocks Laws An ignition interlock is an electronic device designed to prohibit individuals under the influence of alcohol from operating their vehicle. When an ignition interlock is installed, drivers are required to breathe into the device before starting the vehicle and periodically while the vehicle is running. Upon analyzing the breath sample, the device disables the engine if a minimum amount of alcohol is detected, usually 0.02 to 0.04 BAC depending on state law. Interlock programs are used in every state under certain conditions and are mandatory for all drunk-driving convictions in 19 states. There is considerable variation in the duration of the interlock period and some states stipulate a six-month minimum while other states impose a mandatory five-year duration. Other states require interlocks for high BAC and/or repeat convictions while 12 states have discretionary provisions for their use. Checkpoints Laws At roadside sobriety checkpoints, police officers stop every nth driver for questioning and inspection to detect intoxication. Checkpoints are designed to be a visible and well-publicized drunk-driving deterrent to the public and less for the purposes of detecting and arresting impaired drivers. In the 38 states where checkpoints are allowed under state law, the frequency at which they are conducted ranges considerably from state to state, from once or twice per month to as many as 2,500 times per year. Sobriety checkpoints are not conducted in 12 states where they are explicitly prohibited by state law, interpretation of a
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state law (e.g., roadblock statutes), or interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Vehicle Forfeiture and License Plate Laws Repeat offenders in 29 states may face vehicle confiscation and/or forfeiture, while some states require mandatory towing and impounding of the vehicle for all drunk-driving arrests made by law enforcement. Some states confiscate license plates while three states (Georgia, Minnesota, and Ohio) require specially marked or colored plates in certain circumstances. DUI/DWI Courts and Deferred Prosecution Several states have established special postadjudication DUI/DWI courts for persons convicted of high BAC (0.15-plus BAC) and for repeat offenders aimed at increasing the probability of rehabilitation and minimizing the risk of reoffending. In these special district court dockets, there is prompt assessment, individualized sanctions, frequent drug and alcohol testing, aftercare services, and ongoing judicial interaction with the offender. Some states allow for deferred prosecution for first-time drunk-driving offenders with a diagnosed alcohol addiction. While a deferred prosecution requires strict compliance with a number of conditions, such as ignition interlock, restitution, treatment costs, complete abstinence from alcohol, and periodic BAC testing, the original DUI charge(s) will be dismissed after completion of five years of probation. Emergency Response Fee and Cost Recovery Some states allow local jurisdictions to recover law enforcement and/or emergency costs of responding to incidents involving drunk drivers. In California, the California Highway Patrol began billing for DUI cost recovery on a statewide basis in 1989. The maximum fee in Washington State is $2,500 for the assessed expenses related to emergency response in making a DUI arrest. Nonlegislative Drunk-Driving Control Law enforcement agencies proactively control drunk driving through DUI-emphasis patrols and public awareness campaigns. Messages like “drive hammered, get nailed” appearing on roadside billboards and in radio and TV ads increase the perceived certainty of detection and aim to
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deter drinkers from driving. In addition to law enforcement efforts, social movement organizations, such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, have successfully advocated for stronger antidrunk-driving legislation, but have also played an important role in decreasing social tolerance for drunk driving since the mid-1980s. Bryan D. Rookey University of Portland See Also: Alcohol Violations, Penalties for; Bartenders Against Drunk Driving; Breathalyzer Test; Designated Driver; Drunkenness, Legal Definitions of; Mothers Against Drunk Driving; Students Against Destructive Decision. Further Readings Ditter, S. M., et al. “Effectiveness of Designated Driver Programs for Reducing Alcohol-Impaired Driving: A Systematic Review.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, v.28/5 (2005). Jacobs, James B. Drunk Driving: An American Dilemma. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. Mosher, Clayton J. and Scott Akins. Drugs and Drug Policy: The Control of Consciousness Alteration, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2014. Ross, H. Laurence. Confronting Drunk Driving: Social Policy for Saving Lives. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992.
Drunken Behavior as Culturally Learned Two opposing perspectives dominate the available research on intoxication. Historians, anthropologists, and sociologists have sought to highlight both intoxication’s endemic quality within society as well as its importance in fostering social cohesion and improving commonality, trust, and reciprocity. Some writers such as Richard Rudgley have suggested that the desire to alter consciousness is a universal need, or as Andrew
Weil suggests in The Natural Mind, the desire to alter consciousness represents “a basic human appetite.” While some researchers point to the universal and positive nature of intoxication, government officials, law enforcement officers, public health researchers, and prevention specialists work tirelessly to ensure that intoxication is curtailed. However, while noting this dichotomous approach to the topic, this article examines the work of anthropologists and sociologists to highlight the extent to which alcohol intoxication is not merely an individual or psychological component of mind-altering substances but is also an essential and integral part of social drinking. Early Theories As Pekka Sulkunen has noted, early anthropological and sociological theories of intoxication sought primarily to understand the role of intoxication and the norms that influenced the resulting behavior. Early theorists sought to develop a theory of intoxication at the societal level and attempted to identify universal characteristics. For example, Donald Horton argued that alcohol intoxication was a societal mechanism for reducing tension, alleviating anxiety and fear in the face of uncertainty. Many later anthropologists adopted this perspective. While these early attempts have been largely discarded, they did emphasize the importance of seeking explanations at the social level rather than at any individual level. Drinking promotes sociability, but with the possible consequence of an altered state of consciousness or intoxication brought about by a combination of the pharmacological effects of the alcoholic beverage. The meaning attributed to intoxication, however, is influenced not just by effects of alcohol on the individual but also by the culture in which the intoxication occurs. Although somewhat neglected today, Craig MacAndrew and Robert Edgerton in their book Drunken Comportment (1969), using a wide range of comparative ethnographic material and examining different types of drunken comportment, highlighted the ways in which drunken behavior varies from one culture to another and within individual cultures through time. From this material, they argued that drunken behavior is primarily a matter of sociocultural learning, and while it may differ from behavior that is acceptable when
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sober, it nevertheless remains within culturally determined limits. The significance of their seminal work was to establish the view that the interpretations that individuals make of intoxication is only partially shaped by the chemical or pharmacological effects of the substance. Furthermore, they argued that intoxication operated as a mechanism of “time-out,” which was “a state of societally sanctioned freedom from otherwise enforceable demands that persons comply with conventional properties.” Becoming drunk allowed the drinker to behave in ways not normally acceptable within society. However, this period of time-out was nevertheless bounded by societal norms within specific social settings. Cultural Turn While sociologists and anthropologists have traditionally considered the norms, functions, and roles of intoxication, more contemporary researchers have argued that a primary focus in examining issues of intoxication should be to examine the meaning of intoxication for the individuals involved. In other words, what is it about intoxication that makes the desire for an altered consciousness meaningful, and to what extent does this socially constructed meaning influence the experience of intoxication? This approach raises fundamental problems for the development of a single sociological theory of intoxication. Intoxication and intoxicated behavior may mean different things to different people in different circumstances at different points in history, rendering problematic any unequivocal generalizations about drinking and intoxication. Despite the difficulty of constructing a simple theory of intoxication, one can recognize commonalities across time and place. Pleasure and enjoyment associated with the consumption experience, whether that be the chemical and physiological reactions or the users’ interaction with others in particular milieus, pervades accounts of drinking throughout history. Though not the only motives for drinking—people drink to escape unsatisfactory situations, alleviate boredom, numb disturbing feelings, steady their nerves—pleasurable descriptions of altered states like happiness, freedom, and euphoria from mind-altering substances have been recorded since prehistoric times.
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Sociability and Social Setting The meaning of intoxication, as with the meaning of drinking, arises in particular social settings, in the context of perceived potential consequences, and is governed by socially situated practices. While this “context” includes the physical space or environment of alcohol consumption, others have argued that a focus on setting or context must also examine the broader social or cultural milieu in which alcohol use takes place and the wider beliefs, sanctions, or values that actors bring to their intoxication. The emphasis on the importance of setting in determining acceptable intoxicated behavior was a critical finding by MacAndrew and Edgerton and it is still important today in research on alcohol intoxication. The intricate relationship between drinking, intoxication, sociability, and setting has been documented in such diverse drinking arenas as English pubs, Finnish bars, African beer gardens, Mexican cantinas, or American taverns. Conclusion In conclusion, it is fair to say that intoxicating substances are a fact of life and are inherently social substances. Researchers have noted the extent to which the pursuit of intoxication has been a constant feature of human life since the discovery of fermenting fruit and producing alcohol. Humans have not only adapted to using mind-altering substances but also have adapted plants to encourage their psychoactive properties. The drive for intoxication has been developed and worked on in many different historical periods, in many different cultures, and by many different social groups and classes, and it is therefore clear that the topic of intoxication is eminently worthy of sociological or anthropological investigation. The boundaries between acceptable and nonacceptable intoxication are constantly changing, and these changes are shaped by evolving societal norms. What was once acceptable may no longer be acceptable. Moreover, conflicts over who has access to the means to alter consciousness also change over time. Proscriptions at different times specify who is permitted to alter their state of consciousness and under what circumstances. Intoxicants are held to be bad for some but not for others and, as many researchers have noted, intoxicants for pleasure may be reserved for the
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elite. The pleasures of the lower classes, ethnic and racial minorities, and other marginalized groups have always been treated with suspicion. In examining some of the theories about intoxication and emphasizing these changing boundaries, it is appropriate to end this article by considering the contemporary situation and examining notions of intoxication and the development of new pharmaceutical drugs—often referred to as lifestyle medicines or lifestyle drugs. Angus Bancroft has called this a new form of intoxication “functional intoxication,” in which intoxication is allowed but in a “targeted medicalized form.” He suggests that society is moving away from substances as pleasure and instead emphasizing the use of intoxicants to modify the individual self in the world, improve the individual’s ability to perform within the social world, and reduce the effects of contemporary stresses and strains. These contemporary intoxicants are conceived as medicines to intervene at the boundary between health and illness with the specific aim of enhancing lifestyle. Given these developments, it appears that a new form of intoxication is developing and that society is embracing it. Geoffrey Hunt Institute for Scientific Analysis See Also: Alcohol and Drug Abuse, Sociology of; Drinking, Anthropology of; Heavy Drinkers, History of; Moral Attitudes Toward Alcohol Consumption. Further Readings Bancroft, Angus. Drugs, Intoxication & Society. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009. Horton, Donald. “The Functions of Alcohol in Primitive Societies: A Cross-Cultural Study.” Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, v.4 (1943). Hunt, Geoffrey and Kristin Evans “‘The Great Unmentionable’: Exploring the Pleasures and Benefits of Ecstasy From the Perspectives of Drug Users.” Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy v.15/4 (2008). MacAndrew, Craig and Robert Edgerton Drunken Comportment: A Social Explanation. Chicago: Aldine, 1969. Quintero, Gilbert. “They Can Get Your Teen Just as High”: The Social Construction of Recreational Pharmaceutical Use as a Drug Problem. Paper
Presented at the Society for Applied Anthropology, Baltimore, 2012. Rudgley, Richard. Essential Substances: A Cultural History of Intoxicants in Society. New York: Kodansha International, 1993. Sulkunen, Pekka. “Between Culture and Nature: Intoxication in Cultural Studies of Alcohol and Drug Use.” Contemporary Drug Problems, v.29/2 (2002). Walton, Stuart. Out of It: A Cultural History of Intoxication. London: Hamish Hamilton, 2001. Weil, Andrew. The Natural Mind. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972.
Drunkenness, Legal Definitions of Broadly, “drunkenness” is defined legally as a state of visibly abnormal excitement; aroused passions; decreased volition; or impaired continuity of thoughts, ideas, sense perceptions, or speech that is accompanied by both impaired judgment and diminished intelligence brought about by imbibing alcohol. Drunkenness is used often interchangeably with “intoxication,” although some states include the use of narcotics under the latter term. In various legal contexts, this definition may differ in some respects, depending on the purposes for which it is applied. For the purposes of drunk-driving laws, there are generally two categories of drunkenness. The first is driving under the influence, which focuses on whether an individual’s faculties—though not necessarily one’s driving ability—were impaired. The second is driving while intoxicated, which focuses on whether the blood-alcohol level is at or above a statutorily defined minimum, regardless of whether the level affects either the individual’s faculties or driving ability. The standard of intoxication varies by state between 0.08 and 0.10 alcohol in the bloodstream or a combination of alcohol and narcotics, which would produce the same effect even though the amount of alcohol is below the minimum. Many states extend the applicability of these definitions to operating vessels on rivers, streams, and lakes.
The National Transportation Safety Board recommends that all 50 states adopt a blood-alcohol content cutoff of 0.5. Public intoxication is generally not defined by blood-alcohol content but rather by the harmful or disruptive behavior exhibited. Under most state statutes, the person must be unable to care for himself, must be a danger to himself or others, must be causing a disturbance, or must refuse to leave or move along when requested. Some states extend public intoxication prohibitions to entering or remaining on railway trains or interurban trolleys and busses as a passenger. Negligent culpability for injuries inflicted on people or property while either publicly drunk or driving under the influence is defined in terms of whether the individual’s behavior constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care owed to others and involves a substantial risk of injury. Crime and Drunkenness The question of drunkenness in rape cases is, generally, unrelated to a person’s blood-alcohol content, focusing instead on whether the capacity of the alleged victim to choose has been undermined or eliminated through intoxication. Difficulty arises over delineating the dividing line between capacity and incapacity. Factors considered include the number of drinks consumed, the time period over which alcohol was consumed, the size and weight of the individual, and the evidence concerning the alcohol tolerance of the alleged victim and whether it was known (or should have been known) under the circumstances that the alleged victim was intoxicated. Drunkenness as a defense in criminal cases involves the claim by defendants that they were too intoxicated to form the specific intent required to commit the crime or to know what they were doing. The degree of drunkenness necessary is greater than that for drunk driving. In some states, it is necessary to demonstrate that the accused had attained the point of “mania” or was unable to comprehend the meaning of words. Unintentional intoxication can show the lack of capacity to form the requisite intent, and thus it either removes culpability or reduces the possible level of conviction for specificintent crimes. Entry into an inhabited dwelling, for example, is insufficient in most states to
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constitute a burglary. Culpability requires that the entry be accompanied by the intent to commit a felony. Similarly, most states define “theft” as taking something with the intent to deprive the owner of the item permanently. Obvious Intoxication Courts often rely on a standard of “obvious intoxication” concerning a host of legal responsibilities. However, they display considerable inconsistency over whether the standard is actual or perceived intoxication. Some courts support a finding of obvious intoxication by coupling blood-alcohol content with expert testimony on what a drinker’s behavior would be at that level of intoxication. Other courts consider comparable findings an insufficient proof of obvious intoxication. These courts assess a number of factors, including witness testimony, the psychological makeup and personality of the individual, the environmental situation in which drinking occurs, the experience gained from past intoxication states, and the degree of tolerance to alcohol. Most statutes regulating the sales of alcohol by the state to intoxicated persons provide no definition for the term. In states lacking a statutory definition, courts generally refuse to apply definitions found in other areas of law, requiring instead that the impairment be “apparent,” “visible,” or “obvious” when these terms are not included in the statute. Few state statutes do include some or all variety of indicators, including problems with balance, impaired muscular coordination, the strong smell of alcohol, impeded speech, bloodshot eyes, a flushed face, dishevelment, and peculiar or obnoxious behavior such as vomiting, hiccuping, pugnacity, boisterousness, repeated use of profanity, and an inability to care about personal safety or to guard against casualty. Other Consequences of Drunkenness The Federal Aviation Administration prohibits anyone from serving as a crew member if one has consumed alcohol within eight hours of a flight, is under the influence of alcohol, or has a bloodalcohol content of 0.04 percent or greater. Similarly, the Federal Railroad Safety Act prohibits those employees from reporting for service while under the influence of (or impaired by) alcohol or with a blood-alcohol content of 0.04 or more.
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A variety of definitions for drunkenness appear in civil law and vary moderately from state to state. Generally, civil commitment against a person’s will requires not only a showing of the habitual use of alcohol to the extent that the person is incapacitated, has impaired her health substantially, or has disrupted substantially her social or economic performance but also a showing that she is clearly a danger to herself or others. Contracts are voidable if one party consumed a sufficient amount of alcohol so as to cause such an impairment in thinking that the party could not understand the legal ramifications of entering into the contract. Wills are voidable if the testator consumes a sufficient amount of alcohol so as to be not of sound mind or to lack full mental capacity when signing the will. State courts have adopted different approaches to defining intoxication whereby insurance policies do not include a definition for purposes of excluding claims on the policy. Where the policy announces a blood-alcohol limit, courts generally uphold this standard regardless of other factors, such as causation and other signs contradicting the conclusion that the insured was intoxicated. Charles Frederick Abel Stephen F. Austin State University See Also: Alcohol Abuse and Crime, Sociology of; Alcohol Abuse and Violence; Alcohol Violations, Penalties for; Drunk-Driving Laws; Fifteen Gallon Law; Military Use and Regulation of Alcohol; Regulation of Alcohol; State Liquor Stores. Further Readings Montana v. Egelhoff. 116 S. Ct. 2013 (1996). Mosher, James, et al. “Laws Prohibiting Alcohol Sales to Intoxicated Persons. Legal Research Report.” National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (June 2009). Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. “Policy Brief: Analysis of State Laws Permitting Intoxication Exclusions in Insurance Contracts and Their Judicial Enforcement.” http://sphhs.gwu.edu/departments/ healthpolicy/DHP_Publications/pub_uploads/ dhpPublication_3626D84B-5056-9D20-3DE5 C10098AB28B8.pdf (Accessed March 2014).
Dry Cities and Counties Dry cities and counties prohibit the sale of alcohol. There are several in the United States today. The term dry, which describes a stance regarding alcohol, began to appear in the 19th century. For instance, a person could be referred to as “dry” if he or she opposed the saloon and advocated for temperance or prohibition. Dry could also refer to any territory, be it a state, county, or city, which bars the sale of alcohol. The opposite term wet referred to a person who supported the legal saloon and the legal sale of alcohol or to a city, county, or state that allows both. The United States has had a long tradition of drinking. Prior to the 19th century, temperance or prohibition sentiment was rare, and large swaths of the population engaged in alcohol consumption. For many Americans, consuming alcohol was a daily ritual, sometimes beginning with breakfast and continuing throughout the day. However, by the beginning of the 19th century, sentiments against alcohol consumption began to grow. The first wave of anti-alcohol sentiment focused on temperance, which consisted of relying on moral suasion to convince drinkers to voluntarily choose to stop drinking. By the mid-19th century, sentiment began to shift toward finding ways to legally proscribe the selling and consumption of alcohol. Creating dry laws that restricted states, counties, and cities from manufacturing and selling alcohol became a popular cause in the 1850s. Maine Law in the 1850s In 1851, Maine was the first state to go entirely dry after a campaign led by Portland’s prohibition-minded mayor, Neal Dow. Dow, a member of the Maine Temperance Union (MTU), nurtured a bloc of anti-alcohol voters that held together and propelled him and like-minded legislators into office. They managed to push through a law against the manufacture of alcohol, only permitting it for medicinal or industrial uses. As with national Prohibition 70 years later, legal prohibition in Maine did not effectively prohibit. While the attempt to create a dry Maine through legislation in theory meant that the state was dry, the lack of serious enforcement, and the lack of harsh enough punishment for violations, meant that the law was easily thwarted. In Maine the nation
experienced its first bootleggers and organized criminal organizations that sought to supply the demand for alcohol. Despite this, the push for creating dry territory became a strong national movement and the term Maine Law was used to describe any attempt to create a dry territory anywhere in the country. Despite the failure of Maine’s attempt to dry out the state, antisaloon forces in the rest of the nation took note of the effort, and a movement emerged throughout the country to begin similar efforts. Some still believed that temperance was purely a moral issue that should not be moved into the political arena, but plenty of others believed that moral suasion alone would never end the manufacture and sale of alcohol. While moral suasion continued to be a tool of anti-alcohol forces, many came to the conclusion that Maine’s experiment was one worthy of emulation. In August 1851, a convention of prohibition advocates met in Saratoga Springs, New York, to create a rallying cry for getting Maine Laws passed throughout the nation by encouraging legislation to be passed from state legislatures down to local communities. From their efforts a movement swept like a wildfire in the decade before the Civil War that appeared to be harkening the end of legal liquor throughout the country. Several states and cities followed Maine’s lead in rapid succession. The famous Presbyterian minister Lyman Beecher led his state of Massachusetts to become dry just a year after Maine. Successful movements followed in Vermont, Rhode Island, Michigan, Connecticut, and Ohio. In 1855, New Hampshire, New York, Iowa, and Delaware followed suit. In many states some cities and counties became dry. Even in Illinois, which contained Chicago, the queen of saloon cities, the Maine experiment took root. In 1851, the village of Evanston became dry when the state legislature banned the sale of alcohol within four miles of the city’s new Methodist college, Northwestern University. Despite this early success, prohibition did not fare well at the state level. Most of the states and territories that passed Maine Laws found that prohibition proved difficult to enforce, was subject to revision by voters, and was vulnerable to invalidation in the courts. Even in Maine, where the movement was started, the law was weakened by a legislative amendment in 1858 that
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significantly reduced the effectiveness of prohibition. In the years immediately preceding the Civil War, and during the conflict itself, activism for prohibition waned as Americans contended with weightier issues. Prohibition Efforts After Civil War With the war over, the drive for prohibition returned as a revived middle-class movement to improve the nation’s morality. A new kind of drinking establishment, the saloon, arose in large numbers in America’s expanding industrial cities and towns. The saloon’s male, working-class, and ethnic patrons seemed to flout middle-class values, threatening to impoverish their families and American society by wasting scarce wages on drink. Having identified the chief culprit as the saloon, middle-class Americans, including many women, attempted to shut these establishments down. Out of this desire there arose powerful antisaloon movements after the Civil War, all of which sought to create dry utopias that would clean up America’s cities. While there were many antialcohol movements, the three most powerful were the Prohibition Party, founded in 1869, which ran several candidates for office, even for president, reaching its zenith of power between 1888 and 1892; the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, founded in 1873, which relied heavily on moral suasion but also supported prohibition; and the Anti-Saloon League, founded in 1893, by far one of the most powerful political pressure groups in the history of the United States. While each of these organizations had different methods and goals, all were united in the quest to achieve prohibition. Until the Eighteenth Amendment would settle the issue in 1920, pursuing dry territory city by city, county by county, and state by state became these organizations’ obsession. The primary way that cities and counties became dry was through “local option.” The local option movement grew in the 1870s and became a tidal wave in the years before national Prohibition. Local option took hold when state legislatures gave authority to cities and/or counties to allow their residents to vote on prohibition within their localities. During the heated run-up to these elections sides were drawn in communities, with those favoring the saloon labeled wets, while those opposing the saloon labeled drys.
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Typically, at the state legislature the decision to allow local option was a compromise measure between prohibition forces and those who supported the legal saloon. After all, a state legislature could simply vote itself dry, as Maine had first done in the 1850s. In fact, during the 1890s the creation of dry territory picked up steam at the state level, with the number of dry states doubling during that decade. Likewise, the decision to have county option or local option was also a compromise. County option meant that rural voters within a county could overwhelm the working-class voters in the largest urban areas, while local option meant that these workingclass voters could maintain their saloons at the local level through their force of numbers. Typically, the standard for getting local option on the ballot was quite low, requiring the signatures of less than 50 percent of those who had voted in the last election to approve of having the issue placed on the ballot for the next election. As a result of both local option and statewide prohibition antisaloon forces had already turned a great deal of the country dry in the years before national Prohibition would signal the end of the saloon era. For instance, The Illinois Issue, a magazine published by the Anti-Saloon League, was proud to report that in 1908, 12 years before national prohibition, 11,000 saloons had been banished, leaving 4.3 million citizens to live in dry territory. By January 1, 1909, eight states became entirely dry as a result of the previous year’s elections. Prohibition was the law of the land from 1920 to 1933, making the whole nation dry territory. When this experiment ended in 1933, the entire country did not, however, suddenly become wet again. States, counties, and municipalities all over the country opted to stay dry, despite the national verdict on Prohibition. Dry Areas in the 21st Century In the United States today the majority of dry areas are in the south. The state with the largest amount of dry territory is Mississippi. There are no states that are entirely dry, but there are several states with counties that are dry, and there are several cities within otherwise wet counties that are dry. Dry laws create a great deal of confusion for those wishing to consume alcohol. In some areas possession of alcohol is not a crime,
so a person may travel to a wet community, purchase spirits and return to their dry community, consume their alcohol in the privacy of their own home, and not break any law. However, in some areas the mere possession of alcohol is a crime. So a person might unknowingly break the law simply by passing through a dry community with alcohol in their vehicle. Ironically, some of the most famous brands of alcohol are manufactured in dry counties. For instance, Jack Daniels, one of the world’s most famous whiskies, is produced in Lynchburg, Tennessee, which is in entirely dry Moore County. There are also many cities, counties, and states that are dry depending on the day of the week or the time of the day. Most communities in America have a mandatory time when alcohol sales must cease, typically 2 a.m. in most places but earlier in others, leading to the famous signaling of “last call” perhaps 20 minutes or so prior to closing time. In many places, again primarily in the south, alcohol sales are prohibited or limited on Sundays, sometimes referred to as the “Sabbath.” In other places alcohol simply cannot be sold before a certain time on Sundays. Steven D. Barleen Northern Illinois University See Also: Anti-Saloon League; Blue Laws; Dow, Neal; Local Option; Maine Law; Prohibition; Temperance Movements. Further Readings Anti-Saloon League of Illinois. Illinois Issue, v.4/2 (January 8, 1909). Blocker, Jack S. American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform. Boston: Twayne, 1989. Clark, Norman H. Deliver Us From Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition. New York: W. W. Norton, 1976. Hamm, Richard F. Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment: Temperance Reform, Legal Culture, and the Polity, 1880–1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Lender, Mark Edward. Drinking in America: A History. New York: Free Press, 1982. Mosher, Clayton J., ed. Drugs and Drug Policy: The Control of Consciousness Alteration. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2007.
Dutch Courage In common usage, the phrase Dutch courage has come to denote something that props individuals up and spurs them into action. It is most often used to refer to drinking alcohol before taking on an unpleasant task or duty. For that reason, the term is sometimes defined as “pot valor” or “liquid confidence.” Where the word Dutch describes people from Holland, there are numerous legends concerning the origin of the term Dutch courage, and no one can be positive where the term first originated. There is some historical basis for the assumption that the term was first used in the time of Charles II’s monarchy in England from 1630 to 1685. According to that version, the captain of the Hollander, a man-of-war, made it a regular practice to give his men brandy before they went into battle to encourage them to fight more aggressively and to keep them from avoiding battle. Returning sailors and soldiers retold the story so often that drinking alcohol before battle came to be known as Dutch courage. A second version of the origins of Dutch courage suggests that the term first surfaced during the Middle Ages in response to the Bubonic Plague that swept through England with lethal force. Ships from other ports allegedly refused to enter English ports, but in 1665 the captains of several Dutch ships were courageous enough to land supplies at English docks without ever entering the country, which might have exposed them to the extremely infectious disease. Thus, the Dutch began to be praised for their courage. Another version that seems to be widely accepted as the source of the phrase Dutch courage concerns the use of gin, which was invented by Francois de la Boe Sylvius, a German-born physician and chemist who lived in the Netherlands. Even though Sylvius intended gin to be used as a diuretic, the Dutch quickly realized its other properties and began drinking it for pleasure or settling the nerves. Thus, it was considered advisable to give gin to sailors and soldiers before going into battle. It is most likely that the term originated in England either during the Thirty Years War that lasted from 1618 to 1648 or during the Anglo-Dutch Wars that began in 1652 and resumed in 1664 after a decade of peace. In both cases, English soldiers observed Dutch soldiers drinking before battle. However,
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the term did not come into common usage until some point between 1805 and 1815. Beginnings During the Thirty Years War, as the Holy Roman Empire disintegrated, the nations of Central Europe battled it out for the power to control their own destinies and to exercise their right to religious choice. Although the English and the Dutch were traditionally enemies, they banded together in a naval alliance to fight common enemies during the Third Dutch War. The English sailors and soldiers observed Dutch soldiers drinking gin before entering battle and responded by dubbing it Dutch courage. The English brought both gin and the expression Dutch courage with them when they returned to England. William of Orange, who was the stadtholder (head of state) of the Netherlands as well as the King of England saw the benefits that gin consumption could bring to the English economy, and he allowed the citizenry to begin producing gin without requiring distillers to pay licensing fees. At the same time, the government enacted a series of gin acts, which placed high import fees on alcohol coming into the country; thereby, promoting the sale of English gin. The beverage became so popular that some employers paid their workers in gin rather than money. After the Thirty Years War ended, the English and the Dutch returned to mutual enmity, and the term Dutch courage began carrying the connotation that the Dutch were afraid to go into battle without first taking a drink of alcohol. This version has much in common with the version that suggests that members of the English military saw Dutch sailors and soldiers drinking gin before battle and began taunting them, saying they were unable to fight without first imbibing gin to give them courage. The ethnocentrism inherent in both of the latter versions is based in historical fact since the English were traditionally disdainful of all things Dutch. Some writers have suggested that the Dutch grew so tired of the negative connotations of the word used to describe them that they ending up changing the name of their country from Holland, officially becoming the Netherlands in 1795. However, the people of the Netherlands are still called Dutch by Englishspeaking nations.
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The Courage of the Dutch Regardless of the popularity of the phrase Dutch courage, many Britons were well aware that the Dutch were not a cowardly people. The enmity was more the result of political and commercial rivalry than any true belief in the need of the Dutch to drink alcohol before going into battle. The Dutch had become the world’s major trading and naval power, and the British were eager to surpass them and become the major world power. When negotiating an end to the Anglo-Dutch Wars with the Treaty of Breda in 1667, the Dutch had been victorious in achieving their goals, creating even more ill-feeling between the Dutch and the English. Speaking of the tendency of the English to engage in the national prejudices that were inherent in late-19th-century Britain, John Code Bayly pointed out in a 1896 article for the International Journal of Ethics that the Dutch had proved their courage in a number of important ways. First of all, parts of Holland had fended off Roman invaders during the days of the Holy Roman Empire. Second, in 1579, the Dutch rebelled against Spain, one of the bloodiest invaders in world history. More important, where the English were concerned, the Netherlands fought the British in their home territory, daring to enter the Thames River with only a handful of ships and a few courageous Dutchmen when the two countries were at war. During the Third Dutch Wars, the Dutch had joined Sweden and England in forging the Triple Alliance in order to fight off the aggressive tactics of Louis XIV, who ruled France from 1643 to 1713. Despite the damage involved, the Dutch were willing to open their dikes and flood their own country to keep invaders out of the Netherlands. Contemporary Justification In 2012, Andrew Jarosz, J. H. Gregory, and Jennifer Wiley Colflesh conducted a study designed to discover whether or not alcohol could actually encourage individuals to become more courageous. Their findings revealed that moderate consumption of alcohol did indeed encourage their subjects to become more creative while enhancing
their abilities to quickly solve problems. Instead of being analytical, alcohol consumers responded intuitively when presented with problems. To the contrary, members of the control group, which had not consumed alcohol, were slower to react to problems presented to them, and they were less likely than those who had consumed alcohol to appear confident and in control of the situation. In the 21st century, most people who use the phrase Dutch courage have little knowledge that it was ever used as a derogatory term. They simply use it to explain the need for added courage in stressful situations and feel that drinking alcohol fills that need. Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar See Also: Brandy; Gin; Gin Epidemic in England; Military Use and Regulation of Alcohol; Netherlands; United Kingdom. Further Readings Barnett, Richard. The Book of Gin: A Spirited History from Alchemists’ Stills and Colonial Outposts to Gin Palaces, Bathtub Gin, and Artisanal Cocktails. New York: Grove, 2012. Bayly, John Code. “National Prejudices.” International Journal of Ethics, v.6/2 (January 1896). Briggs, Katherine, ed. British Folk Tales and Legends: A Sampler. New York: Routledge Classics, 2002. Jarosz, Andrew, J. H. Gregory, and Jennifer Wiley Colflesh. “Uncorking the Muse: Alcohol Intoxication Facilitates Creative Problem Solving.” Consciousness and Cognition, v.21/1 (March 2012). Kosmann-Putto, J. A. and E. H. Kossman. The Low Countries: History of the Northern and Southern Netherlands. Flanders, Belgium: FlemishNetherlands Foundation, 1987. Raven, G. J. A. and N. A. M. Rodger, eds. Navies and Armies: The Anglo-Dutch Relationship in War and Peace, 1688–1988. Edinburgh: J. Donald, 1900. Stanley, Tim. “A Sobering Look at Boozy Britain.” History Today, v.62/4 (April 2012).
The SAGE Encyclopedia of
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E Edwards, Justin Justin Edwards (1787–1853), a New Englander, was a founding member of the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance (aka American Temperance Society [ATS]), an evangelical pastor, an author, and a seminary president. Between August 1829 and December 1836, Edwards was the secretary and general agent of the ATS, and in that capacity, he penned the society’s fourth through ninth annual reports, compiling them into the Permanent Temperance Documents of the American Temperance Society. He also wrote or facilitated the publication of several other temperance works. Edwards was a close associate of the leaders of the various evangelical Benevolent Empire reform organizations of the Second Great Awakening and actively supported Sabbatarian reform, missionary societies, and Bible and tract societies. Edwards grew up on a farm in Westhampton, Massachusetts, and by 1805 underwent a conversion experience. He graduated from Williams College in 1810 and entered the Andover Theological Seminary in 1811, only to leave in 1812 to be installed as pastor of South Church in Andover, where he served until 1827. While at South Church, Edwards was a close associate of Andover’s most prominent professors: Leonard Woods, Ebenezer Porter, and Moses Stuart. He participated in a weekly Bible study held by
Dr. Porter, whose members founded, in turn, the Andover South Parish Society for the Reformation of Morals, the New England Tract Society (which, in 1823, was renamed the American Tract Society and merged with one of the same name in New York City), and the ATS. While pastoring in Andover, Edwards actively supported numerous benevolence activities. He opened a Sabbath school, served on the boards of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and the American Home Missionary Society and was instrumental in organizing the Massachusetts Missionary Society. He also served as the congregational ministerial representative on the influential publishing committee of the American Tract Society from 1826 to 1829 and from 1839 to 1853. In February 1826, the ATS was organized on the principle of total abstinence from all ardent spirits (distilled beverages), and Edwards was appointed to its executive committee. In early 1827, while still pastoring, Edwards traveled throughout eastern Massachusetts, raising more than $7,000 to fund a full-time ATS traveling agent. After resigning his pastorate in September, Edwards became that agent until the end of 1827, but he returned to pastoring again from early 1828 through mid-1829, in Boston. In 1829, he became the permanent general agent and secretary of the ATS. In this position, Edwards traveled 513
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extensively throughout New England, as far south as Washington, D.C., as far west as Cincinnati and Louisville, and as far north as New Brunswick, Canada. In his first annual report, in 1831, he reported traveling 6,400 miles and giving 386 addresses during the previous 21 months, more than one address every 2 days. He also reported the existence of 2,200 local and state temperance societies with more than 170,000 members who had signed the abstinence pledge. Among the highlights of his organizing efforts were his 1833 speech before the U.S. Congress, the subsequent organization of the Congressional Temperance Society, and his organization of a temperance society among the members of the Massachusetts legislature that same year. He also attended innumerable state and local temperance conventions on behalf of the ATS. Edwards’s annual reports through 1836 (after which the ATS became the American Temperance Union) not only touted the organizational successes of the ATS but also included a potpourri of arguments and statistics in favor of temperance and reports of advances and setbacks experienced by the national movement. In addition to his Permanent Temperance Documents of the American Temperance Society, of which hundreds of thousands of copies were printed, Edwards published at least seven temperance writings, usually under the auspices of the American Tract Society: On the Traffic in Ardent Spirit, The Well-Conducted Farm, Hints for Myself and for Every Man Who Engages in the Promotion of Temperance, National Circular Addressed to the Head of Each Family in the United States, Laws Which Authorize the Traffic in Ardent Spirits as a Drink, Morally Wrong, The Immorality of the Traffic as Presented in the Bible, and Temperance Manual for the Young Men of the United States. The last work was translated into French and German. Edwards was an early proponent of the idea that selling distilled liquors was immoral in itself and was instrumental in getting many temperance conventions to pass resolutions declaring it so. At least as importantly, his writings repeatedly articulated the view that the spread of temperance was foundational to the spread of the Gospel message. Edwards believed that the work of Sabbath reformers, the missionary societies, and the Bible and tract societies would be fruitless
if their efforts were directed toward intemperate people. In On the Traffic in Ardent Spirit, Edwards states, “Facts . . . show conclusively that the use of ardent spirits tends to hinder the moral and spiritual illumination and purification of men; and thus to prevent their salvation.” That Edwards viewed temperance primarily as an aid to the work of evangelical preachers, as is also suggested by his first of 18 Hints to temperance workers: “Let your object be, the glory of God in the Salvation of men.” When the ATS became the American Temperance Union in 1837, Edwards was made an honorary vice president, and he left to begin a five-year tenure as president of the Andover Theological Seminary, where he was already on the trustee board. From 1843 to 1850, Edwards served as secretary of the American and Foreign Sabbath Union, traveling thousands of miles and publishing its Permanent Sabbath Documents annually until 1849 as well as the National Sabbath Manual. His last project was writing a Bible commentary for families that the American Tract Society planned to publish. Edwards’s dream was to get a copy of his Temperance Manual, his National Sabbath Manual, and his Bible commentary into the hands of every immigrant who could read it, but he died before finishing the commentary. He had visited a friend in Virginia, hoping that a change in environment would improve his health, but he died while there on July 23, 1853. H. Paul Thompson, Jr. North Greenville University See Also: American Temperance Society; American Temperance Union; Temperance Movements. Further Readings Edwards, Justin. On the Traffic in Ardent Spirit. The Destructive Influence of Intoxicating Liquors on the Body and the Soul. New York: American Tract Society. Hallock, William A. Light and Love: A Sketch of the Life and Labors of the Rev. Justin Edwards, D.D. New York: American Tract Society, 1855. Krout, John Allen. The Origins of Prohibition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925. Murphy, Stephen Wills. “‘It Is a Sacred Duty to Abstain’: The Organizational, Biblical,
Egg Nog
Theological, and Practical Roots of the American Temperance Society, 1814–1830.” PhD Dissertation, University of Virginia, 2008.
Egg Nog Egg nog, or eggnog, is a traditional, richly sweet beverage consumed during holidays, particularly Christmas. Basic ingredients include milk and/or cream, sugar, and beaten eggs. Common flavorings include vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Spirits such as bourbon, brandy, vodka, or rum are often added, are popular toppings such as chocolate sprinkles or curls, cinnamon, meringue, nutmeg, or whipped cream. Today, this beverage can be purchased seasonally or prepared at home. Egg nog has both European and American roots. By many accounts, only the upper classes in England could afford to make beverages from fresh dairy products, sugar, and spices. In colonial America, however, where farm eggs, milk, and affordable imported rum were plentiful, egg nog evolved into the familiar traditional treat enjoyed by large segments of the population. By the 1800s, egg nog was largely a social drink served at holiday gatherings. In time, bourbon became an alternative to rum. The exact origin of the name egg nog is unknown. Possibly, the expression grew out of a reference to “noggin,” a word for a wooden cup in which alcohol was once served. The name may be a blend of the words egg and grog, with grog being a term for thinned rum that may have originated on 18th-century naval vessels. The exact lineage of the beverage itself is also debated. Some likely possibilities include evolutions from early European concoctions known as syllabubs and possets. Posset, in medieval times, was a heated, sweetened, sometimes spiced milk drink curdled with ale, beer, fruit juice, or wine. Possibly this warm drink was used for medicinal purposes, as a nightcap, or simply as a means of warming the body on a cold day. A fortified wine known as sack was used in later centuries, and the drink was called sack posset. Similar to posset, a syllabub involved mixing sweet cream or milk with cider, fruit juice,
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or wine (possibly white) in a manner that resulted in a frothy drink. A version made with thicker cream and beaten egg whites came to be served as a dessert. Over time, egg nog has also been known as egg milk punch and egg flip. The term flipping may have been a reference to the frothing caused by a popular practice of inserting a red-hot iron poker into a liquid alcoholic mixture. Another possibility is that the flip was named for the action of tossing a combination of ingredients from one pitcher or glass to another as a method of mixing. Regardless of the origin of its recipe or name, egg nog is often a fundamental part of today’s holiday festivities. Many American family celebrations during holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s traditionally include egg nog, with or without added alcohol. Adding alcohol is sometimes referred to as spiking. Relative to the amount of spike and individual metabolisms, partakers’ experiences can range from a mild lowering of inhibitions to varying degrees of intoxication. Egg nog’s sweetness and consistency can mask its intoxicating effects, sometimes leading to adverse consequences. Revelers in 1826 at the U.S. military academy, for example, experienced some negative aspects of overindulgence when 19 West Point cadets and one soldier faced court-martial charges after drunken behavior at an unsponsored Christmas celebration resulted in assaults on officers and damage to property. The reckless misdeeds stemmed from a plot among cadets to bring alcohol, forbidden by Superintendent Sylvanus Thayer, into the academy’s North Barracks and partake of the traditional holiday egg nog spiked with the contraband. Forever after, this event has been known as the Eggnog Riot. Among the merrymakers was a now-recognizable name—Jefferson Davis. By some reports, 11 cadets were expelled. Despite the downfalls, egg nog is generally considered delectable, and recipes abound; of note is an often-shared, heavily alcoholic recipe reportedly authored by George Washington. Although most versions, like Washington’s, are high in fat, calories, and cholesterol, healthier preparations are possible. Sugar-free, low-fat, and vegan formulas can be prepared and are often commercially available. Some manufacturers produce almond-, coconut-, rice-, or soy-milk versions.
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Egypt is an egg dessert served in Eastern Europe. Trinidad and Venezuela make a liqueur that typically contains milk, eggs, sugar, rum, and flavorings called Ponche Cream. Rompope is Mexican egg nog, which is also popular in Costa Rica and El Salvador and has a yellowish tint because of the egg yolks. Zabaione (alternatively, Zabaglione) is an Italian dessert often made with marsala wine that can also be prepared as a beverage. Glenda Jones Sam Houston State University See Also: Caribbean Islands; History of Alcoholic Beverages; Holidays; Punch.
Egg nog sprinkled with nutmeg. While egg nog has long been a traditional Christmas drink, it has had many other variations, including iced summer drinks and Central American versions made with coconut or almonds.
As a whole, American consumers generally like eggs and appreciate their versatility. Eggs are a common element in many American dishes so, not surprisingly, various recipes call for egg nog as an ingredient, especially during yuletide. For example, a common breakfast dish known as French toast can be made with egg nog; another option is egg nog bread. Custards, cakes, candies, creams, pastries, pies, puddings, and even syrups can use egg nog as an ingredient. Recipes also exist using the egg-and-milk-based beverage to make other drinks or punches; in fact, this popular commodity can be incorporated into almost any dish with a dairy component. Many countries consume drinks or desserts similar to egg nog. The Dutch produce Advocaat, an egg, sugar, and brandy drink. A version prepared with rum in Puerto Rico is known as coquito. Germans enjoy Eierpunsch, which is similar to egg nog and made with egg yolks, vanilla, white wine, and occasionally cream. Kogel mogel
Further Readings American Egg Board. http://www.aeb.org (Accessed May 2014). Crackel, Theodore J. West Point: A Bicentennial History. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Funck, Carol S. “The Eggnog Riot.” U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center (2010). http:// www.army.mil/article/49823/The_Eggnog_Riot (Accessed May 2014). Rognvaldardottir, Nanna. “History of Eggnog.” What’s Cooking America. http:// whatscookingamerica.net/Eggnog.htm (Accessed May 2014). Starr, Renee E. “Careful With That Eggnog.” GPSolo, v.30/6 (2013). Wondrich, David. Imbibe! From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to “Professor” Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar. New York: Penguin Group, 2007.
Egypt In Ancient Egypt, the consumption of alcohol seems to have been fairly widespread among wealthier people. Winemaking probably had first been developed in Asia Minor, and from there it spread to Egypt, where it seems to have been only consumed by the wealthy on account of the cost, with one of the officials at the pharaoh’s palace being called the “bearers of the secrets of the wine hall.” Wine was
also imported from Canaan prior to the establishment of vineyards in Egypt. These were located at Memphis, Sile, and Behbeit el-Hagar, as well as in some oases in the Libyan Desert. Wine jars have been found in archaeological excavations in Egypt. Thirty-six of these were found in 1922 by the famous archaeologist Howard Carter when he opened the tomb of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun, who reigned from 1332 to 1323 b.c.e. The wine in Tutankhamun’s tomb was all stored in pottery jars that had been sealed with clay and then labeled with details about the vineyard and also the date of production. One had the following details: “Year 5: Wine of the House of Tutankhamun, Ruler-of-the-Southern-On, l.p.h. [in] the Western River; by the chief vintner Khaa.” After main years of study, it was revealed as being red wine, and subsequent studies of two other jars revealed white wine and fortified wine. Wine and Beer in Ancient Egypt A study of the wine has shown that the most favored wine was that which was produced from the first pressing of the juice. From surviving images from Ancient Egypt, this wine was pressed with the grapes placed in an open tank similar to those that are used in Portugal to produce port. However, the workers did not link their arms together but held onto bars just above head height, which allowed them to keep their balance. The wine was later sieved just before it was poured out, with the resin added as a preservative. After the first pressing took place, the pulped grapes, pips, and stems were then placed in a large sack, which was then twisted to obtain lower grape wine. In addition, dates, pomegranates, figs, and also plums were fermented to provide liqueurs. Although the Egyptians did produce their own wine, they also imported wine from other places, including the Holy Land, and there are reports that the wine in Canaan was particularly good, with several references to this in the Bible. They also exported wine, and muscat of Alexandria is believed to have originated in Egypt and then traded by the Romans around the Mediterranean. As well as wine, beer—known as heneket— was common among poorer people. It was made from barley with pieces of bread soaked in water and then drained after a period of fermentation. The same process seems to have been used to
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that which was practiced in Mesopotamia, and it seems possible that the technique might have been imported from that region. The beer was then stored in vats in cellars. The extent of the consumption of beer is evident from the depiction of the god Osiris as the deity who was involved in inventing beer. Much of the evidence for alcohol in Ancient Egypt comes from analysis of archaeological sites, and it is known that there were at least 17 types of beer and 24 types of wine being drunk. The largest brewery that has been uncovered is at Hierakonpolis (“City of the Hawk”). History of Alcohol Production With the Byzantines, wine and beer production continued. However, there were restrictions with the arrival of Islam. The Ayyubid Dynasty came to power in Egypt in the 12th and 13th centuries, and they introduced a ban on alcohol consumption. With the influx of many Europeans to Egypt from the early 19th century, much alcohol started to be shipped to the country. During the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, there was extensive alcohol consumption by the increasingly large foreign community largely based in Cairo and Alexandria. Shepheard’s Hotel and other establishments were well-known for the availability of fine wines, American bourbon, whiskey, and many other types of spirits. Local licensing laws meant that alcohol could not be served until after 12:30 p.m. The Al Ahram Beverages Company was founded in 1897 and was initially located at Giza. It brewed most of the beer in the country, with the most famous brand being Stella and the others Sakara Gold, Sakara King, and Meister Max. Much later, it started to produce Heineken in Egypt and also the export beer Rex Strong Beer. Large numbers of British and Australian soldiers were based in Cairo during World War I, with drunken Australian soldiers running riot. This caused the famous Battle of the Wassa on April 2, 1915, partly because of the spreading of rumors that they were being given diluted alcohol. There was a second “battle” on July 31, 1915. During World War II, the British and Australian army commanders were both better prepared for the influx of soldiers. King Farouk, when he succeeded to the throne in 1936, abstained from alcohol and partook in prayer regularly. However, there was a major
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change in his lifestyle, possibly brought on by a car accident, and he started to live extravagantly and began drinking heavily, preferring cocktails. He was overthrown in 1952 and fled into exile when he lived lavishly until his death after a magnificent meal in a French restaurant in Rome. Recent Restrictions The new Egyptian military government that came into power tried to reduce Western influence and introduced some restrictions on the importation of alcohol. This continued under the rule of Colonel Nasser whose government nationalized the Al Ahram Beverages Company in 1963. His successor, President Anwar Sadat, then went further and forbade the sale of any alcohol in most of Egypt except in places that catered to foreign tourists. However, under President Hosni Mubarak, the Al Ahram Beverages Company was privatized in 1997 and sold to Heineken International five years later. The emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 2000s led to many calls for far more restrictions on the sale of alcohol in Egypt. With the Arab Spring uprising of 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood made more demands on limiting alcohol sales. Some of these were introduced after the election of Mohamed Morsi, with the new government deciding to raise taxes, doubling the levy on beer to 200 percent, and increasing the tax on wine from 100 percent to150 percent. There was also a move to stop the sale of alcohol in dutyfree shops at airports in the country. These moves ended with the overthrow of the Morsi government on July 3, 2013. The minimum legal age for buying and consuming alcohol in Egypt remains 18 for beer and 21 for wine and spirits. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Alexander the Great; Ancient World, Drinking in; Archeological Evidence; Egypt, Ancient; Muscat. Further Readings Fewster, Kevin. “The Wazza Riots, 1915.” Journal of the Australian War Memorial, v.4 (April 1984). Geller, Jeremy R. “Bread and Beer in FourthMillennium Egypt.” Food and Foodways:
Explorations in the History and Culture of Human Nourishment, v.5/3 (1993). Geller, Jeremy R. “From Prehistory to History: Beer in Egypt.” In The Followers of Horus, Renée Friedman and Barbara Adams, eds. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1992. Guasch-Jané, Maria Rosa. “The Meaning of Wine in Egyptian Tombs: The Three Amphorae from Tutankhamun’s Burial Chamber.” Antiquity, v.85/329 (2011). Guasch-Jané, Maria Rosa, Cristina Andrés-Lacueva, Olga Jáuregui, and Rosa M. Lamuela-Raventós. “First Evidence of White Wine in Ancient Egypt from Tutankhamun’s Tomb.” Journal of Archaeological Science, v.33 (2006). Guasch-Jané, Maria Rosa, Maite Ibern-Gómez, Cristina Andrés-Lacueva, Olga Jáuregui, and Rosa Maria Lamuela-Raventós. “Liquid Chromatography with Mass Spectrometry in Tandem Mode Applied for the Identification of Wine Markers in Residues from Ancient Egyptian Vessels.” Analytical Chemistry, v.76 (2004). Healey, Tim. Life in the Land of the Pharaohs. London: Reader’s Digest Association, 1994. Kingsley, Patrick. “Egypt’s Islamist Rulers Get Tough on Alcohol.” The Guardian (March 25, 2013).
Egypt, Ancient Egyptian culture is unique in that it has been exceedingly well documented for the last 7,000 years. Great quantities of murals, carvings, papyri, and other artifacts have documented all aspects of Egyptian life over the millennia, from ceremonies of the pharaohs to activities of daily life among the lower classes. The production and use of alcoholic beverages in Egyptian society has been recorded thoroughly and illustrates many aspects of an ancient culture. Beer was the most common alcoholic beverage in ancient Egypt, for very practical climactic and agricultural reasons. Grapes were very difficult to cultivate, while barley and other cereal grains were produced all along the Nile. Wine was often imported from Greece, Phoenicia, or Palestine, making it expensive and only within reach of the nobility. Beer was so important
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This mural depicting a grape harvest in ancient Egypt was found in a burial chamber dating to around 1422–1411 b.c.e. Wine was also made from palm dates, pomegranates, and other fruits, and as many as 25 varieties of red, white, or black wine existed. The highest quality Egyptian wines were cultivated in the Nile Delta and the Canopic branch of the river.
to the daily lives of ancient Egyptians that the hieroglyphic symbol for food was a pitcher of beer and a loaf of bread, and “bread and beer” was a common greeting. Beer Production Every household, rich or poor, brewed their own beer. There were also large commercial breweries scattered throughout the region. While a dizzying variety of beers were produced, the basis for all was barley bread. Barley would be moistened and dried repeatedly until it fell apart when rubbed. The shredded barley would be ground with more water added, and the dough would be shaped into loaves and baked. The loaves would be stored and kept dry until needed. When ready to brew
a batch of beer, loaves would be crumbled into water in a fermenting vessel to start the fermenting process. The same vessels were used repeatedly, leaving traces of yeast behind as a starter. Different fruits or spices would be added, depending upon the use of the final product. Beer could be made stronger or weaker or sweet or spiced. There were specific beers for religious rituals and narcotic beers used as sleeping agents. Uses for Egyptian Beer From the earliest days, beer facilitated social interaction. Drunk from the same vessel in which it was brewed, individuals would gather around the pot with long straws and share. The straws were necessary to filter the straw, chaff, and other
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debris floating on top of the beer. Sharing from the same vessel made everyone gathered equal and fostered camaraderie. Equally ancient is the belief that alcoholic beverages had supernatural properties and were gifts from the gods. To Neolithic drinkers, beer’s ability to intoxicate seemed magical—as did the entire fermentation process. Intervention from the gods was the only explanation for the transformation of plain gruel into beer. Egyptian mythology describes how the god Osiris, god of agriculture and king of the afterlife and rebirth, prepared a mixture of water and germinated grain, then left it in the sun, and forgot about it. He later returned to find the jug fermented. He drank it and was so pleased that he shared his discovery with humankind. Many different cultures have a similar story in their mythology, hinting that the accidental discovery of fermentation occurred in various places around the world. As beer was a gift from the gods, it was the obvious substance to present as a religious offering. Beer was used in religious and agricultural ceremonies, fertility rites, and funerals. Bread and beer were left in tombs to ensure well-being in the afterlife. Beer was a key ingredient in ancient Egyptian medicine. It was recognized as a mild sedative and served as the base for a number of recipes with various herbs and spices. Because beer was made with boiled water, it was less likely to be contaminated. Ancient Egyptian medical texts offer remedies for many common ailments that include alcohol. For example, half an onion mixed with frothy beer would cure constipation, while mixing powdered olives with beer settled indigestion. Beer so permeated the lives of ancient Egyptians that bread and beer were used as currency. The workers laboring to construct the pyramids around 2500 b.c.e. were paid in beer. According to the archaeological record, the standard wage for a common laborer was three or four loaves of bread and two jugs of beer—a jug holding the equivalent of eight pints today. Officials and supervisors received even more. Because the government collected grain as a tribute and essentially redistributed it as payment, it provided workers a sense of unity. Commercial breweries paid a fortune in taxes on the thousands of gallons produced each year, serving as a reliable source of revenue for the pharaoh.
Egyptian Wine By the time Egypt entered the dynastic era, circa 3100 b.c.e., beer had been established as the beverage of the worker, where wine was limited to the elite. While Egypt had vineyards, the climate and soil necessary to produce grapes were restricted in area, plus grapes were harvested once per year, while grain could be stored and brewed into beer on demand. Importing wine from other regions of the ancient world made it a very pricey purchase for rulers and nobles. Harvest time brought men, women, and children to the vineyards with much merriment and song. Wine makers would select the grapes for crushing and place them in large vats. The resulting liquid would be poured off into fermenting vessels. Fermentation would start six to 12 hours after pressing or treading on the grapes and took only a few days to become a thin, watery, flavorless wine. It could be drunk in its diluted form or distilled into other alcoholic beverages. Other ingredients were often added to enhance flavor or to hide defects. Egyptian wines were sorted into three grades, basically good, three times as good, and not so good. The highest quality wines were the northern wines, cultivated in the Nile Delta and the Canopic branch of the river. There were several groups of wine, made from grapes, palm dates, pomegranates, and other fruits. They were blended with herbs, honey, or other flavorings, making at least 25 varieties of red, white, or black wine. There was zealous worship of the god Osiris, the god of wine, the afterlife, and the underworld, also crediting him with the discovery of beer. Seth and Hathor were also wine deities and the patrons of the two main wine-producing regions famous for their high-quality product. At Bubastis, a city in the Nile Delta, Egyptians celebrated the Festival of Bastet, where the goddess Hathor appeared in her peaceful form. More wine was drunk at this feast than over the whole rest of the year. Ancient Egyptians refined the fermentation process and over the centuries and came to excel at producing beer and wine. However, the hallmark of Egyptian drinking over the millennia is relatively low consumption. With the exception of certain ceremonies, alcohol consumption was modest despite its ready availability. Alcohol was
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used for medicinal, nutritional, ritual, and commercial purposes in addition to drinking moderately for pleasure and camaraderie. Jill M. Church D’Youville College See Also: Beer; Brewing Beer, Techniques of; Egypt; Fermentation, Ancient Era Through Middle Ages; Grain Alcohol, Ancient Era Through Middle Ages; Greece; Mead. Further Readings Gately, Iain. Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol. New York: Gotham Books, 2008. Homan, Michael M. “Beer and Its Drinkers: An Ancient Near Eastern Love Story.” Near Eastern Archaeology, v.67/2 (2004). McGovern, Patrick E. Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. Rosso, Ana Maria. “Beer and Wine in Antiquity: Beneficial Remedy or Punishment Imposed by the Gods?” Acta Medico-Historica Adriatica, v.10/2 (2012).
Eighteenth Amendment Driven by the ideals of Progressives and the morality-infused politics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries’ social movements, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the Anti-Saloon League, and the Prohibition Party advocated for America’s version of alcohol prohibition to be codified in the form of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. At the heart of Progressive advocacy for Prohibition was a long-range goal of regulating all industry, including wasteful abuse of resources, government corruption, and exploitation of workers. Novel for the time, but a prevailing trend to come, was the inclusion within the Progressive movement and religious organizations of recognized female political voices, including U.S. Assistant Attorney General Mabel Walker Willebrandt, who identified the corruption of public officials that was inhibiting the federal government from fully enforcing Prohibition
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and the Volstead Act’s dictates, and Elizabeth Friedman, who was a Coast Guard operative curtailing coastal rum running. Steering righteousness as the ideal leading America away from supposed liquor-causing immorality was evangelical, tent revival leader Carrie Nation. Together men and women, Progressive and religious zealots, as well as “dry” and “wet” politicians were forces battling for America’s sobriety and inebriation via legislative and constitutional means. Progressive idealism, according to many historians, comported on three foundations: Progressives and Prohibitionists were of the same ideological ilk; parallel trends in reform sentiment of the early 20th century witnessed a collaboration between the two social-engineering minded groups; and many prominent Progressives supported, and were active in, the Prohibition movement. The first connection between these dry advocates can be perceived as morality tied to institutionalism, thereby supplicating government to right society’s ship that had gone askew due to use and abuse of alcohol. Before and following World War I, a bevy of reforms regarding social and political wrongs were instituted, including compulsory education, labor laws, and illicit substance regulatory controls. While still tempering economic and political environments following a three-year engagement in World War I, congressional lawmakers heeded the calls from anti-alcohol groups and began debate regarding the “dry” amendment on December 18, 1917. Less than two years later, on January 16, 1919, with Nebraska’s ratification of the “Noble Experiment,” Prohibitionists were rewarded with a three-section Eighteenth Amendment mandating a prohibition on the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof the United States and all the territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof beverage purposes.” Though some statelevel disagreement was still apparent (Rhode Island policy makers staunchly refused to give a legislative nod to the anti-alcohol legislation and New Jersey’s legislature agreed to the amendment postenactment) the Eighteenth Amendment became law of the land, thus concurrently enforceable by “Congress and the several States” on January 20, 1920.
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While the impetus of national Prohibition is deservingly credited to the aforementioned mobilized forces, their state and federal political allies, namely Congressmen Andrew Volstead and Richard Hobson, contributed the necessary legislative proposals, lobbying, and vote garnering for the Eighteenth Amendment’s ratification. In turn, a trend toward a national alcohol ban, which had built up steam prior to World War I, was reenergized following America’s disengagement from European conflicts. Social Movements and Mobilization Narratives of able-bodied men gathering in taverns to discuss the goings-on of their communities, saloons filled with rowdy cowboys, and exotic libations being imported from all over the world to be imbibed by wealthy industrialists are part and parcel to “America’s story” of development. Yet, so too is temperance and/or prohibition of alcohol in one form or another. The religious pillars of American culture contributed greatly to the temperance theme, especially Protestant sects, including the Methodists led by John Wesley, Society of Friends (Quakers), Presbyterians, and Universalist Church. Each of these organizations and many others wove anti-alcohol rules into their church conventions and practices. Throughout the early 19th century, as religious leaders advocated, their respective organizations’ antiliquor tenets, many individuals of prominence, inside and outside a church sanctuary, argued for government to enact laws mimicking religious dicta. Dr. Benjamin Rush ( known as the Father of American Psychology), the Reverend Mr. Weems (biographer of George Washington), and the Honorable Samuel Dexter (Secretary of War and Treasury) called for various antiliquor legislation ranging from limiting saloon hours to all-out prohibition. Soon-to-be president Abraham Lincoln even joined the Springfield, Illinois, Sons of Temperance chapter in 1852. By far, the organization most synonymous with the Eighteenth Amendment’s establishment is the Woman’s Christian Temperance Movement (WCTU), founded in 1874. From a ferment of disgruntled mothers and wives, the WCTU promoted many social reforms, including educational progress (publically funded kindergarten), women’s suffrage, and notifying citizens of
the dangers of tobacco use. However, abstinence from alcohol and all the “evils” associated with liquor was at the forefront of the WCTU’s policy platform. With a membership concentrated in New York and Ohio, WCTU officers initially targeted state and local governments before joining forces with the Anti-Saloon League and other prohibitionist organizations. With shared geographic origins (Oberlin, Ohio) with the WCTU, the Anti-Saloon League was established in 1895 and could advocate on a local level as well as nationwide because of the founding of its Washington, D.C., headquarters in 1885. The organization was dominated by male members possessing the right to vote and thus the ability to pressure public officeholders beyond merely moral grounds. However, just as the WCTU wove religious messages in its mission, so too did the Anti-Saloon League, by employing churches as vehicles for its policy preferences. From the pews of variant churches, the AntiSaloon message was disseminated and funds garnered for a localized piecemeal change to liquor laws with an eye to eventually transferring their dry ways to a national campaign. The overriding mission of Anti-Saloonists was not just to curtail America’s consumption of alcoholic beverages but also to “solve the liquor problem,” and that implied working across political lines in securing bipartisan support for their anti-alcohol laws. Political Action Toward National Prohibition The existence of a dry candidate was impetus for endorsements from anti-alcohol organizations. but if both candidates backed prohibitive policies, the league stayed on the sidelines until election. Though the WCTU and Anti-Saloon League endorsed and pressured political candidates, their cause did have an official political presence with the policy-myopic, less resourced, Prohibition Party ( founded in 1863). All of these organizations built, in part, their belief in a national prohibition on already codified state-level dry laws, including the first enacted by Maine legislators in 1851 and 12 other states by 1855. Therefore, prohibitionists had a variety of political, social, religious, and legal building blocks with which to advocate for a constitutional amendment outlawing the manufacture, transportation, and sale of beer, wine, and spirits.
Specifically speaking to the temperance movement and calls for codified prohibition, many American history and political scholars define the era between the start of the 20th century to 1919 as a “nonpartisan” period. Whether a drinker or teetotaler, those holding and seeking public office were already in the Prohibition camp or became inclined to advocate either an incremental or allout shift in policy toward Prohibition. Zealous anti-alcohol organizational activity took place between 1913 and 1919 with numerous states adopting prohibition, congressional legislation limiting alcohol ingredients in an array of foods, and various prohibitionist conventions taking place. With the Prohibition Party, WCTU, and Anti-Saloonists holding annual meetings, political pressure was given to state and federal officeholders to propose, promote, and pass a constitutional amendment to make the United States a dry nation. The first decade of the 20th century saw numerous pieces of federal dry legislation put forward, along with a growing trend of states outlawing liquid intoxicates. Between the years 1914 and 1917, over 15 state legislatures, including Arizona, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Virginia, codified prohibition for their citizenry, while just prior to that cavalcade of “teetotalling” measures Congress passed the Webb-Kenyon Act in 1913. The primary objective of the Webb-Kenyon Act was to outlaw transportation of alcohol (and the manufacturing means) to dry states. Later in the same year (December 13, 1913) a constitutional amendment was proposed for the first time calling for national prohibition. Essentially, by enacting the Webb-Kenyon bill, Congress was helping to enforce the anti-alcohol mandates within dry states. Ten months after the Webb-Kenyon Act was ratified, the Fifteenth National Convention of the Anti-Saloon League was held, cumulating with the passage of a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment prohibiting the manufacturing, sale, importation, exportation, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. Social and political forces had now firmly converged. Just three days before Christmas 1914, the House of Representatives voted for the first time on the prohibition amendment resolution. The House’s vote came on the heels of Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Virginia, and Washington all
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agreeing with the temperance path. Coincidentally, America’s shift toward outlawing alcohol took place in concurrence with Germany invading Luxembourg, an action that essentially initiated World War I. Though the domestic trend seemed to indicate House approval of the resolution, national prohibition would have to wait when the bill, receiving 197 votes for and 190 against, failed to receive the necessary two-thirds majority for passage. The failure of congressional drys to get the prohibition resolution through the House of Representatives did little to slow down the greater temperance movement and its political hopes. In 1915, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, and South Carolina went “on the wagon” when their respective legislatures enacted prohibition. Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, and South Dakota followed suit and joined the ranks of states banning alcohol-related commerce. More evidence of the WCTU, Anti-Saloonist, and Prohibition Party’s favor with voters came to light when the 1916 elections produced congressional victories for many dry candidates. By the end of 1917 well over half the states in the nation, along with Washington, D.C., had adopted prohibition; 1918 brought more of the same with Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Texas, and Wyoming implementing either state constitutional amendments or other types of legislation outlawing alcohol manufacturing and sales. Political influence from anti-alcohol organizations was reaching a fever pitch while President Woodrow Wilson contemplated breaking his campaign promise to keep America from committing to any military involvement in Europe. Sheppard and Lever Acts Two other major pieces of congressional legislation, one prior to and one post World War I, were passed that gave strong indications that the United States was to become a dry nation. The Sheppard and Lever Acts constituted antecedent formation to the eventual implementation of the Eighteenth Amendment. First, in 1916, the 64th Congress, meeting for the final time, voted on and approved the Sheppard Act. Named for its sponsor Senator John Morris Shepard of Texas, the legislation prohibited alcohol manufacturing and sales within the District of Columbia. Many
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pro-alcohol advocates, including prominent labor leader Samuel Gompers, pressed President Wilson to veto the bill. However, much to the dislike of Gompers, who promoted beer as the “workingman’s beverage,” Wilson signed the Sheppard Act into law on March 3, 1917, a little more than a month before declaring war on Germany. While most political attention was attuned to the European crisis, Washington, D.C., quietly got dry. Following World War I, vigorous public contemplation and congressional debate returned to issues of the domestic variety with prohibition atop the national policy docket. With the passage of the Lever Act in 1917, prohibitionists were able to make headway toward a constitutional amendment immediately following America’s entry into the “Great War.” However, national temperance was pushed to the policy margins while military battles raged overseas. Dropping alcohol rates in beer and wine to 2.75 percent and 3.0 percent, respectively, via the Lever Act did little to placate prohibitionists. Wilson’s reticent signing of the legislation, coupled with an increasing statelevel trend toward outlawing alcohol, gave political credence to the prohibition fever raised by the social movement mobilization of the WCTU, Anti-Saloon League, and other prohibitionist groups during the late 1800s and early 1900s. As Congress inched closer to answering the WCTU’s and Anti-Saloon League’s claims that alcohol manufacturing and consumption generating an ever-increasing immorality and ill health among the population, the economic reliance on alcohol taxes waned. One year prior to the congressional introduction of a constitutional resolution on alcohol prohibition, the states ratified the Sixteenth Amendment. Thus, dependence on liquor-based tax revenue was supplanted by the new national income tax, opening the door for a resurgence in the feasibility of national alcohol prohibition. On September 1, 1917, the Senate voted 65-20 to approve and send the constitutional amendment resolution for prohibition into the House of Representatives’ chamber, where passage would trigger state legislatures to consider drawing more ink from the well of Article V (constitutional amendment process) in order to incorporate the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. As expected, the House approved the resolution
on December 18, 1917, by a vote of 282-128. While the constitutional amendment circulated among the various states, fuel was added to the anti-alcohol legislative fire. Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Texas, Wyoming, and Kentucky outlawed alcohol in their respective states. If 1917 was the apex of congressional activity toward Prohibition, the calendar swirled with state ratification debate and voting in the next two years. On January 8, 1918, Mississippi legislators started the ball rolling by becoming the initial signers of the wouldbe amendment. On January 14, 1919, after 34 more state assemblies approved of national Prohibition, lawmakers of the Cornhusker State gave Nebraska the distinction of being the 36th and last state needed to ratify by agreeing to the proposed premises outlawing alcohol manufacturing, transportation, and sales. Two days later on January 16, 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment was officially enacted as national law. Implementation, Enforcement, and Backlash As can be seen by reading the text of the Eighteenth Amendment, Congress offered no mandates or directives, except federal and state concurrent powers, regarding prohibitive enforcement: Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress. To add muscle to the skeleton of national Prohibition, Congress, on October 18, 1919, hurriedly passed the National Prohibition Act, or as
it became commonly known, the Volstead Act. Nearly nine months to the day after ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment, federal legislators proposed, debated, and passed an enforcement scheme intended on curtailing and eventually eradicating alcohol production and sales in the United States. Giving definition to “intoxicating liquors” and enforcement procedures, the Volstead Act was quickly ratified by the House of Representatives by a vote of 287–100 and by the Senate without a roll call vote. President Wilson, however, thought the bill created too much division within his own party and vetoed it on October 27, 1919. Within 24 hours the House voted 176-55 and the Senate 65-20 to override Wilson’s executive stamp of rejection. Besides limiting the intoxicating properties of alcohol to between 0.5 and 1.0 percent, the Volstead Act also reserved the right of states to enforce the new laws within their own boundaries while allowing federal agencies the authority to investigate and prosecute violators. The road of national prohibition was being rapidly paved with policy preferences that prohibitionists had called for since the Civil War. Though the Eighteenth Amendment and Volstead Act were relatively quick in passing congressional and state constitutional dictates, Prohibition can be considered a set of incremental political and social developments due to social movement mobilization taking place for over 70 years. Though the newly enacted amendment gave concurrent powers to federal and state governments, Prohibition’s implementation and enforcement would be led by national agencies. At the federal bureaucratic level, the Prohibition Unit, under the auspice of the Treasury Department, was established in 1920 with John F. Kramer as its first commissioner. Less than a year later, President Calvin Coolidge appointed Roy A. Haynes as the commissioner of the newly named and administratively elevated Bureau of National Prohibition. Still under the direction of the Treasury Department, Haynes would outlast Coolidge’s presidential tenure by continuing on as President Herbert Hoover’s lead enforcer of the Eighteenth Amendment’s mandates until 1927. Under Haynes, the bureau began the work of cutting off illegal liquor routes, cracking down on speakeasies, and articulating regulatory policies and
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programs mandated by the president and Congress. Between 1920 and 1930, Congress exponentially increased the bureau’s budget by five times the original allocation. In 1924, J. Edgar Hoover was appointed director of the then-fledgling Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The FBI and Hayne’s prohibition forces worked hand in hand in conducting raids on illegal alcohol operations, arresting transgressors, and formulating innovative (and sometimes lethal) prohibitive tactics. While “cleaning up” and developing the FBI as a top-notch federal law enforcement bureau, Hoover used Prohibition as a means to enhance the FBI’s image. However, the Bureau of National Prohibition stood in stark contrast to the newly restructured and standardized FBI. In the first half of the 1920s, the Prohibition bureau became as well known for corruption and scandalous behavior as Al Capone’s criminal syndicate. By mid-decade, nearly one in a dozen Prohibition agents had been fired for acts including bribery, extortion, embezzlement, and submission of falsified documents. Therefore, manifestations of the Eighteenth Amendment can be seen as collateral crime in and out of government. In 1927, an effort was made to improve agent reliability and standards when the bureau was renamed the Prohibition Commission. Two years later, Prohibition agents were placed under civil service and relocated to the Department of Justice in 1930. The new decade brought with it an economic tailspin for America, identification of Prohibition’s shortcomings, and a reconsideration of the Eighteenth Amendment’s efficacy. Besides President Hoover calling for a committee (Wickersham Committee) to investigate possible alternations to the Volstead Act, the House Judiciary Committee decided to hold hearings on whether to modify the amendment or at least its associated policies, personnel, and procedures. Open to exploration of alternatives, including Prohibition Commission vetting, pro- and anti-alcohol advocates were called to testify. Criminal Activities A portion of the Eighteenth Amendment’s legacy that has been celebrated in popular cultural forms, including novels, television, and cinema, is the spectacle of criminal activities associated with Prohibition. Ironically, the immoral behaviors
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that anti-alcohol social movements identified as demonstrating the need to enact Prohibition were neither truly targeted nor eradicated by law enforcement during the 1920s. Though not the seminal cause of organized crime syndicates (many a ghetto and enclave of the early 20th century contained varying gangs and social networks that conducted black market transactions), one of the manifestations of outlawing alcohol was a heightened level of “collateral crime” associated with Prohibition. The immoral and illegal activities perpetrated by organized crime skyrocketed, incentivized through the financial gains offered by the dissolution of legal alcohol markets. As if needing a supplement or cultural companion, the thrilling and adventuresome times of the “Roaring 20s” were fueled, in part, by the illicit nature of alcohol during Prohibition’s duration. Many individuals enjoyed sneaking out, possibly with the aid of a newly affordable automobile, to find the closest speakeasy, partake in a glass of outlawed hooch, listen to jazz, and forget their worries. Organized crime, whether the neighborhood “brewer” or gangster-led syndicates, was all too willing to facilitate such times. By 1922, New York City alone was suspected of housing over 5,000 speakeasies with a Police Department estimate identifying the number of illegal liquor houses increasing to over 32,000 by the decade’s end. Over 20,000 speakeasies were sprinkled across metropolitan Detroit by 1928. Even though many Americans saw snatching a banned drink as part of an entertaining night or just letting off a bit of steam, the production (if done so within U.S. borders), sale, and consumption were all criminal. Therefore, much of the purchasing power of American consumers was well within the contraband-resourced arm of organized crime. Bureau of National Prohibition statistics demonstrate hyperactive law enforcement endeavors regarding arrests, confiscation of property associated with the manufacture of illegal beverages, and destruction of alcohol supply lines. However, the corresponding organizational structure and numbers regarding criminal activities are just as impressive. In 1919, Chicago Crime Commission Director Henry Chamberlain recognized the potential of the developed criminal syndicates: “Ours is a business nation. Our
Supporters of upholding the 18th Amendment protest in 1932, the year before Prohibition ended. In 1920, 153,000 gallons of banned liquor had been confiscated under the law. By 1927, that number had jumped to 32.5 million gallons.
criminals apply business methods. . . . The men and women of evil have formed trusts.” These “trusts” were with one another, their subordinates, and the public. The ability to do illegal business within the rubric of Prohibition solidified relationships and increased profits among bootleggers. The first year of national Prohibition was the beginning of spectacular law enforcement statistics, with 153,000 gallons of contraband liquor confiscated. Seven years later, that number jumped to 32.5 million gallons of banned liquid substances. As thousands of arrests were made by law enforcement authorities, millions of dollars were made by enterprising criminals. Conclusion Beginning in 1920 and ending in 1933, America’s “Noble Experiment,” in the form of the
Energy Drinks
Eighteenth Amendment, ran a relatively short historical arch; however, the time line drawn to discern the actual “beginnings” of the prohibition movement spans nearly a century of promotion via multiple social movements and political institutions. Added to the reasoning and structuring of anti-alcohol laws are the policy, political, and societal lessons learned and contemporarily referenced. It can be argued that the Eighteenth Amendment was neither noble nor practical, yet banning alcohol spawned political, social, and criminal activity. Maybe the most indelible mark Prohibition left was its contribution to democratically induced reform and understanding of the democratic political process. As a set of policies, Prohibition can be summed up in three broad categories: mobilization for reform, legal processes to enactment, and bureaucratic response to corruption. Mobilization toward political and social reform by temperance groups gave force to Prohibition’s creation, practices, and effects. At the historical “front end” of America’s banning of alcohol manufacturing, transportation, and sale stood the advocacy of the WCTU, Anti-Saloon League, Prohibition Party, and prominent public officials. Following the relatively fast constitutional amendment proposal, debate, and ratification process needed to codify national Prohibition, criminal organizations were too ubiquitous for the somewhat corrupt federal and state Prohibition enforcers. While federal coffers filled with personal income tax revenue garnered from the Sixteenth Amendment’s passage, many states and localities eventually felt the financial pinch caused by the lack of taxes previously collected from alcohol manufacturing and sales. Legal, regulatory-controlled liquor stores, restaurants, and bars were supplanted by illegal, criminally operated alcohol distribution lines and establishments ranging in size from swank, up-scale restaurants to one-room speakeasies. Jason S. Plume Independent Scholar See Also: Anti-Saloon League; Hoover, Herbert; Prohibition; Prohibition Party; Temperance Movements; Twenty-First Amendment; Volstead Act; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.
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Further Readings Blum, Deborah. “The Chemist’s War: The Little Told Story of How the United States Government Poisoned Alcohol During Prohibition With Deadly Consequences.” Slate.com (February 19, 2010). http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and _science/medical_examiner/2010/02/the_chemists _war.html (Accessed May 2014). Cherrington, Ernest H. The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America: A Chronological History. Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith, 1969. Frendreis, John and Raymond Tatalovich. “‘A Hundred Miles of Dry’: Religion and the Persistence of Prohibition in the U.S. States.” State Politics & Policy Quarterly, v.10/3. Hill, Jeff. Defining Moments: Prohibition. Detroit: Omingraphics, 2004 Kerr, K. Austin. Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985 Kyvig, David E. Law, Alcohol, and Order. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1985. Kyvig, David E. Repealing National Prohibition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979. Miron, Jeffrey A. Drugs War Crimes: The Consequences of Prohibition. Oakland, CA: Independent Institute, 2004. Okrent, Daniel. Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. New York: Scribner, 2010. Schhmeckebier, Lawrence F. The Bureau of Prohibition: Its History, Activities, and Organization. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1929. Timberlake, James H. The Dry Progressives Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900–1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965.
Energy Drinks In 2011, sales of energy drinks (EDs) grossed about $9 billion in the United States alone, and EDs make up a growing share of the global beverage market. Noteworthy EDs are Red Bull and Monster. The combination of ethanol (drinking alcohol, or ETOH) mixed with EDs (ethanol mixed in energy drinks, or AMEDs) has
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introduced a host of yet to be fully understood health and safety issues. EDs are readily available in grocery and convenience stores. Their stimulant properties as well as their high caloric content has raised concerns about their impact on the already questionable dietary and lifestyle choices of American youth. The Mixture of Energy Drinks and Alcohol Consuming a depressant drug with a stimulant drug to counteract depressant effects and enhance euphoria is called “speedballing.” Historically, the most potent speedball was the combination of intravenously (IV) administered cocaine (a psychostimulant) with heroin (an opioid depressant). This combination is known to provide the best two-drug intense and rapid euphoric effect. Whereas a cocaine and heroin IV speedball is not directly comparable with the mixture of EDs and ETOH, AMEDs may well be the “low end, orally administered, cheap combination speedball” of the present generation. What happens when EDs that contain the stimulant caffeine are mixed with the depressant ETOH? The result is a nonsedated drunk who stays awake longer while intoxicated and is thus more likely to continue drinking past safe amounts (as is reflected in the 20 percent increase in emergency department visits between 2004 and 2009 of 18- to 25-year-olds following AMED consumption). The flavor of some EDs can assist in masking the taste of ETOH and help counteract sedation. EDs can also modify ETOH inebriation by enhancing euphoria. Thus, the usual cues that slow ETOH consumption and end drinking are reduced, and ultimately more ETOH can be consumed per drinking bout. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recognized AMEDs as a potential health threat, and in November 2010 sent warning letters to the producers of AMEDs to cease adding a major stimulant (caffeine) to their products as it was deemed an “unsafe ingredient.” Many producers voluntarily complied by removing caffeine rather than provoking a putative ban on their products. However, the current common drinking behavior at parties and clubs in the United States, Australia, and Britain is the mixing of EDs with alcoholic beverages (one example is Red Bull and vodka).
ED Ingredients and Dangers The ingredients commonly found in EDs can be grouped into three major categories: 1. Stimulants, including guarana, yohimbine, ginseng, and caffeine; 2. Sugars (e.g., sucrose, glucose, fructose) used to improve flavor-given additives that may otherwise be bitter or “chemical in taste,” although a growing trend among women is the use of no-calorie sugar-free sweeteners (e.g., aspartame, acesulfame); and 3. Dietary supplements including vitamins (B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, and B12) claimed to enhance more energy from sugar; inositol (amounting to an appearance of a health advantage); amino acids (e.g., taurine, an anti-inflammatory agent that in high doses can cause gastrointestinal upset, creatine, and L-carnitine); and salt (about 200 milligrams—the amount of salt in a slice of pizza). ETOH is consumed for its euphoric and sedative effects. It is likely these effects are a product of the breakdown of ETOH by liver enzymes into acetaldehyde. Most drinkers do not prefer grain ETOH alcohol, as it is bitter and burns in the mouth and throat. Its taste is made palatable by the addition of flavoring agents, accounting for the thousands of differently flavored alcoholic beverages that facilitate drinking. Caffeine’s Actions Although it is likely that ED ingredients act synergistically, the real punch in EDs is caffeine. Without caffeine and related stimulants, what is left is a cocktail of sweeteners, salt, and vitamins that are remarkably less desirable for extending the euphoria, or counteracting the impairment, that comes from ETOH. Caffeine is the most consumed drug by humans to heighten alertness for the short term. Caffeine is structurally similar to the neurotransmitter adenosine. Caffeine occupies adenosine receptors producing a partial blockade of adenosine’s effects. As adenosine acts as an inhibitor in the central nervous system, the result
of inhibiting an inhibitor is excitation. Caffeine’s toxic signs can appear when more than 400 milligrams (mg) per day are consumed, but the average lethal dose is believed to be around 10 grams. The recommended “safe” daily adult limit of caffeine is 400 mg per day (child and pregnant female limits are lower). Caffeine intake is associated with increased blood pressure, tachycardia, heart arrhythmia, sleep disruptions, physiologic dependence, muscle tremor, enhanced urination (leading to dehydration), renal toxicity, depression, anxiety, withdrawal, episodic active and crash cycles, and gastrointestinal upset. Caffeine also interacts poorly with antibiotics and other medications, but, most of all, it initially produces excitation and a feeling of inexhaustibility. It is very troubling that new evidence supports the hypothesis that caffeine significantly slows brain development in young rats. Guarana is a plant in the maple family that is usually grown in the Amazon basin, and its seeds contain about twice the average amount of caffeine (4.5 percent), which is double that of the Arabica bean. This potent stimulant drug is often added to soft drinks consumed in Brazil. Yet, guarana’s caffeine content is not added to the total caffeine calculation on ED labels as it should be to give a true measure of caffeine content. Risk Factors Researchers have evidence to support the correlation between the consumption of EDs with ETOH and increased risk-taking behaviors and illegal substance use. They report a three- to fourfold higher ETOH consumption in drinkers leaving a party or club intoxicated who still think they can drive. What is lacking is a readily available ingredient that is safe and effective that greatly reduces or terminates the cognitive impairment and negative physiological effects from ETOH prior to leaving the party or prior to driving. Such a beverage additive would likely eliminate the need for EDs. In the absence of an additive to terminate ETOH, an error in reasoning for many drinkers is to add EDs to extend the duration until they experience the negative effects of ETOH (sedation, cognitive impairment, and disrupted judgment leading to and when driving). In rats, low doses of caffeine (5 milligram/kilogram, or kg) promoted ETOH intake, whereas
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higher doses (20 mg/kg) slowed ETOH intake. Both caffeine and ETOH readily cross the bloodbrain barrier. In short, caffeine and ETOH interactions are more complex than originally suspected. Although there are mixed results, EDs on the whole do not appear to counteract the complex motor and cognitive impairment of ETOH. However, it is believed that the combined sugar in EDs and ETOH produce significant weight gain. When alcohol levels in the blood rise, euphoria, sedation, and fatigue usually are interpreted as signals for a person to slow or end intake. The major physiological effect of stimulant drugs is to slow or mask the perception of fatigue. The end result is that a person will likely continue to drink more ETOH than they would without an ED mixer. Ultimately, a person consuming sugarfree EDs while drinking ETOH will become more dehydrated, which hinders ETOH metabolism. AMEDs already have all the negative effects of caffeine. For instance, caffeine’s diuretic effects are likely to enhance dehydration and hangover since the half-life of caffeine is six hours (dependent upon the dose), so there is still caffeine in the system 24 hours later. Other issues of mixing the two substances to be explored include higher rates of heart palpitations, enhanced sleep disturbances, more risky sex and incidence of sexual assault, epileptic seizure, ischemic stroke, higher probability of injury, more blackouts, dental erosion, blood sludges from small vessels (cells die from lack of oxygen), higher ETOH dependence, and on occasion sudden death. The true extent of the enhanced burden of AMED consumption on emergency department visits requires critically needed data collection and exploration. What current and potential future consumers of AMEDs need is education in order to weigh the advantage of the potential perceived boost in performance/euphoria against the cumulative risks of continuing to consume them. Paracelsus, an alchemist from the Middle Ages, is associated with the idea that everything is a potential poison. Whether a person becomes subject to toxicity is a matter of dose and exposure duration. Occasional and moderate intake provides lower risks for AMEDs than other drug combinations (e.g., the combination of cocaine and ETOH). Strong consideration for regulation might include product labels using “black box” product
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warnings to discourage mixing EDs with ETOH. This is a minimal cautious step in the right direction that can be taken until a fuller risk assessment of this combination is elucidated for pregnant and breast-feeding females; persons with seizures, heart problems, and diabetes; and minors. It is likely that the incidence of mixing ETOH with EDs will remain high despite the negative health and other risks. Daniel J. Calcagnetti Fairleigh Dickinson University at Florham See Also: Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, History of; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Tobacco and Drugs, Alcohol’s Interaction With. Further Readings Brache, Kristina and Timothy Stockwell. “Drinking Patterns and Risk Behaviors Associated With Combined Alcohol and Energy Drink Consumption in College Drinkers.” Addictive Behaviors, v.36 (2011). Reissig, Chad J., Eric C. Strain, and Roland R. Griffiths. “Caffeinated Energy Drinks—A Growing Problem.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence, v.99 (2009). Seifert, Sara M., Judith L. Schaechter, Eugene R. Hershorin, and Steven E. Lipshultz. “Health Effects of Energy Drinks on Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults.” Pediatrics, v.127 (2011). Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. “Update on Emergency Department Visits Involving Health Department Visits.” http://www.samhsa.gov/data/2k13/ DAWN126/sr126-energy-drinks-use.htm (Accessed September 2013).
Ethnic Traditions Alcohol consumption is an extremely important part of many ethnic identities. Drinking patterns found in various cultures and societies reveal much about the identity of individuals as they form connections to their ethnic group. Ethnic drinking habits and places of consumption
provide opportunities to build social cohesion and establish distinctive communities. The United States, with its multifarious immigrant populations, is a useful case study of merging or conflicting ethnic traditions surrounding alcohol. A broader view of the various ethnic responses to alcohol and drinking around the world sheds light on how various ethnicities interpret alcohol consumption and assign rules and social norms to drinking and drunkenness. Members of ethnic groups share the same attitudes, beliefs, values, customs, and norms. Belonging to an ethnic group shapes a person’s responses and interpretations to commonplace and extraordinary events. As such, drunkenness and drinking alcohol vary in both act and interpretation of alcohol consumption. Every culture in which alcohol is found forms rules and regulations that govern alcohol consumption and shape political and social identities. Who can drink what, where, and why are all variables that change from culture to culture. Anthropologist Mary Douglas has shown that drinking attributes to ethnic identities because drinking is a social act, performed in a social context recognizable to others. Some generalizations exist about the majority of alcohol drinking cultures. In all cultures in which drinking is found, people understand alcohol to be a commodity or an item of value. The consumption of alcohol for celebratory reasons is widespread, as is the drinking of alcohol as a coping mechanism. In cultures, there is a dedicated space in which to drink: in Ireland, the public house; in Germany, the beer garden; and in South Africa, the shebeen, to name a few. But drinking also occurs in the home and in private. Rules for how to behave in each of these places govern drinkers’ behavior; when rules are broken, labels such as drunk, alcoholic, and inebriate apply. Even what constitutes “drunkenness” can vary between cultures, as inebriated behavior is, in part, socially learned and patterned. The norms and expectations for drunken behavior vary across cultures and are often known only by the members of the society in which the drunkenness occurs. Ethnicities and Alcohol in the United States The United States serves as an example of conflicting and interactive ethnic identities due to
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high immigration and varied ethnic makeup. Interactions between the dominant culture and various ethnicities produce stressors that affect alcohol consumption. According to scholars Raul Caetano, Catherine L. Clark, and Tammy Tam, these include: • Stresses due to acculturation, most typically felt by immigrants who become disoriented by leaving their homeland and struggling to adapt to their new society • The experience of disempowerment due to socioeconomic stress, as members of ethnic groups compare their inadequate financial resources to the dominant population • Stresses of racism and tension from other ethnic groups These factors, particularly stereotypes concerning ethnicity and alcohol consumption, can exacerbate and increase alcohol consumption in ethnic populations. Alcohol consumption trends and patterns vary markedly across various groups in the United States. There is much diversity in alcohol-related problems as well. The variations within ethnic groups have been difficult for scholars to ascertain because of inadequate research about minority groups and alcohol consumption in general. Most often, scholars focus on five main groups: White/Caucasian Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, and American Indians/Alaskan Natives. Wide variations occur within these groups, however, as factors such as age, gender, and cultural characteristics also influence drinking behavior. For example, it is highly likely that a 40-year-old first-generation Jamaican American woman will exhibit drinking habits markedly different from those of a 20-year-old African American college student who recently joined a fraternity, or a middle-aged African American father of Muslim faith, even though all are considered to be ethnically African American. Substantial differences in drinking patterns and rates of alcohol-related problems also manifest among Hispanic subgroups. Asian Americans, too, differ in their definitions of heavy drinking
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and drunkenness. Genetic and cultural factors also influence drinking patterns. Scholars have broadly observed that drinking patterns among Asian Americans are lower than the national average. Native Americans have widely differing drinking patterns and a variety of influences, such as place of residence, affect the use of alcohol. These varying drinking patterns demonstrate that attempts for a comprehensive, single-cause understanding of alcohol and its role in a particular ethnicity is impossible. Phenomena such as one’s environment, genetic makeup, and cultural identification produce varying responses to alcohol within each ethnic group. Scholars have shown that once stereotypes about ethnic drinking arise in the dominant culture, they are difficult to undo. Examples include the drunken Native American, the drunk and whiskey-sated Irish American, or the Mexican American who cannot drop the tequila bottle. Asians experience a different stereotype in the belief that they are genetically disinclined to drink alcohol or experience an allergic reaction known as alcohol “flush” after consuming alcohol. Biologists believe that some Asians lack the allele necessary to chemically break down alcohol, which explains the “flushing” or having a red face after drinking. Psychologists and sociologists fear that some stereotypes can reinforce, or normalize, such behavior in various ethnic groups, thereby preventing appropriate clinical intervention and healing. More research into the heterogeneity of American ethnic groups is necessary and any generalized claims about groups as a whole should be made with caution. Historically, ethnicities in America have struggled with acceptance of drinking behavior and customs by the dominant culture. Temperance reformers of the 19th and 20th centuries often targeted ethnic drinking habits as detrimental to all of American society. American reformers of the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant tradition failed to recognize the importance that alcohol, such as wine during Catholic communion and wine during Jewish Passover, played in maintaining cultural traditions and connections with faraway family and places that immigrants loved. While today the St. Patrick’s Day festivities may be embraced by everyone, such raucous drinking events surrounding an Irish holiday in earlier
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centuries would have been anathema to all but the Irish. Similarly, the thought of an Oktoberfest celebrating German heritage and drinks, or Cinco de Mayo celebrations, would have been looked down upon. Today, many consider these festivals acceptable and fun. Americans have embraced the multicultural drinking traditions immigrants handed down, and while many stereotypes of certain ethnicities remain, the cultural traditions surrounding drinking have become enjoyable, much-loved celebrations and American holidays. Alcohol and Ethnicity in the World Outside the United States, ethnic responses to alcohol are tremendously varied. Scholars have found that the type of alcohol one drinks says much about the ethnic, cultural, and national identity of the individual. For instance, locals ordering a glass of red wine in the wine-producing region of Tuscany would know the difference between Chianti Classico and Chianti Riserva, of which a visitor ordering just “Chianti” would be unaware. Even something as widespread as beer varies among societies. Scholars Wulf Schiefenhovel and Helen Macbeth have shown that the component feature of cereal grains can attribute much to ethnic identity and conceptions of alcohol. In ancient Mesopotamia beer was made with einkorn; in Europe, wheat cultivators and barley; in America, maize; in China, rice and millet; in India, modern Africa, and China, sorghum; and even chewed manioc was used in South America. Drinkers in the United States or other Western nations may balk at the idea of using chewed manioc or rice for beer, and drinking such a concoction would likely open one up to ridicule. The temperature in which drinkers prefer beer differs as well. In tropical countries and North America, beer is served very cold in a frosted mug. In England, beer connoisseurs may ask for beer at room temperature. German hosts may ask if their guests would like their beer from the cellar or the fridge. Bavarians even serve heated beer in the winter to someone who is feeling ill. The places dedicated to drinking also say much about ethnic identity formation and group cohesion. How different ethnicities interpret certain behaviors while drinking also differs across cultures. The “pub,” or public house, suggests either
English or Irish heritage. Ordering a pint, some fish and chips, and drinking heartily with friends promotes ethnic solidarity. In South Africa, the shebeen is an important gathering point, and during the apartheid era these establishments were essential for organizing meetings of activists and community members. Originally illegal, the shebeens are now an important part of South African life. The Japanese izakaya is a place for gathering around sake, beer, and meat or vegetable skewers, among other local and national drinks and food. Within each society, a common gathering place featuring alcohol and food is often a space for viewing how social cohesion and community are made. All societies in which drinking occurs use alcohol as a ritualized celebratory substance. Toasting is common in many cultures, particularly at weddings, and, in the case of the Irish and some other groups, at funerals or gatherings mourning the dead. Offering alcohol to religious figures or ancestors and dead loved ones in the form of libations by pouring some out on the ground or holy place has been a part of ancient religious traditions throughout history and continues in places such as Cuba, the Philippines, Russia, and in some parts of America. A variety of ethnic groups consume alcohol at sporting events and leisure activities, but the behavior at such events is culturally determined. Drinking and aggression at a typical British rugby game might be similar to some of the violent outbreaks that have occurred in American sports stadiums but different from the behavior expected at a soccer match in Brazil, where alcohol is banned in the stadiums. Drinking before, during, and after the event varies in acceptability across cultures as well. Ethnicities throughout the world vary in their acceptance of drunken behavior. Some consider staggering or slurred words to be unacceptable cases of drunkenness, while others fail to consider someone drunk unless they are passed out and incapable of moving. Binge drinking among ethnicities also varies. Other differences include viewpoints on children drinking and the age at which young people are legally able to drink. In the United States the age is 21, while in Canada and European countries the age is 18 or 19, depending on the region. Some countries, such
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as Morocco and Cuba, require no specific age for legal consumption. Except for drunk-driving laws, which are measured by blood alcohol concentration (BAC), members of various societies and cultures understand levels of drunkenness differently. Even the BAC of various countries differ; in the United States a BAC of over 0.8 percent is grounds for a driving-while-intoxicated ticket, while in much of Europe the levels are much stricter at 0.2 percent or less. Considering ethnicity and alcohol allows for the perspective of similarities and differences that occur among ethnicities, cultures, societies, nations, and even regions. Drinking is an important expression of identity and culture, and at base it is a socially constructive act. Studies of national and ethnic identities always benefit from understandings of class, gender, religion, and socioeconomic status for the most in-depth understanding of how drinking is similar or different across ethnicities. Serenity S. Sutherland University of Rochester See Also: Drunken Behavior as Culturally Learned; Ethnicity, Alcohol, and Health; Religion; Rituals. Further Readings Bennett, Linda A. and Genevieve M. Ames. The American Experience with Alcohol: Contrasting Cultural Perspectives. New York: Plenum, 1985. Caetano, Raul, Catherine L. Clark, and Tammy Tam. “Alcohol Consumption Among Racial/Ethnic Minorities.” Alcohol Health and Research World, v.22/4 (1998). Committee on Cultural Psychiatry, Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry. American Experience with Alcohol: Racial and Ethnic Perspectives. Report No. 141. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, 1996. Heath, Dwight B. Drinking Occasions: Comparative Perspectives on Alcohol and Culture. Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel, 2000. Schiefenhovel, Wulf and Helen Macbeth, eds. Liquid Bread: Beer and Brewing in Cross-Cultural Perspective. New York: Berghahn Books, 2011. Wilson, Thomas M., ed. Drinking Cultures: Alcohol and Identity. New York: Berg, 2005.
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Ethnicity, Alcohol, and Health Alcohol is a widely used drug. Excessive alcohol consumption is a major risk factor for morbidity and mortality in all populations and is at epidemic levels among some ethnic groups. An array of factors influences the relationships among ethnicity, alcohol, and health, including but not limited to genetic inheritance, cultural attitudes toward alcohol within the ethnic group, cultural attitudes toward alcohol within the greater society, economic marginalization, cultural dispossession, and discrimination. Despite the wide range of possibilities covered by ethnicity, the etiology of alcohol abuse and alcoholism is often erroneously attributed to ethnic origins. Ethnic Group Ethnicity is a complex, heterogeneous concept. For present purposes, an ethnic group may be defined as a social group or category of human population whose members identify with each other and share a common and distinctive culture, religion, race, nationality, language, or combination of these. An ethnic group may be a population within a larger population, such as Native Americans within the U.S. population or indigenous Australians within the Australian population, but an ethnic group can equally well describe the larger population, such as the Irish and the Japanese. Yet this definition is problematic, as it tends to suggest that “ethnicity” is potentially a biological or anthropological category when it is more of a sociological category. Each ethnic group is unique and should be considered independent of other groups, as there is not necessarily homogeneity either within an ethnic group or across ethnic groups, nor should the relationships between ethnicity and alcohol and between alcohol and health be considered constant within an ethnic group or from one ethnic group to another. Alcohol use patterns and the prevalence of alcohol-related issues vary among ethnic groups. For any precise notion of the relationships among ethnicity, alcohol, and health, the ethnic group and context need to be specified, including gender. For instance, Native Americans living on reservations drink less frequently than Native Americans
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living in off-reservation towns, but reservation dwellers may engage in binge drinking (drinking five or more units of alcohol per day) more frequently and consume more alcohol per occasion when they do drink. Thus, lifestyle, which is not a defining factor of ethnicity, affects health. Considering an ethnic group to be homogenous can lead to inaccurate and misleading stereotyping. According to stereotypes, the Japanese drink sake and the Irish drink Guinness. Despite the misleading nature of these stereotypes, it may be true that the choice of alcoholic beverage can affirm a group’s preference. The alcoholic beverage consumed may not be a defining characteristic of an ethnic group, yet it may be a declaration of membership in a particular group, generation, class, tribe, subculture, or nation and its associated values, attitudes, and beliefs. Genetics Although alcohol is metabolized by several pathways, the most common depends on two enzymes in the liver: human liver alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH). Enzymes are catalysts—that is, agents that accelerate the rate and specificity of metabolic reactions. In the case of alcohol, these enzymes break down alcohol into acetaldehyde, the chemical responsible for light-headedness, palpitations, nausea, and “hangover” symptoms. These enzymes may function differently in different populations. Those populations with ALDH tend to suffer less from alcoholism and alcohol-related liver disease but are more likely to show alcohol-related sensitivity responses, such as vasodilatation, facial flushing, or reddening of the skin. Populations with an allele or variant of ALDH, sometimes referred to as ALDH2, respond with greater adverse reactions, such as increased heart rate and muscle weakness, to mild doses of alcohol than populations without this enzyme. These aversive reactions affect drinking behavior and may serve as a protection against heavy drinking. Many but by no means all Japanese have this allele, which means that there is not a genetic systemic difference between the Japanese and other population groups. Genetic factors may play a role, but they are not coextensive with ethnic factors. Genetic factors do have a large influence on health, but alcohol-related health problems are
more likely to be the result of social, economic, cultural, and political factors than genetic factors. Poverty Unfavorable socioeconomic conditions predict high rates of alcohol problems. Social inequalities link to health inequalities and alcohol abuse; however, there are misconceptions about these links and rates of alcohol misuse or abuse. For example, a common misconception is that certain ethnic groups, Australian Aborigines for instance, on the whole have a higher rate of alcohol consumption than the rest of the population, yet the percentage of Aboriginal Australians who do not drink alcohol is almost double that of nonindigenous Australians. Some ethnic groups are caught in a cycle of poverty. Although the exact elements of the cycle depend on the circumstances of a particular group, a cycle might involve the group suffering social exclusion due to discrimination or cultural dispossession, leading to poor educational opportunities or poor education; poor education leading to poor-paying jobs or unemployment, in turn leading to poor housing and often poor diet; the accumulation of issues leading to alcohol misuse as a way to address, tolerate, or avoid a group’s situation, in turn leading to poor health, which, along with unemployment, may reaffirm the reasons for discrimination or dispossession and once again lead to further discrimination. Within this cycle, there may be smaller internal cycles that exacerbate the larger cycle, such as alcohol misuse leading to poor diet and ultimately to poor health; for instance, chronic highrisk alcohol consumption is associated with lower rates of exceptional health and higher rates of psychological distress. Another example of an internal cycle is alcohol abuse leading to problems at work. These internal cycles may reinforce the larger cycle. Breaking the cycle of poverty has been shown to have beneficial effects; specifically within the indigenous Australian population, lower levels of alcohol use have been shown to be related to higher levels of income. Social Acceptance of Alcohol Alcohol use patterns can be influenced by social and cultural factors. Ethnic group norms and
attitudes regarding alcohol use have been found to be strong predictors of drinking. Thus, social controls may be more important than socioeconomic conditions in controlling alcohol problems. For some groups or societies, alcohol consumption is unacceptable; for instance, it is not accepted by those of the Muslim faith, which prohibits the use of any product capable of affecting behavior (drugs included), while other societies accept alcohol consumption, although cultural traditions and rules may restrict its acceptance. For example, among Hungarian Gypsies, there are very strict rules about drinking, such as their only being allowed to consume brandy first thing in the morning or during the middle of the night at a wake, or women only being allowed to consume it prior to a rubbish-scavenging trip. Serving or drinking brandy outside of these specific situational contexts is considered highly inappropriate. In addition, since drunkenness involves a loss of physical control, it is seen as demeaning. Other groups may not have these prohibitions or inhibitions about consuming alcohol. In societies or ethnic groups in which alcohol is socially acceptable or does not have a stigma attached to it or, indeed, has a positive association with family gatherings, food, and celebrations, people are more likely to drink. Among some ethnic groups, where the ethnic group is a subgroup of a general population that accepts alcohol consumption, there may be a higher rate of alcoholism and alcohol misuse or abuse than among the general population. For example, the rate of alcoholism among Native Americans is six times the U.S. average, and morbidity among Native Americans due to alcoholism has been reported at 59.8 per 100,000 compared with 8.6 per 100,000 for the general population. Health Alcohol increases the risk of developing more than 60 diseases and medical conditions, even at low levels of consumption. Alcohol is a major risk factor for various health problems, such as liver diseases, including cirrhosis and alcoholic hepatitis; pancreatitis; high blood pressure (hypertension); diabetes; cardiovascular disease; and some types of cancer, such as of the liver, mouth, bowel, and breast. As well as physical conditions, alcohol contributes to dementia, depression, anxiety,
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and stress. In addition to a number of diseases that alcohol causes or exacerbates, alcohol is also a leading cause of accidents, particularly automobile accidents. It has been estimated that 75 percent of all accidental deaths among Native Americas are alcohol related. By definition, alcohol abuse is a pattern of drinking resulting in harm to a person’s health, interpersonal relationships, or ability to work. High-risk drinking or harmful drinking means drinking in excess of the recommended daily or weekly amount of alcohol and experiencing health problems directly related to alcohol. While recommendations vary, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as an example, defines heavy drinking for men as consuming an average of more than two drinks per day or more than fourteen drinks per week, and for women as consuming an average of more than one drink per day or more than seven drinks per week. A drink means a standard drink, which is one unit of alcohol. The definition of a unit of alcohol varies. In the United States, a unit of alcohol is 14.0 grams or 17.7 milliliters; in Hungary, it is 17 grams or 21.5 milliliters; in the United Kingdom, it is 7.9 grams or 10 milliliters; and in Australia, it is 10 grams or 12.67 milliliters of pure alcohol. To translate this into beverages using the lowest of the standard drink definitions, 10 milliliters of pure alcohol is about half a pint of normal-strength lager or a single measure (25 milliliters) of spirits, while a small glass of wine (125 milliliters) contains about one-and-a-half units of alcohol. As an interesting side note, despite alcohol’s dilatory effect on health, there are ethnic groups that hold that it can have curative aspects. Hungarian Gypsies believe that wine fortified with spices such as paprika or black pepper is particularly good for remedying stomach disorders. Conclusion Ethnicity is a complex construct that includes biology, history, cultural orientation and practice, language, and religion, all of which can affect health. Therefore, no equivalence can be drawn between the alcohol consumption and health of various ethnic groups. Unfavorable socioeconomic conditions predict high rates of alcohol problems. Breaking the cycle of poverty has been
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shown to have a beneficial effect, yet social controls may be more important than socioeconomic conditions in controlling alcohol problems. David H. Bennett Charles Darwin University See Also: Disease Model of Alcoholism; Drunken Behavior as Culturally Learned; Ethnic Traditions; Native Americans; Psychological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse. Further Readings Brady, Maggie. The Grog Book: Strengthening Indigenous Community Action on Alcohol, rev. ed. Canberra: Department of Health and Aging, 2005. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Alcohol and Public Health.” Alcohol and Public Health. http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/index.htm (Accessed February 2014). Stewart, Michael. “I Can’t Drink Beer, I’ve Just Drunk Water! Alcohol, Commensality and Bodily Substance among Hungarian Gypsies.” In Alcohol, Gender and Culture, Dimitra Gefou-Madianou, ed. London: Routledge, 1992.
Europe, Central and Eastern Situated at the junction of Europe’s three alcohol belts (beer, wine, and vodka), the countries of central and eastern Europe—Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, and Belarus— constitute a diverse collection of national drinking cultures that reflect both the geography and history of what was once labeled Mitteleuropa. Blessed by rich soil, a favorable climate, and a rich cultural history of production and consumption of spirits, the region is renowned for its production of world-class beer, wine, and vodka, as well as a host of local liqueurs, including many internationally distributed brands. All countries in the region rank near the top of the world’s per-capita consumers of alcohol, with Moldova, Czech Republic, and Hungary
commanding the top three spots, respectively. Regulation in the region is quite varied, given the stark contrasts between wealthier nations and those emerging from Soviet rule. Beer, wine, and spirits are important to all of the region’s national economies, providing jobs and bringing in revenue from domestic sales, exports, taxation, and tourism. Drinking is deeply embedded in the various national cultures of the region, with alcoholism afflicting high numbers of people, particularly in the post-Communist eastern states, where cold temperatures and high levels of unemployment are blamed for habitual alcohol abuse and its concomitant social ills. Unlike the drinking culture of the Mediterranean, where mealtime imbibing is the norm, Middle Europe possesses a distinct attitude toward the consumption of alcoholic beverages that is separate from, though often complementary to, eating. In the western half of the region, beer drinking is the dominant pattern, with a wide variety of styles on offer at most establishments. The beer hall and biergarten tradition permeates Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic, wherein low-alcohol beer is consumed slowly, often with small snacks and much conviviality. Munich’s famous Hofbräuhaus is perhaps the most familiar example of this phenomenon. In Bavaria and Austria, the Weinstube, or wine tavern, is also a popular choice for locals and tourists alike. With proud traditions of viniculture, Hungarian and Romanian drinking cultures center around the fermented grape, with a variety of local wines available at most taverns and restaurants, though the legacy of Habsburg culture and German settlement linger in Transylvania, accounting for a strong taste for beer. Slovakia sits on the beer–wine divide with the former being more popular in the north of the country, while southerners favor wine. Moving farther east, the drinking culture tilts toward harder spirits. While Poles are certainly fond of beer and there are a number of good breweries, the shift toward vodka consumption begins here. In Belarus and Ukraine, like Russia, there is a historical absence of a tavern or pub culture, resulting in a higher prevalence of at-home drinking and (illegal) drinking in public spaces (though alcohol is an expected accompaniment to any meal in a restaurant). Alcohol consumption in post-Soviet eastern Europe is also more associated
with machismo, and drinking establishments generally lack the family-friendly atmosphere of most watering holes in west-central Europe. Since independence in 1993, the Czech Republic has easily commanded the mantle of the top consumer of beer in the world at approximately 132 liters per person per annum; the Czechs are closely followed by their neighbors in Germany at 117 liters. Taken together, these two countries—home to several of the world’s most coveted varieties of hops, including Saaz and Hallertau, dominate the long and storied history of beer production, rivaled only by Belgium. Not surprisingly, a number of the world’s most recognizable brands of beer come from one of the two countries. Germany’s most popular exports include Becks, Warsteiner, and Bitburger, while the Czech Republic is most known for Pilsner Urquell, Budvar (Budweiser), and Krušovice; however, both countries have hundreds of other regional and microbreweries. German and Czech brewers excel in light, dark, and black beers, but other styles include kölsch, unfiltered wheat beer (Weißbier), and smoked beer (Rauchbier). In the summer, Radler (a mix of lemonade and wheat beer) is also popular. Elsewhere in the region, beer consumption and production are robust as well, though lagers tend to dominate the market. Representative beers from Poland include Zywiec, Tyskie, and Okocim, whereas Dreher is most popular in Hungary, Obolon in Ukraine, and Krinitsa in Belarus. Ursus dominates Romania, which recently joined the world’s top 10 in terms of per capita beer consumption. In addition to local fare, major imports, including Heineken and Stella Artois, can be found in most restaurants, bars, and stores. Wine is the preferred potable in the region’s southern reaches, owing in part to Roman influence and a more temperate climate. Hungarian wines such as Tokaji and Egri Bikavér are perhaps the most famous exports from the area, but German, Austrian, and Romanian vintages are also sold abroad, with Rieslings from the Rhineland being particularly popular. Vineyards have long been an important part of the national economies of the Alpine and Carpathian countries, and wine tourism is a growing sector in Austria and, to a lesser extent, Hungary. In addition to possessing robust domestic markets, Austria, Romania, Ukraine, and Hungary are all among the top 20 wine producers
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A version of pálinka fruit brandy made from plums for sale at a food festival in Sibiu, Romania, in 2008. With rates as high as 14.5 liters per person per year, central and eastern Europe have the largest per capita consumption of spirits in the world.
worldwide, and Germany is in the top 10. Moldova, a small post-Soviet country sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, is internationally known for its sweet dessert wines. Liqueurs abound in the region, reflecting the diversity of local tastes. Herbal bitters such a Jägermeister (Germany), Becherovka (Czech), and Zwack Unicum (Hungary) are consumed not only for their alcoholic properties but also for digestion and other purported medical benefits. Pálinka, or traditional fruit brandy, is popular across the Carpathian basin and, since 2002, protected under European Union regulation, with only Hungary and four Austrian provinces enjoying the right to market products under the brand name. Nonetheless, similar brandies (typically made from plums) are produced in other countries, including sliwowica (Poland) and tuica (Romania).
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Vodka production and consumption characterize the eastern countries of the region, with Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia all making some claim to having invented the original process for distilling alcohol from grains (the word vodka is thought to come from the Old Slavic word for water). Poland commands international respect for its fine potato and rye vodkas, including Belvedere, Chopin, and Sobieski. In Ukraine, vodka—or more generally horilka (any vodkalike liquor)—is somewhat more pedestrian and localized, with a variety of herb, vegetable, or fruit infusions. Owing to a continuation of Sovietera trends, Belarus continues to produce large amounts of heavily taxed domestic vodkas that need not compete with foreign imports, including the famous bison grass variant Zubrovka. Homebased production of (illicit) alcohol remains common. Consumption of such moonshine, which goes under a variety of names, for example, samohon (Ukraine), bimber (Polish), domáca (Slovakian), and házipálinka (Hungarian), has decreased somewhat since the end of socialism but still remains popular in rural areas. Recent World Health Organization studies show that Europe leads the world in alcohol consumption at 12.5 liters of pure alcohol per year (approximately three drinks per day), with the subregion of central and eastern Europe topping out at 14.5 liters per year, thus making this part of the world the largest per capita consumer of spirits. Moving from west to east, the intensity of medical and social problems associated with alcohol abuse increases dramatically. Cirrhosis, fetal alcohol syndrome, and cardiovascular disease are significant health issues associated with alcohol in the region. Suicides, accidental injuries, mental disorders, and domestic abuse, as well as child abandonment, are also closely affiliated with alcohol abuse, particularly in the transitional economies of Romania, Belarus, and Ukraine. During the post-World War II period, much of eastern Europe fell under Soviet dominance, and Russian cultural traits began to permeate the region, including the style of drinking that glorifies extreme drunkenness and endless toasting at holiday gatherings. However, since the revolutions of 1989, both traditional and more globalized forms of drinking have come to characterize the region, including—not trivially—the
presence of at least one Irish pub in any city of 50,000 or more. Laws against driving under the influence of alcohol vary sharply between the old western Europe (Germany and Austria), where a bloodalcohol level of anything below 0.05 is legal, to a zero-tolerance policy for intoxication in the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, and Romania; Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus fall somewhere in between. Under socialist rule, a number of countries in the region sought to decrease alcohol consumption through prohibitive taxation, advertising campaigns, and other social engineering projects. Since 1989, however, neoliberal market reforms allowed for greater imports and lessened state influence over drinking habits. Nonetheless, restrictions on advertising and campaigns against public drunkenness, youth and binge drinking, and homemade spirits have generally characterized the region during the past two decades. Robert A. Saunders Farmingdale State College See Also: Austria; Czech Republic; Germany; Hungary; Poland; Ukraine. Further Readings Coates, Clive and Richard Bampfield. “Austrian Wine Tasting.” Journal of Wine Research, v.12/1 (2001). Meussdoerffer, Franz. “Beer and Beer Culture in Germany.” In Liquid Bread: Beer and Brewing in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Wulf Schiefenhövel and Helen M. Macbeth, eds. Brooklyn, NY: Berghahn Books, 2011. Popova, Svetlana, Jürgen Rehm, Jayadeep Patra, and Witold Zatonski. “Comparing Alcohol Consumption in Central and Eastern Europe to Other European Countries.” Alcohol and Alcoholism, v.42/5 (2007).
Europe, Northern Northern Europe includes Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, and usually the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic, as well as the four Baltic states: Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia.
Although the Phoenicians conducted trade with Cornwall in England, only England and Wales and small parts of Scotland ever became parts of the Roman Empire, and Roman wine was probably only sold in Britannia, the Roman province that includes England and Wales, although some Roman bronze and glassware has been found at Öremölla, Sweden, indicating that there was also trade, possibly indirect, far further north than had been expected. Although it has been possible to grow some grapes in England and Wales with a very small local wine industry, Northern Europe has had to import wine from elsewhere, making it a luxury item until recently. Some broken wine vessels from the Dark Ages have been found by archaeologists in the region at Tintagel, Cornwall, which has legendary connections with King Arthur. The Roman writer Tacitus in his book Germania describes the inhabitants of Germany consuming a liquor made from barley and other grain and then fermenting it “to resemble wine.” Tacitus describes these Germanic peoples—ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons—as overindulging in wine, and claimed that it was weakening their civilization and making their armies weaker when he compared them to the “abstemious” Romans. The unifying cultures of much of Northern Europe were through Anglo-Saxons and then the Vikings. Both groups were later to become Christians, but their original legends, involving drinking and feasting as warriors in banqueting halls, recounted their tales of valor. For the Saxons, this would result in a feudal lord holding a “symbel” for his retainers and supporters. Although originally a pagan ritual, this continued after the Saxons had become Christians. In many of these banquets, a large horn was filled with ale or mead and passed around from person to person, bonding the various drinkers together. The Vikings long had a reputation for heavy drinking, mainly of ale and mead, as they did not have access to hops to make the type of beer common today. They made ale from barley, which was consumed by both adults and children. Certainly, there must have been times when people drank too much. This was in spite of the legends associated with the Viking god Odinn, in which he cautioned against drinking too much alcohol and public drunkenness.
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It seems certain that the Vikings took kegs and barrels of ale and mead with them on their long voyages. It is now common in Norway and Denmark to make an alcoholic beverage from berries, and it is probable that it was berries that the Vikings found when they reached North America. Because of its association with their alcoholic fruit drink, they were to name the land “Vinland.” Mead and ale was easy to make, and in Iceland, where the Vikings did not have access to much grain for much of the medieval period, grain and malt was brought over from Scandinavia. This formed the basis of the Icelandic brewing industry. Gradually, with the introduction of hops, beer was being brewed throughout Northern Europe with towns, and even villages, having their own breweries. Traditionally in Viking society, women were involved in brewing at home. The breweries in the region continued on until the early 20th century when many closed down with government prohibition. In Denmark, brewing has long been dominated by the two companies Carlsberg and Tuborg. The former was established in 1847, at a time when Denmark still controlled by modern-day Norway and Iceland. It was founded by J. C. Jacobsen, and it started exporting in 1868, establishing its laboratory in 1875. It continued to operate from its original brewery in Copenhagen until after World War II, when it moved to newer premises and also started producing beer overseas, including in Cyprus and Malawi. In 1970, it bought the Tuborg breweries. They had been established in 1873, also in Copenhagen, and had merged with United Breweries in 1894 and reached a profit-sharing agreement with Carlsberg in 1903, being bought out by them 67 years later. The result has been the large beer industry in Denmark dominated by Carlsberg, which expanded further by buying Tetley in 1992. Most farms throughout Norway and Sweden produced their own brews of beer until about 1800, when mechanization and increasing awareness of health standards led to beer being made in larger breweries with the pilsner-style pale lager becoming the most popular drink. There remain a number of microbreweries in both countries. Temperance Movements and Prohibition During the 19th century, a period of religious revival in northern Europe, strong temperance
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movements arose. As a result, parts of Scandinavia introduced prohibitions on alcohol production and consumption—Denmark being the notable exception where no referendum was ever held on this issue. The first prohibition was introduced in the Faroe Islands, with a ban on all sale of alcohol from 1907. Some limited importation of alcohol from Denmark was allowed since 1928, but the main prohibition remained in force until 1992. Sweden, the most populous of the Nordic countries, introduced a rationing system in 1914. Known as the Bratt System, this resulted in all citizens of Sweden being given a booklet known as the motbok, which was stamped each time a purchase was made. Named after Ivan Bratt, it exempted wine, which was not popular in Sweden at that time. A referendum was held on August 27, 1922, to try to make a total ban on alcohol production, sale, and consumption, as was the case in the United States, but it was narrowly defeated by a 51-to-49 percent vote. It saw sharply contrasting attitudes by men and women, with 63 percent of men voting against prohibition and the same percentage of women voting in favor of the bans. Iceland, under Danish control, held a referendum to ban imported alcohol on April 11, 1908. This was approved by 60.1 percent of the population and was extended in 1915 with the introduction of a total prohibition. The ban on importing alcohol was lifted after another referendum was held on October 21, 1933. Wine and spirits were legal from 1935, but beer remained totally prohibited until 1989. Norway followed Iceland’s lead by prohibiting distilled beverages in 1916, and fortified wine and beer in 1917. In a referendum held on October 5–6, 1919, some 61.6 percent of the population approved prohibition. This prohibition of wine and beer was lifted in 1923, and the ban on distilled beverages ended in 1927 after a second referendum was held on October 18, 1926. Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were all parts of the Russian Empire until 1917. While they do share some of the Viking heritage—especially in Finland and Estonia—the patterns of drinking alcohol in all four countries became close to that in other parts of Russia, with alcoholism being widespread. The Russian government encouraged the production and sale of vodka to raise tax money; in 1860 this tax made up nearly 40
percent of Russian government revenue. In 1894, the Russian government enacted a law that gave state-owned enterprises a monopoly on the production of alcohol in the Russian Empire. In 1914, to try to help the national effort in World War I, the Russian Empire banned the sale of hard liquor in the whole of Russia except for when ordered in restaurants and consumed with a meal. Although the ban was widely flouted, it continued through 1925, by which time the four Baltic states had broken away, and, with the exception of Finland, ended the restrictions on alcohol. Curiously, during the German occupation of Lithuania and Latvia during World War I, the Germans introduced their own ban on strong alcohol. In 1919, just after independence, Finland enacted prohibition. This was done in part to show itself as a “modern” country, following the trends of most of the rest of Scandinavia as well as of the United States. Finland faced the problem of illicit alcohol sales through large-scale smuggling and organized crime. In response, Finns voted in the nation’s first-ever referendum on December 29–30, 1931, and this saw a 70.5 percent vote for the end of prohibition, with 28 percent of the voters supporting the continuation of total prohibition and 1.4 percent of them voting in favor of allowing weak alcoholic beverages into the country. Baltic Countries During World War II, the Soviet Union took control of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and Russian influences permeated all facets of life. Vodka was kept cheap with two brands emerging in Estonia: Kihnu Mark and Viru Valge. The former is made by Remedia and the latter by Liviko— the former being 40 percent alcohol and the latter having three strengths: 38 percent, 40 percent, and 80 percent. The largest Latvian brand is Latvijas Balzams, which was produced from at least the 1920s. Its namesake company became the largest producer of alcoholic beverages not only in Latvia but also in Estonia and Lithuania. In Lithuania, AM Stumbras remains the oldest and largest producer of alcoholic beverages in the country. It was established in 1906 by the local authorities and run by the government of independent Lithuania. It continued under the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. After independence, the
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new Lithuanian government ran it until it was privatized in 2003. Northern European membership in the European Union (with the exception of Norway and Iceland), brought free trade among member nations. This has helped international producers of alcoholic beverages to manufacture in one member state and sell to another with minimal expense. In this new free trade environment, the Danish company Carlsberg came to dominate not only the Danish market but much of the Scandinavian market as well. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Ancient World, Drinking in; Denmark; Finland; Norway; Prohibition; Sweden. Further Readings Henius, Max. Modern Liquor Legislation and Systems in Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Copenhagen: L. Levison, 1931. Nordland, Odd. “Traditional Beer in Scandinavia and Some Reflections on Taste.” Ethnologia Scandanavica, 1971. Robertson, James D. The Beer-Tasters Log: A World Guide to More than 6000 Beers. Pownal, VT: Storey Communications, 1996. Simpson, Jacqueline. Everyday Life in the Viking Age. London: Batsford, 1967. Su-Dale, Elizabeth. Norway: Culture Shock! A Guide to Customs and Etiquette. Singapore: Times Books International, 1995. Sulkunen, Irma. History of the Finnish Temperance Movement: Temperance as a Civic Religion. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen, 1990.
Europe, Southern In antiquity, different drinking norms developed in the southern and northern regions of Europe. Cultures around the Mediterranean accepted wine as part of the daily diet, and drunkenness was frowned upon. In the northern and eastern regions of Europe, heavy feast (“binge”) drinking, intoxication by grain-based beverages, and ambivalence
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toward drinking and alcohol emerged. As the Roman Empire expanded into west central Europe, it brought urbanization, Christianity, viticulture, and the Mediterranean wine-drinking culture. During the decline of the western Roman Empire, regions settled early by Rome, such as southern Europe, retained Roman culture. The more recent provinces of west central Europe that were invaded by northern Germanic tribes during the early Middle Ages developed a “blended” pattern of drinking and consumed both grain-based beverages and wine. After the Reformation, the southern European cultures retained Catholicism along with wine as part of the daily diet while northern European Protestants remained ambivalent toward drinking and alcohol. Although there have been changes in alcohol-consumption patterns in Europe, including a decrease in wine consumption, the Mediterranean pattern and attitudes toward alcohol are still predominant in southern Europe. Viticulture and Wine From Antiquity Around 2000 b.c.e., the vine was cultivated in Greece, and within a few hundred years wine became an integral part of daily life. Greek colonists introduced viticulture into Italy circa 600 b.c.e. and into southern France (Marseilles) by 540 b.c.e. By the beginning of the 2nd century b.c.e., wine, in some form, was thought to have become the daily drink of all southern Europeans, both rich and poor. Most classical works suggest that wine was the primary beverage of the Mediterranean (except Egypt) cultures and the Roman world. From the early Roman Republic through the early Middle Ages, vineyards and fine wine were considered essential to the economics and culture of southern Europe. The rich consumed expensive aged vintages while poorer people drank new wine or wine made from the second pressings. The Roman military conquered the western and north central areas of Europe from the late 3rd century b.c.e. through the mid-1st century c.e. It brought urbanization, language, and viticulture to Spain, Portugal, and up the Rhône into what are now central France, Switzerland, Austria, and southwest Germany and across the channel to England. The Romans generally only settled where the vine would grow. Wine was widely traded and used as payment. Since wine
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Harvesting grapes for vinho verde (“green” wine) in Guimarães, Portugal, in 2007. When measured by surface area dedicated to vines, Portugal, Italy, France, and Spain were the top four grapeproducing countries in 2011.
could be stored, it was generally available for most of the year. Archeological research has found evidence of numerous wine shops and eating/drinking establishments along the roads in both urban and rural areas of the empire that existed from around the 3rd century b.c.e. until the end of the Western empire (5th century c.e.). In these archeological ruins, both crude and elaborate wine-mixing gear and drinking containers have been found. Wine was generally diluted with water before it was consumed, as drinking undiluted wine was considered uncivilized. The drinking culture of the Roman Empire was generally one of moderation. However, the Romans adapted many aspects of classical Greek
civilization including the symposium, or convivium. These elaborate private, upper-class—primarily male—dinner parties were often fraught with drunkenness. Many classical authors disapproved of this behavior, which suggests that more moderate drinking was the usual practice. Additionally, Rome and its southern provinces had a brief period of public drunkenness, which peaked in the mid-1st century c.e. This behavior was condemned by many contemporary authors, suggesting that this period of drunkenness was the exception rather than the rule. Early Christian writings also supported moderation in wine drinking and condemned drunkenness. By the early Middle-Ages, wine was drunk by all classes in southern Europe and by the wealthy throughout western Europe. Beer, however, was scorned by the Romans and the southern provinces, which had become “Romanized” (having adopted Roman urban culture, viticulture, and Christianity). Beer was considered by southern Europeans the drink of the poorer classes in the province of Gaul, the Barbarians, and the mountain people. To call someone a “beer swiller” was considered a grave insult. By the end of the 5th century, as the Roman Empire waned, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and southwest Germany had become officially Christian. Anglo-Saxon Britain, northern Germany, and the Scandinavian countries did not become Christian until the 7th, 8th, and 10th centuries, respectively. This became a factor in western European beverage preferences. When Rome’s influence declined in the west, the oldest southern provinces retained the old Roman urban culture along with drinking patterns characterized by wine consumption as part of the diet. These cultures now include Italy, Spain, Portugal, southern France, and Greece. The northern/Nordic countries retained feast- and binge-drinking patterns and ambivalence toward alcohol and drunkenness. The newer established provinces of west central Europe, which were invaded by Germanic tribes during the early Middle Ages, developed a “blended” pattern of drinking. Both beer and wine were consumed with meals and at other times. Public intoxication was more or less frowned upon. These cultures now include northern France, southwestern Germany, Belgium, Austria, and Switzerland. Britain lost its veneer
of Romanization and returned to pre-Roman Celtic, mixed with Germanic, practices. The elite continued to consume wine brought in by traders. During the Reformation, the southern regions of Europe, with deep Christian roots, retained the wine-drinking culture and Catholicism. Contemporary Drinking Cultures Modern southern European drinking practices and attitudes are characterized by the acceptance of wine as a pleasant part of the daily diet. Wine is the most commonly used alcoholic beverage and is consumed primarily with meals. Most of the population consumes wine, including children who are often given wine diluted with water. People generally do not drink to get drunk, and heavy drinking and public intoxication are frowned upon even at festive occasions. Other features of this southern European drinking culture include high per capita alcohol consumption, few perceived psychosocial problems related to drinking, and few alcohol-control policies regarding its use compared to the Nordic nations. A positive association exists between being a former Roman province, viticulture, Romance language, high per capita absolute alcohol and wine consumption, and Roman Catholicism. These characteristics are supported by statistical analyses in the author’s work. Current Wine Production and Consumption A decrease in vine growing over the past few years has occurred in southern Europe due to decreased vineyard acreage and the implementation of a “grubbing-up scheme” by the Common Market Organization (CMO). This program, implemented in 2009, asks vintners to voluntarily stop growing grapes in order to reduce the production of uncompetitive wines and cut surpluses. Italy, France, and Spain are the largest wineproducing countries in the European Union. They represent 80 percent of total output in Europe. In 2011, in terms of surface area of vines, Portugal, Italy, France, and Spain were the top four grapeproducing countries. Italy, Spain, and France were the top three wine exporters and Portugal was 10th. In terms of the top 10 producing countries, France was first, Italy third, and Spain eighth. Per capita wine consumption has been falling slowly in the traditional wine-drinking cultures
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of southern Europe since 1991. This is likely due to changing lifestyles and tastes, antialcohol campaigns, the economy, and health concerns. France remains the largest European wine consumer. Although per capita consumption has declined since the 1960s, it has stabilized at 50 liters per year. In Italy, while the average person’s consumption of wine is only a third of what it was in the 1970s, beer drinking has doubled. This is due to the increasing popularity of other alcoholic beverages, in particular beer at nightclubs among the young. In 2011, the per capita consumption was less than 40 liters, down dramatically from 120 liters in the 1970s. Consumption of other alcoholic beverages, such as beer, liqueurs, and spirits, is generally found in out-of-home consumption, while wine is still consumed on a daily basis with meals. Spanish wine consumption has been decreasing over the past few years and in 2011 was 22 liters per capita. In Spain, people already drink twice as much beer as they do wine. Portugal’s annual per capita wine consumption is 44 liters. In summary, although changing patterns of drinking are seen in southern Europe, on the whole it still retains its traditional wine drinking culture rooted in antiquity. Ruth C. Engs Indiana University, Bloomington See Also: Europe, Northern; Europe, Western; France; Greece; Italy; Portugal; Roman Empire; Spain. Further Readings Austin, Gregory A. Alcohol in Western Society From Antiquity to 1800: A Chronological History. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1985. Engs, Ruth C. “Do Traditional Western European Drinking Practices Have Origins in Antiquity?” Addiction Research, v.2/3 (1995). Engs, Ruth C. “Protestants and Catholics: Drunken Barbarians and Mellow Romans?” IU ScholarWorks repository. http://hdl.handle .net/2022/17149 (Accessed November 2013). Engs, Ruth C. “Romanization and Drinking Norms: A Model to Explain Differences in Western Society.” Paper presented at the Society of American Archaeology Annual Meeting, New Orleans, April 27, 1991. IUScholarWorks
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repository. http://hdl.handle.net/2022/17139 (Accessed November 2013). USDA Foreign Agricultural Service. Wine Annual Report and Statistics. http://gain.fas.usda.gov/ Recent%20GAIN%20Publications/Wine%20 Annual_Rome_EU-27_2-22-2013.pdf (Accessed November 2013).
Europe, Western Western Europe encompasses France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Switzerland, as well as Andorra, Liechtenstein, and Monaco. By some definitions, Western Europe also stretches to the United Kingdom, the Irish Republic, and Spain and Portugal. In this area, there has been a long tradition of drinking alcohol both as a beverage and in Holy Communion in Christian church services. This region includes some of the major wine-producing parts of the world in France, Spain, and Portugal, but there is also much production of beer as well as spirits. Origins of the Alcohol Industry The Greeks and the Phoenicians from the Eastern Mediterranean transported wine in amphora, and it seems likely that in ancient times wine was brought to Cornwall in England and Brittany in France by Phoenician traders in search of tin. During the Roman Empire, most of this region was united under Roman rule, and although most of Germany as well as large parts of Scotland and Ireland were outside the Roman Empire, Roman culture permeated these areas. In the Roman Empire, the wealthier people seem to have drunk wine regularly, and this led to the cultivation of grapes throughout France, although the wine industry in Spain seems to predate the Romans. With the advent of Christianity, the taking of wine for the celebration of Holy Communion led to an important symbolic role for wine in the community. During medieval times, much of the lifestyle in most of Western Europe was fairly similar, with the exception being in Spain and Portugal until the Reconquista. Life in medieval Western Europe centered on village communities located around a
parish church. There were also market towns and a number of monasteries and abbeys. Within villages, and certainly in towns, brewers made beer, ale, and mead for local consumption and sale in market towns. Many of these brewers ran taverns or inns, which in England came to be known as public houses. In England, owing to the climate and the proliferation of apple and pear orchards, cider and perry were drunk, with wine in southern France, Spain, and Portugal where grapes were more easily grown. Brewing in some parts of Western Europe, including England, was often the task of women, some of whom owned or worked at taverns. Individual brewers employed different flavors or styles of making their drinks, with some adding honey or herbs. Beer and ale production on a larger scale emerged in monasteries and abbeys. A Carolingian abbot used hops to make beer in 822 c.e., and thereafter, some monasteries quickly gained a reputation for their brew. The Weihenstephan Abbey brewery in Bavaria managed to get the rights to brew beer for the town of Freising by 1040, and undoubtedly other agreements from this period were also made. In southern Germany, and also in France, Spain, and Portugal (and even in parts of England), there were some monasteries that made their own wine, which became important in providing wine for Holy Communion. Among the Cathar communities in southern France, the religious leaders—called Perfects—refrained from drinking alcohol. In non-wine-growing areas such as Britain, northern Germany, and the Low Countries, wine was almost exclusively drunk by the rulers and the ruling class, excepting, of course, its use for Holy Communion. Origins of Regulation The regulation of the production of alcohol in Western Europe derived from two imperatives. First, to assure quality control, chartered companies and craft guilds enforced standards in many cities and towns. One such company, the Brewers Company of London (now the Worshipful Company of Brewers), managed to get a Royal Charter from the 17-year-old King Henry VI in 1438. The Brewers Company forbade hops to be used, although their use was common elsewhere. Governments and rulers also intervened to assure quality products. Wilhelm IV, duke of Bavaria,
enacted the oldest government regulation of beer (indeed, of any food or beverage) that is still in force, in 1516. He ordered that only water, barley, and hops could be used in the making of beer under his Reinheitsgebot (Purity Law). This law, which also allowed the inclusion of yeast, was adapted in 1857 following Louis Pasteur’s work and was applied to the whole of Germany as part of the process of unification in 1871. Taxation The advantages of taxing alcohol production provided a second impetus to regulation. Most Western European states relied heavily on tariffs and import duties to finance themselves. Regulating the sale of alcohol rapidly emerged as an excellent source of government revenue, and during the medieval period taxes levied on alcohol became an important part of the income of many states. One early example of this was in 1188 when a “national levy” was imposed on the sale of ale in England to help raise money for King Richard I, who was about to embark on the Third Crusade. Many of the regulations on the quality of production of ale were introduced very soon afterward by Geoffrey Fitz Peter. Levying sales taxes on alcohol became easier in the later Middle Ages with the establishment of large breweries in most towns in the late 14th century, when devastating cycles of bubonic plague abated. Not until 1552, however, did the Crown establish complete regulation of alehouses in England. Some of the new, larger breweries that originated during this period still survive. One of these, Den Horen, was founded in 1366 in Leuven (Louvain) in modern-day Belgium, and since 1926 the company has been famous for producing Stella Artois beer. Production Increase and Tax Standardization With the growing population in late medieval Europe and increasing urbanization, breweries increased alcohol production accordingly. Some existing breweries were enlarged, and others were built to meet the increased demand. The biggest change in beer was the increased use of hops, which was planted in England for the first time in 1428. This gradually transformed the flavor of beer, which was to change again nearly 300 years later. The early breweries in Western Europe
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tended to dispatch their beer when it was young, and it aged en route or at the tavern or inn where it was to be sold. However, the improvement in transport resulted in porter beer being produced first in Britain. This could be drunk immediately. As companies started to produce more and more alcoholic beverages and there was less home brewing, it became easier for the government to start an effective system of taxing beer. Graduated systems of taxation were developed for wine and spirits. However, to achieve fairness, it was important for the government to fix the measurements, which varied slightly all over Europe. This was only achieved in France after the French Revolution, whereas it had already happened in the British Isles. As time passed, changes in production and taxation occurred. When particular alcoholic beverages became heavily regulated and taxed, consumers turned to others. Port from Portugal became popular, and drinking it in England in the late 17th century became a sign of support for the government, which was seeking an alliance with Portugal. During this period, smuggling to avoid paying taxes and duties became common in many parts of Western Europe. Industrial Revolution Gin has probably been around since the Middle Ages, even through the Dutch doctor Franciscus Sylvius is still credited with its invention. Gin had been drunk by some English soldiers during the Dutch Revolt and led to the term Dutch courage being coined. After the accession of William III as king of England, there was much more trade with the Netherlands, and drinking gin became popular in England, particularly among the urban working classes. Unprecedented access to cheap spirits produced what became known as the Gin Craze, a period of dramatically increased consumption that produced a variety of social ills. The marketing of a new type of potent alcohol that could be produced on an industrial scale came to have a devastating effect on the population of a country. The British government responded with five Acts—in 1729, 1736, 1743, 1747, and 1751— which aimed to control the consumption of gin. The British government had recognized that it was the very low price of gin, compared to the price of other alcoholic drinks, that led to
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the imposing of higher taxes on gin to raise its price and reduce consumption. The Gin Act of 1736 raised the price so markedly that there were riots, and the government found that much greater regulation, enshrined in the Gin Act of 1751, was much more successful in combating public drunkenness. Evasion of Taxes Through Smuggling The 18th century saw a series of wars in Western Europe: the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years’ War, and the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. These conflicts saw major changes in society in Western Europe. They were all accompanied by economic blockades, the best-known being Napoleon’s Continental System, which was created to prevent British manufacturers from selling exports to Europe, which in turn prevented the importation of French wine. There had long been smuggling of alcohol into particular countries, especially wine into Britain, to avoid the payment of the high import duties. Cornwall became a center for smuggling, although it is likely that small ports all around England were also used. The smugglers were often highly regarded locally, and the “excise men” faced much hostility. During much of the 18th century the British government often turned a “blind eye” to smuggling, but the situation changed dramatically during the Napoleonic Wars. The British government, desperately short of funds to finance its war effort, endeavored to reduce—if not stamp out—the reduction of tax revenues resulting from smuggling. Parliament sent many more excise men to Cornwall and a few other ports and coves, achieving a major reduction in smuggling. The clash between excise men and smugglers became a part of the folklore and the literature, with J. Meade Falkner writing about it in Moonfleet (1898) and, more famously, Daphne du Maurier in Jamaica Inn (1936). The Industrial Revolution During the 19th century, Western Europe’s population increased dramatically. The Industrial Revolution met the beverage needs of this expanded population with new methods of producing and storing alcoholic beverages. Production of alcohol on an unprecedented scale led to the emergence of
a number of major companies in large cities and others on the outskirts, where they could rely on good supplies of water. Centralization of production helped to streamline the collection of taxes. At the same time, a number of small, boutique brewers and distillers continued to thrive. Although many farmers in France, Spain, and Portugal made their own wine—and many still do—there was a gradual increase in the technology needed for production to meet safety standards and other regulations. With modern machinery, the wine industry flourished in these countries— albeit with occasional problems owing to disease. During the Industrial Revolution, many Western European governments sought to encourage “free trade.” This allowed the French, Spanish, and Portuguese to export their wines easily to many countries around the world and to exploit markets that had previously been closed. This led to a major increase in the French and Spanish wine industries, and many governments benefited through increased taxation. Contemporary Alcohol Use and Regulations The dislocation caused by World War I and especially by World War II led to major changes in the French economy and wine production, with prominent Nazi leaders organizing the systematic looting of their favorite wine vintages from occupied France in World War II. Many of the wine-growing areas lay within the German Zone of France, with Armagnac and the Rhone Valley being in Vichy France. The elimination of all internal tariffs or barriers within the European Economic Community/ European Union in the last decade of the 20th century, coupled with the increasing affluence of the region, has led to a much higher consumption of alcoholic beverages, and the taxes levied on alcohol continue to constitute a major part of the income of many governments. Indeed, in times of budgetary crises, the raising of taxation on alcohol has become an easy source of revenue as seen by the introduction of the alcohol tax escalator in Britain—which was scrapped after many protests in March 2014. With increased regulation from the late 19th century continuing through to the 20th century, many brand names for types of alcohol began to be copyrighted, and there were also regulations
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placed on the manner in which specific names could be used. For instance, the word champagne was reserved for the beverage from that part of France only, while Scotch whisky has to be made in Scotland from Scottish malt. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Europe, Central and Eastern; Europe, Northern; Europe, Southern; France; Germany; Gin Epidemic in England; Netherlands; Perry; Scotland; United Kingdom. Further Readings Boissonnade, Prosper. Life and Work in Medieval Europe: The Evolution of Medieval Economy From the Fifth to the Fifteenth Century. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. Dillon, Patrick. The Much-Lamented Death of Madam Geneva: The Eighteenth-Century Gin Craze. London: Review, 2002.
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Foreng, Jeffrey L. Daily Life in Medieval Europe. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999. Kladstrup, Don and Petie Kladstrup. Wine & War: The Battle for France’s Greatest Treasure. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001. Martin, A. Lynn. Alcohol, Sex, and Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Houndmills, UK: Palgrave, 2001. Martin, A. Lynn. Alcohol, Violence, and Disorder in Traditional Europe. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2009. Robertson, James D. The Beer-Tasters Log: A World Guide to More Than 6000 Beers. Pownal, VT: Storey Communications, 1996. Walton, Stuart and Brian Glover. The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Wine, Beer, Spirits and Liqueurs. London: Hermes House, 1998. Warner, Jessica. Craze: Gin and Debauchery in the Age of Reason. London: Random House, 2002. Williams, Neville. Contraband Cargoes: Seven Centuries of Smuggling. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1959.
F Farmhouse and Belgian Ales Farmhouse and Belgian ales are regional beers that include a wide range of flavors, styles, and ingredients. If farmhouse and Belgian Ales can be classified by anything, it is by their inability to fit into neat categories. Unlike many specific designations of beer styles, such as pale ale or stout, the terms farmhouse ales and Belgian ale designate multiple styles associated with regions. These include the pale-yellow witbier; the amber, full-bodied Belgian dubbel; the fruity saison; and the sour lambic. Brewers create Belgian and farmhouse ales using a wide variety of grains, hops of varying strengths, and many different kinds of yeasts, making these ales some of the more diverse, and therefore difficult-to-categorize, styles in existence. The variety of them grew out of separate historical traditions. Belgian Ales Belgian farmers converted their grain into beer from the earliest times, but they passed down few written records of their ingredients or processes. Some of the earliest references to beer in Belgium come from Julius Caesar. The vast quantities of cereal grains produced by farmers suggest that they preferred beer to the Romans’ wine. Evidence
of professional beer-making guilds dates back to the 1st century c.e., and brewers made beer in the area throughout the period of Roman rule. From the earliest period, Belgian ale was less of a style unto itself than it was a collection of styles associated with regions and towns. Like the altbier of Dusseldorf or the kölsch of Cologne, Belgium has its brown beers from Flanders, its lambic from Brussels, and its white beer from Hoegaarden, among others. Lacking the constraints of the Bavarian and then German Reinheitsgebot—the purity law that restricted beer to barley, hops, water, and eventually yeast—Belgian and French brewers tended to use easily available ingredients, including wheat, oats, barley, and adjunct sugars. Belgian ale includes a strong tradition of Trappist monastery-based brewing. Originating with Cistercian monks in the Middle Ages, the Trappists, as they came to be called in the 17th century, brewed beer to fulfill their daily ration of five liters per monk and to sell in support of the monastic life. Freed from the tax constraints of lay brewers, the Trappists could use more and better ingredients, resulting in better beer. The tradition was largely destroyed during the French Revolution in the late 18th century, and despite a reemergence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Trappist brewing did not enter the modern age until the end of World War II brought 549
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stability. Recognizing the need to protect the Trappist label, eight abbeys formed the International Trappist Association, which established clear standards for what constitutes a Trappist beer. The guidelines pertain specifically to monastery-based practices and not to beer style, ingredients, or country of origin. Modern standardization recognizes 15 different ales classified in the Belgian tradition of brewing that range in strength and character from the pale straw-colored, low-alcohol Belgian witbier to the very dark, exceptionally strong high-alcohol-content Belgian dark strong ale. Farmhouse Ales Historically, beer made on farms in Belgium and France used a wide variety of grains and was brewed at the appropriate times to avoid the planting and harvesting seasons. Farmers intended the beer to be consumed by their laborers and so it was probably low in alcohol, light in body, and refreshing. An early 20th-century report on farmhouse ales from these regions describes beer that was mostly pale in color, utilized local French hops, derived most of its fermentable sugar from the use of local barley, had about 10–15 percent of fermentable ingredients coming from adjunct sugars, and had alcohol percentages in the range of 3–4 percent. Brewing occurred in the late winter and early spring. Fermentation was quick, with the ale ready to serve within a week, but it could be stored through the warm summer months until brewing could start again. Such beers were almost certainly high in hops in order to endure the long storage periods demanded by farmers. Modern farmhouse ale classification is a byproduct of the shifting borders caused by two world wars, 20th-century regional industrialization leading to the loss of farmland, an increase in industrial brewing, and cheaper and more efficient transportation networks. These modern beers evolved from the older farmhouse beers into two general categories: dry, hoppy, low-alcohol saisons (French for “season”) that come from the French-speaking Wallonian area of present-day Belgium and more malty, higher alcohol content French bière de garde (meaning “stored beer”). French industrial brewers focused on lowalcohol pilsners and other lagers as tastes shifted
The facilities at the Rochefort Trappist Brewery in the Abbey of Our Lady of Saint-Remy in Wallonia, Belgium, date to the early 1950s, when Trappist brewing adopted more modern techniques and quality control procedures.
toward lighter beers during the 20th century. Taking a cue from the Belgian craft beers coming into the market, smaller French breweries in the 1970s turned toward specialty beers, with bière de garde as the chosen style. Brasserie Duyck led the way with Jenlain bière de garde, which became popular among college students in Lille. Other brewers soon followed suit with their own versions. Whether these brewers tried to imitate the earlier French farmhouse ales or merely created their own beers and capitalized on a recognized name is not clear, but what had once been an undefined style became more set. Bière de garde is malty and sweet with a dry finish, and it can be shades of golden, red, or brown in color. Artisanal versions have flavor characteristics derived from wild yeasts and molds, giving
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bière de garde from France a unique flavor and making it difficult to copy. The modern saison, like Belgian ale, is more accurately described as a group of beers rather than a singular style. Growing out of the farmhouse tradition, saison as a distinct style found resurgence in the early 20th century. A flood of imported British beer after World War I influenced Belgian consumer preferences and dominated the local market. Belgian brewers responded by increasing the alcoholic strength of existing farmhouse recipes and adding British hops and a wider blend of malts. They marketed the beers using the saison label and used an appeal to Belgian nationalism to promote the locally produced beers. By the advent of World War II, saison, unlike bière de garde, was a wellknown and successful style of beer. Modern saison beers range from orange, to yellow, to golden in color. Bottle conditioning creates a higher carbonation than in other styles. They are light or medium bodied and have a citrus-fruity character that overlays a soft malt, reminiscent of the British influences. The flavor is spicy and oftentimes peppery in flavor. There is usually some hop bitterness but not so much as to dominate the fruit, spice, and malt characteristics. The finish is generally dry. Andrew McMichael Western Kentucky University See Also: Abbey Ales; Ale; Beer; Belgium; Brewing Beer, Techniques of; France. Further Readings Hieronymous, Stan. Brew Like a Monk: Trappist, Abbey, and Strong Belgian Ales and How to Brew Them. Boulder, CO: Brewers, 2005. Hornsey, Ian S. A History of Beer and Brewing. Cambridge, UK: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2003. Markowski, Phi. Farmhouse Ales: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition. Boulder, CO: Brewers, 2004. Nelson, Max. The Barbarians’ Revenge: A History of Beer in Ancient Europe. New York: Routledge, 2005. Rajotte, Pierre. Belgian Ale. Classic Beer Style Series. Boulder, CO: Brewers, 1992.
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Fermentation: Ancient Era Through Middle Ages Fermentation is the process by which naturally occurring yeasts in the air act on the sugars present in grains or fruits. Fermentation can occur in any mashed food product that contains sugar, such as grains, fruits, or honey, that are left exposed in warm air. Yeasts in the air react with the sugar and convert it to alcohol and carbon dioxide. It did not take long for the earliest preagricultural peoples to discover and appreciate the effects of the resulting beverage and proceed to deliberate production. Alcohol consumption rapidly evolved into an important aspect of medicine, commerce, and religious worship in addition to serving as an important food staple. Fermentation is a natural process of chemical transformation that occurs in organic substances caused by the action of enzymes produced by microorganisms such as yeasts, molds, or bacteria. Fermentation breaks complex organic compounds down into smaller, more digestible compounds and nutrients. Fermented foods and beverages often have benefits over the original substances from which they are derived. Fermentation not only makes foods more digestible; it increases the nutrient and calorie load, increases shelf life, and kills microorganisms that cause illness, making alcohol safer to drink than water. Earliest Origins It is impossible to precisely date the origins of alcohol use, but evidence of wine, beer, and mead (fermented honey) have been found in the archaeological record in many parts of the world dating back to the Neolithic Era. It is likely that the discovery of alcohol was a happy accident by observant cave dwellers. Insects, birds, and mammals have been observed seeking out overripe fruit in the wild and exhibiting symptoms of drunkenness after consuming it. Unfortunately, fruit is both perishable and seasonal, and honey is limited in supply. Beer, on the other hand, could be made from abundant crops readily available and easily stored. Gathering wild grains as a food source became widespread after the last ice age, about 10,000
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b.c.e. in the Fertile Crescent. This area stretches from modern-day Egypt, up to southern Turkey, and down again to encompass Mesopotamia— the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which today is the border between Iraq and Iran. Dense stands of wild wheat and barley made an unexciting but reliable food source. The grain could be crushed, soaked in water, and heated into a soup or gruel. Dry grain could be stored a long time as protection against food shortages. The first permanent settlements arose as there became a need to store and protect this valuable resource. Grains started out as a helpful but relatively unimportant part of the human diet until two important properties were discovered. First, when grain is soaked in water so it starts to sprout, it tastes sweet. Moistened grain produces diastase enzymes, which convert starch in the grain into maltose sugar, or malt. With very few sources of
Bubbles, as seen here in the beer brewing process, appear during fermentation as yeast react with carbohydrates and convert them to alcohol and carbon dioxide. The most important difference between ancient and modern beer production is the addition of hops, which add bitterness and act as a preservative.
natural sugar in the region, malted grain would be highly valued, and deliberate malting of barley and wheat quickly followed. Second, it was found that gruel left sitting out for a couple days would transform into a fizzy, intoxicating substance as wild yeasts in the air fermented the natural sugars in the gruel into beer. Once the crucial discovery of beer was made, its quality was improved through trial and error. More malt means more sugar, and a longer fermentation period made stronger beer. Barley became preferred because it has the most diastase enzymes, resulting in the most malt. Thoroughly cooking the gruel also contributed to the beer’s strength. Ancient brewers also noticed that using the same container repeatedly produced the most reliable results. Repeated use of the same mash tub promoted successful fermentation because yeast cultures would remain in the nooks and crannies of the container rather than making the brewer rely on airborne yeasts. Finally, brewers discovered that adding berries, honey, spices, or herbs to the gruel while cooking would alter the taste of the resulting beer. Over the next few thousand years, brewers learned to make a variety of flavors and strengths of beer for different occasions. The most important difference between ancient and modern beers is the addition of hops in the Middle Ages. Hop blossoms are derived from the hop plant, a relative of Cannabis, and add a refreshing bitterness to the taste of beer to balance the sweetness of the malt. Hops also act as a preservative, making the beer less likely to spoil. The fermenting of barley probably developed independently in several cultures across the ancient world, carried throughout the Middle East by nomadic groups. One aspect of brewing technology common to all these early peoples—Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians, and Nubians from East Africa alike—was the use of baked loaves of malted barley. They were easily stored until needed. When the beer supply was depleted, the loaves could be crumbled into a container of water and set out to begin the fermentation process. Classical Greece likely gained their knowledge from the Egyptians, though they also interacted with the Babylonians. The Roman Empire had the opportunity to borrow brewing techniques from a variety of cultures with which it interacted. While beer was the common drink for lower classes in
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Greece and Rome, wine came more into favor among the upper classes. Across Europe through the Middle Ages, weak beer was the most common drink for all classes and ages of citizen. In much the same fashion as beer, the discovery of fermented fruits and fruit juices likely occurred during the Neolithic era. The earliest evidence of wine in the archaeological record is residue in a pottery jar from a Neolithic village in the Zagros Mountains of northern Iran. Any earlier origins are only found in myths and legend. The presence of wild grapes in this region, the availability of cereal crops for sustenance, and the invention of pottery around 6000 b.c.e. all converged in this area to make wine production possible. Knowledge of wine making spread from this region west into Greece and Anatolia (modern Turkey) and south into Egypt. Wine was generally reserved for the elite in Egypt, however, because of the limited climatic zones that support grape production. Beer was for the masses. As Greek civilization advanced, wine replaced beer as the most civilized and sophisticated drink. As Romans displaced the Greeks as the dominant power of the second century b.c.e., they appropriated many aspects of Greek culture—including wine production. Greek wine was still dominating Mediterranean trade, but the Romans embraced Greek wine and wine-making techniques. Greek vines were transplanted to Roman slopes, and production continued to expand. While the richest drank fine wines, lesser vintages were available to the common man. The Middle Ages, a period of about 1,000 years between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance, brought many changes to alcohol production and consumption. Early on, mead (fermented and spiced honey), rustic beers, and fruit wines were popular across northern and central Europe, though wine remained dominant in the grape-growing regions of southern Europe. The decline of the Roman Empire led to monasteries and nunneries becoming the repositories of brewing knowledge and production. Religious institutions had the resources, security, and stability to cultivate vines and produce beer and wine through a very turbulent time. Around the 13th century, a nun, Blessed Hildegard von Bingen (d.1179), is credited with noticing the preservative quality of hops when added to ale. As hops
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became a standard ingredient between the 12th and 15th centuries, different names were given to hopped and unhopped beverages. In English, beer was referred to as a hopped beverage, while ale was unhopped. Uses for Fermented Beverages In ancient societies, fermented beverages had multiple uses. They served as an important nutritional supplement and as a social lubricant. Alcohol also has medicinal uses. Beer or wine served as an anesthetic in ancient times and was commonly prescribed for a variety of ailments from the Neolithic to modern times. The large-scale manufacture and sale of fermented beverages has been commercialized and regulated by the government since the earliest civilizations. The oldest code of laws, the Code of Hammurabi (Babylon, 1770 b.c.e.) regulated drinking houses. Alcoholic beverages displaced water or milk in religious ceremonies. Having the capacity to help participants reach a state of ecstasy or frenzy was attributed to the gods. The Black Death, peaking from 1348 to 1350, and subsequent plagues dramatically changed people’s behavior. With no understanding or control over the illnesses that decimated the population for years, some thought drinking to excess would keep them safe. Others thought abstinence would save them. On average, alcohol consumption during this period was very high. As the Middle Ages drew to a close, the discovery of distillation spread. Monks, physicians, and alchemists began to distill alcohol into stronger spirits used to cure ailments. Jill M. Church D’Youville College See Also: Ancient World, Drinking in; Brewing Beer, Techniques of; Egypt, Ancient; Greece, Ancient; Mead; Roman Empire. Further Readings McGovern, Patrick E. Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. McGovern, Patrick E., Stuart J. Fleming, and Soloman H. Katz, eds. The Origins and Ancient History of Wine. London: Routledge, 2004.
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Smith, Gregg. Beer: A History of Suds and Civilization From Mesopotamia to Microbreweries. New York: Avon Books, 1995. Standage, Tom. A History of the World in 6 Glasses. New York: Walker and Company, 2005.
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is an umbrella term to describe conditions that can be brought upon the development of a fetus as a result of drinking during pregnancy, including developmental delays and physical and cognitive disabilities. FASD is important in a discussion about alcohol, a teratogen, or a substance that interferes with fetal development. When alcohol is consumed during pregnancy, in addition to influencing the development of the fetus, it can produce lifelong injuries for the person born. Some researchers argue that FASD is the leading cause of birth defects and developmental disabilities. This understanding of the disorder leads researchers and advocates to argue that it is 100 percent preventable: if pregnant women do not drink, it can be avoided. However, other researchers and advocates point out that women may drink during pregnancy as a response to underlying social injustices. Still others note that there are class- and race-marked disparities in diagnostic practices that impact marginalized groups. As the science surrounding the disorder continues to advance, so too do controversies over defining how much, if any, amount of alcohol is safe during pregnancy. Most would agree, though, that individuals born with FASD require substantial support mechanisms and are more likely to need these supports throughout the course of their life. FASD often connotes a stigmatized condition, as it is an indication of maternal drinking, and this can produce additional barriers to treatment. FASD as a Spectrum Research on the impacts of maternal drinking has morphed over the past 40 years, tracing back to a 1973 article that appeared in the medical journal
Lancet. In the article, Kenneth Jones and David Smith describe abnormalities in children reportedly born to alcoholics, suggesting that each child appeared to present similar developmental deficits and facial characteristics. The condition was called fetal alcohol syndrome. Although research on alcohol exposure had been published prior, this piece kicked off new wave of research in the area. In the decades that followed, the field of research on fetal alcohol exposure developed as did the language of alcohol-related impacts. In recent years, FASD, not itself a medical diagnosis, has become the umbrella term that includes a cluster of diagnoses: 1. Fetal alcohol syndrome 2. Alcohol-use-related birth defects 3. Alcohol-use-related neurodevelopment disorder FASD is a lifelong condition with impacts that can be mild or extremely severe throughout the life course of an individual. Diagnosis cannot be certain until a child is at least 5-years-old, and it requires an interdisciplinary team of medical doctors and psychologists to run a battery of tests. FASD is not the diagnosis but rather the umbrella term used to indicate that someone is on the spectrum of impacts. Estimates on prevalence range considerably between regions. In Canada, the range is suggested to be between 1 and 10 percent of the population; in the United States these numbers are suggested to be closer to 9 out of 1,000. Researchers commonly use these rates; however, many argue that the prevalence is much higher. As research on FASD continues to expand into new locations, the relative variability shifts and is complicated by factors such as access to medical care, access to diagnostics capabilities, perceived impact, fear of diagnosis, and stigma related to diagnosis. Potential Outcomes Similar in some ways to autism, FASD falls on a spectrum because it presents differently for each individual. It can include cognitive and/or behavioral impacts alongside delayed or stunted physical development. Individuals with FASD might experience difficulties in reading social cues correctly and managing sensory stimulation. FASD
is sometimes referred to as a brain injury because the effects of alcohol on the developing fetus are similar to an acquired brain injury, including disruption in memory or recall as well as in organizing and maintaining coherent conversations or trains of thought. FASD shares many similarities with other conditions, often producing mistakes in diagnosis. Michael Oldani characterizes FASD as a life sentence. As a lifelong syndrome, individuals with FASD and their families require substantial support often including sustained engagement with health and social services agencies. Ryan, Bonnett, and Gass point out the lack of services to meet the needs of these families. Notably, families need additional access to services including diagnosis but also respite care, as the needs of someone with FASD can be quite demanding. Research indicates that individuals with FASD are more likely to be in the care of social services and/or the foster care program. Research on the disorder has expanded from the arena of prenatal alcohol exposure to the larger fields of public health, social services, and education, and more recently legal studies. Researchers and practitioners are turning their attention to the area of criminal justice, with the understanding that individuals with the disorder may be more likely to have contact (as victim, witness, or perpetrator) with police, which can result in their being disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system. As FASD can impact an individual’s cognitive skills, one such impact is the potential disconnect between action and consequence, such that some individuals do not understand the potential outcome of an action and/or cannot link consequences to their actions. Accordingly, many traditional punitive measures within the criminal justice system are not effective means to teach someone to stop a particular behavior. This concern has resulted in changes to sentencing and probation practices in some courts and has been taken up by legal organizations. The American and Canadian Bar Association has drafted statements calling for the recognition of the unique needs of individuals with FASD and the need for alternative practices including, for example, sentencing and probation. New practices are emerging that recognize the unique needs of individuals with FASD, but these are still relatively unique.
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Controversies and Critiques Research from Denmark (partnered with the U.S.based Centers for Disease Control), conducted in 2012, argues that low to moderate drinking during pregnancy may have no adverse effect on the intelligence, motor skills, and executive functioning of a child. Although this research noted that the absolute safest approach was still abstinence during pregnancy, these articles conclude that small amounts of alcohol appeared to not have impact on a child. This research served to challenge dominant scholarly opinion about alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Researchers and advocates countered that the Danish study was not conducted on children that were old enough to be tested for FASD. The following year research from the United Kingdom reached similar conclusions about light drinking. Although there might be an inclination to treat research that challenges dominant understandings about the overall risk of alcohol consumption during pregnancy as outside the mainstream, there is nevertheless a trend in medical research to challenge the presumptions about FASD. Social science, as well as medical research, is raising questions about how the studies on FASD present particular narratives of responsibility and control over the bodies of women and children. At the heart of these critical engagements with FASD are concerns about how mothers are framed in risk narratives. Armstrong points out that the responsibility falls on women, who then bear the blame for producing disabled children and societal problems. Concerns are also raised about the universal message of prevention, as the practices associated with FASD prevention and management can be shaped by socioeconomic conditions. Oldani points out that colonial legacies and racialized practices also inform understandings of FASD such that some children are more likely to be treated like they have FASD than others who are assumed to have ADHD. Critics do not deny that FASD is a condition that requires attention but instead focus on how FASD is articulated, upon whom, and the impact and outcome of practices. The field of FASD research is growing rapidly and includes medical researchers, diagnosticians, social scientists, educators, social service agencies, community-based organizations, public
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health experts, justice practitioners, and scholars. In this multidisciplinary field, the focus is on the role of alcohol during pregnancy and the impact of FASD on the individual, family, and society.
than as an escape from cruelty or neglect. A selftaught juggler, his entertainment career began in vaudeville in the late 19th century, which is when he first started using the name W. C. Fields.
Michelle Stewart University of Regina
Career By the turn of the century, Fields was headlining shows in both the United States and Europe, and he was often called the eccentric juggler because of the asides and jokes he’d offer while juggling. By all accounts, his skill as a juggler alone would have been a sufficient basis on which to build a career—the media often called him the world’s greatest juggler, though of course it was a time and industry fond of hyperbole. Though his stage persona did not entirely represent the “real” Dukenfield, he did draw on his childhood as material for his act, exaggerating the hardships he had faced. He also played himself in several of his films, and in movies where he had a son, he named him Claude after his real-life son (whose mother was the fellow vaudevillian Hattie Hughes, the actor’s wife from 1900 to 1907). Fields’s vaudeville career led to a successful run on Broadway, where he starred for six years in the Ziegfeld Follies revue. Although he had done brief film work in 1915, his Hollywood career did not begin until 1924, after his Broadway run had ended. He appeared in several silent films (wearing a fake mustache that he would abandon in his talkies) but found his real fame in the talkies, where his distinctive, sarcastic voice and muttered asides were a part of his persona.
See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Alcoholism: Effect on Family; Gender and Alcohol Abuse; Pregnancy, History of Alcohol and. Further Readings Armstrong, Elizabeth. Conceiving Risk, Bearing Responsibility. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2003. Jones, Kenneth and David Smith. “Recognition of the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in Early Infancy.” Lancet, v.302/7836 (1973). Kesmodel, U. S., J. Bertrand, H. Støvring, C. H. Denny, E. L. Mortensen, and the Lifestyle During Pregnancy Study Group. “The Effect of Different Alcohol Drinking Patterns in Early to Mid-Pregnancy on the Child’s Intelligence, Attention, and Executive Function.” BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, v.119 (2012). Oldani, Michael. “Uncanny Scripts: Understanding Pharmaceutical Employment in the Aboriginal Context.” Transcultural Psychiatry, v.46 (2009). Ryan, Doreen Major, Doreen M. Bonnett, and Callie B. Gass. “Sobering Thoughts: Town Hall Meetings on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.” American Journal of Public Health, v.96/12 (2006).
Fields, W. C. W. C. Fields is the stage name of William Claude “Bill” Dukenfield, an American actor and comedian whose stage and screen persona was commonly that of a curmudgeonly and arrogant but likable drunkard. The eldest child of a poor family in Darby, Pennsylvania, Fields ran away from home at age 11 and was soon performing for money. As he seems to have had a relatively happy childhood, he was probably motivated to run away and make his own way in the world by sheer poverty and adventurous impulse rather
Roles and Films Fields often played a con man and hustler, as the titles of some of his films like Never Give a Sucker an Even Break and You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man imply. He wrote the story or screenplay for many of his films from 1930 on but had trouble getting the studios to let him make the movies he wanted to make. In Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, made in 1941, Fields plays himself trying to get his screenplay produced. The title comes from a line of dialogue he delivers in two of his previous films. It was Fields’s last starring role. Though he had once starred in eight movies over a two-year span, not only were his productions becoming more elaborate, the alcohol, age, and weight he had put on had taken their toll on him.
Fifteen Gallon Law
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break is considered one of his best films, though, and is an interesting pairing with his previous film, The Bank Dick (selected for preservation by the U.S. National Film Registry), in which he plays a drunken henpecked victim of circumstance. Similar to his drunken character Egbert Souse in Bank Dick, most of Fields’s other on-screen characters are heavy drinkers who are drunk throughout significant portions of the story. This was part of his radio persona as well, when he appeared with Edgar Bergen. Though the curmudgeonliness was largely a put-on, the drinking was not. When he was a juggler, Fields had not consumed alcohol because of the demands on his dexterity, but comedy and acting gave him freer rein. He reportedly referred to his pocket flask of martinis as “pineapple juice.” The horror his characters feel at the thought of drinking anything nonalcoholic seems to have been taken from the real-life Fields, though the story that Fields once refused to drink water “because fish [have sex] in it” is apocryphal. His drinking caused professional frictions from time to time, though they were apparently not as serious as those of some other stars then or now, and his several sabbaticals from acting due to illness seem to have been alcohol induced. His health declined dramatically over the course of the 1930s, as he approached 60. Fields died five years after Never Give a Sucker an Even Break from a stomach hemorrhage caused by his alcoholism. A lifelong ardent atheist, he had the misfortune to die on Christmas day. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Films, Drinking in; Martin, Dean; Stereotypical Depiction of Alcoholics. Further Readings Curtis, James. W. C. Fields: A Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Fields, W. C. and Ronald J. Fields. W. C. Fields: His Intended Autobiography. New York: Prentice Hall, 1973. Mank, Gregory William. Hollywood’s Hellfire Club: The Misadventures of John Barrymore, W.C. Fields, Errol Flynn, and the Bundy Drive Boys. New York: Feral House, 2007.
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Fifteen Gallon Law A wave of religious fervor swept across the United States in the 1820s and 1830s. Along with it came an increased call for temperance—a powerful social movement advocating reduced or prohibited use of alcoholic beverages. In Massachusetts, state legislators responded by passing a temperance law in 1838 that banned the sale of spirits— except beer and cider—in volumes of less than 15 gallons. The law was widely controversial and became a key issue in the 1839 and 1840 state government elections. The law was repealed by the end of 1840 but established a coercive tone and legislative precedent that several states capitalized on in the years leading up to the start of the Civil War in 1861. Provisions and Reaction Propelled largely by the promotional efforts of the Boston Temperance Society, the predominantly Whig legislature in Massachusetts passed An Act to Regulate Spirituous Liquors on April 19, 1838. The law prohibited any individual, innkeeper, supplier, or retailer from selling brandy, rum, and other whole or mixed spirits in a quantity of less than 15 gallons. It further stipulated that an entire 15-gallon volume must be transported away after the sale at one time under threat of steep financial penalty. The law, commonly known as the Fifteen Gallon Law, gave county commissioners, mayors, aldermen, and court officials the authority to license as many pharmacies and medical practitioners in their respective areas as necessary—not to exceed 1 for every 2,000 inhabitants—to serve as sellers of the restricted spirits exclusively for use in medicinal purposes. The provisions of the act became effective in July 1838, making Massachusetts the first state ever to restrict the sale of spirits to such a severe extent. The new law immediately sparked heated partisanship between temperance reformers and much of the general public. On the one side, those in the temperance movement considered the 15-gallon restriction as a feasible way to reduce alcohol consumption among the common person. They believed that the poor spent too much time in taverns wasting their paltry funds on spirits, which deterred their health and—most importantly— their virtue.
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Opponents of the restrictive law, however, asserted that the volume limit was discriminatory because it impeded access to spirits by the underprivileged while the well-to-do would be able to afford the costs tied to large-volume purchases under the law. Compounding the fractious situation was the fact that the Fifteen Gallon Law was difficult to enforce in a consistent manner, both on the streets—where there were corrupt informants and weak police forces—and in the courts— where the constitutionality of the progressive law had not yet been unequivocally established. Just six months after the controversial law took effect, the Massachusetts State Legislature found itself tasked with considering modification or repeal at the January–February 1839 legislative session. Despite numerous votes taken throughout the session that suggested a majority of members favored some level of amendment or outright abolishment of the law, no action was taken because no consensus could be reached regarding a viable alternative.
was unconstitutional, other detractors felt there were other significant faults with the legislation as well. For example, the law was largely perceived as being an ineffectual mechanism for moral reform with little chance of achieving its goal by the very nature of its imposition. At the same time, many felt that the law in reality was a detriment to the instigating cause of temperance because it served mainly to provoke division within societal and political spheres, creating opposition where there had been a degree of unity in favor of temperance reform. Even some of the staunchest proponents who had sustained and propelled the temperance movement for years started distancing themselves from the legislation amid the widespread fracas. Rather than advancing the cause they had been fighting for, many devoted temperance leaders felt the law was unconstitutional, ineffective, and deleterious to their efforts. Temperance was still the ultimate goal, but the Fifteen Gallon Law was increasingly viewed as the wrong way to achieve it.
Key Criticisms Opponents of the Fifteen Gallon Law asserted that it contradicted the basic principles of the Constitution of the United States. They argued that the law reached far beyond temperance reform by seeking to force a specific dogma onto the will and morals of individual citizens. Stalwart critics went so far as to liken the principles of the law to legalized religion. In other words, they felt that the law took personal choice away from the individual by imposing legal parameters and ramifications around his or her preferences—in this case, one’s ability to acquire and imbibe spirits if so inclined. According to the law’s detractors, instead of regulating spirit consumption as outwardly implied, the Fifteen Gallon Law actually prohibited spirit use by restricting legality of small-volume purchases to pharmaceutical and medical purposes only. That prohibition, they believed, was an impingement on individual rights as related to equality in general and to the possession, utilization, and enjoyment of personal property in particular. The law’s opponents argued that both scenarios were in direct conflict with essential constitutional guarantees for individual equality and liberty. While the primary argument put forth by the law’s critics centered on the premise that the law
Political Ramifications When the Fifteen Gallon Law was passed by Massachusetts legislators in 1838, the Whig Party held the majority within the governing body, and the Whig governor, Edward Everett, signed it into law. As a result, the law became associated in the public eye with the Whigs. Despite public perceptions, however, opinions about the legislation within the party itself were greatly divided. While most members continued to favor temperance reform, some did not support the law as a means to that end. As public and political debate on the issue gained momentum in the run-up to the 1839 state government election, some Whigs in Worcester County split from the main party and formed a group called the Liberal Whigs that put its support behind the protemperance democratic candidate, Marcus Morton, who was running against the incumbent, Everett, for the role of governor. Support from the Liberal Whigs helped Morton nudge out his rival and increase the democratic presence in the state’s legislature. Before and after the election, the Democrats capitalized on the public disdain for the Fifteen Gallon Law. As a way to show solidarity with the masses, the party often ridiculed the law and blamed the Whigs for its enactment.
Films, Drinking in
As might be expected, the still Whig-controlled Massachusetts Legislature was not inclined to support Morton’s reform agenda, highlighted by his call for repeal of the Fifteen Gallon Law. During the state election campaign of 1840, the Whigs tried to reverse their position on temperance to capture the popular vote. The party went so far as to use a cider barrel as a symbol in their campaign to express their empathy with those most adversely affected by the Fifteen Gallon Law—the common person. The Democrats seized the opportunity to shine a light on the Whig Party’s about-face and even accused the party of promoting and encouraging intemperance. The Whigs returned the barbs by accusing the Democrats of being less than true to their high ideals in regard to temperance realities and reform. In the end, the Whig candidate, John Davis, defeated Morton. Later that year, the majority Whig Massachusetts State Legislature repealed the Fifteen Gallon Law. Shari Parsons Miller Independent Scholar See Also: American Temperance Society; Blue Laws; Christianity; General Court of Massachusetts (1657); History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 19th Century; Liquor Licenses; Maine Law; Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance; Regulation of Alcohol; Temperance, History of. Further Readings Fahey, David M. and Jon S. Miller. “Fifteen Gallon Law.” Alcohol and Drugs in North America: A Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABCCLIO, 2013. Otis, Harrison Gray, Franklin Dexter, and Benjamin Franklin Hallett. Investigation into the Fifteen Gallon Law of Massachusetts: Before a Joint Committee of the Legislature. Boston: J. H. Buckingham, 1839.
Films, Drinking in Representations of drinking permeate the cultural medium of film. Some sociologists decry
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the film industry’s tendency to depict drinking without negative consequences. However, Hollywood films, as well as those made in other countries and by independent filmmakers, are by no means univocal in their portrayals of alcohol use and abuse. As with the representation of drinking in other cultural forms, drinking in films is largely informed by social debates in the cultures that produce films at a given time. The contexts in which drinking is depicted in films, and the different cultural understandings of alcohol that inform depictions of its use, make the portrayal of drinking in films as multifarious as the film portrayals of any other common human activity. This introduction to the topic will consider primarily Hollywood films in which drinking plays a significant role in plot or characterization. From the final decades of the American temperance movement to the present, representations of drinking in films have engaged or been engaged in debates about the role of alcohol in modern society. Images of drinking in film are also symbolic of social or personal concerns other than alcohol use, reflecting debates about social identities, individual responsibility and morality, and the condition of society. The unique nature of film production and reception informs the medium’s representations of drinking, however, making it something other than a passive medium for social debate and storytelling. In addition to economic and artistic considerations, censorship codes unique to the medium have informed many mainstream film portrayals of drinking. Early Films and Temperance Motion pictures were born during the final decades of the 19th-century temperance movements, and many films made prior to the passage of National Prohibition in America reflect the cultural significance of temperance literature and drama as well as the agitation of groups like the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Nickelodeons and movie houses even provided practical support to the temperance cause by competing with saloons as alternate sites of cheap entertainment. Initially, lower class audiences attended screenings of both earnest temperance melodramas and comedies in which actors mocked temperance reformers and aped drunken behaviors.
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The depiction of drinking in film dates as far back as 1896, when the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company screened a short film of the actor Joseph Jefferson giving his toast “May you live long and prosper” from the stage play Rip Van Winkle. In “Dewars: It’s Scotch” (1897), possibly the first filmed advertisement, four men in kilts dance with a sign reading “Dewar’s Scotch Whisky” above and behind their heads, taking a break toward the end of the brief film to head to the bottle on the table behind them. In 1901, the Edison Picture Company released a series of single-reel films satirizing the violent antisaloon activities of Carrie Nation, whose career as a saloon smasher originated in her frustrations as the head of the Barber County (Kansas) WCTU. While some film satires of Carrie Nation simply portray her activities as slapstick, Edison’s Why Mr. Nation Wants a Divorce visually takes on the rhetoric of temperance reform, embodied in the name of Nation’s saloon-smashing team: the Home Defenders Army. The titular father “Mr. Nation” struggles at home to care for his children alone, finally relaxing with a drink as Mrs. Nation enters the house to berate and spank her husband for his tipple. A sign above the mantle reading “What is home without a mother?” drives the point home: Carrie Nation is defeating her own cause by leaving her duties as a housewife unattended. This reactionary parody flips the familiar roles of neglectful violent husband and helpless suffering wife from those shown in temperance fiction, a popular genre of American literature and drama since the early 19th century. As the film industry strove for middle-class respectability in the early 20th century, filmmakers produced melodramas addressing social problems like chronic drunkenness. To address the issue, they largely relied on the conventions long established by temperance fiction. Ferdinand Zecca’s Alcohol and Its Victims (1902) is an early example of a temperance melodrama film. The film chronicles the decline of a happy and modestly prosperous household under the influence of the father’s increasing compulsion to visit the saloon. The numerous adaptations of the immensely popular novel Ten Nights in a Bar-Room similarly contrast sober happy family life at home with the destructive influence of the
An undated 19th-century print of the actor Joseph Jefferson raising a toast while in stage costume as Rip Van Winkle. The 1896 film version of this toast is one of the earliest known depictions of drinking on film.
saloon, as does the film adaptation of Jack London’s memoir John Barleycorn (1914). The use of films like the six-reel Prohibition (1915) as propaganda by prominent temperance reformers indicated considerable success in the film industry’s drive for respectability. Likewise, the films of D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin, the most celebrated and enduring filmmakers of the early film era, reveal the significant influence of the temperance milieu on the development of film art. In early films like A Night Out (1915), One A.M. (1916), and The Cure (1917), Chaplin exploited the physical humor of drunken disorientation by playing characters who drunkenly, and usually accidentally, transgress social norms and temperance mores. D.W. Griffith did not support the social crusades of the day, and he mocked the efforts of reformers in The Do-Gooders (1913). However, Griffith nonetheless worked extensively
in the genre of temperance melodrama, directing many temperance films, including the seminal feature-length melodrama Broken Blossoms (1919). Prohibition The Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, establishing the prohibition of alcohol, went into effect early in 1920. The following year, comic film actor Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was charged with murder after actress Virginia Rappe died during a days-long party, awash in bootleg liquor, hosted by Arbuckle and two others from the film industry. The scandal ultimately resulted in the creation of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA), informally known as the Hays Office, to clean up Hollywood’s image. The efforts of the Hays Office would not include the censorship standards of the Production Code until 1930, and the standards of that code were not binding until 1934. In the meantime, American films reflected the differing attitudes Americans held about Prohibition. Alongside films that perpetuated the tropes of temperance fiction appeared portrayals of the Prohibition loopholes American drinkers exploited. Ten Nights in a Bar-Room was adapted for the screen three more times during Prohibition: in 1921, 1926, and 1931. Also in 1931, Charlie Chaplin premiered City Lights, which employs many of the comic temperance tropes of his early films, and D.W. Griffith released The Struggle, a family melodrama in the temperance tradition. More than mere vestiges of an earlier era, these films among many others represent the continuing cultural significance of Victorian temperance fiction after the temperance movement’s definitive legislative victory. On the other hand, there were also many films released during Prohibition that reflected the open defiance many Americans practiced in the face of institutionalized temperance morality. Films like Night Life of New York (1925), The Boob (1926), After Midnight (1927), and Our Dancing Daughters (1928) portray the new urban party milieu of hip, flask-carrying flappers, speakeasies, and bootleggers. Few if any such films portray hedonism unchecked, however. Many characters suffer serious consequences from heavy drinking, including death.
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Heavy Drinkers and 1930s Genre Films As the conventions of sound film began to solidify in Hollywood’s first golden age, several genres featuring hard-drinking character types became recognizable. The Production Code may have proscribed the filmic depiction of alcohol use, but its enforcement is not immediately evident in the comedies, hard-boiled genres, and Hollywood insider films of the 1930s and early 40s. Films of the temperance and Prohibition eras consistently depicted either heavy drinking with tragic consequences or drunkenness as buffoonery. The cultural understanding of the immorality of chronic drunkenness that these depictions convey did not disappear in the films of the 1930s. For instance, two influential films about the lives of Hollywood filmmakers, What Price Hollywood (1932) and A Star Is Born (1937), tell the respective stories of a director and an actor who ruin their careers and lives with alcohol. These films differ from their temperance and Prohibition forebears, however, in that the heavy drinkers they depict lead glamorous lives. The Production Code kept films from addressing drinking problems in more typical, everyday settings. Instead, some genre films of the 1930s feature heroes who lead unique lives and whose drinking symbolizes varying degrees of moral ambiguity in the worlds they inhabit. In the genre of newspaper films, of which The Front Page (1931) is an early classic, the corruption of hardboiled journalists is often reflected in their heavy drinking habits. The relative morality of their behavior is made murky by the widespread corruption of the urban worlds in which they drink and work. Hard-boiled detectives like Sam Spade of The Maltese Falcon (1941) drink without appearing positively or negatively affected by alcohol. Their ability to hold their liquor symbolizes their unique morality as knightlike figures who work outside the normal structures of authority in the interest of upholding ultimate morality and punishing wrongdoers. Many hard-boiled detectives followed Sam Spade in the 1940s, but Nick Charles of The Thin Man (1934) is a singular creation. Both a wealthy socialite and erstwhile private detective, he fairly carelessly drinks his way through his investigation, solving the case with little effort. Few characters of American film
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drink so much with so few consequences and so little judgment from others. Another singular heavy-drinking figure of American film is W. C. Fields. In comedies like It’s A Gift (1934) and The Bank Dick (1940), Fields belittles temperance morality, portraying men who unite their families through their financial successes despite the heavy drinking over which the Victorian women in their lives frequently berate them. While Fields’s thoroughly flawed but ultimately successful characters are very much his own, his comedies are not entirely unique in their portrayals of alcohol use. Screwball romances like The Philadelphia Story (1940), for instance, portray wealthy characters who enjoy plenty of carefree drinking. Alcoholism Films, 1945 to 1962 While genres like the Western continued to portray drinking by masculine heroes in the post– World War II era, a subgenre of social problems films emerged that dramatized men’s and women’s struggles to keep themselves from drinking. These films followed in the temperance tradition by depicting the destruction caused by chronic drunkenness. However, they were unique in their sympathetic portrayals of alcoholics and alcoholism: many of the films used these terms, reflecting changing thinking about problem drinkers in American culture and medicine. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and the alcoholism movement, embodied by the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism (NCEA) and the Yale Center for Alcohol Studies, directly and indirectly influenced the production of these alcoholism films, which promoted the idea that the chronic problem drinker is a victim of a disease. Rather than portraying drinking as a catalyst for drama, these films portrayed characters’ drinking and subsequent efforts to stop as drama itself. Widely considered the first alcoholism film, The Lost Weekend (1945) established many of the genre’s conventions. Don Birnam, the film’s main character, is a writer from a comfortably wealthy family, exemplary of the middle- to upper-class white Americans and creative workers who are overrepresented in alcoholism films. His loyal girlfriend Helen stays with him despite his chronic drunkenness and neglect, much like the many women of alcoholism films who resemble
the long-suffering wives of temperance fiction. Helen also gives voice to the disease model that alcoholism films helped popularize. As in many such films, her medical explanation of Don’s drinking is complicated by the additional expression of other situational or psychological motivating factors. Don explains his own drinking as a symptom of his fear of failure as a writer. Most significantly, The Lost Weekend subordinates the drama of Don’s work, family, and romantic lives to the drama of his ongoing failure to drink moderately. At the end of the unintended four-day binge the film chronicles, Don decides that he can quit drinking by writing about his struggle and thus sharing his story with others. As with the dual explanations for Don’s drinking, his means of recovery combines the AA-influenced alcoholism paradigm with longer-lived Hollywood film conventions. Though his decision to share his story for the benefit of other similarly afflicted men reflects the AA mutual help model of recovery, his decision to quit drinking without seeking help from other alcoholics reflects Hollywood storytelling demands for a strong leading character. Few alcoholism films portray recovery exactly according to the AA model. However, several films, including the newspaper film Come Fill the Cup (1951) and the Lillian Roth biopic I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955), show characters achieving sobriety by participating in AA or a mutual help group closely resembling it. Support groups contrast positively, in alcoholism films, with medical interventions, which usually appear as part of a character’s degradation or as an ignored warning sign, rarely as a productive step toward recovery. In Harvey (1950), a uniquely comic portrait of a heavy drinker from this era, happy drunkard Elwood P. Dowd even manages to convince the staff of the asylum where he is supposed to be treated that his life spent in bars with an imaginary rabbit is perfectly functional, indeed happier than their own lives. Quite a few films from the postwar period detail the struggles of female alcoholics. However, much like the temperance movements of the 19th century, the 20th-century alcoholism movement cast alcoholism as an overwhelmingly male disease. Alcoholism films reflect this gender bias in their less sympathetic renderings of female alcoholism. As a film about an alcoholic couple, The
Days of Wine and Roses (1962) makes the contrasts between a male (Joe) and a female (Kirsten) alcoholic especially stark. In particular, the film illustrates the different sexual aspects of alcoholism for men and women in alcoholism films: for men, drinking replaces sex while for women, drinking implies increased and often debased sex. Both Joe and Kirsten are portrayed as victims of a disease, but the film strongly implies that Kirsten’s drinking is further impelled by her Oedipal fixation on her father while Joe is simply unhappy in his work. Joe finally quits drinking with the help of AA, but Kirsten, given the clear choice between sobriety with her family and drinking with anonymous lovers, chooses the latter. Heavy Drinking in Vietnam-Era Films Itself adapted from a 1958 television program, The Days of Wine and Roses was the last major alcoholism film before social problem narratives largely migrated to the small screen to become made-for-TV movies in the 1960s and 1970s. The new media dominance of the television broadcast networks had major movie studios devoting their energies to producing programming for the younger, economically healthier medium. At the same time, new critical thinking about film as an art form encouraged the perception that directors were the auteurs (authors) of their films and that social problem films were a lower form of film art. It is also likely that the Vietnam War and increased use of recreational drugs in the mid’60s and ’70s momentarily eclipsed alcoholism as a major American social concern. These changes in Hollywood and the broader culture resulted in a unique era of mainstream film that more closely resembled the 1930s than the two postwar decades. Films of the Vietnam Era largely ignore the disease model of alcoholism, although Alcoholics Anonymous continued to thrive and grow in these years. Many films instead presented situational and psychological explanations for characters’ drinking without any medical explanation. In Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Martha and George, already drunk at the beginning of the film, continue to drink until dawn as the dialogue reveals more and more about George’s professional failures and the married couple’s shared misery as a family with a painful secret. In the first half
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of The Graduate (1967), Benjamin shares Mrs. Robinson’s ennui and drinking habits in the same measure. The Graduate is also exemplary of a turn away from solely personal explanations for characters’ drinking behaviors to depictions of drinking as a way to cope with life in a confused, immoral, or just dull society. Fat City (1972) shows the dissipated opposite of AA’s notion of staying sober one day at a time in the character Billy Tully, a past-his-prime boxer living hand-to-mouth and drinking heavily to help himself make it through the night, in the words of the film’s theme song. Tully fails in his effort to find meaningful employment, and his comeback as a boxer is cut short when he discovers how little money is in it. He has no choice but to continue surviving day to day on skid row. As did the world-weary detectives who began appearing in 1930s films, characters in Vietnamera films who know how to drink often exhibit rogue morality in their morally ambiguous (or simply immoral) worlds. While American soldiers in Vietnam used marijuana and heroin, in MASH (1970) Korean War army surgeon Hawkeye Pierce gleefully drinks liquor in defiance of rigid army authority and the immoral war into which he has been conscripted. In The Last Detail (1973), two U.S. Navy petty officers are assigned to take a young sailor from Norfolk, Virginia, to a military prison in Maine, where he will serve an eight-year sentence for attempting to steal $40. To help the inexperienced sailor make the most of his last few days of freedom, the two officers fill the journey with alcohol-fueled adventures in the cities of the East Coast. Filmmakers continued to produce films representing heavy drinking without the medical model of alcoholism into the late 1970s. Animal House (1978) depicts heavy-drinking fraternity brothers rebelling against stuffy, arbitrary authority, albeit in a much less weighty social context than that of MASH or The Last Detail. The Deer Hunter (1978) portrays working-class Americans who frequently drink in the face of their bleak fates, which include being taken prisoner and tortured in Vietnam. However, the conventions of temperance and alcoholism films began to reassert themselves in films of the late 1970s, especially in entertainment business films reminiscent of A Star is Born. In
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fact, a remake (the second) of A Star is Born, this time about rock stars, came out in 1976. So did the biopic W.C. Fields and Me, which portrays Fields as a selfish, lonely, slowly dying alcoholic: a much more troubling character than the heavydrinking American dreamer of his own films. The Rose (1979) puts a hard-partying, sexually liberated 1960s diva in the spotlight so audiences can watch her deteriorate and die from an excess of alcohol, drugs, and exhaustion. Alcoholism and Films of the 1980s Though alcoholism had returned to Hollywood films, alcoholism films that focus on a character’s struggle with the disease remained largely the province of made-for-TV movies in the blockbuster-driven film market of the 1980s. In feature films, alcoholism, as opposed to the nonmedicalized heavy drinking of Vietnam-era films, became a marker of character or plot, in some cases revising the genre conventions of, for example, comedy and crime films. In many films, the effects of an alcoholic’s drinking on his or her family are emphasized over the character’s personal struggle. Only When I Laugh (1981), a comedy that begins in an alcoholism treatment center, tells the story of a Broadway actress owning up to her past and struggling to stay sober for the sake of her relationship with her daughter. In Arthur (1981), the titular heavy-drinking playboy most closely resembles the carefree aristocratic imbibers of 1930s screwball comedies. However, Arthur is forced to address his alcoholism and quit drinking for the good of his family in Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988). Barfly (1987), by contrast, not only goes against the grain of comedies about alcoholism in the 1980s but also defies the conventional morality of drinking in films as few other Hollywood productions ever have. Henry Chinaski, the proudly alcoholic skid row poet at the center of the story, refuses sex, money, and comfort in favor of the freedom and honesty he finds in alcohol, poverty, and violence. Eight Million Ways to Die (1986) introduces alcoholism and AA to the detective genre. It is not former cop-cum-private eye Matt Scudder’s ability to drink but rather his ability to stay sober, in his drug- and alcohol-filled milieu, that signifies Scudder’s individualistic morality. Despite his individualism, Scudder seeks and receives help
from AA. The Morning After (1987) combines a crime thriller with a female alcoholism film. Alex Sternbergen’s habit of blacking out and sleeping with strangers when drunk makes it possible to frame her for murder, which her husband does. The body Alex finds in her bed is both a catalyst for the film’s action and Alex’s alcoholic rock bottom. She will recover from it largely by falling in love with a recovering alcoholic. Perhaps more than any other film of the 1980s, Clean and Sober (1988) resembles the alcoholism films of the post–World War II era. Significantly, however, the film portrays medical treatment in a positive light. In fact, the film primarily takes place in a treatment center. Other alcoholism films set largely in treatment centers followed Clean and Sober, including When a Man Loves a Woman (1994) and 28 Days (2000). 1990s to the Present Possibly as a result of the significant decline in per capita alcohol consumption that has taken place since the mid-1980s, the broad cultural acceptance of the disease model of alcoholism, and a shift in public focus to drinking-related problems like drunk driving and date rape, few Hollywood films have been made about alcoholics struggling with their disease over the past 20 or so years. Likewise, there has been limited scholarly discussion regarding drinking in recent films. Nonetheless, film representations of drinking continue to bear significant cultural weight, and several films warrant mention here. Unlike the AA members in Drunks (1995), Ben Sanderson of Leaving Las Vegas (1995) desires nothing other than to drink himself to death. There is no clear explanation for Ben’s drinking other than a momentary suggestion that he suffers from the disease of alcoholism. Unlike many film alcoholics, Ben cannot be saved by a loving woman, nor does he wish to be. On the other hand, Sideways (2004) portrays Miles Raymond’s excessive appreciation of fine wine partly as a symptom of his failed writing career and divorce. Miles’s expressed love of pinot noir and hatred for merlot caused what has been called the sideways effect: increased sales of the former wine and decreased sales of the latter. The character’s seemingly authoritative tastes apparently resonated with audiences more than his problematic excesses.
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Of the many comedies to portray carefree excessive drinking since the 1990s, Beerfest (2006) is especially notable for the vast amounts of alcohol its characters drink, mostly problemfree, in preparation for a beer-drinking competition. Flight (2012), by contrast, uniquely combines the AA rhetoric of alcoholism films with a spectacular drunk-driving incident rendered with special effects to tell the story of an airline pilot unwilling to admit his drinking problem and seek help. The film builds on the conventions of alcoholism films in several interesting ways, including by articulating the religious aspect of the AA model of recovery. David C. Pratt College of William & Mary See Also: Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture; Gender and Drinking in Popular Culture; Fields, W. C.; Stereotypical Depiction of Alcoholics; Television. Further Readings Clark, Claire. “Bill W. Goes to Hollywood: The Rise and Fall of Recovering Addiction Experts.” Journal of Medical Humanities, v.32/2 (2011). Denzin, Norman K. Hollywood Shot by Shot: Alcoholism in American Cinema. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991. Good, Howard. The Drunken Journalist: The Biography of a Film Stereotype. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2000. Hersey, Curt. “Script(ing) Treatment: Representations of Recovery from Addiction in Hollywood Film.” Contemporary Drug Problems, v.32/3 (2005). Kanner, Melinda. “Drinking Themselves to Life, or the Body in the Bottle: Filmic Negotiations in the Construction of the Alcoholic Female Body.” In Reading the Social Body, Catherine B. Burroughs and Jeffrey Ehrenreich, eds. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993. Room, Robin. “Alcoholism and Alcoholics Anonymous in U.S. Films, 1945–1962: The Party Ends for the ‘Wet Generations.’” Journal of Studies on Alcohol, v.50 (1989). Sloan, Kay. “Sexual Politics: Public Solutions to Private Problems.” In The Loud Silents: Origins of the Social Problem Film. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988.
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Fine Dining “Fine cuisine,” another term for gourmet or haute cuisine, can be described as a style of food and cooking that is refined and of high quality. It is thus differentiated from the more common or home-style fare. Typically, producers of fine cuisine pay particular attention to aesthetic concerns, artful presentations, and the sourcing of unique and premium ingredients. Fine dining restaurants (so-called white tablecloth restaurants with attentive service) are commercial establishments that serve gourmet dishes to their customers. Alcohol plays a role in the haute cuisine of many cultures, though not all, both as an ingredient and in the form of complementary beverages. Alcohol as an Ingredient Alcohol, in various forms (e.g., wines, spirits), serves as an ingredient in many traditional haute cuisine dishes, particularly in European cuisines such as French and Spanish. Alcohol provides interesting flavor accents in many dishes. Wine, for example, contains components such as sugars and tannins, which lend sweet (sugar) or bitter and astringent (tannin) notes to a cooked dish. Alcohol provides the foundation of many wellknown sauces anchored to fine dining. Examples include Madeira sauce, which incorporates Madeira, a fortified wine from Portugal, and white wine sauces, which frequently appear in both French and Italian cuisine. Bordelaise sauce, a classic French preparation in which red wine is paired with butter, shallots, thyme, and either bone marrow, demi-glace, or a rich beef stock, is another traditional sauce. White wine is also used to prepare sabayon (also known as zuppa inglese), a foamy, egg-based dessert that can serve as a sauce for berries. Traits of Wine Characteristics of wines include acidity, body, sweetness, and tannins (bitter components). When matching wines to foods, care must be taken to ensure that these traits do not mask or clash with the flavors of the meal. For example, a full-bodied wine like an oaky Chardonnay will overwhelm a delicate dish. Similarly, a light sauvignon blanc would have its flavors lost if served with a rich game dish.
