We have come a Long way

The long and storied history of distilled spirits.

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We have come a Long way

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Re: We have come a Long way

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We surely have, both in equipment and numbers..

In my community alone, there are at least 15 people doing some sort of distillation of which I know personally 9 of them.. and in the neighbouring communities, I'm aware of some 10 people and know a few of them..

Each community has a few.. but it's kept pretty quiet.. and unless you know what to look for, one where never know it..

Sugar purchase is the big give away..

Mars
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Re: We have come a Long way

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.
I am currently reading a book I borrowed from the library: "The Second Oldest Profession - An Informal History of Moonshining in America" written by Jess Carr.

The photo above was taken in 1930, when Prohibition was in effect and the Depression held America down. Despite the tough times, homedistillers continued to make their own hooch, while the big liquor syndicates, who flourished, controlled everything from the banks, law enforcement, prosecutors, judges and politicians.

Still, it was not all clear sailing and required an element of discretion.

An excerpt from the book:
Moonshining in America wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 3:23 pm
By 1925 federal still seizures for one year reached an all time high of 29,087 and arrests topped the 76,000 mark. Prohibition-enforcement personnel now numbered 3,700 employees engaged in narcotics and prohibition work.

No state was missing in the records of still seizures. Territories of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Alaska had seizures.
So, given the amount of freedoms we homedistillers enjoy today, I would have to say we have it pretty good. All the more reason to stay safe and keep our hobby on the downlow.
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Re: We have come a Long way

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Twisted Brick, if you find any good info add it to the following thread and bring it back to life:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=50963&hilit=Whiskey ... ar+History
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Re: We have come a Long way

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.
Will do, Bushman. I was unaware of this thread and will enjoy reading through it. Thanks for pointing it out.
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Re: We have come a Long way

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* This thread does not seem to be very busy at the moment. I hope no one will mind if I drop a longish sort of comment here, rather than create a new topic. At any rate it is historic and the subject matter could be said to have “come a long way”. (For better or worse).

Saloon nudes

There is an old idiom that states: “All roads lead to Rome”. While the expression can have many meanings at once, primarily it was an observation that Rome was the hub of a sprawling road system. The Romans built these quality hard packed paved roads for sensible reasons; to promote commerce, to allow their legions to travel swiftly throughout the empire and also to occupy their legionaries that might have gone idle otherwise.

Long distance travelers needed to eat, drink and sleep so taverns and inns sprouted up here and there along the highways and at intersections. Towns and villages sometimes grew outward from these initial outpost. While taverns initially served food and drink to travelers that could afford to pay, pubs (Public Houses - particularly in Britain) were eventually established and were distinct from taverns. Pubs were generally daytime, after work drinking houses for the poorer working classes while taverns and inns that had been established for travelers, generally attracted a wealthier clientele that had money to pay for meals and bedrooms at night.
back3.jpg
Somewhere between the Renaissance period and the Industrial Revolution - saloons came about. Taken from the French word “salon” for a fancy room were visiting guest were entertained. In a short time you began to see salon rooms attached to beer taverns, where civilized and sophisticated women travelers could recline upon good furniture and enjoy comfortable surroundings – away from the loud and raucous men. For a long while, salons or saloons were just for women or families– not like the bars or pubs intended for males. Somehow, later in the mid 19th and particularly in the American west, the meaning of the word “saloon” became corrupted. A saloon became a place where no self respecting woman would intentionally enter. Prostitution might have been one cause. Another reason was that working men were dirty after a hard day's work and just wanted a wet beer and not a cold stare from a proper woman. Many saloons (especially along the Pacific coast) had urinals right out in the open, at the patron's feet. Euphemistically called flushing spittoons or something. When a guy needed to relive himself he could just whip his junk out right there under the bar where no one would notice, and keep drinking too.
urinals.jpg
Many male westerners of the 18th and 19th centuries were rather unfamiliar with female anatomy. They had no Internet or Playboy magazine pictures for reference. So when a cowboy fresh off a 3 month cattle-drive strode into a saloon, he was more than likely appreciative to see a painting of a reclining nude woman hanging on the backbar. Almost every self-respecting saloon of the Old West had such a nude panting. One should remember that in that day and age of Victorian prudishness, nudity was a volatile topic. Bare limbs were seldom seen and a bare ankle was considered absolutely provocative. Painter's of nudes for backbars were usually in high demand. More than one artist probably made a profession of it.
duel_of_honor.jpg
The French have earned a reputation for lasciviousness and their period bar art might be equally revealing if one could still find it. The illustrator Emile Bayard intended these two paintings of dueling prostitutes for bars. One is named “An Affair of Honor”and the other “The Duel”. But in France or especially in Paris there was no shortage of women to begin with. From the 1840's forward the French exported entertainment mimes like cabaret and the Can-can; an energetic dance preformed by chorus lines of athletic and nubile women flashing their underwear.

