Prohibition—The Inconvenient Truth!
This year, we have delved into some of the more intricate aspects of wine. From sugar to
the subconscious, we are trying to empty our brains and give you, our customers,
incredible insight into wine.
So now, we’re going to bring you the inconvenient truth about prohibition.
First, let me preface this: The way we act and think today is exactly how people acted
and thought 100 years ago and 200 years ago…and 300 years ago, and so forth. History
books are written altruistically and not realistically. History is written with a political
purpose in mind, and history is written by the winners, and not the losers, at the time.
Additionally, demonization of the other side has always been done to alter the thoughts of
the masses. If you look at wars for the past 1000 years, economics are the primary
determinant cause, with religion a distant second. Are history books written this way?
Not really. Think of today’s politics. They’re vile. But are they really more vile than 20
years ago? Seriously!?! History books are seemingly written about people that appear to
have higher, altruistic meanings, but in reality, self preservation through satisfaction of
others who support them are the driving force for behavior, with economic stability and
growth being the key force behind nearly every strategic motive. Boy, the Max’s Small
Batch Red produces some deep thoughts. Now, how does this tie in to Prohibition.
Simple. To get to Prohibition, one needs to learn a little bit about wine and history.
Honeymoon. Did you go on one? The name is based upon wine!!! In Persia, 4000 years
ago, it was a tradition for the bride’s parents to provide the newlyweds a month’s supply
of mead, or honey wine. They timed the amount of wine off the lunar cycle, so
“honeymoon” literally means “mead lunar cycle”. Essentially, we have been drinking
wine for centuries. Now for the economics. It was believed that components within
honey helped produce more boys than girls. And, as we all know, alcohol consumption
has produced plenty of babies over thousands of years.
The Greeks figured out that multiple people living in the same area created dysentery
issues. Dysentery issues leads to diarrhea. Diarrhea, if left uncontrolled leads to
dehydration. Dehydration leads to death. Death leads to lack of population. Lack of
population leads to no civilization.
The Greeks figured out that no known human pathogen can live in wine. Therefore, if
everyone drank wine, dysentery issues were eliminated. Wine, blended 10% to 25% with
water, purifies water, which lead to the growth of both Athens and Sparta.
The Romans learned very quickly of the purification processes of wine. The Greeks, who
didn’t take too fondly of being conquered, decided to add pine resin to their wines, in
order to keep their wines from being plundered by Rome. If you ever have a chance to
taste Retsina, the Greek wine in which pine resin has been added to wine, you’ll realize
it’s an acquired taste, and once you taste it, you will realize why the Romans wouldn’t
want it.
I was always puzzled in high school as to why the Roman Empire was the size it was.
Why wasn’t it bigger, and why, from its base in Italy, did it not expand into Germany?
Certainly it expanded into current day France and Spain, and for awhile, it expanded into
Great Britain. Since everyone needs to drink liquid on a daily basis, and since everyone
needs to drink a safe liquid every day, I decided to overlay various Roman Empire
expansion and contraction maps, over climate maps, and over vineyard maps. Bingo! It
became very easy for me to see that the Romans only conquered lands in which they
could grow grapes, and would contract when the climate got too cold in areas to grow
grapes. Since they didn’t have our current Interstate system we enjoy today, and since
they didn’t have nicely large glass, plastic and stainless steel containers, it became simple
to see that wine was created locally to serve the needs of the local areas. When grapes no
longer were viable, the Romans moved on.
Take a close look at the 100 Years War between France and England. Wine is directly
tied to it. Look at some of the Port Houses of Portugal and you’ll see names such as
Cockburn and Dows. Great Portuguese names, right? Yeah, right…..they’re English.
Take a look at the early writings of Thomas Jefferson. Why did he keep going over to
France? Why did he try so hard to set up vineyards in the United States? Basically, the
US struggled to grow wine commercially. That’s why we have dandelions. They were
imported for the express purpose for making wine.
If you still don’t believe me, take a look at various city water records in the United States,
and the concern of water borne diseases. Today, you’ve heard if you go to Mexico,
“don’t drink the water.” The same could be said of the US water supply until the early
1900’s. More on this topic later.