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Pairing Wines With Cuisine One of the hallmarks of fine dining is the pairing of an appropriate beverage with the meals served. Typically, the beverage in question is wine (although the combination of foods with beer, spirits, and even teas is becoming more common). Historically, the color of the wine served would match the perceived “weight” of the foods that it was to complement. White wines were paired with lighter proteins, such as fish or chicken, as well as with pastas; red wines were typically offered with heavier meats like beef or lamb. A heavier, more full-bodied wine like an aged Cabernet Sauvignon was deemed to be incompatible with a lighter dish like chicken; it was thought to overpower the food. However, these traditional instructions are no longer adhered to religiously. Rather, harmonious pairings are often based on the matching of the heft of the respective foods and wines. For example, a full-bodied dish is typically partnered with an equally full-bodied wine. While following these rules still results in more traditional pairings (i.e., red with beef, white with chicken or fish), relaxing the old tenets allows for considerably greater flexibility in wine–food pairings. Care must still be taken to ensure that subtle qualities of the wine are not masked by the food (and vice versa). Many fine dining establishments employ the services of a sommelier, the restaurant employee tasked with the stewardship of wines, including procurement, maintenance, and storage. The sommelier (also called wine steward or chef de vin) is a professional well trained in the art and science of wine. He or she is extensively educated in all aspects of wine as a culinary component. The sommelier is responsible for the selection of wines that compose a restaurant’s wine list. Additionally, the sommelier is trained in the proper service of wine; aspects of service include the correct way to open or uncork the wine, present the wine, and pour the wine. The sommelier also possesses extensive knowledge about food and wine combinations to enhance the customer’s fine dining experience. Indeed, this is the most visible activity from the perspective of the customer. Sommeliers answer questions about appropriate wine choices and may offer suggestions for diners. Sommeliers may elect to become professionally certified, an arduous process that requires
additional education and examination. Different countries have different certifying organizations. Beer and Sake Pairings Although alcohol–food pairings predominantly focus on wines, other alcoholic beverages are being successfully matched with foods in the fine dining arena. An increasing amount of attention is being paid to the compatibility of beers and food. The beer sommelier, while still a relatively rare position, serves a similar function as the wine sommelier. Some sommeliers note the harmoniousness of various beers with non-European ethnic cuisines (e.g., Indian, Vietnamese). Indian food, for example, is often too richly spiced to work with wines other than Rieslings or gewürztraminers; however, beers, such as pale ales and lagers, provide interesting counterpoints and their flavors are not masked by the food. As these cuisines move increasingly beyond the realm of inexpensive meals and into fine dining, greater attention will likely be paid to food and beer pairings. Sake, a Japanese alcoholic beverage, is made from rice that has been fermented (the starches have been converted to sugars). It can be served cold, warm, or at room temperature. Sake consumption may be ritualistic or ceremonial (it is part of a traditional wedding ceremony) and is often part of Japanese fine dining. Sake may be paired with sashimi (thinly sliced fresh raw fish or meat). The Japanese eschew the pairing of sake with sushi, which is founded on vinegared rice, as it would mean serving rice on rice (and be incompatible). Wine and Fine Cheeses A cheese course is often served as part of fine dining. In France, the cheese course is typically served at the end of the meal, whereas in the United States and the United Kingdom, it appears between the entrée and dessert. Fine cheeses also may be served as an appetizer, the morsels meant to whet the appetite (as opposed to satiate it). Regardless of when it is served, the presence of cheese entails the proper accompaniment of wines. A robust cheese pairs well with a similarly full-flavored wine; for example, a ParmigianoReggiano may be accompanied by a Cabernet Sauvignon or a dry sherry (a type of fortified wine). Tangy goat cheese with an acidic white
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wine showcases the flavors of both the wine and the cheese. Strongly flavored bleu cheeses with their molds, though notoriously difficult to pair, are often linked with sweeter dessert wines to avoid flavor clashes. A classic pairing is Roquefort with sauternes (a sweet French wine). The timing of the cheese course, as part of fine dining, also impacts the type of wine served alongside. When cheese begins a meal, sparkling wines such as prosecco or champagne serve as compatible offerings. When cheese is served as a separate course late in the meal, still wines and dessert wines are more likely accompaniments. Cocktails, Apéritifs, and Digestifs Many a fine dining experience, whether at a restaurant or a private affair, begins with an alcoholic beverage meant to stimulate the appetite. In the United States, this often means indulging in a pre-dinner cocktail. Cocktails (the word, when referring to drink, first appeared in print in 1798) refer to mixed drinks featuring at least one alcoholic ingredient; mocktails are contemporary nonalcoholic mixed drinks. Although cocktails apparently originated in England, the concept flourished in the United States, particularly in the early 1900s (the golden age of cocktails). Common predinner cocktails include the gin-based martini, the manhattan (with bourbon), and the old-fashioned. The word apéritif also refers to a premeal drink to whet the appetite. Apéritifs need not be mixed drinks—single alcoholic beverages are typical. Well-known apéritifs include members of the wine family (e.g., vermouth, sherry, champagne) as well as liqueurs such as Campari (a bitter liqueur) and anisette. Whereas apéritifs are served before the meal, digestifs are consumed after eating. Digestifs are thought to aid the digestion. Brandy and port are two examples of alcoholic beverages serving as digestifs. Innovative Cooking Processes and Alcohol A more science-based approach to cooking (sometimes called modernist cuisine or molecular gastronomy) utilizes alcohol in innovative ways. One process is reverse spherification, in which alcohol is manipulated chemically and physically to create small, caviar-like pods or spheres encasing alcohol within a membrane. Molecular gastronomy is
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associated with high-end fine dining and enthusiastic home practitioners. Petra A. Zimmermann Ball State University See Also: After-Dinner Drinks; Aperitifs; Beer and Foods; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Cooking With Alcohol. Further Readings Davidson, Alan. The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Dornenberg, Andrew and Karen Page. What to Drink With What You Eat. New York: Bulfinch Press, 2006. Fletcher, Janet. Cheese and Wine. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2006. Robinson, Jancis. The Oxford Companion to Wine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Finland Finland is the easternmost Nordic country, bordered on the west by Sweden, the north by Norway, the east by Russia, and the south by the Gulf of Finland. Its area is 338,145 square kilometers (approximately 130,559 square miles), about four-fifths the size of California. It has 5.25 million people, with a majority of the population living along the southern coast. Independent only since 1917, it was part of Sweden from the 12th until the early part of the 19th century, when it became a grand duchy within the Russian Empire. Per capita alcohol consumption is a relatively modest 9.3 liters. Yet, no other country, not even the United States, has been so obsessed with alcohol or attempted so many different alcohol policies. Finland has conducted some of the most important and sophisticated studies on drinking and serves as a laboratory for alcohol policy, especially policy developed to combat binge drinking, which is endemic in Finnish society. In fact, as early as 1733 binge drinking was made a crime. Finland has traditionally been a farming and forest economy with scattered towns. Like other large grain-producing nations without adequate
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markets and transportation networks such as the United States, Sweden, and Scotland, Finland engaged in extensive home distilling, which often led to drunkenness and family violence. Religious organizations first became involved. An example was the evangelical Lutheran minister Lars Laestadius, who journeyed to Lapland, ostensibly the site of the hardest drinkers, and founded a sect based on sobriety that continues today. By the 1840s, temperance became a key reform for the pro-Finnish nationalists, ironically Swedish speakers, including Elias Lonnrot, author of the Finnish national saga the Kalevala. Not until the 1880s did the physician A. A. Granfelt, relying on American temperance publications, form the first successful temperance organization, the Friends of Temperance. Granfelt, like much of the Swedish aristocracy, had an ambivalent view of the Finnish peasants; he idolized their simplicity and purity but denigrated their barbarism. Granfelt believed that temperance would cure their ills if only a wise leader like himself could set the path. The 1870s and 1880s were a time of considerable tumult in Finland. Faced with such drastic changes, newly freed peasants and workers and political, labor, women’s, and religious organizations all agreed that backward Finland could catch up with the rest of Europe only by temperance. While the sentiment for temperance was widespread, the movement was largely middle class. While only 9 percent of Finns lived in towns, 63 percent of temperance movement members came from them. Notwithstanding the general fears, per capita drinking was only a moderate 3 liters in 1870, and had decreased until by 1912 it was 0.5 liters, the lowest in Europe. Prohibition During its time as a grand duchy of Russia, Finns four times petitioned unsuccessfully for prohibition. Finland was impacted greatly by the Russian Revolution. In 1917, a short but vicious civil war broke out between the conservative Whites, allied politically and militarily with Germany, and the socialist Reds. Lasting barely more than a year, the war cost Finland 37,000 lives out of a population of 3 million, many of them in frozen prison camps. A chastened newly independent government sought a unifying national policy in national Prohibition.
Finland became the first Western nation to institute national Prohibition on June 1, 1919. From the 1870s, Finnish temperance groups, especially the Friends of Temperance, had received intellectual and material help from American groups. The American Anti-Saloon League even wrote the national act abolishing alcohol. Finland had many of the same problems as did the United States, which established Prohibition a year later. Import, sale, transportation, and storage of alcohol were permitted only for medical and research purposes. A number of social problems quickly diminished. School attendance improved, fewer children were underfed, and more children passed their classes. Also, the most indigent families improved their standard of living. Yet, other conditions quickly began to disintegrate. Drug stores were permitted to sell alcohol with a doctor’s prescription, a loophole that was soon abused. Like the United States, Finland possesses numerous isolated harbors perfect for smuggling, especially with neighboring Estonia. Expensive restaurants and bars were allowed to serve alcohol while patrons of working-class establishments were arrested. Eighty percent of those found guilty of violating Prohibition laws were defined as either “poor” or “very poor.” Crime and violence increased exponentially. During the first two years of prohibition, 78 percent of incorporated towns noted an increase in drinking, while only 12 percent noted a decrease. In the rural communities, 64 percent noted increased drinking. Much of this increased drinking stemmed from the long-engrained tradition of binge drinking by a substantial minority. As early as 1923, the government’s Alcohol Commission declared Prohibition a failure and called for its repeal. Repeal of Prohibition As in the United States, conservative forces fought against repeal. Publications were censored for criticism of Prohibition. Some national politicians honestly feared that Prohibition was the only unifying force in the country. Even after a national plebiscite resulted in a 70-percent vote in favor of repeal, a majority of Parliament remained committed to Prohibition, until it finally repealed the Prohibition Act in 1932.
While the United States was able to experiment on a state-by-state basis after repeal, Finland necessarily chose one system, adapting a version of their neighbor Sweden’s Gothenberg System. Using a national monopoly, Finland restricted liquor by cost and availability. The monopoly Alko had total control of all alcoholic beverages containing over 2.8 percent by volume. About two-thirds of the country, primarily in the most rural areas, lacked licensed alcohol outlets and thus remained under prohibition. Some of the major reforms, taken from Sweden, were to make liquor prohibitively expensive and to make outlets few and scattered. The major impetus to these actions was to make liquor difficult to obtain, especially for the lower class, which was most prone to binge drinking. In 1969, the Alcohol Legislation Committee of the Finnish government called for ending rural prohibition and increasing the strength of beer. Noting sociocultural research connecting moderate drinking with food consumption, the committee provided most restaurants with liquor licenses, assuming that this would encourage people to drink moderately. Instead, patrons tended to eat sparsely and drink excessively. Beer consumption increased 156 percent, spirits by 96 percent, and wine by 87 percent. Drunkenness doubled per capita. From 1969 until 1994, continual modification took place; the state monopoly on production, import, and export disappeared, but retail remained. By 2002, entrance into the European Union with its free trade policies and massive importation from Estonia led to a new law decreasing taxes by one-third. This marked the first decline since the 1970s and proved an excellent experiment for alcohol policies. Younger people tended to drink more while both light and heavy drinkers were unreceptive to price differences. Cirrhosis of the liver and pancreatic disease increased, but cardiovascular disease showed no increase. Violence among moderate drinkers increased while it actually decreased among heavy drinkers, especially among couples. Of most interest for Finland, binge drinking did not increase for men but skyrocketed by 63 percent for women. Even such a quick study of Finland can demonstrate how pervasive alcohol problems can
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be and how even the most sophisticated policies can fail to meet their objectives. In less than 200 years, Finland has progressed from the most isolated and one of the most impoverished countries in Europe to an extremely well-educated, sophisticated, and prosperous nation. One of the few things that hasn’t changed has been its grappling with alcohol. Mark Calvin Smith University of Texas at Austin See Also: Anti-Saloon League; Binge Drinking, History of; Europe, Northern; Norway; Prohibition; Sweden; Temperance Movements. Further Readings Sulkunen, Irma. History of the Finnish Temperance Movement: Temperance as a Civic Religion. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1990. Sulkunen, Pekka, ed. Broken Spirits: Power and Ideas in Nordic Alcohol Control. Helsinki: Nordic Council for Alcohol and Drug Research, 2000. Wuorinen, John H. The Prohibition Movement in Finland. New York: The Columbia Press, 1931.
Fortune Brands Beam, Inc., is a Deerfield, Illinois, publicly traded corporation that produces numerous distilled liquors. The current incarnation of the company was created on October 4, 2011, when it was divested from Fortune Brands, a holding company that split its holdings between Beam Inc. and Fortune Brands Home and Security. Fortune Brands began as the American Tobacco Company in 1890, acquiring other companies and brands in the late 20th century before its 2011 split. Background Beam Inc. is the latest of several companies producing (among other things) Jim Beam bourbon. Though the bourbon was only named Jim Beam in 1933, when the company was rebuilding after Prohibition, the Beam line of bourbon extends back to 1795 through seven generations of the
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Beam family, who are still part of the company leadership today. The Beams arrived in Kentucky as German immigrants (the name was originally spelled Boehm), and Jacob Beam began selling the family’s corn whiskey in 1795 under the brand name Old Jake Beam. His son David expanded the family’s distribution. The Beam family was instrumental in developing the aged corn-and-grain Kentucky whiskey that became known as bourbon. The Beams’ first barrel-strength bourbon was introduced in 1987. Named Booker’s for Master Distiller Booker Noe (a Beam descendant), it was the first of several small-batch bourbons. That same year, the company acquired National Brands and its whiskey brands. In addition to running the publicly traded Beam Inc., the Beam family owns Heaven Hill Distilleries, a privately owned distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky. It is the only fully family-owned distillery left in Kentucky, and is the second-largest holder of bourbon. Founded by Joseph Beam and other investors in 1935, Heaven Hill is co-owned with the Shapira family, but every one if its master distillers has been a member of the Beam family: Joseph Beam (cousin of Jim Beam), his son Harry, Earl Beam (son of Jim’s brother Park), his son Parker, and his son Craig. Parker Beam has overseen the production of the Parker’s Heritage Collection line of premium whiskeys since 2007. The first edition produced was an 11-year-old bourbon released at cask strength. This was followed in 2008 by the issuing of a 27-year-old bourbon, an age few American whiskeys have ever been released at; in 2009 by Parker’s Heritage Collection Golden Anniversary Edition, featuring a blend of bourbons from every year in Parker’s 50-year career; in 2010 by the 10-year-old wheated bourbon; in 2011 by a bourbon finished in cognac barrels; in 2012 by a blend of four grains; and in 2013 by Promise of Hope, a 10-year-old single-barrel bourbon with proceeds going to benefit Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis research. Each release has received multiple spirit awards. Jim Beam and Other Products Today’s lineup of Jim Beam products includes mostly bourbons: Jim Beam Original (aged four years, 80 proof); Jim Beam Choice (aged
five years, 80 proof, charcoal filtered like Tennessee whiskey): Jim Beam Seven Year (aged seven years, 80 proof); Jim Beam Black (aged eight years, 86 proof); and Jim Beam Devil’s Cut (aged six years, 90 proof, uses special technique to extract bourbon from the wooden walls of the cask). There is also a single rye whiskey, Jim Beam Rye (aged four years, 80 proof); a white whiskey called Jacob’s Ghost (aged one year; 80 proof, filtered); a blended whiskey called Beam Eight Star (80 proof, mostly neutral spirits); and several liqueurs blending bourbon, sweetener, and flavoring—Jim Beam Honey, Jim Beam Maple, Red Stag Black Cherry, Red Stag Honey Tea, and Red Stag Spiced. The small batch bourbon collection distilled by the Beams but not bearing the Jim Beam brand includes Booker’s (aged seven years, 120–129 proof); Baker’s (aged seven years, 107 proof); Basil Hayden’s (aged six and eight years, 80 proof); Knob Creek (aged nine years, 100 proof); Knob Creek Rye (100 proof); and Knob Creek Single Barrel (aged nine years, 120 proof). The Jim Beam name is also licensed to produce several food products using Jim Beam bourbon as an ingredient, including Jim Beam soaked sunflower seeds; barbecue sauces; marinades; mustards; steak sauces; hot sauce; wing sauce; pancake syrup, glaze; hot smoked salmon; marinated fresh salmon; and Jim Beam bourbon-infused ham, pulled pork, and pulled chicken. Other Brands There are also several other types of liquors produced by Beam Inc.: In terms of bourbon, Maker’s Mark was founded in 1954 and for many years was the most premium bourbon commonly available. The company was acquired by Fortune Brands in 2005 and is currently run by Rob Samuels, grandson of founder Bill Samuels Sr. Another variety, Old Grand Dad, has been produced since 1840 and is currently one of the 10 best-selling straight whiskeys in the country). Last, Old Crow is one of the oldest bourbon brands, introduced in 1835. The bourbon was beloved by Henry Clay, Mark Twain, and Ulysses S. Grant. The company also makes a variety of scotches: Laphroaig is the best-known Islay Scotch on the American market, and is one of the strongest whiskeys produced by
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Barrels of Knob Creek bourbon in a Beam Inc. distillery in Clermont, Kentucky, in 2011. Beginning in the 1790s the Beam family began developing bourbon, or aged corn-and-grain Kentucky whiskey. Knob Creek is one of several small-batch bourbon brands currently owned and produced by Beam Inc.
a major distillery. Ardmore is a single-malt Scotch, and Teacher’s Highland Cream Blended Scotch has 45 percent blended from 30 different single malts. There are also several whiskeys made in the styles of different countries. The Irish whiskeys include the Tyrconnell and Connemara single-malt Irish whiskey, the Greenore single-grain Irish whiskey, and the Kilbeggan blended Irish whiskey. The Canadian whiskeys include Alberta Premium—one of the only 100 percent rye whiskeys in Canada, or anywhere—and Canadian Club, a blended rye that became especially popular in the United States during Prohibition. Destilerias y Crianza del Whisky (DYC) is a Spanish whiskey that was founded in 1958. The company produces several young and aged blends as well as a single-malt. Beam Inc. also offers several other liquors. Its brandies include Fundador, Tres Crepas, Terry Centenario, and Courvoisier cognac. Founded in 1835, Courvoisier is one of the most popular
brands of premium cognac. There are also Gilbey’s, Calvert, and Larios gins; Cruzan, Ronrico, and Calico Jack rums; Sauza and El Tesoro tequilas; and VOX, Gilbey’s, Effen, and Pinnacle vodkas. The company also offers Kamora coffee liqueur, After Shock cinnamon liqueur, the Leroux line of bottom-shelf liqueurs, the Sourz line of liqueurs, Castellana liqueur, and Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Bourbon; Bourbon Advertising; Brandy; Cognac; Gin; Rum; Scotch; Vodka. Further Readings Burns, Eric. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004.
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Grimes, William. Straight Up or on the Rocks: A Cultural History of American Drink. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993. Wondrich, Dave. Imbibe! New York: Perigee Trade, 2007.
Foster’s Made famous as the brewer of Foster’s Lager, Foster’s is an Australian beer company that now also produces wine and nonalcoholic beverages. Foster’s Lager, its main product, is internationally recognized and is also brewed in Britain, where it is the second best-selling beer after Carling, selling around 5,000,000 hectoliters each year. It is also brewed under license in the United States of America and in the Russian Federation, with Heineken International owning the European rights to the beer that is brewed with a 4 percent alcohol by volume, or ABV, as opposed to the traditional 5.2 percent ABV elsewhere. It is also brewed in Canada by Molson and in Brazil by Brasil Kirin. Founding of Brewery The company was established in 1888 in Melbourne, Australia, by two Irish Americans, William Manning Foster and Ralph Rose Foster. Two of the eleven children of James Phelps Foster and his wife Eunice (née Rose) of Hartford, Connecticut, they came to Australia from New York in 1885 and brought with them a German American brewer called Sieber and a refrigeration engineer, Frank A. Rider. They then established a refrigeration plant in Rokeby, and then in Collingwood, and decided to produce beer that they believed would be popular during the hot summers in Melbourne. Getting the brewery going cost them £48,000, with the Foster’s lager prototype brewed in November 1888 and bottled in a heavy glass bottle with a wired-down cork. It included domestic sugarcane as well as malt, and with sales starting as summer approached, sales were good. The brewing also coincided with the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition (which was celebrating the centennial of Australia, not Melbourne). At that exhibition, Foster’s Lager won
an International Brewing Award, but competitors dropped their prices to try to drive Foster’s out of business. There were allegations in the local press that pirates were illegally printing Foster’s labels for their own bottles. The major problem faced by the brothers was to keep the beer cool, and for this they offered a supply of ice to each sales outlet, and this cost them dearly. The Foster brothers sold their brewery in November of the following year with their business partially threatened by the Lager Beer Duty. William Manning Foster went to Double Bay, Sydney, where he died on October 19, 1891. It is believed Ralph returned to the United States. Establishment of Cartel The company established to buy out the two brothers was called the Foster Brewing Company. It was run by Hart, Thomas, and Turner. It suffered during the economic problems of the early 1890s that followed the end of the land boom. In 1899–1900, the first shipment of Foster’s overseas was accompanied by Australian soldiers going to the Boer War. In 1903, the company became a part of a cartel that became known as the Society of Melbourne Brewers. It involved Foster’s, Carlton, Victoria, Shamrock, Castlemaine, and McCracken coming together to use their collective power to form Carlton and United Breweries (CUB) in 1907. Emil Resche organized this and he became the first general manager of CUB and pushed up the prices of beer at a time when there was an economic slump. The company went public in 1913 and faced a temporary problem during World War I owing to rationing and problems sourcing enough sugar. However, the company rebounded and gradually started buying up other breweries including, in 1924, the Abbotsford Cooperative Brewery, which had been established to try to break the power of the Society of Melbourne Brewers. CUB bought the Northern Australian and Cairns Brewery in 1931, its first acquisition outside the state of Victoria. During World War II, the company had also managed to survive in spite of problems over shipping and again sourcing enough of the ingredients especially barley. Brewing was reduced by a third, and the business survived largely on beer shipped to Australian soldiers around the world.
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Expansion In the 1950s, with a boom in the Australian economy, and a dramatic rise in the country’s population through immigration, beer sales increased. At the same time, scientists working for the company developed a new strain of hops that improved all of the beers produced by CUB. In 1957, the company built a new brewery in Darwin, where beer consumption was very high, and in 1958 it purchased the Ballarat Brewing Company and built a brewery in Fii. It then expanded its operations in Queensland in 1961 with the purchase of the Queensland Brewery of Brisbane and Toowoomba and Thos McLauchlin & Co. of Rockhampton. In the following year, the company bought the Richmond Brewery. Foster’s Lager was sent to Australian soldiers in Vietnam, where some Americans and others tried it out for the first time. During the 1970s, Foster’s Lager became the best-selling beer in Australia. In 1964, in Britain, the magazine Private Eye started running the comic strip “The Adventures of Barry McKenzie,” created by expatriate Australian Barry Humphries. It made regular mention of Foster’s Lager, and Foster’s came to be associated with the Australian lifestyle, with films about Barry McKenzie, starring Barry Crocker, reinforcing this. Purchase In 1983, the Australian company Elders IXL purchased CUB. Elders was originally a pastoral company, but under the management of John Elliott, it expanded and diversified especially with the purchase of Henry Jones IXL, a leading jam maker, with the new company being called the Elders Brewing Group. The managing director of the company was John Elliott, and he openly promoted Foster’s, which became the official Olympic beer for Australia at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. In the following year, the main Australian horse race was renamed the Foster’s Melbourne Cup. Elliott’s brash style helped make Foster’s famous, with Elliott never losing an opportunity to promote the lager. Advertisements by the Australian actor Paul Hogan made the lager more famous. Coinciding with the popularity of Australian television soaps in Britain, Fosters began being brewed in Britain in 1981. This coincided with Hogan advertising Foster’s
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as “Australian for beer,” but Victoria Bitter and Carlton Draught, both also made by the same company, remain more popular in Australia itself. However, with John Elliott gradually concentrating more and more of his time on his support for the Carlton Football Club, of which he was the president, and his involvement in politics as president of the Australian Liberal Party as well as being gradually entwined in a number of legal cases, he lost control of the Elders Brewing Group, which in 1990 had been renamed the Foster’s Group to more closely associate itself with its main product. In 2005, the Foster’s Group bought the Australian winemaking company Southcorp and also started diversifying into a range of other beverages. In May 2011, it sold its Treasury Wine Estates and was acquired by SABMiller in December of that year. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Australia and New Zealand; Beer; Beer Advertising; Beer and Foods. Further Readings Dunstain, Keith. The Amber Nectar: A Celebration of Beer and Brewing in Australia. Melbourne, Australia: Viking O’Neil, 1987. Hewat, Tim. The Elders Explosion: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Progress from Elder to Elliott. Sydney: Bay Books, 1988. Pearl, Cyril. Beer, Glorious Beer. Sydney: Nelson, 1969. Rausch, John David, Jr. “Foster’s.” In Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia, Jack S. Blocker, David M. Fahey, and Ian R. Tyrrell, eds. Santa Barbara, CA: ABCCLIO, 2003.
France France occupies an important place in the history and culture of alcohol, particularly with reference to wine and spirits. For centuries, beginning in the Middle Ages, French wines were considered to be among the best available, and they easily found
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markets within Europe and in the wider world. French viticultural and winemaking techniques have been models for wine producers elsewhere, and French wine styles, such as those associated with Bordeaux and champagne, have been widely emulated. As far as spirits are concerned, French brandies, especially cognac and armagnac, quickly gained and have retained reputations for excellence. Finally, alcohol is firmly embedded in French culture, although more recent concerns about the negative effects of alcohol have led to declining levels of consumption. For centuries, a number of French alcoholic beverages have been considered benchmarks for their styles. One was wine from the Bordeaux region, which began to be shipped to England and northern Europe in the Middle Ages. Known as claret in England, red Bordeaux wines established a market that has persisted to the present day, and no wine region in the world attracts more critical attention. Burgundy is also a prestigious wine region that is considered a world benchmark for wines made from the pinot noir and Chardonnay grape varieties. As far as distilled spirits are concerned, France became an important producer and exporter of brandy after a distilling industry was established in the Charente region of western France in the 1600s. Within Charente, the area around Cognac became identified as the source of superior brandies. Further south, the region around the town of Condom produces a different brandy, known as armagnac. In Normandy, in northern France, Calvados, an apple-based spirit, is produced. Establishment of Wine Laws France was a forerunner in establishing wine laws that set out the criteria for making alcoholic beverages. A system of appellations (officially designated regions) was drawn up, and within each appellation the law governed what a beverage could be made of and how it was to be made. The appellation system, which applies to wines, spirits, cheeses, and many other products, was systematized in 1936, and further appellations have been added since. It was adapted and adopted in many other countries, such as Italy and Spain. Although French wine was long considered to set the global standard for quality, it lost some of its luster with the coming to age of wine
industries in other parts of the world, especially outside Europe. In 1976, a blind tasting of top California and French wines by French judges saw the California wines win. This “Judgment of Paris,” as it has come to be called, called into question the primacy of French wines. Although wine professionals agree that France produces some of the best wine in the world, it is now matched by wines from many other international wine regions. France now competes, especially for everyday drinking wines, with producers in Australia, Chile, Argentina, California, and South Africa. Recent Decline in Wine Consumption In the 19th and 20th centuries, French consumption of alcohol, especially wine, was among the highest in the world. At the time, this attracted relatively little attention in France itself. It was often argued by the French government and medical profession that, unlike distilled spirits, wine was a healthy beverage that did not contribute to social or medical problems. Some French temperance movements encouraged the drinking of wine as a healthy alternative to brandy and absinthe (the popular spirits). The French parliament declared wine to be France’s national beverage, and during World War I, French soldiers were provided with a daily ration of wine—as much as a liter a day. In these respects, France adopted policies that were notably positive to alcohol, at a time when temperance and prohibition policies were being widely adopted elsewhere. In the late 1800s, French authorities focused their attention on the supposed danger of absinthe, an anise-flavored distilled spirit that contained a compound (thujone) that was believed to make the liqueur not only an intoxicant but also a hallucinogen. Absinthe was notably consumed by French artists and writers, but it was also widely consumed by workers in the industrial areas of France, especially from the 1880s, when the phylloxera vine disease destroyed many vineyards and created a wine shortage. Absinthe was banned in France in 1914. During the 1800s, French wine consumption rose steadily, reaching 160 liters annually per average adult in the early 1900s—which amounts to about four bottles a week and one of the highest rates in the world. Consumption was higher in
cities than in rural areas, but rates in rural areas rose during the 1800s, and cafés became more common in rural villages. Since the 1960s, however, rates of alcohol consumption in France have declined dramatically, from 25 liters of pure alcohol per capita (among those 15 years and older) in 1961 to under 14 liters by 2010. Wine consumption alone has registered an even more precipitous decline In 1975 the rate was down to 104 liters per capita or less than three bottles a week. Since then, wine consumption plummeted even further, and by 2010 per capita consumption of wine in France was about 47 liters a year, about a bottle a week or less than one glass of wine each day. France, however, remains a nation of alcohol consumers, with only about 8 percent of France’s population abstaining from alcohol. This is considerably lower than the rate of abstention elsewhere (such as 18 percent in Italy and 35 percent in the United States). At the same time, French people drink less often
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than they used to. Only one in five adults drinks wine every day, compared to one in two in 1980, and the percentage of those who drink only once or twice a week has risen from 30 to 45 in the same period. One symptom of France’s changing alcohol culture has been a decline in the number of bars and cafés, where French people gather to drink alcohol as well as coffee. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were some 600,000 bars and cafés throughout the country. By 1960, there were 200,000, and by 2010 only about 40,000. There are many reasons for the decline of alcohol consumption and changes in the alcohol culture of France. As in other societies, these occurrences reflect concerns about the health and other consequences of alcohol consumption. This is an irony in France, because in the early 1990s, scientists drew attention to what became known as the “French Paradox”—the finding that although the French diet ought to
A wine bar in Apt, France, in 2010. Falling alcohol consumption in France has led to a steep decline in the number of bars and cafés in the country, from 600,000 at the beginning of the 20th century to 200,000 in 1960, and to only about 40,000 by 2010. In 2010, per capita wine consumption had fallen to about 47 liters a year, or less than one glass of wine per person per day.
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produce high rates of cardiac and cardiovascular disease, French rates were lower than elsewhere. The common explanation (which is contested) is that compounds in wine, especially resveratrol in red wine, counteracted the effects of the diet. The French Paradox. together with subsequent findings that wine had other health benefits, is credited with helping to increase red wine consumption in the United States and elsewhere. But in France, the result has been a steady decline in wine consumption . Other reasons for the decline of alcohol in the French diet include a transformation of French eating patterns, such as a move toward consuming commercially prepared foods, a decline in the consumption of bread, and an increase in the consumption of water with meals. In 1980, half of French adults reported drinking wine with their main meal; by 2010, only a quarter did so. In addition, since 2000 the French government introduced stringent laws to restrict alcohol advertising and more rigorous drinking-driving laws. The latter had a particular impact on drinking outside the home. France has historically been a major influence on international alcohol cultures, and French alcohols, especially wines and brandy, are still regarded as benchmarks. But France no longer possesses the primacy it did as recently as the late 1900s. Similarly, alcohol is embedded in French culture, and the great majority of French people consume alcohol, but they consume it in smaller volumes and less frequently than in any period for which there are reliable statistics. Rod Phillips Carleton University See Also: Absinthe; Beaujolais; Bordeaux; Burgundy; Cabernet Franc; Cabernet Sauvignon; Champagne; Chardonnay; Cognac; French Colonial Empire; LVMH Moët Hennessy; Merlot; Petite Sirah; Pinot Noir; Sauvignon Blanc; Semillon; Viognier; Wines, French. Further Readings Johnson, Hugh and Jancis Robinson. The World of Wine. London: Mitchell Beazley, 2005. Loubere, L. The Wine Revolution in France: The Twentieth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
Mäkela, Pia et al. “Drinking Patterns and Their Gender Differences in Europe.” Alcohol & Alcoholism, v.41/s1 (2006). Paul, Harry W. Bacchic Medicine: Wine and Alcohol From Napoleon to the French Paradox. New York: Rodopi, 2001.
French Colonial Empire The French colonial empire took place during the Age of Discovery and the Enlightenment and presided over the colonies and other territories controlled by the French. The earliest French colonies were established in 1534, but the term usually refers to the system of territories controlled in the 17th and 18th centuries. Historians sometimes discuss the “first colonial empire,” most of which had been lost to other European powers and independence movements by 1814, and the “second colonial empire,” which began with the newly acquired territories in 1830. Competition Among European Powers The Age of Discovery was an era of competition among the European powers for control of the New World, its natural resources, and its trade markets. Along with England, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, France was one of the European powers establishing colonies, plantations, and trading posts in the Americas, the Caribbean, and India. All of these countries overtook the Italian and German trading powers that had dominated Europe thanks to their Old World trade relationships with the Islamic world, Russia, and the Baltics. France’s early efforts to establish colonial holdings were slowed down by Spain’s zealous expansion of the territories it controlled in the Americas and by the French wars of religion that transpired over the last third of the 16th century. It is often now forgotten that the areas that came to be dominated by Spanish (and subsequently British) powers, Brazil and Florida, had previously been colonized by the French in the 16th century but ultimately failed. French exploration continued, though, and is an important part of the amassing of power and the build-up of trade networks. The
exploration increased the French navigators’ and cartographers’ understanding of the New World’s geography, climate, and natural resources, which guided later colonizing and trade decisions. The first lasting French colony was that of Acadia, established by the founding of Quebec in 1608; an area that would later become Nova Scotia. France established its enormous colonial holding of New France, where furs were the major economic resource and agriculture was not deeply developed. The French had a much different relationship with the indigenous peoples of the Americas than did the Spanish or English, being less concerned with conquest and conversion. They also had a smaller population with less interest in agriculture, so they had less need to seize and occupy great swaths of land. Acadia was eventually lost to the British in 1713 as the lands that comprise modern-day Canada came under British rather than French control. Many of the Acadians relocated to another French territory in North America, one that was not yet lost: Louisiana. Named for the king of France, it was drastically different in climate from either Canada or France. These coastal lands west of Baton Rouge became known as Acadiana, and their people would be Cajuns. Louisiana, too, was eventually lost, first to the Spanish for a brief period and then to the Americans in 1803. In the meantime, the French had begun to establish colonies in the West Indies, beginning with the South American coastal settlement now known as French Guiana in 1624, followed by Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Saint Lucia in the first half of the 17th century. Unlike with the Canadian colonies, the labor that took place in the West Indian colonies was focused on agriculture through the plantation system and was performed by slaves seized in and imported from Africa. French relations with the indigenous population were also very different in this region: an ethnic cleansing policy in the mid-17th century decimated the indigenous Carib peoples who had inhabited the island now known as Martinique. In 1664, a French colony—Saint Domingue, now known as Haiti—was established on the Spanish island of Hispaniola. Saint Domingue was first colonized by French pirates, who subsisted on stolen Spanish goods and wild animals. They were succeeded by legitimate settlers, who soon established sugarcane, coffee,
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cocoa, and spice plantations and imported slaves to run them. For a time, Spain even ceded the whole of the island to France. Rum Rum was developed on sugarcane plantations in the Caribbean—no one knows exactly where— when slaves discovered that the molasses left over as a byproduct of making refined sugar could be fermented. Distilling the resulting product to make a higher proof, cleaner tasting drink resulted in rum. In the French West Indies, a product known as rhum agricole was also developed. Rhum agricole—“agricultural rum”—is fermented not from molasses but from sugarcane juice itself, and so features flavor components lost in molasses-based rum as well as a lighter flavor profile overall. Today, rhum agricole is mostly associated with Martinique and Haiti (home to Rhum Barbancourt, the most widely available brand) but is also produced in the Dominican Republic (the Spanish half of Hispaniola), Granada, Guadeloupe, MarieGalante, St. Barths, Trinidad, Panama, Reunion Island, and Mauritius. While rum was eventually produced directly on the islands, as it is today, originally molasses was exported from the Caribbean to North America, where the British colonies distilled molasses into rum—known as the triangle trade, it drove the slave trade of the 17th and 18th centuries. Rum consumption in the Americas was enormously high in the 18th century, when whiskey had not yet become the dominant spirit. But there was still plenty of rum left for trade, which was sold in Europe as well as in Africa in order to purchase slaves, which in turn were sold to Caribbean plantations in order to refine more sugar and produce more molasses. The Second Colonial Empire France slowly lost the first colonial empire to the other powers through attrition. Conflicts like the Seven Years War (the North American portion of which is known as the French and Indian War), the American and French revolutions, and the Napoleonic Wars all saw territory seized by other powers, lost in treaties, or in the case of Louisiana, sold in order to fund the war effort. The biggest economic drawback came when the slaves of Saint Domingue rebelled at the end of
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the 18th century, taking advantage of the chaos of the French Revolution. The island became the independent republic of Haiti in 1804, ending a significant source of revenue for France. In 1830, France seized Algiers and began its second colonial empire, focused in North Africa rather than the New World. The building of the Second French Colonial Empire began in 1830 with France’s invasion of Algeria, which it conquered in 1847. Despite the avoidance of alcohol by the predominantly Muslim population, the French government established vineyards in the country. The Algerian wine industry became the largest exporter of wine in the world for a large portion of the 20th century. In the 1950s, it exported more wine than France, Spain, and Italy combined. Production declined after Algeria’s independence from France in 1962, as the new government nationalized the wine industry in the hopes it would provide significant revenue only to see it wither due to mismanagement and France’s own restrictions on foreign imports. After a disastrous attempt to add Mexico to the empire, France instead expanded its colonial holdings into southeast Asia. From 1862 to 1887, it took over territories in parts of modern Vietnam and Cambodia, forming French Indochina. The exploitation of southeast Asia by the French set the stage for the communist revolutions that would follow in the 20th century, just as colonial exploitation in North Africa contributed to the rise of antiWestern Muslim political groups. While seeking to expand its territory in both continents, France collected a revenue from an alcohol tax imposed in most of its colonies and from the trade in rice wine in Asia. The term rice wine is largely owed to the French; in fact, the drink is actually distilled in a similar way as brandy or vodka. The French government had a near monopoly on rice wine for decades, which, along with the other monopolized goods—salt and opium—accounted for roughly half of the economy of French Indochina. Like most European empires, French Indochina did not survive World War II and the New World Order, though France bitterly fought to retain control, prolonging the independence of Cambodia and Laos until the 1950s. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar
See Also: Bacardi; Caribbean Islands; France; Rum. Further Readings Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Year War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1765–1766. New York: Vintage, 2001. Dawdy, Shannon Lee. Building the Devil’s Empire: French Colonial New Orleans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Thomas, Martin. The French Colonial Mind. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2012.
Functional Alcoholic, Sociology of The idea of a person who is an “alcoholic” and yet is still integrated into “normal” social functioning is a concept that reveals a great deal about how social structures and processes arise around deviant and “sick” behaviors. Likewise, it provides an understanding of why treatment programs engage such a small proportion of those counted by epidemiologists as suffering from alcohol use disorders (AUDs). It also offers a partial explanation as to why those who enter treatment often do so as a relatively “late stage,” for example, after a long period of heavy drinking with a record of significant physical and psychosocial consequences. “Functional alcoholism” captures the construction of parameters of social definitions of AUDs as a peculiar category of illness or deviance. It is a usable concept beyond alcohol into issues associated with other psychoactive substances in the form of “functional addicts.” Functional (or “high functioning”) alcoholics are individuals whose drinking and its directly accompanying behaviors (lying, sharp mood changes, unpredictable actions) are symptomatic of AUDs. However, these persons’ other behaviors (performance of expected social roles) are such that “significant others” seem characterized by inaction. These others exert little or no pressure to temporarily remove the functional alcoholics from social interaction for “treatment” that would provide concentrated means for
altering (and desirably terminating) their drinking behaviors. Likewise, within some or all of the functional alcoholics’ circles of interaction, there is minimal or no social pressure on them to change their drinking behaviors. At the core of this definition is the quantity and types of social capital possessed by the functional alcoholic relative to that possessed by her or his surrounding social audience and role partners. This capital can be of many types: possession of resources and power, access to other resources and power that is not possessed, and/or the ability to generate resources and power. In addition to the capital held by functional alcoholics and the manner in which they utilize it is key to their continuing integration into social life. This includes ways in which this capital is shared or exchanged with others, how it provides others with rewards and social status, or how its availability suggests to others significant chances for future rewards, loss of which they do not want to risk. Origins of the Concept Functional alcoholism, while a type within broader definitions of AUDs, is a concept of relatively recent invention and use, originating in the lay community in the United States, with several nonacademic books providing an initial foundation for the diffusion of the idea and its further spread into public discussion. Numerous articles have appeared in popular magazines about the topic, and one of the book authors, Sarah Benton, has written a blog on the topic in the magazine Psychology Today. With a notable exception (the work of researchers H. B. Moss, C. M. Chen, and H. Y. Yi in 2007), the term is not a focus for formal scientific research that has been published in refereed professional journals. The work of Moss et al., which classified types of alcohol dependent people from national survey data, reported that 19.5 percent of alcohol dependent persons in the United States fit the “functional subtype.” Later follow-up survey data from 2012 indicated that classification of drinkers in this group remained about as stable as classification in other subgroups. While verification of the existence of this category is very important, this work has not, however, led to other studies that would generate more empirical
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information about the background and behaviors of functional alcoholics. Despite this lack of scientific interest, the functional alcoholic concept raises critical issues for understanding what appear to be contradictions in epidemiological data about the prevalence and distribution of AUDs. Since AUDs are now the institutional responsibility of the medical care system, the contradictory features of functional alcoholics are that they do not admit to having an illness, have no apparent desire for treatment, are not recognized by others as ill, and instead of being placed in the classic “sick role,” they continue to function adequately in their normative, assigned social roles. Accounting for this exceptional category within a medical paradigm is difficult. A cardinal feature of nearly all medical problems is that those affected want to recover and will take appropriate steps to make recovery as rapid and thorough as possible. Along with functional alcoholism, there are some other exceptions, but their dynamics are different. Notable are persons who suffer from a lifethreatening disease of which they are unaware because the signs of the illness are latent and its effects do not immediately impact their ability to meet role demands. Transition out of this “functioning” category into the sick role is rapid once the disease is discovered, typically through some combination of symptom emergence and performance impairment. Related are some acute infectious diseases that are not life-threatening where individuals have an illness but their impairment minimally affects their ordinary role performances and they do not seek help. Such infectious diseases are also those not readily associated with “worsening” or physical deterioration but are believed to “run their course.” “Colds,” “the flu” and what was once known as “the grippe” are descriptive. But even these “minor” illnesses often engender reactions from others. Depending on the perceived risks and consequences of contagion, such ill people may be the target of actions by others to place them under medical care or in extreme circumstances, to quarantine them from social interaction with others and thus minimize contagion. This genre of disease-related behavior is linked with the recently labeled social problem
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of “presenteeism” in the workplace where, for a variety of motives, persons who are ill continue to come to work when others, with varying motives, feel they should be absent. Earlier conceptions of “on-the-job absenteeism” had a related but different dynamic: employees chronically impaired by hangover or other drinking effects were found to show little or no absenteeism, but because of the nature of their job expectations, could feign job performance while fulfilling the legendary Woody Allen dictum that “showing up is 90 percent of success.” Labeling Process Returning to the dynamics of social capital that underlie functional alcoholism, an overview of the typical labeling process may be informative. In the case of effective labeling, an individual has behaved in such a manner that substantial consensus has developed among the surrounding social audience that the individual has significant troubles with drinking such that change needs to occur: the alleged alcoholic needs to cease drinking, to seek approved help in ceasing drinking, and/or lose his/ her standing as part of a particular social group. Implementation of one or more of these processes usually flows from consensus among multiple group members. Success in such implementation implies that the group members possess greater social capital than the target individual. In the case where the focal person (the alcoholic) possesses greater social capital than surrounding significant others, an attempt at labeling in the manner described above might be foolhardy and thus not attempted. The imbalance in social capital assures the target that he/she can take firm action against any intervener through legitimate punishment, withdrawal of rewards and/or exclusion from the group. An attempt at “helping” based on the assumption that the helper is informing the target of a health condition of which the target is unaware is likely to be disastrous. Likewise attempts at deceit through staged events such as “interventions” may have dire social exchange consequences for those involved in these efforts. In the many instances of those targets who change their drinking behavior with or without expert assistance, the target individual may have made a personal decision on the basis of some other negative experience, the balance in social
capital may have shifted (perhaps due to decreasingly effective role performance on the part of the target), or an environmental force, such as law enforcement, may have overwhelmed the operation of the social exchange structure. Given the apparent number of functional alcoholics who apparently never change, the deterioration of the social exchange system may never occur, despite formulations that suggest otherwise. In fact, long-term rewarding relationships surrounding drinking or drug use may characterize the lives to the functioning individuals and their surrounding significant others, with these exchange systems sometimes appearing exploitive. The primary reason why this process is unlike identification of illness but instead is a version of typical social exchange relationships is because of a defect in reasoning about the nature of alcoholism and addiction as diseases. Disease models assume that once sick people learn of their illness, they are motivated to “get better,” seek treatment and rid their self of the illness in the form of recovery. Because of the rewards they receive from using their substance of choice, a substantial proportion of alcoholics and addicts do not want to change or “get better.” Rather than directly recognizing this behavior for what it is, this refusal is labeled as “denial” and in many quarters is viewed as an emotional symptom of the disease that must be overwhelmed for recovery to begin. The Hidden Alcoholic The forerunners of today’s conception of the functional alcoholic began with the invention of industrial alcoholism programs. The development occurred in the following sequence. Among the early affiliates of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) were several individuals who had a vision, one that turned out to be largely correct, that the AA technology and its diffusion would be foundational for a sociocultural optimism that alcohol dependence could be successfully resolved, and that alcohol dependent persons could become productive if not exemplary citizens. Given the heritage of the Temperance Movement centered on the assumption that alcohol consumption could permanently and irreversibly destroy the productivity, family participation, and citizenship of the drinker, the optimistic vision that persons captured by “King Alcohol” could
be transformed into productive citizens with the capability of aiding others with similar plights was indeed revolutionary. As this new paradigm of recovery developed, it was essential to account for those who were captured by alcohol but had no interest in recovery. While not immediate, this required a social construction that led to the functional alcoholic. This construction was the Hidden Alcoholic. Always a male, the Hidden Alcoholic was secure in a good job and was able to function adequately at his job while drinking heavily during off-work hours and on the weekends. This drinking behavior was not pleasant for its social audience in the home or among friendship groups but was tolerated. Implicitly, this describes a middle class individual with considerable on-the-job freedom as well as freedom in his off-work environment. Also implicit was the imbalanced social capital that the individual possessed relative to his social audiences. The means for identifying the Hidden Alcoholic were in the workplace, via the design of the industrial alcoholism program. Here the individual’s apparent defenses could be attacked through careful monitoring by supervisors who would eventually detect deteriorating job performance. Signs might be subtle, but beliefs in the deteriorating effects of heavy alcohol use supported the assumption that these signs would inevitably accumulate to the point that the Hidden Alcoholic could be confronted with facts of having broken his employment contract through inadequate performance. The resulting approach, part of the “core technology” of today’s Employee Assistance Programs, is to keep the confrontation based solely on the facts of poor performance, placing correction of these problems under individual employee responsibility but with proffered help and support from the workplace. Enablers and Co-Dependents Instead of centering explanations for the Hidden Alcoholic specifically on social capital imbalances, caricatured social partners were eventually invented in the forms of Enablers and Co-dependents. While not emerging immediately with the Hidden Alcoholic, these role partners were described as providing excuses and justifications for the alcoholics’ behaviors to their social audiences, essentially becoming their on-site “handlers.” Enabling
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included these direct support behaviors that even included providing alcoholics with ample supplies of their favored beverage. Co-dependency, which involved the same behaviors, was also defined as a pathology of the alcoholics’ significant others that needed attention and treatment. Co-dependency was described as a mirror of the symptoms of addiction with the individual being trapped in what was essentially the imbalanced social capital arrangement. Codependents were also characterized as frustrated, unhappy, and deeply involved in self-blame. Part of the solution to these negative emotions involves role detachment from the Functional Alcoholic, but there is usually no emphasis upon trying to change the alcoholics’ behavior or get them into treatment as responsibilities of the Co-dependents. With different labels and different language, although little focus on social capital as the key concept, the organization known as Alanon is designed to provide self-help-based guidance and support in group settings for persons living with active or recovering alcoholics. This organization was originated by Lois Wilson, the wife of the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous. Paul M. Roman University of Georgia See Also: Alanon; Alcohol Abuse, Symptoms of; Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Sociology of. Further Readings Bacon, S. D. “The Process of Addiction to Alcohol: Social Aspects.” Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, v.34 (1973). Benton, S. A. Understanding the High Functioning Alcoholic. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009. Irvine, L. Codependent Forevermore: The Invention of Self in a Twelve Step Group. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Kraft, W. F. When You Love a Functional Alcoholic. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2011. Moss, H. B., C. M. Chen, and H. Y. Yi. “Measures of Substance Consumption Among Substance Users, DSM-IV Abusers, and Those With DSM-IV Dependence Disorders in a Nationally Representative Sample.” Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs 73 (2012).
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Moss, H. B., C. M. Chen, and H. Y. Yi. “Subtypes of Alcohol Dependence in a Nationally Representative Sample.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence, v.91 (2007). Neill, N. Living With a Functioning Alcoholic. Vancouver: N. Neill Books, 2011. Parsons, T. The Social System. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1951.
Trice, H. M. and P. M. Roman. Spirits and Demons at Work: Alcohol and Other Drugs on the Job. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press of Cornell University Press, 1978. Widera, E., A. Chang, and H. C. Chen. “Presenteeism: a Public Health Hazard.” Journal of General Internal Medicine, v.25 (2010).
G Gandhi, Mohandas K. Mohandas Karamchamd Gandhi is a historical leader in the Indian nationalist movement and moral reform leader. He became known as the Mahatma, or great souled. He was a lifelong teetotaler who became a strong advocate of prohibition. In Hinduism, the Brahmin (priestly) was not supposed to drink alcohol. This was true too for the Vaishya, or Bania, (merchant) caste to which Gandhi belonged. The Kshatriya (warrior) and Shudra (peasant and laborer) castes could drink alcohol, as could the Untouchables who were pariahs outside the caste system and tribal peoples who had not been absorbed into Hinduism. The principal drinkers in India were Shudras. With other Indian drinkers from the various castes and religions, they supported a substantial drink trade, making and selling alcoholic beverages. Since the majority of the drinkers were poor men, Gandhi represented his campaign against alcohol as rescuing them. He deplored their wasting their scant money on alcohol and inflicting their drunken brutality on their wives and children. Antialcohol Sentiment in India The principal non-Hindu peoples of India—Muslims, Sikhs, and Jains—were commanded by their religions to abstain from drinking alcohol, so Gandhi’s attack on alcohol production and
call for prohibition helped unite the diverse and often-factious population. Some Christians in India, both native and British, were teetotalers too. Since the late 19th century, British temperance reformers had labored for the antialcohol cause both among British soldiers in India and the Indian population. For instance, the member of British parliament W. S. Caine travelled to India on behalf of the teetotalism during four winters, the first time in 1887 and 1888. Among elites, the principal exception to teetotalism was the small Parsi sect. Parsis not only drank; they often were drink traders. Other Parsis were wealthy industrialists who gave generously to the Indian National Congress, so an attack upon drinking and the drink trade could be contentious. British Taxes on Alcohol and Prohibition Taxes on alcohol production were a major source of revenue for the British government in India. Attacks on alcohol fit into the nationalist fight against British rule. Alcohol beverages in India took two major forms: traditional drinks such as arrack and toddy, often called country liquor, and so-called Indian-made foreign liquors such as whiskey and brandy. British tax policy favored the latter. These liquors were more intoxicating, which added to the grievance felt by Indian temperance reformers. Nationalist attacks on Indian-made 583
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foreign liquors can be seen as analogous to attacks on Lancashire-made textiles and support for homespun khadi cloth. The crucial difference is that many Indians, including illicit village producers, depended on drink for their livelihoods. As a purifying moral reform, prohibition was part of the “constructive” program proposed by the Indian National Congress to supplement its demand for independence. Prohibition appealed to Indian women as directly relevant to their lives as wives and daughters. Prohibition also aligned Indian nationalists with a powerful prohibition movement in the West, notably in the United States. An evangelist for the Anti-Saloon League of America, William “Pussyfoot” Johnson agitated for his cause in India in 1921. The Marxist historian Sumit Sarkar has argued: “There can be little doubt that much of [the] appeal [of Gandhi’s anti-liquor campaign] lay in its purificatory ‘Sanskritizing’ role”; in this role, the lower castes adopted the standards of the higher castes. Abstinence from alcohol helped castes or subcastes rise in status. Growth of Gandhi’s Position on Prohibition Gandhi was born in Gujarat in western India as a member of a caste that prohibited alcohol. When he travelled to London to study law, he became acquainted with many British temperance reformers. More important, after Gandhi moved to South Africa he was converted to the cause of prohibition. He saw the harm that drinking inflicted on indentured Indian laborers and black Africans. The communes that Gandhi organized in South Africa did not allow the drinking of alcoholic beverages. When Gandhi returned to India, there was the advantage for him that the major leaders of the Indian National Congress, G. K. Gokhale and B. G. Tilak, supported prohibition. Gandhi’s role was to make prohibition a priority. Although Gandhi recognized that prohibition was not a complete solution to the liquor problem, he regarded it as the indispensable prerequisite for temperance education. In 1926, Gandhi wrote: “If I were appointed dictator for one hour for all India, the first thing I would do would be to close without compensation all the liquor shops [and] destroy all the toddy palms such as I know them from Gujarat.”
Palm toddy was one of several traditional alcoholic drinks. Gandhi never was appointed dictator, but he did advocate coercion in his fight against alcohol. For instance, his supporters picketed liquor shops and toddy palm plantations. Contrary to his wishes, they sometimes used violence against drink sellers, burned their shops, and cut down toddy palms so that they could not be used to make toddy. In the 1930s, India achieved limited provincial self-government under which the Indian National Congress could control provincial governments. Sometimes, the congress restricted alcohol sales, but law breaking and the need for revenue made this a dismal failure. Although Gandhi wanted immediate prohibition, Congress ministries compromised by delaying it. When India became an independent country, its constitution, ratified in 1949, encouraged states to adopt prohibition. They rarely did. Indians drink more today than they did at the time of Gandhi’s death. David M. Fahey Miami University, Ohio See Also: Asia, South; India; Prohibition; Temperance Movements; United Kingdom. Further Readings Colvard, Robert Eric. “‘Drunkards Beware!’: Prohibition and Nationalist Politics in the 1930s.” In A History of Alcohol and Drugs in Modern South Asia: Intoxicating Affairs, Harald Fischer-Tiné and Jana Tschurenev, eds. London: Routledge, 2014. Colvard, Robert Eric. “A World Without Drink: Temperance in Modern India, 1880–1940.” Unpublished Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 2013. Fahey, David M. and Padma Manian. “Poverty and Purification: The Politics of Gandhi’s Campaign for Prohibition.” Historian, v.67/3 (2005).
Garnacha (Grenache) Known in Spanish as garnacha, and in French as grenache, this grape grows in Spain, the south of
France, and Sardinia. It is known for its quality of ripening very easily and it comes in three main varieties. There is the garnacha tinta, or tinto, which is white fleshed and black berried; the much more popular garnacha tintorera, which has become a synonym for the red-fleshed alicante bouschet; and the garnacha blanca, which is light berried and more common in France, where it is known as grenache blanc, or as being light berried. Garnacha is very common in the Aragon region of northern Spain. It is thought to be the grape variety that was used during the kingdom of Aragon, as it is found not only in the area, which includes modern-day Catalonia, a major part of the kingdom of Aragon, but also in southern France as well as Sardinia, where it is similar to the variety called cannonau, which is sometimes claimed as being a separate variety. Sardinia was a part of the kingdom of Aragon from the 1320s until it was placed under Spanish rule in 1479 with the marriage of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabel of Castile. The grape variety spread from southern France and started to also be used in Roussillon, and it spread from Aragon to be used in Rioja and Navarre. Popularity The garnacha tinta is used to make red wine and has become one of the most widely planted red wine grape varieties in the world. Part of this popularity is because of its taste, but it is also on account of its ability to blend easily with other grapes. Nowadays, the grape is particularly prominent in wineries in the north and east of Spain, especially in Rioja and Navarre, and also in Ampurdán-Costa Brava, Campo de Borja, Cariñena, Costers del Segre, Madrid, La Mancha, Méntrida, Penedès, Priorato, Somontano, Tarragona, Terra-Alta, Utiel-Requena, and Valdeorras. This makes it the most heavily planted black grape variety in Spain, covering some 420,000 acres (170,000 hectares) and contributing much to the red wine industry in Spain not just in its own right but also blended with wine made from other grapes. In these blends, garnacha is often the far-more-dominant flavor, adding a fruity taste. However, even though it is so popular, with changes to the Spanish wine industry, there have been moves to discourage further plantings of garnacha especially in Navarre, as some vignerons
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want to change the image of Spanish wine. Nevertheless, it remains heavily used in southern Aragon, making up more than half of the wine production from that area. In France, the grenache variety remains popular and it has been planted in 215,000 acres (87,000 hectares) in the country, being dominant in the southeast of the country, especially along the valleys of the southern Rhône. Because of its high sugar level, the grenache grapes are also used extensively in fortified wines and are used in the blends for the red vins dux naturels from Roussillon. Although the variety is common in Sardinia, it was planted in Corsica, but many of these vineyards have been uprooted in recent years. There are some plantings in Calabria and Sicily because of the vines having the ability to cope with heat and also occasional droughts. In fact, it was because of these traits that the vines were able to be taken to California and also to Australia. Introduction in International Regions The grenache was one of the first varieties of grapes to be introduced to Australia, first being brought by James Bushby from Perpignan. However, most of the vines in Australia come from cuttings of the grenache vines that were brought from the South of France to South Australia by Christopher Rawson Penfold in 1844 and planted in the Barossa Valley, the Clare Valley, and the McLaren Vale. This was to be the start of the South Australian wine industry, and the grenache quickly became the most widely planted red wine grape variety in the region, leading to Barossa Valley wines being highly sought after for their richness and spicy taste. However, this began to change in the mid-1960s, when the grenache was surpassed by shiraz, which had become more popular. Because of its success in Australia, it was decided that some grenache vines would be transplanted to the San Joaquin Valley in California, which had a similar climate to parts of Australia. However, cuttings were sourced directly from the Rhône Valley and these were taken and planted on the Central Coast of California and then later in other parts of the state. This led to the establishment of the wine industry there. In 1966, they were also planted in the Yakima Valley in Washington State, helping develop the wine industry there. Indeed, it was some of these grapes that
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had an influence on those used by the Columbia Winery, although it remained a minor variety in Washington State. The vines have also been taken to Mexico, Argentina, and Uruguay, as well as Chile and South Africa, which both have very large wine industries. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: France; Spain; Wine Tourism. Further Readings Alley, Lynn. “New French Wine Grape Arrives in U.S. Market.” Wine Spectator (September 30, 2007). Jeffs, Julian. The Wines of Rioja. London: Faber and Faber, 2004. Jeffs, Julian. The Wines of Spain. London: Faber and Faber, 1999. Robinson, Jancis. The Oxford Companion to Wine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Gender and Alcohol Abuse Alcohol has been used as a food, preservative, medicine, and religious sacrament for thousands of years. It has gone from a staple of the diet to a banned substance considered only for those of low moral stature, and back again. In addition to being an integral part of life in societies worldwide, alcohol—its production, consumption, and abuse—has played a major role in defining gender roles throughout history. Both men and women throughout history have participated in imbibing alcohol—both in moderation and to excess. Traditionally, across time periods and cultures, higher consumption levels and rates of alcohol abuse were almost invariably seen among men. Social expectations about the quantity, frequency, and types of alcoholic beverages that should be consumed by men and women contributed to this disparity. As these societal influences eroded in the United States, alcohol use and abuse rates for men and women began converging, with increases observed among women, while rates for men fell
or remained flat. Reports suggesting this narrowing of the gender gap originated as early as 100 years ago. Throughout much of early human history, alcoholic drinks were seen as nutritious and were important components of the diet. Until modern times, alcohol was often safer to drink than water because of contamination. Women were primarily the producers of alcohol in the home, and their production of alcohol helped define their roles as women. With advances in the brewing and distilling processes, production levels increased, and the role of women as primary producers of alcohol waned. Large increases in supply in Colonial America, coupled with a relatively poor understanding of the adverse health effects, led to peak levels of alcohol consumption in the United States in the early 19th century by American men. Frustrated with the negative consequences resulting from men’s alcohol abuse at this level, women began to rebel, thereby garnering widespread support for Prohibition. However, the early 20th century saw an increase in public approval of women’s consumption of alcohol and a demasculinization of drinking, which contributed to the end of Prohibition. In modern times, alcohol in moderate doses is known to impart some health benefits, yet people are more aware than ever of the adverse effects alcohol abuse and long-term dependence can cause. Biomedical research has shown that men and women differ in their drinking habits and alcoholism disease etiologies as well as a wide range of physiological and behavior patterns, all of which contribute to the frequently reported gender differences in health effects associated with alcohol abuse. Rates of Alcohol Use and Abuse Until around 40 years ago, with the first National Survey on Drug Use and Health, epidemiological statistics on gender disparities in alcohol use and abuse rates in the United States were sparse. Some earlier estimates exist, with alcoholism researcher E. M. Jellinek suggesting in 1947 that there were six times as many alcoholic men as alcoholic women. Studies ranging from the late 1800s to today have been suggestive of a narrowing gender difference in alcohol use and abuse rates. Not only is alcohol consumption up among
women but so too are signs of the adverse consequences of women’s drinking. During the last two decades, sizeable upturns in drunk driving arrests (a 30 percent increase) and hospitalizations for alcohol overdose among young women (a 50 percent increase) have been observed. While women’s drinking has steadily increased, current alcohol use and abuse rates, as well as consumption levels, continue to reflect gender differences with men outpacing women. The rate of current regular alcohol use by Americans is around 43 percent for women and 61 percent for men. It is estimated that 26 percent of American women are lifetime abstainers, whereas only 14 percent of American men report never having drunk alcohol. The global lifetime abstention rate is estimated at around 45 percent (35 percent in men and 55 percent in women). Among those who do drink in the United States, estimated percapita consumption of pure alcohol in men is nearly 20 liters, whereas this number is closer to 8.5 among women. Current binge drinking rates in the United States are estimated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to be 11 percent among women and 20 percent in men. Among young adults (ages 18–24), epidemiological studies have shown that young men consume more alcohol than young women, are more likely than young women to be heavy drinkers, and have higher levels of alcohol dependence. The World Health Organization estimates that 5.5 percent of American men and 1.8 percent of American women have current alcohol use disorders (AUD). This puts the rate of American male alcoholism on par with global estimates of AUD rates for men, while AUD rates among American women are slightly below worldwide levels. Notably, gender differences in use and abuse rates can vary by age and race. Emerging Civilizations As civilization began to emerge and evolved from a hunter–gatherer to an agricultural society, alcohol production and trade became a significant contributor to societal organization and definition of gender roles. In the Neolithic Age, domestication of wild grains and grapes provided greater access to materials needed for production of beer and wine. It was also during these early times that alcohol began to serve as a currency, providing
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A woman drinking Chianti surreptitiously from a water bottle in Florence, Italy. Taking into account differences in average body size, guidelines for men recommend drinking no more than four drinks on a single occasion, while women are recommended to drink no more than three.
a medium of exchange for trade and payment of laborers, a trend that continued across millennia. By the 2nd millennium b.c.e., Egyptians were fermenting and drinking beer, a by-product of bread production. Women were the primary brewers and sellers of beer, a staple of the diet for ancient Egyptians that was seen as nutritious due to its protein content and caloric density. Women produced beer in the home, and all family members, including children, consumed it. What was not used by the family was taken to market, where women were the primary sellers and traders of beer. Both men and women at this time were known to consume beer to excess, although the adverse effects of overconsumption were acknowledged. In Mesopotamia at that time, men and women worked together to
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produce labor-intensive beer and bread, with gender-based work roles clearly defined. Babylonian women were primarily the tavern keepers, though priestesses were strictly forbidden from entering. In Pre-Classical India, women were the primary producers of an alcoholic beverage known as soma. Production of soma involved considerable ritual, and by producing soma, women’s status in Indian society was increased. In terms of consumption, Indian men and their mistresses drank wine together, while their wives were permitted only to smell the drinks that were passed around. As in India and Egypt, women in the Andes Mountains region of the Americas were the primary brewers of beer, in this case a beverage known as chicha (beer fermented from corn). It is believed that chicha was the primary source of calories for many people at this time, and as such, they considered it sacred—a gift from the earth goddess. Legends surrounding the discovery of alcohol in China during this time highlighted the dichotomy between society’s feelings toward men and women interacting with alcohol. One story told of a young woman who delighted in the taste of fermented grain and brought it to her emperor, who banished her for bringing the destructive drink to his kingdom. Another legend from the same time period described a young man who discovered he enjoyed how he felt after consuming his fermented sorghum lunch. His family began intentional fermentation, and he was deemed the patron saint of brewing. A similar double standard was reflected across the globe for millennia thereafter. The Greco-Roman Period and Middle Ages While beer was still a main staple of the diet during the Greco-Roman Period (332 b.c.e.–395 c.e.), wine played an important role in Greek and Roman societies. Wealthy Greek men favored consumption of high-quality wines over beer, which was seen as a drink for the lower classes. Though Greek men enjoyed wine at gatherings known as symposia, wine drinking by Greek women was condemned by men. In Roman society, wine consumption by women was also largely forbidden. A woman’s getting drunk without her husband’s permission was grounds for divorce. As Christianity expanded into Roman society, attitudes
about alcohol were affected, with many Christians viewing excessive consumption as a sin. While earlier times in history saw beer and wine as the primary types of alcoholic beverages consumed, Europeans in the Middle Ages began distilling spirits. The exact timing of when the process of distillation of liquor first occurred in medieval Europe is unclear, but is it estimated to have begun around the 11th century. Medieval men and women who drank to intoxication were viewed differently by society. Drunk women were seen as unruly and insubordinate, while drunk men were viewed as sexually aggressive and violent. Respectable women were expected to remain chaste and sober, while men were generally afforded greater freedom by society. Alcohol played an influential role in male bonding at this time; men drinking with other men demonstrated solidarity. These societal values regarding alcohol were exported from Europe to Colonial America. Colonial America In the 17th century, as the world emerged from the Middle Ages, beer, cider, and spirits such as brandy, gin, and rum were considered healthy and nutritious components of the diet. Colonial Americans had limited resources in terms of medicines, and as such, spirits were seen as medicines that were used to treat many ailments, from anxiety and depression to broken legs, indigestion, pain, and the common cold. As in earlier times, potable water in Colonial America was relatively scarce, and alcohol often was considered safer to drink. Alcohol was consumed by men, women, and children. The most popular beverages at the time were hard cider (made from fermented apples), ale, and brandy, all of which were typically made at home. Imported Madeira wine was preferred among the wealthy. Although both women and men drank alcohol regularly, women consumed alcohol primarily in the home. At the same time, young men aspired to the manliness associated with drinking at the public houses. Taverns served as meeting houses and polling places and were principally the domain of men. It was during this time that some Native American tribes living near European settlements first became exposed to alcohol, and they were highly motivated to trade with the colonists for it. In the earliest colonial days in America, alcohol production had been a labor-intensive process.
When distillation was modernized in the late 17th century, supply suddenly vastly outpaced demand. The early 18th century thus saw a tumble in the price of distilled spirits, making drinking to intoxication considerably more affordable. This contributed to the estimated steady growth in annual pure alcohol consumption from approximately 2 gallons per person in the early 1700s to the peak of 4 gallons per annum in 1830, a level that has never again been seen in the United States. During this period of maximum alcohol consumption in the United States, the gender breakdown was fairly uneven. In the decade leading up to this peak, the (potentially biased) American Temperance Society estimated an annual per-adult male consumption level of as much as 20 gallons, suggesting that men’s consumption outpaced that of women and children by 15 to 1. By comparison, modern estimates of American annual percapita consumption are estimated to be 2.3 gallons. These record high levels of alcohol abuse by American men brought women’s resentment toward men’s alcohol binges to a tipping point, paving the way for Prohibition. Gender’s Role in Prohibition in America The 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1919, with relatively high public support, particularly among women. During the Progressive Era, Prohibition had greater public support among women than the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote the following year. In the time leading up to the passing of the National Prohibition Act (more commonly known as the Volstead Act), people considered alcoholism a man’s disease. Alcoholic men were seen as wife beaters and adulterers who destroyed families by spending the household’s savings on booze and ultimately abandoning the family. At the same time, the health problems associated with excessive alcohol consumption were becoming better understood. Organizations such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League led the public to believe (and truly believed themselves) that Prohibition would remove the ills that surrounded alcohol abuse. At the time, it is estimated that alcoholic men outnumbered alcoholic women four to one. Drinking heavily was part of the male identity,
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whereas women were expected to be pious and show restraint in their alcohol consumption. Male bonding occurred in saloons, which “respectable” women would not enter. Prior to Prohibition, the majority of alcohol sold was at saloons. In part, this could be attributed to industrialization. Men went to work in the factories by day and visited the saloons by night, while women worked (and drank) almost exclusively in the home. The 18th Amendment forced men to become home drinkers rather than tavern drinkers, and by 1941, most of the alcohol sold was for home consumption between couples. Prohibition also brought on speakeasies that welcomed both men and women. Men’s drinking declined in the 1920s (during Prohibition), thus alcohol consumption was less demonized, and it became more socially accepted as something women and men could do together. With these societal changes, as well as increased employment and accompanying disposable income for women, came an increase in women’s drinking. The double standard in social acceptability of drinking started to erode, and women from all walks of life became more open about their alcohol drinking habits. Admission of alcohol use by respected women (as well as the societal ills brought on by Prohibition) contributed to the passing of the Twenty-First Amendment—repeal of Prohibition—in 1933. Contemporary History Following repeal of Prohibition, Americans in the mid-20th century became more aware of alcoholism as a disease, and treatment centers for alcoholics became more commonplace. An important development in the treatment of alcoholism occurred in 1935 with the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). While membership in AA in the early days was overwhelmingly male, a concern was rising among clinicians at the time regarding the difficulties identifying alcoholic women, as they were more likely than men to drink in private. As such, in 1944, AA put forth a public education campaign targeting alcoholic women. Currently, one-third of AA members are women, and nearly half of AA’s younger members are women. In the mid-20th century, and still today, women were more likely than men to have alcoholic spouses. Al-Anon was founded in 1951
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by Lois W., wife of AA founder Bill W., with the purpose of helping family members of alcoholics address shared problems using a 12-step method modeled after that of AA. One of the defining features of the 20th century was globalization, which affected societal mores regarding alcohol across the world. Not a small part of this was global advertising campaigns, which increasingly targeted women. At the same time, biomedical research on the effects of alcohol abuse became more prevalent, and as alcoholism research expanded to include more women, gender differences in the impact of alcohol abuse were identified. The Impact of Chronic Alcohol Abuse Because alcoholism was for so long considered a disease that affected only men, early research on the long-term effects of chronic alcohol abuse included only male subjects. In the mid-1990s, this disparity was recognized by the National Institutes of Health (the major funder of alcoholism research via the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [NIAAA]), which created mandates for the inclusion of women in biomedical research. As researchers started studying the effects of alcohol abuse in women, many differences emerged in the role gender plays in alcohol abuse, including etiology of the disease, alcohol metabolism, neurobiology, heritability and genetics, as well as treatment and recovery differences. In terms of psychiatric disorders, research has determined that alcoholic women tend to have greater levels of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and history of childhood sexual abuse than alcoholic men. Conversely, alcoholic men have higher rates of antisocial personality disorder, conduct disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Current NIAAA guidelines define risky drinking differently for men and women. Men are suggested to drink no more than four drinks on a single occasion and a maximum of 14 drinks per week; women are recommended to drink no more than three during a single occasion and no more than seven per week. This disparity mainly is due to the difference in average body size between men and women, although there is some evidence that chronic alcohol abuse does have more deleterious effects on women in some bodily
systems. According to the NIAAA, women have higher rates of alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis deaths than men. Women are more likely to suffer from alcohol-related cardiovascular disease. At the same time, moderate alcohol consumption has been associated with decreased risk of coronary heart disease among women 55 and older, although clear health benefits for younger women have not been demonstrated. Starting around 60 years ago, concerns for the developing fetuses in women affected by alcohol use disorders were emerging, contributing to the medical community’s acceptance of alcoholism as a disease that affects both genders. While fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) was first described as recently as the early 1970s, historical evidence suggests an association between maternal alcohol abuse during pregnancy (and breast-feeding) and poor neonatal outcomes has been known by some cultures for millennia. Currently, in the United States, women’s alcohol use rates during pregnancy are estimated around 12 percent, while 3 to 4 percent of women report binge drinking during this time. Treatment of maternal alcohol abuse includes motivational interviewing in less severe cases and supervised detoxification in the most severely alcoholic women. Among women of childbearing age, concern for potential children—a strong external motivation to remain abstinent—likely contributes to reduced rates of alcohol abuse and consumption relative to men. While women are commonly thought to progress to alcoholism faster, men tend to have longer durations of alcohol abuse in their lifetime. Gender disparities exist in treatment behaviors between men and women, though results have been equivocal as to which gender is more likely discontinue treatment earlier or obtain a long duration of abstinence. Conclusion Throughout history, alcohol has played a major role in the lives of people across civilizations. Used as a food, medicine, and religious sacrament, alcohol was woven into many aspects of daily life. Despite these positive qualities, alcohol’s negative aspects pose many dangers to societies where consumption is pervasive. Alcohol is implicated in a myriad of problems, including
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traffic fatalities, injuries, fights, domestic abuse, divorce, employment issues, suicides, falls, liver disease, and overdose deaths. Although alcohol has been recognized as one of the most harmful drugs to the individual and society, its ubiquity ultimately has kept it legal. From the earliest recorded history, production and use of alcohol has helped shape gender roles and continues to do so today. In many cultures, women were held to a different standard than men when it came to drinking; women were expected to be more abstemious. Cultural ideologies contributed to gender-based discrepancies in alcohol use and abuse rates, which reflected societal pressures that attached more stigma to alcoholism in women than in men. In recent times, alcohol abuse rates have been rising among women, presenting an unprecedented need to deal with the public health issues posed by alcohol abuse specifically in women. With greater scientific understanding of the impacts of alcohol abuse, especially as it pertains to men and women separately, communities across the world will be better able to educate people about how alcohol can be used responsibly in their society. Susan Mosher Ruiz Marlene Oscar Berman Boston University School of Medicine See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder; Gender and Alcohol Reform; Gender and Drinking in Popular Culture; “Girl” Drinks; Pregnancy, History of Alcohol and. Further Readings Brady, Kathleen, Sudie Back, and Shelly Greenfield, eds. Women and Addiction: A Comprehensive Handbook. New York: The Guilford Press, 2009. Burns, Eric. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004. Glaser, Gabrielle. Her Best-Kept Secret: Why Women Drink—and How They Can Regain Control. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013. Hames, Gina. Alcohol in World History. New York: Routledge, 2012. Martin, A. Lynn. Alcohol, Sex, and Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.
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Murdock, Catherine Gilbert. Domesticating Drink: Women, Men, and Alcohol in America, 1870– 1940. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Rorabaugh, W. J. The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Alcohol: A Women’s Health Issue. NIH Publication No. 03–4956, 2008. World Health Organization (WHO). Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health. Geneva: WHO, 2011.
Gender and Alcohol Reform Examining alcohol reformers’ concepts of femininity and masculinity sheds light on interacting political and social forces within American society. Historians organize temperance reform by eras, each different in terms of membership, leadership, and character; these time periods include the 18th century through the antebellum period, the Civil War to the 1870s, pre-Prohibition and Prohibition itself, and then present-day attempts at alcohol reform. Three main themes emerge in these periods: 1. The rhetoric of Protestantism shaped and moved the movement and was utilized by both men and women. Protestant rhetoric, such as the Puritan work ethic, was often linked with the need for industrious workers and influenced workers to stop drinking. 2. Nineteenth-century concepts of gender and the formation of middle-class society influenced the development of the temperance movement. 3. Women’s suffrage often intertwined with women’s temperance efforts, but not all women calling for temperance advocated for women’s increased political and social rights.
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Rise of Women in Early Reform Efforts Historians tend to focus on women’s efforts at temperance reform, failing to include them in the population of those who drank. It was not only men who consumed copious amounts of alcohol. In fact, women made up about 20 percent of the drinking population. Women in the colonial and early American eras were skilled in brewing ale and beer along with preparing the food and keeping house. They fed watered-down beer and ale to their children and drank it themselves, as it was often cleaner than some water sources. As 19thcentury fiction, advertisements, political cartoons, and photographs demonstrate, women drank and used alcohol. Cookbooks, etiquette manuals, and guides all offered advice to women on when to drink, on how to prepare and serve alcohol, and on proper glassware for different types of alcohol. Prostitutes and women of ill repute frequently drank in barrooms and saloons while other women drank in their homes. But drinking to get drunk was primarily a male right, based on concepts of masculinity and the essence of maleness. Historian Catherine Murdock has shown that both male drinking and male voting rights were strong signals of masculine identity. The impetus to reform alcohol was present prior to the 1820s, but it was primarily an effort on the part of the elite who wished to moderate alcohol consumption. After 1820, evangelical Christianity, spread by the Great Awakening, influenced the middle class to take up reform work. Gradually, total abstinence, rather than moderation, came to define teetotalism. In the early 19th century, middle-class men dominated efforts and the message was mostly spread by lecturers and ministers. Lyman Beecher, the father of Catherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, became a great advocate for temperance reform throughout New England, New York, and Ohio. He first published his Six Sermons on the Nature, Occasions, Signs, Evils, and Remedy of Intemperance in 1827, but he had been giving the lectures since about 1814. They sold well for over 50 years. The linkage between the evangelical Beecher and the reform of alcohol is a pervasive theme of reform efforts. Prior to 1840, men dominated efforts at alcohol reform, while woman played a passive, supporting role. In the 1830s and 1840s, women
began to be involved in more leadership roles in alcohol reform organizations. The United States was also transforming into an industrial nation, and the emerging middle class saw the linkages between upward social mobility and the respectability of temperance. Women were essential to helping their busy, working husbands move into the middle class and root themselves firmly within it. One of the activities women did was club work, and many women chose to focus on anti-alcohol groups as more middle-class individuals joined the teetotalers. A good worker came to work sober, on time, and without the influence of alcohol. Being against alcohol became a position seemingly necessary for entry into the respectable middle class. At first, temperance groups formed with primarily male participants, but soon women began to become part of the group, forming their own auxiliaries. One example is the Washingtonians. In the economic downturn of 1837, six working-class men in Baltimore met and agreed to abstain from alcohol. They called themselves the Washingtonians. Historian Holly Berkley Fletcher argues that the Washingtonians never intended to start a mass movement, only to find greater personal security, especially with mass unemployment on the rise. The Washingtonians sent out stump speakers and utilized women as “Martha Washingtonians” to undertake charity work for helping to reform drunkards. In addition to charity work, Martha Washingtonians would often publicly plead with their drunkard husbands or family members to reform themselves. The women were seen as essential to helping men sober up with their pleading and perceived moral superiority. In other anti-alcohol groups, women also began to play more prominent roles. Historian Catherine Gilbert Murdock has found that male groups, such as the Order of Rechabites and the Sons of Temperance, developed female auxiliaries that made up a third to two-thirds of their membership. By 1848, the Daughters of Temperance had 30,000 members. Temperance movement momentum slowed to a standstill in the Civil War, as the country had greater issues to worry about, and it was difficult to preach abstinence from alcohol when wounded men on the battlefield were lucky to get a few drops of liquor before a painful amputation or surgical procedure. Alcohol served as the most
effective and widespread medicine during the war. After the war, the Women’s Crusade spread from New York to Ohio as women prayed in doorways of saloons, asking alcohol venders to close their doors. This short-lived effort culminated in the formation of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which remained highly influential well into the Progressive era. Gender and Temperance For most of the 19th century, women had little legal recourse from a dangerous husband. If a husband was a drunkard, the wife had few outlets such as divorce or legal protection from domestic abuse or marital rape. A drunkard’s wife could face poverty and abandonment while her children might suffer starvation, drunken beatings, or being sent to live away from home. Women and unborn children also suffered the risk of sexually transmitted disease that men brought home after sexual encounters with the saloon’s prostitutes. Stories of abandonment, poverty, and shame abounded in the women’s temperance organizations. Women who had never suffered such cruelties felt a duty to help their struggling sisters and saw temperance organizations as a way to do so. Those who had been unfortunate enough to experience the dark side of a drunken spouse joined the movement out of anger or passionate belief. Middle-class women often cited the drunkard’s wife and his poor children as reason enough to join the movement and eradicate alcohol from society. The drunkard’s family became a mainstay of temperance literature—in poems, plays, and short stories—decrying the evils of alcohol and its effect on the family. One of the most popular temperance novels of the time period, T. S. Arthur’s Ten Nights in a Bar Room, illustrates the mother’s and daughter’s inability to keep their men out of saloons. Women are unable to reform men when acting on their own. Not only does alcohol kill the male characters in the play, but the innocent daughter of a drunkard is killed by a tankard after the saloon owner throws it through the air, accidentally hitting her. A drunkard’s mother is struck dead after finding her beloved son drunkenly stabbed in a saloon. The novel’s message is clear: individual women’s moral superiority is powerless against the temptingly strong drink. Not only are evil
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drunkards dying but so, too, are innocent daughters and mothers. It was necessary for women to band together and advocate as a force for the eradication of alcohol in order to save not only the men of their families but the innocent daughters and mothers as well. Nineteenth-century concepts of femininity placed women on the pedestal of Victorian white womanhood. They were seen as pure, chaste, godly, and capable of using their moral superiority to sway their sons, husbands, and fathers from wicked behavior. Temperance offered men and women the opportunity to embody 19th-century concepts of femininity and masculinity and to thereby solidify themselves as useful and necessary members of American society. This was especially appealing for nonwhite or minority Americans, such as African Americans, Native Americans, and recent immigrants. Historian Fletcher argues that when white men supported temperance, society viewed them as stronger, more virtuous, and more successful. Claiming temperance rhetoric was also important for men outside of the white, AngloSaxon, and Protestant communities to gain full citizenship and manhood. The same was true for women outsiders: claiming moral superiority as those who could reform evil drunkenness solidified their claims to the body politic. In reaction to this, many organizations formally refused or discouraged nonwhite membership. Under Francis Willard, the WCTU became more inclusive of African Americans, but this often broke apart in the south, where Jim Crow laws were commonplace, and even in the north where de facto segregation implemented itself after the Civil War. One example of a woman who advocated temperance slightly outside of 19th-century gender norms of Victorian womanhood was Carrie Nation. The radical temperance efforts of Nation are often interpreted through the lens of her family’s history of mental illness, as she seems to have suffered from mental instability herself. Nation’s first husband was a drunkard and left her a young widow. She later married a preacher and lawyer, and from all accounts it was not a happy marriage. Turning to an impassioned spiritual faith with Protestant-like beliefs, she heard a voice from the Lord commanding her to fight against alcohol. At first, she prayed to close saloons, but when that was not effective began
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her trademark “hatchetation,” smashing up bars with any demolishing object she could find, and later as her movement caught press attention and people began to mimic her efforts, using a hatchet as her instrument of choice. Arrested many times, Nation believed that if the authorities would not enforce alcohol laws, she should take matters into her own hands. She was known and feared in most saloons; some even had a sign reading “All nations welcome except Carrie.” Nation was an anomaly, however, and the majority of middleclass women failed to see the usefulness of radical, quasiviolent protest that went completely against expected ladylike behavior of the 19th century. Women’s Suffrage and Temperance American political participation was severely limited during the 18th and 19th centuries, especially for women. As the temperance movement became increasingly dominated by female leaders, the suffrage movement and the fight for women’s voting rights became even more entwined. As women became successful leaders in reform movements, they increasingly envisioned a society in which they could act politically and expand their public roles. Temperance reformers, such as Susan B. Anthony, recognized that women were the primary backers of temperance, and if they had the vote, prohibition of alcohol would be reality. Suffrage and temperance reform formed a strong link. The WCTU also realized the link between women’s suffrage and temperance, and members became strong advocates for women’s increased political rights. Originally known as the Woman’s National Christian Temperance Union, the WCTU formed in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1874. Its goals were to combine Christianity and temperance to bring about a world that was both sober and pure. The WCTU’s dynamic second president, Francis Willard, broadened the perspective of the organization’s focus to include women’s rights, abstinence, and education. Her reform efforts were vast following her motto of “Do everything.” She sought to reform prostitutes and prisoners and to educate children on the dangers of alcohol consumption. The WCTU’s educational pamphlets and lectures warned children that one drop of alcohol could cause them to spontaneously combust. Willard and the WCTU saw the education of children as vitally important. Male children were future
voters, and the organization worked to convince children that alcohol was morally wrong in order to build an educated voter base that would help bring about prohibition. A very effective political lobbying group, the Anti-Saloon League (ASL), was somewhat of a foil to the WCTU. Begun in Oberlin, Ohio, in 1893, the ASL spread quickly and became a national organization by 1895. Unlike the WCTU, which worked to bring about absolute eradication of drink through moral reasoning, the ASL sought to destroy liquor traffic and distribution through political means. The ASL focused on a single-platform issue: prohibition. To achieve its goals, the ASL ran as a streamlined, focused bureaucracy. Some overlap occurred between the ASL and the WCTU. The first president of the WCTU, Annie Wittenmyer, served as an ASL trustee. Because the only goal of the league was political reform, and women were not yet political actors via the vote, men were the primary leaders in the league. Women involved in the ASL performed more administrative tasks, rather than hold leadership positions. One way the ASL did work to help women and improve their cause, however, was to support women’s suffrage. It was one of the few side issues the ASL focused on. ASL leaders knew that if women had the vote, prohibition would be a reality. Alcohol Reform During Prohibition, the flapper replaced the temperance reformer as one of the most visible images associated with women and alcohol. Flappers often experimented with the now illegal substance of alcohol, joining men at the speakeasies and tasting new cocktails made of illegal moonshine or bathtub gin. Women began to argue that Prohibition was a failure and should be repealed. Many women joined the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform, organized by Pauline Sabin, a wealthy Republican. Similar to the women of the WCTU, Sabin framed her efforts at Prohibition reform with the rhetoric of the mother. She argued that Prohibition had actually increased intemperate drinking and made the drinking age a moot point, as speakeasies would serve to teens as well as adults. To protect their children, she encouraged the mothers of the country to join her efforts at
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to make alcohol legal and establish rules and regulations on who could be served. Contemporary Issues Issues of gender and alcohol reform did not dissipate after Prohibition; in fact, they are still a major part of American society’s conversations about alcohol today. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) was formed in 1980 by Texan Candace Lightner when her 13-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver. The organization’s driving mission and rhetoric about the morality of motherhood mimics the gendered and emotional rhetoric of the WCTU. MADD has attempted to integrate the two roles of mother and father in its Power of Parents platform. Father’s Against Drunk Driving and Dads Against Drunk Driving also exist today but are not integrated with the MADD organization, and the men’s organizations operate on a much smaller budget and visibility than MADD. Women’s and men’s involvement and interactions surrounding alcohol reform serve as an excellent way to view the shifting perceptions of gender throughout history. Particularly in the last 150 years, women have become essential to reform efforts, as their perceived moral superiority as the wife, mother, and spiritual leader are all characteristics drawn upon to convince people to abstain from excessive drinking. Serenity S. Sutherland University of Rochester See Also: Anti-Saloon League; Gender and Alcohol Abuse; Home Protection; Temperance, History of; Temperance Movements; Washingtonians; Willard, Frances; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union; Women’s Temperance Crusade (1874). Further Readings Fletcher, Holly Berkley. Gender and the American Temperance Movement of the Nineteenth Century. New York: Routledge, 2008. Kerr, Austin Kerr. Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985. Mattingly, Carol. Well-Tempered Women: NineteenthCentury Temperance Rhetoric. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998.
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Murdock, Catherine Gilbert. Domesticating Drink: Women, Men, and Alcohol in America, 1870– 1940. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Rose, Kenneth D. American Women and the Repeal of Prohibition. New York: Scribner, 2010. Tyrell, Ian. Woman’s World/Woman’s Christian Temperance Union: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective, 1800–1930. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
Gender and Drinking in Popular Culture Popular culture is one of the most pervasive, discernible cultural underpinnings of American society. The expansion of mass popular—or pop— culture in the United States garners a great deal of attention worldwide. Many are concerned that the production of American pop culture in the era of globalization is actually an Americanization of cultures around the world to the detriment of local cultures and norms. The United States is indeed a behemoth producer of goods and media of pop culture, by far the largest in the world, and its influence is far-reaching, with the power to influence and change fashion, cultural preferences, and even gender roles. Pop Culture’s Presentation of Alcohol Popular culture is produced through music, film, television shows, print media, cable and satellite broadcasts, video games, and fashion, among other forms. Popular culture production in the United States is a powerful mover of products, goods, and social behaviors not only at the national level but globally as well. One of the most important components of economic activity in popular culture is advertising. Recent studies show that vast amounts of money are expended in mass advertising, including alcohol ads, promotion, and marketing. The American Academy of Pediatrics revealed recently that approximately $25 billion is spent every year advertising tobacco, alcohol, and prescription medication.
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The depth and reach of popular culture may be illustrated in the case of Overton v. AnheuserBusch (1994), which reached the Michigan Supreme Court. The suit claimed that the beer company’s advertising was deceptive and that the fantasies about alcohol produced by the company had led the plaintiff to drink its products, leading him to personal distress and financial losses. The plaintiff also described the beer ads that had fueled his imagination, which involved tropical scenarios and men and women in constant “merriment.” The Michigan Supreme Court dismissed the case, but it served to point out the reach and impact of alcohol advertising tropes. Despite the abundance of studies showing the effects of media portrayals of tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug use, media studies show that twice as many songs in the contemporary top 10 listing contain a reference to alcohol as those from ten years ago, and close to thrice as 30 years ago. A Journal of Music Psychology study shows that by 2011, the number of songs glamorizing alcohol by linking it to popularity, social confidence, and attractiveness outweighed the number of songs that link it to health problems and accidents. Cultural Perceptions of Gender and Alcohol One reason that the fantasies of the effects of alcohol consumption promoted to men and women in advertising are so prevalent, according to experts, is that even though they are misleading, many people internalize them; that is, they integrate them into their framework for understanding the world and in a sense, believe them. Other experts argue that mass-media alcohol advertising tends to standardize or homogenize these prevailing fantasies, which includes the repetitive portrayal of certain types of gender roles. Besides specific product advertising per se, alcohol imagery is frequent in television productions, film, music videos, bars, restaurants, and sporting events, among other forms. With rare exceptions, these representations spread the notion, ubiquitously and repetitively, that alcohol consumers are, young, attractive, successful people who lead exciting lives full of constant cheer. They also communicate desired gender roles and self-identity. Several scholars have discovered that alcohol in popular culture tends to sustain a series of cultural
myths—that is, widespread cultural beliefs that are propagated not only in advertising but also in other popular mass-mediated products. It is important, however, to note that rather than advertisers creating the cultural myths reproduced in advertising images, they merely make use of— and exaggerate—these cultural myths in order to promote their products. For example, communications researchers have repeatedly found that beer consumption is frequently equated with manliness. In cultures in which beer is popular, beer consumption is perceived by many men as an important factor for performing their role in society. Studies find that cultural myths are often present in alcohol ads, presenting beer, for example, as a refreshing beverage that can reduce stress and lead to relaxation and romance. These ads are targeted to young men, who find them attractive and believable. Others ads for more expensive alcoholic beverages are targeted to older men, also disseminating portrayals of men that appear attractive, wealthy, and successful in business and romance. Traditional Gender Roles for Women Researchers claim that by and large alcoholism and excessive drinking of alcohol in general carries significantly more stigma for women than for men. The double standard carries into social drinking. Survey responses suggest that simple inebriation provokes stronger social sanctions for women than men. The stigma of female intoxication has remained constant in Western societies throughout history, and according to scholars, is tied to traditional notions of female virtue and women’s expected roles as caretakers and nurturers. Alcohol consumption is believed to encourage women to engage in unacceptable public and sexual behavior, which may result in them being unable to protect themselves from unwanted sexual advances. Women’s traditional roles as caretakers and nurturers imply that they should be consistently sober to a larger extent than do socially prescribed roles for men. Some scholars explain that these dynamics hark back to much earlier eras. In ancient times, the inability of women to perform their socially prescribed duties, even if only temporarily, might have been threatening to the group because whereas a male may
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West Virginia coal miners and their friends drinking beer in a bar in Clothier, West Virginia. While beer ads have long been aimed at young men, the imagery began to change in the 2000s,with the use of less idealized “everyman” types. Cultural myths continue to tend to connect male drinking with courage, risk-taking, physical stamina, defying social convention, and lack of pretense.
have been able to abandon the field or hunting for a day without major consequences, a woman could not abandon childcare without risking a catastrophe. Even though it seems contemporary women have gradually left behind the most stringent gender role strictures, public concern about maternal alcohol use has increased with the increase in medical evidence of the potentially negative effects of alcohol use during pregnancy. As such, pregnant women are encouraged and even pressured to avoid drinking, however minor, even before giving birth. Women are usually socialized from childhood to eventually embody preoccupation with and care of family and children, causing them to internalize these social perceptions and the stigma attached to female drunkenness. The same nurturing roles are often expected from women beyond the household, such as in workplace environments. Studies show that
women in general are expected to exercise more control when drinking, and they often do. Male Gender Roles and Alcohol Use On the other hand, although in most cases male gender roles do not directly prescribe alcohol abuse, under some socially accepted circumstances, they can actually be enhanced by hard drinking. In an episode of the popular television series Mad Men, for instance, an adult male executive in a business suit states, “We drink because it’s what men do,” suggesting that drinking as a masculine-affirming activity is intrinsic to being a successful adult male and is not circumscribed solely to young men. Cultural myths associate male drinking, including excessive drinking, with courage, risk-taking, physical stamina, defying social convention, and even honesty and seeing through social pretenses. Since all of these qualities are more associated with male expectations,
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they are admired in men much more than they are in women, bearing repetition in countless media portrayals. In consequence, men are more likely to drink in greater capacities than women and with less sense of stigma and shame. Male drinking in public is more frequent, it is is often done in groups with other males, and it is less controlled. It also more often results in aggressive and risktaking behavior, such as vandalism, fighting, violence, and drunk driving. There have, however, been cultural shifts at play in the representation of maleness in alcohol commercials. Beginning in the 2000s, a new trend of advertising and film portrayed young male alcohol consumers, who, rather than representing high-status and muscular models of masculinity, represent clearly nonathletic, somewhat hapless “everyman” types that mainstream males can identify with. Some scientific studies do not find any direct link between exposure to alcohol advertising and a significant increase in consumption levels. However, these studies do suggest that consumers of advertising show an increased identification with the models performing or represented in the ads and influence how the ads shape expectations related to gender, drinking, and what is considered the acceptable related behavior. Representations of Gender and Drinking Although many music videos used to be targeted to young men, newer pop artists such as Lady Gaga, LMFAO, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, and Rihanna, among many others, are producing music videos that highlight uncontrolled merrymaking and fun for both sexes. Women are portrayed as drinking to excess at social events and even during pedestrian tasks. A video by the artist Ke$ha, for example, shows her brushing her teeth with whiskey in an ambiance of fun. While some see this as a step toward emancipation in challenging the traditional role strictures on women, others see it as risking disaster because of the harmful reallife consequences of excessive drinking. Others add that, as popular culture portrayals are fantasies, however believable, they do not address the ways in which women must actually negotiate the pervasiveness of social stigma related to female drinking when they engage in the portrayed behaviors. Young women, critics suggest, are led
to believe that they can drink to excess and not deal with the consequences, such as drunk-driving accidents, health problems, and other harmful events. Nevertheless, a similar myth has long been propagated for young men. The mass-mediated cultural messages in alcohol advertising, film, and music videos portray drinking as fun to both men and women, and in general, women’s public drinking has gradually become more acceptable than in the past. Nevertheless, public concern over women’s drinking problems has also increased in the past decades, especially among scientists, health professionals, policy makers, and legislators. Although this preoccupation seems to be an extension of the traditional roles of women in family and the workplace, the roles of women socially and in the workplace continue to evolve and expose them to more public drinking opportunities. A growth in numbers of women in the workplace, better educational and job promotion opportunities, and a surge in self-supporting single and divorced women have served to decrease the negativity of public perceptions of drinking and women. However, growing public concerns about the projected alcohol-related problems related to women correlate with the perception that although the drinking behaviors of men and women increasingly exhibit similarities, these behaviors may cause worse problems for women than for men. Some of the concern that alcohol consumption may have worse consequences for women than for men is based on biological and metabolic differences and the discovery of the effect of alcohol abuse on developing fetuses. However, according to some scholars, much of the attention is also due to traditional societal norms against women’s drinking. In fact, in the 1980s, reports started surfacing in the United States, Britain, and other countries relating a spike in the numbers of youth and women seeking treatment for alcohol dependency. However, experts at that time warned against assuming that this means a steep increase in alcohol consumption among these groups since institutions tend to overestimate the proportion of persons who belong to a minority group, especially when their sudden visibility is unexpected. In other words, there are often various other important explanations for social
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phenomena, as in this case; the reports of youth drinking, for instance, could be linked to wider exposure to awareness and treatment programs and a decrease in the social stigma attached to alcoholism. Alcohol has been important to cultures around the world since ancient history and before the existence of advertising. Often, women have been in charge of the regulation and maintenance of alcohol as part of household chores and economy. In general, most researchers agree that enough evidence exists to date to say that overall, probabilities point toward the conclusion that the gender representations in media are having an effect on the drinking habits of both genders. Also as important, research shows that portrayals of gender and drinking in mass popular media have an impact on how both genders internalize, negotiate, and express self-identities in relation to the performance of their prescribed roles in society and in their related leisure activities, such as drinking alcohol. Trudy Mercadal Florida Atlantic University See Also: Anthropology of Drinking; Bars, History of Alcohol Abuse in; Beer Advertising; Drinking in Popular Music; Gender and Alcohol Abuse; Keggers; Moral Attitudes Toward Alcohol Consumption; Student Culture, College and University. Further Readings Cornes, Julie. Alcohol in the Movies, 1898–1962: A Critical History. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006. Chrzan, Janet. Alcohol: Social Drinking in Cultural Context. London: Routledge, 2012. Glaser, Gabrielle. Her Best-Kept Secret: Why Women Drink and How They Can Regain Control. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013. Hastings, Gerard, Susan Anderson, Emma Cook, and Ross Gordon. “Alcohol Marketing and Young People’s Drinking: A Review of the Research.” Journal of Public Health Policy, v.26/3 (2005). Johnston, Ann Dowsett. Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol. New York: Harper Collins, 2013. Martin, S. “Popular Culture Encourages Girls to Mix Sex and Alcohol.” Monitor on Psychology, v.42/9 (2011).
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Messner, Michael and Jeffrey Montez de Oca. “The Male Consumer as Loser: Beer and Liquor Ads in Mega Sports Media Event.” Signs, v.30/3 (2005). Phillips, Rod. Alcohol: A History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Robbins, Cynthia and Steve S. Martin. “Gender, Styles of Deviance, and Drinking Problems.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior, v.34/4 (1993). Wenner, Lawrence and Stephen Jackson, eds. Sport, Beer, and Gender: Promotional Culture and Contemporary Social Life. New York: Peter Lang, 2008.
General Court of Massachusetts (1657) In May 1657, nearly four centuries before the Volstead Act, the General Court of Massachusetts, meeting in Boston, banned the sale of spirituous beverages throughout the Commonwealth. It inadvertently fired the first salvo in what would become one of the most enduring (and defining) cultural wars in American sociopolitical history. In forbidding the sale and importation of alcohol, the general court raised the question of the responsibility of a nominally God-fearing society to control the insidious effects of excessive alcoholic consumption simply by making liquor itself illegal. Since in theory, the government acts as a kind of moral guardian over a lapsed and sadly weak people inclined to excess and therefore lacking the necessary self-control, forbidding alcohol entirely was good for the long-term moral and spiritual, and even physical, wellbeing of the people. Puritan Ban of Alcohol The year 1657 was a pivotal one in the Puritan experiment. Indeed, the resolution banning the sale of alcohol is often viewed as the last grand gesture of the first generation of Puritan settlers. Within weeks of the passage of the resolution, William Bradford, the sitting governor of the Plymouth Colony, died. Among the last of the first wave of Puritan zealots, Bradford had been a formidable political and religious figure in the colony
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(he had served altogether close to 30 years as governor) and had backed the resolution, seeing in the abuse of alcohol a certain sign of the community’s backsliding. He saw this happening in the colony’s fall from the towering idealism with which it had been founded a scant 30 years earlier as a model theocracy, a “city on a hill,” that would be shaped by Judeo-Christian principles. That in their waning years of power the Puritans would act to ban liquor would seem to play into entrenched contemporary stereotypes of the Puritans as intolerant and joyless; grim and dour; and disdaining of alcohol because it might bring joy and gaiety, spontaneity, and fun at the expense of diligent work and round-the-clock worship. The reality is more complicated. It is a matter of public record that the loading bill for the Arabella, one of earliest of the Puritan ships, carried more barrels of beer than water. The Puritans, because of, not despite, their deep-seated faith, celebrated rather than demonized alcohol. Within their luminous conception of a world as creation, God was responsible for the natural ingredients that made liquor, particularly hard cider and beer, wine was viewed as elitist, part of the decadent aristocratic lifestyle the Puritans had rejected in England), and appreciation of God’s grandeur was part of the joyful Puritan vision. Journals and diaries from the first generation of Puritan settlers record how they experimented with a variety of New World plants to manufacture alcohol—including cucumbers, carrots, squash, corn, and even dandelions—each as a way to celebrate God’s plenty. But there were far more practical reasons for the Puritans’ acceptance of alcohol. Given the uncertain conditions of the wilderness water supply, physicians routinely recommended alcohol as simply safer and healthier than river water. That water was routinely boiled, driving out the latent impurities, left the water flat tasting. To improve it, malted grains were often added, making a kind of crude beer. The problem with alcohol for the Puritans was excess, the abuse of liquor. If God the Creator had provided liquor, Satan drove the drunkard. The Massachusetts General Court was specifically concerned about a wildly popular new liquor known as rumbullion, or kill devil, a sweet drink brewed in the Caribbean from molasses, a tarlike sticky residue left over from sugar curing
that by itself had had for years no economic worth and had been simply discarded. That had added up to a considerable loss for cane farmers—after all, every pound of sugar left behind nearly a half-pound of the thick black molasses. While fermenting the thick sauce (historians are not entirely clear who pioneered the process), sugarcane farmers inadvertently discovered a most powerful alcoholic beverage that quickly became the rage throughout the British holdings in the Caribbean and then made its way to the American colonies. Although rum would later figure prominently in what historians would call the Triangle Trade, an insidious economic system responsible for expanding the presence of slavery in the New World (New England merchants would send local products, most notably textiles, fish, and timber, to Caribbean markets for molasses, which would then be fermented into rum and taken to African ports where it would be traded for slaves to be brought back to the Caribbean to work the sugarcane plantations as well as burgeoning plantations in the South), the problem with rum the Massachusetts General Court faced in 1657 was far more immediate. The Court and the Ban Although being called the general court seems to suggest a judiciary function, the General Court of Massachusetts had far more sweeping powers and functioned more as the powerful centralized government for the settlement—having legislative and judicial as well as administrative powers. All freemen with an appropriate church affiliation had a seat in the court, which had met four times a year since 1631. At that time, by royal decree, the court had been empowered to run the colony virtually without British guidance, a landmark political decision motivated by a simple logic. Given the wide expanse of ocean and the necessary delays in communication, allowing the colony to run itself was not only prudent but inevitable. More than a century before the first foment of revolution, the Puritan settlers were viewed as religious extremists, yes, but loyal to the Crown. To its credit, in the decade leading up to the 1657 edict against alcohol, the court had distinguished itself by establishing public colleges, setting up health facilities
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and hospitals, putting down a roadway system, delegating resources as a way to manage poverty, and even setting up a revolutionary judicial system that allowed for appeals. But the court had long struggled with the reality of public drunkenness. Court records show that in the six years leading up to the ban the court had attempted to contain the sale and consumption of rum through a variety of strategies, including curbing tavern hours, regulating the pricing of liquor, banning the practice of paying day laborers in liquor, and making public drunkenness (defined by slurred speech, faltering steps, vomiting, and/or the offenders’ failure to remember the location of their home or their occupation) a progressively more serious offense. Given the difficult conditions under which the settlers lived—the harsh weather, the backbreaking work, the profound homesickness, the constant threat from Native Americans—alcohol abuse was a significant and pressing social problem. The ban was a logical last step to contain what had become a widespread social problem, magnified, of course, by the larger vision of the colony as God’s own city on a hill. The ban stayed on the record for nearly a generation—there is no record of its ever being officially repealed. With the rapid decline of the theocratic state and the emergence of a mercantile colony shaped by economic rather than theological dicta, the 1657 act remains today an historic landmark, the first government ban of alcohol in America.
Smith, Frederick H. Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008. Williams, Ian. Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of America. New York: Nation Books, 2006.
Joseph Dewey Broward College See Also: Caribbean Islands; Christianity; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 17th Century; Moral Attitudes Toward Alcohol Consumption; Religion; Rum. Further Readings Curtis, Wayne. And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the World in Ten Cocktails. New York: Broadway, 2007. Massachusetts Archive Collection. “Records 1629– 1799.” http://www.sec.state.ma.us/arc/arcsrch/ RevolutionarySearchContects.html (Accessed February 2014).
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Genetic Disposition, Alcoholism as a There are two ways of studying the possible genetics of alcoholism—the first is laboratory breeding of alcoholic fruit flies, worms, and mice, and the second is studies on human subjects. The areas in which genetic studies on human subjects have been concentrated are (1) the study of twins and (2) adoption studies. We study the possible genetics of alcoholism because an individual’s genetic endowment (genotype) affects his or her physical form (phenotype). We study twins and adoptees because they provide the closest approximation we can reach to a laboratory situation—being unable to breed alcoholic humans for laboratory study. If—as is now generally believed—alcoholism is grounded in part in biological processes, and biological processes are influenced greatly by the genetic code from which biological development takes place, and if the genetic code has developed as a response to external conditions (as Darwin suggests) and represents a survival from a time when it conferred a survival value on the carrier, then the various alcoholic phenotypes that have been suggested can be studied in connection with their putative causes back in time in the evolutionary process. By understanding how things got the way they are, we may be able to see how they might be changed. Twin and Adoption Studies Since we cannot breed humans the way we breed mice and fruit flies and nematodes, we look at differences in genetic make‑up between identical and fraternal twins, and we look at children of alcoholic parents adopted by nonalcoholic parents. These are the so‑called adoption and twin studies,
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playing a major part in human research on the genetics of alcoholism. Twin studies compare the incidence of alcoholism in identical twins with the incidence of alcoholism in fraternal twins. In general, in these studies, no attention has been paid to types of alcoholism, except for Cloninger Type‑I and Type‑II, which are unfortunately open to question. It is argued that if there is a genetic component in the risk for alcoholism, then identical twins, who have identical genes, would be expected to exhibit more similarities in alcoholic development than fraternal twins, who are genetically different individuals born at the same time. The expectations have generally held true. For example, researcher R. W. Pickens and his coworkers studied 169 pairs of same‑sex twins of which at least one twin had sought treatment for alcoholism: they found greater concordance of alcohol dependence (DSM‑III) in identical than in fraternal twins and in identical male twins than in identical female twins. J. Partanen and his coworkers, in studying 902 male Finnish twins, found less severe drinking patterns less heritable and more severe drinking patterns more heritable. Problems in evaluating these studies come from the question of whether identical twins grow up in more identical environments than those in which fraternal twins grow up. Apparently they do. Also, even the identical twins would need to grow up almost exactly synchronously for us to be sure—or reasonably sure—that we are escaping the effects of chaotic ordering in our analysis. Adoption studies may employ a number of techniques. One is to compare the history of (1) children of alcoholics who are adopted by nonalcoholics and grow up in a nondrinking environment with (2) the children of nonalcoholics similarly raised or similarly adopted and raised. If genetic factors play a role, then children of alcoholics adopted by nonalcoholics should preferentially develop alcoholism as adults. Problems in the analysis here may include failure to distinguish by alcoholic typology and the simple lack of data on parents who give up children for adoption. Even so, in a pioneering study of adopted Danish children, D. W. Goodwin and his coworkers found some evidence of expected heritability. Then C. R. Cloninger and his team,
working with much more extensive Swedish data and using the Type‑I/Type‑II typology, found evidence that his Type‑II alcoholics (usually male early‑onset drinkers displaying anti‑social personality disorder (ASPD), had a more heritable form of alcoholism than his Type‑I alcoholics. Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism It is highly unlikely that etiological studies will find a single genetic marker for “alcoholism”— particularly if defined to include “alcohol abuse.” But markers (marker genes) may exist for certain types of alcoholism. The Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA) was a sixcenter study to detect and map susceptibility genes for alcohol dependence and related phenotypes. Probands (test subjects) were selected from inpatient and outpatient treatment units (that is, were not self-selected). They were selected if their families included sibship of at least three individuals and if parents were available for study. Test subjects were excluded if they were intravenous drug users, had AIDS, or had a terminal non-alcohol-related illness. In other words, alcoholics who were not “pure” alcoholics were excluded. Phenotypes of families including three or more affected relatives in the first degree with alcohol dependence were studied more intensely and used for genetic linkage and association studies. Control families chosen “without respect to diagnosis” included two available parents and three offspring over the age of 14 years. Adult lifetime psychiatric status was assessed by direct interview with the Semi-Structured Assessment for the Genetics of Alcoholism (SSAGA). It was used to make diagnoses of alcohol dependence, alcoholism, alcohol abuse or harmful use, by Feighner, DSM-III, and DSM-III-R criteria. A close approximation to a diagnosis of alcohol dependence by DSM-IV and ICD-10 criteria was also possible. Semistructured interviews for age-appropriate lifetime psychiatric diagnosis of children and adolescents (C-SSAGA, A-SSAGA) was also accomplished and accompanied by an interview for parents (P-SSAGA) for better assessment of symptoms of psychopathology in juveniles. A semistructured interview, Family History Assessment, was developed to assess the presence of psychiatric disorders in relatives.
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Phenotypic assessment included measures that have been correlated with susceptibility to alcohol dependence. Biochemical assays were conducted for adenylate cyclase (AC) and monoamine oxidase (MAO) activity. Probands and relatives, including juveniles, completed both neuropsychological and neurophysiological tests. Personality traits were assessed using the TPQ (Tri-dimensional Personality Questionnaire) and the Zuckerman Sensation Seeking Scale. Heritable measures were studied as correlated quantitative phenotypic markers of susceptibility to alcohol dependence. An alcohol challenge protocol (procedure) was carried out at the San Diego COGA site to study effects of controlled exposure to alcohol in 18-to-30-year-old offspring of alcohol-dependent probands. Cooperative families that included three or more members with alcohol dependence were selected for more intensive phenotypic and genotypic study if they were not bilineal. Blood was drawn for the transformation of lymphocytes into lymphoblastoid cell lines that were cryopreserved (frozen) for adults and from which DNA was directly extracted for juveniles. Twelve hundred and seventeen (1,217) families of alcohol-dependent probands (test subjects), including 7,847 adults (18 and over) and 1,047 juveniles (ages 7 to 17), had been personally interviewed with the age-appropriate SSAGA. A random sample of 234 control families, each of two parents and with at least three children (14 and over) was selected and the SSAGA administered. Cooperative families with three or more interviewed alcohol-dependent first-degree members were accepted for more intensive assessment and inclusion into the molecular genetics database (a total of 346 families with 4,164 individual members). Members of these families were recruited for a battery of neuropsychological tests, assessment of EEGs (electroencephalograms) and ERPs (tests for event-related potentials), blood samples for the production of cell lines (adults), DNA samples (adults and juveniles), and biochemistry tests. Members of the control families participated in the neurophysiology protocol and had blood drawn for DNA preparation. The assessment of the 263 informative families was completed in the 1990s.
An informative sample for genetic linkage and association studies of alcohol dependence, ERP phenotype, and personality traits (105 families) was selected for an initial genome-wide linkage analysis. To test by replicating initial findings of genetic linkage and association, a secondary “replication” sample (157 families) was also selected for study. Two hundred and ninetyone (291) markers were genotyped, with an average heterozygosity of 0.72 and an average intermarker distance of 13.8 cM (centiMorgans = 1 percent recombination frequency: these are the measures commonly used for determining genetic linkages and associations.) There were seven intermarker regions greater than 30 cM, and 28 greater than 20 cM (higher than average recombination frequency = greater linkage). Most markers were tri-nucleotide or tetra-nucleotide repeat polymorphisms (microsatellites), in keeping with the fact that linkage studies generally are dealing with multiallelic polymorphisms. Association studies focus on single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). The COGA criteria for alcohol dependence (alcoholism) required diagnosis of definite alcoholism by Feighner criteria and alcohol dependence by the DSM-III-R criteria. Two-point linkage analyses revealed that 24 loci provided evidence for linkage at the p_0.01 level. Multipoint analysis identified chromosomal regions suggesting linkage with the alcohol-dependent phenotype on chromosomes 1, 2, and 7. There was suggestive evidence for a protective locus on chromosome 4 near the alcohol dehydrogenase genes, for which protective effects have been reported in Asian populations. Using the ICD-10 typology for alcohol dependence, the study looked at linkages for Withdrawal from Alcohol criteria and Severe Dependence criteria. Analysis with two-point methods provided evidence for linkage at the p_0.01 level on chromosomes 1, 7, 11, and 16, for regions that showed linkage to more than one phenotype. Regions on chromosomes 1 and 16 showed evidence for linkage with alcohol dependence defined by both COGA and ICD-10 criteria. However, the levels of significance for linkage with the withdrawal and latent class phenotypes was greater than for either COGA or ICD-10 diagnostic criteria, over all the chromosomal regions
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identified. (This suggests, among other things, that there is not so far a good match between phenotypes and diagnostic criteria.) Research found two ERP linkages on chromosomes 2 and 6, and alcohol dependence linkage on chromosome 16. It is significant, given a complexly ordered condition with possible inadequate specification of types, that we have any proven genetic links in any behavior pattern—even with only “statistical” proof. Animal Studies Since alcoholism is, so far as we know, a condition (or developmental process) with multiple biological origins, multiple precipitating environmental events, and complex processes maintaining the condition, it will be difficult to identify any individual phenotype for animal study that can capture all relevant dimensions. We are looking for an array of alcohol‑related phenotypes, through selective breeding, specialized strains, and neoclassical congenic (genes‑with‑genes) methodology, using backcrossing wherein a monogenically (one‑gene) controlled phenotypic variant is “moved” onto a background of another strain (typically an inbred strain). Marker‑based breeding schemes involve a mapped QTL (quantitative trait locus) and can be used in the genetic analysis of alcohol‑related phenotypes. With polymorphic flanking markers spaced closely enough to make recombination unlikely, it is possible to move a QTL onto another background. Marker‑assisted selection uses pairs of flanking polymorphic PCR (polymerase chain reaction) identified markers to fix to homozygosity (same‑allele genes). A proposal has been made to use short‑term selection for alcohol‑related phenotypes: employing mass selection, beginning typically with F2 populations (F2 = second filial generation), where QTL mapping has already been accomplished, and markers linked to the putative QTL are tracked through a few generations of selections, providing strong “verification” strategy for QTL regions. (Note that the P generation is the parents, of differing phenotypes and genotypes, F1 the next generation, and F2 the third generation.) Selective breeding was used initially to show that alcohol‑related behavioral phenotypes were heritable, and these heritable phenotypes can
provide the material for further biochemical assays. Major breeding programs in rodents (mice and more recently rats), fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster), and nematodes (Caenorhabditis elegans) have established three principal alcohol‑related phenotypes (biometrically determined), determined by (1) acute alcohol response, (2) alcohol tolerance/dependence withdrawal, and (3) alcohol preference. These are the characteristics bred into the rats, flies, and nematodes: it is worth noting there are at least three of these, casting still further doubt on a simple dual typology for human alcoholics. (We would in fact prefer four phenotypes, much differently defined, but relevant only to humans.) There are some advantages in using selected lines with expected continued utility: (1) Selected breeding provides a wide divergence of phenotypes beyond the range found in the base population, and the use of such phenotypes has resulted in new pharmacotherapies for excessive alcohol consumption. (2) Selected lines catch most of the relevant genetic variation, which is usually derived from a wide array of progenitor strains of heterogeneous background. (3) There are large population sizes available, permitting examination of multivariate correlation structure while controlling for the selected phenotype. (4) Production of extreme populations can produce unexpected but informative outcomes. (5) Selected breeding enables simpler comparisons as against characterizing batteries of inbred strains or large arrays of QTL‑based marker‑differentiated stocks, providing an ideal model system for tests of behavioral theories. Selected breeding is also arguably an ideal strategy for gene mapping, with lower power required, considerable capability for generalization, and providing a control condition against which genotype‑based selected QTL lines are compared. On the other hand, problems with selected breeding can arise from nonreplicated lines, low population sizes, and breeding bottlenecks. Replicated within‑family bidirectional design may mitigate these difficulties. It has been suggested that the presence of genetic correlation is questionable unless selected lines differ by two or three phenotypic SDs on the correlated character. A qualitative trait (QT) is one whose phenotypic variation is continuous rather than discrete, and determined by the segregation of many genes.
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Most of the genetic variation in alcohol action is specified by several genes typically defined as QTLs (quantitative trait loci). Mice are useful in research here because the genetic map of the mouse is covered with highly polymorphic loci, facilitating the mapping of QTLs. QTL mapping for alcohol‑related phenotypes in one strain of RI (recombinant inbred) mouse has led to the identification of a number of provisional QTLs, but only two studies have reported QTLs that satisfy rigorous criteria for statistical significance. These studies involved whole‑genome scans, mapping (1) preference for alcohol and (2) initial sensitivity to alcohol. The degree of the detectable association between a marker and a phenotype is based on the size of the effect of the QTL on the phenotype and on the genetic distance between the QTL and the marker (measured in cMs, centimorgans, as we noted). If the QTL is close to the marker and has a large effect, then detection and mapping of the QTL can be done easily and accurately. If not, then recombination between the marker and the QTL will lead to lower association levels and a lower “effect size” for the QTL. Mice have provided the principal area for QTL animal studies on alcohol‑related behavior. In addition to QTL study in mice, there have been “knockout” and “antisense” studies, both involving gene alteration. A transgenic (gene‑altered) animal possesses a gene that has been specifically altered to over‑ or under‑express a particular gene product. Obviously, we cannot (or must not) thus alter human genes, but we have the mice.
Many conditions we recognize as genetic diseases are present in certain populations because, in the not‑too‑distant past, they actually conferred a survival advantage on their carriers (or, possibly, a condition to which the diseases are connected conferred such an advantage). In most cases the disease is manifested in the homozygote, whereas the heterozygote is at an advantage In This Strange Illness: Alcoholism and Bill W., it was established (at least as a reasonable scientific research program) that the precondition for alcoholism is heritable; that it may be genetically connected with certain speech abilities and may, in fact, have arisen as either an evolutionary by-product or an evolutionary desideratum in a great shift (or more likely a set of shifts) to the Adjacent Possible sometime (mostly) in the late Wisconsin Ice Age; that the genotypic condition may be phenotypically altered (even as part of an extended phenotype) through conscious synaptic alteration; that the heritability of the condition is multigenic, possibly to the point of real differentiation in types (perhaps cognate with language differentiations), and that laws of chaotic ordering seem to apply—this all, of course, as a very brief summary. Certain ordinary rules of genetics—as thus qualified—seem to apply, however. There must be recessive genes in the heritable mix, somehow, since studies of alcoholism historically in families show it far stronger in generations where it has been common in both paternal and maternal lines than in generations where it is weaker in one of them. Such a finding is in some ways predictive and useful—but it does not of course tell us what the genome for an alcoholic would be, nor of course can we predict exactly what kind or type of alcoholic any particular child would be. (Anecdotal evidence suggests one expert did accurately predict that a particular child of a particular alcoholic mother who was a daily drinker was likely to become a periodic drinker—and this when the child in question was nine—but this, if true, must be the exception that proves the rule.)
Conclusion The value of studying laboratory genetic mutations for understanding the genetics of alcoholism—and its biochemistry—is not dependent on finding precise markers or precise phenotypic variants within the test populations. The value lies in demonstrating some possible relationships for human study and particularly in assembling evidence that alcohol‑related traits are genetic among alcoholics, and thus defining traits. As we come closer and closer to understanding that precise markers may not really mark anything precisely, the simple demonstration of qualitative relationships becomes even more important.
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Jared Lobdell Independent Scholar See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Adult Children of Alcoholics; Alcohol Use Disorder
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Identification Test; Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, History of; Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Sociology of; Alcoholism Treatment, Sociology of. Further Readings Cloninger, C. R., et al. “Inheritance of Alcohol Abuse: Cross Fostering Analysis of Adoptive Men.” Archives of General Psychiatry, v.38 (1981). Lobdell, Jared. This Strange Illness: Alcoholism and Bill W. Berlin: Aldine De Gruyter, 2004. National Advisory Council on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NACAAA). Report of a Subcommittee of the National Advisory Council on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism on the Review of the Extramural Research Portfolio for Genetics. Washington, DC: NACAAA, 1997. Partenan, J. and K. Brown. Inheritance of Drinking Behavior. Helsinki: FFAS, 1966. Pickens, R. W., et al. “Heterogeneity in the Inheritance of Alcoholism.” Archives of General Psychiatry, v.48 (1991).
Germany In Germany, adult per capita consumption of alcohol is mainly characterized by consumption of beer. Wine and spirits are also consumed, but to a lesser extent. Recorded adult per capita consumption is around 11.8 liters of pure alcohol and has remained stable in recent years according to recent trends. Some unrecorded alcohol production is also seen in the country, adding around 1.0 liter to recorded adult per capita consumption. Total adult per capita consumption of pure alcohol is around 12.8 liters in Germany. Germany adopted a national policy on alcohol in 2003. It includes restrictions on sales of alcoholic beverages to intoxicated persons and binding regulations on alcohol advertising and on alcohol product placement. Beer Regulations and Production A thousand years ago, the most popular form of festivities in England were known as “ales,” and both ale and beer were at the top of lists of products to be given to landowners for rent. In the 12th century, towns were established in Germany,
and they were granted the privilege of brewing and selling beer in their local areas. Hence, the brewing industry developed in many settlements. In the early Middle Ages, mead, rustic beers, and wild fruit wines became increasingly popular, especially among Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Germans, and Scandinavians. Over 500 years ago, on April 23, 1516, the Reinheitsgebot, or purity edict, was issued in Germany by Bavaria’s reigning Duke Wilhelm IV. This document dealt mostly with standardizing the price of beer at no more than a penny per liter in the fall to winter and at two pennies in the spring to summer. A single line in the 250word document states that “the only ingredients used for the brewing of beer must be Barley, Hops and Water.” In 1987, the European Court struck down the Reinheitsgebot, declaring it an impediment to free trade, but most German breweries still comply voluntarily. As a consumer protection law, the Reinheitsgebot kept German beer free of such ingredients as narcotic herbs and chemical preservatives as well as the corn and rice adjuncts used to lighten mass-market beer. It also prevented German brewers from experimenting with such flavor enhancers as fruits, herbs, spices, and exotic grains. There are some special types of beer produced in different regions of Germany; an example is kölsch, which is brewed in Cologne. It is clear with a bright, straw-yellow hue, has a prominent but not extreme hoppiness, and is less bitter than the standard German pale lager. Thus, it sits astride the stylistic division between ales (rich brews made with yeast, like a Belgian blond) and lagers (crisp beers made at colder temperatures for a cleaner taste, like a pilsner). It is brewed with ale yeast but matured cold like a lager. It is served in 7-ounce (20-centiliter) glasses, which one can drink a lot of. The other region of Franconia, northern Bavaria, noted for its rauchbiers (smoked lagers) and kellerbiers (unfiltered, naturally carbonated lagers that are Germany’s closest equivalent to the cask ales of England, with a pronounced hop character). A famous festival taking place throughout Germany is the Oktoberfest. The world’s largest beer blast began in October 1810 as a folk festival to celebrate the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Princess Therese of
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A busy beer garden in Munich, Germany, in 2013. While beer remains very popular in Germany, consumption has been declining in recent years as the population has aged, falling 2.1 percent, from 107.1 liters per person to 104.8 liters, in 2009. Beer sales also recorded a decline of nearly 7 percent in the first quarter of 2009. Nevertheless, as many as 7 million liters of beer are still consumed during Oktoberfest celebrations every year throughout the country.
Sachsen-Hildburghausen. The original Oktoberfest was BYOB, with a horse race as the main attraction. But beer tents soon followed. In the ensuing two centuries, the annual bacchanal has been canceled only 25 times, as a result of war or epidemics. Upward of 7 million liters of beer were consumed during the recent years in Oktoberfest annually. Although the fest covers the whole of Germany, it was originally located in Bavaria, the Southern part of the country. Six Munich breweries brew beer for Octoberfest, and almost all of it belongs to a single style: a golden lager, a little maltier and stronger than a helles, the Bavarians’ everyday drinking beer. Decline in Beer Sales Despite annual Oktoberfests and the general popularity of beer drinking among Germans, sales of beer declined in the recent years. In 2009, consumption fell 2.1 percent, from 107.1
liters per person to 104.8 liters. Brauwelt International, a German beer industry publication, reports that Germany’s beer sales declined almost 7 percent in the first quarter of 2009. An aging population might be the main reason for this; the younger generation is not attracted to the range of beers produced by international global companies. The �������������������������� number of small traditional and independently owned breweries in Germany has plummeted from 2,200 50 years ago, to less than 1,300 in the 21st century. Brewing groups (companies that own many breweries) have closed some of their breweries for economic and marketing reasons. Craft beers are losing popularity as well. In contrast, mediocre beer sold at supermarkets at low prices without advertising is flourishing. In June 2009, Carlsberg confirmed it was in talks over the sale of its Feldschloesschen Brewery in northern Germany. Rumored buyers are
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the German “king of cheap beer,” the Oettinger brewery, and its Belgian counterpart, Martens brewery. Both are privately owned. Oettinger is Germany’s most controversial brewery on account of its business model, which relies on the production of economy and private-label brands only for German supermarkets and discount retailers. The brewery does not run any advertising campaigns and its beers are delivered directly to the supermarkets. Oettinger is a privately owned brewery with 1,100 employees. With a beer output of over 211 gallons (8 million hectoliters) in 2008, of which 174 million gallons (6.6 million hectoliters) were sold in Germany alone, and revenues of more than $525 million (420 million euros), according to company. Oettinger is one of the major brewing groups in Germany. It was reported that economy brands retail at half the price of premium brands. Spirits One of the popular German spirits is schnaps, which means a “gulp” in old German. There are two main types: First, korn, a clear grain spirit, which is a neutral liquor similar to a vodka and served as a beer chaser. Schnaps are always served on their own in small slender shot glasses, never with mixers. Second, there are the distilled spirits produced exclusively from fruit juices, which ferment naturally without the addition of sugar or alcohol. Known collectively as obstwasser, the most important is kirschwasser made from late ripening black cherries. Korn (German for “grain”) is a distilled beverage that is usually made from fermented rye but may also be made from barley or wheat. It differs from vodka in that it is less rigorously filtered, which leaves more of the cereal taste in the finished spirit. It is also the cheapest kind of liquor available in northern Germany and is therefore very popular and regarded as the liquor of the working class. In parts of southern Germany, inexpensive fruit brandies (obstler is made from apples, pears, or plums) are more popular. Korn, or branntwein, was first mentioned in the early 16th century, when its distillation became a competition among local producers in the imperial city of Nordhausen. Nordhausen decreed the first purity law for Korn, and it is still produced there. In 1799, Otto von Bismarck’s father, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, established a distillery at Schönhausen.
Traditional korn contains at least 32 percent alcohol by volume, and kornbrand (also called doppelkorn or edelkorn) contains at least 37.5 percent alcohol by volume. A weaker variety of korn that has less than 30 percent alcohol by volume can be a mixture of fruit flavoring and korn. The term klarer (“clear one”) refers to the fact that korn is a clear liquid. Klarer may refer to either korn or doppelkorn; the term is sometimes used to market cheap spirits that are weaker (28–30 percent alcohol by volume) than the minimum permitted for korn. Some popular brands of korn in Germany are Berentzen, Doornkaat, Fürst Bismarck, Mackenstedter, Nordhäuser, Oldesloer, and Strothmann. Overall volume sales of spirits in Germany registered a decline of 1 percent in 2011, although there were different developments across different spirit types, according to a Euromonitor International report done in May 2012. More traditional alcoholic beverages (korn and obstbrand) declined significantly in volume sales, with newer types of spirits like vodka outperforming them. The increasing popularity of cocktails was one of the main drivers of growth for “mixable” spirits. It corresponds with the growth of sales of the core brands of Pernod Ricard Deutschland company, the leader in the spirits market. Its Amaro Ramazzotti and Havana Club registered strong growth in 2010, and both are used in trendy cocktails. Tetiana Kostiuchenko National University of Kyiv, Mohyla Academy See Also: Austria; Belgium; Denmark; Europe, Western; France; Poland; United Kingdom. Further Readings Euromonitor International. Spirits in Germany: Country Report (2012). http://www.euromonitor .com/spirits-in-germany/report (Accessed February 2014). Kitsock, Greg. “Uber Alles? These Days, Not So Much.” Washington Post (September 29, 2010). Lindenau, Katja. “Brewing, Politics and Society in an Early Modern German Town—a Case Study of Görlitz in Upper Lusatia.” Brewery History, v.135 (2010). Wasa, Masatake. “The University Brewery of Frankfurt an der Oder in the Early Modern Period.” Brewery History, v.135 (2010).
Gewürztraminer Gewürztraminer is an aromatic grape variety from the Vitis vinifera species, which grows well in cooler climates and is popular for the making of white wine. The grape has a pink skin and a pale body, providing a taste that most wine connoisseurs can recognize without any problem. Its name meaning “spice traminer,” it is grown in the Alsace region of France and also the South Tyrol in Northern Italy. It has a slightly unstable genome and this has presented historians with problems over its exact origins. Likely Origins of Grape According to tradition, the grape variety originated in the village of Tramin in the South Tyrol—hence its name—where it is recorded as being grown in around 1000 c.e. The village, traditionally, was predominantly German speaking and known by its German name, Tramin an der Weinstraße. Located in Lombardy, and a part of the Holy Roman Empire, it was governed by the Roman Catholic Church directly during much of the medieval period and developed close ties with the Hapsburg lands to the north. This in part accounts for the spread of the grape variety into Austria, and it is very closely related to other grape varieties in the region, particularly Frankisch in Austria, Grumin in Bohemia, and Formentin in the Hapsburg lands in Hungary. What seems likely is that the Traminer grapes proved popular in Tramin and were then planted elsewhere, with some being taken to the Rhine, where they were grown in the Palatinate, and the vines planted there were called gewürztraminer. There were so called because they were found to be slightly spicier then the grapes originally being grown there. From there, the grape was said to have been taken to Alsace, where the vines were described as gewurztraminer (without the umlaut). This would have happened in 1870, when Alsace became a part of Germany as a result of the Franco-Prussian War. At around this time, it was found that one variety was able to survive the great phylloxera epidemic, and these vines were selected and grafted onto phylloxeraresistant rootstocks when the vineyards in Alsace were replanted. The gewürztraminer variety is now most heavily associated with Alsace.
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Global Attempts at Growing the Grape To make the best wine from these grapes, the climate needs to be relatively mild. A sustained period of hot weather tends to change the taste of the grapes and makes them much more bitter. This makes it easy for connoisseurs to date the vintages, although for cheaper gewürztraminer wine made from lightweight vines, it is harder to distinguish them from wines from Alsace that are labeled as muscat. The production of gewürztraminer wine remains heavily centered in Alsace, but there have also been successful attempts to grow it elsewhere in France as well as in some parts of northern Italy, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Croatia, all former Hapsburg lands. Additional undertakings have been made in Luxembourg, Bulgaria, and Romania. It was because of the success of the grape in Bulgaria and in Transylvania that attempts were made to grow it in Moldova, the Ukraine, and southern Russia, where the grape is used to add some more flavor to Russian sparkling wine. The growth of gewürztraminer has been successful in New Zealand, although plantings there have fallen, and in 1990, there were only 200 hectares of it planted, with most being grown around Gisborne on the North Island. In the United States, following its success in Washington State and Oregon, it was tried out in Canada, where it was found to grow well in the wine regions of Ontario, as well as on Vancouver Island and the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. However, in these places, similarly to the south of Chile, the land needs to be well-drained, as the damp climate can easily lead to rotting. The hotter and drier climate in Mendoza, Argentina, has been conducive to the growing of gewürztraminer. It has not yet been grown successfully in commercial quantities in South Africa. Grape Crossings Because of the strong taste of gewürztraminer, it is often crossed with other varieties of grapes. One of these dates from 1932, when Georg Scheu managed to cross it with Müller-Thurgau, and this led to Würzer, which is much hardier and is grown in the Rhineland, and in England. In Hungary, gewürztraminer has been crossed with Irsai Oliver to make Cserszegi Fuszeres. The most famous blend was made in 1938 when the American
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viticulture pioneer Harold Olmo crossed gewürztraminer with sémillon at the University of California Davis, and this resulted in Flora, which was grown in California and also, later, in New Zealand. The most recent successful cross was during the 1970s when the Australian viticulturist Allen James Antcliff managed to cross gewürztraminer with merbein in a ratio of 29 to 56, and this created the white grape variety known as taminga. The new grape was much more able to cope with the hot climates in Australia and has been able to ripen consistently after having been planted in a variety of different locations. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Europe, Western; France; Wines, French; Wines, White. Further Readings Galet, Pierre. Cépages et vignobles de France. Montpellier: C. Déhan, 1988. Ong, Peter K. C. and Terry E. Acree. “Similarities in the Aroma Chemistry of Gewürztraminer Variety Wines and Lychee (Litchi Chinesis Sonn.) Fruit.” Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, v.47/2 (1999). Robinson, Jancis. Jancis Robinson’s Guide to Wine Grapes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Robinson, Jancis. The Oxford Companion to Wine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Scienza, A., P. Villa, E. Gianazza, F. Mattivi, and G. Versini. “La Caratterizzazione Genetica Del Traminer.” Gewuerztraminer, Traminer Aromatico. Symposium in Bolzano, Italy, May 18, 1990.
Gimlet The gimlet is one of the few traditional cocktails to specify a brand of ingredient, Rose’s lime juice. (The other well-known example is the Dark and Stormy, which specifies Gosling rum only because that is the company that trademarked the drink.) Though other lime cordials exist, they were developed in Rose’s image, and none is commonly
available in the United States. The gimlet consists of Rose’s lime juice and gin in various proportions. Background The first written mention of the gimlet is in Harry MacElhone’s 1922 ABC of Mixing Cocktails, which calls for a 1:1 ratio of Rose’s lime juice to Plymouth gin. Plymouth gin is a style of gin originating in Plymouth, England, which differs from the more familiar London dry gin; conveniently, the only brand of Plymouth gin that survives today is called Plymouth. Plymouth was a busy naval port, which explains why this British cocktail guide says the drink was popular with sailors (the naval origin is also implied by the fact that the earliest recipes don’t call for ice, either in the serving glass or in a shaker; ice was rarely available on ships for any purpose but keeping food from spoiling, and usually not even for that). Legend has long claimed that the gimlet originated in the Royal Navy, and while the story of the gimlet as a scurvy preventative popularized by a Dr. Gimlette is clearly apocryphal, the naval origin itself seems supported. The actual origin of the name is not clear, but it seems likely to refer to the gimlet, a tool for boring holes, already in use metaphorically in the phrase “gimlet-eyed stare.” The gimlet, in other words, is a drink that drills a hole in your head, metaphorically. This helps explain the ratio of the drink as well, which modern drinkers have sometimes found too rich unless heavily iced. Naval-strength liquors were about 114 proof by the modern system, while most modern gins are 80 to 94 proof. (Modern Plymouth gin is 82 proof.) This makes the gin used in the first gimlets about 25 percent higher in alcohol than a drink made today by the same recipe. A ratio of, say, three parts gin to two parts Rose’s lime juice using modern gin comes closer to the original gimlet. Many drink guides dial the Rose’s down even more, though, and cocktail writer Dave Wondrich calls for the comparatively dry ratio of 4:1. Raymond Chandler, though, the hard-boiled author and devoted drinker, was likely not using navy-strength gin when he put his famous declaration of the perfect gimlet into the mouth of Terry Lenox, in The Long Goodbye: “A real Gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s Lime Juice and nothing else. It beats Martinis hollow.”
Gin
Rose’s Lime Juice Rose’s lime juice (often called just Rose’s in the United States, where few of the company’s other products are distributed) is a lime juice cordial— a preserved mixture of lime juice and sugar that is used as a flavoring syrup for beverages. It was originally developed in 1867, when Lauchlan Rose patented his process for preserving citrus juice without alcohol. Rose was one of the traders contracted to provide the British Royal Navy with lime juice in bulk, preserved with rum, in order for the navy to fulfill its obligation to provide its sailors with a daily ration of both citrus and rum. The former prevented scurvy; the latter, low spirits. Popular legend, promoted by the modern Rose’s company, has claimed that Rose’s lime cordial was developed to provide this ration, but the facts don’t bear it out, and it is clear that Rose intended from the beginning to sell his cordial to the general public in bottles, not to the navy in bulk. It may have been an effort to capitalize on the growing market for nonalcoholic sweetened beverages such as Coca-Cola. While the United States has a tradition of soda fountains at drug store counters, in the United Kingdom cordials— sweetened syrups—have often been sold to the consumer directly to be combined at home with either still or sparkling water. Rose’s was subsequently introduced to the United States in 1901, and its long shelf life made it an attractive option for bars. Today, the company is owned by the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, and corn syrup is used in the American product (though sugar is used in bottlings in other countries). A gin cocktail made with fresh lime juice and sugar instead of Rose’s (or, in theory, a competing cordial) is an altogether different drink, in essence a short rickey without the club soda. Since the cocktail revival began in the 2000s, some of the more upscale bars have begun offering these faux gimlets à la minute because the emphasis on fresh ingredients makes Rose’s seem out of place in the bar. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with preferring a rickey to a gimlet, but the two are not the same. The flavor of lime cordial—its bitter notes and lack of brightness, such as fresh lime juice would have—is as key to the taste of a gimlet as the juniper in the gin. Of course, by the
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same token, Rose’s is an inappropriate substitute for lime juice in drinks calling for fresh juice. Though the vodka gimlet has entered the lexicon, it is principally due to the marketing efforts of vodka brand representatives in the 1950s, who marketed a product from a very different drinking culture by turning its essential blandness into a feature. Because vodka has little to no flavor, it clashes with nothing, making the mixing of drinks simple. Further, because gin was the most popular unaged spirit in use in cocktails, substituting vodka for gin created an instant slew of vodka cocktails. Certainly, there is nothing objectionable about the taste of vodka and Rose’s lime juice; but for purists, it is no more a vodka gimlet than vodka, lime juice, and orange liqueur would be a vodka margarita. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Daiquiri; Gin Cocktails; High-Potency Drinks; Grog and the British Royal Navy. Further Readings Babor, Thomas. Alcohol Customs and Rituals. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. Barr, Andrew. Drink: A Social History of America. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1999. Burns, Eric. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004. DeGroff, Dale. The Craft of the Cocktail. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2002. Grimes, William. Straight Up or on the Rocks: A Cultural History of American Drink. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Gin Gin is a distilled spirit originally introduced in the Netherlands that has become popular around the globe. With a distinctive taste coming from juniper berries, gin is popular in cocktails and is also drunk with a mixer, such as tonic water. During the 18th century, gin became wildly popular
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in the United Kingdom, beginning a relationship with that nation’s denizens that continues to this day. The availability of relatively inexpensive and high-quality gin was a leading factor in the growing popularity of cocktails and the development of the “cocktail culture” of the early 20th century. One of the most widely distributed of all distilled spirits, gin is available at a variety of price points, from inexpensive gin sold in supermarkets to premium varieties that are coveted by those who enjoy craft cocktails. The process by which gin is made varies somewhat from distiller to distiller, although these processes are continually evolving. As new markets for distilled spirits develop, gin appears likely to continue to grow in popularity. Background Franciscus Sylvius, a Dutch physician, is often given credit as having invented gin during the 17th century. An early defender of the theory of circulation of blood in the human body, Sylvius was highly regarded as an anatomist, chemist, and physiologist. The founder of one of the first academic chemical laboratories, he is honored at Leiden University with the Sylvius Laboratory, which houses many of the chemistry and natural science faculty. Certain evidence suggests that gin may have been in existence before this, but it is undisputed that by the late 1600s, hundreds of Dutch and Flemish distillers were combining malt spirits or wine with various botanical flavoring agents, including anise, caraway, cassis, cinnamon, coriander, cubeb, the peels of grapefruits and lemons, nutmeg, and juniper berries. Juniper berries are technically seed cones produced by junipers and they possess a distinctive flavor and odor reminiscent of pine needles. Juniper berries are a diuretic and were believed during the 17th century to serve as an appetite stimulant as well as a remedy for pain caused by arthritis and rheumatism. These beliefs may have resulted in the initial distillation of gin, but its lasting popularity stems from an appreciation of its taste and scent by those interested in imbibing alcoholic beverages. The name gin derives from the Dutch word jenever, the French word genièvre, and the Italian word ginepro, all of which mean “juniper.” In Britain, during the Restoration (approximately 1660 through 1688), gin had become somewhat
common and was readily available. After the ruler of the Dutch Republic, William of Orange, assumed the English throne with his wife, Mary II, gin surged in popularity throughout the United Kingdom and its colonies abroad. During the Glorious Revolution, gin benefited when the British government permitted its unlicensed distillation while simultaneously imposing a hefty duty on all imported distilled spirits. With gin suddenly much less expensive than the alternatives, thousands of gin shops sprang up around the United Kingdom, often using for distilling low-quality grain that was unfit for brewing beer. During the first half of the 18th century, the Gin Epidemic that hit Britain resulted in gin becoming extremely popular, especially among the poor. Of the roughly 15,000 establishments in London that sold beverages, half were gin shops. This influx of gin led to serious problems with public intoxication and drunkenness. These problems increased the death rate, especially around London, and led to calls for a response to the influx of cheap gin. The British parliament passed numerous bills during the first half of the 18th century in an attempt to ameliorate this problem, some of which were more successful than others. For example, the Gin Act of 1736 imposed stiff taxes on retailers of gin, in an attempt to make the distilled spirit less readily available. The public, however, resisted this attempt and engaged in riots and other behaviors that led to the immediate reduction of such duties, all of which were abolished by 1742. The Gin Act of 1751, however, was much more successful in curtailing the rampant alcoholism and resulting crime caused by the availability of cheap gin. This act prohibited distillers from selling gin to unlicensed merchants and increased the fees those vendors were assessed. As a result of the 1751 act, many small gin shops were eliminated. The larger establishments that remained in operation were concerned with maintaining their licenses, which meant they curtailed or eliminated sales to obviously intoxicated patrons. Cheap gin that was distilled in Britain during the 18th century differed in significant ways from that available today. In an effort to reduce the costs of production, many distillers used turpentine to flavor their gin, which resulted in resinous overtones that interacted with the juniper berries. Many producers of gin also distilled their
product in the presence of sulphuric acid, which added additional aromas to the gin. During the 19th century, another variation, known as Old Tom gin, added sugar to the distillation process, which resulted in a sweeter, softer style of gin. All of these variants faded away by the mid-20th century. Dutch gin, which is distilled using malt wine, is a distinctive and different style of gin that still exists. Current Production and Varieties A variety of methods of producing gin exist and are in use today. Choices regarding which method to use are often based upon the desired taste, cost, or a combination thereof. Unlike those associated with certain other alcoholic beverages, the methods of distilling gin have evolved significantly over the years, with many modernizations taking place over time. Today, three major methods of production exist that result in three varieties of the distilled spirit: pot-distilled gin, columndistilled gin, and compound gin. Each variety has its advocates, and taste and cost are the primary bases for such preferences. Pot-distilled gin represents the earliest style of gin. During the production process, a fermented grain mash (malt wine) is pot distilled, the product of which is then redistilled using various botanicals to induce flavor and aroma. “Double gin” refers to gin for which the second step of the process is replicated to add additional botanicals. Pot-distilled gin has an alcohol by volume (ABV) percentage of 68 percent, which is lower than other varieties, although double gin has an ABV of 76 percent. Pot-distilled gin is frequently aged in wooden casks or tanks, resulting in a heavier, malty flavor that some associate with whiskey. Holland gin, Geneva gin, and kornwijn (malt wine) are the most common types of potdistilled gin. Column-distilled gin is produced by first distilling relatively high-proof (96 percent ABV) spirits from a fermented wash using a refluxing still. A refluxing still, sometimes called a Coffey still or a column still, uses two columns in the distillation process. The first column, known as the analyzer, has steam rising and wash descending through several levels. The second column, known as the rectifier, carries the alcohol from the wash, allowing it to circulate until it condenses at the desired
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strength. The fermentable base used for columndistilled gin can vary widely, and commonly used materials include grain, grapes, plain sugar, potatoes, sugar beets, sugarcane, or any other material of agricultural origin. The resulting highly concentrated spirit is next redistilled with juniper berries and other botanicals in a pot still. The gin that is produced is lighter in flavor than that obtained using the traditional pot-distilling method alone. Column-distilled gin is labeled “distilled gin” or “London dry gin.” Column-distilled gin is the most popular variant of gin. Compound gin is produced by adding essences, botanicals, or other natural flavors to neutral spirits without redistillation. While less expensive than pot-distilled or column-distilled gin, compound gin is not as highly regarded as that produced using the other methods. All gin uses juniper berries, but a variety of other botanicals are used to produce individual gins. Many use citrus elements, such as grapefruit, lemon, lime, or bitter orange peel for flavoring. Additional spices commonly used to flavor gin include almond, angelica root, anise, baobab, cassia bark, cinnamon, coriander, frankincense, grains of paradise, saffron, savory, and others. The distinct flavors these botanicals produce have led to some interesting developments. During the British colonial era, quinine, which was used to combat malaria, was mixed with sparkling water to form tonic water. Because many considered the tonic water to taste unpleasant, it was mixed with gin, which masked the flavor of the quinine. This led to the tremendous popularity of the gin and tonic, a cocktail that remains popular today. Although referred to as gin, liqueurs such as sloe gin use gin as a base into which other flavors are infused. Prohibition Era In 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect, banning the sale of alcohol, an era known as Prohibition. Lasting until 1932, when the amendment was repealed, Prohibition changed American drinking patterns dramatically. Although states in the southern and western United States initially enforced the ban on alcohol, many urban areas and northern states did not do so. Demand for alcohol led to a growing black market through which alcohol was smuggled into the United States, and bootleggers
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distilled illegal alcohol for sale to the public. Such criminals as Al Capone grew rich selling illegal alcohol to the public. In popular culture, many associations with gin stem from those periods when the drinking of it was held in disrepute, such as during the Gin Epidemic and the Prohibition era. The term “gin mills” originated during the 18th century but is still in use to refer to a seedy drinking establishment, as is its derivative, “gin joints.” Those who are hopeless drunks are sometimes referred to as “gin-soaked,” and in the United Kingdom “mother’s ruin” is still used to refer to gin. Some of the more colorful excesses from Prohibition have continued to make an impact upon language, with “bathtub gin” used to refer to homemade distillation by amateurs and “speakeasy”
A vesper cocktail, inspired by Ian Fleming’s James Bond, served in California in 2010. The vesper usually includes gin, vodka, Kina Lillet, and a lemon twist.
indicating an establishment that illegally sells alcohol or other substances. Although fictional spy James Bond is most frequently associated with drinking vodka martinis, he also is credited with creating the vesper, a cocktail containing gin, vodka, and Kina Lillet in the 1953 novel Casino Royale. Ironically, gin rose to popularity in the United States during Prohibition. This is because gin proved easier to produce illicitly than other spirits, relying as it did upon readily available materials and lacking the need to be aged. This shifted consumption patterns from whiskey to gin. The harsh taste of much of the bootleg gin required consumers to combine it with other flavorings, including juices, honey, and other liquors, to mask its flavor. This practice led to the emergence of the “cocktail,” where gin and other distilled spirits were mixed with other substances to create a new flavor. From the 1920s through the 1950s, cocktails became very popular, with gin being one of the most popular ingredients in many of these. Although cocktails receded in popularity during the 1960s and 1970s, they enjoyed resurgence during the 1980s, one that has continued to the present. Although cocktails are once again popular, gin’s place as the most prominent ingredient in these has been superseded by vodka. Brands and Cocktails While gin can be distilled anywhere, it is most frequently associated with those brands that are still produced in the United Kingdom. Some of the more popular English brands of gin include Beefeater, Bombay, Gilbey’s, Gordon’s, Plymouth, and Tanqueray. Each of these gins uses its own distinctive blend of botanicals, with some blends resulting in a drier gin while others produce a fruitier, more aromatic spirit. Each style has its advocates, and a variety of competitions are held annually to determine the “best” gin. Certain blends are more popular for gin used in cocktails while others are preferred when the spirit is used with few masking flavors. Beefeater, for example, was first produced in 1820 and soon gained a reputation as a robust, full-flavored gin. Bombay Original Dry London Gin, distilled for over a century, is distilled using eight botanicals and is considered floral in aroma, while its sister,
Gin Advertising
Bombay Sapphire, uses ten and is triple distilled. Gilbey’s gin, created in London during the 19th century, was the first to be produced in the United States and has been made in the country since 1938 by special license. Gordon’s London Dry Gin was first produced in 1769 and remains the most popular brand sold in the United Kingdom. Plymouth gin, which can only be produced in the city of Plymouth, is a slightly less dry gin than its rivals and has more muted juniper effects than the others. Tanqueray is a London dry gin, which, while not that popular in the United Kingdom, is a leading brand in the United States and southern Europe. Gins sold in the United States tend to have a higher ABV (47 percent) than those sold in the United Kingdom and elsewhere (40 percent). Gin was one of the earliest distilled spirits used to make cocktails, many of which remain classics that have lasing popularity. The martini, one of the most well-known of all cocktails is made by combining gin and dry vermouth over ice and pouring it into a chilled cocktail glass and garnishing it with an olive. Variations on the martini include the Gibson (same ingredients but served with a pickled onion rather than an olive). Drinks such as the Tom Collins and the gin fizz are also popular, with gin being mixed with lemon juice, sugar, and carbonated water. Gin is also served mixed with lime juice (a gimlet) or tonic water (a gin and tonic). More complicated cocktails include the Singapore Sling, which combines gin with Heering, a cherry liqueur, Cointreau, Bénédictine, grenadine, pineapple juice, lemon juice, and bitters, and the White Lady, which mixes gin with Cointreau and lemon juice. Although cocktails wax and wane in popularity, for the past three decades they have seen unabated growth. As consumers continue to experiment with different flavors, gin has seen something of a renaissance, with many younger drinkers trying classic cocktails made with gin. As liquor sales grow in the developing countries, many of which have British ties, gin sales seem poised to continue to grow. Stephen T. Schroth Knox College See Also: Advertising and Marketing, History of; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Gin Advertising; Gin Cocktails; Gin Epidemic in England; Prohibition.
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Further Readings Barnett, Richard. The Book of Gin: A Spirited History from Alchemists’ Stills and Colonial Outposts to Gin Palaces, Bathtub Gin, and Artisinal Cocktails. New York: Grove Press, 2011. Emmons, Bob. The Books of Gin and Vodka: The Complete Guide. Chicago: Open Court, 2000. Knoll, Aaron J. and David T. Smith. The Craft of Gin. Hayward, CA: White Mule, 2013. McHarry, Samuel. The Practical Distiller: An Introduction to Making Whiskey, Gin, Brandy, Spirits, & C., & C. Luton, UK: Andrews UK, 2012. Solmonson, Leslie Jacobs. Gin: A Global History. London: Reaktion Books, 2012.
Gin Advertising Gin, distilled from barley, is known for a complex, acquired taste developed through the combination of a variety of ingredients. Gin is popularly consumed either neat or in gin-based cocktails. The gin industry has faced both voluntary and mandatory bans and restrictions on the production, sale, and advertising of hard liquors in many countries and religions throughout its history. Recent sales downturns in key markets such as the United States have spurred increased advertising, as gin brands expand beyond their more traditional image aimed at the older male consumers who composed the largest segment of the modern gin market. Modern marketing campaigns are focused on contemporary branding, a renewed interest in cocktails, and new markets comprising women, minorities, and younger consumers. Modern gin was first developed in the Netherlands in the 17th century and acquired its name from the Dutch word for juniper, the plant whose berries gave gin its distinctive flavor. British soldiers introduced gin to Britain, further aided by Dutch Prince William of Orange’s ascension to the British throne with his marriage to Mary II, which resulted in growing gin importation and was later followed by the development of a flourishing domestic British gin industry. Gin soon enjoyed widespread popularity in 18thcentury Britain, notably among the lower classes in London.
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Large grain supplies and parliamentary protection of the domestic gin industry allowed for ample supplies. Marketers touted gin’s low prices in order to appeal to the poor and working classes, who saw alcohol as a means of escape from their grim economic and social conditions. London alone housed thousands of gin shops and later gin palaces. A common saying among tavern operators promised to make customers “drunk for a penny, dead drunk for two pence, and straw for nothing,” advertising gin’s low cost while also noting that drunks would find a place to sleep off its ill effects. As Britain’s gin epidemic spread, rising rates of drunkenness, crime, and death were blamed on gin’s deleterious effects, as portrayed in British painter William Hogarth’s notable work titled Gin Lane. Alarm over the social and economic disruptions associated with soaring rates of gin consumption led to the enactment of a series of parliamentary measures known as the Gin Acts to curtail gin production and sales through taxation and licensing requirements. Producers and consumers protested the Gin Acts, leading to various amendments and repeals as gin maintained its popularity despite negative publicity. Early to Present-Day Advertising Early gin drinks and their marketing also had their origins in the liquor’s advertised medical benefits and its role in making other medicinal concoctions more palatable by disguising the taste. Dr. Johan Siegert developed and promoted his Angostura bitters, originally known as Amaro Aramatico, in Venezuela as a cure for indigestion. The bitter concoction was mixed with gin to improve its taste and became widely known as Pink Gin. Similarly, the gin and tonic began as a mixture of gin and medicinal quinine water used by the British armed forces stationed in India as a malaria preventative. Producers also often labeled and marketed gin as medicine to skirt legal restrictions on its consumer production and use. Gin was popularly marketed for its versatility as an ingredient in mixed drinks for social use during the cocktail craze of the 1920s, when the modern advertising industry formed. Popular gin-based cocktails included the martini, the gin rickey, the gin and tonic, and the gimlet, a blend
of gin and Rose’s lime. Gin’s growth as a cocktail ingredient spurred its introduction into the U.S. market, where it led the alcohol market by the 1920s. Gin consumption further surged during the Prohibition era of the 1920s and early 1930s. Much of it was made illicitly or smuggled by bootleggers and became commonly known as bathtub gin or hooch. Its presence in cocktails further aided marketing by masking the inferior quality and taste of illicit gin. The modern gin industry has overcome its historical association with drunken social disorder and illicit production, and now gin has a more respectable reputation. Gin’s historic association with Britain’s drinking culture has led modern consumers to continue to associate the finest gins with Britain, most notably London Dry Gin and its heavier Plymouth-based counterpart. U.K.based alcoholic beverage company Master of Malt advertises on gin’s history by naming one of its brands Bathtub Gin. Leading gin producers include the Britain and the United States, while the Netherlands also maintains a presence in the market. Dutch gin generally has a lower proof (alcohol content). Modern distillers include Beefeater, Bacardi, Diageo, and Seagram’s, and popular brands include Tanqueray, Bombay Sapphire, and Right Gin. Modern gin distillers must contend with legal, religious, and voluntary restrictions on the advertising of hard liquors found in the United States and many other countries. Seagram’s was among the first large liquor companies to challenge the alcoholic beverage industry’s voluntary ban on the advertisement of distilled spirits in the U.S. broadcast media. Distilled liquors such as gin are more heavily advertised in print media such as newspapers and magazines and comprise a much smaller share of the U.S. alcohol advertising market than wine and especially beer. Other forms of advertising include billboards, store promotions and displays, and the sponsorship of cultural and sporting events. Many distillers hire public relations firms in addition to advertising agencies to pursue product placement and promotional opportunities in movies and television. Gin distillers also began pursuing Internet-based and social media advertising, including the use of corporate and brand Web sites and Facebook pages.
Gin Cocktails
Gin distillers maintain an aura of secrecy around the blends of herbs and spices that impart their brand’s unique flavors, marketing their recipes only to a handful of select people. Besides juniper, common ingredients include coriander, cardamom, ginger, and angelica. Gin marketers advertise their brand’s unique flavor to longtime gin consumers while also seeking to overcome non-gin drinkers’ perceptions that the distinctive flavor is not for everyone. Expansion of Target Audience Modern gin advertising has sought to expand gin’s appeal beyond its traditional core market of men over the age of 30. New target audiences include younger drinkers, women, African Americans, and urban residents. Distillers have introduced new flavors such as Seagram’s Lime Twisted Gin to attract those who do not like the taste of traditional gin and to capitalize on the market growth of new, flavored hard alcohols such as vodka, which had hurt gin sales. Leading distillers have utilized campaigns featuring young celebrities and corporate sponsorship of parties and other celebrity-attended events to attract new consumers. Gin marketing has also benefitted from a general revival in the popularity of old-fashioned Prohibition-era cocktails among younger drinkers. Many restaurants, bars, and nightclubs feature signature and artisanal cocktails, while print media and Internet sites promote recipes for holiday and dinner party cocktails for home consumption. The gin market sees these advertising tactics as key to maintaining its market share despite competition from liqueur-based cocktails and the rise of vodka-based versus classic gin-based martinis. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University See Also: Advertising and Marketing, History of; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Gin; Gin Epidemic in England. Further Readings Barnett, Richard. The Book of Gin: A Spirited World History from Alchemists’ Stills and Colonial Outposts to Gin Palaces, Bathtub Gin, and Artisanal Cocktails. New York: Grove Press, 2011.
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Holt, Mack P. Alcohol: A Social and Cultural History. New York: Berg, 2006 Solmonson, Lesley Jacobs. Gin: A Global History. London: Reaktion Books, 2012.
Gin Cocktails Perhaps no liquor is more strongly associated with cocktails—both classic and the new modern school—than gin. As an unaged spirit, it is not traditionally drunk unadulterated, although the comically dry martinis of the latter decades of the 20th century approached this. Gin is well complemented by citrus, bitters, and flavored fortified wines like vermouth—the traditional cocktail building blocks. Even the new premium gins introduced in recent years have been formulated with the understanding that they will be mixed with something—perhaps the only premium base liquor of which that can be said. Gimlet and Gin and Tonic The gin drink familiar to most Americans is a British product (or an American emulation thereof), which is in essence a distilled neutral spirit flavored with juniper and other botanicals. This is the London dry style, as distinguished from the slightly sweetened style of Old Tom, the citrus-infused orange gin, the new bold American gins, and the original gin from Holland, genever, which is a malted spirit rather than a neutral one, and often aged. The British contributed two of the fundamental gin drinks, both of which consist of gin and a mixer: the gimlet, which is gin and Rose’s lime juice cordial, and the gin and tonic. In both cases, legend ascribes the drink to having solved medical problems for the British—scurvy and malaria. Legend exaggerates. The gimlet, and Rose’s itself, originated not to prevent scurvy but for the sake of being delicious; it did originate as a drink loved by the Royal Navy, though. As for the gin and tonic, tonic water as such was never used to prevent malaria, as legend has it. First sold in 1858, tonic water is a combination of sparkling water and sugar and quinine, and quinine is prescribed to prevent malaria.
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But tonic water does not reach the therapeutic dose of quinine, which is about 600 milligrams, three times a day; a serving contains less than 20 milligrams. What the legend glosses over is that although quinine was first mixed with a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, it was used in tonic water because the British colonials in India, where malaria was a concern, developed a taste for the bitterness (in far-more-moderate doses). This was happening around the world, in fact: quinine is also used to flavor vermouth, Italian bitter liqueurs called amari, French bitter liqueurs called quinquinas, numerous brands of cocktail bitters, and the soft drink Moxie, which was invented in Maine in the 19th century. The British drank the gin and tonic for the same reason as we do now: the taste. Tonic water was not introduced to the United States until the 1950s. The gin and tonic’s popularity in the country dates, interestingly, to the beginning of the decline of the cocktail era, when vodka began to dampen gin’s popularity and sweeter drinks like tiki drinks and Harvey Wallbangers became the norm. Today, there are several brands of premium tonic water using sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup, often in a drier formulation. Fever Tree and Q Tonic are the best known on the American market, but the British premium soda company Fentiman’s also offers a tonic water. There are also several tonic syrups, and Bittermans has introduced Commonwealth Tonic, a tonic liqueur. Bitter lemon, a tonic water sold with lemon juice already added, is available from several British soda companies as well as New England’s Polar Beverages. The Aviation Apart from the martini, which is discussed in its own entry and which has undergone changes over its history that speak to the changes in the cocktail world at large, the cocktail most emblematic of the cocktail revival of the 21st century is the Aviation. Named for what was then an exciting new field of science and technology, the Aviation was created by New York bartender Hugo Ensslin, who first published a recipe in his 1916 Recipes for Mixed Drinks. The original recipe called for 1 1/2 ounces gin, 3/4 ounce lemon juice, 2 dashes of maraschino liqueur, and 2 dashes creme de violette. This is a
rather tart drink, and the liqueur gave it a pale purplish-blue color. Maraschino liqueur, a key ingredient in the Aviation and many other cocktail recipes, is only distantly related to the product sold in the United States as maraschino cherries. Maraschino is made from the maraska cherry, including its skins, pits, and stems, which are fermented and then distilled and sweetened. The final product has more of the almondy flavor of the pits, and a good dose of funk, than of the fruit. It has been made since the 18th century. The original maraschino cherries were maraska cherries preserved in jars of maraschino liqueur. Research into means by which to keep jarred cherries crisp instead of soft led to an imitation maraschino cherry made with brined Queen Anne cherries; when Prohibition made it impossible to sell real maraschino cherries in the United States, the imitation cherries, jarred in a sweet almond-flavored syrup, became the norm. Even today no brand of real maraschino cherry is nationally available. Creme de violette, the other key ingredient in the Aviation, is simpler: it is a sweet liqueur made from an infusion of violet petals. The cocktail has been made both with and without creme de violette at various times in its history, in part because the Savoy Cocktail Book of 1930 omitted it, and in part because when the Aviation was repopularized as part of the 21st-century cocktail revival, creme de violette had been discontinued for decades. It has since been revived and is even available from multiple brands. In any case, because of its balance of sweet and tart against a strong gin backdrop, and because of its use of a long-forgotten liqueurlike maraschino (whose relationship to maraschino cherries in many ways mirrors the relationship of early-20th-century cocktails to the premade mixers and vodka tonics of the late 20th century), the Aviation became a prized cocktail of the early cocktail revival. The cocktail renaissance has since embraced more than just reviving forgotten drinks, but at one time the Aviation was almost like a secret handshake—only those in the know knew how to make it and knew to order it. Other Gin Cocktails A Prohibition-era cocktail similar to the Aviation has become one of the most popular cocktails of the cocktail renaissance, thanks to its reintroduction
by Murray Stenson at Seattle’s Zig Zag Cafe. The Last Word uses equal parts gin, lime juice, maraschino, and green Chartreuse for a drink that is tart but balanced and strongly herbaceous. Numerous variations have been introduced, usually by substituting another liquor for the gin and sometimes switching the lime to lemon or even another sour citrus (like Seville orange or yuzu). The Chartreuse is usually considered de rigueur. The Negroni, another key gin cocktail, again relies on gin’s friendliness with bitter ingredients. The Negroni originated in Italy and is believed to be named for Count Camillo Negroni. Based on the Americano, which combines Campari, sweet vermouth, and soda water, the Negroni substitutes gin for the soda water, turning a sweet refreshing drink into a strong and rich one. The three ingredients are used in equal proportion and stirred with ice. Some add a dash of orange bitters. Campari is an Italian amari—a class of bitter liqueurs, many originating in the 18th or 19th century, based around secret formulae of herbs, spices, roots, and fruit. The Negroni is today one of the fundamental cocktails, used as a basis for many others (by substituting another liquor for the gin, another bitter liqueur for the Campari, or both). Many classic gin cocktails relied on Kina Lillet, a discontinued fortified wine made bitter with the addition of quinine. James Bond’s vesper martini was one such. The 1920s saw the popularization of the Old Etonian, which combines gin and Kina Lillet with orange bitters and creme de noyaux, and the 20th Century (named for the train), which combines gin and Kina Lillet with lemon juice and creme de cacao. The Corpse Reviver #2, one of a series of “corpse reviver” drinks prescribed as hangover cures, uses equal parts gin, lemon juice, Kina Lillet, and Cointreau, with a dash of absinthe. The most popular of the corpse revivers, it was for a long time made with Lillet Blanc after Kina was discontinued, and it can be made today with various Kina-like offerings from other brands, including Cocchi Americano. A bitter variant uses the orange-flavored amaro Aperol in place of the sweeter Cointreau. References in Hemingway Though because of his time in Cuba the writer Ernest Hemingway is best remembered in the
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drinking world for his rum cocktail contributions—or in some quarters for his absinthe and champagne combination, Death in the Afternoon—one of his finest drinks is the Death in the Gulf Stream. While Death in the Afternoon is taken directly from Hemingway’s writing, Death in the Gulf Stream appears in Charles Baker’s 1939 Gentleman’s Companion, where he describes it as having been invented by Hemingway during his time in Paris: Take a tall thin water tumbler and fill it with finely cracked ice. Lace this broken debris with four good purple dashes of Angostura, add the juice and crushed peel of one green lime, and fill glass almost full with Holland gin . . . No sugar, no fancying. It’s strong, it’s bitter—but so is English ale strong and bitter, in many cases. We don’t add sugar to ale, and we don’t need sugar in a Death in the Gulf Steam—or at least not more than 1 tsp. Its tartness and its bitterness are its chief charm. It is reviving and refreshing; cools the blood and inspires renewed interest in food, companions, and life. The Holland gin referred to here is genever, the maltiness of which makes this a very different drink than if it were made with London gin. The green lime is as likely to be a key lime, given Hemingway’s predilection for it, as it is a bearss lime, the common supermarket lime and what was likely available in Paris. The color of a lime is determined more by its ripeness (green limes are underripe, but they are commonly sold that way to make them more easily distinguished from lemons) than by its variety. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Campari; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Gimlet; Literature, Role of Alcohol in; Martinis. Further Readings Haigh, Ted. Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. New York: Quarry Books, 2009. McElhone, Harry. Barflies and Cocktails. New York: Mud Puddle Books, 2008. Regan, Gary. The Joy of Mixology. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2003.
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Gin Epidemic in England
and the low duties on distilled spirits stimulated production further. As larger commercial breweries grew and discouraged others from entering that business, and higher excise duties on beer and ale reduced profit margins, distilling proved to be very attractive to many people. The adoption of Dutch practices, such as using juniper (Dutch: jeneverbes; French: genévrier) to improve the flavor of distilled grain spirits, ensured that geneva or gin would be well supplied and much demanded.
In the first half of the 18th century, the consumption of gin in England substantially increased such that many contemporary moralists and politicians believed the country to be in a state of crisis. Historians have variously described this phenomenon as the gin epidemic, the mother gin controversy, or the gin craze. Government revenue records certainly suggest that distilled spirits consumption grew substantially in this period. Other evidence of the gin epidemic comes largely from parliamentary legislation and debates, together with tracts published either by moralists anxious about popular drunkenness or distillers responding to moralists and legislators’ threats to their commercial interests. Although sometimes characterized as the first war on drugs, the nature and circumstances of the 18th-century English gin craze make it difficult to see it as directly comparable to more recent concerns about drug and alcohol use. Nevertheless, it is a historically interesting case illustrating the tensions between the state’s assumption of a paternalist regulatory role and its interest in taxing a popular product. After 1689, William III’s wars with France led to disruptions of alcohol supply and heavy duties on brandy, thereby stimulating English distilling and imports of distilled spirits, principally rum, from the colonies. In 1689, the London Distillers Company also lost its effective monopoly on spirits. The result was the emergence of a great number of new, smaller distillers that increased the availability of spirits. In addition, a 1702 act repealed distillers’ licensing requirement, effectively deregulating the retailing of spirits. The act enjoyed the support of Parliament’s large landowners, who sought to stimulate demand for lowpriced grain in an effort to support their tenants’ incomes and, ultimately, their own rental earnings. The relatively low capital costs of distilling,
Peak Production doubled from approximately 500,000 gallons in 1688 to 1 million in 1696, growing to 2.5 million gallons in 1720, and peaking at 7.5 million by 1751. Gin retailing increased dramatically in the first decades of the 18th century as well. In 1726 an estimated 6,200 gin shops served the county of Middlesex, which had a population of approximately 700,000 people. In some parishes, one in 10 houses retailed gin; in others one in five residences housed a gin shop. Alehouse keepers and distillers retailed gin, as did chandlers and tobacconists in their shops, and grocers at their market stalls. Numerous itinerant gin sellers worked the streets of London. Some employers provided gin in lieu of wages, and the Middlesex magistrates complained that soldiers, seamen, servants and “others of their rank” were drawn in to drinking everywhere. Middlesex magistrates petitioned Parliament to take action against rampant gin retailing in the capital. Their 1726 report detailed gin’s economic and moral toll on the health and wellbeing of men, women, and their families in the lower social ranks. Clergymen and others critics agreed, authoring numerous tracts denouncing the heavy drinking that led to the debauchery and immiseration of the poor. For selfish reasons, England’s middle ranks feared the crime and disorder in London’s streets spawned by the lower order’s passion for gin. Drunken apprentices insulted and robbed their masters; young women succumbed to lives of prostitution, and thieves desperate to buy gin thronged the streets, preying on honest citizens. Pamphleteers further warned of the economic and national security consequences of workers and soldiers enervated by gin drinking. Distillers and their allies responded in pamphlets asserting the economic
Thomas, Jerry. Bartenders Guide: How to Mix Drinks, or, The Bon Vivant’s Companion. New York: Mud Puddle Books, 2008. Wondrich, Dave. Imbibe! New York: Perigee Trade, 2007.
importance of distilling and grain production. Occasionally, they detected hypocrisy in the anxiety about working-class gin drinking, which ignored the frequent inebriation of their social betters on brandy and expensive punch. Legislative Response Parliament responded in 1729 with the first “Gin Act,” which levied a 20-pound annual license fee on retailers of gin, while imposing a five shilling per gallon excise on gin or other compound spirits. The act prohibited street hawking of spirits and subjected gin sellers to the same licensing regulations as ale and beer sellers. Widespread resistance and evasion of the act kept gin consumption from diminishing. In 1733 a new act imposed a 10-pound penalty for the retail sales of spirits except when sold in dwelling places, and authorized payments to informers who identified illegal sellers. Intended to prohibit street hawking, this measure made every private home a potential gin shop. The 1733 act utterly failed to restrain the popular consumption of gin. The result was a new regulatory and tax regime imposed by the Gin Act of 1736, which intended to impose a virtual prohibition on gin consumption for the lower ranks of English society. Parliament imposed a new duty of 20 shillings per gallon of spirits on retail sales— four times that of the 1729 Act. The new regulations prohibited sales of less the two gallons of spirits without payment of a 50-pound license fee, and restricted licenses to established alehouses and inns. The 1736 Act further expanded powers for magistrates and excise officers to investigate and prosecute violators and included provisions for informers to be rewarded out of fines assessed through prosecution. The act intended to price gin out of reach of all but the most prosperous classes and to restrict sales to relatively few venders, who would be under the close supervision of the authorities. That such a powerful piece of legislation was brought to bear on gin consumption suggests how concerned England’s governing classes had become about the problem, despite the landed elite’s interest in promoting the use of grain in distilling. The 1736 Gin Act, however, not only failed to curtail gin drinking among the lower ranks of society but also produced serious public order
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problems and undermined the authority of the state. The price increases and initial closing of many gin sellers provoked riots in London’s streets. To circumvent the act, many retailers took out wine licenses and sold gin under a variety of names. Bootlegging and smuggling were extensive, and the law proved unenforceable as the authorities could not suppress illegal producers and distributors. Law abiding retailers, unable to compete with unlicensed competitors who paid no duty on the illegal gin they sold, withdrew from the business. In the initial period of the act’s enforcement, excisemen and magistrates harassed all venders, driving respectable inn and alehouse keepers to withdraw from gin retailing. The law fell into disrepute and the authorities drew popular wrath as the provision for paid informers prompted malicious prosecutions and perjury. Magistrates, constables and excisemen were met with violence by angry crowds sympathetic to those who provided their gin. Additional acts were passed in 1737 and 1738 for better enforcement. In the wake of the manifold failures of the acts of the 1730s, Parliament responded with acts in 1743 and 1748 in efforts to reconcile the competing aims of controlling consumption, supporting grain prices by fostering distilling, and raising government revenue through duties on spirits. Duties were kept high but licensing regulations were eased. The effects were to raise needed revenue for a government enmeshed in the War of Austrian Succession (1740–48), and there is some evidence the consumption of gin dipped. The last phase of England’s gin epidemic came in the 1750s when moralists undertook a new campaign in the midst of a postwar crime wave made worse by a vast military demobilization. The temper of this moralist advocacy was evident in William Hogarth’s famous prints Gin Lane and Beer Street (1751), which contrasted the socially devastating effects of the gin craze with the health and sociability of a beer culture. It was in the same year that Henry Fielding published An Inquiry Into the Causes of the Late Increase in Robbers decrying the criminality spawned by the addiction to gin. The result of such sentiment was the 1751 Gin Act, which more effectively handled the problem of licensing than had its predecessors. It adjusted tax rates and licensing requirements to ensure that respectable, prosperous merchants
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were the only sellers of spirits. The 1751 Act inhibited consumption of gin by the poor by restricting the ability to buy drink on credit by making debts of over 20 shillings for spirits unrecoverable in the courts. Selling spirits in workhouses or prisons was prohibited. The new duties and the restriction of retail outlets raised the price of gin by an estimated 300 percent. While the acts of 1751 and 1752 likely reduced gin consumption, other forces were also at work. As the national population grew and higher levels of foreign trade resumed, grain prices rose, as did the price of all forms of alcohol. Yet the relative price of beer seems to have declined, and the quality of beer, especially porter, improved. In the seven years between 1751 and 1758 gin production fell by two-thirds, from 7.5 million gallons to less than 2 million. These market forces, together with the new regulatory regime, appears to have assuaged the ruling classes’ fears about gin drinking among the poor and working people. David Clemis Mount Royal University See Also: Gin; Heavy Drinkers, History of; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 18th Century; United Kingdom. Further Readings Clark, Peter Alan. “The ‘Mother Gin’ Controversy in Early 18th Century England.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, v.38 (1988). Dillion, Patrick. The Much-Lamented Death of Madam Geneva. London: Hodder Headline, 2002. Nicholls, James, “Gin Lane Revisited: Intoxication and Society in the Gin Epidemic.” Journal for Cultural Research, v.7/2 (2003). Rogers, Nicholas. “Tackling the Gin Craze.” In Mayhem: Post-War Crime and Violence in Britain, 1748–53. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012. Warner, Jessica. Craze, Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2002. White, Jonathan. “The ‘Slow but Sure Poyson’: The Representation of Gin and Its Drinkers, 1736–1751.” Journal of British Studies, v.42 (January 2003).
“Girl” Drinks As long as alcohol has been part of the human experience, it has been imbibed by both men and women. Throughout history, there have been dichotomous societal expectations about men’s and women’s drinking habits, particularly regarding how much each should drink, where each should drink, and what each should drink. These expectations historically yielded a double standard wherein women were expected to drink less and to consume alcohol in more private locations than men. In addition, women were expected to consume drinks of lower alcohol content—drinks considered more suitable for a lady. While societal attitudes (especially in Western cultures) have shifted considerably regarding women’s drinking habits, there still exists strong stereotyping of the types of drinks women should consume. Many alcoholic beverages have been culturally assigned as being either feminine (girly drinks) or masculine (manly drinks). Drinks that are described in the modern English vernacular as “girl” drinks typically share the characteristics of being mild, sweet, fruity, lower in alcohol content, and in some cases, lower calorie. Liquor, wine, and beer make up the most basic types of drinks. Products fitting the girl drink stereotype from each of these three alcoholic beverage categories have been developed for and marketed to women. The evolution of girl drinks has contributed to normative behavioral shifts among women in terms of their alcohol consumption and their openness about drinking. Unfortunately, increased alcohol use among women brought with it higher alcohol abuse rates and increased health risks for women. Liquor as a Girl Drink: The Cocktail Historically, women were not supposed to have the desire or the capability to consume strong spirits. Women were rather given watered-down, heavily sugared versions of men’s drinks. These evolved into modern cocktails, which disguised hard liquor, making it fancier, lower in alcohol content, and ultimately more socially acceptable for women to consume. Many women’s cocktails are fruity, juice-containing mixed drinks like the fuzzy navel, screwdriver, sex on the beach, and tequila sunrise. In the 1990s, the cosmopolitan
became highly popularized due in part to the image of cosmo-loving Carrie Bradshaw and her fashionable girlfriends on the television show Sex and The City. Beyond the cosmo are many other sweetened martinis, including such popular girl drinks as the appletini, lemon drop, and chocolate martini. In addition to these relatively high alcohol content offerings, frozen drinks such as margaritas, piña coladas, and daiquiris are often seen as liquor-containing drinks that are suitable for women. Distillers also have tried to make spirits more appealing to women with the addition of flavor infusions (for example, vanilla, raspberry), and many of these liquors are very explicitly marketed to women (for example, Pinnacle Vodka, Little Black Dress Vodka). Spirits are also contained in several liqueurs that are primarily marketed toward women, including drinks such as Alizé, X-Rated Fusion Liqueur, and Girl Pink, as well as dessert liqueurs such as Godiva Chocolate Liqueur and Qream. These drinks have softened the image of spirits and have made liquor consumption in the form of girl drinks appear more feminine. Wine as the Girl Drink Champagne and other wines have long been preferred drinks among women. A 2013 Gallup poll examining preferred drinks among American men and women who drink alcohol showed that women had a clear preference for wine (52 percent) followed by liquor (24 percent) and beer (20 percent). By contrast, men’s reported beverage preference was primarily for beer (53 percent), followed by liquor (22 percent) and wine (20 percent). Polling indicated that preference for wine has gone up in the last 20 years for both sexes, but more so for women. Many modern vineyards produce wines marketed strongly toward women, including brands such as Middle Sister, Cupcake Vineyards, Girls’ Night Out, and Be. Wine spritzers made from a mixture of wine and carbonated water are becoming available premixed and are being marketed to women looking for lower calorie, low-alcohol-content wine drinks. Wine-containing mixed drinks include alcopops such as wine coolers and associated malt beverages. Wine coolers became commercially successful in the 1980s starting
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with the Bartles and Jaymes brand. In the early 1990s, a steep increase in federal excise taxes on wine led to the popularization of malt beverages in place of wine coolers. The popularity of malt beverages among women took off with the 1993 release of Zima Clearmalt. Some of the contemporary malt beverages often targeted toward women include Smirnoff Ice, Bacardi Silver, and Mike’s Hard Lemonade. Beer as a Girl Drink: Light Beer While sweeter drinks are most commonly associated with women, beer targeted toward women is prevalent, particularly light beer. Starting with Gablinger’s Diet Beer in 1967, light beer became available following the discovery of an enzymatic brewing process that yielded lower starch and low-alcohol-content beer, which consequently had fewer calories. While the original light beer was relatively unpopular, it achieved mass-market success when the same recipe was sold as Miller Lite. Among major commercial beers, light
Among stereotypical “girl” drinks are the cosmopolitan, appletini, and lemon drop, as well as frozen drinks such as margaritas, piña coladas, and daiquiris. However, U.S. women still strongly prefer wine, at 52 percent, over liquor, at 24 percent.
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versions generally have approximately 30–40 fewer calories per 12-oz. serving, though lowcarbohydrate beers such as Michelob Ultra and Chick Beer have even fewer. Women were historically brewers of beer prior to the industrialization of brewing, and women are starting to return to the craft as “brewsters” of microbrewed beers. Advertising of Girl Drinks Advertising has made a strong contribution to changing attitudes toward women’s drinking and their choice of drinks. Though men continue to be exposed to more alcohol advertising than women, women’s exposure to alcohol advertising has increased at a higher rate than that of men, especially young women. Girl drinks in brightly colored and “pretty” packaging constitute a significant portion of alcohol marketing directed at women. Female-centered advertising of these drinks has caused some men to shy away from such drinks. Current men’s magazines offer advice ranging from advocating never drinking women’s drinks, to altering recipes to make girl drinks less girly, to simply being secure in one’s manhood and ordering women’s drinks regardless of social perception. Cultural references to these drinks as being for girls rather than women are suggestive of the shared marketing of these beverages with adolescent drinkers. In many alcohol advertisements, young adult women are rendered in a highly sexualized “party girl” image, which is at odds with other cultural messages telling them that they are responsible for resisting men’s sexual advances while intoxicated. Health Risks Increases in both the acceptability and consumption levels of women’s drinking, in part due to the evolution of girl drinks, have brought with them increases in alcohol-associated health risks for women. Women have been shown to progress from alcohol use to alcoholism more rapidly than men, an effect known as telescoping. Biomedical research has been suggestive of higher sensitivity among women to the adverse effects of alcohol abuse in many bodily systems. Recently, neuroscientists have demonstrated that sugar, like alcohol, activates the brain’s reward system. As such, heavily sugared drinks marketed toward women have additional addictive potential, and increased
sugar intake has been associated with higher levels of type 2 diabetes and obesity. While many previous generations of Western women felt the need to appear restrained in their drinking, research has shown that modern college women tend to overestimate how much drinking is expected of them by male friends and romantic partners, leading them to consume higher levels of alcohol. Excessive alcohol consumption by women is associated with increased risk of unplanned sex, sexual violence, reduced use of contraception, and riskier partner choices. In fact, research has shown that 65 percent of women involved in sexual assault were drinking, making alcohol the most common date-rape drug. Conclusion Throughout history, women and men have been held to different standards with regard to drinking alcohol. This double standard contributed to the evolution of girl drinks, which in turn increased acceptability of women’s drinking. Rather than drinking sherry in sewing circles at home, today’s women are drinking cosmos at night clubs, wine at book clubs, and light beer at sporting events alongside men. Modern young women and girls are drinking at younger ages and should be educated about the alcohol industry’s marketing practices as well as informed of normative drinking behaviors among their female peers. Public health campaigns focusing on women’s health concerns affected by alcohol abuse (e.g., weight gain, premature aging) could be effective in reducing problematic drinking patterns among women. Ultimately, both women and men should feel as though they can enjoy any drink they like, girly or otherwise, as long as they do so responsibly. Susan Mosher Ruiz Boston University School of Medicine See Also: Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Gender and Alcohol Abuse; Gender and Alcohol Reform; Gender and Drinking in Popular Culture; Peer Pressure. Further Readings Conari Press, ed. Shake It Up: Chic Cocktails and Girly Drinks. York Beach, ME: Red Wheel/ Weiser, 2005.
Jones, Jeffrey M. “U.S. Drinkers Divide Between Beer and Wine as Favorite: Younger Drinkers Most Likely to Have Shifted Preferences Away From Beer.” Gallup Well-Being. http://www.gallup.com/ poll/163787/drinkers-divide-beer-wine-favorite .aspx (Accessed February 2014). LaBrie, Joseph W., Jessica Cail, Justin F. Hummer, Andrew Lac and Clayton Neighbors. “What Men Want: The Role of Reflective Opposite-Sex Normative Preferences in Alcohol Use Among College Women.” Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, v.23/1 (2009). Livingston, Jennifer A., Laina Y. Bay-Cheng, Amy L. Hequembourg, Maria Testa, and Julie S. Downs. “Mixed Drinks and Mixed Messages: Adolescent Girls’ Perspectives on Alcohol and Sexuality.” Psychology of Women Quarterly, v.37/1, 2013.
Good Templars Like most of the various temperance societies of the 19th century, the Order of Good Templars, now the IOGT International (IOGT), has its origins in the United States. It was founded in 1851 in the state of New York and soon spread all over the world. The order still exists today, a fact that distinguishes it from most other temperance societies. It introduced new goals to its initial fight against alcohol consumption, and in the 21st century the order focuses on drug use as well as alcohol consumption. The Order of Good Templars has turned out to be one of the most persistent temperance organizations, and it can look back on an amazing history of success. History Since its introduction in the 1850s, the IOGT has become a truly international organization. Like so many other temperance societies, the IOGT was created by secession from an existing temperance society. After it divided from the Cadets of Temperance, the organization was renamed as the Independent Order of Good Templars in 1852. Conflict of opinion regarding the purpose and strategy of temperance was the reason for the emergence of so many different temperance societies in the 19th century. At that time, the order
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was just one among several other temperance organizations of varying impact. What separated the Good Templars from similar societies was the acceptance of women as equal members and the rejection of insurance. Women had a major influence on the development and propagation of temperance ideas in the 19th century. The insurance used by other societies was an obligatory financial contribution. By avoiding insurance, the Good Templars gained a much bigger pool of potential members, like old, poor, or ill people. The Good Templars organized as a fraternal society. Like other fraternal societies, for instance the Freemasons, the IOGT used secret rituals as part of its practice. Its main goal was to fight a corrupt world and to restore a healthier society. Total abstinence from all alcoholic beverages was the main principle of the IOGT. Faith in an almighty God was a necessary requirement for early members. This principle became less rigid when the IOGT spread to various other countries. The American Civil War (1861–65) was a time of change for the temperance movement. Temperance reform became more radical, which turned out to be beneficial for the IOGT. Support of prohibition became a binding condition of membership. After the war, the order began to grow fast. In 1865, the IOGT had 60,000 members; by 1869, it had grown to 400,000 members. Membership in the United States peaked in 1868, but after that year, the order suffered from large fluctuations of members. One possible reason for this development was the strong competition by other societies like the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). In 1868, the IOGT was established in England as the Grand Lodge of England. After five years, it had 200,000 members. In the mid-1870s, the IOGT had a lodge in every inhabited continent. In 1879, Sweden became a new stronghold of the order. Compared to other temperance societies, the IOGT offered unique access to membership. Its principle of equality was certainly ahead of its time. Membership The IOGT was organized in a hierarchical structure. The basic unit was the local lodge. Most members did not get involved any further than in the activities of their local lodge. The next level
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was called the Grand Lodge. The supreme body of the IOGT was known as the Right Worthy Grand Lodge. The social structure was very diverse. Former black slaves and ex-drunkards as well as white racists and pacifists were part of the organization. While most members were Protestants, atheists, agnostics, Hindus, and communists were also among its members. Throughout the 19th century, nearly a third of the IOGT consisted of women. This created a perfect situation for the two sexes to get to know each other. As David Fahey notes, a California lodge reported five marriages among its members. Fahey proposes looking at the order as a family organization rather than a fraternal society. In reality, the IOGT was not as tolerant as it pretended to be. For example, at a meeting of the Right Worthy Grand Lodge in Stockholm, women had to sit in the back row of seats at the speaker’s platform. A controversy over membership of black people arose, resulting in the great schism of the English and the Kentucky lodges between 1876 and 1887. At an international meeting in Louisville in 1876, the British delegation could not push through its demand for full membership for blacks. Therefore, it decided to separate from the Americans. The delegation proclaimed the Right Worthy Grand Lodge of the World as the new supreme body and regarded itself as the only true order from that day on. After several attempts, the IOGT reunited in 1887 but the racism issue remained a matter of dispute.
was to save drunkards from their misery. In this aspect, the order can be considered to be among the forerunners of modern support groups. Newspapers and pamphlets were used to draw attention and to spread information among the members. Parties and other festivities were also part of the IOGT practice. One aim of the order was certainly to demonstrate that abstainers were also capable of celebrating exuberantly. One of the more prominent members was the psychiatrist Auguste Forel. Forel was a passionate wine drinker until he decided at the age of 38 to abstain from all alcoholic beverages. He founded the first Swiss lodge as well as a lodge in Austria. The Austrian lodge was soon forbidden because of its rituals, which resembled those of the Freemasons in the eyes of the Austrian authorities. Forel’s views of the alcohol problem were determined by his eugenic ideology. Among his students were two of the leading national socialist physicians, Alfred Ploetz and Ernst Rüdin, who both later became agents of the Rassenhygiene (racial hygiene movement). The Independent Order of Good Templars (later called the International Order of Good Templars) had mixed success in the temperance movement of the 19th century. It reached its peak in different countries at different times and not everywhere to the same extent. For instance, the United States, England, and Sweden had very strong and influential lodges while the German and Austrian ones were not nearly as successful.
International Expansion After establishing itself in England, the IOGT expanded into continental Europe. The first lodge in Norway was established in 1877. Denmark had its first lodge in 1880. From Denmark, the order was able to enter Germany. In continental Europe, the order was most successful in Sweden, where at its peak it had 150,000 members, the highest number for continental Europe in relative as well as absolute terms. The IOGT spread to the British colonies from its base in England and thereby became a truly international organization.
Present-Day Organization What makes the IOGT remarkable among other temperance societies founded in the 19th century is its endurance, consistency, and international presence. The order still exists today and operates in over 60 countries. It was one of the early international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). While the fight against alcohol consumption is still the major concern of the IOGT International, the order has developed various other interests in improving society. It states on its Web site: “The aim of IOGT International is the liberation of peoples of the world leading to a richer, freer and more rewarding life.” The organization believes that achieving this goal can be realized by a lifestyle free of alcohol and other drugs that have effects on the human consciousness. The
Strategies and Successes The IOGT used various strategies to reach its proclaimed goal of a healthier society. A main strategy of the German IOGT (known as the Guttempler)
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21st-century fight against alcohol consumption is on a completely different level from the 19th-century temperance movement. While competition between many rival temperance societies dominated 19th-century discourse, the remaining and newly created organizations of the 21st century have created powerful alliances. The IOGT is part of a network including organizations such as Global Alcohol Policy Alliance (GAPA), Eurocare: European Alcohol Policy Alliance, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Vienna Non-Governmental Organization Committee on Drugs (VNGOC), and International Council on Alcohol and Addictions (ICAA). The order’s historic aim of creating an alcoholfree society seems far from being reached, and the IOGT, as part of the international health lobby, continues to fight with production and consumer lobbies for regulations on alcohol. However, temperance societies such as the International Order of Good Templars have initiated a dramatic change in the international discourse on the consumption and production of alcoholic beverages. Till Zilian University of Graz See Also: Cadets of Temperance; Temperance Movements; Temperance, History of. Further Readings Fahey, David M. Temperance and Racism: John Bull, Johnny Reb and the Good Templars. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996. Heggen, Alfred. Alkohol und bürgerliche Gesellschaft im 19. Jahrhundert: eine Studie zur deutschen Sozialgeschichte. Berlin: Colloquium Verlag, 1988. IOGT International. http://www.iogt.org (Accessed March 2014). Pegram, Thomas R. Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800–1933. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1998. Tappe, Heinrich. Auf dem Weg zur modernen Alkoholkultur: Alkoholproduktion, Trinkverhalten und Temperenzbewegung in Deutschland vom frühen 19. Jahrhundert bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg. Stuttgart, Germany: Steiner, 1994. Tracey, Sarah W. and Caroline Jean Acker, eds. Altering American Consciousness: The History
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of Alcohol and Drug Use in the United States, 1800–2000. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004. Zilian, Till. Discourse on Alcohol in English and German Speaking Regions. Saarbrücken, Germany: AV Akademikerverlag, 2012.
Gough, John Bartholomew John Bartholomew Gough was a Kentish-born would-be actor who was sent to the United States at the age of 12, apprenticed to a bookbinder at 14, lost his job at 18 through drink, then supported himself as a ballad singer and storyteller in cheap halls and theaters. He married at 22, went back to bookbinding on his own, lost his livelihood, wife, and child, and fetched up in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1842 at the age of 25. There, as he told the story, a kindly Quaker rescued him, and he finally, with a number of slips, became sober. He tramped through the New England states (again according to his story), preaching temperance, telling his story, and he spoke only on temperance for the next 17 years, until 1860—including time spent back in England from 1853 to 1855 and 1857 to 1860. He was a natural raconteur and mimic, a gifted orator, and could bring his audiences to tears—and cheers. His lectures were in fact entertainments, though presumably with the serious purpose of promoting temperance. In September 1845, it was reported that Gough disappeared for a week in New York City and was eventually discovered in a house on Walker Street in the company of prostitutes and suffering from alcoholic delirium tremens. His controversial relapse colored his subsequent career, and he spent a great amount of time documenting it—whether to keep it in his memory or to try to understand it—with newspaper clippings and other materials kept in a scrapbook now in the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester. Gough considered himself a citizen of Worcester from the time of his first sobriety and is in fact buried there. Because he was a reformed drunkard—though after 1845, thus for most of his career, some
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doubted the reform—he was often thought of as a Washingtonian, particularly in his early temperance years, though he neither got and stayed sober through the society nor was one of the missionaries sent out by the original Washington Temperance Society of Baltimore. (He did meet Washingtonian “missionary” John H. W. Hawkins [1797–1858] in 1842 and was asked by him to sign the Washington Pledge—to which [he said] he responded by saying he’d sign the pledge if he could make thousands out of it the way Hawkins did.) Gough was linked with the local Washingtonian Society in Westborough, Massachusetts, and some other local chapters, as he made his New England rounds, but it appears the local Washingtonians latched onto him as an effective speaker without considering whether his goals and the goals of the Washington Temperance Society were the same. Books and Lectures He wrote two widely read books, his Autobiography (London 1846, 3rd ed. 1853) expanded as Autobiography and Personal Recollections (1870), and Sunlight and Shadow: Gleanings From My Life’s Work (1880), along with three volumes of his talks—Orations (1854), Temperance Addresses (1870), and Temperance Lectures (1879). The latter two may include the word temperance in their titles because Gough, after 1860, lectured not only on temperance but also on other subjects, social and literary, including famous lectures on “Eloquence and Orators” and “Peculiar People.” But, it is said he always brought the subject around to the evils of intemperance or the virtues of temperance. He died in harness, stricken by an apoplexy while lecturing at the Presbyterian Church in Frankford, Pennsylvania, and dying in Frankford two days later. Despite the popularity of his lectures, it is not certain his net effect for temperance was as great as the effect of other temperance speakers—and certainly not as great as that of, for example, Father Theobald Mathew (1790– 1856). For one thing, Gough had no organization backing him—no temperance society or lodge, no church—and he presented no program for sobriety except a total abstinence pledge. On the other hand, he links the time of the Washingtonians in
the 1840s and Father Mathew in the 1850s to the time of the Red and Blue Ribbon movement in the 1870s and 1880s. In his Autobiography and Personal Recollections (1870), Gough writes, regarding a relapse after about five months’ sobriety, “Drunkenness is a mysterious disease, and the power of appetite on a nervous, susceptible organization is almost absolute, and there is no remedy except total abstinence.” He writes of temperance meetings in Boston broken up by rowdies, of his unprepossessing appearance once the bloom of youth was off (his introduction by a Scotchman—“I wish to introduce Mr. Gough who will speak to us on temperance; I hope he’ll prove far better than he looks to be”), and of his decision to buy a 26-acre farm five miles out of Worcester where he could relax after his speaking tours. His aw-shucks approach can be seen in his comment, I believe it is considered a great advantage for a public speaker to be dignified, stately, majestic, and pleasing in his personal appearance: But I never had those advantages. Perhaps I am the gainer in the end: For an audience may be better pleased with a speaker from whom they expect nothing, than from one whose imposing appearance would lead them to expect much. Gough made a decent living from his 5,000 or more speeches over nearly 45 years. Though he had to pay all his costs (except in some cases hiring the hall), he must have been a $3,000-a-year man, on average, if the first 20-plus years of his career were representative of the whole. Actually, however, his income per speech seems to have risen substantially once he expanded his repertoire. He prints in his autobiography what he was paid, on average, for a speech—a figure that rises over the years from $2.77 in 1843 to $24.36 in 1850 to $60.10 in 1860 to $173.39 in 1867, the last year for which he provides a figure. If his income per speech simply remained at the 1867 level through 1886, his average per speech for 5,000 speeches over 44 years would have been above $100, and with more than 100 speeches a year, he would have been a $10,000-a-year man. That’s not bad for a man who complained—before he got sober—about the income of John H. W. Hawkins.
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Though Gough was unquestionably a total abstinence man, he differed from many temperance speakers on the question of total abstinence for everyone. Here is his comment: Under certain contingencies a man might drink without sin; and I believed there were men, better than I, who drank; and though I could not drink without sin, I would not judge my brother. This (said on one of his visits to England) was deemed by some to be but lukewarm adherence to the cause—though unlike William K. Mitchell (1801–75) of the Washingtonians, he was not recorded as ever buying anyone a drink. Though it is not clear what Gough’s general effect on the Temperance Movement was, two things are clear from reading his autobiography. First, he clearly rescued a number of drunkards from their drunken lives, some of whom were grateful their whole lives long. Second, he was a keen and witty observer and something of a humorist. His strictures on the incompetent (and possibly even intemperate) chairmen at temperance speeches suggest him as a precursor of Robert Benchley (born in Worcester a couple of years after Gough’s death). His two autobiographical books can still be read with some pleasure— which cannot be said of all Victorian memoirs. Jarod Lobdell Independent Scholar See Also: Temperance, History of; Temperance Movements; Washingtonians. Further Readings Blocker Jr., Jack S. American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform. Boston: Twayne, 1989. Gough, John Bartholomew. Autobiography and Personal Recollections. San Francisco: Francis Dewing, 1870. Krout, John A. The Origins of Prohibition. New York, 1925. Walters, Ronald G. American Reformers, 1815–1860, rev. ed. New York: Hill and Wang, 1997. White, William L. Slaying the Dragon. Normal, IL: Chestnut, 1998.
