The Exuberant
Return of
Strong Drink

Twelve years of Prohibition had altered the way Americans consumed alcohol –

“You may say, this earlier America didn’t have the complex of strange and exotic liquors we must deal with now… they had no cocktails. The ‘Angel’s Kiss’, ‘Satan’s Whiskers’, ‘Paris Nights’ and even the more simple ‘Dry Martini,’ ‘Manhattan’ and ‘Old Fashioned’ were unknown… An earlier, more rugged America managed to down it’s brandy and it’s rye without the aid of six different kinds of glasses…Then there are the hundreds of cocktail shakers, designed with every possible and impossible drinking contingency in mind.”

As anyone who has ever found their way to an American antique shop can attest – the bar ware industry that took root in 1933 produced millions of items we now call “bar wear”, consisting of swizzle sticks, cork screws, bottle openers, decanters, pitchers, glasses and ice buckets. Furniture companies began manufacturing liquor cabinets, bar carts, bar stools and portable bars that could be added to any room. Those who could afford it hired architects to add bars to their houses.

Prohibition had truly backfired.