Let’s go back in time for a moment. The Mayflower wandered endlessly while crossing
the Atlantic. They broke their charter by landing at Plymouth Rock. And they knew they
broke their charter by doing so. However, the boat’s passengers were in great peril as
they were running out of beer and wine. Simply put, the Mayflower landed at Plymouth
Rock to build a brewery.
Which brings me to this salient point, how long does it take a sailboat to cross the
Atlantic from Europe or Africa? Several weeks or several months, certainly. Let me ask
you a question, since you have to drink every day, exactly what did the passengers
consume? Dasani or Evain bottled water? Let me ask you this. If you were to pour a
barrel full of perfectly clean tap water, would you be willing to drink out of it for month
or two while you were traversing the Atlantic? Do you think you might get sick by the
second week? Think you might want some wine or beer? I thought so. By the way, they
didn’t have perfectly clean tap water back then. More on that later too.
Which brings me to pregnant women and children, and what they drank. Certainly, they
had to drink liquid on a daily basis, correct? Remember, the Greeks taught the world that
blending 10% to 25% wine with water, removes all human pathogens. If a bottle of wine
contains 12% alcohol, what is 10% of 12%? Isn’t it 1.2%? Could a child or pregnant
mother become inebriated off of drink with such little alcohol? Not really. Anyone
uncomfortable yet? Anyone uncomfortable with your history books yet? If you’re
comfortable with what I just wrote, can you see a mother on a boat, getting “Johnny” a
glass of water, only to see him try to spike it with a little more alcohol? Upon seeing this,
good ol’ Johnny gets a great verbal lashing. Mothers would have easily controlled how
much alcohol to put in the beverages their children were consuming. By the way, there
are other comparative items to alcohol and safe consumption. Silverware was made from
silver due to the metallurgical properties of silver. Simply put, bacteria cannot live on
silver. Wipe it, share it, and re-use it. Gross thought today, huh? No Dawn detergent?
No problem!!
With our continents separated my many millions of years, our ecosystem developed
much more differently than that of Europe. The settlers knew we had good land for
growing grapes, but when they planted the grapes brought over from Europe, they all
died. European vines simply had no resistance for American diseases like downey
mildew, powdery mildew, anthracnose, black rot, and the root louse phylloxera. Also,
when the Europeans came to America, they saw plenty of Elm and Chestnut trees.
Thanks to diseases they brought here, specifically Dutch Elm disease and Chestnut blight,
those original American trees are nearly extinct. Today, our Ash trees are suffering from
an Asian import, the Emerald Ash Borer, and our Great Lakes could soon be in peril if
the Asian Carp gets through.
So how did the Indians survive without alcohol? I had to figure someone was thinking of
this. Simple! They always located their settlements along fast flowing rivers thereby
assuring themselves of not mixing human or other animal waste into their drinking
supply.
So what caused Prohibition? Economics, of course! Because we needed to consume
alcohol on a daily basis until the water supply was cleaned up, Bourbon was the first
economically viable alcohol in the US that tasted good and its taste and subsequent
potency would lead to massive overconsumption and the temperance movement. Please
keep in mind what the definition of “temperance” is: “moderation in action, thought, or
feeling; restraint,” with the key word being “moderation”. The root cause of Prohibition
was that an employer could expect between 10% and 30% of their employees to show up
drunk or not show up at all. Worker safety, specifically fully trained employees getting
injured on the job, along with absenteeism, lead to economic instability at companies.
Spousal abuse ran high due to alcoholism as well. In looking closely at Prohibition, I
have easily come to the strong hypothesis that had the US been suitable for growing
grapes, we would not have endured the scourge that early Bourbon consumers wrought
upon the US, and Prohibition would not have occurred.
Between 1857 and 1870, Louis Pasteur discovered microbiology and with his discoveries
and subsequent other scientists seeing molecules and bacteria they had never seen before,
water borne illnesses were discovered. Additionally, by 1870, all of those nasty little
diseases in the US vineyards were exported to Europe and subsequently set about to
destroy the European vines as well. With some seriously dumb luck, a blend of copper,
lime, and sulfur, subsequently named “Bordeaux Blend” was discovered and its
discovery became the catalyst for the development of fungicides. Additionally, the root
louse could be vexed through the hybridization of European vines with American vines.