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Grain Alcohol: Ancient Era Through Middle Ages Grain alcohol is beverage-quality alcohol (ethanol) fermented from grains rather than from sugars (such as honey, sugarcane, or molasses) or fruit. Fruit-derived alcohols were the first alcohols of the ancient world, as they naturally occur in the form of spoiled fruit that has fermented but not rotted. Mashed fruits or juices can easily ferment by accident, particularly in a world without refrigeration. Grain alcohols take more work and preparation to produce. In addition to the grain itself being more labor-intensive, it must be prepared in such a way that the starch is converted into sugars that can be fermented. A typical method of accomplishing this is to germinate the grains (today called malting), which produces an enzyme that helps convert starch into sugar. Cereals are grasses, the fruit of which includes edible components called grain, composed of an endosperm, germ, and bran. In part because they can be stored and in part because of the energy and protein provided by whole grains, cereal grains were the first domesticated plants, and their domestication ushered in the Neolithic Revolution. The Neolithic Revolution was the process, happening at various times throughout the world, by which nomadic or seminomadic hunter–gatherer groups established permanent settlements that were based around the cultivation of crops, which they did as an alternative to leading a nomadic existence based on following food sources. The so-called founder crops that fed the earliest civilizations in the Fertile Crescent are emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley. Other grains found in various parts of the world include corn, rice, sorghum, millet, oats, rye, and quinoa (though technically not a cereal). These were staple crops of the civilizations of the prehistoric and ancient worlds, usually eaten daily by most people, and at some times of year the only available foodstuff. Historical Beverages Though grain is not as perishable as fresh fruit and vegetables, it is subject to spoilage, mold, and fungus, as well as infestation by vermin. Bumper
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crops of grain can exacerbate this by creating a moister environment in the granary. Fermenting grain into alcohol was a way to preserve part of the harvest as well as to eke additional value out of it: alcohol has great value as a foodstuff as well as for medicinal uses (it is the oldest antiseptic and anesthetic), and even slightly alcoholic beverages were usually safer to drink than water, because ancient water supplies were used for waste and cleaning as well as drinking. The ancient world saw the development of many different grain-derived fermented alcohols. Different regions developed different beverages according to their local grains, but the terms beer, wine, and whiskey are often used in generic senses to refer to them. This is sometimes deceptive. The Chinese beverage baiju is often translated as “white wine” or “sorghum wine,” but it is a distilled spirit (grape wine is not distilled) as strong as whiskey or vodka. Like sake, it is often served warm or at room temperature. The original baiju was developed in the Northern and Southern Dynasties around 550 c.e. (An older beverage was made with millet, and as long as 9,000 years ago, beers were made with a combination of rice and grapes.) Later variants sometimes incorporate rice in addition to the sorghum or a combination of five grains. There are also numerous flavored versions, including those using rose essence, osmanthus flowers, angelica, herbs, bamboo leaves, tea, and even pork fat. Sake, or “rice wine,” is made from soaked broken rice grain that has been treated with a fungus that helps convert the starch to sugar. The liquid is then brewed like beer but with a process that results in a higher concentration of alcohol (about 20 percent alcohol, a little stronger than a strong wine). Sake seems to have originated in Japan around the same time the Chinese developed baiju. Lower alcohol versions, comparable to the “small beers” of Europe, are called amazake. A similar distilled product in Japan is shochu, which has murky origins in the 15th or 16th century. Strong distilled liquor in Japan was originally called araki, which is likely connected to the araq of the Arab world. Shochu can be made from rice or barley, and is sometimes made from other starches, like sweet potato (not a grain, though it is used in essentially the same way where alcoholic beverages are concerned).
A similar beverage to sake is Korea’s soju, made from rice, wheat, or barley. Though not developed until later—it was introduced by the occupying Mongols in the 13th century—soju has become the most important beverage in Korean culture. Usually made to be about as strong as sake, it can be made stronger through freeze distillation, the oldest method of distillation. Freeze distillation concentrates the alcoholic content of a liquid by freezing it to a low-enough temperature that the water freezes solid and can be removed, while the alcohol—which has a lower freezing point—remains. Other rice-derived beverages include ang jiu, a red rice wine of China; ara, a Bhutanese drink made from rice or millet; brem, a rice wine of Bali; cheongju, Korea’s rice wine; choujiu, a milky-white opaque rice wine made in Xian, China, from glutinous rice; lao-lao, a rice wine from Laos; makgeoli, a Korean rice wine; raksi, a Tibetan/Nepalese rice wine; sato, a Thai rice wine; sonti, an Indian rice wine; and tuak, a rice wine from Indonesia. In Europe, beers made from barley or other cereals were common in the ancient world and were daily staples of the medieval world. These beers were considerably lower in alcohol than modern beer—most of them low enough in alcohol that they could have been legally sold in the United States during Prohibition—which accounts for the quantities in which they were drunk, usually at every meal, including breakfast, and multiple times between meals. Wine, because grapes grew in a more limited region, was generally a more elite beverage, at least outside of that region. Early Distillation The origins of distillation (that is, true evaporative distillation, not freeze distillation, since the latter concentrates rather than removes impurities) of alcohol are uncertain. Claims have been made by some historians that ancient Babylon knew the process of distillation, but if so, it was not used for beverages. The earliest attested date of distilled alcohol is around the 12th century, and brandy—distilled wine—was being produced in Italy during the following century. “Aqua vitae,” or the water of life—the grain spirit we now call whiskey—followed. Where it was first
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made is unknown—perhaps in the Middle East (despite the Islamic proscription against alcohol); perhaps in the British Isles. Whiskey as the AngloAmerican world knows it is essentially distilled beer without the hops used to preserve beer from spoilage. The original whiskeys were neither aged nor diluted, making for a much rougher and more potent drink. This began to change in the Enlightenment era. When distillation was discovered, it introduced a new world of alcoholic beverages, many of which were originally used medicinally. Vodka is believed to have originated in Poland but seems to have been an undistilled brewed beverage at first. Though potatoes are often used to produce vodka today, they were not introduced to the Old World until the 15th century or later, and for hundreds of years before that, vodka was made from grains. It was first distilled no later than 1174 (the date of the first mention of a vodka distillery) and varied greatly from maker to maker, sometimes infused with herbs or other flavorings. In Russia, distilled vodka was originally called bread wine because of its grain origins and high alcohol content relative to beer. Being far from the wine-growing regions of Europe, grape wine was a rarity in Russia, especially since the rampup in international trade of wine would not begin until later improvements in glass bottles came, reducing breakage on long journeys. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Ancient World, Drinking in; Archeological Evidence; Fermentation: Ancient Era Through Middle Ages; High-Potency Drinks. Further Readings Bruman, Henry. Alcohol in Ancient Mexico. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2000. McGovern, Patrick E. Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. Nelson, Max. The Barbarian’s Beverage: A History of Beer in Ancient Europe. New York: Routledge, 2008. Stewart, Amy. The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World’s Great Drinks. New York: Algonquin Books, 2013.
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Grant, Ulysses S. During his lifetime and beyond, Ulysses S. Grant’s opponents portrayed him as a drunkard who could not be trusted with responsibility. Despite distinguished service in the Mexican War, saving the Union by leading the Union Army to victory in the Civil War, and a presidency historians are coming to see in more positive terms, as well as an exemplary personal character, the image has persisted. Few presidents’ use of alcohol has attracted the attention Grant’s has or played as important a role in how he was viewed both during his lifetime and afterwards by historians. Historian’s opinions can be divided into four groups—those who see Grant as having had a serious, lifelong drinking problem; those who accept that Grant drank, sometimes to excess, but never when it was important; those who argue Grant was not a problem drinker, but had other health issues that led to the perception he did; and a small group who suggests that there is no substantive, reliable evidence one way or the other. The best assessment would be that Grant did drink and handled alcohol very poorly. He does not appear to have had a problem with drink when occupied with military duties or with his wife. Finally, reports of his drinking to excess during the Civil War originated with rivals and are often contradicted by others who were present. Early Life and Career Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, on April 27, 1822, the son of Jesse Root Grant and Hannah Simpson Grant. Jesse was a successful tanner and leather goods dealer. His father was a drunkard who had left Jesse and his brother and sisters on their own at an early age. Jesse avoided alcohol and was not above criticizing his son, whom he did not think was cut out for business, yet there are no accounts of him mentioning his son’s drinking as an issue. Grant’s father used his political connections to arrange a congressional appointment and send his reluctant son to West Point. Young Grant had no interest in being a soldier but acquiesced to his father’s plan. There are no indications of problems with alcohol at West Point where Grant graduated in the middle third of his class—21st of 39. His demerits were mostly
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for missing compulsory chapel, with which he disagreed on principle. Following graduation in 1843, he entered the Army as a second lieutenant and was assigned to the infantry. During the Mexican War (1846–48), Grant served under both Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott and distinguished himself in the battles of Molino del Rey and Chapultepec, being cited for bravery twice. While stationed in upstate New York following the war, Grant joined the Sons of Temperance. In 1852 he was sent to the West Coast, serving in California and then Washington before being transferred to another post in California. He was unable to bring his wife Julia and their young children with him for a combination of financial and policy reasons. The boredom and tedium of the peacetime army without his wife and young family did not serve Grant well. Here reports and rumors of Grant’s drinking began. Drinking was not unusual among officers in the army, especially at isolated posts. Drunkenness, especially if it impaired fitness for duty, was an issue. Historians suggest that Grant’s small stature made him more susceptible to alcohol. He was promoted to captain, one of 50 in the entire army, at this time, which would indicate he had no serious career problems with drinking. At Fort Humboldt in northern California, Grant found himself at odds with the post commander and when accused of being drunk was offered the choice between resignation and court martial. Grant had never enjoyed military life from his days as a cadet at West Point and chose resignation. He resigned his commission in July 1854 and the whispers of drunkenness followed. There is little firm evidence of excessive drinking on Grant’s part at this time other than a few isolated episodes, only rumor and gossip. Historians who defend Grant argue he suffered primarily from depression due to the separation from his family. That one of his West Point classmates (George C. McClelland) was courtmartialed and discharged for drunkenness while Grant was allowed to resign supports the latter position. Officially, Grant resigned in good graces. While Grant struggled in various business ventures in the 15 years between his resignation and the Civil War, there are no reports of drunkenness on his part.
Civil War When the Civil War (1861–65) began, Grant applied for a commission in the army, but he was turned down, unlike most officers who had resigned after the Mexican War. Historians agree this was due to a negative view of Grant in the upper levels of the army dating from his resignation. Jesse Grant again used his political influence and the Illinois governor appointed Grant as a militia recruiting officer. He did quite well and was soon colonel of a regiment of volunteers. Grant excelled in training troops at Cairo, Illinois. He gained more responsibility, but he did not wholly overcome the skepticism of his superiors, especially after Henry W. Halleck replaced John C. Frémont as commander in the west. From Cairo, he established himself as a commander who was willing to fight and win. He quickly won promotion to brigadier general of volunteers. His aggressiveness was in sharp contrast to the commanders in the eastern theater who always needed more men, more equipment, or more time to train before going on the offensive. Grant blocked Confederate expansion across the Mississippi with his victory at Belmont, Missouri, in November 1861 and followed that with victories at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in early February. Halleck, one of Grant’s harshest critics, began referring to Grant resuming his old habits, even though one of Halleck’s own staff officers who was assigned to watch Grant reported he had no problems with drink. Halleck briefly suspended Grant from command for moving too quickly against Fort Donelson, among other petty grievances. President Abraham Lincoln promoted Grant to major general and restored him to command. There were further rumors of Grant being drunk at Shiloh before the battle there, but hard evidence is elusive. One of the more serious allegations of Grant’s drinking was made by journalist Sylvanus Cadwallader in describing a trip with Grant up the Yazoo River in June 1863. Cadwallader’s lengthy account is rich in detail and presents Grant in a very negative light. Many historians accept it as true. There are problems, however, with the account, which appeared in a memoir some years later. Lincoln had sent Charles A. Dana to check on the rumors about Grant’s drinking. Dana’s reports are full of praise for Grant and make no
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mention of his drinking. Years later in an interview Dana mentioned that Grant had been ill. This statement is supported by a contemporary letter by John A. Rowland. Cadwallader does not mention Dana’s presence and a number of details in his account do not fit with the other evidence. Dana does not mention Cadwallader being there either. This episode is illustrative of the problems in reaching a firm conclusion about Grant’s drinking. Grant did drink and handled liquor poorly when he did. He did not, by all accounts, drink constantly or regularly. Rumors of his drinking followed him, often promoted by rivals within the army. In the spring of 1864, Grant was promoted to lieutenant general and put in command of the eastern theater as well as being made general in chief. His aggressive offensive against Robert E. Lee in the eastern theater as well as his plan of constant pressure across all fronts led to Union victory on April 9, 1865, when Lee surrendered. Grant’s plan had won the war and restored the Union. Through all this Civil War success as well as the failures in the final campaign there is no evidence Grant drank to excess. President Grant In 1868 he accepted the Republican nomination for president and was elected. Grant’s administration was marred by a number of scandals, none of which involved him directly. One scandal was the whiskey ring, which diverted millions of dollars from the government to members of the multi city ring. Grant’s private secretary was involved, but Grant appointed an aggressive prosecutor and millions of dollars were recovered. Grant, however, did testify on behalf of his secretary and took several other actions that were inconsistent with his general approach that no guilty person go unpunished In 1884, Grant was diagnosed with throat cancer just as he was beginning his Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. The diagnosis fuelled the Grantwas-a-drunkard rumors because alcohol consumption can cause throat cancer. If a Grant vice led to his illness his chain smoking of cigars seems a more likely candidate. Encouraged by Mark Twain, Grant finished his memoir a few days before his death on July 23, 1885. Historians and literary scholars consider Grant’s autobiography
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one of the very best military memoirs, comparable to Julius Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War. He is buried in New York City. William H. Mulligan, Jr. Murray State University See Also: History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 19th Century; Lincoln, Abraham; Presidents, U.S.; Prohibition Party. Further Readings Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. New York: C. L. Webster, 1885–86. Longacre, Edward G. General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man. New York: DaCapo, 2006. Simon, John Y., ed. The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1967. Simon, John Y. The Union Forever: Lincoln, Grant, and the Civil War. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2012. Waugh, Joan. U.S. Grant; American Hero, American Myth. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.
Greece Alcoholic beverages, particularly wine, are woven into the history, literature, and religion of Greece. The roots of Western drama can be traced to the festivals of Dionysus, the Greek God of wine and revelry, and wine, like olive oil, was among the earliest of Greek exports. This intimate connection between the commerce and the culture of Greece and alcohol helped to shape the Greek view of alcohol as primarily an accepted part of the cultural and social fabric of life and only secondarily as an area for restrictions and written laws, an attitude that persists into the 21st century. Alcohol consumption in Greece has been moderate and stable over the past several decades. Unlike the countries of northern Europe, Greece lacks a history of temperance movements or alcohol prohibition. While retsina use is declining, ouzo remains the national tipple of the country, and most Greek villages boast an ouzeri.
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Wine in Ancient and Modern Greece It is possible that wine was made and consumed as far back as the third millennium. Archaeological finds from Crete, the cradle of Minoan civilization, suggest that wine was consumed on this island at least from the second millennium. One of Nestor’s speeches in Book 9 of Homer’s Iliad refers to the Achaeans’ tents filled with wine supplied by ships that arrive daily from Thrace. Even the most casual student of Homer remembers the “wine-dark sea” and the drunken sleep of Polyphemus. At least as far back as the 7th century b.c.e., the Greeks were linking wines with their place of origin. Although Thassos may have had the oldest wine laws, by the 5th century b.c.e. other Greek states, such as Hios and Maronia, had become well known for their wine production and likely had wine laws as well. The ancient Greeks exported not only their wines but also their knowledge of cultivating vines and winemaking. Archeological evidence supports the exporting of Greek wine to Egypt, the Black Sea, the Danube region, southern Italy, and Etruria (modern Tuscany). More recently, evidence from numerous shipwrecks reveals that Greeks traded wine throughout the known ancient world. Around the 8th century b.c.e. the Greeks introduced wine production to their colonies in Italy and Sicily. Many Italian grapes, including Aglianico, Greco di Tufo, Moscato, and Moscatelli are of Greek origin. The Greeks founded Massalia, now Marseille, around 600 b.c.e. and introduced vineyards across the Mediterranean coast, and the Greeks’ contact with the Celts indirectly led to the development of vineyards further north. During the 2nd and 3rd centuries c.e., the tradition of Greek wine faded. As the Christian Church became more powerful, many vineyards were donated or sold to monasteries. The monks cultivated the vines and produced wines of high quality. They and a few private individuals kept Greek winemaking alive. Winemaking suffered under the Ottoman Empire, and the Turks destroyed most of Greece’s cultivated land during the aftermath of the 1821 revolution. For much of the 20th century, Greek wine production was largely concerned with wines for local consumption, and much of what was being produced was not of high quality. Individual vintners
continued to produce great wines, however, and beginning in the 1990s, varietals from French cultivars brought new success. Traditional grape varieties have not been abandoned. Greek vineyards support more than 300 indigenous grape varieties, some of which have been cultivated since antiquity. Greek wine exports rose 7.5 percent in 2011. In 2012, Greece produced more than 300,000 hectoliters of wine, well behind France, Italy, and Spain, the leading wine producers in the European Union. In 2013, several Greek wines won gold at the Decanter World Wine Awards. Alcohol Consumption in Modern Greece In the 21st century, drinking alcohol continues to be part of the social customs of Greek life, particularly among men, although alcohol use among women is increasing. According to the World Health Organization, Greeks still consume more wine than any other alcoholic beverage, ranking 10th among the world’s wine-drinking countries. Along with other southern European and Nordic countries, Greece has relatively low levels of alcohol consumption overall, and alcohol consumption per capita has fallen in Greece and the other traditional wine-producing countries of Italy, France, and Spain since 1980. Greece’s long history of alcohol production and consumption has allowed the Greeks to incorporate unofficial social and cultural structures into the regulation and control of alcohol, but alcoholrelated problems are increasing among younger Greeks. Thirty-three percent of Greek adolescents report drinking five or more drinks consecutively, one sign of problematic drinking. Since the mid20th century, beer consumption has steadily risen in Greece, as has consumption of distilled alcoholic beverages such as whisky, vodka, gin, tequila, and rum. However, wine continues to be the most popular form of alcohol. Greeks tend to prefer domestic brands over imports, although domestic sales have fallen following the economic woes of the 2000s. Retsina and Ouzo: National Drinks Retsina has been produced in Greece for thousands of years. In ancient Greece, pine resin was used to seal the ceramic vessels used to store and transport wine and to coat the interior of these vessels in order to insulate them and prevent
oxidation. The additive also improved the taste as oxidation occurred. The result was a wine with a distinctive taste and aroma. In modern times, retsina is produced by adding the natural resin from pinus halepensis (commonly known as Aleppo pine) during fermentation of white and, more rarely, rosé wines. The resin is removed once the aroma has infused the wine. Around 85 percent of retsina is made from savvatiano and rhoditis grape varieties. The European Union recognizes the name retsina as a protected designation of origin, and only the retsina produced in Greece and Cyprus is allowed to carry the name. During the Greek tourist boom of the 1960s, retsina reached its peak production. Since that period retsina production has declined. Some sources report a loss of about 15 percent of market share annually since the 1990s. One major producer who sold 3 million cases each year in the 1990s reported a drop to 850,000 cases 15 years later. Greek consumers, particularly in Athens and the region of Attica, which has been the center of retsina production, have turned away from the traditional beverage. Sales have been better in northern Greece, but a lighter style of retsina is preferred. Unlike retsina, ouzo, often called Greece’s national tipple, has an unclear history. According to some reports, it originated in the early 19th century in northeastern Greece. There in the silk-producing town of Tirnavos, enthusiasts of the drink proclaimed its smoothness rivaled that of “USO Massalias,” the name used for premium silk bound for market in Marseille. Another account says ouzo originated on the island of Lesbos, where its production is still centered. Regardless of its origin, with its flavors of anise with subtle hints of cardamom and clove, ouzo is a vital part of Greek culture. Most Greek villages have their ouzeri, a tavern where ouzo, usually mixed with water and ice, is sipped accompanied by mezes, appetizers of fish, olives, feta cheese, and other foods to complement the taste of the ouzo. So entrenched is ouzo in Greek culture that it is also used as a folk remedy for medical ills ranging from headaches to flu to arthritis. It is rubbed into aching joints for the latter. According to Greek adages, the benefits of the absinthelike beverage extend beyond the body. The overly
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stressed are advised to drink ouzo “to slow the pace and sweeten the day” and reminded that, “Ouzo makes the spirit.” Wylene Rholetter Auburn University See Also: Europe, Southern; Greece, Ancient; Red Wines; White Wines. Further Readings Adams, Alexis Marie. “Toasting the Greek Spirit.” National Geographic Traveler, v.30/2 (2013). European Alcohol Policy Alliance. “Greece.” EuroCare. http://www.eurocare.org/resources/ country_profiles/greece (Accessed October 2013). Lazarakis, Konstantinos. The Wines of Greece. London: Octopus, 2005.
Greece, Ancient The ancient Greeks drank various types of alcoholic beverages, including beer (zythos), mead (hudromeli), and wine (oinos), and they are known to have used other types of intoxicating substances as well. For instance, the ancientGreek historian Xenophon (ca. 430 b.c.e.–354 b.c.e.), in his work Anabasis, mentioned krithinos oinos (translated as barley wine), which is believed to have been a type of strong ale. The famous Greek philosopher Aristotle (ca. 384 b.c.e.–322 b.c.e.) mentioned mead in his Meteorologica and other writings. However, wine was, by far, the most prominent alcoholic beverage of choice in ancient Greek society. The wine could be drunk warm or chilled with snow, and myriad additives were sometimes also used, including assorted herbs, spices, honey, and resins. In fact, evidence of the importance of wine and its uses can be found across most areas of ancient Greek civilization. Wine Production Ancient Greece was the site of one of the earliest known centers of wine production. This conclusion is drawn from findings including 6,500-yearold Late Neolithic archaeological evidence of
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mashed wine grapes. There are also archaeological indications that wine was produced very early in the history of ancient Greece at both the household and communal levels. By the middle of the 2nd millennium b.c.e., winemaking techniques were well developed in the Minoan civilization on Crete. Vineyards were associated with Minoan royal palaces, and rural wine production sites were established as well. Minoans drank wine from elaborate horn-shaped drinking cups known as rhyta. Wine-associated cultural practices were well established across mainland Greece by the Mycenaean period, when they held prominent economic, religious, and social significance. Elite feasting, for instance, with its associated copious drinking activities was well established across the Mycenaean world. The custom of providing wine to guests was an expected hospitality practice from a very early time. Regional Viticulture and Wine Trade The practices of Greek viticulture and producing grapes were exported throughout the widespread Greek colonies of the ancient Mediterranean world, including those in Italy, Macedonia, Sicily, southern France, and Spain. In fact, the spread of the cultivation of the grape and olives were perhaps rightly noted by the ancient Greek historian Thucydides as a gift that helped the peoples of the Mediterranean emerge from the state of barbarism. Regional Greek wines of highly reputed quality were frequently cited in ancient Greek poetry and other literary sources. Many of these regional types of Greek wine continued to be highly prized and so commanded high prices throughout subsequent eras even after the zenith of ancient Greek civilization had waned, particularly under the Roman Empire and even later during the Middle Ages. The ancient Greek wine trade was extensive and a major economic phenomenon. By the Bronze Age, Greek wine was actively being traded across the ancient world. As evidence of this trade, Mycenean wine amphora and assorted drinking vessels have been found at sites in Cyprus, Egypt, Italy, and the Levant, as well as in those around the shores of the Black Sea. Many of these wine amphora bear the impressions of seals from numerous respective Greek city states and islands as testimony of the extensive and
expansive network of this ancient system of wine trading. Ancient Greek wine merchants participated in this vast and lucrative trade network for millennia. Greek pottery associated with the customs of wine drinking were also traded far and wide, and local imitations of these imported wares developed as well in places like Palestine and Israel. Ancient Greek coins bear markings, like images of clusters of grapes and vines as well as of wine cups, jugs, and other drinking-associated paraphernalia, as testimony to the economic and cultural significance of this wine trade. Further, knowledge and customs of Greek viticulture were simultaneously spread to other ancient peoples, like Celts and Scythians, and to far-flung lands. Indeed, this phenomenon was one of the most momentous events in the early history of wine and its use. The Symposium and Its Cultural Representations The symposium, which literally means “drinking party,” of ancient Greece is a good example to show the importance and cultural significance that wine played in the society. In ancient Greece, the symposium was a major social practice among aristocratic males of the city-state (polis), and this activity served as a central vehicle for the transmission of their core cultural values. In this sense, the symposium should be understood not only as an alcohol-drinking event, which it no doubt certainly was, but also as a fundamental civic institution. To begin a symposium, it was customary to pour wine on the ground as an offering to the gods. At the symposium, as at other times in ancient Greece, wine was typically diluted with water, with the desired intent of moderation. A “symposiarch” was selected to serve as the master of ceremonies at a symposium, and he was, among other things, responsible for determining the strength of the wine to be served at the event. The rooms where symposia were conducted were especially designed and decorated to encourage optimal social interaction. The furniture in the rooms was designed and placed to help fulfill that objective. The participants at a symposium usually ranged from 14 to 30 in number, limited by the size of the room and the number of pillowed couches it could hold. The vessels used often depicted Dionysus, the god of wine, and his
This scene from inside the bottom (tondo) of an Attic drinking cup (kylix) from around 510 b.c.e. depicts a musician accompanying a drunken participant in a banquet.
followers, particularly the maenads and satyrs, whose images usually showed the effects of varied degrees of intoxication. Maenads, for example, were frequently portrayed as engaging in ecstatic states of frenzy reached by means of intoxication and dancing. In The Bacchae, a tragic play written by Euripides, maenads killed King Pentheus of Thebes and ripped his body apart while they were in a state of drunken ecstasy. In fact, the theme of a drunken orgy was popular in Attic vase painting. A Dionysiac image was frequently placed on the side of a wine amphora, mixing bowl, or other specialized wine container, or it might be put inside on the bottom of one of the specialized drinking vessels used at symposia, which was only visible after the wine was drained from the cup. Eyes were frequently painted on vessels, which was an attempt to magically ward off evil. Other decorations displayed on vessels used at a symposium permitted users to project their own personal identities and the decorations commonly challenged viewers to provide an interpretation of the images depicted. In ancient Greece, wine was considered to be a divine gift, a substance that held purported magical qualities; it was even referred to as the juice of
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the gods. The progressive degrees of intoxication that imbibers at a symposium experienced were regarded as representing certain mythological attributes usually associated with Dionysus. The relationship of Dionysus to wine is also represented by the belief that the very act of getting intoxicated on wine was held to be a way of calling forth and fusing with the gods. In this regard, the personality of Dionysus was said to personify the very nature of wine, ranging between the polar extremes of relaxation and fury. The imagery and themes of the symposium were utilized in many other areas of ancient Greek civilization, appropriately reflecting its cultural significance. In this vein, the symposium was a theme commonly used in ancient Greek writings, particularly poetry and literature. Perhaps, the most notable philosophical work in this regard is The Symposium, believed to have been written by Plato as a dramatic dialogue around 358 b.c.e. to 350 b.c.e. Likewise, the staged symposium was a popular vehicle utilized in ancient Greek theatrical productions. The symposium was also often drawn upon as a theme by ancient Greek artists, such as a fresco painted on the north wall of the Tomb of the Diver at Paestum, Italy, around 475 b.c.e. This scene was selected, it has been speculated, to create a welcoming and familiar image for viewers. Wine in Religious and Other Contexts Wine was a feature commonly associated with many religious and ritual activities in ancient Greece. For example, a libation (sponde) to the gods, such as pouring a little drizzle of wine on the ground, was frequently offered when requesting divine assistance in an upcoming endeavor, such as concluding an armistice treaty. The most common way to offer a libation in ancient Greece was to pour wine from a wine jug into a shallow bronze bowl and then to pour a little of it onto the floor, the remainder of which was swallowed by the celebrant. Any time wine was to be drunk, it was customary to pour a libation. Wine was also routinely poured onto an animal about to be sacrificed ritually upon an altar. A libation offered to the dead could be made by tipping over a large vessel onto the grave. Periodic libations were part of the continued maintenance of graves expected of familial survivors. The shapes of grave markers
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in ancient Greece were gender specific, and those for men were usually related to wine imagery. Wine-based concoctions were a part of the secret rituals associated with several of the ancientGreek mystery religions. Religious festivals often included wine-drinking contests. Wine played a prominent role in medical practice in ancient Greece. It was routinely prescribed for varied ailments in ancient Greek medical texts. Hippocrates included several medicinal preparations based on wine in his writings. He prescribed wine for treating many conditions, such as lethargy and diarrhea as well as childbirth pains. He advocated the use of red wine infused with spices to cure bad breath. He recommended the drinking of wine as a necessary constituent of a healthy diet. He also made use of wine’s ability to serve as a medium for mixing other medicinal products, such as those based on opium. Wine was also widely used by ancient Greek physicians for helping keep wounds clean and sterile as well as for encouraging patients to recuperate by means of rest and immobilization. Wine was, not surprisingly, related to aspects of law and politics in ancient Greece. For example, the Locrian Code, a 7th-century b.c.e. Greek written law code prohibited the drinking of undiluted wine, with the exception of doing so for medicinal purposes. Wine also played a role in aspects of political intrigue in ancient Greece. Wine laced with assorted poisons was known to be a frequent tool of political assassination plots. It was speculated, for instance, that Alexander the Great might have been poisoned by Iollas, his wine pourer. Another widely held theory of Alexander’s death is that it resulted from his drinking a large bowl of undiluted wine. The production, distribution, and either consumption or application of alcoholic beverages, particularly wine, were significant features in many areas of life in ancient Greece. The production of wine in ancient Greece was a major agricultural enterprise and its distribution and sale constituted a significant sector of the economy. Wine played an important role in ancient Greek religion and ritual activities. Wine was a popular subject in ancient Greek literature, particularly works of poetry and drama, and was also a common subject of numerous works of art. Wine was a crucial element in many ancient Greek medical
practices and also played a role in politics and legal affairs. Wine was indeed the preferred alcoholic beverage of ancient Greece. Victor B. Stolberg Essex County College See Also: Alexander the Great; Archeological Evidence; Fermentation, Ancient Era Through Middle Ages; Medicinal Use, History of. Further Readings Lissarrague, Francois. The Aesthetics of the Greek Banquet: Images of Wine and Ritual (Un Flot D’images). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. McGovern, Patrick E., Stuart J. Fleming, and Solomon H. Katz, eds. The Origins and Ancient History of Wine. Food and Nutrition in History and Anthropology Series 11. London: Routledge/ Taylor & Francis Group, 2005. Murray, Oswyn. Sympotica: A Symposium on the Symposium. Oxford: Clarendon, 1990.
Greene King IPA In 1789, Benjamin Greene established a brewery in Bury St. Edmunds in the United Kingdom. The Greene King Brewery has produced a number of different beers since its creation. Among its products, Greene King produces an India pale ale (IPA), initially intended for export to soldiers and other British subjects who worked in colonial India during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Once a favorite of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), Greene King has recently come under criticism for its aggressive pursuit and purchase of smaller brewers, which some believe has reduced the choices of beers available to consumers. Origins of the Brewery Shortly after founding the Greene King Brewery, Benjamin Greene—great grandfather of the novelist Graham Greene—purchased the 100-yearold Wright’s Brewery, immediately providing his young company with capacity and a reputation among customers. After the Beerhouse Act
of 1830, over 25,000 new public houses opened in Britain, dramatically increasing the demand for beer such as that brewed by the brewery. By 1870, the Greene King Brewery was brewing over 40,000 barrels per year and merged with Frederick King’s smaller St. Edmunds Brewery in 1887, with the new concern renamed Greene, King & Sons. One of the larger breweries in the United Kingdom, Greene, King & Sons operated 150 public houses and also sold beer to independent pubs. Beginning in 1856, the brewery began producing Greene King IPA, a beer made in the style of that exported to the British troops serving in India. Although an IPA, the beer was not sold to the Indian market but instead built its reputation in the United Kingdom. Production Greene King IPA joined a growing number of IPAs brewed in Britain, a category of beer that had become popular during the 1840s. As a rule, IPAs were ales that were brewed from pale malt. This was accomplished by using coke-fired malt, which resulted in less roasting and smoking of barley than other methods, and a paler ale ensued. Mimicking a strongly hopped beer popular with British expatriates living in India, IPAs were reputed to have a higher percentage of alcohol by volume (ABV) than other beers, although this claim has been refuted. After the dawn of the 20th century, many brewers dropped the “India” designation, although others, such as Greene King, kept it as part of their product’s name. IPAs were also popular in the United States, with some being brewed domestically, while IPAs from Great Britain were also imported. Greene King IPA is brewed using Challenger and English First Gold hops. With an ABV of 3.6 percent, Greene King IPA is a cask bitter, which is popular in pubs and off-license establishments in the United Kingdom and internationally. Sales of Greene King IPA received a boost beginning in the late 1960s as the “real ale” movement began to actively campaign against highly processed and artificially carbonated beers. As an alternative, groups such as the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) began advocating for casks of real ale served using hand pulls. Specifically, CAMRA and its allies supported those brewers who made beer using traditional
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ingredients and who left the beer to mature in the cask from which it would ultimately be served in a pub. This maturation period, known as secondary fermentation, provides tastes and aromas that beers that have carbonation added by other means lack. Fermentation turns fermentable sugars in malt into alcohol and carbon dioxide. IPAs brewed in the traditional manner use topfermenting yeast for this effect. Top-fermenting yeast allows a thick head to form on the top of fermenting vessel. Greene King IPA was brewed in this manner and hence was supported by members of CAMRA and their allies. In comparison to brewery-conditioned ale, Greene King IPA and other real ales have a limited shelf life and must be treated with more care. Real ales must be kept at a certain temperature so that the secondary fermentation process can take place. Brewery-conditioned ales require less tending in the pub cellar and thus are popular with those who seek a product for which it is easy to care. Real ale produced using secondary fermentation is more gently carbonated, in contrast to brewery-conditioned ales, which are more “fizzy” because of the processes used to assure bubbles. Greene King IPA used secondary fermentation, and thus was popular with CAMRA and its supporters. By 2002, Greene King IPA had become the best-selling cask beer in the world. Greene King IPA maintained this position until 2013, at which point it was overtaken by Sharp’s Doom Bar Bitter, which is produced by a subsidiary of global brewing giant Molson Coors Brewing Company. Available in bottles, cans, casks, and kegs, Greene King IPA sells over 125,000 casks per year, which amounts to 2 percent of the beer sold in the United Kingdom. Sold in over 30 nations around the globe, Greene King IPA has sponsored the English rugby union. Promotions such as this, as well as an aggressive series of mergers and acquisitions with rival breweries, has allowed Greene King Brewery to evolve into a market leader, with Greene King IPA as its flagship product. In 2012, Greene King introduced two variations of its eponymous IPA, Gold and Reserve. Greene King IPA Gold has a 4.1 percent ABV (alcohol by volume) and is marketed as a refreshing golden ale. Greene King IPA Reserve has a 5.4 percent ABV and appeals to those consumers seeking a rich, full-bodied ale.
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Controversy Although Greene King was initially a favorite of advocates of real ale such as CAMRA, its aggressive growth strategy, focusing upon mergers with and acquisitions of smaller competitors, has led to a backlash against the company and occasional boycotts of its products, including Greene King IPA. Through its Managed Pubs and Pub Partners divisions, Greene King owns, operates, or manages over 2,000 pubs through the United Kingdom. This permits Greene King to exclude a number of products of smaller competitors in its pubs. This practice has resulted in strong opposition to Greene King, which is sometimes referred to as “Greedy King” by its opponents. Greene King has also long engaged in the purchase of smaller rivals, buying breweries such as Belhaven Brewery, Hardys & Hansons, Morland Brewery, Ruddles Brewery, and T. D. Ridley & Sons. Once Greene King has taken control over these breweries, it often shuts them down, discontinuing beers or transferring their production to its brewery in Bury St. Edmunds. Such moves have been viewed as reducing the choice in beers enjoyed by consumers and have been vigorously opposed by proponents of local breweries such as CAMRA. Despite these controversies, Greene King remains committed to its practice of purchasing smaller breweries and pubs in order to grow its market share. Greene King has also continued to open new pubs and restaurants of its own, often excluding the beers of its competitors. While opposition to these moves has grown, so too has the popularity of Greene King’s products. Stephen T. Schroth Knox College See Also: Abbey Ales; Ale; Beer; Dark Beer; Local Breweries; Stouts and Porters; United Kingdom. Further Readings Oliver, Garrett. The Oxford Companion to Beer. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Perozzi, Christina and Hallie Beaune. The Naked Pint: An Unadulterated Guide to Craft Beer. New York: Perigee Books, 2009. Robertson, James D. The Beer-Tasters Log: A World Guide to More than 6000 Beers. Pownal, VT: Storey Communications, 1996.
Grenache See Garnacha (Grenache)
Grog and the British Royal Navy Grog, in its most basic form, is a mixture of rum and water that was issued on a daily basis to the sailors of the British Royal Navy beginning unofficially in 1655 and officially concluding in 1970. During the 315 years of its existence in the Royal Navy, grog became a robust tradition and privilege for common sailors, becoming part of naval rituals, jargon, and song. Due to the prominence and influence of the Royal Navy in the 18th and 19th centuries, the grog tradition also found a place in other navies, including that of the United States. Ultimately, the rise of a more professionalized navy, new understandings about the relationship between alcohol consumption and work ability, and general health concerns led the Royal Navy to discontinue the grog ration. The Royal Navy began issuing rum in 1655 as a result of sudden access to cheap rum and the difficulty of attaining the standard alcoholic ration for sailors at the time, small beer. That year, a British naval and infantry force under William Penn successfully attacked the Spanish colony of Jamaica. Beer was unattainable in the West Indies at that time, and supplies loaded in England had ran out or spoiled after the lengthy deployment. Even maintaining potable water was difficult on long voyages, which had long encouraged the serving of beer. Unofficially, sailors substituted rum, probably drunk straight, for the daily ration of alcohol. Grog, the officially endorsed and regulated mixture of rum and water, with two parts water to one part rum, dates to 1740. Vice Admiral Edward Vernon, recognizing the utility of the nonperishable and easily attained spirit on the West Indies station, consulted with his captains and fleet surgeons and issued orders to the fleet both endorsing the use of rum as a substitute for beer or wine and forcing its dilution with water (and encouraging the addition of lemon or lime juice and sugar for
better taste) in order to prevent alcohol-impaired sailors from performing the frequently hazardous work on a sailing ship. Due to his penchant for wearing a coat made of grogram cloth, Vernon had the nickname of “Old Grog” in the navy. Most evidence points to this connection as the origin for the name grog for the daily ration of alcohol. While the tradition of issuing grog had already become well established, the rules guiding the entire Royal Navy did not account for grog until the 1756 edition of The Regulations and Instructions Relating to His Majesty’s Service at Sea. These rules owed much to Vernon’s instructions, for example, requiring an officer to watch over the daily rationing at a scuttled butt in order to limit any excesses within the distribution of rum. It is clear from the strict and detailed instructions that evolved within the regulations over time that the admiralty was concerned about the risks of having so much spirit on board. Eventually, grog became more important and more widely used than small beer in the navy’s daily routine, and for many common sailors it was the highlight of the day. Warrant officers enjoyed the perquisite of taking their rum ration “in drams,” or without any dilution. In fact, grog became such an important right for a sailor that “stopping” a sailor’s grog or watering it down for a number of days gained widespread use as a punishment. The daily issue of grog became a highly ritualized procedure complete with its own dedicated set of instruments. The scuttled butt of Admiral Vernon’s day—a polished and elegant copper spirit pump for dispensing the daily ration into kegs located in the otherwise-locked spirit room—came to be emblazoned with lettering reading: “Grog” and “God Save the King.” One member of each mess would collect his group’s ration at the grog butt in a rum fanny and so on. Many sailors’ songs made mention of grog or focused on it, and some of them were traditionally sung during the doling out of the daily ration. The naval rules governed the proper storage of the spirits and required an officer to oversee every step of the process short of the actual drinking. The Royal Navy’s deep history with grog along with its influence on the navies of its colonial possessions led to the spread of both the terminology and practice to the U.S. Navy. The American navy brought grog in almost with its inception, starting
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an official ration of a half pint of rum in 1775. In the 19th century, the navy migrated to using domestic whiskey rather than Caribbean rum. The Temperance movement in America discouraged grog within the navy and many sailors did not partake in it by the time of the Civil War. The navy compensated them with extra funds in their pay in recognition of saving the navy this expense. In 1914, on the eve of the American Temperance movement’s greatest triumph of National Prohibition, the U.S. Navy ended its grog ration in General Order 99. Opposition and Efforts to Reduce the Ration From early on in the history of the grog ration, a clear tension existed between concern over enabling drunkenness and alcoholism (and for more abstemious officers, promoting alcohol consumption at all) on one side and the belief among many, including most common sailors, that the grog ration made their lives tolerable. Sailors looked forward to their grog every day as an oasis of pleasure and escape from the dangerous, monotonous, and hard manual labor of their existence. The rum ration became part of the culture of the sailor. In opposition to this view stood officers who saw that the ration left some men less coordinated and sensible to their work and the widespread belief that most punishments of sailors could be attributed to actions or inactions undertaken while under the influence of grog. Moreover, sailors developed and passed down a host of tricks by which they could harbor extra rum to achieve genuine intoxication. Given the perilous nature of their labor even in mild seas, it is not surprising that injuries and deaths could often be directly attributed to loss of agility, attention, or mental acuity due to drunkenness. Throughout the 19th century, temperance advocates inside and outside the navy made repeated efforts to reduce or eliminate the rum ration. In 1824, the Royal Navy slashed the rum ration from a half pint to a quarter pint a day. The Admiralty hoped to reduce drunkenness and improve professional behavior, but they also understood the cultural place grog held for sailors and feared the consequences of a reduction of what “jack tars” perceived as a perquisite if not right. To make the change more acceptable, the Admiralty increased pay and the daily ration of meat while adding a
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Grolsch among British sailors in the early 20th century. Despite these efforts, when the new profession of submariner developed, the grog tradition became firmly established beneath the seas too. Still, efforts to end the rationing practice continued and gained new momentum after World War II as a smaller service with a new set of ideas for what constituted professionalism left little room for indulging in alcohol. The final step of compensating seaman for each reduction in the grog ration included the establishment of a charitable Royal Navy’s Sailor Fund endowed with monies from the navy based on calculating the savings of ending the rum ration. It continues to function today. The British Navy’s last rum ration came on August 1, 1970, popularly known as Black Tot Day. James H. Tuten Juniata College See Also: Military Use and Regulation of Alcohol; Rum; Songs About Alcohol and Drinking; United Kingdom.
The tradition of grog rations spread beyond the British Royal Navy to other world navies. The photograph shows sailors in the Russian Navy taking grog rations in 1893.
new ration of tea and cocoa. A quarter century later, another wave of reform and the growth of prohibition leanings led an Admiralty-ordered review of the ration, and the Grog Committee issued its report in 1850. The new rules, which went into effect the following year, prohibited all rations of neat spirits, such as officers had enjoyed for generations. The daily ration of grog was again cut in half, and as in 1824, the blow was softened with increases in meat and sugar rations. In an effort to encourage and reward those not partaking of alcohol, the Royal Navy paid those sailors who were abstaining the equivalent of the cost of the ration to the navy. From the mid-19th century forward, both the Royal Navy and U.S. Navy saw the grog ration continue and would become a target from the growing Prohibition movements in both countries. A Royal Navy Temperance society even sprang up
Further Readings Barnett, Glenn. “The ‘Blood of Nelson.’” Military History, v.23/7 (2006). Pack, James. Nelson’s Blood: The Story of Naval Rum. Homewell, UK: Kenneth Mason, 1982. Rodger, N. A. M. The Command of the Ocean. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005 Smith, Frederick H. Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005.
Grolsch Grolsch, a Dutch brewery, was established in 1615 in the town of Groenlo (then known as Grolle), with the word Grolsch meaning “of Grolle.” The town was traditionally owned by the Bishop of Münster and rose in importance because of its location near the German border and influence in trade between the Germans and the Dutch. It was attacked many times during the Dutch Revolt, known locally as the Eighty Years’ War. Maurice of Nassau and the Protestants captured
Grolle in 1597, and then the Spanish, under Don Ambrogio Spinola Doria, retook it in 1607. Willem Neerfeldt established the brewery during this period, locating it in the center of town to facilitate distribution and resist the widespread pillaging by armies on both sides, as well as marauders. Over the next 30 years, the brewery found many customers in the Catholic and Protestant soldiers who occupied the town. After the death of Neerfeldt, the company passed to his son-in-law Peter Sanford Cuyper, who had joined the business as a master brewer. Cuyper died in 1684 but his family continued running the brewery for many years. Gradually, however, as demand expanded, the family found it necessary to enlarge and modernize the brewery. The site in the center of Groenlo was too small, so they decided in 1876 to build a new brewery next to a canal on the outskirts of the town. On May 3, 1922, the brewery at Groenlo merged with the Achterhoekse Brouwerij De Klok, also in Groenlo, and the Twentse Enschedesche Stoombierbrouwerij in Enschede. The newly formed company was registered as the N.V. Bierbrouwerij De Klok Enschede-Groenlo, but came to be known as the Grolsch Bierbrouwerij (Grolsch Brewery), with that name being formally registered in 1954. Brewing was concentrated at Groenlo and Enschede. Soon after the merger, there were problems sourcing enough hops and malt and with the growing temperance movement. In response to the latter, the brewery started producing lemonade that it called “Groli.” This profitable sideline continued until 1972, when a fire destroyed the lemonade factory and the management decided to concentrate on beer. Grolsch also decided to retain its famous swing-top bottles and use them in its marketing when most other brewers were phasing them out because of the cost of this method. Until World War II, the Grolsch Brewery delivered beer everywhere by horse and cart. At the end of the war, when large numbers of army vehicles were being sold cheaply, the company decided to invest in some trucks. Grolsch also sought to expand sales and in 1946 began exporting beer to Suriname, Curacao, and briefly to India and China. In 1968 the De Groen family started to expand the company to make it more of a global enterprise,
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avidly pursuing many overseas markets. The company was listed on the stock market in 1984, with many of the shares being held by the De Groen family. It invested heavily in the Elbrewery in Poland in the Polish city of Elbag (formerly Elbing) in 1991. Four years later, the company was able to use the word royal for the first time. Grolsch had traditionally been conservative and produced only three different types of beer. The best-selling beer was always Grolsch Pilsner with 5 percent alcohol. It was brewed from malt, hops, yeast, and water and was unpasteurized in the bottle but was pasteurized for sale in cans. Grolsch Bokbier, with 6.5 percent alcohol, was sweeter and darker. However, in late 1995 Grolsch started experimenting and produced another 40 different varieties, all for a limited period and most made for special civic occasions except for Het Kanon (The Cannon), which had 11.6 percent alcohol by volume. Management hoped that a number of these varieties might prove popular, but they failed to sell. Thus, for a while, the inventory of the company included Grolsch Amber Beer, Grolsch Autumn Amber, Grolsch Bok, Grolsch Dark Beer, Grolsch Lager Beer, Grolsch Mei Bock, Grolsch Natural Holland Beer, Grolsch Premium Dry Draft Beer, and Navigator Malt Liquor, which had an alcohol content of 10 percent. In 2003 management decided to close the breweries at Groenlo and Enshede. Grolsch opened a new brewery at Usselo in 2004, and the other two breweries closed down in the next year. In 2005 the company, much to the surprise of many people, released two Bavarian-style weizen beers. In February 2006, Grolsch Brewery became the second-largest brewer in the Netherlands, after Heineken, and achieved an annual production of 3.2 million hectoliters. In November 2007 the South African brewing conglomerate SABMiller made a takeover offer for the company of $1.9 billion ($60.26 or 48.25 euros per share), about 84 percent above the market price, which sharply rose when news leaked out. The De Groen family and the board of directors of Grolsch agreed to support the takeover and in 2008 Grolsch Brewery became one of 135 breweries owned by SABMiller. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School
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See Also: Beer; Beer and Foods; Netherlands. Further Readings Gow, David. “Heineken and Grolsch Fined for PriceFixing.” Guardian (April 18, 2007). Robertson, James D. The Beer-Tasters Log: A World Guide to More Than 6000 Beers. Pownal, VT: Storey Communications, 1996. Walsh, Derek. “Grol.” In The Oxford Companion to Beer, Garrett Oliver, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Guinness Guinness is a stout porter, or a dark, top-fermented beer, originally produced in the St. James Gate brewery founded by Arthur Guinness in Dublin, Ireland. Decades of careful quality control and the development of an advanced sales network have transformed this Irish brew into a popular beverage of international repute. Over time, Guinness has cultivated a cultural legacy resulting in part from some unusual and creative marketing tactics. Arthur Guinness, an Irish Protestant originally from Kildare, Ireland, began brewing commercially in 1756. In 1759, he went to Dublin and leased a property to develop his brewery. The details of this lease have become legendary—£100 down and £45 a year for 9,000 years. The close proximity of the brewery to Dublin’s Grand Canal was significant to the development of the brewery’s distribution network. Initially, Guinness brewed ale and began brewing porter in 1778. Guinness porter quickly became popular in Dublin, and with the development of an efficient distribution and quality control network, it became the largest brewery in Ireland in 1833 and the largest brewery in the world in 1914. For generations, the brewery was the largest employer in Dublin. It is currently owned by the multinational corporation Diageo. Guinness is recognized for its distinctive flavor, which can be partially attributed to roasted malted barley and its black-and-white appearance. Early porters brewed by Guinness include Town Porter for sale in and around Dublin, Country Porter to be distributed throughout Ireland, and Keeping
Porter, which was blended with other beers in order to maintain stability. Superior Porter was a stronger beer that could be found throughout the market. Guinness Extra Superior Porter would become Double Stout and eventually Extra Stout. West Indies Porter was a highly hopped beer brewed specifically for export to the Caribbean, not unlike British India Pale Ale. Currently, there are three principal product variants of Guinness. Guinness Extra Stout, whose precursor is Guinness Extra Superior Porter, is available in Ireland, the United Kingdom (UK), Europe, parts of Africa and Asia, and North America. Extra stout is the beer that most closely resembles the porter originally brewed by Arthur Guinness. Guinness Foreign Extra Stout is the oldest variety currently available—first brewed in 1802—and is found throughout Africa, the Caribbean, and parts of Asia. The most recent variety is Guinness Draught, introduced in 1959. Guinness Draught is a nitrogenated beer, commonly found in bars and pubs in Ireland, the UK, North America, Australia, Europe, and Japan —though rarely in the same markets as Foreign Extra Stout. Draught is also available in widget cans and bottles. Guinness Draught involves a serving ritual, referred to as the two-part pour. Steps include the following: Fill a pint glass at a 45-degree angle, allowing the beer to slide down the glass until it is three-quarters full. Then, straighten the glass while continuing to pour until the beer is an inch and a half from the top. At this point, let the glass stand on the counter, allowing the gas to settle, which creates a visual effect as gas bubbles rise. This moment is referred to as the dramatic pause, the surge, and the waterfall effect. This effect is caused by nitrogenation, a process introduced by Michael Ash during the late 1950s and perfected in the 1960s. Previously, pouring a pint of Guinness in a pub involved great skill on behalf of the bartender, meaning that not every pint looked consistent. It also meant mixing beer from two casks—one above the bar and the other cask beneath the bar. When Michael Ash was put in charge in ensuring consistency in quality pours, which entails a frothy head for each pint, he and his team came up with a solution by introducing a mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen into the beer. Additionally, a single metal keg that
could contain and serve the brew was developed. Named the Easy Serve keg in 1958, it contains two sections—one holding Guinness and the other with a pressurized mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Nitrogenation changed the taste and appearance of Guinness, turning it into the pint of black liquid with a perfect, frothy white head that characterizes the drink today. With the invention of the widget in 1985— introduced to limited markets in 1988—Guinness Draught could be enjoyed in cans and bottles and not just in the pub or bar setting. The widget, which was originally referred to as the In-Can System (ICS), was patented by Alan Forage and William Bryne. It is a small plastic chamber with a tiny hole found in the bottom of a 500-mililiter beer can. Guinness containing dissolved nitrogen and carbon dioxide gas mixture is sealed in the can. Once the can is open, the equilibration of pressure forces beer into the chamber, creating the surge effect in the can of Guinness Draught. It has recently been brought to media attention that isinglass, which is a form of collagen derived from the dried swim bladder of fish, is used in the brewing process of Guinness. The use of this animal product in fining—or the process by which unwanted leftovers, such as yeast particles, are removed from brewing—means that some people do not consider it to be vegetarian or vegan. The export of Guinness culture and the popularity of the beer abroad can be attributed in part to Irish emigration throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The top three markets for Guinness outside of Ireland are the UK, Nigeria, and the United States. Currently, Guinness is produced and sold in nations around the world, perpetuating a legacy of quality and effective distribution that has been associated with the beer since it was first brewed centuries ago. Guinness is more than just a beer—it is a transnational cultural icon. The Guinness Storeroom is a popular destination for tourists in Dublin, and Guinness memorabilia, including vintage-style advertisements, can be found on sale throughout Ireland and in shops around the world. The Guinness harp, which is modeled on the Brian Boru harp located in Trinity College, was adopted as its logo in 1862. This harp is believed to be the oldest surviving Irish harp and currently serves as the state symbol of Ireland, which faces the opposite
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direction of the Guinness logo. Initially, Guinness did not advertise its product with the belief that superior quality control and a highly efficient distribution network could guarantee sales. However, the sloping sales in England after World War I eventually led the company to begin advertising in Glasgow in 1927. During this time, the popular slogan “Guinness Is Good for You” was introduced. Guinness has performed a number of unusual marketing campaigns over the years. In 1954 and 1959, the company held Bottledrops, which involved putting thousands of Guinness bottles into the ocean. These bottles contain a booklet about Guinness and a request for the recipient to contact the company explaining how they discovered their bottle. Many letters were sent to the company, and even though the number of bottles decreased shortly after a few years, one to two bottles a year are still being discovered. During the 1990s, Guinness introduced another ambitious marketing campaign in the
Vintage Guinness bottles on display at Dublin’s Guinness museum in 2009. The export of Guinness culture and the popularity of the beer abroad can be attributed in part to Irish emigration. The top three markets for Guinness outside of Ireland are the United Kingdom, Nigeria, and the United States.
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United States—its “Win Your Own Pub in Ireland” contest. Entrants were asked to describe the perfect pint in 50 words or less, and the winner became the owner of a pub in Ireland. The contest successfully ran from 1994 to 1999. Guinness’s interest in pubs is not limited to this contest. The company actively promotes serving the perfect pint in pubs, standardizing instructions for the two-part pour. In 1992, Guinness also launched its Irish Pubs Initiative—later referred to as the Guinness Irish Pub concept— in order to help people open authentic Irish pubs around the world. Various myths surround the production of Guinness. One early legend says that the water of Dublin’s river, the River Liffey, goes directly into the beer. While untrue, the myth adds a placespecific mystique to the brew, strengthening its ties to Dublin and Ireland. This later became cause for concern in the mid-20th century, when Guinness began brewing in different locations, including the United Kingdom, the United States, and Nigeria. Many people believed that brewing the beer outside of Dublin would severely alter the taste.
Another Guinness myth claims that, sometime during the early 20th century, brewmasters drained the tanks for cleaning and discovered the bones of dead rats. According to the urban legend, the rats are what give Guinness its unique flavor. The Boston-based Celtic punk band the Dropkick Murphys teamed up with Shane MacGowen, lead singer of the Irish punk band, the Pogues, to pay ode to these vermin in the 2001 song “Good Rats.” Emily Lauren Putnam Independent Scholar See Also: Beer; Dark Beer; Ireland; St. Patrick’s Day. Further Readings Byrne, Al. Guinness Times: My Days in the World’s Most Famous Brewery. Dublin: Town House, 1999. Corcoran, Tony. The Goodness of Guinness: A Loving History of the Brewery, Its People, and the City of Dublin. New York: Skyhorse, 2009. Yenne, Bill. Guinness: The 250-Year Quest for the Perfect Pint. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2007.
H Hair of the Dog “Hair of the dog” refers to a common practice that assumes the familiar effects of an alcoholic hangover—nausea, dry mouth, cloudy-headed thinking, headache, fatigue, dizziness, general queasiness, even cardiac irregularities—can actually be lessened or even eliminated by drinking small quantities of more alcohol. Most hangovers result from rapid ingestion of alcohol over a relatively brief span of time, placing the bodily systems in a kind of shock. Excessive drinking causes a variety of sudden metabolic reactions that are exacerbated by behavior typical of those who binge drink (poor eating, sleep deprivation, and increased cardiac activity and adrenaline output). There is some logic to the hair of the dog to alleviate hangovers; after all, drug addicts are gradually weaned off drugs by increasingly smaller doses of the drugs, as are those who wish to break caffeine or nicotine addictions. Medical science has conducted limited research on hangovers—physicians tend to regard hangovers as a by-product of poor judgment and compulsive behavior rather than as a disease or illness. Thus, little is actually known about the biological and chemical processes that produce the familiar symptoms of a hangover. Nor has research substantiated any claims that feeding the body’s traumatized gastrointestinal and nervous systems
additional alcohol will help quiet or even “cure” the symptoms. On the other hand, research has never actually refuted the efficacy of the hair of the dog cure. Those who advocate treating a hangover with more liquor point to the ancient tradition, dating back to ancient Rome, of actually inducing healthy patients with mild forms of a disease or toxin to provide protection from the full-blown disease. The medical theory—in Latin similia similibus curantur (literally, “likes are cured by like”)—remains central to homeopathic medicine, which adherents view as an alternative to allopathic medicine. Although hangovers cannot be compared to the catastrophic diseases and debilitating illnesses that homeopathic medicine directly treats, the hair of the dog treatment is clearly grounded in the idea, common to homeopathic medicine, that the body is best when it is helped to cure itself. Although the logic of the treatment dates back more than two millennia, etymologists have traced the term hair of the dog back to 18th-century Scotland. Scottish physicians, in a desperate attempt to treat the bite of a rabid dog, would regularly counsel trapping the animal, snipping hair from its tail, roasting it into a kind of sticky poultice using herbs and honey, and applying it directly to the wound, assuming that the dog’s hair would naturally attract and hence eliminate the toxins, thus cleansing the wounds. Rejecting 647
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this kind of superstition, most doctors today insist that the only “cures” for hangovers involve prevention: abstaining from alcohol, limiting the amount consumed, protecting the body’s digestive system by taking in quantities of milk or bread before drinking, or simply spacing out the time in which the system metabolizes the alcohol. Physicians argue that the supposed curative properties of the hair of the dog derive less from any therapeutic benefits than from alcohol’s ability to temporarily minimize negative sensations in the body generally. The person simply gets drunk again. Meanwhile the liver, which is processing the toxins in alcohol as quickly as it can, remains burdened with even more liquor to metabolize, thus simply forestalling the body’s negative reactions to the impact of the liver’s processing. Critics also point out that because most hangovers occur in the morning, the hair of the dog merely encourages, even justifies, self-destructive drinking during the day and may signify deeper problems, such as alcoholism. Cautioning that prevention is still the best way to address a hangover, doctors have stressed that hangovers, while they can be intense, are relatively temporary, and can better be addressed by two familiar treatments: rehydration and aspirin. Drinking water (or sports drinks) either before going to bed or immediately upon awakening will relieve most of the more unpleasant symptoms, such as thirst and vertigo, by stabilizing the body’s electrolyte imbalance. Aspirin simply addresses the severe headache. There are other more extreme, if medically tested, hangover remedies that have been found to relieve symptoms, including tolfenamic acid, a prescription medication given to migraine sufferers and administered to dogs and cats as a pain reliever; Alka-Seltzer or some over-the-counter stomach aid; vitamins such as B6; or limited amounts of strong, black coffee. Doctors agree cigarettes make hangovers worse, as they further impair the body’s struggle to clean out its system. With the Internet boom of the last generation, it is hardly surprising that a plethora of Web sites dedicated to both advocating and refuting the hair of the dog remedy have emerged. Advocates point to American pop culture, specifically the dizzying excesses of the Roaring Twenties when writers, poets, painters, and journalists—great figures who are regularly studied in high school
and college literature courses—swore by the hair of the dog remedy and, in fact, contributed to the perception of it as a hip, even cool way to handle what is essentially alcoholic poisoning. For instance, Ernest Hemingway, a Nobel Prize– winning novelist and notorious alcoholic, was famous for his hair of the dog remedy: beer and tomato juice. Another favorite recipe mixes cola and chocolate milk (researchers are quick to point out that Coca-Cola itself was initially derived from the same potent pharmaceutical source as cocaine); in addition, there are a number of recipes that call for champagne, seen as lighter and fizzier and hence not as potent or toxic and thus an easier way to handle the hangover. By far the most popular variation of the hair of the dog is the Bloody Mary, initially dubbed the Red Hammer, a cocktail not surprisingly with its origins in the folklore of the 1920s that combines vodka with tomato juice, tabasco sauce, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, with a stalk of celery as garnish. Given the tomato juice base, it became a natural for breakfast tables; however much as with all hair of the dog recipes, the supposed curative effects are simply from reinducing the euphoria of alcohol, merely delaying the body’s evitable (and discomforting) cleansing of the toxins. Joseph Dewey Broward College See Also: Alcohol Abuse, Symptoms of; Alcohol Withdrawal Scale; Binge Drinking, History of; Detoxification, Health Effects of; Drunken Behavior as Culturally Learned; Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Moderate Use. Further Readings Balmoral, Antonio. Hangover Remedies for the Weekend Warrior. Seattle, WA: Amazon, 2013. Fiedler, Chrystle and Brigitte Mars. The Country Almanac of Home Remedies: Time-Tested and Almost Forgotten Wisdom for Treating Hundreds of Common Ailments, Aches, and Pains Quickly and Naturally. Beverly, MA: Fair Winds Press, 2011. Harding, Anne. “Ten Hangover Remedies: What Works.” CNN Health (December 31, 2010). http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/12/30/ hangover.remedies (Accessed June 2014).
Handsome Lake Revitalization movements, also known as nativistic movements or messianic movements, have arisen among indigenous peoples in response to the stress of acculturation, which is often exacerbated by problems associated with excessive alcohol consumption. Many of these revitalization movements have produced prophets who advocated abstinence from alcoholic beverages as part of their strategy to return to the “old” ways. One of the most-studied and best-known of these approaches is presented in the Code of Handsome Lake. Handsome Lake was the Seneca religious leader who had been an alcoholic prior to experiencing his revelatory visions, and in 1799 he began preaching a code of conduct that included total abstinence from alcohol. Other Native American prophets who preached similar revitalization programs incorporating abstinence from alcoholic beverages included Neolin of the Delaware, in the Ohio Valley in the 1760s, and Tenskwatawa, known as the Shawnee Prophet, of the Great Lakes Region, who in the early 19th century (1805–14) was associated with Tecumseh. Handsome Lake was born in 1735 in Conawagas, a Seneca village along the Genesee River across from what is now Avon, in Livingston County, New York. He was born into an elite Seneca family and was named Hadawa’ko, which literally means Shaking Snow. He was initially a member of the Turtle clan, following the matrilineal line of his mother as is the Iroquois custom, but at an early age he was adopted into and reared by the Wolf clan. In the Seneca language his sachem name was Ganio’dai’o, which can be translated as Handsome or Beautiful Lake; he was also known as Sedwai’gowa:’ne, which literally means Teacher Great, after he became the great teacher of the new spiritual way. The Seneca, along with the other members of the Iroquois Confederacy, were suffering from considerable cultural disruption during the late colonial era. Euro-American powers were encroaching on Iroquois sovereignty and had used them as pawns in global conflicts, their former hunting territories were dramatically circumscribed, colonists were settling on Indian lands, infectious diseases were causing devastating epidemics, alcohol abuse and associated social ills were wrecking considerable
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havoc, and the very future of Handsome Lake’s people was in serious jeopardy as their numbers were plummeting. In July 1777, Handsome Lake and his half brother Cornplanter participated in an Iroquois council meeting with the British at Fort Oswego; both were recognized as Seneca chiefs. Handsome Lake and Cornplanter both initially argued that the Seneca should remain neutral and advocated keeping peace with the American revolutionaries. Nevertheless, after discussion they agreed to fight with the British against the newly created 13 states. Cornplanter (c. 1750s–1836) was a political and military leader of the Seneca who led attacks on Euro-American settlements in western New York and Pennsylvania during the American Revolutionary War. In 1780, he and his followers, including Handsome Lake, moved to Burnt House, also known as Cornplanter’s Town. Handsome Lake spent 10 years there, including the time of his initial preaching; he then moved to Cold Springs, where he lived for two years; then spent four years at Tonawanda before finally moving to Onondaga. In 1784, Cornplanter ceded some native lands and then advocated nonresistance, which led to his losing his leadership position to Red Jacket (c. 1756–1830), a noted orator who advocated friendship with Euro-Americans but opposed the cession of native lands as well as efforts to train Native Americans to adopt a Euro-American lifestyle. Red Jacket was Handsome Lake’s nephew but he is portrayed as an evil enemy in the Code as he denounced Handsome Lake as an imposter. In 1794, Handsome Lake was a signatory to the Six Nations treaty with the United States known as the Pickering Treaty. In 1802, Handsome Lake visited Washington, D.C., as part of an Iroquois delegation along with Cornplanter and other Seneca representatives. Creating the Code of Handsome Lake Handsome Lake was regarded as a drunken man at this time; from 1795 to 1799, he lived in Cornplanter’s house as an invalid who was ravaged by drink and said to suffer from a wasting disease as a consequence of his alcoholism. On June 15, 1799, Cornplanter was urgently summoned to his house and informed that Handsome Lake was dying. Handsome Lake was lying unconscious.
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His family took him for dead and prepared him for burial, but then he awakened. Upon what appeared to be his resurrection, Handsome Lake began to recount supernatural visions he had experienced. He first described three and later recalled another vision of four messengers who said the Creator sent them to inform Handsome Lake he had been selected for a divine mission. His recounting of the instructions given to him in his numerous visions became known as the Code of Handsome Lake. For the rest of his life, Handsome Lake worked to reform Iroquoian society. He promoted a program of changes that would transform Iroquoian society to adapt to the pressures of Euro-American and Canadian assimilation. The instructions that Handsome Lake received in visions from the Creator were formulated as Gai’wiio, which literally means the Good Message or Good Word. In these teachings he identified one’ga (literally whiskey or rum) as among the worst of evils, use of which Indian transgressors would be punished for in hell; interestingly, he taught that the Creator made one’ga for white men as medicine and its use was not forbidden for them. Other sins enumerated in the code include abortion, card playing, fiddle playing, love medicine, promiscuity, quarrelsomeness, stinginess, wife beating, and witchcraft. He advised his followers to still follow many of their traditional practices but also to adopt some of the ways of the white man like agriculture, animal husbandry, frugality, and house building. This presented a middle way that the Iroquois could follow and still survive as a people. Handsome Lake died on August 10, 1815, at the Onondaga Reservation, just south of Syracuse, New York. He was buried under the council house there, which has long since disappeared, but a granite monument was erected to mark his final resting place. Gai’wiio, also known as the Old Way of Handsome Lake, still has adherents and is practiced today in longhouses in the United States and Canada. The revitalization movement created by Handsome Lake was a somewhat successful renovation of substantial portions of the Iroquois cultural system. At a time when alcoholic beverages and other attributes of Euro-American culture were assaulting Native American societies, Handsome
Lake, having had his own personal struggles with alcoholism, was able to formulate a moral and religious pathway that he and his followers could follow to adjust to these changes. Victor B. Stolberg Essex County College See Also: Native Americans; Temperance, History of; Temperance Movements; Temperance Movements, Religion in; Tenskwatawa. Further Readings Cave, Alfred A. Prophets of the Great Spirit: Native American Revitalization Movements in Eastern North America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. Parker, Arthur C. “Code of Handsome Lake, the Seneca Prophet.” In New York State Museum Bulletin, v.163. Albany: University of the State of New York, 1913. Wallace, Anthony F. C. The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca. New York: Random House, 2010.
Happy Hour Happy hour is a period of time during which drinks are offered at a discounted price—and often lasts more than one hour. Similar to ladies night or two-for-one specials, it is a marketing technique used not only by bars but also by other venues that serve drinks in the course of providing another good or service, such as restaurants, clubs, sports venues, pool halls, bowling alleys, and video arcades aimed at adult customers (such as Dave and Buster’s). Happy hour is a post-Prohibition tradition, and the name dates to the early 1960s. The practice itself may not be much older than that because it benefits from the suburbanization of America and the long commute home after work. (Americans adopted the common practice of drinks before dinner, rather than earlier in the day or after a meal, during Prohibition, when friends would meet for a cocktail hour at an illegal speakeasy before having dinner at a legitimate restaurant.) Happy hour is rarely just one hour and usually encompasses the
Happy hour discounts on beer and cocktails advertised outside a restaurant in Paris, France, in 2009. Happy hours became popular in the early 1960s in the United States but are banned in 26 states. They are often regulated in other countries.
hours immediately after work, encouraging people to stop for a drink before going home. Some bars, depending on their clientele, even offer a late-night happy hour for workers working the afternoon or evening shift. Usually, happy hour applies only on weekdays as a way for bars to increase revenue on their slower days. The happy hour practice is subject to regulation in many parts of the world. Many other countries prohibit selling discounted alcohol, for instance, but permit two-for-one specials or free appetizers with the purchase of a drink. Free or discounted appetizers are sometimes included in the United States, too, particularly at sports bars. Happy hours are banned at American military bases and in 26 states. Massachusetts was the first state to ban them. Other states, like Pennsylvania, regulate how long a happy hour promotion can be (four hours, in Pennsylvania’s case).
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Before happy hour, free food was the most common form of promotion for bars, and the free lunch special was common in American saloons throughout the Temperance period, from after the Civil War until the advent of Prohibition. It is exactly this special that inspired the phrase there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch because the “free” food in question was available only to paying customers who had bought drinks. Like happy hour, the free lunch serves a purpose beyond just attracting customers to the bar. While happy hour specifically shores up revenue during the bar’s slow periods, providing free food to drinkers slows the speed at which they become intoxicated and allows them to drink more—to pay for more drinks—to achieve the same state of intoxication. Some of the free lunches offered in the early 20th century were complete meals far more valuable than a single drink—their practicality depended on the average eater ordering multiple drinks. This doesn’t appear to have been a problem. An 1875 New York Times article reported on free lunch saloons in New Orleans, where numerous men had for months eaten nothing but the food provided to them for free with their drinks. (The Grey Lady was as impressed that all drinks at one such bar cost the same price.) This was a practice that was frowned upon if the men were hale and able, and the lunch loafer was a derided social type in the Temperance era. Though historians have found that the free lunch custom was a significant contributor to social welfare in the period, when there were no food stamps, unemployment benefits, or government assistance for the bereft—all programs that began after the Great Depression—the Temperance activists were especially enraged by them, believing that they encouraged drinks to be taken that would not otherwise have been taken. They were not persuaded by the idea that some of these men partaking of a free lunch were just attracted to a good bargain nor that the most desperate alcoholics would, if forced to choose between buying a meal and buying a drink, have chosen the drink. Instead, they saw the free lunch as an institution that seduced men into drinking and, in so doing made them lazy, less productive workers in addition to the other evils of drinking. There were, though, some saloons that did not actually require a drink purchase in order to provide the
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free lunch. They rarely actually advertised this, of course. Today, the most popular promotion other than happy hour is ladies night, which offers a discount (or free drinks, or the first drink free, or two-for-one deals) to female customers. Naturally, these practices have been challenged on the grounds of gender discrimination, but only California, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have found the practices discriminatory. Multiple challenges to ladies night under the Equal Protection Clause and the Civil Rights Act of 1871 have failed in federal court. The reasoning offered by the court upholding ladies night practices in Illinois was that the discount was designed not to discourage male patronage but to encourage female patronage. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Advertising and Marketing, History of; Bar Hopping; Bars, History of Alcohol Abuse in; Beer and Foods; Last Call; United States. Further Readings Bennett, Linda A. and Genevieve M. Ames, eds. The American Experience With Alcohol: Contrasting Cultural Perspectives. New York: Plenum Press, 2005. Burns, Eric. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004. “The Free Lunch in the South.” New York Times (February 20, 1875). Gately, Iain. Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol. New York: Gotham, 2008. Grimes, William. Straight Up or on the Rocks: A Cultural History of American Drink. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993. McElhone, Harry. Barflies and Cocktails. New York: Mud Puddle Books, 2008.
Hard Cider There is confusion over the use of the terms cider and hard cider. Some writers use cider as
shorthand for hard cider, but one must draw a distinction. Hard cider is an alcoholic beverage made from apple juice. For millennia, hard cider was all humankind knew because, over time and at room temperature, all apple juice ferments. In essence, there was then no distinction between hard cider and cider. This reason must have caused people to conflate the two. The 20th century, with the era of refrigeration, changed all this. Refrigerated apple juice did not ferment. This marked the beginning of the era of cider and the consumption of a nonalcoholic beverage made from apple juice. Cider and hard cider are no longer synonyms. Europe The preparation of hard cider is straightforward. One need only crush apples to obtain juice. Allowed to sit, this juice grows cloudy and, over a few weeks, ferments. For millennia in Europe, the primary use of apples was to make hard cider rather than to serve as fresh fruit. Hard cider has about half the alcohol of wine and was a safe drink in an era when drinking water was suspect. Before the advent of the chlorination of water, the liquid could harbor cholera bacillus or other harmful microbes. Indeed, cholera was frequently fatal. The alcohol in hard cider, on the other hand, killed microbes and so was safe to drink. For this reason, people drank hard cider as the beverage of choice in northern latitudes rather than water. One could always mix hard cider with water to be sure of having sufficient quantities to drink. No one is certain where or when hard cider originated. When Roman patrician and military leader Julius Caesar invaded Britain in the 1st century b.c.e., he found the Celts making hard cider from crab apples. By tradition then, the Celts are credited as the first people to make hard cider. The Celts established hard cider as the beverage of choice in southwestern England, northwestern France, and northern Spain. Because the apple is a temperate fruit, hard cider was unknown in the tropics and subtropics, where sugar was the basis for rum. The northernmost regions of the globe, where the climate is too cold for grapes and thus wine, grow apple trees. The ease of making hard cider encouraged its spread. Although hard cider could be consumed as is, it was sometimes transformed into brandy or frozen into applejack, both of which had considerably more alcohol than
hard cider. The hangovers from applejack were, however, severe. Aside from the Celts, the Romans discovered other people in northern Europe who made hard cider. Some Romans, probably a minority, preferred hard cider to wine. The Romans experimented with making hard cider from pears, but this was not really hard cider. Caesar and the emperors who followed him were often partial to hard cider, according to one writer, though wine appears to be more prevalent in Roman literature. The status of the apple grew. Over time, the Romans cultivated more than 20 varieties of apple for use fresh or as hard cider. Biblical scholar St. Jerome coined the word sicera to describe the beverage, which we translate into cider. As Rome fragmented in the fifth century c.e., Christian monasteries and the Muslims (Moors) in Spain perpetuated the tradition of making hard cider. The Moors derived new varieties of apples for fresh use and hard cider. Hard cider was not new to Spain as the indigenous people had made hard cider for centuries. The Moors merely elevated apple culture. Indeed, it is possible that Spain may have been the earliest region in Europe whose people consumed hard cider. Frankish emperor Charlemagne believed hard cider to be a valuable commodity. He ordered peasants to plant apple trees and labored to enlarge the trade in hard cider. Despite these efforts, the peasants of northern France preferred beer to hard cider until the 11th century, when the Normans made hard cider popular in France and England. By the 16th and 17th centuries, all of France consumed hard cider, a curious circumstance given France’s reputation for producing wine. French agricultural societies promoted the production and consumption of hard cider. In this context, these societies sponsored contests to determine who could best make hard cider. Every French farmer had his own apple orchard and made hard cider and brandy. The Calvados region of northern France gained renown for the quality of its hard cider and brandy. In the 19th century, the spread of an aphid devastated grape growers and wine makers, further shifting the tide toward hard cider. By the 1860s, France alone had 4 million apple trees. Today, France is the world’s largest producer of hard cider.
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From the Middle Ages, the English vacillated between hard cider and beer. We have seen that the Normans increased interest in hard cider. In the 15th and 16th centuries, however, the arrival of hops to England boosted the brewing of beer so that hard cider lost favor for a time. Curiously, English Protestants (Anglicans) preferred hard cider to beer. As in France, English farmers favored the apple and hard cider as ways to diversify and increase income. In this era, employers allotted hard cider as part of laborers’ pay, a practice that ended only in 1878, when Parliament outlawed it. The shortage of wood in England further tilted the balance toward hard cider because, unlike beer, hard cider does not require heat to make. England also emphasized domestic production of hard cider, so it would not be dependent on French wine or German beer. In the 18th century, one novelist estimated that the port of Exeter exported 1 to 2 million gallons of hard cider per year. Quasireligious rites urged farmers to sprinkle apple trees with hard cider and leave a few apples on each tree for pixies to eat in the belief that the tree gods kept away evil spirits. During the Industrial Revolution, farmers moved to the city. The quality and quantity of hard cider declined, though demand remained robust. With the Industrial Revolution, the making of hard cider became a large-scale enterprise. The practice arose of adding water to hard cider, diluting flavor and alcohol. Some makers stored hard cider in lead tubs, poisoning consumers. Given these circumstances, beer made a comeback. America English settlers brought apples and hard cider with them, and by the American Revolution, 10 percent of New England’s farmers had cider mills on their properties. In early America, hard cider was the national beverage. Some Americans consumed hard cider with every meal. Second president John Adams believed that hard cider promoted longevity and consumed it every morning. For a time, hard cider was akin to currency and could be traded for clothes or other items. Hard cider was even used to pay tuition. The 17th and 18th centuries marked the apogee of hard cider in America. Because of its antimicrobial properties, hard cider was to America what wine had been to ancient Rome. New Jersey
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enjoyed the highest reputation for the quality of its hard cider. In 1810, Essex County, New Jersey, yielded nearly 200,000 barrels of hard cider. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, among other U.S. presidents, grew their own apples and made their own hard cider. Jefferson was particularly eager to serve the best hard cider at Monticello. As in England, the Industrial Revolution caused a decline in the quantity and quality of hard cider. Immigrants brought beer to the United States, which replaced hard cider as the national beverage. In the 19th century, poet Ralph Waldo Emerson appreciated a glass of good hard cider. John Chapman (Johnnie Appleseed) may have planted apple trees to further the production of hard cider. In the 19th century, the temperance movement attacked hard cider and other alcoholic drinks. At the prodding of temperance advocates, some farmers cut down their apple trees. Whereas in 1899, the United States had produced 210 million liters of hard cider, by the beginning of prohibition in 1919, production shrank to 50 million liters. Prohibition gave rise to nonalcoholic cider, giving the term its current meaning. The end of prohibition did not restore hard cider to prominence. Today, however, the demand for hard cider is rising worldwide, including in the United States. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: Applejack; Brewing, History of; Cider; Malt Liquor; Wines, Fruit. Further Readings Janik, Erika. Apple: A Global History. London: Reaktion Books, 2011. Proulx, Annie and Lew Nichols. Cider: Making, Using and Enjoying Sweet and Hard Cider. North Adams, MA: Storey Books, 1997.
Harm Reduction Network The HAMS Harm Reduction Network, Inc. is a free-of-charge, lay-led informational and support
group for people who wish to make any positive change in their drinking habits ranging from safer drinking to reduced drinking to quitting alcohol altogether. HAMS is a 501(c) 3 not-for-profit corporation founded by Kenneth Anderson in the state of New York in 2007. The acronym HAMS stands for harm reduction, abstinence, and moderation support. Anderson first began developing the HAMS approach to alcohol problems from around 2003 to 2006, when he was working both as an online director for Moderation Management (MM) and volunteering at the needle exchange Access Works in Minneapolis. Anderson found that, although many people did well with the moderate drinking limits set by MM, there was also a large segment of people who wished to make a positive change in their drinking habits but found the MM limits to be far too restrictive to either be attainable or desirable. Anderson himself fell into this category as he had reduced his drinking from becoming intoxicated an average of four nights per week to one night per week. However, the MM limits of no more than four standard drinks per day for a man preclude ever becoming intoxicated. Anderson found his work in needle exchange to contrast sharply with what he found in MM. In needle exchange programs, every positive change is encouraged no matter how small. In needle exchange, people are always encouraged to use clean needles no matter how addicted they may be. Anderson began to adopt these principles inside of MM to encourage people to make any positive change in their drinking habits no matter how small. Even one day of abstinence from alcohol was recognized as a victory, as was a reduction of even one drink per day or a decision to be safer by not drinking and driving even if no change in the amount of alcohol consumed was made. In January 2007, the alcohol harm reduction program that Anderson had developed inside of MM officially split off from MM, and HAMS was born. Unlike MM, which is aimed at early-stage problem drinkers and is not for alcoholics, HAMS is aimed at all drinkers regardless of the severity of their problems. HAMS believes that, the more severe the alcohol related-problems are, the more effort is needed to reduce the harm. For those not succeeding with abstinence, harm reduction is the
Harm Reduction Network
only realistic option until such time as the person can overcome his or her dependence on alcohol. However, a person does not need to have a severe problem with alcohol in order to participate in HAMS. HAMS states, “It does not matter how much you drink or how little you drink; if you want to make a positive change in your drinking habits, you are welcome here.” The essence of the HAMS program is contained the 17 elements of HAMS. These are called elements and not steps because they may be done in any order, and none of them is mandatory: They are all optional. The 17 elements of HAMS are as follows: 1. Do a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of your drinking. 2. Choose a drinking goal—safer drinking, reduced drinking, or quitting. 3. Learn about risk ranking, and rank your risks. 4. Learn about the HAMS tools and strategies for changing your drinking. 5. Make a plan to achieve your drinking goal. 6. Use alcohol-free time to reset your drinking habits. 7. Learn to cope without booze. 8. Address outside issues that affect drinking. 9. Learn to have fun without booze. 10. Learn to believe in yourself. 11. Use a chart to plan and track your drinks and drinking behaviors day by day. 12. Evaluate your progress, honestly report struggles, and revise plans or goals as needed. 13. Practice damage control as needed. 14. Get back on the horse. 15. Graduate from HAMS, stick around, or come back. 16. Praise yourself for every success! 17. Move at your own pace—you don’t have to do it all at once. Strategies and Approach HAMS behavioral change strategies are a mixture of clinically tested, evidence-based interventions developed by addictions researchers and practical
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tips taken from program members themselves. Examples of the former include relapse prevention strategies developed by A. Marlatt and J. Gordon, which are incorporated into HAMS Element 13, drinking diaries such as those developed by M. and L. Sobell, which can be found in HAMS Element 11, and the decisional balance sheet discussed by P. Denning and J. Little, which is found in HAMS Element 1. Examples of the latter can be found in tools taken from the HAMS toolbox (Element 4), such as leaving debit and credit cards at home and bringing only a set amount of cash to a bar with the intent of limiting one’s consumption by opting to leave when one’s cash is gone. Other such examples can include turning one’s cell phone off before starting to drink or brushing one’s teeth after one is done drinking wine for the night because it makes additional wine consumed afterward taste bad. The HAMS handbook is How to Change Your Drinking: A Harm Reduction Guide to Alcohol by Anderson. This book outlines the HAMS program for changing one’s drinking habits in depth, although the essentials of the HAMS program as well as the worksheets are available free of charge on the HAMS Web site hamsnetwork.org. HAMS has both live and online support groups; however, because the organization is still quite new, the vast majority of members from around the world are participating in the online groups, which consist of an e-mail support group and a real-time chat room. HAMS recognizes that not all people are comfortable with groups and that not all people require participation in a group to overcome a problem with alcohol. Studies such as the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) show that the majority of people with an addiction to alcohol eventually overcome it on their own without treatment and without a support group, although it is estimated by G. M. Heyman that the average duration of an alcohol addiction is about 16 years. The process of overcoming an addiction on one’s own is often referred to as spontaneous remission or maturing out. It is the purpose of the HAMS program to help speed and aid the process of spontaneous remission and to reduce the damages caused by the addiction on the road to recovery. HAMS does this by providing information and clinically proven exercises to
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help people overcome their addictions as well as support groups for those who benefit from such groups. For those who do not, working on one’s own can be perfectly successful. HAMS also recognizes that alcohol problems are frequently accompanied by co-occurring mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, social phobia, posttraumatic stress disorder, and so on and that these co-occurring disorders may be either clinical or subclinical. Therefore, HAMS encourages people with such issues to address them either with the help of a professional or through self-help if suitable. HAMS also encourages members to work on any issues that may be impacting their alcohol use, including financial stability, social intercourse, employment, and so on. Finally, HAMS recognizes that harms are hierarchical and that some harms are far worse than others. HAMS encourages members to prioritize and to work on eliminating the most harmful aspects of their behaviors first. HAMS is purely secular and science based. All are welcome—believers and atheists alike. HAMS is not about imposing values on others. HAMS is about empowering people to make the changes they choose for themselves through knowledge and support. Kenneth Anderson Harm Reduction Network See Also: Alcoholic Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Secular Organization for Sobriety; SMART Recovery. Further Readings Denning, P. and J. Little. Practicing Harm Reduction Psychotherapy, Second Edition: An Alternative Approach to Addictions. New York: Guilford, 2011. Heyman, G. M. “Quitting Drugs: Quantitative and Qualitative Features.” Annual Review of Clinical Psychology (2013). Marlatt, A. and J. Gordon. Relapse Prevention: Maintenance Strategies in the Treatment of Addictive Behaviors. New York: Guilford, 1985. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. “Alcoholism Isn’t What It Used to Be.” NIAAA Spectrum, v.1/1 (2009). Sobell, M. and L. Sobell. Problem Drinkers: Guided Self-Change Treatment. New York: Guilford, 1996.
Harveys Best Harveys Sussex Best Bitter is a cask-conditioned beer produced by Harvey & Son (Lewes) Ltd. First brewed in June 1955, it has become this United Kingdom (UK) brewery’s best-selling product and most familiar and recognizable brand. It has a partisan following, reinforced through a company policy of local distribution and sustainability: 80 percent of Harveys’ beer is consumed within 30 miles of their Bridge Wharf Brewery, Lewes. Yet, even though Harveys do not currently distribute or stock their products outside of the UK and have turned down trading opportunities if too distant from Lewes, Harveys Best is a beer with an international reputation, having garnered a number of important awards. There is a (pasteurized) bottled counterpart, Blue Label. Harveys is an independent family brewery, the oldest in the English county of Sussex. John Harvey established the company in 1790, and members of the eighth generational descendants of the Harvey family are still involved in the running of the brewery. Mr. Miles Jenner, Joint Managing Director of Harveys, has been head brewer since 1986 and was voted Brewer of the Year, 2009, by the British Guild of Beer Writers. It was his father, Anthony A. Jenner, who joined Harveys as a newly qualified second brewer in 1938 and was subsequently responsible for the development of Harveys Best. At the time of Mr. A. A. Jenner’s appointment to head brewer in 1946, 75 percent of the brewery’s production was mild ale, and 25 percent was bitter beer, known as IPA. A traditional English session bitter, 4.0 percent alcohol by volume (ABV), slightly sweetish but with distinctive hop character, the success of Harveys Best needs to be situated in the context of the postwar period. The end of rationing in the UK saw a resurgence of desire for sweeter flavors, while a local preference for well-hopped beer was already well established. Tastes had changed from darker to relatively lighter colored beers, and there was an ongoing decline in the demand for mild. Beers had become much weaker during the war— bitters down to 3.2 percent ABV, milds reduced to 2.5 percent ABV—and the strength of the Best Bitter reverted to that typical of the prewar years. In 1955, the year of its introduction, Harveys Best accounted for 7.0 percent of the brewery’s
Harveys Brewery in Lewes, East Sussex, England, was remodeled around 1881 in redbrick Gothic revival style and is colloquially known as Lewes Cathedral. As much as 80 percent of Harveys beer is consumed in a 30-mile radius of the brewery in Lewes.
output, but by 1965, this had increased to 45 percent, almost rivalling the popularity of their mild. It was during this period that the recipe was gradually developed and standardized. In 1970, the word Sussex was added to the brand name, and just 5 years later, Sussex Best Bitter totaled 74 percent of the brewery’s production. By 1985, it was 85 percent. It currently comprises more than 90 percent of the total brewery capacity of 47,000 brewer’s barrels per annum and sustains this popularity in a gradually expanding company portfolio encompassing a variety of beer styles from porter through golden ales to light mild. Now fermented with a yeast strain first developed in November 1957, Harveys Sussex Best Bitter is brewed with Maris Otter and Pipkin pale malts, crystal malt, flaked maize, and brewing sugars. Its distinctive hop presence is produced by four
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varieties from Kent and Sussex: Fuggle, Golding, Brambling Cross, and Progress. The result is a fullbodied rusty-amber and chestnut-brown beer of 33 units color, 38 units of bitterness, well-balanced between cereal malt and fruity, floral, and grassy hop notes and with a dry and bitter aftertaste. Harveys Best Bitter has won awards in prestigious competitions. At the Brewers’ Exhibition (also known as Brewex), it was awarded Second Prize Bronze Medal, 1968, and First Prize Gold Medal, 1980, this latter accolade coinciding with the 25th anniversary of its first brew. At the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) Great British Beer Festival, 2005, it won First Prize Gold in the Best Bitters category, being named Champion Best Bitter of Britain. It repeated this achievement in 2006 while also securing second place in the overall competition, thus receiving the additional award of Second Prize Silver Supreme Champion Beer of Britain’, 2006. In a 2008 public ballot conducted by the Cask Marque organization and The Daily Telegraph newspaper, Harveys Best was voted the favorite beer in south and southeast England and also runner-up in the London area. Its bottled counterpart, Blue Label, received Second Prize Bronze Medal at the Brewers’ Exhibition, 1972, and First Prize Gold Medal, 1976. In the 1996 International Beer and Cider Competition, it won a Bronze Medal. It was awarded First Prize Gold Medal by the British Bottlers’ Institute (BBI), 1998 and 2004. A Diploma was achieved at the BBI competition in 2012, while a Bronze Medal was received the same year at the International Beer Challenge. The importance of locality to Harveys Best can best be illustrated by what became known as the Lewes Arms Controversy. On acquiring the Lewes Arms pub, Lewes, in 1998, the Suffolk-based Greene King brewery had let Harveys Best remain on sale there due to its popularity but eventually withdrew it in December 2006. The decision to cease stocking the locally brewed beer led to protests, a petition, and a 133-day boycott of the pub by the locals, resulting in national press coverage, a 90 percent trade loss at the Lewes Arms, and a corporate restructuring of Greene King. After restoring Harveys Best to the pub in April 2007, a spokesperson for Greene King acknowledged that, in making their original decision, they had underestimated the depth of local feeling.
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Lewes, the county town of East Sussex, is characterized by a culture of independence and nonconformity. It witnessed the burning of 17 Protestant martyrs from 1555 to 1557 and was later home to 18th-century radical political thinker Thomas Paine, author of The Rights of Man. The Lewes Arms is a traditional, little-altered, community-centred pub situated just half a mile from Harveys Brewery. It was once the Brewery Tap for Beards Brewery, which had benefitted a strong and long-established friendship with Harveys. Harveys is a major local employer, and the brewery building itself is of iconic significance. Remodeled ca. 1881 in redbrick Gothic revival style by architect William Bradford, it was given Grade II* listing by English Heritage in 1985. A classic tower brewery, it is locally and colloquially known as Lewes Cathedral. Harveys Best is distributed mainly through the Harveys tied-house estate and within a limited radius of the brewery. While its distinctive flavor can divide opinion, it retains a devoted local following and has the power to bring forth strong expressions of loyalty. David Muggleton University of Chichester See Also: Beer; Brewing, History of; Local Breweries; United Kingdom. Further Readings Harveys: The Sussex Brewers Web site. http://www .harveys.org.uk (Accessed February 2014). Lewes Arms Blog. http://lewesarms.blogspot.co.uk (Accessed February 2014). Protz, Roger. 300 Beers to Try Before You Die, 2nd ed. St. Albans, UK: CAMRA Books, 2010. Tierney-Jones, Adrian. 1001 Beers: You Must Try Before You Die. London: Octopus, 2010.
Hazelden Foundation Since its inception in 1949, the Hazelden Foundation, headquartered in Center City, Minnesota, has emerged as a pioneering nonprofit drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility that provides a wide range of residential addiction treatment programs
as well as recovery programs, most prominently long-term outpatient programs keyed to transforming both the lifestyle and the spiritual health of the patient. At the time of its founding, in post–World War II America, alcohol rehabilitation, inspired by the rigid, one-size-fits-all recovery model first promoted by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in the mid-1930s, was largely conducted through smallgroup counseling, spiritual-strengthening sessions, and one-on-one support teams. But, in the 1940s, the public recognition of the dimensions of the alcohol and drug addiction dilemma first came into prominence. Indeed, a critical element of American postwar culture was dealing with the sudden spike in cases of alcohol and drug dependency among returning soldiers and even among their families adjusting to the difficulties in the return to peace-time life. Adjusting to civilian life proved enormously difficult for many G.I.s and their families. In addition, the American economic boom, with its high-pressured expectations for quick success, created additional pressures that only exacerbated addictive illnesses. Moreover, there was at the time widespread alcohol use among both the disenfranchised poor and the elite wealthy. The burgeoning underground counterculture movement sanctioned drug use as part of spiritual explorations. Given the increasing attention, often sensationalized and dramatic, those social problems received in the news media as well as in movies and on television, America was suddenly faced with an enormous and in many ways unprece dented health care dilemma. Very limited attention was given to the concept of applying to addiction the traditional doctor–patient dynamic in which addiction was seen as a medical condition, a disease that required treatment. Addiction was viewed largely as a physical dependency that required emotional support, inner strength and discipline, and spiritual motivation to contain and control. With the revolutionary protocols of the Hazelden Foundation, however, addiction was revisited as a medical condition. Using as its foundational concept the medical diagnosis that alcoholism (and addiction generally) was in fact a disease, not a moral failing or a spiritual weakness or a self-destructive mental disorder, the Hazelden Foundation largely invented
the modern drug and alcohol rehabilitation template. Even today, the mission statement of the Hazelden Foundation speaks of how its programs are designed to maintain lifelong recovery through a protocol based on the abstinence principles first enunciated by Alcoholics Anonymous programs in the 1930s as well as through continuing medical, psychological, and spiritual counseling. Publishing Although its work as a clinic facility in Minnesota quickly earned kudos as a pioneering medical treatment facility for addiction with a more than 80 percent success rate, the facility first came into national prominence in 1954 when the foundation published its first self-help title, Twenty-Four Hours a Day, a kind of breviary for recovering alcoholics that offered uplifting secular parables, brief meditations, and inspirational quotes to inspire addicts to maintain a sober life each day. The book was an immediate best seller (it is still in print), offering messages of hope and inspiration that resonated with recovering addicts as well as with anyone troubled by difficulties and seeking an emotional boost. The Hazelden Foundation imprint has continued to pioneer a variety of hugely successful nonfiction titles, including self-help books that offer advice as well as practical examples of putting that advice into effect; elegantly illustrated contemplative tracts that offer uncomplicated nondenominational prayers as occasions for meditation, brief (most under 150 words) messages designed to motivate addicts as well as anyone needing such opportunities to introduce a spiritual dimension into their daily lives; as well as an award-winning line of more traditional informational manuals that provide step-by-step treatments for alcohol and drug rehabilitation, emphasizing the protocols of the foundation itself. Too easily dismissed as lightweight, new-age, easy prescriptions masquerading as self-help, the titles have, in fact, maintained a wide and loyal audience. They are written by licensed professionals, draw on current, reliable research data, and in prose that is at once accessible and informed, have discussed frankly and in depth, among other hot-button topics, relationship dysfunction, sibling tensions, loss of faith, grief management, marriage and violence, teenagers and depression,
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as well as alcohol and drug dependency. Indeed, among the authors who have published through the Hazelden Foundation are Dan Olweus, the Norwegian psychologist whose pioneering work in the psychology of bullying first introduced the no-bullying protocols to schools; Dr. Drew Pinsky, a media icon whose special focus is on addressing self-destructive lifestyle choices among the affluent and the famous; and perhaps most notably Melody Beattie, who in the mid-1980s, first coined the term codependency and in turn pioneered research into the role families and friends play in addiction recovery. Origins But, the publishing empire is an offshoot of the foundation itself. Hazelden began in 1949 as the visionary project of Austin Ripley, a successful murder mystery writer from Minnesota who had himself long struggled with alcohol addiction. Ripley’s original conception was to establish a facility geared specifically to help in the treatment of Roman Catholic priests addicted to alcohol, a problem Ripley, a devout Catholic, accurately perceived as one generally ignored by the institutional hierarchy of the Church uneasy—and unwilling— to deal with the public relations nightmare of recognizing and in turn treating widespread alcohol abuse among both priests and nuns and preferring to treat their addictions as sins and lapses of grace rather than a diseases. However, when the foundation first began to seek public funding the following year, its governing board of directors promoted the facility as one geared to help all professionals. Opened on a family farmhouse (owned at one time by the Hazelden family) a few miles outside Center City, Minnesota, in December, 1948, and staffed by medical personnel as well as counselors and rehabilitation therapists— in short, staffed as a residential clinic rather than a counseling center—Hazelden began admitting patients in April 1949. Within a year and with very little publicity, the clinic had received more than a 150 patients, all men (women would not be included in the program until 1956). Medical records from the time point to a dramatic success record; nearly 80 percent of their patients experienced recovery and progress. The central credo of the facility then— as now—was abstinence with the medical staff
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serving as support group to manage the worst of the physical responses from sleep deprivation to delirium tremens. The hallmark of Hazelden’s treatment program was its abiding principle to respect the patient, to recognize that each patient brought to the treatment facility an individual personal history—taking into account, for example, economic status, family history, religious affiliation, level of education, gender, and general physical health. Patients were perceived as at once unique and yet part of the larger pattern of alcohol addiction treatment and recovery. Treating the addict as a patient and according the addict the respect and integrity more often reserved for traditional hospital patients became the signature of the Hazelden program. As early as the mid-1950s, the Hazelden Foundation pioneered the holistic treatment for its patients, recognizing that addiction was not only a debilitating physical condition but that it also impacted the emotional well-being of its victims. Indeed, the breadth of the Hazelden Foundation mission was itself revolutionary—it sought not merely to restore the health of the patient but also to return the recovering addict to nothing less than a sense of hope. The protocol of the foundation itself has never been radical—it is grounded in the basic principles of the Twelve Step Recovery of AA with its emphasis on the addict admitting to being powerless and in the directing control of a higher power as well as the commitment to make significant amends for past injuries and to maintain the clean and sober lifestyle one day at a time. It was, however, among the cornerstone programs first pioneered at Hazelden that, in the mid-1950s, the facility introduced treatment programs and recovery protocols specifically designed for women, recognizing the nature and impact of drug and alcohol addiction varied between the genders and that sufficient research data simply did not exist to treat women, specifically nonbreadwinners, traditional suburban housewives, and mothers who often had to struggle with their addiction issues alone, living in terror of the stigma of family and neighbor condemnation. New Approaches In the mid-1960s, the Hazelden Foundation pioneered a significant new direction in alcohol
addiction treatment that expanded the limited AA model of treatment and counseling to a far broader concept that included the fullest range of the patient’s psychological and spiritual needs, including nontraditional concerns, such as diet plans and religious counseling, and cutting-edge programs geared to help recovering addicts return successfully to the real world of relationships and work. It was part of the foundation’s efforts to make recovery itself a long-term lifestyle choice. The foundation became an outspoken advocate of not only treating the physical aspects of addiction recovery but also recognizing the real implications of co-occurring mental conditions, including grief and loss therapy, eating disorders, manic depression, paranoia, and posttraumatic stress disorders. Such a holistic approach recognized that any long-term freedom from addiction required the rehabilitation of the entire person. In addition, the foundation pioneered programs that included the families of addicts and their roles (and responsibilities) in any long-term recovery process, part of the foundation’s emerging advocacy of alcohol treatment as a lifelong program (in 1968, the foundation opened the first-of-its-kind treatment program designed specifically to address the special challenge of extended care and chronic relapsers). In the late 1970s, the foundation began to offer limited outpatient treatment through hospitals in and around the St. Paul, Minnesota, area. Outpatient treatment offered substantive economic relief—in-patient facility residential recovery cost upwards of $30,000, while outpatient treatments cut that cost by two-thirds. Over the next decade, the Hazelden Foundation expanded its facilities as well as the range of its services while remaining true to its original vision of strict abstinence, motivated self-help, and family support as critical for long-term addiction recovery. Although it offered treatment across the professions, increasingly the foundation focused its research treatments on specific professions most often susceptible to the sort of psychological pressures and emotional stressors that exacerbate addiction, specifically lawyers, health care professionals, licensed pilots, and (more prominently after the September 11 terrorist attacks and the devastation of Katrina) first responders, paramedics, and emergency room workers.
Merger Today, the Hazelden Foundation remains an internationally recognized treatment facility. In 2013, in a much-heralded move, the foundation merged with the Betty Ford Clinic to become the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, maintaining its headquarters in Minnesota. Given the enormous international reputation of the Betty Ford Clinic, the move represented the first national expansion for the prestigious California-based facility. The move had long been resisted by the First Lady herself, who much preferred the stability and security of what she had long perceived as the family feel of the single Rancho Mirage facility. Her death in July 2011, however, was widely seen as opening the way for the merger despite continuing resistance from the longer serving members of the center’s board. The merger significantly increased the range and visibility of the Hazelden Foundation, increasing its annual budget to more than $180 million, and was seen by industry experts as a boom move for the Ford Center itself, which had faced growing economic problems and an uncertain future. Education and Development On a broader scale, since the 1990s, Hazelden has undertaken a public crusade designed to improve the public health facility field itself. Although its clinics (since the founding clinic in Minnesota, 14 Hazelden facilities have opened in Oregon, Florida, New York, and Illinois) have remained among the most prominent and recognized facilities in the field, addiction counseling itself is a most unreliable public service. The industry faced two problems—spas and retreats masquerading as treatment facilities and inner city facilities swamped by patients and unable to provide adequate help. In the decades since the public embrace of such facilities in connection with the treatment and recovery of First Lady Betty Ford in the late 1970s, “clinics” specializing in recovery addiction sprang up at alarming rates. These facilities, often dubbed boutique centers, were routinely staffed by underqualified, even incompetent counselors, graduate students, or interns and were run essentially as spa centers that treated only the most cosmetic problems but did little to actually treat the difficult reality of the addiction, offering weekend retreats, endless rounds of golf, deep massages,
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and sunning by a pool. A far greater problem, however, was faced by urban addiction treatment centers. Given that, at any time, estimates suggest there are 20 million addicts in America, these licensed facilities faced enormous problems with staffing and often resorted to desperate measures to keep their facilities open, including hiring staff with little or no background in counseling or addiction recovery. In the late 1980s, Hazelden emerged to pioneer a graduate school specializing in addiction studies. Today, the program is thriving, granting master’s degrees in counseling as part of its commitment to expanding a field that currently employs more than 85,000 specialists nationwide, a number expected to grow by 25 percent before 2020 alone. Research The research facility associated with Hazelden’s graduate program, the Butler Center for Research, has been responsible for pioneering studies in uncovering and charting the actual mechanics of change—biological, chemical, psychological, and spiritual—how an addict actually undergoes realtime evolution against the day-to-day pressures of maintaining freedom from addiction. The foundation as well conducts year-round online continuing education classes designed for both counselors and facility psychologists. The foundation also hosts hugely successful weekend retreats for both recovering addicts and for licensed professionals. The foundation posts inspirational messages and testimonials on its Web site every day. In addition, the foundation sponsors a nationally recognized (and highly competitive) internship program for the mostpromising graduate students in the field of addiction recovery counseling. In short, in the breadth of its services, in the sheer volume and reach of its sponsored research into addiction, in its groundbreaking belief in a multidisciplinary approach that treats addicts as patients and as individuals, and in its determination to treat the entire person to ensure long-term substance abuse recovery, the Hazelden Foundation has emerged as the bellwether for treatment therapies in the field of addiction recovery. Joseph Dewey Broward College
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See Also: Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Betty Ford Center; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse. Further Readings Beattie, Melody. Codependent No More. Center City, MN: Hazelden Publications, 2011. Day by Day: Daily Meditations for Recovering Addicts. Center City, MN: Hazelden Publications, 1998. Hazelden Foundation. http://www.hazelden.org (Accessed February 2014). Spicer, Jerry. The Minnesota Model: The Evolution of the Multidisciplinary Approach to Addiction Recovery. Center City, MN: Hazelden Publications, 1993. Van Wormer, Katherine and Diane Rae Davis. Addiction Treatment: A Strengths Perspective. Farmington Hills, MI: Cengage, 2012. White, William L. Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America. Chicago: Chestnut Health Systems, 1998.
Heavy Drinkers, History of Heavy drinking is a cultural drinking pattern that is probably as old as the discovery of alcoholic beverages themselves. The social perception of heavy drinking has changed significantly over time. Humanity’s first contact with alcohol probably happened before the Neolithic Revolution through eating wild fermented fruit. A more organized form of alcohol production and consumption took place after the Neolithic Revolution between 7000 and 5000 b.c.e. Archaeological evidence of wine was found around 5000 b.c.e. Six wine jars with traces of tartaric acid were found in the Zagros hills of Eastern Iran. While wine was first produced in the Near East, the Phoenicians spread their knowledge of wine all over the Mediterranean basin. The Greeks and the Romans finally spread viniculture all over Europe. Sources limit details of how much and how frequently people consumed alcohol in
the lower classes of ancient society. Certainly the upper classes had good access to the wine supply to allow heavy, regular use. A heavy use of alcohol in the upper classes of ancient Rome and an awareness of its destructive effects is documented by many sources that lament the destructive effects of alcohol use. Hasso Spode, a German alcohol historian, described rites of excessive heavy drinking by Germanic peoples which he called “das archaische Gelage” (archaic binge). From a historic perspective, heavy episodic drinking most likely occurred more commonly than chronic heavy drinking, until at least 200 years ago. Economic factors and availability influenced this episodic pattern: alcoholic beverages cost too much to make chronic heavy drinking an affordable option. Ancient and medieval drinking culture also discouraged chronic drinking. Drinking usually took place at holidays, festivities, and celebrations linked to the harvest; heavy drinking thus occurred regularly but not frequently. Significant change in the perception of drinking occurred in the Middle Ages. Catholic belief transported the idea that moderation or temperance was a cardinal quality of any good Christian. But since monasteries were also the main producers of beer and wine, and monks had often access to generous daily allowances of alcoholic beverages, their position was somewhat ambivalent. The rise of the spirits in the Early Modern Period marked another change in the history of alcohol consumption. In the form of whiskey, rum, gin, and vodka, spirit drinks soon became widely used, popular alcoholic beverages. The industrial production of alcoholic beverages made drinking a lot cheaper than before the industrial era. As a result consumption levels rose quickly. The changes in working conditions also had impact on alcohol consumption patterns. Regular drinking in pubs and drinking at home became more frequent. In the growing cities drinking had become visible. The greater visibility of heavy drinking and its social consequences spurred moralists and reformers to advocate regulation or control of alcohol. Temperance movements became the standardbearers in the fight against alcohol abuse. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Anglo-American temperance societies mainly preached moderation, but their counterparts in the middle of the
This well-known 1751 engraving by William Hogarth, titled Gin Lane, pointed out the social impact of excessive gin drinking in 18th-century London. The field of scientific research on drinking habits did not fully emerge until the 19th century.
19th century advocated more radical solutions. Total abstinence, the confinement of drunkards in mental asylums, and coercive legal measures limiting or prohibiting the production and sale of alcohol emerged as the favored methods for addressing heavy drinking. The 19th century marked the beginning of scientific and medical research into the reasons for excessive drinking and the effects of alcohol on body, mind and society. During the 19th century, the medical profession dominated research on the alcohol issue, but in the 20th century the social sciences manifested interest in heavy drinking. Psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologist discovered alcohol and drinking habits as topics of interest. Understanding, treating, and reducing heavy drinking motivated research in the natural as well as social sciences. The growth of research interest in heavy drinking revealed the dimensions and consequences of alcohol abuse: negative effects on neurologic, gastrointestinal, hematologic, immune, and
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musculoskeletal organ systems, and greater likelihood of developing a psychiatric disorder. The damage caused by drinking during pregnancy received more scientific and public attention, as did the risk of incurring irreversible brain damage from heavy drinking during adolescence. Researchers also studied the social, as well as the medical and psychiatric, damage caused by heavy drinking. Heavy drinking figures prominently in elevated rates of traffic accidents, criminal behavior, and domestic violence. Studies also demonstrate a correlation between excessive drinking, depression, and suicide. There is no universal definition of what exactly constitutes heavy drinking. Usually it describes the situation in which an individual or a group of people have several drinks on one occasion in order to get intoxicated. Nowadays there exist some rough definitions of what constitutes, or what is called, excessive episodic drinking or binge drinking. One common definition defines binge drinking as having more than five (for men) or four (for women) standard drinks on one occasion. One standard drink in the United Kingdom contains 8 grams or 10 milliliters of pure alcohol that is approximately a third of a pint of beer containing 5 to 6 percent of alcohol. The standard drink size varies from country to country. Another form of heavy drinking, in contrast to episodic drinking, is excessive chronic drinking. Health authorities around the world consider both forms of excessive alcohol issues of major social and public health concern. Over the last several decades, most societies have taken action to ameliorate the threats to public health related to heavy drinking and the abuse of other substances. Alcohol and drug regulation, as well as restrictions on smoking, resulted from this concern. Heavy or binge drinking by young adults represents one area of enhanced public concern and action. Research suggests that adolescents are more vulnerable to the neurotoxic effects caused by alcohol, raising concerns about long-term injury to individuals and societies. Till Zilian University of Graz See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Disease Model of Alcoholism; Genetic Disposition,
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Alcoholism as a; Homelessness and Alcoholism, History of. Further Readings Berridge, Virginia, Rachel Herring, and Betsy Thom. “A Confused Concept and Its Contemporary History.” Social History of Medicine (December 2009). Homan, Michael M. “Beer and Its Drinkers: An Ancient Near Eastern Love Story.” Near Eastern Archaeology, v.67/2 (2004). Levine, Harry G. “The Discovery of Addiction: Changing Conceptions of Habitual Drunkenness in America.” Journal of Studies on Alcohol (1978). Tracey, Sarah W. and Caroline Jean Acker, eds. Altering American Consciousness. The History of Alcohol and Drug Use in the United States 1800–2000. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004. Zilian, Till. Discourse on Alcohol in English and German Speaking Regions. Saarbrücken: AV Akademikerverlag 2012.
Heineken The Dutch brewer Heineken has produced its signature beer for about 150 years. Sales have always been strong in The Netherlands, and exports to the rest of Europe and to the United States have been robust. Significantly, Heineken was the first brewer to attempt to lessen underage consumption of alcohol. Whether this effort was in earnest or merely an attempt at political correctness is hard to gauge. One might assume that a reduction in underage drinking, though good for everyone, would hurt Heineken’s bottom line. Its recipe secure, Heineken has poured its resources into marketing, as have companies worldwide. Overview and History In 1863, Dutch businessman Gerald Adriaan Heineken bought De Hooiberg brewery and began making Heineken beer. So sure was Gerald Heineken of the superiority of Heineken beer that he offered a money-back guarantee, a novelty in the brewing industry. In contrast to the Walmart and McDonalds of today and of most
businesses in Gerald Heineken’s day, he paid workers well. As demand for Heineken beer grew, Gerald Heineken opened breweries in other European countries and, in 1880, began exporting Heineken beer to the United States, which would over time emerge as the company’s most important importer of Heineken beer. From the outset, Gerald Heineken produced a pilsner or lager beer using the bottom-fermenting process and the best barley and hops to differentiate Heineken from its competitors. He considered U.S. beers bland in contrast to his more flavorful product. He pioneered the use of A-yeast to give Heineken even better flavor. The enactment of national prohibition in 1919 arrested Heineken’s progress in the United States. Having lost a large market, the company Heineken hoped to recoup its losses by exporting more beer to Belgium, the United Kingdom, West Africa, and the Caribbean. Sales climbed steadily except during World War I, when they briefly leveled off. In 1933, with the repeal of prohibition in the United States, Heineken was to first beer to resume exports to America. Within three days of the end of prohibition, workers in Hoboken, New Jersey, were busy unloading crates of Heineken. The Boston company Maynard and Child took charge of marketing Heineken throughout much of the world. Sales executive Leo Van Munching supervised these efforts in the United States. Between 1933 and 1939, Heineken sales more than doubled in the United States despite the country’s woes during the Great Depression. At Munching’s urging, the Waldorf Astoria, the Astor Hotel, and the New York Athletic Club stocked Heineken for its clients. In this way, Munching built Heineken’s reputation as an elite beer. Although Heineken had a firm grip on the East Coast, Munching wanted a presence throughout the United States, and with this idea in mind, he opened the Heineken Pavilion at the 1939 World Exhibition in New York City. That year, Munching christened Heineken the Peer of Beers, and Americans drank more than 8,500 barrels of Heineken. World War II This success halted abruptly. The Nazis overran The Netherlands in 1940 on their way to France. Having occupied the country, Germany forbade it to export Heineken anywhere. Heineken would
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need to subsist on domestic sales. Yet Munching, free from the Nazi threat in the United States, badly wanted to keep pace with U.S. demand. To this end, he expanded the brewery in the Dutch West Indies, which would never be assaulted during the war. Success was brief. By 1942, efforts in the Dutch West Indies could not keep up with U.S. demand, and Heineken disappeared from grocers, hotels, restaurants, and cafés for the rest of the war. The war’s end in 1945 did not immediately restore Heineken’s fortunes. Aerial bombardment during the war had damaged Heineken’s breweries, and sensibly, barley went to feed Europe’s masses rather than to make Heineken. Moreover, the company had trouble attracting qualified workers. Only in 1947 was Heineken ready to resume operations. Domestic production and exports resumed, and that year, Heineken accounted for nearly all Dutch beer exports to the United States. Postwar Era In the 1950s, Heineken sales grew between 20 and 30 percent per year, an astonishing figure. The company focused sales on elite hotels, restaurants, and cafés, reinforcing Heineken’s reputation for quality. Sales in the United States rose despite the fact that a bottle of Heineken cost 20 cents more than the average cost of a bottle of domestic beer. During this decade, Heineken unveiled a new slogan: Heineken Tastes Tremendous. In 1960, Heineken exported 100,000 hectoliters of Heineken beer throughout Europe and the United States. Heineken was now large enough to suppress competition by buying its competitors, as U.S. oilman John D. Rockefeller had done in the late 19th century. In the 1970s, baby boomers reached the drinking age, helping Heineken to sell 2 million hectoliters of Heineken beer in the United States. In 1972, Heineken became the best-selling imported beer in the United States. In the 1980s, a combination of the ideal of conspicuous consumption and the search for food and beverages of refined taste led many consumers to Heineken. The desire for light beer led Heineken to sell Amstel Light, the product of a company that Heineken had purchased years earlier, rather than try to rebrand Heineken beer. The Netherlands’ domestic market preferred Heineken to light beers, allowing
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the company Heineken to preserve market share at home. Heineken remained the beer for people who favored taste rather than counted calories. By 1995, Heineken had sold 40 million cases of Heineken beer in the United States alone and was increasing its presence on television and in magazines. In 1997, Heineken was the first beer company to sell Heineken beer to distributors over the Internet. In 2005, the company Heineken, with the New York Presbyterian Healthcare System and White Plains Hospital Center in New York, created the Health Alliance on Alcohol in an effort to curtail underage drinking. Heineken thereby became the first brewer to partner with a medical organization. Heineken printed warnings against underage drinking on its bottles and created www. EnjoyHeinekenResponsibly.com. Advertisements on television and in print furthered this message. As the 21st century has progressed, Heineken has poured money into marketing rather than tinkered with its recipe. Indeed, Heineken appears to safeguard its recipe, perhaps in the name of intellectual property, making it difficult to find online or in print. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: Beer; Beer Advertising; Domestic Beer; Light Beer. Further Readings The Heineken Company. http://www.theheineken company.com (Accessed February 2014). Heineken Global. http://www.heineken.com (Accessed February 2014). “Heineken Lager Beer—Heineken Nederland B.V.” http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/81/246 (Accessed February 2014). “Welcome to Heineken.” http://www.enjoyheineken responsibly.com (Accessed February 2014).
High License The high-license movement gained popularity in the latter half of the 1880s and continued to gain steam thereafter, coinciding with a burgeoning
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number of saloons in many American communities. Advocates of high license pushed for the imposition of increased license fees on saloonkeepers, brewers, and distillers, and from the beginning of the movement until national Prohibition took effect in 1920 saloon licenses continued to rise, peaking at around $2,000 annually in some cities. The high-license strategy formed part of a larger effort, as advocates also pursued other tactics that included local option elections, mandatory closing times, and draconian dramshop laws, all aimed at destroying the saloon and its products. Since antisaloon activists argued that many of society’s ills were a result of alcohol consumption, higher license fees would require saloonkeepers, at the very least, to pay a higher share of the costs for the increased police and court activities that were created by drinking. In fact, rising license fees did mean that in many communities saloonkeepers were providing an incredibly outsized share of their cities’ operating budgets. An earlier “no license” movement, which began in the 1840s, encouraged cities to simply refuse to issue any saloon licenses. Through this method cities did not therefore need to officially ban drinking establishments. Instead, by not issuing saloon licenses, cities ensured that no saloon could operate legally. Such efforts, however, merely pushed alcohol-serving establishments underground as unregulated businesses. Under such conditions many realized that a proliferation of illegal drinking establishments was worse than licensed saloons operating in the open, regulated by law enforcement. Supporters of high license argued that more expensive licenses would push less respectable drinking establishments out of business, leaving behind a few larger establishments. Many temperance and prohibition crusaders actually opposed the high-license movement because they saw it as a compromise with “liquor traffic.” Such people believed that anything short of absolute prohibition was in fact an endorsement of the saloon and its products. A Problematic Panacea The first push for high license began in the 1870s, coinciding with both increased immigration and an exploding number of saloons. Many cities sought to reduce the rising number of saloons with increased license fees, but critics lamented
that the number of saloons continued to grow anyway. In 1888, Henry William Blair, a U.S. senator from New Hampshire, provided an example of this phenomenon in Iowa, where he claimed that in 1871 license fees were raised to $150 per year in a city that contained 12 saloons. However, when the fee was raised the following year to $250, the number of saloons in that midwestern city more than doubled to 25. By 1882, when the license fee reached $1,000, there were 60 saloons. High license could not defeat the saloon. At the start of the saloon era, the number of brewers and distillers increased along with the number of drinking establishments, producing unsustainable competition, which bankrupted many businesses. Increasingly, saloons and brewers turned to the tied-house system, in which breweries financed, if not owned outright, taverns. Tavern keepers depended on brewers for furnishings, supplies, and most important, their license. Brewers gained retail outlets that sold their products exclusively. Many brewers and distillers actually supported high license as a way to stabilize the system, offering them stable outlets for their products, while destroying less reputable competition from those saloonkeepers who could not afford such license fees. In communities with low license fees and an unlimited number of available licenses, saloons proliferated. For instance, in Braidwood, an iconic mining town that quickly grew out of the Illinois prairie after the discovery of coal in the 1860s, 80 saloons served a population of just over 5,000. One reason for the large number of drinking establishments lay in the relatively inexpensive $55 fee for an annual license. With the passage of the Harper Law in Illinois in 1883, which required a minimum annual license fee of $500, the number of saloons in Braidwood quickly dropped to 36. In Chicago, 780 saloons closed almost immediately after the law’s passage, but soon new ones took their place in the Windy City despite the higher fee. In 1906, Chicago raised its annual license fee to $1,000, which was applied to its 7,600 saloons. One opponent of the saloon pointed out in 1892 in a Christian journal that while high license had promised a “panacea for drunkenness,” it turned out to be an increased burden upon saloonkeepers and nothing else. Yes, argued the author, the number of saloons often decreased as a result of higher
license fees, but the lawlessness associated with the saloon did not. In many communities high license fees merely meant that smaller saloons were driven out of business, while larger brewery-sponsored establishments thrived as a result of decreased competition. In fact, in 1891 the Wine and Spirit Gazette, a New York-based publication, claimed that in Philadelphia the “liquor barons” favored an increase in the cost of the annual license to $2,000 in order to squeeze smaller saloons out of business and drive patrons to the tied houses. Other saloon opponents charged that higher licensing costs forced drinking establishments to engage in even more illicit practices to maintain profits. These included skirting mandatory closing time regulations, sometimes by keeping a backdoor open so that those wishing to imbibe could do so from the back alley. Reformers accused saloons of selling liquor to minors and women, and even engaging in “white slavery,” a term used to denote prostitution. According to an 1890 article in the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph, a local judge reported that of the 3,422 retailers who had applied for licenses that year, all but 25 confessed to deliberate law-breaking. For many communities, high license fees meant that saloonkeepers were providing a key source of revenue for their communities. In 1906, just over 21 percent of Chicago’s total revenue came from saloon licenses. On the one hand, many local citizens railed against what they viewed as the saloon menace, justifying the raising of license fees as a way to control and limit their town’s drinking establishments; on the other hand, they acknowledged they were dependent on saloon license fees to cover city budgets. Saloonkeepers recognized the contradiction, complaining that they were maligned as a cancer on their communities while their communities depended on them for revenue. High license fees and other legal restrictions gave saloonkeepers a vested interest in local politics, driving many of them to seek influence either by supporting favorable politicians or by running for office themselves. Saloonkeepers’ political involvement was a key concern of antisaloon activists. Conclusion In the end, the high-license movement provided mixed results for proponents. It did put a number of less affluent saloonkeepers out of business,
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but the problems associated with the saloon continued unabated in the remaining saloons as well as in unlicensed establishments. High license fees did not reduce the presence or the influence of the saloon. Steven D. Barleen Northern Illinois University See Also: Anti-Saloon League; Drinking Establishments; Liquor Boards; Liquor Licenses; Saloons, Modern. Further Readings Blair, Henry William. The Temperance Movement. Boston: William E. Smythe, 1888. Blocker, Jack S. American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform. Boston: Twayne, 1989. Citizens’ Committee. The No License Years in Cambridge. Cambridge, MA: University Press, 1898. Duis, Perry. The Saloon. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999. Schneirov, Richard. Labor and Urban Politics: Class Conflict and the Origins of Modern Liberalism in Chicago 1864–97. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1998.
High-Potency Drinks Drinking culture has always included a fascination for especially high-potency drinks. Most societies with a developed drinking culture seem to have at least one drink the purpose of which is to deliver a large amount of alcohol in as few gulps as possible. Potency is to some degree in the eye of the beholder, however. While tequila and vodka, for instance, have a reputation as especially strong drinks, their proof—their alcohol content—approximates that of most hard liquors, and a shot of tequila will not often contain more alcohol than a shot of whiskey. A shot and a beer, for that matter, has likely less alcohol than a margarita, especially by volume. Often, perceptions that a drink is particularly strong either comment on the drink’s lack of mitigating flavors (such as the sweetness and tartness in the margarita) or on
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the fact that the drink is from another culture. There are numerous images in popular culture, especially from the 1970s and 1980s, in which Americans are depicted as being unprepared for the potency of Japanese sake. However, sake is roughly as alcoholic as wine and served in smaller portions. If consumed in large mugs like beer, it would prove a challenge to the typical drinker, but even the strongest sake is more comparable to port and served accordingly. Similarly, legends of exceptionally potent tequila and vodka are commentaries more on Mexican and Russian culture than on the drinks themselves. Absinthe That said, obviously some drinks and ingredients do indeed have large quantities of alcohol. Absinthe is the example with the most historical significance. Anise flavored thanks to the wormwood, fennel, and other herbs, absinthe is often mistaken for a liqueur, but even apart from the fact that most of it is not sweetened before bottling (anise and licorice naturally taste sweet without sugaring), the proof of absinthe varies from 90 to as high as 170, making even the weakest absinthes as potent as gin, whiskey, and most rums. The most potent absinthes exceed even barrel-proof whiskeys and rums. Absinthe is deliberately bottled at a high proof because, when it is diluted with water (and the traditional sugar cube), it will louche. This is the French term for the opalescence a glass of absinthe takes on as a result of being diluted. As the liquid in the glass becomes less alcoholic, some of the substances suspended in the formerly highly alcoholic liquid precipitate out of suspension, turning the formerly clear drink cloudy. The traditional high-proof bottling of absinthe takes advantage of this accident of chemistry. If it were bottled at the proof at which it is expected to be consumed, it would be milky and opaque in the bottle, and consuming it would have less of the feeling of a ritual. The combination of this ritualized drinking, which appealed to the artistically minded, such as poet Arthur Rimbaud in 19th century Paris, with the high-proof alcohol and the freedom to imbibe, which was embraced by the libertines of the decadent movement, led to absinthe’s reputation as both dangerously addictive and hallucinogenic. The truth is, despite the long-standing
ban on absinthe that lasted for most of the 20th century in the United States and parts of Europe, absinthe possesses no hallucinogens in effective doses except for the alcohol itself. Its demonization may have been motivated in part by criticism of the decadent movement and of libertines like Rimbaud, who challenged societal norms and lived what social conservatives considered a sinfully hedonistic lifestyle—it is not a coincidence that, of all North American cities, New Orleans is the one most closely associated with absinthe and reputed to be the number one destination of smuggled absinthe during the ban decades. But, it may have simply been that absinthe is a very highly alcoholic drink that is fairly easy and enjoyable to drink in large quantities and so inevitably became associated with the aftereffects of excess. Poitin and Everclear There are other distilled beverages which, like absinthe, are high proof because they are not diluted upon bottling. American drinkers often forget that most liquors are mixed with water before bottling—cask- or barrel-strength offerings are usually special releases. Furthermore, distillers have some leeway in the proof to which they distill. A whiskey or rum intended to be released at a high strength can be distilled to a higher strength, though this will also remove some of the flavor (though that may not be noticeable because the loss will be made up for by not diluting the result). For instance, in Ireland, poitin is a traditional distilled beverage that is often called Irish moonshine but is more complex than most moonshines, even recent commercial ones. The mash includes both potatoes and malted barley, for instance, with the potatoes essentially acting as an adjunct to the barley. Only two distilleries are licensed to produce poitin, which is commonly around 160 proof and can approach grain alcohol levels, but it continues to be made illegally in home stills, much like moonshine whiskey in the Appalachians. In the United States, Everclear’s entire brand identity is founded on its high proof. It comes in two varieties, 151 proof (75.5 percent alcohol by volume) and 190 proof (95 percent by volume). The 151 is designed for jurisdictions in which that is the maximum alcohol content allowed by law. A simple grain alcohol, Everclear is essentially a high-proof vodka without the finesse. It
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has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity among bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts because its high proof makes it ideal for making homemade bitters and infusions from spices, herbs, or other ingredients. But, it has primarily been associated with college and high school student parties, where various ingredients like Kool Aid, juice, and soda are combined with Everclear to create a cheap and efficient punch. Rums The 151 legal limit is also responsible for Bacardi’s overproof rum, Bacardi 151. Introduced in 1980, the marketing campaign behind Bacardi resulted in the inclusion of 151 as a float atop mixed drinks. It’s also highly flammable and used in flaming drinks. Bacardi 151 has become the most commonly available overproof rum but did not invent the category. Rums at 151 proof are called for in drinks guides by Trader Vic and Don the Beachcomber, founders of the tiki drink category in the 1930s and 1940s. Tiki drinks are predicated on the use of multiple rums from different regions, styles, and ages, blended together with juices in order to create a complex flavor profile that is still easily quaffable. Overproof rums contributed to the potent reputation of drinks like the Mai Tai and the Zombie. Two of the rums much relied upon by tiki culture are Wray and Nephew Overproof and Smith and Cross. Wray and Nephew Overproof, which is 63 percent alcohol by volume, is the flagship product of J. Wray and Nephew Limited, a distiller and bottler of rum in Jamaica, which also produces the Captain Morgan and Appleton brands of rum. Smith and Cross is a modern Jamaican rum, bottled at 57 percent alcohol, made according to 19th-century traditions: It combines heavybodied wedderburn and medium-bodied plummer, two rums fermented (via wild yeast) from molasses skimmings, cane juice, sediment, and leftovers from previous production. The result is not only high in proof but wild in flavor, funky and dirty compared to the common clean style, which has dominated large-scale rum production since the mid-20th century (through column still distillation, among other differences). Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar
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See Also: Absinthe; Bacardi; Grain Alcohol, Ancient Era Through Middle Ages; Rum Cocktails. Further Readings Adams, Jad. Hideous Absinthe: A History of the Devil in a Bottle. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004. Baker, Phil. The Book of Absinthe: A Cultural History. New York: Grove Press, 2003. Foster, Peter. Family Spirits: The Bacardi Saga: Rum, Riches and Revolution. Hollywood, FL: Frederick Fell, 1991. Stewart, Amy. The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World’s Great Drinks. New York: Algonquin Books, 2013.
History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 17th Century Historians have long discussed legislative, civic, and religious efforts to control excessive drinking, but comparatively recently researchers have concentrated on the pervasive sociable rituals associated with alcohol and drinking around the world in the 17th century. Across the Old and New Worlds, preachers, physicians, artists, and travelers throughout the 17th century devoted substantial time and effort to the discussion of issues associated with alcohol and drinking. The earliest warnings about excessive consumption during this century came from pulpits. At the same time, various commentators stressed the medicinal qualities of many alcoholic liquids, although interpretations of these qualities, and of the specific beverages in question, changed significantly as the century progressed. In addition, legal documents reveal that inns, taverns, alehouses and tippling houses, while potential sources of disorder, also served as important multifunctional hubs in many towns and villages. Commenting on the often unhealthy water supply, travelers and early colonists in British America often cited the dearth of alcoholic beverages as a source of much illness and death. In the 17th century, alcoholic beverages served a universally safer alternative to contaminated
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water supplies. Most Europeans favored some form of brewed beverage, which, while low in alcohol content, provided needed calories to often inadequate diets. Brewing, accordingly, constituted a key domestic skill and familial responsibility. Brewing fit well into the domestic economy, as yeast, necessary for making beer, was also a key ingredient of bread, the staple element of many 17th-century diets. The domestic production of brewed beverages continued into the 19th century, but the 17th century brought significant innovations to the process. The increasing cultivation and application of hops, and the consequent spread of hopped beer as opposed to unhopped ale, represented the most important 17th-century development in brewing. Virtually everyone drank ale in the 17th century, as had been the case since medieval times. Most ales were made simply with grains, water, and fermented yeast. The ingredients for making ales varied considerably, and it was not standard practice to boil the “wort,” the liquid containing sugars and protein from the grains, until the widespread addition of hops. The addition of hops and the boiling process resulted in liquid that offered not only greater nutritional value, but also higher alcohol content. This additional alcohol acted as a preservative that produced beverages that stayed fresh longer and traveled better. As the 17th century progressed, the addition of hops slowly became the norm for brewed beverages, and the original distinction between ale and beer became less clear-cut. The medicinal traditions associated with hops, along with the resulting longevity of hopped beer, contributed to the expansion of the brewing industry in the subsequent century, and the spread in popularity of beer itself. Cultural and Historical Implications of Fermented Beverages At the beginning of the 17th century, with the conclusion of the long war between England and Spain, trade associated with various alcoholic beverages resumed, including Canary Island wines. Although the wealthier classes consumed brewed beverages regularly, they also regularly consumed imported beverages, including those produced from grapes rather than grains. Then as now, access to imported consumer goods was a key indicator of status.
Champagne began its popularity in the 17th century, although it had not yet fully developed its sparkling qualities. The nonsparkling version of champagne arrived in London with French exile Charles de Saint-Évremond (1613–1703), who widely promoted the wines from the Champagne region. It grew increasingly popular with the aristocracy, and records indicate that dukes and earls placed regular orders. The wine was originally produced in France with no intended effervescence, then transported across the Channel in wooden wine barrels, and bottled in England. English glass-production techniques produced more durable bottles than their French counterparts, and English wine merchants used cork stoppers, a Roman practice that had been a lost art for centuries. Cold winters in the Champagne region halted the fermentation process, which left residual sugar with dormant yeast in the wine. Shipping and bottling in England restarted the fermentation process, causing the production of carbon dioxide gas, thus inadvertently creating bubbly, sparkling wine. This sparkling wine appealed to the English gentry, and in 1662 Christopher Merret presented a groundbreaking paper that detailed this fermentation process and the resulting sparkling wine. Merret also suggested that adding sugar to any wine before bottling it would produce similar results. His paper appeared six years before Dom Pérignon became the wine master in the abbey of Hautvillers, and nearly 40 years before he is credited with inventing champagne. Some English partisans claim that their country invented sparkling wine decades before the French began deliberately making it. Whatever the case, the popularity of Champagne grew steadily. The English poet Samuel Butler made reference to “brisk” or frothy Champagne in his 1663 poem Hudibras. In 1698, George Farquhar in his play Love and a Bottle makes a central feature out of the marvel of the stream of bubbles from a glass of Champagne. By this time Pérignon had begun using stronger bottles and had invented a more efficient cork, as well as techniques for blending the contents. Champagne slowly gained popularity in other European capitals, including Paris, where the French court had previously dismissed and despised the beverage as an inferior wine.
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Global Expansion of Distilled Beverages The exact origins of whisky (or in Ireland, whiskey) are obscure, but both these grain spirits have been distilled in Scotland and Ireland for centuries. The earliest certain reference to Irish whiskey dates from 1405 and official sources noted Scottish whisky derived from malted barley in 1494. Needless to say, these sketchy records do not preclude, and probably suggest, long-standing distilling traditions significantly predate official recognition. Conventional wisdom holds that distilled alcohol was created in the 16th century, with its creation refined in the 17th century, and its use popularized in the 18th century. Throughout the 16th century the production and distribution of spirits of all kinds spread slowly, and alcohol continued to serve mainly medicinal purposes. Distilled alcoholic beverages, usually from grains, date back centuries, and their European origins seem to be linked to monastic settlements, although there are references to their use during festival times, especially by the Celts, who particularly prized their production. Eventually, distillers exported their beverages, and this commercialization of production resulted in taxation, which emerged first in Scotland in 1644. The early 17th century also saw the invention of gin in Holland, which late in the century was introduced into England, and became extremely popular. Flavored with juniper berries, it became known as jenever, the Dutch word for “juniper.” When it spread to France, the name changed to genievre, and the English changed this to “Geneva” which was shortened to “gin.” Like other spirituous liquors, gin was originally used for medicinal purposes, but it rapidly grew in popularity as a social drink. In 1690, England passed An Act for the Encouraging of the Distillation of Brandy and Spirits from Corn, and within four years the annual production of distilled spirits, most of which was gin, grew to approximately 1 million gallons. It should be noted that in England the word corn was used to mean grains in general, while in the United States it refers primarily to maize. In the Caribbean, the first distillation of rum from sugarcane took place in the 17th century. Plantation slaves originally fermented a by-product of the sugar refining process—molasses—into alcohol. Later, planters distilled mixtures of sugarcane products, producing a beverage with much
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higher alcohol content. Although traditionally thought to have originated in the Caribbean, evidence links rum production in the 1620s to Brazil. Divers recovered a rum bottle from the celebrated Swedish ship Vasa, which sank in 1628. By middle of the century, distillers certainly produced rum in Barbados. Rum’s popularity quickly spread to British North America, where limited access to alcoholic beverages had long been identified with high rates of illness and death. The first rum distillery in North America appeared in 1664 on present-day Staten Island, New York. Three years later a distillery opened in Boston, and over the course of the century, the manufacture of rum developed into colonial New England’s largest and most prosperous industry. Other fruits had long been fermented to produce alcoholic beverages, including apples and pears. In the 17th century other beverages, such as “hard” cider and perry, were to become more refined and therefore primed for increased commercial use and distribution. Inns, Taverns, Alehouses, Tippling Houses By the late 17th century a three-tiered hierarchy of drinking establishments had emerged. An “inn” in this period denoted a substantial and important house within a town or parish. In addition to offering liquid hospitality, an inn was also a restaurant, a hotel, a coach house, and not infrequently, a post office. A tavern would not be expected to provide accommodation and its food might be limited, whereas an alehouse would be regarded as a very plebian venue where people met for the exclusive purpose of consuming beer. It is important to note that all of these venues would have been “brew pubs” in modern terms, given that brewing had yet to become the largescale industry it would start to become in the 17th century. Given that beer did not (and arguably still does not) “travel well,” a degree of infrastructure is prerequisite for large-scale manufacture. Inns, taverns, and alehouses, together with the locality that housed them, would be characterized according to the reputed excellence (or otherwise) of the beer they served. Cultural Implications A paucity of records makes it impossible to know exactly how people drank alcohol in the
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17th century. Both the specific beverages consumed and the drinking practices employed differ significantly from those of modern times. In London, drinking preferences provided a coded but public demonstration of political allegiances. For example, in the early 17th century Royalists (Cavaliers) would be assumed to drink wine exclusively, while the public consumption of beer (or abstinence from drinking altogether), might signal parliamentary (Roundhead) partisanship. Drinking practices throughout the world often display highly ritualized behavior. For instance, toasts were of particular importance in England. Toasts might be open or encoded statements of treasonable intent. The very order in which revelers toasted rulers, countries, and causes might have meaning, consolidating elective communities based on shared values. Seventeenth-century English drinkers likely chose tippling companions who embraced and reenacted time-honored gestures of ideological solidarity. Drinking songs provide historians and social scientists with a wealth of nuanced historical data on the culture and practices of drinking in the 17th century. Though precise knowledge of how people performed these songs, and their reception by audiences, remains elusive, their lyrics often provide a glimpse into specific behaviors and values. These songs themselves have become increasingly important for the study of the history and culture of alcohol and drinking in the 17th century. Tanya M. Cassidy University of Windsor See Also: Beer; Caribbean Islands; Champagne; Gin; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 18th Century; Medicinal Use, History of; Taverns. Further Readings Clark, Peter. The English Alehouse: A Social History, 1200–1830. London: Longman, 1983. Kumin, Beat and B. Ann Tlusty, eds. The World of the Tavern. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2002. Johnson, Hugh. Vintage: The Story of Wine. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989. Pepys, Samuel. The Diary of Samuel Pepys: Daily Entries From the 17th Century London Diary. http://www.pepysdiary.com (Accessed February 2014).
Pope, Peter E. Fish Into Wine: The Newfoundland Plantation in the Seventeenth Century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Smith, Frederick H. Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005. Smyth, Adam, ed. A Pleasing Sinne: Drink and Conviviality in Seventeenth-Century England. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2004.
History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 18th Century The 18th century saw a vast transformation in alcohol consumption and the effects of drinking in the Western world. With European imperial and colonial expansion, drinking practices and the effects of alcohol use also began to change elsewhere. The quantities of alcohol consumed, the manner of its production and the types of drinks produced, along with the social and culture significance and consequences of drinking were all linked to the wider changes in European and colonial societies. While the production of distilled spirits had been increasing in Europe since at least the middle of the 14th century, it was in the later 17th and 18th centuries that surging production of distilled alcohol began to have a profound impact in many parts of Europe and those regions touched by European colonial activity. The principal cause of the growth in European and American colonial distilling appears to have been economic, specifically, the relatively low price of grain. During the first half of the 18th century agricultural productivity improved, first in the Netherlands and then in Britain, and eventually across western Europe. The result was increased grain supplies in a period of low population growth. The wider adoption of new foodstuffs such as potatoes, together with improved transportation between food-producing areas and their potential markets, meant greater security of food supplies and hence stability of food prices. In such
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circumstances, market forces made more grain available for distillers to produce alcohol. The Growing Importance of Distilled Spirits In Britain these market pressures were augmented by government tax and regulatory policies promoted by great landowners eager to protect their farm rental incomes by assuring that tenant farmers got good prices for the grain they produced. In 1702, for example, the English Parliament passed legislation eliminating the former licensing requirements imposed on distilled spirits retailers. The effect of such measures was dramatic: between 1696 and 1714, English gin production doubled to nearly 2 million gallons per year. The early 18th century also saw a substantial expansion of distilling in the Low Countries. Centered in Schiemdam, Rotterdam, and Delfshaven, the number and profits of Dutch distilleries grew with exports through the country’s widespread trade networks. It seems likely that, imports of German beer notwithstanding, the decline in Dutch brewing was attributable to the growing consumption of distilled spirits, principally gin. Declining prices for sugar between 1695 and the 1730s was an important factor in the considerable expansion of distilling in the American colonies. Boston, New Haven, and Philadelphia became important centers for the production of rum. At Boston, the price of rum is estimated to have fallen by more than half between the early 1720s and late 1730s. As in the Netherlands, the decline in brewing and beer consumption in the colonies is thought to have been directly linked to the increased availability and lower prices of spirits. The production of ale remained strong in Scotland in the early 18th century as the consumption of whisky was not popular beyond the Highlands until the later 18th century. In Ireland, however, whiskey was more widely consumed by all social ranks. Production of whiskey expanded with the inducements of low duties, the ease of production and distribution, as well as the relatively high cost of imported wines and spirits. Although brewing declined relative to spirits production in the early 18th century, beer and ale remained an essential foodstuff throughout Europe and its colonies. In the American colonies domestic brewing of ale and sale of commercial ales through taverns was an important part of
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colonial economy and social life. In Britain the production of ale became increasingly commercialized as low grain prices and improvements in product quality encouraged alehouses and inns to seek ale from commercial brewers. Later in the 18th century, higher prices for malt and hops resulted in a decline in home-brewing, while the introduction of porter prompted the expansion and concentration of brewing among larger commercial breweries. In France, although cereal grain prices fell, this did not provide the boost to distilling that occurred in the Netherlands and in the British Isles and their colonies. Low grain prices in France were welcomed as providing some relief to a population that had experienced famine as late as 1709. Throughout the 18th century French authorities promulgated regulations to discourage the diversion of grains to distillers. In any case, because the relative value of viticulture in Bordeaux and some other areas of France exceeded the returns on cereal production, wine production was more profitable than distilling. As wine and quality fortified wines remained the preferred forms of alcohol for the upper ranks of society across Europe, prices, if volatile, remained relatively high. This prompted a considerable growth in production and the adoption of increasingly sophisticated viticultural techniques from the early 18th century. After 1709, brandy production in Languedoc and elsewhere increased as both foreign demand grew and the need to make use of surplus wines became more urgent. Brandy or wine spirits were often flavored to improve their taste, which otherwise would have required costly multiple distillings to make palatable. After the 1780s, cognac became a profitable, prestigious product in demand throughout France and across western Europe. This sophistication and expansion of wine production had an impact across French society. From the 1720s there is evidence that in rural areas of viticulture, peasants for the first time begin to drink wine daily. In southern Germany, wine production began a long, slow recovery from the devastation of vineyards that had occurred over the course of the wars of the 17th century. It has been estimated that only 25 percent of the vineyards cultivated in the early 17th century were still productive in
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the first decade of the 18th century. Nevertheless, over the course of the 18th century viticulture in Germany gradually began to recover. While excise and land tax records provide some basis to estimate the amount of alcohol that was being produced in 18th-century European and American jurisdictions, the extent and patterns of consumption are more difficult to discern. It has been suggested that over the course of the 18th century, Americans’ per capita consumption of alcohol increased by at least 25 percent to 3.5 gallons. Commercial and colonial expansion further impacted European alcohol production, as well as the production and consumption of alcohol in areas of growing European contact. It has been estimated that by the late 18th century, nearly 800,000 gallons of alcohol were being traded annually in Africa by Europeans for slaves, palm oil, and other commodities. With the arrival of substantial quantities of cheap European alcohol, consumption patterns in West Africa began to change. Traditional elite control of alcohol was eroded by the arrival of substantial quantities of cheap European alcohol. As elsewhere, the increased availability of distilled spirits contributed to social instability and challenges to conventional, elite authority. Alcohol was also an important commodity in the North American fur trade. Throughout much of the continent, Native People traded furs for European-produced alcohol. The destructive effects of this trade on Native communities is difficult for historians to assess, but it is thought to have been considerable. Alcohol, Society, and Culture As in earlier periods, 18th-century drinking places, whether alehouses, taverns, or inns, had long been important social sites across Europe and in its colonies. In rural communities alehouses were central places for sociable meeting, entertainment, the exchange of news, and the hiring of agricultural labor. In cities and towns where dwellings were confined and the opportunities for the domestic production of ale or wine were limited, the alehouse and tavern furnished drink and fulfilled similar social needs. Inns constituted a distinct form of drinking establishment providing accommodation for travelers
and social venues for the more affluent members of the local community. Later in the 18th century inns and taverns might include a club room where members of the middle social ranks could gather to transact business and socialize. In England and the American colonies such rooms were sometimes used by local magistrates to meet and conduct their business. While inns normally enjoyed the patronage of local social elites, alehouses and taverns were the objects of their anxiety and suspensions as dens of the lower ranks’ subversion and disorderly behavior. Although this view persisted across the 18th-century European world, in England, at least, the alehouse seems to have gradually come under greater control. A licensing regime controlled by local magistrates, together with the effective collection of excise taxes and the growing influence of the larger commercial brewers, meant that powerful pressures could be brought to bear on those distributing alcohol. Thus, the reputation of taverns and alehouses improved and English alehouses, or public houses, and taverns came to be seen as respectable social institutions. In Britain’s American colonies, local authorities sought to impose a similar regime, although the growth and dynamism of those newer communities made this a greater challenge. In London and larger British cities, population growth, economic change, and diminished social cohesion raised concerns about the impact of increased drinking. As small distillers and gin shops proliferated, public drunkenness, crime, disorder, immorality, and enervation of the workforce all became matters of great concern. Authorities in Britain and across Europe tried to use taxation and licensing to control producers and retailers of alcohol, but these measures promoted the establishment of illicit drinking places beyond the reach of municipal authorities. The guinguettes were suburban cabarets located outside the boundaries of the city of Paris and so were not subject to its taxes, which accounted for 60 percent of the price of wine. In the suburbs of Madrid, drinking establishments offered wine at half the price of those in the city because they were not liable to pay municipal taxes. In both Europe and America excise taxes, river and road tolls, and municipal taxes, though varying considerably between jurisdictions,
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invariably produced large amounts of smuggling and bootlegging. Throughout Europe and its colonies, authorities expressed concerns about excessive drinking. The “gin craze” or “gin epidemic” in London in the first half of the 18th century provides a prime example. While the population of England grew by about 15 percent between 1700 and 1750, the production of gin exploded from about 1 million gallons per year to about 7.5 million gallons. Observers attributed high levels of crime, indigence, ill health, immorality, disorderly behavior, and the debilitation of the urban labor force to excessive gin consumption by the working populace. Members of Parliament found themselves caught between their economic goals of supporting grain prices by deregulating distilling, and their anxieties about public order. Parliament responded to this quandary with eight successive pieces of regulatory legislation between 1729 and 1751. These various Gin Acts manipulated excise duties, licensing fees and eligibility, and enforcement methods all in an effort to get the right balance between the needs of public order and the grain and distilling industries. After 1751 contemporary observers noted a decline in the ill effects felt of gin drinking. Challenges to Regulation In America, too, local and national governments sought to resolve their revenue problems and restrain what they perceived to be excessive drinking among the ordinary ranks of society. In the early 18th century both West Indian and domestically produced rum became cheaply available in the colonies. Attempts at alcohol regulation in the colonial period and early republic faced great challenges, and tax measures or licensing laws met with little success in the British colonies. A vast, relatively sparsely populated land in which state authority was difficult to exert, coupled with growing ideological hostility to paternalistic regulation and taxation, ensured that American alcohol consumption was beyond the control of any government. Certainly the most spectacular example of this was the 1791 Whiskey Act, by which Alexander Hamilton sought to bolster federal finances by imposing a levy on domestically produced spirits. The measure was opposed in the southern states, where less wine,
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beer, and rum were consumed (imported rum and molasses were subject to different tariffs). But the most important opposition arose in western Pennsylvania, where frontier farmers relied on bartering whiskey produced from their grain surpluses. They held that they lacked the cash to pay the new taxes and felt the imposition on their modest incomes was excessive. Federal efforts to enforce the tax in the western counties of Pennsylvania prompted the Whiskey Rebellion, which was only suppressed with the aid of nearly 13,000 federal troops in 1794. The Whiskey Rebellion, like the British government’s often unsuccessful efforts to collect excise taxes on whisky and suppress illegal distilleries in the Scottish Highlands and Ireland, reflected the difficulties of taxing and regulating alcohol use in remote regions. But even densely populated areas near metropolitan centers could resist state levies on drink. In an effort to frustrate the smuggling into Paris of untaxed goods, especially wine, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, who had been contracted to collect taxes, instigated the building of a new wall around the city in 1783. The wall was the object of much protest by producers, retailers, and consumers of wine. They succeeded in halting the wall’s construction for more than a year in 1787, and they subsequently worked to frustrate its completion. Two days before the storming of the Bastille (July 14, 1789), a crowd destroyed sections of the newly constructed wall and gates. London also saw rioting and crowd violence after the passage of the 1736 Gin Act. Whatever their fiscal value, state efforts to regulate drinking focused largely on the lower ranks of society. British authorities sought to control cheap gin, not imported brandies or clarets drunk by gentlemen. Henry Fielding’s influential An Inquiry Into the Causes of the Late Increase in Robbers (1751) held that gin drinking drove the poor to crime. The Paris cafes where fashionable society met were not the same objects of concern as the vulgar cabarets and suburban guinguettes. In the 1720s, as French parlements and provincial assemblies began to act to halt the conversion of cereal growing lands to vineyards, they were concerned about high grain and low wine prices, but they also worried about the increase of drinking and disorderly behavior of laboring people in rural areas.
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While those in authority worried about the lower orders’ drinking, the drinking habits of social elites also came in for criticism in the 18th century. English moralists occasionally provided cautionary tales of gentlemen ruined by too much drink. In The Poor Man’s Plea in Relation to all Proclamations, Declarations . . . for a Reformation of Manners (1689) and Reformation of Manners, a Satyr (1702), Daniel Defoe mocked the unwillingness of magistrates to prosecute the drunkenness of those of higher social rank whose “well bred vices” were simply “handed down to the poorer sort.” W. J. Rorabaugh has asserted that popular opposition to tavern regulation and excise taxes on spirits in America reflected class, as well as economic, protest. He observes that, as the protests against the Whiskey Act (1791) show, taxes on alcohol were seen as elite impositions upon the citizenry and were thought inconsistent with the spirit of the new republic. Shifting Moral and Medical Perspectives Over the course of the 18th century, previous periods’ more jolly, gently mocking characterization of the drunkard began to give way to views that were more resolutely morally condemning. Comic celebrations of heavy drinking, toasting, and intoxicated behavior endured throughout the century, but in those societies where the impacts of distilled spirits were more strongly felt, a language of sin and vice was amplified and more persistently resonated around the subject of drunkenness. In France, where wine and beer remained the principal forms of consumed alcohol, a more relaxed, casual attitude toward drunkenness was evident. The Encyclopédie (1751), for example, evinces a more forgiving attitude toward drunkenness than that shown by moralists in Britain or America. With emergence of new evangelical forms of Protestantism in those countries, moderation and abstinence became important ideas. John Wesley’s Methodists, for example, were urged in 1743 to refrain from buying, selling, or drinking spirituous liquors. Though direct lines of continuity to the great 19th-century temperance movements are difficult to establish, their progenitors can be found in the moralist and religious literature that arose in reaction to the surge in distilled spirits consumption.
Various historians have asserted that the 18th century witnessed a shift in the understanding of alcohol intoxication and the problem of chronic drinking in particular. Galenic medical understandings of the effects of alcohol lingered on into the 18th century. In such views alcohol was still understood in relation to its capacity to alter or restore the harmony or at least the health of the body. Yet, while it was an important part of the 18th century materia medica, medical authorities increasingly referred to alcohol as being a poison. George Cheyne in 1724 and Carl von Linne (Linnaeus) in the 1740s wrote of the slow, toxic effects of persistent drinking. It has been argued that Benjamin Rush’s An Inquiry Into the Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body (1785) and Thomas Trotter’s De ebrietate, ejusque effectibus in corpus humanum (1788) provided the first, modern disease concept of chronic drinking. Other historians insist that concepts of addiction and notions of chronic drinking as a disease can be found earlier in the 18th century in such works as George Cheyne’s The English Malady (1733) and Stephen Hales’s A friendly admonition to the drinkers of brandy, and other distilled spirituous liquors.... (1733). Certainly, however, it is clear that 18th-century medical writers and moralists offered a distinctive view of alcohol that was informed by their societies’ experience of widespread use of distilled spirits. David Clemis Mount Royal University See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Bars, History of Alcohol Abuse in; Gin Epidemic in England; Medicinal Use, History of; Native Americans; Rush, Benjamin; Trotter, Thomas; World Trade, History of Alcohol and. Further Readings Austin, Gregory A., ed. Alcohol in Western Society From Antiquity to 1800: A Chronological History. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1985. Clark, Peter. The English Alehouse: A Social History, 1200–1830. London: Longman, 1983. Hames, Gina. Alcohol in World History. London: Routledge, 2012. Rorabaugh, W. J. The Alcoholic Republic. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.
History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 19th Century
History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 19th Century Alcohol consumption was part of daily life for people in many regions in the 19th century. Patterns of alcohol production and consumption were affected by many societal factors and local traditions and customs, including the increasing reach of the Industrial Revolution, improved methods of transportation and communication, changing attitudes toward international trade, the rise of nationalist movements, and the impact of colonialism on indigenous societies. In the United States, Americans drank phenomenal amounts of alcohol in the late 1700s and into the first decades of the 1800s. Since colonial times, alcohol had been viewed as a beneficial item—“a good creature”; it was one of the few tranquillizers and drugs available and was used liberally throughout the day by people of all classes and was especially valued on any and all social occasions. “Alcoholism” did not yet exist as a concept and problem drinking was seen as peculiar to only a few troubled individuals. In contrast, drinking among Native Americans was cited as especially problematic early in colonial times by white authorities. It was thought that tribal folk were particularly susceptible to alcohol’s effect. Alcohol seriously destabilized Native American families, tribes, and culture. Unscrupulous traders and trappers plied Native Americans with free liquor or sold them liquor at exorbitant prices. Soon these rapacious businessmen discovered that drunken workers do not work well and this practice fell off. Laws were passed prohibiting the sale of alcohol to Native Americans. American Patterns of Consumption In the first three decades of the new century, the per capita alcohol consumption was higher than at any other time in American history. In those decades, Americans drank at a level three times higher than today. Some experts believe that most alcohol consumed was in the form of various fruit ciders, which were popular among a predominantly rural population and drunk by people of all ages from breakfast until retiring at night, in
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lieu of often unsanitary water or contaminated milk. Most liquor was bought at general stores or groceries and drunk at home, though workers often spent significant time after work in taverns with their fellows. In this context, everyone was expected to drink, and to refuse was considered bad form or even insulting. Rum, very popular in colonial times and until 1800, was a major manufactured product in the new country, and whiskey was so common that it was used as currency in the backcountry well into the century. The latter became so popular that it eventually replaced rum, becoming the preeminent “federal” (i.e., American) spirituous liquor. Some have posited that distilling was the primary industry of the United States in this era. Normal dinner parties among the American upper classes typically involved drinking large amounts of wine, at the very least. American drinking in the period exceeded that of Prussians, English, and the Irish, but approximated that of the Scots, Swedes, and French. By 1830 a pattern of drinking in “collective sprees” rather than drinking at home developed in all kinds of group situations. Militia meetings and elections were occasions for leaders and politicians to “treat” minutemen and voters (who were all male) to many, many drinks. Often the candidate who “treated” voters and their families with spirituous liquors most liberally won the day. This heavy drinking contributed to Election Day violence that marred the era, particularly in large cities. But drinking of spirituous liquors was not only a ritual behavior to be indulged in on special days. Typical farmers and townsmen drank hard ciders in the morning with breakfast, and workers in the manual trades had alcohol breaks throughout the day, typically at 11 a.m., mid-afternoon, and around 4 p.m. Drinking, of course, continued at supper and afterward. It could be said that Americans of the period drank from dawn to dusk. This pattern began to disintegrate in the 1830s as small workplaces gave way to factories, and other forms of industrialized labor began to dominate the urban landscape. But some experts believe that industrialization led to a breakdown in worker morale and that drinking in fact increased. Although alcohol breaks decreased, special occasions for drink-fueled celebration and collective drinking sprees increased. Women were
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A group of men in an 1896 illustration drinking toddies in a restaurant during the day. In the early 19th century, hard liquors and wine were more popular than beer. The per capital alcohol consumption from 1800 to 1830 was also higher than at any other time in American history and was three times higher than today’s level, with annual consumption averaging about five gallons. Most of this was spirituous liquors, and beer consumption averaged only two gallons until 1850.
largely excluded from public drinking but often deliberately or unknowingly imbibed alcohol through the medium of patent medicines. Most of these products were specifically marketed to women as elixirs for “female problems” such as menstruation and menopause, and they were sold without prescription, in catalogs, and over-thecounter at pharmacies and food stores. Stagecoach travel generally included rest stops at conveniently located taverns and wayside inns. Visitors from abroad joked that Americans who were traveling stopped every 5 miles “to water the horses and brandy the gentlemen.” As the century progressed and steamboats came on the scene, they were likened to bar-rooms on the water or “floating saloons.” Respectable women
were discouraged from participating in drinking or even resting in these often posh facilities, as they were expected not to enter or frequent landbased saloons. Men frequently worked hard for long hours and felt justified in spree drinking upon the completion of an arduous task. Sailors, who were limited to small amounts of daily grog while at sea, drank heroic amounts when on liberty, hence the term drunken sailor to describe someone who is especially intoxicated, spending money prodigiously, and generally using bad judgment. Cowboys at the end of a cattle drive were prone to binge drink, buy new clothes, visit prostitutes, and bathe, though not necessarily in that order. Miners, especially during the California Gold
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Rush of the 1850s, were known for heavy drinking and riotous behavior. Drinking in taverns and in political assemblies often preceded collective violence committed by vigilance committees, political gangs, and private militias. Trappers and mountain men met at annual “rendezvous” for heavy drinking, trading, and swapping tall tales. Frequently, they left the trading posts or the rendezvous site completely broke, spending the next year accumulating enough pelts to fund their annual spree before the next rendezvous trapping. In general, southern planters were known for hospitality and heavy drinking. Indeed, it was thought inhospitable to send guests home sober, and requests for water by foreign visitors were sometimes met with confusion and incredulity by southern hosts and hostesses. Guests could expect to be treated to fine wines and drinks served throughout the meal as well as before and after. To refuse a drink might well offer offense, as it signified that one thought oneself too good to drink with another; the offended person most particularly. In some circumstances, this could provoke a fight or a challenge to a duel. This happened much more in fiction than in reality, however, and while drinking was often involved in the lead-up to a duel, there were thankfully infrequent occurrences. Slaves were given alcohol on special occasions, and sometimes as rewards or incentives to work harder. A major concern of the antebellum period was slave revolts; therefore, the use of alcohol by blacks—slave or freeman—was discouraged. Masters who liberally provided alcohol to slaves were condemned by other slaveholders and fearful poor whites in the community. Tavern owners in some locales were legally enjoined to not serve alcohol to blacks. Nevertheless, some southerners complained about drunken slaves crowding the streets on Sundays. It was claimed that slaves obtained liquor in exchange for goods and foods stolen from their masters, or in barter for vegetables grown on their own plots. In the post–Civil War period, blacks were discouraged from drinking by ordinances and groups of white extremists. The Civil War era saw large numbers of soldiers drinking, and anecdotes of drunken behavior among both officers and men were common. Union General Ulysses S. Grant, a known problem drinker, was alleged to have gone on a bender
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while effectively investing Vicksburg. When apprised of this by critics, Lincoln supposedly said to give other (largely unsuccessful) Union generals some of the same brand. Officers and ordinary soldiers on both sides sometimes summoned “Dutch courage”; that is, consumed alcohol—often carried in canteens—when going into combat. Reformers got little traction when trying to limit drinking among soldiery. After the Civil War, tramps, who were often veterans, who developed drinking problems during and after the war, constituted “a floating army” of surplus labor who roamed the country. These tramps usually found seasonal work on farms or working short terms in boomtowns, on railroads, mines, or in the timber trade. These were exceedingly violent occupational milieus in which alcohol consumption was a major preoccupation with workers. By their own testimony, many tramps owed their status as homeless migratory workers to alcoholism. Temperance Movements In the early 1800s, reformers endeavored to get men to “take the pledge”; that is, to vow to abstain from drinking hard liquor, which was seen as the primary problem. Topers, by the terms of the contract that they signed, were allowed to drink alcohol in weaker forms, such as wine and beer, because water in many areas was seen as unhealthy. Industrialists and government officials also expressed concern about drunken workers in industrial contexts. The secretary of war estimated in 1829 that three-fourths of the nation’s laborers drank at least four ounces of distilled spirits a day. Most of this was consumed at home, but many workers became regulars at local taverns and saloons. Saturdays became a day for tavern regulars to spend the day drinking and “treating” each other at their favorite drinking holes. In 1851, Maine passed a law that became a model for reformers nationwide. Protestant ministers and women’s groups in that decade actively encouraged this trend and succeeded in getting other states to begin passing similar laws. After the Civil War, reformers commenced efforts to try to close urban taverns, bars, and saloons. Saloons, most notably, were male preserves where men could escape the hypocrisy, domesticity, and puritanical manifestations of the Victorian era.
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Feminists were especially active in the temperance movement and eventually founded the Woman’s Christian Temperance League, a group of extremely effective partisans. Various temperance groups were able to push for prohibition until it became a federal policy early in the next century. Efforts at temperance were headed by doctors in Europe as early as the first decades of the century but never gathered much momentum. In the United States, the concern over patent medicine in the late 1800s proved to be an additional major contributor to the movement to label all medicinal substances and drug products, and influenced movement toward national temperance. This became a matter of media interest, and eventually culminated in the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which mandated the labeling of ingredients of all drug products. Its passage led to a notable decrease in the use of patent drugs as the presence of alcohol and other drugs in patent medicines became public knowledge. Europe Alcohol consumption was common in many European countries in the 19th century, but the type of alcohol consumed often differed by social class as well as geography. For instance, in Austria in the 19th century, beer was typically consumed by wealthier individuals, while the working class preferred distilled spirits, which were cheaper. In urban England, the excessive use of gin had become a national scandal and a matter of elite concern as early as the first decades of the 1700s. While gin drinking spread modestly to the countryside, most rural folk remained true to local ales, beer, and cider. The use of gin for the most part was confined to London and adjoining rural counties. Brewing was an important industry in 19th century England, and many breweries also owned pubs where their products were served, leading to vertical integration in the alcohol trade. The Beer Act of 1830 allowed small pubs and shops to sell beer and cider (but not spirits) without a license, allowing many more people to get into the business; as a result, the number of premises licensed to sell beer nearly doubled in two years, with a corresponding increase in public drunkenness. Reduced taxes and restrictions on wine sales led to increased wine consumption by working class
people, but consumption of beer and spirits also increased, with alcohol consumption peaking in the 1870s. In opposition to this trend, the temperance movement was founded in England in the 1830s, beginning with a public abstinence pledge signed by Joseph Livesey and six other temperance advocates. In Ireland, alcohol consumption increased dramatically following British conquest in 1690, and in 1787, Arthur Guinness founded the first brewery in Ireland to produce porter. Irish pubs served as an important social gathering place in the 19th century and were also the site of political organizing. In southern Europe, particularly in France, Spain, and Portugal, exports of wine increased rapidly during the early 19th century. However, vineyards in Spain and France were heavily damaged in the 1850s by the introduction of mildew from Oidium tuckeri. In the mid-1800s, reduced wine production elevated the use of spirits in France and neighboring countries. In the provinces large amounts of ciders were popular, and in the north, especially in the provinces adjoining Belgium, farmhouse-style ales were used daily. French workingmen typically drank at least a bottle in the course of a workday, often quaffing a bottle or more at lunch. This pattern continued up through the 1950s. French elites tried to limit drinking among the workers, as they saw it contributing to rebellions that plagued that country throughout the mid- and late 1800s. In Germany, many new types of beer were developed in the 19th century, including altbier, pilsner, and märzenbier, and technical innovations increased Germany’s reputation as a dominant brewer of beer. The 19th century also saw the first celebration of the now-annual Oktoberfest, held in 1810 to celebrate the weeding of Prince Ludwig of Bavaria and Princess Therese of Sachsen-Hildburghausen. Beer was also commonly consumed in Scandinavian countries. In Sweden, beer was produced on most farms until the early 19th century, when it became more common to purchase beer from larger breweries. In Norway, home distilling was banned during the years of Danish occupation (1756 to 1816), but was commonly practiced. In Denmark, the 19th century saw the establishment of two major brewers that remain in operation today: Carlsberg and Tuborg. However, the temperance movement was also strong in
History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 19th Century
many Scandinavian countries, although the first outright prohibition of alcohol sales (in the Faroe Islands) did not appear until 1907. In Russia, vodka sales and production were encouraged in the 19th century as a means of raising venue through taxes, and in 1894 the production of alcohol became a state monopoly. In Poland, vodka production increased rapidly in the 19th century when the potato replaced grain as the source of the starch required to make the beverage. The price of vodka dropped correspondingly and consumption increased, leading to ill effects on the population’s health. In response, the emperor of Russia (who governed Poland at the time) introduced higher excise taxes on alcohol and added a number of restrictions on sales, including limited opening hours for bars and a ban on serving people who were already intoxicated. The mid-century European potato blight also led to decreased vodka production. Africa Local alcohol production and consumption predates the 19th century in both northern and subSaharan Africa, but alcohol consumption in 19thcentury Africa was also affected by colonialism. Traders from Western nations, including Spain, Portugal, and England, used alcohol as a trade good, exchanging it for African slaves. In addition to the destabilization caused by the slave trade, the introduction of distilled alcohol (as opposed to locally-produced beer or wine) into areas where it had been previously unknown often had a negative effect on the local population. The introduction of European habits of alcohol consumption was sometimes seen by Africans as an affront to their culture as well. For instance, after France occupied Algeria in the 1830s, the French colonists not only brought the habit of drinking wine (prohibited to Muslims by the Qur’an), but also converted fields formerly used to produce grain into vineyards, further offending the local population. Grape cultivation in Algeria increased sharply in the late 19th century, after the French wine crop was devastated by aphids, but the wine thus produced was consumed primarily by the French colonists rather than the local (and primarily Muslim) Algerian population. Colonial administrators often displayed a conflicting attitude toward consumption of alcohol
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by local (i.e., native) populations, independent of the consumption by the colonists themselves, on the one hand wishing to prohibit alcohol on ostensibly moral grounds, and on the other wishing to profit by the sale of alcoholic drinks. Some indigenous rulers also tried to prohibit the consumption of alcohol among native workers. For instance, in the 1880s, the emir of Bida (Nigeria) requested that Queen Elizabeth of England ban the export of rum to his people. The Brussels Conference, held in 1889–90, banned the extension of the alcohol trade into African regions not already affected by it. In France’s west African colonies, alcohol sales were prohibited to indigenous peoples in the belief that it reduced the birth rate (no such ban applied to the Europeans living there). In 1896, alcohol sales to Africans were banned by the Boer parliament to Africans in the mining regions of South Africa. Local populations often responded to both types of control attempts by continuing to brew their own alcoholic drinks and consume them illegally, and local drinking houses sometimes served as gathering places for those who wished to expel the colonial powers. Drinking clubs often served as important sites for ordinary socialization for economic migrants, particularly in urban areas. Wine was produced in South Africa beginning in the late 17th century, with the first vineyards planted near Cape Town by Dutch settlers, and flourished following British takeover of the area in 1806. Wine production increased rapidly following devastation of the French wine industry in the 1850s by mildew, but nearly collapsed following reduction of wine duties in 1861, followed by invasion of the Phylloxera vesatrix aphid in 1885. The Americas Many Latin American countries had a long history of locally produced and consumed alcoholic beverages (e.g., cassava beer in Brazil) long before the arrival of European colonists, but by the 19th century, many were producing European-style beverages as well. For instance, colonists from Spain introduced wine production to the Argentinian people in the late 16th century. Cuttings from European vines thrived in vineyards planted at the foothills of the Andes. Argentinian wine did not become a competitive international product until the late 19th century, aided by British
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foreign investment, a vine blight in Europe, irrigation, and a large influx of European immigrants already skilled in viticulture and who were accustomed to consuming wine on a daily basis. In the Caribbean, members of the lower classes (including slaves and indentured servants) commonly drank rum, while imported wines were more popular among colonists. In Mexico, mezcal production increased in the 19th century, due to increased prosperity in the country and the growing independence movement, which favored native products rather than Spanish imports. Mezcal also become popular in American border states, including Texas, during this time. Portuguese colonists in Brazil imported large quantities of wine to the country from the 16th century onward, although initially it was consumed primarily by the colonial elites. However, sugar production in Brazil lent itself to the production of cachaça, a liquor regularly consumed by the local inhabitants. When Rio de Janeiro became the capital of the Portuguese colonial empire in the early 19th century, international trade to this port city increased substantially and a greater variety of alcoholic beverages became available to the local elites, including English beer, French wine, and brandy. The arrival of large numbers of immigrants from Europe also led to the creation of the first Brazilian beer and wine industry, the former due primarily to German influence and the latter to Italian. In Canada, alcohol was a part of life from the arrival of the first European settlers in the 17th century. In the British colonies, taverns and inns were granted licenses to serve alcohol if they also supplied lodging and stables, thus facilitating European travel throughout the country. In the 19th century, crop surpluses encouraged the development of breweries, and the brewers and their families often became prominent local citizens. Canada experienced a temperance movement in the 19th century, and in 1878, local counties and municipalities were granted the right to prohibit alcohol sales and consumption within their boundaries. Asia Grain-based alcohol has been produced in Asia since ancient times, with archaeological evidence indicating that fermented drinks were produced
as early as 2000 b.c.e. in China. Alcoholic drinks based on grapes, palm and sugar cane, and fermented milk were also produced in different parts of Asia by the medieval period. In the 19th century, following increased Western influence, consumption of Western drinks became a mark of cosmopolitanism and modernity particularly in Japan. In some cases, breweries were established to meet the needs of the colonial rulers, but also influenced the consumption patterns of indigenous people as well as the economy. For instance, in Pakistan, British colonialism led to the creation of the Murree Brewery in 1860, but it remained in operation following independence in 1947, and for years was the only legal brewery in the country. In Vietnam, rice liquor was commonly produced and consumed, while a rice beer known locally as borak was common in Malaysia, and a similar beverage, known as tapuy, was common in the Philippines. French colonization introduced the consumption of wine and champagne to Vietnam, which became popular among the more prosperous urban classes. Beverages like champagne and brandy become more common in China in the 19th century, a result of increasing European incursion into the country, and the famous Tsingtao (Qingdao) Brewery, a joint venture between the British and Germans, was founded in 1903. Following British creation of Singapore in 1819, many taverns were established to serve the Europeans and Chinese who settled there. Temperance societies were established on the island beginning in 1836, in part as a response to the perception that drunkenness was becoming a public problem. Singapore prospered with increased trade and numerous hotels and clubs were established to meet the increased demand for more upscale accommodations, including the Raffles Hotel, opened in 1887 and home to the famous Long Bar, where the Singapore Sling was created. One result of increased alcohol consumption was increased revenue for the colonial government. At the same time, Chinese residents of Singapore continued to brew their own rice wine, in defiance of government regulations. Alcohol was brewed in Indonesia from at least medieval times, with palm wine and its distilled version (arak) being consumed on Java. The
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introduction of Islam, which prohibits the consumption of alcohol, caused a decline in drinking, but early European settlers from the 17th century onward reintroduced the production and consumption of alcohol. In the 19th century, Dutch colonists established breweries at Batavia (Jakarta) and Soerabaja (Surabaya), although wine continued to be imported rather than produced locally. Australia and New Zealand Alcohol consumption is believed to have been introduced in Australia and New Zealand by colonial settlers from Europe rather than being a practice of the indigenous peoples of either country. British customs of alcohol consumption were adopted in the new countries, and the alcohol industry was controlled by licensing and taxation, as well as by laws. As in England, public houses served as important sites of relaxation for the colonial population and often also served as places to transact business. Following the English model, pubs evolved primarily as male-only institutions. Also as in England, temperance societies and strict regulations were both responses to what was seen as an increasing problem of excessive drinking and its attendant social ills. Supplying alcohol to the Aborigines or Maori was prohibited in many areas by the 1840s, in part because of the devastating effect alcohol consumption was observed to have on local communities. Francis Frederick Hawley Western Carolina University See Also: History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 18th Century; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Saloons, Wild West; Temperance Movements; Women’s Christian Temperance League. Further Readings Burns, E. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple, 2004. Courtwright, D. T. Violent Land: Single Men and Social Disorder From the Frontier to the Inner City. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1996. Gusfield, J. Symbolic Crusade. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1963.
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Rorabaugh, W. J. The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition. New York: Oxford, 1979. Williams, I. Rum: A Social and Sociable History. New York: Nations, 2005.
History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century All recorded civilizations have produced, traded, and consumed alcohol in a wide variety of ways. Its commerce has taken place as domestic, local, and international trade and, as such, has been regulated by governing bodies as an important source of revenue. Its impact has been strong enough that it contributed to shaping the cultural identity of different societies, in which the type of alcohol consumed is related to identity; for example, vodka in eastern Europe; beer in Britain and Germanic cultures; wine in France, Italy, and Spain; sake in Japan; and so on. Moreover, alcohol use has long been incorporated into many religious practices. In an era in which anesthetics were nonexistent, alcohol often served as anesthesia for surgical procedures as well as disinfectants for wounds and other types of medical needs. Therefore, many scholars view the study of alcohol and its consumption as an open window to examine the ways in which society viewed seemingly unrelated issues, such as responsibility, morality, reason, and pleasure, as well as the nature of individual freedom and state interference. The cultural history of alcohol in the 20th century reflects these constant tides of competing philosophies seeking resolution to what they saw as the problem of alcohol in society. Among many of its social, pharmacological, and even religious functions, alcohol has long served as a social lubricant. Inebriation, or drunkenness, had long been an acceptable condition up until the 18th century, according to some scholars. However, during the 19th century, social mores began to change. The Industrial Revolution created the need for a reliable and punctual workforce, and the period overlapped with an era of Christian revival. The temperance movement,
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which arose in the 19th century, blamed alcohol for many of society’s ills, including crime, poverty, and domestic violence. In the developing west of the United States, for example, saloons— very popular among pioneering men, prospectors, adventurers, and miners—were viewed by many as places of debauchery. Temperance movements also had a strong presence in other countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and the Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland). By the end of the 19th century, inebriation was considered by many as a threat to morality and industriousness, as well as to personal and social growth. Many social pathologies that commonly accompanied early industrialization, such as overcrowding, poverty, and crime, were also blamed on the consumption of alcohol. In addition, women and children were often seen as victims of alcohol fathers and husbands, a belief at least partly founded in reality, and thus temperance was sometimes seen as a women’s issue as well. In time, social perception shifted from considering the excessive consumption of alcohol as threatening to the social fabric to viewing any consumption whatsoever of alcohol as unacceptable and to consider regulating or prohibiting alcohol consumption a matter of interest to the state, rather than simply a personal or family concern. Prohibition in the United States In the United States, the term Prohibition refers to a specific period (1920–33), during which the manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor in the country was illegal. Prohibition grew out of the temperance movement, and by the beginning of the 20th century, there were temperance groups in almost every state in the nation. By 1916, over 50 percent of the states already had enacted statutes prohibiting alcohol. In 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, banning the production and sale of alcohol, was ratified. It went into effect in January 1920. Although the Eighteenth Amendment established Prohibition, the Volstead Act, which was passed in October 1919, served to clarify the details of the new law. It declared that the law meant by beer, wine, or other intoxicating malt or vinous liquors, any beverage over 0.5 percent
in alcohol by volume. It also banned the ownership of items utilized in manufacturing alcohol. However, the Eighteenth Amendment and Volstead left a number of loopholes that permitted limited consumption of alcohol, for instance during religious ceremonies or if it was prescribed by a doctor. In addition, Prohibition went into effect a year after the amendment’s ratification, which provided enough time for many people to purchase alcohol legally and store it for future personal consumption. Groups aimed at repealing the Eighteenth Amendment started organizing almost as soon as it was ratified. Many of the benefits that the temperance movement had visualized failed to materialize during Prohibition, weakening public support for the movement, while the rise of gangsters and criminal violence disillusioned many who had believed in it as a social experiment for the betterment of society as a whole. As a result, the movement against Prohibition continued to spread throughout the 1920s. At the inception of the Great Depression, the public’s opinion changed even more. The government desperately needed funds and a great many people were in dire need of work. Making alcohol legal again, many argued, would serve to create employment for people, legal commercial opportunities for entrepreneurs, and tax revenue for the government. The costs of enforcing Prohibition were also considerable, at a time when public coffers were hardly overflowing. By one estimate, the federal government spent over $300 million trying to enforce Prohibition, while also losing $11 billion in tax revenues, and many states suffered major losses in tax revenues as well. One of the most deleterious effects of Prohibition was its influence on crime. Despite the loopholes, it was illegal to purchase liquor for most people in the country. Because consumption of alcohol was considered a normal part of adult life for many Americans, a criminal infrastructure was created to meet this demand. A new breed of criminal, commonly labeled gangsters, hired smugglers to transport liquor from Canada and the Caribbean Islands into the United States. Others dedicated themselves to production of homemade liquor and secret bars, commonly called speakeasies, opened across the country. In
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addition to providing a key source of revenue for criminal organizations, Prohibition thus led to many otherwise law-abiding American engaging in criminal acts, which some scholars argue led to reduced respect for the law while also glamorizing the criminal enterprise. The Twenty-First Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and legalized the production and consumption of alcohol again, was ratified in December 1933. After the repeal of Prohibition, the legislation of alcohol consumption was left to the lower courts or the states. Most states established the legal drinking age at 21, although some set it at 18. Until 1984, there was no national drinking age; however, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was passed that year. One of the main arguments for the national establishment of a legal drinking age was the increase in deaths related to drunk driving. During the 1980s, however, a gradual decrease of drinking rates nationwide began to take place, creating a propitious environment for the new national law. Because the regulation of drinking was left to the states, there are great variations in drinking laws across the country. Despite the national repeal of Prohibition, hundreds of counties in the United States enforce “dry” laws. These laws typically ban the manufacture and sale of alcohol but not the consumption. Many states, such as Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia, have towns and entire counties legislated as “dry.” Specific regulation also different by location—for instance, Sunday alcohol sales are prohibited in some areas, and in some states distilled liquor can only be purchased from state liquor stores, although beer and wine may be available in supermarkets. Prohibition Outside the United States Many countries besides the United States have tried prohibiting alcohol sales at some point in their history. Some, including Iceland and Finland, enacted total bans on alcohol sales and consumption for part of the 20th century. In other countries, prohibition was imposed at the local or regional rather than national level. For instance, some Canadian provinces enacted prohibition in the early 20th century, but most were repealed in the 1920s. Several states in India, including Gujurat and Nagaland, also ban alcohol sale and
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consumption, and prohibition is being gradually instituted in Kerala. Reasons cited in these nations for prohibiting alcohol are often similar to those offered in the United States, including the social and health consequences of alcohol consumption (or excessive alcohol consumption). In some countries, religious tradition is also cited a force behind prohibition movements, most notably the prohibition against alcohol consumption in Islam. In some countries with large Muslim majorities, including Iran, Yemen, and Kuwait, alcohol sales and consumption are banned entirely. In other countries, alcohol consumption may be banned for some individuals but not for others. For instance, in Brunei, alcohol consumption is banned for Muslims but non-Muslims may bring small amounts of alcohol into the country for their own private consumption. In Pakistan, prohibition was imposed beginning in 1977, but non-Muslims are allowed limited consumption of alcohol through a permit system. Alcohol sales are banned in the Maldives, but resorts serving foreign tourists are allowed to sell alcohol on their premises. Post-Repeal Developments in the United States Alcohol stood much higher in the American political and cultural consciousness in the 19th and early 20th century, than it has ever since. Prohibition was perceived as a noble endeavor (in fact, it was sometimes referred to as “the Noble Experiment”), a legislative measure of social betterment and uplift. After so many decades of heated public debate on the issue, however, it seemed as if people were drained. After repeal, the public lost interest in the topic. The impact of the failure of Prohibition long tainted the debate and few politicians were interested in touching it. The public’s interest, besides, was consumed with the Great Depression and World War II. In time, the issue of alcohol became depoliticized, or separated from public policy, in American culture. During the period that followed Prohibition’s repeal, a new conceptual model arose. Advocacy groups promoted the idea that rather than alcohol per se being a problem, some individuals had a disease called alcoholism that made alcohol consumption problematic for them. Scholars such as Ron Roizen, for example,
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have examined in depth the history of alcohol’s depoliticization and illuminated how the new model was vastly different from the moralistic and punishing arguments pushed by the temperance movement in past decades. Some groups promoted scientific research in order to deal with the problem of alcoholism. Meanwhile, a new voluntary organization known as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Bob Smith, promoted the support and rescue of alcoholics by their peers—other alcoholics in recovery. Research institutions and important universities such as Columbia and Yale became involved and sought to move the study of alcohol from the political arena to that of scientific research. These organizations positioned the problem of alcohol as a lack of science and mismanagement of communication. They argued that it was due to a lack of scientific approaches to deal with it and framed it as a problem of inadequate public education and misconceptions that arose due to the long period of political propaganda by the temperance movements. The institutional approaches of Alcoholics Anonymous and of science institutions helped mold a new paradigm to discuss alcohol and its risks. AA emphasized a private and spiritual renewal track, while scientists emphasized neutrality and objectivity. Conceptualizing alcoholism as a disease helped diminish the stigma that came with the temperance movement’s view of alcoholism as a moral failure. Whereas the temperance movement saw alcohol as evil, neutralizing the subject also served to eliminate much of the perceived threat from the product itself. By the mid-1970s, a new diagnostic criterion for “alcohol dependence syndrome” was established that defined addiction to alcohol as an issue to be dealt with in the field of psychiatry. The “alcoholism” support movement gradually grew into a pressure group for greater public policy funding for alcohol-related research and treatment programs. As the salience of the new pathological concept of alcoholism expanded, so did interest in highlighting the role of alcohol as related to a widespread array of problems, especially those that might warrant the need for research. The focus on alcohol’s role in a wide variety of social of problems was considered an
efficient strategy for raising social awareness and funding. Political and Cultural Elements Prohibition, according to many experts, changed drinking habits in the United States. By forcing people to drink either at home or in hidden speakeasies, they encouraged surreptitious private drinking as well as binge drinking. That is, instead of drinking moderately in order to have a pleasant time, drinking surreptitiously led many to drink as much liquor as possible in the least amount of time. However, at the beginning of the post-repeal period, alcohol—like tobacco—was popularly represented as a pleasurable and benign product, both in popular and scientific media outlets. Conceptualizing alcoholism as a disease suggested that only alcoholics, who amount to a relatively small proportion of the poulation, drinkers would suffer because of their addiction to alcohol. The process of moving alcohol consumption away from policy making, according to experts, spanned from approximately 1935 to 1975. While alcohol consumption during Prohibition declined between 30 and 50 percent, according to some, data show that alcohol consumption increased approximately 40 percent from early 1960 to 1980. The trend of depoliticizing alcohol became a global issue. In the late 1960s, even a World Health Organization (WHO) panel of experts challenged the idea of alcoholism requiring the involvement of public policy. Some Western nations liberalized alcohol-related legislation. This trend had some deleterious effects on scientific research, which largely depended on government funding for its activities. Nevertheless, research and treatment programs that focus on alcohol-related health problems, such as biological and genetic alcoholism, for example, continue to be research priorities in many places. In the wake of an increase in alcohol consumption, beginning in the 1970s organizations such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and others launched local and national campaigns to curtail alcohol drinking in some scenarios. Prior to MADD, drunk driving was treated relatively leniently in the criminal justice system, but MADD was successfully in highlighting the social costs of drunk driving (e.g., death and injury to innocent parties) so that drinking and driving is
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now subject to severe penalties. These activists often stressed the need for more social control and tough legislation for violations of drinking/impairment laws but shifted the focus of the debate to the victims of alcohol-impaired people rather than on alcohol itself. AA grew exponentially and had a strong impact in the cultural arena at-large. For example, its 12-step voluntary system and its therapeutic language became widespread and was adopted by other addiction-related programs, such as those for people with addictions to habits such as overeating, gambling, sex, and drug use.. Concepts such as codependency and peer sponsorship were also incorporated into mainstream culture. The rehabilitation approach promoted by AA was adapted by many rehabilitation programs, some of which were not necessarily voluntary. In short, Alcoholics Anonymous went beyond the field of alcohol addiction to a broader cultural impact worldwide, not only in the United States. Finally, the perception of alcohol consumption is inextricably linked to social issues such as class, gender, and ethnicity and the ways in which these are perceived in every culture. In many countries, men are far more likely to consume alcohol than are women, while in other countries, consumption is relatively equal. In addition, some scholars cite a rise in a contemporary temperance-style movement developing since in the 1980s mostly focuses on the risks of drinking by pregnant women, drinking by underage youth, by women overall, and by ethnic minorities. This rhetoric, they find, fails to point out excess drinking by white, middle-class, and wealthier males, which works to discriminate against some groups and establishes a hierarchy for who becomes labeled and controlled in relation to drinking. Today, as in the past, alcohol consumption is viewed differently across social classes; it depends upon who is drinking, what is drunk, and where. Drinking reveals issues of class and status as well. For example, a careful analysis of advertising shows that drinking beer has a very different connotation than drinking wine, not to mention fine whiskey, among others. Some historians, such as James Nichols, for example, suggest that more expensive liquors are portrayed in controlled and rational environments, as opposed to the more “carnivalesque” portrayals of liquors advertised
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to the working classes. The implied assumption is that lower income groups lack the rational and controlled behavior of the wealthier. Moreover, since the industrial era, excessive consumption of drinking among the poorer segments of society has been construed as problematic and unhealthy, in part because it rendered them unfit for work. Invoking the protection of the working classes from their own weaknesses—including the effects of uncontrolled alcohol consumption—has long been used by temperance advocates as a reason to promote the regulation of the alcohol industry, not only in the United States but also in Britain and other nations. Alcohol in the United States Today From the mid-1970s, the paradigm of alcoholrelated social problems slowly began to show signs of becoming politicized again. Some experts find that there is an increasing sense of pinning the problem of alcohol on alcohol itself. In the 1990s, public policy began to cut funding for treatment, for example, showing a decrease in the public policy tendency to treat alcoholism in a benign way. However, per capita alcohol consumption has slowly and gradually decreased since the 1980s, after the near-20-year spike in drinking from the 1960s to the 1980s. Scholars argue that research seems to indicate a correlation between the slowdown in alcohol consumption and a tightening in social norms as related to drinking. Organizations such as MADD, for example, and organizations for children and spouses of alcoholics, played a role in highlighting the victims of alcohol rather than focusing on the drinker. This served to show that rather than being a harmless personal choice, excessive alcohol consumption had wider repercussions in society, such as creating innocent victims. Some anti-alcohol advocacy groups promoted a return to public policy regulation, for example, increased taxation on alcohol, laws that control and decrease alcohol-related publicity, penalties for selling alcohol to minors and inebriated customers, and others. Some experts, including Roizen, find that the salience of Alcoholics Anonymous and its message increased the anti-drinking trend among the public. Nongovernment groups, such as charitable foundations and parent–school
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organizations, revived the temperance movement philosophy. Some government public policy institutions have also become involved in prevention advocacy. Among issues of research interest that receive a fair amount of publicity are drunk driving, the relationship between alcohol and violence, underage drinking, and similar others, which rather than focusing on alcohol as a syndrome or disease, seem to refocus the issue on alcohol per se. The focus on alcohol as the problem, many experts argue, runs the risk of providing support for government regulation via public and health policies. Others argue that instances of state intervention in alcohol regulation have always existed, such as the establishment of “dry counties” and zoning for alcohol expenditure, higher taxation, requiring adults to obtain permits for alcohol consumption, setting age limits for purchasing liquor, and others. Moreover, government revenues from alcohol sales are still an important source of funding. The importance of alcohol to national economies is an important public policy factor in most countries. In 2004, the government of Britain, for example, produced a study showing that, according to the latest statistics then available, the alcohol industry was worth over 30 billion pounds and supported around a million jobs. On one hand, many find that the postwar reconceptualization of modern-day alcoholism and the hope of the scientific community to find solutions to alcohol addiction were overly optimistic in general. Scholars find that a new paradigm arose from years of scientific critiques of the postwar alcoholism paradigm. The conceptualization of alcohol problems has shifted in mainstream culture in the last decade to concerns about a better lifestyle, which includes health, fitness, nutrition, and antismoking concerns. In short, the problem of alcohol has, in recent years, partially evolved into a lifestyle issue. Some argue that the new paradigm, rather than a return to old temperance ideals, actually offers a better understanding of alcohol and its effects, while others worry that the new approach, rather than offering better science, returns to the old temperance rhetoric and strictures adapted to the contemporary era. In contrast to the new trend toward temperance pointed to by many experts, others claim that the current political approach in most nations
represents a tidal change from the longitudinal historical tendency. The economic and social role of alcohol has historically always been considered as phenomena to be regulated and controlled. Today, the economy of alcohol is considered a social and economic issue that must be cultivated and supported. Excessive social drinking is largely assumed to be controlled by social norms, unless it becomes an addiction. The cultural trend might be moving, some experts believe, toward a more antiregulatory philosophy as pertains to beer, wine, and liquor manufacturers, which may reflect the growing anti-regulation trend worldwide. Global Alcohol Consumption and Regulation According to a 2005 report of the World Health Organization, the world consumed approximately 13 pints (6.1 liters) of pure alcohol per individual that year. The regions that consume, on average, the greatest quantities of alcohol are Europe and Russia, although Korea and China also rank high in this regard. Most cultures have historically integrated the consumption of alcohol in their social norms and daily life; some religions also include alcohol consumption in rituals, such as the Jewish and Catholic faiths. Moreover, while drinking alcohol is central to most cultures, these tend to rely on autoregulation and social mores for alcohol consumption control. The social and cultural perception of drinking as a problem has also changed overall in most of the Western world, in the view of many experts. According to available global statistics, however, alcohol-related problems such as addiction affect only a small number of alcohol consumers, even in the cultures that rank highest in alcohol consumption. In fact, countries with low average consumption often report higher rates of alcohol-related problems, whereas countries reporting much higher levels of consumption, such as Italy and France, score lower on most rankings of alcohol-related problems. Nevertheless, the trend to reduce excessive alcohol intake has spread globally. The WHO, for example, has been working on a global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol worldwide. In 2010, the World Health Assembly of the WHO adopted by consensus a resolution that endorses this global strategy. Most countries that allow alcohol sales and consumption have laws regulating matters such
History of Alcoholic Beverages
as the age at which an individual is allowed to purchase alcohol. Worldwide, countries that allow alcohol consumption often specify an age in the late teenage years (often 18) as the minimum age for purchase and consumption of alcohol. Among European countries in 2013, for instance, the minimum age for purchasing low-alcohol beverages for onsite consumption ranged from 16 to 18 years, while the minimum age for high-alcohol beverages ranged from 16 to 20, with the higher age limit applying in the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Finland, and Norway. In contrast, many European countries have no limits for public possession and consumption of alcohol, and even fewer for private possession and consumption. Social attitudes toward alcohol also vary widely by country. In Denmark, a highly developed nation with high public health standards, for example, there is an abundance of public information about the dangers of alcohol. In the nation, there is simply less stigma attached to drinking alcohol and more acceptance and family involvement in learning how to integrate drinking prudently in daily life. In Asian cultures, alcohol consumption is a social facilitator, often related to business socializing. In many Asian societies, social drinking is encouraged, while solitary drinking is discouraged. Conclusion Drinking and the politics around it seem to be undergoing a revival in many regions worldwide, especially in the first few decades of the 21st century. In 2003, the British government took its first significant steps since World War I to change the drinking habits of its citizens. Great Britain also spent vast sums in commissioning research and on public awareness campaigns to deal with underage drinking, considered a serious problem. Because alcohol-related problems are directly tied to culture-specific factors (i.e., those relating to beliefs, attitudes, expectations, and norms) about drinking, a definitive consensus has not yet been reach nor has a satisfactory resolution to the world’s alcohol-related issues been found. Trudy M. Mercadal Florida Atlantic University See Also: Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Congressional Temperance
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Society; Moral Attitudes Toward Alcohol Consumption; Mothers Against Drunk Driving; State Regulations After Prohibition, U.S.; Stereotypical Depiction of Alcoholics; Temperance Movements; Volstead Act; World Health Organization; Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies. Further Readings Bumenthal, Karen. Murder, Moonshine and the Lawless Years of Prohibition. London: Macmillan, 2011. Gately, Iain. Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol. London: Gotham, 2009. Hames, Gina. Alcohol in World History. London: Routledge, 2012. Hanson, David J. Preventing Alcohol Abuse: Alcohol, Culture and Control. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995. Lucas, Eileen. The Eighteenth and Twenty-First Amendments: Alcohol Prohibition and Repeal. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 1998. Murdoch, Catherine Gilbert. Domesticating Drink: Women, Men and Alcohol in America, 1870–1940. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Nicholls, James. The Politics of Alcohol. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2013. Phillips, Rod. Alcohol: A History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Roizen, Ron. “How Does the Nation’s ‘Alcohol Problem’ Change From Era to Era?” Altering American Consciousness: The History of Alcohol and Drug Use in the United States, 1800–2000. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004. Tracy, Sarah W. and Caroline J. Acker, eds. Altering American Consciousness: The History of Alcohol and Drug Use in the United States, 1800–2000. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004.
History of Alcoholic Beverages Although cocktails are a popular option for drinkers today, before the 1800s, it was rare for bartenders to mix spirits with bitters, fruit juices, and ice. Modern mixed drinks gained popularity in the United States in the 1800s and spread to
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Europe in the early 1900s. This entry provides an overview of the development of mixed drinks as a class of beverages and also discusses the history of particular cocktails, highlighting the social and historical forces that led to their popularity. Mixed Drinks in the 18th and 19th Centuries Although modern cocktails trace their origins to the 1800s, prior to this, alcohol was often mixed with food items to create dessert beverages. For example, in England in the 17th and 18th centuries, the syllabub was a popular custard-style dessert drink made from a mixture of wine and eggs. Another precursor to the modern cocktail was the toddy, a warm beverage made of scotch, honey, water, and lemon; it was popular in Scotland as early as the 1700s and continues to be served today. Overall, prior to the 18th century, few Europeans consumed spirits, except for medicinal purposes; instead, most people drank beer, ale, or wine. In the 1700s, however, gin quickly became the most popular beverage in England. This is attributable to a law passed by Parliament that encouraged farmers to use their surplus grain to produce gin. Within several decades, the spirit became so popular that England was experiencing the negative consequences of a “gin epidemic” fueled by a surplus of the cheap spirits. In contrast, in the colonial United States, rum was the most popular spirit. The drink was produced in the sugar islands of the West Indies and was introduced into the port cities in New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Massachusetts in the late 1600s. As the rum of this era was bitter, the colonists often mixed it with other ingredients to make punch. Specifically, the word punch is derived from the Hindustani word panch, meaning five; in accordance with this, punches typically had five ingredients, including rum, beer, fruit, eggs, milk, and tea. Punch was typically consumed at social gatherings, and in pre-Revolutionary America, it was common for a household to own a silver or glass punch bowl. In fact, in 1767, Paul Revere made a silver punch bowl to honor the 92 legislators in Massachusetts who refused to support the implementation of the Townsend Acts by the British government. Another rum drink popular in the Colonial period was the flip; a reference to this type of
mixed drink appeared in a colonial almanac in 1704. The flip is a type of beverage made from a heated mixture of beer, rum, and a sweetener, such as molasses. Before serving, the drink was heated with a hot iron, causing it to foam or flip. Although modern variations of the flip are still made by bartenders, they differ significantly from their colonial precursors; specifically, modern flips are made using gin or brandy instead of rum and are often served cold. The Origin of Cocktails According to Iain Gatley, the first recorded use of the word cocktail to refer to a mixed drink occurred in a London paper in 1798; at the time cock-tail was a slang term used to refer to mixed breed horses that had clipped tails. The term cock-tail began appearing in American newspapers a few years later. For example, in 1806, a New York newspaper printed the restaurant bill of a political candidate, noting that the person had consumed several “cock-tails.” Readers were unfamiliar with the term, and the paper later clarified the definition of the word, noting that a cocktail was a combination of spirits, sugar water, and bitters intended for those who could not stomach drinks of pure alcohol. Until the 1830s, few Americans drank true cocktails, namely cold drinks made from three or more ingredients; instead, popular mixed drinks included punch, hot toddies, and slings. More complex drinks were rare; at the time, bartenders used only a few tools to make drinks, including a knife, a strainer, and a toddy stick. By the middle of the century, however, cocktails had grown in popularity in the United States, and drinkers favored increasingly complex beverages. In line with this, bartenders had begun to employ an array of new tools to prepare drinks, including shakers as well as tongs and shavers to manipulate ice. Moreover, it became common for bars to offer drinks with liqueurs and fruit garnishes served in chilled glasses. In 1862, bartender Jerry Thomas, the father of American mixology, wrote what is widely considered to be the first cocktail recipe book, alternately titled How to Mix Drinks or the Bartenders Guide. Thomas, who was a bartender at the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco, had a crucial role in popularizing mixed drinks. The final
edition of his guide, published after his 1885 death, contained recipes for many modern cocktails such as the manhattan and the collins. Although cocktails became popular in the 1800s, cocktail parties did not become a regular social activity until the 1920s. Prior to this, however, wealthy individuals often held parties where guests socialized while drinking punch that contained alcohol. In 1917, a socialite living in St. Louis, Missouri, hosted the first recorded cocktail party in the United States. A local newspaper covered the event, and cocktail parties quickly became popular in the city. By the 1930s, despite prohibition, cocktail parties had become a standard social activity throughout the entire United States. At the same time, American-style cocktails began to spread to Europe; this was due to the influx of American tourists who requested cocktails at bars as well as the exoduses of bartenders from the United States to Europe during the Prohibition era. The Criterion, which opened in 1910, became the first American-style bar in London; within several decades “American bars” serving an array of mixed drinks were common in Europe.
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was used to describe a sweet syrup suitable for disguising the taste of medicine; in accordance with this, the drink was specifically developed to mask the harsh taste of early American whiskey. The first mention of the julep as a cocktail came in an 1803 book by British traveler John Davies; while visiting Virginia, he noted that this mintand-whiskey drink was commonly consumed in the morning. Today, however, the mint julep is closely associated with Kentucky and commonly made with bourbon rather than whiskey. As early as the 1800s, julep glasses were a common prize at county fairs in the state, and in 1938, the Churchill Downs racetrack began to promote the mint julep in association with the Kentucky Derby. Currently, more than 100,000 juleps are consumed during the Kentucky Derby each year.
Mojito The mojito is a popular cocktail that traces its origins to Cuba in the 17th century. The drink, one of the world’s oldest cocktails, is made from a mixture of rum, sugar, lime, and mint. There is debate regarding the development of this cocktail; some historians argue that the recipe was developed by Spanish explorers to Cuba who sought to create a citrus-based cocktail to ward off scurvy. Other accounts, however, argue that African slaves working on Cuban sugar plantations developed the drink; specifically, the word mojito derives from the Africa word mojo, meaning spell. During Prohibition, the drink became popular with Americans who traveled to Cuba to gamble and drink. The cocktail experienced a resurgence in popularity when it was featured in the 2002 James Bond movie Die Another Day. Mint Julep The mint julep, a drink popular in the American South, was originally designed for medicinal proposes. Specifically, in France, the word julep
A mint julep cocktail in a frosted silver cup. The cocktail was originally developed to make some early whiskeys more palatable. Today more than 100,000 mint juleps are consumed during the Kentucky Derby every year.
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Old Fashioned Another beverage closely associated with Kentucky is the old fashioned. This drink gained popularity in the 1870s; many bar patrons were dissatisfied with the increasingly complex cocktails common in the era and requested simpler, old-fashioned cocktails. In accordance with this, bartenders began preparing more simple drinks; these drinks substituted sugar for syrup and were not shaken and strained. The first reference to an old fashioned cocktail came in an 1869 issue of the Chicago Tribune; by the end of the century, the drink had become a staple of bars and was included in cocktail recipe books. When it was developed, the old fashioned was commonly made with bourbon and became popular in Kentucky. Several decades later, however, in response to a renewed public demand for sweeter drinks, the standard recipe of the old fashioned was altered; since then, the drink has been made with seltzer water, a maraschino cherry, and an orange slice. Martini Although all historians agree that the martini—a mix of gin and vermouth, often served with an olive—is an American cocktail, there is considerable debate regarding its precise origins. One theory traces the development of the martini to California during the Gold Rush. In this version, a bartender in the town of Martinez began to offer a gin-and-vermouth drink called the Martinez. An alternate theory attributes its development to Jerry Thomas, who served the drink at the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco in the 1860s. The drink quickly gained popularity and, by the first decade of the 20th century, was listed among standard cocktails in bartending guides. Early martinis were far sweeter than their modern counterparts. A bartending guide from 1888 provided a recipe for the drink that called for a one-to-one ratio of gin to vermouth. The martini was especially popular during the Prohibition era because illicit bathtub gin was readily available; large amounts of vermouth were added to the cocktail to offset the taste of this low-quality gin. By the 1950s, the modern, dry martini became standard, using less vermouth. Additionally, it also became common for a bartender to substitute vodka for gin.
Tom Collins The Tom Collins, a gin-based cocktail made with sugar, lemon juice, and seltzer, has similarly contested origins. The drink gained popularity in the late 1870s and was designed as a more substantial version of the popular gin fizz cocktail. A recipe for the Tom Collins first appeared in an 1876 edition of Thomas’s book; however, prior to this, a similar drink named the John Collins had been served in a London bar. The recipe outlined by Thomas, however, specifically called for Old Tom brand gin rather than the Holland gin that was commonly used in other gin cocktails, including the John Collins. There is considerable debate regarding whether or not the Tom Collins drink was named after the Great Tom Collins Hoax of 1874. The hoax was based on a joke, which began when a man would walk up to a stranger and ask him if he knew an individual named Tom Collins. When the stranger gave a negative reply, the man would then inform him that Tom Collins was sitting in a bar around the corner and spreading aspersions about the stranger. Newspapers participated in the hoax, printing stories about the notorious Tom Collins. In accordance with this, some accounts hold that Thomas simply capitalized on the popularity of the hoax by naming a drink after it; an alternate theory holds that the name of the Tom Collins comes from the inclusion of Old Tom’s gin in the recipe. Kelly McHugh Catherine Aquilina Florida Southern College See Also: Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Egg Nog; Gin Cocktails; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 17th Century; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 18th Century; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 19th Century; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Martinis; Mint Julep; Old Fashioned. Further Readings Curtis, Wayne. And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails. New York: Random House, 2006. Gately, Iain. Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol. New York: Penguin Group, 2007.
Wondrich, David. Imbibe!: From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to “Professor” Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar. New York: Penguin Group, 2007.
Holidays Alcohol has long served both a ritual and a celebratory purpose and, as such, features prominently in many holiday celebrations. In some cases, its presence is incidental: While drinking often accompanies Fourth of July and Labor Day celebrations, for instance, there is no specific drink, drinking ritual, or drinking occasion associated with these holidays. In these cases, alcohol is present simply as part of the overall celebration and in particular as part of enjoying time off in the summer. In other cases, there are specific alcoholic beverages or traditions that are associated with various holidays. While any adult birthday can be celebrated with a drink, there is a particular tradition of taking a birthday celebrant out to a public place to order his or her first legal drink when he or she turns 21. This may be a token single drink—especially if the hosts are the celebrant’s parents—or may be a significant drinking event. There is no particular traditional drink associated with the event; however, champagne is traditionally celebratory, especially if a toast is to be offered. Champagne, or more broadly sparkling wine, features prominently during New Year’s Eve. Though most Americans do not celebrate with actual French champagne, enough do that temporary shortages are regularly reported every year. Most settle for a cheaper sparkling wine, and it is traditional to wait to break open the champagne until just before midnight—though at New Year’s Eve parties, celebrants may have been drinking other beverages for several hours—at which point everyone counts down to midnight (in unison either with the host or one of the televised countdowns. The tradition of sparkling wine on New Year’s Eve is perhaps the most popular of all holiday drinking traditions; while egg nog’s association with Christmas is inextricable, for instance, it is
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also a beverage frequently complained about or derided. Religious Observances Many religious observances include the ritual use of red wine. Christian churches hold Christmas day, and often Christmas Eve, services regardless of whether either day falls on a Sunday, for instance, and such services sometimes include communion, with its ceremonial imbibing of red wine (or a grape juice substitute in some denominations). In Judaism, on the nights of Passover, Shauvot, Sukkot, and Shemini Atzeret, a special kiddush ritual involves reciting kiddush (the remembrance of the Sabbath) and drinking wine from a ceremonial goblet. Mardi Gras is technically a religious observance in that it ends the Carnival season and begins the season of Lent, which is marked, for Catholics, by a lengthy symbolic fast until Easter, the most significant Sunday in the liturgical calendar. However, it is celebrated by far more than believers, and its manner of celebration is far from reverent. Though Mardi Gras celebrations are found in more and more American cities, southern Louisiana (where the French population is concentrated) remains the only part of the country with a full-fledged Carnival season, lasting from Epiphany until Ash Wednesday and marked by numerous parties and parades. Drinking is common among both locals and the many tourists who flock to the city. Though New Orleans is known among cocktail aficionados for such refined drinks as the Sazerac and the Ramos Gin Fizz, the drinks that best represent Mardi Gras are the daiquiri—which in New Orleans refers not to the rum and lime juice combination but to a range of dozens of flavors of churned, frozen drinks made with various liquors, flavorings, and grain alcohol—and the Hurricane, originally a tiki-like drink of multiple rums and fruit juices, today usually a rum-spiked Kool Aid. Cultural Celebrations There are a number of cultural celebrations strongly associated with drinking. St. Patrick’s Day, for instance, is the most popular celebration of an ethnic identity in the United States, though many of the celebrants have no claim on Irish heritage.
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In the United States, Cinco de Mayo has been celebrated in the Mexican American community since the 1860s. Its popularity today is due not only to the growing Mexican American population but also to the number of non-Mexican American participants, much as with St Patrick’s Day. It is increasingly popular to see multiethnic Cinco de Mayo celebrations accompanied by margaritas, tequila, or mezcal and for bars and restaurants to offer discounted tequila drinks or margarita specials. Derby Day is the day of the Kentucky Derby, one of the most significant horse races of the year. As significant to the celebration of the Derby as the big hats for women is the mint julep, made from bourbon, mint, sugar, and lots of ice. Spearmint is the traditional mint in Kentucky, though peppermint is sometimes used elsewhere. A julep is traditionally served in a silver or pewter cup that is held only by the rim to allow frost to form on the outside of the metal cup. Because of a sponsorship arrangement, the official mint julep of the Kentucky Derby, and the one served on site, are made with Early Times Kentucky whiskey or Woodford Reserve bourbon. Though Halloween and Thanksgiving are not associated with specific drinking traditions, the microbrew revolution has made seasonal beer offerings (including from macrobreweries) more popular, and it is common to see numerous pumpkin and pumpkin spice beers and ciders released around this time of year. Similarly, there are a number of seasonal beers released in time for Christmas, often brewed with various spices. The brewery at Eggenberg Castle, Austria, is famous for its Samichlaus beer, which means Santa Claus in Swiss German. A lager that is 14 percent alcohol by volume (ABV), since 1980 it has been released once a year after being brewed on December 6 and aged for 10 months. In France and the United Kingdom, winter warmers (bieres de Noel in France) are the norm, rich and malty top-fermented ales, sometimes with added spices. Christmas Christmas is also the time associated with egg nog, an egg- and dairy-based punch with a long history. Eggs and milk have both long been used to enrich alcoholic beverages; until the cocktail revival brought back the many egg and egg white
drinks, egg nog was one of the only ones that survived in mainstream awareness. The other, also a Christmas season drink, is a variant of egg nog that is served hot, called the Tom and Jerry. Today, it is known mainly in the upper midwest, though many ski resorts also serve it. Unlike the Tom and Jerry, egg nog may—and some say should—be aged. If made properly and allowed to age at least three weeks, aged egg nog is actually safer than fresh egg nog because the high alcohol content has had time to kill off any bacteria introduced by the eggs. Both the alcohol and the sugar act as preservatives, and the proteins in the egg yolk are denatured over time, changing the drink’s texture. Many recommend aging at least a year; there is no real limit to how long it can be aged because the alcohol and sugar create an antiseptic environment. Diwali Due to a growing Indian American population, non-Indian Americans are becoming more aware of Diwali, the Festival of Lights. An official holiday in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Malaysia, Singapore, and Fiji, Diwali is also celebrated throughout the world by Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs. Opinions vary significantly on the role of drinking in Diwali celebrations. While it is a feast, many find heavy drinking to be inappropriate. However, Diwali menus nearly always include beer, whiskey, wine, and champagne in addition to nonalcoholic sodas and dessert drinks like falooda and lassi. Further, in 2013, Johnnie Walker released a Diwali edition of its Black Label blended Scotch in India, with a marketing campaign that included Diwali drinking tips, all of which were predicated on an assumption of heavy drinking throughout the festival (with warnings not to mix vodka with whisky, to drink enough water, to eat before drinking, and so on). That same year, the Times of India published a guide to commercially available drinking games for Diwali parties. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Champagne; Egg Nog; Jewish Traditions; Punch; St. Patrick’s Day.
Further Readings Babor, Thomas. Alcohol Customs and Rituals. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. Barr, Andrew. Drink: A Social History of America. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1999. Barrows, Susanna and Robin Rooms, eds. Drinking Behavior and Belief in Modern History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Bennett, Linda A. and Genevieve M. Ames, eds. The American Experience With Alcohol: Contrasting Cultural Perspectives. New York: Plenum Press, 2005. Burns, Eric. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004.
Home Protection Home Protection was the name of a moderateappealing argument in favor of women’s suffrage, one put forward by Frances Willard (1839–98), the second and longest serving president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the first women’s social reform organization. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was formed in Hillsboro, Ohio, in 1873, with a national convention held the following year. It soon extended its activities to the international level. In addition to missionary work, the WCTU at various times pursued a number of social reforms that interested its members, including prohibition and women’s suffrage. Members disagreed considerably, however, about specific reforms in which WCTU should become involved, Annie Wittenmyer, the WCTU’s first president, resisted the urging of members who wanted the organization involved in political issues like temperance and suffrage. Instead, Wittenmyer saw the WCTU as focused on missionary work, Christian teachings, and attempting to spread moral messages that would, in bolstering the moral fiber of communities, naturally result in reforms. A major shift in focus occurred in 1879, when Willard succeeded Wittenmyer as WCTU president. Willard brought a wide-ranging commitment to reform to the WCTU, serving as president until her death in 1898 at the age of 58. Willard
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not only believed in the WCTU’s commitment to the temperance movement but also espoused women’s suffrage and other social reforms, including issues of concern to organized labor, such as an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage law. Under Willard’s leadership, the WCTU advocated many causes involving women’s issues: legal protection against rape, divorce law reform, the welfare of women and children, the founding of kindergartens, prison reform, moral outreach to prostitutes, and relief for the indigent. Wittenmyer, who remained popular with the eastern chapters of the WCTU, was essentially a conservative; like some other prominent female activists, she did not actively seek the vote or believe in directly affecting political change, considering politics the work of men and morality the work of women. Willard, a progressive who considered Wittenmyer’s stance nonsense, had the support of the western chapters. Membership grew steadily—from 22,800 in 1881 to 138,377 ten years later, and a peak of 372,355 in 1931. Willard also initiated the WCTU’s international activities, founding the World’s WCTU, which held international conventions (sometimes scheduled to coincide with other prominent international events, like the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893) and opened chapters in several other countries. Willard’s early support also proved instrumental to the eventual success of Prohibition and suffrage, though both came some 20 years after her death. Born to naturalist and Free Soiler Josiah Flint Willard and schoolteacher Mary Thompson Hill, Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard was the third of four children and was named for her sister who had died the year previous. Born in Rochester, New York, she was raised in Janesville, Wisconsin, where the family converted to Methodism, which in the 19th century was one of the Protestant denominations most closely associated with social reforms and progressivism. Willard attended the Milwaukee Normal Institute and Northwestern Female College. After a brief teaching career, she became the first dean of women at Northwestern University, after the college she founded, the Evanston College for Ladies, merged with it. She resigned in 1874 over conflicts about how to run the women’s school with the Northwestern University president, her former fiancé
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A portrait of Frances Willard from the 1880s or 1890s. Willard, the second and longest serving president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, was the first woman honored in the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol.
Charles Henry Fowler. Her temperance career began after her resignation, and she embarked on a speaking tour in 1874 that led to over 400 lectures a year for the next decade. Advocating the Cause of Home Protection Willard strove to counter the common conservative notion, prevalent even among activist women, that politics was no place for women, who should concern themselves with religious work instead. With Home Protection she framed the suffrage movement as nonradical and not threatening to religious authority or the sanctity of the American home. According to this argument, women’s suffrage would protect the home itself as a domestic sphere separate from the political realm. “The object of female enfranchisement,” she wrote, “is to secure for all women above the age of twenty-one years the ballot as one means for the protection of their homes
from the devastation caused by the legalized traffic in strong drink.” Just as with the women’s liberation movement a century later, opponents portrayed suffragists as inherently antifeminine home-wreckers who sought to overturn American family values. Home Protection cast suffrage in a feminine, not just feminist, light. Willard was fond of the slogan “Politics is the place for women,” emphasizing the compatibility of women’s putative moral superiority with political reform. (Despite this appeal to moderates and conservatives, Willard herself became a socialist late in life, her calls for social reform and prolabor sentiments extending to a call for the nationalization of factories and railroads.) In emphasizing the harmful effects of alcohol and its threat to American homes, Willard and the WCTU sometimes invoked the image of the black criminal driven to violence by alcohol, and antilynching activist Ida B. Wells accused her of perpetuating racist imagery to support temperance and women’s rights. Even after Willard’s death, the WCTU continued to pursue a broad agenda of social reform, including federal aid for education, harsher penalties for sexual assaults, equal pay for women, the formation of women’s shelters, the Pure Food and Drug Act, labor issues, pacifism, and nutrition education. It fought not only alcohol and tobacco but also drug traffic in the 20th century, child labor, and human trafficking. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Temperance Movements; Willard, Francis; Wittenmyer, Annie Turner; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union; Women’s Temperance Crusade (1874). Further Readings Baker, Jean H. Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists. New York: Hill and Wang, 2005. Gifford, Carolyn De Swarte and Amy R. Slagell, eds. Let Something Good Be Said: Speeches and Writings of Frances E. Willard. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007. Tyrell, Ian. Reforming the World: The Creation of America’s Moral Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.
Homelessness and Alcoholism, History of
Homelessness and Alcoholism, History of It is impossible to state neatly the historical relationship between heavy drinking and homelessness, as the meanings of the terms and what is made of their relationship vary dramatically among and within societies over time. To avoid complex and uncertain comparisons, this entry is restricted to the United States between the last decades of the 19th century (the Gilded Age of industrial takeoff and rapid urbanization) and the recurrence of a persistent mass homelessness that began in the late 1970s and remains largely unabated. Similarly, this entry uses the term heavy drinking to avoid the historical specificity of alcoholism or substance use disorder and the difficulty of deriving such diagnoses from even contemporary surveys of homeless populations. Neither is the meaning of homelessness clear or historically stable. It is an odd-job word with at least three meanings over the last 150 years. The first relies on housing status: the absence of a regular abode or a customary sleeping place suitable for human habitation. The second flows from disaffiliation, most importantly a person’s lost ties to the support and guidance of kin. Finally, the term has long done important administrative work in the distribution of political rights and privileges and the sorting of persons in institutional systems. The absence of a legally acceptable place (an official address) or too-brief tenure in it (residency requirements) has barred such homeless people from public benefits and voting rights. This entry attends to the first two definitions. This entry mainly concerns single, adult men. There have always been women and children among the homeless of the United States, but until the attention given to runaway and throwaway children in the 1970s and the growing dispossession of families in the 1980s, they were small and largely invisible groups, or their homeless status, like that of Victorian street urchins, was ambiguous. Even now, women comprise a small minority of homeless people and typically are homeless with children, often as a result of alcohol-related domestic violence. Although affected by many of the same economic and policy matters that set
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the background for the homelessness of single men today, particularly low-wage work and welfare insufficiency, homeless children and families are different. Drink and the Gilded Age Tramp Americans were prodigious drinkers in the early 19th century, but the rigors of market logic and industrial production demanded a sobriety and discipline unusual in the less-exact rural life in which most residents of swelling Gilded Age cities had been raised. By mid-century, abstinence from alcohol, or at least distilled spirits, was becoming an important marker of respectability associated with steady employment, settled family life, and personal integrity. Typical temperance rhetoric magnified the tendency of economically middling Protestants, in particular, to see most in poverty as lacking such virtues. Honest poverty, they believed, always perched on the edge of demoralization, to invoke the language of charity work, and intemperance was the most salient stigma of the fallen. In the decades following the Civil War (1861– 65), many urban poor people were mere steps ahead of the landlord and periodically spent nights in unlocked police cells provided for their use, but the tramp was America’s most fearsome embodiment of demoralization. Tramps belonged to a floating army of young men, usually native born and white, who did the dirty work of Manifest Destiny: They built canals, laid track, punched cattle, cut ice, and harvested crops from one coast to the other, roaming the country on foot or as freeloaders on trains, often surviving on pilfered fruit and poultry. Those who took pride in their work as well as their freedom from factory bondage came to be called hobos as opposed to tramps, but the distinction was easily smudged. By the accounts of generally unsympathetic observers, tramps drank their share and then some and, when in town for the winter, blew their wages in saloons and brothels, becoming in due course familiar with the poorhouse, the city prison, and the county jail. Those who appeared frequently before local magistrates were known as rounders. The rounder’s reputation for unceasing penury, drunkenness, and disorder, and the costs associated with his management, made him
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a focal concern of promoters of specialized public asylums to segregate chronic inebriates. From Hobohemia to Skid Row Tramps, hobos, and local odd-jobs men (the home guard) populated distinctive workingman’s districts in cities throughout the United States. These were close by railroad hubs and town centers. Known as hobohemias or main stems, whether in Chicago, Seattle, or elsewhere, they were vibrant sites of political dissent, low culture, and an impressive collection of vices. Most important, they functioned as meat markets for labor recruitment, afforded easy access to transportation, and contained tolerable housing for aging workers in decline. Indeed, after about 1885, hobohemias became characterized by a distinctive form of housing, the single-room workingman’s hotel, which could have small and spare rooms with a sink or merely a cot surrounded by thin walls and ceilings of wire mesh (cage hotels). Neither accommodation was more than a sleeping machine for men who owned little and used the saloon as a parlor. There could be hundreds of saloons on the big-city main stem—there were more than 30 per square blocks in San Francisco’s South of Market district at the turn of the 20th century—and they typically were of the flat beer and sawdust floor variety, some with basement space to accommodate drunken men with nowhere else to go but jail. After World War I, hobohemia began a slow decline into the infamous skid row of the postWorld War II period. The end of widespread railroad building, rapid mechanization of farm and forest work, and deliberate attempts in some industries like lumbering and mining to keep a settled, year-round labor force, made migrant life less viable. The young men who gave hobohemia its verve stayed off the road or after a time found more conventional employment. By the mid1920s, hobohemia was accumulating an older population of the home guard and disabled. While the Great Depression (1929–41) flooded it with a new generation of men, pervasive unemployment and universal destitution drained the main stem of its economic function and vibrancy. In addition to single-room quarters, huge congregate shelters (Philadelphia’s housed 4,000 men) warehoused the surplus human material, and a new demoralization, the pathology of shelterization, was said
to characterize many residents and to be associated with drink. World War II absorbed the young and able as soldiers or factory workers. Given the extraordinary demand for labor, even heavy drinkers found work, sometimes propped up on assembly lines by the first employee assistance programs. In 1942, the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, California, contracted with the 400-mile distant Los Angeles County Jail to import busloads of skid row winos to be trained as welders. After the war, skid row and its functionally similar rooming house areas in African American communities were populated by poor, aging pensioners without kin to take them in. However, the startling and exotic visibility of public drunkenness on skid row fixed the popular association of heavy drinking and homelessness. (Manhattan’s Bowery district was a featured sight on bus tours of New York.) Note, though, that skid row men were housed even if disaffiliated. Further, studies of skid row populations in the 1950s and 1960s, undertaken in connection with the bulldozing (renewal) of such areas, typically found that only a minority of the residents (roughly 30 percent) drank heavily. Mass Homelessness Redux By the time Congress passed the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act in July 1987, homelessness had become a mass and spatially diffuse phenomenon. For a generation, skid row was the singular locus of homelessness in the United States, but by the late 1980s, displaced people were everywhere, from inner-city slums to hardscrabble rural districts, from affluent suburbs to university towns (where tramping young people found their own main stem in the late 1960s), to what remained of the traditional precincts of skid row. It had been almost 50 years since residential dislocation had been such a common feature of poverty throughout the country and since the dispossessed had inhabited so thoroughly the crannies of America. There were obvious reasons for this terrible renaissance. Most important, the ratio of income to housing costs shifted dramatically. By 1985, almost two-thirds of poor households spent more than half their income on housing, a 50 percent increase over 1978. The long-developing
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processes of deindustrialization and automation had eliminated many of the well-paid jobs that permitted those without advanced degrees to pay rapidly rising rents. (A second wage earner had become essential to a family’s financial stability.) The inflation-adjusted value of public assistance (welfare) fell by one-third between 1970 and 1984 along with the real value of the minimum wage. Government-financed construction of affordable housing all but ceased, and the marginal redoubts of an earlier generation—rooming houses and single-room hotels—had largely been lost to the wrecking ball or conversion to “higher use.” The disappearance of marginal housing stock was especially consequential for those who might have occupied skid row a generation earlier, notably people with severe mental illness or problems with alcohol and other drugs. The tightening of civil commitment laws throughout the country in the 1970s and the closing of state mental hospitals amounted to a major change in
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housing policy for mentally ill people. Many of them depended on the public benefits that were increasingly inadequate to renting the most modest housing, and many had psychiatric problems compounded by heavy drinking and substance consumption more generally. Similarly, although state hospitals never kept heavy drinkers or drug users for longer than a few months, the hospitals had their own rounders, otherwise homeless people admitted repeatedly for short periods. This population was expelled from state hospital systems in the 1970s. The decriminalization of public drunkenness during the same period virtually eliminated periodic tours in county jails by impoverished, persistent heavy drinkers. In 1996, Congress eliminated substance abuse as a qualifying impairment for Social Security disability benefits, driving almost 200,000 people off the rolls. A nine-city study of what happened to almost 2,000 of them over the next two years found considerably elevated rates of homelessness.
While housing policy is behind much homeless shelter use, many studies have found high prevalence rates of current, heavy drinking in shelter populations. Adjusting for common sampling and measurement problems that create substantial overestimates, it seems likely that about one-third of men who use shelters today drink heavily, or about the same prevalence as on skid row in the 1950s.
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The connection of heavy drinking with contemporary homelessness should be understood in this larger context. To be sure, heavy drinking is a causal factor: The many studies of shelter populations undertaken in the late 1980s (virtually none have been done since) found high prevalence rates of current, heavy drinking and usually a long history of it. Adjusting for common sampling and measurement problems that create substantial overestimates, it seems likely that about one-third of men who use shelters drink heavily or about the same prevalence as on skid row in the 1950s. Still, that these men are in shelters rather than single-room hotels is an artifact of housing policy, not their drinking habits. Bundled Risks Prevalence rates do not tell us why on any given night some people who drink heavily are in shelters or sleeping rough, while the vast majority of even poor heavy drinkers are housed. As the high turnover rates in shelters attest, part of that puzzle is that homeless populations are not distinct from populations of the housed poor. As in the Gilded Age, homelessness today is a common status among very poor people who incorporate public accommodation into strategies for managing overcrowded private quarters and impositions on friends and kin. However, those who are homeless for long periods seem to have what epidemiologists call bundled risks. In times that have made housing expensive and good wages scarce, they have grown up poor, gotten a brief and bad education, lived in foster care or lost their kin, developed a serious mental illness, acquired bad habits, done time in prison—and, often, most of the above. Jim Baumohl Bryn Mawr College See Also: Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, History of; Heavy Drinkers, History of; Temperance Movements; Saloons, Modern. Further Readings Baumohl, J., ed. Homelessness in America. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press, 1996. Blumberg, L. U., T. S. Shipley, and S. Barsky. Liquor and Poverty: Skid Row as a Human Condition.
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Center for Alcohol Studies, 1978. Groth, P. Living Downtown: The History of Residential Hotels in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Kusmer, K. Down and Out, on the Road: The Homeless in American History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Miller, H. On the Fringe: The Dispossessed in America. New York: Lexington Books, 1991. Swartz, J. A., J. Baumohl, and A. J. Lurigio. “Termination of Supplemental Security Income Benefits for Drug Addiction and Alcoholism: Results of a Longitudinal Study of the Effects on Former Beneficiaries.” Social Service Review, v.78 (2004). Wiseman, J. Stations of the Lost: The Treatment of Skid Row Alcoholics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1971.
Hong Kong Hong Kong, officially known as Hong Kong Special Administrative Regions of the People’s Republic of China, was a British colony between 1841 and 1997. It is currently under the onecountry, two systems regime until 2047. Due to its colonial past and the avoidance of the Cultural Revolution, the local drinking culture is different from that in mainland China. The British introduced some aspects of the drinking culture during colonization. Drinking helped bridge the hierarchy between Hong Kong Chinese and British policemen within the colonial Royal Hong Kong Police Force. Moreover, in modern Hong Kong, drinking Westernized alcoholic beverages, particularly wine, reflects wealth and cultural capital, conveying consumers’ knowledge of prestigious foreign products. Wine has also grown in popularity since the repeal of the wine tax in 2008 increased its affordability and availability. Despite the popularity of Western alcoholic consumption, Hong Kong Chinese tend to drink less than Westerners. The Hong Kong Department of Health reported that alcohol consumption per capita in 2005 stood at 2.53 liters, significantly lower than the
United Kingdom (13.37 liters) and the United States (9.44 liters). The inability of some Chinese people to process alcohol, and negative cultural associations with excessive alcohol consumption, help explain this difference. Type of Drinks and Their Meanings Historically, Chinese rice wine enjoyed wide consumption, but in recent years it has become unpopular through its association with older manual laborers. Rice wine continues to be used in cooking, traditional medicine, and rituals to honor ancestors. However, the young Hong Kong Chinese view it as old-fashioned. Eric Kit-Wai Ma suggests that young Hong Kong elites perceive European beers as trendy but associate Chinese beers with the lower classes. Josephine Smart points out that cognac appeals to Hong Kong Chinese as a symbol of wealth that is widely consumed at wedding banquets and business meetings. Still, tradition shapes drink choices in Hong Kong. Some residents avoid white wine in celebrations such as weddings and birthdays because Chinese tradition associates white with the dead. In contrast, Hong Kong Chinese enjoy red wine not only as a fashionable drink but also because red represents good luck in Chinese culture. However, younger Hong Kong Chinese tend to be less superstitious and do not place much emphasis on traditional customs. New Wine Industry Wine was not popular in Hong Kong before 2000 as it was in short supply and expensive. The wine duty was reduced to 40 percent from 80 percent in February 2007 and completely withdrawn in February 2008. As a result, wine became more affordable. Data from the Global Agriculture Information Network shows that France was the biggest wine exporter to Hong Kong in 2010, at 44 percent in value ($495 million) and 29 percent in volume (13.9 million liters). Not only has Hong Kong transformed into a wine-trading hub in Asia, but it has also driven up the demand of fine and rare French wine globally. Drinking Places and Bar Culture Hong Kong, through its avoidance of the Cultural Revolution, witnessed a wave of social movements in the late 1960s. This allowed imported
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Western influences including rock and roll, casual sex, and LSD to flourish, also inspiring the creation of drinking places. Sea-ling Cheng notes that the first exclusive discotheque was established in 1968 at the prestigious Peninsula Hotel for the colonial elites. A decade later, the first disco opened on D’Aguilar Street in Lan Kwai Fong, Central. Despite welcoming all customers, the majority of clientele were Westerners. The current drinking culture remains largely divided among Hong Kong Chinese, Westerners, and residents of other ethnic origins. Bars in Lan Kwai Fong, Soho, and Wan Chai are the heart of Hong Kong’s nightlife district and attract mostly European customers and tourists. These bars offer ladies nights where women can drink for free or at a reduced price. Hong Kong Chinese tend to visit bars with interactive forms of entertainment, namely karaoke bars and sports bars in Mong Kok as well as some parts of Tsim Sha Tsui and Causeway Bay. Dice games are often played in which losers are expected to consume alcohol. Certain bars in Tsim Sha Tsui are also popular among drinkers of South Asian origin. Genetics, Culture, and Social Perception Hong Kong Chinese tend to drink less, due in part to biological factors. Ming-Jen Yang argues that certain Chinese ethnic groups cannot consume large quantities of alcohol because of an inherent sensitivity to alcohol molecules due to having higher levels of acetaldehyde. Similar research carried out by Holly Thomasson and colleagues also demonstrates that Asians (Chinese) tend to lack the ALDH2 enzyme, which helps break down alcohol. The absence of this enzyme causes drinkers to suffer from allergic reactions toward alcohol as their skin, in particular the face, can turn extremely red. This reaction is also known as the Asian glow, which can cause embarrassment. There are also social differences in drinking patterns. Hong Kong Chinese tend to consume food and alcohol together, while some Western cultures, such as the British, tend to perceive food as secondary to alcohol consumption in social settings. It is common for an entire Hong Kong family to completely refrain from drinking alcohol because of its negative connotations with drunkenness and poor health. Despite the popularity of Western alcohol, Hong Kong Chinese
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tend to reject other aspects of Western drinking culture, such as binge drinking. In summary, Hong Kong has transformed into Asia’s wine trading hub since its tax withdrawal, making wine consumption accessible. Western alcoholic drinks are used as a means to express cultural capital among Hong Kong Chinese. Western alcohol is also integrated into traditional Chinese customs and culture. Moreover, the cultural norm of moderate consumption of alcohol is maintained, and heavy drinking is negatively viewed due to the health risks and the associated social taboo. Hang Kei Ho University College London See Also: Asia, East; Asia, South; Asia, Southeast; China. Further Readings Cheng, Sea-ling. “Consuming Places in Hong Kong: Experiencing Lan Kwai Fong.” In Consuming Hong Kong, Gordon Mathews, and Tai-lok Lui, eds. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2001. Ho, Hang Kei. Drinking Bordeaux in the “New” Hong Kong: Exploring Changing Identities Through Alcohol Consumption. Ph.D. Thesis, University College London, 2013. Ma, Eric Kit-wai. “The Hierarchy of Drinks: Alcohol and Social Class in Hong Kong.” In Consuming Hong Kong, Gordon Mathews, and Tai-Lok Lui, eds. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2001. Thomasson, Holly R., et al. “Alcohol and Aldehyde Dehydrogenase Genotypes and Alcoholism in Chinese Men.” The American Journal of Human Genetics, v.48 (1991). Yang, Ming-Jen. “The Chinese Drinking Problem: A Review of the Literature and Its Implication in a Cross-Cultural Study.” Kaohsiung Journal of Medical Sciences, v.18/11 (2002).
Hooch Hooch, sometimes spelled hootch, is a popular slang word referring to grain-based alcohol with
a high alcohol content, generally white whiskey, which is either illicitly produced, of inferior quality, or both. Hooch gained popularity during the Prohibition era of the 1920s, later becoming commonly associated with the mountainous regions of the American South. Hooch is generally distilled privately as a personal or local enterprise, although modern loosening of alcohol regulations had opened a small market for legal hooch. Hooch consumption has been linked to alcohol poisoning, among other dangers, while its production opens distillers to prosecution. The word hooch has its origin in the Tlingit Native American village of Hoochinoo, located on Admiralty Island, Alaska. The U.S. Congress had outlawed the sale of alcohol in the newly purchased Russian territory of Alaska in 1867, forcing the Tlingit of Hoochinoo to manufacture and sell their own illicit alcohol through the distillation of molasses and other fermentable food sources. During the Alaskan Gold Rush of the 1890s, gold prospectors provided a ready market for the illicit alcohol, which became known as hoochinoo after its place of origin. The word, shortened to hooch, soon entered the English language, becoming a popular phrase for illicit alcohol. Other slang names for hooch include moonshine, creek water, mountain dew, white lightning, and Tennessee white whiskey. Corn was the primary ingredient of hooch, although sugar and other ingredients were added in modern times to shorten fermentation times or adulterate the final product. Hooch generally has a high alcoholic content, or proof. Distillers generally avoid use of the word hooch because of its association with illicit activity and inferior quality. Modern hooch production is associated with the American South, particularly the mountainous areas of the southern Appalachian region. Hooch distillation is generally a covert process utilizing homemade stills of varying levels of sophistication, sometimes relying on makeshift parts such as car radiators. The finished product was traditionally housed in Mason jars or clay jugs. Hooch is noted for its inferiority to more conventionally produced, longer aged, and more expensive, legally produced whiskies. Hooch gained popularity as a means to produce and consume alcohol during times of prohibition. Proscriptions against alcohol use and
temperance movements with both religious and social bases were present in U.S. history from the beginning. Drunkenness had emerged as a serious social problem in Europe in the 16th century and in the United States by the 18th century, when distilled spirits with higher alcoholic contents than traditional beer and wine became more widely produced and consumed. Prominent U.S. groups campaigning against alcohol’s deleterious effects included the American Temperance Society, Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, AntiSaloon League, and the Prohibition Party. Prohibition Prohibition became the national law in the United States in 1919 through the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, taking effect in 1920 and lasting until its repeal in 1933. Prohibition outlawed the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol. The Volstead Act provided for the amendment’s enforcement while in effect. Prohibition is widely considered a failed attempt to legislate morality, as illicit alcohol use became both alluring and socially fashionable while the law itself was widely disobeyed. During Prohibition, illicit alcohol such as hooch was both produced in secret stills or illegally smuggled into the country from neighboring areas such as Canada or the Caribbean in a process known as either rum running or bootlegging. Gangsters such as Al Capone found bootlegging to be both a profitable and dangerous business. Little federal resources for enforcement of alcohol regulations allowed hooch consumption to rise. Hooch was served at speakeasies, also known as blind tigers or blind pigs, often unlicensed underground bars and restaurants that illegally served alcohol to customers representing a range of social classes. Speakeasies date back to the late 19th century but flourished during the Prohibition era, gaining a romantic aura of secrecy that has remained in popular culture. The ready supply of hooch also increased alcohol use among women, who had previously been excluded from most saloons but flocked to Prohibitionera speakeasies in large numbers. Women would emerge as a large and growing segment of the modern alcohol market.
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Modern Hooch Illicit distillation of alcohol in the remote mountainous regions of the American South continued after Prohibition’s repeal. Key production states include Tennessee, Georgia, and North and South Carolina. These mountainous areas allowed for easy concealment of illegal private stills and also benefitted from centuries of family traditions of moonshining. The term hooch became associated with the illicit drug marijuana in the late 1960s and 1970s. Modern recipes for homemade hooch are readily available on the Internet. The Discovery Channel reality television program Moonshiners, which debuted in 2011, demonstrates the continued popular cultural appeal of hooch. Hooch is also used as a modern term for the illicit homemade alcohol distilled by prisoners, where alcohol is a banned substance. Illicit prisonmade hooch is also known as pruno. Prisoners often produce hooch by combining water with an available food source that will produce the sugars needed for fermentation in bags that can be safely concealed during the fermentation process. Homemade prison hooch has also been associated with cases of botulism poisoning, resulting from the use of foods such as improperly cooked potatoes for fermentation. The potentially toxic effects of consuming hooch range from hangovers and headaches to blindness, liver damage, alcohol poisoning, and even death. Highly toxic methanol, also known as wood alcohol, is often present in high concentrations when hooch is first manufactured, lessening as batches are produced over the course of a run. While these early batches, colloquially known as foreshot, are usually discarded to both avoid danger and improve taste, failure to do so can result in alcohol poisoning and even death. Other adulterated substances such as lye, lead, acetone, or propylene glycol (antifreeze) can also contaminate hooch. These substances usually originate from the homemade stills used to produce hooch, particularly those that utilize automobile radiators or lead soldered pipes as components. Many consumers relied on informal tests passed on in local lore, such as shaking a container of hooch or setting fire to a spoonful of hooch to determine alcohol content or test for contaminants. The high alcohol content of hooch increases its flammability, posing another danger for distillers.
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The illicit nature of hooch in many areas also means both producers and consumers risk arrest and prosecution under various state and local laws, although hooch has been legalized in some U.S. states, such as Tennessee, as part of an overall movement to loosen liquor regulations. Legal hooch is sold as pure grain alcohol through brands such as Ole Smokey seek to capitalize on the growing market for novel, small, locally produced alcoholic beverages similar to the modern growth of the craft beer market. Flavored and aged hooch has also been introduced, although traditionalists question whether such new, legal products are rightly considered as hooch. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University See Also: Appalachian Moonshine Culture; Moonshiners; Post-Prohibition Bootlegging; Prohibition; Speakeasies and Blind Pigs. Further Reading Burns, Eric. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004. Holt, Mack P. Alcohol: A Social and Cultural History. New York: Berg, 2006. Peine, Emelie K., and Kai A. Schafft. “Moonshine, Mountaineers, and Modernity: Distilling Cultural History in the Southern Appalachian Mountains.” Journal of Appalachian Studies, v.18 (Spring–Fall 2012).
Hoover, Herbert The 31st president of the United States, Herbert Hoover, had compiled a distinguished record as an engineer and humanitarian by the time he became president. His commitment to prohibition appears to have changed over time. On one hand, as a law-and-order man, Hoover believed it his duty as president to enforce prohibition. On the other hand, as the years passed, he saw the disrespect for law and the police and the rise of organized crime as unintended consequences of prohibition and appears to have come to the conclusion that the
states, not the federal government, should regulate the sale and consumption of alcohol. For this to be possible, the federal government and states must first repeal prohibition. One may infer from this that by the end of his presidency Herbert Hoover no longer supported prohibition. Life and Political Career Born August 10, 1874, in Iowa, Herbert Hoover retained a midwesterner’s appreciation of the importance of agriculture to the U.S. economy. The family moved to Oregon in his childhood. In 1891, Hoover was among Stanford University’s first enrollees, where he studied mining engineering and would thus become the only U.S. president trained in that field. He married Lou Henry, a classmate at Stanford, and the two settled in China, where Hoover emerged as the country’s leading mining engineer. The Boxer Rebellion, an outpouring of xenophobia in 1900, surprised the Hoovers. Herbert helped direct the erection of fortifications in his town and displayed heroism by rescuing children under fire. Lou tended the wounded in a hospital. During World War I, Herbert Hoover assumed several roles that earned broad support from Americans. From London, he helped stranded Americans secure safe passage back to the United States. He established a program to feed displaced Belgians, the victims of German savagery. In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson named Hoover director of the Food Administration. Using his considerable administrative and logistical skills, Hoover managed to feed the Allies abroad without introducing rationing at home. He also directed food to Central Europe and the Soviet Union despite critics who believed he was aiding communism. Heedless of this criticism, Hoover took the humanitarian course. Republican presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge each appointed Hoover their secretary of commerce. By 1928, Herbert Hoover could claim as distinguished a record of public service as could anyone in the United States. He realized his ambition to become president in 1928. Initially optimistic, Hoover believed that the United States had entered a golden age of economic growth, even though agriculture had been ailing since the end of World War I. Hoover believed that economic growth would lift all Americans out of poverty. Less than
a year into his term, the stock market crashed, and the United States plunged into the Great Depression. Hoover seemed unprepared for this tragedy and held fast to his conservative economic beliefs. He refused to ask Congress to try to spend its way out of the depression by accruing a deficit, a move that would have aligned him with British economist John Maynard Keynes. A supply sider, Hoover wanted to cut taxes, the traditional Republican remedy for any problem. He was willing, however, to fund public works to give the unemployed jobs. In 1931, he persuaded Congress to create the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to help businesses, farmers, banks, and the states. Unwilling to suspend his core beliefs, Hoover maintained throughout his term that charity, not government, should care for the poor, an idea that set the United States apart from many nations in Europe that created a social safety net. Many Americans blamed Hoover for the failings of the economy and swung to Democratic candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt in the election of 1932. In retrospect, Hoover did not exude the confidence and experimental boldness of Roosevelt, whose election surprised no one. Bitter about his defeat, Hoover criticized the New Deal throughout the 1930s. In 1947, President Harry Truman appointed Hoover to head a commission to reform the executive branch of the federal government. In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Hoover to a similar position. In this role, Hoover made the executive branch more efficient and less costly to operate. Herbert Hoover died October 20, 1964, at age 90. Prohibition Prohibition predated Herbert Hoover’s term as president. In 1919, Congress passed and the states ratified the 18th Amendment, which outlawed the production, transportation, or sale of alcohol. The Volstead Act, enforcement legislation passed by Congress, reduced the permissible amount of alcohol in beverages to very low levels. Bars, restaurants, grocers, and other vendors could not sell beverages with more than 0.05 percent alcohol, a level so low that it surprised many Americans. Beer, for example, traditionally has 100 times more alcohol than this level. In the 1928 election, Republican Herbert Hoover used the issue of prohibition to separate
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himself from Democratic candidate Alfred E. Smith. Whereas Smith wished to repeal Prohibition, Hoover announced his intention to enforce it in keeping with his duties as president. He praised Prohibition as a noble experiment. Hoover sympathized with the goals of Prohibition: the retention of the family as the backbone of American society and the elimination of the inordinate consumption of alcohol, which was at the core of family disputes and domestic violence. Privately, however, Hoover seemed to vacillate. He did not abstain from alcohol but instead visited friends at the Belgian embassy. Because he was there on foreign soil and because Belgium permitted the consumption of alcohol, Hoover enjoyed a round of drinks with his friends. He regretted that Prohibition cost him his renowned wine collection and marked this Prohibition’s only success and a questionable one at that. By the end of his presidency, this ambivalence came to the fore. In 1932, addressing Congress, Hoover reiterated his duty as president to enforce the 18th Amendment. He recounted his years of support for the amendment and admitted that he had initially seen the law as the key to forever banning the evils of alcohol from the United States and reducing the addictive powers of alcohol. By these measures, Prohibition was a success. Yet, in another vein, Hoover conceded that Prohibition had made alcohol a vice and fostered organized crime. Americans had come to disrespect the law and the police charged with enforcing it. Moreover, police were reluctant to enforce Prohibition. Indeed, a German traveler to the United States during Prohibition wondered when the law would take effect, so common was the consumption of alcohol. Under these conditions, Hoover wanted to devolve the problems of Prohibition to the states. For this to work, Congress and the states would need to pass another amendment repealing the Eighteenth Amendment. One might infer, therefore, that Hoover no longer supported Prohibition by the end of his presidency. Prohibition was as dead as Hoover’s political aspirations. Newly elected Franklin Roosevelt had little difficulty persuading Congress to abolish Prohibition. The motives of Roosevelt, Congress, and the states lay at least partly in the desire to collect taxes from the sale of alcohol. Congress and the states
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were desperate for new sources of revenue during the depression. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: Post-Prohibition Bootlegging; Prohibition; Roosevelt, Franklin D. Further Readings “Herbert Hoover.” http://www.americanhistory.about .com/library/docs/blhooversspeech/1932.htm (Accessed February 2014). “The Noble Experiment of Prohibition.” http://www .nebraskastudies.org/0700/studies/0701_0125.html (Accessed February 2014). Pegram, Thomas R. Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800–1933. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1998.
Humor The bar is one of the classic locations not only for telling jokes but also where jokes occur. The “X walks into a bar” or “X, Y, and Z walk into a bar” subtypes are among the best known in the annals of American humor. The style of humor can vary from surrealism to ethnic humor to bawdy jokes to wordplay. X, Y, and Z walk into a bar jokes usually use the bar as a place to demonstrate character differences among three elements, whether they are ethnic stereotypes; the classic priest, a minister, and a rabbi; or something else. The Joke Cycle A surprising number of jokes comment on the nature of humor itself or on the conventions of jokes. Folklorists call the bar joke a joke cycle, referring to a class of jokes in which a particular formula is followed. The bar joke is a more complex joke cycle than, say, the dumb blonde joke cycle, in which all the jokes derive their humor from the idea that blondes are comically stupid or comment on that perception. Though all that ties bar jokes together is their setting, there are certain patterns and formulae that recur within the corpus of jokes, such as the priest, rabbi, and
minister joke. The bar joke cycle includes ethnic jokes, mathematical jokes, sexist jokes, religious jokes, puns, minimalist jokes, and antijokes. Humor in Other Drinking Traditions Of course, humor finds its way into other drinking traditions as well. Toasts are not inherently humorous, but it is traditional for the best man at a wedding, for instance, to deliver a toast that gently mocks the groom. The Irish are fond of toasts that toy with wordplay and irony, as in “May those who love us, love us. And, those who don’t love us, may God turn their hearts. And if He doesn’t turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles, so we’ll know them by their limping.” Theories of Humor A number of theories have been proposed as to why jokes are funny, none of them satisfying or holding up to scrutiny. The incongruity theory, for instance, was proposed by philosophers Immanuel Kant and Søren Kierkegaard, who said that laughter is caused by the thwarting of expectations (sometimes called the incongruity theory). But this explanation is clearly insufficient to explain why a joke can be funny when we’ve heard it before, and not every joke setup builds up specific expectations to be thwarted. Similarly, the earlier superiority theory, to which Plato and others subscribed, claimed that laughter is motivated by feeling superior to the object of that laughter, which would seem to describe, at best, a small subcategory of the things that make the average person laugh. Ted Cohen’s Jokes: Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters is one of the few book-length treatments on humor, not dealing with how-to tips or consisting of a catalog of jokes but examining what, why, and how jokes are made. Before Cohen, perhaps the most influential work on humor had been that of psychotherapy pioneer Sigmund Freud, who argued both that the essential purpose of humor was to release tension and that jokes provide a framework through which we can unconsciously express serious ideas. From a Freudian perspective, the prevalence of the bar in American humor may reflect our ambivalent relationship with it, as the country that both invented and banned cocktails. Cohen’s book focuses specifically on jokes and their importance in human life rather than
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on other forms of humor. In Cohen’s view, for instance, all jokes are in some part conditional, in the sense that their success depends on the audience possessing a particular familiarity, attitude, assumption, or piece of knowledge. This implies that the prevalence of bar humor reflects something important about American society—possibly that the bar is an important and familiar setting in American social life populated by types of persons and behaviors that many Americans can be expected to be familiar with. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Bar Bets; Drinking Games; Drinking Songs. Further Readings Burns, Eric. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004. Cohen, Ted. Jokes: Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990. Gately, Iain. Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol. New York: Gotham, 2008. Grimes, William. Straight Up or on the Rocks: A Cultural History of American Drink. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. McElhone, Harry. Barflies and Cocktails. New York: Mud Puddle Books, 2008. “What’s the Most Intellectual Joke You Know?” Reddit Thread. http://www.reddit.com/r/ AskReddit/comments/1h1cyg/whats_the_most_ intellectual_joke_you_know (Accessed June 2013).
Hungary Falling squarely within the grape-growing belt of the Old World, Hungary’s place in the history, production, consumption, and trade in alcohol has been predominantly wine based since Roman times. Hungary is known throughout the world for its sweet white Tokaj wines, along with its variety of fruit brandies (it has been a leading producer of
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the latter for centuries), and these form the basis of its alcohol economy and culture today. The territory of modern Hungary is composed largely of land well suited for agriculture, and almost 50 percent of its area (totaling ca. 93,000 square kilometers) is arable land. A relatively flat country (much of its modern territory consists of the Pannonian plain), with an average altitude of 200 meters above sea level, Hungary’s wine regions are concentrated in the valleys and on the hillsides of the North Hungarian Mountains and hills (around the towns of Eger, Mátra, Bükk, and Tokaj-Hegyalja), close to Slovakia, and the Transdanubian hills to the west and the south, from Sopron, not far from Vienna, and Zala, near the Slovenian and Croatian borders, to the extensive wine regions around Tolna, Szekszárd, Pécs, Kunság, and Csongrád, to the north of Croatian Slavonia and Serbia. The territory of modern Hungary consists primarily of plain, with hills and mountains to the west (as part of the Alpine chain) and northeast (as part of the Carpathian chain). With a temperate, continental climate, agriculture, viticulture, and horticulture are leading sectors of its economy. Fewer than 247,105 acres (100,000 hectares, or less than 2 percent) of Hungary’s arable land are devoted to vineyards. Nevertheless, as of 2010, Hungary was ranked as one of the top 20 wine-producing countries. The Danube and Tisza rivers provide ample water for irrigating Hungarian farms. In addition to grape and fruit growing, Hungary’s leading agricultural products include cereals, grains, sunflowers, and sugar beets. Pastoralism and herding are also still practiced. As noted previously, wine (bor) has been produced in Hungary for nearly 2,000 years, since Roman legions supposedly began planting grapes Pannonia in the late 3rd century. In the medieval period, wine production, as a largely cottage industry, was heavily concentrated among the monastic orders, particularly the Cistercians. In the modern era, Hungary has been known above all for its wines, especially its Tokaj wines, and its fruit brandies (made from plum, apricot, cherry, etc.), known as pálinka. Beer (sör) also has a long tradition in Hungary, and consumption, which was quite high during the Habsburg era, has been on the decline in recent decades.
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Hungary produces both white and red wines. Leading white varieties include Furmint, Hárslevelu, and Juhfark, while reds include Kadarka and cabernets. Hungary is known mostly for its Tokaj wines, which are botrytized (in Hungarian aszú or dried). Economy and Society With the exception of its brewing industry, Hungary’s alcoholic beverages sector consisted predominantly of smaller producers. Even during the Communist era (1945–89), the relatively low level of agricultural collectivization (compared to its Council for Mutual Economic Assistance [COMECON] neighbors) made small-scale growers the rule rather than the exception. However, while growing was small-scale, production, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, was not. Emphasis on higher yields and lower density led to a perceived decline in the overall quality of Hungarian wines, particularly sweet Tokaj wines. While Hungary has been a wine and spirits exporter for centuries, particularly its highest quality Tokaj wines, its economic integration during the Soviet era meant that much of its export went to the United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). As noted previously, under the Dual Monarchy of Austro-Hungary, the brewing industry was much more dominant in Hungary than today. The rise of mass-produced beer in Europe in the mid19th century was associated with Hungary as well: The first commercial brewery was opened in 1840. Prior to this, beer production was largely a cottage industry or practiced by monastic orders. Alcohol production and consumption remains a near-universal pastime in Hungary. Hungarians tout their wines and spirits; producing homemade wine and pálinka remains a common practice, particularly in rural areas. International research in the 20th century has consistently identified alcoholism as a social and public health issue in Hungary. The WHO has estimated that nearly one Hungarian adult male in six has a drinking problem. Alcohol consumption by type for Hungarians is as follows: wine (40 percent), beer (35 percent), spirits (24 percent), and other (1 percent). While Hungary has generally been associated with one of the world’s highest per capita suicide rates, research indicates a very close correlation between suicide and alcohol consumption.
Hungarian Tokaj wine accompanied by chocolate. Hungary ranked as one of the top 20 wine-producing countries in 2010 and is especially known for the sweet white Tokaj wines.
Culture and Tradition One of the most interesting phenomena to emerge from the post-Communist Hungarian wine industry is an ongoing debate over the various markers of the authenticity of Hungarian Tokaj wines. First, there is a more or less settled trade and trademark dispute between Hungary and Slovakia over the rights to the name Tokaj, which dates back to the late 1950s and which was resolved upon the accession of both countries to the European Union in 2004. (The region in Hungary where Tokaj wines are grown and produced is adjacent to Slovakia, which has its own wellestablished wine tradition and industry.) Slovak producers also market Tokajskie vino, provided it is grown in the Slovak-controlled region and conforms to Hungarian standards of quality.
In the domestic sphere, Tokaj wines are also the subject of contention over determining and valorizing traditions associated with their production. The post-Communist return to small growers and small producers in the Hungarian wine industry is generally regarded as a corrective to the high volume, low quality, and technological shortcuts of the Communist era (Borkombinat, the state producer), and currently, there are debates over contrasting approaches to growing, selection, harvest, fermentation, filtration, maturation, and so on reveal shifting historical changes in the perceived quality of Tokaj wines from their production, color, aroma, profile, and so on. There has been a distinct lack of consensus in profiling the best color for Tokaj wine—amber, yellow, golden, or even reddish; moreover, producers do not necessarily agree on the best practices for storing, racking, and aging Tokaj wines, and the historical record, although
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lengthy (dating back to the Middle Ages) is inconclusive. Adam Siegel University of California, Davis See Also: Europe, Central and Eastern; Wines, Fruit; Wines, Red; Wines, White. Further Readings Dries, L., S. Pascucci, A. Torok, and J. Toth. “Open Innovation: A Case-Study of the Hungarian Wine Sector. EuroChoices, v.12/1 (2013). Halasz, Zoltan. The Book of Hungarian Wines. Budapest, Hungary: Corvina Kiadó, 1981. Katona, Jozsef. Magyar borok, borvidekek. Budapest, Hungary: Mezõgazdasági Kiadó, 1963. Lambert-Gócs, Miles. “Tokaji: Forever Amber.” Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, v.2/3 (Summer 2002).
I Identification, Checking Checking identification (ID) is required to ensure that customers are of legal drinking age before being served. Most states require this of establishments serving or selling alcohol, and in most states it is a crime to provide alcohol to an underage drinker, usually considered a misdemeanor without jail time. While it is illegal to sell or serve alcohol to underage drinkers (with a few exceptions in some states), the procedures required by retailers and servers vary between jurisdictions and are also affected by company policy. For instance, some will only accept state-issued identification such as a driver‘s license, nondriver state ID, passport, or military ID; others may accept a student ID. In the 21st century, most places will only accept photo ID because this is the only way to confidently identify the ID holder. While this may seem like an obvious policy, minimum drinking ages predate photo ID; as recently as the 1980s, some states were still issuing driver’s licenses without photos. Federal law does not mandate a photograph on a driver’s license, though federal procedures do require them on federally issued identification, such as passports or military ID.
temperance reformers and immediately after Prohibition. In the post-Prohibition era until the 1960s, most states established a minimum drinking age of 21, though some established minimum ages as low as 16, or separate minimums for wine, beer, and liquor. No state set a minimum age higher than 21, which at the time was also the voting age. When the voting age was lowered to 18 in 1972 in response to student activism and recognition of the fact that 18 was the age of majority in most senses—the age at which one can join the military or be drafted, enter into legal contracts, run for public office, and be tried as an adult—the drinking age was lowered to 18 (or 19, as a compromise) in many states. To discourage both this lowering of the age and the growing tendency of 18- to 20-year-olds in states with a minimum age of 21 to drive to states with a minimum age of 18 in order to purchase alcohol or go to bars, Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1984. While the NMDA did not mandate a minimum drinking age, it did penalize any state with a minimum drinking age lower than 21 by denying them 10 percent of their federal highway funds. The United States is the only developed nation in the world with a minimum drinking age this high.
Establishment of Minimum Drinking Age Minimum drinking ages were established in the years leading up to Prohibition in response to
Requirements for Checking ID The circumstances in which ID needs to be checked vary. Generally, any time alcohol is being 711
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served or sold, age needs to be verified. This need not always be done in the form of physically checking an ID. A common guideline is that anyone under 30 needs to be IDed—ID checkers are given some leeway by asking them first to make a visual estimate of age and then to check ID, in such a way that they are more likely to card someone of legal age than to fail to card someone underage. In many states, the age of everyone who expects to consume the alcohol will need to be checked—for instance, if three people are shopping together and only one pays for the liquor, the ID of all three will need to be checked, even if the payor claims to only be purchasing for him or herself. Or if a pitcher of beer is served to a table, the ID of everyone at the table will need to be checked. The major exception here is in the states that permit minors to drink in the presence of their parents—while in most cases that applies only at home, about a quarter of the country permits minors to be served alcohol in restaurants in the presence of their consenting parents. Some also allow minors to be served in the presence of a consenting spouse over the age of 21. Some states have social host laws that extend the burden of verifying the age of drinkers to those who host parties at which alcohol is served. These laws were adopted in order to make it easier to prosecute parents who allow their teenage children to have parties at which alcohol is served without obtaining the consent of the parents of the invited friends, but they also impact parents whose children over the age of 21 use their homes to host parties attended by underage friends. The law puts the burden of responsibility on the adult who “controls” the premises, meaning the owner of the residence, the leaseholder of a rented residence, or in cases where this is applicable, the owner or on-site manager of a business (such as if a motel room used for an impromptu party). Studies suggest that about an eighth of underage individuals use fake IDs. This can take numerous forms, including using someone else’s identification and passing it off as one’s own; altering the birth date on one’s own identification; identity theft, in which someone obtains an officially issued identification with their own photo, by posing as another person; manufacturing a fake ID; and purchasing a manufactured fake ID from professionals. Professionals may be freelance or
connected with organized crime. The sale of fake identification documents, from driver’s licenses to passports to credit cards, is particularly associated in the 21st century with Russian organized crime families operating in the United States, especially in the northeast and midwest; in the west and southwest, fake identification is more likely to be connected to the cottage industry of crime that surrounds illegal immigration across the U.S.–Mexico border. Means of Verification Typical age-identification guidelines call for the employee making the check to examine the identification offered beyond verifying that it indicates the correct age. The birth date should be examined to assure there is no sign of alteration, although in the age of high-quality photo printing at home, this is a less likely means of forgery than in years past. The recorded appearance details— height, weight, hair, eyes—should accord, and liquor board guidelines often recommend that the checker specifically compare the hairline, eyebrows, and chin between the photo and the person. Other elements of the ID should be examined, such as the expiration date to be sure that it’s not an old ID (it being a common practice to pass expired IDs to underage relatives who look similar enough to pass). State liquor boards also provide books providing samples of driver’s licenses (in each class) and other common state-issued IDs from each state, and sometimes Canadian provinces, so that out-of-state IDs can be checked for authenticity. Many driver’s licenses also have various antiforgery measures, such as embossed or embedded designs, metallic or holographic state seals, or other measures that make alteration of the license detectable and make forgery difficult and expensive. Electronic ID scanners are mandated by law in some jurisdictions, but many are only capable of verifying in-state ID. Nevertheless, electronic ID scanners have another benefit, which is to enforce and create a record of checking IDs by integrating the scanner with the cash register so that use of the ID scanner is an automatic part of the checkout process. Compliance Checks Compliance checks are checks conducted by law enforcement, liquor boards, or other state or local
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authorities in order to ensure that an establishment—retail or restaurant—is following the law with regard to underage drinking and has an IDchecking policy and process in place. In some jurisdictions, compliance checks are mandated on a regular basis, while in others they are performed by law enforcement at their discretion. In either case, the establishment is not told in advance that the compliance check will happen. The compliance check is similar in principle to “mystery shopping,” in that the establishment is being monitored by an undercover operative to see how it handles the situation. Because compliance checks are aimed at ensuring compliance of liquor laws, when a failure to comply results in a citation, it may be given to the license holder—the owner of the establishment—even if he or she was not present and is not personally responsible for the underage service. As a sting operation, a compliance check runs the risk of crossing the line into entrapment. In particular, the use of fake IDs by the undercover operatives, or attempts to persuade the targeted party to sell them alcohol, are activities that are vulnerable to accusations of entrapment once the matter is addressed in court. Entrapment is a tricky area since it is considered the persuasion by law enforcement or other legal authorities that results in someone committing a crime that they would not have committed if not for the actions of law enforcement. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Drinking Establishments; Drunk-Driving Laws; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Legal Drinking Age: Rite of Passage; Regulation of Alcohol; State Liquor Stores. Further Readings Babor, Thomas. Alcohol and Public Policy: No Ordinary Commodity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Burns, Eric. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004. Grimes, William. Straight Up or On the Rocks: A Cultural History of American Drink. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
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India In India, the decision to either drink alcohol or to abstain from its use is fraught with meaning. Proscriptions against the use of alcohol are common in Indian religion. The use of alcohol by Brahmins was frowned upon in the Hindu Sastras and even more strictly forbidden in the Qur’an. Controlling access to alcohol was an important aspect of the Indian nationalist movement and continues to feature prominently in contemporary politics. It also functions as an important class marker. Per capita alcohol consumption rates in India are 0.55 liters, among the lowest in the world. Indigenous forms of alcohol consumed include palm wine or toddy, mowhra liquor made from flowers, and arrack or country liquor, which can be distilled from any alcohol-containing wine or beer. Adulteration of these handmade products has increased the popularity of European-style spirits referred to as Indian-made foreign liquors. Until the late 19th century, neither temperance nor abstention from alcohol was a primary concern in Indian society. Furthermore, Brahmins long viewed injunctions in the Vedas against the use of alcohol as applying solely to their caste and not others. The other varnas were not held to the same standard of purity that the Brahmans (publicly) imposed upon themselves. Abstention from alcohol for Brahmins was more preservation than proscription—evidence of purity and high social status. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a minority of Muslims, particularly millworkers and other laborers, drank despite this universal proscription. But, since this proscription was universal, alcohol use by Muslims was less common than for non-Brahman Hindus. The fact that abstention from alcohol was a defining characteristic of the twice-born castes made communal drink habits important social markers. Noted anthropologist Srinivas observed abstention from alcohol as one of the key shifts among non-Brahmin castes, identifying their move toward the standards of purity associated with higher social groups as sanskritization. Interestingly, upward communal mobility associated with sanskritization does not feature prominently in late 19th-century Western India. Temperance organizations born of cooperation between British temperance activists and early
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Patrons stop by a “government approved drinking place” in Gurgaon, Haryana, India, September 2, 2010. Since the economic liberalization of the 1990s, many people in the growing middle class have moved toward drinking; this increased capital has fueled a thriving brewing and distillation industry that has advertised heavily to the young and fashionable. However, the politics of alcohol in India remain controversial, and some states still oscillate between enacting and rolling back prohibition.
Indian nationalists created an important political space for the incubation of early Indian nationalism. Long before overt calls for home rule were utterable in the public sphere, temperance organizations created a rhetorical space within which very pointed criticism of colonial rule on moral grounds was possible, along with the implication that the problem of temperance was solely a colonial construction. Alcohol use in South Asia was much more widespread than commonly recognized. Drinkers were legion and sometimes vocal. In the 1890s, many of the drinking classes in Western India united to protest increased taxes levied on alcohol, forcing both the colonial government and European temperance advocates to acknowledge the high rates of alcohol use associated with some communities. The revenue needs of the colonial government and of some later independent Indian
state governments depended on large-scale alcohol production and consumption. So widespread was the use of alcohol that its taxation provided as much as 38 percent of total revenue for Madras presidency in the south. Though many Indians conceived of their nation as abstemious, great numbers of their peers were drinking quite a bit of alcohol. Prohibition of alcohol was as much a matter of social status as it was about drink. Despite the close relationship between temperance and the nationalist movement, many Indian drinkers persisted in their habit despite its condemnation and eventual criminalization in some areas by the Congress Provincial Governments of 1937 to 1939. Indian social reformers and European activists operating in India noted the traditional association of alcohol use with low social status. Middle-class drinkers occasionally alarmed
nationalists and temperance activists, but they were not mentioned with anything approaching the frequency of lower-class drinkers. Elite Indians associated with both nationalism and the temperance cause increasingly saw the drinking habits of the poor as a threat to the nation at large. As representatives of what is best in India, they could not engage in behavior that the legacy of nationalists associated with the worst of India. Indian women who drank during the nationalist period also transgressed gender boundaries. Idealized as symbols of Mother India, middle-class Indian women who drank alcohol represented the poisoning of traditional India. To police the drinking habits of wealthy Indians was to police the moral health of India itself. As the Indian nationalist movement grew in radicalism, so did the temperance movement. Poona’s temperance riot reveals how this created fault lines within government. Temperance-concerned members of parliament made it increasingly difficult for colonial administrators to silence Indian critics. Access to alcohol divided colonial rule, both in Britain and in India. Abstention from alcohol became an increasingly important aspect of national identity. The nationalist flags hoisted in view of liquor shops reminded would-be drinkers that their private habits were imbued with national significance. Article 47 of independent India’s Constitution orders that, “the State shall endeavour to bring about prohibition of the use except for medicinal purposes of intoxicating drinks and drugs which are injurious to health.” More than 50 years later, the intense controversy that led to this ambitious goal continues to loom large in the culture and politics of India. Prohibition remains uneven. It is not uncommon for states to oscillate between enacting and rolling back prohibition. Women activists had some successes in agitating for the prohibition of alcohol in states like Andhra Pradesh and Haryana in the 1990s but have since suffered political reversals. Prohibition has proven difficult to enforce and has been associated with sharp increases in unregulated, untaxed, illicit sales. Even in states that have long prohibited alcohol consumption, like Gujarat, it is still widely available on the black market. Low-status Indian males continue to drink publically, and alcoholism rates among men living
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in slums run as high as 65 percent. It is among these drinkers that adulteration of unregulated alcohol takes its highest toll. Whether in wet or dry states, alcohol is often sold out of open containers at roadside stands. The presence of methyl alcohol or ammonium nitrate in bad batches of street alcohol can cause blindness or death. Despite low rates of alcohol consumption compared with many other countries, alcohol use is on the rise, particularly among elites. Since the liberalization of India’s economic policy in the 1990s, many among the growing middle class have moved toward drinking. The resulting influx of capital has contributed to a thriving brewing and distillation industry, which has spent advertising dollars marketing alcohol to the young and fashionable. This has caused conflict among politicians whose traditionalist values harken back to the nationalist era, during which drinking was considered un-Indian and suggested hostility to the independence cause. In 2013, Hindu nationalists continued to oppose drinking among India’s youth population. Across most of India, nonadulterated alcohol is available in bars, many restaurants, hotels, and clubs. As middle-class alcohol consumption and incumbent advertising revenue continue to rise, the presence of Indian drinkers on posters is becoming an important aspect of Indian visual culture. Hostility against this new prominence of public drinking assures that the politics of alcohol will remain a key feature of Indian political discourse for many years to come. Robert Eric Colvard Wayne State College See Also: Asia, South; Gandhi, Mohandas K.; Historic Alcoholic Beverages; Indonesia; Pakistan; Wine, Palm; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Further Readings Carroll, Lucy. “The Temperance Movement in India: Politics and Social Reform.” Modern Asian Studies, v.10/3 (1976). Chand, Tek. The Liquor Menace in India. New Delhi, India: Gandhi Peace Foundation, 1972. Colvard, Robert. “‘Drunkards Beware!’ Prohibition and Nationalist Politics in the 1930s.” In A History of Alcohol and Drugs in Modern South
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Asia, Jana Tschurenev and Harald Fischer-Tine, eds. London: Routledge, 2014. Grubb, Frederick. Fifty Years Work in India: My Temperance Jubilee. London: H. J. Rowling and Sons, 1942. Larsson, Marie-Louise. “When Women Unite!” The Making of the Anti-Liquor Movement in Andhra Pradesh, India. Stockholm, Sweden: Stockholm Universitet, 2006. Manian, Padma and David Fahey. “Poverty and Purification: The Politics of Gandhi’s Campaign for Prohibition.” Historian, v.67/3 (2005). Mohan, D. and H. K. Sharma. “International Review Series: Alcohol and Alcohol Problems Research, 6. India.” British Journal of Addiction, v.80 (1985). Srinivas, Mysore Narasimhachar. Caste in Modern India, and Other Essays. Bombay, India: Asia Publishing House, 1962. Tyrrell, Ian. Woman’s World/Woman’s Empire: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective, 1800–1930. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
Indonesia In early medieval times, Hindu and then Buddhist rulers governed Java, and consumption of alcohol was probably relatively common. This alcohol was made from tuak (palm wine) or distilled as arak (pal liquor). Indeed, alcohol does play a small part in the Indian mythical story of the Ramayana, which became popular in Hindu Java and still plays a significant role in the culture of predominantly Hindu Bali. In the Ramayana, the demons and their supporters drink alcohol and eat meat, while the supporters of Prince Rama become vegetarians and teetotalers. With the introduction of Islam into Java in from the 8th century, and especially from the 13th century when most Javanese started to embrace Islam, and its gradual spread around much of the rest of the East Indies, there were prohibitions on the consumption of alcohol. The Chinese, who tended to live in the major port cities and towns, still drank rice wine and palm wine, and the Hindus in Bali also consumed alcohol. It is also likely that there were illegal stills around the country. In
Irian Jaya (West Papua), many people made their own brews and this continues to the present day. The arrival of the Europeans, especially with the establishment of Dutch rule over what became the Netherlands East Indies from the early 17th century, led to a gradual reintroduction of alcohol. In 1811, the British invaded Java and briefly held the island. The British governor, Stamford Raffles—better known for founding Singapore— wrote in his two-volume The History of Java that a kind of small beer is made at Súra-kérta [Surakarta/Solo] in a mode similar to the European process of brewing, by exciting fermentation in a solution of Javan sugar, with several spices and the leaves of the pári instead of hops. When fresh, the liquor is sprightly, and not unpleasant to the taste; but it cannot be preserved longer than four or five days. During the 19th century, the Dutch established two large breweries. The major one was at their administrative capital, Batavia (now Jakarta), and the other was at the port city of Soerabaja (now Surabaya) in East Java. All wine was imported, although there were three factories by the 1920s that produced industrial alcohol. There were also many Dutch beers imported into the Netherlands East Indies. Of these, Amstel remained a favorite with many expatriates, along with a range of other alcoholic beverages imported and served in restaurants and hotels. During the Sukarno era, which effectively ended in 1965 (although he remained as a figurehead president until 1967), Sukarno himself drank wine, and his essentially Western lifestyle led to criticisms from his political opponents. The film The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), set in 1965, depicted the contrasting lives of the Indonesian elite and European expatriates who caroused and drank copious quantities of alcohol, while the poor in Jakarta starved. Suharto, who succeeded Sukarno, adopted a more abstemious lifestyle to avoid the scandals associated with his predecessor’s private life. With the rise of militant Islam since the 1980s, Muslim groups have attacked alcohol distributors and shops in parts of Indonesia. During the same period Bali emerged as a major tourist destination. With alcohol inexpensive and easily available on the
predominantly Hindu island, heavy drinking takes place, often in public. Muslim clerics such as Abu Bakar Bashir have criticized this practice, offering it as one of the reasons for attacks on foreigners. During the 1990s, some local governments had introduced measures to outlaw the production, sale, or consumption of alcohol within particular states or municipalities. This led to a presidential decree in 1997 that invalidated these laws. The decree, issued by President Suharto a year before he was forced from office, remained in force until July 2013, when the Indonesian Supreme Court overturned it. A movement to ban alcohol in Indonesia began in December 2012. In October 2013, the United Development Party (which forms a part of the government’s ruling coalition) submitted a draft bill to the Indonesian parliament calling for a ban on alcohol consumption in the country. Commentators predicted that the bill would likely fail, owing to strong opposition from the Indonesian tourist industry, especially in Bali. Critics also question whether pharmaceutical products containing alcohol would be included in the proposed ban. The bill did not pass, but in response to the proposed ban President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyona passed a regulation on December 6, 2013, that classified alcoholic beverages under three categories: drinks with over 20 percent alcohol, with between 5 and 20 percent, and with less than 5 percent. Drinks with more than 5 percent alcohol can only be sold in licensed establishments such as clubs, hotels, restaurants, and bars. No alcoholic drinks can be sold near hospitals, schools, and places of worship. There are now three major breweries in Indonesia. Pt. Dela, located in Jakarta, is connected with the Breda Breweries of the Netherlands and produces Anker Beer, Anker Extra Stout, and Carlsberg Beer. The P.T. San Miguel Brewery in Tambun in West Java is controlled by the San Miguel breweries in the Philippines. It produces San Miguel Beer and San Miguel Dark Beer. The Pt. Multi Bintang brewery is located in Tangerang, west of Jakarta, and produces Bintang Pilsener Beer, Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, and Green Shands Shandy. Bintang Pilsener Beer is one of the most popular beers consumed in Indonesia, with large sales in Bali to foreigners. It is easily
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recognizable because of the large red star used by the company to promote this pale lager. Its origins lay in the building of a brewery in Surabaya in 1929, and in 1949 it was named Heineken’s Indonesian Brewery Company. Nationalized by the Sukarno government in 1957, it returned into private hands ten years later with Heineken resuming control and renaming it Multi Bintang Indonesia. Wine and spirits are imported into Indonesia, and although Indonesia is a majority Muslim country, the consumption of alcohol is tolerated and there is no minimum legal age for buying and consuming alcohol in Indonesia. However, in some conservative parts of Indonesia, especially in country areas, there are local restrictions on alcohol. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Amstel; Asia, Southeast; Philippines; San Miguel; Singapore. Further Readings Al Zahari, Muhammad. “New Presidential Regulation on Alcohol in Place; Controversy Remains,” Jakarta Post (January 21, 2014). Bachelard, Michael. “Push to Ban Alcohol in Indonesia.” The Sydney Morning Herald (December 20, 2012). Cochrane, Joe. “In Indonesia, a Push for Prohibition Strikes Fear.” New York Times (October 26, 2013). Raffles, Sir Thomas Stamford. The History of Java. London: John Murray, 1830.
Industry Overview The American liquor industry includes five tiers: the legal and regulatory infrastructure, the producers (distilleries, breweries, wineries, bottlers, etc.), the distributors, the retailers, and the drinkers. The legal framework for the alcohol industry in the United States is formed by a number of federally issued laws and regulations as well as stateimplemented laws. Other than laws impacting matters of obvious federal domain—federal taxes and tariffs, laws governing international trade, labeling, food safety, and advertising—most laws
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pertaining to the consumption of alcoholic beverages are left for the states and local jurisdictions to decide. Even the repeal of Prohibition only pertained to federal prohibition, whereas individual states that had previously outlawed alcohol had the option of continuing to do so. Contemporary State Laws Today, there are numerous dry counties and towns, though no dry states. More common are beverage-controlled states in which the state government has a monopoly on the wholesale or retail sales of alcoholic beverages and, in many cases, uses that monopoly to restrict which types of beverages are available. Typically this means capping the limit on alcohol content, for instance, either for distilled or nondistilled beverages. State laws also determine the drinking age, and more specifically—as the drinking age is 21 in every state and territory except Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands—what the drinking age means and whether the minimum age also applies to the drinking of alcohol with parents, whether at home or in public. These laws impact the industry because they govern market conditions. For instance, many states have laws that were designed to discourage, without outlawing, the consumption of alcohol. These include blue laws that prohibit the sale of alcohol on Sundays (as well as, in some cases, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and election day); laws prohibiting the advertisement of prices of alcohol (which limits the marketing bars, restaurants, and retail establishments can use); laws against happy hours and other discounted drink promotions; laws against putting alcohol on sale in retail establishments; laws against giving away alcohol (such as offering a free six-pack of beer with $100 of groceries) or nonalcoholic goods (such as a jar of olives with every bottle of gin) as a purchase incentive; and so on. These laws vary considerably from state to state or jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In Indiana, for instance, alcohol sales of any kind are prohibited on Christmas and on election days until the polls are closed. Carryout alcohol is prohibited on Sundays but restaurants can still serve drinks, and breweries can sell carryout growlers of their own beer. In Massachusetts, retail alcohol sales are currently banned on Memorial Day, Thanksgiving,
and Christmas and were banned on Sundays until 1990, after which a series of exceptions were added. First towns within 10 miles of the New Hampshire or Vermont border were allowed to sell alcohol to discourage residents from crossing the border to buy it. Then, in 1992, local jurisdictions were permitted to legalize Sunday alcohol sales from noon to midnight in the holiday season, which applied from the Sunday before Thanksgiving until New Year’s. Finally, in 2004, Sunday alcohol sales from noon to midnight were legalized statewide, with the aforementioned holiday exceptions. In states where the state liquor board has a monopoly on sales, sales may be effectively banned at certain times, without needing to pass a law doing so, simply through the operation of the stores. For instance, in New Hampshire, where beer and wine are sold in supermarkets but distilled liquor and fortified wine are available only in the state-run liquor stores, it is effectively impossible to buy carryout liquor at night or in the first hours of the morning when the stores are closed. These limits on alcohol sales impact the way the industry works in numerous respects. For instance, Mississippi’s many dry counties—half the state—make it a poor choice for opening a new distillery intending to sell mainly locally. The choice of where to distribute products is impacted by the way local legal infrastructures will affect availability and the ability to market. The effect may not always be obvious. As previously mentioned, New Hampshire has state-run liquor stores. It also requires considerable paperwork for each new product applying for sale in the state, which in the past, has discouraged companies from launching new products there. But the state also has no sales tax and shares a border with three states that do, and it is a common shopping destination for that reason. Staterun liquor stores located near highway exits have contributed to New Hampshire having the highest per capita liquor sales in the country by encouraging numerous out-of-state sales. During the resurgence of cocktails, producers and distributors have noted this, and New Hampshire stores have suddenly introduced hundreds of bottlings previously unavailable—not just new products but old ones that had previously not prioritized the market in the state.
Legal Requirements for Alcohol Production Producing any kind of alcoholic beverage for sale requires certain licenses, permits, and taxes, depending on the state. It is legal to make beer and wine at home without selling them (and legal to give the resulting products as gifts) and legal to alter distilled alcohol through infusion and other means, such as to create liqueurs or cocktail bitters—again, without selling them—but home distillation is illegal even as a noncommercial hobby, or rather, it requires the same paperwork and taxes as a commercial endeavor. (In theory, a hobbyist moonshiner could pursue his or her hobby legally by applying for a license and paying the excise tax, but the costs would be in the thousands of dollars annually.) Even producers who don’t brew, ferment, or distill the alcohol themselves still need special licenses to sell any sort of alcoholic product commercially. Companies selling nonbeverage alcohol need to go through a process proving the product is not suitable for consumption (such as using additives to keep it from being palatable). Cocktail bitters such as angostura are classed as nonpotable bitters, a term with important legal ramifications. The FDA must evaluate the bitters and agree that they are too bitter or otherwise unpalatable to be consumed on their own; if so proven, the bitters may be sold as a foodstuff rather than a beverage, which means they do not require the licenses or age verification required for alcoholic products. In recent years, there has been an explosion of craft cocktail bitters on the market, with literally dozens of brands available, where for decades, there were only two. However, only a handful of them have properly met FDA guidelines, and many people have expressed skepticism about the necessity. Without FDA approval, the tinctures sold as cocktail bitters are still considered alcoholic beverages and subject to the same controls and restrictions, and when sold online, they violate laws about selling alcohol through the mail without proper age verification. The cost of producing alcohol varies from state to state. In New Jersey, the cost for most distillers is $12,500 annually in addition to the federal license and excise taxes. This is cost prohibitive for small producers. In 2013, cognizant of the craftdistilling movement that had transpired in other states with lower operating costs, the legislature
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passed a bill creating a craft distiller license for producers that manufacture no more than 20,000 gallons of spirit a year. (In comparison, a large distillery like Bacardi often exceeds 100,000 gallons in a day. That said, other states cap microdistillery production at 50,000 or 100,000 gallons per year.) The license costs only $938, preventing it from being a barrier to entry for small distillers. The production cap is also high enough that distillers hoping to expand can do so gradually, building up the capital necessary to make the leap from craft to large-scale distiller at a time when the increase in the license fee is manageable. This approach had been pioneered by New York State in 2002, which adopted a small producer license to make 35,000 gallons of spirit a year for $1,450, compared to the unrestricted large-producer license with a cost of $50,800. The measure was adopted largely to increase revenue as well as interest in New York–produced goods. Similar changes were made in other states, and from 2005 to 2012, the number of microdistilleries in the country increased from 50 to 250, operating in all but five states. New distilleries, like wineries and breweries, still need to be approved by the federal Tax and Trade Board, which, for instance, approved 700 new wineries in 2009, 300 new breweries, and 20 new distilleries. In addition to filing the proper paperwork, distilleries and other producers must have their names and labels approved. State taxes on alcoholic products, paid either by the customer or the producer, vary considerably. Federal excise tax, paid by the producer, is $0.23 per gallon of cider, $0.23 or $0.58 per gallon of beer (depending on the size of the brewery), $1.07–$3.40 per gallon of wine (depending on the alcohol content), and a whopping $13.50 per gallon of distilled spirits. Contemporary Beer Industry Professional brewing began in the Bavarian city of Freising in 1040 with the Benedictine Weihenstephan Brewery. Today, the largest brewer in the world is Annheuser-Busch InBev, a corporation formed through a series of mergers and acquisitions. Headquartered in Belgium, AB InBev includes five global brands of beer: Budweiser, Beck’s, Corona, Stella Artois, and Brahma, as well as brands with smaller distribution, including
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Industry Overview
Leffe, Hoegaarden, Spaten, Lowenbrau, Labatt, Bass, Buscha, Rolling Rock, Harbin, Goose Island, Michelob, Natural Ice, Presidente, Modelo, O’Doul’s, and Shock Top. Nearly half of the company’s sales comes from North America, where Annheuser-Busch was founded in 1860 and which pioneered the American pale lager that characterized American beer for the next century. Most of the beer industry is dominated by corporate giants, despite the growth of both the craft brewing movement—which has resulted in scores of small breweries producing more expensive beer in a wide variety of styles—and brewpubs, which are microbreweries that serve food to the public accompanied by their beer. Despite being known for the dominance of cheap, domestically produced pale lagers and its reputation as the dark horse of the craft brewing movement, the United States is the world’s largest importer of beer, responsible for 37 percent of all imports. France is a distant second at 6.8 percent. The United States is a relatively small exporter, responsible for less than 4 percent of beer exports, compared to the 21 percent contributed by Mexico, 19 percent by The Netherlands, and 13 percent coming from Germany. Most of the world considers American macrobrews to be weak and bland, although its styles pioneered by the craft brewing movement have since been adopted elsewhere. Different Requirements for Wine Interestingly, in part because of the prestige attached to it, wine—which is made from a smaller variety of ingredients than is beer—is subject to much stricter labeling classifications. For instance, most countries have little-to-no restrictions on the formal definitions of various beer terms, and two IPAs or pilsners from two different breweries might be quite different—varying in bitterness, alcohol content, the type of hops and malt used, the specific yeast used to ferment the mash, and whether any botanicals were used in the brewing. Wine classification, which varies from country to country, on the other hand, differentiates wines according to the area in which the grapes were grown and the type of grapes used in the wine, and it is usually required that this information be disclosed (whereas beer need not disclose ingredients such as, the type of hops or malt). In some cases, a particular labeling term
even indicates the specific method by which the wine was created, as with champagne (a term which, except for the Californian wines permitted to call themselves champagne because of a grandfather clause in the law, legally applies only to wines of the Champagne region made with specific grapes in a specific manner, distinct from the methods used to create other wines). This almost fetishistic specificity is inherited principally from the French, the home of the modern wine industry, and originated as a form of branding that benefited grape growers as well as wine bottlers. Whatever the type of alcohol being produced, alcohol producers have many interests in common and have been active in lobbying for those interests. Since 2010, for instance, it has been openly admitted that the alcohol industry spends money lobbying against the legalization of marijuana, which it perceives as a threat to its sales. A trade organization of California breweries was the main backer of the 2010 campaign opposing California ballot Proposition 19, which would have legalized and regulated recreational marijuana for adults. Alcohol lobbyists have also worked against the efforts of marijuana legalization lobbyists, who in crafting their arguments in favor of legal marijuana, have often contrasted its effects with those of alcohol. Prior to that, the Big Alcohol lobby had lobbied against women’s suffrage, because of concerns that if women were allowed to vote, alcohol would be outlawed. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Advertising and Marketing, History of; Bacardi; Beck’s; Brown-Forman; Budweiser; Fortune Brands; LVMH Moët Hennessey; Nonbeverage Alcohols, History of; Pernod Ricard; Peroni; United States. Further Readings Babor, Thomas. Alcohol and Public Policy: No Ordinary Commodity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Barr, Andrew. Drink: A Social History of America. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1999. Burns, Eric. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004.
Gately, Iain. Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol. New York: Gotham, 2008. Grimes, William. Straight Up or on the Rocks: A Cultural History of American Drink. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Internet, Alcohol Industry and the The Internet has impacted commerce across all sectors and industries to varying degrees. Every aspect of business, including sales, marketing, and business-to-business transactions, has been affected. In the case of the alcohol industry, there have been a number of impacts, many of them in areas in which regulations and practices are still developing, and the resulting picture has not yet come into focus. Internet and Cocktail Revival The Internet played a key role in the cocktail revival beginning in the late 1990s and early 21st century. The eGullet message board founded by Jason Perlow and Steven Shaw was, at its peak, an online hangout for foodies both amateur and professional, including such luminaries as Anthony Bourdain, Paula Wolfert, and Grant Achatz, as well as major names in food writing and blogging. The cocktail subboard on eGullet became a place for interested drinkers and bartenders to share knowledge and tips about cocktails, old and new. Explorations of old bartending guides, many of which had long since entered the public domain and could be reproduced online, led to resource pooling as cocktail fans tried to puzzle out the nature of some of the obscure and out-of-production ingredients used in recipes 100 or more years old. Numerous projects, some solo and some group, were begun to reproduce some of these old ingredients, notably various types of defunct bitters (including Abbott’s, Bokers, and the orange bitters subgenre). One of the earliest signs of the cocktail revival was the renaissance of the Aviation cocktail, resurrected without the dash of creme de violette called for in many original recipes; the creme de
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violette was no longer produced, and the other key ingredient, maraschino liqueur, had become obscure but obtainable. The Aviation requires no special equipment but does depend on the proper balance of its sweet (maraschino), tart (lemon juice), and strong (gin) ingredients, presenting more of a challenge, and more of a reward, than the appletinis and premixed cocktails that had become ubiquitous at the turn of the 21st century. The Internet helped to shape the cocktail revival by providing a community and means of discussion to far-flung individuals before local cocktail scenes had formed or had changed to catch up with the revival trend. This new cocktail revival went more or less in two directions: One, particularly associated with the west coast, emphasized fresh fruit juices and new flavor combinations (savory cocktails, salt in contexts other than just margarita rimming, herbs, and house-made infusions and bitters); and the other, particularly characteristic of the Northeast and Midwest, focused on bringing back pre-World War II cocktail experiences, which could include everything from recreating long-forgotten drinks to embracing the waxed handlebar mustache. The Internet and social media like Twitter and Facebook have allowed bars on both coasts to promote their drink specials and stay in touch with their customers and potential customers. This increased interest and activity among cocktail drinkers and bartenders helped demonstrate demand for a number of products, which led to a flurry of product introductions and new company openings in the 21st century. In states allowing them, microdistilleries began to produce new gins and whiskeys (primarily), some with various gimmicks playing on their local character: Texas whiskey distilled from blue corn, New York vodka distilled from Hudson Valley apples, and Washington gin distilled from east Washington wheat. The public's willingness to explore new flavors also encouraged the development of new liqueurs, from maple liqueur and apple cider switchel in New England to the hibiscus-inspired Sorel from Brooklyn. During what now seems to have been the peak of blogging in the late 2000s, cocktail and drinking blogs were an important source of information for an interested public, particularly those living in cities without a vibrant cocktail bar scene. In the years since, most sizable American cities have
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at least one “serious” cocktail bar, and larger cities have several, sometimes even several owned by the same restaurant group (often a main bar with a second bar specializing in whiskey or tiki drinks). But during that period when bloggers were prominent tastemakers, many spirits companies shipped free samples of their new products to bloggers in order to raise awareness. Bloggers were also able to go into more detail than ordinary advertising and marketing endeavors, contextualizing the product by creating drink recipes featuring it. A blog entry detailing a cocktail made with infused whiskey, bitters, and a new liqueur created a different context for readers than a simple print or online ad for that liqueur. Legal and Regulatory Changes The rise of blogs also prompted the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to create a set of guidelines for online endorsements in 2009, which were revised and clarified in 2013. Essentially the guidelines required bloggers to state the nature of their relationship with the company producing or providing any product reviewed, endorsed, or advertised in some way on the blog, including whether samples were provided for free, what requirements were attached to these samples, whether the blogger was compensated in any other respect, and so on. The FTC guidelines were concerned primarily with advertising and sponsored posts, and the need to clearly identify any sponsored posts as such, including on Twitter, despite the character limit of tweets. This is not the only area in which the Internet has necessitated legal or regulatory changes, of course. E-commerce did not immediately affect the alcohol industry in the 1990s during the dotcom boom because the institution of mail-order wine and beer clubs in previous decades had already inspired waves of state legislation either permitting or forbidding the shipment of alcoholic beverages. Mail-order alcohol had led to worries about the circumvention of state, county, and local restrictions on alcoholic beverages, including the shipment of banned substances (beverages over a certain alcohol content) into certain jurisdictions, the shipment of alcohol into dry counties and towns, the avoidance of alcohol taxes by purchasing via mail order, the business lost by state-run liquor vendors when alcohol is purchased from out of state by mail order, and, especially, the purchase
of alcohol by underage customers. All of these concerns have been revived by the advent of Internet alcohol sales, which are considered more easily accessed by minors, especially if minors have access to purchasing power for legitimate reasons (whether a credit card provided by a parent or a PayPal account attached to a bank account). In most cases, existing laws were sufficient to criminalize underage alcohol purchases by whatever means, but new laws or changes to business practices helped prevent the circumvention of the law. For instance, until 2012, online auction site eBay’s policies about alcohol sales had a littleknown loophole: “collectible” containers of alcohol were not considered alcohol sales, so long as the listing made it clear that it was the container that was offered for sale. This loophole permitted the sale of antique glass bottles that happened to still be sealed or contained some portion of their original contents, and during the early days of the cocktail revival there was some amount of trade in old bottles of defunct ingredients like creme de violette or obscure bitters. Some of the revived products were made possible by analyses of older products purchased through such auctions. But this did not prevent underage drinkers from purchasing, and some vendors sold “collectible” bottles that were no different from what would be found in any liquor store, apart from their marked-up price—a price no one would find worthwhile if they had the option of purchasing the product through normal means, and therefore targeting underage drinkers with money to spend. eBay required that sellers accompany all ads for such auctions with a number of disclaiming statements, including that the contents were not intended for consumption; that the item being auctioned was the container; that the value of the auction item was in the container, not in the contents of that container; that the seller was responsible for ensuring that the buyer was of legal age; and that both buyer and seller were responsible for following applicable laws and regulations. This loophole has since been removed (following an expose on the TV program 20/20 titled “Intoxication Nation”), although eBay maintains a separate auction category (for which sellers have to apply for approval) for wine auctions. The exception made for wine is a common one; many states that prohibit liquor sales by mail permit
wine sales, in part due to lobbying by the domestic wine industry and in part due to class-based perceptual differences of the roles different beverage categories play in society. In 2007, there were 225 e-commerce retailers specializing in alcohol, according to U.S. Census Bureau information. In 2009, a University of North Carolina study found over 5,000, and there may have been more; budgetary concerns, not difficulty finding more vendors, cut the count short. One hundred of the most popular sites were selected, and eight under-21-year-old undergraduates participating in the study attempted to purchase alcohol from each of them. About 45 percent of their purchase attempts succeeded, substantially higher than the success rate in studies of underage in-person purchases. In addition, 41 percent of the vendors had no age verification process at all; others simply required that the purchaser check a box signifying their legal age, or stated that legality was the buyer’s responsibility. Less than 10 percent of the vendors who required a date of birth rejected the order. While all vendors requiring a driver’s license rejected the underage orders, only five of the 100 sites did so. There are a few online auction options remaining to American buyers, including purchasing from lower profile and less moderated eBay competitors and purchasing from overseas auction sites. Because of customs laws that may prevent foreign sellers from shipping alcohol to the United States, the latter option often requires the buyer to contract with a foreign mailing services company (Mail Boxes Etc. operates internationally and is a common choice) to receive and reship the alcohol, which adds considerable additional expense. Nevertheless, this is a common practice among collectors of rare whiskies, foreign beers that are not imported to the United States, and other premium alcoholic beverages. Online Advertising The Internet has also provided a venue for advertising, which is the source of most of the revenue for noncommerce sites. There are numerous forms of online advertising, a constantly changing medium, from banner and sidebar ads to traditional audio or video advertisements woven into or preceding streaming media (such as ads that accompany the videos on Hulu or streamed
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music on Spotify). Some advertisements are viral media, distributed through word of mouth. Guinness was an early adopter in this area, releasing a screensaver on the Internet in 1995 in which Irish actor Joe McKinney dances around his glass of Guinness stout while waiting for the drink to settle. The screensaver was popular enough to assist the accompanying music (Perez Prado’s “Guaglione”) in reaching the number one spot on the Irish single charts and number two spot in the United Kingdom. In the United States, alcohol ads are, according to FTC and industry regulations, supposed to be limited to contexts in which no more than 28.4 percent of the audience is under 21; further, the ad cannot be designed to specifically target audience members who are under 21. Though audience data is now available for online sites just as it is for broadcast media, there are some who argue that advertising online at all is a form of advertising that is, at present, inherently youthfocused. When Heineken decided to reach out to Puerto Rican young people with a 2007 marketing campaign, for instance, it focused its efforts not on television, radio, or cinema spots, but on an online campaign called “Heineken City.” Part of the difficulty here is in determining to what extent a marketing campaign aimed at “young people”—such as legal drinkers age 21 to 25— also appeals to underage drinkers, and how that impacts the acceptability of the advertising. Part of the problem of relying on audience data is that children, especially teenagers, routinely lie about their age online for various reasons. Further, in family households it may not be clear which family member constitutes the “audience” at any given time. Several studies, including the 2012 study by Australia's National Preventive Health Agency, have found that there is little oversight of online alcohol advertising, that a majority of underage drinkers over age 11 have seen online alcohol advertising, and that alcohol brands’ pages on Facebook are routinely visited by underage users. The last is particularly notable since the alcohol industry is the second-most popular industry among Facebook brand pages, after the automobile industry. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar
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See Also: Internet, Drinking and Drunkenness on the; Mail Order Alcohol. Further Readings Derewicz, M. “The Ease of Buying Booze. Endeavors” (May 30, 2012). http://endeavors.unc.edu/the_ease _of_buying_booze (Accessed May 2014). Williams, R. S. and K. M. Ribisi. “Internet Alcohol Sales to Minors.” Archive of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine, v.166/9 (September 2012). Williams, R. S. and A. Schmidt. “The Sales and Marketing Practices of English-Language Internet Alcohol Vendors.” Addiction, v.109/3 (March 2014).
Internet, Drinking and Drunkenness on the Drinking games have long been a part of drinking culture, and especially of collegiate drinking culture. One famous drinking game is “Hi Bob,” in which students watching The Bob Newhart Show took a drink whenever a character said “Hi Bob.” It is believed to be the first in a genre of drinking games in which a TV show is watched and drinks are consumed at specific predetermined trigger points. The Internet has provided a new means of transmission for such games and other ideas about drinking, and its use in this regard is commonly associated with adolescents. Certain drinking games are unplayable on the Internet, or would need to be drastically changed (or turned into a video game), such as Sink the Bismarck or Beirut (also known as beer pong). Games that do not require physical interaction between players could conceivably be played by Skype or video chat, or through other synchronous modes of online communication, such as chatrooms or real-time interaction on Facebook. Because Fuzzy Duck depends on intoxication’s effect on speech, it could only really be played through video chat— each player in a circle alternates saying “fuzzy duck” or “ducky fuzz,” until a player says “does he?,” which reverses the order of play. Any mistake leads to a drink. “Never Have I Ever” is a drinking game that is easily played online and has
even been played on message boards where communication is nominally asynchronous. This simple game assembles players, who take turns saying “Never have I ever ____,” upon which everyone for whom that statement is true takes a drink; a common variation requires that the speaking player take a drink if no one else does (that is, if the statement turns out to be true for everyone assembled). Traditionally the statements are about sexual activity or bad behavior, such as “never have I ever cheated on a boyfriend,” “never have I ever shoplifted,” and so forth. While easily played online, without a video chat component, it robs the players of the implied joy of the drinking game: seeing other players get drunk. In many cases, a drinking game itself is not played on the Internet, but video or photo evidence of the game or its aftermath is posted to the Internet afterward, and such posting may even be considered a large part of the motive for the game. “Bros Icing Bros” is an obvious example here. Having originated on southern college campuses in the early 21st century, the game is named for the citrus-flavored malt beverage Smirnoff Ice, which inherited Zima’s niche as a soda-like low-alcohol malt beverage popular among college students. Around 2010, Bros Icing Bros became popular among northern colleges, young Wall Street investment bankers, and white shoe firms, and at that point attracted media attention, in large part because of the launch of the brosicingbros.com blog. The rules of the game are simple: if presented with a bottle of Smirnoff Ice, the bro must immediately consume it, unless he is in possession of a Smirnoff Ice of his own, which he then presents to the first bro in an “ice block.” Failure to obey the rules leads to “excommunication.” Video of bros icing and being iced were posted to YouTube and Facebook, as well as the brosicingbros.com blog. Bros Icing Bros is an interesting drinking game because it involves no beginning or end, nor does it even explicitly identify its players. It is a game considered “always on” for those who are aware of it and consider themselves participants, or become drawn into participation. This is actually a very old approach to drinking games: it goes back at least to the 13th century, when students and faculty alike at the University of Oxford began the “pennying” game. Pennying involves
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sneaking a penny into another person’s drink, who must, upon discovering the penny, chug their drink. There are usually numerous rules understood to be governing the situation, most importantly that a drink can only be pennied when it is attended (in some peoples’ view, the pennied drinker must in fact be touching or holding the glass when it is pennied). There are important similiarites between pennying and icing: each involves one participant forcing another participant to chug a drink, but in each case, the performance of this play reinforces a social and cultural bond between the two, in much the same way that fraternal societies use secret handshakes or chants. Pennying spread gradually from Oxford to other colleges within the Commonwealth; the exact vector by which icing spread is unclear, but it seems to have remained a regional phenomenon until being transmitted by the Internet, at which point it became a behavior that was replicated by people who had not been brought into the practice by existing participants (unlike pennying). In 2014, the “Neknomination” drinking game was the latest to spread across the Internet. A contraction of “neck [chug] and nominate,” neknomination requires that a player chug a drink he’s been instructed to drink, and then nominate two other people to do the same. The nominations are usually done online, via social media. In this sense, Neknomination resembles many nondrinking memes online, in which a person makes a specific post, answers a “quiz” of personal questions, or performs some other basic task, and then “tags” other people who are expected to do the same. (A basic version is to name one’s five favorite movies and then tag five friends to do likewise.) Those games in turn are the same in spirit to the chain letters that have largely fallen out of fashion. The game appears to have begun in Australia in 2010 or 2011 (it is mentioned in the United Kingdom on Twitter in 2011), but quickly spread to Canada, and was reported in the United States after two deaths in Ireland resulted from the game. Although the game does not require that the necked drink be especially potent or dangerous, the challenge nature of it naturally leads to unwise combinations, reportedly including a combination of vodka, whiskey, and beer, with an entire bottle of white wine (resulting in the death of a London man), entire pints of distilled liquor,
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and beverages mixed with unconventional ingredients like shampoo or malted milk powder. Neknomination’s spread seems to have been due largely to the Internet. The 2011 Twitter mention refers to playing the game over Skype, for instance, an early instance of video chat being used in a drinking game. A YouTube video uploaded by Neknomination player Will Green in 2012 served both to record his drink and to announce his nomination. More YouTube videos followed by other players in 2013, and when a Facebook page called Neknominate was created on January 2, 2014, it received 19,000 likes by the end of the month. A separate page was created later in the week, called Best Neknominate Videos, and received 200,000 likes in a month. The first Australian television mention of Neknominate seems to be from January 2014, despite the fact that the game was at least three years old at that point, and as much as six years old by some estimates. That alcohol poisoning deaths from Neknominate were reported in three countries the following month may have to do with the sudden growth in popularity of the game, or earlier deaths may have occurred and gone unreported because of the media’s ignorance of the game. Memes Not all of the ideas about drinking that are spread via the Internet are games; “drinking memes” might be the best general term. “Meme” is a word that predates the Internet and was coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 in order to discuss the notion of ideas, behaviors, and cultural phenomena that are subject to evolutionary principles similar to those that act on genes. Today, memes are rarely discussed in their original context of natural selection or the roles of mutation, variation, and competition in the history of ideas. Instead, especially in lay usage, “meme” refers to an idea or other artifact that spreads through word of mouth, and it is almost always used to refer to ideas that do so over the Internet. Furthermore, although a catchphrase from a commercial or a line of dialogue from a movie might enter the pop culture argot, it would rarely be called a meme in this sense. Rather, the term is reserved for those phenomena that seem to emerge of their own accord or from, essentially, grassroots efforts.
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Internet memes have included “viral videos,” lolcats, and mass-forwarded emails, and range from specific items (such as a specific photo, video, or post) disseminated throughout the Internet to behaviors witnessed on the Internet and re-enacted. Memes about drinking often revolve around strange, extreme, or difficult forms of alcohol consumption, in part because such memes are the ones most likely to attract media attention. Sociologists of public health have long understood that mass media’s role in constructing public opinion and apparent norms means that when college students, for instance, continually hear that binge drinking is an epidemic on college campuses, it reinforces their belief that binge drinking is normal (or even expected) for their peer group. This is one of the forces that increases the rate of binge drinking even while surveys consistently show that the number of college students who engage in it is higher than the number who approve of it. Many college students, in other words, privately feel uncomfortable with a behavior that they perpetuate because they believe everyone else is more comfortable than they are. Beginning in 2010, the media began to report on “vodka eyeballing,” the practice among teenagers and college students of consuming vodka by pouring it into the eye socket. Videos of this practice have been on YouTube since as early as 2006 and may go back much further, as there is a portrayal of it in the British teen comedy Kevin and Perry Go Large, released in 2000. Considerable debate was had over the trend, with some claiming it was a hoax (following on the heels of well-publicized urban legends about “rainbow parties,” rubberband bracelets as sexual merit badges, and teenagers getting high from the fumes of sewage). Others point out that the practice may be real, but cases seemed to be far more isolated than the “trend” that coverage painted it as. As with Bros Icing Bros, it is not clear to what extent media coverage may have amplified word of mouth and may have been the main source from which participants heard about the trend. In some cases, the Internet is a simple source of information about drinking—not only about cocktail recipes, ingredient availability, or promotional materials from producers, but also about cultural information of the sort usually only imparted verbally. For instance, a popular 2012
post on the blog Gizmodo explored the red Solo cup, the most popular brand of disposable plastic cup at adolescent parties. According to the Gizmodo article, the lines on the Solo cup are measurement marks correlating to the serving sizes of different kinds of alcohol: liquor (1 ounce, first mark), wine (5 ounces, second mark), and beer (12 ounces, third mark). Solo denied that the correlations are intentional, but because the marks are relatively accurate, this has been an important part of collegiate drinking culture. There are numerous videos on YouTube and elsewhere of users who are drunk, as well as video blogs posted by drunk bloggers. Perhaps the bestknown is My Drunk Kitchen, a cooking blog by Los Angeles comedian Hannah Hart. First posted in March 2011, My Drunk Kitchen begins with Hart drinking before attempting to prepare the meal for that segment. The first episode has her drinking a bottle of wine before attempting to make a grilled cheese sandwich. Hart became an official YouTube Partner later in the year and was featured in both online and broadcast news. Among young people, the Internet is also commonly part of “pregaming.” Pregaming refers to drinking at home (usually in groups) before going out for the evening. Pregaming makes it easier for underage drinkers to spend the evening intoxicated with their friends but also reduces the overall cost of drunkenness for legal drinkers, since drinks at home lack the mark-up of bar or (especially) club drinks. This financial motive is even stronger in jurisdictions where happy hours or other discounts have been outlawed. Pregaming predates online social media, having become popular in the years following the nationwide drinking age being raised to 21 after years of many states having a legal age of 18. Today, pregaming is often a single-sex ritual that precedes meeting up with a group of the opposite sex to head out for the evening to a bar, club, or party. Pregaming often revolves around drinking games or video games, as well as the almost ritualized posting of photos to Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Binge Drinking; Drinking Games; Student Culture, College and University; Television.
Further Reading: Dowdall, George W. College Drinking: Reframing a Social Problem. New York: Stylus Publishing, 2012. Vander Ven, Thomas. Getting Wasted: Why College Students Drink Too Much and Party So Hard. New York: New York University Press, 2011.
Iran The history of alcohol in Iran can be traced back thousands of years. It is widely believed that both wine and viticulture originated in the Iranian plateau during the Neolithic Period (ca. 8500–4000 b.c.e.), and alcohol features prominently in Persian mythology, literature, poetry, and art. Despite the restrictions placed on alcohol consumption by Islam, alcohol continued to occupy an important place in Persian culture after the adoption of Islam and up to the present day. Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the ruling regime enacted policies to actively prohibit drinking; however, their efforts have been largely unsuccessful because of the long-standing cultural prevalence of alcohol in the region. Pre-Islamic History A Persian legend credits the mythical King Jamsheed with the discovery of wine. As a great connoisseur of grapes, he had the fruit preserved by storing it in clay jars. The grapes in one of the jars accidently fermented and, due to the sour taste, were assumed to have become poisonous. Though there are different versions of what happened next, according to one story, the king’s mistress was suffering from an unbearable headache and drank the supposedly poisonous contents in order to commit suicide. Rather than leading to her death, the woman’s headache was cured by the time she awoke the following day. King Jamsheed proceeded to try the medicine on himself, and from that time on, wine was established as an integral part of Persian culture. Wine features prominently in accounts of royal banquets at the ancient Persian courts and came to play a significant role in Sassanid ritual and ceremony until the empire’s collapse following the early Arab conquests in the 7th century c.e.
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Medieval and Early Modern Iran Persia’s incorporation into the growing Islamic empire had no widespread impact on alcohol in society for a variety of reasons, most importantly the early doctrinal disagreements regarding prohibition, the lack of an established religious hierarchy, and religious syncretism marked by the continuation of many pre-Islamic Zoroastrian cultural practices. This period also saw the rise of a long tradition of Perso-Islamic wine poetry, which praised the substance and intoxication both literally and metaphorically. Some of the most notable poets in this tradition include Omar Khayyum, Hafez, and Rumi. In this sense, Islam did not replace traditional culture but existed alongside it. Alcohol consumption and wine production were still prominent in the region at the time of the Mongol conquests and subsequent establishment of Mongol rule under the Ilkhanate. The Mongol ruler Ghazan Khan (r. 1295–1304) converted to Islam and declared public intoxication illegal but made no further attempts to enforce prohibition against the consumption or production of wine or other forms of alcohol. Though Shia Islam had long been popular in Persia, it was not until the establishment of the Safavid Empire in the early 16th century that Shia Islam became the official religion of the state. The empire’s founder, the messianic figure Ismail Safavi, was a prolific drinker and wrote much poetry dedicated to the topic. Under the Safavids (1500–1722), the role of alcohol in society transformed significantly. While Shah Ismail openly embraced drinking as a key component of social life and public ritual, his son and successor Shah Tahmasp adopted a much more religiously conservative lifestyle and supported measures aimed at prohibition. His attempts were largely unsuccessful, though they did transform the place of alcohol in Persian society by pushing drinking from the public to the private sphere. Alcohol consumption continued despite its removal from public ritual as private drinking fell largely outside the jurisdiction of the courts. The increased emphasis on religious prohibition in the later Safavid period led those who imbibed to profess a guilty conscience, yet it does not seem to have actually hindered consumption. Following the collapse of Safavid rule, the rise of the Qajars (1796–1925) ushered in yet another
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significant change regarding the place of drinking in Persian society. Where the Safavid period saw the removal of drinking from public life and ritual and the attachment of feelings of religious guilt to imbibers, during the Qajar period, drinking became a mechanism through which individuals expressed their defiance of both the political order and the orthodox religious establishment. The Qajars legitimized their rule in religious terms and thus depended on the support of religious elites to maintain power. Therefore, drinking was not so much a statement against religion but a form of expressing participation in the modern world and opposition to the conservative political order. Commercial wine production (primarily undertaken by non-Muslims) and the medicinal use of wine continued unabated during the Qajar period despite the restrictions placed on public consumption. Qajar attempts to quash drinking (and the use of other intoxicants) did not incorporate religious rhetoric. Instead, prohibitive measures were aimed specifically at suppressing political resistance and limiting the influence of globalization within the Qajar realm. Modern Iran The mid-20th century saw the reemergence of public drinking and the expansion of Iranian wine production due to the modernizing efforts undertaken by the Pahlavi dynasty, which came to power in 1926 under the military leader Reza Shah. During this period, the influence of Western and secular ideologies legitimized the alcohol culture that already existed in practice, allowing the public sale and consumption of alcohol to become commonplace. These measures were undone following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which pushed drinking underground once again by enforcing legal measures aimed at severely restricting alcohol production and prohibiting all recreational consumption. Political leaders and diplomats from the Islamic Republic of Iran have since made headlines on several occasions for their refusal to attend state dinners in countries such as France and Spain, where wine would be served. However, despite the official stance of complete prohibition promoted by the Iranian government today, private drinking of illegally imported or produced alcohol remains widespread. Alcohol, and more specifically wine, is viewed by many
Iranians as an inextricable part of their heritage and culture, sitting alongside rather than in direct or inherent opposition to their Islamic identity. Stephanie Honchell Ohio State University See Also: Fermentation: Ancient Era Through Middle Ages; Islamic Law; Pakistan; Saudi Arabia; War. Further Readings Batmanglij, Najmieh, Dick Davis, and Burke Owens. From Persia to Napa: Wine at the Persian Table. Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 2006. Haider, Najam. The Origins of the Shi’a: Identity, Ritual, and Sacred Space in Eighth-Century Kufa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Matthee, Rudi. The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500–1900. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. Mottahedeh, Roy. The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran. London: Oneworld, 2000. Sandler, Merton and Roger Pinder, eds. Wine: A Scientific Exploration. London: Taylor and Francis, 2003. Yarshater, E. “The Theme of Wine-Drinking and the Concept of the Beloved in Early Persian Poetry.” Studia Islamica, v.13 (1960).
Iraq In ancient times, alcohol was certainly produced and consumed in the civilizations of Sumer, Babylon, and Assyria, which are all located in modern-day Iraq. Alcohol is even recorded in the ancient Sumerian text—and the earliest surviving work of literature—the Epic of Gilgamesh, where Enkidu, a wild man who later becomes a companion of Gilgamesh, asks to be able to drink fermented liquor—“Drink wine, the custom of the land!” It also mentions the filling of large bowls with sweet wine. There is a large corpus of evidence about the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians drinking wine, and this is recorded on many of their
surviving clay tablets, which have been uncovered and deciphered by archaeologists, and there have also been discoveries by archaeologists working on sites in Mesopotamia of what appear to be wine and beer cellars. The vast majority of the wine in the region undoubtedly came from lands to the north and northeast of Mesopotamia, with some of it being given in tribute to the rulers of Sumer, Assyria, and later Babylon. As a result, it was drunk by the wealthy and greatly favored by the kings and other rulers. By contrast, the beer was brewed locally. The Greek writer Herodotus describes the lifestyle of the Babylonians, noting that they drank wine and also made their own alcoholic beverages from palms. Another Greek writer, Xenophon, working many years later, also makes mention of the date palms and date wine. He mentions the drink oxos, which was sour, and a sweet drink that created headaches. He makes no specific mention of wine from grapes, although there is some evidence in the Bible that some wine might have been produced locally, perhaps from imported grapes, with Jeremiah referring to the wine presses. It is therefore probable that the wine for Babylon, as with that of Sumer, was imported from lands further north of Babylonia. Herodotus mentions that the wine coming from among the Armenians who live higher up than the Assyrians. This would tend to imply that the Tigris River was used if this was the case. Most historians now believe that the wine brought to Babylon came through the town of Sippar, with most wine coming down the Euphrates and very little down the Tigris. The historian H. W. F. Saggs also quotes from a surviving clay tablet in which somebody is complaining about wine that has been brought to Babylon. The wine was stored in the base of the ship that had been used to carry bitumen, and apparently, the wine had acquired some of the flavor of the bitumen. Curiously, several centuries later, the Roman writer Pliny did suggest that bitumen, taken with wine, could be used medicinally. Beer was likely the main beverage, with Saggs arguing that this was far more commonly consumed than water. It has been suggested that as much as 40 percent of grain production in some years went to brewers who are recorded as paying their staff with 20 pints (11 liters) per day. In
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Sumer, there was a goddess of beer (or goddess of brewing) called Nikasi, with the Sumerians originally making their early beer from bread and malt, or possibly malt bread, and then flavoring it with honey. There is even a 2,600-year-old clay tablet held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which is essentially a Sumerian– Akkadian dictionary of terms related to brewing and shows that the knowledge for making beer was being preserved and also probably exported. The Babylonians used either barley or emmer (an ancient form of wheat), and it seems likely that the brewing of beer started in Sumer, and it was from Babylon and Assyria that the method of production was taken to Egypt, where it flourished in ancient times. Islam arrived in Iraq in the 7th century, and with the vast majority of the population embracing Islam, the production of alcohol was stopped, except within the small Christian communities, such as the Assyrian Christians who continued to flourish until 2003. There was also the invasion of the region that is modern-day Iraq by the Mongols, who captured and sacked Baghdad on February 10, 1258. During the approximate century of their rule, alcohol was permitted again. Modern Iran Over the next six centuries, alcohol consumption continued among non-Muslims in what was then called Mesopotamia. After independence, many of the governments of Iraq were relatively tolerant on a social level—although most were repressive politically. In 1950, a Muslim Iraqi businessman, Madhaf Khedairi, bought a brewery from the British and established the Iraq Brewery Company. It later changed to making lager. In 1956, a Christian businessman in Iraq, Kadduri Khadduri, established the Eastern Brewing Company of Baghdad. It made a drink called ferida, which had a nutty flavor. It was drunk by expatriate (mainly British) government officials and by army officers at the Alwiya club in Baghdad. After the pro-British monarchy was ousted in 1958, the breweries continued to operate under the new secular government. A new brewery was built in Mosul, where its mixed Christian and Muslim population was relatively unconcerned. However, when a brewery was built in the town of Amara, which had a reputation for being much more
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conservative, laborers from China came to work the plant. During the period of United Nations sanctions on Iraq as a result of its invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the brewing of beer continued. Ferida flourished, managing to import malt and hops and exporting its beer. In 2001, Uday Hussein, the oldest son of Saddam Hussein, took over the company. Afterward, the beer was canned; previously, it had always been sold in bottles. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, large supplies of foreign beer were brought into the country for the U.S. and allied soldiers, with some of it being sold to the local people. During the sanctions, Ferida had established a subsidiary in Jordan, and this is now the main company, but it only makes nonalcoholic beverages. The current Shia-dominated government in Iraq has tried to crack down on the production and consumption of alcohol in the country. The minimum legal age for buying and consuming alcohol in Iraq remains 18. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Ancient World, Drinking in; Archeological Evidence; Fermentation: Ancient Era Through Middle Ages; Iran; Islamic Law; Saudi Arabia. Further Readings Bacchiocchi, Samuele. Wine in the Bible: A Biblical Study on the Use of Alcoholic Beverages. Berrien Springs, MI: Biblical Perspectives, 1989. Barth, Roger. The Chemistry of Beer: The Science in the Suds, Chichester, UK: Wiley, 2013. Jansen, Michael. “How Beer Survived War in Iraq.” Deccan Herald (May 19, 2006). McGovern, Patrick E., Stuart J. Fleming, and Solomon H. Katz, eds. The Origins and Ancient History of Wine: Food and Nutrition in History and Archaeology. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Gordon and Breach Publishers, 1996. Saggs, H. W. F. Everyday Life in Babylonia and Assyria. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1965. Sayam, Nabil. An American Hostage in Iraq: Nabil Seyam’s Journey From Captivity Under Saddam to Living the American Dream in America’s Heartland. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2004. Walsh, Mary Ellen. The Wine of Roman Babylon. Nashville, TN: Southern Pub. Association, 1945.
Wilson, J. V. Kinnier. The Nimrud Wine Lists: A Study of Man and Administration at the Assyrian Capital in the Eighth Century, B.C. London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 1972.
Ireland Even though it is unknown when the production of alcohol actually began in what is now the Republic of Ireland, the country has a long history associated with drink. The consumption of alcohol was and remains linked with many Irish social and cultural gatherings, including births, christenings, weddings, funerals, and fairs. Over centuries, drinking customs have been woven throughout the fabric of Irish society and culture as alcohol came to be affiliated with rebelliousness and courage, health and strength, and community and friendship. At the same time, stereotypes associating the Irish with alcohol exist, creating a major stigma for Irish communities both on the island and abroad. A closer examination of the history of Irish drinking reveals complex cultural, political, and economic relationships. In present-day Ireland, the relationship to alcohol is ambivalent as it is celebrated as an expression of national identity by some and condemned as a social problem needing to be addressed by others. Early History Not much is known about early Irish brewing techniques as there is little forensic and documentary evidence. The earliest clues concerning alcohol consumption in Ireland come from Roman army reports. The most common drink consumed by the early Irish was cuirum, or beer. The more prestigious beverage was metheglin, or mead. Additionally, wine was acquired through trade as the Irish climate was not favorable for the cultivation of vineyards. The manufacture of ale was understood throughout the island, with barley being the main grain used in its production. Alcohol was served at dinners and banquets and also provided by bringu, or the Hospitaller, which constituted an important rank in early Celtic society.
After the Norman invasion during the 12th century, the social practices concerning alcohol changed. The bringu, which had provided alcohol free to guests, was replaced by taverns that sold drink. At this time, there was a distinction between the tavern, which served the Norman gentry and nobles who tended to be wine drinkers, and the alehouse, whose clientele were predominately the underclass. Ale making was originally performed as home brewing, and it is not known when and how commercial alehouses emerged. Uisce beathe, or whiskey, was not produced in Ireland until the 13th century. It is believed that monks began distilling after returning from pilgrimages in Rome. Initially, the drink was treated as medicine and not consumed as a popular beverage. In rural districts, homemade whiskey, or poteen, was commonly produced. The 18th century in Ireland saw a dramatic increase in the consumption of alcohol. Following the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, which cemented English dominion over Ireland, cheap alcohol, especially gin, became widely available on the island. Additionally, home production declined as whiskey distilleries became more popular. Also, British beer, including porter, was introduced into Irish pubs. In 1787, Arthur Guinness made history as the first Irish brewer to produce porter, founding in Dublin what would become the largest Irish brewery. By the 17th century, the distinction between the tavern and the alehouse in Ireland became obsolete as the phrase “public house” came into common use, which would later be abbreviated to pub. Over time, the pub came to serve as a social center for the male community, who sought refuge from the extreme poverty much of Ireland experienced during English occupation. Traditionally, alcohol has been served commonly in pubs as opposed to the home. Tom Inglis describes how, in the pub, men were able to indulge in ritualized self-elimination while becoming more integrated with their social group. When other resources were scarce, alcohol, community, and conversation provided a balm for the struggles associated with social hardship and political strife. Pubs became the heart of the town and offered a place for men to gather, providing a site with multifaceted social and cultural functions. The pub served as a wedding chapel, a morgue, a forum for musical entertainment,
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a stage for storytellers, a meeting place for the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and, once Ireland gained political independence, a place for politicians to meet with constituents. Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries During the 19th-century Great Famine, alcohol and pubs commonly provided escape from the abject poverty that dominated most of Ireland, offering refuge from boredom and isolation. Also, Guinness porter provided the necessary nutrients and vitamins not available in limited food sources, and for some men, it became a dietary staple. It was also during this time that the first temperance societies formed in Ireland, including the following of Father Mathew and the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart. Scholars, including Tom Inglis, have observed the duality of excessive consumption and abstinence in Irish culture. During the 19th and 20th centuries, there tended to be people who drank and those who did not, with alcohol being consumed in an all-or-nothing manner that perpetuated a practice of excessive consumption and self-denial. Additionally, alcohol was not commonly drunk in conjunction with food, a tradition that emerged from a culture of scarcity. Even though drinking among the lower classes tended to be widespread, Kevin Kearns points out that members of the upper class also partook in the heavy consumption of alcohol, particularly wine, brandy, and fine whiskey. They also tended to be more discreet with their drinking than the poverty-stricken, who consumed primarily cheap whiskey and beer in the pub. Drinking remained an accepted quality of Irish culture when the nation became independent during the 1920s. After World War II, there was a push to modernize the nation, which resulted in changes in pub facilities as well as the types of alcohol that people were consuming. As people embraced modernization, whatever may be considered traditional or old-fashioned was disregarded. Many publicans, or pub owners, who originally trained through an apprentice system and functioned as revered patriarchal figures in their communities, sold out to businessmen during the 1970s and 1980s, drastically altering the tradition-based business practices of the pub and the consumption of alcohol in this setting. For example, increasingly,
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Dublin’s Cultural Quarter, shown here in September 2013, has many pubs and bars, old cobblestone streets, and narrow alleys. Following the financial crisis of 2008, many superpubs closed down, and some smaller pubs have gone out of business. Some proprietors blame it on the newly implemented smoking ban, the enforcement of drunk driving laws, and the push for a café culture.
women were being allowed to enter the traditionally male-exclusive setting of the pub. The Celtic Tiger Years Ireland’s economic prosperity of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, when it was commonly referred to as the Celtic Tiger, resulted in some major changes in Irish drinking habits and social customs. Increased trade and contact with Europe meant a greater variety of the types of alcohol being offered in pubs and at off-licenses (liquor stores). These include wines, a range of spirits and other liquors, beers, and alcopops, or sugary, fruit-flavored alcoholic beverages. Alcohol was increasingly being consumed in newly created restaurants and cafés. More disposable income also meant that alcohol became easily accessible across the population, particularly for young people. The Celtic Tiger era brought the rise of the superpub, or drinking establishments that could hold 1,000 patrons or more. In contrast to traditional
pubs, superpubs catered toward a younger (18 to 25 years of age), mostly single crowd. The economic crisis of 2008 brought an end to the Celtic Tiger, and Ireland once again faced economic hardship. During this time, many of the superpubs closed down, with great financial losses to their proprietors. Smaller pubs have increasingly gone out of business, with some people, including Robert Connolly, blaming the newly implemented smoking ban and the enforcement of drunk driving laws as leading to their demise. Additionally, during the mid-2000s, Michael McDowell, Progressive Democrat Minister for Justice, pushed for the import of a European-style café culture, which concentrated on the serving of food as opposed to drink, in order to replace pubs. Also, while the price of a pint increased during economic prosperity, during the recession, people could no longer afford these prices and began to purchase alcohol from the grocery store or the off-license for consumption at home. This
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has led to another change in Irish drinking culture as alcohol is increasingly drunk in the domestic sphere as opposed to the public community environment of the pub. As the consumption of alcohol has functioned as an integrated part of Irish culture for generations, problem drinking is not uncommon, and some argue, including Brian O’Connell, even tolerated. Subsequently, it can be challenging to distinguish between heavy drinking and problem drinking or alcoholism. At times, heavy drinkers are revered as heroes, ranging from local pub celebrities to popular cultural icons, including Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Brendan Behan, and Shane McGowan of the Pogues. Stereotypes associating the Irish with drink have further perpetuated the acceptance and even celebration of excessive drinking in Irish culture. Recently, more and more people in Ireland are publicly coming forward to discuss the long-term health and social impacts of heavy drinking and alcoholism without reverting to the Catholic-influenced temperance attitudes of the 19th and 20th centuries. Emily Lauren Putnam Independent Scholar See Also: Ale; Catholicism; Dark Beer; Drinking Songs; Ethnic Traditions; Guinness; Europe, Northern; Holidays; Mead; Pubs; Shebeens; Songs About Alcohol and Drinking; St. Patrick’s Day; Taverns; Toasting. Further Readings Connolly, Robert. The Rise and Fall of the Irish Pub. Dublin, Ireland: Liffey Press, 2010. Inglis, Tom. “Pleasure Pursuits.” In Ireland Unbound: A Turn of the Century Chronicle, Mary P. Corcoran and Michel Peillon, eds. Dublin, Ireland: Institute of Public Administration, 2002. Kearns, Kevin. Dublin Pub Life and Lore: An Oral History. Dublin, Ireland: Gill and Macmillan, 1996. Molloy, Cian. The Story of the Irish Pub: An Intoxicating History of the Licensed Trade in Ireland. Dublin, Ireland: Liffey Press/Vitners’ Federation of Ireland, 2002. O’Connell, Brian. Wasted: A Sober Journey through Drunken Ireland. Dublin, Ireland: Gill and Macmillan, 2009.
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Islamic Law Questions concerning the legal permissibility of alcohol have been the subject of significant debate among Muslim jurists from the beginning of Islam in the 7th century up to the present. While today, many Muslims and non-Muslims alike assert that Islam explicitly forbids alcohol consumption, historically speaking, the prohibition against intoxicants has never been as clear-cut as it is often portrayed. The lack of an officially sanctioned religious hierarchy or clergy to disseminate legal rulings for all Muslims from the top down resulted in the promotion of differing— yet equally valid—juridical interpretations on a variety of topics including alcohol. The primary questions regarding both alcohol consumption and intoxication derive from textual ambiguities within the Qur’an and differing emphases on the importance of Hadith (records of the sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad) in resolving legal issues. In Sunni Islam, there are four accepted madhhab (legal schools), each of which endorses an alternative approach for deriving fatwa (legal rulings). Of these, the most widely practiced—especially among Turkic populations in Anatolia and central Asia—is the Hanafi rite, which offers the greatest interpretative flexibility both generally speaking and in regards to alcohol consumption. As a result, the legal attitudes toward alcohol have varied greatly at different times and in different parts of the Islamic world. Muslim jurists from all accepted legal rites utilize a five-step process in order to resolve religious questions, beginning with an examination of the Qur’an and followed by analysis of Hadith, application of qiyas (analogical reasoning), deference to the ijma (consensus of the community), and finally, if the question remains unresolved, ijtihad (free and independent reasoning). The importance placed on each step of the process in relation to the other steps is the primary point of divergence among scholars from the accepted legal rites. For example, the situations in which analogical reasoning can be utilized are severely limited by the Hanbali, Shafi’i, and Maliki rites, whereas the Hanafi rite places few limitations on the application of analogy to derive legal rulings. Similarly, the Maliki rite emphasizes the importance of consensus but limits the definition to
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those matters agreed upon by the earliest generations of Muslims. Though the legal rulings made by scholars from the four Sunni rites are often contradictory, any ruling derived from the proper application of the process expounded by one’s rite is legally valid, and a person cannot be prosecuted for following his or her rite even if it contradicts the precepts of another rite. For example, a Hanbali cannot punish a Hanafi for an action forbidden by Hanbali law but allowed by Hanafi law. Additionally, in all four legal rites, a person cannot expose a crime by committing a greater crime. This is especially important in terms of alcohol. While the Hanbali, Shafi’i, and Maliki schools embrace wholesale prohibition of alcohol, all agree that the invasion of one’s privacy is a greater offense. Therefore, private drinking, while technically illegal according to three of the four legal rites, has generally been considered outside the jurisdiction of the legal establishment as its exposure would constitute a greater crime and thereby invalidate any illegally obtained evidence of drinking. References to alcohol in the Qur’an are ambiguous rather than strictly prohibitive. It is this ambiguity that has led to the variations in legal interpretation regarding the acceptability of certain types or quantities of alcohol. Of the various references to khamr (wine) in the Qur’an, none denounce the substance in and of itself, unlike pork or carrion, which are identified as inherently unclean. Instead, as an earthly substance, wine is held akin to games of chance as both have the potential (through their addictive qualities) to disrupt social order and impede religious observance. In two instances, wine is presented as one of the tools used by Satan (in Islam conception, the great tempter—not the embodiment of evil) to lead people astray. However, in another verse, believers are charged with not coming to prayer while intoxicated and are further advised to postpone observing religious ritual until the state has passed and they can fully comprehend the meaning of the prayers being recited. In addition to the aforementioned references to earthly inebriation, rivers of wine are listed as one of the rewards true believers can expect to find in paradise. Thus, while earthly intoxication is warned against as a potential source of social discord, wine becomes a source of licit pleasure in paradise.
The religious prohibition embraced by the Hanbali, Shafi’i, and Maliki rites (as well as by Shi’i Muslims) is confirmed through the use of analogy, wherein the definition of khamr is extended to include all substances that have the potential to intoxicate or cause drunkenness. In some instances, alcoholic drinks could be used in cooking but only if the substance in question were reduced to by two-thirds, thus removing its alcoholic properties. This stance in favor of wholesale prohibition is further crystallized in various Hadith recorded following Muhammad’s death. However, some Hanafi jurists argued for limited prohibition based on a restricted definition of khamr as alcohol derived from uncooked grape juice. This opened the door to allow the consumption of alcoholic beverages derived from other sources, such as grain, honey, and milk. In Hanafi estimation, the religious prohibition is against intoxication, not intoxicants (exempting khamr). Therefore, Hanafi law allows for the consumption of most alcoholic beverages up to but not beyond the initial point of intoxication. The other rites disagree on this point, arguing that, according to the Hadith, any substance that intoxicates in large quantities is forbidden in small quantities. Hanafi jurists did not accept the validity of this Hadith and asserted that alcohol (other than khamr) belonged to the same category as medicine and certain foods, which could be harmful in large quantities but were acceptable in smaller amounts. In Muslim Spain, the rulers followed the Maliki rite but embraced Hanafi ideas in regards to alcohol, thus showing that it was possible to simultaneously adhere to different rites as a means of legitimizing otherwise prohibited acts. Today, many Hanafis acknowledge the stricter interpretations put forth by the other rites and more conservative Hanafi jurists; however, the prevalence of alcohol in predominantly Hanafi regions continues to be much more visible than in other regions of the Islamic world. Substance Versus Restraint Religious scholars agree that it is not alcohol as a substance that presents a problem for Muslims, but rather, it is the inability of people to exercise restraint and avoid the negative social and personal consequences that can arise from drinking and intoxication that threatens social order
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and must by monitored. In order to promote the maintenance of a stable society, most Muslim jurists have ruled in favor of wholesale prohibition based on evidence found in the Qur’an and Hadith. However, because private drinking often falls outside the jurisdiction of the courts, punishment for drinking has generally been limited to those guilty of public intoxication. Despite the limited prohibition supported by Hanafi thought and the fact that no Muslim society has successfully eliminated alcohol in its entirety, all Sunni and Shi’i legal rites agree that khamr and intoxication are forbidden. It is on the finer points of determining the exact definitions of khamr and intoxication that differences in legal interpretation exist. Stephanie Honchell Ohio State University See Also: Algeria; Christianity; Iran; Jewish Traditions; Ottoman Empire; Pakistan; Religion. Further Readings Cook, Michael. Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Haider, Najam. The Origins of the Shi’a: Identity, Ritual, and Sacred Space in Eighth-Century Kufa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Hattox, Ralph S. Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1985. Kueny, Kathryn. Rhetoric of Sobriety: Wine in Early Islam. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. Matthee, Rudi. The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500–1900. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.
Israel In Biblical times, wine drinking was common among the Hebrews. The Egyptians noted approvingly that the wine was more plentiful than water in the land of Canaan, as the Holy
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Land was referred to at that time. The Bible mentions wine nearly 200 times, and it was clearly not just a beverage but also was used during festivals and for ritual purposes. In the Psalms, it mentions “wine that makes glad the heart of man.” It was also used for solace, with Proverbs noting, “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts.” The wine was made from grapes and then pressed, probably in the same manner as in ancient Egypt, with those involved wearing loincloths and holding onto rope as they trod the grapes. It is thought that Gibeon was one of the major wine-producing centers in the Holy Land, as archaeologists have uncovered many underground vats and also some cellars that would have been able to store wine at a constant temperature of 64 degrees F (18 degrees C). Wine jars found in the area have noted on them both the origin of the wine and the vineyard, similar to some of those found by archaeologists in Egypt. Also, there was wine produced in Amurru, north of Ancient Canaan that is recorded as being highly thought of by the prophet Hosea. There is evidence from the Bible and from archaeologists that a range of wines were consumed. Some were spiced, and others were sweet. Many were watered before they were drunk. Stale wine was used for dipping bread, and some very strong wine was used to cleanse germs from water supplies in a manner in which industrial alcohol is now often used to swab wounds. Alcoholism was also as much a problem in the ancient world as it is today, with references to drunkenness in the Bible. This was particularly true with the consumption of alcoholic beverages made from dates. As Isaiah notes, “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, [that] they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, [till] wine inflame them!” In some parts of the Holy Land, where there were problems growing grapes, ale was made from malt and wine was brought in by convoys. This ale was probably similar to that made in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). The Romans in the Holy Land were also keen consumers, and production of alcohol undoubtedly continued through to the period of Muslim rule, although some vineyards were destroyed
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and there were restrictions on alcohol sales in Jerusalem and other major settlements. When the Crusaders from the First Crusade took Jerusalem in 1099, they found that much of the population of the city was not Muslim but Jewish and Christian. This did not stop them from massacring most of the people. Surviving charters in France and elsewhere show that some of the Crusaders, when they left for the Holy Land, donated or left in trust their vineyards to local monasteries. In the Holy Land, these Crusaders discovered the ease of distillation that had been perfected by Mohammad Ibn Zakariya Razi (864–930), and this in turn is credited with changing the nature of producing alcohol in Europe. It led to much stronger drinks being made and also alcohol being used as an antiseptic. After the end of the crusader kingdoms, although Muslim rule returned to the Holy Land, brewing still took place among the large Christian population. In 1882, vineyards were planted at Rishon Le Zion, and later the same year, Baron Edmond James de Rothschild donated money to help pay for the establishment of many more vineyards. French vignerons came to the Holy Land, and they brought with them some vine cuttings from the Rhône Valley and Midi, where the climate was very similar to that in the coastal plain southeast of present-day Tel Aviv. It became the Carmel-Mizrahi Winery, starting business in 1886. The wine was exported to Poland and then later Austria, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Winning a gold medal at the Paris World’s Fair in 1900, two years later, it started marketing the wine throughout the major cities of the Ottoman Empire. The winery was also to play a major part in the emerging Zionist movement, with both David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister after independence, and Levi Eshkol, his successor, working for periods at the winery. In 1934, the company Palestine Brewery Ltd was established as a joint French–Palestinian venture. It produced a light lager and also Nesher Malt—in fact, the brewery is now known as the Nesher Brewery. During the same time, more vineyards were being planted, and the vines thrived in the hot climate with rain in winter. Irrigation was important during April through to October when the weather was very dry.
After 1948, a range of breweries were established to challenge the market domination of the Palestine Brewery Company. The Cabeer Breweries was established using previously redundant facilities at Rishon LeZion. They introduced Goldstar, a pale lager similar to those in Bavaria. In 1968, the beer later called Maccabee was brewed. With its patriotic name, it quickly became the best-selling beer in the country. Cabeer and Goldstar were both purchased in 1975 by Murray Goldman, a real estate developer from Toronto, Canada, and he established the National Brewery Ltd using Canadian knowhow and techniques to improve production. Goldstar rose in popularity, and Maccabee Premium Beer shrank to making up only 10 percent of the country’s beer sales. The same brewery, operating from Tel Aviv, Bat Yam, and Netanya, also makes Beersheba Premium. Gradually, more and more vineyards were established during the 1970s and 1980s. A wide variety of grapes were able to be grown, although Rishon Le Zion continues to dominate the market with some 50 to 60 percent of the home market and also much of the export market, where it is sold under the name Carmel. There remain, however, very large numbers of small, viable vineyards, with Daniel Rogov publishing an annual guide to the local wines. The minimum legal age for buying and consuming alcohol in Israel is 18, and there are also restrictions that make it illegal to sell alcohol outside pubs and restaurants from 11:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Ancient World, Drinking in; Archeological Evidence; Greece, Ancient; Jewish Traditions; Religion. Further Readings Ayalon, Etan, Rafi Frankel, and Amos Kloner, Oil and Wine Presses in Israel From the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Periods. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2009. Bacchiocchi, Samuele. Wine in the Bible: A Biblical Study on the Use of Alcoholic Beverages. Berrien Springs, MI: Biblical Perspectives, 1989.
Frankel, Rafi. Wine and Oil Production in Antiquity in Israel and Other Mediterranean Countries. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999. Neumark, Yehuda D., Giora Rahav, Meir Teichman, and Deborah Hasin. “Alcohol Drinking Patterns Among Jewish and Arab Men and Women in Israel.” Journal of Studies on Alcohol, v.62 (2001). Rogov, Daniel. The Ultimate Rogov’s Guide to Israeli Wine. New Milford, CT: Toby Press, 2012. Walker, Richard. Life in the Biblical World. London: The Reader’s Digest Association Limited, 1996. Zaks, Eli’ezer, Yaron Goldfisher, and Hanah Shitrit. The Wine Route of Israel. Jerusalem, Israel: Cordinata, 2008.
Italy Italy has become closely linked with the consumption of wine. Since antiquity, wine has been an important beverage in Italy. Religious, social, political, economic, and agricultural factors have all played a role in the viability of viticulture and the consumption of wine. Some Italians drink spirits, but they have never rivaled wine as the national beverage. Although there has been a decrease in alcohol consumption in the 20th and 21st centuries, Italians likely will never jettison their love affair with wine. Since antiquity, viticulture and wine making have been staples of the economy. Some scholars envision wine as a purely secular drink in Italy, but it seems clear that many other factors have since antiquity made it a popular beverage. History Wine dates before 3000 b.c.e. and probably arose in the Near East. The Epic of Gilgamesh connected wine to divinity, as would the Romans later. By 2000 b.c.e. wine was made near Syracuse, Sicily. Rome would make Sicily part of Italy, as it continues today. Some scholars believe that wine consumption was widespread in Sicily before this date. The Greeks, who settled Sicily, already in possession of wine in the Aegean Sea, expanded viticulture and wine making. They called Sicily the Mother of Wine. Greeks also settled southern Italy, where they raised grapes
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and made wine, surely before 800 b.c.e. The consensus supports the idea that the Etruscans, a people unrelated to the Romans, made wine before the Romans did. The relationship between Greek and Etruscan wine is unclear. The Etruscans made enough wine for export. They settled lands in what is today Tuscany that were excellent for viticulture. northern Italy and Gaul (now France) imported Etruscan wine. Some scholars believe that the Etruscans influenced the Romans. The military influence is unmistakable, and the Etruscans may also have taught the Romans to make wine. The Latin word for wine derives from the Etruscan vino. Curiously, in the early Republic, the Romans held wine in low esteem. The proud Roman patrician was a man or woman of austere taste and self-control who did not indulge in wine. The Roman elite considered the consumption of wine to be beneath the dignity of a free Roman citizen. Whether it was a suitable beverage for slaves is unclear. About 500 b.c.e., the senate passed a law forbidding pregnant women from consuming wine for fear of injuring the fetus. Medicine has confirmed the wisdom of this law, noting the damage that alcohol can cause expectant mothers and fetuses. Yet, by the time Rome replaced Carthage as the dominant power in the Mediterranean Basin, Roman attitudes had changed. Roman patrician Cato the Elder, in his book on agriculture, gave priority to viticulture and wine making. Now, the once-skeptical patricians absorbed Cato’s values. Wine became the beverage of senators and the wealthy. Commoners followed this example and also indulged in wine. By the 1st century c.e. Roman encyclopedist Pliny the Elder remarked that the quality of Roman wine had been unmatched anywhere in the world since the reign of Augustus, the first emperor. The land between Rome and Naples yielded superior grapes and wine. The ruins of Pompeii attest to the importance of wine. The city had a large number of taverns. Mosaics showed Roman gods enjoying wine. Bacchus, the chief god of wine, was a familiar subject of these mosaics. Bacchus was also the god of revelry, connecting wine consumption with intemperate behavior. Perhaps in this context, the Romans drew a connection between alcohol and sexuality that humans, television advertisers among them, understood true
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ever since. Whether they know it or not, college coeds have reenacted this Roman conception of wine for centuries. The destruction of Pompeii in 79 c.e. led the Romans to convert land from wheat to grapes in hopes of repairing the loss of Pompeii’s vineyards. The idea was unwise and caused a shortage of grain and an oversupply of wine. Emperor Domitian, second son of popular Vespasian, tried to right the balance by discouraging the conversion of any more land to grapes and giving incentives to grow grain. Still, there was no shortage of wine. What land was not planted to grapes in Italy was ceded to vineyards in North Africa, Spain, Portugal, and France, especially in the south. However, as the tax on wine increased, landowners cut down their vineyards. About 300 c.e., Emperor
A fresco on a lararium (shrine) from Pompeii. Bacchus (left) takes the form of a bunch of grapes. Mount Vesuvius is characterized by a single peak and is covered with vegetation, including rows of vines. Resting in the land between Rome and Naples, an area yielding superior grapes and wine, Pompeii and its ruins attest to the importance of wine in numerous ways.
Theodosius, short of money to pay the army, established death as the penalty for farmers who destroyed their vine lands. From Roman antiquity to the Renaissance, wine played an important role in medicine. Physicians believed it healed many ailments. It was thought particularly effective against colds. Some physicians counseled the sick and elderly to consume wine for ailments, especially as protection from heart disease. Wine’s role in preventing cardiovascular disease has received recent attention. Medieval Italy saw a decline but not abandonment in the consumption of wine. The Christian idea that wine was a symbol of Jesus’s blood ensured that the beverage would remain important. Italian monasteries were centers of wine making. Many Italian towns named streets after a brand of wine or a variety of grapes. In the late 19th century, however, Italian physicians, contrary to their predecessors, became wary of the overconsumption of alcohol, blaming poor-quality wines for aggravating several ailments. Yet, this was primarily an academic debate, though an important one, that did little to affect public opinion about the consequences of alcohol consumption. One sociologist tied the consumption of alcohol to a decrease in morality and an increase in crime in Italy. Hard-line hereditarians, especially eugenicists, argued that inferior people turned to alcohol, whereas others thought that poverty tempted people to turn to alcohol to ease their misery. Most Italian scientists did not enter this debate but turned to the medical consequences of overconsumption. In northern Italy, the attempt to found a temperance movement never took wings because most Italians did not have a problem with moderate consumption of alcohol. The rise of fascism in the 1920s led to a revival of the linkage between alcohol and crime. Fascist leader Benito Mussolini was particularly concerned about the pubs that became a venue for political discussion. Wanting obedience to his regime rather than an exchange of ideas, he closed thousands of pubs. The Contemporary Scene Throughout the 20th century, the consumption of alcohol has declined in Italy. Nevertheless, alcohol sales account for 10 percent of Italy’s gross domestic product, and vineyards are planted on
about 10 percent of arable land. Some 14,000 companies sell alcohol in Italy. Italians spent about 2 percent of their income on alcohol, a decline since the 1970s. Wine is the national beverage, as is true of many Mediterranean countries. Teetotalers are rare in Italy and are considered oddities. Italians have a song that goes “may God protect me from those who do not drink.” Equally, Italians frown on drunkards, believing them a disgrace. Italians believe wine is nourishing and good for health. Certainly, the poor need the extra calories that wine supplies. Italians commonly take wine with meals. Wine attends marriages, births, military induction, and funerals. It is the beverage of leisure. Unlike the United States and Britain, Italy has never had a robust temperance movement. Despite the stigma attached to drunkenness, Italians believe some contexts demand overconsumption. The passage of adolescents into adulthood, marriage, and induction into the military are all marked by excessive consumption of alcohol. Italians believe that women should consume less alcohol than men and that wine should not be taken between meals. The latter belief may hinder the temptation to binge drink. By the same token, Italians condemn people who have no selfcontrol to limit the consumption of alcohol. In Italy, it is unmanly not to be able to restrain one’s intake of alcohol. On average, Italians drink 37.6 liters of wine per capita per year. The working-class pub has ceded ground to the modern bar, which caters to a number of economic and social classes. The
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residents of northeastern Italy, including the port Venice, consume the most wine, followed by central Italy, the northwest, and the south, an ironic situation given southern Italy’s role as a cradle of wine making. Italians appear to prefer white to red wine, though there are of course dissenters from this pattern of consumption. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: Amarone; Barbera; Barolo; Campari; Capone, Al; Catholicism; Chianti; Ethnic Traditions; Europe, Southern; Greece; Lambrusco; Mafia; Montepulciano; Muscat; Peroni; Roman Empire; Sangiovese; Valpolicella; Viniculture, Global History of; Wine Tourism; Wines, Red; Wines, White. Further Readings Bernetti, Iacopo, Leonardo Casini, and Nicola Marinelli. “Wine and Globalisation: Changes in the International Market Structure and the Position of Italy.” British Food Journal, v.108/4 (2006). Heath, Dwight B., ed. International Handbook on Alcohol and Culture. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995. Holt, Mack P. ed. Alcohol: A Social and Cultural History. Oxford: Berg, 2006. Wine Spectator. “Whose Citizens Drink the Most Wine?” (February 27, 2014). http://www.wine spectator.com/webfeature/show/id/49643?utm_ source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign =unfiltered-whose-citizens-drink-the-most-wine -wine-spectator (Accessed April 2014).
J Japan Consumption of alcohol in contemporary Japan is socially acceptable and prevalent. Alcohol is sold in supermarkets, convenience stores, and even vending machines. No religious or moral objections to its use exist, and alcohol is not considered a drug in Japan. In fact, Japan has never had a period of alcohol prohibition. Drinking and being drunk in public are commonplace and, generally speaking, legal behaviors. Few negative attributes are associated with alcohol consumption, and in many circumstances, drinking—even drinking to the point of intoxication—is expected or encouraged. In just the city of Tokyo, more than 15,000 small bars flourish. The most popular form of alcohol in Japan today is beer, as is a related and inexpensive alternative known as “third-category beer.” Japan’s rate of alcohol consumption is high compared to other countries, and alcohol use was steadily increasing until the past decade or so, when alcohol consumption seemed to have declined slightly. It appears that the youngest Japanese of drinking age are consuming less expensive forms of alcohol and less alcohol in general compared to their elders. This may be a product of Japan’s recent economic woes or an expanding awareness of the health and other costs associated with alcohol use. For the most part, though, alcohol consumption is considered a necessary part of Japan’s
culture in that it offers a release in a society where people are expected to contain their emotions, frustrations, and personal problems. Because getting along and going along with others are considered central components of character and success in Japan, alcohol use is viewed as a social lubricant that leads to more open and frank interactions with others. Indeed, drinking alcohol is considered a social duty for adults. If one wants to be part of the group—whether among fellow classmates if in college or among colleagues from one’s workplace—when everyone else is drinking, an individual is likely to feel obligated to drink alcohol as well. Certainly, refusing a drink from one’s employer, immediate supervisor, or potential business associate is considered an insult and could negatively affect one’s business dealings and career advancement. Drinking with a client or colleague until one’s “true self” emerges is considered the best way to mend fences or sell a product. A term has even been created to capture the more open, personal, and expressive communication that occurs between people drinking together. “Nommunication” is a combination of the Japanese word for alcohol (nom) and the English word communication. This word is intended to convey the importance of interacting with others while under the influence of alcohol, as this allows one to learn how to be a social person and demonstrates to others that one is an effective 741
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and cooperative colleague who also is knowledgeable about group and work etiquette. In the evening, the omnipresent bars in every city in Japan are generally overflowing with white-collar workers. Laborers are typically found in “stand bars,” drinking less expensive shochu sometimes obtained from vending machines and served in plastic cups. Regardless of one’s employment status, “nommunication” is thought to be necessary to facilitate social relationships. Customs associated with drinking alcoholic beverages in Japan include waiting to drink until everyone in your party has been served and a toast has been made. In addition, it is customary to serve one another (rather than serving yourself) and to refill friends’ glasses regularly and certainly before their glasses are empty. If someone wants to fill your glass, it is customary to drink some of what is in your glass to make room for the addition, raise
your glass to receive the refill, and then drink some of what was added before setting your glass down. Sake Around the world, Japan is known for sake. Quality sake requires particular ingredients and processing along with maturation. The result tastes mild, smooth, and rich. Sake comes in several forms, and numerous flavors may be added to it. In its basic form, sake consists of rice, water, and a mold. The Hyogo prefecture is well known for having water with the particular characteristics needed to produce high-quality sake; thus, this region has the most sake breweries in Japan. Although many people outside of Japan inaccurately refer to sake as rice wine, sake is more similar to beer in terms of the brewing process. Evidence of sake appears in the first written history of Japan in 712 c.e. Sake seems to have been
Sake from the Asahi Brewery in the Yamaguchi Prefecture is tasted at a meeting in Tokyo, Japan, February 14, 2014. The name of their best-selling sake, Dassai, means “otter festival,” referring to the large otter population that once lived on the shores of Yamaguchi. Japan is known around the world for its sake, the evidence of which appears in the first written history of Japan in 712 c.e.
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the primary alcoholic beverage consumed from that time until the 1960s, when beer consumption surpassed sake consumption in Japan. At one point, Japan had some 30,000 sake breweries. A heavy taxing of the sake industry, though, led to the closure of many breweries, and since the introduction of other popular alcoholic beverages from around the world—such as wine, beer, and whiskey—the consumption of sake has steadily declined. Now, traditional sake serving cups are reserved for special occasions, such as weddings, religious ceremonies, or when sake is being shared with gods in a plea for such things as a fruitful harvest season. In 1975, a little more than 3,000 sake breweries were operating in Japan. By 2007, that number had dwindled to fewer than 2,000. Sake though is available worldwide now, and sake breweries can be found in such places as China, Australia, and South America. Alcohol Consumption In Japan, although the rate of alcohol consumption may have slightly decreased recently, it has quadrupled in the past 50 years, and the rate of alcoholism continues to rise. Estimates of the number of “problem” drinkers in Japan exceed 3 million. More than half of these problem drinkers are thought to be businessmen who consider drinking and even getting inebriated with their clients and coworkers to be an essential part of their work life. Japan, though, does not have the extensive resources to address problem drinking that most other countries have. Few hospital beds are devoted to those with drinking problems, and private rehabilitation programs are just beginning to crop up in Japan but are unregulated. For the most part, families take on the responsibility of addressing problem drinking among their members, often in combination with programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Essentially, an individual’s alcohol-related problems are considered a matter of personal responsibility. The relationship between car accidents and alcohol consumption, though, is recognized and being addressed, in Japan whereas half of all fatal car accidents each year are caused—at least in part—by alcohol use. One response comes from beer manufacturers, who now offer nonalcoholic versions of their products. Tokyoflash Japan, a high-tech watch company, has created a wristwatch with
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a Breathalyzer that allows drinkers to determine their suitability for driving in a matter of seconds. In spite of this increasing awareness of the negative consequences of alcohol consumption, alcohol use continues to be an everyday feature of life for most adults in Japan. Most Japanese view alcohol use as essential as it provides a means through which individual expression occurs and enhanced social relationships are made possible. Mel Moore University of Northern Colorado See Also: Peer Pressure; Rehabilitation Centers, History of; Sake; Taxation; Workplace Drinking, Sociology of. Further Readings Bunting, Chris. Drinking Japan: A Guide to Japan’s Best Drinks and Drinking Establishments. Singapore: Tuttle Publishing, 2011. Gauntner, John. The Sake Handbook. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2002. Tokyo Alcoholics Anonymous. http://www.aatoyko .org (Accessed August 2013).
Jazz Age During the early 20th century, American attitudes toward alcohol changed dramatically. By the 1910s, long-standing social, religious, and cultural opposition to drinking coalesced into a political movement militating for prohibition. Reformers condemned alcohol as dangerous to morals, family life, societal stability, and economic prosperity. Further, they indicted the saloon, the primary drinking venue for the working class, as a den of iniquity and vice. Various economic, social, and political forces united in favor of Prohibition. Ultimately, the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment and the passage of the Volstead Act outlawed the production, transportation, and sale of alcohol beginning in 1920. The culmination of a 100-year campaign that sprang from the early 19th-century American temperance movement, the Eighteenth Amendment ushered in national Prohibition.
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Many Americans remained thirsty, however, and illegal consumption surged. A variety of Americans rejected and resisted Prohibition: rebellious youth, urban dwellers, ambitious entrepreneurs, and hardened criminals. Full of blatant disregard for authority, these groups made bootlegging America’s most profitable illegal trade in the 1920s. An entire underground counterculture came into being, as revelers, bohemians, and lawbreakers ignored traditional inhibitions and social conventions. The postwar period introduced a generation of young, disaffected people to avant-garde literature, new poetry, and jazz, a new music drawn primarily from the rhythms of the African American community. With the intersection of cultural rebellion, illegal alcohol, and vibrant new musical and dance styles, the “Jazz Age” was born. It engendered a wide range of novel practices and institutions that came to define the period: speakeasies, jazz clubs, bootlegging, organized crime, and “flappers”—independent young women who rejected restrictive gender norms in favor of short haircuts, revealing clothes, uninhibited dancing, and public drinking. Liquor, the fuel of the Jazz Age, often failed to match the quality of pre-Prohibition alcohol. As it was an illegal commodity, distillers and bootleggers produced large volumes of watered-down alcohol to maximize profit and minimize risk. Industrial, low-grade alcohol became the norm. Flavored, colored, and watered down, Jazz Age booze proved notoriously rank, and sometimes, if wood alcohol was used, deadly. Drinkers sometimes barely tolerated the taste, but they pursued bootleg liquor and consumed it by the gallon. The low quality and appalling taste of Jazz Age liquor led to the idea of mixed drinks. Sodas, tonics, and other ingredients added to cheap booze improved flavor and enhanced drinkability. Popular examples of mixed drinks include the martini, the bronx and the manhattan. Speakeasies New drinking places emerged as well. Speakeasies, also known as “blind tigers” or “blind pigs,” were unlicensed pubs that became extremely common in the Prohibition era. Various mechanisms were used to maintain the speakeasies’ secrecy, including false doors, disappearing bars, and bouncer
crews. The size, style, and shape of the speakeasy varied from city to city, but common themes and activities characterized most establishments: table service, waitresses selling drinks and cigarettes, jazz musicians, dance floors, and live entertainment. During the Prohibition era, observers estimated New York City alone housed as many as 32,000 speakeasies. Iconic examples of speakeasies include the Cotton Club in Harlem and the 21 Club and the Stork Club in Manhattan. Appropriately named because one was supposed to speak carefully or quietly about their existence so as not to alert the police to its existence, the speakeasy was a place to mingle and enjoy an alcoholic beverage removed from the eyes of authority. Speakeasies also made women’s public drinking acceptable, providing an exciting if illegal setting in which the sexes could socialize together. The management and inner workings of the speakeasy often involved far more sinister and sordid activities than the common patron could have expected. With alcohol rendered an illegal commodity, organized crime engaged in smuggling, bootlegging, and intimidation to supply public demand for liquor. Gangsters derived enormous profits from illegal liquor, and their lifestyle soon became synonymous with fast living, excitement, and excess. The risqué, clandestine, romanticized vision of Jazz Age drinking, however, had a darker side. The staggering sums gained from smuggling, producing, and selling illicit booze produced turf wars and legendary violence between rival gangs and fueled a host of other illegal activities, such as gambling, prostitution, and political corruption. Gender and Culture Going to the speakeasy often meant jazz and dancing—if there was room. The promise of romance and excitement attracted even law-abiding citizens through the doors of the speakeasy. Although slow to enter the speakeasy scene, jazz became almost as important as alcohol itself. “Respectable” middle-class Americans believed that, along with alcohol, jazz incited sexual passions and ought to be censored as “the devils music.” As the sexes were now co-patrons, the music of the Jazz Age naturally included dance music. Gender norms altered radically during the
1920s, resulting in increased gender equality and the emergence of the “new woman.” The syncopated rhythms of jazz drew heavily from African American musical traditions and helped to further the intermingling of the races. Black and tan clubs were also common Jazz Age hotspots. In these clubs, blacks and whites were able to freely intermingle. Such clubs were, in most instances, a haven from the segregationist barriers of popular culture. Jazz Age alcohol revolutionized race relations by eroding gender and racial barriers. Black artists like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday thrilled white culture and performed in prominent jazz clubs and speakeasies. Black performers now had greater access to white audiences. Dances expressly coordinated with popular jazz music, including the one-step fox-trot and the iconic Charleston, also transformed popular entertainment. A new breed of liberal-minded women populated speakeasies and nightclubs. Known as flappers, they embodied the rebellious Jazz Age generation. Flappers bobbed their hair, wore makeup, sported short hemlines, smoked cigarettes, drank liquor in public, danced suggestively, said unladylike things, and rode in automobiles with young men. They flouted social norms and disobeyed restrictions on women’s drinking, shocking older generations who associated alcohol with sexual immorality. Avid consumers of alcohol, flappers redefined traditional gender roles during the Jazz Age. Jazz Age literature embraced bootleg liquor as a defining feature of the era. During the 1920s a group of authors identified with the postwar “Lost Generation” gained prominence. This group included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and Ernest Hemingway. Their novels romanticized lavish parties, risqué women, and opulent houses, all under the intoxicating spell of illicit booze. In essence, Jazz Age authors glamorized the antics of the youth culture for wider audiences to admire. In some cases, however, popular authors featured themes of moral loss resulting from alcohol abuse. Conclusion Alcohol in the Jazz Age had profound and intergenerational effects. While the country may have been technically dry, music, entertainment, and
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booze flowed like never before. Alcohol in the Jazz Age promoted new and radical cultural developments. Women and African Americans explored new roles, making inroads into the white, maledominated culture. Though organized crime and social disorder accompanied these changes, in large measure, American society survived the pervasiveness of illegal booze relatively unscathed. The Jazz Age, for all its alcoholic excesses, promoted questioning of established beliefs, mores, and conventions. Many fixtures of modern culture, including cocktails, nightlife, greater freedom for women, and appreciation of African American culture, owe their existence to the alcohol-fueled Jazz Age. Bruce Anderson Alexander Sessums Florida Southern College See Also: American Temperance Union (ATU); Cabarets; Gender and Drinking in Popular Culture; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century; Moral Attitudes Toward Alcohol Consumption; Peer Pressure; Prohibition; Speakeasies and Blind Pigs; Temperance Movements; Volstead Act. Further Readings Blocker, J. S., Jr. “Did Prohibition Really Work? Alcohol Prohibition as a Public Health Innovation.” American Journal of Public Health. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC1470475 (Accessed May 2014). Drowne, Kathleen. Spirits of Defiance: National Prohibition and Jazz Age Literature. Columbus: Ohio State University, 2005. Fass, Paula S. The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. Johnson, D. B. “News & Analysis, World, US.” NPR: National Public Radio (September 27, 2011). http://www.npr.org (Accessed May 2014). Matza, Mitchel Newton. Jazz Age: People and Perspectives. Santa Barbara, CA: ABCCLIO, 2009. “Prohibition and the Jazz Age” (November 8, 2010). SoundCheck.com: The Best Celebrity Soundboard Site in the World. http://www.soundcheck.com (Accessed May 2014).
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Jefferson, Thomas
Jefferson, Thomas Born in 1843 at Shadwell—his father’s plantation near Charlottesville, Virginia—Thomas Jefferson gained immortality as a revolutionary, a statesman, a politician, and a political philosopher. Jefferson’s love of wine also resulted in a variety of contributions to American viticulture and oenology. He planted a variety of grapes at his plantation, Monticello, hoping to encourage a winemaking culture in the United States that would rival what he had seen in France and Italy. A noted gourmet, Jefferson also imported a great deal of wine from Europe and was hugely influential in changing American attitudes about the benefits of drinking wine with food. Although his attempts to nurture vineyards were ultimately unsuccessful, Jefferson is rightly regarded as the “father of American wine.” Background Jefferson’s father, Peter, was a physically powerful man with no formal education, although he possessed a passion for education and a love for books. His mother, Jane, was a Randolph— a member of one of Virginia’s most socially prominent families—and was his entrée into Old Dominion’s Tidewater aristocracy. At the age of 17, in 1760, Jefferson matriculated at the College of William & Mary, the second-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. While at William & Mary, he soon became acquainted with some of the leading lights of Virginian society, such as Governor Francis Fauquier and leading legal scholar George Wythe. Both Fauquier and Wythe maintained considerable wine cellars, and through these friendships Jefferson was exposed to fine wine, such as Madeira, port, claret, burgundy, and champagne. Years later, he wrote fondly of the malmsey Madeira enjoyed at Wythe’s home. Upon his return to Shadwell, Jefferson started his own wine cellar, which was destroyed in a fire in 1770. As a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, Jefferson—like other colonial plantation owners—did not maintain a town house but instead stayed in taverns and inns that offered rooms for rent. As a rule, he stopped at a small inn owned by Anne Ayscough, who had served as Fauquier’s housekeeper and who was noted for her fine wine
cellar. Indeed, although wine was considered a luxury item in the late 18th century, with a single bottle costing more than several nights’ stay at an inn, Jefferson often purchased wine. After his appointment as minister to France in 1785, he spent the next four years in France increasing his knowledge of French wines, purchasing many bottles to take back with him to Virginia. Jefferson brought his slave James Hemings with him to France and had Hemings trained in the art of French cooking so that he could replicate many of the foods Jefferson first tried while living there. Upon his return to the United States in 1789, Jefferson continued his interest in wine and cuisine, becoming known for the quality of the food and drink served at his table. Jefferson’s Vineyards During his tenure as secretary of state, vice president, and president, Jefferson remained passionate about his home at Monticello, maintaining his base of operations there throughout his life. He aspired to produce a Monticello-grown wine, although he struggled to grow the grapes that could be used for this endeavor. He planted two vineyards at Monticello—one encompassed 9,000 square feet, and the other 16,000 square feet. The vineyards were arranged into 17 narrow terraces, each concentrating on specific varieties of grapes that Jefferson had received from various sources. Initially, he attempted to cultivate varieties of European grapes that had produced the wines he had enjoyed in France, Italy, and Germany, but he ran into problems growing these. In the era before pesticides, the successful cultivation of Vitis vinifera (the classic European wine grape variety) proved impossible. Many devastating pests, such as black rot and Phylloxera vestatrix (an aphid-like root louse), prevented the grapes from growing to maturity and precluded their use for winemaking. Jefferson also experimented with growing grapes native to North America. While he was able to grow these to maturity, the native grapes did not produce a fruit suitable for producing quality wine. Despite these setbacks, Jefferson sparked an interest in the cultivation of grapes and the production of wine in the United States. Part of Jefferson’s difficulties in growing Vitis vinifera stemmed from the complexity of getting
suitable specimens to the New World. While he had an extensive network of friends and contacts in Europe who were willing and able to send him the specimens he needed, getting these to Monticello proved almost impossible. The nearly three weeks required to cross the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to the United States resulted in the vines arriving at Monticello either dead or ailing. Jefferson also apparently experienced difficulties in getting those vines that did survive the journey planted properly. Perhaps the best opportunity he had to cultivate Vitis vinifera occurred in 1807. At that time, he planted 287 separate rooted vines representing 24 different European grape varieties. Most of these varieties had not been previously cultivated in the United States, and Jefferson’s careful notes indicate that great care was showered on the vines. Despite this, the vines died or were otherwise unable to produce grapes sufficient for winemaking. Jefferson’s advocacy for wine and winemaking did not end with his unsuccesful attempts to cultivate grapes suitable for this purpose. A lifelong supporter of wine, Jefferson campaigned for the health benefits of drinking wine, especially as compared to the consequences of drinking whiskey. While serving as George Washington’s secretary of state, Jefferson acted as Washington’s unofficial sommelier, selecting the wines used for state dinners and overseeing their decanting and serving. While serving as the president himself, Jefferson set a new standard for the quality of wine served at his table and introduced many varieties of wine that had previously been unknown. Until his death in 1826, Jefferson continued to import wines from France and Italy, serving these to his frequent and many guests. This practice made the serving of wine a more normal practice and influenced many others to serve the libation with their meals. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation restored one of Jefferson’s vineyards at Monticello, using his 1807 plans and notes to replicate the experiment as closely as possible. By grafting the varieties used by Jefferson onto hardy, pest-resistant North American rootstock, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation was able to successfully cultivate these grapes, which were soon able to produce enough to make more than 300 bottles of wine annually. Later, Jefferson’s smaller vineyard was
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replanted as well entirely using the Sangiovese grape, which is used to make chianti. Although Jefferson had attempted to cultivate the Sangiovese unsuccessfully, modern pesticides permitted the grapes to be grown successfully; wine made from these grapes is now offered for sale at Monticello. Although his personal attempts to cultivate grapes suitable for winemaking proved difficult, ultimately his vision was proven possible and practicable. Stephen T. Schroth Knox College See Also: Bordeaux; Burgundy; Fine Cuisine; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 18th Century; Italy; Wine Connoisseurship; Wines, French. Further Readings Craughwell, Thomas J. Thomas Jefferson’s Crème Brûlée: How a Founding Father and His Slave James Hemings Introduced French Cuisine to America. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2012. Fowler, Damon Lee. Dining at Monticello: In Good Taste and Abundance. Charlottesville, VA: Thomas Jefferson Foundation, 2005. Hailman, John. Thomas Jefferson on Wine. Oxford: University Press of Mississippi, 2009.
Jellinek, E. M. Elvin Morton “Bunky” Jellinek (1890–1963) was the highly controversial coauthor of the modern field of studies on alcoholism. A biometric statistician, physiologist, and cultural historian, Jellinek was a major force behind the Yale School of Alcohol Studies (later the Yale Center) and the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies. The Jellinek Award for research on alcohol and alcohol dependence and addiction is named for him (and is known familiarly as the Bunky). Although he is often referred to as “Dr. Jellinek,” no evidence exists for his earning a doctorate or degree. Bill W., the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous, said that while Jellinek was not an M.D., he was a doctor of pretty much everything else—an extremely learned man.
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Jellinek and Howard Haggard (1891–1959) joined forces to publish the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol in 1940. In 1943, perhaps to help the journal find a wider audience, they founded the Yale School for Alcohol Studies. At the early meetings of the group that formed the school there were clergymen, prohibitionists, representatives of the liquor industry, academic scholars, social workers, policemen, judges, educators, and, not incidentally, in Bill W.’s words, “a certain number of us drunks.” It was Jellinek, working with Haggard, who brought some kind of order out of the initial near-chaos, with his “scienceand society” approach, his diplomacy and good humor, his willingness to look at alcoholism or at alcohol, and—not least—his infectious laugh. In essence, Jellinek argued that the alcohol problem should be viewed as a series of complex, interrelated problems; science can help to understand this complexity, and in some cases, may provide answers. He believed that science might help to understand and address the problem particularly of alcoholism, as suggested by the Science and Society movement of the 1930s and 1940s, which sought to apply science to the solution of social problems. If the problems of alcohol were too difficult and complex to disentangle, the problems of alcoholism (though still complex) seemed a promising candidate for this approach. Gradually, Jellinek looked less to alcohol and more to alcoholism as his field of study. As he realized (and indeed preached) that if alcoholism is to be treated scientifically, it must in some sense be considered a disease. Besides articulating and disseminating the “disease concept,” Jellinek created the famous (but now either infamous or forgotten) Jellinek Curve, though he later wished to dissociate himself from it, or at least from the form it took in “recovery” literature and practice. Five Subtypes of Alcoholism In his classic The Disease Concept of Alcoholism (1960), and in earlier articles, Jellinek divided alcoholism into five subtypes: alpha (α), beta (β), gamma (γ), delta (δ), and epsilon (η), of which α and β subtypes were only implicit in his original 1941 classifications. Briefly, Jellinek defined alpha alcoholism as a purely psychological continual dependence or reliance upon the effect of alcohol to relieve
bodily or emotional pain. Alpha alcoholism did not progress and would have no withdrawal symptoms in the event the “alcoholic” stopped drinking. Beta alcoholism represented alcohol consumption leading to alcohol-related medical disorders, with neither physical nor psychological dependence, and no withdrawal symptoms. Jellinek, defined gamma alcoholism as the worst variety, which led to “(1) acquired increased tissue tolerance to alcohol, (2) adaptive cell mechanism, (3) withdrawal symptoms and ‘craving,’ i.e., physical dependence, and (4) loss of control.” The gamma form corresponds to the progressive, fatal disease people usually think of as alcoholism and to which Magnus Hoff gave the name chronicus alcoholismus in 1848, the first use of the word alcoholism in any language. Jellinek defined delta alcoholism as largely similar to gamma alcoholism, but with inability to abstain in place of loss of control as the fourth symptom. Finally, he suggested a fifth species of alcoholism, epsilon alcoholism, in which periodic bouts of drinking could cause serious damage. Jellinek himself ruled out alpha (possibly) and beta (definitely) as the genuine disease of alcoholism, unlike gamma and delta, which both involved “adaptation of cell mechanism, and increased tolerance and the withdrawal symptoms, which bring about ‘craving’ and loss of control and ability to abstain,” and fit the disease model more closely. Jellinek reserved judgment about epsilon alcoholism, having insufficient information. Significant uncertainty about epsilon alcoholism, and its dynamics, persists in alcohol studies. Jellinek’s original (1941) classifications made a twofold distinction. First, there were primary or true alcoholics, who were characterized by an immediate liking for alcohol’s effects, rapid development of an uncontrollable need for alcohol, and inability to abstain. Then there were the secondary alcoholics, including (1) the steady, endogenous, symptomatic drinkers, in whom alcoholism was secondary to a major psychiatric disorder, such as schizophrenia or syphilis; (2) the intermittent, endogenous, symptomatic drinkers, who were distinguished by a periodic drinking pattern but with development of the alcoholism secondary to a psychiatric disorder such as manic-depressive psychosis; and (3) the “stammtisch” drinkers, in whom alcoholism was
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precipitated by exogenous causes, the word stammtisch coming from the table set aside for regular customers in a café. The alpha and beta subtypes implicit in the 1941 classifications are characterized by biobehavioral dependence, while the gamma and delta alcoholics are characterized by physical dependence. Conclusion Jellinek, the founder of the modern science of alcoholism, was a statistician of dubious antecedents (but a fascinating presence with an infectious laugh), a “doctor” who was not a doctor (except in the sense of the Arabic hakim, a learned man), and a man of checkered background (a sometime currency speculator in Hungary, which he left hurriedly). Of his three great discoveries, the disease concept of alcoholism has been both expanded and narrowed in some cases beyond recognition; (the Jellinek Curve he himself disowned, and the third, (his types of alcoholism, have been foresworn and neglected by most researchers. Some of the winners of the Jellinek Awards have suggested the prize be named for someone else. But without him it is doubtful there would be a scientific study of alcoholism. Jared Lobdell Independent Scholar See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Binge Drinking, History of; Disease Model of Alcoholism; Mann, Marty; Wilson, Bill; Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies. Further Readings Lobdell, Jared. This Strange Illness: Alcoholism and Bill W. Berlin, Germany: Aldine-De Gruyter, 2004. Roizen, Ron. “The American Discovery of Alcoholism, 1933–1939.” Ph.D. dissertation. Berkeley: University of California, 1991. Roizen, Ron. “E. M. Jellinek and All That.” Nordisk Alkohol und Narkotika Tidskrift, v.17 (2000). Roizen, Ron. “Paradigm Sidetracked: Explaining Early Resistance to the Alcoholism Paradigm at Yale’s Laboratory of Applied Physiology, 1940–1944.” Paper presented at the Alcohol and Temperance History Group’s International Congress on the Social History of Alcohol, Huron College, London, Ontario, Canada, May 1993.
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White, William L. Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America. Normal, IL: Chestnut Health Systems, 1998.
Jello Shots A jello shot is an alcoholic beverage consisting of liquor incorporated into sweetened gelatin dessert and chilled in a small container. The name jello is borrowed from the brand name Jell-O. Given the various kinds of flavored gelatin and liquor on the market, the types of jello shots are almost unlimited. Since the mid-1950s, people have developed their own recipes and personalized their production in various ways through the use of colors and chilling molds. Many do not view these as actual “alcoholic beverages,” given the addition of what they have come to know as a sweet dessert. A significant problem is that when people have this view, they often do not have an appreciation of the potential negative effects and dangers of overindulgence. There are also the issues of underage consumption and ease of alcohol concealment. For most, observing a young person eating flavored gelatin is of no concern. But, this particular concoction may contain an extremely dangerous level of alcohol, given that most jello shots are made with 190proof pure grain alcohol. The basic jello shot is made with 1 cup of boiling water, 1 cup of vodka, 1 cup of pure grain alcohol or flavored liquor, and a 3-ounce box of Jell-O or other brand of flavored gelatin. Most Popular Types of Jello Shots The following are some of the most popular jello shot mixtures: • Dreamsicle: orange gelatin, whipped cream or vanilla-flavored vodka, and triple sec • Strawberry lemonade: strawberry gelatin, lemon-flavored vodka, and triple sec • Caribou Lou (piña colada): pineapple gelatin, Malibu rum, triple sec, and pineapple juice substituted for the boiling water
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• Jolly rancher: melon gelatin, vodka, and apple pucker • Purple people eater: grape gelatin, vodka, and watermelon pucker • Bomb pop: cherry gelatin, lemon vodka, and (citron) blue Curaçao • Margarita: lime gelatin, tequila, triple sec, and splash of lime juice with the boiling water • Tequila sunrise: orange gelatin, tequila, triple sec, and grenadine • Tropic thunder: berry blue gelatin, lemon vodka, and (citron) blue Curaçao • Blue Hawai‘ian: berry blue gelatin, Malibu rum, blue Curaçao, and pineapple juice substituted for the boiling water • Rum runner: strawberry-banana gelatin, light or dark rum, and triple sec • Bahama mama: watermelon gelatin, Malibu rum, and peach schnapps • Cosmopolitan: cranberry gelatin, vodka, triple sec, and splash of lime juice with the boiling water • Sex on the beach: orange gelatin, vodka, peach schnapps, and cranberry juice substituted for some of the boiling water • Lemon drop: lemon gelatin, lemon vodka, and triple sec • Blue firecracker: berry blue gelatin, vodka, peach schnapps, and a maraschino cherry with stem (the wick for the firecracker)
tour of duty on a naval base after being drafted, started experimenting with ways to mix alcohol with various other liquids. His idea was to try to increase the amount of alcohol available without “watering down” the alcohol content of the mixture. After several different attempts, he found that the most productive combination was vodka and orange gelatin. While alcohol was difficult at times to locate, there was plenty of gelatin being sent to the American troops in and out of the United States. Lehrer and his fellow military personnel soon realized a secondary benefit of this mixture. Military police, guards, and senior officers did not think it strange when so many were moving orange gelatin from one location to another and from one base to another or even when the gelatin was being consumed during work hours. In an interview with Lehrer, he stated that the catalyst for his invention was the plan for a Christmas party on the naval base in 1955. All alcohol was forbidden from the party, so he and a friend began thinking of ways to smuggle it into the party. After many experiences with different types of flavored gelatin and liquor, they found the best mixture when following the stated directions on the gelatin box but using vodka instead of cold water. After mixing these ingredients, they simply put them in small paper cups to chill. When going into the party the next day, what they were bringing past the security guards looked like a very simple dessert. This genesis of jello shots would soon take on a life of its own and begin a love/hate relationship for many for decades to come.
A Brief History of Jello Shots While it remains a debate for some, the legend is that jello shots were invented by a soldier in the U.S. Army in the 1950s. It is also believed that this soldier was Tom Lehrer, who became a wellknown singer–songwriter, satirist, pianist, and well-respected mathematician in the 1960s. During and immediately following the Korean War (1950–53), alcohol became a scarce commodity for many members of the military assigned to various bases and forts around the world. Obviously, ways to “make the most of what they had” became a private concern and activity for many. The story was that Lehrer, while doing his
The Dangers of Jello Shots The most dangerous thing about jello shots is that most do not taste like alcohol. Those that do are often made with flavored alcohol, which further masks the basic alcoholic beverage taste. This lack of taste somehow equates to many as meaning lack of alcohol, but this is quite the opposite of reality. Many jello shots are made using 190-proof pure grain alcohol (Everclear being the most popular). This almost pure alcohol essentially has no taste but very quickly intoxicates the consumer. As do drinks that use pure grain alcohol as their base, jello shots pose a danger in that large amounts can be consumed quickly because of their similar
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See Also: History of Alcoholic Beverages; Military Use and Regulation of Alcohol; Proof, Alcohol; Shot and a Beer; Student Culture, College and University; Student Culture, High School; Students Against Destructive Decisions. Further Readings Eyerman, Ron and Andrew Jamison. Music and Social Movements: Mobilizing Traditions in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Federman, Rachel. Jiggle Shots: 75 Recipes to Get the Party Started. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2011. Kevill-Davies, Sally. Jelly Moulds (Antique Pocket Guides). Cambridge, England: Lutterworth Press, 1997. Thomas, Jerry. Bartenders Guide: How to Mix Drinks, 1862 Reprint: A Bon Vivant’s Companion. Las Vegas: CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2009. Wyman, Carol. Jell-O: A Biography. The History and Mystery of America’s Most Famous Dessert. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001.
Jello shots are peddled in Dolores Park, San Francisco, California, during a rare hot day, June 13, 2010. Easy to smuggle into venues as an innocent-looking gelatin treat, they are usually made with high-proof alcohol and are deceptively intoxicating.
taste to Kool-Aid and fruit juices. This fact has led to many incidents of alcohol poisoning and even some deaths across the United States. Another dangerous contributing factor is that jello shots can encourage adolescents to begin consuming alcohol at a younger age. While beer, wine, and other alcohol may be an acquired taste, strong liquor masked by a stronger fruity taste makes jello shots easier to consume. Moreover, just as the military guards at the Christmas party in 1955 did, individuals charged with monitoring the presence and use of alcohol at an underage event will notice a case of beer but may miss the inconspicuous gelatin molds also present. Jello shots also allow young people to keep a straight face and not lie when saying they do not drink alcohol. Gordon A. Crews Marshall University
Jewish Traditions Though some religions call for abstinence from alcohol, and in the modern world the devout sometimes associate piety with abstinence, the Bible speaks very positively of wine. During biblical times, wine served as a valuable trade good as well as a beverage that formed a large part of the daily diet. Further, it had medicinal significance: poultices soaked in wine and wounds bathed with wine resisted infection, though the world was thousands of years from discovering the bacterial nature of infection and antibacterial properties of alcohol. Perhaps more important, the scriptures mention wine frequently. Judges 9:8–13 says: The trees went forth to anoint a king over them. And they said to the olive tree, “Reign over us.” But the olive tree said to them, “Should I leave my oil, wherewith by me they honor God and men, and go to wave over the trees?” And the trees said to the fig tree, “Go you, and reign over us.” But the fig tree said to them, “Should
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I leave my sweetness and my good fruit, and go to wave over the trees?” And the trees said to the vine, “Go you and reign over us.” And the vine said to them, “Should I leave my wine, which causes God and men to rejoice, and go to wave over the trees?” Imbibing Jews and Christians alike have used this passage to justify their consumption, arguing that the Bible not only approves of wine, but praises it. In the Jewish tradition, disapproval of drinking often stems from a conflation of alcohol and drunkenness. One opinion recorded in the Talmud speculates that the Tree of Knowledge in Eden was in fact a grapevine, suggesting that wine
One of the traditional four seder cups is filled during a Passover celebration with family and friends in Anchorage, Alaska, March 25, 2013. The Mishnah stresses that even the poor should drink four cups, representing the four promises from God in Exodus.
might be the forbidden fruit. The Jewish scriptures condemn drunkenness several times, notably when Noah shames himself by being drunk in front of his sons. The Bible clearly differentiates between wine and drunkenness. Consider the vast array of foods and activities explicitly proscribed by Leviticus and other sources of Jewish law, most famously the proscriptions against pork and shellfish, and against dairy and meat consumed together. If abstinence were intended, explicit prohibitions would have mandated it. Ecclesiastes 9:7 says, “Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do.” As was common in the ancient world, wine appears frequently in the Jewish scriptures as part of a blessing or sacrifice. Melchizedek blesses Abraham’s army with wine; Isaac invokes wine in blessing his son Jacob, as Jacob blesses his son Judah with wine. Wine accompanies fests and burials, and is part of the first fruits offering. One of the characteristics of most versions of Judaism—admittedly one which may be rejected by Jewish mystics—is that it is not an ascetic or abstinent faith. The body is not base, evil, or to be denied. The aspirations of the soul are higher than those of the body, but the body may nevertheless serve those aspirations. Instead of being at odds with the soul, the body can provide an experience of the physical world which is itself spiritual. Wine and Jewish Ceremonies Traditionally, wine consumption accompanies many Jewish mitzvot (commandments), as well as celebrations of the Sabbath and the Jewish holidays. The brief ceremony associated with wine on such occasions is called the Kiddush, literally meaning “sanctification” (the process of making holy), consisting of a blessing recited over a cup of wine, with the refreshments served in the synagogue after such a blessing. In a traditional Jewish wedding, a cup of wine accompanies the blessings recited under the chuppah, the ceremonial canopy under which the wedding is conducted. After the rabbi recites the betrothal blessings, the couple drinks from the offered cup of wine. The Seven Blessings or Sheva Brachot are recited later in the ceremony over a second cup of wine, and the couple again drinks before the glass is placed on the floor and broken
by the groom’s foot, symbolizing the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. At the Passover seder, four cups of wine are drunk. The Passover seder is a ritual feast attended by multiple generations of family or members of a local community, in which the story of the Israelites’ deliverance from slavery is retold, as commanded in Exodus 13:8: “You shall tell your child on that day, saying, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’” An ancient work called the Haggadah includes special blessings, rituals, and songs for Passover, and traditions include eating symbolic foods and drinking four cups of wine. The Mishnah stresses that even the poor are expected to drink four cups, representing the four promises from God in Exodus 6:6–7. They are also thought to represent the four letters in the Hebrew name of God. A Jewish drinking custom, especially associated with schnapps (the traditional Central European beverage, somewhat different from the sweetened liqueur on the American market), is the toast of “l’chaim,” or “to life!” Some commentators have claimed that the Talmud requires Jews to get drunk to celebrate Purim, the Jewish holiday commemorating the deliverance of the Jews from a plot against them, as recorded in the Book of Esther. In the Talmud, Rava says, “A person is obligated to drink on Purim until he does not know the difference between ‘cursed be Haman’ and ‘blessed be Mordechai.’” Maimonides, the great Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages, concurred, “[During Purim, one should] drink wine until he is drunk and falls asleep from drunkenness.” While this prescription is often ignored or argued against, it is important to note that even for those authorities and Jews who uphold the teaching, it is never claimed to apply as a general rule of behavior, but rather is specifically for Purim, and Judaism is far from the only tradition to indulge in excess on a special holiday. Whenever wine is used in a Jewish ceremony, it is ideally kosher wine, presuming that the participants themselves keep kosher. Kosher wines are those which have been prepared according to kashrut, the dietary laws of ritual purity prescribed by the Jewish scriptures. Because Passover requires that Jews abstain from leavened dough, wine that is “kosher for Passover” must also have
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avoided contact with grain, bread, and dough. Kosher wines are produced in Israel, and are of special importance to Jewish people throughout the world, as well as in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, South Africa, and Australia. The largest producers of kosher wines, Manischewitz and Kedem, are both based in the United States, home to 40 percent of the world’s Jewish population. Manischewitz’s normal bottling is a sweetened wine, fermented from vitis labrusca grapes native to North America, rather than the vitis vinifera grapes of traditional European wines. Early Jewish settlers were forced to produce their own wine and developed a taste for the unusual grape. Kedem uses traditional wine grapes, and is also the largest importer of Israeli wines to the United States. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Ethnic Traditions; Holidays; Israel; Religion; Rituals. Further Readings Dosick, Wayne. Living Judaism: The Complete Guide to Jewish Belief, Tradition, and Practice. New York: HarperCollins, 2010. Gilman, Sander L. “Jewish Self-Perceptions: The Problem with Purim: Jews and Alcohol in the Modern Period.” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, v.50/1 (2005). Robinson, George. Essential Judaism: A Complete Guide to Beliefs, Customs, and Rituals. New York: Atria Books, 2001.
John Smith’s Brewery The company that came to be known as John Smith’s Brewery was originally established by David Backhouse and John Hartley in North Yorkshire, England, in 1758. Backhouse and Hartley owned a chain of coach houses along the Liverpool-to-Yorkshire route and decided to set up their own brewery in order to produce beers for their customers. Samuel and John Smith purchased the company in 1847, but within three
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years, the company had split into two separate breweries located on the same premises. John Smith’s Brewery prospered under the leadership of various family members, and the company began acquiring other local breweries in the mid-20th century, becoming one of the largest breweries in Great Britain. In turn, John Smith’s Brewery was acquired by other companies, although designated products still maintained the name and quality that loyal customers had come to expect from the brewery. In 1970, Courage—a Liverpool-based company established by John Courage in 1787— purchased John Smith’s Brewery. Then in 1995, Courage was acquired by Scottish and Newcastle, which in turn was acquired by Heineken, a Dutch company, in 2008. In the 21st century, the name John Smith’s Brewery is most closely associated with John Smith’s Bitters, the top-selling ale and the sixth top-selling beer in the United Kingdom and the highest selling bitter around the world. The company is also associated with a series of “No Nonsense” commercials, which promote the product in England, and with describing itself as the “No Nonsense Beer.” Since 2012, the United States has been importing John Smith’s Extra Smooth. John Smith’s Brewery has a long history of supporting the popular sport of horse racing, lending its name to events such as the Grand National and the Northumberland Plate. History John Smith was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, on March 18, 1824. One of five children born to Samuel and Sarah Naylor Smith, he grew up with a desire to own his own business. In 1847, he was 23 years old when he realized his dream. At the time, the widow of a Hartley grandson owned Backhouse and Hartley, and she wanted to rid herself of the run-down brewery. Samuel and John Smith bought the business together, but following an argument three years later, John set up his own brewery next door to Sam Smith’s Brewery. John Smith’s Brewery developed a reputation for producing sharp, light beers since pale ales were becoming the most popular type of beers. Because John had no offspring, he left the brewery to his two brothers, William and Samuel, when he died in 1879. Samuel subsequently sold his share to William, who was also
childless. William set about modernizing the business, spending 130,000 pounds on state-of-theart equipment. When William died in 1886, he bequeathed the brewery to two nephews, Frank and Henry Herbert Riley, with the stipulation that they change their surname to Riley-Smith. John Smith’s Brewery continued to win awards with William at the helm, claiming gold medals in Amsterdam in 1883, in Paris in 1884 and 1887, and in Antwerp and London in 1885. The RileySmiths continued that tradition and expanded the brewery in the 1880s. By the first decade of the 20th century, the company had begun bottling its own beer. In the years following World War II, John Smith’s Brewery expanded its market to include other European countries. The family took the company public in 1953 and continued buying up other breweries. Major Changes By the time Courage—the largest beer producer in the United Kingdom—bought the company in 1970, John Smith’s Brewery owned 1,000 public houses, hotels, and clubs in the United Kingdom. Courage closed down the brewery that had been in operation for more than 200 years; in 1984 it turned the original brewery building into a museum and touring brewery. Continuing to build on John Smith Brewery’s reputation, Courage began marketing John Smith’s Bitters by the keg in 1974, doubling the sales of the product over the next seven years. It added John Smith’s Cask to its product line in 1984 and John Smith’s Extra Smooth in 1993. In the 21st century, John Smith’s Brewery sells its products in kegs, casks, and bottles. The malt used in the ale comes from barley grown for that purpose in the fields of Yorkshire. Using a variety of segregated yeasts, the company initiates a reculturation process once every 10 years. Originally, the brewery used a single vessel for mashing and lautering, but the contemporary brewery uses four separate tanks for use in mashing, sparging, boiling, and whirlpooling. An additional tank formerly used for measuring wort is now used for storage during the prefermenting process. Computers now measure the temperature of all products. By 2005, the number of outlets for John Smith’s Brewery products in the United Kingdom had expanded to 40,000. Three years later, Scottish and
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Newcastle (which bought Courage) was acquired by the Amsterdam-based Heineken, and John Smith’s Brewery products were owned by a nonBritish company for the first time in its history. Heineken has been in operation since 1864. It continued to operate the Liverpool-based Scottish and Newcastle brand, but the name of the bar chain was changed to Star Pubs and Bars in 2012. In 2012, United States Beverage, based in Stamford, Connecticut, acquired the rights to import John Smith’s Extra Smooth to the United States for the first time. The product, which is shipped in 4.9-ounce bottles, is promoted as an ale with a distinct cereal character and malty, caramel notes complemented by a certain fruitiness. The product tastes less bitter than the typical ale. First introduced in England in 1993, John Smith’s Extra Smooth is made with roasted malt and wheat and a variety of hops, including Target, Admiral, Magnum, Taurus, and Tomahawk. In 2013, in an effort to reduce its taxes, Heineken announced that both the alcoholic level and price of John Smith’s “No Nonsense Beer” would be reduced. As a result, Heineken slashed payment of annual duties by approximately 6.6 million pounds a year. That move reduced the alcoholic content of John Smith’s Extra Smooth from 3.8 percent to 3.6 percent. Most other smooth ales contain only 3.6 percent alcohol.
See Also: Ale; Beer; Heineken; Sporting Events.
Horse Racing The sport of horse racing has long been associated with alcohol consumption. John Smith’s Brewery first sponsored the Grand National in Aintree, Liverpool, England, in April 2005. One of the major European sporting events, the Grand National race draws spectators from around the world. Sponsorship of the race allows John Smith’s Brewery to sell more than 1 million pints a day at the venue, where participants engage in events such as John Smith’s Fox Hunter’s Chase and John Smith’s and Spar Topham Chase. An annual event in England’s Newcastle on Tyne—the Northumberland Plate—provides John Smith’s Brewery with an additional chance to sell its products at John Smith’s Plate Festival as attendees dress to impress and cheer their favorites to victory.
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Further Readings John Smith’s Brewery. http://www.johnsmiths.co.uk (Accessed October 2013). John Smith’s Brewery. “The John Smith’s Grand National ‘No Nonsense’ Information Guide.” (April 7–9, 2005). http://www.sportsguidelimited .com/PDFs/js_grand_national_guide.pdf (Accessed October 2013). Marketwired. “United States Beverage Is Named U.S. Importer of John Smith’s Extra Smooth Ale.” http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/united -states-beverage-is-named-us-importer-of-john -smiths-extra-smooth-ale-1645510.htm (Accessed October 2013). Rush, James. “Brewer of John Smith’s ‘No Nonsense Beer’ Is to Water Down Its Popular Drink, While Increasing the Price by 2.5p a Pint.” Daily Mail (January 15, 2013).
Johnson, Enoch “Nucky” See Thompson, “Nucky”
The Journal of Studies on Alcohol was founded in 1940 at Yale University’s Laboratory of Applied Physiology. In the late 1930s, after the end of National Prohibition in the United States, Howard W. Haggard, M.D.—director of the laboratory—and his colleagues began a small series of studies on the physiological effects of alcohol as part of their more broad research into toxicology and physiology. Their interests in alcohol research were growing at the same time that the larger scientific community was concerned with how society should view and treat alcohol problems in the post-repeal era. In 1938, a group of prominent scientists as well as industrial and civic leaders formed a group called the Research Council on
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Problems of Alcohol. The group’s charge was to fund and direct research on alcohol and alcohol problems. However, at the time, very few scientific journals published studies dealing with alcohol and other substances of abuse. Such subjects had not yet become legitimate areas of scientific and medical inquiry. To create a platform for research sponsored by the Research Council and other entities studying alcohol, Haggard and his colleagues at the Laboratory of Applied Physiology formed the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol. The first issue was published in June 1940. Haggard became the editor. At its inception, the journal had two main components. It contained all the standard research articles, reviews, book reviews, and letters to the editor that a scientific journal typically publishes, but it also contained an abstracts section in which research on alcohol—from nearly any scientific source—was summarized. Because the alcohol field was new and there were very few specialized journals—the only other English-language alcohol journal at the time was the British journal that is now Addiction—the alcohol literature could not easily or readily be scoured in a few defined sources. It appeared loosely in scientific and medical publications from varied disciplines. To help consolidate the literature, staff at the Laboratory of Applied Physiology read, analyzed, and authored their own original abstracts. At the time, standardized, descriptive abstracts that appear at the beginning of scientific articles were not commonplace; therefore, there often were no abstracts published with these articles from other sources. To help produce the abstracts that were authored by the Laboratory of Applied Physiology, Haggard employed a staff of subject-area and language specialists to translate foreignlanguage articles. The abstracts were published in the Quarterly Journal and were indexed and coded for retrieval on McBee cards (punch cards) for electronic searching—an important feature in the precomputer age. This punch-card index later became known as Classified Abstract Archive of the Alcohol Literature (CAAAL). Elvin Morton Jellinek and Early Editors To facilitate the abstracting of the alcohol literature, Haggard brought to Yale Elvin Morton Jellinek. Jellinek had been a leading member of a
research project funded by the Research Council on Problems of Alcohol that abstracted and summarized the scientific literature on alcohol. The resulting report—“Effects of Alcohol on the Individual: Review of the Literature of 1939”—was published in the first issue of the Quarterly Journal. Jellinek continued work on the abstracting project upon his arrival at Yale but also became involved in research and alcohol education: In the Quarterly Journal, Jellinek published some of the earliest research on Alcoholics Anonymous, and in 1943, he founded the first continuing education program dealing with alcohol, the Yale Summer Session of the School of Alcohol Studies. (That program is still continuously run today as the Rutgers Summer School of Addiction Studies.) Although Jellinek left Yale around 1950, his work on the phases and progression of alcoholism that began with reports in the Quarterly Journal culminated in his book The Disease Concept of Alcoholism (1960), which was published by Hillhouse Press, which is an imprint of the Yale (now Rutgers) Center of Alcohol Studies. Many seminal research articles were published in the early decades of the Quarterly Journal, including reports on drinking and driving, college drinking, genetics and alcoholism, employee assistance programs, and breath alcohol analysis. One of the earliest devices developed to analyze the content of alcohol in the breath, rather than in the blood or urine, was the Alcometer, invented by Leon A. Greenberg, Ph.D., a faculty member at the Laboratory of Applied Physiology and editorial member of the journal. His first article on the device appears in a 1941 Quarterly Journal article: “a portable automatic apparatus for the indirect determination of the concentration of alcohol in the blood.” As alcohol research increasingly became a focus within the Laboratory of Applied Physiology and as the journal grew, a section of studies on alcohol was formed within the laboratory. By 1950, the section had grown such that it was rebranded the Center of Alcohol Studies. Move to Rutgers By the late 1950s, the Yale Center of Alcohol Studies had begun a search for a new academic home. The Yale president at the time sought to return the university to more classical studies,
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of which alcohol research did not play a part. A contentious relationship grew between the center and the university. In 1962, the Center of Alcohol Studies moved to Rutgers University in New Jersey. With it, came the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol. The journal is still published by the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies today. By 1970, alcohol research had become a more well-established field, and the increase in research resulted in more studies to publish and more reports to abstract. To accommodate this growth, the journal began publishing monthly, necessitating that Quarterly be dropped from its name. The journal became the Journal of Studies on Alcohol in 1975. At the time, the journal published original research and abstracts in alternating months. However, by 1982, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism ceased its funding of the abstracting of the alcohol literature, and from 1983, the journal continued as a bimonthly publication, publishing original research in six issues annually. In the 1990s, the journal began a shift to include more studies on substances other than alcohol. This change was a reflection of the overlap in methods used to study alcohol and other drug use, the fact that many users of one substance also use others, and that many researchers do not limit their investigations to just one substance. This new perspective was solidified when the journal corporation board changed the publication’s name to the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs in 2007. Continuing Tradition Since its beginnings at Yale, the journal has been multidisciplinary, publishing research on alcohol and other substance use from varied perspectives—biological, medical, psychological, legal, psychiatric, sociological, legal—reflecting the fact that alcohol and other drug use has causes, effects, and implications related to numerous fields of study. The journal—along with the Center of Alcohol Studies; influential people from the start of the modern alcohol studies field such as Henderson, Jellinek, and Keller; and groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous—helped to end the wet versus dry debate that had dominated much of American politics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, brought to the mainstream the notion that alcohol and other substance use problems
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were potentially treatable and not simply a moral failing or exclusively a legal issue, and allowed the study of alcohol and other drugs to become a legitimate and valid avenue for scientific pursuit, none of which was commonplace or generally accepted at the journal’s inception in 1940. Paul Candon Judit Ward Rutgers University See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism; Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Drinking, Anthropology of; Jellinek, E. M.; Literature, Role of Alcohol in; National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information; National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence; Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies; Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies. Further Readings McNeill, Andrew. “Institute of Alcohol Studies: The Modern Face of Temperance.”Drugs and Alcohol Today, v.5.4 (2005). Jellinek, E. M. The Disease Concept of Alcoholism. New Haven: Hillhouse, 1960. Nathan, Peter E. “Rutgers: The Center of Alcohol Studies.” Addiction, v. 82/8 (1987). Page, Penny Booth. “E. M. Jellinek and the Evolution of Alcohol Studies: A Critical Essay.” Addiction, v.92/12 (1997).