And, through grafting, European vines could still grow if they were grafted onto
American root stock. All of this new knowledge was developed prior to and during
Prohibition.
The US Army, in 1910, discovered how to liquefy chlorine, and it was that discovery that
ultimately allowed US cities to clean up their water supply. Cleaning up the water supply
eliminated the need for alcohol in liquids. Prior to this, only good sourced well water and
spring water was clean enough to drink without treatment. And, how many abundantly
good sources of wells and springs exist in cities? Are you getting a picture of the
inconvenient truth yet?
With clean water supplies, the Prohibition movement could pick up steam. However, the
US Treasury was in the way. Alcohol was a primary source of revenue to the US
government. I ask you this. When in your lifetime has the government reduced
spending? It never has and it only will when the government gets overthrown, which
occurs everywhere, every couple 100 years or so. So in order for Prohibition to be
ratified a new tax had to take the alcohol tax’s place. Ready for a big lie in your history
books? The Income Tax is labeled as the tax to pay for World War 1. Do the math, look
at the dates, and you will clearly see that it was implemented to replace the alcohol tax.
The original legislation for Prohibition targeted hard alcohol only and excluded beer and
wine ( again, for purifying water). But with the water supplies now clean, it was
modified to include all alcohols.
Demonization, the act of “to represent as evil or diabolic” is a time honored tradition in
politics and is the single most used method to position one group of people against
another. If you look at alcohol consumption after Prohibition was repealed, the
demonization efforts were well under way. However, it wasn’t nearly to the degree as it
is today. In order for demonization to really take hold, all you have to do is wait a
generation or two, and with the newer generations having never personally experienced
what the past generation experienced, then whatever is said about the past must be true.
Think of the hatred wars of the Balkans in Europe or the Congo in Africa.
Disagreements from 500 years ago are being fought today. Why? It doesn’t make sense.
But it does with disinformation and when disinformation becomes the truth, then real
problems arise.
What I wrote about above has been widely researched, but our history books do not
discuss it because it doesn’t fit the mold of today’s culture. Seriously, ask anyone who
thinks their ancestors didn’t drink what their ancestors drank on those long voyages when
they immigrated from Europe or Africa. Typhoid and cholera were rampant problems in
the United States in the early to mid 1800’s, especially in cities. Louisville was actually
known as “the graveyard of the West” due to polluted waters containing the typhoid and
cholera bacteria.
In summary, I believe we needed a temperance movement due to the severe over
consumption of alcohol in the 1800’s. People needed drying out. Alcohol was widely
available during Prohibition, but a decent number of people either couldn’t get it or
couldn’t get enough. Society changed. Yes, it got more dangerous, but when Prohibition
ended, we did not go back to the same drunkard ways before Prohibition. I believe had
we been able to grow grapes commercially then, Prohibition would not have occurred
because wine would have been economically viable and not just for the elite class. With
a lower percent of alcohol, we wouldn’t have had the drunkard times that the 1800’s
were.
I think the agenda of a certain segment of the population have done and will continue to
do an excellent job of labeling the evils of alcohol. I also think they are accidentally
uneducated in the subject matter. Demonization is such a lovely tool. In February, when
I wrote about sugar, and its inherent dangers, I clearly stated the role that processed foods
and beverages spiked with simple glucose in the form of sugar and corn syrup are causing
society today. It’s funny, as we look more closely at those European diets and the lack of
health problems they have, it’s their complex diets of fibrous foods and wine, which
contains up to 1500 natural chemical compounds which contributes greatly to their
success. The nutrition of complex chemicals in wine can help the US population become
increasingly healthy, if consumed in moderation. Instead, something that can help nearly
everyone, wine, is demonized by some, yet products that contribute to health problems,
such as the epidemic of avoidable type 2 diabetes, aren’t looked upon this way.