Juke Joints Juke joints or juke houses (also spelled as “jook”) are southern roadhouses run by and for African Americans; the term is also sometimes used to differentiate from “roadhouse” or “honky tonk” for African American roadhouses in the northern cities in which many blacks settled during the Great Migration (1910–70). Historically, juke joints offered not only music and a place to socialize but also drink (sometimes obtained illegally) and, in some cases, prostitution, either organized by management or made possible at the site where prostitutes and johns could safely approach each other. Some juke joints originated as brothels,
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offering music and drink to entertain patrons, while others developed in the opposite order. The word juke—present in the English word jukebox—comes from the Gullah word (spelled “juke,” “juk,” or “jook”) for disorderly, infamous, or wicked. The Gullah or Geechee are African American people who live in the Lowcountry, the coastal region of South Carolina and northern Georgia that includes the Sea Islands. Their language is a Creole, related both to other Caribbean Creoles and to West African languages; some scholars have suggested that the Gullah juke is related to the Wolof verb jug, meaning “to lead a disorganized life.” History The earliest juke joints were common rooms or shacks located on plantations during slavery. When slavery ended, the practice of coming together to socialize, drink, and dance after work continued among sharecroppers and in work camps. In some cases, the work-camp juke joint was owned by the white employer (usually through a black operator). This, much like the company store set up for miners, ensured that a portion of the money paid to employees came right back to the employer. Whether the sex, drinking, or music or the violence that could erupt between drunken patrons was the focus, juke joints have historically provided a transgressive, liminal space where African Americans were freed from the norms that, in the Jim Crow racial segregation era of the South, strictly bound their behavior. (African American novelist and memoirist Richard Wright wrote about the way societal norms kept blacks on their toes, to the extent that even saying thank you to a white man could result in the black man being assaulted if the white man felt it was being implied that he had lowered himself to perform a service for a black person.) Every community needs private spaces, but oppressed communities need them more. Musical Traditions Juke joints that served illegal alcohol (whether during Prohibition or in a dry county) were called “barrelhouses,” after the barrels of alcohol. The style of jazz associated with the early juke joints is often called “barrelhouse,” and the word can also refer specifically to the improvised piano-playing
style characteristic of barrelhouse jazz. The antecedents of this music took root in the Piney Woods of Texas in the late 19th century, among communities of newly emancipated former slaves. Folkblues guitarists Blind Lemon Jefferson and Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter grew up listening to turnof-the-century “boogie-woogie piano” in Texas and Louisiana and were instrumental in developing the marriage between guitar and piano. Barrelhouses became associated with a faster instrumental boogie-woogie meant for dancing, as pioneered by figures like Jimmy Blythe, Cripple Clarence Lofton, Cow-Cow Davenport, and Pinetop Smith. As African Americans migrated, so did the barrelhouses and juke joints, which spread from the south to the Midwestern cities like Detroit and Chicago (and their outskirts) as part of the Great Migration of 1900 to 1930. The line between blues or jazz and country or folk was not as clear-cut then as it was in the post– World War II era of musical genres strictly defined by record labels and radio stations. The fiddle, for instance, was the most popular instrument among turn-of-the-century black musicians, and the guitar grew in popularity among both whites and blacks simultaneously, but it was preceded by the banjo. While music was never fully segregated, and even country and blues freely borrowed from each other in their early days, the juke joints provided a space in which black musicians developed their own style. During Prohibition, barrelhouses were especially important because—whether in the north or the south—blacks were rarely welcome in white speakeasies, except as part of the help. Pinetop Smith moved to Chicago in that time, and musical figures such as Jay McShann and Sammy Price developed barrelhouse jazz in the juke joints of Kansas City. By the 1930s, boogie-woogie piano, descended from barrelhouse music, was played at Carnegie Hall, inciting a mainstream craze that lasted until the end of World War II and set the stage for the popularity of rock and roll. Before the Great Migration, though, most juke joints were rural and served black sharecroppers and others who were barred from white establishments. Rural jukes offered live music, food, drink, and a place to dance, and their owners often sold various goods to patrons, saving them a trip to town or the hassle that could accompany dealing
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with a white store owner. These goods were fairly basic—and their sale was purely a side business rather than a main source of revenue—but often included fundamental dry goods, eggs and milk, moonshine or beer, and sewing supplies for basic clothing repair. Though traditional juke joints still exist, they have been overshadowed by more commercial chain establishments like the House of Blues (which trades on the idea of the juke joint) and by casinos (which can afford to provide drinks and entertainment at lower costs because of the revenue generated by gambling). Roger Stolle, the founder of the Juke Joint Festival, has said that traditional juke joints that still play live blues music have dwindled to fewer than a dozen in number nationwide. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar
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See Also: Drinking Establishments; Jazz Age; Prohibition; Pubs; Roadhouses; Taverns. Further Readings Barr, Andrew. Drink: A Social History of America. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1999. Bennett, Linda A. and Genevieve M. Ames, eds. The American Experience with Alcohol: Contrasting Cultural Perspectives. New York: Plenum Press, 2005. Burns, Eric. Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004. Cobb, James C. The Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta and the Roots of Regional Identity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Tosches, Nick. Where Dead Voices Gather. New York: Back Bay Books, 2002.
K Kazakhstan While ostensibly a Muslim country, the citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan in central Asia do enjoy a drink from time to time. Despite calls from some sectors of society to observe the Islamic prohibition on intoxicating beverages, chic nightclubs in the capital city of Astana offer every sort of cocktail imaginable, while the old center of political power—Almaty—has a veritable surfeit of Irish pubs. Like their Russian neighbors, Kazakhs tend toward vodka, though beer and wine are also popular, particularly among the burgeoning middle and upper classes of this economic dynamo. Since Kazakhstan gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, it has introduced post-Soviet reforms that have made alcohol much more readily available while also cutting down on the production and consumption of illicit spirits. However, health issues related to alcohol abuse are still a major concern in the country. Alcohol Consumption Levels According to the most recent studies, more than one-third of Kazakhs are regular drinkers (down from 50 percent during Soviet times) and half of the male population drink at least once per month. Worldwide, the country ranks 35th in per capita alcohol consumption and seventh in per capita vodka consumption. The average Kazakh
consumes 2.5 to 3 gallons (10 to 12 liters) of pure alcohol per year (approximately half of this consumption is unrecorded, putting Kazakhstan in the top five countries in terms of contraband and homebrew consumption). This figure represents a return to Soviet-era norms, following a 60 percent decline in alcohol consumption in the decade after the country gained independence. This dramatic fluctuation can be directly attributed to two factors: (1) declining economic conditions in the country and (2) incipient Islamicization. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan’s economy faltered, with many Kazakhs embracing a Muslim identity in the newly open religious environment. However, with the expansion of the country’s oil and natural gas industries, the standard of living rose sharply—and with it alcohol consumption. The initial post-independence trend toward greater Islamic identity has not continued apace, particularly given the geopolitical transformation of the region following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Current levels of alcohol consumption in Kazakhstan are more than double the average levels in other central Asian states (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan) and are more in line with such bibulous countries as Sweden, Australia, and Argentina. Several factors explain this curious state of affairs. First, as an ethnically diverse state, roughly one-third of the 761
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country’s population have a European background that has a strong drinking tradition, such as Russian, Ukrainian, or German. However, the exodus of millions of ethnic minorities since 1989 has been a factor in reducing overall consumption statistics, as the traditionally Muslim Kazakhs have increased from less than half of the population to 63 percent as of 2009. Second, Kazakhstan was incorporated into the Russian Empire much earlier than its southern neighbors were, resulting in greater levels of “Russification,” including an affinity for spirits and a predilection for drinking in excess at social gatherings. During the Soviet period, Kazakhstan regularly ranked as the fourth-heaviest drinking republic, thus situating the country in a position comparable to some of the world’s current largest per capita consumers of alcohol (Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, and Belarus).
Award-winning vodka Snow Queen is produced in Kazakhstan. Vodka is the alcohol of choice in the country, reflecting Russian influence. Beer and wine consumption is increasing as well, particularly among upwardly mobile, urban social drinkers.
Finally, Islamic identity is historically weak in the country, in part because of the Kazakhs’ steppe nomad heritage, and does not typically function as a socializing force against the consumption of alcohol (as is the case in most other Muslim countries). In fact, among Muslim-majority countries, Kazakhstan easily ranks highest in per capita alcohol consumption (its closest competitors are the post-communist states of Azerbaijan and Albania). Following the rather tepid Islamic revival in the 1990s, certain Muslim nongovernmental organizations, particularly women’s groups, have sought to limit alcohol sales and encourage abstemious behavior, though to limited effect. However, in recent years, mosque-based outreach programs have somewhat stanched the rise in drinking among the country’s youth. Alcohol of Choice Reflecting the strength of Russian influence, the tipple of choice in Kazakhstan is vodka; however, as is the case in Russia, beer and wine consumption is on the rise, particularly among the upwardly mobile urban class who view social drinking as a marker of affluence. Kazakhstan produces a number of its own vodkas, including the award-winning brands Snow Queen and Haoma. Imports from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union are popular as well. In 2012, a vodka distributor provoked protests among adherent Muslims for including the Arabic phrase “Allah’s strength is enough for everybody” on its labeling of the Baiterek brand. A number of local breweries have opened in the country since its independence; some even adhere to the medieval Reinheitsgebot, or German Beer Purity Law, reflecting the stamp of German culture on Kazakhstan. Popular domestic brews include Tian Shan, Shymkent, Karagandinskoye, and Derbes. Stary Melnik, Baltika, and other Russian imports are also local favorites. As is the case in Russia, foreign firms such as Carlsberg and Efes control much of the market but are careful to stress the local bona fides of their products. Beer drinking is particularly popular among young men, and as car ownership rises, more Kazakhs are eschewing stupor-inducing vodka rituals for moderated beer drinking. Wine is clearly on the rise in the republic, particularly as the national economy joins the ranks of
the world’s wealthier nations. While archaeological remains show a viticulture that dates back to the 7th century c.e., contemporary wine production owes its origins to Stalin-era deportations, when many Georgian, Moldovan, and other “suspect” Soviet citizens were forcibly relocated to Kazakhstan and brought along their millennia-old winemaking traditions (the same can be said of German beer-brewing skills). Along the country’s southern borders, the state-run farms of the 1970s have now given way to private wineries, with numerous vineyards producing more-than-drinkable wines. Some of the better labels include Bacchus, Issyk, and Turgen. However, local production cannot keep up with demand as the country imports 80 percent of the wine its citizens consume every year. Despite the claims of the British satirist Sacha Baron Cohen, whose 2006 blockbuster film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan brought the country to the attention of many people in the West, Kazakhs do not fancy drinking fermented horse urine. Instead, fermented mare’s milk or kumis is a traditional drink of the historically nomadic peoples of the Kazakh Steppe. A similar product, shubat, is made from camel’s milk. First described by Herodotus in the 5th century b.c.e., kumis is an effervescent, sour beverage that is low in alcohol content (1–3 percent) and is fermented through agitation (historically, on horseback). Many Kazakhs consider kumis to have a variety of medicinal benefits. Numerous health resorts in the country—as well as in neighboring Russia and Kyrgyzstan— cater to sufferers of various ailments through kumis therapy, although there is scant scientific evidence to support the efficacy of such treatment. Problems Related to Alcohol Use Alcohol consumption among youth (the legal drinking age was raised from 18 to 21 in 2009) is an increasing problem in the country, particularly since the end of the Soviet period. The government’s failure to impose strict fines on alcohol sales to minors and to effectively police violations is considered the main reason for the increase in youth drinking, though lessened parental supervision and a shift toward greater levels of “leisure culture” in the country are also considered factors. While workplace alcohol abuse (a serious problem in the late Soviet period) and alcohol poisoning
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from homebrewed alcohols have abated in the new Kazakhstan, heavy episodic drinking and alcoholrelated domestic violence remain serious issues; a significant number of accident-related deaths are attributable to alcohol abuse. Like other postSoviet states, Kazakhstan suffers from some of the highest rates of disease attributable to alcohol, particularly among men. Law No. 2184, passed on April 7, 1995, stipulates the right of the authorities to undertake compulsory treatment (i.e., forced hospitalization) of alcoholics who present a danger to public order or the “gene pool of the country.” The government has made some tentative efforts at implementing reforms to the health care system to treat alcoholism in a less draconian fashion, but many sufferers still gravitate toward private, often experimental or traditional therapies to deal with their addictions. Kazakhstan’s regulation of alcohol production and sales has changed significantly since its independence in 1991. In the mid-1990s, the market was privatized, opening up more than 100 new distilleries. Consolidation has since brought this number down, but the market is still robust and competitive. The country also abandoned the highly limited times and locations of alcohol sales that characterized the late Soviet period, making alcohol easier to get than ever before in the nation’s history. Alcohol advertising during the 1990s was unregulated; however, a complete ban on alcohol ads was put in place on January 1, 2004. In an effort to tamp down consumption, the government has precipitously increased the excise tax on vodka in recent years, mirroring similar reforms in the Russian Federation. Like most other post-Soviet countries, Kazakhstan has a zero-tolerance policy for drunk driving, and the parliament recently approved even stricter sentences for convicted offenders. Robert A. Saunders Farmingdale State College See Also: Europe, Central and Eastern; India; Islamic Law; Pakistan; Russia. Further Readings Sencar, Tatiana Bajuk. “Post-Soviet Chaos: Violence and Dispossession in Kazakhstan.” American Ethnologist, v.30/2 (2003).
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Waters, Elizabeth and Betsy Thom. “Alcohol, Policy and Politics in Kazakhstan.” Europe-Asia Studies, v.59/6 (September 2007). Waters, Elizabeth and Betsy Thom. “Reforming the Soviet Model: Alcohol Treatment Services in Kazakhstan.” Addiction Research & Theory, v.16/4 (2008).
Keeley Institutes The Keeley Institutes constituted a network of inpatient treatment programs for alcoholism and opiate addiction that emerged in the United States in the last quarter of the 19th century, as described by W. L. White. Historical discussion of the “Keeley cure” is often included in reviews of examples of quack medicine and the gullibility of the American public in response to what is presented as science, together with the emergent need in that historical period for licensing and control by public authorities, according to M. E. Lender and J. K. Martin. For the history of alcohol and drug treatment, the Keeley Institutes deserve serious attention because they created significant innovations that remain important in U.S. addiction treatment today. These innovations include organizational structure, treatment structure, treatment employment, and post-treatment follow-up and sobriety maintenance. In 1880, Dr. Leslie Keeley, a physician who had been a medical officer in the Union army during the Civil War, began to market a self-administered tonic for the treatment of alcohol dependence through mail order from his base in Dwight, Illinois. He had developed this formula together with a pharmacist, James Oughton, building on their shared broad knowledge of herbal and chemical medical treatments. Dr. Keeley was a physician of distinction and respect stemming from his war service and did not fit the model of social and professional marginality usually associated with quackery. His shift to practicing the forerunner of today’s “addiction medicine” may have stemmed from participating in and observing the use of morphine for pain management during the war, and the subsequent postwar prevalence of addiction, as well as from observing patterns
of alcohol use in the military, where service was impaired by uncontrolled drinking when alcohol was available. Treatment Regimen Following a brief period of limited mail order activity, Keeley opened his first treatment facility in Dwight. While his initial activity was contemporaneous with the developing state inebriate asylum movement, there is no evidence of his having any professional connection with these hospitals or drawing upon their practices. The core of his hospital treatment was intravenous administration of his unique “bichloride of gold” tonic four times a day, with a four-week regimen of this treatment claimed to cure addiction to both alcohol and opiates (morphine and laudanum were prominent as pain killers and general medications in this era). Keeley never attempted to patent the formula, thus keeping it a trade secret. His theories of addiction were a complex mix of a belief in heredity transmission, coupled with the idea that consumption of alcohol or opiates altered body chemistry to create a physical demand for these substances. Use of his medication reversed this process through adjusting chemical imbalances that had been produced by the addiction, and he also asserted that any patient who returned to the use of alcohol or opiates would again become dependent upon them. The mandatory four-times-a-day treatment for four weeks required that patients stay in the community for the duration. Keeley provided a central facility where some took their room and board, whereas others provided business for hotels and boarding houses in the community. During their stay, patients were to enjoy clean living and healthy interactions with each other and among the residents of the community during the periods between injections. To an extent, this resembled the moral treatment regimen that was widely utilized in the first half of the 19th century, as noted by D. Rothman, but there is little evidence of organized therapeutic activities and strong emphasis on the fact that no patient was confined. What might be called a therapeutic form emerged with the 1891 development of Keeley Leagues in communities throughout the United States that were designed to engage former patients after the end of their treatments. The leagues emphasized
the value of meetings and interaction among former patients as a way to maintain abstinence from alcohol or opiates, and reflect the group confessional meetings of the earlier Washingtonian Societies, described by L. U. Blumberg and B. Pittman, as well as anticipating the highly structured content of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Patients paid fees that were adequate to support the treatment and enrich its founders, but it did not preclude a wide range of social class participation in the treatment, distinguishing Keeley Institutes from later exclusive and expensive sanitaria. The success at the Dwight location was the foundation for Dr. Keeley’s using a franchising business model to open other institutes where the treatment methodology was strictly controlled and there was profit sharing. At its height in 1893, the Keeley Institutes numbered 118, and by 1900, it was reported that over 400,000 persons had been treated, according to H. W. Morgan, with numerous facilities in Europe. The treatment was originally restricted to men but was later opened to women, although the treatment facilities were strictly gender segregated. Collapse of the Keeley Institutes Almost the entire system collapsed in the years following Keeley’s sudden death in 1900. By 1900, the number of institutes had dropped to 44, of which 28 were in the United States. By 1910, all except the original institute in Dwight had disappeared, but it continued operation until 1966 under the direction of the Oughton family, who were descendants of Keeley’s original pharmacist partner. There is little commentary on the mystery of this dramatic instance of organizational death, but likely it was some combination of forces. Despite the apparent wealth that the overall operation brought to Dr. Keeley and his family, there is virtually no evidence of any successor organization that emerged to capture an unserved market. The demise and lack of organizational replacement together demonstrate that the profit-oriented and organized treatment of alcohol dependence and opiate addiction were far from an institutionally accepted set of practices in the United States. Such institutionalization would not be clearly manifest until over 80 years later. The death of the founder plays into the explanation of organizational failure. There was clearly no management succession plan, underlining the dysfunctions of Keeley’s secretive and firmly aggressive
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style of domination and control over the operations, described by G. A. Barclay. The Oughton descendants were only able to maintain the Dwight facility, indicating that they were outside of any succession plan. A third factor was the impact of external criticism from sources that undermined the credibility of the Keeley cure. Charges of quackery centered on the Keeley’s refusal to share his formula for objective testing by others. Without information of the formula’s content, other criticism conjectured about the poisons it might contain and dismissed it as a sham. The thousands of successful Keeley graduates, however, did not generate adequate social influence or market demand to sustain the treatment’s availability. Basis for Future Treatments Despite its disappearance, the importance of the Keeley experience can be found in the extent to which it foreshadowed later developments in the treatment of alcohol and other substance use disorders. First is the manner in which it was organized as a network or chain where an identical package of treatment was delivered. This emerged again in the 1970s with two major chains of alcoholism treatment programs, Comprehensive Care and Charter. Both of these chains rapidly grew, and each unit was nearly identical with all others. Both of these eventually collapsed and disappeared, but lessons were learned from these experiences because several multilocation models continue to successfully function, including Valley Hope, Phoenix House, and CRC Health Group. The center of the Keeley cure, the use of medications to treat both alcohol and other drug problems, grew at the end of the 20th century and is increasingly promoted in the 21st century. As with the Keeley cure, supportive therapy is emphasized, but the effect of the medication in either reducing cravings or substituting for the effect of another drug is the central therapeutic modality. Making patients consistently take their medication (compliance) is a major concern with several of these medications, a problem that Keeley solved by having his patients move into a community while they were on the medication regimen. Although they were not the very first to attempt to help alcoholics, as noted by W. L. White, the numerous recovering alcoholic physicians employed in the Keeley Institutes foreshadowed
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an organizational policy that dominated the large wave of alcoholism treatment emerging in the 1970s. The concept that those who had effectively dealt with their alcohol and drug problems could help others do the same was a pioneering idea that is not duplicated in any other sector of behavioral health care. Perhaps less obvious is its potential profitability as a component of a business plan. Because these physicians may have had difficulty finding other positions, they were loyal and cooperative employees, possibly accepting wages at below market rates. At the same time, their presence offered medical legitimacy to the treatment, a vital part of its successful diffusion. Later, this strategy of employment in treatment facilities was transferred to men and women from all walks of life in recovery from alcohol and/or drug dependence. While the Washingtonian movement recognized the importance of continued interaction to sustain sobriety, related by L. U. Blumberg and B. Pittman, this idea was formalized through the establishment of the Keeley Leagues. It bears characteristics of AA, which was invented four decades later, but there is little reliable description of what actually occurred in the leagues. One major difference was open and at least semipublic pride in one’s status of “having been to Keeley” instead of the promise of complete anonymity that is central to AA. Another innovation offered by the Keeley cure was a theory of common addictive pathways for both alcohol and opiates. Until the 1990s, the separation of treatment for alcohol and drug problems indicated implicit rejection of an underlying common etiology, but at present this idea is open to consideration, if not fully accepted as fact by many in the scientific community. From a sociological perspective, the popularity of this idea grew along with the transition to integrated treatment of alcohol and drug problems in the same setting in most locations in the United States. Since this merger was linked to complex political and economic forces, it was not the direct product of acceptance of the common pathway theory, as posited by C. M. Weisner. Finally, the Keeley League included a Ladies Auxiliary to perform supportive roles in recovery and spread the word about the efficacy of the cure. This innovation anticipated the use of families in the recovery process that emerged in
alcoholism treatment in the 1970s. This is not to be confused with Al-Anon, a self-help organization designed for the significant others of both active and recovering alcoholics, but which is designed to protect the psychosocial well-being of its participants against the often unusual and stress-producing behaviors of alcoholics, not to pressure them toward seeking treatment or otherwise changing their behavior. In contrast to today’s emphasis on evidencebased practices, the Keeley cure had a distinctive treatment technology that was accompanied by data-based outcome claims, but it was not diffusible because the formula for the medication was a trade secret. Unique among historical observers in their balanced characterization of Keeley-related contributions, M. E. Rose and C. J. Cherpitel also note its prescient use of group process in treatment, holistic focus on good health practices, and the one-month duration of inpatient care. That these technologies, embedded in substantial bricks and mortar, died out so easily is an important commentary of the shallow roots of American society’s support for alcohol problem treatment in the 19th century. Like that time, the present era in the United States may not necessarily include universal or even widespread social support for investments in treatment as the solution to alcohol and drug problems, but unlike that time, legislative changes have created the institutional platform and structure that assure that a growing majority of these problems will be treated within a medical frame. Paul Michael Roman University of Georgia See Also: Rehabilitation Centers, History of; Roosevelt, Franklin D.; Towns, Charles B.; Wilson, Bill. Further Readings Anonymous. “Inside History of the Keeley Cure.” Journal of the American Medical Association, v.49 (1907). Barclay, G. A. “The Keeley League.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, v.5 (1964). Blumberg, L. U. and B. Pittman. Beware the First Drink: The Washington Temperance Movement and Alcoholics Anonymous. Seattle: Glen Abbey Books, 1989.
Keeley, Leslie E. “My Gold Cure.” North American Review, v.153 (1891). Lender, M. E. and J. K. Martin. Drinking in America: A History. New York: Free Press, 1982. Morgan, H. W. “‘No Thank You. I’ve Been to Dwight’: Reflections on the Keeley Cure for Alcoholism.” Illinois Historical Journal, v.82/3 (1989). Roman, P. M. “Treatment for Substance Use Disorders in the United States: An Organizational Technology Perspective.” In Addictions: A Comprehensive Guidebook, B. S. McCrady and E. E. Epstein, eds. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Rose, M. E. and C. J. Cherpitel. Alcohol: Its History, Pharmacology, and Treatment. Center City, MN: Hazelden Foundation, 2011. Rothman, D. The Discovery of the Asylum. Boston: Little Brown, 1971. Weisner, C. M. “The Merging of Alcohol and Drug Treatment: A Policy Review.” Journal of Public Health Policy, v.13 (1992). White, W. L. “Addiction Treatment in the United States: Early Pioneers and Institutions.” Addiction, v.97 (2002). White, W. L. “The Role of Recovering Physicians in 19th Century Addiction Medicine: An Organizational Case Study.” Journal of Addictive Diseases, v.19 (1999).
Keggers A kegger is also known as a keg party. It is most common at the college level, but high school teens also throw keggers. The modern keg contains between 5 and 10 gallons (19 to 38 liters). Keggers may involve more than one keg. The word keg dates at least to the 15th century, but not until 1945 was it defined specifically as a barrel of beer. Beer kegs are made of aluminum infused with gas, allowing serving of the contents under pressure. Even now, a keg may mean a container of 100 pounds of nails, and a beer belly is sometimes referred to as a keg. By around 1969—perhaps even as late as 1973— the term kegger came into use by students as a party centered on a keg of beer or a beer bust.
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Guides to Hosting a Kegger There are, naturally, rules for throwing a good kegger. They may be facetious and advise never to invite guys unless they promise to bring at least one female friend because failing to do so may turn a party into a guys-only drinking bout. Entertainments alternative to beer pong contests are de rigueur. After the first two kegs, all beer tastes the same, so later kegs can be less expensive brands. Partiers should make sure there’s a tap and an empty keg shell on hand beforehand so that there is not a futile search for one at the last minute. Importantly, they should provide water and sodas for the designated drivers, as it reduces driving while intoxicated. More detailed advice is available in a step-bystep guide, starting with finding a place for the kegger with criteria for which locations are most suitable (e.g., size, nearness to campus, neighbors, privacy, layout, proximity to the police). Preparation includes locking off all nonparty areas, clearing the party space of junk and furniture, laying down plastic or cloth tarps to protect carpets, and covering windows and doors so that the party will not be audible or visible from the street (keeping neighbors from realizing there is a party going on). The hosts should provide nonalcoholic options, vitamins, and food, select the proper music, and arrange access to bathrooms. Most important, hosts should take care to select exactly the right type of beer—cans or kegs but never bottles because they can turn into weapons. When you consider factors like how to advertise, how to start and control the party, and how to handle troublemakers, the list of details a good host has to consider can go on for pages. Keggers have a strong association with fraternities. Kingston, Ontario, for example, is home to Queens University. Each year, Queens University freshmen go out into the town to find their first university kegger. Although they are almost universally underage, they seek what is for them the defining university experience. The kegger differs from a standard house party in that it charges an entrance fee—commonly $10. Once in, the attendees usually drink for free. Advertising is usually by word of mouth, and often the kegger is scheduled on a holiday— Halloween being popular. Within no time, the
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kegger can have 50 or so underage drinkers, unregulated. Theft is a problem that party hosts must watch for. Ontario police also may ban the sale of liquor without a license; the workaround being that the beer is free with a separate entry fee. The law also makes the alcohol provider liable for any harm done to or by a drinker and the provider may be subject to penalties of up to a year in prison and a six-figure fine for selling to minors. Control of Keggers Controlling keggers is a long-standing effort but is largely futile. Dartmouth College is a prime example. Dartmouth is located in a rural setting with virtually no bars, so historically fraternities were the setting for alcohol consumption. The movie Animal House portrayed the excesses of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity in the early 1960s, when Dartmouth was already noted for its beer pong tradition. The game involves placing cups of beer on both ends of a Ping-Pong table (or any table) and trying to shoot the ball into a cup. When one succeeds, the player whose cup has the ball has to drink the beer. The game ends when all the cups are empty or one player is too drunk to continue. In 1999, the school administration sought to reduce hazing, sexual assaults, and drunkenness associated with its Greek system, and it set rigid standards for parties: registration with the university several days beforehand and classification by tier. Tier-2 parties could have no more than 400 people and a guest list, and Tier-3 parties allowed open admission of more than 400 people with a live band. All kegs were supposed to have beer tags, and the campuswide limit for kegs on a given night was 24. Keggers had to allow campus security visits twice in the night to inspect the tags and make sure students were checking student IDs at the door, but generally as the evening wore on, the checking became more haphazard. All keggers had to have nonsalty food and nonalcoholic beverages for those who wanted them, but the general rule was that people were there to get drunk, not to dance or listen to the live band. The keg limit was ignored, and the party hosts switched the authorized tags to keg after keg hidden elsewhere.
At Dartmouth College, the unofficial athletic mascot is Keggy the Keg, described as a “giant dancing keg of beer.” The administration and athletic department refuse to recognize the keg as a replacement for the official Dartmouth mascot, but the students reject the official mascot and instead react to the appearance of Keggy. As the weirdest mascot list notes, Keggy taps the true spirit of college by tapping the true reason for being in college—excessive alcohol consumption. Keggers and associated problems with underage drinking and drunken violence have led states and other jurisdictions to attempt to control the purchase of kegs. In August 2002, Ohio instituted a five-day waiting period for those purchasing five or more kegs and required that party hosts register, giving the beer distributor the address of the party. Distributors who fail to require the information are subject to penalties ranging from a fine of $100 to loss of a license. Party planners must allow state liquor agents and police seeking to enforce state liquor laws access to their premises. Other states that have or are considering laws similar to Ohio’s include Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Kansas, and Iowa. Since 1994, Maryland has required registration of kegs, so both buyer and seller are trackable. Both are liable for underage drinking if minors are caught drinking from the keg registered in their names. A representative of the Ohio Liquor Control Commission agreed that the rules had loopholes but that they would achieve a major goal: to protect distributors from being falsely accused of selling kegs to minors. Keg registration allows tracking of the keg from purchase to return. It is intended to reduce the incidence of adults buying kegs for minors and to protect sellers from accusations of selling to minors. Disposable kegs introduced late in the 20th century were a problem because there was no deposit, no incentive not to destroy the keg (the evidence, as it were). In 2003, 22 states had keg registration laws. This requirement for police access concerns some groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Police note that the effort is wrong-headed because the laws that theoretically alert police to potential trouble spots are actually easy to work around, an enforcement
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tag numbers on the receipts. Removing the tag brought penalties of up to 93 days in jail and a $500 fine, and return of a keg with no tag forfeited the $30 deposit. The law was intended to help police track the keg when they broke up a party or found underage drinking. The Michigan law culminated an effort that dated back to the mid-1990s. One retailer who sold hundreds of kegs a month during football season noted that buyers would simply shift to beer by the case; he also noted that his business benefited from a former city ordinance (since repealed) that required tags because he was just outside the city limits. One university student in Ohio noted that the easiest workaround to avoid registration was for several people to buy kegs rather than one person buying five kegs. And there was no restriction on beer by the case. The Ohio ACLU was most concerned about the requirement to grant law enforcement access to private property. It threatened the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches; after all, the law protected adult drinking. The Ohio Department of Public Safety countered that party organizers could refuse entry and require the officers to obtain a search warrant. In 2011, when Michigan joined Indiana and Minnesota as midwestern states with tag laws; Wisconsin and Ohio had no such laws.
A partygoer lines up a shot while playing beer pong at a New Year’s Eve house party in Richardson, Texas, 2010. Popular at kegger parties, beer pong involves placing cups of beer on both ends of a table and trying to aim or shoot the ball into a cup. The player whose cup receives the ball has to drink the beer.
headache, and an attempt to impose morality through rules. The Kent, Ohio, police chief notes that the problem is not the alcohol but the associated disruptive behavior. By 2011, Michigan began requiring tags to identify the purchaser of a beer keg, joining 30 other states with comparable provisions. Buyers had to sign receipts that included their driver’s licenses or state ID numbers as well as their names, addresses, and phone numbers. Sellers had to attach the tag and record the
John Barnhill Independent Scholar See Also: Beer; Beer Containers and Sales; Beer Pong; Binge Drinking, History of; Legal Drinking Age: Rite of Passage; Sporting Events; State Regulations After Prohibition, U.S.; Student Culture, College and University; Student Culture, High School. Further Readings Campusexplorer.com. “Dartmouth: Keggy the Keg, Top 10 Weirdest Mascots.” http://www.campus explorer.com/Top-10-Weirdest-College-Mascots (Accessed March 2014). Deadspin.“Roy Jones Jr. Attempts to Save Boxing by Joining a Frat” (September 13, 2007). http:// deadspin.com/299508/boxing-just-wants-to -host-keggers (Accessed March 2014). Faris, Nick. “The Cost of a Kegger. Both Frosh and Hosts Must Be Aware of the Risks Involved.”
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http://queensjournal.ca/story/2012-07-30/infocus /cost-kegger (Accessed March 2014). Harper, Douglas. “Keg.” Online Etymology Dictionary. http://www.etymonline.com/index .php?term=keg (Accessed November 2013). Huebsch, Russell. “Tips for Throwing a Good College Kegger.” (March 30, 2009). http://voices .yahoo.com/tips-throwing-good-college -kegger-2936753.html (Accessed March 2014). Kennedy, Randy. “A Frat Party Is: a) Milk and Cookies; b) Beer Pong.” New York Times (November 7, 1999). http://www.nytimes. com/1999/11/07/education/a-frat-party-is-a-milk -and-cookies-b-beer-pong.html?pagewanted =all&src=pm (Accessed March 2014). Lankford, Ronald D. Alcohol Abuse. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2007. MLive. “Michigan Beer Kegs Will Require Tags Starting Nov. 1.” http://www.mlive.com/business/ index.ssf/2011/10/michigan_beer_kegs_will_requir. html (Accessed March 2014). National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “Keg Registration.” Alcohol Beverage Control Enforcement: Legal Research Report (April 2003). http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/alcohol/ alcbevcontweb/pages/index.html (Accessed March 2014). Sidoti, Liz. “Ohio Cracks Down on Keggers.” ABC News (August 8, 2002). http://abcnews.go.com/ US/story?id=96224 (Accessed March 2014).
Knights of Labor The attempt to organize labor is nearly as old as the United States. Among these attempts arose the Knights of Labor in the 19th century. It is considered more of a proto union than a modern union. The unions that followed the Knights have tended to emphasize bread-and-butter issues, particularly wages, benefits, and safe working conditions. By contrast, the Knights put forth an impressive reform agenda, including alcohol temperance. This issue may not have been the most fervent for the true believers, but it was important. The Knights allied with the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and shared many of the
latter’s beliefs. Temperance was a key to empowering labor and the Knights. History The first attempt to organize workers may have occurred in 1790 among shoemakers in Pennsylvania. Similar attempts followed, though none could boast special success. These first stirrings of unionism were exclusive rather than inclusive, seeking to organize only the workers in a single occupation. The Knights would be much different. In 1869, garment workers in Philadelphia formed the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, known simply as the Knights of Labor. Initially secretive, the Knights patterned its rituals along the lines of the Freemasons. Secrecy was important to protect workers, given the common practice of firing organized workers and branding them as troublemakers. Employers wanted docile workers, not activists. Uriah Stephens, the Knights’ first leader, wanted a big tent that would aggregate workers of all races, ethnicities, occupations, and skills of both genders. At a time when racism was strong, the Knights vigorously recruited African Americans—though, bowing to southern pressure, segregated them into separate units in the south. In practice, the Knights wanted producers in both labor and management, people who actually made something in the course of their work—be it wagons or potatoes. The Knights took a dim view of people they defined as parasites—lawyers, bankers, stockbrokers, and university professors. These people did not really contribute to the economy, the Knights believed. The Knights formed at an inauspicious time because the depression of the 1870s dashed the morale of workers. Concerned about their immediate future, many workers saw nothing to gain by joining the Knights. Accordingly, Knights membership grew slowly that decade. Elected to lead the Knights in 1879, Pennsylvania machinist Terence V. Powderly revived the organization’s fortunes and was perhaps its most important and charismatic leader. Like Stephens before him, Powderly wanted to increase membership and increase the Knights’ bargaining power. Powderly emphasized the importance of boycotts and negotiations with management. On principle, he opposed strikes because of their tendency to stir up violence and
increase tensions between labor and management. He rid the Knights of its secret rituals, making the organization more transparent. Success came early to Powderly. In the early 1880s, he persuaded the major railroads not to cut wages, a victory that attracted new recruits. After struggling through the 1870s, the Knights rose meteorically in the 1880s, reaching 15,000 chapters and nearly 1 million members in 1886, the apogee of its influence. Ironically, despite the opposition of Powderly, the Knights succeeded in part by becoming more militant. Its strikes against the Union Pacific Railroad in 1884 and the Wabash Railroad in 1885 were successful. But other strikes fomented violence, as Powderly feared. A Knights strike among African American sugarcane cutters ended with the death of some 50 black workers. By 1886, despite making overtures to women and African Americans, the Knights had a membership of white, unskilled workers, most of them clustered in the northeast and midwest. In this sense, the Knights was not really the big tent that Stephens and Powderly envisioned, but a sectional, homogeneous proto union. If 1886 marked the Knights’ zenith, it also marked the beginning of the end. Members gathered at the Haymarket Square in Chicago that year. Their motives appeared to have been peaceful, but someone threw a bomb into the square, igniting violence and chaos. The authorities unfairly singled out the Knights as a band of anarchists and socialists. In fact, the Knights— under Powderly’s guidance—eschewed socialism, instead remaining committed to reforming capitalism from within. That year, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) arose to challenge the Knights, and many workers switched their allegiance from the Knights to the AFL. Nonetheless, the Knights had been correct in diagnosing the ailments of industrial capitalism, which made a few men extraordinarily wealthy but sunk the masses into poverty. This state of affairs endangered democracy, threatening to make the United States a plutocracy. By 1896, the Knights could count fewer than 10,000 members, and although it limped into the 20th century, it had no influence. The last Knights chapter closed in 1949. Although the Knights did not succeed as an organization, it left a rich legacy. Its reform
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agenda influenced the Populist and Progressive movements. Among its proposals were to end child labor; promote the eight-hour work day, which auto manufacturer Henry Ford later adopted; increase wages; ensure safe working conditions; promote governmental ownership of the telegraph and railroads, a plank that attracted the Populists in large numbers; support equal pay for the same work; implement a graduated income tax, which the Sixteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution codified into law; and oppose the use of scabs and strikebreakers. In Jeffersonian fashion, the Knights favored the allotment of public land to small farmers rather than to speculators, and opposed convict labor because it drove down wages.
The leaders of the Knights of Labor encircle the “General Master Workman,” Terence V. Powderly, circa 1886. Considered a proto union, the Knights put forth a reform agenda that included alcohol temperance.
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Yet the legacy of the Knights has not been universally positive. The Knights had a visceral fear of Chinese immigrants. In this regard, the organization appeared to have been xenophobic. Fearing that the Chinese would take American jobs, the Knights endorsed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, expelled Chinese Americans from parts of Washington State, and participated in anti-Chinese riots in Wyoming. Temperance Temperance was the most important part of the Knights’ reform agenda, and the organization was reliably on the side of sobriety. The Knights had many commonalities with other temperance organizations—notably the WCTU—and it departed from the rhetoric of the 19th and early 20th centuries that government ban the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Even though he abstained from alcohol, Powderly did not believe government had the authority to scrutinize the daily lives of Americans. If Americans were to follow the example of abstinence, they would need to do so voluntarily, and the Knights could be effective at persuading Americans not to drink. Relying heavily on the morality of the day, the Knights believed that sobriety marked one as making progress toward moral fulfillment. Sobriety, the Knights believed, empowered and uplifted workers. The Knights also fretted over the expense of alcohol for workers who already earned very little. Alcohol eroded a family’s income; caused domestic disputes and violence; and would ultimately ruin the family, the backbone of American society. The Knights perceptively acknowledged that alcoholism was an addiction and a disease and opposed taverns and distillers and would not allow workers in these occupations to join the organization. To be effective, labor needed the cogency of sober members and leaders. Alcohol had no part in this vision because, the Knights believed, alcohol arrested cognitive development. The Knights came very close to making abstinence a requirement of membership, asking new recruits to take an oath of temperance—otherwise known as the Powderly pledge. It also recruited women, in part because many supported temperance. Many Knights women belonged to the WCTU. Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard, head of the WCTU,
joined the Knights in 1887 and was a confidante of Powderly. He engaged her to speak about temperance to crowds of workers. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: Non-Partisan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union; Temperance, History of; Willard, Frances. Further Readings Center for History and New Media. “Sources on the Temperance Movement.” http://www.chnm.gmu .edu/7tah/unitdocs/unit7/lesson3/temperance.pdf (Accessed March 2014). Ohio History Central. “Knights of Labor.” http:// www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/knights_of_labor ?rec=910 (Accessed March 2014). Weir, Robert E. Beyond Labor’s Veil: The Culture of the Knights of Labor. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.
Kronenbourg The Kronenbourg brewery was founded by Jérôme (Geronimus) IV Hatt in Strasbourg (now France). The brewery owes its name to Cronenbourg, a suburb of Strasbourg, where the brewery relocated in 1850. It celebrated its 345th anniversary in 2009 and is now owned by Danish group Carlsberg. Today, one out of three beers sold in France is made in Kronenbourg’s Obernai brewery. A History of Innovation In 1664, Jérôme IV obtained his copper-brewer diploma and opened the “canon” brewery at the heart of Strasbourg. His diploma allowed him to brew and sell his own beer. He is the pioneer brewer and is at the origin of the Kronenbourg brewery. In 1850, because of frequent flooding, Frédéric Guillaume Hatt moved the brewery operation to Cronenbourg, a newly established suburb west of Strasbourg. This new site was selected in part because it allowed for the storage of beer underground at a low temperature. The brewery, located in Cronenbourg, also enabled the Hatt family to
deliver beer barrels weekly and then daily to Paris (250 miles away) by rail. The beer was available at the famous Paris establishment Brasserie Lipp. In the 1920s, the beer distribution by rail expanded to France’s biggest cities. In 1867, at the Paris Exposition Universelle d’Art et d’Industrie (International Exposition of 1867), the Strasbourgbased breweries were recognized for the quality of their products. In 1922, Maurice-Georges Hatt purchased the Grand Tigre (great tiger), a well-renowned restaurant in the Alsace region of France. To celebrate this acquisition, he renamed his beer “Tigre Bock.” In 1930, Tigre Bock was the most sold beer in France. In 1947, Jérôme VI Hatt traveled to the United States and returned with innovative ideas for his brewery. He renamed both the company and his beer “Kronenbourg.” He decided to spell Kronenbourg with a K instead of a C (as in Cronenbourg where the beer was produced) to give his brand a German-sounding name, because German beer was universally recognized for its quality. In the early 1950s, Jérôme VI started to advertise his beer on billboards, in print, and on the radio throughout France, using catchy slogans such as “Je precise Kro-nen-Bourg” (“Kronenbourg to be precise”). Over the years, the Hatt family has earned a great reputation for innovation. For example, in 1949, Kronenbourg introduced a small (11.15 ounces or 33 centiliters) glass bottle with a crown cork; for the first time, the bottle label was red and white to represent the Alsace region. In 1952, the brewery launched Kronenbourg 1664 to commemorate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of England. The name “Kronenbourg 1664” was chosen to recognize the founding of the brewery by Jérôme IV Hatt in 1664. The following year, Kronenbourg introduced a metallic can to customers, explaining that its beer would be easy to carry, easy to store, and more convenient. In 1963, Kronenbourg innovated again when it launched a six-pack of beer sold in the newly opened French supermarkets. Over the next 30 years, the brand offered more choice to its customers: a 10-pack in 1973, a 24-pack in 1979, a 26-pack in 1988, and alcohol-free beer in 2000. In 1969, Kronenbourg outgrew its site in Cronenbourg and opened a new brewery in Obernai (20 miles away). In 1970, Kronenbourg was acquired by Groupe BSN (now Danone) along with another
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French brewery, Kanterbrau. In 1986, Kanterbrau and Kronenbourg merged; in 2000, Kronenbourg brewery was sold to the United Kingdom–based group Scottish and Newcastle; and in 2008, Scottish and Newcastle was sold to Carlsberg. In 2014, Kronenbourg was set to leave Cronenbourg behind and transfer the company’s historic headquarters to Obernai. In 2010, Kronenbourg shared that the brewery still relies on traditional brewing practices. The brewery indicated that it took three weeks to produce 2 pints (1 liter) of beer and that it required 10.5 pints (5 liters of water, drawn from the underground source), 140 grams of malt, 2 grams of hops, and 10 grams of yeast. The following demonstrates Kronenbourg’s success by the numbers: • Kronenbourg 1664 is the most sold French beer in the world (specifically, in 70 countries). • Kronenbourg beer is the top-selling beer in France. • The brand (through Carlsberg) also produces Kanterbrau, Wel Scotch, Wilfort, Force 4, Grimbergen, Carlsberg, San Miguel, and Guinness. In 1996, Kronenbourg created La Fondation Kronenbourg (Foundation Kronenbourg) to support cultural events and initiatives aimed at protecting the environment. The foundation partners with charities to create jobs in local communities and to fund promising initiatives in France. French cartoonist Cabu (Jean Cabut) named his character Adjudant Kronenbourg after the famous brewery. “Kronenbourg” is also the title of a popular French drinking song. Ludovic A. Sourdot Texas Woman’s University See Also: Beer; Beer Containers and Sales; Carlsberg; France. Further Readings Brasseries Kronenbourg. “Le Brasseur Préféré des Français.” http://www.image-et-entreprise.com/wp -content/uploads/2011/07/BK-DP-institutionnel.pdf (Accessed March 2014).
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Kronenbourg. “L’histoire de Kronenbourg.” http:// www.kronenbourg.fr/la-marque/histoire (Accessed March 2014). Mintel International Group Limited. Beer in France, Germany, Italy, UK. London: MIGL, 2002.
Kuwait A nation in the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait was under indirect Ottoman rule until the signing of the Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913 by which the British and the Ottomans established a system of joint control. This was abrogated after World War I, and Kuwait became an independent principality under the protection of the British Crown. Massive oil deposits were found in the country in 1937, and it became independent in 1961. Because of the wealth of the country, there are large numbers of migrant workers in Kuwait, with a population of some 2.7 million, including 1.3 million nonnationals. The overwhelming majority of citizens in the country are Muslim, with about half the expatriates being Hindus and most of the rest being Christians or Buddhists. Because of the largely Muslim population, alcohol is illegal in Kuwait. Unlike most other Muslim countries, Kuwait also prohibits alcohol consumption for non-Muslims; even expatriates are not allowed to drink in their own homes, although some do manage to smuggle in some alcoholic beverages, with a standard bottle of whiskey costing about $250 on the black market. In the 1950s, the Social Reform Society campaigned against alcohol in Kuwait, and the initial ban in Law 16, introduced in 1960, stated that any Kuwaitis found consuming, or in possession of, alcohol would be barred from holding public office and expatriates would be deported. However, this was replaced by the much stricter Prohibition Law (Law 46/1964), which was introduced in 1964 and went into effect the following year. A subsequent law, Law 671976, tightened up on loopholes being exploited in the earlier statute. People found to be drunk—as well as those taking drugs (which were also banned)—were sent to the Kuwait Psychiatric Hospital. This ban has led
to a number of stories, the most famous being the episode “The Moral Dimension” in Yes Minister, a British television series. In the episode, the minister visits the fictional country of Qumran, which is based on Kuwait. A number of U.S. soldiers posted to Kuwait have complained in their memoirs and in interviews about the Prohibition Law, which is enforced by the General Department for Drugs and Alcohol Control. Punishments for contravention of the law involve imprisonment, fines, and, for expatriates, deportation. Although the ban on alcohol is enforced, a major black market has developed in Kuwait in recent years for local people. This has resulted in teenagers and others being able to access illicit alcohol and take it with them to drink in their own houses, in chalets south of Kuwait City, or sometimes even in the desert. Although much of this alcohol is illegally smuggled into the country, a substantial portion is also believed to be made locally by people in their own homes. In addition to banning alcohol within the country, the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), the Emirate’s sovereign wealth fund, has a strict rule that it will never invest in any alcohol companies or any alcohol-related businesses. In 1985, there was embarrassment when it was revealed that the KIA had shares in Arthur Bell, the Scottish whiskey manufacturer. Since then, the ban on investment in companies connected with alcohol has been far more strictly enforced. This has led the Kuwaiti Parliament to question whether the KIA should invest in hotels that serve alcohol. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Iran; Iraq; Islamic Law; Middle East; Saudi Arabia; United Arab Emirates. Further Readings Ali Akbar Mahdi. Teen Life in the Middle East. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003. Bilal, A. M., B. Makhawi, G. Al-Fayez, and F. Shaltout. “Attitudes of a Sector of the ArabMuslim Population in Kuwait Towards Alcohol and Drug Misuse: An Objective Appraisal.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence, v.26 (1990). Robison, Gordon and Paul Greenway. Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar. Melbourne, Australia: Lonely Planet, 2000.
L Lager Traditional wisdom dictates that lager originated in Bavaria in southeastern Germany. By the 16th century, Bavarians had been using yeast to produce bread and wine for a century. At that time, they began using yeast to ferment beer. Because brewing beer during Germany’s hot summer months was likely to create molds and generate bacteria, brewers began fermenting their products during the winter, storing it in caves and cellars to gain the added benefit of exterior temperatures. The practice of brewing beer at cold temperatures led to the formation of a new form of bottom-fermenting yeast that produces lager by sinking to the bottom of the containing vessel. The term lager is derived from the German word lagern, which means “to store” and refers to the process of fermenting lager in storehouse or cellars. By the 21st century, generations of scientists had amassed considerable knowledge about the origins of the content of lager, which must be refrigerated to be kept fresh. By 2011, the global beer industry was taking in some $250 billion a year. While there are similarities between lager and ale, the latter is fermented at warmer temperatures using top-rising yeast. Scientists have long understood that Saccharomyces, the main ingredient in most traditional yeast forms, is also a major ingredient in the fermentation of lager. It was also assumed that
more information still had to be learned about the makeup of lager yeast. Between 1883 and 1976, scientists identified 17 separate strains of lager yeast. In 2008, Gavin Sherlock and Barbara Dunn led a team at Stanford University in California in discovering that both Saccharomyces postorianus and Seubayanus are parents of lager yeast, combining to produce Saccharomyces eubaynus. In 2011, another team of scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, working under Chris Todd Hittinger and a team at the Argentinian National Council for Scientific and Technical Research headed by Diego Libkind, partnered with scientists from Portugal and Argentina. They learned that Seubayanus may have originated in the beech forests of Patagonia, located at the southernmost tip of the South American continent. Seubayanus results from fungal affections that affect beech trees, creating a gall or peach-sized, balloon-like surface during cold winter months. The global team, which announced their findings at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2011, theorized that these galls attached themselves to beech barrels or fruit flies from South America, which ended up more than 7,000 miles away in Bavaria and unintentionally added Seubayanus to fermenting beers, which in turn resulted in lager. Scientists continue to work on discovering whether or not Seubayanus occurs naturally in other parts of the world. 775
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Lager flavored than their lighter counterparts—also have a strong following. In the United States, lager tends to range in color from amber to copper and is generally 5 percent alcohol by volume (ABV). Hopping levels in lagers vary according to methods used by different brewers.
A Schlitz lager advertisement (circa 1888) depicts a woman serving Joseph Schlitz (left) and a representative of P. M. Ohmeis & Co. Lager drinking became a major issue in some large cities during the mid-19th century; some journalists reported that New Yorkers drank the low-alcohol beer as if it were water.
There are two main families of lager: The Saaz group (Carlsberg), which comes from Denmark, and Oranjeboom (Heineken), which originates in the Netherlands. The soft water used in most parts of the world produces lighter lagers than those originally produced with hard water. Thus, pale lagers—such as bock, pilsner, and märzen (German for “March beer”)—are the most popular styles among contemporary consumers. Dark lagers—such as dunkel and schwarzbier (German for “black beer”), which tend to be more fully
History Consumption of lager became a major issue in some large cities during the mid-19th century. Some journalists complained that the problem affected thousands of New Yorkers of all ages, who drank lager as if it were water. In 1850, lager had been drunk only by German immigrants to the United States. Over the next decade, however, consumption increased in response to the growth of lagers in the beer industry. At the time, lager was thought to be harmless because of its low alcohol content, and many Americans considered lager “insipid.” By 1860, lager had begun to be accepted as a proper drink for Americans, and its popularity was steadily increasing in other parts of the world. In Bavaria, production of ale declined simultaneously with the increase in lager production. Technological advances of the early 20th century also played a major role in the rise of lager production, given that the ability to control temperatures no longer limited brewers to fermenting lager only during the winter. The first large-scale brewery devoted to producing lager was established in Munich, Germany, in 1870 by Carl von Linde. In the post–World War II years, lager continued to dominate the European beer market. Popularity of Lagers Some of the world’s most popular lagers include black/schwarz beer, which was developed by brewers in the Thuringia section of East Germany. With a flavor of bitter chocolate and a roasted malt note, this lager is predictably dark. In Japan, brewers use a similar method to produce lager, but American brewers shun the method. Bock, which originated in the Einbeck area of Germany, is a pale to deep amber lager that is relatively sweet in comparison to most lagers. Dunkel, a dark lager that was first brewed in Bavaria, has attracted consumers around the world with its notes of chocolate or licorice. Pilsner, which originated in the Czech Republic, is a highly carbonated lager with a floral aroma and a crisp, bitter finish. Märzen lager
comes from Austria, where it was first brewed in the 19th century. It is sweeter than many other lagers and has a malty, toasted character. In Fiji, one of the most popular lagers is Vonu Pure Lager, which was acquired by Coca-Cola Amatil in 2013. The lager—which is promoted as “Pure Fiji rainwater turned to beer”—is also exported to Australia and New Zealand, where customers are already familiar with the lager from vacationing in Fiji. Often called the “world’s best bottled lager,” Castle Lager—a brand of SABMiller—originated in South Africa. Castle Lager is so popular with football clubs in Europe and Africa that it has been designated their official African beer. The oldest English lager is considered to be Wrexham, which was brought to Britain in the late 19th century by German immigrants. Until 2013, the lager was strictly a local favorite, but the company began exporting it in May 2013. That same year, Davenports—a Birmingham-based brewer established in 1827—introduced its first new lager in three decades. Calling it England’s Glory and promoting it as a “celebration of all things British,” the lager is sold both by draught and in cans. In England, the ABV may be as high as 6.5 percent. Officials in some towns complain that the high alcohol content has increased incidences of public drunkenness and are attempting to force breweries to reduce lager’s alcohol level. Americans are most familiar with pale lagers, such as those produced by Miller and Heineken, than with dark lager. In 2013, Consumer Reports contended that the best lager on the market was Samuel Adams of Boston, which sold for $8.60 for a 22-ounce bottle. Other recommendations included Brooklyn ($9.81), Anchor Steam ($9.08), Coney Island ($5.88), and Lagunitas Pils Czech Style Pilsner ($8.82). These recommendations are based on a proper balance between the malt and hop flavors and the lingering bitterness that signifies good lager. Brooklyn, according to Consumer Reports, is further enhanced by a hint of fruit flavor. In 2009, the U.S. Open Beer Championship named the following lagers in ranked order as the best of all those sold in the United States: Icehouse (Miller Brewing), Natural Ice (Anheuser Busch), Schlitz Malt Liquor (Schlitz Brewing Company), Busch Ice (Anheuser Busch), Mickey’s Malt Liquor (Miller Brewing), St. Ides
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Malt Liquor (St. Ides Brewing), Steel Reserve 211 (Steel Brewing), Colt 45 Malt Liquor (Pabst Brewing), and Molson XXX (Molson Brewing). While most consumers are completely satisfied with buying lager from retail stores or by drought in bars and pubs, others are interested in brewing their own. Books with lager recipes are widely available, and the proliferation of the World Wide Web has made it even easier for home brewers to create their own unique lagers. Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar See Also: Alcohol by Volume; Alcoholism: Effect on Family; Ale; Beer; Fermentation, Ancient Era Through Middle Ages; Germany; Pubs; Stouts and Porters. Further Readings Bamforth, Charles W. Beer: Tap Into the Art and Science of Brewing. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Beverage Testing Institute. “All About Lager Styles: Pilsners, Bocks, Marzen, and Light Beers.” http:// www.tastings.com/beer/lagers.html (Accessed October 2013). “Craft Beer.” Consumer Reports, v.78/8 (August 2013). Devitt, Terry. “500 Years Ago, Yeast’s Epic Journey Gave Rise to Lager Beer.” http://www.news.wisc .edu/19654 (Accessed October 2013). “50, 100, and 150 Years Ago.” Scientific American, v.303/1 (July 2010). Jackson, Michael. The New World Guide to Beer. Philadelphia: Running Press, 1988. “Lager Yeast Evolved Twice.” New Scientists, v.19/2673 (September 18, 2008). Libkind, Diego, et al. “Microbe Domestication and the Identification of the Wild Genetic Stock of Lager-Brewing Yeast.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, v.108/35 (August 30, 2011). Novo, Maite. “Eukaryote-to-Eukaryote Gene Transfer Events Revealed by the Genome Sequence of the Wine Yeast Saccharomyces.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, v.106/38 (September 22, 2009). Saey, Tina. “Lager’s Mysterious Ingredient Found.” Science News, v.180/7 (September 24, 2011).
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Lambrusco Lambrusco is the name of a red wine grape and, as a result, the Italian wine Lambrusco is made principally from that grape. It is usually sold sparkling and is known for its highly acidic taste. It is available now both as red and white wine. Although the grapes are now grown in Argentina, most of them come from Italy, with the grape originating in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy regions, mainly around Mantua, Modena, Parma, and Reggio nell’Emilia. There is archaeological evidence pointing to the Etruscans making use of the vines, and the grapes were certainly popular in Roman times because of their high yield. Cato the Elder mentioned that in a jugero of land (approximately two-thirds of an acre), it was possible to make enough wine with these grapes to fill 300 amphoras. It is possibly because of this very high yield that many places have used the vine, and some of them produce what critics have felt to be a mediocre product. The wine produced by Lambrusco is generally drunk young. Most of it comes from cooperatives located around the city of Reggio nell’Emilia in northern Italy. This was a prosperous city in Roman times, but because of its location, it was attacked and sacked several times. It was also the center of much fighting during the Renaissance, and the wine industry suffered greatly on account of the rampaging armies. It was not until the unification of Italy that the area saw a long period of peace and, during this time, many of the vines producing Lambrusco were replanted. The last period of fighting from 1943 to 1944 formed the basis of Ellen Cooney’s novel Lambrusco. Similarly, the regions around Modena, Parma, and Mantua also had troubled histories, but in these areas, the wine industry managed to survive more easily. Controlled Designation of Origin In 1963, when regulation of Italian wine was introduced, eight Lambrusco Denominazione Di Origine Controllata (DOC, or “controlled designation of origin”) regions were designated. Four of the DOC regions are in Reggio nell’Emilia: Lambrusco di Sorbara, Lambrusco Grasparossa di Castelvetro, Lambrusco Salamino di Santa Croce, and Lambrusco Reggiano. The first three DOC regions produce wine that tends to be dry and have
a slightly acidic taste. This, therefore, provides a very good accompaniment for the heavy cuisine generally served in and around Reggio nell’Emilia. By contrast, the wine from Lambrusco Reggiano is much sweeter and often blended with the juices from the Ancellota grape up to a level of 15 percent as allowed by the DOC rules. This results in the production of a much more interesting wine and was developed by the cooperative Cantine Riunite from Reggio nell’Emilia. In the late 1970s, that cooperative started exporting wine to the United States. It became very popular in the American market for a number of years, with Cantine Riunite exporting as many as 3 million cases to the United States in a single year. To help with sales, there are also a number of low-alcohol varieties of this time. This demand from the United States helped encourage a number of vineyards in Argentina and some others in Colombia to plant Lambrusco. The other DOC regions are Colli di Parma Lambrusco, Colli di Scandiano e Canossa Lambrusco, Modena Lambrusco, and Lambrusco Mantovano. For them, and for much of the Lambrusco that is made, production uses the Charmat Bulk process, with heavy use of filtration and stabilization and often even pasteurization. Traditionally, there was secondary fermentation in the bottle, and although a few small vineyards still do this, the larger ones do not. The industrial processes used have removed much of the distinctive qualities of the grapes from the different DOC regions, resulting in a relatively homogenous wine described by wine connoisseur Jancis Robinson as a “fairly anonymous, standardized product.” However, she does point out that there are still a number of vineyards that have maintained their own sense of individuality and have managed to provide quite a variety of flavors to get away from the usually bland Lambrusco wines that dominate the market. One of the Lambrusco wines that has received much attention in recent years is produced by the Cavicchioli family, who has 86 acres (35 hectares). Producing wine since 1928, the family makes a blend of the four main Lambrusco strains to result in the company’s own Lambrusco di Modena. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School
See Also: Argentina; Colombia; Italy; Montepulciano; Wines, Red; Wines, White. Further Readings Anderson, Burton. The Wine Atlas of Italy and Traveller’s Guide to the Vineyards. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. Belfrage, Nicholas and Jancis Robinson. Life Beyond Lambrusco: Understanding Italian Fine Wine. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1985. Forrestal, Peter. The Global Encyclopedia of Wine. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2000. Gleave, David and Joanna Simon. The Wines of Italy. London: Salamander, 1989. Ray, Cyril. The Wines of Italy. New York: McGrawHill, 1966. Robinson, Jancis. The Oxford Companion to Wine. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Last Call In almost any bar around the world, it is customary to grant guests the opportunity to order one final drink and alert them that service will be ending by announcing “last call”—the universal etiquette that has become an integral practice for the final moments of service during a bar shift. However, the manner by which drinking venues engage in the last call vary from city to city (and even country to country) based on legal restrictions, local traditions, and years of customer engagement. The origins of the last call are slightly vague, but roots of the practice are traceable in the maritime and military history. In the 17th century, British armies campaigning in the Netherland regions resigned their duties in the winter because of the extremities of the season. They would spend most days and nights in local inns and taverns, and when time came for their return to duty, drummers would walk through the towns beating their drums to signal the troops back to work. The sound of the drums was an indicator for innkeepers to cease service and “turn off the [beer] taps” (known in Flemish as doe den tap toe). The phrase was shortened to “tap toe” and then to “tattoo.” Today, the tattoo (military music performance) is
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a customary British army procedure for celebrations and showmanship. The concept of beating a drum or some other signal to notify patrons of the bar’s closing can also be linked to the bells aboard naval ships. Historically, many bars kept bells behind the bar to ring when announcing last call or when a customer would buy the house a round of drinks. Originally, bells were rung for naval crews to indicate the length of time during a watch period. Half-hour sandglasses were used throughout the day to keep track of the four-hour watch sessions, and a bell was rung once to indicate the first half-hour and twice at the end of the second half-hour period. The sound of eight bells signified the end of a crew’s watch session and relieved them of their day’s duty. With the implementation of watches, this practice subsided. However, the concept of ringing a bell to inform sailors that a shift is ending can be linked to bars that ring bells at the end of service to alert customers of the last call. Findings From an Informal Survey No two bars are alike, and neither are the customs of two venues. The last-call procedure is conducted in pubs, bars, restaurants, and taverns worldwide, and yet the ways in which bartenders and other staff opt to engage this tactic differ. Pamela Wiznitzer, president of the New York City chapter of the United States Bartenders Guild, created an online survey in November 2013 and conducted it with volunteer bartenders, managers, and bar owners in the United States and other markets. The results are from a sampling of cities and do not represent the global market as a whole (because the survey did not reach every country with a major bar presence). However, from these data, one can learn about the last-call procedure and the ways the food and beverage service industry handles closing the bar during a shift. All names of bars and staff have been withheld. After conducting a survey with responses from various global markets, it is interesting to compare and contrast the means by which these establishments choose to enact this centuries-old tradition. Local and statewide liquor laws dictate the time in which a bar can stay open. In certain markets (such as Las Vegas, Miami, New Orleans, and
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parts of the United Kingdom), bars have the ability to stay open for 24 hours a day, therefore abolishing the need for the last call. But in most cities, there are strict rules about the time when liquor can be sold and doors must close. A bartender from Virginia stated that “in Virginia you can’t pour/serve after 1:45 a.m., and all alcohol has to be out of guests’ hands and off of the bar by 2:00 a.m. Otherwise, we risk hefty fines and losing our liquor license.” Therefore, it is imperative that bars conduct the last call in a timely manner to ensure that all guests are able to order their final drink before the cut-off time. Most markets tend to close their doors between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m., on average (32.8 percent responded with 1:00 a.m., and 22.4 percent said 2:00 a.m.). There is a true skill, if not a ballet-like quality, to timing the moment of the last call so as not to entirely disrupt the flow of the night. Analyzing the number of guests who require service at the end of the night is a main factor in deciding the time to conduct the last call. Most bars tend to make the announcement between 15 and 30 minutes before the end of the night (35.8 percent responded with 15 minutes, while 35.8 percent responded with 30 minutes). This grants the bartenders ample time to make the last beverages, drop off checks, and ensure that all guests are served in a comfortable fashion. As noted earlier, some venues must publicize the final round of drinks before a specific time because of legal restraints. In some cities, such as London, and other parts of the United Kingdom, bars must legally conduct last call at least 10 minutes before closing their doors but then allow patrons to stay inside and drink after service ends. Along with the timing comes the vocalization of the last call. Responses to this survey question varied based on the style of the establishment (e.g., cocktail lounge, restaurant, dive bar). Some venues opt to use a gentle approach such as “go to each guest individually or to the group of people I may see that are all together. Quietly let them know that I’d be happy to make them one last round before presenting the check.” The way by which the staff declare the last call can ruin the vibe of an establishment. One bartender noted, “We don’t yell. We used to, but it’s abrasive and brusque and ends the party vibe we cultivate. On slammed nights, we just turn the lights
up and start telling people. . . . On tamer nights, we approach each guest or group/table individually and ask them.” Contrary to these procedures are the aggressive strategies some bars employ to shut down service. A bartender from Saskatoon, Canada, stated the following: We have a very abrupt last call of shutting off the music and then cranking the lights to full. Then [we] refuse service and start end-ofnight duties. During busy nights, a bartender from Washington, D.C., stated that he will “cut the music and shout it. If we’re slower, we tell people individually.” Busy nights can also lead to a great struggle to get guests physically out of the bars, and staff agree that most of the time it is easy or just moderately difficult to get the customers to leave their establishments (43.3 percent responded with moderate, but 26.9 percent reported easy). For the venues that cited the task of removing patrons from the bar as difficult, most leave that responsibility to trained security personnel or doormen, who escort customers out of the bar. The last call is never difficult if one listens to this sage advice from a well-known Las Vegas bartender: “I think that if you start 45 minutes early, the bar can maximize the urgency if ‘you’re taking away their booze’ and have plenty of time to get people closed out and on their way.” And yet, the cherished aspect of the last call lies in the unique rituals by which each bar closes down every night. Music—or a song that is played every night—tends to be a classic Pavlovian means of letting guests know that the bar is closing for the night. One piano bar in Holland plays a live rendition of “Sweet Caroline” at the end of service; in Sydney, Australia, one bar “always play[s] the song ‘Buona Sera Signorina’ by Louis Prima just after each customer/group has been told it is last call.” Some bars in New York City and Chicago report that they take to the bell-ringing cue, and many others adhere to the tactic of raising the house lights to full wattage. One particular bar in New York City is known for rewarding its final patrons of the night by giving cups of chicken soup to all who remain standing approximately 20 minutes before closing time.
Latin America
The last call is a cherished nightly ritual that comes with the territory of working in the food and beverage industry. It is not always the easiest undertaking, but there are methods of making the experience more personable, enjoyable, and even memorable for everyone on both sides of the bar. Pamela Wiznitzer New York University See Also: Bartending; Beer; Cocktail Waitresses; Drinking Establishments; Drunk-Driving Laws; Humor; Modern Saloons; Netherlands; Server Responsibility Laws, U.S. Further Readings Cutler, Thomas J. The Blue Jacket’s Manual. 24th ed. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999. Falconer, Simon. Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo. New Brunswick, Canada: Goose Lane Editions, 2010. http://www.gooselane.com/ media/695.pdf (Accessed October 2013). Rivara, Frederick P., Deanne Boisvert, Annemarie Relyea-Chew, and Tony Gomez. “Last Call: Decreasing Drunk Driving Among 21–34-YearOld Bar Patrons.” International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion (2011).
Latin America Latin America is comprised of South America, the Caribbean, and middle America, a label referring to Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies. The term was first used in the serial La revue des races Latines in 1861. As of 2014, the population of the region was estimated to be 604 million people. The majority of the population speak Spanish, and countries have different degrees of influences from the European cultures from early colonization, the Native tribes and the influx of African slavery. Pre-Columbian History The people of Latin America have a long tradition of making and consuming alcohol, dating back to pre-Columbian times. Aztecs prepared a drink known as octli, which was considered to be an
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inheritance from the Gods and is evident in stone carvings from as early as 200 c.e. There are many folktales that offer explanations of the origins of the drink. In the Aztec culture of pre-Columbian Mexico, there were precise guidelines around the consumption of alcoholic beverages, and these rules were strictly enforced. Drinking was permissible at religious ceremonies, festivals, and burials. Even back then there were societal penalties for transgression of drinking norms. Today, octli is known as pulque and made from fermenting the juice of mature American agave plants. Though many believe this drink to be a beer, the primary carbohydrate is not a starch but rather a complex form of fructose. In South America, aboriginal people drank chicha, a fermented beverage from the Andes region made of corn, yucca, or fruits. Women of the Incan Empire learned to brew chicha in Acllahuasis, which were textile factories where many young women given in tribute to Incan rulers or selected for their craftsmanship abilities worked for the benefit of the state. In modern times, production of traditional chicha is rare, with only a handful of towns and villages in Peru and Bolivia continuing to prepare the drink. Like pulque, chicha has a relatively low alcoholic content, typically no more than 4 percent. Throughout Latin America, there were many other drinks made from fermenting various fruit and vegetable juices. Tepache, a drink indigenous to Mexico, is made by fermenting a whole pineapple for a few days. Tejuino, a drink from the Mexican state of Jalisco, is made by fermenting masa dough. Balché is a honey-based wine that was brewed by the Mayans and associated with the deity Acan, the God of wine. Colonization Patterns of alcohol consumption in Latin America changed dramatically with the arrival of the colonizers, likely due primarily to the introduction of the distillation process. Additionally, the European colonizers brought with them a different attitude toward alcohol consumption, which came to influence local customs and cultural traditions in the region. One example of the impact that colonizers and the introduction of their drinks and drinking culture on the native Latin American cultures
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comes from the people now known as the Tohono O’odham (formerly given the moniker Papago by Europeans) of Mexico. The Tohono O’odham held frequent ceremonies at which drinking cactus wine was an almost compulsory activity. The chief festival among these was the Nawait I’i, or rain ceremony, that preceded the annual monsoon season. At this ceremony, members of the tribe would drink wine made from the saguaro cactus while participating in ritual dances and sharing folklore through speeches and oral history. Drinking to the point of “falling-down drunk” was common, expected practice, though the ambiance of the festival remained peaceful. When European colonizers arrived with whiskey, they additionally introduced a drinking culture characterized by aggression and other antisocial behaviors. The two drinking cultures coexisted until the Europeans, in efforts to temper the violence associated with their drinking culture, attempted to prohibit all alcohol consumption in the region. However, despite the government’s attempts, which lasted into the early 20th century, to ban the Nawait I’i ceremony and arrest those who participated in it for violation of the Prohibition laws, it remained an important aspect of Tohono O’odham culture and is still practiced today, although monsoon dependent agriculture is no longer a hallmark of the society. Modern Era Chile and Argentina have been considered among the 10 most important producers-consumers of wine in the world, while in the majority of other countries, alcohol consumption is mostly of distilled products. Other variations in beverage choice include tequila in Mexico, which is obtained by distilling the sap of an agave different from that used for pulque. Pisco in Peru is a type of brandy with high ethanol content and considered the national drink of that country, and in Central America and the Caribbean, another distillate, brandy or rum is accepted as the local drink of choice. That the popularity of these national drinks has not been diminished by the impact of a global economy with a thriving alcohol trade indicates that the national drinks of Latin America may represent a symbolic idealization of the national character and culture, a romanticization of the local way of life that one expresses through
continuing to choose those drinks whose recipes and folklore have been handed down through generations. Especially in modern urban areas, the rejection of a national, local or traditional beverage in favor of an imported drink may represent ongoing cultural change or upheaval, with new drinks being associated with modern lifestyles and values. A collective initiative in 1972 brought the Health Ministers of the continent to develop a broad policy to address the problem of alcoholism in Latin America. Two main resolutions applied to organizing services for treatment of alcoholism and developing training program for mental health providers. Through the recent decades, the implementation of such policies varies from one country to others based on financial resources and professional programs. Localized efforts exist in provinces that seek to deal broadly with drinking problems. The best known of these are Cordoba in Argentina, Santa Catarina in Brazil, and Cuenca in Ecuador. The general approach to treatment of drinking problems is psychiatric in nature, including hospitals and mental health centers. In the majority of countries, the official treatment systems are linked to associations such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcohol use disorders, when defined using international screening criteria, are common in the region and highly correlated with the spread of sexually transmitted infections and the HIV epidemics evident in some nations such as Peru. Studies of alcohol use in Latin America are problematic in that they have not typically differentiated between alcohol abuse, alcohol dependence, or binge drinking from and what could be viewed as normative social drinking within the Latin American context. Christopher Edwards Rosellen Reif Duke University Medical Center Penny Reddy North Carolina Central University Miriam Feliu Duke University Medical Center See Also: Ancient World, Drinking in the; Argentina; Bacardi; Brazil; Caribbean Islands; Catholicism; Chile; Christianity; Colombia; Daquiri; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 20th Century;
Legal Drinking Age: Rite of Passage
Mexico; Spain; Tequila; Wine, Palm; Wines, Fruit; World Health Organization.
Transition From Childhood to Adulthood Anthropologists have found that transitions from childhood to adulthood are characterized by rites of passage that ceremonially leave childhood behind and transfer the initiate into adult status. Psychology professor Jeffrey Arnett proposed an emergent social status of early adulthood in modern society in which young people experiment with various adult social statuses—from which major to study to which partner to marry. This experimentation is associated with the use of alcohol, partying, and relaxation of social norms throughout a period that may span the decade between high school and marriage. Adaptation to liminality and associated alcohol use has varied over time and across cultures. Today, drinking in modern societies is restricted to those of legal drinking age. Advocates fear that early alcohol use will lead to an early onset of alcoholism. Moralists fear that social alcohol use will lead to other transgressions, especially those of a sexual nature. The consequence is a divergence between legal adult drinking and prohibition for underage or adolescent drinkers. Underage drinkers are subject to arrest, and establishments that serve them can be prosecuted. One consequence of these social controls over alcohol is a discrepancy between the law and common, everyday behavior. Most young people begin drinking before the law allows. When large numbers of underage drinkers are located at one place, such as a college campus, there is a chronic conflict between the law (and those attempting to enforce it) and the youths who attempt to evade it. Events that bring together many young people—such as spring break activities, athletic contests and rallies, and holiday parties—have become problematic because of disorderly behavior associated with alcohol use and its tolerance by the participants. The liminal nature of these party atmospheres is threatening to moralists and troubling to authorities. Scholars have been influenced by moralistic values, and their research on underage drinking is affected by assumptions about the effects of alcohol use and by an orientation to control or stop it. Opposition to partying is framed as locating the dangers of binge drinking—defined as five or more units of alcohol in a day for males and four or more for females. However, because one can metabolize a
Further Readings Montenegro, R. A. and C. Stephens. “Indigenous Health in Latin America and the Caribbean.” The Lancet, v.367/9525 (2006). Coombs, D. W. and G. Globetti. “Alcohol Use and Alcoholism in Latin America: Changing Patterns and Sociocultural Explanations.” Substance Use & Misuse, v.21/1 (1986). Pierce, G. K. and A. Toxqui, eds. Alcohol in Latin America: A Social and Cultural History. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2014. Pyne, H. H., M. Claeson, and M. Correia. Gender Dimensions of Alcohol Consumption and AlcoholRelated Problems in Latin America and the Caribbean, Vol. 433. World Bank, 2002. Vagenas, P., J. R. Lama, K. T. Ludford, P. Gonzales, J. Sanchez, and F. L. Altice. “A Systematic Review of Alcohol Use and Sexual Risk-Taking in Latin America.” Revista Panamericana de Salud Publica, v.34/4 (2013). Velasco Fernandez, R. “Alcohol and Alcohol Problems Research 7: Latin America.” British Journal of Addiction, v.81 (1986).
Legal Drinking Age: Rite of Passage Alcohol is a drug, but its use is learned in social settings and through social relationships. Because of its intoxicating effects, alcohol is associated with liminal events in which social norms and rules are relaxed. These liminal states are associated with tolerance of drinking, tobacco, recreational drugs, and sexuality. They are attractive to youths but suspect to moralists. In a modern society, young adults experience a years-long liminal state between childhood and adulthood. Transition to adulthood is associated with rites involving alcohol, tobacco and recreational drugs, sexual activity, or even vandalism and other minor criminal acts. In rites of passage, especially those between childhood and adulthood, alcohol plays an important facilitating role.
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unit of alcohol per hour, a “binge drinker” may not become intoxicated. Of course, many people drink to become intoxicated, which is a separate issue. While intoxication is associated with risky and deviant behavior, it is not necessarily the cause of that behavior. Nonetheless, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has concluded that alcohol use is a serious problem among college students, and some scholars estimate that it causes 1,400 deaths, 600,000 physical assaults, 500,000 injuries, and 70,000 sexual assaults annually. Scholars have investigated whether youth alcohol use leads to other social transgressions such as sexual behavior and drug use. Many studies are oriented to present early alcohol use as a social evil. One type of research studies the manipulation of social norms among students. The assumption of scholars in this field is that “education”
done correctly by experts will change social drinking behavior. However, there is little in the fields of anthropology and sociology to suggest that attempts by adult outsiders to influence young people’s social norms will accomplish these objectives. Celebrating the Transitions to Adulthood Attaining the legal age to drink has become a transition that is widely celebrated. Becoming “legal” permits drinking in public places, and going to a tavern or bar to celebrate one’s “majority” is a common rite of passage. The birthday celebrant is accompanied by friends and is often challenged to pass various tests of adulthood, including drinking large amounts of alcohol. One ritual is for one to drink 21 shots/drinks on attaining 21 years and “legality.” Shot glasses are presented on a wooden, paddle-shaped board with depressions for the glasses. After drinking each of the shots,
Partygoers compare legal drinking age identification bracelets at the Pemberton Festival, Pemberton, British Columbia, Canada, July 25, 2008. Attaining the legal age to drink has become a transition that is widely celebrated. However, events that draw large groups of young people, such as spring break activities, sports and rallies, and holiday parties, have become problematic because of disorderly behavior associated with alcohol use. The liminal nature of these party atmospheres makes them a rite of passage for many adolescents.
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the new adult is paddled with the board by companions. Lists of 21 stunts to perform are also part of some social groups’ rites, often including dares to do stunts to demonstrate adulthood such as kissing a stranger, playing with a condom, pantomiming sex acts, and drinking a variety of cocktails. Establishments attract such events with free drinks, party hats, and other public recognitions for the newly legal. While legality arrives on an exact date and is often celebrated then, there are other meaningful but less obvious rites of passage, such as obtaining one’s first (forged) identification that permits public drinking. Passing scrutiny with one’s fake ID is another rite associated with social (if not legal) maturity. Youths may also recognize their first drinking party, first intoxication, first blackout, and/or first hangover as signs of approaching adulthood. These transitions are dramatized when they are formalized into ceremonies, as when a young person is initiated into a group with a tradition of hazing. The transition from “pledge” to member involves passing a test, the second stage of liminality described by anthropologist Arnold Van Gennep. By passing the test, the initiate becomes an adult who can “hold his liquor” and/ or “take it” during the initiation. While hazing can be formal, it also is near universal in informal groups. By accepting the teasing, silly nicknames and overtly hurtful acts, the outsider becomes accepted by the group. Ceremonies of transition, such as getting married or anticipating the birth of a child, are common sites of alcohol use and often similar to the rites of the birthday person attaining legal drinking age. Bachelor and bachelorette parties are often held in bars or nightclubs, where the drinking is accompanied by gifts (often “adult” themed to imply the sexual activity anticipated in the marriage). “Strippers” accompany these events and act out sexual themes, such as lap dancing and spanking. Ceremonies without a clear transition often include formal dinners with toasts. The individual, team, or family being recognized is often teased and embarrassed as well as praised; these liminal events are called “roasts.” In these multiple and varied social events and rites, as people pass from one stage to another,
using alcohol eases the transition and facilitates socializing. The abstainer is at a social disadvantage in this world of drinkers. The Amethyst Initiative Researchers and college campus authorities who are opposed to the use of alcohol by youths have targeted some of these social events to moderate or stop the use of alcohol. For example, birthday cards with antidrinking messages have been sent to college students just before their 21st birthdays. In contrast, a group of college presidents concerned about harm from excessive campus drinking has a different message. These presidents have concluded that the laws against underage drinking promote a campus culture of evasion and consequential risks to young drinkers. Their alternative—the Amethyst Initiative—is to legalize drinking for all college students so that social events with alcohol consumption could be held on campus and supervised by authorities, and the excesses associated with deaths, assaults, and injuries could be managed. The rite of passage using alcohol would take place when the youths are at home, not away at college, and thus would be safer. It remains to be seen if this reform will be accepted. Keith R. Johnson Oakton Community College See Also: Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Sociology of; Amethyst Initiative; Drinking, Anthropology of; Moral Attitudes Toward Alcohol Consumption; Student Culture, College and University. Further Readings Amethyst Initiative. 2013. http://www.theamethyst initiative.org (Accessed November 2013). Arnett, Jeffrey J. “Emerging Adulthood.” American Psychologist, v.55/5 (May 2000). Banister, Emma N. and Maria G. Piacenitini. “Drunk and (Dis) Orderly: The Role of Alcohol in Supporting Liminality.” Advances in Consumer Research, v.35 (2008). Gennep, Arnold Van. The Rites of Passage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960. Greenbaum, Paul E., Frances K. Del Boca, Jack Darkes, Chen-Pin Wang, and Mark S. Goldman. “Variation in the Drinking Trajectories of
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Freshmen College Students.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, v.73/2 (May 2005). Gusfield, Joseph R. “Passage to Play: Rituals of Drinking Time in American Society.” In Constructive Drinking: Perspectives on Drink From Anthropology, Vol. 10, Mary Douglas, ed. London: Routledge, 2002. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. “A Call to Action: Changing the Culture of Drinking at U.S. Colleges.” NIH Publication No. 02–5010. Rockville, MD: NIAAA, 2002.
LifeRing LifeRing is a California nonprofit organization founded in 2001 to help people recover from their addictions to alcohol and other drugs. The group emphasizes abstinence and peer support within a secular framework. Meetings consist of relatively unstructured discussions convened by a fellow alcoholic or addict. Discussion focuses on what has helped people within the group stay sober. The group’s philosophy is that achieving abstinence is accomplished by personal effort plus social support. LifeRing has no “step system” and no mandatory program, although the group does offer a workbook to help participants create a personalized recovery program. Modern Approach LifeRing founder Martin Nicolaus believes his work aligns with a modern, truly scientific approach to alcoholism and addiction recovery. Writing in 2012, he noted that the development of the alcoholism disease concept in the United States from the 1930s through the 1960s was initially funded by the alcoholic beverage industry as a way to shift blame for alcohol addiction and social harm “from the bottle to the man” in postProhibition America. This effort led to the adoption of what Nicolaus calls the “legacy disease model” of alcoholism: The three pillars of what passes for a disease concept in most of [the] people’s minds today are (1) that alcoholism is a “spiritual disease” which can only be cured by spiritual
enlightenment involving surrender to a higher power; (2) that individuals become alcoholic because of their moral shortcomings and other serious defects of personality; and (3) that alcoholics cannot help it because of their genetic constitution. None of these notions has a scientific basis. What laboratory studies actually show, Nicolaus notes, is that addiction is a biological process caused by flooding a person’s bloodstream with nonlethal levels of a substance for a given period. He cites psychological studies that have refuted the connection between addiction and personality type and notes that human genome studies have found no basis for genetic helplessness: “The results have swept away the myth that there exists an alcoholism gene that relentlessly drives the alcoholic to the bottle and thus to doom. This belief is complete bunk and has no scientific basis.” Nicolaus objects to the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) approach in part because it is ineffective for so many people. He cites AA research that indicates only five in 100 people who begin AA remain active in the program for a full year. He believes that the addiction treatment industry should reject AA’s emphasis on powerlessness and religiosity. He believes that one-size-fits-all programming based on the AA model is ineffective and prevents many people from achieving sobriety. Empowerment, Secularism, and Abstinence-Only Model The key to the LifeRing system is “empowering your sober self.” Its literature describes a person with an addiction as having two personalities or voices. One is the “A” voice—the addicted personality—and the other is the “S” voice—the sober self. Over time, personal effort and social support strengthen the sober self and reduce or eliminate the influence of the addicted personality. According to Nicolaus, the general dichotomy between the “A” and the “S” serves as a useful and easily grasped analytical tool that has numerous reference points in both individual and collective experience. In contradistinction to the 12-step
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paradigm, LifeRing posits . . . not only areas of illness, decay, degeneration, and morbidity in various forms, but also resources of health, vigor, strength, and vitality. The general aim of helping such a person is to facilitate the growth and expansion of these positive assets within the person and to enable their ascension to a stable dominance within the personality structure and behavior. One of the factors that attract people to LifeRing is its nonreligious or secular nature. Some individuals within the LifeRing movement view AA as a cult and object to AA on religious grounds. Writers of non-AA recovery blogs, including writers for the LifeRing blog, often state that trouble with AA’s religiosity draws them to LifeRing and to other explicitly “secular” recovery groups. LifeRing itself downplays objection to religion, stating the following on its Web site: LifeRing Recovery welcomes people of all faiths and none. . . . Neither religion nor antireligion normally come up in meeting discussion. Participants are free to attend both LifeRing and Twelve-Step meetings, but LifeRing supports recovery methods that rely on human efforts rather than on divine intervention. LifeRing is an abstinence-only program. Life Ring’s Web site states the following: “Sobriety” can mean different things in dictionaries, but in LifeRing it always means abstinence. The basic membership requirement is a desire to remain abstinent from alcohol and “drugs.” LifeRing welcomes people regardless of their “drug of choice.” . . . The successful LifeRing participant practices the Sobriety Priority, meaning that nothing is allowed to interfere with staying abstinent from alcohol and “drugs.” The motto is “we do not drink or use, no matter what.” Meetings and Online Experiences In December 2013, the LifeRing Web site listed approximately 120 live discussion meetings occurring throughout the United States, about half of them in California. The group also has
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a significant online presence, with chat rooms, e-mail lists, and social network experiences through the Ning and Delphi platforms. Life Ring’s Web site states the following: At most LifeRing meetings, people sit in a circle. The meeting is small enough so that everyone can participate. After a short opening statement, the meeting facilitator (we call them “convenors”) asks “How was your week?” People take turns talking about what has been going on in their recoveries since the last meeting, and what lies ahead for them in the coming week. The focus will be on current events in the participants’ lives. LifeRing has published three books for people seeking to recover using its methods. Empowering Your Sober Self is the basic text. Recovery by Choice is a 300-page personal recovery workbook. How Was Your Week? is a guide to facilitating group meetings. All are available through LifeRing’s Web site. According to a 2005 survey, the typical LifeRing member had been clean and sober for an average of 2.74 years. Men (58 percent) outnumbered women members, and the average age of members was 47.8 years. More than 80 percent of participants had attended some college, and 44 percent had an undergraduate degree or higher. Slightly more than half (54 percent) held professional, technical, or managerial occupations, and about 80 percent were white. More than three out of four were raised in a religion, and in the surveyed year, nearly 40 percent had attended a religious service. LifeRing aims to help people who are selfdirected and who wish to create a unique personal recovery program. Objections to the group are most likely to come from those who do not share these characteristics. Because recovery from addiction or alcoholism is such a challenging experience, people naturally tend to champion what has worked for them. The rule-driven nature of relapse-prevention methods also tends to foster resistance to alternative approaches. LifeRing’s relatively small number of active groups puts it at a comparative disadvantage. What LifeRing shares with AA and with other recovery groups may prove to be its greatest
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strength: It delivers the experience of a supportive community, focused on achieving abstinence and preventing relapse. Paul Komarek Independent Scholar See Also: Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture; Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Sociology of. Further Readings LifeRing. “Sobriety, Secularity, Self-Help.” http://life ring.org (Accessed December 2013). Nicolaus, Martin. “Empowering Your Sober Self: The LifeRing Approach to Addiction Recovery.” Journal of Groups in Addiction & Recovery, v.7 (September 25, 2012). Nicolaus, Martin. “Toward a Medical Model of Addiction, Or: Is It Time to Occupy Recovery?” Keynote presentation delivered at the Annual Conference of LifeRing Secular Recovery, LGBT Center, San Francisco, May 12, 2012. YouTube. “LifeRing’s Martin Nicolaus on the Medical Model of Addiction.” Video. http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=nHXwJmNTJ40 (Accessed December 2013).
Light Beer Beer is produced by the fermentation, or brewing, of barley malt or other grains. Hops and other bitters flavor the beer. Several variations of beer exist, including lagers and ales. Lagers (pilsners, pales, and bocks) are made with bottom-fermenting yeast at colder temperatures for longer periods, and ales, such as India pale ales (IPA), porters, and stouts, are made more rapidly with top-fermenting yeast at warmer temperatures. Ale recipes often contain a higher amount of hops and malts; therefore, they tend to be rich, full bodied, and bitter tasting. Lagers, on the other hand, are described as smooth, crisp, and clean-tasting beer with less bitterness. There are different types of lagers such as “ice” beer, low-alcohol beer, and “light” beer. Lagers average about 5 percent alcohol by volume (ABV).
Certain beers may have more or less alcohol; for instance, ice beer contains close to 6 percent ABV, low-alcohol beer has less than 4 percent ABV, and light beer has around 4 percent ABV. There are also nonalcoholic beers, such as O’Doul’s, that contain 0.05 percent ABV, and beer made with malt, such as Schlitz Malt Liquor, that contain approximately 5.9 percent ABV. Light beer is the most popular type of beer in the United States. Beer accounts for about 58 percent of the alcohol consumed in the United States. In 2002, Americans consumed 180 million barrels of domestic beer and 23 million barrels of imported beer. On average, Americans drink about 22 gallons of beer per capita each year. Light beer has the largest market share, comprising 50 percent of the beer sold in 2005; this is double the amount sold since 1988. Four of the five most-purchased beer in 2010 was light beer. Internationally, the consumption rate of light beer has risen over the years as well. Between 2006 and 2011, global consumption of light beer increased by 47 percent. History In 1967, a biochemist in Brooklyn by the name of Joseph Owades found a way to reduce carbohydrates and calories in beer, and the result was Gablinger’s Diet Beer. The name was not well received, nor was its taste. Subsequently, the recipe was shared with Meister Bräu Brewing Company, and then Miller Brewing purchased Meister Bräu years later. In 1975, Miller Lite became the first marketed light beer in the United States, and 5 million barrels of it were sold within the first year, which was almost half of the beer’s total sales. The slogan for Miller Lite was “a great tasting premium beer that is less filling.” The idea of a beer being less heavy was better received than anything previously named “diet” beer. The sales of light beer were substantial during this time. By 1977, low-calorie beer accounted for 8 percent of the total 156 million barrels of beer sold in America. In the history of brewing, there had not been a product to come to market and grow from 0 to 8 percent in less than three years. By 1978, there were more than 20 brands of light beer available. Analysts at the time reported that light beer cost between $2 and $3 less per barrel to produce than regular beer and sold for $2.75 more per barrel; therefore, it was very profitable.
Light Beer
Because of the success of light beer, many others appeared on the market in the next several years. For example, Natural Light was introduced in 1977, Coors Light in 1978, and Bud Light in 1981. The use of “light” in the name of these products caused Miller Lite to sue several other brewers, stating they were infringing on its trade name. The courts did not agree and indicated that, because “light” is a generic or common descriptive word when applied to beer, neither that word nor its phonetic equivalent may be appropriated as a trademark for beer. Light beer is sometimes thought of as low-alcohol beer, depending on the country. In Australia, beer is considered light when it has between 2.2 and 3.2 percent ABV. Beer in Canada is light if it has an ABV between 2.6 and 4.0 percent. In the United States, light beer is around 4 percent ABV; however, light beer is not determined by alcohol content but considered light because it has approximately 20 to 33 percent fewer calories than regular beer. Low-alcohol beer is not low in calories but low in alcohol content and is more popular in other parts of the world (e.g., Europe). In the early 1980s, Anheuser-Busch introduced LA (low alcohol), and it was not very successful in the United States. In fact, by 1991, no major brewer marketed a low-alcohol beer. Table 1 compares the calories and alcohol content of regular beer to its light beer counterpart. Consumption Rate Currently, light beer has the largest market share of any other category of beer. Bud Light, Miller
Table 1 Comparisons of beer by calories and alcohol by volume Beer Type
Calories
ABV
Miller
150
4.6
Miller Lite
96
4.2
Budweiser
147
5
Bud Light
110
4.2
Coors
137
5
Coors Light
105
4.2
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Lite, and Coors Light are the top-three light beer brands in the United States—according to the Beverage Information Group’s Beer Handbook Advance 2013—followed by Natural Light, Busch Light, Keystone Light, and Michelob Ultra. Corona Light is among the top-10 imported brands. Bud Light finally surpassed Miller Lite sales in 1997, and it has consistently been the top-selling beer in the United States since that time. More specifically, Bud Light has 19 percent of the market share, Budweiser has 13 percent, Miller Lite has 9 percent, Coors Light has 8 percent, and Natural Light and Corona Extra have 4 percent each. While Bud Light sells more, Coors Light has experienced eight years of consecutive growth, and volume for the brand was up 2 percent in 2012. Because of the success of light beer, the premium beer (otherwise known as “regular” beer, such as Budweiser) has declined in market shares. In 1988, premium beer held 40 percent of the market, but in 2005 this number fell to 16 percent. As a result of the popularity of light beer, researchers have investigated the motives behind choosing light beer over others. Studies have found that regular beer groups as well as light beer groups indicate light beer is “less tasty” than other beer and that the main reasons for consuming light beer are health and weight management. The women in the studies report the reduction of calories in light beer as a motivator for choice; therefore, women are more likely to be light-beer drinkers. In fact, 30 percent of light beer is consumed by women. Brewing Processes Light beer is made by a few different methods. First, it can be made by diluting regular-strength beer with water until the preferred calorie and alcohol content is produced. Second, it can be made by extending the mashing process so that the natural enzymes break down as much of the carbohydrates as possible into simple sugars. The sugars are then fermented, and water is added for dilution. Third, light beer can be produced by using exogenous brewing enzymes (enzymes from sources other than malt) in the mash to break down most of the carbohydrates to simple sugars, which are fermented, and then water is added. Light beer is described as lightly flavored, smooth, clean, very dry, and lacking bitterness. In
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fact, beer is rated and given a number in relation to bitterness. The International Bitterness Units (IBU) scale determines the level of bitterness from the hops, and the maximum value assigned is normally around 100. Light beer is low in IBUs; for instance, American light lagers usually range from 5 to 15. The following are some examples of beer with high IBUs: Blue Moon is 10 to 20, Guinness is 30 to 45, IPA is 40 to 60, Imperial Stout is 50 to 80, and Dogfish Head’s 90 Minute IPA is 90. Depending on the country, light beer can refer to beer that is reduced in calories and/or has less alcohol content compared to regular beer. Light beer is normally consumed by beer drinkers who wish to manage their alcohol consumption or calorie intake. When contrasted with regular beer, light beer has been criticized by consumers who indicated light beer is less flavorful and tastes watered down. However, since 1975—with the introduction of Miller Lite—the light beer industry is one that has grown exponentially. In fact, not only is Bud Light the number-one beer sold in the United States, but also the light beer market has continued to grow internationally each year. Tiffany K. Lee Western Michigan University See Also: Ale; Beer; Dark Beer; Brewing Beer, Techniques of. Further Readings Oliver, Garrett. The Oxford Companion to Beer. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Preedy, Victor. Beer in Health and Disease Prevention. San Diego, CA: Elsevier, 2009. Trembley, Victor and Karen Trembley. The U.S. Brewing Industry: Data and Economic Analysis. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts of Technology, 2005.
Lincoln, Abraham Certainly a contemporary audience familiar with Abraham Lincoln’s legacy as the U.S. president who ended the brutality and inhumanity of
slavery would not be surprised to learn that when Lincoln, then serving in the Illinois State House of Representatives, addressed the incendiary issue of temperance, he spoke compassionately about the necessity, even the wisdom, of treating alcoholics humanely, of approaching with Christian forbearance those who were condemned as weak, even sinful drunkards, a scourge on polite society, a public nuisance. But such a message surely stunned the more than 2,000 ardent members of the Springfield chapter of the national Washington Temperance Society, an organization made up largely of reformed alcoholics who had taken a pledge never to drink again, who jammed the Second Presbyterian Church in Springfield on the 110th anniversary of George Washington’s birthday, February 22, 1842, expecting the 33-year-old lawyer to lead a rabble-rousing hellfire condemnation of so-called liquor heads. By 1842, the American temperance movement, largely spearheaded by the Washingtonians themselves, had gathered sufficient national public support (more than 5,000 chapters nationwide with estimates of over a million members in total) to consider itself a significant vehicle for imminent change. After attempting for more than a decade to use the gentle, tolerant logic of moral suasion, trying to convince those who used alcohol excessively to curb their indulgence, to recognize drinking as a problem, the temperance movement had become more strident and uncompromising in its call for national prohibition, reviling alcohol as a blight on the national character and calling for a total ban on its manufacture, distribution, and consumption. By 1842, Lincoln himself had garnered a statewide celebrity as a popular speaker, a raconteur with a gift for moving his audience emotionally, either through his dry humor, his soaring rhetoric, or his quiet passion. Lincoln was himself a member of the Springfield chapter of the Washingtonians and seldom drank, save socially, despite growing up in what was then America’s frontier, a rough and challenging environment where manhood was often measured not by education or wealth but rather by backbreaking work; coming of age for a boy involved not just hunting and fishing but drinking whiskey and beer. As a young attorney, Lincoln had witnessed firsthand the devastating impact of excessive alcohol—William Herndon, a partner in his law firm
with national political aspirations, had spiraled into the self-destructive behavior familiar today as signs of alcohol abuse: absenteeism, poor concentration, physical deterioration, slipshod job performance, lack of attention to detail, mood swings. Certainly the Springfield Washingtonians expected that Lincoln would deliver a powerful indictment of the weak and sinful who gave in so willingly to the temptations of alcohol. The 1842 speech, now considered a model of careful argumentation, would be Lincoln’s only public address on the matter of temperance—it stands today as a clarion call for Christian tolerance for alcoholics, using the weighted metaphor of slavery to call on the Washingtonians gathered in Springfield and society in general to help drunkards rather than condemn them as a nuisance, jail them as criminals, or threaten them as sinners with eternal damnation. He spoke earnestly of alcoholics, whatever their economic class, gender, or ethnicity, as being in chains, of living a kind of moral death, of being more helpless and vulnerable than the heavy-handed rhetoric of the temperance movement allowed. He began his remarks by extolling the considerable success of the early temperance movement, how it originated with reformed drunkards who vowed to help each other stay off the bottle, how the organization grew initially through its charitable compassion toward those with the affliction. Then Lincoln argued that the temperance movement had moved away from its potential to help by turning to preachers, lawyers, and politicians to run its national program, nondrinkers who had quickly become less and less moderate. In doing so, the temperance organization had severed itself from the difficult and complicated realities of those who struggled every hour, every day with alcohol addiction. Lincoln, still nearly two decades from the deep schism of the Civil War, portrayed the young republic at war with itself, comparing the temperance movement to America’s own revolution, its own stand against unreasonable and destructive authority, comparing alcohol to a tyrant who had to be overthrown. As a Whig, Lincoln extolled the freedom and power of the individual and celebrated the liberating energy of self-control. Prohibition would not work in a free republic because America had promised that government would never interfere
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with the individual’s right to choose. An individual could not be compelled to submit to any law that appeared aimed at private interest or personal appetite. Lincoln’s weapon of choice? Persuasion. Convince those with alcohol problems that excess was never in a person’s best interest, but deliver that message as a friend. The problem, he reminded Washingtonians, came not from alcohol—a business that had helped shape the American economic success story—but rather from its abuse. Moderation, he argued, was the key. Those unwilling or unable to curb their excess, Lincoln said, were to be helped with compassion, more victims of misfortune that he likened to victims of consumption and other formidable diseases that were the hobgoblins of his era. He spoke eloquently, with copious scriptural support, of the importance of the individual using reason rather than emotion to resolve the problem with alcohol excesses; that the mind and the mind alone was capable of controlling the appetites, comparing the vice of excessive drinking to carnality and gluttony. Legislation could not; pressure could not; threats could not. But Lincoln put a most provocative twist on his argument, perhaps because Herndon himself was in the audience. Lincoln cited how often alcoholics could be counted among history’s most revered (and original) thinkers: artists, writers, inventors, philosophers, politicians, military strategists, great kings, and entrepreneurs. Indeed, given his experience with his law partner who was, in Lincoln’s own estimation, far more gifted than he was in the practice of law, Lincoln told the gathered Washingtonians, much to their dismay, that those who indulged in alcohol were frequently among the most gifted, the most creative, and even the most generous of people. He expounded on the relationship he had observed not only in his day but throughout history: how often the most brilliant and the most promising had proven prone to excessive drinking, how often society had lost remarkable opportunities when such brilliant individuals had spiraled into alcohol abuse. Free them from their bondage to the bottle, he argued, and society would reap the reward. Lincoln, of course, encouraged taking the socalled pledge—he was, after all, speaking to a crowd largely of reformed drinkers who had
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turned to the Washingtonian organization as a support system to maintain their sobriety. Yes, he told the audience, those able to—regardless of their background or even their history with alcohol—should pledge to abstain. Indeed, he told the audience, the very best advocates for temperance, those most qualified to pressure those still chained to their addiction, were the very people gathered in that room—reformed alcoholics who could, in turn, bear witness to the miseries, financial ruin, and public humiliations of alcohol excess—rather than the preachers and lawyers who came at the problem with a far more abstract (and condemnatory) attitude. To them, alcoholics were incorrigible, unredeemable, lost. Lincoln criticized the Washingtonians most severely for the tone of their rhetoric, the threats they leveled against those unable to control their excesses, those Lincoln deemed victimized by the thirst for alcohol. Those, Lincoln argued, needed hope, not despair; encouragement, not damnation; support, not condemnation, that Christ himself had tirelessly championed the belief that every soul might be saved. It was by any measure a bold address given at the height of the first large-scale national movement toward prohibition. Lincoln’s unabashed faith in the ability of the individual to triumph over the need for alcohol and his celebration of the American spirit of individualism—an argument he grounded in the very principles of America’s own Christian roots—quietly revealed an entirely new direction for treating the problems of alcohol abuse. It was simplicity itself—if alcohol excess was a choice, then the individual can choose not to. Persuasion, kind and unassuming persuasion, the rhetoric of logic and common sense could redeem even those most apparently lost. Joseph Dewey Broward College See Also: Moral Suasion; Temperance Movements; Washingtonians. Further Readings Gately, Iain. Drink: A Cultural History of America. New York: Gotham, 2009. Lincoln, Abraham. Lincoln: Speeches and Writing: 1832–1858, Vol. 1. Heritage Digital, 2014.
Morel, Lucas E. “Lincoln Among the Reformers: Tempering the Temperance Movement. “Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, v.20/1 (Winter 1999). Pegram, Thomas R. Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800–1933. New York: Ivan Dee, 1999. Rorabaugh, W. T. The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001 [1981]. Wilson, Samuel. Abraham Lincoln: An Apostle of Temperance and Prohibition. Washington, DC: Library of America Digital, 2011 [1910].
Liqueur Advertising Liqueurs are alcoholic beverages generally known within the larger liquor market for their sweet flavor and lower alcohol content. They are consumed either straight (neat), over ice, as an ingredient in mixed drinks, or used in cooking. Liqueurs first gained popularity in the cocktail craze of the early 20th century, and advertisers have sought to capitalize on a modern resurgence in the cocktail’s popularity. Modern liqueur advertising is aimed at both consumer loyalty for proprietary brands and professional loyalty among bartenders and other professionals. Other marketing emphases include historical province and building a secretive mythology surrounding individual brand recipes. Liqueurs are distilled, can be either cane- or grain-based, are generally of a syrup-like consistency, and are known for their sweetness and added flavoring. Distillers used the sugar and flavoring to improve the taste of early liqueurs, which they marketed mainly for medicinal purposes. Modern liqueurs include high fructose corn syrup or other sweeteners in addition to traditional sugar. Common flavoring agents include fruits and nuts, woods, flowers, and herbs and spices. These agents also give different liqueurs their signature tastes and aromas, which vary widely, and are an important component of individual branding. Liqueurs are only aged for a short period of time in order to blend the individual components into a composite flavor.
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recipe books for liqueur distillation, The Art of Making Waters. Modern liqueur brands that market their monastic origins include the French liqueurs Chartreuse and Benedictine. These ancient recipes are advertised as closely guarded secrets known to only a handful of people. Tour guides tell visitors to the Benedictine distillery, for example, that the modern recipe has its origins in the 16th century. Loose labeling requirements that generally do not require the listing of main ingredients allow marketers to maintain such branding.
A very early absinthe advertisement from the Distillerie Petitjean & Cie from Mons, Belgium, 1896. The popularity of liqueurs later picked up speed during the cocktail craze of the early 20th century. Absinthe, which was flavored with wormwood, became particularly controversial because of its adverse side effects.
Liqueurs usually have a lower alcohol content than other liquors such as vodka, rum, and whiskey, although alcohol content varies by brand and can range upwards of 50 percent. The term liqueur has also historically referred to flavored water rather than alcohol-based sweetened beverages with no alcohol content. Other names sometimes applied to liqueurs include cordials and schnapps. This variance in terminology, as well as broader confusion between the words liqueur and liquor, the broader term for hard alcohol, presents a challenge for marketers. The earliest liqueurs were produced by monks, barbers, and physicians who promoted them as medicinal rather than recreational beverages. Sixteenth-century Italian physician Michael Savonarola authored one of the earliest
Advertising Challenges Liqueur marketers over time have overcome challenges related to various social, religious, and public health controversies surrounding alcohol use. Cocktails surged in popularity in the early-20th-century United States, remaining popular even during the Prohibition era of the 1920s. Rather than curbing alcohol use, Prohibition gave alcohol an illicit appeal and opened new markets as female consumption increased. Women compose a large segment of the modern liqueur market. In various times and places, governments have prohibited individual liqueurs such as absinthe. Absinthe, a wormwood-flavored liqueur produced by the French distiller Henri-Louis Pernod in the early 20th century, gained rapid popularity in countries such as the United States and much of Europe, especially among artists and bohemians. But reports of adverse effects such as hallucinations, illness, and even death from the use of absinthe rendered its use controversial. Now legal once again, absinthe has reentered the marketplace as its distillers dismiss the earlier warnings as undeserved. Liqueur companies began to challenge older, often self-imposed industry limits on advertising at the end of the 20th century, following the lead of companies such as Seagram, which first challenged the voluntary ban on hard liquor advertising in the U.S. broadcast media in 2002. Print media such as newspapers and magazines, however, remain the largest outlets for liqueur media advertising. Advertising for other alcoholic beverages such as beer and wine is still much larger than that of liqueurs. Commentators forecast increasing use of broadcast media, alongside
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rising efforts to attract younger consumers, to market liqueurs. Top-Selling Brands and Brand Imaging Top-selling modern name brands include Kahlua (a coffee-flavored liqueur of Mexican origin), Bailey’s Irish Cream (Irish whiskey blended with cream), Jagermeister (a German liqueur featuring numerous herbs and spices), Grand Marnier (a cognac blend of French origin featuring a bitter orange flavor), and Malibu (a Caribbean-based blend of white rum and coconut). Others include Benedictine and Chambord liqueurs from France, Drambuie, lemon-flavored Limoncello from Italy, coffee-flavored Tia Maria (Jamaica) and Pasha (Turkey), amaretto-flavored Disaronno, and many brands featuring crème de cacao chocolate flavoring. The liquor industry constantly develops new liqueur flavors to appeal to consumers seeking new taste experiences. Proprietary liqueur marketing relies heavily on the development of brand imaging and product mythology. Advertising, distillery tours, and Web sites, among other marketing tools, seek to create and develop this mythology. Key components include the promotion of secret recipes and lists of ingredients, often claimed to be heavily guarded, centuries old, and known only to a handful of people. Links to royalty or other noted historical figures are also promoted. Other tactics center on targeting market segments that promote the brand’s desired image. Jagermeister, for example, marketed at ski and beach resorts, Mardi Gras, Oktoberfest celebrations, and other events that attract targeted younger consumers. Marketers use public relations firms to gain product placements in popular movies and television shows. Young professionals in the 25 to 44 age range have been a key target of liqueur marketing. Cocktails based on or including sweet liqueurs reemerged in popularity among this age demographic in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. New, different advertising campaigns were introduced to rebrand liqueurs as a trendy rather than an old-fashioned alcoholic beverage. Liqueur advertisers also sought to compete with the rapidly growing market among younger and female consumers for the explosion of new flavored liquors such as vodkas and rums. Distillers have developed and marketed liqueurs featuring new,
popular flavors, such as Pama Pomegranate flavored liqueur, Proof Drink’s strawberry-flavored Bad Angel liqueur, and St. Germain elderflowerflavored liqueur. Nightclubs featured liqueur-based cocktails while many restaurants sought to capitalize on the craze by offering dessert menus featuring cordials, or so-called sippable desserts, alcoholbased coffee drinks, and desserts paired with suggested drinks based on sweet liqueurs. Layered drinks in which different liqueurs are layered on top of one another rather than blended creates a marketable visual effect. Liqueur companies gain potential new customers who might otherwise not have been exposed to their product, while restaurant owners gain new ways to sell drinks. Companies also hope to boost sales for home use, offering packaging featuring cocktail glasses, whisks, and other mixing gadgets, or free recipe booklets. Liqueur promoters have benefitted from the creation of new cocktails with tastes derived from blends of bitter herbs and citrus flavors with the sweetness of liqueurs. Another new market segment was created with the introduction of clear-cream liquors. Clear liqueurs allow for better blending in cocktail use because they do not tend to curdle like traditional liqueurs. Clearcream liqueur pioneer Triibe entered the market in 2008, followed by the increasingly popular brand Qream. Marketing to Professionals Some liqueur companies center their marketing on the professional rather than consumer market, seeking recognition among bartenders and restaurant owners rather than proprietary brand recognition among consumers. Professionals can promote their brand of choice and bring its attention to consumers who might otherwise never try it. Key brands targeting the professional market include Volare and Wenneker. These brands seek loyalty among the bartenders, chefs, and mixologists who pour the drinks and create and promote their own artisanal cocktails, often using older 1920s-era cocktails as inspiration. Many of these brands cannot be purchased in grocery stores, as can beer and wine, and are not prominently displayed in bars or restaurants, making these tactics crucial to success. Marketers
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also target product mentions within the multitude of cookbooks and cocktail recipe books that have enjoyed robust sales, many of which are produced by popular chefs and celebrities. The liqueur market had declined from its height in the early to mid-20th century and faced further slowed sales growth in its traditional markets as a result of the global economic recession dating to 2008, but the market has slowly rebounded. Marketers have sought to revive older, more traditional brands such as Benedictine and Drambuie while pursuing market expansion to attract younger consumers and emerging international markets. The largest segments of the traditional liqueur market are western Europe, the United States, and Canada. Growing markets with potential for increased future growth are Asia and the Pacific, particularly areas with thriving nightclubs such as Hong Kong and Singapore. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University See Also: Absinthe; Advertising and Marketing, History of; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Schnapps. Further Readings Blue, Anthony Bias. The Complete Book of Spirits: A Guide to Their History, Production, and Enjoyment. New York: William Morrow, 2004. Burns, Eric. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004. Holt, Mack P. Alcohol: A Social and Cultural History. New York: Berg, 2006. Teijssen, Stijn. “Absinthe Robette.” http://www.teij ssen.be/absinthe-robette (Accessed April 2014).
Liquor Boards In the United States, liquor boards are administrative agencies within a state government tasked with enforcing and implementing the liquor laws of a state. They are particularly associated with the “control” states—the 18 U.S. states where the state government has a monopoly on the wholesale or retail sales of at least one class of alcoholic
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beverage and thus either operates retail liquor stores, acts as wholesaler to stores and/or restaurants, or both. Control states and liquor boards originated during the temperance movement as part of the effort to restrict and reduce alcohol consumption, overall and specifically in terms of consumption by young people of high-alcoholcontent beverages. Temperance Movement Until the End of Prohibition Similar to the way the modern-day “new temperance movement” has sought to improve society and reduce alcohol-related harm by reducing overall alcohol consumption and enacting reforms to the way the alcohol industry is handled, the original temperance movement sought to reduce drinking and alcohol abuse by passing laws that restricted drinking in one way or another at a time when absolute prohibition of drinking was a long way from being in its grasp. Among these reforms were the closures of saloons and other establishments devoted to drinking; the ban of alcohol sales or service at certain times, such as on Sundays, election days, or religious holidays; restrictions on the alcohol content allowed in certain classes of beverage; and restrictions on whom alcohol could be served or sold to, such as people under a certain age or people already in a state of inebriation. A common reform was limiting the sale of “carry-out” or “off-premises” liquor—bottles and cans of liquor to be consumed elsewhere as opposed to beverages served in glasses to be drank on the spot—to dedicated stores. These stores could be required to purchase a license, and increasing the cost of that license (or, as in the case of Massachusetts, limiting the number of total licenses allowed in circulation at any given time) was one way of disincentivizing the sale of liquor because it limited the profits that could be made. Some states went even further by putting such dedicated liquor stores—although some of the stores also sold beer and wine, liquor was the real target—directly under state control. When Prohibition ended, the Twenty-First Amendment did more than simply repeal the Eighteenth Amendment; it actually increased states’ rights over alcohol by exempting liquor from exclusive federal regulation where interstate
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commerce was concerned. This empowered states, for the first time, to enact legal controls over the trafficking of alcoholic beverages across their borders. Having the power to restrict liquor imports gave state liquor boards even more power. Though federal law shapes much of the life of a liquor product—by having control of the excise tax charged (usually more significant than state taxes paid by producers), the legal definition of certain alcoholic beverage terms, and the labeling and advertising permitted—state law has the power to pick and choose which alcoholic beverage products are available in the state, to whom they are available, and where they are sold. Most states that opted not to run their own liquor stores after Prohibition enacted license systems, which empowered private businesses to sell liquor on terms set by the state liquor board. Liquor boards govern, among other things, the issuing of licenses, the rescinding of licenses, and disciplinary matters pertaining to license holders. Washington State Liquor Control Board Liquor boards in control states are usually called “alcoholic beverage control boards” or words to that effect. As one example, the Washington State Liquor Control Board (WSLCB), headquartered in Olympia, was founded in January 1934, immediately after the end of Prohibition. Like most liquor boards, it is part of the executive branch and thus reports to the governor. From 1934 until 2012, the WSLCB had a monopoly on the distribution of liquors and spirits and operated more than half of the stores that sold them in the state; the remaining half were operated by private businesses in rural areas and small cities under contract with the board. Wine and beer were permitted for sale in grocery stores. In 2012, the state monopoly on sales and distribution ended, but the work of the WSLCB continues. In addition to collecting taxes—20.5 percent on the shelf price and $3.77/ liter as a liter tax—the board has defined “alcohol impact areas.” These consist of impoverished neighborhoods where alcoholism and poverty are rampant and where there is a ban on the sale of low-cost, high-proof beverages such as 20 specific beers and cheap wines, Cisco, Gino’s, MD 20/20, Night Train, Thunderbird, and Wild Irish Rose. The WSLCB also manages the alcohol-server training program, which issues the legal permits for every
person who serves alcoholic beverages in the state. Further, since the 2012 legalization of recreational marijuana in the state, the WSLCB has been tasked with regulating the marijuana industry. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Drunkenness, Legal Definitions of; Liquor Licenses; State Liquor Stores; State Regulations After Prohibition, U.S.; Temperance Movements. Further Readings Babor, Thomas. Alcohol and Public Policy: No Ordinary Commodity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Gately, Iain. Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol. New York: Gotham, 2008. Grimes, William. Straight Up or on the Rocks: A Cultural History of American Drink. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. Holder, Harold D. and Alexander C. Wagenaar. “Effects of the Elimination of a State Monopoly on Distilled Spirits’ Retail Sales: A Time-Series Analysis of Iowa.” British Journal of Addiction, v.85/12 (December 1990). Zardkoohi, Ashgar and Alain Sheer. “Public Versus Private Liquor Retailing: An Investigation Into the Behavior of State Governments.” Southern Economic Journal, v.50/4 (April 1984).
Liquor Licenses At its most simple, the license is akin to a permit; it enables a particular activity to occur at particular times over a set period. In the British case, licensing developed from the mid-16th century in part as a mechanism for regulating supply and raising valuable revenue, something that would prove particularly useful in later colonial settings. Regulating the sale of a commodity does not necessarily regulate its use. But legislators and licensing authorities can be seen testing what else the liquor license might regulate—from public disorder to domestic consumption. When seen against prohibition, the license appears as a remarkably enabling instrument for authorities and drinkers.
Liquor licenses are generally issued for fixed periods, at the end of which licensees must demonstrate their good conduct before that license will be renewed. Licensees are then, by and large, left to get on with the task of selling alcohol. This devolution of day-to-day responsibility to individuals with a financial interest in the trade, according to criminology professor Mariana Valverde, marks out licensing as an exemplary form of liberal regulation. Licensees know that if they fail to manage their premises or drinkers appropriately, then they might lose their licenses. Crucially, for drinkers, neither the closure of a particular pub nor the refusal of service in another establishment limits their rights. They are free to try another pub or liquor store. Systems of licensing became natural battlegrounds for interest groups keen to defend or promote particular political philosophies and social mores. This was often reflected at very local levels, with groups such as social reformers connecting individual licensing decisions to concerns about the neighborhood or city. To make individual assessments, the licensing renewal authorities traditionally relied on apparently mundane evidence about the conduct of bar staff, the layout of premises, and the behavior of customers. Importantly, social reformers were often as likely to be watching and reporting pub owners or managers as were licensing authorities or the police. They helped shape local knowledge about problem premises and guided practices on which licensing decisions were based. As a result, what was permissible in one pub was not necessarily the same in another a few blocks or yards away. Geographic Variations At a broader scale, licensing history is thus marked by significant geographic variation between and within jurisdictions. Counties and states in the United States were and remain characterized by significant differences. In the United Kingdom, legislation was typically permissive, allowing local licensing authorities to intervene when and where they deemed it necessary; less famously, but no less significantly, this interventionist impulse was far from uniform, producing variations for licensees and drinkers even under nominally universal legislation. These variations should not be seen as random. Instead, licensing practice—in the
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courtroom and the bar—is best characterized as emerging under local conditions and being practiced according to local pragmatism. Licensing authorities had to tread a fine line. Largely speaking, they needed to license a sufficient number of premises to meet the rather nebulous “needs” of drinkers, which could be judged to be different depending on the type of neighborhood or local employment. They often reinforced their vision of respectable premises by introducing extra conditions on, for example, hours of sale, prices, and layout. But they knew that regulating too much risked provoking bootlegging or private production. And, by extension, licensing authorities were mindful of stimulating private consumption, the public scrutiny of which was, of course, more difficult. In Britain, debates about need were often concerned not so much with the volume of alcohol as with the apparent rights of licensees who stood to be affected by such reductions. Licensed premises were worth more than unlicensed ones because licensees expected their licenses to be renewed if they had a record of good conduct. When licensing magistrates tried to cancel what they viewed as surplus licenses, as happened in Britain in the 1890s, the trade responded by demanding compensation. Opponents argued that paying compensation effectively recognized the market value of the license and, by extension, licensees had some intrinsic right to have their licenses renewed. They posited that the license was the property of the state, which was extended to licensees strictly for a fixed period. Read this way, it is easy to understand the appetite for disinterested management where the license was divested of its market value and profits retained for public benefit. Consequences and Limitations It is relevant here to consider how a license could do more than simply raise revenue and regulate drinking. It might be possible to shape other behaviors through the licensing process. Authorities often placed restrictions on the location of licensed premises or the activities of bar owners. For example, the Committee of Fifty found that Massachusetts would not license a property within 400 feet of a school and in Missouri, within 500 feet of a public park. Such restrictions reflected an eagerness to protect spaces beyond
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the bar, but this was far from straightforward. In the case of drinking among women, for example, cracking down on women in bars risked driving their drinking underground. Dan Malleck shows in his book Try to Control Yourself the authorities in interwar-period Ontario, Canada, grappling with whether the presence of women might improve the tone of the premises and so discipline other drinkers. In this scenario, allowing women into pubs challenged the gendered drinking norms that were inscribed in and by the licensing system. There is an interesting parallel in more recent discussions about the rise in domestic consumption. In the United Kingdom, for example, recent years have witnessed a marked fall in pub “onsales” and a dramatic rise in supermarket “offsales.” Purchasing alcohol in a liquor store or supermarket is still regulated through the license, of course, with rules and conditions on the age of customers and the hours of sale. These conditions may control what a customer can buy, but it does not necessarily follow that they will shape consumption, particularly when such drinking takes place away from the social scrutiny of the bar crowd and the supervisory framework around licensed premises. The license has its limits. David Beckingham University of Cambridge See Also: Drinking Establishments; Liquor Boards; Regulation of Alcohol; State Liquor Stores; Victorian England. Further Readings Akyeampong, Emmanuel Kwaku. Drink, Power, and Cultural Change: A Social History of Alcohol in Ghana, c. 1800 to Recent Times. Oxford, UK: James Currey, 1996. Beckingham, David. “Gender, Space, and Drunkenness: Liverpool’s Licensed Premises, 1860– 1914.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, v.102/3 (February 27, 2012). Billings, John et al. The Liquor Problem: A Summary of Investigations Conducted by the Committee of Fifty, 1893–1903. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1905. Brown, James. “Alehouse Licensing and State Formation in Early Modern England.” In Intoxication and Society: Problematic Pleasures
of Drugs and Alcohol, Jonathan Herring, Ciaran Regan, Darin Weinberg, and Phil Withington, eds. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Malleck, Dan. Try to Control Yourself: The Regulation of Public Drinking in Post-Prohibition Ontario, 1927–1944. Vancouver, Canada: University of British Columbia Press, 2012. Nicholls, James. The Politics of Alcohol: A History of the Drink Question in England. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2009. Valverde, Mariana. Law’s Dream of a Common Knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Literature, Role of Alcohol in Alcohol is a consistent presence in the history of literature. Drinking and its effects have often preoccupied writers, their texts, and the social movements they promote or parody. Even when drinking is not an author or text’s central concern, alcohol is a significant feature of setting, character, or plot because of the variety of meanings and associations alcohol has had in cultures over the world and across time. This entry provides an overview of alcohol’s literal and symbolic roles in literature as literature reflects or directly engages in debates about a wide variety of social concerns—most especially the effects of alcohol on the individual, family, and society. Intoxication and Conviviality The possibility that alcohol use could be the symptom of an addiction did not begin to gain medical credibility until the mid-19th century. While literature from that time on engages in an increasingly professionalized—if imperfectly scientific—discourse on alcoholism, literature from the ancient Greeks to the British Romantics considered alcohol in terms of intoxication. The absence of the long-term threat of alcoholic addiction in the literary paradigm of intoxication meant more equity between the perceived positive and negative effects of drinking. Hence, the literature of intoxication tends to celebrate the pleasures,
inspirational possibilities, and convivial settings of drinking far more than later literature informed by the alcoholism paradigm. Nonetheless, this literature predating the temperance movements of the 19th century also emphasized the importance of moderation, equating heavy drinking with disorder, madness, violence, and pain. In Drunk the Night Before: An Anatomy of Intoxication, Marty Roth identifies ancient Greek roots of positive and negative representations of intoxication in Plato’s Symposium and Euripides’s Bacchae. The former text emphasizes intoxicated conviviality and inspiration, while the latter suggests the fearful aspects of alcohol. In Bacchae, the Greek god of wine, Dionysus—often invoked and much celebrated in literature—becomes vengeful and murderous when Pentheus, King of Thebes, challenges his godly powers. Plato’s Symposium, though beginning in hangover, portrays the joys of wine and the social settings in which men enjoy it. Drinking in the Symposium is not only convivial but also possibly inspirational, as it provides the backdrop to the philosophical musings of those gathered at the symposium, including the key speech by Socrates. Anacreontic poetry, a genre with origins in ancient Greek lyric, celebrates alcoholic intoxication. Although many poets from Hellenistic times to the Byzantine era actually authored the poems in the urtext of the genre, the Anacreontea was originally attributed to Anacreon of Teos (ca. 570–485 b.c.e.). Like Dionysus or Bacchus (the name the Romans adopted for the god of wine), the name Anacreon was long employed by writers as a code word for alcoholic drink. The Anacreontea’s many European imitators included Ben Jonson in England, Robert Burns in Scotland, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Germany. However, drink poetry is not solely a Western phenomenon. In fact, one of the most celebrated writers of the genre in the Victorian era was Omar Khayyám, a 12th-century Persian poet whose poems were loosely translated by English poet Edward FitzGerald and published in 1859 as The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám of Naishápúr. Like the drink poems of Li Bo in Chinese literature, Omar Khayyám’s poems represent a rich tradition of Persian and Arabic drink poetry. Anacreontic poetry celebrates intoxicated conviviality and has complemented many real-life
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scenes of male social drinking. It was performed to music at Greek symposia and in taverns of the medieval and early modern eras. In 18th-century London, a male social club calling itself the Anacreontic Society modeled its gatherings on Greek symposia, as did many groups like it at the time. The very popular “Anacreontic Song” with which the Anacreontic Society opened its meetings would become, with a change of venue and new lyrics, the American national anthem. England’s literary national identity is likewise linked to intoxicated conviviality: Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the foundational text of the English literary canon, begins in a pub, the Tabard. In addition to the conviviality of the pub in the General Prologue, drunken disorder plays several roles in the framing narrative and the pilgrims’ tales. The drunken Miller loudly demands to tell a story instead of the Monk, for instance, and the Cook falls off his horse. In “The Man of Law’s Tale,” the messenger’s letters are replaced with false letters while he drunkenly sleeps. It is characteristic of Chaucer’s sense of humor regarding drunken folly that the Pardoner demands a drink before beginning a tale in which he condemns drunkards. Convivial characters, like Sir John Falstaff in Shakespeare’s Henry IV or Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, have long connected alcohol and comedy in Western literature. When such characters defy common morality, flout rules, and lack acceptable forms of ambition, they can be read as “carnivalesque” figures, to use Mikhail Bakhtin’s term. In Rabelais and His World, Bakhtin identified carnivalesque writing as that which embodies the spirit of carnival celebrations in which hierarchies are temporarily overturned: Normally unacceptable behavior is tolerated, and the person with the lowest social status is crowned a king. Francois Rabelais, a 16th-century French author of comic fiction, produced Bakhtin’s ideal of carnivalesque writing in social satires like Pantagruel (1532) and Gargantua (1534). Carnivalesque characters can speak normally unspeakable truths, possibly as a result of intoxication: Bakhtin argued that, for Rabelais, wine was an image of gleeful, unfettered truth. While literature has often invoked alcohol as a serum that inspires wit and truth, intoxication can also imply undesirable transformations. Western
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literature often conceives of intoxication in terms of binaries, such that the wit inspired by drinking has madness as its excessive double and conviviality has violence as its excessive counterpart. In Shakespeare’s Othello, Iago gets Cassio drunk specifically to transform his behavior so that he will engage in violence and fall out of favor with Othello. Alcohol’s power to transform the drinker in unintended ways—turning men into beasts or, most dramatically, living men into dead men— became an important trope of literature informed by temperance movements in the 19th century and beyond. Temperance Literature Temperance movements in Europe and the United States played a central role in the widespread medical acceptance of the concept of alcohol
Ernest Hemingway enjoys a drink with Lauren Bacall in Spain, circa 1959. Much discussion about American modern literature revolves around the drinking habits of its writers. Author Tom Dardis concludes that alcohol diminished the creative powers of Hemingway, who died from suicide in 1961.
addiction. However, an institutionalized model of alcoholism would not inform the representation of alcohol in literature until well into the 20th century. From the late 18th century through the early 20th, Western literature took part in an ongoing debate about the effects of alcohol and the role of drunkenness in increasingly modernized societies. British Romantic poets like Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, following their idol Robert Burns, sought Dionysian inspiration for their poetry. In so doing, they cultivated literary personae that mingled the masculine danger of being transformed by drink with the artistic virtue of alcoholic inspiration. At the same time, Romantic women writers like Hannah More and Mary Wollstonecraft had begun to represent the woes of drunkards’ wives and daughters, producing early examples of what would become primary concerns of temperance fiction by the mid19th century. Many of the romantic era’s hard-drinking male poets were actually ambivalent about their drinking, possibly in response to new medical arguments about alcohol emerging in their time. The most notable of these is American physician Benjamin Rush’s 1784 essay, “An Inquiry Into the Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body and Mind,” which originated the idea that habitual drunkenness constituted an addiction that required the addict to abstain entirely from drinking. Benjamin Franklin, another Philadelphian signer of the Declaration of Independence, shared Dr. Rush’s commitment to temperate drinking. In his Autobiography (1771–89), Franklin lists temperance as the first of 13 virtues he sought to master through habit in his attempt to achieve “moral perfection.” Franklin’s countrymen did not follow his example. From 1790 (the year of Franklin’s death) to 1840, Americans drank more than they had before or have since. As the damage caused by this spree became increasingly evident, a new genre of sentimental literature depicting the gruesome effects of alcohol and the virtues of temperance began to take shape. Though Christian rhetoric sometimes employs metaphors of intoxication to describe heightened states of spirituality, temperance literature often uses hellish Christian imagery to dramatize the evils of drink. One of 19th-century America’s most
popular temperance tales, George B. Cheever’s “Deacon Giles’ Distillery” (1835), depicts the production of demon rum by actual demons. At the other representational extreme, the Washington Temperance Society, one of the century’s most significant (if short-lived) temperance reform movements, eschewed religious appeals in favor of personal confessional narratives. In their attempts to reform their own intemperate behavior and stay sober, the Washingtonians shared stories that tended to emphasize the lurid details of the storytellers’ drinking days over the less dramatic sobriety they found through Washingtonian fellowship. Some of the Washingtonian temperance narratives were published in print, the most popular being John B. Gough’s Autobiography (1845). Temperance literature often focused on taverns and saloons as the sites of dangerously drunken male conviviality, in opposition to the drunkard’s neglected home and family. T. S. Arthur’s Ten Nights in a Bar-Room (1854), which rivaled Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) in popularity in its time, sets up this opposition in its most famous scene: The drunkard Joe Morgan finally resolves to stop drinking only after accidentally but fatally wounding his daughter during a barroom fight. In John Barleycorn (1913), Jack London argues that he would not have had any problem with alcohol had it not been always available in the saloons through which his masculine pursuits inevitably led him. Though men produced a great deal of temperance literature, the American temperance movement was in large part driven by women, who were able to address a variety of unspeakable or unnamed concerns in the language of temperance literature. Some of the more prominent female authors of temperance tales included Frances E. W. Harper, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lydia Sigourney, and Frances Dana Gage. One of Gage’s “Tales of Truth” (1852) portrays a typical concern of women’s temperance literature: marital rape, a problem that had no name in the 19th century but readers would recognize in the temperance trope of unwanted but multiplying children. The most celebrated male and female writers of the 19th century contributed to the temperance genre, parodied its excesses, or at least reflected its powerful presence in the culture by borrowing or reacting to its images and metaphors. In addition
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to the female authors noted earlier, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Louisa May Alcott wrote in the genre, tempering their depictions of female misery to appeal to their broad audiences. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin uses temperance as an indicator of character: The novel’s most violent and inhumane slaveholder, Simon Legree, is the most intemperate drinker. Well before the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855), Walt Whitman published his only novel, and the most popular work in his lifetime, Franklin Evans, or The Inebriate: A Tale of the Times (1842). Whitman later disowned this sensational and incoherent temperance novel, but his intentions in writing it may have been more earnest than he claimed. Edgar Allan Poe exaggerated the highs and lows of confessional temperance narratives without a moral purpose, and possibly as parody, in “The Black Cat” (1843). Temperance literature existed in conversation with the 19th century’s other reform movements. Temperance reformers and abolitionists found common ground just as the interests of temperance reform and women’s rights often overlapped. Temperance narratives sometimes depicted drunkards as slaves to King Alcohol, and abolitionists likewise used temperance metaphorically, portraying slavery as an intemperate institution. Some abolitionist literature expressed sympathy with the actual cause of alcoholic temperance. Frederick Douglass argues in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) that the carnivalesque holidays during which masters allowed their slaves to drink as much as they pleased “were among the most effective means in the hands of the slaveholder in keeping down the spirit of insurrection.” The literature of Victorian England reflects the cultural influence of temperance and ongoing debates about alcohol in that country. Charles Dickens composed many scenes of intoxicated conviviality, but he also rendered the negative effects of alcohol in writing, including spontaneous combustion in Bleak House (1852–53). It is difficult to delineate any specific stance regarding alcohol in Dickens’s fiction, but in nonfiction—like the essay “Whole Hogs” (1851)—Dickens expressed his strong disagreement with temperance reformers’ inflexibility. Thomas Hardy’s novels are less ambivalent regarding the dangers of drink, portraying characters whose failures are often precipitated or accelerated by their thirst. Perhaps
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most notably, Michael Henchard drunkenly sells his wife and child in The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886). Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) continues a long lineage of narratives wherein magic potions have the transformational effects often ascribed to alcohol—in Dr. Jekyll’s case, turning man into beast. Realism and Naturalism The emergent realist aesthetic in Europe and the United States met with continuing debates about temperance and prohibition in the latter half of the 19th century as writers attempted to produce unvarnished, unsentimental renderings of intemperance. George Eliot’s portrayal of a female alcoholic in “Janet’s Repentance” (1857) garnered the disapproval of Henry James for taking realism to too great an extreme. Mark Twain loathed temperance rhetoric and portrayed Pap’s alcoholic decay without sentimentality in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). Alcohol and saloons play central roles in the decline and death of the titular character in Stephen Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893). Jack London, another naturalist, likewise blames the saloon for his own alcoholic decline in John Barleycorn. Alcohol plays a key destructive role in the fictions of the French naturalist Emile Zola and the Spanish Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. Benito Pérez Galdós engaged in debates about alcohol and urban social disorder in Restoration Spain in novels like Fortunata y Jacinta (1887) and Ángel Guerra (1891). Modernism and Prohibition The passage of the Eighteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which established the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the country, effectively ended the literary debate about the role of alcohol in American society—or at least markedly shifted the grounds of that debate. As in the romantic era, when the terms of the 19th century’s debate about alcohol were just beginning to gel, in the 1920s a group of writers emerged whose heavy drinking is central to their literary personae. Much of the discussion among readers and scholars regarding alcohol in American modernist literature concerns not so much the literature itself as the drinking habits of its writers, especially Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, and Dorothy Parker.
Alcohol in the literary creations of these noted drinker-writers embodies neither the convivial pleasure of intoxication nor the destructive power ascribed to alcohol in temperance literature. As John W. Crowley argues in The White Logic: Alcoholism and Gender in American Modernist Fiction, the American modernists established “a mode of fiction that expresses the conjunction of modernism and alcoholism in a pervasive ideology of despair.” One reads this conjunction in Jake Barnes’s futile, war-wounded, benumbed pursuit of leisure in The Sun Also Rises (1926). Likewise, Hazel Morse would prefer a temperance-like suicidal binge to the meaningless repetition of her social drinking in Dorothy Parker’s “Big Blonde” (1929). Modernist alcoholic despair is perhaps not so legible in the work of Irish modernist James Joyce, whose stories and novels portray both the rebellious creative possibilities of alcohol and the oppressive reactionary character of heavy drinking in Irish culture. Prohibition itself provided a new set of alcoholrelated character types to be employed by writers during Prohibition and long afterward. Jay Gatsby’s ill-begotten wealth could, perhaps, have been legally acquired a decade before the publication of The Great Gatsby (1925), when there would have been no need (in many parts of the United States) for bootleggers like those in William Faulkner’s Sanctuary (1931). Hard-boiled detective fiction, a widely influential popular genre with frequently hard-drinking characters, emerged out of the new criminal milieu of the Prohibition era. Detectives of the genre—like Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1930) and Nick Charles in The Thin Man (1934), or Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep (1939)—tend to drink substantially. However, like other characters of American modernist fiction, these sleuths are often neither noticeably intoxicated nor negatively affected by alcohol. Examples of the genre from the latter half of the 20th century, when the alcoholism paradigm dominated representations of alcohol in literature, feature detectives who struggle with and even have to quit drinking. Alcoholism and the Alcoholic Writer After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, debates over social and legal control of alcohol no longer tended to inflame the literary imagination as they
had during the temperance movement. Instead, since the mid-20th century, Western literature has reflected the social and cultural influence of the disease model of alcoholism by emphasizing the psychology and experiences of individual alcoholics, who are distinguished from normal drinkers by their inability to drink in moderation. While writers still dramatize the destructive power of intemperate drinking, alcoholic recovery narratives exhibit a greater general emphasis than do temperance narratives on characters’ efforts to quit drinking and stay sober. The focus on individual alcoholics in the literary alcoholism paradigm has resulted in the emergence of the heavy-drinking writer from behind the text, both in confessional literature and in biographical scholarship. In 1935, William Griffith Wilson (Bill W.) and Robert Smith (Dr. Bob) held the first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in Akron, Ohio. This meeting between the organization’s two founding members established AA’s therapeutic purpose: Members could achieve and maintain sobriety through fellowship and shared stories of their mutual alcoholic affliction. In 1939, Wilson published Alcoholics Anonymous, wherein he tells the story of his own recovery as a dramatic illustration of AA’s ideology and goals. He then describes those ideas and goals along with the 12 steps of AA’s recovery program. “The Big Book”—as the book Alcoholics Anonymous is commonly known—has gone through four editions, the most recent of which was published in 2001. Wilson’s text has not changed over the four editions, but the accompanying testimonial stories of AA members have been added or deleted to reflect the changing membership of the organization over time. Wilson was surprised to learn that his therapeutic organization had an antecedent in the Washingtonians. Just as Washingtonian temperance narratives tended to share generic elements with the testimonials of its early members John B. Gough and John H. W. Hawkins, scholars have noted that both the printed and spoken recovery narratives of AA members largely follow the narrative form of “Bill’s Story,” as Wilson’s recovery narrative is titled in Alcoholics Anonymous. The key element in the AA recovery narrative is the alcoholic’s awareness that he (alcoholism was for decades considered a male disease) has hit rock bottom. In other words, he does not have the power to
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control his drinking, which has rendered his life, in the words of the 12 steps, “unmanageable.” Rock bottom is preceded by the alcoholic’s increasingly desperate attempts to control his drinking and is accompanied or followed by a sudden or gradual revelation that sobriety is possible and necessary. In addition to inaugurating the genre of the recovery narrative, AA propagated a hugely influential diagnostic model of alcoholism. The idea that alcoholism constitutes a disease is as old as Benjamin Rush, but the notion that the alcoholic is essentially and unalterably different from a normal drinker—that he suffers from an “allergy,” as “The Big Book” puts it—was unknown before AA. Though scientific research and public information campaigns validated this model of alcoholism, American literature played a decisive role in elevating the new disease model to the level of cultural common sense. Charles Jackson’s novel The Lost Weekend (1944), though not quite a recovery narrative, was the first major work to represent alcoholism in AA’s terms. Thanks largely to the award-winning 1945 film adaptation, the phrase “lost weekend” has endured in the American lexicon, reflecting the pivotal role Jackson’s text played in realigning popular understanding of heavy drinking. Scholars have argued that early literature employing the disease model, like The Lost Weekend and the alcoholism film genre it spawned, repudiated the modernist understanding of alcoholism as a symptom of modernity. If alcoholism is a disease with biological origins, it is not a symptom of the futility of modern existence. Western literature since the mid-20th century has reflected this paradigm shift in its preference for depictions of individual alcoholic psychology over uses of alcoholism as a metaphor for broader social ills. Of course, not all fiction has been entirely complicit in this shift, and the modernist aesthetic persists along with countercultural and carnivalesque celebrations of intoxicated conviviality. The Lost Weekend is a portrait of alcoholic psychology and occurs entirely within the mind of its main character, Don Birnam. In Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano (1947), however, Geoffrey Firmin’s morbid alcoholism is part of a metaphorical web that illuminates both his individual experience of alcoholism and the human condition in a modern world shadowed by looming disaster. John
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Cheever’s “The Sorrows of Gin” (1953) and “The Swimmer” (1964) are as much critiques of midcentury American suburbia as they are portraits of alcoholics in denial. Jack Kerouac’s own drinking may have been pathological, but the disease model hardly informs convivial scenes in On the Road (1957). In the genres of confessional poetry and memoir, however, the influence of the disease model and recovery narrative is thoroughly evident. While writers have been cultivating public literary personae since at least the romantic era, 20th-century confessional poets like Sylvia Plath and Robert Lowell were uniquely candid in their poetic self-disclosure. Alcohol figured strongly in the troubled lives of many poets, especially John Berryman. In addition to his poetic masterpiece The Dream Songs (1964–69), Berryman wrote Recovery (1973), a novel organized according to AA’s 12 steps about his 1970 hospitalization for alcoholism. Berryman committed suicide in 1972, having abandoned this recovery narrative. The alcoholic literary imperative for confessional testimony is also evident in the many memoirs alcoholic writers have published, like Pete Hamill’s A Drinking Life (1994). The academic study of literature likewise reflects the cultural influence of AA and the disease model of alcoholism. Early book-length studies of alcohol in literature largely use the rhetoric of AA, and “The Big Book” itself, as tools of analysis. Debates as ancient as Plato about alcohol and creativity confront the disease model of alcoholism in studies like Donald Newlove’s Those Drinking Days: Myself and Other Writers (1981) and Donald W. Goodwin’s Alcohol and the Writer (1988). In The Thirsty Muse (1989), Tom Dardis concludes that alcohol diminished the creative powers of novelists Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway and playwright Eugene O’Neill, all of whom believed the myth that drink would strengthen those powers. In Equivocal Spirits (1987), Thomas Gilmore uses Alcoholics Anonymous and its complementary text Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (1953) to analyze the drinking behaviors of characters from 20th-century literature. Since this first generation of studies, academics have expanded the discussion of alcohol in literature beyond the disease model of alcoholism to include a variety of historical, literary,
and cultural studies approaches to the topic. However, the continuing cultural fascination in alcoholism as a disease to which writers appear particularly susceptible is echoed by recent studies like Brett C. Millier’s Flawed Light: American Women Poets and Alcohol (2009) and Matt G. Djos’s Writing Under the Influence: Alcoholism and Alcoholic Perception from Hemingway to Berryman (2010). David C. Pratt College of William & Mary See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Art; Carnival; Drama, Drinking and Temperance in; Films, Drinking in; Greece, Ancient; Humor; Journal of Studies on Alcohol; Sinclair, Upton. Further Readings Crowley, John W. The White Logic: Alcoholism and Gender in American Modernist Fiction. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994. Lilienfeld, Jane and Jeffrey Oxford, eds. The Languages of Addiction. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999. O’Reilly, Edmund B. Sobering Tales: Narratives of Alcoholism and Recovery. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997. Reynolds, David S. and Debra J. Rosenthal, eds. The Serpent in the Cup: Temperance in American Literature. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997. Roth, Marty. Drunk the Night Before: An Anatomy of Intoxication. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. Taylor, Anya. Bacchus in Romantic England: Writers and Drink, 1780–1830. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999. Warner, Nicholas O., ed. In Vino Veritas: An Anthology of Drinking in Literature. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2013.
Livesey, Joseph Joseph Livesey was a self-made man, local philanthropist, and social reformer active in many areas, but his main historic importance is as the
father of the United Kingdom’s total abstinence movement, later known as “teetotalism.” Together with others concerned about the rising amount of public drunkenness, he signed a pledge in 1832 to abstain from all intoxicating drinks as beverages. Previous pledges and temperance societies had advocated moderation, but the clarity and rigor of complete abstinence provided a conversion experience that gained millions of followers. Livesey soon emerged as a catalyst and inspired propagandist for the growing movement, shaping much of its discourse for the 19th and 20th centuries. His view of teetotalism as radical emancipation for working men and women set the pattern for a huge popular movement in the United Kingdom, which remained a strong force until World War I. Early Life and Influences Livesey came from farming and manufacturing stock, but his father’s business failed and the boy was orphaned at the age of seven. Living in poverty with his grandparents, he was forced to work as a handloom weaver in Walton-le-Dale, a village near Preston. He found the work hard, although later in life he was proud of his early start as a humble weaver. He found his initial salvation in cheese. A doctor had recommended that he eat cheese as nourishment for his poor health, and at the market to buy some he discovered that he could buy a whole cheese at a moderate cost and resell it at a profit. Soon, he was established as a cheese merchant and built up a fortune that enabled him to become a philanthropist and public figure in Preston, a thriving market town that was expanding rapidly with industrialization. Raised as a Baptist, Livesey later became a nondenominational Christian, which led him to offer practical assistance to his fellow citizens, opposing the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 on the basis that it would force many people into workhouses and forming a relief committee during the Cotton Famine of 1861 to 1865. His first notable act was to publish The Moral Reformer (1831–33), a cheap monthly magazine for working people that addressed social issues (it was renamed the Preston Temperance Advocate in 1834). Total Abstinence Pledge Until the 1830s, concern about alcohol consumption in the United Kingdom was largely
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focused on the social disorder caused by workingclass drinkers of spirits, as illustrated by William Hogarth in his engraving Gin Lane (1751). The 1830 Beerhouse Act made it much easier for anyone to sell beer from its premises, a move to encourage “healthy” beer consumption. However, this move backfired and merely led to a huge increase in public drunkenness, as beer turned out to be far from the nonintoxicating, healthy drink that many believed it to be. There was particularly heavy drinking in industrial areas such as Preston. Temperance societies continued to advise moderation, or else avoiding spirits, which did not address the problem. In addition, as Brian Harrison remarks in his book Drink & the Victorians, many of the temperance societies were middle-class organizations that sought to promote social order among workingclass drinkers. Livesey and six of his companions became convinced that persuading working men and women of the benefits of avoiding alcohol entirely would empower them to improve their lives. They set an example by signing a pledge, or promise, to abstain from all alcoholic drinks as beverages in August 1832. A public meeting was held on the first of September to formalize this pledge, and the September date is the one that has been celebrated as the first adult total abstinence pledge in the United Kingdom. The first pledges were worded in this way as alcohol was then widely used by medical practitioners. Teetotalism The word teetotal was invented in 1833 by a Preston man named Richard “Dicky” Turner, not, as sometimes thought, because he stammered. Livesey himself declared that this was a mistake, as Turner was known for coining new words. Teetotalism swept the country and, by the mid1830s, had become the basis of most national temperance organizations. By the 1840s, the word temperance had come to mean, for many, not moderation but total abstinence, which became a huge social and cultural movement. Livesey’s energy and powers of communication made him the unquestioned leader. Seeing that alcohol-free meeting places were needed, he founded the first Temperance Hotel in 1833. He traveled throughout the country lecturing, and
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he promoted the cause in a series of journals and newspapers starting with the Preston Temperance Advocate in 1834. He had a genius for publicity and organization as well as possessed great charisma and speaking talents. One of his most famous public lectures, titled “Malt Liquor” and given around the country, was devoted to proving that beer contained alcohol—by distilling the alcohol out of a sample on stage and then setting it alight in a dramatic coup. Livesey was eloquent on teetotalism’s advantages: He spoke of moderate drinking as a slippery slope from which it is impossible to recover oneself or as a mousetrap that tempted with the prospect of pleasure but then trapped the victim into addiction. He established the importance of the visual, commissioning and publishing dramatic images of these metaphors. One of the most striking images was the drinker who, when his companions were ruined, unmasked himself and revealed himself as death, come to claim victims. Livesey sought to promote the benefits of teetotalism throughout his life and saw the Preston society grow into a national movement of millions. He supported the establishment of many temperance organizations such as the Bands of Hope, becoming its first president in Preston. By the time of his death, he had been publicly honored by many such groups as the father of teetotalism. Annemarie McAllister University of Central Lancashire See Also: Bands of Hope; Temperance, History of; United Kingdom; Victorian England. Further Readings Harrison, Brian. Drink and the Victorians. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press, 1997. Livesey, Joseph and John Pearce. The Life and Teachings of Joseph Livesey. London: National Temperance League’s Depôt, 1886. Olsen, Gerald Wayne. “Physician Heal Thyself”: Drink, Temperance, and the Medical Question in the Victorian and Edwardian Church of England, 1830–1914.” Addiction, v.89/9 (1994). Weston, James and Joseph Livesey. Joseph Livesey: The Story of His Life, 1794–1884. London: S.W. Partridge, 1885.
Lloyd George, David David Lloyd George, the first Earl of Dwyfor, was the British prime minister during the last years of World War I. As a member of Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith’s cabinet and a member of Parliament, Lloyd George used his political influence to garner support for passage of the Defense of the Realm Act (DORA) in 1914, which greatly curtailed the use of alcohol in Great Britain. He won that support by insisting that it was essential to keeping both military personnel and defense workers sober. Lloyd George did not drink, and while his preference would have been to ban alcohol entirely, he knew that such an action would have been followed by a severe backlash because alcohol consumption was considered a basic right in Britain. He did succeed in getting alcohol banned from the Royal household for the duration of the war. His efforts to curtail alcohol during the war were so successful that, by war’s end, British consumption of alcohol had decreased by two-thirds. The DORA was repealed in 1918 when the war ended, but Britain continued to ban pubs from selling alcohol during the early afternoon hours for almost a century. Restricted hours for pubs had first begun in the Victorian era with passage of the Licensing Act of 1872. A political reformer, Lloyd George was a major actor in Britain’s adoption of social welfare programs. His actions frequently made him unpopular with other politicians and with the British public, but the impact of his policies continued long after his death. At the end of the war, Lloyd George represented Britain in negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference. Personal Life Although he was of Welsh ancestry, Lloyd George was born in Manchester, England, on January 17, 1863, to William George and Elizabeth Lloyd. His father, a schoolmaster, died when Lloyd George was only a year old. His mother then moved the entire family into the home of her brother, Richard Lloyd, a shoemaker who lived in Llanystumdwy, Caernarvonshire, in North Wales. Lloyd George was subsequently educated at the local school. Because his uncle was a member of the Disciples of Christ Chapel, he was
David Lloyd George, circa 1912. As a member of Parliament, Lloyd George used his political influence to garner support for passage of the Defense of the Realm Act in 1914, which greatly curbed the consumption of alcohol in Great Britain.
brought up in a heavily religious home. He honed his rhetoric through preaching and became a supporter of the local temperance society. His uncle continued to be a major influence on the formation of his social and political views. By 1879, Lloyd George was a practicing attorney, with his own law firm in Criccieth. In 1888, he married Margaret Owen, who died in 1941. He then married his longtime lover, Frances Stevenson, and they had four children. Politics Lloyd George’s first foray into national politics occurred in 1850 when he was elected to Parliament by a margin of only 18 votes. At the age of 27, he was the youngest member of the House of Commons. In 1890, he was elected to Parliament
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for the second time on the Liberal ticket. Because he supported social welfare programs and was anti-imperialist, he was often at odds with more conservative members of Parliament. However, he ultimately came to terms with them, and Conservatives supported many of his policies and helped him to become prime minister in 1916. In 1905, British Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman appointed Lloyd George to the presidency of the Board of Trade. The position gave him the opportunity to propose welfare reform measures. Three years later, he was named chancellor of the exchequer by Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. In 1909, Lloyd George sent a budget to Parliament that became known as the “People’s Budget” because it included social welfare elements, including a social insurance program to be paid for out of taxes. When the House of Lords rejected his budget, he succeeded in getting the Parliament Act of 1911 passed, leaving the House of Lords without veto power over the actions of the House of Commons. Lloyd George continued as chancellor of the exchequer until 1915, when he became the minister of munitions. The following year, he was named secretary of war. That same year, a coalition made up of members of the Labour and Conservative parties supported his being named prime minister. He held that office until 1922. Curtailing Alcohol In 1872, under pressure from Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, a Victorian-era Parliament passed the Licensing Act, which forced pubs to close between 11:00 p.m. and midnight, gave the government control of the alcoholic content of drinks sold in pubs, and authorized local officials to close down pubs at their own discretion. On August 12, 1914, within a week of England declaring war on Germany, Parliament conceded to pressure from Lloyd George and passed the DORA. The act again reduced the alcoholic content of beer, prohibited the buying of rounds in British pubs, and reduced the hours that pubs could remain open. All pubs located near military bases or defense plants were summarily closed. Other pubs were ordered to close after lunch for two and one-half hours and to end business for the day at 10:00 p.m. Other elements of the act dealt with preventing the stockpiling of groceries,
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selling cocaine, spreading false rumors, and owning illegal carrier pigeons. Popular sentiment against Lloyd George’s antialcohol policies was so strong during World War I that songwriters R. P. Weston and Bert Lee composed a song about it. The refrain of “Lloyd George’s Beer” proclaimed, “the worst thing that ever happened in the war is Lloyd George’s Beer.” Under the DORA, pubs in both England and Wales were allowed to stay open for only five hours a day from Monday through Saturday. All pubs were banned from selling alcohol from 2:50 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. On Sundays, pubs were open from noon until 10:30 p.m. In 1977, Scotland repealed restrictions on the hours that pubs could remain open. Under ongoing pressure from consumers, breweries, distillers, and bartenders, the DORA was finally repealed in 1988. By 1998, it was finally legal throughout the United Kingdom to purchase alcohol from 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., and limits on Sunday hours were lifted. Some 50,000 jobs were created by the additional hours at Britain’s 68,000 pubs, which employ approximately 250,000 people. Lloyd George remained in Parliament until 1945 but was politically marginalized because of his political beliefs and the aftermath of a scandal in which he was accused of selling knighthoods. He chose not to take an active role in the government during World War II, turning down a position in the War Cabinet and an ambassadorship to Washington, D.C. Although he was entitled to enter the House of Lords after being named as the first Earl of Dwyfor, he died in Llanystumdwy, where he had spent his formative years, on March 26, 1945. Many of the reforms he fought for are taken for granted in modern British society. Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar See Also: Pubs; United Kingdom; War. Further Readings BBC. “David Lloyd George (1863–1945).” http:// www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/george _david_lloyd.shtml (Accessed November 2013). “Britain to End Pubs’ ‘Long, Dry Dead’ Afternoons.” San Francisco Chronicle (August 12, 1987).
Gilbert, Bentley Brinkerhoff. “David Lloyd George: Land, the Budget, and Social Reform.” American Historical Review, v.81/5 (December 1976). Gilbert, Bentley Brinkerhoff. David Lloyd George: A Political Life. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1987. Hoffman, Lauren. “Bottled up Brits Say ‘Bravo’ to Bar Rule.” Bloomberg Business News (August 7, 1995). Rowland, David. Lloyd George: A Biography. New York: Macmillan, 1976. Thomson, Malcolm. David Lloyd George: The Official Biography. New York: Hutchinson, 1948. Vallely, Paul. “2000 Years of Binge Drinking.” The Independent (November 19, 2005).
Local Breweries Prior to the Industrial Revolution, brewing occurred at a local or regional scale. Towns had taverns and breweries that supplied their own populations and any visitors who might be passing through. The mechanization of the 18th and 19th centuries resulted in the massive expansion of industrial breweries, and localized production fell by the wayside. In the 1970s, British microbrewers inspired American entrepreneurs and hobby brewers to return to commercial brewing. The resulting American microbreweries, defined by the Brewers Association as those breweries producing less than 15,000 U.S. barrels (17,600 hectoliters) per year, began to challenge the United States’ established beer monoculture. Local beer stimulates local economies, encourages community growth, and is the cornerstone of the global craft beer movement. Local breweries are far from a new idea. Predictably, breweries have been localized, even domestic, operations dating as far back as Ancient Egypt and Sumeria. For the longest time, beer was produced in the home for personal consumption. Farms and other businesses produced beer for laborers. Armies marched and invaded, fueled by local beer production. Not until the industrial revolution did beer become an exported commodity. With rail lines, refrigeration, and the uniformity of mechanized labor, beer became more
stable and more easily transported. Even so, local consumers rarely purchased exported beer, as they still favored drinks made by community brewers. As much as it is difficult to define the “craft” of craft beer, it is difficult to define the “local” of local beer. Local to Boston, the Boston Beer Company (Sam Adams) has achieved national distribution. Other breweries are distributed statewide or regionally. In many ways, local still refers to microbrewed. Rather than a limiting factor of quantity produced, though, there is a limiting factor of distance distributed. Unlike craft (which is qualitative), local is quantitative, though the question of local goes far beyond a simple question of distance traveled. The conundrum inherent in local beer is the fact that brewing ingredients—malts, hops, and yeast—are rarely local or regional. Most commercial brewing malt, even in the United States, comes from the United Kingdom or Germany, as do many hop varietals. Production In 1978, President Jimmy Carter legalized homebrewing. Armed with five-gallon buckets, pots, coolers, and hand-powered cappers, hobby brewers around the country poured out of the woodwork. Many of these hobbyists attempted to scale up their production. The homebrewing community was an industrious community, fueled by a do-it-yourself spirit, and welders, plumbers, and woodworkers soon began to craft makeshift brewing apparatuses. Those items that were not easily fabricated were frequently purchased from the United Kingdom or Germany. As new and flavorful beers were produced on stovetops and propane burners, and as other unique offerings trickled in from Europe, many of these hobby brewers endeavored to start their own breweries. These small, local microbreweries experienced a warm welcome on the west coast, and once the craft beer culture had established a foothold in the west, breweries began surfacing throughout the country. Fritz Maytag of Maytag appliance fame bailed out the old Anchor Brewing Company in 1965, restoring the brewery and producing its signature Anchor Steam Beer in small quantities. Roughly 10 years later in Sonoma County, California, John McAuliffe founded New Albion Brewery. McAuliffe produced small quantities of ale, porter, and stout using repurposed 55-gallon
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Coca-Cola drums as production equipment and bottled by hand. New Albion’s ingredients were contracted through the nearby Anchor Brewing Company. Unfortunately, New Albion Brewery lasted but six years, closing in 1983 because of insufficient capital, an issue experienced by many local breweries even today. While local breweries continue to produce beer in relatively small quantities, most now have professional-grade, small-batch brewing equipment. The do-it-yourself mentality is still important, as alterations and mechanical repairs are frequently needed at a moment’s notice. As illustrated with New Albion and Anchor Brewing, ingredients are frequently contracted through or alongside other breweries to meet minimum ordering requirements or to achieve bulk-purchasing discounts. Local breweries frequently operate with skeleton crews; it is not unheard of to see a new brewery with only one or two employees, and there may or may not be volunteer labor. While the quantitydriven term microbrewery is currently falling out of favor, replaced by the quality-driven term craft brewery, there is the recent emergence of “nanobreweries”—small commercial productions making and selling beer in batch sizes as small as 10 or 15 gallons. As the local craft beer economy evolved, it encouraged the growth of businesses that support breweries but do not actively produce beer. Where environmentally feasible, small farmers now cultivate hops or grow heirloom grains specifically for brewing purposes. Regional micromaltsters have also appeared, taking locally grown grains and engaging in the labor-intensive malting process. At these malt houses, dedicated maltsters sprout the grains. They dry them, kiln them, roast them, or smoke them to brewers’ desired specifications. Because small farmers cannot produce enough ingredients for large-scale brewing, the use of many local ingredients is limited to local breweries. Local breweries will frequently use these unique ingredients for limited-release offerings. Distribution After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, a three-tier system became the norm for alcohol distribution. In some form, states require producers to sell to wholesale distributors, who in turn sell to retail locations. Only retailers may sell to consumers.
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This model is not particularly effective for local breweries, who can benefit greatly from direct-toconsumer sales and who often only distribute in a very small area. As a result, some states have allowed small breweries to act as their own distributor. In locations where this rule exists, selfdistribution has been a boon for local breweries. The transparency promoted by distributing one’s own beer helps foster strong relationships between local establishments, brewers, and consumers. Most local breweries do not spend money on traditional forms of advertising such as television commercials and print media efforts. Instead, efforts are directed at glassware and growlers, clothing, and other functional and branded items such as bottle openers and key chains. Local beer festivals are also becoming increasingly popular, allowing regional breweries to come together under one roof while offering samples to customers. These events are smaller versions of industry events such as the Great American Beer Festival, which also offers recognition and medals for brewing categories. Local beer is consumed in local establishments. It is rare, except as an act of connoisseurship, that local beer will travel outside of its region of production. Craft beer culture champions variety, however, and when presented with the chance to sample a new brew, craft beer drinkers infrequently turn down the opportunity. Most local breweries distribute to specialty wine shops and neighborhood bars and restaurants, or if they are a brewpub, at their own restaurant. Local brewers also tend to sell and fill growlers at the brewery itself, offering custumers an opportunity to sample and purchase beer without drawing the brewer away from production. Brewpubs are an increasingly common model for the local brewery. In a brewpub, the brewery acts as both producer and retailer, making beer for on-premise (occasionally off-premise) production. This allows the brewery to skip the wholesaler phase of the threetier system and consumers to come to the source for growler fills and on-premise drinks. Chris Maggiolo Independent Scholar See Also: Beer and Foods; Brewing, History of; Brewing Beer, Techniques of; Craft Brewing Culture.
Further Readings Acitelli, Tom. The Audacity of Hops: The History of America’s Craft Beer Revolution. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2013. Brewers Association. http://www.brewersassociation .org (Accessed November 2013). Perozzi, Christina and Hallie Beaune. The Naked Pint: An Unadulterated Guide to Craft Beer. New York: Perigree Trade, 2012.
Local Option Local option is the political practice of jurisdictions—usually counties and municipalities—making their own determination through popular vote on controversial political issues, including sales taxes or “green” initiatives but most commonly the sale of alcoholic beverages. Local option elections determine whether the jurisdiction is “wet” or “dry” by giving voters the option of deciding whether or not to permit alcohol sales within their communities. Local option initiatives became more prevalent in the first decade of the 20th century, as Progressive reformers adopted them as legislative intervention in the interests of social welfare. Some referred to local option as “local veto.” History Proponents of using local option laws to control alcoholic beverage sales traditionally have maintained that the greater good (sobriety) outweighed the lesser (state control). Dry jurisdictions sought local option laws at the neighborhood, town, city, and county levels as early as the 1840s; they then moved to state and national levels. The 1843 Republic of Texas’s local option measure may have been the first in North America; an 1845 law banning saloons there was never enforced, and repeal came in 1856. Illinois, soon after statehood in 1818, gave counties almost total licensing powers, and the state’s first local option law dates to 1839. This law provided that a majority of voters in an applicable jurisdiction—county, justice district, incorporated town, or city ward—could petition the appropriate local authorities to stop licensing liquor sales. Chicago ignored the law,
its political leaders opposed it, and the law was repealed in 1841. Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, was chartered in 1851 by temperate Methodists and had a 4-mile dry zone around it, which later expanded to Evanston, Winnetka, and Englewood in the 1860s (with the latter two establishing schools and dry areas of their own). Illinois’s Cities and Villages Act of 1872 gave cities the power to license, regulate, and prohibit sales and distribution, and this law freed localities from the Chicago influence; suburbs Oak Park and River Forest voted dry in the 1870s. Then Chicago began annexing aggressively in the 1880s, and in 1889 Hyde Park agreed to annexation only with the retention of local option laws that required
Officials in Zion City, Illinois, dump about 80,000 pint bottles of beer—which were intercepted from a truck shipment en route to Chicago—into troughs leading into the city sewer, November 21, 1919. In 2000, 67 years after Prohibition was repealed, the Zion City Council voted to lift the local ban on alcohol and allow alcoholic beverages to be sold in most of the city.
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saloonkeepers to get signatures from the majority of property owners, businesses, and tenants on both sides of the block. For 30 years, localities fought in court for the right to remain dry, and town after town was annexed to wet Chicago as a dry locality. The city began allowing antisaloon areas of wards, and then, under state law, dry wards under elections called by one-fourth of the voters. By 1909, almost two-thirds of the city was dry, with saloons restricted to working-class neighborhoods, slums, and commercial areas. Prohibition finished the job in 1920. In Texas, temperance organizations arose in the 1870s and 1880s, and the Prohibition Party ran state candidates in 1886. The 1876 Texas Constitution mandated local option, and in 1887 a state prohibition referendum failed by more than 90,000 votes. By 1895, 53 of Texas’s 239 counties were dry, and 79 more were semidry. The Texas Local Option Association combined local groups in 1903 and merged with the state’s Anti-Saloon League in 1908. Statewide dry elections failed again in 1908 and 1911, but north Texas was totally dry, and liquor licensing continued only in areas with large black, Hispanic, or German American communities. During national Prohibition, Texas was legally dry but practically wet because enforcement was lax, and repeal of Prohibition returned the state to local option only. In the United States, a national Prohibition became law when the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution was adopted after World War I, so local option was not an option at all. Prohibition, in effect from 1920 to 1933, merely interrupted the local option law, which resumed after repeal of the blanket federal ban on alcohol sales and state ban on alcohol manufacture that was the law during Prohibition. Repeal of national Prohibition in 1933 provided state and local options to retain Prohibition. Some states opted to remain dry, others allowed county option, and some (the alcoholic-beverage-control states) established state monopolies for the wholesaling and/ or retailing of alcoholic beverages. Montgomery County, Maryland, established a monopoly to control alcohol through local option. Although Texas was by law wet, when Prohibition ended the majority of counties were either totally or partially dry because, at one time or another over the years, the jurisdictions’ voters
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elected to restrict alcohol sales to one extent or another. Communities that were wet before Prohibition became wet again. Many previously dry jurisdictions voted wet or partially wet. After Prohibition’s repeal in 1933, a dozen cities and 47 of the more than 4,000 precincts in Cook County, Illinois, voted dry in 1934 and 1936. Black and Hispanic protests of the prevalence of bars in their neighborhoods, in contrast to the prevalence of dry white neighborhoods, led to increasing minority ward prohibition, with almost 20 percent of the 2,700 Chicago precincts in 2003 restricting the sale of alcohol. At the same time, economic pressure from restaurants and other liquor-serving businesses led to most of the white suburbs revoking their local bans on alcohol between 1972 and 1990. Prior to Alaska’s statehood in 1959, federal law and Native communities defined alcohol controls. Federal Indian law during the first half of the 20th century restricted the availability of alcohol in rural Native Alaskan communities. With statehood, Alaska implemented local option, and by 1999, 197 local option elections took place in 112 communities. Thirteen percent of the jurisdictions removed previous restrictions, 69 percent added controls, and 18 percent failed to receive the majority vote needed to change the preexisting status. Within 20 years, nearly two-thirds of the affected jurisdictions held elections, with most banning alcohol importation or possession, and a mere handful allowing a liquor outlet in the community. During the first two decades of Alaska’s statehood, alcohol became increasingly available, and by the 1980s small-community Alaska Natives were enduring rates of accidents, homicide, or suicide almost five times the national average; a significant contributing factor in this development was the widespread abuse of alcohol. In 1981, the state legislature broadened the powers of small communities to regulate alcohol via local option elections. Local option had two benefits: reduction of the adverse impacts of alcohol abuse in Alaska Native communities and reestablishment of at least some self-government for those communities. Recent Use of Local Option Laws There are wide variations in local option practice, but the states attempt to standardize definitions and processes as best they can. One study of five
states between 1994 and 2006 noted that in 1994, the states of Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas had 260 moist, 224 wet, and 152 dry counties. The 636 counties held 60 local option elections that involved changes, with 31 moving from dry to moist, nine from dry to wet, and 19 from moist to wet, a clear trend toward diminishing or removing prohibition. The author also noted that local option assessment in Mississippi was difficult because the state legislature frequently intervened at the jurisdiction or subjurisdiction level, clouding the issue of whether option was really local. In Ohio, registered voters determine whether or not to allow alcohol sales and/or consumption in a given jurisdiction, normally the precinct. Voters determine the type of beverage and whether it can be used for on-premise or off-premise consumption or both. This procedure is standard for most states, but Ohio also provides that a specific building is subject to a local option vote if it has been declared a public nuisance. Ohio local option elections must occur in conjunction with broader elections—primary, runoff, or regular— in which candidates compete. In addition, a local option election, other than for a public nuisance, applies to the original precinct or other jurisdiction even when boundaries have changed due to reapportionment or other action, so it is not unusual for a county to be both wet and dry. Kentucky has separate petition language for local option elections at golf courses, historical sites, race tracks, wineries, restaurants, and so on. It also has a category between wet and dry called moist, which means a wet city in a dry county. South Carolina has city and county option, including determination of Sunday alcohol sales, and 11 counties exercised the option, with nine approving Sunday sales, and one allowing these sales only in specified unincorporated areas of the county. Of the 25 local option cities, eight voted against Sunday sales of alcohol, wine, and beer. Jurisdictions with local option in Texas include counties, cities, or justice of the peace precincts. Local option elections control whether or not alcohol will be sold, what types of alcohol (beer, wine, and/or distilled spirits) will be sold, how the alcohol will be distributed (whether on- or off-premise consumption only), and which alcohol types will be permitted on- or off-premises (and any other combination). These elections also cover point of
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sale—whether a convenience or grocery store, a bar or restaurant, or a liquor store. In totally dry jurisdictions, the rule is none of the above—that is, no sales anywhere, of any type. John Barnhill Independent Scholar See Also: Anti-Saloon League; Eighteenth Amendment; Native Americans; Post-Prohibition Bootlegging; State Regulations After Prohibition, U.S. Further Readings Berman, Matthew and Teresa Hull. “Alcohol Control by Referendum in Northern Native Communities: The Alaska Local Option Law.” Institute of Social and Economic Research (August 2000). http:// www.iser.uaa.alaska.edu/Publications/Alcohol _Arctic.pdf (Accessed March 2014). Bohlmann, Rachel E. “Local Option.” Encyclopedia of Chicago. http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohis tory.org/pages/759.html (Accessed March 2014). Cherrington, Ernest Hurst. The Anti-Saloon League Year Book, 1920. Westerville, OH: American Issue Press, 1920. Flink, John. “Ordinance Ends Liquor Ban in Zion: Applebee’s to Get 1 of 3 Liquor Permits.” (December 6, 2000). http://articles.chicagotribune .com/2000-12-06/news/0012060309_1_liquor -license-ordinance-ban (Accessed April 2014). Kerr, K. Austin. “Prohibition.” Texas State Historical Association. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook /online/articles/vap01 (Accessed November 2013). Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. “What Are Local Option Elections?” http://www.tabc.state .tx.us/local_option_elections/what_are_local _option_elections.asp (Accessed March 2014). Texas Secretary of State. “Local Option Liquor Elections.” http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections /laws/liquorelections.shtml (Accessed November 2013).
London Pride London Pride is an award-winning beer in the pale ale/bitter style from Fuller, Smith, and
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Turner’s Griffin Brewery in Chiswick, London. By far Fuller’s most popular and recognizable brand, London Pride comprises 75 percent of Fuller’s total production of 200,000 barrels a year. The draught United Kingdom (UK) version—both cask-conditioned and keg—is brewed to 4.1 percent ABV (alcohol by volume). June 2013 figures from research group CGA placed London Pride as the UK’s third best-selling cask ale, behind Sharp’s Doom Bar and Greene King IPA (in first and second places, respectively). London Pride is also available in the UK in pasteurized form in both bottles and cans at 4.7 percent ABV, while a draught keg version at this same premium strength is provided to most of the company’s overseas markets. London Pride acts as a sponsorship brand to a number of domestic sporting events. Its sales have been bolstered by advertising promotions to the point where Fuller’s now proclaims it to be “Britain’s leading premium ale.” Evolution An independent, family-run concern, Fuller’s is now the oldest and largest brewery in London. The partnerships that give the company its full registered name date back to 1845, and members of the three founding families are today involved in the running of the brewery. Fuller’s runs a Fine Ale Club and has a reputation for specialist products such as Brewer’s Reserve Limited Edition, Vintage Ale, and Past Masters Heritage Series. London Pride, in comparison, is the public face of Fuller’s. It is the flagship ale in a portfolio of several popular permanent and seasonal beers, including award-winners ESB and Chiswick Bitter, plus those brewed under the Gales brand name. Emphasizing the strong association between the brewery and its best-selling brand, a book released in 1995 to chart and mark the 150th anniversary of the company was also called London Pride. Developed from an earlier Fuller’s beer (Special Pale Ale), the recipe for which had its roots in the 19th century, London Pride is a brand imbued with patriotic significance. It was officially launched on April 23, 1959, St. George’s Day—the patron saint of England—and also the birthday of William Shakespeare. After canvassing local opinion as to what to call its new beer, Fuller’s decided on London Pride after
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the popular name given to a perennial flower, Saxifraga x urbium, which grew among the ruins of bombed London buildings during World War II. London Pride thus symbolized hope for the future while paying homage to the indomitable spirit of the capital city during a time of international conflict. London Pride is brewed with 90 percent Optic pale ale malt, 3 percent crystal malt, and 7 percent flaked maize. Target hops are used for bitterness, while Challenger and Northdown hops are late-added for aroma. The result is a coppermahogany–hued beer at 24 units of color and 30 units of bitterness. A trademark Fuller’s orangemarmalade fruitiness is discernable throughout, with zesty, spicy, and floral hops on the nose; a mouthfeel of biscuity malt; and a palate of toffee and honey. The complex flavors are particularly well balanced with a smooth, rich, rounded finish that gives London Pride its reputation as a classic session beer. London Pride has received numerous prestigious international awards, including Supreme Champion at the 2000 Great International Beer and Cider Competition. It won a bronze medal in its category at the 2011 International Beer Challenge. It achieved three consecutive World’s Best Bitter titles at the World Beer Awards in 2008, 2009, and 2010. At both the 1979 and 1995 CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) Great British Beer Festivals, the cask version achieved First Prize Gold in the Best Bitters Category, being named Champion Best Bitter of Britain. On the first of these occasions, it won gold in the overall competition, achieving the accolade of Champion Beer of Britain 1979. Sponsorship Ties London Pride is the sponsorship brand of a number of important domestic sporting events. It is the official beer of the 2014 Virgin Money London Marathon, making this the seventh consecutive year of London Pride’s association with the race. Run over a much shorter distance, the Fuller’s London Pride 10k has raised more than 1 million pounds for Cancer Research UK since 1996. In the world of horse racing, the Fuller’s London Pride Novices’ Chase is a Grade II race run at Newbury for more than 2 miles and 5 furlongs for horses aged 4 years or older. There is a strong association
between London Pride and English golf. The beer is the official partner of the English Golf Union, the English amateur golf governing body; the sponsor of the Clubhouse Awards, which recognize and reward excellence in the industry; and the official beer of the London Seniors Masters and the HSBC World Match Play, which features the world’s top professional golfers and offers the most lucrative first prize in UK golf. Advertisement and Marketing London Pride has been the subject of a number of high-profile advertising campaigns. An integrated multimedia campaign was launched in October 2010 featuring television personality James May as brand ambassador and using the tagline “Whatever you do, take pride,” which was originally created in 1995. This had been the first new television coverage for London Pride since 2007 when the quality of the ingredients in Fuller’s best-selling brand was the focus of a range of ads. May was chosen for the 2010 role because of a number of factors: He is a local Chiswick resident with a high television profile, is a cohost of the popular television show Top Gear, and is known for his genuine passion for British craftsmanship and for his love of beer and traditional British food. A notable feature of the campaign was the move to online communication via a London Pride Facebook page. The page hosted videos of May fronting an online tour of the Griffin Brewery and a tutored tasting of London Pride with head brewer John Keeling. Fuller’s has recently restructured its marketing operations to reassess and reinforce the branding of its products. Research had shown that many drinkers had not grasped the links between London Pride, the Griffin Brewery, and London itself. The Made of London multimedia advertising campaign of May 2013, therefore, aimed to provide consumers with a stronger rationale for choosing the brand. It highlighted the heritage and provenance of London Pride through a series of stories emphasizing the connections between the brewery, the beer, and the capital city. Significant increases in advertising awareness and purchasing intent were noted within a month of the launch, with pub sales up by 10 percent. Volumes and sales of the beer had previously fallen in the year before that point, so the
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promotion provided an important boost to this popular brand. David Lee Muggleton University of Chichester, United Kingdom See Also: Beer; Beer Advertising; Brewing, History of; Sporting Events, Sponsorship of; United Kingdom. Further Readings Fuller’s. http://www.fullers.co.uk (Accessed March 2014). Fuller’s. “Welcome to Fuller’s Fine Ale Club Online.” http://www.fullersfinealeclub.net (Accessed March 2014). Fuller’s Facebook page. “London Pride.” http://www .facebook.com/#!/londonpride?fref=ts (Accessed March 2014). Protz, Roger. 300 Beers to Try Before You Die! 2nd ed. St Albans, UK: CAMRA Books, 2010. Tierney-Jones, Adrian. 1,001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die. London: Octopus Publishing, 2010.
Loyal Temperance Legion The Loyal Temperance Legion (LTL) was a subsidiary organization within the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which had been created in 1874. Founded in 1886 as the brainchild of Anna A. Gordon, the LTL was made up of school-aged children, both boys and girls. The intention behind the LTL was to keep children from drinking and also to prepare them—especially the boys—to support prohibition legislation when they became of voting age. In the early 1890s, the LTL was further subdivided into Junior and Senior Legions and Graduates. The Junior LTL, or “Juniors,” was for children up to age 14 and was coeducational, with boys and girls attending the meetings and activities. After age 14, boys joined the Senior LTL, or “Seniors,” and girls became members of the Young People’s Branch, or “Ys.” The LTL published a newspaper titled Young Crusader in addition to several other publications. As with
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much temperance activity, the LTL waned after the national Prohibition in the United States and its repeal, but it existed into the 21st century and some of its methods have been influential on other youth organizations. The motto of the LTL was “Tremble King Alcohol for we shall grow up.” Implicit in the motto was the idea that the alcohol industry, saloonkeepers, and adult male patrons were already corrupted and impenetrable to the voice of the temperance message. Young children introduced to the temperance message, however, would move into positions of political power and then be poised to vote for prohibition measures. Because men were excluded from full membership in the WCTU and women still could not vote in national elections, the LTL was a way of tying future voters to both the temperance cause and, potentially, women’s suffrage, a cause also supported by the WCTU. If young boys could become fully committed to the temperance cause when they became of voting age, they would support temperance causes as members of the electorate or even as political leaders. LTL meetings evolved out of various efforts to spread the temperance message among children. In the 1870s, WCTU workers used Julia Coleman’s text The Juvenile Temperance Manual, which encouraged a form of temperance instruction so rigid that it proved unpopular with children. WCTU leaders attempted to insert temperance messages in Sunday schools in Protestant churches, where children were compelled by their parents to go and would be forced to hear the message. This method was dependent on the support of the teachers, which was not always there. Thus, the WCTU sought alternative methods of attracting the youth to its cause. Interactive Activities Attuned to the desires of children to have a more participatory form of involvement, Gordon (WCTU president Frances Willard’s personal assistant and future WCTU president) encouraged the formation of LTLs in 1886. She also published an outline of the LTL methods and rationales in Juvenile Work Questions Answered in 1887. Breaking from previous efforts, the LTL encouraged a wide array of activities for children, making the temperance message both socially
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interactive and fun. It promoted the singing of temperance songs, which were often traditional Christian hymns infused with temperance lyrics, some of which were written by Gordon herself. It introduced marching and martial drills for both boys and girls, though these activities were later dropped when the pacifist wing of the WCTU protested that they were promoting militarism. The LTL engaged in storytelling, even publishing children’s stories with subtle temperance messages infused in them. Soon, WCTU leaders were encouraging school officials to start LTL organizations in elementary and high schools as well as within their communities at large. When WCTU members sought to create the LTL, they were instructed to make sure that initial meetings were informal social gatherings, with food provided and a deliberately limited agenda. The idea was that children would enjoy the sociability of the meeting and would want to return for that reason. At second meetings, initiates were encouraged to sign a pledge to abstain from alcohol, tobacco, and improper language— particularly, the taking of the Lord’s name in vain. Ongoing meetings would often consist of affirmations of the pledge, speeches given by the children, and singing of temperance hymns. New members would be encouraged to recite the temperance pledge: “God helping me, I promise not to buy, drink, sell, or give Alcohol liquors while I live; From all tobacco I’ll abstain And never take God’s name in vain.” They also signed pledge cards affirming the same. In some LTL meetings, those who had upheld the pledge since the last meeting were asked to raise their hands or give some other sign. By implication, those who did not were shamed by their recent transgressions. One of the most notable activities of the LTLs was the medal contest. These were events for which children would memorize a speech and deliver it before a crowd of other members, parents, and community members. Depending on the complexity of the speech and previous participation, these could either be silver (beginner) or gold (more advanced) medal contests. Gold medal contests would frequently draw crowds from surrounding WCTU branches or “unions” and thus served as a form of entertainment in small, rural communities. Speeches were often on some temperance-related topic but could also deal with many other social
justice issues or religion. The development of the medal contest is often credited to William Jennings Demorest, a New York publisher and prohibition leader, so in many WCTU publications the contests were referred to as “Demorest Medal Contests.” Local unions were responsible for acquiring their own medals as prizes, and the quality and design varied tremendously. Yet Demorest himself purportedly subsidized some LTL contests and paid for the distribution of 34,000 medals. Lasting Legacy Like most of the WCTU activities, the LTL faded in the wake of Prohibition’s repeal. Yet the LTL evolved into other children’s activities by the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The modern versions of the WCTU’s LTL still hold contests, though the awards are often ribbons instead of medals. The events are coed through the high school ages. The pledge and the overall message of the WCTU children’s groups have also evolved to include pledges against illegal drugs, prescription drug abuse, and pornography. Some observers have noted that the communication skills and speeches promoted by Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) share many commonalities with the LTL organizations popular with earlier generations. Thomas Lappas Nazareth College of Rochester See Also: Bands of Hope; Cold Water Army; Gender and Alcohol Reform; Non-Partisan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union; Sons of Temperance; Temperance, History of; Temperance Movements; Willard, Frances. Further Readings Cook, Sharon Anne. “‘Earnest Christian Women, Bent on Saving Our Canadian Youth’: The Ontario Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and Scientific Temperance Instruction, 1881–1930.” Ontario History, v.86/3 (September 1995). Erickson, Judith B. “Making King Alcohol Tremble: The Juvenile Work of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, 1874–1900.” International Journal of Suicide and Crisis Studies, v.18/4 (February 1988). Gordon, Anna Adams. Juvenile Work Questions Answered. Chicago: Woman’s Temperance Publishing Association, 1887.
Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. “Temperance and Prohibition Papers: A Joint Microfilm Publication of the Ohio Historical Society, Michigan Historical Collections, and Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.” Columbus: Ohio Historical Society, 1977. http://www.wctu.org/ 2012_Winners.html (Accessed October 2013).
LVMH Moët Hennessy LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA is a multinational corporation based in Paris that is responsible for dozens of luxury brands throughout the world, from fashion brands such as Donna Karan and Givenchy to beverage brands such as Moët and Chandon Champagne and 10 Cane Rum. As the name indicates, the company was formed through the merger, in 1987, of beverage company Moët Hennessy with fashion company Louis Vuitton. Moët Hennessy, in turn, had been formed in 1971 through the merger of champagne house Moët & Chandon with cognac distillery Hennessy. Today, LVMH is the largest luxury goods company in the world. The Mergers Moët & Chandon is one of the largest champagne producers in the world but is also prestigious enough to hold a Royal Warrant, allowing it to supply champagne to Queen Elizabeth II of England. Champagne vintner Claude Moët founded the champagne house in 1743 that later became Moët & Chandon. He was then the first wine producer in the Champagne region of France to exclusively produce sparkling wine, which became the style of wine given the name “Champagne.” His successor and grandson, Jean-Remy Moët, was instrumental in popularizing champagne internationally. Jean-Remy’s friendship with Napoleon Bonaparte certainly did not hurt in that respect, and Moët customers during JeanRemy’s time included the heads of state not only of France but also of Prussia, Russia, Austria, and England. The company grew considerably over the 19th century and was one of the first to offer its employees such benefits as pensions, maternity leave and benefits, and paid sick leave as well as
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housing and legal assistance and free health care. In the 1950s, the family-owned Moët & Chandon was converted by Robert-Jean de Vogue into a Société Anonyme (SA), or corporation. Shortly before its merger with Hennessy, Moët & Chandon bought out not only its rival wine producer Mercier but also Christian Dior, the French fashion company that had been founded in 1946. Christian Dior is named for the fashion designer of the same name, and the company continues to produce haute couture in the Christian Dior Couture division. It also produces men’s, women’s, and baby clothing; accessories, including leather goods and watches; fragrances; and cosmetic products. A Paris socialite, Dior was famous for his New Look collection of 1947, which popularized full-skirted silhouettes and small waists. Dior died in 1957, and his young prodigy Yves Saint Laurent was made artistic director of the company to stabilize both the company and the French fashion industry, of which the House of Dior was a critical component. Saint Laurent introduced fashions inspired by the Beats and bohemian subculture of the era. The merger was also de Vogue’s idea. French law limited the region (Champagne) in which wine could be made that could legally be called Champagne, and he foresaw a time when demand would outstrip that delimited region’s ability to produce supply. Merging with Hennessy not only diversified the company but offered long-term stability. Moët & Chandon has remained a prominent brand of champagne whose association with luxury and decadence has been reinforced by 21st-century marketing initiatives like the illumination of the Statue of Liberty in 2006 (the landmark’s 120th anniversary) and the release of a limited-edition Moët & Chandon Brut Imperial in bottles “blinged up” with Swarovski crystals. Hennessy was founded in 1765 by Richard Hennessy, an Irishman, in the Cognac region of France. (Its merger with Moët & Chandon was overseen by his fifth-generation descendant Kilian Hennessy.) Long one of the most prominent brands of cognac, Hennessy has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity since the late 20th century, with a new demographic and as one of the liquor brands frequently referenced in hip hop. It has catered to this demographic through bottle releases decorated by graffiti artists.
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Before its merger with Moët Hennessy, Louis Vuitton was founded in 1854 by the titular French designer and businessman. The fashion house is especially known for its luxury leather products bearing the monogram of the brand. It is one of the leading fashion houses in the world today, and it has been the most valuable luxury brand for most of the 21st century. Famous Products Moët & Chandon produces the Dom Pérignon brand of champagne, named for the Benedictine monk to whom folklore has often erroneously attributed the invention of champagne’s bubbles. Dom Pérignon first entered the market in 1936 and is one of the most recognized brands of premium champagne. It was the wine served at the wedding of Diana Spencer to Prince Charles of England, and it is generally synonymous with wealth and good taste. It enjoys a lively aftermarket life at wine auctions, and several recordbreaking wine auction sales have been of Dom Pérignon. Moët & Chandon also operates Domaine Chandon, a Napa Valley, California, winery established in 1973 as the first French-owned sparkling wine producer in California. Today, the winery produces both still and sparkling wines from the grapes traditionally used for champagne. The oldest brand now owned by LVMH is Chateau d’Yquem, which began producing wine in 1711, the estate itself having been established (through purchase from the French crown) in 1593. Today, the wine produced by the estate is a Sauternes using noble rot to sweeten the grapes used to make the white wine. Out of the estate’s 247 acres (100 hectares), 311 acres (126 hectares) are used for production at any given time, with the remaining acres either lying fallow or held in reserve as newly planted vines grow to maturity. Controlling interest in the estate was sold to
LVMH in 1996 after internal feuding among the family that owned and managed it. Since then, the new corporate relationship enabled a collaboration between Chateau d’Yquem and Christian Dior, which in 2006 sold a line of skin care products that included grapevine sap from the Yquem vineyards. Other major brands in the LVMH portfolio include 10 Cane Rum; Ardbeg and Glenmorangie Scotch; Belvedere Polish rye vodka; the Krug, Mercier, and Veuve Clicquot champagne houses; fashion brands Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan, Emilio Pucci, and Givenchy; De Beers Diamond Jewelers; watchmaker TAG Heuer; the Sephora and Bon Marché retail stores; and Acqua di Parma cosmetics. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Champagne; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Cognac; France; Industry Overview; Rum; Wine Advertising; Wines, French. Further Readings Calabrese, Salvatore. Cognac: A Liquid History. London: Cassell, 2001. Guy, Kolleen. When Champagne Became French: Wine and the Making of a National Identity. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Kladstrup, Don and Petie Kladstrup. Champagne: How the World’s Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times. New York: Harper, 2006. Liger-Belair, Gérard. Uncorked: The Science of Champagne. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. Nelissen, Rob and Marijn H. Meijers. “Social Benefits of Luxury Brands as Costly Signals of Wealth and Status.” Evolution and Human Behavior, v.32/5 (2011).
M Mafia The term Mafia specifically refers to criminal groups purported to have originated in southern Italy and Sicily and related organizations emerging from Italian immigration to North America. It has also been used to describe non-Italian criminal organizations. For example, organized crime groups that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union have been referred to as the Russian Mafia or Red Mafia. Mafia is also sometimes used as a synonym for any type of organized crime. Other terms for Mafia include La Cosa Nostra (LCN), the Mob, or the Outfit (in Chicago). Structure and Organization The Mafia is most often described by law enforcement as a corporate-like organization with a bureaucratic chain of command, well-defined unit structure, and geographic zones of control. The largest organizational unit in the Mafia is a “family.” Typically, a single family will operate out of, and is considered to control, a city or region. For example, the Philadelphia Mafia was considered to control southern New Jersey, including Atlantic City. The exception to the one-family-per-city structure is New York, which has five families. Members of one family may not operate in another’s area without permission. However, there is both geographic overlap and cooperation
among families. Each family comprises semiautonomous groups called “crews.” A given crew can, and will, involve itself in any number of criminal and noncriminal moneymaking enterprises. However, most will specialize in areas such as hijacking, gambling, or drug trafficking. Within this model, the leadership structure or “administration” of a family comprises a boss, an underboss, and a consigliore. The boss sits atop the organizational pyramid and has absolute control over all members of the family. The underboss acts as a buffer between the boss and the rest of the family, issues the boss’s orders, and enforces discipline. Finally, the consigliore serves as an advisor to the boss outside the chain of command. Beneath the administration are “capos,” each of whom leads a crew comprising full Mafia members referred to as “made men” and nonmembers referred to as “associates.” While this “corporate” model portrays the Mafia as having a strict hierarchical chain of command, in practice it functions on a patron– client model. Clients can be either other criminals or noncriminals. Patrons provide their clients with resources, services, connections (criminal and legitimate), and protection both from law enforcement and other criminals. Patrons will also be called in to settle disputes between clients, between crews, or between families. In return, the patron has the right to call on clients for a variety 819
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Italian American mobster Charles “Lucky” Luciano posed for his mugshot on February 2,1931, after being arrested for felonious assault. Bootlegging fueled the rise of a generation of young, American-born gangsters such as Frank Costello and Luciano. In 1931, Luciano, Costello, and Meyer Lansky had mob boss Salvatore Maranzano murdered; they then succeeded him.
of services and demand a portion of their earnings. Furthermore, Mafia families lack centralized policy making, rigid structures, and strict discipline. On the contrary, they are fluid and sometimes chaotic organizations—with a membership based on kinship or other long-term relationships, wherein partnerships form and dissolve based on market opportunities, and that experience frequent intergroup and intragroup disputes. Prohibition and the Mafia In 1919, the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment—or Volstead Act—outlawed alcohol and ushered in Prohibition. Prohibition created a large, lucrative black market for alcohol, which in turn caused a proliferation of organized crime groups. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigations, in Chicago alone approximately 1,300 different gangs emerged to take advantage of this opportunity. Throughout the 1920s, no single criminal organization dominated the illegal alcohol market. In fact, bootlegging was an ethnically diverse industry that saw both cooperation and
intense conflict among the various underworld groups that sought to profit from alcohol. Prohibition served as a catalyst for changes in the composition and structure of organized crime. The size of the bootleg alcohol market and the profits available provided the opportunity for able and ambitious young gangsters to amass wealth and power that may otherwise have been unavailable, positioning them to challenge established power structures. Criminal justice professor Howard Abadansky notes that bootlegging provided an opening in the American economy that had been largely closed to Italian immigrants, allowing Italian gangsters to operate beyond their ethnic enclaves. In Chicago and New York, older generations of traditional bosses were swept aside. In Chicago, Johnny Torrio and Al Capone supplanted James “Big Jim” Colosimo as leaders of Italian organized crime in that city. Following their ascension to power, the Torrio–Capone Outfit engaged in a long-running war with gangs from Chicago’s north side. During the struggle, Torrio was nearly
murdered and went into retirement, leaving Capone in control of the organization. Capone continued to consolidate his power, and by the end of the 1920s—following a string of high-profile murders—the Outfit dominated Chicago. A similar situation arose in New York. By the end of the 1920s, two factions struggled for dominance—one led by Joseph Masseria and the other by Salvatore Maranzano, both old-fashioned “Moustache Petes” who had immigrated from Italy. The resulting conflict, referred to as the “Castellammarse War,” saw Maranzano emerge as the victor. He is credited with organizing the five-family structure in New York, with himself as the “Boss of Bosses.” However, Maranzano’s victory proved short-lived. Bootlegging had enabled the rise of a generation of younger, American-born gangsters disinclined to be ruled by Maranzano. Among these were Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Frank Costello, who (along with Meyer Lansky) earned their fortunes and learned their trade by working for Arnold Rothstein (the man often credited with fixing the 1919 World Series). In 1931, Luciano, Costello, and Lansky had Maranzano murdered and then succeeded him. Effects of Prohibition Prohibition had a significant impact on the Mafia in North America. Bootlegging alcohol was a massive interstate and international undertaking that required a sophisticated infrastructure. Illegal alcohol had to be manufactured, transported, and protected. Trucks, warehouses, and raw materials needed to be acquired, staffed, and managed, and the large sums of money involved required sophisticated accounting procedures. Despite the violence associated with bootlegging, the need to move material and product through various gang territories facilitated interaction, cooperation, and the formation of structures to resolve disputes. This included fostering cooperation among Italian, Jewish, and Irish gangsters, which would continue after Prohibition ended. Furthermore, the gang wars fought for control of the alcohol trade served to consolidate the myriad gangs into more streamlined organizations. Prior to Prohibition, criminal gangs mostly served local political bosses who provided protection from the police while at the same time demanded services from the various gangs.
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Abadansky argues that Prohibition upended this arrangement and that the money, organization, and power secured during the 1920s made organized crime a power in its own right. At the same time, the idea that a national crime syndicate controlling virtually all criminal activity emerged from Prohibition has been largely debunked as an “alien conspiracy myth,” which posits that outside corrupting forces—in this case, Italian, Jewish, and Irish immigrants—conspire to undermine otherwise functioning institutions. Thus, while the gangs and the men running them became more interconnected and sophisticated, it is unlikely that prohibition ushered in an era of corporatized crime in North America. Michael F. Walker Arizona State University See Also: Capone, Al; Italy; Moonshiners; PostProhibition Bootlegging; Prohibition; Speakeasies and Blind Pigs; Volstead Act. Further Readings Abandansky, Howard. Organized Crime. 10th ed. Independence, KY: Cengage Learning, 2010. Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Italian Organized Crime.” http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/ organizedcrime/italian_mafia (Accessed October 2013). Potter, Gary W. Criminal Organizations: Vice, Racketeering, and Politics in an American City. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1994.
Mail Order Alcohol The laws governing shipping alcohol vary drastically from state to state. Until recently, most alcoholic beverages sold by mail order were wine or beer, especially as part of clubs. Wine Clubs The Wine of the Month Club (WMC) was founded by Paul Kalemkiarian in 1972 as the first mail-order wine club. WMC is based in Monrovia, California, where access to wine distributors and domestic winemakers is easy today and was
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especially so in the 1970s. Under the current terms of membership, members are sent two bottles of wine (one domestic and one foreign) in each shipment, and shipments may be set to monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly. Like most clubs, WMC curates its wine offerings, evaluating more than a thousand wines each year to select from, with the goal of representing a wide variety of grape varietals, wine regions, and wine styles while remaining accessible and interesting to wine fans. Kalemkiarian immigrated to the United States from Egypt in 1949 and worked for a pharmaceutical company before opening his own pharmacy, which would go on to become a chain. In the course of expanding his pharmacies, he purchased the liquor store adjacent to one of his new properties—Palos Verdes Wine and Spirits—and turned it into a wine shop. Palos Verdes became a popular wine store in the Los Angeles area, and Kalemkiarian—because of the number of requests for wine recommendations he received every day—began selecting new wines from the inventory each month to designate as recommended wines. Soon, some of the regular customers began assisting him in making his selections, leading to the genesis of the WMC. The wine selections were originally personally delivered to local customers. When business expanded too much for it to be practical to continue doing so and UPS became the designated shipper, there was no reason not to expand the club beyond the Los Angeles area. In 1979, the original wine store and pharmacies were sold, and WMC has operated as a separate entity since—run first by Kalemkiarian and later by his son. Other wine clubs have also sprung up—some run by wine fans who make arrangements with distributors and others by retailers or winemakers to highlight their own offerings. For instance, the Bonny Doon winery in Santa Cruz, California, was started by self-described maverick Randall Grahm in 1983 and has become known for its biodynamic grape growing, love of little-known varietals (Grahm was the first California winemaker to turn to Rhone varietals), use of screw caps to avoid cork taint, and eye-catching labels designed by illustrators like Ralph Steadman. Bonny Doon’s offbeat brand identity—promoted extensively in its own literature and Grahm’s writing—has cultivated a cult following, which has
allowed Grahm to experiment with wine offerings knowing he has a loyal customer base who will give new wines the benefit of the doubt. This has included sparkling quince cider and perry, a sparkling Albarino advertised as the best sparkling wine to pair with Korean barbecue, and a sweet red wine made from old-vine mourvèdre grapes. Devoted fans of Bonny Doon can join the Distinctive Esoteric Wine Network (DEWN), which gives them access to releases available only to DEWN members, such as a Viognier port fortified with strawberry and peach eaux de vie. Advanced levels of membership bring automatic shipments of wine exclusives throughout the year and preferential standing when attempting to purchase limited-edition bottlings that quickly run out of stock. Restrictions Limiting Bonny Doon’s and other seller’s ability to make offerings to its devotees is the fact that, as of 2014, they could ship wine only to 30 states. Many wineries and other alcohol vendors can ship to even fewer: Some states permit the shipping only of wine but not of liquor (as a result of lobbying by wine fans), while states like New Hampshire don’t ban shipping of alcoholic products but require specific licenses and paperwork to do business with, such that many retailers do not consider the tiny state worth the effort. States also vary on the tax levied, but in the Internet age, the tax is usually collected by the vendor and disbursed to the state later, just as with Amazon.com’s collection of sales tax in applicable states. (The complex legal infrastructure surrounding the shipping of alcohol is also what has prevented Amazon.com from entering the game, though it is otherwise well suited for doing so; the only alcohol available through Amazon.com is sold through third-party vendors.) There has long been a push for uniformly allowing the sale of alcohol by mail order. The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) supports it because of the added revenue it would bring in. Currently, federal law bans mailing alcohol through the federal mail—that is, through the USPS. No such ban applies to private carriers like UPS and FedEx (both of which require adult signatures upon delivery), but laws in many states either prohibit
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the mailing or receiving of alcohol by any carrier (as with New Hampshire) or require specific permits and licenses. In Pennsylvania, for instance, out-of-state shipments are prohibited and in-state shipments are closely regulated. Because Pennsylvania’s liquor sales are controlled by a state monopoly, in-state shipments originate from either a state liquor store (which ships via UPS) or an in-state distillery or winery, which must be licensed with the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. Beer cannot be shipped to customers regardless of where the brewer is located. Pennsylvanians have lobbied for decades to change the laws, which persist partly to preserve the profitable state monopoly on liquor sales and partly out of concerns about underage drinking, though no study has shown that allowing mail-order sales in a state increases the rate of underage drinking.
the shipping cost is so much higher for alcohol sales, its international mail-order volume is lower than it could be. There has been little pressure to loosen restrictions due to the lack of a lobby analogous to that of the domestic wine industry. Many overseas stores do not offer international shipments, and those that do usually have a relevant special focus in their inventory, such as rare wines and whiskeys, or vintage bottles. In some cases, customers are able to make arrangements with a middleman who conducts the purchase overseas and arranges shipment to the customer, but this additional expense is worthwhile only for valuable purchases.
Granhold v. Heald The 2005 Supreme Court case Granhold v. Heald affected wine shipping laws—mainly in New York and Michigan, where laws had previously permitted only in-state wineries to ship wines directly to consumers. The Supreme Court ruled that this was unconstitutional, but only because of the unequal treatment of wineries in the state in which they were located, which violated the commerce clause of the Constitution. The ruling did not exactly have the effect wine fans were hoping for: While New York limited the amount of wine that could be shipped per winery per customer per month, Michigan simplified matters by banning all wine shipments. The Wine Institute, a lobbying group on behalf of California wineries, has reported that the number of states allowing some form of direct shipping of wine (shipping directly to customers) has grown since the ruling—to 37. (Note that because this number is higher than the number of states in which customers are eligible to order Bonny Doon by mail order, there are seven states in which, although some form of wine shipping has been legalized, for one reason or another, the legal conditions have prevented or discouraged Bonny Doon from doing mail-order business. This is frequently the case, as with the New Hampshire example.) In conclusion, international mail-order alcohol is available to some customers but involves its own tangled regulations and restrictions. Because
See Also: Identification, Checking; Regulation of Alcohol; State Regulations After Prohibition, U.S.; Wine Connoisseurship; Wines, California.
Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar
Further Readings Babor, Thomas. Alcohol and Public Policy: No Ordinary Commodity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Bennett, Linda A. and Genevieve M. Ames, eds. The American Experience With Alcohol: Contrasting Cultural Perspectives. New York: Plenum Press, 2005. DeGroff, Dale. The Craft of the Cocktail. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2002. Felten, Eric. How’s Your Drink? Cocktails, Culture, and the Art of Drinking Well. Chicago: Surrey Books, 2007. Grimes, William. Straight Up or on the Rocks: A Cultural History of American Drink. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Maine Law The Maine Law, passed in 1851, was the first alcohol prohibition legislation passed at the state level. This legislation surpassed previous liquor regulations in severity and scope and attempted to tighten earlier liquor laws. The Maine Law
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prohibited the manufacture of liquor, and liquor could only be sold by an authorized municipal agent for industrial or medicinal purposes. The law also allowed for broad search and seizure protocols for local officials. This empowered officials to destroy seized alcohol and to fine violators heavily, placing responsibility on the owners to demonstrate the legality of the liquor under their care. Repeat offenders often faced jail sentences. Furthermore, it also eliminated prosecutors’ dependence on testimony to prove that an illegal sale of alcohol had taken place. After inspiring similar legislation in numerous other states, the Maine Law faced serious opposition, eventually being repealed in 1856. Several other states also repealed their 1850s prohibitory legislation. This legislation was spearheaded by Neal Dow, president of the Maine Temperance Union, who won the office of mayor in Portland, Maine, in 1850 on the Whig ticket. His efforts to pass the Maine Law marked a new phase in the broader American temperance reform movement by utilizing state power to change people’s behavior toward alcohol, as opposed to using moral suasion to change drinking habits in society. While prohibition or alcohol regulation was a political issue in much of the United States before the events in Maine, the 1851 Maine Law made temperance a more important political issue in many states. Political prohibitory action toward alcohol culminated in the early 1850s with 12 other states and territories, mostly in the Northeast and midwest regions, passing some form of prohibitory regulations. In many instances, the states’ efforts to push prohibition built on local campaigns to restrict liquor sales by limiting or eliminating the granting of sales’ licenses. Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Michigan, Connecticut, New York, Indiana, Delaware, Iowa, New Hampshire, Minnesota territory, and Nebraska territory ratified similar legislation in the four years following the 1851 Maine Law. In Ohio and Pennsylvania, total prohibition failed only narrowly in state votes, but they still enacted more restrictive laws. The Maine Law’s influence was not only limited to the northeast and midwest. Even Texas and Mississippi passed stricter license laws. This wave of prohibitory legislation contributed to the demise of the Second Party System in the mid-1850s.
Support for the Law Support for the Maine Law came from a variety of sources. Rural areas, where most Americans lived, provided much voter support for the Maine Law and for other states’ prohibitory legislation. Prohibition in rural areas varied, however, depending on how connected certain locales were with the national market for corn and other products used in the manufacture of liquor. Urban support for the Maine Law seemed to reflect the societal desire for order and control in communities. Women were particularly supportive of the provision in the Maine Law that authorized the destruction of seized liquor. Even a fleeting literary genre, the Maine Law novel, was developed in the 1850s to support legislation forbidding alcohol. These novels portrayed weak men and helpless women, victims of the liquor trade. They showed the general failure of moral suasion to evoke meaningful change and women’s futile attempts to use pleas of duty, familial obligation, or love against the vice of drinking. These novels emphasized the importance of law in constructing societal change. Furthermore, the push in the 1850s for legislative prohibition tended to separate supporters and opponents of the Maine Law along class lines. Working-class opposition was bolstered by the cultural drinking habits of German and Irish immigrants who made up a significant portion of the working class. Middle-class reformers and voters, on the other hand, wished to use prohibition legislation like the Maine Law as a cure-all for larger social ills. The Maine Law also sparked debate and support internationally among temperance reformers. The United Kingdom Alliance, a temperance organization originating out of Manchester, England, in 1853, pushed for the prohibition of the alcohol trade in Great Britain. This British organization found inspiration for its cause in the prohibitory legislation of the Maine Law. Opposition and Repeal Opposition mounted against the Maine Law. In 1855, Dow had secured a second term as mayor of Portland, becoming solidly identified with the prohibition issue. In June 1855, a riot erupted in Portland, bringing violence into the fight over
Malaysia
prohibition. As mayor, Dow had arranged for a purchase and shipment of $1,600 worth of alcohol for the city liquor agency, the only legal outlet for liquor, which was to be used for medicinal and industrial purposes. Dow had made the purchase before appointing a city liquor agent. Under the provisions of the Maine Law, only an officially appointed city agent was allowed to sell liquor. In addition, transporting the liquor from Dow to the city agent could be seen as an illegal sale, which might result in the seizure and destruction of the liquor, possibly leaving the city without means to recover the cost of the alcohol. On June 2, 1855, a mob formed in front of the building where the liquor was being stored after a judge issued a search warrant for the premises, invoking part of the Maine Law that allowed any three voters to apply for a search warrant if they suspected someone of selling alcohol illegally. By 5:00 p.m., about 200 people had gathered and the crowd continued to swell (some estimate the crowd eventually numbered between 1,000 and 3,000) as it became evident that the police sent to the building had no intention of seizing or destroying the spirits found there. As the evening progressed, agitation grew among the crowd, resulting in rock-throwing and shoving. The police force was unable to deal with the mob, prompting Dow to call out the militia to quell the disturbance. When the militia arrived, it, too, had trouble dispersing the throng of protesters, eventually firing into the crowd on Dow’s orders. One man, John Robbins, an immigrant, was killed, and seven others were wounded from the militia’s actions. Ultimately, the crowd disbanded, but Dow was criticized for his authorization of military force against the people. Later, Dow was prosecuted for violating the Maine Law by improperly acquiring the liquor, but he was acquitted of the charges. By the mid-1850s, liquor sellers across the states organized in opposition to Maine Laws, successfully repealing prohibitory legislation in Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Indiana, and Minnesota territory. Liquor dealers joined forces with other prohibition opponents to develop political campaigns against the Maine Law. Other mass resistance, such as the Lager Beer Riots in Chicago in 1855 and riots in New York City in 1857, proved that the Maine Law and other prohibitory legislation did not provide a solid remedy for urban
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disorder, actually causing riots and urban disturbances as the events in Portland, Chicago, and New York demonstrated. These types of events, particularly the Portland riot, contributed to the repeal of the Maine Law in 1856. Erica Rhodes Hayden Vanderbilt University See Also: Dow, Neal; Dry Cities and Counties; Local Option; Moral Suasion; Temperance, History of; Temperance Movements. Further Readings Blocker Jr., Jack S. American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989. Day, Holman. Does Prohibition Pay? . . . Maine, After 57 Years of Prohibition. New York: D. Appleton, 1908. Pegram, Thomas R. Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800–1933. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1998.
Malaysia Alcohol in Malaysia is a complex matter that underlies and affects its society, politics, and economics—to an extent that other countries do not experience—because of the unique diversity of its people, rich history, and distinctive geographic situation. This tropical country is located in southeast Asia and consists of two regions: western Peninsular Malaysia and eastern Malaysian Borneo, which are separated by the South China Sea. It shares land borders with Brunei, Indonesia, and Thailand, while marine borders are shared with the Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam. It consists of 13 states and three territories that provide local-governmental homes to its 29 million residents. Approximately 70 percent of the population live in the western peninsula, which contains the political center and capital city, Kuala Lumpur; however, the vast majority of the country’s economic-driving natural resources are found in the eastern part of the country—namely,
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on the island of Borneo. Malaysia was originally a collection of Malay kingdoms that were colonized by the British in the 1700s, but it ultimately became an independent state in 1957 (the eastern Borneo states were incorporated into the country in 1963). Malaysia is a country that has many fundamental divisions across numerous dimensions. The country is a multiethnic, multicultural, multi religion, and multilingual collection of people who steadfastly maintain their separate and distinctive identities instead of assimilating and combining the various sociocultural aspects of the diverse groups. The population principally is made up of four distinct groups: Malays (60 percent), Chinese (23 percent), Indians (7 percent), and the Borneo-based indigenous tribes (6 percent). The Malaysian-speaking Islamic Malays dominate politically, while the Mandarin-speaking Buddhist Chinese dominate business in the country. The diversity of these groups is telltale that the mix of cultures, languages, and religions dominate the Malaysian societal landscape and present much public conflict. There is also a geographic, and consequently an administrative, divide present in the country that differentiates the habitants of the eastern peninsula from those of the western island (e.g., persons traveling between the two subdivisions must pass through governmental immigration inspection, and the two sets of citizens abnormally have dissimilar country citizenship rights). It is notable that children born of a Malaysian father are automatically granted Malaysian citizenship regardless of the birth location (within or outside the borders of the country), while the children of a Malaysian mother are not automatically owed Malaysian citizenship. Alcohol Sale and Consumption Malaysia has a dual legal system—simultaneously having both civil and Islamic courts—that maintains conflicting views on alcohol. Malaysian civil law does not stipulate a legal age for drinking alcohol, though it is illegal to sell alcohol to anyone under 18 years of age. Nevertheless, according to the more stringent Islamic religious laws (i.e., Sharia Law), which is in effect only for Muslims, the consumption of alcohol is strictly forbidden; caning can be a punishment for such transgressions. Moreover, in Malaysia,
it is illegal for anyone to sell alcohol to a Muslim, and in some areas—where the Islamic community dominates the populace—selling alcohol to any person is illegal. The non-Islamic groups in the country have long been fighting for relaxation of such laws, as alcohol has always been a big part of most Asian cultures, while at the same time, Islamic groups counter mounting pressure to broaden the alcohol-related restrictions to all members of society. Empirically, there is abundant indication that, in reality, Islamic law with regard to alcohol consumption is not always adhered to in private surroundings. Malaysia is ranked 10th in the world for annual alcohol consumption, while it is ranked just 41st in terms of current population. According to a 2011 World Health Organization survey, 90 percent of Malaysian adults classified themselves as being lifelong abstainers from alcohol, a statistic that conspicuously clashes with the country’s ranking for consumption. Beer accounts for 79 percent of all consumption in the country, spirits 17 percent, and wine just 4 percent. Most drinkers are men, who, on average, consume 8.5 gallons (32 liters) annually; women, on average, consume 4 gallons (15 liters). However, the proportion of heavily episodic drinkers is nearly the same for males and females—27 percent and 25 percent, respectively; such behavior is prominently attributed to young adults. According to recent interview-based academic research, the government considers alcohol a distinct, Indian-specific issue because drinking by the majority of the population is strictly forbidden; furthermore, they add that the Chinese business community seems to not disagree with the government’s position. According to some reports, Chinese consumers actually lead in consumption of both beer and spirits. In short, in Malaysia, the alcohol consumption–level question is a sensitive, highly political, and complex matter. Alcohol Production Beer production in Malaysia is dominated by two companies, combining for 94 percent of the total: Carlsberg Brewery Malaysia Bhd and Guinness Anchor Bhd. Beer, wine, and spirits production and imports are steadily increasing in production and profits year over year as a reflection of the country’s young demographic,
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increasing income, growing internationalized tastes, and increased demand from female consumers. There is also a parallel and steadily growing production and import industry for Chinese-specific wines and spirits, which is similarly experiencing the very same social and economic patterns in the Chinese-Malaysian community. To circumvent the high taxes on alcohol and a government ban on alcohol-related advertising, production and import companies market their beverages aggressively by using creative promotion strategies aimed at attracting and maintaining the growing group of young and increasingly affluent alcohol-oriented consumers. In the eastern Borneo-based states, alcohol is part of the indigenous people’s rich history, tradition, and culture. The indigenous Bidayuh group is well known for the home production and partaking of tuak, an alcoholic beverage made from a mixture of fermented rice, yeast, and sugar that is reserved for special celebratory occasions such as weddings and the annual Gawai (harvest) festival. Langkau is another beverage commonly offered during the Gawai festival or, commonly, just about any time. Its base is tuak, which is carefully cooked and its steam is then captured and room-temperature cooled to produce a vodka-like (in look, strength, and taste) beverage. The production of Langkau has been against the law as it is the Malaysian equivalent of moonshine.
Further Readings Assunta, Mary. “The Alcohol Problem in Malaysia.” The Globe, v.4 (2001–2002). Cheah, Yong Kang. “Factors Associated with Alcohol Consumption Among Adults in Penang, Malaysia.” Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on the Humanities and Social Sciences, Hat-Yai, Songkhla Province, Thailand, April 27–29, 2013. CNN.com. “Malaysian Model, Mother To Be Caned for Drinking Beer in Public.” http://www.cnn. com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/08/20/malaysia.caning/ index.html?eref=rss_latest (Accessed August 20, 2009). Jernigan, David H. and Saroja Krishnaswamy Indran. “Alcohol Use Patterns, Problems and Policies in Malaysia.” Drug and Alcohol Review, v.16/4 (December 1997). Jernigan, David H. and Saroja Krishnaswamy Indran. “Country Profile on Alcohol in Malaysia.” In Alcohol and Public Health in Eight Developing Countries, Leanne Riley and Mac Marshall, eds. Geneva: World Health Organization, 1999. Kortteinen, Stimo. “Negotiating Ethnic Identities: Alcohol as a Social Marker in East and West Malaysia.” Akademika, v.72 (January 2008).
Conclusion Alcohol in Malaysia is a complex matter that underlies and affects its society, politics, and economics to an extent that other countries do not experience. Just the level of sensitivity in simple data collection and analysis is strikingly high as the multitude of social and religious ideals of the four distinct groups regularly collide with the realities within the country. For Malaysia, the topic of alcohol profoundly reflects the complexity of the country as a whole.
Although state and even international laws regarding labeling of alcoholic beverages can muddy a tidy definition of any beer or ale, generally malt liquor refers to a class of heavy ale (or lager) that is distinguished by a higher than average alcohol content, a distinctively sweet taste, a pale yellow color, and a relatively low price. These critical differences, of course, come from how malt liquor is brewed. Beer is generally distilled from a waterbased barley solution using yeast as a fermenting agent, whereas malt liquors are made by adding more sugars, corn, and rice to the wort, thus decreasing the amount of more expensive additives such as hops and barley. The higher alcohol content results because yeast can absorb only so much sugar, and the additional sugars ferment, greatly increasing the proof of malt liquor. Some brewers add further enzymes that help yield an even higher
Terrill L. Frantz Peking University See Also: Asia, Southeast; Islamic Law; Moonshiners; Philippines; Religion.
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alcoholic content. Consequently, malt liquor does not refresh the way more traditional beer does— oddly, it does not taste wet. It is more a kind of dry beer that does not quench thirst the way beer can. But it is the alcoholic content rather than the sweet, dry taste that most distinguishes malt liquor. A typical beer is proofed at 3.6 and 3.8 percent, which is a relatively low alcohol by volume content (vodka, for instance, proofs at 80, or 40 percent alcohol); malt liquors, however, can go as high as 9 percent, nearly doubling the alcoholic impact of beer. That, of course, significantly increases the speed and depth of the buzz obtained from drinking malt liquor. Many of the brand names of the most familiar domestic malt liquors—Colt .45, Big Hurt, Evil Eye, Black Fist, High Torque, Hurricane, Crazy Stallion, King Cobra, Tap and Die, Red Horse—indicate the beverage’s quick impact and effect, its ability to cause rapid disorientation that can lead, in turn, to excessive consumption, confrontational behavior, and even criminal activity. Indeed because malt liquor is sold in 40-fluid-ounce bottles—regular beer is usually sold in 12-ounce bottles—it has achieved notoriety as a cheap and quick buzz. Critics charge that malt liquor brands target urban youth, for the most part males under the age of 25, undereducated and underemployed, most often African American and Hispanic. Sociologists and educators point specifically to malt liquor as a growing and significant problem because it can serve as an easy escape from difficult, underprivileged lives. Indeed, many states have banned socalled Forties, limiting malt liquor bottles to 32 fluid ounces, although critics point out that the difference has had little impact on either sales or consumption. Despite current issues revolving around the beverage among those concerned about alcohol abuse among adolescents and minority groups, and the linkage between alcohol abuse and criminal activity, malt liquor itself dates back more than four centuries. Records indicate that socalled super-strength lager was first brewed in the late 17th century by English brewers attempting to cut corners in beer production. Detailed recipes for brewing what would be recognized today as malt liquor have been recovered by scholars among agricultural records and private journals in colonial Rhode Island and Massachusetts. In
1842, the Canadian government actually issued a patent for a kind of malt liquor that described the production process as a better way to brew beer, with no mention of the increased alcohol content or its cheaper production. But the rise in malt liquor consumption in the United States began in earnest in the decade immediately after World War II, when America generally confronted the problem of the generation of young soldiers returning home with varying degrees of traumatic injuries (both physical and psychological) who saw in alcohol a way to handle their often problematic reentry into civilian life. Indeed, the federal government granted the first malt liquor patent in the United States to Clix in 1948. Brewed by Grand Valley Brewing Company in Minnesota, Clix played on the nickname, Click, of the brewer who had first invented the process of adding sugars to wort to heighten the alcoholic content cheaply. It sold well—in 1949, its sales ranked fourth among domestic beers and ales. Given the relatively low price of malt liquor, however, it quickly gained a pop culture reputation as a lower-class libation, a drink dismissed by snobby beer connoisseurs. But during the 1960s and 1970s, malt liquor drinkers became associated popularly with beer drinkers with an unrefined sense of taste. In an era when high-priced, high-powered saturation advertising campaigns (Budweiser, Miller, and Coors emerged in this era) made more conventional beers seem the height of taste, respectability, and status, malt liquor was seldom advertised. Mainstream American society associated malt liquor with the undiscerning working class seeking a cheap buzz after a long day of drudge work in a dead-end job. That stereotype took a far different turn by the early 1990s when the emerging hip-hop movement embraced malt liquor, particularly Colt .45 and St. Ides, as its signature beverage. Many rappers had grown up in impoverished urban neighborhoods where the cheap buzz of malt liquor was ubiquitous, making their familiarity with it natural. Many rappers became icons in the genre, among them Notorious B.I.G., Tupac Shakur, Wu-Tang Clan, Snoop Dog, Ice Cube, and Eminem, and they often mentioned malt liquor in their lyrics, extolling its easy accessibility, its quick high, and its inexpensive cost. Given these artists’ rapid success
with mainstream white and Hispanic, as well as African American, audiences, particularly males under 25, music producers teamed with malt liquor companies to produce highly successful commercials that featured these same rappers. Stylish and hip, these commercials rejected the relentless hard sell of beer commercials and partook more of the slick look and quick-cut pacing of music videos. Many ran to four minutes long and appeared largely through the emerging Internet technologies. Often, both the commercials and songs glorified the negative behaviors resulting from excessive consumption of the cheap liquor: violence, theft, and unprotected sex. The artists defended their lyrics by claiming faithfulness to their own adolescent experiences, but parents’ groups, teachers’ associations, and a coalition of mainstream beer producers vigorously denounced this trend. They objected to both
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the advertising and the product, and to pitching malt liquor as hip to vulnerable and easily influenced adolescents in poor urban neighborhoods. The abuse of the cheap malt, they argued, led to poor performance in school, family discord, increased lethargy, and the inability to hold even entry-level jobs. Indeed, reports cited malt liquor as a gateway to marijuana and harder drugs. With the emergence of a new, slicker generation of rappers like Lil Wayne, Kanye West, and Drake, who projected a more upscale image and refused to endorse malt liquor, public concern about the threat of malt liquor diminished. Although sales remain robust among the lowerincome urban male population, malt liquor producers have attempted to improve their own image, de-emphasizing the perception of their product as a cheap buzz inferior in taste and quality to beer and lager. Indeed, their challenge now
A customer buys malt liquor at a convenience store in the small town of Holly Springs, Mississippi, January 31, 2010. Marketed to bridge players and party hosts in postwar America as an upscale beer (with limited success), malt liquor has since fallen from that trendy reputation. It is now associated with low-income drinkers who prefer cheap, more potently intoxicating brews.
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is to define exactly what malt liquor is—state to state, different definitions exist regarding the manufacture of malt liquor and its liquor content, particularly with the new interest in adding a variety of flavorings to malt liquors to dress up their presentation. Joseph Dewey Broward College See Also: Advertising and Marketing, History of; Alcohol Abuse; Symptoms of; Alcopops; Beer; Taxation. Further Readings Bowie, Norman E. and Meg Schneider. Business Ethics for Dummies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011. Gallagher, Charles A. Rethinking the Color Line: Readings in Race and Ethnicity. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Mittelman, Amy. Brewing Battles: A History of American Beer. New York: Algora Publishing, 2008.
Manhattan The Manhattan is widely considered one of the core cocktails of any drink maker’s repertoire. For decades after World War II, when bitters declined rapidly in popularity, it was likely to be the only reason many bars stocked bitters, except for those in New Orleans that still served Sazeracs. The Manhattan is fundamentally a mixture of whiskey, vermouth, and bitters. The specifics beyond that point have varied for historical reasons or because of individual preferences. Like many early cocktails, the origin of the Manhattan is not clear, though it seems to have originated in New York in the last third of the 19th century. It is a basic-enough preparation, drawing on ingredients common to many cocktails of the era, and may have been independently invented in multiple places. The “Manhattan” eventually became the accepted name for the drink, though there is at least one historic mention of an identical cocktail called the Tennessee cocktail. A traditional Manhattan combines two parts rye whiskey with
one part sweet vermouth, with a dash of Angostura bitters and a cherry garnish. Like most drinks without citrus or egg, it is stirred over ice before being strained into a glass—either served up in a cocktail glass or on the rocks in a rocks glass. Stirring should dilute the drink, through melting ice, by about 20 percent. Angostura bitters are traditional, mostly because bars commonly stocked only that brand of bitters for much of the 20th century. Any type of bitters is appropriate to a Manhattan, though of course the variation will make a difference to the flavor. A dry Manhattan is made with dry vermouth rather than sweet vermouth, while a perfect Manhattan is made with equal parts sweet and dry vermouth. In the early 20th century, both Manhattans and Martinis could be ordered sweet, dry, or perfect; in time, the dry martini and the sweet Manhattan became the default choices. Canadian Versus American Whiskey The Manhattan was originally made with rye whiskey, which is how it is usually found today in bars with serious cocktail programs. For a long time, however, the Manhattan could be found made with Canadian whiskey—commonly called “rye” but actually a very different whiskey from the American product called “rye whiskey.” Canadian whiskey is significantly more mellow than bourbon, let alone American rye. Canadian whiskey first became popular in the United States out of desperation: Canada was the nearest whiskey producer during Prohibition and was the only one to share a land border with the United States, making smuggling much easier and faster than attempting to smuggle Scotch or Irish whiskey. Meanwhile, while Prohibition decimated the American whiskey in general, it was especially unkind to rye whiskey distillers—in part because rye is more expensive to grow and distill, which made the start-up costs more significant for distilleries resuming business when Prohibition ended. For these reasons, as American rye whiskey became more difficult to find, more Manhattans were made with Canadian rye and, as Americans became accustomed to the taste of these milder Manhattans, the demand for American rye whiskey lessened because no one knew to look for it. This mild Manhattan was the one the character Don Draper drank in the television show Mad Men, which was set in the 1960s.
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Variations There are two principal ways to vary the Manhattan or to build a new drink from its foundation: (1) substituting something for the rye and (2) adding a sweetener to replace some of the vermouth. It is not uncommon to find Manhattans made with bourbon or Tennessee whiskey, particularly given the historic dearth of rye whiskey and the enduring availability of bourbon. (A perfect bourbon Manhattan is also known as a “Honolulu cocktail” and a sweet bourbon Manhattan is a “rosemary,” but these names are not commonly known.) Using Scotch instead of rye makes the drink a Rob Roy; blended Scotch like Johnnie Walker is the preferred choice. In recent years, rye whiskey has become easier to find, albeit generally more expensive than bourbon. There are a number of bars that have offered “white Manhattans” using unaged rye or bourbon (new make) and a clear vermouth substitute such as Cocchi Americano. Because the Manhattan is so basic, minor adulterations make for entirely different drinks, of which there are many: • The Monahan substitutes several dashes of Amer Picon for the bitters. • The Narragansett substitutes a dash of anisette for the bitters. • The McKinley’s delight substitutes two dashes of cherry brandy and a dash of absinthe for the bitters. • The Sherman adds three dashes of absinthe. • The Brooklyn cocktail is a dry Manhattan with a dash of maraschino liqueur and a dash of Amer Picon. • The Red Hook cocktail (named for a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York) uses a 4:1:1 ratio of rye whiskey, Punt e Mes, and maraschino liqueur. Punt e Mes is an especially bitter, high-quality, sweet vermouth, nearly as complex as an amaro. The drink was developed by Enzo Errico to adapt the drink to the modern bar, as Amer Picon was no longer available. • The Little Italy, developed by Audrey Saunders, adds one-half ounce of Cynar (an Italian artichoke liqueur
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with amaro-like qualities) to a sweet Manhattan. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Bartending; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Martinis; Rye. Further Readings Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s. New York: Perennial Classics, 2000. Babor, Thomas. Alcohol Customs and Rituals. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. Barr, Andrew. Drink: A Social History of America. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1999. Burns, Eric. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004. DeGroff, Dale. The Craft of the Cocktail. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2002. Felten, Eric. How’s Your Drink? Cocktails, Culture, and the Art of Drinking Well. Chicago: Surrey Books, 2007. Grimes, William. Straight Up or On the Rocks: A Cultural History of American Drink. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993. Haigh, Ted. Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. New York: Quarry Books, 2009. McElhone, Harry. Barflies and Cocktails. New York: Mud Puddle Books, 2008. Regan, Gary. The Joy of Mixology. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2003. Thomas, Jerry. The Bartender’s Guide. How to Mix Drinks: A Bon Vivant’s Companion. New York: Mud Puddle Books, 2008. Wondrich, Dave. Imbibe! New York: Perigee Trade, 2007.
Mann, Marty Margaret “Marty” Mann—or Mrs. John Blakemore, in 1927—was an early Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) member; the founder of the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism (NCEA), later renamed the National Committee
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on Alcoholism (NCA), the National Council on Alcoholism (NCA) and, after her death, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD); and a collaborator of E. M. “Bunky” Jellinek at the Yale Summer School of Alcohol Studies. She also was one of the “six ink-stained wretches” (two men and four women) who created the A.A. Grapevine; the others were Chase H., Abbot T. Jr., the Countess Felicia G. M., Priscilla P., and Lois K. Mann’s father was from the same Mann family that produced the Massachusetts educational reformer Horace Mann; her grandfather, a lumber company physician in Marinette, Wisconsin, pioneered company tickets (insurance) for medical care. She was one of four surviving children (all born in Chicago) of Will Mann, an alcoholic and a compulsive gambler, and Lill Christy Mann. Will was an executive (supervising linen mills) for department store Marshall Field’s, and the family lived on Lakeshore Drive, not far from her maternal grandparents. This was the Chicago just after the 1893 World’s Fair, of the new University of Chicago; of The Little Review; of Harriet Monroe’s Poetry magazine; of Vachel Lindsay and Carl Sandburg and Ring Lardner and James T. Farrell; and of a vibrant educational, literary, and artistic community. Mann went to the Episcopal Church and the Chicago Latin School and then, at 18 years old, into a tuberculosis sanitarium. From the sanitarium, she went to high school in Santa Barbara, California, and then to the Montemore School in the Adirondacks in New York, then on a European tour, then to her debut in Chicago, and then to elope with John Blakemore in Gretna, Louisiana—and to begin divorce proceedings three months later. Her father’s alcoholism forced his retirement from Field’s in the 1920s. Thereafter, Mann’s story had a touch of surrealism about it, including her (newly sober in 1940) finally getting a job at Macy’s as fashion publicity director, possibly with the help of another alcoholic—Priscilla P., then Macy’s chief copywriter. She and Priscilla fell in love. They lived together until Mann died in 1980, by which time Priscilla was well within the throes of Alzheimer’s. Mann took care of Priscilla until she no longer could, then she hired nurses and did what she could besides. When Mann died, Priscilla confided that she was very glad she did not
know what was going on because it was obviously very bad. It is not clear whether she ever knew Mann had died. Alcoholics Anonymous It was perhaps almost as much Mann as Bunky Jellinek who was the leading exponent of the disease concept of alcoholism in the years after World War II, though Jellinek wrote a book with that title. She is widely but inaccurately known as the first woman to get and stay sober in AA— not the case, though she was apparently the first woman to gain longtime sobriety in New York. She began the sobriety process in Connecticut, at Dr. Harry Tiebout’s sanitarium in 1939, but seemed to have slipped several times before achieving long-term sobriety in AA in 1941. Her recent biographer discovered a slip, apparently requiring hospitalization, in the early 1960s (or perhaps as early as 1959), after which she was sober until her death. The first woman to get and stay sober in AA seemed to have been one Sylvia K. (as of 1950, Sylvia K. S.) of Chicago, who got sober on September 13, 1939, and remained sober until her death in Sarasota, Florida. Her story, “The Keys of the Kingdom,” is in the second and third editions of Alcoholics Anonymous (commonly known as “The Big Book”); her husband, Lowry (Ed) S., was also a member. Mann’s achievement rests not on her uninterrupted sobriety from 1941 to her death but on the National Council on Alcoholism, on the popularization of the disease concept, and on her work with other women alcoholics—both in AA (particularly in the 1940s) and in the women’s division of the National Council on Alcoholism in subsequent years. One patient from Blythewood (a psychiatric facility in Connecticut), an alcoholic woman named Nona W., led her to investigate High Watch Farm in Kent, Connecticut, which was run by a follower of spiritual leader Emma Curtis Hopkins and who called herself Sister Francis (her real name was Etheldreda or Ethelred Folsom). This began the long association of AA members, including AA cofounder Bill W., with High Watch. In the early 1940s, Mann was the vice president of the board of High Watch and, because Sister Francis did not like making decisions, essentially ran the farm for two years. About High Watch, “There is something in the
air,” she said once. “God has his finger on it— thank God!” In the World War years, she brought a number of women into AA, among them Annie C. (Annie the Cop-Fighter) and Nancy F. (The Independent Blonde), not to mention the Countess Felicia G. M. Right after World War II, particularly after Dr. (W. D.) Silkworth moved to Knickerbocker Hospital, these women were the nucleus of a larger group, including women from New York City; suburbs; north Jersey; Westchester, New York; Connecticut, and Long Island. Seeing a need for group therapy for many of these women—along with regular AA meetings—Mann set up weekly group therapy sessions for them with Dr. Frank Hale, a Freudian Sullivanite therapist in Manhattan. After seeing Dr. Hale “in group,” they would (mostly) adjourn for sodas or sundaes at Schrafft’s. They called themselves “Hale’s Hearties.” Some of Hale’s Hearties—at least those from north Jersey—had to find local male sponsors, as there were no women yet with sufficient sobriety and experience with AA’s 12 steps. Mann found the underrepresentation of women in AA to be a major problem. She pushed the inclusion of the stories “Annie the Cop-Fighter” and “The Independent Blonde” in the second edition of Alcoholics Anonymous, though they had to be typed and edited from wire recordings by volunteers (one at least from Hale’s Hearties) and the “authors” were not entirely aware that the stories had been written. Legacy In 1971, when First Lady Pat Nixon convened a forum/meeting of women’s organizations concerned with alcohol countermeasures, the forum materials listed the National Council on Alcoholism, represented by “founder-consultant” Mann, as a women’s organization, though it seems the forum was, in fact, referring to the National Council on Alcoholism (women’s division). But in this lies a clue about both the decline of the NCADD and what Mann’s great work actually was. Her great work was, fundamentally, to bring women into the fight against alcoholism—not simply as the spouses of alcoholics but in their own right, whatever had earned them that right. Her two books, Marty Mann’s New Primer on Alcoholism (1958; the original Primer was 1950) and Marty Mann Answers Your Questions on
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Drinking and Alcohol (1970), have largely sunk into oblivion. Her National Council on Alcoholism in many important ways did not really outlive her. She was active with High Watch Farm, the first modern “drunk farm,” which gained Bill W.’s strong support. She is remembered for telling her brother-in-law Grenny, when she returned to Dr. Tiebout’s sanitarium after her first AA meeting, “Grenny, we’re not alone anymore.” Her story in the Big Book of AA, “Women Suffer Too,” is a classic. She was the motivating force behind the A.A. Grapevine, and that is part of her legacy. But Mann’s major legacy lies in the fact that now, three-quarters of a century after, women make up something around or more than 40 (perhaps even 50) percent of AA’s membership. In appearance, she was solid, was short-haired, wore severely tailored suits (frequently blue), and had a slightly forbidding figure. Her voice was relatively deep, and some have called it vibrant; her manner toward both women and men was sometimes brusque, though to both men and women (particularly) with alcohol problems she was usually kind. Over the years, she seemed to have developed a slight rasp in her voice. She never lost her infectious laugh with its culminating giggle. Her basic views did not change, either: (1) alcoholism is a disease, and the alcoholic is a sick person; (2) the alcoholic can be helped and is worth helping; and (3) this is a public health problem and, therefore, a public responsibility. Mann’s goals for the original NCEA also did not change much over the years of the two NCAs. But the National Council on Alcoholism changed in the 1970s; it was no longer Mann’s NCA. She was the principal speaker at the July 1980 International Convention of AA in New Orleans. Two weeks later, she was stricken at her home with a massive cerebral hemorrhage and died in the hospital in Bridgeport the next day on July 22. She was 75 years old. Her biographer argues that, though Bill W. and Dr. Bob were there before her, Mann was one of the big three of AA and in the alcoholism movement, perhaps one of the big two. In the fight against the stigma that admitting alcoholism bore for women, she was far and away number one—and to this day remains so. Jared Lobdell Independent Scholar
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See Also: Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture; Disease Model of Alcoholism; Jellinek, E. M.; National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence; Smith, Robert Holbrook; Wilson, Bill. Further Readings Brown, Sally and David R. Brown. Mrs. Marty Mann: The First Lady of Alcoholics Anonymous. Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2001. Kurtz, Ernest. Not-God: A History of A.A. 2nd ed. Center City, MN: Hazelden, 1991. Mann, Marty. “Speech at the 25th Anniversary of High Watch.” Culture Alcohol & Society Quarterly, v.IV/6 (2010).
Mardi Gras Mardi Gras, generally known as Fat Tuesday in Anglophone countries and states, is the final day of carnival before Lent—the traditional Roman Catholic period of fasting and self-abnegation, which begins on Ash Wednesday. Lent lasts 40 days until Easter. Mardi Gras is sometimes called Shrove Tuesday in England, and pancakes are the order of the day. In Latinate societies, the period before Lent is known as Carnival, and in Catholic Germany it is celebrated as Fasching; Cologne and Munich are known for elaborate pre-Lenten festivities. Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is world famous. The festivities in Rio feature risqué dancing and abbreviated attire. In the United States, Mobile, Alabama, claims to have held the first Mardi Gras celebration in the country, and New Orleans has a Mardi Gras celebration that is world renowned. Many small Catholic communities in Louisiana have more modest celebrations, and some “folk Mardi Gras” even survive in rural areas of the predominantly French southern part of the state. However, other cities in the state want to get in on the fun and revenue and have instituted their own celebrations. For example, both Baton Rouge and Shreveport—neither predominantly Catholic, and the latter in fact staunchly Protestant— have several days of celebrations and largely
secular parades and parties. Baton Rouge’s Spanish Town parade, which is in a hip neighborhood immediately adjoining the state governmental complex, features satirical and risqué political commentary through the medium of unsubtle float exhibits. A parade in nearby Southdowns is much more family oriented. However, similarly sedate celebrations in “Bible Belt” Monroe, Louisiana, elicited condemnatory sermons from Baptist preachers who saw them as “devil worshippers.” Cities in other states now feature Mardi Gras celebrations as well. It can be maintained that the celebration and commercialization of Mardi Gras have successfully diffused northward in the past several decades. Background of Mardi Gras Much of Mardi Gras stems from pagan roots. The serving of “king cake”—a bland cake with purple, yellow, and green icing—is an example. The cake contains a small figure of a baby—certainly a symbol of fertility and the promise of spring. The person who finds the baby in the cake is supposed to furnish next year’s cake. In the past, this cake was served on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, or January 6, but is now served throughout the season up to and including Mardi Gras day. It is suggested that this, and other seasonal festivities and practices, links to Roman festivals such as Bacchanalia, Lupercalia, and Saturnalia. Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Rio also incorporate Afro-Caribbean elements such as dancing and performance styles that owe little to European influences. In early Middle Ages, the pre-Lenten period was a time of wild abandon and celebration that the end of winter was nigh. Pagan elements were predominant in such festivities, and rather than continually battle with these ancient traditions, the Church allowed them in the context of Christian observances. French and Spanish settlers to the New World brought these traditions to such places as Louisiana and Brazil. New Orleans Mardi Gras The modern Mardi Gras in the United States was celebrated with parades in Mobile and New Orleans beginning in the early 1900s.
Elite groups, or krewes, began to form to plan parades, build floats, and have elaborate balls replete with gown-wearing “royalty.” The king and queen are usually a successful local businessman and local society beauty; this certainly has overtones of pagan fertility ritualism. These groups of local elites and their families, numbering 60 or so, party and plan for the season throughout the year. Krewes are seen as highly exclusive, and their balls and galas were breathlessly featured in the society pages of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the now largely defunct local paper. They spend much of this planning period designing and building floats, which are kept under very high security before their unveiling on parade day. The floats, which in the past were built of papier-mâché and pulled by stoic mules, are now pulled by tractors and are extremely elaborate, almost always bizarre, and occasionally grotesque constructions. High school bands from throughout the region and beauty queens also parade, but krewe members usually remain masked while throwing doubloons, beads, and other memorabilia to the crowds. The cry “Throw me somethin,’ Mister” is an old New Orleans exhortation to krewe members from the crowd to accumulate beads and treasured doubloons. In line with ancient fertility traditions perhaps, numerous young women (often intoxicated) have begun to bare their breasts to accrue beads from krewe members and from appreciative males on foot in the French Quarter. Baring other body parts will attract the attention of the New Orleans Police Department, however. That notwithstanding, much heavy drinking of hurricanes and beer in plastic cups, ritual cross-dressing, and outrageous and suggestive costumes are de rigueur within the confines of the French Quarter. Shirts with obscene slogans are often worn, and some people seem barely dressed. Many men are seen in drag and full makeup, and it is widely known that New Orleans—and the French Quarter in particular—enjoy a large gay following. Violence sometimes ensues when intoxicated people collide or argue over beads. Overtly sexual behavior and public urination are also officially discouraged, though are often
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observed. For these reasons, parents of small children and those with delicate sensibilities are advised to steer clear of the French Quarter— Bourbon Street, in particular—during carnival season. Moreover, people are advised not to bring purses or wear jewelry because of the presence of pickpockets or the possibility of drunkenly misplacing these items. Comfortable shoes and sensible clothing are a necessity, and drunkenness is not compulsory. Parades in other parts of the city and on the periphery of the French Quarter are much more family oriented and more tame. Many in the metropolitan area consider Mardi Gras a family holiday and avoid the French Quarter during the season. But this is a perception that most Americans would find surprising, as it is generally seen and presented in the media as an alcohol-fueled, anything-goes Bacchanalia. Black working-class krewes of “Indians” have parades featuring jazz music, dancing, and extremely elaborate faux Plains Indian garb. The Zulu parade, named after the African tribe, was started in 1909 by a group of laborers. The predominantly African American organization is known for wearing grass skits and throwing coconuts. Folk Mardi Gras In the past, many small communities in the Acadian-French southern part of Louisiana had a folk Mardi Gras. As such, these practices reflect more rural Gallic traditions brought to Louisiana in the mid-1700s by the Acadians from France by way of French Canada. The famous Mamou Mardi Gras celebration is typical of the old-style festivities, which persist to this day. The activities consist of drinking a lot of alcohol (beginning early and reinforced throughout the day) and riding masked as jesters, women, or devils to various farmhouses to “beg” for a charité— chicken, sausage, or rice—to make a gumbo. After ascertaining that the householder will receive the riders, the riders charge the house on horseback (or muleback) and dance and clown around in the farmyard. Often, they will drunkenly chase the chickens proffered for the gumbo. The chicken, after being caught and dispatched, is bagged up and carried to the next farmhouse by the riders. Upon departure, the riders sing a traditional song of thanks,
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The Kosmic Frenchmen Purple Face Krewe dances on Frenchmen Street during Mardis Gras in New Orleans, February 24, 2009. This krewe (a privately organized group for Mardi Gras) roams from bar to bar in the French Quarter, starting on Frenchmen Street at noon on Mardi Gras Day. The Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans is world renowned. Cross-dressing, outrageous outfits, suggestive costumes, and a great deal of heavy drinking from plastic cups are par for the course in the French Quarter during the celebration.
inviting the farmer and his family to a party and dance where the gumbo constitutes the bill of fare. The “Mardi Gras Song,” familiar to fans of Cajun music, is a clear remnant of medieval-style singing. The party features Cajun tunes, much dancing, drinking, and excellent Cajun food, besides the gumbo. Rural African Americans in the region evolved similar, though more sedate and smaller-scale, festivities. Other Cajun cities in Louisiana, such as Lafayette and Houma, have celebrations that are impressive, though on a smaller scale than that offered by New Orleans. Floats, businesspeople, beauty queens, scouts, civic groups, local politicians, clowns, church groups, and local high school bands are featured, and the festivities go on for days. Public drinking is
widespread, and locals bring beer-filled coolers on which to sit to watch the parades. In these small cities, krewe members know that spectators are friends and family and the atmosphere, while festive, is more restrained than in New Orleans. Breast display is not expected, nor is cross-dressing or outré costumes or behavior; public urination is not tolerated. These festivals are not widely known outside of the region and consequently remain more authentic, community focused, and family oriented. Francis Frederick Hawley Western Carolina University See Also: Carnival; Drunken Behavior as Culturally Learned; Holidays; New Orleans Hurricane.
Further Readings Asbury, Herbert. The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld. New York: Thunder Mouth Press, 2003. Spitzer, Nick. “Mardi Gras.” In The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, eds. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Stanonis, Anthony J. “Through a Purple (Green and Gold) Haze: New Orleans Mardi Gras in the American Imagination.” Southern Cultures, v.14/2 (2008).
Margarita The margarita is far and away the best-known cocktail using tequila, and in fact it is likely that most Americans have only ever had tequila in the form of a margarita or a shot. Few drinks so dominate their category. There are, though, many other tequila cocktails of both old and new coinage. Origins The origins of the margarita are unclear. Many mixologists doubt its Mexican origins because Mexico lacked a cocktail culture until American tourists introduced it. Tequila was a late addition to the American cocktail bar, arriving around the 1930s, but—perhaps because of its pronounced character and the difficulty of mixing with it or its high cost relative to domestic liquors—it never approached the popularity of gin, rum, brandy, or whiskey. Tequila distiller Jose Cuervo ran ads mentioning the margarita as early as 1945, but the earliest mention outside of advertisements is a 1953 article in Esquire magazine. This introduces the possibility that the margarita was developed by ad men to sell tequila to American cocktail drinkers. Many people have claimed credit for inventing the margarita, but they have usually done so late in life—long after the fact. Dallas socialite Margaret “Margarita” Sames is the best known claimant, and her 1994 obituary credited her with having invented the drink at her holiday home in Acapulco, Mexico, in 1948. Restaurant
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owner Danny Herrera claimed to have invented the drink in 1938 for a showgirl customer who was “allergic” to any hard liquor except tequila. One story attributes its name to actress Rita Hayworth, born Margarita Cansino, who performed in Mexico as a teenager in the 1930s. All that can be said for sure is that it attained popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, as Americans moved away from alcohol-forward drinks and toward sweeter concoctions. Ingredients Traditionally, a margarita is made with tequila, Cointreau or some other triple sec, and lime juice, with a salt rim. (The salt rim is formed by rubbing the wet lime along the rim of the glass and rolling the rim in coarse salt.) The ratio for a traditional margarita is either 3:2:1 or 2:1:1; the former is sweeter, the latter tarter, but both are strong sipping drinks. It’s usually served on the rocks or blended with ice. Like most traditional cocktails, its sweetness comes from the liqueur, not the addition of sugar. The contribution of orange flavor from the Cointreau (or triple sec) is key to the margarita’s flavor profile. That said, a large number of margaritas consumed today are instead made with sugar syrups, sour mix, and other substitutions, leaving out most of the traditional flavor in favor of an extra-sweet tequila sour, often with added fruit flavors. The margarita lends itself easily to fruit-flavored variations, often associated with badly made, artificially flavored concoctions or premade mixers. Still, there are plenty of serious mixologists offering premium fruit margaritas in which, for instance, passion fruit juice or calamansi juice is used in place of some or all of the lime juice or triple sec. Brand representatives for new fruit liqueurs will often advocate making a “such and such margarita” by using their fruit liqueur in place of the triple sec, such as a pomegranate margarita and açaí margarita. An authentic margarita is made with fresh lime juice. Premade mixers have been popular since the 1970s and come in three broad types: (1) sour mix, which often contains no fruit juice at all (just corn syrup, citric acid, and flavorings) and is used in bars to provide a generic acidic element for a variety of drinks; (2) margarita mix, which is usually sweet and lime-flavored
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and may include pasteurized lime juice as an ingredient; and (3) prebottled margaritas, which are the prepared cocktail with alcohol included. Not all prebottled margaritas necessarily contain tequila. “Margarita” is a popular malt beverage flavor, for instance, and was introduced as one of Bartles & Jaymes’s wine cooler flavors in the 1980s. Because the origins of the drink are unknown, no one can authoritatively state what kind of lime is used in the “authentic” margarita. The limes grown in Mexico are commonly Key limes, but the drink may not have originated there; even if it did, a massive Key lime crop failure in the early 20th century popularized the use of Bearss (also known as Persian) limes—the common lime found today in American supermarkets; so even a Mexican-origin margarita may have originally been made with Bearss lime juice because it may have been all that was available. For sweetener, the traditional margarita uses triple sec, usually Cointreau. Triple sec is orange liqueur made from both bitter and sweet oranges (notably the Curaçao orange). It was developed sometime in the 19th century; Cointreau’s liqueur was introduced in 1875, and while liqueurs that included orange existed before then, it is not clear if there were “single-note” orange liqueurs (without other flavorings or spices). Cointreau was introduced in France and has, as its alcohol component, a neutral spirit derived from fermenting sugar beets. It is generally believed to be the original triple sec used for margaritas; certainly, it was then and has remained the market leader in both sales and reviews. A similar product is Grand Marnier, also French, introduced in 1880. Grand Marnier, though, has Cognac as its base, which drastically changes the flavor. This is not to say that Grand Marnier is inappropriate or inauthentic in a margarita; it is attested in cocktail guides, and aged Grand Marnier is sometimes offered in bars as the sweetener for especially top-shelf margaritas. Interestingly, both Cointreau and Grand Marnier are 80 proof (40 percent alcohol), which is at the low end of the spectrum for base liquors and twice as alcoholic as many other liqueurs. Blanco (white, unaged) tequila is the traditional choice for margaritas. While aged tequilas are more expensive, they do not necessarily make for better margaritas. Some people advise against
using more expensive base liquors in cocktails because their better qualities and nuanced flavors will be covered up, but this is not always a compelling argument because a $60 bourbon can make a far superior Old Fashioned than a $20 bourbon can. With tequila, though, the issue is not one of “wasting” the more expensive añejo or reposado tequila but that the blanco tequila has specific characteristics that disappear with age. Blanco tequila has a wildness and boldness comparable to rhum agricole or cachaca; it assists the tequila with standing up to the heavy doses of sweetness and tartness. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: “Girl” Drinks; Proof, Alcohol; Tequila; Tequila Cocktails; Wine Coolers. Further Readings Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s. New York: Perennial Classics, 2000. Babor, Thomas. Alcohol Customs and Rituals. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. Barr, Andrew. Drink: A Social History of America. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1999. Burns, Eric. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004. DeGroff, Dale. The Craft of the Cocktail. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2002. Felten, Eric. How’s Your Drink? Cocktails, Culture, and the Art of Drinking Well. Chicago: Surrey Books, 2007. Grimes, William. Straight Up or on the Rocks: A Cultural History of American Drink. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993. Haigh, Ted. Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. New York: Quarry Books, 2009. McElhone, Harry. Barflies and Cocktails. New York: Mud Puddle Books, 2008. Regan, Gary. The Joy of Mixology. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2003. Thomas, Jerry. Bartenders Guide. How to Mix Drinks: A Bon Vivant’s Companion. New York: Mud Puddle Books, 2008. Wondrich, Dave. Imbibe! New York: Perigee Trade, 2007.
Marsanne and Roussanne Marsanne and Roussanne are two white grape varieties that are extensively grown in the Rhône Valley in southern France. They are sometimes mistaken for each other, partly because they are closely related; DNA evidence suggests that Roussanne is very likely one of the parents of Marsanne. Nonetheless, each offers quite different aromatic and flavor profiles. They are often blended together, and they are the only grape varieties permitted in the prestigious white wines of the Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage, and St. Joseph appellations (officially designated wine regions) in the northern Rhône Valley, although the role of Roussanne is diminishing there. They are now widely planted in other wine regions outside France, especially in Australia and the United States. Both of these varieties appeared in the historical record in 1781, when they were mentioned in a text about white wines from the Hermitage region of the northern Rhône. Marsanne probably gets its name from the town of Marsanne (near the River Rhône) in the department of the Drôme, while Roussanne is very likely named for the russet (roux in French) color of its grapes when they are ripe. Roussanne is more aromatic than Marsanne and has higher natural acidity, making it more suitable for aging. Marsanne has intense color and is aromatic, but less so than Roussanne, and can produce a wine that is rounder and has a tendency to be fat (low in acid). Because of these differences, they often blend well together, sometimes with the addition of grapes of the viognier variety. In the southern Rhône, both Marsanne and Roussanne are among the six varieties permitted in white Côtes du Rhône wines, and Roussanne is also the leading white grape variety in white Châteauneuf-du-Pape blends. Marsanne is not included in the latter because it was not planted in the Châteauneuf-du-Pape appellation (officially designated wine region) when its rules were established in 1936. Although they are often blended together and with other varieties, Marsanne and Roussanne are also used to make varietal (single-variety) wines.
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They have become popular for both purposes, and the area planted in Marsanne and Roussanne in France has more than doubled since 2000. There are significant vineyards of both in LanguedocRoussillon and of Roussanne in Savoie in eastern France. Outside of France, there are small areas of Roussanne in Italy (Liguria and Tuscany) and scattered plantings in Portugal and Greece. Marsanne is sometimes made into a sweet wine in the Valais region of Switzerland, where it is known as ermitage. In the New World, some wine regions in California and Australia have embraced Marsanne and Roussanne, reflecting an interest in wines made in styles associated with the Rhône Valley. In California, this was expressed in the 1980s by a number of wine producers who became known as the Rhône Rangers, a pun on the Lone Ranger. Although California producers of Rhône grape varieties now focus heavily on syrah, they continue to grow Marsanne and Roussanne for use in either blended or varietal white wines. Plantings of both have increased steadily, especially in the central coast region. Outside of California, they can be found in Oregon and Washington and, further north, in Canada’s Okanagan Valley wine region. In Australia, plantings of Marsanne and Roussanne are small, although Marsanne is the more significant, and they are dispersed through regions in states as diverse as Victoria, south Australia, and western Australia. One notable producer of Marsanne, Tahbilk (in Victoria) has grown Marsanne since the 1860s and still has productive vines that date back to 1927. Tahbilk claims to have a larger area in Marsanne than any other winery in the world. Although Marsanne and Roussanne have, individually and blended together, quite distinct flavor and texture profiles, they approach some of the character of some wines made from the viognier variety. But wines made from Marsanne and Roussanne, whether blended or varietal, tend to be boutique and even minor cult wines that are made in small volumes and not mass-marketed. They lie well outside the limited range of grape varieties that is familiar to most wine consumers. Rod Phillips Carleton University
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See Also: Wine Connoisseurship; Wines, California; Wines, French; Wines, White. Further Readings Cholette, Susan. “A Tale of Two Wine Regions: Similarities, Differences, and Trends in the French and Californian Wine Industries.” International Journal of Wine Marketing, v.16/2 (2004). “Hermitage La Chapelle/Grange Tasting.” Journal of Wine Research, v.3/3 (1992). Preston, David. “Viticulture and Winemaking in Contemporary Rural Change: Experience from Southern France and Eastern Australia.” Journal of Wine Research, v.19/3 (2008).
Marsh, John Reverend John Marsh Jr. was secretary of the American Temperance Union from 1837 until its dissolution in 1856; a Connecticut Congregational minister; the enemy of the Washingtonians; and the author of quite a number of books, sermons, articles, essays, and observations. Among his books were Hannah Hawkins: The Reformed Drunkard’s Daughter (1842) and Temperance Recollections: Labors, Defeats, Triumphs, An Autobiography (1866). Early Influences John H. W. Hawkins (Hannah’s father), though not one of the six founders of the Washingtonians, was popularly considered as a founder. After the 1842 death of George Steer, the most obscure of the actual founders, Marsh—through Hannah Hawkins—established a strong connection with Hawkins. Marsh was also close to John Bartholomew Gough, considered a Washingtonian but less closely tied to the actual Washington Temperance Society of Baltimore than Hawkins was. Both Hawkins and Marsh were essentially total abstinence temperance men, though preaching as Washingtonians, while the first president of the Washington Temperance Society of Baltimore, William K. Mitchell—albeit in favor of total abstinence for those with a drinking problem— was not so concerned with drinking in the society at
large. Moreover, Marsh was an exemplar of Gospel Temperance, while the Washingtonians were exemplar simply of temperance. This led Marsh to charge the Washingtonians with irreligion, a charge that found its way into the 1925 book by John A. Krout titled The Origins of Prohibition. Marsh was the son of John Marsh, D. D., the longtime pastor in Wethersfield, Connecticut, and was a cousin of the abolitionist Tappans of New York (including the one who supported abolitionist John Brown’s raid) and of the president of the New York & Erie Railroad. He grew up in a time and place where flip and hard cider were the common drinks not only for adults but also for children and youth. He later recalled getting drunk at his school (with the master and all the other boys) to celebrate the Fourth of July when he was 12; that fall, he went off to Yale where there was more drinking—until the president, Reverend Timothy Dwight, preached a notable sermon against it and something like 100 students signed a pledge. (Reverend Dwight’s grandmother came from a notable New England alcoholic family.) Besides Reverend Dwight, the young Marsh was much influenced by the writings of Benjamin Rush. In 1814 to 1815, he supplied the Wall Street Presbyterian pulpit in New York City, where not to drink the fine wines with the fine ladies of the houses (Lenox, Livingston, and Edgar) was for a young minister an impossibility. In 1818, he took charge of the Congregational Church in Haddam, Connecticut, and at his ordination into the church, the Reverend Calvin Chapin of Rocky Hill in Wethersfield, a former inebriate, called on one of the brethren ministers to cease his potations, which caused a scandal. Yet in 1826, the first Connecticut temperance society was formed by Jeremiah Day (Reverend Dwight’s successor as president of Yale), Reverend Chapin, and Marsh (as secretary). From there, Marsh went on—more or less— from victory to victory in the growing temperance cause, as an associate of Reverend Chapin and Lyman Beecher. He was instrumental in 1830 to 1831 in forming the Congressional Temperance Society, under the presidency of lifetime teetotaler Lewis Cass, and the leadership of the former inebriate Senator Felix Grundy. He traveled the country—at least as far as Pennsylvania—in the early 1830s and, in 1837,
became the editor of the Journal of the American Temperance Union as well as the secretary (at least pro tem) of a number of local and other temperance societies. The American Temperance Society had been formed in Boston in 1826, and various local and other societies emerged in the seven years thereafter. Then they merged in 1833 as the United States Temperance Union, and it did nothing in its first three years of existence but finally changed its name to the American Temperance Union, of which Marsh was the secretary and guiding spirit. But there was handwriting on the wall. First, there was the problem of defining temperance (moderation or abstinence). Second, there was the uneasy yoking of former inebriates with lifelong abstainers and with those who had tried drinking, did not like it, wanted to end it, and wanted public figures like Daniel Webster or John Quincy Adams on their side for their publicity value. Third, and Marsh certainly realized this, there was a sectional split: Many of the most fervent temperance men, such as Gerrit Smith of New York, were also abolition men. In Maryland and Pennsylvania, they were gradual abolition men, but in the north and midwest, they were more like William Lloyd Garrison and Elijah Parish Lovejoy; the split was there. By his connections with Hawkins and Gough, and through the temperance movement generally, Marsh responded to the threat to his position and to the American Temperance Union (ATU) raised by the Washington Temperance Society of Baltimore. That city was the scene of Marsh’s early labors in 1831 and while setting up the Congressional Temperance Society in Washington. Mitchell of the Washingtonians had actually been known to buy drinks for people, though a close reading of his techniques in T. S. Arthur’s Six Nights with the Washingtonians (1871) suggests very special reasons for that. Marsh labored mightily to subvert the techniques—the approach to drunkards—of the Washingtonians and, perhaps coincidentally, they disappeared. The two keys to Marsh’s position and that of the ATU can be found in his rejoicing that (1) Eliphalet Nott, president of Union College and a moderationist, had come out against the drinking of wine, and (2) the 1845 ATU report
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indicated that temperance would fail without the support of the churches. What in the end defeated the ATU (as Marsh conceived it) was (1) the diversion of ATU’s—and Marsh’s—efforts toward political prohibition, as a result partly of the success of Portland mayor Neal Dow and the Maine Laws, and (2) the growth of lodges, such as the Good Templars, where efforts toward temperance were largely out of the public view. If one were approaching drunkards, as the Washingtonians did in the beginning, one could have experienced meetings for drunkards, but if one were approaching the public generally, one probably needed public meetings. And one of the problems of political prohibition, which Marsh had sought to some degree as early as his Congressional Temperance Society efforts, was that it tried to enforce temperance by law—and that (as was discovered between 1920 and 1933) was difficult if not impossible, even if the laws were not ruled unconstitutional. Some of those passed by the states in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s were unconstitutional, some were vetoed by governors, and some aroused so much resentment that they never took effect. Conclusion Marsh retired from his position with the ATU in 1856, but he could scarcely be said to have retired from the struggle. Toward the end of his autobiography, he kept mentioning the passing of many of his colleagues in the struggle—as not only was he growing older and the great men of his younger days were gone, but also even the lesser giants of the 1830s and 1840s were dying off. In the 1880s, a midwestern observer, Jerome Murray, who wrote Reminiscences of an Ex-Inebriate (1881), noted that the struggle had disappeared behind the closed doors of the churches and the lodges and that political prohibition and public endorsements of temperance—Marsh’s only alternative approach—did not work well either. Jared Lobdell Independent Scholar See Also: American Temperance Society; American Temperance Union; Congressional Temperance Society; Gough, John Batholomew; Rush, Benjamin; Washingtonians.
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Further Readings Krout, John Allen. The Origins of Prohibition. New York: Knopf, 1925. Marsh, John. Temperance Recollections: Labors, Defeats, Triumphs—An Autobiography. New York: BiblioLife, 1866. Murray, Jerome. Reminiscences of an Ex-Inebriate. Toledo, OH: 1881. White, William L. Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America. Normal, IL: Chestnut Health Systems, 1998.
Martha Washington Societies The Martha Washington Societies were an outgrowth of the Washingtonians, a unique temperance society that emerged in the antebellum northeast. In 1840, at a small tavern in Baltimore (ironically called the Baltimore Drinking Club), a close-knit fellowship of just six friends, each a drunkard, established the Washingtonian Temperance Society. All six promised to swear off alcohol and to help each other abstain. Anticipating some of the practices developed by Alcoholics Anonymous a century later, they created a support group, with each member pledged to abstain from drinking, to meet regularly, and to invite other drunkards to share stories of their drinking careers and struggles to stay sober. Other temperance societies believed drunkards to be beyond redemption and focused on preventing people from ever starting to drink. The Washingtonians, however, former drunkards themselves, expressed sympathy for those afflicted by drink and strove to return them to useful lives of sobriety, gainful employment, and familial happiness. Moreover, Washingtonian societies, unlike their mainstream counterparts, catered to a working-class, rather than middle-class, membership. Washingtonian societies eschewed the self-righteous condemnation of drunkards that prevented “respectable” temperance folk from helping their fallen brethren. This new approach excited great interest, and membership grew rapidly. Washingtonian meetings attracted newspaper coverage,
and the movement spread throughout the northeast like wildfire. Within two years, membership totaled more than a quarter of a million men, with chapters throughout New England and as far west as St. Louis. During this period of dramatic growth, a movement emerged to involve women in the Washingtonian crusade. Unlike female auxiliaries of the mainstream temperance movement, the resulting Martha Washington Society (the women themselves preferred to be called the Ladies Washingtonian Society, as many of them were well aware of the former First Lady’s fondness for rum punch) met in a church basement in 1841 in New York City’s East Side, an impoverished neighborhood comprised largely of immigrants and the working class. From the outset, the women did not see themselves as merely the fund-raising auxiliary of the men’s groups. Though they did raise money, much of their activity centered on collecting food and clothing to distribute among families made destitute by the breadwinner’s alcohol abuse. The women spoke passionately at their meetings of the special role God had designed for women in the temperance movement, the special influence that woman had over men, whether wives or mothers or daughters or sisters. Indeed, one of the popular public stories surrounding the six founders of the original Washingtonian Temperance Society is that of its most vigorous public advocate, John Hawkins (1799–1858), an unemployed hatmaker whose nearly 20-year descent into alcohol abuse ceased abruptly through the influence and efforts of his adolescent daughter. Women, the founders of the Martha Washington Society believed, possessed a unique and potent influence over men and therefore had a place in the actual work of reformation. Although the Marthas’ agenda was by any measure conservative—to help the families of alcoholics—women taking an active, independent role in temperance work constituted a radical break with established practice. Over the next decade, the Marthas became one of the most active social reform organizations in the northeast. At its peak, Martha Washington Societies’ membership reached more than 6,000, remarkable at a time when women were almost entirely confined to the domestic sphere. New York City alone had 42 societies by 1845. The dissolution of
the societies, however, was nearly as precipitous as their rise. Linked to the male Washingtonian societies, the Marthas did not survive when the mainstream temperance movement co-opted the Washingtonian approach and message. As the Washingtonian movement collapsed in the late 1840s, so did the Martha Washington Societies. Although the Martha Washington Societies certainly merit notice as part of the antebellum temperance movement, they are also important for other reasons. Foremost, they emphasized nonjudgmental concern and material support for the families of alcoholics more than previous temperance societies. Moreover, because the Marthas sprang mostly from working-class backgrounds, they worked directly and unhesitatingly with the families impacted by alcohol abuse, bringing aid
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to the afflicted in their homes. Their aims were modest and logical—get the breadwinner off of alcohol, get him a job he could hold and get that money into the home, keep a clean home, keep the children in school, and always maintain a close affiliation with support groups and a local church. In addition, though the Marthas never lost their prime belief that alcoholism was essentially a male vice, they recognized that alcohol abuse affected women as well. In their crusade in the streets of the cities, the members saw firsthand how wives, locked into abusive marriages with alcoholic husbands, often themselves turned to the escape of drink. Certainly, the Marthas preached tirelessly against alcohol consumption, not to censure the sins of drunkards but to address the consequences of intemperance: joblessness, poverty, and the deplorable conditions under which the families of alcoholics lived. The Marthas approached intemperance in a novel way, one that aided individual drinkers rather than condemned all drunkards, one that focused on revitalizing the domestic sphere rather than reforming the public sphere, and one that stressed sympathy for the families of the intemperate. Joseph Dewey Broward College �See Also: Alcoholism: Effect on Family; American Temperance Society; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 19th Century; Temperance Movements; Washingtonians.
The Martha Washington Temperance Songster was published by the Martha Washington Temperance Societies in the 1800s. Multiple Martha Washington societies sprang up in the mid19th century to protect family life by supporting sobriety.
Further Readings Boylan, Anne M. The Origin of Women’s Activism: New York and Boston, 1979–1840. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Fuhrer, Mary Babson. A Crisis of Community: The Trials and Tribulations of a New England Town, 1815–1848. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Johnstown, Ann Dowsett. Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol. New York: HarperWave, 2013. Mattingly, Carol. Well-Tempered Women: Nineteenth-Century Temperance Rhetoric. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999.
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Martin, Dean An iconic entertainer from the 1940s to the 1990s, singer and actor Dean Martin was known as much for his love of alcohol as for his good looks and smooth voice. He was a member of the notorious Rat Pack, which also included singers Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr.; actor and Kennedy-in-law Peter Lawford; and comedian Joey Bishop. The Rat Pack was known for its hard drinking and intense partying. Although the logo of his variety show was a martini glass and he frequently appeared inebriated on the Las Vegas stage, Martin drank apple juice in public appearances. Offstage, he reportedly drank Jack Daniels. The extent of Martin’s actual alcohol consumption remains elusive. According to biographies written by daughter Deana and son Ricci, their father was an extremely private person who often left parties to spend time on his own. Some people who worked with him, however, insist that his drinking was legendary. Most people agree that Martin’s life changed drastically when his youngest son, Dean Paul (Dino), was killed in a plane crash in 1987. It was at that point that his alcohol consumption may have spiraled out of control. Private Life The entertainer who became Dean Martin was born Dino Paul Crocetti on June 7, 1917, in Steubenville, Ohio. His father, Gaetano Crocetti, was an Italian immigrant and a barber. His mother, Angela, who worked as a seamstress, was born in the United States to Italian immigrants. Martin spoke only Italian for the first five years of his life. Never happy at school, he dropped out at the age of 16. Before becoming an actor, he worked at a number of jobs, including as an amateur boxer and as a Las Vegas card dealer. He was already singing by the age of 17, and he joined a touring band at the age of 22. In 1941, Martin married Elizabeth Anne McDonald, and the couple had four children: Craig, Claudia, Barbara, and Deana. As a result of his infidelities and her drinking, the couple divorced in 1949, and he gained custody of the children. He married Jeanne Biegger that same year and fathered three more children—Dean Paul, Ricci, and Gina—before they divorced in
1973. That same year, Martin married Catherine Hawn, who was 23 to his 57. They divorced in 1976 after having one child. The man described by his family is much different from what Martin’s public image suggests. Son Ricci insists that his father was a family man who was never inebriated in the presence of his children. Martin and Lewis In the 1940s, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis became the number-one comedy team in the United States. They first appeared on the stage in 1946 at a small club in New York City. An immediate success, the act moved to Atlantic City and their fame continued to grow. They became the top box-office draw, appearing in 29 films and becoming the highest-paid entertainers of the period. They starred in the Martin and Lewis show for NBC radio from 1949 to 1953. The pair split up in 1956 amid public acrimony. Lewis went on to star in a series of zany comedies, and Martin surprised his critics by succeeding on his own as both an actor and a singer. Iconic Entertainer Martin’s first serious film role was The Young Lions (1958). In all, he made 54 films that ranged from Westerns such as Rio Bravo (1959) and Five Card Stud (1968) to romantic comedies such as Bells Are Ringing (1960) and Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed? (1963). He also made a series of Matt Helms films, which featured a hard-drinking, womanizing counter-spy, including The Silencers (1966), Murderers’ Row (1966), The Ambushers (1967), and The Wrecking Crew (1968). Martin also became a major recording star. His first hit was “That’s Amore” in 1953. He had 40 charted singles and seven top 10 hits, and 11 of his albums went gold. His first recording to top the charts was “Memories Are Made of This” in 1955. In 1964, his son bet him he could not outrank the Beatles on the charts. Accepting the challenge, he recorded “Everybody Loves Somebody,” which rose to the top of the charts. In 1960, the Rat Pack first burst onto the scene during filming of the original Oceans 11, in which Martin starred along with Sinatra, Lawford, Davis, Jr., and Bishop. Comedian Don Rickles and actress Shirley MacLaine also frequently caroused with the Rat Pack. Each member of the group was
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popular individually, and the Rat Pack caught the American imagination, exerting a major influence on American popular culture and defining hard drinking and intense nightlife as “cool.” Many Americans felt they knew Martin well because of The Dean Martin Comedy Hour (1965–73) and The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast (1974–84). The variety show allowed Martin to exert his considerable charm and voice talent, while the roast show allowed his comedic talent to shine while roasting such celebrities as Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, Milton Berle, Gene Kelly, John Wayne, George Burns, Orson Wells, Phyllis Diller, Jackie Gleason, Rich Little, Michael Landon, Foster Brooks, Muhammad Ali, and Mr. T. Despite his popularity with the American public, his coworkers reported that Martin was often lazy and undisciplined on the job. David Feldman, the director of The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast, contends that Martin surrounded himself with “liquor paraphernalia” in his dressing room, including bourbon, Scotch, vermouth, white wine, and gin. Feldman maintains that Martin was also well known on the Las Vegas bar scene, particularly at the private bar of the Sands Hotel, which catered to hard-drinking celebrities. Legacy In his final years, Martin became reclusive. He had been a long-time smoker, and he was diagnosed with lung cancer but refused to have liver and kidney surgery. He healed a lot of old wounds during the time he had left, partially reconciling with his second wife, Jeanne. He also reconciled with both Lewis and his old friend Sinatra. In 2004, the documentary Dean Martin: The One and Only chronicled his life and introduced him to a new generation. His music has also survived, and his recordings have been included in a variety of movies such as Home Alone 3 (1997), Christmas With the Kranks (2004), Four Christmases (2008), and You Don’t Know Jack (2010). Martin died in 1995 at the age of 78. Elizabeth Rholetter Purdy Independent Scholar See Also: Brooks, Foster; Films, Drinking In; Martinis; Television.
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Further Readings Freedland, Michael. Dean Martin: King of the Road. London: Anova Books, 2005. Hale, Lee. Backstage at the Dean Martin Show. Dallas, TX: Taylor Publishing, 2000. Kehoe, John. “Dean Martin.” Biography, v.4/10 (October 2000). Levine, Art. “Plastered.” New Republic, v.191/7–8 (August 13, 1984). Martin, Deana. Memories Are Made of This: Dean Martin Through His Daughter’s Eyes. New York: Crown Harmony, 2004. Martin, Ricci. That’s Amore: A Son Remembers Dean Martin. Dallas: Taylor Publishing, 2004. Rotella, Mark. Amore: The Story of Italian American Song. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giraux, 2010.
Martinis Many people consider the martini the quintessential cocktail, to the extent that they refer to the stemware in which a martini is traditionally served—the cocktail glass—as a martini glass. The strange history of the martini and its many transformations illustrates the history of American drinking habits in general. Though there are many other formulations, the martini should be thought of as a gin drink with dry vermouth. Origins The nearest known ancestor to the martini is the martinez, a sweet drink that first appears in print in Jerry Thomas’s 1887 drinks guide. The martinez itself amounted simply to a gin Manhattan consisting of equal amounts of sweet vermouth and gin, with bitters. While the martinez did not enjoy a long life after the introduction of the martini around the turn of the century, its heritage was still remembered: Many early guides describe the martini as originating with a gin Manhattan. Like the Manhattan, a martini could originally be ordered sweet (with sweet vermouth), dry (with dry vermouth), or perfect (with equal parts sweet and dry vermouth). And like the Manhattan, it was quite a vermouth-forward drink, containing half or close to half vermouth in early recipes, and was seasoned with the addition of a dash or two of bitters.
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The type of bitters used varies in early recipes, but eventually orange bitters became the norm. Orange bitters was the most common type of bitters after aromatic bitters, which is a modern term to refer to the generic category in which Angostura bitters would fall. Peychaud’s bitters is considered in a class of its own or sometimes “Creole bitters” because of its prominence in New Orleans. The origins of the name are not clear—whether it is derived from the Martinez name or not, for instance. Though there is a Martini brand of vermouth (sold in the United States as Martini and Rossi), despite some folk legends to the contrary, this is probably a coincidence. At some point, in any case, the dry martini became the default, just as the sweet Manhattan did. The Knickerbocker Hotel in New York City claims to have offered the first dry martini in 1911, probably not by design, but because customers just began ordering according to their preference, as with the Manhattan. Further, a dry martini shows up in a 1903 cocktail guide by the Hotel and Restaurant Employees’ International Alliance and Bartenders’ International League of America, using two parts gin to one part dry vermouth, with bitters and an olive garnish—but it was called the “Golf Cocktail,” and the bartender who created it (Jake Didier) may not have even been aware of the sweet martini at this early date. Ten years later, advertisements for gin and vermouth mentioned both the sweet martini and the dry martini—by those names. But even as dry took over sweet, these first martinis were vermouth-heavy drinks. The original martini is what has since been revived by Audrey Sanders as the “fitty-fitty”: half vermouth, half gin, with orange bitters. Garnishes were not as prominent, and certainly the olive was not yet synonymous with the martini, despite its presence in the golf cocktail. During Prohibition, gin became the most common mainstream liquor in most cities (in rural areas, locally produced moonshine was more common), and thus gin drinks became the most popular at speakeasies. By the dawn of World War II, martinis built on four parts gin to one part vermouth had become common. A ratio somewhere between 3:1 and 4:1 should be considered the “classic” ratio; this was the ratio at which the martini became
a distinctive drink and enjoyed its greatest popularity before the bizarre dry fetishism of the postwar years. Gradually, after the war, martinis in popular culture used less and less vermouth. Bar specialty stores have since sold “vermouth spritzers” meant to merely spray the interior of the glass with vermouth, reducing the vermouth to serving the same role the now-forgotten bitters served. Various figures suggested ways to acknowledge the role of vermouth without actually using it in the drink, such as whispering the word vermouth over the surface of the glass or waving the glass in the direction of Italy. With bitters deprecated after World War II and rarely used in martinis after the 1950s, this reduced the relative complexity of the martini to simply a chilled glass of gin in a stemmed glass. During this time, even what was meant by dry martini shifted. Originally, a dry martini meant one that used dry vermouth rather than sweet vermouth. With sweet martinis forgotten, dry instead began to refer to the amount of vermouth used, with “wet martini” as its opposite. Stirred, Not Shaken In part because the martini became so exaggeratedly dry and strong, the next martini trend went in the opposite direction, but not before James Bond immortalized the drink with his request that it be “shaken, not stirred”—the opposite of what most cocktail guides recommend (which is, of course, why he needed to make the request). There is no particular reason for a martini to be shaken instead of stirred because there is no syrup, egg, or citrus to incorporate; the point of the line is simply to show that Bond cares about his drinks and knows how they are made. He actually ordered a number of different kinds of martinis in the books and films, often ordering the then-novel vodka martini, which had resulted from the marketing efforts of vodka brand representatives in the United States who recommended vodka as a substitute for gin. Of course, a vodka martini made in the Cold Warstyle of little to no vermouth with no bitters is nothing more than a glass of liquor, which by law must be flavorless to be called vodka. This is not exactly the height of sophistication. Far more interesting was Bond’s Vesper, or Vesper martini, named for the character Vesper Lynd.
It uses both gin and vodka (3:1) as well as the now-defunct Kina Lillet, a vermouth-like fortified wine that is flavored with quinine (like tonic water) rather than wormwood (for which vermouth is named). Bond’s association with the martini may have contributed to the idea that it was a staid and safe drink. Whatever the case, from the 1960s through the rest of the 20th century (and through to the present, for much of the public), drinks became increasingly sweet, with mixers designed to cover up the flavor of the alcoholic ingredients rather than to accentuate it. The Cold War–era martini—dry, almost no vermouth, with an olive— never went out of fashion but simply became old-fashioned. The name was borrowed for virtually every sweet concoction under the sun—most famously the appletini, a drink usually served sweet and green with sour, apple–flavored schnapps or flavored vodka; vermouth rarely makes an appearance. The appletini is one of many “tini” (or martini) drinks that have nothing in common with martinis except for the glass in which they are served. The significant boom in flavored vodkas in the 21st century, seemingly replacing the fad of flavored American schnapps in the late 20th century, has made this easier. Garnishes Where traditional, or at least Cold War-era, martinis survive, they have developed a tradition of garnishes more elaborate than anything seen in other drinks, except perhaps in tiki drinks. Perhaps because the Cold War martini has so little flavor or interest of its own, the garnish has taken on greater importance. The martini garnish is no longer a question of olive versus citrus peel. The olive may be stuffed with anything from meat to cheese (blue cheese is popular) to a nut or replaced with other items. The Gibson is the only garnished martini commonly given its own name because of its antique origin: It is first attested in 1908 and consists of a 6:1 dry martini, no bitters and garnished with a pickled pearl onion. The original Gibson did not actually call for the onion; it was the lack of bitters and gin-heavy ratio that differentiated it from the martini. The onion sometimes served with the Gibson became synonymous with it as
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the martini itself came to resemble the Gibson in other respects. A dirty martini takes the garnish and amplifies it to the level of an ingredient. It consists of an olive-garnished Cold War-style martini with the addition of at least a spoonful of olive brine. Other near relatives of the martini include the “Bronx cocktail,” a perfect martini with the addition of orange juice (six parts gin, three parts sweet vermouth, three parts orange juice, and two parts dry vermouth) that originated in the early 20th century, and the “bijou,” a sweet martini with the addition of green chartreuse (3:1:1, with orange bitters) that dates back to 1900. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Churchill, Winston; Films, Drinking in; Gin Cocktails; “Girl” Drinks; Manhattan; Vodka Cocktails. Further Readings Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s. New York: Perennial Classics, 2000. Babor, Thomas. Alcohol Customs and Rituals. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. Barr, Andrew. Drink: A Social History of America. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1999. Burns, Eric. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004. DeGroff, Dale. The Craft of the Cocktail. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2002. Felten, Eric. How’s Your Drink? Cocktails, Culture, and the Art of Drinking Well. Chicago: Surrey Books, 2007. Grimes, William. Straight Up or On the Rocks: A Cultural History of American Drink. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. Haigh, Ted. Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. New York: Quarry Books, 2009. McElhone, Harry. Barflies and Cocktails. New York: Mud Puddle Books, 2008. Thomas, Jerry. The Bartender’s Guide. How To Mix Drinks: A Bon Vivant’s Companion. New York: Mud Puddle Books, 2008. Wondrich, Dave. Imbibe! New York: Perigee Trade, 2007.
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Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance
Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance Founded in 1813, the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance (MSSI) is the first major voluntary association in the United States committed solely to temperance, although its stance on the use of alcohol was based on moderation rather than total abstinence. After the American Temperance Society (ATS) introduced a more aggressive form of temperance advocacy in the 1820s, the MSSI rechristened itself as the Massachusetts Temperance Society and remained without a major rival within the state until the establishment of the Massachusetts Temperance Union in 1838. Formation The establishment of religious charitable societies across the United States during the first half of the 19th century included temperance societies such as the MSSI. At the time of the MSSI’s founding, the idea of temperance already had garnered attention across the country. The abuse of alcohol had been a concern of the broad social agendas espoused by Philadelphia’s Benjamin Rush, the Methodists, and the early moral societies. Early temperanceonly societies included those in Adams, Massachusetts (established 1792); Nelson County, Virginia (established 1800); Saratoga County, New York (established 1808); and two associations in Maine (c. 1812), though they had little influence beyond their local settings. The MSSI merits attention as the first organized association of any extended reach and also as the first state-level society. The MSSI’s origins were indisputably religious. Attention to the question of temperance had been raised in a Monday meeting at the new evangelical seminary in Andover, and the meeting’s conclusions were conveyed to a larger audience through the religious paper The Panoplist. In June 1811, the General Association of Massachusetts Congregational Churches approved the formation of a committee to address the temperance question, and after several private meetings the committee proposed the idea of creating a society dedicated solely to the issue. Public gatherings to vet the idea
were sponsored in Boston in February 1813, which culminated in the society’s formal establishment. Members paid $2 per year in dues, though clergy were granted free memberships simply by expressing intent to join. By 1818, the society had more than 4,000 members and 40 auxiliaries. The membership of the MSSI in the early years cannot be easily characterized. The original society attracted people from the elite of New England society—for example, ministers, merchants, and lawyers. Federalists dominated the rolls, and participants tended to be more civic-minded and politically active compared to the society at large. On other points the society was diverse. While orthodox Congregationalists constituted the largest segment of members, a sizeable minority were Unitarians. Participants in local auxiliaries represented more of a cross section of the population by occupation than did the founders in Boston. The MSSI initially supported moderation in the use of alcohol, not abstinence, and for this reason it did not insist on adherence to any type of temperance pledge for nearly two decades. Instead, the society’s aim was to control drunkenness, especially the excessive drinking of the working class. Its primary strategy was to use the influence and respectability of its elite membership to set an example for others. The society targeted community leaders like business owners and politicians: Shopkeepers were advised to discontinue the practice of paying workers with alcoholic beverages, and town leaders were encouraged to use their existing ordinances to prevent the illicit sale of liquor. Unlike later temperance groups such as the Washingtonians and Sons of Temperance, the MSSI did not attempt to dissuade the masses from drunkenness, and the society published only a few pamphlets. 1826 and Beyond The MSSI was experiencing a gradual decline when evangelical activists launched the ATS in 1826. The ATS had no qualms about trying to influence the masses directly and promoting abstinence rather than moderation. Nevertheless, the ATS and MSSI coexisted harmoniously for more than a decade, and the MSSI remained the primary temperance association in Massachusetts for at least 12 more years. ATS activities had the residual effect of increasing interest in the MSSI, and in 1833 the society rebranded itself as the Massachusetts
Temperance Society (MTS), which was regarded by the ATS as an auxiliary in spite of its autonomy. As the ATS started to shape the national debate over temperance, the MTS experienced internal transformations of mission, membership, and political involvement. The society had difficulty resolving its position on the temperance pledge and allowed local auxiliaries to take their own positions on the matter. The state society itself accepted the short pledge against hard drinks in 1831, but younger members pushed for the more extensive long pledge banning fermented drinks such as wine, a position dissonant with the society’s acceptance of moderation. In 1838, the Massachusetts Temperance Union was spun off by a group supporting the long pledge. The second transformation relates to the constituency of the membership. Over time, the society became less inclusive of common laborers, and latent class warfare in the 1840s may have been behind some of the public disagreements of the MTS with the newly formed Washingtonians and Sons of Temperance. Also, as the discourse on temperance became dominated by evangelical activists, Unitarians began to disappear from the ranks. The MTS was influenced by the waves of political involvement shaping the temperance movement generally from the 1830s to the 1850s. Concluding that political involvement was necessary to protect morality, MTS members were active in supporting temperance candidates in the elections of 1835 and 1838, and the society supported the state legislature’s passage of the Fifteen Gallon Law in 1838. The MTS returned to the primacy of moral persuasion in the 1840s as temperance advocates generally tried to broaden their appeal across political and class boundaries, but the society returned to politics as the question of prohibition was raised in the 1850s. Explanations of Origins Because the MSSI is the first major temperance society in the United States, accounting for its appearance is important for those seeking a general explanation for the rise of the temperance movement. Status anxiety is frequently cited as a cause: The elite origins and Federalist orientation of the membership is seen as consonant with the argument, but the high levels of political and civic involvement of society members are inconsistent
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with the kind of relative deprivation that the argument implies. In Sobering Up, Ian Tyrrel proposes that the Embargo Act of 1807 and the War of 1812 precipitated the growth of pauperism: The creation of the MSSI corresponded with the rise of pauperism, and the subsequent decline of the society corresponded with the revival of the American economy after the end of the war. However, the role of religious zeal in the society’s founding cannot be overlooked. Religion does not explain when these movements appeared and why their advocates took the specific positions that they did; in this sense, religious arguments could be explained as nothing more than cultural idioms used to legitimate class warfare. However, when the personal beliefs and behaviors of the MSSI founders are examined, the fact is that a religious ethos shaped their lives and social involvements. Richard L. Rogers Youngstown State University See Also: American Temperance Society; Fifteen Gallon Law; Rush, Benjamin; Temperance, History of; Temperance Movements, Religion in. Further Readings Clark, George Faber. History of the Temperance Reform in Massachusetts, 1813–1883. Boston: Clarke & Carruth, 1888. Hampel, Robert L. Temperance and Prohibition in Massachusetts 1813–1852. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Press, 1982. Rorabaugh, William J. The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Tyrell, Ian R. Sobering Up: From Temperance to Prohibition in Antebellum America, 1800–1860. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979.
Mathew, Father Theobald Father Theobald Mathew, the “Irish Apostle of Temperance,” was a Capuchin friar who launched a teetotal crusade in Ireland, Britain,
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and the United States in the 1830s and 1840s. Handsome and charismatic, Mathew was not only the most significant mid-century Catholic temperance worker but also one of the bestknown teetotalers of any denomination. The first reformer to make a significant impression on Irish Catholics, some of whom saw temperance as Protestant proselytizing, his appeal crossed sectarian lines. It even tempered antiCatholic and anti-Irish hostility in England, though it proved impossible to separate his campaign from politician Daniel O’Connell’s simultaneous agitation for the repeal of the Act of Union. Mathew claimed to have gathered millions of adherents to the cause, and his campaign took on a millenarian tone in Ireland. It proved impossible to keep up the pace of the crusade in the 1840s, as the Great Famine threw Ireland into disarray and absorbed Mathew’s energies; a series of financial and personal setbacks also undermined his authority. Despite this, he made Irish temperance internationally famous. Early Years Born in County Tipperary, Mathew (the cousin of an aristocratic family) trained for the priesthood at Maynooth before withdrawing after a minor indiscretion to become a Capuchin friar in Dublin. John F. Quinn has argued that this was a significant event as Mathew escaped the strongly nationalistic culture of the seminary with his ecumenical sensibilities intact. He was sent to Cork in the autumn of 1814, becoming popular with the poor of the city for his preaching and charity. There were teetotal and temperance societies near Cork in the first decades of the 19th century, some of them Catholic, and by 1830 it was probably the strongest center of Irish temperance outside Ulster. William Martin, a Quaker who had established Cork’s total abstinence society in 1835, saw Mathew’s popularity with the Catholic poor and encouraged him to take the pledge. So did James McKenna, an ex-soldier who helped found the Liverpool Catholic Total Abstinence Society in 1837 and who had been acting as an agent for English Catholic temperance in Ireland before joining the Cork society. Mathew signed the pledge and became president of the society in April 1838 with the words “Here goes, in the name of God!”
On the Road The results of Mathew’s leadership were astonishing. By the end of that year, 6,000 had joined the society, making it the biggest in Britain and Ireland. Thousands made the journey from all over Munster to see him. Traveling to Limerick and Waterford late in 1839, he was received by crowds of tens of thousands, with thousands taking the pledge each week. O’Connell and the other supporters of the repeal gave their support as Mathew held meetings in Galway, Dublin, and elsewhere. By June 1840, he was the leader of 2 million teetotalers; he had even been well received in Ulster, though not by everyone, and he publicly thanked the Orangemen for this welcome. He did attract criticism from Irish moderationist societies for his Catholicism as much as his teetotalism. Author Elizabeth Malcolm suggests that Mathew’s crusade was both messianic and millenarian; the faithful made pilgrimages to take the pledge in Cork, and miracles were attributed to him. The sale of pledge medals also smacked of idolatry and would eventually cause him great trouble. Despite his desire to appeal to all Christians, the trappings of his mission worried many Protestants and the vast majority of his followers were Catholic. Queen Victoria later admitted that while she admired his efforts for temperance, she did not wish to patronize anyone whose success relied on “superstition.” Mathew visited Scotland in 1842 and in 1843 took his campaign to England, visiting the great Irish city of Liverpool, where he drew huge crowds, as well as Manchester, Leeds, and the Midlands. His trip was partly prompted by a desire to disentangle temperance from O’Connell’s repeal agitation, then at its height in Ireland. Mathew’s temperance crusade and O’Connell’s repeal were closely connected, as many Irish men and women supported both movements. It seems likely that Mathew supported repeal but thought temperance more important. Author John Quinn argues that O’Connell sought to harness temperance for his own ends but also thought it demonstrated the discipline and virtue of the Irish; he had been a teetotaler himself from 1840. Mathew was careful to exclude politics from his meetings but was unable to persuade everyone in England that he had no connection to the repeal movement. The drink trade’s opposition focused on his religion as much
J. H. Bufford’s 1874 lithograph portrays Father Theobald Mathew. A banner and cross behind him reads, “In this sign thou shalt conquer / PLEDGE / I PROMISE / To abstain from ALL intoxicating drinks except used medicinally by order of a medical man and to discountenance the cause and practice of intemperance.”
as his teetotalism, ensuring an angry response from elements of the English press. London was the first place to receive him with any degree of real hostility. He failed to gather many pledges and faced a violent crowd at Bermondsey. Others felt unable to support him fully; the Bishop of Norwich welcomed him as a Christian and teetotaler while condemning his popery. Despite this, his English tour resulted in another 200,000 pledges. This was to be the zenith of his missionary efforts. By 1843 to 1844, he had recruited nearly 6 million people in Ireland, from a national population of around 8 million, and supporters were quick to give him the credit for falling drink sales and crime figures. However, the momentum of his crusade was lost as the Great Famine relief took much of his energy from 1846. Like other temperance workers did, he criticized the use of grain for brewing and distilling when it could have been
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used for food, and temperance writers continued to blame drink—rather than the British state—for Irish dearth. But Mathew’s crusade had already peaked before 1845, and he faced a number of pressing problems of his own. His charitable nature and poor grasp of finances created enormous difficulties. Many of those who signed the pledge were too poor to pay for their medals, and he gave thousands away for nothing so that by 1845 he owed 5,000 pounds. The worldlier McKenna warned him of this before 1840 but was ignored, and Mathew fell out with his friends rather than let them take control of his finances. When English supporters encouraged Lord John Russell to offer him an annual pension in 1846, he refused because the sum—100 pounds— was insultingly small. Desperate, he wrote to Russell in 1847 and was granted 300 pounds per year. Mathew was then chosen by the priests of Cork to be their new bishop, but the Catholic hierarchy did not approve him; it seems likely that his ecumenicalism, Anglophilia, and the receipt of a British pension during the Great Famine counted against him in Ireland and Rome. Mathew took his mission to the United States between 1849 and 1851. He was well received by temperance groups, Catholics, liberals, and Irish Americans, though he created new controversies. Some Irish Americans criticized him for taking a British pension, while others sought to raise money to make him independent of it. The abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison knew that Mathew had signed the Anti-Slavery Address to Irish Americans in 1845 and expected him to speak out against slavery while in the United States. He refused, restricting himself to temperance, and this led Garrison to publicly denounce him. Despite this, he visited 25 states and received perhaps half a million signatures, though he left physically exhausted and no better off financially. Lessons for Later Movements Broken by these efforts, Mathew made few public appearances in the last five years of his life. He welcomed the founding of the UK Alliance, feeling that moral suasion was not sufficient on its own. He died of a stroke in 1856 at age 66. His campaign had attracted enormous attention to temperance, Ireland, and Catholicism, but the nature of his movement—an unstructured mass led by one
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charismatic individual—made it hard to translate this into anything more permanent; the Great Famine did not help. It seems likely that his ecumenicalism also created tensions, though a purely Catholic movement would have engendered different kinds of opposition. It is notable that later Catholic temperance societies in Ireland and England, like Cardinal Manning’s League of the Cross, were more structured and less ecumenical. While Mathew may have been “an apostle of modernisation,” in author H. F. Kearney’s words, he still had to contend with equally modern currents of sectarianism, nationalism, and political reform. James Kneale University College London See Also: Catholicism; Christianity; Ireland; Moral Suasion; St. Patrick’s Day; Temperance Movements, Religion in; Victorian England. Further Readings Bretherton, George. “The Battle Between Carnival and Lent: Temperance and Repeal in the Making of Modern Ireland.” Histoire Sociale, v.27 (1994). Kearney, Hugh F. “Father Mathew: Apostle of Modernisation.” In Studies in Irish History Presented to R. Dudley Edwards, Art Cosgrove and Donal McCartney, eds. Dublin, Ireland: University College, 1979. Kerrigan, Colm. Father Mathew and the Irish Temperance Movement 1838–1849. Cork, Ireland: Cork University Press, 1992. Malcolm, Elizabeth. Ireland Sober, Ireland Free: Drink and Temperance in Nineteenth-Century Ireland. Dublin, Ireland: Gill and Macmillan, 1986. Quinn, John F. Father Mathew’s Crusade: Temperance in Nineteenth-Century Ireland and Irish America. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002. Townend, Paul A. Father Mathew: Temperance and Irish Identity. Dublin, Ireland: Irish Academic Press, 2002.
Mead Historically associated with pre-Christian Europe, though found the world over, mead (honey)
wine is one of the oldest forms of alcohol. Often thought to possess divine properties, mead once served as an important part of religious practices as well as a complement to poetry and war making. Popularly depicted as the drink of choice in great works of literature from Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales to The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones sagas, this alcoholic beverage— once little more than a cultural relic—is undergoing a renaissance as new breweries pop up in the United States and elsewhere. Deep, Multicultural Roots One of the simplest alcohols to make, honey wine is considered by many to be the first human-made intoxicant. A mixture of honey, yeast, and water, mead’s alcohol content typically ranges between 8 and 18 percent. The liquor is fermented over several months, though some high-alcohol variants can go on for years (even decades). Effervescent or still, the potable comes in sweet, semi-sweet, and dry variants. Unlike grape wine, beer, and most other fermented beverages, mead neither is dependent on sustained agriculture nor requires careful handling to preserve its taste and quality, thus making it particularly attractive to nomadic peoples and rural populations. In fact, the word for mead is readily found in nearly all Indo-European languages, such as Sanskrit (mádhu), Irish (miodh), Russian (myod), Persian (mey), suggesting centuries, perhaps even millennia, of sustained consumption among the various peoples of Europe, Iran, and India. Linguistic borrowing among the non–Indo-European Estonians (mõdu) and south Indian Dravidians (mattu) lend further support to this theory. A variety of ancient cultures, from the Egyptian to the Inca, treasured mead. Archaeological evidence from China suggests that honey-based liquors date as far back as 9,000 years. The first recorded account of honey wine can be found in the Rig Veda, a foundational text of Hinduism, which dates to 10th century b.c.e., though others claim the first reference to mead is even older, appearing in the Sumerian text Hymn to Ninkasi from the 19th century b.c.e. Extolled by Plato and lauded in The Odyssey, Greeks and Romans held that mead possessed salubrious properties as well as served as an effective propitiation against wrathful deities. Across Europe, mead was seen
as a necessary tool for poets and warriors alike, supplying the drinker with wisdom or courage as need be. The Celts treated mead as a holy elixir, closely associating it with divine forces—hence mead’s nickname, “nectar of the gods.” As evidenced by “Y Gododdin,” the Welsh epic poem, many a bard sang of the benefits of the golden inebriant (like the Celtic poets, Nordic skalds were overly fond of mead, glorifying it in many of their epics). Mead is perhaps most associated with the Vikings, Scandinavian conquerors who ranged as far as Canada and Turkey in search of booty, slaves, and new farmlands. These dreaded raiders were known to quaff horns full of the sweet liquor before engaging an enemy. Curiously, mead was also the most popular drink among the comparatively peaceful medieval eastern Slavs, who were renowned for their skills at turning honey into wine, a tradition recounted in both late medieval texts, such as the Primary Chronicle and Domostroi, and the works of modern writers such as Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Legend has it that the etymology of the English word honeymoon derives from the medieval tradition of sending a newly wedded couple away for a 28-day period of seclusion supplied with ample amounts of mead, in hopes that (a male) offspring would quickly follow. In 13th-century Karakorum, the great Mongol capital, the descendants of Genghis Khan erected a giant silver tree with four serpent heads. The Franciscan missionary William of Rubruck recounted that each would dispense an alcoholic beverage symbolizing the corner of the world conquered by the steppe nomads: For the “west” (i.e., Russia), the representative elixir was mead; fermented mare’s milk was the beverage of the “north;” wine, of the “south;” and rice beer, of the “east”). Europe’s mead consumption began to decline dramatically in the late medieval period and had nearly disappeared by the 1800s. While historians continue to debate the causes, climatic changes (which might have negatively affected apiaries) as well as an expanding trade in wine, cider, beer, and spirits are seen as the primary factors. However, certain cultures—particularly those in northeastern Europe—have continued to make and drink mead throughout the modern period, most notably the Finns, whose traditional May Day festival, Vappu, centers on the consumption
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of copious amounts of mead (sima). In western Europe, mead never quite disappeared, though it was generally relegated to specific cultural situations, particularly yuletide wassailing. Resurgence In the United States, mead brewing has recently surged, both on the commercial level and at home, tripling in sales since 2000. With its undeniable terroir qualities and abetted by the craft brew revolution, honey wine is benefiting from a new enthusiasm for artisanal and locally grown products. Mead with fruit additives or “gruits” (such as boysenberries, wildflowers, and orange blossoms) is known as melomel, while any honey wine with other add-ons is known as metheglin (from the Welsh word for medicine). Specific fruit or spice mead has its own appellations, including Viking’s blood (cherry), cyser (apple), morat (mulberries), and capsicumel (chili peppers). Weak mead, based on the Roman recipe originally prescribed by Pliny the Elder, is known as hydromel. Modern mead drinking still retains some of its hoary traditions, including the use of mead horns, square mether cups, and the bowlsized mazer cup. There were approximately 150 to 200 meaderies operating in the United States as of 2014, with the Redstone Meadery ranking as the country’s largest distributor (other players include Maine Mead Works, Ohio-based Brothers Drake, and Alaska’s Celestial Meads). Redstone is based in Boulder, Colorado, which hosts the premier mead competition known as the Mazer Cup International. South Africa, where mead is known as iqhilika in the Xhosa language, has developed a commercial mead sector, led by the Makana Meadery. Ethiopian mead, or tej, enjoys a long history, though not yet at the commercial level. Cameroon and other African countries similarly possess established traditions of mead making. In addition to the mead renaissance in the United States, it is underway in other countries including Russia, Australia, and the United Kingdom. This revival is more resonant among certain cultural subgroups. Neopagans—particularly heathens and followers of the Norse revival faith Ásatrú—incorporate mead into their religious celebrations, most notably the sumbel or feast in which the mead horn is passed around, marking
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those bound by troth or loyalty, as do many followers of the Wicca, Celtic, and Druidic paths. Additionally, medieval enthusiasts espouse a fondness for mead, and the drink can be found at Renaissance fairs and similar festivals. In keeping with the medieval mood, certain tourist destinations in England (Lindisfarne), France (Château de Brissac), and the Czech Republic (Hrad Karlštejn) offer mead for sale. The current resurgence of the fantasy genre—most notably in the form of The Lord of the Rings films and HBO’s highly successful Game of Thrones television series—is also seen as prompting a seemingly unquenchable “need for mead” among the young generation. However, as many ecologists warn, the increasing prevalence of colony collapse disorder among European and North American bee populations imperils the continued availability of honey wine in the coming decades. Robert A. Saunders Farmingdale State College See Also: Ancient World, Drinking in the; Fermentation: Ancient Era Through Middle Ages; Ireland; Roman Empire; Wassail. Further Readings Crane, Eva. The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting. New York: Taylor & Francis, 1999. Fitzsimons, Tim. “Medieval No More: Mead Enjoys a Renaissance.” National Public Radio (May 1, 2011). Goldstein, Darra. “Olga’s Ferment.” Russian Life, v.51/4 (July/August 2008). Spence, Pamela. Mad About Mead: Nectar of the Gods. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1997.
Medicinal Use, History of The medicinal uses of alcohol are as old as alcohol itself. For centuries, alcohol’s social, religious, and medicinal uses merged into each other. The discovery of distillation is hidden in the mists of
history, although it is known that the principle was understood at a very early date. Arab alchemists are credited with discovering and perfecting the arts of distillation and sublimation and using alcohol in the preparation of scents and essences. The Arabs were also the first to use alcohol in the production of medicinal elixirs, and the search for the ‘elixir of life’ eventually led to alcohol as the aqua vitae, or water of life. Europeans were soon copying the Arabs’ methods and developing them further to make spirits and liqueurs. There is evidence that wine was being distilled in Italy as early as 1100 c.e., and by the 13th century wine distillates were being regularly used in western Europe for their medicinal properties. By 1400 a very sophisticated brandy trade was already established in France. Paracelsus, a 16th-century alchemist, produced a very concentrated solution of around 95 percent alcohol in about 1520. By the 17th century it was established as an almost universal cure-all; it was, for example, used to “strengthen the heart” in bubonic plague and in the treatment of the “English sweating sickness.” Properties of Alcohol Alcohol has a wide range of uses in medicine. It is a drug in its own right as a result of its relaxant and stimulant actions. It is a useful solvent for drugs that do not dissolve in water; it evaporates at low temperature, which means that it is useful for applying drugs to the skin. Its vapors can be inhaled, so it had a use in the treatment of asthma; and at higher concentrations (at least 45 percent) alcohol acts as a preservative, preventing the growth of microorganisms and thus extending the shelf life of products containing it. Alcohol is present in medicines as a result of all of these properties. The medicinal use of alcohol can therefore be considered in several distinct situations in which: alcohol is the medicine (as when sherry, brandy, or whisky are prescribed for medicinal purposes), medicine is added to alcoholic drinks (as with medicated and tonic wines), alcohol is present in medicines as an incidental ingredient, and alcohol is used externally. The French alchemist Nicolas Lemery (16451715) was one of the first to demonstrate the use of extraction methods for vegetable drugs and the value of alcohol as a solvent. Alcohol was used
in the making of several types of medicinal products: Elixirs were aromatic preparations providing a palatable means of administering potent or nauseous drugs. Tinctures were solutions of various ingredients in dilute alcohol; their great value lay in their permanence; nearly all could be kept for long periods because of the preservative action of the alcohol. Alcohols of up to 90 percent were used in their preparation. Infusions were weak alcoholic tinctures prepared by percolation or maceration, and extracts contained a higher proportion of active ingredients than either infusions or tinctures. Paracelsus discovered that the alkaloids in opium were far more soluble in alcohol than in water. Initially, any combination of opium and alcohol (tincture of opium) was referred to as “laudanum.” In practice the alcohol content of laudanum varied substantially; early versions probably contained 40 percent alcohol. On the labels of bottles of laudanum around 1900, the alcoholic content is stated as 48 percent. Today, the current version of laudanum contains about 18 percent alcohol. Alcohol in Medicines Alcohol was an ingredient of medicines for a variety of reasons other than for its warming and relaxing effects, most commonly because it was the solvent for infusions and tinctures. Medicines of plant origin that did not dissolve in water were usually soluble in alcohol. Medicines often contained a large number of ingredients, many of which would be made up in alcohol. These ingredients would usually be mixed together and made up to volume with water. The amount of alcohol appearing in medicines in this way might easily exceed 10 percent by volume. Some medicinal preparations might have a short shelf life as a result of bacterial growth. To extend the shelf life, the addition of a preservative is needed. The preservative qualities of alcohol were known from an early date, and hence when preservation was a problem the obvious solution was to make up the medicine in at least 45 percent alcohol. Alcohol was also present in a number of medicines for external use. Sometimes its presence was due to its use as a solvent for other ingredients, but more commonly it was used externally for
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its antiseptic action, when solutions of up to 80 percent alcohol would be used. An evaporating lotion was formerly used that included 90 percent alcohol; spirt ear drops formerly contained 95 percent alcohol. Alcohol as Medicines The medicinal use of alcohol itself has an equally long history. A 15th-century German, Michael Puff von Schrick, recommended half a spoonful of brandy each morning to preserve perfect health. In fact, the first beverage to achieve official status in a pharmaceutical reference work was Irish whiskey, which appeared in the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis in 1677. William Buchan’s Domestic Medicine of 1769 advised that good claret was the only medicine necessary in the treatment of “nervous fevers.” This illness was thought to be on the increase at the time due to the more sedentary lifestyle of the population. The effects of the wine were to “raise the pulse, promote perspiration, warm the body, and exhilarate the spirits.” Red wines were also thought to strengthen the tone of the stomach. Alcohol itself first became official in the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis in 1788; French brandy became official in 1836. The medicinal properties of wines and spirits were not lost on the manufacturers of such products. For example, well into the 20th century, the manufacturers of Gordon’s Gin used the slogan “the gin that has medicinal properties.” Historically, the main alcoholic beverages used as medicines were brandy, rum, sherry, and whiskey. Brandy, known also as Spiritus Vino Vitis, Vinum Destillatum, and Eau de Vie, was obtained by distilling the wine of grapes and maturing by ageing; it typically contained between 40 and 50 percent alcohol. Rum, or Spiritus e Saccharo, was prepared by fermenting and distilling the juice of sugarcane or from molasses and usually contained around 40 percent alcohol. Sherry, or Vinum Xericum, was prepared by fermenting grape juice and usually contained at least 16 percent alcohol; it was previously used extensively as a vehicle for drugs. Whiskey, or Spiritus Frumenti, was prepared by distilling fermented grain (barley, wheat, rye, or maize) and typically contained around 40 percent alcohol. The medicinal use of these items was considerable, although they were often prescribed
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sparingly by physicians. Such use was recognized officially by their inclusion in pharmacopoeias and formularies. Describing alcoholic beverages as medicines had a number of advantages: as medicines they were not subject to duties and taxes, and so were sometimes cheaper when obtained in this way; and they were exempt from control by the temperance movement and during Prohibition. Making the distinction between medicine and alcoholic beverage was thus important. Medicines in Alcohol The value of using alcoholic beverages as a vehicle and not just as a solvent for other, less palatable medicines was recognized at an early stage. This led to the development of a variety of medicated wines. In due course many became “official,”
Dr. Pierce’s tonic, which claimed to “transform the listless invalid into a vigorous and healthy being” and give men “an appetite like a cowboy’s and the digestion of an ostrich,” was a licoriceflavored tonic that reportedly contained quinine, opium, and alcohol. Dr. Pierce’s tonics were marketed in the late 1800s.
making an appearance in the British and other pharmacopoeias. The British Pharmacopoeia of 1914 contained eight official wines. Five of these (Antimonial Wine BP, Colchicum Wine BP, Iron Wine BP, Wine of Iron Citrate BP, and Ipecacuanha Wine BP) each contained 15 percent alcohol by volume, while the remaining three (Orange Wine BP, Quinine Wine BP, and Sherry BP) each contained around 16 percent alcohol. The drugs they contained had a variety of actions; the ones containing iron were intended as tonics. The status attached to these strong alcoholic drinks as medicines, and particularly that they were exempt from the duty payable if they were sold as wines or spirits, led to widespread worldwide abuse. The use of alcohol in this way became the subject of an international agreement. The next British Pharmacopoeia, published in 1932, declared that “in conformity with the article of the 1930 International Agreement for the unification of Pharmacopoeial formulae for potent drugs, which requires that ‘no potent drug shall be prepared in the form of a medicinal wine,’ the Wines of the British Pharmacopoeia 1914 have been omitted.” The agreement related to “official” preparations, but not to proprietary ones. The wines of the British Pharmacopoeia of 1914 were indeed removed, although Ipecacuanha wine was simply renamed Tincture of Ipecacuanha. The 1930s saw rapid growth in the sale of tonic wines, and a wide range of marketing techniques were used to promote them. Stomach bitters were a class of medicines originating in England in the 18th century. They contained significant amounts of alcohol along with an assortment of bitter-tasting herbs and roots. This class of medicines was mainly designed to circumvent liquor taxes, the temperance movement, and restrictions on the liquor trade. They were marketed as treatments for indigestion, diarrhea, dysentery, chills, fever, liver ailments, and general pains and weakness. Common ingredients in stomach bitters included bitter wood, gentian, centaury herb, bitter orange peel, orange berries, aloe, dandelion, quinine, wormwood, and zedoary root. They were sold under various brand names; in the United States these included Yochim Bro’s Celebrated Stomach Bitters, Columbo Peptic Bitters, Dr. Hoffland’s
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German Bitters, and Hostetters Celebrated Stomach Bitters. Absinthe was a potent herbal liqueur distilled from a variety of herbs including wormwood, veronica, fennel, anise, hyssop, melissa, nutmeg, lemon balm, licorice, angelica, and marjoram. The potency of this liqueur results from its high alcohol content. Wormwood has been used medicinally since the Middle Ages; the leaves and tops of the plant were used as a tonic, stomachic, stimulant, febrifuge (reduces fever), anthelmintic (expels worms), and as a local anesthetic for rheumatism. Tonic wines became popular during the 19th century because they had a more pleasant flavor than tonics made with pure alcohol. They were a form of medicated wine, largely a commercially produced item, and heavily marketed under brand names such as Hall’s or Wincarniss. Hall’s Wine, for example, was Australian wine with added vitamins and iodine and contain around 12 percent alcohol. These tonics were used to stimulate the appetite, invigorate the digestion, rid the system of gas, and relieve dyspepsia. A popular product in England between 1900 and 1930 was Bivo Beef and Iron Wine Tonic. It was made by Burroughs Wellcome & Co. and was marketed as being especially useful for invalids. The wine was sold in off-licensed establishments as well as pharmacies with alcohol licenses. One of the most renowned products was Mariana Wine Tonic, containing extracts from the coca shrub (the source of cocaine). It was recommended for strengthening the body and blood and gained a worldwide reputation, with testimonials from popes, kings, and presidents. Some patent medicines contained high amounts of both alcohol and narcotics; most failed to meet the claims made for them as cure-alls, although they often succeeded in offering relief from symptoms. Patent medicines were popular throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries and were often peddled by traveling salesmen. Stuart Anderson London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine See Also: Alcohol by Volume; Aqua Vitae; Europe, Western; Patent Medicines; Wine, Cocainized; Wine, Fortified.
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Further Readings British Medical Association. More Secret Remedies: What They Cost and What They Contain. London: British Medical Association, 1912. British Medical Association. Secret Remedies: What They Cost and What They Contain. London: British Medical Association, 1909. Curth, Louise Hill. “The Medicinal Value of Wine in Early Modern England.” Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, v.18 (2003). Williams, Sarah E. “The Use of Beverage Alcohol as Medicine, 1790–1860.” Journal of Studies on Alcohol, v.41/5 (1980). Wilson, C. Anne. Water of Life: A History of WineDistilling and Spirits from 500 BC to AD 2000. Totnes, England: Prospect Books, 2006. Winter, Mary Jo. “Old Redwood Highway: Barn Art is a Visual Time Capsule.” Cloverdale Press Democrat (May 8, 2013). http://cloverdale.towns .pressdemocrat.com/2013/05/news/barn-art-is-a -visual-time-capsule-of-days-gone-by-2 (Accessed April 2014).
Merlot Merlot is a popular type of red wine, although there is a white Merlot varietal wine. Merlot is also the name of a major red-grape variety. The Grape The Merlot grape is the second most commonly grown red grape in the world. It is also the most commonly grown grape variety in France, which accounts for about two-thirds of the total plantings of Merlot in the world. The Merlot grape was not recognized as a distinct variety until the 19th century; it is known as a Noble Bordeaux varietal. The color of the Merlot grape is variously described as red, dark blue, or even black. The word Merlot is derived from the French merle, or young blackbird, and is probably an allusion to the dark color of the grape’s skin. DNA analysis has indicated that the Merlot grape is genetically related to the Malbec grape. The Merlot is a plump, soft, and plummy grape that tends to bud, blossom, and ripen earlier than the Cabernet Sauvignon grape. It usually grows in loose
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bunches with large fruit. Merlot vines tend to thrive in cold, particularly ferrous, clayey soils on rocky, arid settings; however, it is fairly adaptable and can even grow well in damp, cool climates. Shatter, unfortunately, is more common in colder environs. The Merlot grape is grown widely around the world, across much of Europe, not only throughout France but also, for instance, in Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Moldova, Montenegro, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, and the Ukraine. The Merlot, for example, is the predominant grape variety grown in the Pomerol district of Bordeaux, France. In this regard, one of the most famous and also exceedingly high-priced French bottled Merlot wines is that from Pomerol’s Château Petrus on Bordeaux’s right bank; a bottle of an excellent vintage from there can command a price of more than $2,000. The Merlot grape is also a prominent choice for vineyards in other regions of southwest France, like Bergerac and Cahors, where the resulting Merlot wines are customarily blended with Malbec wines. Merlot is also the dominant, nearly exclusive grape variety grown in the Ticino canton of Switzerland, which borders Lake Lugano. It is also grown in the Middle East, particularly Israel and Lebanon, and in Asia, including China and Japan; it is popular in Australia and New Zealand. It is grown in South Africa, principally the Paarl and Stellenbosch regions; in North America, particularly California, New York, Virginia, and Washington; in Canada; and in Mexico. It is very popular in South America, particularly in Argentina and Chile. Merlot vines were first planted in California in the 1850s and 1870s, but it was long used exclusively for blending purposes. Merlot was first bottled as a distinct varietal in California by Louis M. Martini, who combined 1968 and 1970 vintages. The Merlot grape is slightly larger than the Cabernet Sauvignon grape, and it contains more juice relative to skin area. Its skin is also thinner than that of the Cabernet Sauvignon grape, and it typically has lower acid levels and lower tannin levels. These softer attributes of the Merlot grape have enabled it to be blended in varying percentage categories with other red-grape varieties—particularly the Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet
Franc grapes—a practice that is common in Bordeaux and California, for example. The Wine Merlot is a type of red wine that rocketed to popularity in the 1990s and has continued to gain fans for its approachability. It is usually mellower than most Cabernets and therefore more accessible, but it can also be complex and even a bit chewy. Merlot flavors are often likened to those of fruits, particularly blackberry, black cherry, blueberry, currant, mulberry, orange, plum, raspberry, and strawberry; flowers like roses and violets; herbs, such as mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, and thyme; vegetables including bell pepper, fennel, black and green olive, and rhubarb; and spices such as bay leaf, caramel, clove, and green peppercorn. Bouquets used to describe the smells of Merlot wines include coconut, oak, smoke, sweet wood, and vanilla. If Merlot wine spends sufficient time in oak barrels, it can acquire notes such as chocolate, coffee, mocha, molasses, or walnut. Compared to Cabernet Sauvignon—the long-standing champion of red wines—Merlot is generally considered to be fruitier, smoother, and softer. Many Merlot red wines are not exclusively produced from Merlot grapes but are blends incorporating other types of varieties in varying percentages. Cabernet Sauvignon grapes are routinely blended with Merlot grapes and Cabernet Franc grapes in Bordeaux, for instance. In the United States, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives requires that at least 51 percent of the wine bottled as Merlot must be made from Merlot grapes. Nevertheless, many Merlot wines are made exclusively of Merlot grapes. In the Ticino canton of Switzerland, for example, which is heavily influenced by Italian traditions, wine made only of Merlot grapes is labeled viti. Merlot wines are generally considered to be moderately dry, medium- to full-bodied reds. They usually have slightly higher levels of alcohol when grown in warmer vintages and typically, but not always, have less tannin than the more dominant Cabernet Sauvignon. Compared to Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot tends to have a higher sugar content as well as lower malic acid levels. As a varietal, Merlots tend to be soft, velvety wines. White Merlot wines are produced in a manner similar to white Zinfandel; once the grapes are
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crushed, they have limited skin contact, and the resulting juice is drained off and then allowed to ferment. Merlot Blanc is a grape variety first created in 1891 by crossing the Merlot grape with the Folle Blanche and should not be confused with white Merlot. Merlot wines can generally be consumed soon after purchase and do not typically need to be aged. Since Merlot wines characteristically have less tannin than Cabernets, they can be drunk far earlier. However, higher-quality Merlots can be aged from five to 25 years. Nevertheless, Merlot wines are not usually well suited for long aging and, consequently, until relatively recently, they were used principally for blending purposes. They should be served unchilled; the recommended serving temperature is around 64 degrees F, or 17.77 degrees C. Merlot wine is traditionally paired for serving with meats—particularly grilled and charred red meats. However, it can also be paired with pork or even roast duck or turkey. Meats that Merlot wine is commonly recommended to accompany during a meal include beef such as steak, chop—both lamb and pork—grilled sausage, and even Bolognese sauce. Some Merlot wines go well with rich, red pasta dishes and even with heavy chicken dishes. Merlot is also often recommended to be served with some very flavorful, but not overly strong, cheese as well as with chocolate. Victor B. Stolberg Essex County College See Also: Cabernet Franc; Cabernet Sauvignon; Chile; Fine Dining; France; Wines, California; Wines, French; Wines, Red; Wine Connoisseurship. Further Readings Johnson, Hugh and Jancis Robinson. The World Atlas of Wine. London: Mitchell Beazley, 2013. Kolpan, Steven, Brian H. Smith, and Michael A. Weiss. Exploring Wine: The Culinary Institute of America’s Complete Guide to Wines of the World. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1996. Overton, John and Jo Heitger. “Maps, Markets and Merlot: The Making of an Antipodean Wine Appellation.” Journal of Rural Studies, v.24/4 (2008).
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Mexico Alcohol consumption in Mexico should be analyzed historically. The social and cultural perspectives are relevant because of the collective impacts that it creates. History Mexico officially became an independent country in 1821, making it a relatively young country. However, the Aztec Empire can be traced back to 1428, when they consumed octli, now commonly known as pulque, an alcoholic beverage made from the fermented sap of the maguey cactus. Back in the period of Mesoamerica, it was exclusively for certain classes of people. However, the popularity of this drink has had a significant decline. It is estimated that pulque only represents 10 percent of all alcohol consumption in Mexico today. Some other traditional drinks used during pre-Columbian America were balché, used by the Mayans; tepache, fermented pineapple; and tejuino, which was maize based. Furthermore, indigenous people for centuries have used alcohol for religious purposes. Tarahumaras in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua use tesguino, a harsh beer-tasting drink, for highly spiritual rituals. The use of this drink allows the individual to be liberated from the “large souls” of the body, and the inebriation process allows for the “little souls” to flourish, giving way to childish and joyous behavior. After the arrival of the Spaniards in what is now Mexican territory, they began to distill mezcal. Hard drinks like this are still commonly known as aguardiente, or fiery water. It is worth mentioning that mezcal can reach 55 proof. As is the case in many other parts of the world, alcohol creates social joy as well as tension and presents issues related not only to health but also to the economy. In Mexico, there were strong taboos about the excess of alcohol consumption and public drunkenness. However, the production was still encouraged because it generated a strong form of income revenue. Cultural Symbols and Alcohol in Mexico Alcohol in Mexico has different cultural and symbolic representations. First, this is a society that enhances a strong male-dominant culture.
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The macho representation of a male individual dressed in traditional apparel, which can include a charro (cowboy) hat, boots, and tight-fitting vest and pants that enhance his masculinity, is in fact a symbol of Mexican manhood. Furthermore, this Mexican icon has the right not only to seduce several women at a time but also to celebrate his existence with alcohol. Vicente Fernández is probably one of the most celebrated Mexican folk singers in the country. His public presentations are joyous and full of male-dominant symbols. He dresses in a typical Mariachi outfit and is usually carrying a gun on a belt by his waist. One very famous song that his fans love to sing along with is titled “Bohemio de Aficion,” basically meaning “amateur Bohemian.” In this song, he celebrates his infidelity, his honest incapability to be faithful in a romantic relationship, and, of course, his devotion to alcohol—most likely tequila. He sings, “Si hay vino, si hay mujeres, si hay guitarras,” meaning “If there is wine, if there are women, if there are guitars.” Machismo and alcohol are an important part of Mexican popular culture. One might think that this is a cultural trait that would be valid only with the older generation; however, one can see that this macho culture also permeates through younger people—even though education has in fact increased in Mexico, and so one would think that this would create more awareness. Furthermore, there is the propagation of machismo in popular culture and its attachment to alcohol and the diffusion of festivity, and masculinity remains strongly embedded and accepted in most every social economic standing throughout the country. In Mexico, there are famous characters represented in folk stories and in films and urban heroes who make adulation to the use of alcohol. Most everywhere around the world, it is possible to identify one aspect of Mexican culture— thanks to the popularization of tequila. This is the iconic drink that has, without a doubt, made a name for Mexicans and their capability to drink hard alcohol in a festive scenario. Tequila can be consumed just about anywhere in the world, and this, without a doubt, gives the Mexican culture a sense of pride. Festivities, such as the day of the dead, for the most part symbolize a strong sense of joy, showing the fact that Mexicans celebrate their loved
ones who have passed away. Food and drink are a big part of this and other celebrations. During and around Christmas, there is a whimsical and mischievous drinking marathon that runs from December 12 to January 6. The ritual entails consuming at least one drink of alcohol per day during this festive period. Mexico is also not exempt from national celebrations and sporting events that are associated with alcohol consumption. On September 16, Mexicans celebrate Independence Day with colorful ornaments, traditional apparel, and popular songs and dance. Social Problems Mexico is the second largest country in Latin America, after Brazil. By July 2013, there were about 116 million inhabitants in Mexico. Alcohol, without a doubt, is a socially accepted substance that can be used for religious, social, and recreational enhancement purposes. However, binge drinking among all segments of the population does occur. It can be stated that alcohol is used both responsibly and in excess. In 1988, data indicated that there were about 9 million alcoholics in Mexico. Recent data have shown an increment in this figure, especially among young people—particularly women. Alcohol use has increased among people between the ages of 15 and 25 years. Teenagers (15 to 19 years of age) tend to have automobile and alcohol-related accidents, representing about 15 percent of the deaths in this age group. This can be understandable because of the lax and ineffective traffic sanctions and regulations. After alcohol-related accidents, there is a 14.6 percent homicide rate and 6 percent suicide rate among young people. According to the National Institute of Psychiatry, almost 10 percent of women aged 18 to 65 living in urban areas consume, on average, five drinks per week; at least 1 percent of these women are alcohol dependent. Furthermore, it is estimated that 10 percent of all alcoholic beverages sold in Mexico are in fact consumed by women, particularly in big cities, and that about 32 million Mexicans are considered regular drinkers. Alcohol Consumption Today According to the International Markets Bureau, it is estimated that Mexicans choose beer over every
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other type of alcoholic beverage. About $10 million were spent on beer in 2010. In this same year, about $2 million were spent on spirits, with tequila in fourth place on the list of favorites—after rum, liqueurs, and brandy/cognac. Mexicans are not big wine consumers in comparison to people in other Latin American countries like Chile and Argentina. Once again, in 2010, only about $437 million were spent on wine, sparkling wine, still light grape wine, fortified wine, and vermouth. Isaias R. Rivera Tecnológico de Monterrey See Also: Gender and Drinking in Popular Culture; Latin America; Tequila. Further Readings Agricultural and Agri-Food Canada, International Markets Bureau. “Market Indicator Report: October 2011.” http://www.ats-sea.agr.gc.ca/mex/ pdf/5978-eng.pdf (Accessed October 2013). Fresno County Hispanic Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse Service, Inc. “The Aztecs and Alcohol.” http://hispaniccommission.org/index .php/en/the-aztecs-and-alcohol (Accessed October 2013). Soong, Roland. “Alcohol Consumption in Mexico.” http://www.zonalatina.com/Zldata263.htm (Accessed September 2013). Villalobos, Luis Alfonso Berruecos. “Current Overview of Social and Cultural Research on Alcohol Use and Alcoholism in Mexico.” http:// www.q4q.nl/alcohol/mexicoalcoholeng.htm (Accessed September 2013).
Middle East The Middle East, a region of the world in which a vast majority of individuals are Muslims, has one of the world’s lowest rates of per capita alcohol consumption. Some countries, such as Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia maintain an almost complete prohibition on alcohol consumption; others, such as Jordan and Iraq, have more permissive laws, allowing most adults to legally purchase and drink all forms of alcohol. Even in countries where
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alcohol is legal, however, large percentages of the population abstain from drinking, citing Islam’s prohibition on intoxicating beverages. History of Alcohol in the Middle East Although citizens in the Middle East account for only a fraction of global alcohol consumption, both the word alcohol and the modern process of distillation have their origins in the region. More precisely, the word alcohol derives from the Arabic al-kuhul, referring to eyeliner made from ethanol. In addition, alchemist Jabir Ibn Hayyan, who lived in Persia in the 8th century, perfected the modern process for distillation. Hayyan, who is regarded as the father of modern chemistry, developed the equipment and measurement techniques necessary to create potent alcoholic beverages. This process of distillation spread throughout the Islamic empire, to modern-day Spain, and distillers in medieval Europe eventually employed Hayyan’s techniques. Although many Muslims living in the early Islamic empire abstained from drinking alcohol, among the ruling elite, alcohol consumption was common. Art and literature from this period demonstrates the importance alcohol played in Islamic society; one popular genre of poetry, khamryiyyat, was dedicated to celebrating the consumption of wine. In addition to wine, Arak, a beverage made from aniseed, was popular in the early Islamic empire. Before serving, the drink was mixed with water and ice and was typically consumed with meze. Today, Arak is still consumed throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Islam and Alcohol Muslims regard the Quran as the word of God, as transmitted to the Prophet Muhammad; as such, it is the authoritative source on the rules of conduct for devout Muslims. Although there is no outright ban on alcohol in the Quran, multiple passages suggest that its consumption is discouraged, as drunkenness interferes with the worship of God. For example, Chapter 4 commands, “O you who have believed, do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated,” while Chapter 5 states that all intoxicants are “defilement from the work of Satan.” Moreover, many other Quranic versus suggest that wine is only to be
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consumed in the afterlife; Chapter 76 indicates that in paradise, “the righteous will drink from a cup [of wine].” In addition to the Koran, the hadith, the sayings of Muhammad collected by his followers, also condemns intoxication. Specifically, in his lifetime, Muhammad indicated that all intoxicating substances, including wine, were haram, meaning forbidden. In accordance with this, as the leader of the early Islamic community in the Arabian Peninsula, Muhammad initially tolerated alcohol but banned it after drunkenness among his followers disrupted worship. His successor, Caliph Abu Bakr, maintained a similarly strict approach and imposed a punishment of 40 lashes on those who repeatedly violated the prohibition on drinking. Islam, however, is not a monolithic religion; while three of the four major Islamic legal schools support a complete ban on alcohol consumption, some scholars argue for a narrower interpretation of the prohibition. Specifically, scholars who follow the more liberal Hanafi School argue that the Quran only expressly bans the consumption of alcohol that is made from dates or grapes; in this view, Muslims are permitted to consume alcohol made from other ingredients. Moreover, these scholars argue that Muslims may consume alcohol, so long as they do not drink quantities that cause intoxication. In addition to debating the permissibility of consuming alcohol, Islamic scholars are also divided on whether or not Muslims may produce alcohol and sell it to non-Muslims. As a result, as early as 600 c.e., Islamic leaders began creating separate legal codes for non-Muslim minorities, including different rules for the production and consumption of alcohol. These debates persist today, as many Islamic countries in the Middle East allow religious minorities living within their border to legally consume alcohol in their homes. Overall, the different interpretations of Islam’s rules regarding alcohol have led to a patchwork of laws in the Middle East, with countries in the region maintaining starkly different rules for the production, sale, and consumption of alcohol. Middle East Countries That Prohibit Alcohol Several countries in the Middle East, specifically those that base their constitutions and governments
on Islamic law, make it illegal for Muslims to drink. One of these, Iran, instituted a ban on alcohol consumption following the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the creation of a theocratic government; religious minorities, including Christians and Jews, are still permitted to produce alcohol for their own personal consumption. Penalties for violating the laws are stiff, and Muslims caught producing or distributing alcohol can be subject to lashes, fines, and jail time; in 2012, a couple was sentenced to death for multiple consumption offenses. These punishments, however, have not deterred drinkers in Iran; although there are no bars and clubs in the country, drinking is prevalent among the upper class. According to the Economist, the average yearly consumption in Iran is 2.1 pints (1.02 liters) of pure alcohol per person. Like Iran, Saudi Arabia is governed by Islamic law, and the ruling monarchy forbids the consumption of alcohol by Muslims living inside its borders. Those who violate the prohibition can be subjected to jail time, fines, and lashes. The government, however, does permit foreign diplomatic personnel to consume alcohol inside private residences. In addition, there is a thriving black market for alcohol, with sellers offering Saudi citizens beverages smuggled in from Jordan, where drinking is legal. Bahrain, which once had a permissive set of alcohol laws and was a destination for Saudi drinkers, has recently tightened its alcohol policies as a result of growing Islamic influence in the government. After intense debate, in 2010, the Parliament banned all alcohol sales to Muslims; non-Muslims are still permitted to purchase and consume alcohol. Subsequently, in 2014, the Parliament passed a law banning alcohol service at the international airport and on flights to other countries in the Persian Gulf. Middle East Countries That Permit Alcohol Several countries in the Middle East permit alcohol consumption with few restrictions. For example, in Turkey it is legal for all citizens to produce, sell, and consume alcohol. Drinking, however, is rare, and according to data from the World Health Organization, only 6 percent of households consume any alcohol at all. In fact, in a 2003 survey, 78 percent of the population indicated that they fully abstained from drinking
Military Use and Regulation of Alcohol
alcohol. Numbers are especially high among women in Turkey, who abstain from alcohol at a rate of 92 percent. Among drinkers in Turkey, beer is especially popular, and from 1970 to 2003, there was a nearly 700 percent increase in the consumption of beer. In recent years, however, the ruling Justice and Development Party has attempted to curb alcohol use. In 2010, the government increased the beer tax by 15 percent and also banned advertising and sports sponsorship by alcohol companies. In addition, in 2013, the government passed a law banning the sale of alcohol at night and prohibited stores near mosques or schools from selling alcohol. Like Turkey, Egypt has tightened its alcohol laws, following the 2011 revolution and the subsequent election of a more strict government. Although the country has never banned alcohol, fearing it could damage Egypt’s appeal as a tourist destination, the government has taken steps to limit alcohol consumption among its citizens. In 2012, the government raised the tax on beer to 200 percent and stopped awarding alcohol licenses to new restaurants. Other countries, such as Lebanon and Jordan, continue to maintain permissive alcohol laws. In Jordan, it is legal for individuals over age 18 to consume alcohol, and the average adult consumes 1.5 pints (0.71 liters) of pure alcohol per year. Spirits are especially popular, comprising 85 percent of all alcohol consumption in Jordan. Lebanon also permits alcohol consumption by 18 year olds, and the county has one of the highest rates of alcohol consumption in the Middle East, with the average adult consuming 4.7 pints (2.2 liters) of pure alcohol each year. Other Middle Eastern countries that permit alcohol consumption by adults include Israel, Oman, and Dubai. Kelly McHugh Florida Southern College See Also: Egypt; Iran; Iraq; Islamic Law; Kuwait. Further Readings “Islam and Alcohol: Tipsy Taboo.” The Economist (August 8, 2012). http://www.economist.com/ node/21560543 (Accessed April 2014).
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Kueny, Kathryn. “Islamic World.” In Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia, Jack S. Blocker, David M. Fahey, and Ian R. Tyrrell, eds. Santa Barbara, CA: ABCCLIO, 2003. Michalak, Laurence and Karen Trocki. “Alcohol and Islam: An Overview.” Contemporary Drug Problems v33/4 (2006).
Military Use and Regulation of Alcohol The use of alcohol by members of the military and the regulation of alcohol use by military leaders involves a trade-off among costs and benefits that have figured more prominently into public debate, as rates of alcohol abuse and dependence among returning soldiers increased. This article reviews current alcohol use among U.S. military populations, risk factors for alcohol use, and military leaders’ strategies to reduce use and prevent abuse. The use of alcohol as a crude currency and method to “lift the spirits” of members of the military has been noted as early as the 1700s when sailors on British naval ships were provided a daily rum ration. It was at this time that military leaders saw both the potential of alcohol to help sailors endure bloody battles, conditions on naval ships, long voyages overseas, and low pay. The rum rations also had a dark side, which included more violent episodes, accidents, and lack of discipline on the part of sailors. Because eliminating the ration altogether would prompt sailors to focus on their negative working conditions and low pay, rations were typically watered down. This practice was continued in World War I because medical opinions were divided between those favoring alcohol as a morale-boosting measure and those regarding alcohol as harmful to the health of soldiers. In World War II, alcohol was even used therapeutically to treat “battle exhaustion.” Today, problematic alcohol use, particularly in the U.S. military, remains high. Currently, reports by R. Bray and others show that about
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8 to 21 percent of active military servicemembers engage in heavy alcohol use (consuming five or more drinks on one or more occasions per week), 35 to 47 percent engage in binge drinking (consuming five or more drinks within a twohour period), and 3 percent engage in harmful use (consumption causes harm to self or others) (see Table 1). Such high levels of alcohol use have shown to be very costly to the U.S. military. According to a report by H. Harwood and colleagues, the U.S. military spends approximately $1.2 billion per year to manage excessive alcohol consumption among its troops. Risk Factors for Alcohol Use Within the Military The military shares similarities with civilian populations when it comes to specific demographic risk factors such as gender (males are 3.5 times more likely to engage in alcohol abuse than females), race (whites and Hispanic whites have higher rates of problematic drinking than non-Hispanic blacks), and age (younger military members engage in heavy drinking at a rate of 32.2 percent and older military members at a rate of 17.8 percent). However, within the military, specific types of military experiences and statuses predict risk. For example, military members at lower ranks and who are enlisted in Army, Navy, and Marine branches are more likely to engage in heavy drinking (see Table 1). There has also been a research consensus on two major risk factors that are experienced at much higher levels among lower-ranking, younger members of the Army, Navy, and Marine branches: military trauma and related stressors, and a culture of drinking to “cope.” Military stress-related disorders have a long history. Originally labeled “combat fatigue” and “shell shock,” the disorder became recognized as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) through the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). This new psychiatric diagnosis was the result of efforts by the Department of Veterans Affairs and other advocates for Vietnam veterans who witnessed substantially higher levels of mental health disorders and substance use among Vietnam veterans at postdeployment. Those diagnosed with PTSD have been exposed to trauma and commonly experience the following symptoms: intrusive memories,
nightmares, flashbacks, startled responses, sleep disturbances, withdrawal from people, and avoidance of thoughts, feelings, and situations that remind the trauma-exposed person of the trauma. Among members of the military, trauma comes in two forms: combat trauma (trauma arising from being involved in combat operations) and military sexual trauma (rape, sexual assault). The relationship between trauma and alcohol intake is well established in the literature as well as with various mental health issues including PTSD, suicide ideation, and depression. Exposure to trauma through combat or through sexual assault further increases risk for heightened alcohol use and other mental health problems. To explain the relationship between trauma, PTSD, and alcohol use, scholars have used the self-medication hypothesis, which states that when individuals experience psychiatric symptoms as a result of trauma, they use alcohol to self-medicate. For example, Vietnam veterans with PTSD surveyed by J. Davidson and colleagues about reasons for engaging in heavy alcohol use stated that alcohol was used as a method of coping with a sense of threat and fear on the battlefield and provided relief of enduring feelings of tension at post-deployment. These same veterans perceive that the onset of alcohol dependence coincided with the onset and escalation of PTSD symptoms. According to A. Carter and C. Capone, members of the armed forces who selfmedicate with alcohol commonly develop alcohol problems because alcohol impedes recovery and worsens PTSD symptoms such as the tendency to avoid uncomfortable situations. When these individuals try to withdraw from alcohol, PTSD symptoms such as irritability, sleeplessness, and concentration problems worsen. According to E. Jones and N. Fear, Army, Navy and Marine branches have also historically had a workplace culture that was much more permissive toward heavy alcohol use than other military branches. This workplace culture is another risk factor for heavy alcohol use because it influences beliefs about the acceptability of drinking and expectations about the consequences of drinking. In a study by G. Ames and colleagues, modern-day sailors describe heavy alcohol use and binge drinking behavior as appropriate coping mechanisms for day-to-day stress, boredom, and isolation—just like in the days of the rum ration. This behavior
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Table 1 Use of alcohol in the military and regulations governing its use in each branch
Current use
All
Army
Navy
Air Force
Marines
Active Duty 8–21% Heavy alcohol use 35–47% Binge drinking 3% Harmful use
8–27% Heavy alcohol use
9–27% Heavy alcohol Use
4–14% Heavy alcohol Use
16–28% Heavy alcohol Use
38–53% Binge drinking
41–47% Binge drinking
28–41% Binge drinking
53–57% Binge drinking
National Guard/Reserve 9% Heavy alcohol use 54% Binge drinking 15% Harmful use Regulations/ Policy/ Initiatives
1971 – Controlled Substance Acts: DoD mandated to develop programs for identification, treatment, and rehabilitation of alcohol and drug use disorders 1980 – DoD directive focuses energy on prevention efforts
3–6% Harmful use 3–6% Harmful use 1–4% Harmful use
4–7% Harmful use
Mission-wide prevention education
Annual prevention education for Marines at all levels
Use IDs to identify soldiers with alcohol use issues and who utilize treatment
Identification can be made by 1986 Laws require military commanders, to adhere to drinking age health care requirement providers, or test 1994/1997 DoD directives require drug screening 2013 DoD directive: Cannot leave military residence after consuming more than one alcoholic beverage (Japan) 2014 DoD directives include creating more programs to reduce underage drinking, decrease stigma (soldiers can return to duty after treatment), more screening, comprehensive substance abuse treatment through TRICARE, and expansion of evidencebased practices by military providers
Contractors hired to educate members of the navy about nonalcoholic recreational activities
Prevention education for new recruits, enlisted grades E1– E4, and health care providers
Self-identification encouraged by Do not allow providing limited alcohol at events protection; or during working otherwise, hours identification mostly made through Senior personnel commanders act as Alcohol and Drug Control Blood alcohol test Officers located administered after at garrison problematic behavior
Supervisors play key role in setting positive role models, identifying, referring abusers, and supporting nondrinking recreational activities
Grants to local communities with Army bases to reduce alcohol use
Random drug testing, vehicle searches, and Breathalyzer for all marines. Breathalyzer scores of 0.01 receive training/further Commanders contact screening and scores ADAPT program of 0.04 are evaluated coordinators and are by a doctor to part of treatment determine fitness for team duty
Confidential Alcohol Treatment and Education Pilot (2009)
Grants to local communities with Air Force bases to reduce alcohol use
Restrictions on overnight liquor sales (Germany)
Responsible choices social norms campaign
Alcohol and Drug Control Officers located at garrison
Restrictions on overnight liquor sales (Germany)
Commanders are part of the treatment team
Identification through commander Substance Abuse Control Officer reports to unit commander
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was not regarded by Navy leadership as inappropriate or punishable. In a more recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) report on military alcohol norms, armed forces have continued to be lax, especially when it came to alcohol use in the barracks and in soldiers’ own rooms. Leadership also commonly “looked the other way” when it came to underage drinking. Alcohol availability has also facilitated a workplace culture of drinking. Even though military members are no longer provided a daily ration of rum, news media reports state that military base stores actually sell military branded, low-cost hard liquors. According to G. Ames and colleagues, even when low-cost alternatives are not available, members of the armed forces can access alcohol in military concessions, military “marts,” through ritualized drinking activities, nearby bars, and even in servicemembers’ quarters. Military Regulations on the Use of Alcohol The Department of Defense (DoD) and individual branches of the military addressed issues of alcohol use as well as other types of addictive substances in the early 1970s. Vietnam veterans were engaging in substance use at high levels, and their erratic behavior resulting from co-occurring PTSD and substance use prompted the military to intervene. Alcohol screening for illicit drug use and social norm campaigns (e.g., That Guy, National Ribbon Campaign, Warrior Pride) are key strategies resulting from these directives (see Table 1). Tougher alcohol use regulations are more common in branches where consumption of alcohol is higher. Marines, for example, have the highest rates of alcohol use and therefore must undergo annual prevention education and random drug and alcohol testing. If a Marine gets a Breathalyzer score of 0.01 (equivalent to one serving of alcohol) while on duty, (s)he is required to receive further training and screening. Marines with a score of 0.04 are required to be evaluated by a doctor to determine whether they are fit for duty. Supervisors also make an effort to change the workplace culture by supporting nondrinking recreational activities. The Navy, which follows close behind the Marines when it comes to alcohol use, also has implemented mandatory Breathalyzer tests, but only on naval ships.
During a scheduled safety event in Virginia Beach on November 5, 2006, a U.S. Navy officer walks the line wearing Drunk Busters impairment goggles, which are designed to simulate how a person reacts while under the influence of alcohol.
The military as a whole has gradually become more restrictive when it comes to alcohol use. Change has been challenging because alcohol use is legal and members of the military already make significant sacrifices. It was controversial for the military even to regulate the use of alcohol for individuals under age 18 in 1986 because of the argument that recruits old enough to be engaged in combat are also old enough to drink. For this reason, members of the military under age 21 are still permitted to drink in countries where it was legal to do so. However, as more and more military personnel have been found to have alcohol use issues, military leaders have been pressured to act, especially in relation to underage drinking. Recent DoD directives are a reflection of these shifting priorities as well as an
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acknowledgment of the role of stigma and workplace culture in military servicemember drinking behaviors. Preparation of this manuscript was supported by the National Institute of Drug Abuse grant T32DA007313. The content of this manuscript does not reflect the opinions of the United States Government or National Institute of Drug Abuse. Carissa van den Berk Clark Greg Widner David A. Patterson Washington University in St. Louis See Also: Military Use and Regulation of Alcohol. Further Readings Ames, G. and C. Cunradi. “Alcohol Use and Preventing Alcohol-Related Problems Among Young Adults in the Military. Alcohol Research & Health, v.28 (2004). Ames, G., C. Cunradi, R. Moore, and P. Stern. “Military Culture and Drinking Behavior Among U.S. Navy Careerists.” Journal on Studies of Alcohol and Drugs, v.68 (2007). Barlas, F., W. Higgins, J. Pflieger, and K. Diecker. Department of Defense Health-Related Behaviors Survey of Active Duty Miltary Personnel. Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2013. Bray, R., J. Brown, and J. Williams. “Trends in Binge and Heavy Drinking, Alcohol-Related Problems, and Combat Exposure in the U.S. Military. Substance Use & Misuse, v.48 (2013). Briggs, B. “Military Cracks Down on Alcohol Abuse Amid Age-Old Binging Habit.” NBC News (December 11, 2012). http://usnews.nbcnews. com/_news/2012/12/11/15826007-military-cracksdown-on-alcohol-abuse-amid-age-old-bingeinghabit?lite (Accessed May 2014). Carter, A. and C. Capone. “Co-Occuring PTSD and Alcohol Use Disorder in Veteran Populations.” Journal of Dual Diagnosis, v.7 (2011). Davidson, J., H. Kudler, W. Saunders, and R. Smith. “Symptom and Comorbidity Patterns in World War II and Vietnam Veterans With PTSD.” Comprehensive Psychiatry, v.31 (1990). Department of Defense. “Problematic Substance Use by DoD Personnel.” DoD Directive 5124.02, February 20, 2014.
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Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder” (2013). www.dsm5.org/Documents/ PTSD%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf (Accessed May 2014). Fontana, A. and R. Rosenheck. “A Model of War Zone Stressors and PTSD.” Journal of Traumatic Stress, v.12 (1999). Harwood, H., Y. Zhang, and T. Dall. “Economic Implications for Reduced Binge Drinking Among the Military Health System’s TRICARE Prime Plan Beneficiaries.” Military Medicine, v.174 (2009). Hoge, C., J. Auchterlonie, and C. Milliken. “Mental Health Problems, Use of Mental Health Services, and Attrition From Military Service After Returning From Deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.” JAMA, v.295 (2006). Institute of Medicine. Substance Use Disorders in the US Armed Forces. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2012. Jacobson, I., M. Ryan, T. Hooper, T. Smith, P. Amoroso, E. Boyko, et al. “Alcohol Use and Alcohol-Related Problems Before and After Military Combat Deployment. JAMA, v.300 (2008). Jacobson, L., S. Southwick, and T. Kosten. “Substance Use Disorders in Patients With PTSD: A Review of the Literature.” American Journal of Psychiatry, v.158 (2001). Jones, E. and N. Fear. “Alcohol Use and Misuse Within the Military: A Review.” International Review of Psychiatry, v.23 (2011). Khantzian, E. “The Self Medication Hypothesis of Substance Use Disorders: A Reconsideration and Recent Appliations.” Harvard Review of Psychiatry, v.4 (1997). McFarlene, A. “Epidemiological Evidence About the Relationship Between PTSD and Alcohol Abuse.” Addictive Behaviors, v.23 (1998). Pack, J. Nelson’s Blood: The Story of Naval Rum. Washington, DC: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1996. Secretary of the Navy Public Affairs. “Secretary of the Navy Announces 21st-Century Sailor and Marine Initiative.” (March 5, 2012). http://www.navy.mil/ submit/display.asp?story_id=65698 (Accessed May 2014). U.S. Marines. “Alcohol Screening Program in Effect” (September 19, 2013). http://www.marines.mil/ News/InTheNews/tabid/13836/Article/150406/ News/MarinesTV.aspx (Accessed May 2014).
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Wilk, J., P. Bliese, P. Kim, J. Thomas, D. McGurk, and C. Hoge. “Relationship of Combat Experiences to Alcohol Misuse Among US Soldiers Returning From the Iraq War.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence, v.108 (2010). Young, A. The Harmony of Illusions: Inventing PTSD. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Miller Brewing Co. Miller Brewing Company is an American brewer founded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1855. In 1966, W. R. Grace and Company purchased Miller; four years later, Philip Morris USA acquired Miller. Philip Morris’s purchase of Miller played an influential role in starting an advertising war during the 1970s between the three largest brewers in the United States: Anheuser-Busch, Miller Brewing Company, and Coors. Today, the company is owned by SABMiller, which is a multinational brewing company headquartered in London, England. In the United States, Miller products have been distributed through MillerCoors since 2008, when the American branch of SABMiller joined forces with Molson Coors to challenge AnheuserBusch InBev. This article will outline the history of Miller Brewing Company, its advertising war with Anheuser-Busch and Coors (often referred to as the “beer wars”), the products that Miller produces, and how the company has affected the everyday lives of American consumers. Company History By the mid-19th century, German immigration to the United States increased rapidly. Many German immigrants settled around the city of Milwaukee, in the present-day state of Wisconsin. Attracted by an accommodating harbor, an abundant supply of ice, an abundance of grain that was produced in the area, and a cool climate, German brewers began producing a style of beer referred to as pilsner. Pilsner is a light lager that is top fermented and stored cold before being consumed to allow slow fermentation to occur. Germans became accustomed to drinking pilsner
in Europe and brought their brewing tradition with them to the United States, where, at the time, English-style ales dominated the market At some point between 1844 and 1855, Charles Best and his brother, Lorenz, established the Plank Road Brewery in the Menomonee Valley in Milwaukee. Charles and Lorenz’s father, Jacob Best, had been a very well-known brewer in Germany, and when he arrived in the United States he founded the Pabst Brewing Company. The brothers chose the location because it allowed them to easily access the raw materials they needed to produce their beer. In 1855, Charles and Lorenz sold Plank Road Brewery to Frederick Miller, who purchased the brewery for $2300 and renamed it the Miller Brewing Company. Miller was born in Riedlingen, Germany, in 1824, and was a well-known brewer by the age of 25. Miller brought his own unique strain of yeast from Germany, and that strain is still used in Miller products today. Throughout the remainder of the 19th century, the Miller Brewing Company continued to grow. The massive expansion of railroad lines throughout the United States, as well as continued German and European immigration, assisted the efforts of Miller and other brewers. During the first three decades of the 20th century, immigration began to slow. With the coming of World War I, anti-German sentiment increased, and many groups petitioned their state and national governments to prohibit the sale and consumption of all alcoholic substances, including beer. In 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment, also known as the Volstead Act, took effect, prohibiting the production and sale of alcohol in the United States. Several brewers, including Miller, Pabst, Schlitz, Busch, and Coors, foresaw this development and diversified their companies. Brewers survived the Prohibition era, and in 1933, when the Twenty-First Amendment ended Prohibition, they began producing beer again. During the mid-1960s, Lorraine John Mulberger, Frederick Miller’s granddaughter, began considering sale offers for Miller Brewing. Mulberger did not support the consumption of alcohol and no longer wanted to be in charge of her grandfather’s company. Therefore, in 1966, W. R. Grace and Company, a chemical conglomerate, purchased 53 percent of Miller from Mulberger
and her family. In 1970, Miller Brewing was sold once again, this time to Philip Morris USA for approximately $130 million. Most well known for its ownership of American tobacco companies, Philip Morris knew that the advertisement of cigarettes was going to be legally banned and looked to diversify its investments. Philip Morris’s purchase of Miller Brewing drastically changed how the beer business was run not only in the United States but throughout the world, and the effect of the purchase can still be seen today. “Beer Wars” Before the outbreak of World War II, the beer industry in the United States was still regionally based. However, by the 1950s and the 1960s, beer executives were beginning to realize that people throughout the United States liked many of the same brands of beer. Realizing this, marketing executives at Philip Morris stopped focusing on local marketing programs and began to use network television commercials to advertise Miller products throughout the United States. At the time that Philip Morris purchased Miller, Anheuser-Busch, the producer of Budweiser, was the largest brewery in the United States. AnheuserBusch invested approximately $100 million a year in advertising, which was more than its two largest competitors, Miller and Coors, spent combined. However, Philip Morris vowed to compete with Anheuser-Busch. In 1975, Miller came out with a new beer called Miller Lite. Although Coors had previously advertised its beers as being “America’s Fine Light Beer,” it never used the word light or lite in the name of the product. Miller featured former athletes such as Bob Uecker and Boog Powell in its advertising campaigns to market to a segment of the American public that was becoming more health conscious. Miller also used ex-Boston Red Sox slugger Carl Yastrzemski to promote the fact that Miller High Life was “Made the American Way” in an attempt to avoid adversely affecting the sale of its flagship brand, Miller High Life. By producing this savvy advertising campaign, Miller increased its share of the market to more than 20 percent of all beer sold in the United States in 1986. It was also able to claim that two of the three highest-selling brands in the United
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States were Miller brands: Miller Lite and Miller High Life. However, Miller was still unable to overtake Anheuser-Busch in total sales, despite the fact that Miller spent over $200 million promoting its brands. Conscious not to rest on its success and cognizant of the fact that Miller High Life drinkers were continuing to age, Miller came out with cold-filtered Miller Genuine Draft in 1985 and marketed it to the 18- to 30-year-old segment of society. The product was criticized by both Anheuser-Busch and Coors because AnheuserBusch argued that a bottled beer could not be a draft beer and Coors maintained that Coors Banquet Beer was also cold-filtered. Despite the criticisms of its competitors, Miller Genuine Draft sold well, increasing its sales from 70,000 barrels of beer in 1985 to 3 million barrels in 1987, allowing Miller to remain a distant second in sales to Anheuser-Busch. Despite continuing to reinvent its advertising campaigns with slogans and gimmicks such as “It’s Miller Time,” “Great Taste, Less Filling,” and the “High Life Men,” Miller has continued to remain second in total sales behind AnheuserBusch. Therefore, in an attempt to overtake its biggest competitor, Miller was purchased by South African Breweries in 2002 to create SABMiller. Since being purchased by South African Breweries, SABMiller has combined with Molson Coors Brewing Company to form MillerCoors, which operates solely in the United States. Despites its attempts to compete with Anheuser-Busch InBev, MillerCoors remains the second-most consumed brand in the United States. Gregg Michael French University of Western Ontario See Also: Beer; Budweiser; Coors; Domestic Beer; Germany; Lager; Light Beer; Medicinal Use, History of; Pilsner; Prohibition; Sporting Events; United States; Volstead Act. Further Readings Burgess, Robert J. Silver Bullets: A Soldier’s Story of How Coors Bombed in the Beer Wars. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993. Riggs, Thomas, ed. Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns. Detroit, MI: Gale, 2000.
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Smith, Gregg. Beer in America: The Early Years, 1587–1840: Beer’s Role in the Settling of America and the Birth of a Nation. Boulder, CO: Brewers Publications, 1998. Van Munching, Philip. Beer Blast: The Inside Story of the Brewing Industry’s Bizarre Battles for Your Money. New York: Random House, 1997.
Mint Julep The mint julep is a classic American cocktail with a wide range of regional variations. It was first mentioned in print by John Davis, an English traveler who described a basic julep recipe in his Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America (1803). In Virginia, Davis met an enslaved, elderly man named “Dick the Negro” who taught Davis the recipe. This supports the theory that the mint julep was first developed in Virginia and spread later, along with slavery, into other southern jurisdictions. In particular, the state of Kentucky has come to be associated with the julep and connected traditions, especially in Louisville, home of the famous Kentucky Derby. This celebrated horse race was inaugurated in 1875, and the Churchill Downs racetrack first officially promoted the drink in 1938, but the basic julep recipe is clearly much older. Association With Slavery Dick spent his youth as a personal servant to Tommy Sutherland, the son of a wealthy Virginia plantation owner. Dick described Sutherland as “a trimmer” who routinely sexually assaulted enslaved females belonging to his father. Sutherland enjoyed a “short but merry life” of drunken splendor that began first thing each day with a julep, described in a footnote by Davis as “a dram of spirituous liquor that has mint steeped in it.” It was Dick’s duty to prepare and fetch that first drink each morning (undoubtedly followed by many others as the day progressed), and he thus developed his own lifetime appreciation for the julep by “tasting and mixing my master’s juleps.” The unfortunate association of this first recorded mint julep recipe with the horrors of slavery is underscored by the eventual killing of Sutherland
by the enraged and intoxicated husband of one rape victim. Since slave marriages were unrecognized by the white Christian piety of the day, the offending slave had no legal recourse to defend the killing and was subsequently impaled on a gibbet and left to die over a torturous three days for daring to defend his beloved’s honor from Sutherland. The fact that both men were drunk at the time of Sutherland’s murder speaks to the ubiquitous nature of heavy alcohol consumption among all classes of people in 18th-century America. While the modern julep is mixed with bourbon, it is unclear if Sutherland’s daily eye-openers were fashioned from whiskey or some other kind of “spirituous liquor.” Early versions of the julep were routinely mixed with any handy distilled spirit—gin, for example—and mint was the only key ingredient for which there could be no substitution. Dick’s life brought him many masters after Sutherland, including a stint working in a tavern where he was able to indulge in daily drinking binges. Although it is uncertain if Dick enjoyed the odd julep, it is reasonable to conclude that his consumption of bourbon became increasingly common as the early 19th century unfolded. Bourbon, Sugar, Mint, and Ice Much of eastern Kentucky—including Bourbon County—was settled by Virginians in the decades after the War of Independence, and the distillation of bourbon whiskey by pioneers from Scotland and Ireland, in particular, likely began during that same period. This uniquely American style of whiskey developed in earnest throughout the 19th century and is produced today throughout the United States. Nevertheless, bourbon remains associated with the south—Kentucky and Tennessee in particular—in the minds of most aficionados. The same is true of the mint julep. Juleps—or related “smash” cocktails more generally—are an excellent way to enjoy fine American bourbon, especially on a hot day. Dick’s pioneering experiments were perhaps the first to be documented in the United States, but the hemispheric tradition of flavoring spirits with mint actually began long earlier in the Caribbean. Spanish colonists were among the first to dabble with mixtures of slave-produced cane spirits along with added refinements including aromatic herbs, fruit juices, and sugar. One version of these early rum cocktails
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ultimately evolved into the modern Cuban mojito, a mint-based libation closely related to the julep. The mojito is but one Latin American version of a smash cocktail, which is a type of drink flavored with crushed fruit or mint. English sugar planters in Barbados and Jamaica undoubtedly crafted similar beverages during the late 1600s and possibly introduced the idea into colonial Virginia. Regardless of its origins, the modern mint julep is a cocktail defined by four simple ingredients: bourbon, lots of shaved or chipped ice, granulated sugar or syrup, and mint leaves. Some julep recipes call for the mint to be muddled, as in a mojito, but purists tend to denounce this step. A bourbon cocktail flavored with muddled mint is more properly recognized as a classic Whiskey Smash, which calls for the mint to be crushed with granulated sugar and lemon prior to adding bourbon. The smash is a bracer designed for quick consumption, but a julep is intended for sipping, so the mint requires at most a gentle bruising. Julep orthodoxy tends to support the idea that only fully intact and unmolested mint leaves will ensure long-lasting flavor over an extended period of relaxed enjoyment. Modern mint juleps are served like a snow cone on chipped and/or shaved ice. This refinement emerged with the rise of the ice trade in early 19thcentury New England. Ice was harvested in blocks during the winter, preserved underground in insulating sawdust, and shipped elsewhere—including the south—before and after the Civil War. That was also when the final element of the classic julep fell into place: A special silver or pewter cup was developed with a lip and base for holding the drink without warming it, and this allowed for the formation of frost on the outside of the glass. Although these cups continue to add a special sort of pageantry to julep drinking at the Kentucky Derby, they are not essential, and juleps are more often sipped out of common highball, old-fashioned, or Collins glasses.
mastermind Auric Goldfinger offered one to James Bond in 1964’s Goldfinger. In a 1967 Star Trek episode (“This Side of Paradise”), Dr. McCoy tried (but failed) to use a mint julep to entice Captain Kirk onto a planet filled with hallucinatory plant spores. The ongoing fascination with this drink is indelibly linked with the Kentucky Derby, which first promoted the mint julep as the official derby drink in 1938. Around that same time, a New Deal writers’ project sent one correspondent to Lexington, where a bartender named John Coyne mixed mint juleps at the Drake Hotel. Coyne’s “original Kentucky” mint julep recipe called for mixing 2 teaspoons of sugar with 1 ounce of water, pouring it into a 10-ounce glass filled with chipped ice, adding 4 ounces of bourbon, and decorating the drink with plenty of mint. Coyne specified that no fruit should be added but that an optional straw is permissible.
Association With Kentucky Derby The association of mint juleps with Kentucky horse-racing traditions remains firm, as does its association with southern culture more generally. Post–World War II references to the drink include the iconic Looney Tunes character Foghorn Leghorn enjoying one in the 1960 animated film The Dixie Fryer. Horse-racing enthusiast and criminal
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Shawn L. England Mount Royal University See Also: Bourbon; Bourbon Advertising; Bourbon Cocktails; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Films, Drinking in; History of Alcoholic Beverages; Rum Cocktails; Slavery. Further Readings Davis, John. Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America. Bristol, UK: R. Edwards, 1803. Kurlansky, Mark. The Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food. New York: Riverhead, 2009. Nickell, Joe. The Kentucky Mint Julep. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003. Smith, Soule. The Mint Julep: The Very Dream of Drinks. Lexington, KY: Gravesend, 1984.
Moderation Management (MM) was founded in 1994 by Audrey Kishline in response to her own frustration with Alcoholics Anonymous (AA),
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the most widely used peer-recovery program for individuals with alcohol use disorders. Although Kishline acknowledged that she had a drinking problem, she did not consider her problem a “disease” and believed that with the right kind of support, she could return to moderate drinking. These ideas are contrary to the AA philosophy, which holds that alcohol addiction is a lifelong disorder from which one can be “in recovery” but never cured and for which the only goal can be abstinence, because any amount of alcohol consumed will inevitably lead to uncontrollable use. MM espouses very different goals but also targets a different population. As Kishline wrote in her book Moderate Drinking: The Moderation Management Guide for People Who Want to Reduce Their Drinking, which has sold more than 50,000 copies to date, MM is designed for people with mild to moderate drinking problems whose goal is to reduce drinking but not necessarily stop. Kishline herself acknowledged that for highly addicted individuals, moderate drinking might not be a realistic goal. For those individuals, the AA fellowship might be better suited. Nonetheless, she argued, AA is not appropriate for individuals with less severe alcohol use disorders who have both the desire and the ability to return to healthy drinking. Scientific evidence supports Kishline’s beliefs and empirically demonstrates that there is a pathway for more severe drinkers that involves AA and results in abstinence and a different pathway that leads to moderate drinking for people who have less severe drinking problems and more social capital to begin. To serve this population of at-risk but not addicted alcohol users, Kishline outlined specific goals for personal change. “Nine Steps” MM’s Nine Steps, in contrast to AA’s Twelve Steps, advises members first to abstain from alcoholic beverages for 30 days. This is likely one of the ways in which Kishline sought to distinguish those who have some control over their drinking a priori from those who are more severely addicted and for whom abstinence and participation in AA might be more appropriate. During the month of abstinence from alcohol, participants in MM are encouraged to examine
how drinking has affected their lives; to clarify life priorities; and to examine the quantity of, frequency of, and behaviors related to alcohol consumption. After all of this has been completed, members are then encouraged to set specific goals for moderate drinking, which Kishline defined as follows: For women, drink no more than nine standard drinks per week with a maximum of three drinks on any one day (a standard drink is 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of hard liquor); for men, drink no more than 14 standard drinks per week with a maximum of four drinks on any one day. Both men and women are, furthermore, to have three to four nondrinking days per week. These guidelines correspond with medical guidelines for moderate drinking that are based on scientific literature linking quantity and frequency of alcohol consumption above these limits to increased risk of all-cause morbidity and mortality—from pancreatitis to liver disease to death. Other ways in which MM differs from AA include its rationalistic approach, without the spiritual aspects so fundamental to AA; a locus of control squarely within the individual member, as opposed to the “higher power” of AA; and the relative unimportance of attending MM meetings, compared with the emphasis on group participation in AA, which prioritizes attending a meeting daily in early recovery, integrating into the AA fellowship to the exclusion of other activities, and helping others through AA sponsorship. MM as an organization remains small—no more than several thousand members, including meetings online—as compared with the more than 4 million members worldwide of AA. Nonetheless, it seems to be increasingly well known, perhaps because Kishline’s ideas have dovetailed with a new movement in addiction treatment circles, that alcohol use disorders represent a spectrum use disorder ranging in severity from mild to moderate to severe and that “harm reduction”—decreasing the negative consequences of use—might be a more appropriate goal for some individuals. The 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), published in 2013 has changed its diagnostic categories of “alcohol abuse” and “alcohol dependence” to “alcohol use disorder,
Montepulciano
mild, moderate, or severe,” reflecting this evolving notion that alcohol problems represent different points on a continuum and that interventions should be modified based on where on that continuum the individual lies. Opinions of MM’s Effectiveness Critics of MM argue that problem drinkers themselves are ill-equipped to judge whether MM is appropriate for them. They often cite as their primary example Kishline herself. After founding MM, she was unable to maintain moderate drinking, leading her to quit her own organization and rejoin AA. During her subsequent relapse, she killed two people in a car accident. This event has helped make MM a continuing subject of significant controversy, even though Kishline was no longer a member of MM at the time of the accident. Proponents of MM argue that the fact that Kishline recognized that she had become alcohol dependent and left MM to join AA prior to the accident is evidence that MM’s selection process is well founded. Several survey studies of MM members demonstrate that, on average, MM members represent a less severely dependent population than those seeking help from AA. It is likely that some people in MM meet medical criteria for alcohol dependence, but the data imply that only a minority of members (approximately 10 percent) meet the criteria for severe alcohol dependence. At the very least, MM widens the range of attractive options available to people with alcohol use disorders. It provides an alternative for problem drinkers who wish to return to moderate drinking, rather than abstinence, but who have heretofore spurned AA and other abstinence-oriented treatment options in favor of “going it alone.” MM may also well provide a useful and necessary public health service for problem drinkers who would benefit from some basic guidelines about healthy drinking. Anna Lembke Stanford University See Also: Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test; Alcoholism Treatment, Sociology of; Disease Model of Alcoholism.
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Further Readings Jaffe, Adi. “Abstinence is not the Only Option.” Psychology Today (March 9, 2011). http://www .psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-addiction/ 201103/abstinence-is-not-the-only-option (Accessed August 2014). Kishline, Audrey. Moderate Drinking: The Moderation Management Guide for People Who Want to Reduce Their Drinking. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1995. Moderation Management. http://www.moderation .org (Accessed August 2014). Rotgers, Frederick, Marc F. Kern, and Rudy Hoeltzel. Responsible Drinking: A Moderation Management Approach for Problem Drinkers. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2002.
Montepulciano Montepulciano is a red grape that originated from the area around the medieval and Renaissance hill town of Montepulciano (near Siena) in southern Tuscany, Italy, and took its name from the town. However, it is now planted all over central Italy and is particularly important in Abruzzo. The grape is used to produce deeply colored wines that have a moderate acidity and a taste that became well known over the centuries. For a wine to be labeled as Montepulciano, it must have at least 85 percent juice from Montepulciano grapes, with the remainder—often less than 15 percent—being from the Sangiovese grapes, which are now predominate in and around the town of Montepulciano. The Montepulciano grape variety has proven the population’s account of the high yields provided, and it may be the type mentioned by the Roman historian Livy. Grown astride some of the major trade routes along the Italian peninsula since ancient times, the grape has flourished in the region that is also famous for its cheeses, pork, honey, and, recently, lentils. All this has contributed to the production of the local wine that has proven very popular with critics. The particular taste comes from the low skin-to-juice ratio and also from the skin itself having a number of pigmented tannins. It also has low acidity.
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Pope Paul III (who reigned from 1534 to 1549) was recorded by his steward Sante Lancerio as having enjoyed the Montepulciano wine. Sante Lancerio had the task of seeking out the best wine for his master and confirmed that Montepulciano was “fit for lords.” More than a century later, Francesco Redi, the famous Italian physician poet, called the Montepulciano the “king of all wine,” noting other details of the wine in his book Bacchus in Tuscany. The French philosopher and writer Voltaire also mentioned Montepulciano in his famous book Candide, with the central character Candide drinking some soon after his arrival in Venice. One of the most famous connoisseurs of Montepulciano was undoubtedly President Thomas Jefferson, who called it “Florence wine.” Jefferson asked Thomas Appleton to help select his wines, and Appleton chose Montepulciano for the former president from “a particular very best crop of it known to him.” Jefferson’s view was that the wine was equal to the taste of the best burgundy, and he enjoyed its light body. Appleton is known later to have tried the 1815 vintage, which he found very poor and thus decided against purchasing any. The high yield and strong taste has led to this grape being planted in many other parts of Italy, although because of the fact that it ripens late, it is not possible to grow it successfully in the north of the country and it remains very green if harvested too early in the season. Although recommended for 20 of the 95 provinces of Italy, plantings remain concentrated in the Abruzzo region. The Montepulciano d’Abruzzo was designated as a Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC), or “controlled designation of origin,” in 1968, and this covers most of the Abruzzo region. Growing easily, the grape quickly came to be cherished by the poor farmers there for its high yields and large amounts of juice. In spite of this, growers have been careful not to overexploit this, as has been the case with some other high-yield varieties like Lambrusco. Because of the variation in the geology of Abruzzo, there are now some marked differences in the grapes and hence the wine. The Montepulciano is also grown in Apulia, Latium, Marche, Molise, and Umbria. The Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is also made at Montepulciano but using a different grape—mainly the
Sangiovese, which is now more popular than Montepulciano around the town of Montepulciano. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Italy; Lambrusco; Wine Connoisseurship. Further Readings Anderson, Burton. The Wine Atlas of Italy and Traveller’s Guide to the Vineyards. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990. Belfrage, Nicolas. The Finest Wines of Tuscany and Central Italy: A Regional and Village Guide to the Best Wines and Their Producers. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. Forrestal, Peter. The Global Encyclopedia of Wine. Sydney, Australia: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000. Gabler, James M. Passions: The Wines and Travels of Thomas Jefferson. Baltimore, MD: Bacchus Press, 1995. Hailman, John R. Thomas Jefferson on Wine. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006. Robinson, Jancis. The Oxford Companion to Wine. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Moonshiners Distilling liquor to evade taxes or outright prohibition is a worldwide activity. Whether Indian hooch, Irish poteen, Peruvian pisco, or Swiss absinthe, illegal making and selling of liquor is firmly embedded in many cultures. It is estimated that there are over 75 countries that produce illicit liquor, from Afghanistan through all the inhabited continents to Wales. Moonshine—so called because it is made at night—is one of many American names for home brew, including white lightnin’, white dog, white mule, mountain dew, pop-skull, busthead, bumblings, wildcat, blockade, brush whiskey, and forty-rod (the distance one could run before passing out). Classically raw, unaged corn whiskey, moonshine can also be made from apples to create applejack or other fruits to make brandies. In the United States, moonshine is associated with the Appalachian south, but it has been made in other areas as well—rum in the
Irish waterfront neighborhoods of Brooklyn in the 1860s and 1870s, potato vodka in the Lower East Side of New York City, and bathtub gin during Prohibition in urban areas throughout the country. Over the last hundred years, governmental agencies have been in a running battle against moonshiners. Making Moonshine Traditional Appalachian corn whiskey is the most famous in folk song and story. Making it was a complex handicraft, its taste and quality reflecting the skill of the distiller. Several days of processing were necessary to produce classic moonshine. In the old-fashioned method, the distiller began by pouring warm water over corn for several days to convert starch to sugar. This “sweet mash” was left to stand for two days before fermentation. Fermentation—lasting eight to 10 days—required maintaining a constant temperature, usually without a thermometer. The resulting “sour mash” consisted of alcoholic liquid and leftover solids. In the next step, the moonshiner poured the alcohol into a still—a copper pot with a removable cap attached to a spiral tube (the worm). Enclosing the worm was a watertight container through which cold water was constantly running. Heating the still vaporized the alcohol, which became liquid as it cooled, passing through the worm into a tub or barrel. The distiller again poured these “singlings” into the still, heated at a lower temperature. Misjudgment led to too-strong or too-weak liquor. Ideally, what poured into the receiving jug or barrel was clear whiskey ready for immediate consumption. Distillers reduced their labor in various ways. One was the addition of a “thump keg,” placed between the still and the worm, through which the vaporized alcohol passed with a buildup of heat—essentially a second distillation that avoided “doubling.” They also saved time by substituting sugar to begin fermentation of the corn, avoiding the slow sprouting process. Unscrupulous distillers adulterated weak whiskey with buckeye tree pods to produce a “bead,” bubbles that indicated proof. When moonshining was commercializing during the early 20th century, when some southern states adopted full prohibition or the local option, quality suffered in favor of quick profits. During the national Prohibition
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era of the 1920s, moonshiners substituted automobile radiators for the worm, sometimes poisoning drinkers from the lead solder. Stills with hundreds-of-gallons capacity dwarfed the oldtimers’ 5- or 10-gallon copper pots. Names such as busthead or white mule suggest some of the effects of drinking moonshine whiskey. Most people drank moonshine to get drunk. Although there are corn whiskey connoisseurs, it is not something to sip and savor like a single malt. Taxing Moonshine People became moonshiners for various reasons. Some farmers found selling the whiskey without paying the tax a means of supplementing their incomes, especially during times of agricultural depression when it was difficult to sell their corn. Others became full-time blockaders (running the blockade of federal tax collectors) who sold to rural and urban customers: “blind tiger” saloons in towns and cities, lumberjacks, miners, railroad builders, and textile mill workers who were the agents of social and cultural change in the late-19th and early-20th-century southern mountains. Prohibition—whether local, state, or national—was a great boon for moonshiners, but they too often sacrificed skill for mass production. Moonshiners gained a reputation of quaint, violent survivors from the past, but many were entrepreneurs realizing the possibilities of local and wider markets. Home distilling of corn whiskey became moonshining when the new federal government levied an excise tax on liquor in 1791. Moonshiners became typical American folk heroes: free men battling a tyrannical federal government, individualists in a nation that never liked to pay taxes. Farmers complained, but there was no serious confrontation until the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 in western Pennsylvania. Fiercely objecting to the new tax in language recalling objections to British taxes that spurred the American Revolution, moonshiners formed vigilante groups to drive the tax collectors out of the region. A militia force called up by President George Washington dispersed the rebels with no casualties on either side. Two of the rebellion leaders were convicted of treason, but the federal government was content with a symbolic show of force; it did not attempt to collect the excise, which was repealed during President Thomas Jefferson’s administration.
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The tax was only temporarily renewed during the War of 1812. During the Civil War, Congress levied taxes on many products to help finance the war effort, but only those on liquor and tobacco survived the conflict. Imposed on large and small distillers alike, the liquor excise became the government’s largest source of revenue after tariffs on foreign imports. The Bureau of Internal Revenue, created during the war to enforce the tax, started off badly by being enmeshed in the Whiskey Ring scandal of the early 1870s. Large distillers connived with officials to evade the tax, and connections reached up to the highest levels. The investigation led to dismissals and convictions, but large distillers soon became the government’s allies against competition from thousands of small moonshiners, especially in the mountain south. Collectively, these small-time tax evaders cost the government substantial potential tax revenue. To deal with them, President Ulysses Grant appointed in 1876 the exceptionally able and energetic Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Green B. Raum. He began by persuading Congress that
the problem was serious and then launched a determined “carrot and stick” campaign. On the one hand, revenue collectors and deputy marshals raided moonshiners and destroyed their stills when they could. On several occasions, the raids led to shootouts with casualties on both sides. On the other hand, there was an offer of suspended sentences to convicted distillers who swore to operate legally in the future. By the early 1880s, Raum could claim success to his approach, although it was containing or limiting moonshining rather than eliminating it entirely. Under Raum’s successors, revenue collectors remained ensconced in the mountain south, but moonshiners refused to give up completely. A major crisis developed during the depression of 1893 to 1897, when not only was corn hard to sell but also Congress raised the liquor tax. Many farmers turned to moonshining, and confrontations reminiscent of Raum’s early years reappeared. By the early 1900s, the revenuers again had contained but not fully eliminated moonshining. However, soon, prohibition gained
A U.S. Treasury Department official observes liquid taken from a moonshine still confiscated by the Internal Revenue Bureau during Prohibition, 1920–1933. Called “moonshine” for its typically nighttime manufacture, it is created for various reasons: tax evasion, skirting Prohibition, extra income, and power. Rural stills processed mash made from ingredients such as corn, potatoes, and apples.
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headway in the south, and moonshiners found a much larger market available to them. State officials now allied with the federal officers in hunting down moonshiners, but they also conflicted with them because their duty was to prohibit all manufacture and sale of liquor, while the revenuers were after only those who did not pay the excise tax. The national Prohibition in 1920 made moonshining a national business, supervised by gangsters. Congress created a special Prohibition bureau, which had some early enforcement successes but soon proved inadequate in the face of widespread resistance. Agents chased moonshiners in automobiles, and the distillers “souped up” their cars to outrun them. Repeal of Prohibition in 1933 did not mean the end of moonshining, and revenuers (now members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) continued to combat moonshiners though not on a 19th-century scale. One of the largest recent moonshine raids occurred in 2001, resulting in the arrest of 26 people from Philadelphia to North Carolina. The blockaders carry on, some of whom are the classic local-market variety, others large-scale businessmen, and still others young people following traditional skills as part of the revival of artisanal production. There have been efforts to legalize home-distilled whiskey, but making and selling it without paying the tax is illegal in every state. Nevertheless, an online search for the word moonshine turns up recipes and legal advice. Wilbur R. Miller State University of New York, Stony Brook See Also: Appalachian Moonshine Culture; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Post-Prohibition Bootlegging; Prohibition; Whiskey Rebellion. Further Readings Carr, Jess. The Second Oldest Profession: An Informal History of Moonshining in America. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1972. Miller, Wilbur R. Revenuers and Moonshiners: Enforcing Federal Liquor Law in the Mountain South, 1865–1900. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
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Peine, Emelie K. and Kai A. Schafft. “Moonshine, Mountaineers, and Modernity: Distilling Cultural History in the Southern Appalachian Mountains.” Journal of Appalachian Studies, v.18/1–2 (Spring/ Fall 2012). Prentice, Claire. “Moonshine ‘Tempts New Generation.’” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world -us-canada-10556048 (Accessed March 2014). Watman, Max. Chasing the White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw’s Adventures in Moonshine. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.
Moral Attitudes Toward Alcohol Consumption Drinking alcohol is a common practice worldwide. It is largely deemed a socially acceptable behavior and is often reserved for the celebration of special occasions such as birthdays and Independence Day, for example. Alcohol, when used minimally or in moderation, is considered to be a part of the social fabric of many cultures. Moderate, or “social drinking,” is often identified as a way for people to relax and socialize. Social drinking occurs in groups and is generally considered to be an activity for adults. Throughout history, alcohol’s ties to social events and relaxation has made it one of society’s favorite drugs, second only to caffeine. Yet its use has historically been cause for moral concern given related societal problems. In popular culture, “getting drunk” or “intoxicated” are terms that come with many descriptors including blotto, stoned, smashed, well-oiled, inebriated, tanked, plastered, sloshed, bombed, blitzed, reeling, and under the influence. These terms are often used by individuals in relation to their own drinking behaviors or by others who attempt to describe the phenomenon of intoxication. Happy hour is a well-known term used to describe the time of day that bars lower drink prices to bring in customers. Happy hour, however, is a misnomer, as it often extends beyond one hour, and lower prices for drinks can contribute to heavier drinking. While moderate alcohol use has been largely accepted over the course
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of history, heavy drinking has historically been viewed as a lack of self-control or a moral failure on the part of the individual. Historical Perceptions of Alcohol Use and Drinking to Excess Because it has been used largely by males in social settings, alcohol’s negative impacts have long been observed. Discovered in the Stone Age, likely an accident whereby sugars and starches were left to warm, someone decided to taste it. By the Neolithic Age it was commonplace. While natural processes produce up to 14 percent alcohol, by the 16th century what was called alcohol was a much stronger brew, with the discovery of distillation making it possible to create strengths of over 90 percent alcohol. In various ancient societies such as the Roman, Greek, and Egyptian, there were the gods of wine Bacchus, Dionysus, and Osiris, respectively. The Greeks had other minor gods of wine such as Methe (for drunkenness), Acratopotes (companion to Dionysus), Ceraon (for wine mixing), and Amphictyonis (for wines and friendships). In Catholicism, Vincent of Saragossa is known as the popular saint of wines and is held in high esteem among many Catholic winemakers. Another well-known saint of wines is Urban of Langres. Ritual use of alcohol is mentioned in Judeo-Christian texts as a common part of meals and celebrations. Various Protestant Christian teachings, however, denounce an overindulgence in alcohol as a moral failing in need of a spiritual solution. Buddists, Muslims, and Mormons, by contrast, advocate total abstinence from alcohol. Alcohol’s utility includes use as or an ingredient in tonics and medicines and as an anesthesia aid for immediate medical procedures away from hospitals. Its use was even prescribed by doctors during labor and childbirth in the 1950s. People often drink to cope with personal troubles and traumas. The term drowning my sorrows is a euphemism for drinking because a person is upset. Using alcohol to overcome fears has been popularized as “liquid courage.” Alcohol decreases inhibitions. When used to excess, the lowered inhibitions lead to loud, abrupt, or brash behavior, negatively described as “obnoxious,” “rude,” or “unable to hold their liquor.” Many still consume alcohol based on myths; for example, consuming alcohol warms the body. Much consumption of
alcohol has been a male activity associated with masculinity. The more one can drink, the more prowess he is deemed to have. Use by women was thought to contribute to loose, immoral behavior. In 1620, alcohol was introduced in the Western Hemisphere. By law, in 1790 U.S. soldiers were entitled to a ration of alcohol. By the 1800s, the Victorian era shaped societal responses to alcohol by identifying sobriety as a reflection of a civil society and attributed alcohol misuse to a flaw in moral character. This perception carried on through the temperance and prohibition movements, whose foundations rest upon a moral framework of self-control and discipline. In 1920, the United States experimented with national prohibition of alcohol consumption by passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This was the result of efforts by the Christian temperance movement to legislate morality regarding the consumption of alcohol by banning it. Of particular concern was the impact on social establishments, called saloons, that served alcohol to males. In the United States there was an overall moral concern about the dangers of idle time and, in this case, idle time mixed with alcohol and the impact on families. Alcohol consumption was blamed for much deviance and crime, family violence, child neglect, and homelessness. Prohibition in the United States lasted until it was repealed in 1933, defeated by public sentiments and a powerful thirst for alcohol. Since then, many advertisements for alcohol have promoted the convivial use of alcohol, associating it with power, masculinity, success, assertiveness, and sexuality. Media and Moral Attitudes Toward Alcohol Recent research by Tracy Scull and colleagues confirms that media influence may be just as powerful as that of parents and peers when it comes to adolescents’ moral beliefs about the use of alcohol. The portrayal of alcohol consumption in media had decreased over time as knowledge of alcohol and its negative effects increased into the late 1970s. These ills included fatal auto accidents; workplace loss of productivity; negative family relations, including violence; and falls, accidents, suicide, and various health consequences. Simultaneously, alcohol producers increasingly marketed “light” and nonalcoholic beverages that
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mimicked the look and taste of alcoholic beers and wines. Most youth are introduced to alcohol use at home, and reaching the legal age to drink is seen as a rite of passage to adulthood. As drinking has become a serious problem emerging in adolescence, the rate of addiction to alcohol is presenting as a health problem at earlier ages in the new millennium. Providing alcohol to a minor is typically viewed as contributing to the decay of morals and values in modern society. Parents who allow their teenagers to drink at home argue that they can supervise and monitor the activities of their children more easily. They take a calculated risk that their children are safer at home while drinking, rather than drinking away from home and potentially driving while intoxicated. Health Concerns and Social Problems Medical science is not immune to moralization. Though heavy alcohol consumption was historically deemed a moral deficiency, today we know that it can cause serious health problems. Heavy drinking has been identified as a known contributor to the development of cancers of the mouth, throat, esophagus, and digestive system, and to liver disease. Other health risks related to drinking are smoking, compulsive gambling, unprotected sex, and unplanned pregnancies. Health problems resulting from alcohol use are often considered to be self-inflicted, and individuals are viewed as directly responsible for this outcome. For example, the person who needs a liver transplant due to alcoholism is unlikely to receive this treatment without a complete commitment to sobriety. The medical/moral debate and judgments about alcohol-related behavior and risk are often inseparable. The fear of giving a liver transplant to a person who is considered at risk of relapse and subsequent transplant failure is a factor in how decisions are made. Denying a transplant to a patient who is “at risk” of relapse raises ethical concerns about medical practice and the judging of patients as “worthy” or “unworthy” of care. When alcoholism is viewed as a disease rather than a moral failing, a different response begins to emerge. The disease model of addiction, championed by Dr. William B. Silkworth, evolved alongside prohibition and sought to explain alcoholism and addiction from a physiological—not
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a moral—standpoint. A disease model considers addiction from a biological perspective and suggests that a physical dependence on alcohol, not moral failings, leads to alcoholism. When perceived this way, the person who has the problem of alcohol addiction is seen to be in need of treatment. Treatment involves creating a plan that is supported by medical professionals and monitored on a regular basis similar to other chronic diseases. A focus on prevention of health problems associated with alcohol misuse comes from both biological and moral perspectives. If, indeed, alcohol abuse is a biologically based phenomenon, the individual with alcoholism is viewed as having an illness, or even a disability, and must be given reasonable accommodation. If alcohol use is a purely moral issue, then it is the duty of a moral and civil society to protect those who cannot make “good” decisions. In addition to alcoholism, binge drinking (defined as having five or more drinks in a single sitting) has also garnered a great deal of media attention and offers an opportunity to view the process of moralization. Binge drinking often affects college-age students, and in recent years the deaths of several young adults due to binge drinking have become prominent news. In these cases, the individuals involved have largely been portrayed as victims; that is, the “young, promising college student” lost to the “evils” of alcohol and peer pressure to consume alcohol. Alcohol toxicity or poisoning are frequently reported during rituals such as “rush week” and “hazing” activities designed to welcome new students into social groups. In response to public outcry, many schools have now banned such activities. Moral Attitudes and Alcohol National estimates are that about 67 percent of U.S. adults consume alcohol, 77 percent of men and 60 percent of women, and that 10 percent of the U.S. population are problem drinkers. While alcohol consumption has stagnated or declined in developed countries, in developing countries its consumption has increased. In the United States, the drinker is most likely to be a white male under 44 years of age with at least a high school diploma and a middle-class income. Among adolescents, an estimated one in five have a drinking
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problem. Most persons deemed alcoholics (over 80 percent) are functional or employable. By contrast, in wine-producing countries like France and Italy, wine consumption is deeply ingrained in the culture. Other cultures’ rates of indulgence vary based on religious and cultural expectations. Behaviorally, in the United States alcohol is known as a factor in auto accidents and is often associated with family abuse and disorderly conduct. More positively, it is associated with social gatherings including sporting events— some, for example, hockey and American football, more than others. Scholars Shirley Ogletree and Richard Archer concluded that given the medicalization of a predisposition to consume alcohol excessively, a person’s neurotransmitter level might indicate a need for a health response to manifestations of the disease of alcoholism. This has softened moral attitudes toward alcohol consumption in cases where a person’s specific circumstances suggest a deferral of blame. Alcoholism is not just social drinking out of control. Rather, it implies a physical and chemical dependence on alcohol, and this dependence is what differentiates alcoholism as unacceptable compared to social drinking. Other alcoholrelated behaviors that draw negative social attention include binge drinking, drinking and driving, drinking during pregnancy, and engaging in highrisk activities while intoxicated. These behaviors have contributed to societal responses that are morally grounded in judgments of “right” and “wrong.” Alcohol dependence is a behavior that is more likely to draw a person into a moral sphere and contributes to negative perceptions of that person. These negative perceptions are evident in language surrounding substance abuse. For example, in Australia, problems such as alcoholism are commonly identified as “wicked problems.” Moralization occurs when preferences are converted into values at both individual and societal levels. Behaviors that are subject to moral scrutiny are more likely to get attention from governments, inspire research, and affect attitudes. This phenomenon can be seen in the formation and incredible growth of organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) around the world. Drunk driving has progressed from a relatively minor offense to a serious infraction that
can result in loss of a driver’s license. In the province of Alberta, Canada, the legal blood alcohol limit had been 0.08 for decades, but in 2013, new legislation introduced penalties for drivers with blood alcohol levels of 0.05, while the legal limit remained 0.08. Responses such as this emerge from decreased tolerance to the often deadly consequences of impaired driving. Moral attitudes toward alcohol use are gender based, and women are viewed as particularly immoral when engaged in drinking to excess. This stigma on the consumption of alcohol by women may be tied to the issue of alcohol use during pregnancy. There is not a more moralized and polarized issue in modern history than the example of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), as identified by Kenneth Lyons Jones and David Smith. It was recognized through their research that heavy alcohol consumption during pregnancy leads to a host of developmental problems in children that are often not recognized immediately after birth. In 2000, Dr. Ann Streissguth and Dr. Keiran O’Malley proposed the term fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) to identify a range of conditions related to prenatal alcohol exposure, including serious behavior problems and memory issues caused by irreversible brain damage in utero. Current social messaging on alcohol use in pregnancy has stated that “no alcohol is best while pregnant,” and most women are now aware that drinking during pregnancy poses significant risks. The underlying message that FASD is entirely preventable through abstention from alcohol during pregnancy further reinforces a moral position that women alone are responsible for the troubles of their children. This sentiment echoes the attitudes surrounding addiction, with the pregnant woman viewed as “bringing the problems on herself” if a child is born with FASD. The widespread availability of alcohol in many public venues has increased due to its high profitability for vendors. Drinking is now allowed (and often encouraged) at most major league sports venues. Slowly, alcohol sales have crept into venues like movie theaters, which have traditionally been family focused; such shifts increase the visibility and normalize alcohol use in almost any social situation. Throughout history, alcohol has been viewed as a moral and societal issue. Several factors
Moral Suasion
have led to the moralization of alcohol, including the following: • Excessive use of alcohol leads to disinhibited and “out of control” behavior. • Alcohol is a contributing factor to many illnesses that strain health care resources and raises ethical concerns. • When used during pregnancy, alcohol can have lifelong consequences for the child. • Alcohol has been associated with crime, deviance, violence, and homelessness. • Popular media have emphasized extreme examples of “good” and “bad” consequences of drinking. Today, as the use of alcohol becomes increasing visible, we face challenges in separating moral virtues and values from societal problems. While the temperance movement faded long ago, many of the attitudes toward alcohol use and moderation remain. Temperance enthusiast Abraham Lincoln stated that alcoholism was “the abuse of a good thing, not the use of a bad thing.” This sentiment is still echoed in the media today: “Enjoy responsibly.” Camille Gibson Prairie View A&M University Dorothy Badry University of Calgary See Also: Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Sociology of; Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition, The; Disease Model of Alcoholism; Drunken Behavior as Culturally Learned; Heavy Drinkers, History of; Medicinal Use, History of; Prohibition; Public Service Announcements. Further Readings Armstrong, Elizabeth. “Diagnosing Moral Disorder: The Discovery and Evolution of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.” Social Science Medicine, v.47/12 (1998). De Graaf, Anneke. “Alcohol Makes Others Dislike You: Reducing the Positivity of Teens’ Beliefs and Attitudes Towards Alcohol Use.” Health Communication, v.28/5 (2012).
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Frost, Julie and Sandra Gardiner. “Binge Drinking: The Latest Moral Panic?” Community Safety Journal, v.4/4 (2005). Kinney, Jean and Gwen Leaton. Loosening the Grip: A Handbook of Alcohol Information. St. Louis, MO: Mosby-a Book, 1991. �Ogletree, S. M. and R. L. Archer. “Interpersonal Judgments: Moral Responsibility and Blame.” Ethics and Behavior, v.21/1 (2011). Scull, Tracy, Janis Kupersmidt, and Jennifer Erausquin. “The Impact of Media-Related Cognitions on Children’s Substance Use Outcomes in the Context of Parental and Peer Substance Use.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, v.43 (2014). Yeomans, Henry. “What Did the British Temperance Movement Accomplish? Attitudes to Alcohol, the Law and Moral Regulation.” Sociology, v.45/1 (2011).
Moral Suasion Moral suasion refers to a method for influencing behavior that uses argument, example, and exhortation, and appeals to virtue rather than coercion or law. Moral suasion appeals to an individual’s or group’s supposedly innate sense of morality, religion, or social responsibility. Moral suasion differs from legal sanctions and legislative prohibitions by relying on voluntary compliance to change behavior. Moral suasion may be used by individuals or groups and employ a variety of persuasive vehicles: rallies, lectures, publications, media campaigns, personal interactions, and artistic productions, to name but a few. Moral suasion frequently relies on potent emotional imagery to convince those acting in ways counter to self- or community interest to change their ways. Activists have used moral suasion in a wide range of causes, from social justice to environmental responsibility. In short, moral suasion urges individuals to follow the dictates of their conscience, informed by an inherent sense of right and wrong purportedly present in all human beings. Opponents of alcohol production and consumption have long employed moral suasion to
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convince potential and actual drinkers to abstain from what the reformers consider a sin, a vice, a moral lapse, or, at best, poor judgment. Long before the medical community revealed the complicated dynamic of alcohol dependency, society deemed drunkards, as they were called, weak, immoral, and problematic socially. This concern emerged early in U.S. history. In the decades following the Revolution, the young agrarian nation produced excess amounts of grains, particularly corn. Converting grain into liquor reduced the shipping cost of transporting bulk goods, providing backwoods farmers with a cost-effective way to sell their crops in distant markets. As a result, the availability of liquor increased and its price dropped. By the 1820s, the average adult male consumed in excess of eight gallons of alcohol per year—close to three times the average today. The new availability of liquor and consequent increase in drinking evoked a backlash among clergymen, merchants, and local elites, who ascribed an ever-increasing list of social evils to the influence of excessive drink. Alcohol seemed to be the root of a host of other evils: crime, poverty, prostitution, and insanity. In 1826, the first national temperance movement took shape in America, the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance. Without any real political power or interest in politics, first-generation temperance advocates relied on the power of moral suasion to convince heavy alcohol users that their behavior was wrong, not in the common good, and a sin in the eyes of God. Moral suasion offered women a unique position in the temperance movement. Though women could not engage in public politics, they could engage in moral suasion. Indeed, as the wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters of the men who abused liquor, women had firsthand knowledge of the devastation alcohol abuse could take on domestic life. Tradition held that women exerted a special “female influence” over men that could promote moral and ethical behavior by appealing to the male sense of integrity, rightness, and dignity. Women exhorted family and friends, organized boycotts of businesses that sold alcohol, and encouraged the temperate not to succumb to blandishments of liquor dealers. As the movement gained strength and membership, public rallies featuring hymns, prayers,
Billy Sunday, famous for his moral suasion style of preaching that included physical histrionics and seething invectives against saloon owners, poses with a chair in 1908 for a publicity photo titled “Break away from the old bunch or be damned.”
emotional testimonials, and, ultimately, fiery speeches that decried the evils of alcohol whipped the crowd into a righteous frenzy. Accounts of these crusades appeared in the press and so the message was spread. Editorial cartoonists who believed in the temperance cause created graphic and often disturbing cartoons that ran in mass circulation newspapers—editorial cartoons that depicted bartenders as the Grim Reaper or showed children dressed in rags waiting poignantly outside the tavern door while their father lingered over a beer, or that presented a family being evicted from a shabby tenement apartment while the father is passed out in the corner. Within a few years, the temperance movements themselves published tracts and newsletters promoting their cause. In addition, temperance advocates recognized the persuasive power of music, churning out dozens of catchy antialcohol songs for use in concert halls and family parlors. Temperance authors penned
Mothers Against Drunk Driving
novels that melodramatically portrayed the ruinous impact of alcohol on families. To a contemporary audience, sensitized to the complicated reality of alcohol dependency, such moral suasion can seem heavy-handed, oversimplified, and ineffective. But at the time it proved a most effective weapon, at least among the American middle class, among whom hard liquor consumption dropped significantly by 1840. As the temperance movement lost faith in the effectiveness of moral suasion during the 1840s, political activism and coercive legislation supplanted persuasion as the primary tactic. Temperance leaders still advocated temperance, even abstinence, and continued to do so until the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919. Though supplemented by a variety of laws and regulations, moral suasion continues to be a significant aspect of the struggle for responsible alcohol use. Joseph Dewey Broward College See Also: American Temperance Society; American Temperance Union; Daughters of Temperance; Drama, Drinking and Temperance in; Good Templars; Loyal Temperance Legion; Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance; Moral Attitudes Toward Alcohol Consumption; Religion; Secular Organization for Sobriety; Sons of Temperance; Temperance, History of; Temperance Movements; Temperance Movements, Religion in; Washingtonians; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union; Women’s Temperance Crusade (1874). Further Readings Fuhrer, Mary Babson. A Crisis of Community: The Trials and Transformation of a New England Town. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Mailbom, Heidi L., ed. Empathy and Morality. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Quinn, John F. Father Mathews Crusade: Temperance in Nineteenth-Century Ireland and Irish America. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002. Rumbarger, John J. Profits, Power, and Prohibition: Alcohol Reform and the Industrialization of America. Albany: State University Press of New York, 1989.
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Mothers Against Drunk Driving Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) devotes itself to the reduction of drunken-driving fatalities. Candy Lightner founded the group after her daughter was tragically killed by an intoxicated driver and repeat offender. Throughout Lightner’s life she had numerous encounters with the problem of drunk driving. When her daughter Serena was 18 months old, Lightner’s car was rear-ended, resulting in minor injuries to Serena. Six years later, her son Travis was struck and seriously injured by a driver impaired by tranquilizers. Finally, on May 3, 1980, Lightner’s 13-year-old daughter, Cari, was walking in her neighborhood in California when a drunk driver hit and killed her. The driver had passed out at the wheel and drove off after killing the young woman. The driver, a repeat driving-under-the-influence (DUI) offender, had recently been released from jail for a similar offense. It was his fifth offense in four years. After Lightner learned that the offender would likely not receive any jail or prison time for his heinous offense, she founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving on May 7, 1980. Originally named Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, MADD has been extremely effective in bringing attention to the consequences of drunken driving. Over the years, the number of alcoholrelated traffic fatalities has dropped significantly, in part due to MADD’s campaign against drunk driving. The ultimate goal of the organization was to increase public awareness and attention to the consequences of drunken driving and enact deterrent legislation to reduce the crime. Lightner and MADD successfully raised public awareness about drunk driving by putting human faces on those killed or injured by drivers impaired by alcohol. As the face of MADD, Lightner appeared on major television shows and newscasts in the 1980s such as Nightline and Good Morning America; she testified before U.S. Congress, spoke with academics and business professionals, and worked endlessly to enact tough legislation and promote awareness about drunken driving. According to David J. Hanson, Lightner’s persuasive argument and emotional approach toward drunk driving led
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to dramatic shifts in the public’s attitudes toward such behavior. MADD was instrumental in situating drunk driving as a preventable social problem that was regrettably acceptable in mainstream society. According to Lightner, driving under the influence of alcohol was normative across society; people from all social classes, from “judges to jurors,” were perpetrators. Enacting Drunk-Driving Laws Due to MADD advocacy, Congress passed regulations rewarding in 1982 states that changed their minimum legal drinking age to 21. Amid pressure by liquor lobbies, many states declined. Later, in 1984, the Senate passed the “21 law,” largely due to the efforts of Lightner and MADD. The law penalized states refusing to change the drinking age to 21 by denying these states federal highway money. This federal legislation ended MADD’s four-year campaign to reduce drunk-driving fatalities, especially among young adults. MADD estimated that the 21 law would save 1,250 lives per year. However, Lightner left MADD and dissociated herself from the movement in 1985, declaring the organization was headed in the wrong direction. According to Lightner, MADD’s intentions had become more neoprohibitionist than she had envisioned. She stated that she founded MADD to deal with the problem of drunken driving, not to deal with alcohol. Neoprohibitionists generally assume that alcohol is, in itself, the cause of drinking problems and that alcohol policy should promote abstinence. Since enactment of the 21 law, MADD has come under fire from researchers and scholars. Opponents of the law maintain that MADD reduced the problem of drunken driving by depicting drunk driving as “uncool,” raising public awareness, placing the term designated driver in the U.S. vernacular, and putting faces on victims, not through legislation. In addition, critics argue that criminalizing alcohol use for those 18 to 20 years of age has created numerous other problems for young adults, including forcing them to drink clandestinely, thereby making them less likely to seek medical or parental help. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) stated that drunken teens behind the wheel are less of a problem than the consequences of those
drinking in private. Furthermore, scientific evidence that the 21 law has been primarily responsible for the decline in alcohol-related fatalities is unconvincing. In 1998, MADD was instrumental in creating legislation to decrease the legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level from 0.10 percent to 0.08 percent across the United States. When President Bill Clinton signed the BAC law into effect in 2000, states were once again forced to comply with the law or risk losing millions of dollars of federal highway funds. Numerous critics at the time noted that motorists are not significantly impaired at 0.08 percent and most fatalities occur among drivers with a BAC of 0.15 percent and higher. However, legislation was pushed forward based upon research conducted by sociologist Ralph Hingson, MADD’s former vice president of public policy, who stated that the 0.08 percent BAC law would save 500 to 600 lives per year. Another study, conducted by Dr. Robert Voas, a former member of MADD’s board of directors, stated that 590 lives could be saved annually. Finally, a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) also declared that upwards of 500 lives would be saved annually by the 0.08 law. However, researchers later found flaws in these studies serious enough to warrant their refutation by the U.S. General Accounting Office. Complicating the situation further for MADD, Lightner briefly represented the American Beverage Institute to fight against the 0.08 BAC law, although she still lobbied for tougher laws against drunk driving. The Post-Lightner Years Since Lightner’s departure in 1985 and the national controversy over minimum drinking age and BAC, alcohol researchers have charged MADD with turning its attention away from its mission of curtailing drunk driving and adopting a neoprohibitionist stance. MADD recognizes that the drunkdriving fatalities have decreased dramatically, and the most egregious offenders are hardcore alcoholics who do not respond to public appeals. Most drivers who have alcohol in their system have a low BAC and rarely cause vehicular fatalities or traffic accidents. In contrast, most drivers involved in vehicular homicide and fatal accidents have a BAC of 0.15 or higher. Critics contend that
Mugler v. Kansas
if MADD really wanted to save lives, it should focus on problem drivers rather than moderate drinkers. The organization, detractors charge, has become extremely temperance oriented. In 2002, the CATO institute declared that MADD’s policies were overbearing. While the organization should be commended for raising awareness about drunk driving in the early 1980s, CATO noted, it has ultimately become a $45 million bureaucracy that is resistant to change. Recent MADD campaigns to raise beer taxes (but not those on distilled spirits), install breath alcohol ignition interlock devices in all new cars, and increase use of sobriety checkpoints have also drawn scrutiny. MADD argues these measures are targeting drunk driving, but critics respond that they are violating citizens’ constitutional rights and criminalizing light and moderate drinking. Furthermore, MADD’s fundraising tactics have been called into question. In 2005, the head of the American Institute of Philanthropy charged MADD with spending far too little of the money it raises on services, and the institution lowered MADD’s charity rating from a grade of C minus to D. Although Candy Lightner and MADD have been commended for bringing national attention to the problem of drunk driving and reducing alcohol-related fatalities in the late 1980s, the organization is largely criticized today as a neoprohibitionist group. As a grassroots advocacy group, MADD’s original mission struck the American public as admirable and imperative. With the success of its early endeavors, however, MADD has become a nonprofit corporate entity largely concerned with the bottom line. Critics argue that if MADD was really concerned with traffic fatalities and automobile accidents, it would turn its focus to cell phone use, which now causes more traffic deaths than drunk driving. Yet many contend that MADD continues to wage war on social drinkers to keep the organization funded and afloat. Patrick K. O’Brien University of Wisconsin, Whitewater See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Alcohol Awareness Month; Alcohol Abuse
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and Crime, Sociology of; Legal Drinking Age: Rite of Passage: Moral Attitudes Toward Alcohol Consumption. Further Readings Gusfield, Joseph R. The Culture of Public Problems: Drinking-Driving and the Symbolic Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Gusfield, Joseph R. Contested Meanings: The Construction of Alcohol Problems. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. Hanson, David J. “Alcohol Abuse Prevention: Some Serious Problems.” http://www.alcoholfacts.org (Accessed March 2014). Reinarman, Craig. “The Social Construction of an Alcohol Problem: The Case of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and Social Control in the 1980s.” Theory and Society, v.17/1 (1988).
Mugler v. Kansas In Mugler v. Kansas, cited as 123 U.S. 623 (1887), the U.S. Supreme Court decided by an 8 to 1 majority that the regulation or prohibition of alcohol are constitutional exercises of a state’s police powers. The decision upheld the conviction of Peter Mugler for manufacturing and distributing intoxicating liquors without a permit. The case, especially the dissent by Justice Stephen J. Field, foreshadowed the theory of Fourteenth Amendment economic substantive due process that would enjoy prominence in the early 20th century. Background On November 2, 1880, Kansas became the first state to outlaw alcohol when the state constitution was amended to read, in part: “The manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors shall be forever prohibited in this state, except for medical, scientific and mechanical purposes.” On February 19, 1881, the Kansas legislature enacted an implementing statute, “An act to prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors, except for medical, mechanical, and scientific purposes, and to regulate the manufacture and sale thereof for such excepted purposes.” This prohibitory law
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declared that any person who manufactured or sold liquor without a permit after May 1, 1881, would be guilty of a misdemeanor. Those found guilty of violating the statute were subject to a fine of $100 to $500 or imprisonment for 20 to 90 days. The legislation further provided that all places where intoxicating liquors were manufactured, distributed, or kept for such purposes constituted public nuisances and were therefore subject to abatement. Owners in violation of this provision were to be fined $100 to $500 or imprisoned for 30 to 90 days. In November 1881, Kansas authorities indicted Peter Mugler on various counts of violating the prohibition statute. Mugler owned and operated a brewery in the state of Kansas under a corporate charter but did not obtain a license following the passage of the new law. The indictments alleged that following the May 1, 1881, deadline, Mugler manufactured and sold, bartered or gave away intoxicating liquors without a permit. The indictment also alleged that Mugler’s brewery constituted a public nuisance as defined by the statute and was subject to abatement. A state trial court found Mugler guilty on two counts, fining him $100 in each case and sentencing him to confinement pending payment of the fine. The court noted that the prohibition statute had caused Mugler’s brewery to decline in value from approximately $10,000 to $2,500. State authorities subsequently seized the brewery and its inventory. The Supreme Court of Kansas affirmed the conviction, and Mugler appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. A companion case, Kansas v. Ziebold and Hagelin, arose from Kansas’s attempt to declare a brewery owned by Herman Ziebold and Joseph Hagelin a common nuisance, abate the use of the premises as a brewery, and forbid any such future use of the premises as a violation of the law. The defendants averred that the brewery predated the constitutional amendment and prohibitory statute, and being unsuitable to any other use would be rendered of little value if not employed for its original purpose. As such, Ziebold and Hagelin also challenged the validity of the statute as contradicting the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The question raised before the U.S. Supreme Court was whether a state law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors,
which consequentially rendered property used for such purposes of diminished value, deprived the owner of such property in abridgement of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Mugler argued that state police powers were not so broad as to prohibit the manufacture of beer for private consumption or sale outside the state. While admitting that a state had the power to prohibit the manufacture of intoxicating beverages for sale within the state, Mugler pleaded that “no convention or legislature has the right, under our form of government, to prohibit any citizen from manufacturing for his own use, or for export or storage, any article of food or drink not endangering or affecting the rights of others.” Further, Mugler pleaded that the newly adopted constitutional provision and accompanying statute deprived him of property, contrary to the Fifth Amendment, and substantially devalued his brewery, thereby violating the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Ziebold and Hagelin’s plea cited the Due Process Clause as forbidding the destruction of property under the scheme of the nuisance statute. Contending that the statute allowed for no exercise of judicial discretion, their brief condemned the law as an abrogation of the defendants’ presumptions of innocence in the absence of a trial by jury. Kansas asserted that the regulation and prohibition of alcohol was a valid exercise of police power directed toward the regulation of health and morals. U.S. Supreme Court Decision On December 5, 1887, the Supreme Court upheld the Kansas prohibitory statute under the doctrine of state police powers. Justice John Marshall Harlan, writing the majority opinion on behalf of eight justices, declared that a state legislature may prohibit the manufacture of intoxicating beverages within its jurisdiction without violation of any right or privilege preserved by the U.S. Constitution. Citing a number of precedent cases—including the License Cases, Bartemeyer v. Iowa, Beer Co. v. Massachusetts, Foster v. Kansas, and, in general, Gibbons v. Ogden—Harlan commenced by declaring the undisputed power of a state to limit or restrict the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors within its jurisdiction. Such
Muscat
state police power was founded upon the right of states to determine the regulations necessary to preserve public morality and protect public health and safety. Harlan allowed that the court, while indulging every possible presumption in favor of the validity of a statute, may scrutinize whether a particular law bears a relationship to these objects. Yet, Harlan contended that the prohibition of alcohol fell within the powers of the legislature, noting that the court “cannot shut out of view the fact, within the knowledge of all, that the public health, the public morals, and the public safety, may be endangered by the general use of intoxicating drinks; nor the fact established by statistics accessible to every one, that the idleness, disorder, pauperism, and crime existing in the country, are, in some degree at least, traceable to this evil.” The court thus deferred to the state legislature’s policy determination that prohibiting the manufacture of alcoholic beverages— even for personal use—constituted a legitimate exercise of police power. With regard to the contention that the statute effectually administered a taking of property without compensation (as required by the Fifth Amendment), Harlan asserted that all property is held under the implied obligation that it shall not be used in a manner injurious to the community. Even if a statute legitimately enacted under a state’s police power had the effect of reducing the permitted use or diminishing the value of property, Harlan rejected the classification of such an effect as eminent domain. As such, the devaluation or destruction of private property through the enforcement of legitimate police powers cannot require compensation by the state. Finally, Harlan confirmed that the power to prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages extended to the power to declare as a common nuisance and subsequently abate any premises maintained for such illegal purposes. Such action did not constitute the exercise of a state’s “arbitrary caprice,” but rather the prospective operation of law whereby a court ascertains whether a premises represents a public nuisance. Justice Field penned the sole dissent in the case, contending that the prohibition of beer manufactured for export and the seizure of property were violations of the Due Process Clause. This case continued a line of dissenting decision, begun
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with the Slaughterhouse Cases and Munn v. Illinois, which were informed by and illuminated Field’s free-labor ideology of freedom of contract and liberty of enterprise. Taken together, Harlan’s majority opinion and Field’s dissent helped lay the foundation for the court’s eventual acceptance of Field’s broader property rights theory in economic substantive due process cases after 1890, particularly in the seminal case of Lochner v. New York. Justin Paulette Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs See Also: Alcohol Violations, Penalties for; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 19th Century; Prohibition; Temperance, History of; Temperance Movements. Further Readings Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 85 U.S. 129 (1873). Beer Co. v. Massachusetts, 97 U.S. 25 (1877). Ely, James W. The Guardian of Every Other Right: A Constitutional History of Property Rights. Bicentennial Essays on the Bill of Rights. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Foster v. Kansas, 112 U.S. 201 (1884). Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1 (1824). Ides, Allan and Christopher N. May. Constitutional Law—Individual Rights: Examples & Explanations. 5th ed. New York: Aspen Publishers, 2010. License Cases, 46 U.S. 504 (1847). Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905). Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U.S. 623 (1887). Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113 (1877). Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873).
Muscat The Muscat variety of grapes comes from the species Vitis vinifera. It enjoys popularity as table grapes but is also commonly used to make wine. The grape’s origin remains unclear. Because the scent of the Muscat grapevines attract bees, it seems probable that the grapes are what the Greeks called anatelicon moschaton. Pliny the Elder also referred
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to the uva apiana (grape of the bees), with the possibility that the name might have been derived from musca, the Latin word for flies. Muscat grapes probably grew in France during Roman times, especially near Narbonne. Because they were grown at Frontignan during this time, there is certainly the possibility that they might have been brought there by the Greeks who had a large colony at Marseille. The grapes were also grown extensively in the Muscat Valley in Piedmont, Italy, from where they might have gained their name. Muscat grapes now grow all over the world and have become one of the major varieties used for table wine in South America. Muscat Varieties There are a wide variety of Muscat grapes now grown around the world. The most famous remains the Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains, which is popular for the production of sparkling wine in the Piedmont region of Italy, where these grapes are thought to originate. It is certainly the oldest documented variety to have been grown in Piedmont and was in the vineyards at Roussillon in the 14th century. German records dating back to the 12th century mention the grapes as muskateller and grown in Alsace. One of the problems with Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains is that its yield tends to be less than the yield of many other varieties, and it is also very susceptible to diseases, which have (over the centuries) wreaked havoc. For this reason, there were only small plantings in Austria, mainly in southern Styria (where the grape was known as Muskateller) and in Hungary (where it was known as Muskotaly). The second most well-known variety of Muscat is the Muscat of Alexandria, which was given its name because it was thought to have originated in ancient Egypt. From there, it was traded by the Romans around the Mediterranean, so it is sometimes called Muscat Roman (or Muscat Romain). It became very popular in Spain, where there are now some 98,800 acres (40,000 hectares) of Muscat planted, although only half of the production goes to wine; the rest is used for grape juice or table grapes. Because this variety grows well in hot, dry climates such as Egypt, it has been planted successfully in South Africa and Australia—with Muscat Gordo Blanco being particularly successful in the latter country. In Portugal, it
is known as Moscatel de Setúbal. There have also been plantings in Cyprus, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey. A small amount of Muscat of Alexandria is grown in the Okayama prefecture in Japan for the making of sweet white wine and fruit juices. Muscat Ottonel is the palest of the Muscat varieties. It was bred in 1852 in the Loire Valley in France and was originally heavily used for the production of table grapes. It is now grown heavily in Romania and was planted in the Soviet Union; it forms much of the basis of the wine industries in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, as well as the central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. In Armenia, the wine produced from Muscat grapes has won a number of international awards. The lowest of the wine-producing Muscats is the Muscat Hamburg. With distinctive black berries, it is a popular table grape but has limited use in wine (although it is used for wine in some parts of France and Australia), being grown in conservatories and greenhouses in England in the mid19th century. In China, Muscat Hamburg has been crossed with Vitus amurensis and is still used for producing wine. Muscat grapes were also used for plantings by Italian migrants in South America. These migrants came to dominate the Brazilian wine industry in the 1970s, although formal complaints led them to remove the word Asti from their labels for sparkling wines to help differentiate their wine from the Italian wine. Muscat grapes now make up nearly a quarter of all Brazilian wine production. And the Greeks make their brandy-like drink metaxa (as well as their wine) from Muscat. In Peru and Chile, pisco is made from Muscat grapes as well. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Chile; France; Hungary; Italy; Romania; Ukraine. Further Readings Anderson, Burton. The Wine Atlas of Italy and Traveller’s Guide to the Vineyards. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990.
Forrestal, Peter. The Global Encyclopedia of Wine. Sydney, Australia: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000. Robinson, Jancis. The Oxford Companion to Wine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Stevenson, Tom. The World Wine Encyclopedia. London: Dorling Kindersley, 1988. Thomas, Charles E. Practical Wine Talk: A PhysicianWinemaker Examines Wine. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2013. Walton, Stuart and Brian Glover. The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Wine, Beer, Spirits, and Liqueurs. London: Hermes House, 1998.
Music Halls The music hall (or concert saloon) is an entertainment venue that originated in saloon bars and public houses in the early 1800s. Men could pack in tightly and consume food, drink, and tobacco and talk politics while enjoying light urban entertainment known as burlesque and vaudeville. Music halls emerged out of men’s catch clubs— societies formed for singing rounds/catches for three or more voices—that flourished in England beginning in the mid-17th century. The catch clubs reflected a shift in showmanship that came out of the Restoration period subsequent to 1660, when subjects started to provide entertainment for the king and court; prior to this, the king provided spectacles to entertain subjects. During the 1830s, London taverns started applying for music licenses to offer popular music to working-class audiences, with each establishment’s proprietor serving as the “chairman” or master of ceremonies to engage audiences with each act. The British use of the term music hall was first used in 1848, when the Surrey Music Hall opened to offer variety music shows with popular songs, blackface minstrel shows, and selections from popular contemporary operas. Syndicates later expanded music halls by replacing the small, intimate venues with larger theaters; chairmen were replaced with “indicator boards” listing the acts. In the 1880s, female performers started appearing in more family-oriented variety shows, and strippers did not appear until the industry was in decline during the 1920s.
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American Working-Class Entertainment American music halls evolved out of the saloon culture on the frontier and were characterized by familiarity between audiences and performers that encouraged continuous audience participation. New York City’s Bowery district became the epicenter for music halls during the 1820s. Many large music halls were designed to appear small and intimate; they provided eclectic entertainment catering to different ethnic clientele in urban settings and brought about new rhythms and music genres. Vaudeville and its performers (vaudevillians) came from poor, working-class, inner-city neighborhoods and developed rapport with audiences from New York City’s Lower East Side. The primary audiences for American vaudeville as well as British variety shows in music halls were men who frequented theaters, saloons, and beer gardens for the “three Ws” of entertainment: wine, women, and weed (tobacco). However, financially successful music halls employed voices reflecting the demographic diversity of their audiences of working men, middle-class women, and immigrants in a new land. Early music halls in the United States were tall, shallow structures with a ground-level pit for the orchestra and proscenium and an area where many patrons simply stood to see the performers. Above this were box areas in the form of a horseshoe, and above the boxes in the rear of the auditorium was the gallery. In American music halls, the third tier or upper gallery—with bars conveniently located at the back—was reserved for prostitutes and their clients; business and sexual transactions often consummated on the third tier led to the perception held by a large amount of the population that music hall frequenters were sinners. The Bowery district was known for its variety of music halls, dance halls, grogshops, gambling dens, oyster houses, and blackface minstrelsy. Circus founder P. T. Barnum established his dime museum on Broadway. Alcohol consumption created a complicated and controversial challenge to urban entertainment providers and pitted working-class immigrants and people from different ethnic backgrounds against middle-class moral reform movements. The Bowery Theatre had the standard geography of a music hall and featured the Punch Room on the upper tier that flowed with brandy, rum, and whiskey to fortify debauchery.
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In early 1862, the New York legislature passed a law requiring entertainment venues to get licenses and prohibiting the sale of alcohol and waitresses in music halls with fees going to the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents. American Vaudeville and Minstrel Shows in the West Music store proprietor and sheet music publisher Joseph F. Atwill operated the Music Saloon music store and publishing business with practice rooms on Broadway; it is where musicians gathered and socialized between 1833 and 1849. After suffering financial setbacks, he left his family to travel to San Francisco, arriving penniless on October 28, 1849. He traveled to the gold fields and hit “pay dirt.” He then moved his stock to California and placed it in a tiny building, establishing California’s first music store and making way for a thriving New York City music scene to be transplanted to San Francisco. A female sole trader, Chilean-born Marie Mondelet purchased a melodeon called the Bella Union Hall in San Francisco during the Gold Rush. Melodeons were music halls that featured 19th-century reed organs (also called “melodeons”) and offered bawdy, men-only entertainment to Mexicans and
African Americans. San Francisco melodeons during the early gold rush did not have dance floors; they just offered liquor and popular theatrical diversions. Under female management, the Bella Union Hall became a prominent Barbary Coast music hall venue for balls, evening parties, and banquets where the house quintet of Mexican musicians performed popular waltzes with two harps, two guitars, and a flute. The blackface minstrel show got its start in music halls during the 1830s. Minstrel shows featured songs, comedy, dance, and repartee of workingclass New York City entertainers that countered temperance movements and presented fictional but familiar theatrical landscapes where ordinary working-class white males could seem superior to childlike blacks portrayed in benign, stereotypical, southern plantation settings. In the “Wild West,” minstrel shows provided familiar entertainment; it carried contemporary popular music from the east coast, combining medicine shows, traveling circuses, Irish dance, African rhythms, and noisy “shivaree.” Minstrel casts performed with fiddles, banjos, tambourines, and bone castanets. The two “end men” exchanged salty jokes between the songs, dances, and skits performed utilizing black plantation dialect.
This view of the interior of New York’s Bowery Theatre was published in the September 13, 1856, edition of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. The Bowery district was known for its music halls, dance halls, grogshops, gambling dens, oyster houses, and blackface minstrelsy. The Bowery Theatre featured the Punch Room on the upper tier, which flowed with brandy, rum, whiskey, and debauchery.
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During the California gold rush, minstrel music became a vector for spreading gold fever to Europe, Latin America, and Australia. Saloonkeeper Tom Maguire from the Bowery district used his political connections with New York City’s Tammany Society to rule San Francisco’s bawdy minstrel productions, which carried New York City’s complex urban drinking scene to the west. The California legislature tried to curb more dangerous and obnoxious entertainments—including cock, bear, bull, and prize fighting; horse racing; gambling parlors, and bars—by passing the Sunday Noisy and Barbarous Amusements law in 1855; this law also affected music halls, family entertainment, classical music concerts, and opera productions. By 1860, San Francisco had become the international hub for touring minstrel troupes. The Emergence of Concert Saloons In New York City, the Bowery Boys became part of the entertainment when they hissed and heckled performers, sometimes causing riots. In 1859, the New York legislature required minors to be accompanied by an adult when attending music halls. Soon, concert saloons popped up along the Bowery district featuring young waiter girls in short dresses who showed more legs and bosom than was the custom of the era and served alcohol and spirited repartee; high-mirrored walls guaranteed that feminine sexuality and figures became part of the concert saloon entertainment that sometimes upstaged the performances on stage. The following exchange is considered to be a drinking song for a concert hall from the Civil War era in which a waitress and client bantered in call-and-response verse: Waitress: Who comes here? Customer: A Brigadier. Waitress: What do you want? Customer: A pot of beer. Waitress: Where’s your money? Customer: I forgot. Waitress: Get you gone, you drunken sot! Music hall riots related to the military draft (and those who dodged the draft) were carried
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into the streets and caused fatalities. The New York legislature acted again in 1862, passing an anti–concert saloon law that simply drove establishments underground. Thus, female performers in venues considered to be dens of prostitution—including concert saloons, dance halls, and lake steamers—were labeled. In the late 1860s, proprietors replaced bars with entertaining exhibits and scheduled Saturday matinees for women. By the start of World War I, music halls in the United States and Great Britain were on the decline. The growth of radio and cinema industries during the interwar years revolutionized the entertainment industry as sales of the radio (offering musical variety in the home) increased during the Great Depression. Subsequent entertainment taxes during World War II diminished music hall audiences, even when vaudevillians performed for the troops on the warfront. The performers gained a new venue—television—in the postwar years; military technicians created a new entertainment industry in which variety shows found new and broader audiences. Meredith Eliassen San Francisco State University See Also: Drinking Songs; Gender and Drinking in Popular Culture; Juke Joints; Liquor Licenses; Saloons, Wild West; Songs About Alcohol and Drinking. Further Readings Allen, Robert C. Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Disher, M. Willson. Fairs, Circuses, and Music Halls. London: William Collins, 1942. McLean, Albert F. Jr. American Vaudeville as Ritual. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1965. Slide, Anthony. The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. Snyder, Robert W. The Voice of the City: Vaudeville and Popular Culture in New York. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
N Nation, Carrie Carrie Amelia Nation was widely known as an American temperance agitator. Her signature tactic was to smash a saloon and its contents with a hatchet. Making of a Legend Born Carrie A. Moore in Garrard County, Kentucky, on November 25, 1846, her father was George Moore, and Mary Campbell Moore was her mother. They were slaveholders and of Irish and Scotch descent, respectively. Mary sometimes was delusional, and several family members suffered from mental illness. On November 21, 1867, Carrie married Dr. Charles Gloyd, a physician who had served with the Union army during the Civil War and who was also apparently a chronic alcoholic. She gave birth to their daughter, Charlien, on September 27, 1868, but the couple had already separated by then, and Charles died in 1869 as a consequence of his severe alcoholism. Carrie moved in with her mother-in-law and young daughter in Holden, Missouri. While there, she attended the Normal Institute in Warrensburg and completed her teaching certificate in July 1872. She taught school in Holden for four years, but she was then fired. Her second marriage was on December 30, 1877, to David A. Nation, a lawyer, minister of the Disciples of
Christ, and newspaper journalist. He divorced her in 1901 after 24 years of marriage on the grounds of desertion; they had no children together. Carrie became a resident of Kansas in 1889, which was then purported to be a dry state as its citizens had passed in 1880 a constitutional amendment prohibiting alcohol, but its measures were rarely enforced. Anger over this flagrant breech initiated her career as one of the more colorful temperance figures. Because saloons were technically illegal in Kansas, Carrie asserted that any citizen could destroy liquor, fixtures, and furnishings in any place selling intoxicating beverages. While residing in Medicine Lodge, Kansas, she helped to establish a chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in nearby Kiowa, which campaigned to close the local saloons and other establishments distributing alcoholic beverages. “Hatchetations” Carrie’s temperance efforts began as a rather simple protest: singing hymns in front of saloons in Medicine Lodge and accosting bartenders. She later reported that she received a divine vision on June 5, 1899, after praying to God for direction on how to improve her temperance efforts to accomplish the enforcement of the legal ban on the sale of liquor in Kansas. Taking the vision as a heavenly revelation, she collected several rocks (which 893
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she dubbed “smashers”) and on June 7, 1899, proceeded to Dobson’s Saloon and destroyed the stores of alcohol there with her arsenal of rocks. In a like manner, she devastated two saloons in Kiowa. A drugstore in Medicine Lodge refused to stop dispensing alcohol, so Carrie walked in and smashed a liquor keg with a small sledgehammer; the druggist rapidly left town. At any rate, her strategies escalated in intensity, which were all the more imposing because of her relatively large frame: She stood nearly 6 feet tall, weighed about 175 pounds, was dressed in stark black or white clothing, and routinely presented a stern expression. In 1901, she got a hatchet and began slinging it, throwing bricks and otherwise smashing saloons. These antics helped garner support from those also opposed to alcohol, and others—both male and female—began imitating her actions and saloon smashing spread rapidly as a consequence. She began publishing the Smasher’s Mail in 1902; this was a magazine that consisted largely of reprinted letters, which delineated her saloon smashing. One of her more noted “hatchetations,” as she called these activist actions, was in 1901 of the saloon in the Kansas State Senate. Carrie was arrested about 30 times between 1900 and 1910 for these violent attacks. For example, she was arrested seven times in Topeka, Kansas; three times in Wichita, Kansas; three times in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; twice in Scranton, Pennsylvania; and once each in Bayonne (New Jersey), Coney Island (New York), Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. In April of 1901, she smashed several bars on 12th Street in downtown Kansas City, Missouri; after being arrested and brought to court, she was fined $500, a rather substantial amount then, but the judge suspended the fine on the condition that she never return to Kansas City. She was not only often arrested and fined but also frequently imprisoned, clubbed, whipped, and even shot at. Her alcohol raids took her far afield from, for instance, Amarillo, Texas, to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. On some of these infamous visits, she was accompanied by women praying and singing hymns, and at other times she was alone. She adopted the name Carry A. Nation, which she even had registered as a trademark in Kansas, probably because of its implied symbolic interpretative meaning. However, her outrageous style
An illustration by L. M. Glackens in 1908, Marching Through Georgia, shows a group of “Carrie Nation cadets” trooping together in solidarity for prohibition. Widely known as an American temperance agitator, Nation charged saloons with her trademark hatchet, being arrested 30 times from 1900 to 1910.
and abrasive personality alienated her from most mainstream temperance reformers, and her efforts are generally regarded to have had little immediate effect on political reforms. Nevertheless, her antics did generate considerable publicity, and she acquired a national following. Carrie supported herself and her temperance efforts and antics by a plethora of fund-raising tactics. She traveled widely on a lecture-tour circuit and collected lecture fees; performed as a carnival act; and sold souvenir miniature replica hatchets as well as photographs and postcards of herself, which she often signed. She later traveled across the United States, making vaudeville appearances; she also performed in music halls in the United Kingdom. In addition to alcohol, Carrie campaigned against tobacco smoking, corsets, shortened skirts, foreign foods, fraternal orders, pornography, and the like; she was also an ardent suffragist. However, her flamboyant style garnered her little support from either prohibition or suffragist organizations.
National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information
Carrie moved to Oklahoma, and in 1905 began publishing The Hatchet, which was concerned with drumming up support for the establishment of prohibitionist legislation in the territory. In 1907, she relocated her residence to Washington, D.C., where she actively continued lobbying and making public appearances in support of prohibition. Ending of a Legend Later in life, she moved to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and established a home there referred to as Hatchet Hall; it served not only as her residence but also as a boarding house for homeless women whose husbands were mostly drunkards. She collapsed while delivering a speech in a park in Eureka Springs. Sick in both mind and body, she was taken to the Evergreen Place Hospital and Sanitarium, an institution founded and run in Leavenworth, Kansas, by Dr. Charles Goddard, a recognized authority on alcohol and other drug problems as well as on mental and nervous conditions. She died at Evergreen Place Hospital on June 9, 1911, at the age of 64 years. She was buried in an unmarked grave at the Belton City Cemetery in Missouri. The WCTU subsequently erected a stone monument there inscribed with “Faithful to the Cause of Prohibition, She Hath Done What She Could.” In the 1950s, the WCTU purchased her house in Medicine Lodge, Kansas, and in 1976 it became recognized as a U.S. National Historic Landmark. Her fame continues with as much legend as fact. Victor B. Stolberg Essex County College See Also: Prohibition; Saloons, Wild West; Temperance, History of; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Further Readings Asbury, Herbert. Carry Nation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1929. Grace, Fran. Carry A. Nation: Retelling the Life. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. Nation, Carrie A. The Use and Need of the Life of Carrie A. Nation. Topeka, KS: F. M. Steves & Sons, 1909.
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Taylor, Robert Lewis. Vessel of Wrath: The Life and Times of Carrie Nation. New York: Signet Books/ New American Library, 1968.
National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information The National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information (NCADI) operated until 2009 as part of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), one of the agencies within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NCADI served as an important clearinghouse for substance abuse information that had been developed by SAMHSA, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the U.S. Department of Education and Department of Labor. As one of the largest federal information clearinghouses, NCADI served as a “onestop” resource for materials related to substance abuse prevention and treatment services. Congress established SAMHSA in 1992 with a mission to reduce the impact of behavioral health disorders (i.e., mental and substance use disorders) within U.S. communities by providing prevention and treatment information, services, and resources. SAMHSA supports treatment and recovery services on behalf of those suffering from behavioral health disorders. Various strategic initiatives have been developed by SAMHSA to support individuals who have behavioral health disorders and their families, with the goal of strengthening communities, promoting positive health outcomes, and preventing the costly consequences of unaddressed behavioral health problems. As part of SAMHSA, NCADI has helped to support several organizational initiatives, including (1) prevention of behavioral health disorders among “high risk” youth and military families; (2) trauma and justice interventions to enhance behavioral health interventions for people at risk for—or actively involved in—either the juvenile justice system or the adult criminal justice system; (3) improving access to behavioral health services
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among members of the military and their families; (4) supporting persons who are recovering from mental and substance use disorders by providing advocacy and case management; promoting resilience and healthy living; and increasing psychosocial stability through engagement in education, employment, and permanent housing; (5) health reform to provide greater access to quality health care for persons who suffer from mental or substance use disorders, co-occurring disorders, and HIV/AIDs, and to increase parity of insurance coverage for these disorders; (6) improving health information technology and encouraging the integration of behavioral health care and primary health care; (7) providing a national framework for collecting behavioral health care outcomes data and monitoring quality of services to inform public policy and measure effectiveness of behavioral health care programs; and (8) enhancing public awareness of mental and substance use disorders to promote early identification of signs of these disorders, encourage persons needing services to seek proper treatment, and emphasize recovery from behavioral health disorders. History and Evolution NCADI served until 2009 as a SAMHSA resource to provide easily accessible information regarding current substance abuse prevention and treatment research, prevention and treatment services, and evidence-based programs and practices. The goals of NCADI were to assist in the prevention and recovery of individuals who are at risk for substance abuse problems and mental health problems related to the effects of substance abuse. Within SAMHSA, NCADI was initially operated by the Office for Substance Abuse Prevention (OSAP). OSAP was created by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and primarily focused on preventing substance abuse problems among highrisk youth. OSAP initiatives included those that examined social and economic factors contributing to the susceptibility of drug addiction within this population. In 1992, OSAP was renamed the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP). CSAP’s mission is to coordinate with federal, state, and local organizations to develop comprehensive substance abuse prevention services and to reduce use of illegal substances and abuse of legal
substances, including tobacco use. CSAP has been tasked with providing leadership in developing national policy related to substance abuse prevention and in promoting evidence-based prevention programs and practices. In the past, CSAP activities have included developing substance abuse prevention curricula and sponsoring prevention research. NCADI, though, has provided information pertaining to substance abuse issues involving all age groups and including specific programs and practices related to prevention and treatment interventions as well as public policy affecting prevention and treatment services. While NCADI was originally created as an independent entity within SAMHSA, in 2009 it was fully merged with two separate units—the Public Engagement Platform (PEP) and SAMHSA’s Health Information Network. The role of these units continues to further NCADI’s original mission of disseminating evidence-based approaches related to practice and policy in areas affecting substance-involved populations. The PEP is managed by SAMHSA’s Office of Communications, which is the central point of access to SAMHSA’s services, information, and products within the behavioral health area. A repository of SAMHSA publications has been developed by a contract agency to store and deliver these products through a range of digital communication venues. The contract agency is also responsible for developing new mechanisms to deliver SAMHSA products to key stakeholders at the state and local levels. One of the key PEP activities is to monitor the distribution of SAMHSA products by the Addiction Technology Transfer Centers (ATTCs), which are federally funded regional training and technical assistance centers. The ATTCs are designed to disseminate evidence-based practices to practitioner organizations, single state agencies, advocacy organizations, and consumers. The ATTCs distribute a range of SAMHSA products through the auspices of the ATTC National Coordinating Center. The PEP is also tasked with providing a liaison to the ATTC National Coordinating Center and monitoring the distribution and utilization of ATTC products and services. Operational Features While operating as an independent entity within SAMHSA, NCADI was administered by a group
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of professional staff who provided a broad range of services. NCADI was considered to have at its disposal the largest database and resource library in the world related to alcohol and drug abuse, including the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive. NCADI also maintained information related to RADAR (CSAP’s Regional Alcohol and Drug Awareness Resource Network). The NCADI database included more than 8,000 items related to prevention alone. NCADI developed and disseminated a wide variety of pamphlets, brochures, videos, interactive games, and summaries of current research that addressed basic questions and topics related to substance abuse disorders. Resources were available in both English and Spanish and were free of charge. Information specialists were available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to answer questions on prevention and treatment of substance abuse as well as to take orders for publications. Key publications included the Treatment Improvement Protocols (TIPS) developed by SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, materials related to the Drug Abuse Warning Network, and the Treatment Episode Data Set. The NCADI Web site provided a separate resource directory for more than 30 types of legal and illegal drugs of abuse, and materials related to different types of substances could be ordered online or by calling the toll-free phone number. Through NCADI, a large number of people joined SAMHSA’s “e-Network” to sign up for information regarding selected topics related to data reports, grants, prevention campaigns, publications, and prevention and treatment programs. NCADI also compiled and disseminated information in response to personal or professional inquiries—either for targeted training or education materials, technical assistance, or referral to treatment and prevention services throughout the United States. For example, trained NCADI specialists fielded calls and referred individuals to relevant federal, state, and local agencies and national organizations. These specialists also provided crisis calls to link persons to substance abuse treatment services throughout the United States. NCADI staff provided comprehensive searches within their databases and the NCADI library for scientific documents related to education,
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prevention, psychological interventions and other treatment services, and other areas associated with substance abuse prevention. The response time in receiving materials requested by NCADI averaged from two and a half to three weeks. In addition to their extensive database, NCADI also provided a freestanding library in Rockville, Maryland, that operated daily on weekdays from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Roger H. Peters Samantha Gonzalez M. Scott Young University of South Florida See Also: Alcohol Awareness Month; National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence; Public Service Announcements; World Health Organization. Further Readings Inter-Agency Working Group of Federal Clearinghouses and National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information. Catalog of Selected Federal Publications on Illegal Drug and Alcohol Abuse. Rockville, MD: NCAD, 1992. “National Clearinghouse for Information on Alcohol and Drug Abuse.” Aging, v.361 (July 1990). Schinke, Steven, Paul Brounstein, and Stephen Gardner. Science-Based Prevention Programs and Principles, 2002. Rockville, MD: SAMHSA, 2003. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. “Results from the 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: National Findings.” NSDUH Series H-36, HHS Publication No. SMA 09-4434. Rockville, MD: SAMHSA, 2009.
National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence In a response to a suggestion by Dwight Anderson of the Research Council on Problems of Alcohol, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD) was formed in 1944 as the National Committee for Education
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on Alcoholism (NCEA). The principal founders, besides Anderson, were E. M. “Bunky” Jellinek of Yale; Margaret “Marty” Mann of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA); and Ruth Fox, the founder of what became the American Society of Addiction Medicine and later the founder of Al-Anon. Austin McCormick of the Osborne Association (penal reform) and Ruth Bangs of the New York Herald Tribune also played a role in getting the NCEA going. Once it got going, it was primarily Mann’s project with Jellinek’s assistance. Jellinek pledged Yale’s support; in fact, evidence suggests he (and thus Yale) was in on the project from the start. The Partnership Between Mann and Gardner Once the NCEA was on its way, Mann hired an assistant—Yvelin “Yev” Gardner, a lieutenant freshly out of the U.S. Navy where his last job had been closing down the Bethlehem Steel shipyard at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Shortly after coming to work for Mann, Gardner became a perpetual deacon of the Episcopal Church in Garden City, Long Island, and was thereafter known as the Reverend Yvelin Gardner. (It is interesting that when Mann heard that Gardner was studying to be a perpetual deacon, she assumed—though an Episcopalian herself—that this meant he would be leaving the NCEA, but Gardner’s status is effectively that of a part-time employee of the church.) The association between Mann and Gardner continued for nearly 35 years, most of it in and through the National Council on Alcoholism. Gardner preached Mann’s funeral sermon (in 1980), and he himself died the next year. Also, once the project was under way, Mann persuaded the cofounders of AA—Bill W. and Dr. Bob S.— to allow their full names to be printed on the NCEA masthead. This was a decision they shortly rescinded because it compromised the anonymity of AA members and involved AA in an outside, though related, enterprise. Mann established the NCEA with five goals in mind: (1) to educate local communities about alcoholism, (2) to establish local alcohol information and referral centers, (3) to gain the aid of local hospitals in detoxing alcoholics, (4) to establish clinics to diagnose and treat alcoholics, and (5) to establish rest centers for the long-term care of alcoholics. At the center of all this was
Mann’s conviction (and presumably Jellinek’s) that alcoholism was (and is) a disease. She told Gardner once (or more than once) that he could take care of the spiritual side of the disease, and she could take care of the medical side. In fact, this Episcopal clergyman was one of the major advocates of the disease concept of alcoholism. National Council on Alcoholism In 1950, the NCEA became the National Committee on Alcoholism and formally separated from Yale in the process. In 1956 (finalized in 1957), the organization was renamed the National Council on Alcoholism (NCA), having at that point more than 50 local affiliates. The NCA strongly supported—and pushed for—the Hughes Act of 1970 and spent much of its time on pressing TV to show alcoholism as a disease on various popular shows and on publicizing the recovery from alcoholism by prominent Americans (some perhaps not as prominent or as recovered as one would have liked) featured in its Operation Understanding program; in the process, the NCA removed representatives of the liquor industry from its board. (An examination of its board members over the years reveals some interesting connections. For example, Colonel Robert S. A. Doherty, vice president of research at Bethlehem Steel, was a friend of Gardner from Bethlehem in 1945. He served on the board and was a deeply religious Roman Catholic.) Though the NCA was perhaps the primary exponent of the disease concept of alcoholism, it clearly recognized, at least under Mann, that alcoholism was what Alcoholics Anonymous cofounder Bill W. had called it: “This strange illness of mind, body, and spirit.” It was 10 years after Mann’s death (that is, in 1990) when the NCA finally bowed to what might have been the inevitable. The pressure from the recovery community, particularly students of drugs and drug counselors, forced a change from the National Council on Alcoholism to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. As with the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol (now called Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs) and the Alcohol and Temperance History Group (now called Alcohol and Drugs History Society), the results of including drugs in the NCA profile were mixed. There was an acknowledgment of a wider interest
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in the goals and research involved, but it looks as though the core constituency may have been alienated. But even before that, there had been a major shift in NCA concerns. In 1979, there was a huge uproar and uprising within the board over liquor-industry contributions and membership on the board, which began with the question of whether there should be warning labels on alcoholic beverages. Representatives of the liquor industry said (and voted) “no,” while physicians—led by Sheila Blume, MD, president of what became the American Society of Addiction Medicine—said (and voted) “yes.” Mann spoke and reminded the NCA’s policy committee that the business of NCA was reducing the stigma of alcoholism, in line with the Yale approach of the 1940s, and the question they dealt with was not of alcohol but alcoholism. Mann’s old friends Tom and Katharine Pike, liquor-industry representatives on the board, were incensed by her view that this was an “outside question” for NCA and resigned from national NCA affairs. Shortly after, there were no more representatives of the liquor industry on the board. (At the time, the policy committee had three women members and 20 men.) Then, in 1982, the NCA adopted a new, major prevention position statement, calling for increased alcoholic beverage taxes, minimum national drinking age of 21, curbs on alcoholic beverage advertising, and warning labels on alcoholic beverages as well as advertising recommendations of nonuse of alcohol by teenagers and alcohol education programs in both public and private education. In other words, two years after Mann’s death in 1980, the NCA had reversed gears and was backing firmly away from what Mann had tried to do from the founding of the NCEA in 1944—concentrate not on problems of alcohol but on problems of alcoholism. Now the enemy was alcohol. In 1990, it became alcohol and drugs—though the organization still spoke of alcoholism and drug dependence. The Organization Without Mann The NCA was so largely a one-woman show (with one man’s assistance) that when Mann died, it hit very hard times, even though she had for some years previously retired as executive director after 24 years in the post and her goals were
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no longer quite those of the organization. But a little attention is due to Gardner, her deputy director for more than 20 years. It was he who made the connection between the NCEA and Mann, on the one hand, and Brinkley Smithers, their longtime financial angel, on the other. It was he who encouraged the development (by AA member Dr. Bill W.) of the first Armed Forces program for alcoholism. He was a Harvard graduate (class of 1928), a tennis player there, and a real estate man in Manhattan before his naval service in World War II. The Smithers Foundation (already a supporter of the NCA, of the NCEA—pretty much from the start, and of Jellinek and the Yale Summer School—both before and after it became the Rutgers Center) came to the rescue of the NCA again after Mann’s death. Still, the number of local affiliates, having hit almost 250 in the early 1980s, dropped to well below 100—close to the 1960s levels. The organization, in the view of many, had lost its focus. At one point, while searching for a national spokesman, the NCADD asked former senator George McGovern to fill the slot, on the strength of his obvious goodwill and his wide personal experience with his addicted and alcoholic daughter Terry (recounted in his book of the same name). But for whatever reason, he did not long hold the post, and it continues to appear that the NCADD—in its previous incarnations and even now—was and is a one-woman show of a woman who has been dead for more than 30 years. One legacy of Mann’s connections with AA is that opponents of AA’s total-abstinence approach to sobriety claim, even now, that the NCADD is simply the public voice of AA. Because AA does not comment on outside issues—such as the founder of Moderation Management killing two people in a drunk-driving incident—the NCADD’s comment is taken as the voice of AA, even by some who are affiliated with the NCADD. But any connection between the two was personal, and the last important NCA person who knew Bill W. well was probably Gardner, who died in 1981. (McGovern did meet Bill in 1969, at the time the Hughes Act was being debated, and possibly at other times, but the senator certainly was never a spokesperson for AA in any way. And he seems to have found the burden of NCADD bureaucracy
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a little too heavy to be a successful spokesperson even for the organization.) The shift in focus from the problems of alcoholism to the problems of alcohol, the loss of the personal connection with AA, and the inclusion of drug dependence in the NCADD’s mandate seem to have left the organization as simply another antidrug, antialcohol group and without even its previous strength as largely a women’s organization. Fundamentally, if an organization with “alcoholism” in its name extends its mandate to alcohol generally, it will—by adding “drug dependence” to its name—further extend its mandate to drugs generally. It will become the public voice (if of anyone) of its own board and employees. As with AA, when the NCADD charisma faded away, there was nothing particular to routinize. NCADD has a relevant goal and relevant mandate in today’s society: “to fight the stigma and the disease of alcoholism and other drug addictions.” This, in its present view, includes educating Americans about alcoholism (and presumably drug addiction) and preventing teens from drinking (an entirely separate goal); pioneering the development of employee assistance programs or EAPs, which started when Mann was the NCA’s founder/consultant; advocating warning labels on alcoholic beverages (the fight over this split the NCA in 1979); promoting Alcohol Awareness Month (April); and maintaining a registry of addiction (not, of course, alcoholism) recovery. In the latter part of the first decade of the 21st century, NCADD carried on a campaign “to educate Americans in the overall impact [and cost] of alcoholism and addiction” so that the costs might be reduced and, in the process, define alcoholism and addiction as primary diseases. This view seems to be generally accepted and, if true, would probably reduce the costs of treatment. National Recovery Month (September) is sponsored by the government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), but the NCADD strongly supports it on its Web site (it includes SAMHSA’s name—but in very small print). Once again, it is not entirely clear that the private NCADD is not duplicating the efforts of the publicly supported SAMHSA along with the efforts of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and other
governmental institutions; they did not exist in 1944, of course. Some supporters of the NCADD argue that the private institution is needed to check the public institutions if they go too far toward one limited view of their mandates or if they interpret the mandates too narrowly. Some note the addition of looking at alcohol pricing practices as part of the NCADD profile, and some note the NCADD’s fight for parity in insurance for addiction and alcoholism treatment (as compared with treatment for other diseases). In both of these cases, the NCADD served as primarily a lobbying group, which is a reasonable—if not necessary— development from its goals in 1944. But it is a change all the same. Jared Lobdell Independent Scholar See Also: Al-Anon; Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Groups in Popular Culture; Disease Model of Alcoholism; Jellinek, E. M.; Mann, Marty; Smith, Robert Holbrook; Wilson, Bill. Further Readings Brown, Sally and David R. Brown. Mrs. Marty Mann: The First Lady of Alcoholics Anonymous. Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2001. National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. http://www.ncadd.org (Accessed March 2014). White, William L. Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America. Normal, IL: Chestnut, 1998.
National Temperance Society and Publication House The New York City-based National Temperance Society and Publication House (NTS&PH), organized in the fall of 1865, was the leading 19th-century publisher and distributor of temperance literature in the United States. It published more than 2,400 different publications
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during its existence. According to its constitution, the NTS&PH worked to promote the “cause of total abstinence from the use, manufacture, and sale of all intoxicating drinks as a beverage” by distributing free and inexpensive temperance literature and the abstinence pledge. It published two monthlies—The National Temperance Advocate and The Youth’s Temperance Banner—and in 1883 began The Water Lily, a four-page monthly for young children. Although the organization existed into the 20th century, its continuing struggles to secure sufficient finances and leadership and the increasingly politicized nature of the prohibition movement relegated it to a minor role in the 20th century movement. Formation and Leadership The NTS&PH was born out of the Fifth National Temperance Convention held in Saratoga Springs, New York, on August 1 to 3 in 1865. Its predecessor, the American Temperance Union, had a meager existence for many years, and among the many resolutions passed by the convention were those calling for committees to organize a new national temperance organization and to create a publishing company to print inexpensive literature. The committees charged with executing the resolutions decided to design one organization to serve both purposes. The newly organized NTS&PH immediately purchased the assets of the American Temperance Union. Organizational leadership included a president, treasurer, and secretary and a long list of honorary vice presidents. In addition, a board of managers met regularly to oversee the organization, and a publications committee vetted all manuscripts submitted for publication. The two most influential NTS&PH leaders through the 1880s were William E. Dodge and John N. Stearns, two New England Congregationalists who had relocated to New York City. Dodge, a devout layman and prominent philanthropic businessman, became the first president, and Stearns, a former teacher and publisher and editor of a children’s magazine, became the publishing agent. Dodge was probably the NTS&PH’s largest benefactor during his lifetime, and he donated even more through his will and indirectly through the giving of his sons and widow. Stearns initially edited both The
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National Temperance Advocate and The Youth’s Temperance Banner. By 1871, Stearns had also assumed the positions of recording and corresponding secretaries, making him the main face of the organization. Dodge and Stearns retained their positions until their deaths in 1883 and 1895, respectively. Following Dodge, Reverend Dr. Mark Hopkins, the elderly president of Williams College, served briefly as president, and then the Presbyterian pastor Theodore Cuyler served from 1885 to 1893. Future presidents included General O. O. Howard, Joshua L. Baily, Rev. D. Stuart Dodge (Dodge’s son), and John Wanamaker. Fundamental Principles and Political and Civic Involvement The NTS&PH perpetuated several elements of antebellum temperance thought and practice. Primary among those sentiments was the belief in the importance of educating individuals about the “evils” of drink. Once educated, reformers expected that, community by community, Americans would voluntarily use democratic processes to end the sale and consumption of liquor. A second theme was close cooperation with the clergy and churches. The second, third, and sixth presidents—as well as several other officers—were clergymen. Finally, to help ensure the widest possible support, the organization remained staunchly nonpartisan, never endorsing any political prohibition organization. Since the NTS&PH embraced nonpartisan education as a kind of lowest-common-denominator approach to temperance, its leadership could personally support a wide range of approaches to reform, including political ones. Stearns and manager James Black were both high-ranking office holders in the Sons of Temperance and the Good Templars. Baily regularly supported the Prohibition Party, while Black was its founder and first presidential nominee. In the 1880s, Stearns and Cuyler signed an open letter endorsing the Prohibition Party. George Duffield, the original author of the “two wine” theory of the Bible, was a member. In the 1880s, at least two African Americans joined the organization: Rev. Joseph C. Price, president of Zion Wesley College, and Rev. Benjamin Tucker Tanner, editor of the A.M.E. Church Review.
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The flagship publication of the NTS&PH was its 16-page monthly, The National Temperance Advocate. The National Temperance Advocate printed letters from NTS&PH missionaries, reported governmental actions affecting the sale of liquor, and discussed the actions taken by Christian churches and various temperance organizations, giving a comprehensive sense of the progress of the movement. It also published articles defending the teetotal position with moral, biblical, social, and economic arguments. The Youth’s Temperance Banner and The Water Lily, both four pages, published the typical range of moralizing stories designed to instill in children a disdain for drinking. An annual temperance almanac and teetotaler’s yearbook was also published. The most active years of the NTS&PH were during the late 1800s. In 1872 to 1873, it attempted to persuade the U.S. Congress to establish an independent commission to investigate the liquor traffic. It wanted its members to not be elected officials and to serve without pay. Although the Senate approved the commission, as did a House committee, the full House never did, and the effort failed. The NTS&PH published the literature of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) during WCTU’s early years. In 1876 and 1893, it organized international temperance conventions in Philadelphia and Chicago, respectively. In April 1881, it invited representatives of the American Baptist Home Mission Society and the American Missionary Association to a meeting to discuss targeting the freed people with temperance literature. Out of this meeting grew the organization’s lengthy work among southern blacks. For roughly the next 30 years, it financed traveling missionaries (both white and black) and distributed, en masse, free or at-cost literature to African American schools and clergymen throughout the south.
an alliance with the Commission on Temperance of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America (currently the National Council of Churches). It retained its independence, but the Commission appointed up to half of its board of managers and made annual financial contributions. Annual reports were produced into the 1940s, when the organization ceased operating.
Dissolution In the early 1900s, the NTS&PH began a long, slow decline. In an effort to leverage its limited resources and maximize its effectiveness, in 1912 The National Temperance Advocate also became the official organ of the National Inter-Church Temperance Federation and changed its name to The National Advocate; it was published until at least 1938. In 1916, NTS&PH entered into
Alcohol’s role in the lives and histories of Native Americans has generated considerable controversy. Presently, alcohol abuse and alcoholism is common on Native American reservations in the United States and First Nations reserves in Canada. Prior to European arrival in the Americas, fermented beverages were used only in isolated areas, notably in Central America and the Caribbean. Distilled liquor was unknown. Europeans
H. Paul Thompson, Jr. North Greenville University See Also: American Temperance Union; Good Templars; Prohibition Party; Sons of Temperance; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Further Readings International Temperance Conference. Centennial Temperance Volume: A Memorial of the International Temperance Conference, Held in Philadelphia, June 1876. New York: National Temperance Society and Publication House, 1877. Presbyterian Historical Society. “National Temperance Society and Publication House Records, 1865–1945.” http://www.history.pcusa .org/collections/findingaids/fa.cfm?record_id=54 (Accessed March 2014). Rumbarger, John J. Profits, Power and Prohibition: Alcohol Reform and the Industrializing of America. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989. Thompson, Jr., H. Paul. A Most Stirring and Significant Episode: Religion and the Rise and Fall of Prohibition in Black Atlanta, 1865–1887. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2013.
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introduced rum, brandy, and eventually whiskey as trade goods. Alcohol abuse increased dramatically, though some historians dispute whether its incidence among Native Americans exceeded the rates in the European colonies. Colonial governments, and eventually the U.S. federal government, passed laws restricting the sale of alcohol to Native Americans. While white authorities attempted, usually unsuccessfully, to limit supply, Native American communities used a variety of methods of their own to try to restrict distribution and decrease demand. At times they used the same methods as Christian temperance organizations; at other times Native leaders initiated traditionalist movements that sought to revitalize civilizations in which alcohol was unknown before European contact. Although federal restrictions remained in place until the 1950s, Native Americans acquired alcohol easily from traders or surrounding white communities. Once the ban was
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lifted, tribes were left to determine their own laws on the reservations. Since then, many tribes have authorized alcohol sales, while others continue to prohibit them. Pre-Columbian Native American Alcohol Production and Usage A few alcoholic beverages were found in the preColumbian Americas, notably pulque, made from the agave plant; balché, made from bark and honey; and chicha, made from maize/corn or cassava root, were produced. Pulque was consumed by the Aztecs, but its use was generally reserved for elites and excessive drunkenness was discouraged. Balché, produced by the Mayans, was consumed by multiple social classes. Chicha, common throughout the Andean region of South America, is still produced and consumed widely. Except for those regions bordering on Mexico, alcoholic beverages were very rare in North America.
Two Native American women enjoy a drink offered from a visitor, circa 1894. Critics have called the belief that Native Americans have a weakness for liquor “the firewater myth.” This contributed to promulgating the racism of the colonial period as well as the eugenics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which were used to encourage oppressive policies toward Native Americans.
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The European colonization of the Americas changed consumption patterns. Europeans introduced distilled beverages like brandy, gin, and, as a direct result of colonization, rum. Rum, produced from molasses and sugarcane, helped to secure the dominance of the sugar industry in the Caribbean and Brazilian economies. All of the European colonies in the Caribbean basin produced rum, which became a sought-after trade good in the exchange with Native Americans throughout the Americas. By the mid-17th century, rum had come to dominate the trade in the English colonies, though whiskey and brandy were also widespread. While European traders wanted free trade policies with Indians, colonial officials tried to control the distribution of alcohol to Native Americans. For most of the colonial period, each English colony created its own laws governing the sale of alcohol to Native Americans. Eastern officials generally wanted the trade restricted because alcohol was seen as the root of many of the conflicts between Europeans and Native Americans. In New France, the Jesuit missionaries generally restricted alcohol within the mission villages. However, they were never able to offset the incredibly important role that alcohol played in the fur trade, which was the basis of French settlement in Canada. Traders not only used liquor as a trade good, but they also encouraged drinking before trading negotiations began. Once their guard was let down, Native Americans often gave up more furs than they would have otherwise. Traders and sometimes colonial or even royal officials used the same techniques to encourage Native American land sales. Whether traders or officials did the manipulating, the result the next day was often resentment to the point of vengeance. When individuals or groups of Native Americans sobered up and realized how they had been taken advantage of, they often sought revenge against the nefarious traders. Violence was often the result. National Period and Federal Alcohol Laws In the United States, the federal government took control of Native American affairs after the American Revolution. In one of the Trade and Intercourse Acts in 1802, Congress made the sale of alcohol to American Indians illegal, though the law was flagrantly violated by traders who went into Indian country, well beyond the reach of the
federal government. The law contained many loopholes, such as allowing whites to bring alcohol into Indian country for their own use. These openings made it quite easy to divert the alcohol to Native Americans. In 1832, federal law became increasingly stringent, banning all alcohol from Indian country. In 1847, legislation increased the punishments from fines to imprisonment for violations. In the late 19th century, most federal policies aimed at incorporating individual Native Americans into the United States as citizens. One of these policies, called allotment, broke up tribally held reservation lands and distributed plots to individuals who took them as private property. However, the land was held in trust by the government for a period of time. A subsequent law, The Burke Act in 1906, withheld citizenship until the end of the trust period. This led to much confusion as to when, if ever, Native Americans could buy alcohol legally. In 1953, Congress ended federal Prohibition of the sale of alcohol to Indians and allowed tribes to determine for themselves whether or not alcohol was to be sold in their communities. This move was part of the general trend toward incorporating Native Americans into the broader American community, known as termination, referring to terminating the federal relationship with certain tribes. Since then, tribal governments have determined whether or not alcohol could be sold on the reservation. On reservations like Pine Ridge in South Dakota, the Lakota people had, until 2013, refused to allow alcohol sales. Residents traveled to the nearby town of Whiteclay, Nebraska, where alcohol could be legally sold. The decision to allow alcohol sales in Pine Ridge has been controversial; proponents argue that it allows the community to control sales and prevent residents from leaving the reservation to purchase alcohol. Alcohol Abuse and Temperance Efforts, Traditional and Christian Amid the problems associated with drinking and failed attempts by colonial or federal officials to stop it, Native Americans themselves also sought to stop it. A few nativist movements such as those led by Neolin (Delaware), Handsome Lake (Seneca), and Tenskwatawa (Shawnee) all shared religious visions that included a component of rejecting
alcohol. Of these, the Handsome Lake tradition continues to exist through the present among many Haudenosaunee (Six Nations Iroquois) communities in New York State and Canada. While many traditional movements emerged, other Native Americans began participating in broader Christian-oriented temperance movements in the United States and Canada. As temperance movements became popular in the United States beginning in the 1820s and 1830s, Native Americans formed their own branches of temperance organizations in both the United States and Canada. As national temperance organizations grew, Native Americans became involved in them, too. Native branches of the Good Templars, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Alcoholics Anonymous, and many other national organizations concerned with alcohol abuse sprang up from coast to coast. Predisposition to Alcohol Abuse Controversies The prevalence of alcohol abuse among Native Americans has produced two general trains of thought: some researchers blame environmental factors for the prevalence of Native American alcohol abuse, while others attribute it to genetic factors. The environmental factors are fairly well known. On reservations where there is extreme poverty, high unemployment (often above 50 percent), and access to alcohol, abuse is rampant and generational alcohol abuse often occurs. Associated problems include early death, spousal and child abuse, sexual assault, and drunk driving and resulting driving-related fatalities. The severity of the problem seems more intense in Native Americans communities than among other impoverished ethnic groups, causing some to search for a genetic influence on Native American addiction. Pursuing a possible genetic cause for Native American susceptibility to alcoholism has proved controversial, as critics charge that it smacks of the racist and eugenic pseudoscience used by the federal government to justify oppressive policies in the past. Detractors have called the supposed Native American weakness for liquor “the Firewater Myth.” Some biologists and addiction specialists still seek a biological explanation, however. Studies of the actual genetic differences among ethnic groups
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or races revolve around the two-step process by which the human body metabolizes alcohol. Ethanol is converted to acetaldehyde and then to acetate. There are two classes of enzymes—ADH and ALDH—that make this process happen. Complicating the studies is the fact that both ADH and ALDH have many different variations, some of which are found disproportionately in different ethnic groups. Some of these variations or polymorphisms are associated with protecting against alcoholism; others are not. Research into the genetic profiles of Native American communities requires taking blood samples and then subjecting the samples to genetic testing. The expense of the process and the invasive nature of the studies make it difficult to profile adequately every Native American community. The importance of environmental factors in the decision to drink renders difficult the determination that any individual Native American carries a genetic predisposition to alcohol abuse. Most scientists conclude that, as with all communities, Native American alcohol abuse and alcohol addiction stem from both genetic factors, (which may be more prevalent in Native communities) and the environmental factors of poverty, isolation, drinking culture, and the loss of traditional cultures. Despite the fact that alcohol abuse has been a problem for all races and ethnicities, Native Americans have been stereotyped as having an insatiable thirst for alcohol. Many cultural critics have noted the employment of these stereotypes and Native American drunkenness by alcohol marketers. The Iroquois Beverage Corporation of Buffalo (whose label erroneously depicted an individual with a Plains Indian headdress, not an Iroquoian one), the defunct Crazy Horse Malt Liquor company, and others have used Native Americans’ association with alcohol as a marketing tool for their products. Thomas J. Lappas Nazareth College of Rochester See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Alcohol Abuse and Violence; Brazil; Canada; Ethnicity, Alcohol, and Health; French Colonial Empire; Genetic Disposition, Alcoholism as a; Handsome Lake; History and Culture of Alcohol and Drinking: 17th Century; Mexico; Religion; Rum; Tenskwatawa; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.
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Further Readings Ehlers, Cindy L., Tiebing Liang, and Ian R. Gizer. “ADH and ALDH Polymorphisms and Alcohol Dependence in Mexican and Native Americans.” The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, v.38/5 (September 2012). Ishii, Izumi. Bad Fruits of the Civilized Tree: Alcohol and the Sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008. Mancall, Peter C. Deadly Medicine: Indians and Alcohol in Early America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995. Prucha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. Prussing, Erica. White Man’s Water: The Politics of Sobriety in a Native American Community. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2011. Unruh, William E. White Man’s Wicked Water: The Alcohol Trade and Prohibition in Indian Country, 1802–1892. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1996.
Netherlands Known for its permissive attitudes toward sex and drugs, the Netherlands has come to function as a mecca for pleasure seekers of all types. Along with its Red Light District and cannabis dens, the country has countless pubs, cafés, and bars where alcohol is readily available, although—somewhat paradoxically—the Dutch drink less than do most other Europeans. While gin once served as Holland’s most coveted intoxicating export (and choice of drink at home), this role is now assumed by the iconic, green-bottled beer Heineken, which is available in watering holes from Laos to Lesotho. Despite Heineken’s dominance of its domestic market, a free-spirited Dutch microbrew culture is now evolving, though it is still in the shadow of the beer-loving Belgians next door. Alcohol Consumption The Netherlands has long had a tolerant attitude toward alcohol. During the heyday of the Dutch Republic, foreign visitors and social critics alike
commented on the ease of obtaining inebriants in the country’s various cities and ports, greatly abetted by the Dutch East India Company’s (VOC) trade in Batavia arrack, Surinamese rum, and other types of colonial-era booze. However, during the 1800s, Calvinist and other groups began a robust temperance campaign that converted much of the Dutch populace into teetotalers. In the immediate post–World War II period, the Dutch tended to be among the most abstemious western Europeans. However, beginning with the economic boom of the late 1950s, alcohol consumption grew steadily, tripling by 1975 before stabilizing in the 1980s. Today, the vast majority of the country’s citizens drink at least once per month, and the average Dutch consumes about 21 pints (10 liters) of pure alcohol per year, positioning the Netherlands on the low end of the spectrum among both northern and Western European countries: The Netherlands ranks 17th in the world in beer consumption at around 158.5 pints (75 liters) per annum (roughly the same as the United Kingdom). While the Netherlands’ beer culture is not as strong as that of its neighbors Germany and Belgium, the country is firmly situated in Europe’s so-called beer belt. This, however, has not always been the case. Beer was the preferred drink in Holland during the medieval and early modern periods, but it gave way to gin in the 1800s, only to return to the dominant position in the post– World War II era. (Wine is often an afterthought in the Netherlands, though the country’s viticulture is more than 1,000 years old.) Traditional Drinks Traditional gin, jenever in Dutch, originated in the Low Countries. The liquor began as an herbal medicine (in part because of its invention by the Dutch physician Franciscus Sylvius) but quickly caught on as an intoxicant. When the British came to the aid of the Dutch in the rebellion against the Spanish crown (1566–1609), jenever was given as a daily ration, thus introducing the term Dutch courage into the English language. The popularity of the drink subsequently spread to the British Isles, where it came to be called “London gin.” Basically a malt wine, the beverage comes in two varieties—jonge (young) and oude (old). The former is akin to the neutral
flavor of vodka, whereas the latter is more aromatic and flavorful. The southern Dutch city of Schiedam is considered the world center of jenever production and is home to such well-known brands as De Kuyper and Ketel One, though the latter is now known for its premium brand of vodka rather than gin. Despite the storied history of gin in the Netherlands, contemporary Dutch prefer beer to spirits. Pilsner-style lager (pils in Dutch) is the dominant style, though wheat and bock beer are popular seasonal offerings. The Dutch prefer their beer to come with a frothy head, though bartenders are expected to whisk away any “flavor bubbles” that might overtop the glass. Unlike the British and Germans who expect their suds in pints or halfliter glasses, respectively, the Dutch drink their beer in 8.5-, 10-, or 11.2-ounce (25-, 30-, or 33-centiliter) increments, purportedly fearful of the beer getting too warm during conversation (although these small servings may be a holdover from when beer was simply a backup to traditional gin—the combination of the two beverages is colloquially known as a kopstoot (knock on the head). Buoyed by Heineken, the Dutch beer industry is an important part of the national economy. Heineken International, established in 1864 and still headquartered in Amsterdam, is one of the world’s largest brewers, ranking third behind Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller. The company owns more than 100 breweries in 70 countries, and its repertoire includes such wellknown brands as Sol (Mexico), Tiger Beer (Thailand), Gold Star (Israel), and Murphy’s (Ireland). Heineken’s flagship lager is considered to be the most valuable international premium beer brand. The original brewery in Amsterdam ceased production in 1988, but it is preserved as a museum known as the Heineken Experience. Besides Heineken (and its subsidiary, Amstel), Grolsch, Gulpener, and Bavaria are the most widely available brands in the country. The Netherlands is also home to one Trappist monastery at Koningshoeven, which is regularly ranked as the country’s best brewery. Heineken emerged as the country’s top brewery through an aggressive strategy of purchasing and closing smaller Dutch breweries to expand its national market share. However, despite Heineken’s juggernaut status and the
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comparatively low rank of Dutch beers vis-àvis their Belgian and German competitors, the country is in the midst of a craft brew revolution (a sharp departure from the 1950s to the 1980s when industrially produced lagers accounted for roughly 90 percent of beer consumed in the country). Traditional Dutch and Flemish styles such as Oud Bruin, lambics, reds, and pale ales are just some of the many types of brew to be found nowadays. The capital Amsterdam teems with so-called brown cafés—traditional pubs named for the fume-stained wood reminiscent of when smokers were still permitted inside—offering Dutch beers. Additionally, there are a number of beer specialty shops, microbreweries, and tasting rooms (proeflokaalen in Dutch) that specialize in domestic offerings, including ‘t Arendsnest, which offers 350 styles from 60 different Dutch breweries (though, pointedly, Heineken is not available). Other principal cities are also raising their beer profiles, though not as quickly as Amsterdam. Nonetheless, a variety of offerings can be found, particularly in the Irish bars, brewpubs, and start-up microbreweries that dot Utrecht, Groningen, and other towns. Alcohol Abuse Generally speaking, alcohol abuse in the Netherlands is not considered a major problem (in contrast to drug use, which poses a considerable threat to public health). The country has recently experienced a reduction in the prevalence of binge drinking, and fatalities related to alcohol are also in decline. One area, however, where problems continue to exist is among Dutch youth. According to governmental statistics, 60 percent of Dutch 15-year-olds drink alcohol at least once a month, despite the fact that it is illegal to sell alcoholic beverages to anyone under the age of 16 (the age for purchasing hard alcohol or higher is 18). A multifaceted antialcohol education campaign has been in place since the mid-1980s to combat the problem. Despite its liberal reputation, the Dutch government does engage in certain forms of alcohol regulation. Since 2007, so-called coffee shops (i.e., cafés where patrons can purchase and smoke cannabis cigarettes) are prohibited from selling alcohol on the premises. Beginning in 2009, the
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Netherlands banned alcohol advertisements on television and radio between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Drunken-driving laws are comparatively mild in the country, with 0.05 percent blood alcohol content established as the limit. Rather than incarceration, offenders face a series of rehabilitation programs based on their blood-alcohol reading at the time of the infraction. Mirroring the success of the program in Belgium, the Netherlands has initiated a public campaign to encourage the “consciously nondrunk driver” (known as De Bob). Robert A. Saunders Farmingdale State College See Also: Beer; Belgium; Craft Brewing Culture; Dutch Courage; Germany; Gin; Heineken; Lager; Pilsner. Further Readings Garretsen, Henk F. L. and Ien van de Goor. “The Netherlands.” In International Handbook on Alcohol and Culture, Dwight B. Heath, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995. Tubergen, Frank Van, and Anne-Rigt Poortman. “Adolescent Alcohol Use in the Netherlands: The Role of Ethnicity, Ethnic Intermarriage, and Ethnic School Composition.” Ethnicity & Health, v.15/1 (2010). Wondrich, David. “The Dutch Way of Drinking.” Esquire, v.154/1 (2010).
New Orleans Hurricane Everyone in New Orleans worries at the threat of a hurricane, unless it is a refreshing libation served in a tall glass and garnished with fresh orange slices and cherries. The hurricane cocktail was created at Pat O’Brien’s bar—or Pat O’s as it is affectionately called—located on Bourbon Street in the New Orleans French Quarter. Bright red and deceptively sweet, a version of the hurricane can be found in virtually any drinking establishment in the Greater New Orleans area. The name of the drink comes from the shape of the tall, curved glass, which resembles
a hurricane lamp, in which it is traditionally served. Although the hurricane is a sugary sweet, fruity cocktail, consumers beware: This potent elixir packs a Category 5 wallop. Remarking on the drink’s high amount of alcohol, Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffet’s 2003 hit song “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” includes the famous lines, “pour me something tall and strong. Make it a hurricane before I go insane.” A Hurricane in a Glass The hurricane was invented in the 1940s out of practical necessity. Benson “Pat” O’Brien was a bootlegger who teamed up with wholesaler Charlie Cantell to found the historic Louisiana institution that opened its doors on December 3, 1933, two days before the end of Prohibition. During World War II, many types of liquor such as whiskey, bourbon, and Scotch were in low supply in the United States. Despite that, there was wide access to rum during that period because of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy, which opened up trade and travel relations with Latin America, Cuba, and the Caribbean. As a result of this situation, companies selling rare liquor often sent “missionary men” out with regular salesmen and coerced bar owners into buying large quantities of rum, which was less popular and more difficult for these companies to unload. To purchase just one case of rare liquor, salesmen often forced bar owners to purchase as many as 50 cases of plentiful rum. Trying to make the most out of what they had, Pat O’Brien’s bartenders, through trial and error, combined 4 ounces of the booze nobody wanted with fresh lemon juice, passion fruit syrup, and crushed ice and created a drink that everyone loved—the hurricane. Pat O’Brien then presented this new beverage in a tall, jaunty glass shaped like a hurricane lamp, and the drink was perfected. The bar has since become a tourist mecca, and its hurricane glass is one of the most sought-after souvenirs in New Orleans. Today, servers at the bar will helpfully box a patron’s empty glass to go so that he or she can own the actual glass drunk from while at Pat O’s. The story of why Pat O’Brien decided to serve the Hurricane in such a glass is unknown, though one can speculate on its origins. New Orleans’
historical exposure to hurricane-strength storms meant that power outages commonly occurred. When electricity was not available, kerosene lamps were frequently used to illuminate businesses, and they were also made for portable and outdoor use. The glasses used today mimic both the shape and curvature of those kerosene lanterns. New Orleans laws permit drinking in public and leaving a bar with a drink, but the city prohibits public drinking from glass or metal containers. This means that if one wants a hurricane to go, then it will need to be served in a boring disposable cup. Although these cups are not shaped like a hurricane lamp, their contents are just as desirable. Because of the high volume of visitors, Pat O’Brien’s now makes hurricanes from a premade mix. Though it does not release sales figures, the bar’s spokesperson Jamie Touchton indicated that the establishment makes thousands of gallons of hurricane mixes during Mardi Gras season. The mix is the very same one that Pat O’s uses in its own bars. Each liter bottle of the hurricane mix is enough to prepare eight 24-ounce hurricanes. Pat O’Brien’s Hurricane Rum is also used by purists, but a good amber or gold rum can be used if Pat O’s rum is not available. Recipe Variants As with many mixed drinks, there are several versions of the authentic Hurricane. In fact, global competitions have been held that challenge bartenders to come up with the best Hurricane variations. Tales of the Cocktail is one such international festival that has been held in New Orleans annually since 2003. For 10 years its organizers have hosted an annual cocktailmaking contest in advance of the main festival, challenging all mixologists to reinvent a classic cocktail. The contest is open to all bartenders across the globe, there is no fee to enter, and contestants do not need to be present to compete or win. The 2014 competition was named “Taming the Hurricane” and issued a worldwide challenge to nuance the classic hurricane. Of several hundred contestants, Joe Cammarata from Somerville, Massachusetts, won the 2014 challenge with his Hurricane Caesar. Commenting on the inspiration behind the drink, Cammarata
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said “I created the Hurricane Caesar on the Ides of March for a drink of the day . . . The idea was to capture Caesar’s stabbing on the Senate floor. Adding the Campari to the drink adds a beautiful balance with the tropical fruit as well as it represents Caesar’s blood.” A flaming version of the Hurricane can also be prepared by combining 2 ounces of light rum, 2 ounces of dark rum, 2 ounces of passion fruit juice, 1 ounce of orange juice, one-half ounce of fresh-squeezed lime juice, 1 tablespoon of simple syrup, and 1 ounce of grenadine. Shake the ingredients, pour into a glass with crushed ice, and garnish with an orange slice and cherry. Next, top with a sugar cube soaked in 1 shot of Bacardi 151 rum or Everclear, and pour the remainder of the 151 or Everclear on top. Light the sugar cube just before serving, and the twinkling elixir is ready. Although not the same as the New Orleans drink, Hurricane is also the name of a Bahamas cocktail most commonly found in the bars in and around downtown Nassau. That beverage consists of various measures of coffee liqueur, Bacardi 151 rum, Irish cream, and Grand Marnier. Another variety of the Hurricane cocktail calls for 10 Cane light rum, Navan liqueur (a vanilla liqueur), orange juice, cranberry juice, and a splash of lime. M. Scott Young University of South Florida Richard Van Dorn Research Triangle Institute See Also: Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; “Girl” Drinks; High-Potency Drinks; Mardi Gras; Rum Cocktails. Further Readings Gee, Denise. Southern Cocktails: Dixie Drinks, Party Potions, and Classic Libations. San Francisco: Chronicle, 2007. Marszalek, Keith I. “Home of the ‘Hurricane’ Pat O’Brien’s Turns 75 This Week.” The TimesPicayune (November 30, 2008). http://www.blog .nola.com/anguslind/2008/11/pat-os-turns-75-this -week.html (Accessed September 2013). McNulty, Ian. “Drinking in History: Classic Cocktails and Modern Thirsts in the French Quarter.” http:// www.frenchquarter.com/nightlife/drinks.php (Accessed September 16, 2013).
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New Year’s Eve The practice of using alcohol to mark as meaningful the occasions that signify change has a long history in Western culture. Perhaps no occasion represents change more universally than New Year’s Eve. Civilizations around the world have been celebrating the new year for thousands of years. The earliest such celebrations date at least to ancient Babylon some 4,000 years ago, and the ancient Romans also made alcohol consumption and celebratory drinking part of their celebrations of the new year. Christians in medieval Europe labeled celebrations of the new year pagan and changed the day on which the new year was celebrated to one with greater religious significance. The 19th and 20th centuries saw a steady increase in alcohol consumption as part of New Year’s Eve festivities, which typically began on December 31 and continued into the early hours of January 1. The iconic Times Square celebration in New York City began in 1904 and became the world’s celebration in the next century. By the 21st century, public safety and health concerns in the United States have prompted a new alcohol-free tradition of First Night celebrations, and most citywide celebrations have become at least nominally alcohol free because of open-container laws. The Earliest New Year’s Eve Celebrations The first recorded celebration of the new year dates from around 2000 b.c.e., when—following the first new moon after the vernal equinox— the ancient Babylonians celebrated the rebirth of the natural world. The celebration, called Akitu, lasted for several days and was saturated with religious significance. Later celebrations that copied the Babylonians suggest that mornings were spent praying and performing other religious rituals, but later the people feasted and celebrated. Archaeological evidence reveals that the Babylonians drank beer and wine, and it seems logical that these beverages would have been used in religious rituals and consumed at the banquets, as they were in other cultures. The ancient Egyptians linked their celebration of the new year to the annual floods of the Nile. During the reign of Hatshepsut (1508–1458 b.c.e.), a “Festival of Drunkenness” took place during the first month of the year. Tied to the myth of Sekhmet, a war
goddess who had planned to kill all of humanity until the sun god Ra tricked her into drinking herself unconscious, the Egyptians celebrated with music, sex, beer, and general revelry. In 46 b.c.e., Julius Caesar declared January 1 as the first day of the year. Named for Janus, the Roman god of beginning whose two faces allowed him to look back into the past and forward into the future, the month seemed an auspicious choice for the start of the year. Romans celebrated by sacrificing to Janus, decorating their homes with laurel branches, and engaging in drunken orgies. They believed the raucous revels reenacted the chaos that existed before the gods imposed order on the cosmos. Medieval Christians wanted to distance themselves from the paganism of New Year’s Eve celebrations, and in 567 the Council of Tours abolished January 1 as the beginning of the year and temporarily instituted December 25, the day Christians celebrated the birth of Jesus, as the first day of the year. By the early medieval period, most of Christian Europe regarded March 25—Annunciation Day (the day Christianity commemorates the angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would be impregnated by the Holy Spirit and conceive a son to be called Jesus)—as the first day of the year. William the Conqueror decreed that the English would return to the date observed by the Romans. This change allowed him to ensure that the celebration of Jesus’s birthday (December 25) would align with the date of his coronation, December 25, 1066. This change, too, was temporary, and England eventually rejoined the rest of the Christian world and once again celebrated New Year’s Day on March 25. Pope Gregory XIII reestablished January 1 as New Year’s Day in 1582. The Church continued to frown on celebrations of the new year, but in some places—such as Wales, where pagan history was nearer the surface than in Saxon England—the older traditions prevailed. Hogmanay and “Auld Lang Syne” The Scottish New Year, known as Hogmanay, includes a ritual house cleaning, emptying ashes from the hearth, and carrying juniper branches throughout the house to remove disease. Bonfires represent disposing of the old year, and traditional
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foods such as haggis, shortbread, and oatcakes are served along with whiskey and wine. Historians trace the celebration back to the Vikings. Because Presbyterian Scotland viewed celebrating Christmas as a “popish” practice, Christmas was a low-key, primarily religious holiday until well into the 20th century. It was on December 31 that family and friends gathered to exchange gifts and celebrate into January 1 and sometimes beyond. By the 1990s, citywide Hogmanay festivals were common in Scotland’s largest cities. An important part of the Hogmanay celebration was the traditional singing immediately after midnight of “Auld Lang Syne” by Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet. Burns always claimed that the song was based on an earlier fragment, and without a doubt the tune was in print more than 80 years before Burns published it in 1788. In 1928, Guy Lombardo and his band, the Royal Canadians, began performing the song at midnight on New Year’s Eve at the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan. The popular Lombardo made “Auld Lang Syne” a standard part of the turning of the year for those who flocked to hear him live and for the many Americans who formed part of his radio and television audience for nearly half a century. The song became a standard part of New Year’s Eve celebrations not just of the Scots’ Hogmanay but also throughout the world, sung in New Year’s Eve gatherings from New York to Paris to Bangkok to Beijing. The rich sentimentality of the references to togetherness and farewells resonated across cultures, and the lyrics made clear that the “cup of kindness” was a vital part of the seasonal ritual: And surely you’ll buy your pint-jug! And surely I’ll buy mine! And we’ll take a cup of kindness yet, For long, long ago (auld lang syne). And the Cups of Kindness Flowed As early as the 18th century, New Year’s Eve revelry in cities such as Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore proved troublesome, often involving violence and vandalism. Groups of men and boys were known to toot tin horns; shout; set off firecrackers; knock down barricades such as fences and gates; break windows; and, in a few cases, burglarize the homes of wealthy citizens in the area.
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By 1800, staying awake after midnight and ushering the new year in with loud noises and fireworks had become traditional. Superstition said the noise would repel the devil and send evil spirits running. With increasing frequency during the 19th century, public and private drunkenness, usually with the predictable boisterousness that included the discharging of firearms, had become common behavior. In more elite circles, a more controlled dinner-party atmosphere was the norm, but the serving of alcohol (and the overindulgence of some) was expected. By the time the 19th century yielded to the 20th, drinking was widely considered the most definitive ritual associated with New Year’s Eve. Champagne— the traditional drink to mark celebrations since the 18th century (when the expensive drink was viewed as a status symbol in the royal courts of Europe)—was a favorite, but it was certainly not the only form of alcohol consumed at New Year’s Eve celebrations. Individuals who were abstemious drinkers for the rest of the year routinely cast off restraint on December 31. The advent of radio and television with their mass, simultaneous celebrations increased the conviviality and the abandonment of decorum. As the century progressed, the increase in population and in the number of automobiles on the road exacerbated the problems associated with large numbers of drunken revelers. Urban areas found it necessary to mobilize additional law-enforcement officers on New Year’s Eve. Roadblocks to check blood-alcohol levels became common, and jails and temporary holding cells were often overcrowded with those arrested on alcohol-related charges. Federal, state, and local governments along with schools, churches, youth and civic groups, and countless individuals became involved in public education campaigns directed at encouraging safer, saner New Year’s Eves. Designateddriver programs (a driver who elects to stay sober to safely provide transportation for those who choose to drink) ranged from commercial companies that provided the drivers for a reasonable fee to bars and restaurants that offered free food and nonalcoholic drinks to identified designated drivers to public transit companies that offered free rides during certain hours to responsible friends who were willing to abstain to chauffeur the
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inebriated. Hotels offered affordable packages that allowed customers in their bars and restaurants to stay over rather than drive while intoxicated. Despite all these efforts and more, public safety concerns about the New Year’s Eve holiday continued into the 21st century. Americans consume more alcoholic beverages on New Year’s Eve than on any other day of the year. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, more people die from alcohol-related accidents on January 1 (counting from midnight) than at any other time of the year. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, half of traffic fatalities on that date between 2005 and 2009 involved a driver who was alcohol impaired. Pedestrian deaths are also highest on New Year’s Eve. According to research, nearly 60 percent of the fatally injured pedestrians were legally drunk, posting blood
alcohol levels of 0.08 percent or higher. The statistics are even more troubling among the young. New Year’s Eve, along with Halloween and St. Patrick’s Day, is the heaviest drinking day of the year among college students. One study reported that more than one in 10 students admitted driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs after a New Year’s Eve celebration. New Year’s Eve in Times Square The most famous New Year’s Eve gathering in the world takes place in New York City at the intersection of 43rd Street and Broadway. The tradition began in 1904, the year the New York Times (NYT) moved its offices to a building, then the second tallest in the city, in the square that now bears its name. Around 200,000 people showed up that first year in response to NYT publisher Adolph Ochs’s invitation to a New Year’s Eve
Nine minutes before midnight, bartenders race to fill champagne glasses during the New Year’s Eve party at the Uptown Billiards Club in Portland, Oregon, December 31, 2009. By the early 20th century, drinking was broadly accepted as the most definitive ritual associated with New Year’s Eve. Champagne was the traditional drink to mark celebrations; since the 18th century, it was viewed as a status symbol in European royal courts. However, other types of alcohol were also consumed at New Year’s Eve celebrations.
celebration that would be the talk of the town. The annual event was on its way to becoming a tradition in 1907 when Ochs, who had been forbidden fireworks by the city’s fire department, added a 700-pound, 5-foot-diameter ball made of iron and wood and adorned with electric lights to the top of the flagpole on the building’s roof. The ball dropped precisely at midnight to signal the end of 1907 and the beginning of 1908, and a new tradition was born. Except for 1942 and 1943, when the lights went dark because of wartime regulations, the ball has dropped every year since as thousands watched and cheered in all kinds of weather. Even in 1942 and 1943, the crowds still gathered and greeted the new year with a minute of silence followed by chimes ringing out from sound trucks parked at the base of the Times Tower. A windchill factor that made the temperature feel like minus 18 degrees F kept most of the crowd at home in 1917, but 1 million people braved a wind chill of minus 1 degree F to welcome 2009. The largest crowd gathered on December 31, 1999, when approximately 2 million people showed up to share the turn into a new century. The original ball of iron and wood was replaced with one of all iron in 1920, which, in turn, gave way to an aluminum ball with 180 light bulbs in 1955. The next upgrade in 1995 added rhinestones and computer controls, but it was replaced in 1999 with a ball of crystal to celebrate the millennium. A light-emitting diode ball marked the 100th anniversary of the New Year’s Eve ball, and in 2008, an 11,875-pound geodesic sphere with a 12-foot diameter and 2,688 Waterford crystal triangles became a permanent installation and year-round attraction used for Valentine’s Day, Halloween, and other occasions. At least since 1979, when public drinking became illegal in New York City, the Times Square celebration has been officially an alcohol-free zone, and the crowd is warned that alcohol will be confiscated. Anyone who has ever watched the celebration on television or YouTube knows that wherever the alcohol is consumed, drunks are a common sight. Many of the millions watching on television toast the new year with beer, wine, and spirits as they watch the ball at exactly 11:59 p.m. begin its 60-second descent down the pole to signal the start of another year.
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A Shift to Family and Community The crowds who gather at Times Square in person and via satellite may be the largest and most famous New Year’s Eve celebrants, but the second decade of the 21st century has brought a gradual shift to smaller, more private celebrations. Community celebrations, often advertised specifically as alcohol free, target families—especially those with children. Many places call these gatherings First Night celebrations. These events—many of which are free, some beginning in the early afternoon—offer musical performances, parades, and midnight fireworks along with dozens of other activities, and the most popular beverages are soft drinks, coffee, and hot chocolate. Boston, with a First Night celebration that began in 1976, boasts the oldest such celebration, but cities such as San Diego, California; Columbus, Ohio; Austin, Texas; Alexandria, Virginia; and Spokane, Washington, as well as many smaller towns across the country have joined this growing tradition. Wylene Rholetter Auburn University See Also: Ancient World, Drinking in the; Designated Driver; Drunken Behavior as Culturally Learned; Holidays; Punch; Toasting. Further Readings Chrzan, Janet. “It’s Happy Hour: Modern American Drinking.” In Alcohol: Social Drinking in Cultural Context, Janet Chrzan, ed. New York: Routledge, 2013. Crump, William D. Encyclopedia of New Year’s Holidays Worldwide. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. Epstein, Becky Sue. “Why Do We Drink Champagne on New Year’s Eve?” Bloomberg (December 31, 2012). http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12 -31/why-do-we-drink-champagne-on-new-year-s -eve-.html (Accessed October 2013). History Channel. “New Year’s.” http://www.history .com/topics/new-years (Accessed October 2013). Hundley, John P. “New Year’s Eve.” In Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, Jack S. Blocker, David M. Fahey, and Ian R. Tyrell, eds. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2003.
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Potter, Sean. 2009. “Retrospect: December 31, 1907: First New Year’s Eve Ball Drop in Times Square.” Weatherwise, v.62/6 (October 2013).
Nigeria Alcohol consumption has a long history in Nigeria. All the cultural groups that make up Nigeria’s large population commonly drink alcohol. The social and historical significance of alcohol in Nigeria also reflects the country’s diversity and complexity. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country with about 150 million inhabitants. It has a very young and diverse population with more than 500 languages spoken. Since the 1970s, Nigeria has experienced some of the most rapid rates of urbanization in the world. Today, Lagos—its largest city—is a megalopolis of almost 20 million inhabitants. Nigeria was under colonial rule from the early 1800s until 1960 when it gained independence from the United Kingdom. Since then it has often been under military rule, regaining democracy in 1999. These complex social, cultural, and historical trends are all intricately linked to the patterns of alcohol production, trade, and consumption in the country. Traditional Drinks and Uses Nigerians have produced alcoholic beverages for centuries. Traditional alcohol production consisted of two distinct practices: tapping of palm wine and brewing of grain beer (primarily made from sorghum, millet, or corn). These practices roughly follow geographic patterns. Palm wine was most common in the southern parts of what is today Nigeria, while in the north, grain beer was most common. There, sorghum (also known as Guinea corn) was brewed into a range of drinks including pito, oti baba, jego, or burukutu. Traditionally, women crushed, soaked, boiled, and rested sorghum grains, leaving them to ferment in large storage jars. This simple process did not require the addition of yeast but using the natural yeast occurring in the jars throughout constant use. This method produced a lowalcohol brew in a total of five days, from harvesting to drinking. Millet beer was made following
a similar recipe. It produced a stronger beverage with a higher alcoholic content than Guinea corn but took a day longer to prepare. Brewing corn produced drinks known as ghia, oti-oka, oti agbado, yanyan, or shekete by fermenting the corn starch into sugar and then into carbonic acid and alcohol. This simple fermentation process, similar to English cider making, worked equally well with local fruits such as overripe plantains. Traditional uses of alcohol in Nigeria revolved around festivals, rituals, and important ceremonies. Recreational use of alcohol for relaxation did also occur but was not the norm. Rather, traditional modes of consumption tended to be embedded in indigenous cultural life. Alcohol was drunk at key events throughout an individual’s lifetime: during naming ceremonies, when entertaining guests at weddings, chieftaincy installments, and funerals. In many ceremonies, alcohol’s psychoactive properties were used to stimulate connection with ancestors through libation or simply as a valued offering. The Slave Trade and Colonization Starting in the 16th century, the Atlantic slave trade encouraged the purchases of slaves with liquors—primarily rum and whiskey. In Nigeria, this resulted in the rapid growth of the liquor trade, as more potent imported spirits came to be valued as symbols of higher social status and prestige. Imported liquors also provided economic means and thus became powerful catalysts for trade. When the slave trade ended, the import and export of strong liquors continued, playing a major part in the colonial project in Nigeria. Alcohol represented the largest import in terms of volume and value exchanged in the British colonies of Lagos, Oil Rivers Protectorate, Niger Coast Protectorate, and southern Nigeria, which were eventually integrated into the southern provinces of Nigeria in 1914. By then, Nigeria imported more than 4 million gallons of alcoholic beverages a year—chiefly German and Dutch schnapps. This provoked fierce debates among British colonialists in Nigeria: Was the liquor trade advancing Nigeria’s development or creating an economy based on alcohol consumption, a practice itself detrimental to economic
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progress? The liquor trade was caught between two opposing colonial perspectives: (1) the paternalist principle that Western civilizations had a duty to protect Africans from bad external economic influences and (2) the civilize-throughtrade concept seeking to modernize Africans by enticing indigenous populations into the cash economy. Ultimately, colonial administrators could all agree on one principle that enticed them to put all their moral differences aside: the priority of generating revenue. Contemporary Alcohol Consumption Patterns In trying to protect import revenues, colonial powers made efforts to outlaw the local production of liquor, most noticeably through the Illicit Distillation Ordinance of 1931. However, imported drinks did not displace local beverages, and Nigerians continued to drink palm wine and traditional beer alongside imported drinks. Today, Nigerians are faced with a great choice and availability of alcoholic drinks, including traditional beverages, imported liquor, beer and wines, and locally produced liquor and beer. These often bear the name of imported drinks but are made in Nigeria. Perhaps the most notorious example is Guinness, which established a brewery in Lagos in 1962. As the advertisements for alcoholic beverages show, the consumption of alcohol today forms part of the daily life of many Nigerians. For many, consuming international brands of alcohol, whether locally made or imported, represents a way of affirming their participation in the global economy and cultural world. Clovis Bergère Rutgers University, Camden See Also: Africa, Sub-Saharan; Drinking, Anthropology of; Guinness; Precolonial Africa; Wine, Palm. Further Readings Heap, Simon. “Living on the Proceeds of a Grog Shop: Liquor Revenue in Nigeria.” In Alcohol in Africa: Mixing Business, Pleasure, and Politics, Deborah Fahy Bryceson, ed. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002.
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Ibanga, Akanidomo J. et al. “The Contexts of Alcohol Consumption by Men and Women in Nigeria.” In Alcohol, Gender, and Drinking Problems: Perspectives From Low and Middle Income Countries, Isidore S. Obot and Robin Room, eds. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2005. Okonkwo, Uche Uwaezuoke. “Drinking in Lagos.” Paper presented at the 8th Biennial International Conference of the Drugs and Society in Africa, Abuja, Nigeria, July 23–24, 2008. Olukoju, Ayodeji. “Rotgut and Revenue: Fiscal Aspects of the Liquor Trade in Southern Nigeria, 1890–1919.” Itinerario, v.21/2 (July 1997).
Nonbeverage Alcohols, History of Nonbeverage alcohol is a term for forms of alcohol that are not intended for drinking and ingestion (though some are used orally and then spat out), including hygienic products such as mouthwash, aftershave, and cologne and alcohol-based fuels and cleaning solutions. The distinction is an important one in legal and tax contexts because alcohol for consumption in the form of alcoholic beverages is subject to an excise tax, whereas alcohols used in industrial applications, hygienic products, and other noningestion purposes, as well as alcohols used to create food flavoring ingredients (such as vanilla extract), are exempt from an excise tax. Nonbeverage alcohol is also regulated differently with respect to sales: There is no age restriction on the purchase of vanilla extract or rubbing alcohol, for instance, nor are they banned from sale in dry counties nor, in most cases, controlled by liquor boards in beverage-control states. Nonbeverage alcohol is still subject to its own regulation, requirements, and legal scrutiny. For instance, in Washington State, the liquor control board issues permits to businesses allowing them to purchase nonbeverage alcohol used in the course of their work through a supplier rather than buying it through the board, as would be required with beverage alcohol. In this case, class 1 permits cover the medical industry and related
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businesses (such as senior care facilities) and simply cost $5; class 2 permits cover scientific, mechanical, and manufacturing businesses and cost $5 or $10, depending on the amount of nonbeverage alcohol purchased. The distinction also has cultural import, as the deliberate consumption of nonbeverage alcohols for the purposes of inducing intoxication (as opposed to the accidental consumption by children, pets, and the unknowing) is associated with secret drinkers: both underage drinkers and severe alcoholics. A 1985 study found that at least 10 percent of alcoholics hospitalized in detox units had consumed nonbeverage alcohol, and 5 percent were regular consumers. In addition to being a sign of serious alcohol addiction, consumption of nonbeverage alcohols has serious health ramifications and, in most cases, is much more damaging than consumption of alcoholic beverages. The same study, though, found that fewer toxic effects were observed in users than expected, possibly because regular users had built up a tolerance. A key exception to this is isopropyl alcohol, which consistently causes severe gastritis. The study also stressed that while regular consumption of nonbeverage alcohols is a sign of alcoholism, it is not a practice engaged in by all, or even most, latestage alcoholics. Types and Intended Uses of Nonbeverage Alcohols Isopropyl alcohol is an isomer of propanol, which like many nonbeverage alcohols is typically used as a solvent. Because it leaves little to no residue, isopropyl alcohol is especially used in the pharmaceutical industry and (perhaps more relevant to nonbeverage alcohol consumption) in cleaning solutions for electronic devices, including computers, televisions, DVD players, stereos, and other home-entertainment devices It is also found as an ingredient in many specialty office products for removing glue/adhesive residue and as a whiteboard eraser. In nonsolvent applications, it may be found in disinfecting solutions, including hand sanitizer (in which form it is sometimes consumed by abusers) and fuel additives. Consumption of isopropyl alcohol can have serious consequences beyond gastritis because it is a central nervous system depressant; even its fumes can cause headaches,
dizziness, and vomiting. The toll on the liver is severe as well. Isopropyl alcohol is also found in some formulations of rubbing alcohol, which is made from either a combination of isopropyl alcohol or ethanol alone, with additives to render it unpalatable (as required to avoid the excise tax on ethanol sold for consumption). It is sold mainly as a topical antiseptic and is used as a cleaning product. Methanol or wood alcohol takes its name from what was once its dominant production purpose: the destructive distillation of wood. Today, it is produced on the industrial level through catalytic processes. A simple alcohol, methanol is very similar in smell to ethanol, which contributes to its abuse. Consumption of methanol in significant enough quantities can cause blindness, coma, or death. As little as 0.34 ounce (10 milliliters) can lead to blindness through destruction of the optic nerve, when the metabolized methanol is converted into formic acid. It is used mainly in industrial processes to create other chemicals (nearly half of all methanol goes into the manufacture of formaldehyde, for instance), but it is also used as a fuel and solvent. Its low freezing point leads to its use in antifreeze and the characteristic sweet smell thereof. Methanol has traditionally been added to ethanol sold for nonconsumption purposes, making it “denatured” or “methylated” ethanol, which was nevertheless bootlegged frequently during Prohibition and led to many injuries by overdose. Gelled methanol is used as a fuel for camping stoves. Antifreeze is sweet enough that it has resulted in numerous deaths not only when used to adulterate illicit alcoholic beverages but also when children or pets get into it and enjoy the sweet flavor. There are also a number of prosecutions of antifreeze poisoning cases, in which the pleasant flavor of the antifreeze prevented the victim’s from realizing they were being poisoned. Several manufacturers have addressed this, either through the addition of a bittering agent to make the antifreeze unpalatable (as required in several states and cities but practiced nationwide by some manufacturers) or the use of nontoxic propylene glycol in antifreeze in place of toxic alcohols. The bittering agent used to make antifreeze unpalatable—denatonium benzoate—is also
used in some household cleaning products, similarly to prevent accidental ingestion or ingestion by children. It is also the key ingredient in nail polishes sold to prevent nail biting. Some nonbeverage alcohols—and probably most of those that are consumed regularly—contain ethanol, the same alcohol used in alcoholic beverages. The primary use of ethanol, in fact, is as a fuel—usually a vehicle fuel, though it can also be used for household heating. Ethanol is also used as a solvent, such as in paints, and as an antiseptic. Its use as a solvent is what leads to its presence in colognes and aftershaves, which are essentially blends of tinctures—extracts of various fragrance ingredients in alcoholic solutions. Ethanol is usually produced through fermentation, as is the case with all ethanol produced for consumption. A small amount of ethanol produced for industrial purposes is produced through the TXC Technology process, which uses hydrocarbons converted to acetic acid. TCX ethanol is intended for use as a vehicle fuel, produced more cheaply than corn biofuel, and so has not generally been accessible for abusive consumption. Ethanol is also found in food products that aren’t intended to be consumed as alcoholic beverages. Vanilla and other flavor extracts, for instance—as well as any bitters that are ruled “nonpotable” by the Food and Drug Administration and so allowed to be sold as a food product rather than as a controlled alcoholic beverage (Angostura, Peychaud’s, and the Bitter Truth line of bitters are all so designated)—are tinctures of various flavorings with a high alcohol content. But not only are they not sold for drinking, they also are considered sufficiently unpalatable (nonpotable) that they may be sold as food items intended for use only a few drops at a time in some larger dish, neither are they economically practical as beverages. Similarly, cooking wine, cooking sherry, and cooking rice wine all have large amounts of salt added, a requirement enacted during Prohibition to allow the sale of wines for the purposes of flavoring foods. The salt level makes them difficult to drink, though abusers will persevere. Common, Cheap, and Addictive Nonbeverage alcohols may themselves become the object of addiction. They are often cheap and
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easy to come by, and (by definition) their presence in a household is unremarkable and without stigma. Few would even notice a bottle of mouthwash in someone’s bathroom, and mouthwash, cologne, and even cleaning products may go unremarked in a workplace, school, or other location where open drinking is not possible or acceptable. In addition to the health problems that can be caused by the heavy drinking associated with severe alcoholism, or wrought by nonethanol alcohols, nonbeverage alcohols may contain many ingredients and components that present health problems and toxic effects when consumed. These include toxic metals that may be introduced by storage or distillation equipment, especially when the same safety procedures are not required as would be required of food and beverage products; biologically active compounds like coumarin, which is used in many cosmetic products; and ingredients like hydrogen peroxide, which are safe in small amounts but are not intended to be ingested in the quantities that result from ingesting the nonbeverage alcohols in which they are found. Nonbeverage alcohol consumption is a problem in much of the world. In 2007, the BBC reported that nearly half of the Russian men who died of drinking-related diseases and complications—the leading cause of death among men under age 55 in Russia—had consumed nonbeverage alcohols (typically aftershave or cleaning products) because of their low cost and high alcohol content. In part because of the prevalence of such drinkers and the prominence of drinking in Russian male culture, the life expectancy of Russian men (59 years) is a full 13 years younger than that of Russian women (72 years). The difference in cost is an especially prominent factor in drinking cultures like Russia’s, which revolve around distilled liquor (vodka in this case) because the price differential between vodka and cleaning products, for instance, is even greater than that between beer and cleaning products, so heavy drinkers stand to “save” more money by resorting to nonbeverage sources. Though aftershave and cleaning products seem to be among the most common nonbeverage alcohols consumed in Russia, reports have also mentioned substances such as
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antifreeze, antiseptic solutions, medicinal tinctures, and cologne. As with the cleaning products in Russia, the high alcohol content of nonbeverage alcohols is relevant to their abuse. While underage drinkers may drink vanilla extract or mouthwash simply because it is a form of alcohol available to them, serious alcoholics may be drawn to the high alcohol content because regular heavy drinking requires large amounts of alcohol to maintain— and larger still, to feel—noticeable levels of intoxication. Listerine, a common global brand of mouthwash, is 26.9 percent alcohol or about 53 proof, which is comparable to many liqueurs and significantly more alcoholic than beer or wine. In addition to ethanol, however, mouthwash may contain methanol and additives such as hydrogen peroxide and eucalyptus or cinnamon oil, which are safe to ingest in the small quantities absorbed while swishing and spitting but are dangerous when consumed in bulk. Because of the prevalence of mouthwash on shelves and in homes, and because it is one of the easiest nonbeverage alcohols to willingly consume, it is often an object of concern for recovering alcoholics and their families. Many doctors advise removing alcoholic mouthwashes from the home, and in the past two or three decades, nonalcoholic mouthwashes (which are still approved by dental associations) have become easier to find in part because of possible links between alcoholic mouthwash and oral cancers. Large numbers of empty mouthwash bottles are among the warning signs loved ones are told to watch for when alcoholism or relapse is suspected. The consumption of nonbeverage alcohols is also a factor that can occlude the findings of studies of alcohol consumption, particularly attempts to estimate amounts of consumption. When consumption estimates are based on sales figures, for instance, they account only for the use of alcohol intended for consumption, which is “close enough” only if the consumption of nonbeverage alcohol is a trivial amount. But most indications are that, while it is not widespread and the serious health consequences may impose a natural limit on the time over which any drinker can continue to consume such products, the level of consumption is not at all trivial. For instance, nonbeverage
alcohols were considered a significant source of alcohol consumption in Cold War Finland, and the decline thereof—along with the decline of illicit home-distilled liquor—is considered one of the marks of the changes in Finnish drinking habits as the 20th century ended. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Alcohol Abuse and Crime, Sociology of; Alcohol Abuse and Violence; Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test; Medicinal Use, History of; Patent Medicines. Further Readings Brands, B., J. Marshman, and B. Sproule. Drugs and Drug Abuse: A Reference Text. Toronto: Addiction Research Foundation, 1998. Clark, Stewart C. Medical/Physiological Effects of Alcohol. Edmonton, Canada: Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission, 2003. Egbert, A. M., et al. “Alcoholics Who Drink Mouthwash: The Spectrum of Nonbeverage Alcohol Use.” Journal of the Study of Alcohol, v.46/6 (November 1985). Khaltourina, Daria A. and Andrey V. Korotayev. “Potential for Alcohol Policy to Decrease the Mortality Crisis in Russia.” Evaluation and the Health Professions, v.31/3 (September 2008). Leon, David A., et al. “Hazardous Alcohol Drinking and Premature Mortality in Russia: A PopulationBased Case-Control Study.” The Lancet, v.369/9578 (June 2007). Leon, David A., Vladimir Shkolnikov, and Martin McKee. “Alcohol and Russian Mortality: A Continuing Crisis.” Addiction, v.104/10 (October 2009). Osterberg, Esa. “Unrecorded Alcohol Consumption in Finland in the 1990s.” Contemporary Drug Problems, v.27/271 (2000). Single, Eric and Norman Giesbrecht. “The 16 percent Solution and Other Mysteries Concerning the Accuracy of Alcohol Consumption Estimates Based on Sales Data.” British Journal of Addiction to Alcohol and Other Drugs, v.74/2 (June 1979). Suzuki, Joji and John W. Tyson, Jr. “Misconceptions About the Safety of Ingesting Methanol-Based Solid Fuels: A Case Report.” The Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders, v.13/2 (2011).
Non-Partisan Women’s Christian Temperance Union
Non-Partisan Women’s Christian Temperance Union Divisive party politics during the 1880s resulted in the separation of a small number of chapters from the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) to form the Non-Partisan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. The term nonpartisan is interpreted by some as a misnomer because the source of the dispute rested with the organizational ramifications of the partisan activities of the two lead figures in the controversy— WCTU president, Frances Willard, and WCTU superintendent of legislation, Judith Ellen Foster. The Non-Partisan WCTU enjoyed a short period of success but no longer maintained a unique purpose once the WCTU reconsidered Willard’s political strategy. Origins The controversy began with Willard’s efforts to build ties between the WCTU and the Prohibition Party. Prior to 1881, the WCTU had been strictly nonpartisan, capable of uniting even northern Republican and southern Democrat women around the common concern of temperance. Moral persuasion through evangelism, literature distribution, and nonviolent protest were its primary tools. The organization expanded into suffrage and other social issues after Willard replaced Anne Wittenmyer as president in 1879, though local chapters were autonomous and free to support or not support the direction set by the national leadership. Willard led the effort to build an alliance with the Prohibition Party as part of her expansionist vision for the WCTU. She argued that the Prohibition Party must receive the support of the WCTU because it was the only political party to support the organization’s goals. She was initially rebuffed at the 1881 WCTU national convention, so she shifted to the organization of independent home-protection clubs, which met with the party to form the Prohibition Home Protection Party in 1882. Each year, the WCTU moved closer to the Prohibition Party until openly endorsing it in 1885 and giving it total support in 1888.
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Foster led the opposition to Willard’s politicization of the WCTU. Foster was actively involved with the Iowa Republican Party, which had committed itself to the cause of prohibition. Willard’s goal of political alignment with the Prohibition Party left no room for Foster’s political activities, so Foster issued calls for nonpartisanship to challenge Willard’s drive for political endorsement. For several years, Foster worked from within the WCTU in spite of personal attacks and distortions of her position by Willard and the organization’s paper, Union Signal. When the organization offered full support of the Prohibition Party in 1888, Foster and her allies responded with a call for dissident members to withhold their annual dues, to which the WCTU responded with a resolution that branded anyone disagreeing with support of the Prohibition Party as disloyal to the WCTU. Consequently, Foster left the organization with her followers—mostly from Iowa, Pennsylvania, and northeast Ohio—and formed the Non-Partisan WCTU. The first national convention of the splinter group was held in Cleveland, Ohio, on January 22, 1890, and included representatives from 13 states. The location was symbolic because Cleveland had hosted the first WCTU national meeting in 1874. Cleveland’s Ellen J. Phinney was the first WCTU president and was later succeeded in 1896 by Wittenmyer, Willard’s predecessor. The Non-Partisan WCTU maintained an emphasis on evangelism and religious instruction consistent with the 1874 charter of its parent body. Its principal activities included home visitation; Bible studies; prayer meetings; and work with prisoners, the poor, soldiers, and immigrants. Other departments supported educational and publishing initiatives, Sunday schools, political lobbying, and the training of women in domestic skills. Impact The Non-Partisan WCTU was in many ways more aligned than the WCTU was with the political strategies of female activism in the late 19th century. Many women’s groups labeled their activities as nonpartisan. Although they were engaged in overt efforts to influence partisan politics and the ballot box in their local settings, they refused to align themselves nationally with any single party the way the WCTU did. Within
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two years, the Non-Partisan WCTU attained its peak, reaching into 21 states and having about 600 auxiliaries and between 10,000 and 12,000 members. Although these membership numbers were less than a 10th of the size of the WCTU, they made the Non-Partisan WCTU only slightly smaller than another prominent women’s organization—the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In its first years, the splinter group also distributed hundreds of thousands of pages of literature and published three periodicals. After the separation, the WCTU would soon backtrack from its singular allegiance to the Prohibition Party, which removed any further reason for supporters of candidates outside the party to leave the WCTU and dampened further growth of the Non-Partisan WCTU. Foster herself, though remaining active in the splinter group until her death in 1910, would subsequently be known more for her contributions to the Republican Party than to temperance. The organization’s legislative division claimed small victories in local settings, with the most prominent being the prohibition of alcohol within a 1-mile radius around the national Soldiers’ Home in Washington, D.C. One place where the Non-Partisan WCTU had an extended impact was Cleveland. There, the local chapter supported the Friendly Inn Settlement, Rainey Institute, and Training Home for Girls. Once the goal of prohibition was accomplished, the Non-Partisan WCTU rechristened itself in 1926 as the Women’s Philanthropic Union and continued its charitable work into the 1950s. Richard Lee Rogers Youngstown State University See Also: Gender and Alcohol Reform; Home Protection; Prohibition Party; Temperance, History of; Willard, Frances; Wittenmyer, Anne Turner; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Further Readings Bordin, Ruth. Woman and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Liberty, 1873–1900. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981. Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. “Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Non-Partisan, of Cleveland.” http://ech.cwru.edu/index.html (Accessed March 2014).
Gustafson, Melanie. “Partisan and Nonpartisan: The Political Career of Judith Ellen Foster, 1881–1910.” In We Have Come to Stay: American Women and Political Parties, 1880–1960, Melanie Gustafson, Kristie Miller, and Elizabeth I. Perry, eds. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999. Stearns, John Newton. Temperance in All Nations: History of the Cause in All Countries of the Globe, Volume 1. New York: National Temperance Society and Publication House, 1893.
Norway During Viking times, the drinking of large amounts of alcohol remains a topic of many of the Norse sagas. The most common drink consumed by the Vikings appears to have been ale, which was made from malted barley. Alcohol was drunk regularly and in large quantities, especially by men, often leading to drunkenness. This would appear to be the drink described by the Arab diplomat Ahmad ibn Fadlan as nabid. He wrote describing the Vikings in Russia as drinking it “night and day” and noting that some of them were found dead with a wine beaker in their hands. Another common form of alcoholic beverage consumed by the Vikings was mead, which was made from fermented honey and water. There was also a fruit wine that was highly fermented called bjo’rr, and a fermented milk called skyr. Wine made from grapes was much more expensive for the Vikings as it was made with grapes from Germany and brought to Norway in barrels. However, with the Norse voyages across the Atlantic, there is the theory that grapes were found in “Vinland,” long believed to be the coasts of modern-day Canada and New England, but recent historians have suggested that currants or blueberries were what the Vikings used to ferment to make wine. Archaeologists have found beakers made from pottery and traces of beakers fashioned from wood or made with glass and used for drinking. However, by popular tradition, Vikings drank from a cow horn, and some of these—highly
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Douglas, and in countless books about the Norsemen. There was also a tradition by which soldiers known as “berserkers” would get drunk before battles to ensure that they were fearless when they charged into the fighting. After the Viking era, alcohol still continued to be an important part of the Norwegian way of life. In medieval times, it was sometimes necessary to consume some beer as a way of noting that an agreement was legally binding. There was also the Gulathing law by which people could not be declared incompetent so long as they could ride a horse and drink some beer.
An election poster for the Norwegian referendum on alcohol prohibition in 1926 asks, “Which ballot will you use on 18 October?” Above and underneath the image of a drunken father and distraught family, the captions read, “against liquor prohibition” and “means of home ruin.”
decorated with ornate metal rims—have been uncovered. Once these horns were filled, they traditionally had to be drunk in one go or passed around and drunk communally. Egil’s Saga refers to one of these parties, where each man had a drinking horn and most of the Vikings present became very intoxicated. Other sagas tell of women bringing alcohol to warriors who dined and drank in the great hall of the chief or king, where drunkenness was regarded as a partially holy experience and warriors overindulged while listening to stories of battles and great valor. This image came to be portrayed in films, such as The Vikings (1958) starring Kirk
Home-Based and Commercial Production After the discovery of the Americas in 1492 and the cultivation of potatoes in Europe over the next century, Norwegians turned to using potatoes to make their own whiskey. Known as aquavit, it is made from potatoes and caraway seeds and occasionally with spices and herbs, such as anise, fennel, and coriander, added to taste. The name aquavit comes from Eske Bille, who made the drink and sent it to Archbishop Olav Engelbrektsson in 1531, claiming that it was the “water of life” because it was capable of curing ills or at least numbing pain. Although Norwegians used potatoes for distillation, they more commonly used grain to distill whiskey at home. When Denmark occupied Norway, from 1756 to 1816 there was a ban on home distilling to help protect the Danish alcohol industry. However, home distilling flourished, and there was a report in 1827 that an estimated 11,000 distillation apparatuses were in use around Norway, which resulted in public drunkenness and many social problems. By the mid-19th century, there was unrestricted production of whiskey on such a large scale that there were regular fights and many social problems emerged. In turn, this led to the establishment of a strong temperance movement in the country. Coinciding with the emergence of temperance in the United States and other countries, during World War I (with Norway remaining neutral) there was a major move against alcohol consumption and a prohibition on the production, sale, and consumption of fortified wine and whiskey in 1916. This partial prohibition led to a referendum (which was held in Norway
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on October 5–6, 1919) on a proposed prohibition on the production, sale, and consumption of spirits and dessert wine. It was carried, with 489,017 people (61.6 percent) voting for the ban. These restrictions remained in force until 1927, being listed after a second referendum was held on October 18, 1926, that overturned the original law. The lifting of the prohibition was most heavily supported by the population of the capital (Oslo), but some rural counties supported the maintenance of prohibition. Since 1927, the sale of wine and spirits has gone through the vinmonopol (wine monopoly) as the number of outlets for the sale of alcohol for consumption was strictly limited. The policy was enforced until the mid-1980s, and since then there have been many more outlets for the sale of alcohol. Taxes on alcohol remain high, and many Norwegians have long made their own wine. The other alcoholic beverage still made at home is gløgg, which is traditionally drunk at Christmas. It is made from water, sugar, yeast, syrup, ginger, and raisins—and sometimes with almonds added. It is believed to be very close to the mead drunk by the Vikings. For the commercial production of beer, there is a large range of breweries in Norway. The Ringnes Brewery in Oslo is probably the most famous through its Ringnes Special Beer, Ringnes Malt Liquor, Ringnes Export, Ringnes Special Bock Beer, Ringnes Low, Ringnes Zero Plus, Ringnes Dark, Ringnes Christmas Ale, and Ringnes Ale Special Jubilee. The Aass Brewery located in Drammen also has a range of beers including Aass Bock Beer, Aass Norwegian Beer, Aass Export Norwegian Beer, Aass Jule Øl, Aass Pilsner, Aass Winter, and Aass Amber. Other breweries in Norway include the Frydenlund Bryggerie and the Schous Brewery in Oslo, E. C. Dahls Bryggeri A/S in Trondheim, Hansa Bryggeri in Bergen, and L. Macks Ølbryggerie in Tromsø. Restrictions The minimum legal age for buying and consuming alcohol in Norway is 18, except for drinks that contain 22 percent alcohol by volume (ABV) or more; then the legal age is 20. Any drinks with more than 60 percent ABV are illegal. Alcohol can be sold in stores only between 8:00 a.m. and
8:00 p.m. on weekdays and between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. on Saturdays, and drinking in public is prohibited—although this is often not enforced providing the behavior of the drinkers does not warrant police intervention. However, there are still prohibitions on alcohol in some municipalities, including parts of the city of Telemark, where offenders can be fined or jailed. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Ale; Aqua Vitae; Beer; Denmark; Europe, Northern; Mead; Sweden; Wines, Fruit. Further Readings Healey, Tim. Life in the Viking Age. London: Reader’s Digest Association, 1996. Macdonald, Fiona and Anja De Lombaert. De Vikingen: Eet, Drink, Schrijf, Speel en Kleed Je Als Een Viking. Etten-Leur, Netherlands: Ars Scribendi, 2009. Robertson, James D. The Beer-Tasters Log: A World Guide to More Than 6,000 Beers. Pownal, VT: Storey Communications, 1996. Roes, Anna. A Drinking Horn of the Viking Period. Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitgeversmaatschappij, 1940. Simpson, Jacqueline. Everyday Life in the Viking Age. London: Batsford, 1967 Su-Dale, Elizabeth. Norway: Culture Shock! A Guide to Customs and Etiquette. Singapore: Times Books International, 1995.
Nutrition The half century since the surge of interest in nutrition and self-directed exercise regimens has produced a body of conflicting scientific data on what is and is not beneficial to the body (it has become a cliché of nutrition studies that foods found helpful this year will be found wanting next year), but this groundbreaking research into how the body breaks down and in turn uses the food and drink it is given has produced one constant: alcohol is not an essential element of the body’s nutrition.
Alcohol and Health Although some research data have indicated that a glass of wine daily significantly lowers the risk of heart disease—in some cases by as much as 35 percent—this is the exception; indeed, additional research has revealed the important role genetics plays in heart disease and, in turn, that these benefits come from extremely moderate intakes, a pattern of limited drinking that even the most conservative drinkers would find restrictive. In general, alcohol negatively impacts the body’s natural system for processing, distributing, storing, and excreting food. It redirects critical body processes and, in turn, negatively impacts virtually every process from logical thought to athletic endurance, from coordination to eyesight and hearing. Unlike denying the body vegetables, vitamins, protein, or water, simply avoiding alcohol will not impact any bodily function, nor will it inevitably impair any organ or essential system. Depending on which research study is quoted, alcohol is seen either as a toxin or as a drug—neither helpful for the body’s nutritional functions—but the fact that 2012 estimates indicate that nearly 18 million people in the United States alone consume alcohol on a regular basis and that more than a quarter of that number are dependent on alcohol makes alcohol use a pressing nutritional crisis that is, for the most part, ignored. Public interest in the dangers of alcohol have centered on excessive alcohol use impacting driving skills and on the rehabilitation of alcoholics, but little attention has been given to the dangers alcohol, even in limited use, poses to the body’s ability to process food and water into energy and/or store it for future use, or to maintain the body’s health; that is, to provide the body with the ability to repair or replace damaged cells, the core functions of nutrition itself. Despite the complicated volumes of research, itself often contradictory, dedicated to nutrition, the body is elemental in its needs: carbohydrates (grains, pastas, cereals, fiber from vegetables), protein (meats, poultry, eggs, fish), fat, vitamins, and water. Although standards vary according to age and gender and lifestyle habits, the average adult is recommended to consume approximately 1,600 to 2,000 calories per day. Those calories, in turn, provide the body’s systems with fuel. The key to healthy nutrition is simple: use
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those calories wisely by taking in just what will in turn provide the body its five essentials. And because alcohol—beer, wine, or distilled liquor— does not provide any of the essentials, or at best provides a minimum easily obtained in other, far healthier foods, it poses a problem to the normative functions of the body’s otherwise clockwork nutritional network. This is further complicated because alcohol itself is relatively high in caloric count—although most drinkers understand that beer is high in calories (hence, the pejorative term beer belly), a shot of bourbon has more than 100 calories; a single glass of wine, close to 200; and a margarita close to 300. And drinking takes its toll on the body—doctors have shown that just two back-to-back nights of drinking at least four alcoholic drinks can take the body up to a week to fully process. Alcohol in the Human System The problem alcohol poses to the body begins with how the body initially approaches the alcohol once it is introduced into the system. Because alcohol is perceived by the body as a poison, as a threat, whatever functions are ongoing in the body must be abruptly halted as the body’s systems work to counter the threat. Given the body’s remarkable ability to store healthy foods—those five essentials are each directed to appropriate systems and organs for processing—alcohol has nowhere to go. It has to be processed and broken down immediately. Anyone familiar with blood alcohol content (BAC) as a measure of sobriety will understand that the primary source where alcohol is directed immediately is the bloodstream—nearly a fourth of alcohol will be absorbed into the bloodstream, and that will happen rapidly. A single typical mixed drink—that is, an ounce and a half of distilled liquor and a mixer—will register its maximum impact in the BAC reading within just a half hour. And it takes a healthy liver about an hour to decrease alcohol content in the bloodstream by 0.01 percent. When it is considered that in most states to be legally drunk requires a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent, it is clear why pacing drinks is essential to maintaining a healthy BAC level. But not all of the liquor goes into the bloodstream. Some is directed into the central nervous system, specifically the brain (which accounts for
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the feeling of elation and letting go associated with rapid drinking). But that light-headed sensation and that feeling of worries slipping away are hardly the only impact alcohol can have on the brain; when drinkers take in a high amount of alcohol quickly, the brain actually shuts down its memory apparatus, a condition known as Korsakoff’s syndrome, in which the following day the drinker has little or no recollection of what happened. Long-term alcohol use can even impact the brain’s ability to take in new information. What does not go into the bloodstream or to the brain is absorbed uselessly into the stomach lining and the intestines (causing potential longterm ulcerations and perforations) or processed through sweat (hence the reason binge drinking causes heavy sweating and palpitations like an adrenaline rush) and increased urination and saliva (hence the development of the Breathalyzer test as an accurate measure of inebriation). The body wants to remove the alcohol from the bloodstream, and the organ primarily responsible for cleaning the blood is the liver, which is why those who abuse alcohol tend to have weakened, even diseased livers early in life, usually by their midthirties. A healthy liver can only process about a half shot of hard liquor per hour; when intake rates are taken into account, it is easy to see how quickly the liver can be overworked. More to the point, alcohol actually impedes the body’s natural assimilation of vital vitamins from food, specifically thiamin, which helps metabolize proteins and aids in producing hemoglobin in the blood; B-12, which helps maintain blood; folic acid, which helps in cell maintenance; and zinc, which promotes endurance, stamina, and mobility. Alcohol and the Diet Nutritionists take care to counter the myth that alcohol, taken even in moderation, cannot impact overall weight gain. Because alcohol and mixed drinks are perceived to be largely water and natural ingredients (such as grapes, corn, hops, barley), heavy drinkers reason that drinking can have at most a minimum impact on weight. But given the high sugar content of most alcohol and given that the more a person consumes, the more the natural inhibitions against overindulging in food tend to drop, alcohol has been linked more often to weight gain. And because the body simply
cannot process alcohol into energy, any calories from alcohol are always useless calories: they cannot be an element of the body’s dynamic of energy conversion. Research has shown again and again that those who drink even a single drink before a meal tend to eat as much as 25 percent more during the meal itself. Indeed, research conducted by universities in Minnesota and California in 2011 revealed that college students, notorious for gaining weight once they move into the dorm life, are more than 85 percent more likely to eat compulsively, to binge on late-night cravings, munchies such as potato chips, pizza, candy, and other fatty, starchy, filler foods, after a night that involved at least four drinks. When the calories from the drinks themselves are factored in, it is clear why nutritionists caution against alcohol abuse. Even moderate drinking, nutritionists agree, seldom leads to beneficial choices for diet—under the influence, the drinker often reaches the artificially validated conclusion that this is a harmless indulgence. Periodic indulgences, of course, are part of maintaining any regimen of healthy eating, but the problems start when drinking becomes a regular part of a social life or, far more risky, part of individual activity when alone. Research completed by Stanford University in the 2000s revealed that for the upper third of Americans who describe themselves as regular drinkers (that is seven to nine drinks per week), as much as 20 percent of their overall calorie intake comes from the alcohol; they drink rather than eat or try to balance the calories from the alcohol by skimping on food or skipping meals entirely. The bottom line, say nutritionists, is that the body needs to process food efficiently, to break down food using digestive enzymes that, in turn, convert food into usable molecular structures that can be processed into energy for the body. Alcohol distracts the pancreas, the organ most vital to the process, from producing that enzyme and, because a percentage of alcohol has to be absorbed into the stomach lining, alcohol further impedes digestion by entirely disrupting the transportation of foodstuff from the stomach to the small intestine. It is, nutritionists caution, a nowin for the drinker—even in moderate amounts, alcohol disrupts the body’s processing of food into usable energy, even waste. It virtually disables the absorption of water (hence the advice
for hangovers to rehydrate the body as quickly as possible) and can affect the absorption and distribution and storage of sugars and salts in the body. Blood sucrose, under normal circumstances routinely extracted by insulin and glucagon from food and then stored in muscles, can be wildly impacted by increased alcohol intake because of the high sugar content in fermented drinks. That is why consuming alcohol while playing sports or even in the hours after intense play can be a problem. Blood sugars drop naturally during exercise and the body works hard to replace that lost sugar. Alcohol significantly interrupts that process. Over time, heavy drinkers, and in this case that would mean on average five to six drinks per week, can actually impact the production of insulin and make more likely the onset of diabetes after 40. But any alcohol that cannot be processed into the bloodstream or into the stomach lining or into the intestines must go somewhere. Studies have shown that alcohol ultimately triggers the production of fat, as that is where the excess alcohol is inevitably stored. Impact of Alcohol Use The impact on the body’s nutritional systems, however, is not the only concern. Researchers are quick to point out that even establishing a general parameter for the amount of alcohol that begins to pose a problem for the body’s nutritional system is difficult because it depends on a variety of factors, including drinking history and genetic makeup. When does alcohol begin to impact the nutritional processes? Research has indicated that moderate drinkers—one or two drinks per day— appear to be least at risk—the pace and the moderation allows the body ample opportunity to process the toxin. Binge drinking, party drinking, and peer pressure drinking can all contribute to the familiar drop in logical thinking as the brain is flooded by excess alcohol. Drinkers tend to make poor decisions about nutrition and eat a disproportionate amount of starchy snacks, sometimes under the mistaken assumption that bread-based snacks absorb the alcohol. Alcoholics are in turn known for poor diets and wide imbalances in nutrients and vitamins as alcohol becomes an actual substitute for food. It is not unusual to find hard-core alcoholics, that is, those who have spiraled into more
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than a decade of unchecked alcohol abuse, to actually come to clinics medically malnourished. Even after alcoholics accept the regimens associated with rehabilitation and long-term treatment and therapy, they find the damage done to their nutritional system requires careful restoration. Although in the decades after World War II, which marked in America the first public recognition of the problems of alcoholism, fad diets and artificial vitamin supplements or experimental nutrient supplements were promoted as quick fixes to the damage that long-term alcohol abuse had done to the body (many Web sites even today promote such miracle elixirs), reliable research has indicated that the only effective way to restore nutritional balance is long-term moderated diet and staying away from alcohol. Save for alcoholics whose need for alcohol is triggered by a complex of genetic wiring and environmental factors, solutions to nutritional concerns for moderate to heavy drinkers are largely common sense. If the drinker recognizes the threat alcohol poses to the body processes, that is, if he/she is simply given accurate information, many drinkers would be easily convinced to follow basic patterns of behavior that would allow the enjoyment of alcohol but without the most dire consequences. Like rich foods, like fatty fried foods, like sugary treats, alcohol needs to be approached with moderation. Nutritionists recommend upping the percentage of mixers in mixed drinks or choosing light beer—and even then within reasonable limits in terms of the numbers of drinks. Nutritionists long ago debunked the myth that an empty stomach allows for greater intake of alcohol without the same caloric consequences; drinking on an empty stomach only inflames the stomach lining and creates far more quickly the artificial elation that tends to drop natural restrictions on food (and alcohol) intake. Nutritionists recommend alternating alcohol with ice water—it slows down the consumption of alcohol while rehydrating the body and giving the drinker something to hold in his/her hand. Of course, the most basic advice is not to overwhelm the body with a sudden massive quantity of alcohol; binge drinking, taking multiple shots, and drinking from devices designed to promote quick ingestion all shut down the body’s natural nutritional processes. Sipping makes a single
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drink last longer and, in turn, gives the body time to at least partially process the alcohol. Attending social functions with friends helps, and designating one as the caretaker of the group helps. If the environment is not conducive to clear thinking— loud music, rooms full of noisy people, dancing, crowds of strangers that trigger social anxieties, and people eating lots of snacks and making poor food choices—psychologists point out that it helps simply to leave the room for a while. Stepping outside, making a phone call, making any excuse to get some fresh air and slow down the pace of reckless consumption helps to moderate the impact of alcohol on nutrition. Joseph Dewey Broward College See Also: Alcohol Withdrawal Scale; Gender and Alcohol Abuse; Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse; Pregnancy, History of Alcohol and.
Further Readings Brewerton, Timothy D. and Amy Baker Dennis. Eating Disorders, Addictions and Substance Abuse: Research, Clinical and Treatment Perspectives. New York: Springer, 2014. Hanson, David J. “Does Alcohol Have Nutritional Value?” Alcohol: Problems and Solutions. State University of New York at Potsdam. http:/www .postdam.edu (Accessed June 2014). Kovacs, Betty. “Alcohol and Nutrition” (March 31, 2014). http://www.medicine.net.com (Accessed June 2014). Myers, Stephen Cook. The ABCs of Alcohol and Nutrition: A Reciprocal Relationship. Responsible Alcohol Marketing Press, 2013.
O Oglethorpe, James James Edward Oglethorpe was a British aristocrat and soldier who entered Parliament and became concerned with social problems in England, especially prison reform. He combined his military background and his concern for social reform by obtaining a charter for the North American colony of Georgia. The new colony would serve as a buffer between Spanish Florida and increasingly prosperous South Carolina. Its settlers would be drawn from debtors’ prisons, and the colony would offer a new start in life to those who had fallen on hard times. Two of the founding policies of the new colony were no slavery and no rum. Background Oglethorpe was born on December 22, 1696, in Godalming, County Surrey, England, where his family had an estate; he was the 10th child and third son of Sir Theophilus and Lady Eleanor Oglethorpe. The Oglethorpe family was closely connected to the Stuart dynasty over several generations, serving the Stuarts in both the military and Parliament. Theophilus was also, however, a staunch Protestant and broke with James II on the eve of the Glorious Revolution, when the king emerged openly as a Catholic. Theophilus and his two older sons were soldiers, and they all sat in
Parliament. He and at least one son died in military service. Oglethorpe, who had a commission in the British Army, gave up a fellowship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, to accept a commission and fight under Prince Eugene of Savoy in the AustroTurkish War. His appointment was arranged by the Duke of Marlborough, Eugene’s ally in the previous War of the Spanish Succession and who had served with Theophilus. Oglethorpe fought with distinction against the Ottomans in 1714, and he returned from the war to take up the seat in Parliament previously held by his father and brothers in 1722. Early in his time in Parliament, Oglethorpe became interested in reform—especially prison reform—and emerged as one of the leading humanitarian reformers in the body. He himself served a brief prison sentence for manslaughter following a post-election brawl in his constituency in which he killed a servant. Also, one of his close friends, Robert Castell, died of small pox contracted in a debtors’ prison. Unlike many who saw moral weakness as the root of poverty, Oglethorpe saw it as related to the changes taking place that were driving people out of the countryside to cities and towns where there was little work. He also saw the increasing consumption of distilled spirits, gin, and rum as a further cause of poverty and distress. The idea of establishing 927
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a colony where the deserving poor, convicts, and others could get a new start in life began to take shape and combined with the growing imperial desire to establish a buffer between the increasingly prosperous colony in South Carolina and the Spanish in Florida. Oglethorpe emerged as a leader among those who supported this idea. The colony of Georgia was chartered with a board of 20 trustees in London to oversee the colony. Oglethorpe would lead the colony to the new world in person and serve as its governor in all but title. While technically one of 20 trustees, he was the only one in the colony and was able to shape and direct its development. The First Georgia Colony In 1733, Oglethorpe and the first cadre of settlers—none of whom, ironically, were former debtors or convicts—arrived in Georgia and established Savannah. Other settlements were located for military reasons, such as defense against potential Spanish attack, rather than economic considerations. While the charter was somewhat restrictive as to who was welcome to settle, Oglethorpe was quite flexible, except on the question of Catholics, who were barred from settling in Georgia. The colony did welcome a diverse group of settlers including Moravians, French Huguenots, and even Portuguese Jews. Oglethorpe insisted on honest dealing with the Indians and prohibited colonists from trading alcohol with them. He arranged for John Wesley, the English religious reformer, to come to Savannah as pastor. Rum and hard liquor were prohibited, but beer was brewed and consumed as a common beverage. Hard work was seen as redemptive and thus slavery was prohibited. These policies became real disincentives to settlement as the climate in Georgia was both hotter and more humid than in England, and the crops that offered potential as cash crops were labor intensive. Despite his successes militarily against the Spanish in the War of Jenkins’ Ear and in establishing Fort Frederica for defense, a number of Oglethorpe’s policies were not popular with many settlers, who only had to look across the Savannah River to the increasingly prosperous South Carolina colony, which had slave labor and was allowed alcohol. Many of the early settlers
of Georgia moved to South Carolina when the opportunity presented itself. He also had alienated some of the trustees by drawing on colony funds without discussion or authorization. In 1743, Oglethorpe returned to England to answer complaints by Georgia settlers about his policies and questions about the defense of the colony. He was cleared by both a parliamentary inquiry and a court martial. However, his family’s history of support for the Stuarts led to rumors about his sympathies during the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, even though he effectively led troops against the rebels in the border region. This effectively ended his public career. He never returned to Georgia and lost influence among the trustees. The other trustees were not as committed as he to the colony’s high-minded mission and began to make changes to attract settlers. In 1742, even before Oglethorpe had left, they allowed the importation of rum into the colony, and in 1750 slavery was allowed. Georgia quickly transformed from a colony of small family farms to one of large plantations and extensive use of African slave labor—very much along the lines of neighboring South Carolina. Shortly after his return to England, he married Elizabeth Wright, lady of the Manor of Cranham Hall. Oglethorpe survived the political and military questions about his Jacobite sympathies and his performance following a skirmish with the Jacobite forces in Cumbria. He never was given another command, however, and remained in England until his death. He continued to be active as an advocate for a variety of reforms, including prison reform, temperance, the reform of naval press gangs, and the abolition of slavery. He was critical of the British government policy during the American Revolution. He died at Cranham Hall in London on June 30, 1785. William H. Mulligan, Jr. Murray State University See Also: Rum; Slavery; United Kingdom; United States. Further Readings Ettinger, Amos A. James Edward Oglethorpe: Imperialist Idealist. North Haven, CT: Archon Books, 1968.
Harris, Thaddeus Mason. Biographical Memoir of James Oglethorpe: Founder of the Georgia Colony in North America. White Fish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2004. McConnell, Francis John. Evangelicals, Revolutionists, and Idealists: Six English Contributors to American Thought and Action. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1942. Meadows, Denis. Five Remarkable Englishmen. New York: Devin-Adair, 1961. Spalding, Phinizy. Oglethorpe in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977.
Old Fashioned The old fashioned is a whiskey-based cocktail comprising whiskey (typically bourbon), bitters, sugar, and water (or sugar syrup). It is served on the rocks and is usually garnished with fruit. Like many cocktails, its origins are a matter of contestation—some attributing it to bars in Chicago, and others, to a private club in Kentucky—but there is consensus that its origins can be traced to the early 1880s and that it owes its name to a reinvention or rediscovery of a cocktail made some 75 years prior. The recipe for an “authentic” old fashioned has become a matter of controversy, the biggest question being whether the fruit should be muddled into the cocktail or reserved as a garnish. How one chooses to prepare and mix an old fashioned has been interpreted as an indication of one’s personality. Like many classic cocktails, it has once more become fashionable— thanks largely to the influence of the television show Mad Men. Origins The old fashioned is a contender for the title of the original cocktail. The name implies that even at the time of its creation in the early 1880s, it harkened back to an earlier version of a drink that had since fallen out of fashion. A whiskey cocktail, dating from 1806 in New York, made of strong but low-quality rye whiskey, sugar and bitters (used to mask the taste of the alcohol), and water is the likely antecedent to what is now known as the old fashioned, whose major
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distinguishing characteristic is the inclusion of fruit. The modern old fashioned and its variants are “rediscovered” versions of this original whiskey cocktail. The Pendennis club of Louisville, Kentucky (founded in 1881), is purported to be the birthplace of the modern old fashioned cocktail. Although variations abound, most recipes call for one sugar cube (or equivalent) to be muddled with a teaspoon of water and two to three dashes of bitters in an old fashioned glass. The glass is then filled with ice cubes, and whiskey (ranging from 2 to 4 ounces) is added and slightly stirred to chill. A garnish of orange (either a slice or a twist of peel) and a maraschino cherry is then added. Authenticity Debates With interest in cocktails renewed, controversies about how one should prepare an authentic old fashioned have flourished. The drink is a highly modular cocktail in that each of the three main components (base alcohol, bitters, sweetener) can be swapped out for different versions of the ingredient that perform the same function. The core debate is whether fruit should or should not be muddled into the drink. Many recipes call only for the peel of a lemon and/or an orange to be twisted into the drink as a garnish so as to extract the essential oils from the rind and thus lightly flavor the cocktail. In some cases, an orange wheel (cross-sectional slice of orange) is muddled in the bottom of the glass with the sugar and bitters, and then the drink is served garnished with a maraschino cherry. Still more recent versions have called for not only the citrus fruit but also the cherry to be muddled together prior to the alcohol being added. Each new iteration of the recipe has seen the drink become sweeter and fruitier. A second debate concerns the alcohol that should be used as a base for the drink. As an American cocktail, it is most likely that either bourbon or rye—both commonly referred to as whiskey—would have been used as the core ingredient. Which one would have been used in the first old fashioned, however, hinges on where it was first made—Kentucky barkeeps were likely to have opted for the local bourbon, while their northern counterparts were more likely to have chosen rye.
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The “old fashioned” style of drink (referring to the combination of spirits, bitters, and sweeteners served on the rocks) is now made with a wide variety of spirits, bitters, and sweeteners. In addition to recipes featuring all types of whiskey, rum, mescal, tequila, gin, and brandy (the default for an old fashioned in Wisconsin), liqueurs and digestives can be used to make an old fashioned. In traditional formulations, Angostura bitters (which are principally flavored with citrus) were used; however, alternative flavor profiles ranging from apple and pear to chocolate have gained currency as mixologists have experimented with new flavor profiles. Flavored syrups, natural sweeteners such as maple and agave syrups, and different kinds of sugars (turbinado, demerara) have replaced the traditional lump or small spoonful of sugar that would have been moistened with the bitters and dissolved into the alcohol. Each variant has come with a new name, some of which retain the traces of the original cocktail (e,g., brandy old fashioned; comfortably old fashioned; and ironically, new fangled old fashioned) and others have severed any outward ties to their parent cocktail (e.g., Victoria, breakfast in Vermont). How one prefers to drink an old fashioned (per traditional recipes, sweet, fruity, or reinterpreted with new flavor combinations), going as far back as the 1930s, is some kind of a cultural shorthand for revealing facets of one’s personality or identity. Purists who adhere to the minimalist, traditional formulations are seen to be in keeping with the spirit of the drink and its name. By contrast, those who opt for reinterpretations—versions that incorporate muddled fruit or shortcuts in its preparation (using syrup instead of sugar that must be dissolved by stirring)—have been popularly accused of perverting or adulterating the drink or of watering it down, which entails accusations of weakness, disrespect of tradition, and laziness.
favors an old fashioned made with Canadian Club blended whiskey and refers to the cocktail euphemistically as “simple but significant.” The series’s glamorization of the 1960s lifestyle of New York City creative professionals—coupled with Draper’s classic style, stereotypical hypermasculine behavior, and repeated romantic entanglements with beautiful women—has made the old fashioned emblematic of both the era and the character. It has, moreover, contributed to the gendering of the classically made old fashioned as a masculine drink and, by extension, has extended more feminine characteristics to newer, sweeter, or fruitier versions of the cocktail.
Role in Popular Culture A number of authors of recent print and online cocktail guides cite the AMC television series Mad Men, known for its exacting replication of historical detail, as having popularized the old fashioned for a new generation of drinkers. The show’s hard-drinking protagonist, Don Draper, a paragon of 1960s suave masculinity and success,
The Ottoman Empire (c. 1290–1922) was an Islamic state that honored proscriptions against Muslim alcohol use through both state and Islamic law. However, tolerance toward nonMuslim populations allowed for the continued presence of alcohol in Ottoman culture. Traditional drinking establishments were a cornerstone of the area’s drinking culture. Wine, brandy, and
Julie Robert University of Technology, Sydney See Also: Bourbon Cocktails; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; Gender and Drinking in Popular Culture; Manhattan; Television. Further Readings Burns, Eric. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2003. Patterson, Troy. “The Old-Fashioned: It Can Be Destroyed, Perfected, Perverted. It Can Also Reveal the Depths of Your Character.” Slate Magazine (November 3, 2011). http://www.slate.com/art icles/life/drink/2011/11/the_old_fashioned_a _complete_history_and_guide_to_this_classic _c.html (Accessed March 2014). Schmid, Albert W. A. The Old Fashioned: An Essential Guide to the Original Whiskey Cocktail. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2013.
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raki—an alcoholic beverage distilled from grapes and with an anise flavor—enjoyed widespread popularity. The Ottoman Empire traces its historical origins to Osman, who conquered the land around Constantinople (Istanbul) from the Byzantine Empire in the late 1200s and early 1300s. Islamic influence in the area also dates to Osman, a devout Muslim. Subsequent rulers, such as Bayezid I (1389–1402), consolidated and extended the Ottoman Empire. Constantinople became the capital in 1453 and was renamed Istanbul. During the course of the Ottoman Empire, both religious and state laws governed the use of alcohol. State laws varied over time, reflecting the difficulty of balancing both Islamic and secular cultures. Islamic and State Legal Regulations Islam considers the consumption of alcohol to be haram, a behavioral act that is strictly forbidden. Haram is one of the five categories of behavior inscribed by Muslim law as derived from the Koran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. The Muslim prohibition of wine originated with the Prophet Muhammad’s ban on wine, commonly known as hamr, because of the adverse behavioral effects of intoxication. Drunkenness was linked to social disruptions and other evils. The Koran contains some references to the benefits of wine, but its negative effects negate these benefits. Alcohol became both morally and socially prohibited within Islam, although some Muslim sects, such as Sufis, allowed wine drinking. The Islamic proscription against wine was extended to include all alcoholic beverages. Debates arose both within and outside of Ottoman society as to whether to follow the letter of the law and ban only wine or to follow the perceived spirit of the law and extend the prohibition to all alcohol. Others debated whether the ban was meant to include any level of alcohol intake or solely drinking to the point of intoxication. Upper-class men argued that the spirit of the law was meant to include only the lower classes, who lacked the sophistication and self-control to drink in moderation. Another important point of contention debated within Ottoman society was when the Islamic legal penalty for drinking, considered a hadd
A miniature painting depicts Sultan Murad IV, ruler of the Ottoman Empire (1623–40), on his way to the Baghdad campaign, dressed in Arab armor. Halil Inalcık and other sources report that even though Murad IV was a ruthless supporter of alcohol prohibition, he was a habitual drinker himself.
crime under the Islamic legal code or Sharia, could be enforced. A hadd crime is considered a greater offense and involves behavior explicitly forbidden within the Koran. Direct confession or witness observation of drinking were clear indicators of guilt under Islamic law in all areas, unless the forbidden behavior had been coerced.
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Circumstantial evidence, such as the smell of alcohol on a person’s breath or the observation of apparent intoxication, was also sometimes allowed to be sufficient evidence of guilt. Most sultans ensured that state law was generally in accordance with Islamic law with regard to the Ottoman Empire’s Muslim population. Suleiman I (Suleiman the Magnificent, 1520–66) instituted a ban on wine as part of his extensive legislative activities. The ban was lifted by his son Selim II (1566–74) and reinstated under Ahmed I (1603–17), who also oversaw the destruction of alcohol kegs and restaurants and taverns serving alcohol in Istanbul. Murad IV (1623–40) imposed the death penalty for coffee, alcohol, or tobacco use. Punishment for hadd crimes under Islamic law was generally set as 80 lashes with a whip. Some Ottoman sultans also instituted state-mandated punishments for alcohol abuse. Legal punishments under Suleiman the Magnificent included pouring melted lead down the throats of accused drunkards. Murad IV, known for his cruel and despotic rule, personally sought out drunks and other lawbreakers by wandering the streets in disguise and ordered their execution under the law. Muslim use of alcohol would not be legalized by the state until 1926, under the Republic of Turkey. Government-controlled companies were then granted a monopoly over alcohol manufacturing and distribution. Islamic legal restrictions against alcohol use by Muslims remained in force. Ottoman rulers generally dealt pragmatically with the varying cultures and religions that came under their control as the Empire expanded. Christians and Jews were often governed under the legal codes of their own religions and communities; thus, legal restrictions against Muslim alcohol production, sale, and use largely did not apply to Christians, Jews, and other religious populations living within the Ottoman Empire. Some Turkish leaders also held the belief that non-Muslims needed alcohol for medicinal purposes, even sometimes providing prisoners with alcohol to treat or prevent illness. Part of this openness came from the fact that Islam was not imposed on non-Muslim populations within the Empire and from guidelines for state rulers established under Islam. Ottoman
leaders maintained a system of legal tolerance to minority non-Muslim populations under their control, such as Christians and Jews, as prescribed by Islam. Muslims would also serve alcohol to non-Muslim guests in honor of the strict Turkish and Muslim codes of hospitality. The Ottoman Empire did not initially tax alcohol consumption, but it began such taxation as the growth of the Empire’s non-Muslim populations increased their alcohol usage. Early Ottoman taxation included sira resmi, a tax on grape juice intended for wine production. The tax known as muskirat resmi was imposed on social consumption of wine by non-Muslim populations. Muskirat was a term that applied to all alcoholic beverages. Muslims were not initially taxed as they were not permitted to drink. The state later stopped collecting muskirat resmi over criticisms that the Islamic state was benefiting financially from wine consumption. Laws regulating alcohol use and taxation changed over the course of the Ottoman Empire. The Tanzimat period (1839–76) was an era of modernizing reform efforts. Taxes on alcohol commerce, which had been abandoned for religious reasons, were reinstated. The Ottoman Ministry of Finance added a spirits department known as Zecriye Emaneti in 1860 to oversee the new tax (zecriye resmi) that was placed on alcohol commerce and new permit requirements for alcohol sellers. Permitting and tax collection were handled by non-Muslims to prevent direct Muslim participation. Alcohol shops could not be legally located in Muslim areas or near mosques. Alcohol Use Alcohol use remained an important component of Ottoman society despite Islamic and state regulations. Certain sultans of the Ottoman Empire gained a notorious historical reputation for their own alcohol use, luxurious lifestyles, and other forms of libidinous behavior. Those known for alcohol use include Bayezid I and Murad IV. Traditional Turkish social drinking culture has centered in part on traditional drinking establishments that often served alcoholic beverages. Drinking establishments included meyhanes, birahanes, and sherbet houses. The popularity of such establishments predates the rise of the Ottoman Empire and continues to flourish into the
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present. Women frequent meyhanes, unlike other traditionally male-dominated establishments such as birahanes (beer houses). A meyhane is a style of restaurant that serves alcoholic and other beverages as well as food and entertainment. The name is a combination of the Farsi words mey (wine) and hane (house). Meyhanes ranged from casual, low-cost local establishments to expensive, fancy establishments. Both domestic and foreign-owned meyhanes were successful, most notably Greek-owned establishments during the Ottoman Empire period. Common alcoholic beverages served include wine and raki, while foods included meze, Mediterraneanstyle appetizers, and traditional local fare such as kebabs and fish. Socialization was accompanied by music and other forms of formal entertainment. Raki was one of the most popular traditional alcoholic beverages during the Ottoman Empire and beyond, surpassing other popular choices such as wine and brandy. Raki is an alcoholic beverage made from grapes, generally featuring an anise flavor and meant to be served at room temperature. Government-controlled Tekel monopolized modern raki production in the Republic of Turkey. Modern raki is also produced from sugar beets and molasses and is known for its bitter taste. Later privatization of the alcohol industry has further expanded modern raki brands and flavors. When the Islamic state was instituted, drinking shops and establishments and the larger Turkish drinking culture came under the influence of Islamic law. These establishments became mostly closed to Muslims, although Muslim patronage levels varied depending on the levels of governmental enforcement. Muslims caught in such places ran the risk of prosecution by Sharia authorities. Meyhanes and other drinking establishments remained open to non-Muslim populations and remained an important component of Turkish society. The end of the Ottoman Empire and the formation of the Republic of Turkey resulted in lifting the state’s legal ban on alcohol and thus reopening drinking establishments to the Muslim population, although Islamic religious prohibitions on alcohol use remained in effect. Marcella Bush Trevino Barry University
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See Also: Ancient World, Drinking in the; Iran; Iraq; Islamic Law; Religion; Taxation; Turkey. Further Readings Dale, Stephen Frederic. The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Faroqhi, Suraiya. Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire. London: I. B. Tauris, 2005. Inalcik, Halil, with Donald Quataert. An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Lowry, Heath. The Nature of the Early Ottoman State. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Quataert, Donald. The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Sommerville, J. P. “The Ottoman Empire in the Seventeenth Century.” http://faculty.history.wisc .edu/sommerville/351/ottomans.htm (Accessed April 2014).
Oxford Group The Oxford Group was a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization that focused on returning to early Christian beliefs and on changing the world one soul at a time. It was part of a wider anti-institutional religious reform movement intent on revitalizing a church that had become stagnant and sterile. Currently known as Initiatives of Change, it now includes many nonChristian faiths; however, it continues to carry on its evangelical individual focus. The Oxford Group flourished in the early 1930s before controversial statements by its founder, Frank Buchman, led to a great deal of negative attention and the loss of much of its public support. Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, the cofounders of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), began their efforts to help fellow alcoholics as part of the Oxford Group. Bill W. and Dr. Bob— as they are known in AA circles—eventually left the Oxford Group to form AA, incorporating
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many of the Oxford Group’s principles into what became known as the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. History Buchman was ordained in the Lutheran Church. He worked with alcoholics at a Philadelphia hospice early in his ministry. After resigning this position, he was inspired by a sermon he heard while traveling in England and had a vision of leading a God-centered, as opposed to self-centered, life. Upon returning home, he became secretary of the YMCA at Pennsylvania State University. Criticized by students for being puritanical, he took the criticism to heart and began telling more stories, often about his own experiences, and incorporating daily quiet time to listen to God’s guidance. He left Penn State to become an extension lecturer for Hartford Theological Seminary, traveling the world and holding regular “house parties” to evangelize small groups of people. He emphasized personal confessions and self-criticism to cure the “disease” of sin. Buchman’s strong emphasis on confession of personal sins led to controversies at some of the schools he visited, so he resigned from Hartford. He and some friends then founded the First Century Christian Fellowship (FCCF) in 1922 to begin an independent ministry. Funded by a few generous benefactors, they sent teams out to spread the “word,” establishing strong groups at Prince ton University and Oxford University. In the late 1920s, some newspapers began referring to FCCF as the Oxford Group, and the group adopted the name and then made it official in 1937. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Buchman traveled extensively and developed many small groups of adherents to his beliefs and style of Christian practice. He focused on people of influence and university undergraduates—the leaders of the future. During this time, the Oxford Group grew rapidly. By the mid-1930s, its rallies were filling stadiums in Europe and the United States. At the height of its popularity, the Oxford Group became associated with many powerful public figures, including Henry Ford, Joe DiMaggio, Henry Guggenheim, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, Senator Harry Truman, General John J. Pershing, and Rear Admiral Richard Byrd. By the late 1930s, the Oxford Group was well known and
both influential and controversial in political and religious circles in England and the United States. A 1936 article in the New York World-Telegram led to the rapid decimation of Oxford Group supporters. The article quoted Buchman as saying, “I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front-line defense against the anti-Christ of Communism.” Buchman said the world’s problems could be eliminated by a “Godcontrolled dictatorship.” This resulted in the movement being associated with a fascist ideology, and its popular support soon faded. The Oxford Group changed its name to Moral Re-Armament (MRA) in 1938 and began to use an increasingly secular approach, shifting away from much of its religious rhetoric. It also became ardently antiCommunist and increasingly political in nature; however, the change in name and focus did not reverse the movement’s decline. Buchman died in 1961, and his successor, Peter Howard, died in 1964. Without a worldwide leader, MRA developed a collective leadership and subsequently, for the most part, faded from public view. In 2001, it changed its name to Initiatives of Change. Eight Principles Oxford Group ideology included eight principle points. First was the belief that God has a specific plan for each individual who must surrender to the “will and plan of God.” Second was the individual’s voluntary effort in working toward the “four absolute standards” of honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. Third was the importance of confession, public testimony, and the sharing of personal experience. Fourth was restitution for one’s wrongs and sins. Fifth was the centrality of “two-way prayer” in the form of talking to God and listening for guidance during “quiet time.” Sixth was checking this guidance through group meetings. Seventh was the changing of one’s life, developing a new lifestyle, discarding old ways, and establishing new routines. Eighth was the belief that individual fulfillment could be found through active participation in the fellowship of the group. Link to Alcoholics Anonymous The Oxford Group acknowledged the connection between itself and AA, referring to AA as an
“initiative” or “spinoff” that “grew out of Buchman’s early work with small groups.” Oxford Group leader Rev. Samuel Shoemaker was a champion of AA and promoted its Twelve Steps as a way to change and find God. Both AA founders, Dr. Bob and Bill W., were members of the Oxford Group and began their conversion of alcoholics under the auspices of the Oxford Group before breaking away and forming AA in 1939. It is clear that the Oxford Group’s message, methods, and direct connection to AA and the methods and ideology of the 12-step movement remain strong, if not widely known or acknowledged by many in AA and other 12-step groups. The Oxford Group’s foundational principles are central to AA and the 12-step philosophy. Surrender to God’s will is now encoded in AA’s step 3. Confession is encoded in steps 4 and 5 and is routinely observed in 12-step meetings in many ways, including the ritual of AA members stating “My name is _______ and I’m an alcoholic” whenever they speak at meetings. Restitution is encoded in steps 8 and 9. Two-way prayer is encoded in step 11. The importance of becoming God centered, group guidance through a sponsor or other AA members, the development of a recovery lifestyle that features routines supporting sobriety, and the emphasis placed on regular attendance and participation at meetings are also Oxford Group principles now central to the AA way of life. While AA has acknowledged its debt to the Oxford Group, it tends to play down this connection in public discourse because of the controversial nature of the Oxford Group. AA prefers to point out apparent differences, such as AA’s lack of emphasis on perfection and absolutes, its insistence on member anonymity, and its focus on helping alcoholics. Others have stated the connection more forcefully. Author Dick B. notes 28 Oxford Group principles that had a strong influence on AA and has written extensively on the subject. His research reveals an early AA that was very religious and Christian in nature—one that closely reflected Oxford Group beliefs and practices. Similarly, Charles Bufe states in his book that “AA took its central doctrines virtually
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without change from Frank Buchman’s Oxford Group Movement,” noting that, while the Oxford Group/MRA has largely faded from public view, Buchman’s doctrines are more influential today through the 12-step movement than they have ever been—even during Buchman’s lifetime. Randolph G. Atkins, Jr. Independent Scholar See Also: Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step Recovery Programs; Smith, Robert Holbrook; Wilson, Bill. Further Readings Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age: A Brief History of A.A. New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, 1985. Alcoholics Anonymous. Pass It On: The Story of Bill Wilson and How the A.A. Message Reached the World. New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, 1984. B., Dick. New Light on Alcoholism: God, Sam Shoemaker, and A.A. Maui, HI: Paradise Research Publications, 1994. B., Dick. The Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous: A Design for Living That Works. Maui, HI: Paradise Research Publications, 1992. B., Mel. New Wine: The Spiritual Roots of the Twelve Step Miracle. Center City, MN: Hazelden Foundation, 1991. Bufe, Charles. Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure? San Francisco: See Sharpe Press, 1991. Driberg, Tom. The Mystery of Moral Re-Armament. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1965. Kurtz, Ernest. Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous. Center City, MN: Hazelden Educational Services, 1979. Lean, Garth. On the Tail of a Comet: The Life of Frank Buchman. Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard, 1988. MacIntosh, Douglas C. Personal Religion. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1942. Pittman, Bill. A.A.—The Way It Began. Seattle: Glen Abbey Books, 1988. Robertson, Nan. Getting Better: Inside Alcoholics Anonymous. New York: Fawcett Crest, 1988.
P Pakistan Prior to 1947, there was a large British presence in what would become Pakistan. Before attaining its independence in 1947, Pakistan was part of British India, and the many British soldiers who had been posted there created a major demand for beer. As a result, it was not long before some breweries were established, although much of the beer was brought in from other parts of British India (now India). The Murree Brewery in Rawalpindi had been established during British rule in 1860 at Ghora Gali, near the resort of Murree, as the Murree Brewery Company Ltd. to supply British soldiers and civilians who were nearby. After Pakistan became independent, Murree for many years was the nation’s only legal brewery. The brewery was established by General Sir Proby Thomas Cautley, Lieutenant Colonel (later Sir William) Olpherts, and several others, with Edward Dyer as the manager, and his family being much involved in its operation. Dyer was the father of the infamous General Reginald Dyer (1864–1927), who in 1919 earned the title the “Butcher of Amritsar” for shooting Sikhs at the Golden Temple, an incident known as the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. When Reginald Dyer was 2, the family moved to Simla (now in present-day India) after the
company established a brewery at nearby Solon. The company opened the Nilgiri Brewery at another Indian city, Ootacamund, (commonly called “Ooty”) in 1879; and the following year the Murree Brewery Company opened yet another brewery, this time at Rawalpindi (now in Pakistan), and also established a distillery at Quetta (now in Pakistan), which was the location of a massive British army base. In 1902, the company was listed on the Calcutta Stock Exchange, and it remains quoted on the Karachi Stock Exchange, being one of the better performing stocks in recent decades. The shortage of water at Murree had forced the original brewery to close down, with brewing transferred to the city of Rawalpindi, which was 44 miles (70 kilometers) away, although malting continued at Murree until just before Pakistan’s independence. At Rawalpindi, it was easy to source water from the Leh River. The Balochistan earthquake on May 31, 1935, destroyed the distillery at Quetta, and it was never rebuilt. In 1947, with Pakistan becoming an independent nation, all legal production of alcohol in the entire country was located at Rawalpindi, where beer was brewed and whiskey distilled. Murree Beer is also produced under license in Austria for the European market. After independence in 1947 with the Partition of India, there were no restrictions on the sale or 937
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consumption of alcohol until 1977, despite the country having an overwhelming Muslim majority. In fact, Pakistan’s founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, did drink in moderation, although he had ceased to do so for some years before his death. The prohibition on alcohol was introduced by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977 only weeks before he was ousted as the country’s prime minister. Bhutto made this move to try to appease the more religious elements of the population. Since 1977, non-Muslims in Pakistan—Hindus, Christians, and Zoroastrians (Parsees)— have been able to apply for an alcohol permit that allows them to buy alcohol up to a certain amount depending on their incomes. For most people, the monthly quota is five bottles of liquor or 100 bottles of beer. There has obviously developed a black market, with some nonMuslims selling their permits or their alcohol to Muslims. From 1978 until 1988 under General Zia ulHaq, the Murree Brewery was closed. There was also a crackdown in 2000 following the coming to power of General Pervez Musharraf. According to the Western press, the general, whose office was opposite the Murree Brewery, would have an occasional drink of alcohol. There has been a steady relaxation in the prohibition, although consumption of alcohol in public places is still forbidden. In the more cosmopolitan areas such as Karachi, legally operating alcohol outlets can be found in many streets. Alcohol is also available in private clubs, the more expensive restaurants, and hotels catering to the foreign clientele. However, in many country areas such as in Balochistan, alcohol is hard to find. Curiously, in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, a distillery has been established to challenge the monopoly previously enjoyed by the Murree Brewery, and the Murree Brewery has responded by opening a new manufacturing plant at Hattar in the North-West Frontier Province. Cindy, a nonalcoholic beer, has become increasingly popular, and imported alcohol, particularly the whiskey produced by Johnnie Walker, is much sought after in the country. The current minimum legal age for buying and consuming alcohol in Pakistan is 21 for non-Muslims. It is forbidden for Muslims to drink alcohol, although this is often not enforced except
in rural areas and during periods of government crackdowns. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Asia, South; Beer; India; Islamic Law. Further Readings Akbar Ahmed, Jinnah. Pakistan and Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin. New York: Routledge, 1997. Collett, Nigel. The Butcher of Amritsar: General Reginald Dyer. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Colvin, Ian. The Life of General Dyer. Edinburgh, Scotland: William Blackwood & Sons, 1929. McCarthy, Rory. “Islam and Black Label Hit Brewery.” The Guardian (July 22, 2000).
Patent Medicines Patent medicines were initially those for which a patent was granted, but the term gradually came to be applied to all medicines that were advertised directly to the public. In Great Britain, King James II signed a statute in 1624 allowing manufacturing rights to be reserved to the “true and first inventor” of any new process or product. The earliest patent granted for a medicine was that for Epsom salts, awarded to London physician Nehemiah Grew in 1698. Subsequent patents granted included Sal Volatile in 1711, Stoughton’s Elixir in 1712, and Turlington’s Balsam of Life in 1744. There was, however, usually little advantage in obtaining a patent for a medicine, since none was required in order to advertise it directly to the public or to sell it over the counter. It was usually more profitable to register a trademark, which gave the manufacturer indefinite protection. The buying public tended to regard all such products as “patent” medicines, although those in the trade described ready-made products for sale to the public under a brand name as “proprietary” medicines. In Britain, the market for patent medicines expanded rapidly during the 18th century.
An advertisement for Hamlin’s Wizard Oil, circa 1890, claims it is “the greatest family remedy” for a wide variety of ailments from rheumatism to colic. Along with other ingredients, Wizard Oil was made of 50 to 70 percent alcohol; it was said to be usable both internally and topically. Patent medicines of the era often contained alcohol, even when it was not revealed in the label.
By 1780, the value of sales was estimated at $300,000 (£187,500) per year. The government saw these products as a revenue-raising opportunity and in 1783 imposed a stamp tax on “secret” remedies in which the contents were not disclosed. This tax was not removed until 1941. The market for patent medicines expanded rapidly again in the 1880s following an increase in working-class purchasing power. In the United States, the popularity of patent medicines peaked in the 19th century; in 1859, the value of sales was $3.5 million, and by 1904 this had increased to $74 million.
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Alcohol in Patent Medicines A condition of the granting of patents was that the contents of the medicines had to be declared. These disclosures, however, were usually vague and incomplete; the description rarely included a detailed list of ingredients. It is therefore difficult to assess the extent to which early patent medicines contained alcohol. But most patent medicines were not in liquid form (which were bulky to transport) and most of the liquid ones did not contain alcohol. Most patent medicines were supplied in pill form (e.g., Morison’s, Beecham’s, and Holloway’s Pills). However, alcohol undoubtedly was present in many liquid patent medicines, although this was often incidental rather than deliberate. Many of the formulas were altered substantially over time in response to changes in legislation, taxation, or cultural expectations; by the end of the 19th century, manufacturers often made a virtue of the absence of alcohol in their products. Patent medicines were purchased by all social classes. Some of the products marketed as patent medicines mirrored the contents of remedies prescribed by physicians. Official versions of patent medicines often found their way into pharmacopoeias and formularies, which usually listed the ingredients and described how to make these drugs. Frequently the word alcohol did not appear in the formula, despite it being present. Sometimes rectified spirit (also known as rectified alcohol or neutral spirit) was referred to. This product is a highly concentrated ethanol that has been purified by means of repeated distillation. It typically contains 95 percent of alcohol by volume and is used for medicinal and other purposes. When the last remaining water is removed, absolute alcohol (100 percent) is produced. A range of dilutions was used in the making of medicines, from 95 percent (rectified spirit) down to 10 percent. Alcohol was an ingredient in many patent medicines that contained a range of potent ingredients. The main products that contained substantial quantities of alcohol were cure-alls, tonics and bitters, digestive remedies, medicines for female complaints, and gripe waters. Alcohol and Cure-Alls One of the most popular and frequently advertised patent medicines in Britain during the 18th
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century was Daffy’s Elixir. It is reputed to have been invented by clergyman Thomas Daffy, rector of Redmile, Leicestershire, in 1647. He named it elixir salutis and promoted it as a cure-all. The original recipe included a wide range of herbs and spices that had been soaked in 2 gallons of brandy. An early recipe from 1700 lists the following ingredients: aniseed, brandy, cochineal, elecampane, fennel seed, jalap, manna, parsley seed, raisin, rhubarb, saffron, senna, and Spanish liquorice. However, the popular medicine sold under this name was made differently by different vendors. Cheaper versions commonly sold as Daffy’s Elixir were said to be little more than an infusion of aniseed, liquorice, and jalap in a coarse malt spirit, diluted with water. According to an early-19th-century advertisement, Daffy’s Elixir was used for a very wide range of ailments: the stone in babies and children, convulsions, consumption and bad digestives, agues, piles, surfeits, fits of the mother and vapors from the spleen, green sickness, gout and rheumatism, stone or gravel in the kidneys, colic and griping of the bowels, and dropsy and scurvy. Alcohol and Digestive Remedies Preparations containing both opium and alcohol were extremely popular from the 16th century. Paracelsus, a Swiss-German alchemist, discovered that the alkaloids in opium are far more soluble in alcohol than in water. Thomas Sydenham introduced a tincture of opium (or tinctura thebaica), which he called laudanum, although the name was not registered. Many patent medicines aimed to capitalize on the popularity of laudanum by combining a narcotic with alcohol and taking out a trademark. One of the most successful of these was Dr. J. Collis Browne’s Chlorodyne. The word chlorodyne derived from chloroform anodyne (a medicine that relieves pain) as it contained chloroform and opium. Browne started making the compound in 1847, when he was an assistant surgeon in the Army Medical Service in India at the time of an outbreak of cholera. He left the army to go into partnership with manufacturing chemist John Thistlewood Davenport. Browne’s Chlorodyne was a successful patent medicine that contained a significant amount of alcohol. Its main ingredients were laudanum,
tincture of cannabis, and chloroform, which helped it live up to its claims of relieving pain, acting as a sedative, and being effective in the treatment of diarrhea. It was also widely advertised as a treatment for cholera and migraines, among other complaints. The dose was small but the amount of opium it contained still resulted in the addiction of many users. The success of the product led to many imitations. Alcohol and Female Complaints A number of the patent medicines targeted at female complaints contained substantial quantities of alcohol. Mother Seigel’s Syrup was first made and sold in America in 1867, but it was soon exported to Britain and elsewhere. Edith Seigel was a German lady from the Shaker sect, and the product was renamed Shaker Extract of Roots in the United States. In 1891, the formula contained two drams of rectified spirit made up to four ounces, or about 6.25 percent alcohol. The most famous patent medicine for female complaints was undoubtedly Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, first sold in 1873 by Pinkham herself. The Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company was founded in Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1876. The label indicated that the compound contained 15 percent alcohol, but this was probably an underestimation; an analysis in 1912 found that it contained nearly 20 percent alcohol. Pinkham and her family were members of a temperance society; they justified the presence of alcohol in their product on the grounds that it was necessary as a preservative and as a solvent for the vegetable material it contained. In practice, the product was as strong as fortified wine. It contained a range of other ingredients including vitamin B1, gentian, black cohosh, dandelion, and chamomile. It was originally marketed as a cure for “female weaknesses” and was later advertised as a cure for all weaknesses of the generative organs of either sex. Around 1912, the American Medical Association ran a campaign against patent medicines. Arthur J. Cramp of the association’s Department of Propaganda suggested that Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound should be classed as a medicated liquor, as it did not, he claimed, contain sufficient medicament to prevent it being used as a beverage.
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Alcohol and Gripe Waters Alcohol was frequently an ingredient of babysoothing preparations, often a result of the presence of laudanum. But by the turn of the 20th century the presence of both laudanum and alcohol was increasingly frowned upon. Secret Remedies in 1909 described Woodward’s Celebrated Gripe Water, or Infant’s Preservative, as a carminative water containing less than 4 percent alcohol. The fact that it did not contain laudanum appeared on the label, along with its indications, all of which were disorders of children; they included convulsions, gripes, acidity, flatulence, whooping cough, and the distressing complaints incidental to infants at the period of cutting teeth. In Britain, an inquiry into proprietary medicines by a government select committee was held in 1913. John C. Umney, recently appointed joint managing director of the manufacturer of Woodward’s Celebrated Gripe Water, gave evidence to the committee. He explained that the alcohol was necessary as a solvent and the firm had tried dozens of ways to avoid the use of alcohol, without success. He claimed that the company was keen to obtain the same therapeutic effect in another way. But the alcohol remained for many years; the 1972 formula indicated the product contained 3.67 percent of rectified spirit.
it contained Liebig’s meat extract and was called Liebig’s Extract of Meat and Malt Wine. The recipe for Buckfast Tonic Wine is attributed to Benedictine monks from France who settled at Buckfast Abbey and first made the tonic wine in the 1890s. It was originally sold in small quantities as a medicine using the slogan “three small glasses a day, for good health and lively blood.” Other brands included Sanatogen Tonic Wine, Extract of Meat and Malt Wine, and Brovino Iron Tonic Wine. Vin Mariani was a patent medicine created around 1863 by Angelo Mariani, a French chemist who became interested in coca. Mariani started marketing a wine called Vin Tonique Mariani that was made from Bordeaux wine treated with coca leaves. The ethanol in the wine extracted the cocaine from the leaves. It originally contained 6 milligrams of cocaine per fluid ounce, but the wine for export contained 7.2 milligrams per ounce in order to compete with the higher cocaine content of similar drinks in the United States. Advertisements for Vin Mariani claimed that it restored health, strength, energy, and vitality. It enjoyed great popularity with its users, who included Queen Victoria. Pope Leo XIII awarded a Vatican gold medal to the wine, and he appeared on posters endorsing it.
Alcohol and Tonics Patent medicines were sometimes thinly disguised fortified wines and spirits. In the United States, for example, Doctor Hostetter’s Celebrated Stomachic Bitters Tonic contained 32 percent alcohol. Peruna, claimed to protect against catarrhal diseases, contained 28 percent alcohol. Presenting alcoholic beverages as medicine was a convenient strategy for getting around licensing laws. If it was sold across the counter as a drink, a liquor license was required; if it was sold in the bottle as a medicine, no alcoholic beverage tax applied. Selling it as medicine also got around prohibition. The U.S. Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 required that the amount of alcohol present in a medicine be stated on the label. In Britain, a wide range of so-called tonics were sold as medicated wines. These included Wincarnis Tonic Wine, a blend of enriched wine and malt extract infused with a range of herbs and spices. When it was first produced in 1887,
Stuart Anderson London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine See Also: Alcohol by Volume; American Medical Association; Medicinal Use, History of; Nonbeverage Alcohols, History of; Wines, Cocainized; Wines, Fortified. Further Readings Aronson, Jeffrey. “Patent Medicines and Secret Remedies.” British Medical Journal, v.339 (December 2009). Bradshaw, S. The Drugs You Take: A Plain Man’s Guide to Patent Medicines. London: Pan Books, 1968. Corley, T.A.B. “Interactions Between the British and American Patent Medicine Industries 1708–1914.” Business and Economic History, v.16 (1987). Homan, Peter G., Briony Hudson, and Raymond C. Rowe. Popular Medicines: An Illustrated History. London: Pharmaceutical Press, 2008.
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Young, James Harvey. The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines in America Before Federal Regulation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961.
Peer Pressure Peer pressure refers to a kind of dynamic, often negative, describing the relationships between and among people, usually of the same age, in which one of the parties is influenced to act in ways or to believe in particular values or to adapt attitudes or behaviors that do not necessarily represent or reflect their own judgment or their own preferences. Peer pressure measures how individuals act and react within groups. Peer pressure measures the psychological need to conform, to feel part of a larger group, or to be accepted by a larger social group. Peer pressure has been measured and studied in adult situations—for instance, in a network, one member, most often new to the organization, can be pressured to perform or participate in what he or she knows to be criminal or illegal behavior as a way to secure or confirm membership within that network; or a person can be coerced indirectly into joining and participating in particular trade unions in order to secure or maintain a job; or an adult can be influenced by family or friends to associate with and even promote particular controversial social causes or affiliations with political parties in order to be accepted. However, peer pressure is most notably an element of adolescent behavior when self-identity is still being formed and selfesteem can be particularly low and individuals are particularly susceptible, even vulnerable to feelings of being accepted; indeed, the inevitability of handling peer pressure has become a distinguishing element of the coming of age experience, a kind of initiation into adulthood. Peer pressure marks that time in children’s and teenager’s evolution in which they spend more time with their peers at school than in their homes under parental supervision. Although peer pressure can be applied to encourage socially acceptable (or good) behaviors—such as joining and excelling at athletic teams; participating in organized
institutional religious functions; trying out together for organizations that are new and potentially intimidating (such as band or theater), or pushing each other to improve grades or to work together to improve performances on critical standardized tests—peer pressure is most often associated with negative behaviors; that is, with the feeling among adolescents to do acts that run contrary to their own judgment, including relatively nonharmful areas such as how to dress, what music to listen to, what movies to like, whom to like (and whom to exclude from social circles), and how to behave in a variety of social situations. But peer pressure has been measured by behavioral psychologists to indicate how that sort of influence is a crucial element in adolescents performing and/or participating in very risky activity including unprotected sexual activity, defying parental guidelines and curfews, reckless driving on dares, criminal behavior (most often shoplifting), drug experimentation, smoking, and, far more often as data indicate, experimenting with alcohol, usually beer or wine. Research on Peer Pressure and Alcohol In 2010, the National Institute of Drug Abuse reported that for the first time the illicit use of beer, wine, and hard liquor among adolescents is now more pervasive than the use of marijuana or abuse of over-the-counter medications. More specifically, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a clearinghouse of data that include research with adolescents across all economic classes and racial and ethnic identities, concluded in 2010 that the most reliable predictor of adolescent behavior when it comes to alcohol abuse is the drinking behaviors of those perceived to be friends. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) data in 2012 revealed that 9 percent of children between the ages of 11 and 13 have admitted taking at least one drink after being pressured by older siblings. Peer pressure, then, is about the kind of people adolescents want to hang out with and, in turn, taking a cue from how they behave and giving in to that behavior with the expectation that such conformity will ensure or at least promise eventual social acceptance by that same group. Little research was completed on peer pressure and alcohol within the psychological community until after World War II when middle-class America confronted the difficult realities of a younger
generation apparently determined to rebel collectively against what was suddenly perceived as the complacencies and soullessness of suburban America. Parents and educators confronted the reality of a generation apparently bent on mimicking behaviors that a generation earlier had been socially unacceptable: reckless driving, smoking, experimenting with drugs, and, above all, underage drinking. The postwar adolescent generation appeared determined to accept the new way, to be cool or be excluded. In the 1950s, there emerged the social construction known now as cliques, the social divisions of adolescent society into general caricatures such as the cool cats and the squares, the jocks and nerds—a classification system that would become more complex across the next three decades. Influenced by powerful cultural currents—most prominently the Beats and then the counterculture music and films of the 1960s—a generation collectively indulged behavior codes that flew in the face of convention. Teenagers were suddenly pressured into accepting behavioral choices that had little to do with their upbringing or their own inclinations. They felt pressured to be something or somebody they were not in order to fit in. Suddenly, parents and educators wanted to know why apparently “good” kids would suddenly so completely mimic the antisocial behaviors they saw in their classmates or in movies or on television. For generations, parents and teachers had responded to such group mentality behavior with dismissive platitudes—“If everyone else jumped off the Empire State Building, would you?”—to handle the issue of herd behavior; but new concerns over the spread of such unconventional behavior gave rise to new considerations in the psychology field over the significant pressures adolescents face. Indeed, using theoretical models that had been used to explain the stunning rise to popularity of Adolf Hitler and his message of ethnic superiority and brutality and army studies of how to establish leaderships, maintain discipline, and encourage obedience in the military, psychologists began to take a closer look at the subtle dynamics and profound confusions of adolescence, particularly those networks where adolescents mingled socially, specifically high school and college. What researchers have found in studying data from both high school and college students is that
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peer pressure is a psychological search for emotional equipoise, or balance. If, say, high school juniors who never had a drink arrive at a friend’s party where there is alcohol, they arrive at the party in a state of emotional balance. They have never had liquor; they have never been drunk—drinking itself is a condition familiar to them only as an abstract, from anecdotal testimony from friends, from movies and television, and from advertising. But at the party, surrounded by friends—schoolmates who have been for good or bad part of their emotional evolution—who are drinking and who, as they lose their inhibitions, appear to make drinking look fun, the juniors are suddenly thrown into a state of emotional disequilibrium. Their inclinations are suddenly out of sync with their upbringing. When they surrender to the considerable emotional pressure to drink, they must in the following days realign their concepts of themselves and their ethical behavior in order to return to a state of emotional balance. They begin to act and behave according to the measure of others as a way to maintain inner calm, an emotional harmony between their conscience and their will. Not surprisingly, significant research has shown that adolescents who consider themselves popular are far more prone to peer pressure than adolescents who, because of either their upbringing or their own inclination, do not seek and in some cases actively disdain friendship of a wide number of their peers. These adolescents, perceived to be antisocial, have been shown to make more independent decisions—that is not to say that they do not demonstrate the same sort of unconventional, even illegal behaviors. They still smoke, drink, drive recklessly, engage in violent behavior, and participate in petty crimes, but they do so by choice. It is an act of their own will. Studies have indicated such adolescents, while hardly role models, act out of a sense of individual integrity, lacking or at least temporarily displaced in those who perform similar acts but only because of the concession to pressure to do so at the risk of being left out of a social clique. Indeed, at the heart of the investigation into the power of peer pressure is the question of why some adolescents are so vulnerable to such influence while others resist. There is a branch of neuropsychology that has even sought to draw ties to the development (or underdevelopment) of critical areas
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of the brain, specifically the anterior insula, as a potential indicator of vulnerability. Others dismiss such explanations as too easy. Rather, peer pressure has been tied to the development of a reliable and stable self-identity and the difficult (but inevitable) evolution from the protective shelter of home and the first navigations into the uncontrolled environments outside the home, specifically friends’ homes, schools, playgrounds, bus stops, gyms, malls, and workplaces. After years during which parents made significant choices concerning appropriate behavior and acceptable friends, arranged play dates, accepted or rejected party invitations, and maintained a close watch on social development, such decisions driven entirely by the parents’ ethics and morality, the adolescent suddenly (researchers have indicated this moment of transition can often be measured in days, even hours) faces the invigorating (and terrifying) opportunity to meet others their own age without the restrictions and censoring of the parents. That reassuring guideline has now been internalized and has become part of the adolescent’s process of judgment.
The adolescent is given the chance to make friends and determine with whom he/she will spend social time at school. Poor self-esteem or weak sense of self can lead to seeking the approval of others as a way to validate the self and even define the self. The evolution of cliques in high school and college—the division of teens into splinter groups such as the brains, the pukes, the stoners, the techies, the divas, the jocks, the bang buddies, the ravers, the bros, the slammers, the nerds—creates that kind of peer pressure, specifically the need to be identified with a larger group, to lose a self that is poorly defined within the reassuring expanse of a group. The special problem with alcohol is that it fits the lifestyle habits of a number of these cliques. With alcohol, adolescents must deal with the perceived stigma that not to drink inevitably makes them unfit for a variety of cliques. For many adolescents, the choice can appear to be either drink or be alone. Given the social acceptance of drinking in the adult world and the widespread cliches of alcohol as a necessary, even beneficial element of social
A group from Will Rice College takes a victory chug following the college’s Beer-Bike Race event, March 21, 2009. In the United States, over 80 percent of college students have at least one alcoholic drink over a two-week time period, and of these, 40 percent are binge drinking on occasion. This greatly surpasses the rate of their noncollege peers, a discrepancy that research suggests is largely due to the college environment, in which students must transition from dependence on parents to dependence on peers.
and business success, adolescents find it difficult to resist the pressure to try alcohol. Often, alcohol becomes part of their routine as they choose to surrender to the influence of a circle of friends for whom alcohol is an acceptable outlet. Indeed, the clear message of the dangers of alcohol—the penalties and dangers of drunk driving, poor performance in school, the inability to hold even a parttime job, friction within families, the inability to maintain friendships, particularly with those who do not give in to the pressure—often fail to outweigh the significant pressure to conform. Indeed, alcohol-related traffic accidents are the number one cause of death among adolescents 17 to 20 years old. High schools and universities routinely advertise the dangers of alcohol consumption. A 2009 Department of Health and Human Services research study found that close to half a million college-aged students have admitted to engaging in unprotected sex after being pressured to indulge in excessive drinking at social functions. Sociocultural Dynamics With alcohol, peer pressure is involved in three interrelated sociocultural dynamics. First, there is the invitation to drink, the consumption of alcohol tied to an immediate social environment— offering someone a drink (usually beer), refilling the drink without being asked to, encouraging the person to drink (often by playing loud music that makes difficult clear and logical thinking), and/or making entire bottles of alcohol available readily and without precondition. Second, there is the observation of trusted friends and/or adult family members drinking regularly or drinking to excess. Inevitably, friends and family become role models for behavior, and imitation is an inevitable expression of relationships with such people. Indeed, that they do it condones the behavior despite whatever personal reservations might be held. Given the opportunity to drink, the person relies on these role models to give in to the offer to drink, figuring these role models drink so consequently the impact must be ultimately beneficial or at least not harmful. And third, there is the considerable pressure from the perception of others and their levels of drinking habits. Studies have shown that adolescents inclined to drink tend to brag, even exaggerate about the levels of consumption and, in turn, create an environment where excessive
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consumption is a measure of social success and personal achievement. These deliberate miscalculations (although at times the exact amount of alcohol is blurred by the alcohol effects themselves) create a perception that drinking excessively is the norm and that to fit in one must abide by such behavioral models. Studies on the effects of peer pressure have revealed that when college students are given actual data on alcohol consumption on a specific campus rather than the inflated anecdotal accounts given by friends or through social networking, the levels of alcoholic consumption drop dramatically. Once adolescents are reassured that excessive alcohol drinking is not the norm, they act with prudence and caution. Conclusion Solutions to the problems of peer pressure and drinking are as clear to adults as they are difficult for adolescents. First is knowledge; the American Academy of Pediatrics has found that two-thirds of teenagers have not experimented with alcohol, that in fact “everyone” is not doing it. And only 16 percent of college students admit to binge drinking, by far the single most devastating manifestation of peer pressure. Because typical reactions to giving in to peer pressure include self-loathing and guilt, psychologists point out that giving in to pressure to avoid being made fun of or not being accepted does not bring happiness. Psychologists suggest talking with a trusted adult or a parent, or finding another peer who shares the same set of values, or finding the confidence and assurance to resist giving in to pressure to drink when not entirely sure that is the course of action desired. For their part, parents can take a greater hand in their teenager’s developing social life, encourage positive activities, and explain the tremendous pressure of conformity with understanding and without judgment. Most importantly, parents need to demonstrate that they trust their child and understand their child is becoming a responsible adult. Joseph Dewey Broward College See Also: Binge Drinking, History of; Drinking Games; Legal Drinking Age: Rite of Passage; Student Culture: High School.
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Further Readings Desetta, Al. The Courage to Be Yourself: True Stories by Teens About Cliques, Conflicts, and Overcoming Peer Pressure. New York: Free Spirit, 2005. Ketcham, Katherine and Nicholas A. M. D. Pace. Teens Under the Influence: The Truth About Kids, Alcohol, and Other Drugs. New York: Ballantine, 2008. Krame, Kailen. Put It in Perspective: A Teen’s Guide to Sanity. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2014. Tripp, Paul David. Peer Pressure: Recognizing the Warning Signs and Giving New Direction. Greensboro, NC: New Growth, 2008.
Pernod Ricard Pernod Ricard is a large multinational corporation that produces a large array of premium alcoholic beverages. Pernod and Ricard are also names of respective pastis liqueurs popularly served as an aperitif in France. Background An aperitif, such as Pernod or Ricard, is an alcoholic beverage that is generally served before a meal. The aperitif is believed to help stimulate the appetite, and the practice of serving an aperitif (such as a pastis) before a meal is incorporated into the cultural repertoire of many Mediterranean societies, including those of France and Spain; thereafter, the custom was spread globally. Anise aperitifs are also very popular in many other countries such as Italy and Greece and the Levant region. Pastis liqueurs became popular in France after the production and consumption of absinthe, made from poisonous wormwood, were banned in France in 1915. Pastis is a French anise liqueur (originally from Provence) that is flavored with a maceration of assorted herbs (such as aniseed, armoise, centaurée, fennel, and sage) and spices (such as badiane, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pepper). However, the actual ingredients included in different brands of pastis, such as Pernod and Ricard, are closely guarded trade secrets. The production of pastis liqueurs was prohibited in France from
1940 to 1944 by the Vichy regime during World War II. After the war, production resumed and companies like Pernod Ricard have continued to grow ever since. Liquors and liqueurs—particularly those made from anise, such as anis (Spain), anisette (Italy), arak (the Levant), mastica (Bulgaria and Macedonia), ouzo (Greece), raki (Turkey), and sambuca (Italy)—are frequently served as an aperitif. Pernod and Ricard as well as several of these other anise-based aperitif liquors and liqueurs (such as arak, ouzo, and sambuca) have a highly distinctive feature: Although clear in their pure, unadulterated state, these products when mixed with clear water have a characteristic white cloudy appearance. This spontaneous emulsification is known as either the “ouzo effect” or the “louche effect,” whereby the milky oil-in-water microemulsion creates a stable homogenous fluid dispersion when the oily terpenes become insoluble when diluted in an aqueous solution below 30 percent ethanol. Company Origins and Growth The Pernod Ricard Group was established in 1975 with the merger of two of the leading pastis-based French spirits companies: Pernod and Ricard. Pernod was founded as La Maison Pernod Fils in 1805 by Henri-Louis Pernod, who located his distillery in Pontarlier, Franche-Comté, situated in the Doubs region of eastern France. In 1926, it merged with Distillerie Hémard (which had been founded by Ariste Hémard in 1871 in Montreuil) and with Pernod Père et Fils (which had been founded by Jules-François Pernod in 1872 in Avignon). These three companies formed Établissements Pernod. In 1932, founder Paul Ricard, at the age of 23, created his eponymous pastis liqueur Ricard. Patrick Ricard, Paul’s son, took over the family business later on. In 1975, Jean Hémard of Pernod and Patrick Ricard of Ricard joined to form the Pernod Ricard Group. In 1978, Patrick became chairman of the group and began developing these two family businesses into a major international alcoholic beverage corporation. He engineered a series of acquisitions that progressively led to the phenomenal growth of the group. These acquisitions included Wild Turkey Bourbon in 1981; Jameson Irish Whiskey in 1988; Jacob’s Creek wine brands of Australia in 1989; Havana Club International in 1993; Seagram in
2001, which included Chivas and Martell; Allied Domecq in 2005, which included Ballantine’s, Malibu, Mumm, and Perrier-Jouët; and Vin & Sprit in 2008, which included Absolut Vodka. In 2008, Pierre Pringuet took over the reigns as chief economic officer of the Pernod Ricard Group; he is also, since August 29, 2012, the vice chairman of the board, with Daniele Ricard serving as the chairwoman and Alexandre Ricard serving as deputy chief operating officer and director. These three, along with 11 other directors, comprise the board of directors of the group. The Pernod Ricard Group segments its brands of alcoholic beverages into several strategic categories to compete with other industry players. It produces and sells what it refers to as two global icons—Absolut Vodka and Chivas Regal. The group has seven strategic premium spirits brands: Kahlua (coffee liqueur), Malibu (coconut-flavored rum), Ricard (pastis liqueur), Ballantine’s (blended Scotch whiskey), Beefeater (gin), Havana Club (rum), and Jameson (Irish whiskey). It has five strategic prestige spirits and champagne brands: Martell Cognac, The Glenlivet (singlemalt Highland Scotch whiskey), G. H. Mumm (champagne), Perrier-Jouët (champagne), and Royal Salute (blended Scotch whiskey). It owns and distributes 18 key local spirits brands: Pastis 51 (pastis liqueur), 100 Pipers (blended Scotch whiskey), Amaro Ramazzotti (Italian digestif), ArArAt (Armenian cognac), Becherovka (Czech digestif), Blenders Pride (Indian blended whiskey), Clan Campbell (blended Scotch whiskey), Seagram’s Imperial Blue (grain whiskey), Imperial (Scotch whiskey), Olmeca (tequila), Passport Scotch (blended Scotch whiskey), Royal Stag (Indian whiskey), Ruavieja (Spanish brandy), Seagram’s Gin, Something Special (South American blended Scotch whiskey), Suze (wild gentian aperitif), Wiser’s (Canadian whiskey), and Wyborowa (Polish vodka). In addition, the Pernod Ricard Group controls four priority premium wine brands: Jacob’s Creek (Australian), Brancott Estate (New Zealand), Campo Viejo (Spanish), and Graffigna (Argentinean). Each of these brands has its own historical legacy and cultural background. For example, Becherovka is a Czech digestif that was created in 1807 in Karlovy Vary, a small spa town located in Bohemia, Czech Republic. The group
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has subsidiaries around the globe, including in Armenia, Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, and Russia. It operates 96 production sites scattered around the world and wholly owns its own distribution network. The Pernod Ricard Group has been involved in some controversial issues. One of these concerns the group being the major funder of bullfighting in France, including financing bullfighting clubs and sponsoring corridas. There is also the controversial joint venture between the group and the Corporación Cuba Ron that involves alleged trademark infringements related to the Havana Club brand, which the Arechabala family lost after the 1959 Cuban Revolution. The group is well established globally, particularly in emerging markets. It maintains 80 market companies covering four regions. It was a pioneer in Asia and is now the leader in the region. The group has nearly 19,000 employees around the globe and is headquartered in Paris, France. Its publications, in addition to its annual reports and financial statements, include Entreprendre, a magazine published twice a year in English, French, and Spanish, and Corporate Social Responsibility Comments, which speaks to its contributions to sustainable development, as does its corporate environmental policy. Victor B. Stolberg Essex County College See Also: Absinthe; Advertising and Marketing, History of; Aperitifs; Cocktails and Cocktail Culture; France; Wines, Fortified; Wines, French. Further Readings Brown, Jared and Anistatia Miller. The Mixellany Guide to Vermouth and Other Aperitifs. Cheltenham, UK: Mixellany Books, 2011. Jerrigan, David H. “The Global Alcohol Industry: An Overview.” Addiction, v. 104/Sup.s1 (February 2009). Olney, Bruce. Liqueurs, Aperitifs, and Fortified Wines. London: Hills and Boon, 1972. Pacult, F. Paul. A Double Scotch: How Chivas Regal and The Glenlivet Became Global Icons. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2005. Tritton, S. M. Spirits, Aperitifs, and Liqueurs: Their Production. London: Faber, 1975.
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Peroni The Peroni brewing company was founded as Birra Peroni Brewery in 1846 by the Peroni family in Vigevano in Lombardy in northern Italy. Since 1864, it has been based in Rome and is owned by the SABMiller brewing group. When the Peroni Brewery was established in Vigevano, the region was part of the Kingdom of Piedmont (or Sardinia), which under the leadership of Victor Emmanuel II and Count Camillo Benso di Cavour was to take over the rest of Italy for the country’s unification. In 1848, there was an attempt to make Rome the capital of a united Italy, but this failed after French intervention. A large French garrison remained in Rome, which appears to be part of the reason that Giovanni Peroni persuaded the family to move the brewery to Rome, where it provided beer for the French soldiers there. This might have been a rash decision because in September of that year, Emperor Napoleon III of France agreed to withdraw his soldiers within two years, with the pope planning to expand his army but secretly urging the French to remain. In December 1866, the last of the French soldiers left, and this led to an attack on Rome by the supporters of General Giuseppe Garibaldi the following year. Rome was eventually captured in 1870 when the French were in retreat during the Franco-Prussian War and could clearly not provide any support to the Papacy. Although the revolutionaries had proclaimed Rome as the capital of Italy in 1861, it became the actual capital 10 years later. Peroni Brewery was in excellent position to benefit from these changes. However, it was not until 1910 that it started to advertise heavily, and its beer became popular with many Italian soldiers during World War I. With many Italians moving to the United States and other countries, the brand became better known. It was not until the late 1950s and early 1960s that it came to dominate the Italian beer market. It was largely through the Italian diaspora that Peroni became better known in other countries, and it achieved global recognition only during the 1990s when the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph suggested that Peroni, along with Ferrari and Gucci, was clearly an Italian icon. Peroni established breweries in Naples and Padova to supplement its production in Rome. Its main beer remained Peroni Beer, a “bright
pale gold, lovely hop and malt aroma,” as connoisseur James D. Robertson described it. It has 4.7 percent alcohol by volume, and many critics remarked that drinking it was refreshing. Traditionally, it was made with malt, but in recent years corn grits have been added. For the export market, Peroni makes Nastrro Azzuro Export Lager. First made in 1963 and put on public sale in 1964, it has 5.1 percent alcohol and is regarded as having a more complex flavor; its slightly higher alcohol content has helped sales. The strongest beer made by Peroni is the Peroni Gran Riserva, which is 6.6 percent alcohol. Known as a double malt beer, it was made specially in 1996 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of the company. The company brews other beer such as Peroni Premium Beer; Peroni Birra; Italia Pilsen; Italia Pilsen Export Beer; and Raffo Beer, a brilliant pale tawny gold. In 1988, Peroni merged with Wührer and concentrated its brewing in five plants; it also introduced a Crystall range of beers. It remained the largest brewer in Italy until 1996, when Heineken combined the Dreher and Moretti breweries. However, Peroni still remains a major producer not only in the Italian market but also in many export markets around the world, especially in places where there are large Italian expatriate communities. Peroni Beer remains the second best-selling pale lager in Italy, and its name is well known through its sponsorship of motorcyle racer Valentino Rossi and Grand Prix race-car drivers. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Beer; Beer and Foods; Italy. Further Readings Birra Peroni. http://www.peroni.it (Accessed November 2013). Robertson, James D. The Beer-Taster’s Log: A World Guide to More Than 6,000 Beers. Pownal, VT: Storey Communications, 1996. Villa, Keith. “Peroni.” In The Oxford Companion to Beer, Garrett Oliver, ed. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011. Walton, Stuart and Brian Glover. The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Wine, Beer, Spirits, and Liqueurs. London: Hermes House, 1998.
Perry Perry is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented pears and for this reason is sometimes known colloquially as “pear cider.” Although it can be made from any pear, some specialists prefer particular varieties. Perry dates to antiquity; The Roman writer Pliny the Elder referred to drinks made from pears. Perry’s origins remain unclear; perhaps the Romans introduced it into England, came across it during their trade with Britain before their invasion, or encountered it in northern France, where it was undoubtedly also produced. The production of this “pear cider” was certainly taking place in Saxon England, and after the Norman invasion there was encouragement for manufacture to continue as pear cider provided a cheap alternative and had a lower alcohol content than many other available beverages. In addition, pears, which were regarded as unfit for eating as fruits, were often used in the making of perry, thereby reducing waste as the population in England grew steadily during the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. The production of perry in medieval England tended to be concentrated in the west of England in the counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire. May Hill in Herefordshire has been recorded as having a special place in the production of perry. Perry was also produced in some parts of South Wales and in Normandy and Anjou in France, both those places having close links with England since the Middle Ages. It has been suggested that many soldiers serving in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire during the English Civil War got to drink perry for the first time, and when they returned to their hometowns or villages they took with them the taste for the new drink, which was easy to make. Because the making of perry is similar to producing apple cider, but perry tends to be weaker, there was a popular view that perry was served more to women and children. Perry also differentiated from “pear cider,” which came to be a combination of fermented apple and pear juice. Perry was also used as a preservative in the making of conserves and other dishes. After North America was settled by British and French people beginning in the 16th century, the
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perry produced there seems to have been made from pears grown locally. Occasionally perry made in the 17th and 18th centuries was augmented with cider, and occasionally brandy and sherry, as well as being flavored by lemons. There are also occasional references to meat being added to increase the protein of the drink. During the Napoleonic Wars, when Napoleon’s Continental System forbade trade between Europe and Britain, there was a revival of perry drinking in Britain, and perry produced in Worcestershire was regularly sold in London and in the north of England. However, after the end of the conflict French wines were able to be imported legally and cheaply, especially after the reduction in tariffs in 1861, and there was a collapse of interest in perry, which reduced the importance and diversity of pear orchards. John Scott, a Somerset nurseryman, remarked in 1870 that there were 1,800 different varieties of pears at that time, but his company was only offering 36 varieties. Perry production increased during World War II, when it again became hard to source foreign alcoholic beverages. Perry-making started up again in earnest during the late 1980s due to cultural revivals, and it is sold at fairs, fetes, and farm shops in some parts of England, New England, and some parts of the Pacific Northwest of the United States. There is also commercial perry production in Sweden, Australia, and New Zealand. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Cider; Hard Cider; United Kingdom; Wines, Fruit. Further Readings Brown, John Hull. Early American Beverages. New York: Bonanza Books, 1966. Bush, Raymond. Tree Fruit Growing, Vol 2: Pears, Quinces, and Stone Fruits. London: Penguin Books, 1946. Gallagher, Paul. “Pear Cider Boom Angers Purists.” The Independent (November 25, 2012). Luckwill, L. C. and A. Pollard, eds. Perry Pears. Bristol, England: National Fruit and Cider Institute, 1963.
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Reedy, Dave. “Perry.” In Alcohol in Popular Culture: An Encyclopedia, Rachel Black, ed. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2010. Wilson, C. Anne. Liquid Nourishment: Potable Foods and Stimulating Drinks. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 1993.
Personal Liberty League Personal liberty leagues were first formed in the United States in the 1870s in response to the threat posed to the liquor industry by temperance and antisaloon forces. There was not a single national organization that went by the name Personal Liberty League. Instead, there were multiple organizations throughout the nation that sought to stem the tide of the prohibition movement. In most cases, those engaged in the alcohol trade—brewers, distillers, saloonkeepers, and so forth—founded these leagues. However, these organizations relied on the support of average people—primarily workers—to turn out in support of the saloon. The term personal liberty league should not be confused with the 1930s organization that went by the name Liberty League and whose primary purpose was to oppose the New Deal. Background Many historians mark the saloon period as beginning in the 1870s because the number of such establishments began to grow greatly in that decade. The rapidly increasing number of immigrants arriving each year, many of whom found comfort and camaraderie in the “working-man’s club,” was one reason for the explosive growth of saloons. Earlier attempts to control drinking behavior primarily focused on suasion—that is, the attempt to appeal to the drinker to voluntarily give up drinking and saloon-going. While movements to curtail and control drinking behavior are as old as the nation itself, it was in the 1870s that the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was formed in Cleveland, Ohio, to become one of the most prominent temperance organizations in the nation. The WCTU relied heavily on moral suasion, but the organization also attempted to influence elected officials to curtail the production
and sale of alcohol. It was, therefore, in that same decade that the threat to alcohol and the saloon by such well-organized temperance societies caused those engaged in the liquor industry to take notice and likewise organize and take action. One of the earliest mentions of a personal liberty league can be found in San Francisco in 1874, when an organization of citizens met to oppose what they believed was an encroachment on their liberty. They claimed they were protecting their communities from forces that sought to control their leisure activities. They argued that if the consumption of alcohol could be curtailed, then perhaps other liberties—such as choices related to what they could eat—could be next. Furthermore, they asserted that any regulation of alcohol could cause difficult financial straits for those engaged in the liquor industry. Primarily, the class issue was at the heart of their fears. They feared that an increasingly organized middle class was attempting to contain the behavior of a rapidly growing working class increasingly made up of immigrants. Such people formed the base for the many personal liberty leagues that began to grow in this period. While the WCTU acted as an effective pressure group, prompting responses from those who favored the legal saloon, the Anti-Saloon League (ASL), described as the most powerful pressure group in American history, was founded in the 1890s and posed the gravest threat to the production and sale of alcohol. The ASL applied a piecemeal approach to eradicating the saloon and its products, preferring to win small victories, while keeping its eye on the larger prize of prohibition. It would be in response to this organization’s efforts that personal liberty leagues would be most active in the first two decades of the 20th century. Political Actions Most personal liberty league organizations formed to influence politics. Many acted as lobbying organizations, applying pressure on local governments and legislatures to resist prohibition forces’ attempts to pass antisaloon legislation. Another of their key activities was to support or oppose various candidates for elected office based on their positions regarding the saloon. Finally, these organizations campaigned during local option elections to rally prosaloon voters and bring them to the polls.
Local option elections—the gravest threat the liquor industry faced—became common electoral contests in the decades prior to national Prohibition in cities throughout the country and were hard-fought contests for personal liberty league organizations. Antisaloon forces sought to use local option to curtail the saloon through the ballot box. These elections took place at the county or city level, allowing voters to decide if their communities would go “dry” or stay “wet.” To stay wet meant to retain saloons, while going dry meant that a plurality of voters chose to close the saloons in their communities. These contests pitted neighbor against neighbor in many cities throughout the United States and were extremely contentious during each election cycle until national Prohibition removed the issue from local consideration. Personal liberty leagues were active and visible in these contests, pitting in the public’s imagination the forces of the ASL, the WCTU, and other antisaloon organizations against what was dubbed the “liquor interests,” which consisted primarily of brewers, distillers, and saloonkeepers. Support from Ethnic Minorities and the Working Class One of the most famous and successful personal liberty league organizations was the United Societies, headquartered in Chicago. It first sought a statewide and then a national platform in which to oppose antisaloon forces. Czech immigrant and former coal miner Anton Cermak, who rose to prominence as a leader of Chicago’s enormous ethnic communities and ultimately became the mayor of Chicago in 1931, founded the United Societies in 1906 with the support of 350 ethnic groups for the purpose of opposing Sunday closing laws. However, the group quickly made opposition to local option its primary activity with the passage of a law in 1907 that called for local option elections throughout Illinois. Cermak moved to create and network with several local organizations throughout the state, many of which went by the name Personal Liberty League or sometimes simply Liberty League. These organizations worked to turn out working-class voters in droves to support the saloon, thwarting the efforts of antisaloon forces in several communities throughout the state, particularly those with large working-class populations.
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A personal liberty league organization was also successful in Ohio—the birthplace of the WCTU— where a Cincinnati brewer, Percy Andreae, created a statewide organization that was similar to Cermak’s United Societies. Andreae and his organization, with the support of his fellow brewers and a cash flow of $1 million, turned the tide of dry sentiment in 1912 when 18 counties that had previously voted dry flipped back into the wet column. As was done in Illinois, Andreae’s organization emphasized class-related issues, arguing that local option was an assault on personal liberty by a middle class that sought to control the working class. Andreae and his organization were so successful that they gained the attention of brewers’ organizations outside Ohio. Following Ohio’s personal liberty league’s success after the 1912 election, brewers’ organizations took the organization national. The United States Brewers’ Association and the Trade Union Liberty Leagues financed this effort in 1914, creating liberty leagues in 19 states within two years. Effects of World War I and Prohibition While such organizations enjoyed many successes in turning out working-class voters to support the saloon, prosaloon forces were increasingly fighting a losing battle in the decade prior to the advent of national Prohibition, especially after America’s entry into World War I. American ethnic groups, particularly Germans, found themselves on the defensive as the war brought out a patriotic and xenophobic fervor. Under such circumstance, brewing increasingly became linked with Germany. J. P. McGinley, a California labor organizer, noted this in a 1918 letter he sent to Mixer and Server, the official journal of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees’ International Union and the Bartenders’ International League of America. McGinley lamented that California’s Trade Union Liberty League was fighting a battle against the California Law Enforcement Society, which he claimed was advocating that the federal government shift its focus toward closing the nation’s saloons in the interest of aiding the war effort. He also sought for his organization to oppose the effort to have saloons closed within 5 miles of military installations. While personal liberty leagues enjoyed many successes in their first few years, they were ultimately unsuccessful in stemming the tide of Prohibition,
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which became the law of the land when the Eighteenth Amendment took effect on January 17, 1920. However, the ideas of the personal liberty leagues did not die. Workers continued to recognize that the idea of prohibiting the sale and manufacture of alcoholic beverages was an infringement on personal liberty. However, it took several years for the middle class to come to similar conclusions. Steven D. Barleen Northern Illinois University See Also: Anti-Saloon League; Local Option; Moral Suasion; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Further Readings Catlin, George E. G. Liquor Control. New York: Henry Holt, 1931. Duis, Perry. The Saloon: Public Drinking in Chicago and Boston, 1880–1920. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983. Flanagan, Maureen A. “The Ethnic Entry into Chicago Politics: The United Societies for Local Self Government and the Reform Charter of 1907.” Illinois State Historical Society, v.75/1 (Spring 1982). Mixer and Server, v.27/1 (January 15, 1918). Odegard, Peter H. Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League. New York: Octagon Books, 1966. “Personal Liberty League.” Daily Alta California, v.26/8842 (June 17, 1874). Rose, Kenneth D. American Women and the Repeal of Prohibition. New York: New York University Press, 1996.
Peru The Republic of Peru is a country in western South America that was home to the Inca Empire, the largest country in pre-Columbian America before the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the area in the 16th century. Peru has been independent since 1821 and is classified as a developing country, with a serious poverty problem and an economy linked primarily to natural resources exploited by mining, farming, and
fishing. A plurality of the country comes from the indigenous ethnic groups of the region, and indigenous traditions continue to have a strong influence on modern Peruvian culture. As in much of the world, the legal drinking age in Peru is 18. The Spaniards introduced grapevines to Peru in the 1540s, and the city of Cuzco (in what is now southeastern Peru) was the first part of continental South America to become home to vineyards (grapevines had been previously introduced to Cuba and the Canary Islands). The distillation of wine into brandy was an important early industry in the Peruvian region when it was under Spanish rule. Though neighboring Chile, which received its first grapevines from Peru, has become more internationally well known for wine, Peru maintains a wine industry along the central coast. The most popular grape varieties grown today are Albillo, Alicante Bouschet, Barbera, Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache, Malbec, Moscatel, Sauvignon Blanc, and Torontel. Peruvian winemaking was at its apex in the 17th century, when Lima was a major political center in South America and mining in the region that is now Bolivia created a significant demand for the product. The 1687 earthquake in Peru dealt a blow to the industry from which it never fully recovered, and in the following century, the expulsion from the region of Jesuits, who were heavily involved in the wine industry, robbed the country of much of its wine expertise. By the end of the 18th century, Peru was forced to rely on Chilean imports in order to meet its own wine needs, and many vineyard owners converted their land to cotton fields and other commodity crops. Pisco While its wine may not be well known, Peru remains justly famous for the other product of its vineyards: pisco, a clear brandy distilled in the winemaking region. Here, too, production lags behind Chile, with Peru’s pisco production less than 10 percent of its neighbor’s. However, many believe that Peru’s product is the original pisco. Aguardiente—a usually clear alcohol distilled from various sources—is made throughout Latin America, but pisco has a more specific character and was developed in the tradition of Spanish pomace brandy. It has been distilled in significant quantities since the early 1600s, and in Peru, pisco production
Petite Sirah
overtook wine production after the auctioning off of formerly Jesuit-owned vineyards. The growing of grapes for distilled liquor required less expertise than that of grapes intended for wine. Like single-malt Scotch and certain rums and American whiskeys, Peruvian pisco is distilled in copper pot stills. The flow of distilled liquor includes both a “head” (the first part of the distillation) and a “tail” (the final part), both of which are usually discarded since they contain more impurities. In Peru, however, pisco heads are retained and a portion of them are mixed back into the final product in order to add more flavor, since “impurities” include the esters and other compounds that are responsible for the flavor of any liquor that is not infused with botanicals or aged in wood. After distillation, it is rested for three months before bottling but is not otherwise aged. By law, it must be bottled at distillation proof, without being diluted with water—a rarity among distilled spirits. Pisco Sour Day is celebrated every year on the first Saturday of February with the playing of the Peruvian national anthem, the celebratory consumption of a Pisco Sour, and other events. The Pisco Sour is a simple cocktail using pisco, key lime juice, sugar, egg white, and Angostura bitters. The Peruvian Pisco Sour is distinct from other versions because of its use of bitters and egg white, which make a more complex drink. In modern Peruvian pisco production, certain designations have been defined. Puro pisco is made from a single grape variety, traditionally quebranta; it is noted for its viscosity, being as thick as many sweetened liqueurs. Aromaticas is a single-varietal pisco made from either Muscat, Albilla, Italia, or Torontel grapes. Mosto Verde includes distilled fermented must. Acholado pisco is multivarietal pisco. The Jivaro people of Peru and Ecuador have long brewed a saliva-fermented beer called nijimanche. It is manufactured by chewing pieces of cooked manioc tuber (best known to Americans as the plant from which tapioca is made) before fermenting the mash. Enzymes in the saliva catalyze the fermentation of the starches; this is a technique used throughout South and Central America, as well as parts of Africa and Asia. The resulting beer has a lactic tartness similar to buttermilk and a light alcohol content. It is the
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traditional beverage of the Jivaro people and consumed every day. A similar and slightly better-known beer is chicha, which is made from various starches by the same method. Jora chicha (aged chicha) is used as a cooking wine, while the chicha de siete semillas of the Ayacucho region is made from a combination of grains, including corn, wheat, and barley. Chicha morada, which is also exported to the United States, is made from purple corn and is a nonalcoholic soft drink. The most prized Peruvian chicha is made from the seeds of the molle tree in Huanta, sometimes called pink peppercorns. The hangovers from overindulging in chicha de molle are the subject of many drinking jokes. European-style beer is very popular in Peru as well and is sold in 12-bottle crates called cajas, each bottle containing 650 milliliters, or about 22 ounces. Cajas come packed with two drinking glasses. The largest brewery in Peru, Backus and Johnston, was founded in Lima in 1879, and owns almost every brand of beer sold on the Peruvian market. Over the years, it purchased most other domestic breweries, though its main brewery is still based in Lima. Its major products are Pilsen Callao, Pilsen Trujillo, Barena, and Malta Polar, and it is the licensed importer of Peroni beer from Italy. Bill Kte’pi Independent Scholar See Also: Chile; Spanish Empire. Further Readings Custer, Tony. The Art of Peruvian Cuisine. New York: Ediciones Ganesha, 2003. Hunefeldt, Christine. A Brief History of Peru. New York: Facts on File, 2010. Starn, Orin, Ivan Degregori, and Robin Kirk. The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.
Petite Sirah Petite Sirah is a variety of red wine grape grown in Australia, France, Israel, and various parts of the
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United States, especially California. It is probably unrelated to the Syrah, as this name was invented. The origins of the Petite Sirah are believed to lie in the work of French botanist Dr. François Durif, who was working during the late 1870s in his home in the commune of Tullins, near Grenoble in southeastern France. He maintained a variety of grapevines at his nursery, and his work led to the variety now often called Durif. Although he had been working on grafting various vines from the 1860s and had come up with the idea when he was visiting the nearby vineyard of Michel Perret, it was following the Phylloxera vestatrix aphid pest outbreak that had devastated the French wine industry that made Durif want to come up with a variety of vine that would be resistant to downy mildew. Durif seems to have used the plant du rif, which had been first mentioned by wine expert Victor Pulliat in 1868, as well as peloursin and then bred them to result in the Petite Sirah or Durif variety; the details were recorded in 1877 and 1878. There has been a suggestion that the cross-pollination took place by accident. Durif’s work continued through the early 1880s. The French authorities were initially against this development but did tolerate it in hopes that it might help the French wine industry rebound after its devastation from Phylloxera. In a curious twist in history, although the variety was developed for France, very little of it is now grown in France. Some of it seems to have been planted in California, where it became known as Petite Sirah, although some work on DNA fingerprinting has cast some doubt over this direct link. Much of the current Petite Sirah grows in the Monterey Valley of California and seems to have been planted before the California wine industry took off in the 1940s, after the vines had been replanted following the end of Prohibition. Petite Sirah is produced in Mendocino and Lake counties, in the San Francisco Bay region, and in southern California. Many critics hail the Petite Sirah wine from the Ridge Winery at York Creek as one of the fine examples, with the vintages 1980 and 1981 and 1984 through 1986 especially sought after. In Australia, it is grown in the northeast of Victoria. The climate there is similar to Monterey Valley, with hot, dry summers and cool
winters. The main focus of it in Australia is now around the town of Rutherglen, although it has also been planted in the Riverina where some 740 acres (300 hectares) were under cultivation in 2000. Petite Sirah has been planted in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico (especially in Baja, California). In recent years, there have been plantings in Israel where, again, the hot, dry summers and the cool winters have helped the grape develop. However, there have been some successful plantings—albeit on a very small scale—in Ontario, Canada, as well. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Argentina; Chile; France; Israel; Syrah (Shiraz). Further Readings Forrestal, Peter. The Global Encyclopedia of Wine. Sydney, Australia: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000. Robinson, Jancis. The Oxford Companion to Wine. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006. Stevenson, Tom. The World Wine Encyclopedia. London: Dorling Kindersley, 1988. Sullivan, Charles Lewis. A Companion to California Wine: An Encyclopedia of Wine and Winemaking From the Mission Period to the Present. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
Philippines Before the arrival of the Spanish, fermented drinks from coconut and from other local products had long been made in villages all around the Philippines. In the case of the use of coconuts, people collected the unopened coconut flower and from this produced a beverage called lambanóg. It was made with 80 to 90 proof (40–45 percent alcohol) on the first distillation, rising to 166 proof (83 percent alcohol) on the second distillation. The weaker version became known as “coconut wine,” and the stronger version was called “coconut vodka.” This drink remains a local cottage industry, although now there are companies manufacturing it. Most
of these are located in Quezon province because of the many coconut plantations there, and the three major distilleries are the Mallari Distillery, the Buncayo Distillery, and the Capistrano Distillery— all being in Quezon province. Although lambanóg became the most well-known drink made from coconut, there are other forms of distilled beverages from coconut, known locally as arrack. These were often credited in folklore and novels set in the country with drunkenness and people ending up in a trance. Another village drink that is popular, especially on the island of Leyte, but is sold in some other places in the Philippines is padlamanggan, which is colorless and made from mangoes with an alcohol content of between 35 percent and 70 percent. The recipe is slightly different in each village, but the drink remains potent and is used as a painkiller. Some opium poppy was occasionally added, but this was outlawed during the late 1970s. There were predominantly Chinese merchants who sold rice wine and palm wine, and references to these were made by the Spanish who arrived in the country in the early 16th century. With the establishment of Spanish rule over the Philippines from 1565, the new rulers hoped that they might be able to establish a wine industry, but this never was successful. They had thought that it might be possible to grow grapes not only for table wine but also, importantly, wine for Holy Communion, as the vast majority of people in the country are Christian. Some 80.9 percent of the population is Roman Catholic and 9.7 percent is Protestant. San Miguel and Tanduay There were a few small breweries and distilleries established in the Philippines, which remained a Spanish colony until 1898. These were located in Manila, the administrative capital, and in towns on the various islands that made up the colony. Wine was brought not only from Spain (brought over in treasure ships) but also from the Americas and later from South Africa. In 1854, Tanduay Distillers was established by Ynchausti y Compañia to manufacture Tanduay Rhum and a range of other alcoholic beverages, which remain common in the country. Then in 1889, a Manila businessman named Don Enrique María Barretto de Ycaza y Esteban managed to get permission from the Spanish Crown to establish San Miguel
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Brewery, which started making San Miguel beer the following year. As the first brewery in the region that had modern equipment, it was easily able to defeat most competition in terms of price and quality. During the Japanese occupation (1942–44), the Japanese took over San Miguel Brewery, but unlike many other major buildings in Manila, it survived the fighting almost intact. The brewery had been controlled by the Roxas family and then their relatives, the Soriano family. After independence in 1944, it remained closely connected to a range of governments, especially Ferdinand Marcos’s, with one of his leading supporters— Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco—running San Miguel. The only other brewery of note in the country is Asia Brewery Inc. located in Manila. It produces Manila Gold Pale Pilsen beer. With San Miguel controlling the beer market, Tanduay Distillers became a major player for spirits, although there was much competition from foreign imports, which had acquired a status symbol. In 1988, the Lucio Tan Group of Companies acquired Tanduay Distillers from the Elizalde family and streamlined and modernized production, increasing sales by almost 50 times over the next 20 years. Alcohol Restrictions There have been some moves to restrict the sale of alcohol in the Philippines, especially on the southern island of Mindanao, which is predominantly Muslim. Local Muslim politicians and radical Muslim leaders have urged for restrictions on the sale of both alcohol and cigarettes. There have certainly been many documented cases of drunken violence in Mindanao, and these have led to attacks on venues selling alcohol (with particularly violent fighting in 1994). The minimum legal age for buying and consuming alcohol in the Philippines is 18. There remains one interesting law regarding the sale of alcohol: It cannot be purchased for at least two days prior to an election. The law comes from a worry that rival candidates might ply their supporters with free alcohol. In 2013, this ban was extended to five days. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School
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See Also: Asia, Southeast; Beer; Malaysia; Proof, Alcohol; Rum; San Miguel; Wine, Palm. Further Readings Alegre, Edilberto N. Tanduay: The Filipino Rhum Since 1854. Manila: Tanduay Distillers, 2005. Furiscal, Erwin Tano. “Alcohol Drinking Behavior Among Adolescent High School Students Living in Low-Income Urban Communities in Baguio City, Benguet, Philippines.” Thesis. Bangkok, Thailand: Mahidol University, 2008. Manapat, Ricardo. Some Are Smarter Than Others: The History of Marcos’ Crony Capitalism. New York: Aletheia Publications, 1991. Pomeroy, William J. The Philippines: Colonialism, Collaboration, and Resistance. New York: International Publishers, 1992. Reyes, Cid. History in the Brewing: A Centennial Celebration of San Miguel Beer. Manila, Philippines: Larawam Books, 1994. Robertson, James D. The Beer-Taster’s Log: A World Guide to More Than 6000 Beers. Pownal, VT: Storey Communications, 1996. Walton, Stuart and Brian Glover. The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Wine, Beer, Spirits, and Liqueurs. London: Hermes House, 1998.
Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse An examination of the physiological effects of alcohol (chronic alcoholism) considers the substantial negative health effects of chronic alcohol use on the body’s major systems and organs (some 60 diseases) and high-risk users, including pregnant women or women seeking to become pregnant, the elderly, individuals with compromised immune systems, and youth. Accepted definitions of heavy alcohol use and chronic alcoholism may appear to be semantic in expression but actually are worthy of close reading and consideration. Heavy use of alcohol is defined as more than two drinks a day for men and more than one drink a day for women. Before offering a definition of chronic alcoholism, it is useful to provide what medical researchers and
social scientists define as one drink; for example, 12 fluid ounces (355 milliliter, or ml) of beer, or 5 fluid ounces (148 ml) of wine, or 1.5 fluid ounces (44 ml, 80 proof) of hard liquor or spirits. About Alcoholism Inc. defines chronic alcoholism as the fourth stage of alcoholism, characterized by severe physical, psychological, health, and social manifestations and acute intoxication. Frequently, the terms chronic alcoholism and severe alcoholism are used interchangeably, causing confusion. What is important to understand is this: Alcohol abuse and chronic alcoholism are the terms used to identify and typify the lifethreatening consequences of the disease. This entry focuses on the physiological and health problems caused by or associated with alcohol abuse and alcoholism. Risk for Alcohol or Chronic Alcoholism Health promotion and epidemiology literature place significant emphases on the identification of primary (nonmodifiable) and secondary (modifiable) risk factors of a disease. The Mayo Clinic identifies two primary risk factors (age and family history) and four secondary risk factors (steady drinking over time, depression, other mental health problems, and social and cultural factors for the disease). The National Institute on Alcohol and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA) reports that a person’s risk increases if he or she is in a family with the following difficulties: an alcoholic parent who is depressed or has other psychological problems; both parents abuse alcohol and other drugs; the parents’ alcohol abuse is severe; and conflicts lead to aggression and violence in the family. In a nutshell, medical and social researchers affirm that age, environment, and behavior place an individual at increased risk. While some researchers argue the greater the exposure, the greater the risk, there is a lack of sufficient empirical data to confirm the thesis. Steady or binge drinking can produce physical dependence, initiating a highly destructive cycle: drinking more frequently in greater amounts. Over time, this destructive cycle can result in an inability to achieve the desired sensation and the need for alcohol to function. J. Stevenson studied the phenomenon of use–misuse–abuse–habituation–dependence of alcohol. Initially, this cycle
Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse
of dependence was applied to illicit drug use; currently, researchers are studying use–misuse– abuse of licit drugs—that is, prescription drugs. The legal status of alcohol is seen by some as a further complication of the issue. Who Is at Risk for Chronic Alcoholism? Simply answered, anyone and everyone is. However, this response is greatly oversimplified. Research informs us that adolescents, women, older adults, and individuals suffering from depression or mental illnesses are at greater physical risk for alcoholism than the general public. The combination of age (adolescent or older adult) and alcohol abuse carries somatic (physiological) risks. Adolescent alcohol abuse is associated with neurological impairment, reduced effective psychomotor responses, and impairment to frontal lobe development. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) confirmed that the prefrontal cortex (a site involved in decision making and impulse control) evidences exaggerated neural response to alcohol-related cues. For the adolescent whose prefrontal lobe is still developing, the potential for neurological damage and environmentally related trauma and accidents is significant, with lifelong effects. Similarly, somatic changes in older adults, including brain shrinkage (a senescent change), impaired gastric absorption, and slowed psychomotor responses, combined with chronic illnesses (typically hypertension, diabetes, and arthritis) and medications (over the counter and prescribed) act to compromise them. The National Institute on Aging (NIA) reports that combining alcohol and medication—prescription, over-the-counter, and herbal remedies—is especially dangerous for the older adult. The ubiquitous aspirin—taken with alcohol— can cause stomach or intestinal bleeding. Cold medications combined with alcohol can cause drowsiness. Alcohol taken with large doses of acetaminophen can cause liver damage. Alcohol and sleeping medications are really a dangerous, life-threatening combination. Social science researcher M. Jacob reports that the confluence of physical changes and depression acts to exacerbate alcohol’s negative impact. In the presence of depression, alcohol abuse is associated with a greater risk for suicide. Moreover, alcohol is
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reported to exaggerate depression and impulsiveness and is often detected in vehicular suicide and painful suicide methods. A female who drinks to excess, regardless of her age, is at risk. As an adolescent, her prefrontal lobe is developing; her risk of impaired decision making and impulse control is no less than her male peers and can lead to unprotected sex and unplanned pregnancy. A woman who drinks during her childbearing years is at risk for herself and her developing fetus. The physical risks to the fetus are substantial, including low birth weight (LBW), miscarriage or still birth, premature delivery, and fetal alcohol syndrome disorder (FASD), evidenced as delayed development and problems in the areas of thinking, speech, movement, or social skills, and heart problems. According to NIH, “A pregnant woman who drinks any amount of alcohol is at risk for having a child with fetal alcohol syndrome. No safe level of alcohol use during pregnancy has been established.” Older women who drink excessively share the same physical risks as their male peers. A fourth cohort of individuals at risk for increased physiological damage from alcohol is an individual with a compromised immune system from hepatitis C, HIV/AIDS, chemotherapy treatment, or other chronic viral conditions. Immunosuppressed patients experience reduced numbers and efficacy of T cells (T lymphocytes), altered numbers and function of B cells (B lymphocytes), and decreased numbers of cytokines, leaving them more susceptible to infections. The heavy or chronic use of alcohol by an immune-impaired individual raises his or her susceptibility to infection. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), HIV-positive patients (regardless of whether or not their status is known) are subject to delayed diagnosis, postponed of effective treatment, reduced ability to follow complex drug regimes, and comorbid liver disease, bacterial infection, and conditions that hasten the progression to AIDS. N. Rachdaoui and D. Sarkar confirm that approximately 80,000 people die from alcoholrelated causes each year, making it the third leading cause of death in the United States. Approximately 14 million Americans (7.4 percent) have an alcohol use disorder that is classified as either
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alcoholism (alcohol dependency) or alcohol abuse. Physiological Effects of Alcohol on the Body Alcohol impacts the body holistically. This section addresses the cardiovascular, endocrine, gastrointestinal, and neurological systems. Researchers link alcoholism to more than 60 diseases, syndromes, and conditions. Selected diseases are discussed in the corresponding system. Cardiovascular System. L. J. Beilin, I. B. Puddey, and D. Lucas and colleagues link chronic alcoholism with cardiomyopathy (a dysfunction of the heart muscle), hypertension (chronically elevated blood pressure), coronary arterial disease, hemorrhagic stroke, and sudden death. One possible mechanism by which alcohol may modify cardio-
vascular function is alcohol-related changes in the blood concentrations of high-density (HDL) and low-density (LDL) lipoproteins. Healthy People 2020, the 10-year national set of objectives for improving the health of Americans, strongly advocates for reductions in rates of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and hemorrhagic stroke. Alcohol-related diseases of the cardiovascular system include cardiomyopathy, hypertension, stroke, heart attack, or sudden death. Lucas and colleagues report that alcoholic cardiomyopathy is associated with 10 or more years of alcohol abuse and is found most among middleage adults. Contrary to the common belief that cardiomyopathy patients were spared cirrhosis, Lucas and colleagues found cardiomyopathy and cirrhosis to be comorbidities of alcoholism. The American Heart Association affirms that
A high-magnification micrograph of a liver with cirrhosis reveals one of the physiological effects of chronic alcohol use, which is the most common cause of cirrhosis in the West. Alcohol taken with large doses of acetaminophen can also cause liver damage. Body systems damaged by chronic alcohol use include the cardiovascular, endocrine, gastrointestinal, and neurological systems. Heavy alcohol use is defined as more than two drinks a day for men and more than one drink a day for women.
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chronic alcoholism is a contributing factor in high blood pressure, stroke, irregular heartbeat, and cardiomyopathy. Endocrine System. The endocrine system regulates the production of hormones responsible for a complex set of interactions guiding growth and development, secondary sex characteristic development and new life development, metabolism, and maintenance of blood pressure and bone mass. The most common effects of excessive alcohol associated with endocrine dysfunction include reduced production of testosterone, erectile dysfunction, reduce libido, diabetes type 2, hypertension, bone demineralization, and osteoporosis. Rachdaoui and Sarkar comment that both prenatal exposure to alcohol (via a pregnant mother’s ingestion of alcohol) and chronic postnatal alcohol exposure significantly impact the body’s ability to synthesize and transport hormones necessary to maintain homeostasis. The effects of alcohol on the blood sugar level are a critical concern for diabetics. The type and amount of alcohol can precipitously raise or lower blood sugar levels, which is dangerous in either instance. The behavioral risk of intoxication places the diabetic at risk for indulging in greater amounts of alcohol and consuming highcaloric foods. The American Diabetic Association cautions that alcohol—regardless of amount— interferes with the intended effects of diabetic and contraceptive medications and triggers increases in the blood pressure and triglyceride levels. Gastrointestinal System. The gastrointestinal system—beginning with the mouth and ending with the colon—and all the sections in between (esophagus, stomach, liver, pancreas, and small intestine)—share a barrier lining—the mucosal lining. Strong yet fragile, the mucosal lining is susceptible to injury and bleeding. Gastrointestinal conditions associated with chronic alcohol consumption include anemia; cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, and liver; gastritis, esophageal varices, pancreatitis, and fatty liver; infectious disease, Mallory-Weiss tear, osteoporosis, alcoholic hepatitis, and gout. The mechanisms controlling alcohol metabolism include genetic factors, variations in enzymes that break down alcohol, and environmental
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factors. According to Alcohol Alert, the most common variation involves alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH). First, ADH metabolizes alcohol to acetaldehyde, a highly toxic substance and known carcinogen; in a second step, acetaldehyde is further metabolized down to acetate (ultimately, acetate is broken into water and carbon dioxide for easy elimination). Researchers have dedicated significant study to understanding the damage caused by acetate, particularly in the liver, where the bulk of alcohol metabolism takes place. Other evidence indicates that alcohol metabolism causes damage to the pancreas, brain tissue, and of course the lining of the gastrointestinal tract. Regardless of how much alcohol a person consumes, the body can only metabolize a specific amount of alcohol per hour. The commonly held notion is this specific amount is 1 ounce per hour. Researchers report this specific amount may vary from individual to individual, depending on liver size and body mass. However, what does not vary is alcohol’s potential for serious damage to the gastrointestinal tract. Neurological System. Immediate effects of alcohol on the neurological system include impaired judgment, reduced inhibition, and inability to concentrate. Taken in large amounts, the immediate effects of alcohol include drowsiness and coma. Long-term effects of alcoholism cause brain and nerve damage and occur in greater than 50 percent of alcoholics. According to researchers, short-term alcohol consumption depresses brain function by altering the balance between inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmission. Specifically, alcohol acts as a depressant by increasing inhibitory neurotransmission and decreasing excitatory neurotransmission. Further, the phenomenon called long-term potentiation (LTP) fundamental for memory formation is adversely affected by chronic alcohol intake. Alcohol-related neurological conditions may include dementia, depression, FASD, nerve damage (alcoholic neuropathy), seizures, suicide, and Wernicke–Korsaffok syndrome. The cause of alcoholic neuropathy remains under debate. Researchers contend the confluence of direct poisoning of the nerve by the alcohol and poor nutrition associated with alcoholism are active culprits. According to the NIH,
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up to half of all long-term heavy alcohol users develop alcoholic neuropathy. M. Hillbom and colleagues report the relationship between alcohol and seizures is complex and multifaceted, and alcohol abuse is a major precipitant of status epilepticus in 9 to 25 percent of cases. Flak and colleagues confirm the complex association of prenatal alcohol exposure and FASD, noting that such exposure is implicated as the most common cause of mental retardation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which assessed anytime and binge drinking during pregnancy, estimated that 1.5 cases of FASD will occur in every 1,000 live births. Data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) reported that the numbers of FASD cases are likely to be three times as many as diagnosed. C. Colella, C. Savage, and K. Whitman report that Wernicke– Korsaffok syndrome, a serious brain disorder, can develop in people who drink alcohol excessively over time. Symptoms include blurred vision, rapid eye movement, difficulty walking and impaired balance, confusion, and memory loss. Patients suffer the combined syndromes of Wernicke (vitamin B1 deficiency) and Korsaffok (changes in the brain often confabulate; that is, make up events to fill in memory gaps). While Wernicke syndrome can be treated with thiamine and proper nutrition, the effects of Korsaffok may be permanent. Alcohol-Related Accidental Death and Injury Alcohol is one of the leading causes of accidents—from spilling a glass of wine to trafficrelated deaths. According to the CDC, in 2005, one in three vehicular deaths was alcohol related and one in four child passengers died in motor vehicle accidents where the driver had been drinking. M. Kaplan and colleagues report a constant correlation between alcohol intoxication and violent deaths across 16 states. A blood alcohol level of greater than 0.08 was correlated with firearms, suicide, and fatal falls regardless of gender. Risk factors for chronic alcoholism include genetics, family history, and environment. Individuals at risk for alcoholism include just about everyone. Some individuals’ risk for alcoholism is heightened by age, gender, family history,
prenatal exposure, and inappropriate stress management skills. The negative physiological effects of chronic alcohol abuse have been and continue to be studied worldwide. Medical researchers and social scientists acknowledge that the effects of chronic alcoholism are not limited to somatic diseases, disorders, and conditions but holistically impact individuals, communities, and nations. Linda Barley York College, University of New York See Also: Alcoholism: Effect on the Family; Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder; Homelessness and Alcoholism, History of; Nutrition; Pregnancy, History of Alcohol and. Further Readings Beilin, L. J. and I. B. Puddey. “Alcohol and Hypertension.” Clinical and Experimental Hypertension—Theory and Practice, v.A14 (1992). Colella, C., C. Savage, and K. Whitman. “Alcohol Use in the Elderly and the Risk for Wernicke– Korsakoff.” Journal for Nurse Practitioners, v.6/8 (2010). Connor, L. “Fatty Infiltration of the Liver and the Development of Cirrhosis in Diabetes and Chronic Alcoholism.” American Journal of Pathology, v.14 (1938). Flak, A., S. Su, J. Bertand, C. Denny, U. Kesmodel, and M. Cogswells. “The Association of Mild, Moderate, and Binge Prenatal Alcohol Exposure and Child Neuropsychological Outcomes: A MetaAnalysis.” Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research (2013). Hanson, David J. Preventing Alcohol Abuse: Alcohol, Culture and Control. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995. Higgins, Harold L. “Effect of Alcohol on the Respiration and the Gaseous Metabolism in Man.” Pharmacology and Experimental Therapies, v.9 (1917). Hillbom, M., I. Pieninkeroinen, and L. Leone. “Seizure in Alcohol-Dependent Patients: Epidemiology, Pathophysiology and Management.” CNS Drugs, v.17.14 (2013). Jacob, M. “Why Alcohol and Depression Don’t Mix.” Psych Central. http://psychcentral.com/lib /why-alcohol-and-depression-dont-mix/0001322 (Accessed January 2014).
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Kaplan, M., et al. “Acute Alcohol Intoxication and Suicide: A Gender-Stratified Analysis of the National Violent Death Reporting System.” Injury Prevention, v.19 (2013). Lucas, D., R. Brown, M. Wassef, and T. Giles. “Alcohol and the Cardiovascular System: Research Challenges and Opportunities.” Journal of the American College of Cardiology, v.45/12 (2005). Patek, Arthur J. “Treatment of Alcoholic Cirrhosis of the Liver With High Vitamin Therapy.” Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, v.37 (1937). Rachdaoui, N. and D. Sarkar. “Effects of Alcohol on the Endocrine System.” Endocrinology and Metabolism Clinics of North America, v.42/3 (2013). Stevenson, J. “Alcohol Use, Misuse, Abuse and Dependence in Later Adulthood.” Annual Review of Nursing Research, v.23 (2005).
Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Moderate Use Michael J. Eckardt and colleagues conceptualized moderate alcohol consumption as patterns of drinking characterized by the absence of acute intoxication and its attendant risks. As such, the concept of moderate drinking is socially constructed and may vary from culture to culture. Supporting this definition of moderate alcohol use is the Latin moderare, meaning to control or restrain. While some researchers posit that moderate alcohol consumption offers some health benefits, the greater majority caution against heavy or binge drinking. This entry will address moderate use of alcohol. Defining Moderation Moderate alcohol consumption is defined as no more than one drink per day for women and no more than two drinks per day for men. A drink is considered to be 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits. It is important to note that these drinking levels are considered a “ceiling,” not a “floor”—that is, one can drink less than those levels and still consider oneself a moderate drinker. Mary Bufour, the
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World Health Organization, and the Mayo Clinic caution that researchers do not know whether any type of alcohol consumption is actually “safe” and intentionally use the term low risk. Moderate alcohol use is distinguished from severe or chronic alcoholism based on volume, inebriation, and acute or chronic health complications. Moderate drinking—one or two drinks per day—has a vastly different impact than binge drinking (eight to 10 beers on Saturday night), or three “shots” taken on an empty stomach versus three drinks spaced throughout the duration of a dinner party: volume and timing are crucial. Volume is defined as the amount of alcohol consumed in one day, or one setting. Medical researchers use volume as a prescriptive guide to the amount of alcohol deemed “unsafe” for consumption. Charles Carroll reported that alcohol is metabolized at virtually the same rate for everyone, which is about 0.015 of blood alcohol concentration every hour. Stated differently, a person with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.15 will need 10 hours to completely metabolize the alcohol before she or he will achieve a zero blood alcohol concentration. While 40 to 60 minutes is the widely accepted rule of thumb, the variables of body mass, gender, health status, age, and medication intake play havoc with this generalized rule, thus limiting its usefulness. Inebriation, drunkenness, or acute intoxication—that is, crossing the line between moderate and excessive drinking—varies by individual but is legally defined by the blood alcohol concentration (BAC). National, state, or local governments set their legal blood alcohol limit, below which drivers may legally operate a vehicle. Researchers identify four types of moderate (also known as social) drinkers: the initiator, the follower, the moderator, and the protector. In general, the initiator drinks to be “the life of the party,” to “let loose,” and to “have fun.” Notably, researchers indicate that the initiator does not intentionally drink to get drunk. The follower is influenced by the environment (the occasion and others’ behaviors) and drinks to “to be social” and “to go with the flow.” A moderator says “no” and demonstrates “self-sufficiency.” The protector presents a “controlled response to the environment,” is “not overly interested in drinking,” and is often the “designated driver.”
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Cross-Cultural Distinctions in Moderate Alcohol Use As a global commodity, alcohol production, sale, and use is studied locally, nationally, and internationally and most often results are reported as aggregated data. The relative usefulness of aggregated data is limited in that the data usually do not report age- and sex specific consumption rates or the prevalence of certain drinking patterns. Further, aggregate-level studies of associations are prone to biases, also known as ecological bias. Researchers offer a general, but nonetheless useful, distinction among cultural perceptions of moderate alcohol use, specifically the concept of wet/dry. In wet cultures—European and Mediterranean countries—alcohol is integrated into daily life and activities. Wine is consumed with meals and is widely available and accessible, and generally alcohol abstinence is low. Alcohol consumption is associated with celebrations and drinking to excess is infrequent. In contrast, in dry cultures—Scandinavia, the United States, and Canada—alcohol is not as common during everyday activities and is less frequently consumed as part of a meal. Access to alcohol is restricted. Reports of abstinence are higher among wet cultures. Alcohol consumption is associated with violent, antisocial behaviors, and when drinking does occur, intoxication is more likely. Recent comparative research notes the distinction between wet and dry countries is disappearing. As such, the acknowledged practical need to standardize researchers’ definitions of drink size, drink strength, and frequency of consumption across cultures has gained acceptance. Understanding that an Australian middie and a U.S. can of beer are neither equal in drink size nor strength is essential. When considering the role and use of alcohol across cultures and countries, researchers identify four constants critical to assessing and analyzing alcohol in today’s world. First, measures should reflect overall volume and pattern of intake; second, valid local estimates of typical units of alcohol should be established; third, referenced time periods should be used; and fourth, the representativeness of the sample should be ensured. The World Health Organization affirms that these constants are usually considered
“givens,” while noting the potential for drawing erroneous conclusions is real. In the business world, the role alcohol plays can vary dramatically. In Russia, forgetting to bring a bottle of vodka (and a mixer) to seal the deal is bad form, possibly jeopardizing the deal. In China, Japan, and Thailand, alcohol consumption is expected after work but certainly not at a business lunch. The French may enjoy an aperitif as a toast before a business lunch. Alcohol as gift-giving also varies considerably. In France, alcohol is acceptable as a gift. In Israel, alcohol as a gift can be considered an insult or a compliment. The giver is urged to check the social acceptability of alcohol as a gift. In Thailand, alcohol as a gift carries social status implications. Giving alcohol to white- versus blue-collar workers needs to be noted: A basket with biscuits, cheese, and a bottle of alcohol is appropriate for a white-collar worker; a single bottle of alcohol is appropriate for a blue-collar worker. Additionally, alcohol drinking or giftgiving can be seen as a social offense. In Muslim countrie—for example, in Saudi Arabia—alcohol can be judged offensive as well as a legal violation, possibly followed by arrest or detainment. Offering alcohol to a Hindu is considered highly disrespectful. Generally speaking, moderate alcohol use is social and occasioned as part of a celebration, marking the transition from work to leisure, or as a social bonding element. Crosscultural research has identified proscriptive and prescriptive norms. The legalities of age limit are just that, legal issues that vary over time and across cultures. Are There Benefits to Moderate Alcohol Use? Some researchers report that moderate drinkers tend to have better health and live longer than either abstainers or heavy drinkers, have fewer heart attacks and strokes, and are less likely to suffer from diabetes, arthritis, enlarged prostate, and several major cancers. The Mayo Clinic also reports potential benefits of moderate alcohol consumption may include reduced risk of heart attack and ischemic stroke, lower risk of gallstones, and a reduced risk of diabetes. Michael T. French and colleagues argue that for most people the cardiovascular benefits of an alcoholic drink probably outweigh the hazards. At one time, proponents of
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moderate alcohol consumption argued that only red wine held the promise of cardiac benefit; these researchers maintain that alcohol per se—not a glass of wine—is the active ingredient benefiting the cardiovascular system. As might be expected, some researchers point out that even moderate alcohol consumption can be linked to an increased risk of accidental serious injury and death, fetal alcohol syndrome disorder (FASD), gout, high blood pressure and stroke, infectious diseases, and osteoporosis. Any responsible argument on behalf of alcohol’s potential benefits must be considered a tradeoff for the risk of developing another alcoholrelated health condition. The National Institute of Health maintains that no safe level of alcohol use during pregnancy has been established. Similarly, individuals with existing chronic conditions, such as liver disease, pancreatic disease, hemorrhagic stroke, and heart failure or cardiomyopathy, are cautioned against consuming alcohol; its effects further impair the body’s ability to maintain internal hemostasis. Alcohol taken in combination with medication can either act to render that drug inert or heighten the effect. In either case, alcohol’s unpredicted effect on medications (prescribed, over-the-counter, or herbal) is an unnecessary burden on the body. Linda Barley York College, University of New York See Also: Addiction and Alcoholism, History of; Controlled Drinking, History of; Functional Alcoholic, Sociology of; Moderation Management; Psychological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse. Further Readings Ashley, M. J., J. Rehm, S. Bondy, E. Single, and J. Rankin. “Beyond Ischemic Heart Disease: Are There Other Health Benefits From Drinking Alcohol?” Contemporary Drug Problems, v.27/4 (2000). Be Responsible About Drinking. (BRAD). http:// www.brad21.org/bac_charts (Accessed January 2014). Carroll, Charles R. Drugs in Modern Society. 5th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2000. Dufour, M. “What is Moderate Drinking? Defining ‘Drinks’ and Drinking Level.” Alcohol Health Research, v.21/1 (1999).
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French, M. and S. Zavala. “The Health Benefits of Moderate Drinking Revisited.” American Journal of Health Promotion, v.21/6 (2007). Mayo Clinic. “Alcohol Use: If you Drink, Keep it Moderate” (2011). http://www.mayoclinic.org/ alcohol/art-20044551 (Accessed January 2014). National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). http://www.niaaa.nih.gov (Accessed January 2014). Potsdam University. “Alcohol Problems and Solutions.” http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol (Accessed January 2014). Society Issues Research Centre. “Social and Cultural Aspects of Drinking: A Report to the European Committee” (1998). http://www.sirc.org/publik/ social_drinking.pdf (Accessed January 2014). Underwood, A. and W. Ben. “A healthy toast.” Newsweek, v.146/14 (2005). World Health Organization (WHO). International Guide for Monitoring Alcohol Consumption and Related Harm. Geneva: WHO, Department of Mental Health and Substance Dependence, 2000.
Pilsner The pilsner is a style of beer known for its light golden color, clarity, and long-lasting white head. It was first brewed in 1842 in the city of Pilsen, Bohemia (part of contemporary Czech Republic) and was the first clear golden lager. The pilsner represents one of the most important and widely produced and consumed beer styles in the world. All golden lagers (e.g., Carlsberg, Heineken, Budweiser) are derivatives of the pilsner style. One cannot undervalue the influence of the pilsner beer style in the history of beer not only because of its worldwide production and consumption but also because of its place in the history of temperance and other cultural movements. A pilsner is a beer style produced using lager (bottom-fermenting) yeast, water, hops, and malt, though styles derivative from the original Czech style—such as those produced in the United States—may also use corn and rice. The original pilsner from Bohemia used local ingredients, including very soft water from the city of Pilsen,
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Saaz (Zatec) hops that are not too bitter but provide a level of spiciness, and Moravian malted grains, and is known as a “Czech pilsner.” Czech pilsners tend to be a little sweeter than German or American pilsners because the fermentation of the yeast is arrested before all of the sugars have been converted to alcohol and carbon dioxide. German pilsners, also known as “pils,” tend to be less sweet and more bitter while maintaining the light golden color and white head of foam. American pilsners are also a bit sweet and usually use adjunct ingredients such as corn and rice, have a deeper golden color, and have less bitterness from the hops. The Origin of the Pilsner The town of Pilsen was founded in 1295, and beer at that time could only be brewed in establishments allowed by the ruler, King Wenceslaus II. However, by the 14th century, anyone within the city walls who owned a house could brew their own beer. For centuries, nearly all of the beer produced in Bohemia, and in most of Europe, were dark beer style (such as traditional dunkels) and were produced with varying levels of success and consistency. However, during the second half of the 18th century, innovations in brewing technology and measurement helped produce lighter beer of higher quality more consistently. Among these innovations were tools to measure temperature and sugar content as well as malting techniques to produce mellower and lighter-colored malted grain. In addition, the head brewer of the Spaten Brewery in Munich, Gabriel Sedlmayr, had begun to develop new techniques in producing lager (or bottom-fermented) beer, which quickly became popular around the region. Brewers in Pilsen, however, continued to produce low-quality, top-fermented beer called “ales” through the beginning of the 19th century. The quality of their beer was, in fact, so low that when a representative of the Austrian Empire visited the city in 1838 to test the beer, he stated that the liquid was unfit to drink and ordered 36 barrels of Pilsen beer to be poured into the gutters of the city square in front of city hall. The town burghers, who owned the brewing rights, were rightfully upset by this and decided to work together to establish a new modern brewery that would produce high-quality beer, preferably of the
lager styles now popular in neighboring Bavaria. To this end, they hired a young architect named Martin Stelzer. Stelzer traveled extensively around Europe to learn all he could about modern brewery design and along the way met a young Bavarian brewer named Josef Groll. Groll was soon hired with a three-year contract to oversee the brewing at the new Citizen’s Brewery of Pilsen and to produce the Bavarian bottom-fermenting beer. On October 5, 1842, the first batch of what would become known as pilsner beer was brewed, and on November 11, 1842, this new, innovative golden lager was first offered to the public. While the beer itself was very popular right away, Groll’s temperament was not to the liking of the owners of the brewery and his contract was not renewed after three years. He returned to Bavaria where he took over his father’s brewery and died in obscurity in 1887.
A label for the Wayne Brewing Company’s Alt Pilsner Beer, circa 1933 to the 1950s. Temperance advocates at one time felt that Pilsner, with its approximate alcohol percentage close to 5 percent or less, was the safe alternative for alcohol drinkers.
The popularity of pilsner was quick, and imitators quickly began producing their own goldencolored lagers and calling them pilsners. The name pilsner actually comes from German meaning “from Pilsen.” However, the name quickly became divorced from its geographic origin as copies of the golden lager style spread east to Prague and west into Bavaria. New competition with pilsner-influenced styles abounded, such as the Munich Helles, the Dortmund Export, and other “pils” in towns across Germany and beyond, including those produced by Carlsberg Brewery in Denmark and the Heineken Brewery in the Netherlands. While attempts were made to protect the name pilsner in 1853 and 1859, the original Citizens’ Brewery of Pilsen registered the trademark Pilsner Urquell in 1898, meaning “pilsner from the original source.” Currently, Pilsner Urquell is part of the SABMiller brewing and beverage company. Pilsner Brewing and Trade Pilsner is a lager beer, which means that it uses bottom-fermenting yeast in contrast to ales that use a top-fermenting yeast. When pilsner was first produced, the brewers would need to brew in colder months because the lager yeast would ferment best at lower temperatures of around 50 degrees F compared with ale yeasts, which ferment at temperatures of around 60 to 70 degrees F. In addition, the pilsner would typically be aged (or lagern in German) in ice caves for several months at near-freezing temperatures to produce the clear and crisp light lagers. A benefit, along with reaching the desired flavor, was that the beer was very stable and could be transported for great distances, which allowed for a strong export trade for pilsner beer brewers. During the 19th century, transportation technology rapidly advanced through the use of steam engines. Railways covered much of Europe by the end of the century, and steamships made overseas trade cheaper and easier for many commodities. In terms of the pilsner, this meant that this new beer could be transported and traded quickly and widely. Pilsner and Temperance In several countries during the second half of the 19th century, temperance organizations found
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themselves allying and advocating for brewers of pilsner beer. While most temperance groups advocated for complete prohibition of alcohol, many decided that the lesser alcohol content of beer vis-à-vis spirits was a worthy enough crusade on the way to saving people from the evils of drink. In the United States, this translated into supporting German immigrant brewers. The importance of beer drinking in these immigrant communities was most highlighted by the beer gardens that popped up around the midwest, home to brewers including Pabst, Schlitz, and Anheuser-Busch. The brewers advocated for the family-friendly gardens and lower-alcohol pilsner beer as an alternative to the drunken displays that could occur in local saloons selling whiskey, gin, and rum. Pilsner, with its approximate alcohol percentage close to 5 percent or less, was then pointed out by temperance advocates as the safe alternative for alcohol drinkers. However, this support was short-lived as temperance organizations pushed for stricter alcohol laws that included beer prohibition coupled with the growing prejudice toward Germany up and during World War I. These temperance tactics were also seen in the Netherlands, where leading temperance organizations saw beer as an ally against brandy and gin. These organizations even agitated for lower beer taxes, and beer gardens were able to flourish prior to World War I. However, from the 1880s onward, the success of the brewers in selling their pilsners and falling prices led to a split between the brewers and temperance organizations. Malcolm Purinton Northeastern University See Also: Budweiser Budvar; Carlsberg; Czech Republic; Germany; Light Beer. Further Readings Aerts, Erik, Louis M. Cullen, and Richard G. Wilson. “Production, Marketing, and Consumption of Alcoholic Beverages Since the Late Middle Ages: Session B-14: Proceedings, Tenth International Economic History Congress, Leuven, August 1990.” Studies in Social and Economic History, v.18 (1990).
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Gourvish, T. R. and R. G. Wilson. The British Brewing Industry, 1830–1980. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Ogle, Maureen. Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2006. Unger, Richard W. A History of Brewing in Holland, 900–1900. Economy, Technology, and the State. Boston: Brill, 2001. Wilson, Richard George and Terence Richard Gourvish. The Dynamics of the International Brewing Industry Since 1800. New York: Routledge, 1998.
Pinot Gris/Grigio Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigio is a common varietal white wine made from a genetic mutation of the Pinot Noir grape. Pinot Gris originated in ancient Burgundy, France, where it was called “pinot beurot” (butter) and sometimes used to make Pinot Noir richer and lighter. Gris translates to “gray,” as does grigio, the Italian name. In both cases, the words refer to the color of the grapes, which may range from light pinkish brown to deep bluish grey. Clusters with a variety of berry colors are not unusual. Because the soil types and climate in Alsace, France (where Pinot Gris originated), and northeastern Italy (where Pinot Grigio originated) are different, the two varieties have flavor profiles that are distinct from one another. Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigio has become increasingly popular among vintners in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Although some wine critics question the accuracy of the designation, later versions of the wine have generally adopted the name of the style they most closely resemble. California wine is most often called Pinot Grigio, but Oregon wine from the same grape is nearly always referred to as Pinot Gris. In 2012, Nielsen reported that Pinot Grigio had become the second-fastest-selling white wine in the United States. Alsatian Pinot Gris Although the first recorded use of Pinot Gris was in Burgundy in the early 14th century, it later spread to Switzerland, Hungary, Germany, and
Turkey. In 1568, General Lazare Schwendi (Baron de Hohlandsberg) returned from the Tokaj wine region of Hungary with cuttings that he had planted on his property in Alsace, hoping to produce wine to rival the famous Tokaji wine. He had mistaken Grauer Tokayer vines for the Furmint used to make Tokaji wine. The Alsatians first called the wine from these vines Grauer Tokayer. After 1970, the name shifted to Tokay Gris, then Tokay d’Alsace, followed by Tokay Pinot Gris. Following a decision of the European Union in response to a Hungarian complaint, as of April 1, 2007, the French wine could no longer use the Tokay appellation, and it has since been known as Pinot Gris. Regardless of its name, Pinot Gris has been grown in Alsace since the 16th century, and nearly 450 years after the grape was introduced in Alsace, it is the third most-planted vine in the region—after Riesling and GewürzTraminer. Pinot Gris from Alsace tends to be lush and full of spice notes and peach and apricot flavors. With a higher alcohol level than its Italian counterpart, it is powerful and aromatic, with high sugar levels and medium acidity. The Comité Interprofessionnel des Vins d’Alsace has created five categories of sweetness, which is already in use on some Alsatian Pinot Gris labels and eventually will become mandatory on all: dry (sec), tastes dry (se goûte sec), balanced (équilibre), rich (puissant), and sweet (moelleux). Italian Pinot Grigio Pinot grigio has been grown in Italy since the 19th century. It was developed in northern Italy, near the Alps. Cool weather means the grapes don’t get as ripe as in a warmer climate, and the result is a wine that is crisper, drier, lighter in body, often with citrus and mineral flavors, and usually with about 12 percent alcohol. Although its popularity in the United States has soared since 2000, Anthony Terlato, a Chicago importer, introduced Pinot Grigio to Americans in the 1970s. Terlato’s story is a wine-industry legend. Visiting Italy in search of a new varietal that American wine drinkers might receive as enthusiastically as they did Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc, he—while dining at a restaurant in northern Italy one night—ordered every Pinot Grigio on the wine list. He unhesitatingly selected
Santa Margherita as the best. The next day, he visited the winery and negotiated a 10-year deal to be the winery’s exclusive representative in the United States. According to the Wine & Spirits restaurant poll, which has been conducted annually since 1989, Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio has been the most popular Italian wine in the United States since the poll’s inception and the top imported wine since 1995. The demand for Italian Pinot Grigio accelerated in the 1990s, with the United States and the United Kingdom the top export markets. Exports of the wine rose 40 percent between 2001 and 2006. Despite its popularity, the Pinot Grigio grape is not even one of the 10 most-widely planted grape varietals in Italy. The northeast of Italy remains the key Pinot Grigio producer and exporter, with the most notable examples found in Friuli-Venezia Giulia and the TrentinoAlto Adige. In 2000, Italy had 16,500 acres (6,668 hectares) of Pinot Grigio vines. Within six years, that number had doubled. Still, Italian vintners fear that the demand will exceed their ability to supply, and they are fully aware that Italian bottling paved the way for grigios from the United States and Australia. While Italian Pinot Grigio can be thin and undistinguished, the best are refreshingly crisp, clean, and vibrant with citrus flavors. Wine critics, who often view Pinot Grigio with disdain, attribute its popularity to its being an easier wine to pair with food than is Chardonnay, Riesling, or Sauvignon Blanc. Consumers confess they like the sensuality and easy pronunciation of the name. New World Pinot Gris/Grigio David Lett, founder of Oregon’s first winery, planted the first Pinot Gris vines in America in 1966, consisting of 160 cuttings taken from the only four vines in the collection at University of California at Davis, where he had earned a degree in viticulture and enology. In 1981, another pioneer Oregon winegrower, Dick Ponzi, became the second Oregon vintner to make Pinot Gris. But it was not until King Estate Winery, also in Oregon, joined the Pinot Gris growers in the early 1990s that Pinot Gris production began to increase. Vineyard acreage increased almost 50 percent between 1989 and 1990, and by 2008, Pinot
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Gris had become the second most-planted variety (red or white) in Oregon, with an overall production of more than 100,000 cases annually. Oregon Pinot Gris tonnage is more than three times larger than Chardonnay’s and has grown fourfold since 1995. In 2013, King Estate alone produced 160,000 cases of Oregon Pinot Gris, which it sold in all 50 states and 25 countries. Oregon may have pioneered Pinot Gris in the United States, but beginning in 2007, neighboring Washington offered fierce competition in production. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington had only 488 acres of Pinot Gris in 2006, but five years later that number had more than tripled to 1,576 acres. Production has increased as well. In 2006, Pinot Gris production was fifth behind Chardonnay, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, and GewürzTraminer. By 2010, it had vaulted to third with 6,100 tons produced. Washington’s warm Columbia Valley yields 4.5 to 6 tons per acre compared to Oregon’s production rate of 2.5 to 3 tons per acre in cooler sites and up to 4 tons—vintage dependent—in warmer areas. Thus, Oregon’s price per ton for Pinot Gris is much higher than Washington’s, a difference that means Washington wineries can often sell their wines at lower price points. Washington Pinot Gris has not equaled Oregon’s reputation for Pinot Gris, but the former’s version—which falls between the lighter Italian Pinot Grigio and the richer, rounder Pinot Gris from Alsace—has become a contender. California is producing more Pinot Gris in the 21st century, which they believe is closer to the Italian-style Pinot Grigio. In 1997, the state had only 140 acres planted in Pinot Gris. By 2000, the acreage increased to 2,692 acres; in less than a decade, acreage more than quadrupled to 12,907 acres. Small wineries were the first to plant this mutation of Pinot Noir—most notably Luna Vineyards in Napa Valley, which produces about 18,000 cases of the variety annually. E. & J. Gallo Winery was among the first large U.S. producers to make Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigio. Perhaps surprisingly, given the Gallos’ Italian roots, the company produces both Pinot Gris and Pinot Grigio under the domestic labels Gallo of Sonoma, Rancho Zabaco, and MacMurray Ranch, in addition to importing about a halfmillion cases of Italian Pinot Grigio.
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Pinot Gris in Australia dates back to the 1830s when James Busby imported a collection of grape varieties from France and Spain, but the vines did not survive. The vines were pioneered on the Mornington Peninsula in the 1980s, but it was not until 2007 that the growth in Australia mirrored that in the United States. Between 2006 and 2010, production increased fivefold—from 9,250 tons to 43,300 tons—and more than a hundred different labels of Pinot Gris/Grigio could be found on the Australian market. New Zealand’s South Island produces 90 percent of that country’s Pinot Gris. New Zealand vintners believe their wine is more akin to Alsace in style than the drier Pinot Grigio. Production has grown from 47 acres (19 hectares) in 1994 to 939 acres (381 hectares) in 2012, leading to Pinot Gris earning the tag “the great white hope” among New Zealanders. Industry analysts say that the surge of interest by New Zealand winemakers can be attributed to the variety’s ability to produce quality wines that display spicy flavors, have good mouth weight, and have the ability to cellar well. Wylene Rholetter Auburn University See Also: France; Italy; Pinot Noir; Wines, California. Further Readings Comiskey, Patrick. “Oregon Pinot Gris Outs Flash in a Glass.” Los Angeles Times (February 6, 2008). http://www.latimes.com/features/la-fo-wine6feb 06,0,3959627.story#axzz2jGBgXu27 (Accessed November 2013). Gibson, Michael. “Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigio.” The Sommelier Prep Course: An Introduction to the Wines, Beers, and Spirits of the World, Michael Gibson, ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Roby, Norm. “What Is ‘Alsatian-Style’ Pinot Gris?” Wines & Vines (May 2006). http://www.winesand vines.com/template.cfm?section=features&cont ent=50293 (Accessed March 2014). Sbrocco, Leslie. “Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigio.” In Wine for Women: A Guide to Buying, Pairing, and Sharing Wine, Leslie Sbrocco, ed. New York: Morrow, 2003.
Pinot Noir Pinot Noir is a grape variety that is widely grown throughout the world’s wine regions, but it gains most of its fame and prestige from Burgundy. There, it is by far the most commonly planted black grape, and it accounts for about a third of all grapevines of all kinds. Almost all red wines from Burgundy are made solely from Pinot Noir, and because Burgundy’s wines carry a great deal of cachet internationally, Pinot Noir has become a variety that is highly regarded everywhere. Outside Burgundy, highly thought-of wines are made from Pinot Noir in cooler wine regions located in Oregon, New Zealand, California, Australia, Germany, Chile, and Canada. Annual Pinot Noir festivals are held in many wine regions. Pinot Noir is probably native to eastern France (where Burgundy is located), although its precise origins are not clear. It is known by other names in many other regions of Europe—such as Spätburgunder and Blauer Spätburgunder in Germany and salvagnin noir in Jura, France—and this is one of the reasons it is hard to identify its first appearance in the historical record. Specialists have suggested regions as diverse as Egypt, Italy, and Switzerland as the first-known locations of Pinot Noir. An alternative spelling of the variety is pineau, but the first mention using the modern spelling pinot dates to 1375, when Duke Philippe le Hardi of Burgundy recorded sending several barrels of vin de pinot to Bruge, in Belgium, in advance of a diplomatic trip he made there that year. From then on, there are increasing documentary references to Pinot Noir, many clearly implying that it was regarded as a quality grape variety that should be made into wine on its own rather than blended with other varieties. In 1394, a boy, hired for the grape harvest in Burgundy, was struck and killed by the owner of the vineyard for disobeying an order to keep Pinot Noir grapes separate from other varieties. Pinot Noir was considered so important to the reputation of Burgundy’s growing wine industry in the Middle Ages that rival black grapes were largely removed from the region’s vineyards. In 1395, the same Duke Philippe le Hardi, who obviously liked wine made from Pinot Noir, ordered the removal of all vines of the Gamay variety
from Burgundy’s vineyards on the grounds that Gamay was a disloyal grape that produced bitter (and potentially poisonous) wine. The real problem was that mediocre wine made from Gamay grapes was detracting from the cachet that Pinot Noir was giving to Burgundy. Over time, Pinot Noir became by far the dominant black grape in Burgundy, and it now accounts for about 80 percent of all black grapes in the region. Geography and Production Apart from Burgundy and Champagne, other wine regions in France also cultivate Pinot Noir, notably Jura, in eastern France, and Loire Valley (France) appellations (officially designated wine regions) such as Sancerre and Menetou Salon. In Europe, Pinot Noir is important in the German region of Baden, where climate change has produced ideal growing conditions. It is also widely grown in Burgenland and Niederösterreich in Austria and Valais in Switzerland, and there are scattered concentrations throughout eastern Europe. A number of regions around the world have also adopted Pinot Noir as their main black grape, including Central Otago and Martinborough (New Zealand), Carneros and Russian River (California), Willamette Valley (Oregon), Yarra Valley and Tasmania (Australia), Bío-Bío, Casablanca, and San Antonio (Chile), and Patagonia (Argentina). Plantings of Pinot Noir are increasing in China. Pinot Noir vines do best in temperate climates that are neither very cool and wet nor very warm. The grapes are relatively thin-skinned and sensitive to temperature. The vines bud early, which makes them vulnerable to spring frosts. On the other hand, when the thin skins are exposed to too much heat, they begin to shrivel, while too much sun can burn the skins. The vines and grapes are also very susceptible to vineyard diseases, such as downy and powdery mildews and viruses such as leaf-roll. The thinness of the grape skins make them liable to splitting under difficult conditions. The overall result is that Pinot Noir vineyards require constant attention, and the loss of grapes from growing conditions and diseases has earned Pinot Noir the nickname “the heartbreak grape.” There are more clones (variations, sometimes subtle, within a single variety) of Pinot Noir than of any other grape variety, but the most commonly planted are known as the Dijon clones.
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Each produces different characteristics, which include earlier ripening, more color, and looser bunches, which helps prevent diseases by allowing more air circulation among the grapes. Producers try to match the clone that best suits the growing conditions in their vineyards. Pinot Noir is generally aged in oak barrels for periods between 12 and 24 months. In Burgundy and some other regions, Pinot Noir tends to be a lighter-bodied wine, with garnet or brick colors rather than the deeper hues of many other red wines. The dominant aromas and flavors are often described as cherry, and although many Pinot Noirs used to display pungent aromas are referred to as barnyard, this style is not nearly as common as it used to be. The tannins in Pinot Noir are generally softer than, say, Cabernet Sauvignon, and much Pinot Noir achieves a level of delicacy that is absent from most other red wines. There are many different styles of Pinot Noir, however, some reflecting growing conditions and others reflecting winemaking decisions. Appellations and Styles Within the dozens of small appellations (officially designated wine regions) of Burgundy itself, there are many distinct styles; a Pinot Noir from the Monthélie appellation differs from one made in Fixin, and neither is like one made in GevreyChambertin or Nuits-St. Georges. Pinot Noirs in the higher Burgundy classifications, such as Grand Cru and Premier Cru, may have firmer tannins and demand years before all the components in the wine (acid, fruit, tannins, and alcohol) are fully integrated, while ordinary burgundies are ready to drink much sooner. Many of the Pinot Noirs made in New World regions, such as California, Chile, and Australia, are more fruit forward than the more restrained and higher-acid Pinot Noirs of Burgundy, but styles everywhere vary from vintage to vintage. Although some regions, such as Central Otago (New Zealand) and Oregon (United States), make highly regarded wines from Pinot Noir, Burgundy is still widely considered to be the benchmark region for the variety. Some producers from other regions market their wines as having a Burgundian style, even though there are wide variations within Burgundy’s wines themselves.
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Pinot Noir is often said to be the grape variety that expresses its growing conditions (the soil and climate) more sensitively than any other variety. Pinot Noir is the variety that has driven the concept of terroir, the idea that grapes—and by extension the wines they make—express the place in which the grapes grew. It is often pointed out that, in Burgundy, where vineyards are often small, the Pinot Noir wine made from one vineyard can taste quite different from the wine made from the neighboring vineyard, even though they might be separated by only a few yards. Pinot Noir is used to make more than still wine, and it is one of the principal grape varieties used to make sparkling wine in Champagne, where more land than in Burgundy is planted with Pinot Noir. Although Pinot Noir grapes have a black skin, their flesh is colorless so that Pinot Noir can be used to make white wines (like most champagnes) as long as the juice does not come into contact with the skins. When winemakers want to make a rosé champagne (or a still rosé wine), they allow enough contact between juice and skins to provide the depth of color they want. The variety is also used for sparkling wine outside Champagne, where producers make their wine using the same methods as in Champagne. Although Pinot Noir is not nearly as popular, in terms of plantings and sales, as red wine varieties such as Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz/Syrah, and Malbec, it has a status all of its own. It is the only grape variety to have played a starring role in a movie: Sideways (2004). This comedy featured two middle-aged men, one on the verge of getting married, who tour Pinot Noir producers in Santa Barbara County (southern California) wine country. It includes a great deal of praise of Pinot Noir (and denigration of Merlot), and the movie is said to have sparked interest in Pinot Noir and to have increased sales of California Pinot Noir. Rod Phillips Carleton University See Also: Wine Connoisseurship; Wine Tourism; Wines, Red; Wines, Rosé. Further Readings Johnson, Hugh and Jancis Robinson. The World of Wine. London: Mitchell Beazley, 2005.
Lewin, Benjamin. In Search of Pinot Noir. Dover, UK: Vendange Press, 2011. Mackay, Jordan, Andrea Johnson, and Robert Holmes. Passion for Pinot: A Journey Through America’s Pinot Noir Country. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2009.
Poland Consumption of alcohol in Poland is characterized mainly by the consumption of beer among adults (56 percent of pure alcohol consumption in 2005). Spirits and wine are also consumed, but to a lesser extent (31 percent and 13 percent, respectively). Adult per capita consumption is 20 pints (9.6 liters) of pure alcohol and has increased in recent years. Some unrecorded alcohol production also occurs in the country, adding around 8 pints (3.7 liters) to the recorded adult per capita consumption. There is a written national policy on alcohol in Poland, which was revised in 2006. It restricts the places where alcoholic beverages can be sold, prohibits sales to intoxicated persons, and regulates alcohol advertising, sponsorship, and sales promotion. Alcoholic Beverage Production History Spirits came to Poland from Italy or Germany in the beginning of the 17th century. Production developed and grew relatively slowly up to the early 19th century because of the lack of technology and the specific features of the market for basic ingredients. Increasing consumption of vodka was driven by the invention of bettertasting compositions and more varieties of the liquor. Different customs associated with drinking took root. Large-scale vodka production began in Poland at the end of the 16th century. The first distilling production appeared in Krakow, from where spirits were exported to Silesia before 1550. Silesian cities also bought vodka from Poznan, a town that had about 500 working “spirits boilers” in 1580. Soon, these locations were outpaced by Gdansk, the largest producer of vodka in Poland before the division of the country in 1772. Thus, the distilling industry existed alongside home stills and
An advertisement for OKOCIM beer in Poland, circa 1939. Some traditional types of Polish piwo (beer) include lagers (such as the brands Zywiec, Tyskie, and Okocim), although porters and flavored beer are in this range as well.
small-scale enterprises in the late 18th to early 19th centuries. Large distilleries specialized in purifying spirits and producing drinks made according to their own recipes. Some of the distilleries operating in the country today are successors of these traditions. The first distillery in Gdansk was established by people of Dutch origin. One of them, Ambrosius Vermoellen of Lier, manufactured the known and valued liqueur Der Lachs (salmon); his sons, Arendt and Peter, continued that tradition. In the early 17th century, distilling increased in Gdansk to such extent that a local shortage of firewood along with the growth in the price of fuel took place. In 1620, city authorities began to grant concessions for vodka distillation; 68 producers received permission to pay for the privilege, but many others continued to function illegally.
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Spirits boilers appeared mostly in villages and on the agricultural estates of noblemen. In the county of Leczyca, for example, there were 151 of them in 1578. The scale of production must have been a prospering industry at the end of the 16th century as proclamations from 1564, 1565, and 1577 imposed fees “for cooking spirits in the villages” and “for running an inn with spirits.” It was the first form of the excise. According to some authors, Polish vodka reached neighboring states and western European countries in the 17th and 18th centuries. This export trade was important for the economy as can be seen in the reaction when the prince of Moldavia banned the import of Polish vodka in 1779: The rulers of Poland sought and obtained diplomatic intervention from Turkey, France, and Russia. The early 19th century was a turning point for alcohol production in Poland. Crucial to this were progress in the technology and changes in the base ingredients. Potato replaced grain, and profitability leaped: A gallon of vodka cost the equivalent of more than two bushels of rye in 1704, but by 1844, a bushel of rye could buy 2.5 gallons of vodka. Poland was swept by “distilling fever.” According to official figures, there were 4,981 distilleries in Galicia (the part of Poland within the Austrian empire) producing the equivalent of 15.8 million gallons (600,000 hectoliters) of pure spirits in 1836. In 1844, the part of Poland within the Russian empire known as the Kingdom of Poland had 2,094 distilleries producing 12.1 million gallons (460,000 hectoliters) of spirits. Inn concessions made distilling the economic foundation for many estates. The great increase in consumption of vodka and the ensuing effects on social behavior and customs got a determined reaction from the authorities, who issued excise taxes. For 30 years, the number of distilleries in Great Poland, in the Prussian part of Poland, decreased from 1,173 to 285. By 1884, there were only 516 distilleries in Galicia. The Russian emperor, disturbed by the ill health of army recruits, introduced restrictions in the Kingdom of Poland: In addition to the high excise, alcohol sales concessions were established, drinks stronger than 46 percent alcohol were outlawed, inn opening hours were limited, and serving alcohol to inebriated persons was prohibited. These actions led to a reduction in the number
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of distilleries in the Kingdom of Poland to 569 in 1875. The potato blight that afflicted Europe from 1843 to 1851 also contributed to the fall in vodka production. However, the administratively imposed obstacles and high taxes led to the rise of the Polish distilling industry. The hard economic facts of life meant that the small, technologically backward distilleries on the farm estates had to close down. The only survivors were the large modern concerns established exclusively to produce spirits. During the period in between World War I and World War II, further decline in Polish distilling occurred. In 1910, about 2,500 distilleries operated in the area that Poland was to occupy after World War I. Together, they produced about 68.6 million gallons (2.6 million hectoliters) of spirits annually. In the best years between the wars, the number of distilleries did not exceed 1,486, with annual production of 22.7 million gallons (860,000 hectoliters). During 1931 to 1936, between 3,000 and 5,000 illegal stills were closed down each year. Currently, the most famous vodka brands include Zubrówka (bison vodka), which has a bison on the label and is distilled in Białowieza— the last bison reserve in Europe. Zubrówka has a long blade of special grass in the bottle, which gives the vodka a slight greenish shade and a special flavor. The most usual vodkas are Wyborowa, Sobieski, or Luksusowa. A very special type of vodka includes Krupnik, which has honey and herbs, and Vodka Goldwasser, which has flakes of real gold in it. Beer Market According to a 2009 Ernst & Young report, Poland is Europe’s third-largest beer producer with 974 million (36.9 million) hectoliters. There are 70 breweries in the country, including 27 microbreweries. Most breweries in Poland are named after the city in which they were founded. Following World War II, after centuries of financial independence, most breweries were nationalized under the Communist regime. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist regime in Poland, market economy was introduced and many international beer companies entered the national arena. Poland might be considered a beer market with a high concentration of enterprises; three companies control 86 percent of the market share. Many
breweries are majority owned by multinational companies: SABMiller owns Kompania Piwowarska (45 percent of the Polish beer market), Heineken Group operates through Grupa Zywiec S.A. (35 percent), and Carlsberg Polska controls 14 percent. Few breweries remain under the control of national companies (e.g., Ciechan Brewery Ltd., Van Pur S.A.). The growing popularity of beer from small regional breweries grouped in the Stowarzyszenie Regionalnych Browarów Polskich (Association of Polish Regional Breweries) and with contracted breweries has been observed in recent years. Beer produced by large corporations is losing popularity. Some traditional Polish piwo (beer) are lagers (such as the brands Zywiec, Tyskie, and Okocim), although porters and flavored beer are in this range as well. Beer can be served with piwo z sokiem (raspberry or blackcurrant juice) in pubs. During cold seasons, the popular refreshment is hot beer with cloves and cinnamon, sweetened with piwo grzane (honey). Zwizzek Pracodawców Przemysłu Piwowarskiego (The Union of the Brewing Industry Employers in Poland), which represents approximately 90 percent of the Polish beer market, reported the growth of average beer consumption per capita in 2008—up to 199 pints (94 liters) annually. Therefore, Polish consumers are in third place, behind those in the Czech Republic and Germany, in terms of the average volume of beer consumed per year. Tetiana Kostiuchenko National University of Kyiv, Mohyla Academy See Also: Beer; Czech Republic; Germany; Russia; Ukraine; Vodka. Further Readings Kubacki, Krzysztof, Dariusz Siemieniako, and Heather Skinner. “Social Aspects of Alcohol Consumption in Poland: An Investigation into Students’ Perceptions.” Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, v.1/2 (2009). World Health Organization (WHO). “WHO Global Information System on Alcohol and Health.” Geneva: WHO, 2009. Zandberg, Adrian. “‘Villages . . . Reek of Ether Vapours’: Ether Drinking in Silesia Before 1939.” Medical History, v.54/3 (July 2010).
Popular Music, Drinking in Drinking songs and songs about alcohol, either pro or con, have long been a staple of popular music. It is clear that ever since lyrical verse was developed, alcohol was a subject. In particular, the rise of popular music can either be traced back to the late middle ages or the 18th century and the rise of cheaper musical instruments and sheet music, depending on whether one defines it as secular or simply popular and widespread. Going by the first definition, Carmina Burana (a collection of medieval songs later rediscovered in the 19th century and then set to music in the 20th century by composer Carl Orff) includes several dozen songs that reference drinking and carousing. Using the other, more definitive definition of popular music, it can be said that even before the codification of the sale of popular music through sheet music— for example, the song “Oh! Susanna” by Stephen Foster sold over 100,000 copies in 1849—there were many traditional songs, particularly in the Irish or English tradition, that celebrated drinking for centuries before the advent of sheet music. Traditional Songs About Drinking Around the World Many countries have a long tradition of songs or poems (the terms are often interchangeable depending on how the poem has been performed) that celebrate alcohol. In traditional Chinese poetry, there are many poems/songs that praise the use of alcohol, particularly the poems of Lia Bao (701–762 c.e.), best known in the Western world for his poem “Drinking Alone Under the Moon,” in which the poet contrasts the moon as a drinking companion and contains the famous lines about drinking with the moon as a companion not entirely in sync with the poet’s wishes. As Lia Bao wrote, “When I’m sober, we make pleasure together/When I’m drunk we each go our own ways.” While many Islamic countries limit or band the consumption of alcohol, there is a tradition of Arabian poetry that celebrates wine and sexuality that has been extremely popular even well after the foundation of Islam. In particular, the wine poems of Abu Nuwas (756–814),
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perhaps the most famous Arabian poet of his time period, are still regarded as among the finest verses about the virtues of drinking of any nation. Persian poet, philosopher and mathematician Omar Khayyam’s (1048–1131) Rubaiyat also famously celebrates the virtues of wine. Other cultures have long celebrated alcohol as a national tradition, particularly in song. From the ancient Vikings to the French to the Spanish, there are examples of early songs that extol the virtues of drinking particularly after the Middle Ages, when secular popular songs became more common. In British music hall culture, there were numerous songs that celebrated the drinking life and many songs were specifically made to be sung by patrons in pubs. Many of these songs were carried home by sailors, with drinking songs being common on long voyages and “sea shanties” such as “Oh Dear Grog” and “Drunken Sailor” soon becoming as common on land as they were on sea. Theodore Maynard compiled 120 English drinking songs in his 1919 A Tankard of Ale: An Anthology of Drinking Songs, including “Come Landlord, Fill a Flowing Bowl,” “All You That Are Good Fellows,” “A Glass of Old English Ale,” and “Come, Thou Monarch of the Wine, Bacchus,” which were typical of the popular pub songs during the 19th century. Irish culture is also particularly known for songs about drinking, and many classic Irish drinking songs date back several centuries. In the 1960s, the popularity of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, the celebrated Irish folk revivalists, made many Americans aware of how many traditional Irish songs celebrated the consumption of alcohol. While most audiences had only been aware of Tin Pan Alley Irish songs (many were very popular and many were about the consumption of alcohol), the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem reintroduced Irish-American audiences to traditional Irish songs, many of which revolved around the pleasures of drinking. Audiences around the world sang along with the popular group on songs such as “Whiskey, You’re the Devil”; “All for Me Grog”; “A Jug of Punch”; and, more depressingly, “A Pub With No Beer.” More recently, other Irish or Irish-American bands have kept the tradition going, with the Irish/English band the Pogues infusing punk
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rock with traditional Irish music in songs such as “Streams of Whiskey,” “Boys From the Country Hell,” and “Sally MacLennane.” Although Shane MacGowan, the lead singer and chief songwriter of the Pogues, has long identified himself as a functioning alcoholic, not all of his songs celebrate alcohol and some are downright moralistic about the long-term effects of alcohol, most notably the Pogues’ most popular song, “Fairytale of New York.” This song involves the broken dreams of a once-young couple, dreams destroyed by drinking and fighting. Notably, the song begins with the memorable line “It was Christmas evening/in the drunk tank.” While the Pogues are the most famous Irishbased band to succeed the Clancy Brothers as ambassadors of traditional Irish music, other new bands have blended more punk rock influences with traditional Irish music and have become popular on the Irish music circuit in America and Europe. More recent American /Irish hybrids such as Flogging Molly, the Tossers, and Joe Hurley and the Rogues still carry on the tradition. Hurley, a prolific songwriter, is perhaps best known for his song “Fuck Everything, Shut Up and Drink” as well as his work with Irish novelist Colum McCann and the audio version of Keith Richards’s autobiography. In America, the imposition of Prohibition during 1920 to 1933 did nothing to curb most Americans’ appetites for alcohol, much less for songs about the consumption of alcohol and standards such as “What’s the Use of Getting Sober, When You’re Gonna Get Drunk Again?” by Louis Jordan. Other songs, such as “Bootleggers Blues” by Jim Jackson and “Prohibition Blues” by Nora Bayes, directly lamented the alcohol that was no longer freely available under Prohibition. Later songs such as “Cocktails for Two” by Arthur Johnson and Sam Coslow directly celebrated the freedom granted by the end of Prohibition, and soon songs that directly commented on the joys of alcohol were popular on the radio as well as in Broadway musicals. Country music has a long-standing tradition of songs about alcohol. Even early entertainers such as Hank Williams, who died at the age of 29 after a short life of drinking and taking pills, wrote numerous popular songs about drinking such as “There’s a Tear in My Beer” and “Honky
Tonkin,” although surprisingly to many, the primary subject of many of Williams’s best known songs is actually religion rather than alcohol. As Rush Evans notes the following: While Williams struggled with alcohol (as well as debilitating spinal problems) for most of his life, Williams did go months without a drink, and he was well aware of his problem. There was no denial on his part, but there was also no clear way to overcome it. In the next generation, singers such as George Jones rose to fame singing the virtues of stillmade alcohol with his 1960 hit “White Lightning” and later wrote about drinking with more restraint with “If Drinking Don’t Kill Me.” Other iconic country songs about drinking include Merle Haggard’s “Last Night the Bottle Let Me Down” and “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink.” Hank Williams Jr. also wrote iconic drinking songs like his father before him, including his famous “All of My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over.” Drinking songs have remained popular in country music, and more recent hits include Garth Brooks’s smash hit “Friends in Low Places,” with lyrics including “I’ve got friends in low places/Where the beer flows and the whiskey chases.” This fits in comfortably with the long-standing tradition of popular country songs about drinking. Even modern female country singers such as Gretchen Wilson scored a major hit with the drinking ode “Here for the Party.” Some popular country songs about alcohol are more cautionary, particularly songs by popular female country artists, such Kitty Wells’s 1952 hit “It Wasn’t God That Made Honky Tonk Angels,” or several famous hit songs about drinking by Loretta Lynn, including “Don’t Come Home A-Drinking (with Lovin’ on Your Mind)” and “Wine Women And Song.” Songs about the consequences of drinking, including the inevitable hangovers, include the classic country hit “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” originally by Kris Kristofferson, although perhaps better known by the Johnny Cash cover version. Many other country singers later had popular songs that looked back sadly at their past dalliances with alcohol, such as George Jones’s late career classic “Choices.”
Contemporary Popular Songs About Drinking Contemporary music has also seen numerous popular songs about alcohol, and in the realm of hip-hop/rap and R&B music there are many songs that deal with alcohol as a main topic. Rap music in particular been consistent in celebrating alcohol. Traditional rap songs that deal with alcohol as the main theme include hits such as “Gin and Juice” by Snoop Dogg and “Funky Cold Medina” by Tone Loc. The trend of using alcohol has become so much of a main theme that many hip-hop songs can almost be seen as commercials, with many modern rappers writing songs that in many ways are almost product placement for different liquors, including songs such as “Pass the Courvoisier Part II” by Busta Rhymes, featuring P. Diddy and Pharell, and Jay Z’s ubiquitous “shout-outs” to the various companies he has investments in such as Ciroc. As Vaughn Wallace notes in Time magazine, this trend has continued to flourish and includes songs in the urban, rock, pop, and country music genres, with a new study from Boston University revealing that although many new popular song, are geared toward a teenage demographic, out of 700 recent songs, 167 (23 percent) mention alcohol and 46 of them even reference a specific brand of liquor. Wallace points out that half of these shout-outs mention Patron, Hennessy, Grey Goose, and Jack Daniel’s by name, with hip-hop far in the lead with almost 405 of the songs analyzed containing lyrics that mentioned alcohol, most by brand name. Today, many popular songs about alcohol are more cautionary than celebratory. Many artists are more cautious about celebrating the effects of alcohol, without mentioning its problems, in particular the rapper Eminem, who used to brag proudly about his drinking and drug consumption but now talks openly about his journey through recovery. In his older songs, he made fun of drug and alcohol abuse, such as in the song “Just Don’t Give a Fuck,” in which he raps, “My name is Marshall Mathers / I’m an alcoholic / I’ve got a disease and they don’t know what to call it.” A more mature Eminem appeared with a more thoughtful attitude toward his problems with alcohol on his Recovery record. In his song “Not Afraid,” Eminem raps more honestly that “it was
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my decision to get clean, I did it for me” but then goes on to tell fans, “Admittedly, I probably did it subliminally for you.” There are also more punk songs about alcohol, with more that criticize the use of alcohol than ones that celebrate its use. In particular, modern punk is home to the subculture known as straight edge, whose adherents reject alcohol, drugs, and promiscuous sex, and in many cases practice veganism or vegetarianism. The movement started based on several songs by Washington, D.C., hardcore punk band Minor Threat and soon encompassed numerous other bands such as DYS, Slapshot, SSD Control, Judge, Youth of Today, and Earth Crisis. Earth Crisis may be the bestknown and most popular band among the hardcore and metalcore subgenres. Among their militant, straight-edge lyrics, as showcased in their song “Firestorm,” they promise “No mercy/No exceptions/A declaration of total war” on those who chose to continue to drink alcohol. According to punk rock expert Brian Cogan, the attraction of straight edge in the punk community (and increasingly now in other communities) was that many young punks “saw straight edge not only as a way of standing out from the nonpunk crowd, but also as a rebellion against the codified culture that the older punks had embraced.” In a sense, being straight edge is rebellion against rebellion. In retrospect, the nonconformity of straight edge culture in a world that normalizes the consumption of alcohol makes some sense in terms of the amount of songs about alcohol that emphasize not just drinking for celebration, or for companionship, or even to accompany a meal, but as a social lubricant and excuse to drink to excess. While there have been many evenhanded songs about the use of alcohol, it does seem in hindsight that the majority of contemporary popular songs about alcohol do seem to encourage drunkenness at the very least. While it is certain that the vast majority of these modern songs are not meant to be taken literally, it is also certain that the popularity of songs that celebrate drunkenness, while not directly forcing younger listeners to drink, may help create an environment where drinking is normalized far before the target audience reaches the legal drinking age. In a world where alcohol advertising is ubiquitous on television shows (particularly sports
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shows), in magazines geared toward teenagers, and in popular music, most of which are consumed by a younger demographic, the popularity of songs about alcohol should cause some guarded concern. However, the popularity of popular songs about alcohol also represents a historical continuity that goes back several hundred if not several thousand years, and as long as there will be popular music, likely a certain percentage of it will deal with alcohol. Perhaps, in the long run, it is up to the listener to decide how to process popular songs that deal with alcohol (as well as drugs and other intoxicants) and to deal with their historical legacy. Brian A. Cogan Molloy College See Also: Advertising and Marketing, History of; Drinking Songs; Films, Drinking in; Jazz Age; Juke Joints; Music Halls; Songs About Alcohol and Drinking; Student Culture, College and University; Student Culture, High School; Television; Wassail. Further Readings Bao, Li. “Great Tang Poets: Li Bo (701–762); ‘Drinking Alone Under the Moon.’” Asia for Educators. http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/at/libo /lb04.html (Accessed March 2014). Cogan, Brian. The Encyclopedia of Punk. New York: Sterling, 2008. Evans, Rush. “Separate Truth from Fiction in Country Icon Hank Williams’ Final Days.” Goldmine Magazine (April 21, 2010). http://www .goldminemag.com/article/feature-article-separate -truth-from-fiction-in-country-icon-hank-williams -final-days-2 (Accessed March 2014). MacGowan, Shane and Mary Clarke. A Drink with Shane MacGowan. London: Macmillan, 2001. Reynard, Thomas, ed. “A Tankard of Ale—Online Songbook.” Traditional Music Library. http://www .traditionalmusic.co.uk/tankard-ale (Accessed March 2014). “10/10/10: Ten Great Songs about Drinking (and Five About Sobering Up).” Los Angeles Times. http://la timesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2010/10/10-10 -10-ten-great-songs-about-drinking-and-ten-more -about-sobering-up.html (Accessed March 2014). Wallace, Vaughn. “The Alcohol Brands that Get The Most Play in Hip-Hop, Pop, and Country Music.”
Time (August 28, 2013). http://newsfeed.time.com /2013/08/28/the-alcohol-brands-that-get-the-most -play-in-hip-hop-pop-and-country-music (Accessed March 2014).
Portugal Portugal’s historically close political, and hence economic, ties with England have meant that in the English-speaking world, Portugal’s contributions to the world of alcohol have been limited (until very recently) to its fortified wines—port wine and Madeira wine. However, modern Portugal is also a major wine producer and exporter and, with a tradition that dates back to the Phoenicians, possesses one of the most ancient wine cultures in western Europe. Hugging the western end of the Iberian peninsula, Portugal is not only the western-most continental European country but also the only one whose coastline is restricted to the Atlantic Ocean. With a territory of approximately 35,500 square miles (about 92,000 square kilometers)—12 percent of which is arable land—Portugal’s main agricultural products are wine, cereal, olives, and cork. Port Wine Wine grapes are grown throughout much of Portugal today, but the traditional heartland of its production is the Douro Valley in the north, where the port wine industry has been centered for many centuries. Port wines have historically been characterized by high sugar and rapid fermentation, with the addition of brandy at the final (malolactic) fermentation stage. Portugal granted exclusive production and exporting privileges to several English companies, several of which are still in business nearly three centuries later. As noted, the center of the Portuguese wine industry has been the north of Lisbon, but cultivation has spread fairly widely in the 20th century. Portugal’s accession to the European Economic Community in 1986 greatly expanded its external market. Productivity is extremely high, despite the steep slopes that characterize many Portuguese wine regions (such as the schist of
the Douro). In many areas (including the islands of Madeira), traditional methods of cultivation are still practiced—such as trellising vines on trees, hedges, poles, and fences—so that the land below can be used for other crops such as grains or corn. The history of alcohol in Portugal is inextricably linked with that of England (for nearly a millennium) and with that of the colonial Americas (for a significant length of time). Historical records document the consumption of Portuguese wine in England from the 12th century; a wine the English called “osey” was widely drunk in Britain throughout the Middle Ages. As its popularity waned, it was supplanted on the English palate by another Portuguese fortified wine known as charneco (named for the town near Lisbon where it presumably originated), which garners a mention in Shakespeare’s Henry VI,
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Part II. Subsequently, Portuguese wine did not hold as great an appeal in the English market because 17th-century drinking tastes among the aristocracy and the emerging middle class were centered on French clarets (the poor in England drank ale and, later, gin; the Scottish and the Irish drank whiskey). However, political and economic tensions with France, which culminated in the War of the Spanish Succession, led to the 1703 Anglo–Portuguese Treaty of Methuen (in effect until 1840). This, in relieving Portuguese wines from duties, led to the rapid increase in importation of Portuguese fortified wines (port wines) to England and in consumption of port wine at the English table. Madeira Wine The early modern era also saw the growth of a distinctly Portuguese style of fortified wine on the
Wine grapes are harvested in Guimarães, in the north of Portugal in the Braga district, September 28, 2007. The traditional heartland of Portugese wine production is the Douro Valley, also in the north, where the port wine industry has been centered for many centuries. Madeira wine, on the other hand, is produced on the islands and fortified with brandy.
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islands of Madeira, a center of Portuguese viticulture since Henry the Navigator introduced Malvasia grapes in the 15th century. Madeira fortified wines were popular not only in England but also throughout the Americas, predominantly in colonial North America. Whereas the production of port wines is more or less a local affair (as the first appellation contrôlée, port wine is required to be produced from certain grapes in certain regions of the Douro and casked to mature on site, before leaving the port city of Oporto), Madeira wine is produced on the islands (from the grape varieties Sercial, Verdelho, Bual, and Malvasia or Malmsey) to be fortified with brandy (for several centuries, distilled alcohol made from cane sugar was used). Rough Atlantic crossings in equatorial heat are responsible for the distinctive profile of Madeira wine; once a taste for Madeira wine had been established on either side of the Atlantic, its long gestation and stability made it one of the most popular imported alcohols, particularly in colonial America, where its 18th-century adherents included George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. (The seizure of a ship carrying a cargo of Madeira in 1768 was one of the precipitating factors of the American Revolution.) As an export product meant to withstand long ocean voyages and rough American roads, Madeira can last seemingly indefinitely. It has been said that aged Madeira should spend 15 years in a cask and as many more in a bottle as one can afford to wait. The Madeira trade was devastated first by the powdery mildew spores from Oidium and then the Phylloxera vestatrix aphid epidemics of the 18th century. Madeira growers, in many cases, simply replaced vines with cane sugar; those who resumed growing vines replaced the noble Madeira varieties with other cultivars. Lowerquality wine meant that, for many decades, Madeira was regarded as a cooking wine. Alcohol Industry Portugal’s alcohol industry has long been associated with the Anglo-American market, both by British merchants and the Portuguese crown. The first port merchants’ association was founded by English manufacturers in 1727, and in 1756, the Marquis de Pombal established the first “controlled denomination of origin” to establish a
production and trade monopoly to protect the Portuguese port wine industry. As noted, port wine must be made from Douro grapes, including the Portuguese varieties Touriga Nacional, Tino Cão, Tinta Barroca, Tinta Roriz (known as Tempranillo in Spain), and Touriga Francesa. The centrality of fortified port and Madeira wines to the Portuguese wine industry and the English palate declined in the 20th century, but these wines still compose a significant portion of Portugal’s output. The Anglo-American Atlantic trade has tended to overshadow the domestic scene, even though Portugal has always been a leading producer and consumer (the country ranks consistently among the top 10 national producers worldwide. Wine is produced throughout Portugal—from the Minho in the north to the Algarve in the south. In addition to its reds and whites (generally produced after the French), Portugal is also famous for its vinhos verdes, an appellation once restricted exclusively to varieties (typically white but sometimes red) grown in the Minho region. Vinhos verdes (green wines) are so called because they are young wines; made from young grapes; low in alcohol (generally 9 to 11 percent); and traditionally bottled before their second malolactic fermentation, which gives them a sparkle known to the French as pétillance. Beer has been brewed on Portuguese territory since Roman times, but large-scale brewing dates back to the mid-19th century. While there are a small number of commercial breweries in the country, Portugal is a regional exporter and domestic consumption is on the rise. Alcohol Consumption As a traditionally ethnically homogenous society with borders largely unchanged for centuries, the country has a largely stable culture, food, and folkway. Compared to other European countries, in Portugal alcoholism is less common. Wine is the most popular alcoholic beverage (55 percent of total consumption), followed by beer (33 percent), and spirits (10 percent). Overall consumption has been on the decline for many decades, and wine consumption relative to beer has dropped. Adam Siegel University of California, Davis
See Also: Portuguese Empire; Wine, Madeira; Wines, Fortified. Further Readings Amaral, J. Duarte. O Grande Livro do Vinho. Lisbon, Portugal: Temas e Debates, 2000. Cardoso, António Barros. Douro, Vinho, Historia, y Patrimonio. Lisbon, Portugal: APHVIN/ GEHVID, 2010. Carrera, Ceferino. Vinhos de Portuga: Da Vinha ao Vinho, Variedades e Regiões. Sintra, Portugal: Colares Editora, 1999. Hancock, David. Oceans of Wine: Madeira and the Emergence of American Trade and Taste. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009. Mayson, Richard. Port and the Douro. London: Faber and Faber, 1999. Postgate, Raymond. Portuguese Wine. London: J. M. Dent, 1969. Vieira, Alberto. Historia do Vinho da Madeira: Documentos e Textos. Funchal, Madeira: Região Autonoma da Madeira, Secretaria Regional do Turismo e Cultura, Centro de Estudos de Historia do Atlantico, 1993. VinMaps. Portugal Wine Regions: Denominações de Origem Vinhos Regionais. Bothwell, WA: VinMaps, 2005.
Portuguese Empire Portugal was known for being a main producer of port, the beverage that takes its name from the country in the 14th century, when port was exported to England from Portugal in large quantities. As a result of the Portuguese wine industry, the Portuguese became keen on establishing a wine industry in its colonial empire, which was established in 1415 after Portugal captured the city of Ceuta in Morocco. The country later expanded, taking the Canary Islands, Madeira, the Azores, and the Cape Verde Islands. It grew considerably with the establishment of the sea route to India in 1498 and the discovery of Brazil two years later. When Philip II of Spain inherited the Portuguese crown in 1580, Spain and Portugal were connected by union for 60 years, and when the Portuguese decided to break away,
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the Canary Islands and Portuguese Morocco remained with Spain. The Portuguese empire consisted of the Atlantic islands (Madeira, the Azores, the Cape Verde Islands), Portuguese Guinea (now Guinea-Bissau), São Tomé and Príncipe, Angola, Mozambique, Goa (in India), Macau (in China), and East Timor (now Timor Leste). Rather than being colonies, during the 20th century, these became overseas provinces of Portugal until independence in the mid-1970s (except for Goa, which was invaded by India on December 19, 1961, and Macau, which remained Portuguese until December 20, 1999). Obviously, a very successful wine industry was established on Madeira, but the Portuguese tried to establish a wine industry in other parts of the empire. The Islands In the early 16th century, grapes and vines of the Verdecchio siciliano were brought over from Sicily to the Azores. This quickly resulted in a flourishing wine industry, especially on the island of Pico. Much of this wine was exported to northern Europe, and some bottles of wine from the Azores were found in the wine cellars at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Açores Vinho Regional has long been a recognized wine region. Although the wine industry was successfully established both on Madeira and in Pico in the Azores, attempts to introduce wine production on the Cape Verde Islands were far less successful. The only island on the Cape Verde that has been able to develop a small wine industry is Chã das Caldeiras (Fogo Island). Sugarcane was used on Cape Verde to make grogue, which derives from the British term grog. It used to be commonly made on the islands, but the colonial government introduced restrictive laws and the distillers went underground. In 1866, a brandy tax was imposed, and around 1900 there was new legislation enacted that enforced more control over the design of sugar presses called trapiches to make them safer. The main beer produced on Cape Verde is Strela. There was never a large Portuguese presence in Portuguese Guinea (now Guinea-Bissau). Further south, São Tomé and Príncipe was long a center of the slave trade and had a significant
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sugar industry based on slave plantations. As a result of the availability of sugar, there are two rum factories located on the island of São Tomé that produce two types of rum: One is Gravana, a dark and sweet rum often drank with ice like whiskey, and the other is Me-Zochi rum, which is less popular. Both factories sell much of their rum to Europe, where it is used not only as a drink but also for cooking.
very popular in Mozambique are a wide range of South African beers such as Black Label, Castle, and Lion and Amstel. Both Portuguese and South African wines are easily available in Maputo, the capital, and many other cities. In addition, palm wine, known locally as sura, is available along with a much stronger drink called nipa (made from cashews) and mandioca (made from cassava).
Africa With the success of the South African wine, there had been small attempts to grow wine in both Angola and Mozambique, neither of which was very successful. But in 1947, Portuguese businessmen helped to finance the establishment of Companhia União de Cervejas de Angola, SARL, as a subsidiary of the Portuguese company Central de Cervejas. The company ran a brewery in Luanda, the administrative capital of Angola. It started production in February 1952 and became a very important industrial concern, with smaller breweries in Catumbela and Lobito. The company, known as CUCA, was nationalized after independence by the new government of Angola on May 26, 1976. There are two other major brewers in Angola: Empresa Angolana de Cervejas (EKA) and Nova Empresa de Cervejas de Angola (Nocal). During the civil war in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was hard for Angola to export its beer, but with peace in the region, Angolan beer has been easily available in Namibia. With oil making Angola wealthy from the late 1990s, the country has become a significant market for Portuguese wine, and other countries are now trying to get some of the lucrative trade. In 2012, the Portuguese company Sogrape Investimentos announced that it planned to investigate the establishment of vineyards in Angola. In Mozambique, beer is produced by a range of breweries, with Laurentina Clara—a pale lager— being very popular locally but also exported to South Africa and even to the United Kingdom; it is sold in both bottles and cans. The other very popular beer is Preta, and the country’s main brewery, CdM, is also marketing Manica (a pale lager) and 2M, which is known as Dois M and regarded as the national lager; it is produced by Mozambique and South African breweries. Also
Asia Portuguese India never had a major reputation for the production of alcohol, but because of very lax laws during the colonial period, it gained a reputation for the consumption of alcohol that was much cheaper in Goa than in the rest of India because of very low or no taxes. Alcoholism is rife in Goa, and the cheapness of all alcohol (except for wine) has resulted in many people going to Goa for drinking; its port has become popular with visiting ships. During World War II, when the British wanted to attack a number of German ships in Goa harbor in a secret operation on March 9, 1943, carried out by the Calcutta Light Horse, the commandos disguised themselves as an elderly British drinking party taking advantage of the cheap alcohol in Goa. This wartime raid formed the basis of the film The Sea Wolves (1980) starring Gregory Peck, Roger Moore, and David Niven. The Indians took over Goa in 1961, and Goa and the nearby Portuguese settlements of Daman and Diu were made a centrally administered union territory and remained as such until 1987 when Goa became a state and Daman and Diu remained union territories. Large numbers of tourists continue to visit Goa to take advantage of the alcohol that still remains cheaper here than in many other parts of India. In addition, the liquor called feni is produced solely in Goa and is not allowed to be sold outside the state. It is made from either cashew nuts or coconuts and has a very high alcohol content (between 43 and 45 percent). Described by some writers as “aromatic gasoline,” feni is consumed either neat or over ice and has often been used as a cocktail, especially with lemonade. Although wine is expensive, Indian wines (from such vineyards as Sula, Chateau Indage, and Grover) can all be easily found in restaurants in Goa.
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The Portuguese captured the city of Malacca (in Malaysia) in 1511 and transformed what had been a leading Malay Muslim kingdom into the center of Portuguese power in the region. They brought alcohol to Malacca, importing it from Goa and from Portugal itself, and introduced wine into their other possessions in the region. They lost control of Malacca in 1641 but retained control of Portuguese Timor until it was invaded by the Indonesians in 1975. Since the end of Indonesian rule in 1999, Australian beer has been the most popular in East Timor (now Timor Leste), and Tamai Pty Buffalo Premium Bitter was brewed locally. Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School See Also: Africa, Northern; Africa, Sub-Saharan; India; Portugal; Spain. Further Readings Boxer, Charles Ralph. The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415–1825. London: Hutchinson, 1969. Boyajian, James. Portuguese Trade in Asia Under the Habsburgs, 1580–1640. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Curto, José C. “Enslaving Spirits: The Portuguese– Brazilian Alcohol Trade at Luanda and its Hinterland, c. 1550–1830.” Social History of Medicine, v.19/2 (August 2006). Curto, José C. “Vinho Verso Cachaça: A Luta Luso Brasileira Pelo Comércio do Álcool e de Escravos em Luanda, 1648–1703.” In Angola e Brasil nas Rotas do Atlântico Sul, S. Pantoja and J. F. S. Saraiva, eds. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand do Brasil, 1999. Diffie, Bailey. Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415–1580. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977. Fernão-Pires, Maria João, ed. Vinhos e Aguardentes de Portugal (Anuáro 2010–2011). Lisbon, Portugal: Ministério de Agricultura, 2011. Newitt, Malyn D. D. A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion, 1400–1668. London: Routledge, 2005. Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700: A Political and Economic History. Chichester, England: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.
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Post-Prohibition Bootlegging Prior to the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited the sale and manufacturing of intoxicating beverages, most states already had restrictions put in place regarding alcohol use and misuse. The Eighteenth Amendment did not forbid one to possess or drink alcohol at home or in other private locations, and interestingly, it did not prohibit the possession of alcohol purchased before Prohibition was enforced. The Eighteenth Amendment was later supplemented by the Volstead Act in 1919. This amendment was passed by Congress on October 28, 1919, to decrease crime and “sin” by those who drank too heavily. At that point, it became a law at the national level and was enacted in 1920. That law was repealed almost 14 years later with the passage of the TwentyFirst Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Background Throughout history, people have searched for a way to feel good, forget their troubles, and relax. Alcohol seemed to provide the perfect escape for hard-working individuals. However, certain groups were formed during the late 1800s and early 1900s that pushed for the prohibition of alcohol because of its bad influence (according to religious groups and organizations led by women). Temperance unions, temperance societies, women’s Christian groups, and Progressives were very influential in this effort. Their actions led to making the manufacturing, sale, importation, exportation, and transportation of alcohol illegal. On January 16, 1920, the Volstead Act was passed by Congress, enforcing the new prohibition on alcohol. It was a reform effort to decrease social problems. So-called Progressives pushed for the rights of women, yet they also pushed for the destruction of liquor and the closure of saloons. Many women led these efforts for fear that use (and, more likely, abuse) of alcohol would hurt their families in the long run. There was a fear of high rates of family violence and low labor productivity by heads of households. However, while Prohibition closed legitimate bars and taverns, it also increased the sales of small portable stills.
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Because people still wanted to drink and socialize outside of their homes, they found a way to obtain and consume alcohol through alternate means. People continued to drink during Prohibition because of their desire for alcohol, but another reason was because of how harshly the law was attempted to be enforced, which backfired on the government. Attempted enforcement led to major disrespect for the law, and even most officials did not obey it. Records show that politicians and public leaders owned and operated stills, and the police were often complicit. In many cases, the police and politicians were corrupt along with the mobsters, and there was an interrelationship between organized crime, politics, and law enforcement. As Prohibition continued, violations of the law became worse. Although Prohibition decreased the consumption of alcohol in the first year or two, that reduction was only short lived. What developed was the illegal manufacturing (and sale) of alcohol, called bootlegging. Bootlegging involved the trafficking (unlawfully making, selling, and transporting) of intoxicating liquors without registration. The term developed from the practice in the south, where the person manufacturing the liquor would deliver his product (in a pint or half-pint size) in the leg of his boot. Some also believe the term developed during the American Civil War when soldiers snuck alcohol into their army camps by concealing it in their boots. Although this practice existed before Prohibition, it grew exponentially during Prohibition as illegally produced alcohol became a commodity. Rum-running is another term associated with bootlegging, though it is more associated with smuggling alcohol over water. Ships from the Bahamas transported into Florida most often, but bootlegging was also common on the rivers between Detroit and Canada. “Rum rows” developed off the coasts of large cities. Ships would quickly unload their cargo onto speedboats, but unfortunately, homicide and hijacking were commonly associated with this process. Rise of Organized Crime, Police Corruption, and Illegal Consumption Al Capone, a well-known Chicago gangster, became very wealthy by providing alcohol
through bootlegging. Capone’s men paid off the police and, in return, the police looked the other way when he and his men violated the laws of Prohibition, prostitution, and gambling. Making and distributing alcohol this way allowed the organized crime members to profit from the government’s actions. They brought the industry behind closed doors so that the liquor could be sold without tax and for much cheaper. Further, organized gangs gradually started working together. The Mafia ended up growing and developing into a strong monopoly because of the bootlegging in the late 1920s. Interestingly, Capone’s organization was actually glamorized and respected by the community members who did not support the government. Additionally, the problem of organized crime continued to flourish many years after the end of Prohibition. Prohibition led to an increase in bootlegging, which increased corruption and violence and created a large role filled by organized crime groups; this role was substantial even after Prohibition ended. Bars and saloons still existed during Prohibition, but they were unmarked. Much of the illegal consumption happened in speakeasies. These were secret locations that required patrons to whisper a code word to get in. Persons learned of their existence and were able to gain entrance through a side door with a peephole. They became extremely profitable, netting millions of dollars for these clever “businessmen.” Some research in the late 1920s found that the number of illegal speakeasies grew to twice the number of legal bars before the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified. Thus, opportunities for drinking, crime, violence, debauchery, and corruption actually increased. Because there was so much corruption, Prohibition agents were often paid off and bribed by speakeasy operators so that they could continue to operate or so that they could be given advance notice about raids on the speakeasy establishments. Interestingly, bootlegging existed before Prohibition and continues to occur today—many years after Prohibition ended. During the 1920s, alcohol or whiskey was illegally produced in homes. It was called “hooch” and “white lightning,” and a still was used for distillation. Today, there are reality television shows that portray this
“backwoods” process used to make moonshine (named for working by the shine of the moon to avoid detection by the Internal Revenue Service). Even though alcohol is legal today, there are still businessmen who want to avoid being taxed on their home-brewed product to maximize their profit. Thus, the extensive production of unregulated and untaxed alcohol continues, though done more with whiskey. Unintended Consequences of Prohibition Unfortunately, post-Prohibition bootlegging has led to police officer misconduct. Many broke the law to enforce the laws against consumption. They shot innocent people and destroyed property in the name of Prohibition. Yet bribes must have been quite common, considering that conviction rates were very low for Prohibition-related crimes. Other problems developed because of Prohibition and the bootlegging process. Many people died from drinking filtered antifreeze as a substitute for alcohol or were blinded or paralyzed from drinking contaminated, unregulated bootleg alcohol. One particular problem was that the stills used had lead coils that gave off a dangerous poison. Some bootleggers used recipes that included iodine or embalming fluid. Bootleggers also counterfeited prescription and liquor licenses to get their alcohol. They would steal from each other and commit criminal acts to evade the police (or pay them off). They built their own secret breweries, and some took on the responsibility of creating a house-to-house delivery system to increase their profits. After all of the problems caused by Prohibition, it took almost 14 years to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment. Ironically, many of those who advocated for Prohibition agreed that it led to so much corruption, bootlegging, and lawlessness and that it was better to support alcohol manufacturing and consumption so that they could be regulated again. Thus, the Twenty-First Amendment was passed by Congress on February 20, 1933, and was ratified by the states. It took effect on December 5, 1933. Also influential was Prohibition’s impact on the economy; the country was unable to profit without the legal taxation of alcohol (and with the increase of bootlegging). The Great Depression of 1929, which lasted about 10 years, had a large impact on societal opinion about
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Prohibition as well. Those most supportive of it started to waver, especially after noting the correlation between lost tax revenue, lost legal jobs, and the profit increase to organized crime groups. After World War II, opinion surveys found that only about one-third of the population favored national Prohibition, though on the state level there were still areas that held on to state or local prohibition laws. Prohibition had a positive and negative impact. On the positive side, after it was implemented, deaths caused by cirrhosis decreased, and arrest rates for city-level drunkenness were reduced. Alcohol consumption itself fell (for the first few years) to 30 percent lower than its pre-Prohibition level, and overall mortality rates and crime rates dropped. Studies found that residents were safer when alcohol was prohibited, and crime (assaults in particular) greatly went down. It led to a boom in the cruise industry (as alcohol was allowed on international waters). However, cruises during Prohibition were “created” to circle around areas without any other purpose but to allow alcohol consumption on board. On the negative side, adulterated or contaminated liquor led to many deaths, which would not have happened if Prohibition was not enforced. The
King County, Washington, Sheriff Matt Starwich (center), along with two other officials, confiscate a still and bootlegging materials near Seattle, Washington, circa 1925. The term bootlegging developed in the south, where liquor would be delivered (in a pint or half-pint size) in the leg of a boot.
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number of alcoholics and illegal drinking establishments actually increased by the end of the 1920s, and the economy suffered. Brewing industries were almost decimated, but gangsters and bootleggers were profiting while the country was suffering. Conclusion Research shows that intentions may have been good with the push for Prohibition, but it might have caused more harm than good. Those originally supportive of Prohibition and the Eighteenth Amendment eventually saw the dangers in the side effects of unregulated and untaxed liquor. By the end of the 14-year period, when the TwentyFirst Amendment was passed (repealing the Eighteenth Amendment), most of American society was not supportive of Prohibition. Bootlegging had become a major problem, and it continues to occur today. Gina Robertiello Felician College See Also: American Temperance Society; Appalachian Moonshine Culture; Atlantic City; Capone, Al; Eighteenth Amendment; Mafia; Moonshiners; Regulation of Alcohol; Speakeasies and Blind Pigs; Temperance Movement, The New; Twenty-First Amendment; Volstead Act. Further Readings Dills, Angela K., Mireille Jacobson, and Jeffrey A. Miron. “The Effect of Alcohol Prohibition on Alcohol Consumption: Evidence From Drunkenness Arrests.” Economics Letters, v. 86/2 (2005). Jensen, Gary F. “Prohibition, Alcohol, and Murder: Untangling Countervailing Mechanisms.” Homicide Studies, v.4/1 (February 2000). Johansen, Per Ole. “The Norwegian Alcohol Prohibition: A Failure.” Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention, v.14/S1 (February 2013). Rousso, Lee H. “The Criminalization of Bootlegging: Unnecessary and Unwise.” Buffalo Intellectual Property Law Journal, v.1/2 (Fall 2002). Wood, Darryl S. and Paul J. Gruenewald. “Local Alcohol Prohibition, Police Presence, and Serious Injury in Isolated Alaska Native Villages.” Addiction, v.101/3 (March 2006).
Precolonial Africa Africans consumed and produced alcohol throughout the continent for centuries prior to European colonization. Palm wines, grain beers, and fermented honey water or fruit-based drinks comprised the alcoholic beverages most commonly found in precolonial Africa. Scholars believe that alcohol consumption prior to colonization typically revolved around ritual uses. In many parts of the continent, Africans used alcohol as parts of key ceremonies throughout an individual’s lifecycle, including weddings and funerals. In traditional cultures, such as the Akan, GaAdangwe, and Ewe peoples of southern Ghana or the Bena people in southwestern Tanzania, traditional wines and beers have historically been used as offerings to the ancestors and as psychoactive substances with spiritual powers to facilitate communication with ancestors and spirits through libation. The fact that alcohol was so thoroughly embedded into ceremonial life in precolonial Africa has led many Western scholars to view traditional patterns of consumption as “integrated” into social life. By contrast, they view newer forms of alcohol consumption, particularly the use of imported liquors and beers, as more “disruptive” to social order. Recent scholarship, however, increasingly questions the characterization of precolonial alcohol consumption as problem-free and “integrated.” Older studies tend to downplay the historical importance of the recreational uses of alcohol by Africans, as well as evidence of alcohol abuse in Africa prior to European colonization. Patterns of alcohol consumption in precolonial Africa changed over time and varied from region to region. Religious changes, and most notably the advance of Islam in West Africa, starting gradually from the 8th century onward, have played a key role in controlling the advance and integration of alcohol into daily life. Traditional Alcoholic Beverages Alcoholic beverages consumed in Africa prior to European colonization can be grouped into two categories: (1) the beer made from grains, such as sorghum or millet, typically found in the savannah areas of eastern and southern Africa and
the Sahelian zone, and (2) the palm and banana wines of tropical areas typical of central and west Africa as well as the coastal areas. There is also evidence of fermented honey water being made and consumed in some parts of the continent. Producing all of these traditional drinks used variations of a few simple techniques, many of which are still widespread today. The basic technique for producing beer from grains typically involves a two-step process. A first small batch of grains—typically millet, sorghum, or maize— is soaked, sprouted, and ground in a container that has stored desirable yeasts and bacteria. A second batch of grain is then sprouted and ground. Fermentation occurs as the two batches of grains are mixed together. Banana wine is traditionally obtained by extracting the juice of sweet bananas—typically by squashing or treading. The juice is then turned into alcohol through natural fermentation. Palm wine is obtained by tapping the sap from coconut or oil palms, and the subsequent fermentation process requires little input or work. Traditional Alcohol Use Alcohol consumption, production, and exchanges in precolonial Africa can be divided into three categories. First, in many cultures across the subSaharan continent, alcohol has played (and continues to play) a major role in ritual and religious events. As mentioned, in traditional cultures, traditional wines and beer are used as offerings to the ancestors and as psychoactive substances with spiritual powers, often to facilitate communication with ancestors and spirits through libation. Second, alcohol has also been used traditionally as a highly valued economic commodity. In societies such as the Duupa in northern Cameroon, for example, traditional beer was used as a means to recruit large numbers of workers to perform seasonal agricultural tasks. In such systems, alcohol becomes a valued commodity that supports an economy based on reciprocal exchange of labor. Third, across the sub-Saharan continent, the consumption of alcoholic beverages has formed a key part of time allocated to socialization and relaxation; alcohol is consumed primarily in the pursuit of enjoyment and recreation. Overall, alcohol consumption in precolonial Africa tended to be seasonal. Because fermented
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drinks could not be conserved over long periods, the availability of alcoholic beverages reflected the growing and harvest times. In grain-beer-producing regions, for instance, the peak would have been after a successful harvest. Religious Changes and Alcohol in Precolonial Africa Despite a common view of traditional alcohol use as integrated and therefore fixed, alcohol consumption has undergone many historical changes in precolonial Africa. For instance, the spread of Islam in West Africa has had a major impact on the role played by alcohol in daily and ceremonial life in the region. Although Islam has been present in west Africa since the 8th century, its spread has been a rather gradual and complex process, becoming a truly important force in the region by the 13th century onward. As it spread, Islam tended to act as a strong control mechanism for prohibiting the consumption of alcohol other than for medicinal purposes. In precolonial Africa, Islam often cohabited with—rather than supplanted—traditional religious beliefs and rituals. This seriously reduced Islam’s ability to eradicate alcohol consumption for African Muslims, and many traditional drinks were not classified as alcoholic according to Islamic law because of their low alcoholic content. Clovis Bergère Rutgers University, Camden See Also: Africa, Northern; Africa, Sub-Saharan; Drinking, Anthropology of; Nigeria; South Africa; Wine, Palm. Further Readings Akyeampong, Emmanuel Kwaku. Drink, Power, and Cultural Change: A Social History of Alcohol in Ghana, c. 1800 to Recent Times. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1996. Bryceson, Deborah Fahy. Alcohol in Africa: Mixing Business, Pleasure, and Politics. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002. Colson, Elizabeth and Thayer Scudder. For Prayer and Profit: The Ritual, Economic, and Social Importance of Beer in Gwembe District, Zambia, 1950–1982. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988.
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Pan, Lynn. Alcohol in Colonial Africa. Upssala, Sweden: The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1975. Willis, Justin. Potent Brews: A Social History of Alcohol in East Africa, 1850–1999. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2002.
Pregnancy, History of Alcohol and The issue of alcohol use during pregnancy is the cause of much moral and political controversy. The question of what, and how much, is safe to drink during pregnancy has been heavily debated over the past 30 years, with no signs of resolution. While many governments and organizations promote a “no alcohol is safe” message, other groups have argued that light or periodic use of alcohol is unlikely to cause harm to the developing fetus. While on the surface, this issue appears to be a simple question of “how often,” “how much,” and “when” alcohol exposure occurred during pregnancy, the question is complicated by moral, ethical, and legal issues related to the rights of women and the rights of the fetus. This entry examines the effects of alcohol on the developing fetus, the consequences of prenatal alcohol exposure, and the factors affecting the prevention and moderation of alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Effects of Alcohol on the Developing Fetus Alcohol is a teratogen. A teratogen is a substance known to interfere with the development of the fetus in utero. Alcohol is particularly problematic as a teratogen because it has a wide range of harmful effects on fetal development during pregnancy. Heavy drinking is of particular concern in the first trimester, but it can continue to cause damage throughout a pregnancy. This differs from many other teratogens that affect specific points in development and cause visible birth defects. Research has indicated that alcohol use during pregnancy causes greater harm than cocaine use and can lead to a number of alcoholrelated neurological and birth defects.
The topic of substance abuse during pregnancy is a problem that has roots in social conditions such as poverty, previous trauma, childhood sexual abuse, family violence, and early exposure to alcohol use at home. For women who become pregnant, drinking patterns—particularly patterns of misuse that are already established—are not easily changed. Awareness of the harms of alcohol use and pregnancy are not always well known, or warnings such as “no alcohol is best” during pregnancy are often ignored. It is well established in scientific research that alcohol can cause a wide range of both visible and invisible defects, brain damage, and even organ malformations over the course of fetal development. Many signs and symptoms are not easily identifiable until years after birth. Best practice in assessing the effect of alcohol during pregnancy relies on a medical/social history taken by health professionals. It is often difficult to establish records of prenatal or fetal alcohol exposure relying entirely on a verbal history collected primarily from the mother, particularly when addiction is a concern. The time gap between collection of the history and the previous drinking events is often too large to ensure accurate reporting. Such histories are often taken months—sometimes years—after the drinking occurred. Alcohol is readily accessible in the modern world, making it difficult to monitor an individual’s usage or to verify drinking histories with written records. Concerns about alcohol use in adolescence because of ease of access are rising across North America. Prenatal alcohol exposure is also affected by pharmacokinetics, or the way that a drug (including alcohol) is metabolized. Factors such as general health, body weight, muscle mass, metabolism, genetic makeup, smoking, and nutrition affect pharmacokinetics. In the adult body, ethanol (alcohol) is removed from the body primarily via the liver. In the developing fetus, however, the liver is not yet able to process ethanol, and the fetus is completely reliant on the mother’s body to remove the alcohol. In addition to maternal blood-alcohol levels, the developing fetus is also exposed to alcohol (ethanol) in amniotic fluid as ethanol easily crosses the placental barrier. While amniotic alcohol is eventually eliminated through the mother’s detoxification system, this process
occurs at approximately half the speed at which it is eliminated from the maternal bloodstream, leaving the developing fetus exposed to alcohol for a longer period. While inaccurate reporting, metabolic differences, and the general health of the mother may complicate the determination of how much alcohol, if any, is safe during pregnancy, problematic patterns regarding alcohol consumption during pregnancy have been identified. Binge drinking (drinking more than five drinks in a single sitting) and heavy drinking (drinking more than seven drinks per week) are thought to significantly increase the risk of negative effects on the developing fetus. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder The effects of prenatal alcohol exposure vary from no observable effects to profound disability and even fetal death. Ethanol is neurotoxic and can interrupt or interfere with the development of the central nervous system, including brain development, in the fetus. The brain is highly vulnerable to damage from alcohol exposure in utero. The outcome of prenatal alcohol exposure depends not only on the amount of alcohol consumed but also the point of development at which the fetus is exposed. Some elements of development, such as the central nervous system, are vulnerable to exposure throughout almost the entire pregnancy, while the arms, teeth, and palate have somewhat shorter periods of vulnerability. Brain injury as a result of alcohol consumption is often not immediately recognized at birth and may only become visible later in life as neurobehavioral concerns appear. Individuals exposed to alcohol prenatally often have diffuse, rather than focal, brain damage that affects a wide range of brain functions. These individuals often display concerns with impulse control, attention, and emotion regulation, among other areas. It is also true that not all children exposed to alcohol during pregnancy will be negatively affected, as multiple factors contribute to this outcome. In a study by Kenneth Jones and David Smith, researchers described a collection of physical defects, behavioral concerns, and developmental problems in children born to women affected by alcoholism during pregnancy. The collection of symptoms was identified as fetal alcohol
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syndrome. Prior to this study, a French study had also described the symptoms of the syndrome, and it has been subsequently described in research from various countries and continents, including the United States, Canada, Europe, and Africa. In the years since the initial studies, additional research has led to the development of a definition for fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). The FASD spectrum includes the following: • Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is defined by growth deficiency; facial defects, including a smooth philtrum; central nervous system damage (structural and/or functional impairments); and a known history of prenatal alcohol exposure. • Partial fetal alcohol syndrome (pFAS) is defined by central nervous system damage (structural and/or functional impairment) and a known history of prenatal alcohol exposure but is lacking some of the distinctive facial characteristics and/or growth deficits of FAS. • Alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder (ARND) diagnosis requires a known history of prenatal alcohol exposure and central nervous system damage, including structural and/or functional impairment. • The evolution from a single syndrome (FAS) to a spectrum disorder (FASD) encompassing multiple conditions is important in both diagnostic and intervention strategies for children and families. The FASD spectrum was developed to accommodate the range of both type and severity of disabilities and health concerns seen in individuals prenatally exposed to alcohol. The recognition of FASD within medical and allied health disciplines varies because of the differences in diagnostic manual use. While FAS is listed in the International Classification of Diseases Manual (ICD), the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) does not list either FAS or FASD as an official disorder but does include an appendix for
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Individuals affected by FASD have a lifelong disability caused by brain injury. Autopsy and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) studies of individuals affected by FASD show a range of brain abnormalities reflective of the wide span of functional impairment also seen with the disorder. In the most profound cases, brain abnormalities included a thin or missing corpus callosum, damage to cortical and subcortical structures, and an overall reduction in brain size. Individuals with FASD often struggle across their life span because of this irreversible brain damage. Many individuals with FASD struggle with the concepts of time and money, show significant problems with math, and face many challenges in day-to-day life tasks. Problems with impulse control and planning also create significant concerns in adulthood, particularly with addiction and gambling. Many individuals affected by FASD find themselves in repeated contact with the justice system if community supports and interventions are not available, particularly during adolescence and young adulthood. Adolescents with FASD can have problems with authority figures such as teachers, guardians, and biological or adoptive parents, particularly in adolescence because of developmental changes. Parents and teachers often report that children, youth, and adults affected by FASD have difficulties learning from past mistakes. This is not surprising, given that FASD can cause profound deficits in memory, planning, and impulse control; problems in thinking through cause and effect; and struggles with understanding the relationship between behaviors and consequences. One of the major challenges for individuals with FASD is that there are often no visible signs of a disability. Many individuals with FASD also display normal to above-average skills in spoken language use. Thus, expectations of individuals with FASD often exceed their capacity because others overestimate the ability or understanding
of the person with FASD. This is a particular challenge if a child is not diagnosed and if there is not a recognition that the diffuse brain damage becomes, in many ways, a disability of thinking. Children who often get into trouble at school, have trouble following directions, and often cannot explain why they experience problems can be frustrating for the child, parents, education system, and community. This frustration often leads to a mistaken belief and perception that the individual with FASD is refusing to listen or is being deliberately defiant, when, in reality, he or she is unable to successfully process, interpret, understand, respond, or remember the information as a result of brain injury. It is difficult for those around the child to understand the source of the problems without a diagnosis. Alcohol Use and FASD in Environmental and Cultural Contexts Concerns about addiction or alcoholism are often viewed as a personal versus a social problem. Addiction and alcohol use occur within an environmental setting, and it is important to develop an understanding of the reasons women may drink during pregnancy. For example, while initial alcohol use may be due to a traumatic life event, a new social group formed around alcohol use (drinking buddies) can encourage continued drinking. Ongoing drinking episodes can lead to a physical dependence on alcohol in addition to the emotional trauma and social acceptance that created the drinking pattern. Cultural beliefs and practices surrounding alcohol can also play a significant role in alcohol use during pregnancy. In North America, for example, alcohol is often presented as an acceptable way to unwind or escape daily challenges. Treatment and intervention efforts as well as research are now specifically adapted for the culture, environment, and population they are intended to reach. Cultural values and accepted societal practices can inadvertently create a cycle of behavior, and this cycle can be seen in the North American response to prenatal alcohol exposure. The high needs of children and youth exposed to alcohol prenatally are often overwhelming for the caregiver. Caregiver burnout is often compounded by the fact that individuals with FASD are often born to mothers struggling with multiple
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problems. Addictions, mental health issues, poverty, previous trauma, and family violence are common issues faced by mothers of children affected by prenatal alcohol exposure. As the mothers struggle with caregiving, a societal desire to protect children from what is viewed as an “unfit” home can lead to these children being brought into the child welfare system. Once in foster care, children who experienced fetal alcohol exposure change placements a disproportionate number of times in contrast to their peers, often because of their behavioral challenges and high needs. Research has shown that entry into the child welfare system and placement disruption are highly traumatic events for children and adolescents. This creates a situation where a predisposition to addiction (because of an FASD diagnosis) and traumatic experience intersect, increasing the risk of alcohol misuse by the individual with FASD. Evolving Directions: Prevention of Alcohol Use During Pregnancy When considering prenatal alcohol exposure, it is important to note that alcohol use during pregnancy is not solely a fetal health issue but also a maternal health issue. Women who engage in binge or heavy drinking during pregnancy often have multiple vulnerabilities, including addictions, mental health problems, family violence, trauma, and poverty. Alcohol use during pregnancy is a complex and multifactorial problem requiring a complex solution that addresses not only maternal drinking but also the environmental and cultural factors underlying alcohol misuse. When prenatal alcohol exposure is addressed as a women’s health and wellness issue, attention is given to not only the alcohol use by the mother but also the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and cultural health of the mother. This provides not only an opportunity to reduce the risk of prenatal alcohol exposure but also a chance for the mother to actively work on her own health and skill sets while locating supports available within her immediate community. Hampering the successful prevention of maternal alcohol use is the moral stigma surrounding FASD and alcohol use during pregnancy. Unlike children with genetically based disabilities or diseases, the mother of a child with FASD must deal
The National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome published this public service message in 1992, featuring a formerly heavy drinker and her 3-year-old son, who suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome (FASD). The high needs of children exposed to alcohol prenatally are often overwhelming for the caregiver, who are often mothers struggling with their own multiple problems.
not only with her child’s disability but also with the knowledge that alcohol use during pregnancy caused the condition. Research has shown that interventions aimed at reducing harm while supporting women to become healthier are most successful in reducing alcohol use during pregnancy. When adopting a woman’s health perspective, it becomes easier to engage in conversations on FASD prevention, as the topic shifts from the issue of alcohol use in pregnancy and focuses on improving the health of the mother. Trends in treatment programs and interventions related to substance abuse are now oriented toward promoting maternal and mental health. Such programs can address the multiple cultural,
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social, and medical concerns surrounding alcohol use during pregnancy. Jamie Hickey Dorothy Badry University of Calgary See Also: Adult Children of Alcoholics; Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Sociology of; Alcoholism Treatment, Sociology of; Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder; Gender and Alcohol Abuse; Moral Attitudes Toward Alcohol Consumption; Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Chronic Abuse; Physiological Effects of Alcohol: Moderate Use. Further Readings Brick, John. Handbook of the Medical Consequences of Alcohol and Drug Abuse. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press, 2004. Brien, J. F., C. W. Loomis, J. Tranmer, and M. McGrath. “Disposition of Ethanol in Human Maternal Venous Blood and Amniotic Fluid.” American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, v.146/2 (May 1983). Clarren, Sterling, Amy Salmon, and Egon Jonsson, eds. Prevention of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder FASD: Who Is Responsible? New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Stratton, Kathleen R., Cynthia J. Howe, and Frederick C. Battaglia. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: Diagnosis, Epidemiology, Prevention, and Treatment. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 1996.
Presidents, U.S. Most American presidents drank; some only socially, others to the point of alcoholism, and still others were teetotalers, drinking absolutely no alcohol. This entry examines presidents from John Adams to Barack Obama. The Federalist Era The easiest way to look at the drinking habits of American presidents is the most straightforward, through a direct chronology. John Adams, a member of both the First and Second
Continental Congresses and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was also the second president of the United States (1797–1801). From his youth, Adams was accustomed to drinking “hard cider” each day before breakfast; that was a habit he never gave up. He was also at times given to drinking beer, especially during the sessions of the First Continental Congress in 1774. In voluminous letters to his wife, Abigail, he commented on the many taverns open in Philadelphia. He noted that it was in one of them that he first met George Washington. Adams was, no doubt, on hand when the Second Continental Convention celebrated the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776 with “50 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of Claret, and 22 bottles of Port.” Adams, of course, lived in an era when drinking alcohol was the norm. Before sanitation systems, and especially in cities, water was often foul. Drinking it could cause more harm than good. Alcohol—whether brewed, distilled, or fermented—was often a better choice. Adult American colonists drank an estimated 34 gallons of beer or cider, 5 gallons of distilled alcohol, and 1 gallon of wine yearly. Jefferson, a wine connoisseur, followed Adams with two terms as president. James Madison then followed with two terms of his own (1809–17). A political genius, Madison had written most of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. He was also a noted drinker, allegedly consuming 1 to 1.5 pints of whiskey a day, despite the efforts of noted Dr. Benjamin Rush to dissuade him. (Rush had also tried to get Adams to give up the cider; Adams just lied to the doctor when he said he preferred milk to the hard stuff.) James Monroe was elected to the presidency in 1816 and served two terms (1817–25). He presided over treaties that normalized America’s western boundaries, and he signed the Monroe Doctrine. He was also a noted drinker himself. He had apparently developed a taste for drink during the American Revolution, when he served as an adjutant to a hard-drinking Continental general. During his presidency, Monroe (as did others before him) sought the expert advice of Jefferson on what wines to serve at the White House. John Quincy Adams (1825–29) was the son of the second president. He drank only in
moderation, if at all, despite his father’s predilection for hard cider. He had plenty of opportunity, however, for he was better known as a statesman than as president. He toured Europe several times, served as U.S. ambassador to Russia, and was Monroe’s secretary of state. Nevertheless, the younger Adams was known for a dour disposition, one that seemed to have little room for drink or merriment of any kind. Still, drink was prevalent in his immediate family. One of Adams’s sons died as the result of alcoholism; another committed suicide. The Middle Period Andrew Jackson began the first of two terms in 1829. Known as “Old Hickory,” he rode his popularity as victor of the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 to the White House. While he was known to like straight whiskey on occasion, there is apparently no evidence he drank other than socially while he was president. Through no planning of his own, however, Jackson’s first inauguration on March 4, 1829, turned into the most rambunctious “party” the White House has ever known. He—officially in mourning after the death of his wife, Rachel, soon after his election—declined to attend the traditional inaugural balls. Instead, he chose to go home to the White House and retire. Unwilling to leave Washington, D.C., without a chance to shake Jackson’s hand and offer a toast, hundreds of his supporters from the west followed him to the White House and demanded entrance. The White House staff could do little but pull together an impromptu repast, complete with a variety of spirits. They were able to get the crowd outside only by taking the drink outside. At other, planned White House events, Jackson liked serving something called “Daniel Webster punch.” It was a mix of lemons, sugar, green tea, brandy, claret, champagne, bananas, orange pineapples, cherries, and strawberries. His second vice president and successor in the presidency, Martin Van Buren (1837–41), was the opposite of Jackson. He liked to drink, he drank a lot, and everyone knew it. Van Buren could reportedly drink for “days”—or at least for long periods—without showing any trace of intoxication. His ability to hold his whiskey earned him the nickname Blue Whiskey Van. He served only one term.
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The election of 1840 ushered in a string of teetotaler presidents. That is not surprising, given that the United States had entered into an era of reform. Starting with the Second Great Awakening in the late 18th century, Americans began giving up the old puritanical notion of predestination; that is, fewer and fewer American Christians believed they were predestined for heaven or hell. Rather, they believed people could change the results of their lives through personal reform. Obviously, one of the chief reform areas was alcoholism. Temperance groups (which often went hand-in-hand with women’s rights movements) formed, and wives encouraged husbands to sign temperance pledges. Chief among their campaign points was that alcohol turned husbands into monsters who spent their families’ money on booze and abused their women. William Henry Harrison, a hero of the War of 1812, won the election of 1840. He was a teetotaler. Even had he not been, he would have had little time to drink in the White House. He caught pneumonia while giving his inaugural address and died only one month into his term. Harrison’s successor, John Tyler, was also a teetotaler—as was James K. Polk, who won the election of 1844. Polk won the election on an expansionist platform and vowed to take only one term. That enabled him to declare war against Mexico to gain the southwest without fear of political repercussions. The first hero of the Mexican-American War was Zachary Taylor, who won the presidential election of 1848. He was also a teetotaler, which was surprising given his unkempt appearance (even in uniform) and his nickname—Old Rough and Ready. Taylor died in office, and vice president Millard Fillmore took over the presidency. Fillmore, despite his stout appearance, was a teetotaler and something of a health nut. He avoided strong drinks and rich meals and took frequent walks. Civil War and Reconstruction Franklin Pierce won the presidency in 1852, ushering out the teetotalers in a big way. He was an acknowledged drinker, probably an alcoholic. When he failed to win renomination for the presidency in 1856, he famously said, “There’s nothing left . . . but to get drunk.”
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Pierce’s successor, James Buchanan, was a bachelor. He was also a heavy drinker. He reportedly served some $3,000 in wine at his inauguration. His favorite activity on Sundays was to take a ride to a Washington distillery and pick up a 10-gallon keg of whiskey for the week ahead. Buchanan’s successor, Abraham Lincoln, is covered elsewhere in this collection, as mentioned. Lincoln’s vice president and the man who succeeded him upon his assassination in 1865 was Andrew Johnson. Johnson has earned an apparently undeserved reputation as a drunkard. At Lincoln’s second inaugural on March 4, 1865, Johnson stumbled through his own vice presidential inaugural address. His slurred speech and shaky movements convinced everyone present (and hence generations of Americans) that Johnson was drunk. And if he were drunk on the capital steps, then he must surely have been a complete drunkard. But such was not so. Johnson had a case of the flu—not unusual in the wretched climes of Washington, D.C.—and he had several medicinal drinks prior to the ceremony; again, given the time, that was not unusual. But the results were abysmal for Johnson’s reputation. Many wrongly assumed that his horrid presidency, including his impeachment and near removal from office, stemmed somehow from drinking. Instead, all that must be laid at the feet of Johnson’s political incompetence. Johnson’s successor in the White House, Ulysses S. Grant, a man with alcoholic tendencies. The Gilded Age After the disputed election in 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes took office for one term as president. He was a teetotaler, probably of his own accord, but many people thought his wife (whom they derided as Lemonade Lucy) pushed him toward a temperance pledge. After attending a party at the White House, Secretary of State William M. Evarts noted sardonically that the “water flowed like champagne.” James Garfield, elected in 1880, apparently drank very little alcohol, if any at all. After an office-seeker shot him in 1881, doctors gave him doses of whiskey as part of his treatment. Garfield died 80 days after the assassination attempt, possibly the result of an infection that
set in the wound. Chester Arthur, Garfield’s successor, was known to drink, sometimes heavily. He favored ales, wines, and liqueurs. His stout appearance bore testimony to his love of drink and rich foods. Grover Cleveland followed Arthur in office, winning the election in 1884 and again in 1892. Cleveland was the stereotypical “fat” politician of the late 19th century, and he pushed around a noted beer belly. The term was well deserved, as beer was his favorite drink. He frequently downed eight glasses (which may well have been tankards) daily. Benjamin Harrison’s one term as president divided Cleveland’s two. Harrison was a teetotaler, although he loved cigars. William McKinley, elected in 1896, was known to sip Scotch now and then, but not to excess. The Early 20th Century Theodore Roosevelt (TR) became president upon McKinley’s assassination in 1901. TR was known for his vigorous lifestyle. Having been an asthmatic child, Roosevelt took up boxing, horseback riding, rowing, and other athletics to strengthen his body. He admitted that he suffered bouts of depression, which he typically treated with even more vigorous activity. While he was prone to rich, sugary foods and was overweight later in life, he never drank alcohol. When a newspaper editor wrote that TR was a drinker and was frequently drunk, Roosevelt sued the man for libelous assault on his character. TR won. While TR’s successor, William Howard Taft, looked much like Cleveland, his belly was not from beer. In fact, Taft was a teetotaler. Still, he had no qualms if others around him drank; in fact, he encouraged them to do so. He reportedly supplied drinks for meetings, and in one notorious 1911 episode in St. Louis, he ordered rounds of Bronx cocktails for his friends—at breakfast. Woodrow Wilson (1913–21) did not drink, but he did veto the Volstead Act, which would implement the Eighteenth Amendment that outlawed the production and sale of alcohol in the United States. Wilson’s successor, Warren G. Harding, enjoyed drinking, regardless of Prohibition. He liked to drink while playing golf, in social settings, and at meetings with his White House staff and presidential Cabinet. His vice president,
Calvin Coolidge, was a teetotaler, whose habits made him the odd man out at Cabinet meetings. Coolidge kept a dry White House when he took over the presidency upon Harding’s sudden death in 1923. His hardest drink was cranberry juice with soda. Coolidge won the election in his own right in 1924 but took only one full term. The popular businessman and humanitarian, Herbert Hoover, won the election in 1928, serving as president from 1929 to 1933. Despite Prohibition, Hoover drank, but he did so secretly. He would often go to the Belgian Embassy in Washington, D.C., where he would enjoy martinis. Embassies, of course, are sovereign territories of their home countries, so Prohibition was not in force on their grounds. He presided over the early years of the Great Depression. While the depression was not his fault, his advocacy of a laissez faire governmental response to the crisis made him exceedingly unpopular. He lost his reelection bid to Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in 1932. He unabashedly enjoyed social drinking, and he quickly lent his support to the Twenty-First Amendment, which repealed Prohibition. Post–World War II and the Modern Age FDR died of a brain hemorrhage in April 1945, near the close of World War II in Europe. His vice president, Harry S. Truman, took over the presidency, completing most of FDR’s fourth term and winning the presidency outright in 1948. Truman also enjoyed social drinking. As a senator from Missouri, then as vice president, Truman often gathered with his congressional colleagues at the end of a business day in the office of Speaker of House of Representatives Sam Rayburn. There, Truman had a bourbon (his signature drink)— usually straight—to unwind. (Truman was in Rayburn’s office when he got the news that FDR had died and that he had become president.) He loved to play poker, and he often had a bourbon during games. Observers also noted that he could have four or five glasses of bourbon with no ill effect. He had a habit that was reminiscent of second president John Adams. During his presidency, Truman would get up early and go for a brisk twomile walk. When he returned home, he chased the exercise with a good glass of morning bourbon. Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower won the presidency in 1952, and he served two terms
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(1953–61). Ike was more prone to smoking and coffee (he drank it steadily during the planning of the D-Day invasion in 1944) than to alcoholic beverages. He reportedly hated beer, but he would take what he called a “thin” Scotch from time to time. Rather than drink everything that came his way during official state functions, Ike tended to just hold his glass and politely “taste” whatever had been served him. As befitting his playboy image, John F. Kennedy (1961–63) enjoyed drinking in social circles, although he was never known to be roaring drunk. He liked beer, gin and tonics, daiquiris (unfrozen), and French champagnes. Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy’s vice president, took office upon Kennedy’s assassination. His drinking style was more rough and western compared to Kennedy’s dignified eastern tastes. He quickly banned French champagne from the White House, thinking them too European and reminiscent of his predecessor’s “Camelot.” Instead, he opted for California sparkling wines. But his favorite drink had to be Cutty Sark Scotch, often drank from a paper or plastic cup. Joseph Califano, his special assistant, recalled riding around Johnson’s Texas ranch with his boss. Johnson, driving, kept a cup of Cutty Sark with him. When it was empty, he would stick his left arm out of the cart, wiggle the empty cup, and one of the many Secret Service men following in vehicles behind would run up and refill it. Richard M. Nixon, president from 1969 to 1974, drank, but he was a poor drinker. In social situations, he liked to take drink orders and then disappear to mix them as a way of avoiding conversation. When he actually drank, it was usually alone, and only one drink could undo him. The effects were worse when he was nervous or agitated. On occasion, Nixon’s national security advisor and close aid, Henry Kissinger, diverted phone calls from Nixon, fearing the president was too inebriated to handle them. Late in the Watergate crisis, in the summer of 1974, his drinking became worse. He might begin drinking in the middle of an afternoon and then spend nights erratically calling assistants or friends and walking aimlessly about the White House. On days after such crises, he would often not show up at the Oval Office until noon. Nixon’s plummet into depression became so alarming that some White House staffers feared he might try to kill himself.
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Nixon resigned the presidency in August 1974. His vice president, Gerald R. Ford, took over the office. After Nixon, Ford’s “common man” persona was a fascination to the public. He drank, but not too much, enjoying a gin and tonic to relax after hours or on Air Force One on return trips from meetings and appearances. He gave that up, however, when his wife, Betty, publicly announced her addictions to alcohol and pills and went into rehabilitation. Ford’s successor, Jimmy Carter, was a teetotaler. As in the days of Hayes and Lemonade Lucy, the White House went dry. Unlike Taft, Carter did not approve if others drank. He countenanced only the serving of nonalcoholic sparkling wines. He stood in stark contrast to his brother, Billy, who promoted an image as a hard-drinking, good ol’ southern boy. Billy at one point became the public face of Billy Beer, a fad beer in the late 1970s. Ronald Reagan was president from 1981 to 1989. He returned the White House to the practice of serving California wines. He had no compunction against social drinking. Neither did his successor, George H. W. Bush, who liked vodka martinis. Bill Clinton (1993–2001) was more a fan of food than alcohol, but he did enjoy beer and some mixed drinks. After leaving office, Clinton underwent coronary bypass surgery and adopted a clean-eating, vegan lifestyle. George W. Bush (2001–09) exhibited alcoholic tendencies as a young man but gave up drinking cold turkey. By the time Bush became president, he was a teetotaler. He followed the Taft model of teetotaling, however, rather than the Carter model. He did not care if others drank in the White House. He himself would opt for a Diet Coke instead. Barack Obama (2009–17) drinks, but not to excess. He has a penchant for beer; in his first term, the White House revealed that it brews its own craft beer. In July 2009, after Cambridge, Massachusetts, police arrested a black Harvard professor, Obama tried to cool racist tensions by inviting the principals involved to a “beer summit” at the White House. Vice President Joe Biden, a teetotaler, attended but drank a nonalcoholic beer. In 2012, while campaigning against Republican challenger Mitt Romney, Obama made the most of beer’s connection with everyday
Americans. Contrasting himself with Romney, a teetotaling Mormon, Obama was frequently seen ordering and drinking beer among supporters at campaign stops. Robert Steven Jones Southwestern Adventist University See Also: Adams, Samuel; Betty Ford Center; Democratic Party, U.S.; Grant, Ulysses S.; Hoover, Herbert; Jefferson, Thomas; Lincoln, Abraham; Prohibition Party; Republican Party, U.S.; Roosevelt, Franklin D.; Rush, Benjamin; Shot and a Beer; Temperance Movements; Volstead Act; Washington, George. Further Readings Dickerson, John. “Obama Raises the Bar.” Slate (January 28, 2009). http://www.slate.com/articles /news_and_politics/politics/2009/01/obama_raises _the_bar.html (Accessed November 2013). Drinking in America.com. “Mix It Up With President Obama.” http://www.drinkinginamerica.com/mix -it-up-with-president-obama (Accessed November 2013). Dumas, Anita. “Seven of Our Favorite Presidential Imbibers.” Constitution Center. http://blog-consti tutioncenter.org/2012/08/seven-of-our-favorite -presidential-imbibers (Accessed November 2013). Gomez, Vivian. “POTUS Potables: Favorite Cocktails and Drinking Habits of U.S. Presidents.” http:// www.hellawella.com/potus-potables-favorite-cock tails-and-drinking-habits-us-presidents (Accessed November 2013). McCullough, David. John Adams. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Touchstone, 1992. Woodward, Bob and Carl Bernstein. The Final Days. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976.
Prohibition There is no single definition of prohibition with respect to alcohol, but it generally refers to a policy that prohibits the production and distribution of alcoholic beverages, with the expectation that
the consumption of alcohol will cease once supply ends. Historically, some prohibition policies (including many in the Muslim world) have forbidden alcohol consumption, while others (such as the Prohibition policy in force in the United States from 1920 to 1933) have not prohibited consumption itself. In addition, some prohibition regimes have permitted the production and sale of beverage alcohol under a certain (low) level of alcohol, and its use for religious or medicinal purposes but not for beverage purposes. Others have forbidden its production for any purposes at all. Prohibition therefore represents a spectrum of policies. Religious Prohibition Although some Jewish and early Christian sects required their followers to abstain from alcohol, and therefore imposed prohibition on them, the most successful and enduring prohibition policy is that imposed by Islam on many Muslim populations, beginning in the 7th century. At first, the Prophet Muhammad permitted his followers to drink alcohol, but when he saw that it could lead to violence and social disorder, he banned it. As Islam extended its empire throughout much of the Middle East, then to north Africa, and finally to southwest Europe, more and more populations were subjected to policies that, in principle, prohibited the production and consumption of alcohol. But in practice, Muslim authorities in some regions of Europe and north Africa implicitly permitted alcohol production by taxing it. Poetry in praise of wine (such as in The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam) was a popular genre of medieval Arab literature. At present, total prohibition is applied to the national populations in several Muslim countries (such as Iran and Saudi Arabia), and consuming alcohol is a criminal offense punishable by a public whipping. The discreet consumption of alcohol by tourists, diplomats, and other foreigners may be tolerated. In other predominantly Muslim states, such as Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and Turkey, alcohol is more widely available, even though still on a very restricted basis. Historically, the degree of toleration of alcohol consumption in Muslim countries has varied according to the degree of secularization.
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Prohibitions in the 19th Century Although Prohibition policies are most often associated with the policies applied in the United States between 1920 and 1933, a number were enacted elsewhere: in Mexico, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, and Canada. In the United States, some states adopted prohibition policies during the 1800s and early 1900s, and most had done so by the time a national Prohibition law came into force in 1920. The first state to ban the production and sale of alcohol was Maine, in 1851, although residents of the state were permitted to drink alcohol and to bring it into the state for the purpose of consumption. By 1855, all New England states had adopted Prohibition laws of one sort or another, as had New York and some other states and territories. But many repealed their laws in the 1860s. Maine repealed its law in 1856, then reenacted it in 1858, and finally entrenched Prohibition in the state constitution in 1884. Prohibition and Native Americans The U.S. government was also active in prohibiting alcohol in the 19th century, as various administrations attempted to deny Native American populations access to alcohol. Believing that alcohol (especially spirits, like whiskey and rum) was harming these populations and that Native Americans were unable to control their drinking—this was the myth of the drunken Indian—administrations forbade the importation of alcohol into Indian country, a vast and poorly defined expanse of western America. They were encouraged to do so by some native leaders, who argued that alcohol was undermining the culture and social organization of their people. In 1802, the leader of the Miami Indians pleaded with President Thomas Jefferson to impose prohibition so as to stop the flow of the “fatal poison” that had reduced his people’s numbers and now kept them in poverty. In 1815, a federal law prohibited the operation of distilleries in Indian country, but it could not stop the flow of alcohol from outside. In 1831, noted explorer William Clark recommended the total prohibition of spirits from Indian country, and the following year, a federal law prohibited the movement of any liquor into Indian country— which was at that time defined as the whole of the United States west of the Mississippi River, except
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for the states of Missouri and Louisiana and the Arkansas Territory. As European settlement spread into this region, it became increasingly clear that Prohibition was to apply only to the Native American population and that prohibition would be explicitly defined in ethnic, not territorial, terms. Eventually, the term Indian country was abandoned and prohibition was applied by law only to Native Americans. When the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, more indigenous populations came within the purview of the U.S. government’s alcohol policies. The Russian authorities had imposed prohibition on the native Aleut peoples but had only loosely enforced it. The captain of the revenue cutter sent to establish American control of Alaska in 1867 declared that he would consider the territory Indian country and would destroy any alcohol brought into it by any vessel, no matter what its nationality. Congress confirmed this policy. Even so, alcohol flowed into Alaska despite apparently rigorous efforts to suppress it. Federal agents searched Aleut homes for distilling equipment, imposed fines and mandatory work programs for people caught drinking, put people in irons for being drunk in public, and even banned the sale of sugar, a necessary ingredient for distilling. In 1892, the U.S. Congress passed a definitive and comprehensive law imposing prohibition on Native Americans. This encompassed not only distilled spirits, which historically had been considered the main problem, but also wine and beer. It was a recognition of the spread of breweries and wineries throughout the United States. In 1920, this legislation became redundant, as national Prohibition was extended to all Americans. But when national Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the 1892 legislation came into force again, and it was not repealed until 1953. Prohibitions in Colonial Societies These American attempts to impose prohibition on indigenous populations were echoed in Africa, where there was widespread concern among indigenous leaders and colonial administrators about the effects of European alcohol on culture and social organization. In the 1880s, the emir of Bida, in central Nigeria, asked the bishop of Nigeria to beg Queen Victoria to ban the export of rum to his region. He then prohibited the sale of imported
spirits in his emirate. The 1889 to 1890 Brussels Conference on the slave trade and the commerce in firearms and alcohol banned the extension of the alcohol trade to, and the establishment of distilleries in, regions of Africa that had not been exposed to European alcohol. There was less concern about the effects of lower-alcohol native-fermented beverages such as beer and palm wine. A number of European colonial administrations applied prohibition to native peoples. In some of France’s west African colonies, near-prohibition policies were adopted in the early 1900s in the belief that alcohol consumption was affecting the economic development of the colonies by reducing the birthrate. Sales of alcohol in the interior regions, inhabited mainly by indigenous peoples, were severely restricted, although Europeans were exempted from any of the restrictions. Following World War I, a convention signed by European powers effectively mandated prohibition in those parts of Africa that European alcohols had not yet reached. In South Africa’s mining regions, alcohol was believed to have such a negative impact on productivity that, in 1896, the Boer Parliament banned the sale of alcohol to Africans in those regions entirely. With the assumption of control by the British, in 1902, the policy of total prohibition for Africans was continued. Prohibition in Mexico and Russia Prohibition policies were also applied in parts of Mexico following the revolution of 1910. Believing that alcohol lay behind much of the poverty in Mexico, some of the new political elites saw prohibition as integral to social renewal. The state of Durango banned the production and sale of alcohol, and in Mexico City, all bars selling pulque, the indigenous alcoholic beverage, were closed. In 1915, Governor Salvador Alvarado of Yucatán passed a dry law, a series of increasingly rigorous regulations that ultimately banned the production and sale of any beverage having more than 5 percent alcohol. Prohibition policies in Mexico were scattered, widely evaded, and loosely enforced, but they show a prohibitionist impulse at the same time as it was being manifested elsewhere. The first nationwide prohibition policy was introduced in Russia in 1914, just as World War I was breaking out, when Tsar Nicholas II decreed that alcohol could not be produced or sold for
the duration of hostilities. It was based on the same considerations that motivated other governments to regulate alcohol during war: fear that alcohol would undermine military discipline and impair industrial productivity and efficiency. In implementing prohibition, the Russian government went further than most others because it controlled the production of vodka; the most widely consumed alcohol in Russia, was autocratic; and did not fear a backlash by consumers. But the prohibition law was widely ignored. Drinking was widespread among Russian troops, and alcohol was illicitly produced throughout the country. Even the imperial family continued to drink, although it had promised to set the model of abstinence. Prohibition was continued by the Bolsheviks (Communists) after the Russian Revolution in 1917. They closed existing distilleries, wineries,
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and breweries; seized existing stocks of alcohol; and began a campaign to stop drinking by workers, whether at work or home. But faced with widespread illicit production and continued consumption, the Bolshevik government gradually abandoned prohibition, and by the late 1920s, the restrictions on alcohol production were removed entirely. National Prohibition in the United States In the United States, national Prohibition took force in 1920, but it was preceded by prohibition policies adopted by many states, starting with Maine in 1851. By the time national Prohibition took force, 27 states had introduced their own legislation, while 21 allowed alcohol production and sales. In all cases, supporters of Prohibition believed that it would improve society because citizens free of alcohol would be healthier, more
The Orange County, California, sheriff and other officers dump out bootleg booze, circa 1925. By 1923, rum runners and bootleggers frequented the coastline and Orange County’s harbors, using them as a base of operation for smuggling Canadian liquor into the United States. Enforcement of the law against the production and sale of alcohol, often helped by informers, was inconsistent and tended to focus on small-scale producers of moonshine rather than commercial-scale operators.
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moral, and more law-abiding. Life expectancy would rise, crime rates would fall, marriage breakdowns would decrease, and poverty would decline as people spent their money on food and housing rather than on drink. When the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution introducing national Prohibition, was submitted to the states for approval, 46 of the 48 states voted in favor. U.S. Prohibition was much more inclusive than many people had expected. Instead of exempting wine and beer or allowing low-alcohol beverages, the Volstead Act, which implemented the general rule embodied in the Eighteenth Amendment, banned any beverage that contained more than one-half of 1 percent alcohol by volume. Exceptions were few: doctors could prescribe alcohol; and priests, ministers, and rabbis could obtain and serve wine in religious rituals. These were not considered beverage occasions. Americans were permitted to use up their existing domestic stocks of alcohol and serve to family and bona fide friends. But sales from stores, saloons, and restaurants were banned, effectively wiping out America’s alcohol industry: all breweries making full-strength beer closed, and the number of wineries declined from 318 in 1914 to 27 in 1925. The remaining wineries made wine for religious purposes or produced table grapes. The result was the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the alcohol production and retailing sectors as well as in transportation, bottle production, and other industries. States and the federal government lost significant tax revenue. Some state governments resisted national Prohibition: Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey passed laws to permit the sale of wine and lowalcohol beer, but in each case, the U.S. Supreme Court struck the laws down. Other states failed to pass the legislation needed to enforce Prohibition, while others that did so later repealed their laws. By 1927, 27 of the 48 states made no budgetary provision for enforcement, which contributed to the eventual failure of the policy. Some wineries evaded the policy by selling dehydrated grape and concentrated grape juice, which could be used to make wine. There was also widespread popular evasion of Prohibition throughout the United States, as there had been in Russia. Americans were expected to turn from alcohol to healthy beverages like milk, water, and fruit juices and to
coffee, tea, and soft drinks. Many did, but many others sought out the alcohol (often referred to as moonshine) that was made clandestinely throughout the country. In addition to domestically produced alcohol, wine, beer, and spirits (though mainly spirits, because the high alcohol content made it more efficient to ship) were smuggled into the United States. Some came from Canada, much of it shipped across Lake Ontario to New York State or down the east coast from Nova Scotia to New England. Alcohol also crossed the border from Mexico, where the prohibition policies introduced in some states from 1910 were being relaxed by 1920, just as Prohibition took force in the United States. The Mexican brewing industry flourished during U.S. Prohibition (thanks in part to the hordes of Americans who visited Mexico to drink in the bars of the border towns), and several joint Mexican American-owned distilleries opened there in the 1920s. Yet more alcohol reached the United States from Europe. Ships loaded with wine and spirits lay outside U.S. territorial waters, and the alcohol was ferried ashore at night by flotillas of small boats. Although the volume of alcohol that flowed illegally into the United States is unknown, it seems to have been substantial, and it speaks to both strong consumer demand and to ineffective enforcement. Enforcement was the Achilles heel of Prohibition, as it was chronically underfunded and understaffed. Because many states refused to contribute to enforcement, the onus fell on the federal government. Although the budget rose from $3 to $15 million a year during the 1920s, there were never more than 3,000 agents in the field at any time throughout the whole of the United States. There was also a high turnover of enforcement staff, so there were relatively few experienced officers. Nearly 18,000 men were appointed to the service between 1920 and 1930, many to replace agents who had been dismissed. Almost 10 percent of agents were fired, most for drunkenness or taking bribes, although there seems to have been a rise in professionalism in the late 1920s. Enforcement of Prohibition Enforcement of the law against the production and sale of alcohol was inconsistent and tended to focus on small-scale producers of moonshine
rather than the commercial-scale operators who are often shown in The Untouchables, a television series (1959–63) that featured Eliot Ness, a legendary Prohibition enforcement agent in Chicago. The prosecution of small-time producers led to an impressive number of arrests, but agents rarely had the resources or enthusiasm to track down the major sources of alcohol. They were often helped by informers, some of whom were antidrink citizens doing their civic duty while others were moonshine producers who informed on their competitors. The sheer scale of prosecutions overwhelmed some state court systems. In the southern district of Florida, the two judges faced an increasing number of Prohibition-related cases (partly because Florida’s long coastline made it ideal for smuggling) until the backlog of cases was so large—reaching 3,000—that a third judge had to be added in 1928. Although most of the prosecutions involved small-scale moonshine producers, it was the involvement of organized crime in the illicit alcohol industry that most concerned authorities. Prohibition is sometimes credited with creating organized crime but, in fact, organized crime existed before Prohibition, and the gangs simply added alcohol to their existing portfolio of activities, such as narcotics, prostitution, firearms, and gambling. Nor did organized crime disappear from the United States when Prohibition policies were repealed. Even so, the alcohol-related exploits of organized crime received a lot of media attention. One of the most sensational was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago in February 1929, when seven men associated with one of the city’s gangs were shot, apparently by men working for gang boss Al Capone. It is thought that the two gangs were involved in a territorial conflict and that the victims’ syndicate had been hijacking Capone’s liquor shipments. The killings outraged citizens and drew attention to the role of organized crime in supplying alcohol to speakeasies, the clandestine and illicit drinking places that flourished while Prohibition was in force. The killings also fueled demands for repeal of Prohibition or, at least, liberalization to allow low-alcohol beverages on the grounds that the policy was causing a crime wave. Although many Americans simply bought alcohol from a local producer, many city dwellers frequented speakeasies. They ranged from
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gloomy basement bars that encouraged solitary male drinking to bright clubs that served cocktails and where bands and singers entertained clients. Although their number is unknown because they were clandestine, the New York police estimated that there were 32,000 speakeasies in the city by 1931. The more elaborate and sophisticated establishments attracted a middle- and upper-class clientele and began to transform public drinking in the United States from something frowned upon to something acceptable—even though, by drinking in speakeasies, clients were abetting breaches of the law; it was legal to drink alcohol but not to produce or sell it. “Respectable” American women, who would never have entered a saloon, began to drink in public (as public as speakeasies could be) while the Prohibition policy was in force. In rural and small-town America, the experience of drinking during Prohibition hinged on small-scale producers who made moonshine in 5-gallon milk cans, 50-gallon steel drums, or any other vessel located in their houses, barns, or in shacks hidden in forests and swamps. Most were poor (or most of those prosecuted were poor), many were women, and some were African Americans. They turned to making moonshine when prohibition made it a potentially profitable activity, and their numbers probably increased when the Depression struck the United States in 1929 and people thrown out of work turned to moonshine to make a living. Moonshiners’ customers paid prices such as 50 cents a pint or $3 a gallon for a beverage of uncertain strength, quality, and flavor and that was sometimes dangerous, sometimes even fatal, to consume. Prohibition and the Medical Professions Some Americans who wanted to drink were able to be prescribed alcohol for medicinal purposes, which was allowed under the law. It was limited to a pint of spirits (usually whiskey) every 10 days, a provision that doctors opposed, not because they thought anyone should necessarily consume more, but because it allowed the government to determine patient treatment. A further issue was that doctors could prescribe only liquor, not beer, and many doctors believed that beer had therapeutic properties. Although the attorney general quickly permitted doctors to
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prescribe beer, he was soon overruled by Congress. One result was that the American Medical Association, which had backed a Prohibition policy in 1917, reversed its position. A 1921 survey of 53,900 randomly selected American physicians showed that 51 percent were in favor of prescribing whiskey and 26 percent thought that beer had therapeutic properties, but only a small percentage argued for wine—unlike physicians in France, where the medical profession believed strongly in the medicinal value of wine. Pharmacists also opposed the form of Prohibition enacted in the United States. Alcohol was the most important ingredient in many prescription drugs, and because they had licenses to possess alcohol, pharmacies were given the responsibility for dispensing the whiskey that doctors prescribed. In the eyes of some pharmacists, this made them liquor retailers. The Repeal of Prohibition The scope and enforcement of Prohibition were still evolving when it was repealed in 1933. The Democratic candidate for president in the 1932 election, Franklin D. Roosevelt, ran on a repeal platform that reflected a shift in public opinion during the 1920s. By 1932, the Great Depression had hit the United States, unemployment was high, and the federal and state governments were in need of money. Reviving the alcohol industry would provide millions of jobs, and tax revenues from alcohol sales would help government budgets. The federal government had collected taxes of $365 million in 1919, just before Prohibition was enacted, but collected a mere $13 million in 1929. Beyond the fiscal and economic benefits of repealing Prohibition, there was a widespread sense that the Prohibition policies had failed. Clandestine alcohol was widely available, drinking was common, and there were also assorted negative consequences such as the involvement of organized crime. More generally, prohibition represented a massive intrusion by the state into what many Americans believed were their private lives. The arrival of the Depression must, in itself, have undermined support for Prohibition policies. A drink-free America was supposed to be a place of peace, happiness, and prosperity, but as the 1930s unfolded, America was more and more populated by the miserable and the poor.
New anti-Prohibition movements rose during the Depression. One was the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform, which showed that women—who had been the majority of the antialcohol movements during the 1800s— were far from unanimous in their support of Prohibition. By 1931, it had 300,000 members and by 1933, it claimed a membership of 1.3 million. The organization argued that Prohibition had halted a trend toward moderate drinking and had instead encouraged alcohol abuse, crime, political corruption, and disrespect for the law. The antiProhibition movement contributed to the election of Roosevelt in 1932, and one of his first acts was to amend the Volstead Act to allow the production and sale of alcoholic beverages containing up to 3.2 percent alcohol. Breweries began to open, and Americans soon began to drink near beer. In 1933, Congress passed the Twenty-First Amendment to the Constitution, which repealed the Eighteenth. National Prohibition came to an end, and alcohol regulation reverted to the states, some of which continued the Prohibition policies they had enacted before the Eighteenth Amendment. Prohibition: Success or Failure? Historians debate whether American Prohibition policies were a success or failure. A simple criterion would be whether there was a significant decline in drinking, but it is impossible to determine consumption rates with any confidence, as the great bulk of alcohol consumed between 1920 and 1933 was illicit and unrecorded. There are some indicators of lower alcohol consumption: a decrease in alcohol-related diseases and illnesses, a decline in traffic accidents, and lower homicide rates. One study, based on such indicators, suggests that immediately after Prohibition was introduced, alcohol consumption fell to 20 to 40 percent of pre-Prohibition levels but that it soon began to rise and, by the late 1920s, had reached about 70 percent of pre-Prohibition levels. There is a logic to this trend in that it took time to develop clandestine production facilities and foreign sources of alcohol and to organize distribution channels. All the evidence points to lower alcohol consumption during Prohibition but a level that was by no means negligible. Purchasing alcohol was more difficult; consumers had to identify
a source—either a moonshine producer or a speakeasy—and every transaction involved contact with a criminal act. The extent of alcohol consumption is more impressive because the price of alcohol was much higher during Prohibition than before—some was said to be 500 percent higher—as producers and sellers covered their costs, factored in their risks, and set their prices to a sellers’ market. If the level of alcohol consumption by the 1920s was as high as some studies suggest (70 percent of pre-Prohibition levels), millions of Americans had effectively voted against Prohibition well before the 1932 election. Insofar as it made only a dent in alcohol consumption and was eventually repealed, it is difficult to see Prohibition in the United States as a success. Nor were American prohibitionists successful in persuading other governments to follow suit when U.S. Prohibition came into force. They tried to persuade the British and French to adopt prohibition, but they were rebuffed by governments that appreciated the likely political implications of trying to impose prohibition on cultures where social drinking was deeply embedded. On the other hand, some European countries adopted prohibition policies soon after the end of World War I. Finland did so in 1919, banning the production and sale of beverages having more than 2 percent alcohol. In the same year, 62 percent of Norwegians voted in a referendum to prohibit the sale of fortified wines and distilled spirits but to allow table wine and beer. These bans were lifted after a few years. Belgium introduced prohibition policies in 1918, but they were repealed the following year. Prohibition in New Zealand and Canada Other countries flirted with prohibition. New Zealand held a series of referenda on prohibition, and it was nearly enacted in 1911, when 56 percent of voters supported it. But the bar was set at 60 percent. In 1919, the prohibition vote was a mere 3,000 votes short of the number needed— the result reflected the antiprohibition votes of thousands of demobilized soldiers—but thereafter, support for prohibition in New Zealand declined, falling to 30 percent in the mid-1930s. A number of Canadian provinces introduced forms of prohibition during World War I. In
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1915, Saskatchewan closed all bars and allowed the sale of alcohol only from government stores in districts that were wet. The next year, even these stores were closed. In 1916, voters in Alberta, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Newfoundland opted for prohibition, while the governments of Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick agreed to prohibition policies without referenda. But not all were strict prohibition policies. Ontario permitted the qualified sale of Ontario wine, and Quebec’s 1919 law banned the sale only of spirits but permitted access to wine and beer. In 1918, Canada’s federal government banned the importation of foreign alcoholic beverages and stopped the trade in alcohol among the provinces for a period to last one year after the end of the war. For a short time, from 1918 to 1919, most Canadians experienced some form of prohibition, but the restrictions were largely removed in the 1920s. By 1930, all provinces permitted the sale of alcohol from government-owned stores. The only holdout was Prince Edward Island, where prohibition was not repealed until 1948. Conclusion With the exception of the Muslim world, in parts of which rigorous prohibition policies have been applied for nearly 1,500 years, the cross-national prohibition movement occupied a relatively short period from the mid-1800s to about 1930. It reflected growing concern in the 19th century about the effects of alcohol on the social and moral order, and it was given impetus when, during World War I, a number of governments introduced much more restrictive alcohol policies than they had done in peacetime. With the end of the war and its rationale for reduced alcohol consumption and the decline of anxiety about social decay, prohibition policies lost their popularity. Rod Phillips Carleton University See Also: Alcohol by Volume; Association Against the Prohibition Amendment; Capone, Al; Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition, The; Juke Joints; Mafia; Post-Prohibition Bootlegging; Prohibition Party; Speakeasies and Blind Pigs; State Regulations
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After Prohibition, U.S.; Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform. Further Readings Dostie, Benoit and Ruth Dupré. “‘The People’s Will’: Canadians and the 1898 Referendum on Alcohol Prohibition.” Explorations in Economic History, v.49/4 (2012). Hall, Wayne. “What Are the Policy Lessons of National Alcohol Prohibition in the United States, 1920–1933?” Addiction, v.105/7 (2010). Miron, Jeffrey A. The Effect of Alcohol Prohibition on Alcohol Consumption. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1999. Okrent, Daniel. Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. New York: Scribner, 2010. Robertson, C. K. Religion and Alcohol: Sobering Thoughts. New York: P. Lang, 2004.
Prohibition Party The tallying of votes suggests that the Prohibition Party was a minor party. It never amassed the votes totaled by the People’s Party of farmers, the Bull Moose Party of President Theodore Roosevelt, or the Socialist Party of union leader Eugene Debs. Debs was able to win more than 1 million votes from jail, whereas the Prohibition Party—even in its heyday—never crept much above 250,000 votes. Patterns of voting are not the only measure of a party’s influence. The Prohibition Party, adamant in its opposition to the consumption of alcohol, laid the foundation for prohibition in the early 20th century. It also promoted other reforms, notably real suffrage for blacks and women, prison reform, and free public education. Two of these reforms have become law, though one might doubt that prisons are much reformed despite the United States having one of the world’s highest incarceration rates. The debacle of Prohibition and its end during the New Deal has left the Prohibition Party without its signature cause. Decline has set in such that the Prohibition Party won little more than 500 votes in 2012. It has limped on to the present, though one has the sense that it is no longer a factor in political, economic, and social life.
The Early Years The temperance movement dates to the early 19th century, though it gained influence only after the U.S. Civil War. In the immediate aftermath of the war, neither the Democratic nor the Republican Parties included a pledge to temperance; public officials did not enforce what local laws were on the books; and beer makers created the United States Brewers’ Association as a lobbying agency, leading Michigan in 1867 and Illinois in 1868 to found state prohibition parties. These were third political parties, though not yet at the national level, as the People’s Party would be late in the century. Like the Salvation Army in Britain and later the Alcoholics for Christ in the United States, the first prohibition parties combined prohibition with evangelical fervor. Prohibitionists credited their dependency on God for their sobriety. These first parties in Michigan and Illinois were named temperance parties—though, as one might expect, they promoted prohibition. The Democrats and Republicans responded to these early efforts with skepticism. They did not believe that Americans would obey any law banning the production, sale, and consumption of alcohol. Perhaps sensing their lack of strength with the electorate, neither temperance party in Michigan or Illinois fielded candidates for election. In 1869, the Ohio Prohibition Party was the first to enter the fray, offering candidates for mayor and other local offices in Cleveland. Yet no Ohio candidate received more than 1,000 votes. In neighboring Pennsylvania, James Black emerged as a leader of the state prohibition party. A Methodist by faith and a lawyer by profession, Black had a long history of supporting progressive causes, especially prohibition. As a youth, he joined day laborers in a bout of drinking. The next morning, he awoke with such a hangover that he swore he would never drink alcohol again. A prolific writer, Black authored a number of pamphlets, articles, and books urging the United States to adopt prohibition. He took particular aim against popular hard cider. As head of the National Temperance Society and Publication House, Black founded The National Temperance Advocates, The Youth’s Temperance Banner, and The Water Lily.
These three monthlies amassed a circulation of 600,000—proof that the temperance movement was flourishing. The Publication House printed some 2,000 books, including textbooks, and pamphlets. It brought to prominence a large number of female authors who supported the cause of prohibition. Others also flocked to The National Temperance Society and Publication House. In the late 1860s, temperance advocates increasingly came to realize that state parties were only part of the solution to the problem of alcohol consumption and what was needed was a national third party to challenge the Democrats and Republicans. In 1867, a Detroit newspaper—The Peninsular Herald—urged the formation of a national prohibition party. The publisher of this newspaper had distinguished himself in the Civil War, though, to his discredit, he had refused promotion to colonel because he knew he would need to command African American troops. Although many prohibitionists supported abolition and equal rights for blacks, others—as this example makes clear—were racists, an unfortunately typical attitude in the 19th century. The publisher credited his mother, a Polish noblewoman, with instilling in him a dislike of alcohol. After the war, he was elected to the Minnesota legislature where he introduced a bill to ban alcohol, though no one voted for it. The wealthy Gerrit Smith of New York used part of his fortune before and after the Civil War to fund various temperance causes. He embraced not only temperance but also equal rights for African Americans. Among his friends was abolitionist John Brown. Smith was in his day a progressive thinker. He served one term in the New York legislature, where he startled colleagues with the breadth of reforms he wished to enact. When his bills died for lack of legislative support, a frustrated Smith resigned at the end of his term. He too urged the creation of a national prohibition party. Sensing the mood, Black, on May 27, 1869, called on his many colleagues to form a national prohibition party. At his urging, 500 delegates attended a conference in Oswego, New York. Smith gave the keynote address on September 1, 1869, and suggested the name the Anti Dramshop Party, but the majority voted to name
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the party the National Prohibition Party—known simply as the Prohibition Party. In 1872, Black ran as the party’s first presidential candidate and lost by a wide margin to Republican Ulysses S. Grant. The United States Brewers’ Association, apparently frightened of the Prohibition Party, donated liberally to Grant’s campaign. Likewise, Prohibition Party presidential candidates Smith in 1876 and Dow in 1880 won few votes. The new party was in danger of finding itself irrelevant in the titanic contests between Democrats and Republicans. From the outset, the Prohibition Party understood that it could not stand on a single issue. In 1872, Black endorsed the direct election of senators and suffrage in earnest for blacks and women, ideas that would galvanize the People’s Party in the 1890s. In the 1870s, women joined the Prohibition Party in large numbers. Like many men, women saw temperance as a moral and religious crusade and confronted saloonkeepers with prayer and readings from the Bible. These women attracted the attention of the National Grange, a farm organization particularly prominent in the midwest; many of its members supported prohibition. The Prohibition Party attracted reformers of all stripes. Diocletian Lewis styled himself a physician, though he had attended Harvard Medical College for only one year. He took stock at the number of women in the Prohibition Party and directed his message to them. He urged women to abandon corsets for loose garments and advocated sunbathing in the nude. He founded a girls’ school that Una, writer Nathaniel Hawthorne’s daughter, attended. Lewis gave students great freedom to design their own curriculum. He lectured nationwide about the need for a national law banning the consumption of alcohol. His most popular speech, one he delivered more than 300 times, was titled “The Duty of Christian Women in the Cause of Temperance.” Women followed his counsel and confronted saloonkeepers, again with prayers and readings from scripture. In 1872, the year Black ran for president, women in the Prohibition Party convinced the city council of Alameda, California, to hold a referendum on prohibition, but German brewers chased them out of town. These women met another rebuke in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1874. Yet
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An 1888 campaign piece from the Prohibition Party juxtaposes the “Present Situation” in the foreground (liquor manufacturing, the death of morals, prisons, insane asylums, and saloon and dance halls, all festooned in grapevines) with “Our Desires” in the background (churchgoing families washed in sunlight and flanked by apple trees). In 1888, Prohibition Party presidential candidate Clinton B. Fisk collected nearly 250,000 votes; the party reached its peak in 1892, when it garnered 271,000 votes in the presidential election.
these women found a patron in oil baron John D. Rockefeller, who as a philanthropist funded a number of causes. The American south was particularly hostile to this wing of the Prohibition Party, adhering to the old adage that women were to be seen but not heard. In 1874, the Prohibition Party drew strength from the new, national Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, which brought women greater renown in the effort to enact prohibition. One minister noted the dilemma of the 1870s. The Prohibition Party advocated total abstinence backed by law. Other temperance advocates, however, thought it sufficient that one drank alcohol in moderation. In this atmosphere in which temperance could have two meanings, the total abstinence position of the Prohibition Party triumphed—at least in the short term. With this emphasis on abstinence it benefited from support
of the Methodists, Congregationalists, and Baptists. Temperance advocates came to realize that it was not enough for people to pledge voluntarily to abstain, because they might backslide. This realization led many advocates to the Prohibition Party, which urged the banning of alcohol. If a person could not buy alcohol, he or she could not fall off the wagon, so believed the Prohibition Party. The Prohibition Party, like the National Grange, was strongest in the midwest, especially in the countryside. Rural people saw the countryside as a place of hard work and clean living, while the cities were filled with immigrants and their booze; somehow, the Prohibition Party had to cleanse the cities of alcohol. It played on these beliefs, pitting countryside against city, native born against immigrants, and Protestant against Catholic and Jew. By exploiting these prejudices, the Prohibition Party attracted adherents; but
these prejudices also turned immigrants, Catholics, Jews, and urbanites against it. Among the midwest’s contributions to prohibition were the activities of reformist Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, the first U.S. college to admit women and blacks as the equals of white men. In 1874, Oberlin College founded the Oberlin Temperance Alliance, chaired by the college’s president. It is possible to overstate the contributions of the Prohibition Party in its early days. Between 1869 and 1871, it ran candidates in just nine municipalities and states. In 1882, it began to have modest success in local and state elections. In 1884, its candidate John P. St. John became the Prohibition Party’s first presidential candidate to surpass 100,000 votes, earning 150,626 votes. That year, St. John won 25,000 votes in New York alone, where Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland’s margin of victory was fewer than 1,200 votes. St. John drew support from Republicans who crossed party lines, indignant over the fact that the Republican Party had refused to add prohibition to its platform. Republican support for the Prohibition Party ruined the hopes of the Grand Old Party, swinging the election to the Democratic Party. Apex and Triumph In 1888, Prohibition Party presidential candidate Clinton B. Fisk collected nearly 250,000 votes. As a political party, the Prohibition Party reached its apogee in 1892, when it garnered 271,000 votes in the presidential election. The creation of the Anti-Saloon League the next year gave the Prohibition Party another ally. Although the number of votes has shrunk since 1892, the influence of the Prohibition Party into the 20th century shaped political discourse for decades. Largely because of its efforts, prohibition became a centerpiece of political debate that led to the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919. The Eighteenth Amendment outlawed the production, sale, and consumption of all beverages that contained more than a minute quantity of alcohol. Although out of power by then, the Prohibition Party had managed to attain its greatest ambition. Without holding political office, it had made America dry. Even with the apparent success of prohibition, a few candidates made a name in the states. In the 1910s, Prohibition Party candidate Charles
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H. Randall of California served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1916, its candidate, Sidney J. Catts, became governor of Florida, but little good can be said of him. A southern racist, he supported the south’s agenda of inequality and segregation. Having won the election, Catts switched to the Democratic Party, at that time the party of the south and of racism. In 1928, the Prohibition Party flirted with the possibility of nominating Herbert Hoover, the Republican nominee—as the People’s Party had in 1896 by nominating Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan. Hoover made sense because he pledged to uphold prohibition, though the debacle of the People’s Party in 1896 may have led the Prohibition Party to nominate its own candidate, William F. Varney. Decline Many Americans never countenanced the Eighteenth Amendment. If they could not drink legally, they would drink illicit alcohol. In this context, the Prohibition Party became critical of Herbert Hoover, asserting that he was not resolute enough to strictly enforce the Eighteenth Amendment. During his single term in office, Hoover faced mounting criticism from the Prohibition Party and others. In 1932, the Prohibition Party—understanding that the Republican Party intended to overturn Prohibition—withdrew its support of Hoover; yet it was in no-man’s-land because the Democratic Party was charting the same course. The Great Depression was likely the proximate cause of the repeal of Prohibition. In need of tax revenues, Congress and the states repealed Prohibition in 1933, enacting the Twenty-First Amendment. The experiment of prohibition having failed, the Prohibition Party lost its cause and its reason for existence, though it continues to limp along in the present, winning only 519 votes in the 2012 presidential election. Once bristling with reforms, it has grown conservative. Once dynamic, it is now inflexible. In the mid- to late-20th and early-21st centuries, the Prohibition Party tried to renew its appeal, and in 1948 it again collected more than 100,000 votes. By 1976, however, the total dropped to 10,000 votes, and in 2012, it collected barely 500 votes. In 1977, perhaps in an effort to revive its chances, it renamed itself the National Statesman Party but
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reverted back to the Prohibition Party name in 1980. In 2003, it broke into two factions. Once the Prohibition Party’s presidential candidate, Earl Dodge founded a rival called the National Prohibition Party in Colorado. In 2004, the real Prohibition Party tapped Gene C. Amondson as its presidential candidate. In this election, the real Prohibition Party took the moniker Concerns of People Party. Dodge ran as the candidate under the Prohibition Party name, though confusingly Amondson was the real candidate of the actual Prohibition Party. Amondson received nearly 2,000 votes, not an especially good showing, but Dodge only managed 140 votes. In 2013, the Prohibition Party created a Facebook page and held a national convention in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Christopher Cumo Independent Scholar See Also: Democratic Party, U.S.; Dow, Neal; Eighteenth Amendment; Grant, Ulysses S.; Hoover, Herbert; National Temperance Society and Publication House; Prohibition; Republican Party, U.S.; Twenty-First Amendment; Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Further Readings Andersen, Lisa. “‘Give the Ladies a Chance’”: Gender and Partisanship in the Prohibition Party, 1869– 1912.” Journal of Women’s History, v.23/2 (2011). Kobler, John. Ardent Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. New York: Da Capo Press, 1973. Prohibition Party. “Welcome to Prohibition Party.” http://www.prohibitionparty.org (Accessed March 2014).
Proof, Alcohol Proof is a numerical approximation used to calibrate the alcoholic content of hard liquors—that is, the ratio of alcohol to water. Therefore, it is a measure of the potency or strength of a distilled beverage. Proofing is seldom applied to beer or wines, given their relatively low alcoholic content. Proofing has nothing to do with the actual production of the liquor; rather, it evolved as a
kind of consumer protection strategy, a way for buyers of distilled liquors as well as government agencies involved in taxing and regulating spirits to ascertain the strength and potency of market alcohol. Although more reliable and mathematically sound ways to measure the percentage of alcohol by volume (ABV) have evolved, proofing as a viable system for alcohol measure dates back nearly two centuries to the often obscure ways purchasers of distilled liquor had to assess the legitimacy of the drink they were buying. Since then, determining the proof of an alcoholic beverage has become a far more elaborate mathematical protocol. By contemporary standards of measurement, the customary derivation of proof can seem loose and inexact. In general, the proof of alcohol is roughly double the percentage of ABV in the liquid at just below room temperature (roughly 60 degrees F). For example, if a bottle of vodka is labeled 70 proof, it means that vodka is 35 percent alcohol; the rest of it is water and, depending on the alcohol and the brand, coloring additives and a variety of sweeteners. Because it is the alcohol that actually gives a distilled drink its distinctive, signature taste, the higher the percentage, the more characteristic (and satisfying) is the flavor—much like a higher fat content gives red meat its appeal or sugar makes high-caloric desserts tasty. But proof is also an indication of the quality of the alcohol, the purity of its alcoholic signature; in that way, proofing is more akin to calculating the gold content in an alloy. The higher the proof, of course, the higher the alcoholic content and the more potent the drink becomes. Generally, the most popularly consumed liquors—whiskey, vodka, most tequila, and rum—fall somewhere around 80 to 90 proof, or roughly 45 percent alcohol. Many of the popular and widely known brands of liquor—including Old Grand-Dad bourbon, Wild Turkey premium Kentucky bourbon, Southern Comfort liquor, Smirnoff vodka, and Captain Morgan rum—tend to be closer to 100 proof. Liqueurs, such as schnapps, generally run a bit higher. There are, of course, liquors that push the alcoholic content much higher (in the 150 proof range), including so-called cask-strength single-malt bourbons and dark rums. Absinthe, a bitter licorice-tasting drink
containing wormwood that was illegal to sell in the United States because of its supposedly hallucinogenic properties, in fact derived its potency from high alcohol content. There is much heated (and lively) debate over how high the proof number could go or should go. Ethanol—an industrial alcohol used to sterilize surfaces and as an all-purpose general fuel— is 200 proof or 100 percent alcohol; it is a liquid solution without any water. Although it is drinkable (it is often dubbed grain alcohol), its hazards have long been documented, including alcohol poisoning, cardiac arrest, numbness in the extremities, extreme memory loss, and even loss of vision. Whereas most traditionally bottled liquors have special brands or limited-edition runs that are in the 170 proof range, only so-called moonshine has been determined to be close to 200 proof. Because moonshiners (or bootleggers) have long worked in obscure conditions in remote areas (the process, after all, is illegal), their methodologies or even the simple mechanical makeup of their stills vary. (Stills have been fashioned from a variety of available materials, including automotive parts, cast-off barrels, kitchen implements, plumbing fixtures, and even animal parts.) Extensive laboratory testing has shown that by adding corn grits as an agent to absorb water late in the distilling process and then sealing the distillate in airtight containers (as air would reintroduce water molecules), moonshine could achieve a nearly 190 proof measure. But there are more traditional ways to acquire alcohol with that level proof. Luxco distillers, headquartered in St. Louis, markets a brand named Everclear, a kind of raw grain alcohol that is labeled 190 proof; many liquor store chains refuse to carry it because of the dangers it presents if it is abused. Origins The origins of determining the proof of liquor are a bit obscure, but most historians trace the methodology to Britain in the latter decades of the 18th century and specifically to the introduction of rum, the wildly popular sugary concoction brought over from British colonies in the Caribbean. Sailors were often paid in bottles of rum, and they wanted to be sure they weren’t getting cheated (cultural historians have compared that
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fraud to being paid in counterfeit bills). Vendors, recognizing in the exotic beverage a potentially lucrative market, were interested in acquiring rum shipments as soon as they arrived on the docks and wanted to ensure a quality product. In either case, those consumers needed a quick and generally efficient way to measure the goods before concluding the transaction, a way that could be done easily and without a great deal of scientific or laboratory equipment as they were on board the ships or on the docks. Suspicious of the beverage’s bottlers—who were a half a world away—and wanting to ensure the rum they were getting was potent and not watered down (rum enjoyed a reputation for being particularly strong, but the process of distilling the drink required adding molasses, which affected the alcoholic content), the sailors and vendors devised a simple test using materials readily available at port: Taking a spoonful of the pure rum and adding a small amount of gunpowder to it, they would use either a match or a magnifying glass and the powerful rays of the sun to heat the gunpowder. If the gunpowder failed to ignite, the rum had been watered down; if the gunpowder went off with too loud and too quick a boom and then burned a sickish yellow, the rum was considered too heavy or “overproven” and thus dangerous to drink. But if the gunpowder went off with a clear bang and then burned evenly in a cool blue, the rum was considered “proven.” Historically, this system for proofing alcohol was the derivation of the slang term firewater. The minimum amount of alcohol required for the mixture to burn steadily was roughly 50 percent, so 50 percent was considered 100 percent proven. The alcohol was thus bonded as alcohol at 100 proof. Although as customs and excise agencies began to tax imported liquors, more accurate methods were devised, but they were cumbersome to work. As early as 1752, the Royal Society accepted a design of a variation of a hydrometer, an instrument specifically designed to measure the density of a liquid and hence able to measure alcohol content in a water solution. The instrument was introduced as an attempt to standardize the system and as a way to assist in creating appropriate taxation rates. But the design had limitations: It had multiple parts and required some knowledge to use, and,
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more problematic, the instrument could measure solutions with only alcohol and water but could not work with spirits such as rum, with its additives and sweeteners. By the closing decades of the century, however, a kind of agreed-upon measurement had been set: For taxation purposes, a standard gallon of distilled liquor maintained six parts alcohol to one part water and weighed 7 pounds and 13 ounces at 50 degrees F. However, the approximate nature of the measuring very quickly became an issue for those producing and selling hard liquor as the taxation of imported drinks became more and more of a financial burden. If imported liquors (and domestic spirits, for that matter) were to be taxed by alcoholic content, a better system was needed. At the turn of the 19th century, London’s esteemed Board of Excise and Customs—the regulatory agency that had for more than two centuries determined the taxation rates for spirits—commissioned a nationwide contest inviting designs for a better, more reliable instrument to measure the strength of a mixture of water and alcohol. The winning design—submitted by Bartholomew Sikes, an autodidact and self-taught amateur engineer as well as a low-ranking member of the excise commission itself—was a remarkably simple handheld gadget composed of strung weights, a thermometer, and a ball on a stick. Floating the instrument in the alcohol, recording the temperature, and then consulting a detailed standards table devised by Sikes made the calculation quick and easy and far more accurate. Under the Sikes hydrometer, 100 proof was 4/7 or 57 percent alcohol content. By 1817, despite controversy among distillers who objected to the accuracy of the measurements as they would potentially cut into their profit margins, the Sikes hydrometer quickly became the industry standard—and set the standard for more than a century and a half. Given the evolution of mathematical measuring over the next century, not surprisingly the Sikes hydrometer was eclipsed by industry and government standards keyed to measuring percentage of alcohol by total volume, essentially eliminating the doubling aspect of the traditional standards. That system, called the Gay-Lussac scale, evolved in Europe during the late 19th century and was widely seen as a welcome simplification
of the competing methodology. A vodka—say, at 70 proof—could simply be labeled as 35 percent alcohol. In 1980, the United Kingdom officially abandoned the Sikes hydrometer and adopted the Guy-Lussac scale. Over the previous generation, the United States has also moved away from the proof measure on labels. Taxation by Proof From its earliest calculations, despite