Can_can.jpg
In one of the movies about Judge Roy Bean there is a scene where this rank cowboy shoots off a tit or shoots out the eye of a Lilly Langtry poster. The judge then shoots the cowboy, hangs the corpse and then later fines the man a court cost equivalent to the cash found in his pockets. Probably all fictional. However Roy Bean was a bona fide justice of the peace and did have a crush on Lilly. He named the surrounding borough Langtry and his bar/court room “The Jersey Lilly”. Lilly Langtry was a famous actress of her period. By the way; back then the acting profession was not highly respected. Actors in that day and age were broadly viewed by cultured or "high society" as being immoral lowlife reprobates and actresses little better than prostitutes.
Roy_Bean.jpg
* This last could probably go omitted.

The temperance movement began in the 1820s or 1830s and with noise added by fanatics like Carrie Nation was beginning to reach a crescendo by the 1890s. During or following WWI prohibition was passed by several countries around the world, including the US. With the disappearance of saloons and risque paintings behind the bar, lonesome western males were otherwise often at a loss for imagery of the female anatomy. But French post cards and illustrations of semi nudes on similar sized cards known as “cheesecake” were soon to fill that void. The cheescake was not explicitly pornographic.
cheesecake2.jpg
This last picture was a little off the topic of saloon nudes but indicates how the single male's lust was fed during the interwar years. The brunette in the upper right corner was Gypsy Rose Lee, a famous burlesque or striptease artist. The two pictures of brunettes in the lower left corner are both of Bettie Page. Bettie was one of the hottest “pinups” walking around on two legs in the 1950's. Later in life she was diagnosed with acute paranoid schizophrenia.

There is nothing new about sex, it's every bit as old as old as mankind. You might say though that we have come a long way in what we find stimulating in the way of bar decoration. Consider though that today's sport bar might be viewed very suspiciously by bar hoppers in the next century.
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Re: We have come a Long way

Post by TDick »

contrahead wrote: Sun Jul 05, 2020 8:01 pm * This thread does not seem to be very busy at the moment. [\i]

Saloon nudes [\b]

In one of the movies about Judge Roy Bean there is a scene where this rank cowboy shoots off a tit or shoots out the eye of a Lilly Langtry poster. The judge then shoots the cowboy, hangs the corpse and then later fines the man a court cost equivalent to the cash found in his pockets. Probably all fictional. However Roy Bean was a bona fide justice of the peace and did have a crush on Lilly. He named the surrounding borough Langtry and his bar/court room “The Jersey Lilly”. Lilly Langtry was a famous actress of her period.


Not the only thing I got out of reading this but I DO love the movie.
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Re: We have come a Long way

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In 1873 Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, jointly published a book which satirized and ridiculed graft and political corruption that was running rampant in America following the Civil War. The book was titled “The Gilded Age: A Tale Of Today”. Greed, materialism and ribald gaudiness were often evident during the period. The word “gilded” was as apropos of that society as were spots showing through the thin silver or gold gilding stuck to a cheap teaspoon. The name “The Gilded Age” caught on and today is applied to that period of American history between 1870 and 1900.

The Gilded Age was foremostly a period of booming industrialization and economic expansion. Attracted by jobs and decent pay and the hope of improving their lives, immigrants flocked to the country by the millions. New factories, steel mills and lumber mills popped up everywhere. New railroads spanned the continent. Cattle brought from thousands of miles away supplied meat to fast growing cities. Robber-barons and tycoons sprouted up like weeds. An unregulated stock market and no income tax made millionaires of some people overnight; but then could turn around and make paupers of them just as suddenly. The fortunate few so unaccustomed to wealth, often made garish spectacles of themselves. But they also sometimes left behind worthy institutions like libraries, universities and hospitals.

Besides corrupt urban politics, this was also a time of too powerful monopolistic trust, labor unions and women's suffrage. Busybody evangelistic missionaries set out to carry their word to all other corners of the world, while reforming temperance workers like the “Woman's Christian Temperance Union” and “Anti Saloon League” sought for and eventually achieved nationwide prohibition.
Hotel_Opening4.jpg
This first picture is of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, which opened in 1875. For a while it was probably the grandest hotel in the world. While the Palace was still in its early prime, Lilly Langtry arrived there by coach one day, accompanied by about 32 bags of her own luggage. Lilly was famously celebrated by public attention long before turning actress. Although married herself, the “Jersey Lilly” (born in a British Crown dependency known as the Bailiwick of Jersey) carried on adulterous hanky-panky with the philandering Prince of Wales (future King Edward VII), the Earl of Shrewsbury and with Prince Louis Alexander of Battenberg (who was a German Prince but also an admiral in the British Navy). Already a sensational or scandalous celebrity depending upon your viewpoint, Lilly in need of income eventually became an actress at the late age of 28.

An even more famous contemporary actress to Lilly was the Frenchwoman Sara Bernhardt, who was nine years older and had twenty more years of acting experience due to beginning as a youth. Bernhardt toured the world on regular basis and even stared in some motion pictures by the 1920's. Berbhardt too, arrived at the grandiose Palace Hotel in San Francisco but the length of her baggage train might not have been as arresting.
princessbutress2.jpg
In women's fashion the wasp-waist fad had begun in the 1820's but grew completely absurd by the Gilded Age. Corsets were made larger and stronger, so that when laced down tightly to maximum effect they endangered a woman's breathing ability, ran the risk of damaging organs and came close to cracking ribs. The buxom look was definitely in and hefty women were in vogue. Breast pumps to enlarge the mammary glands were advertised in catalogs. Bustles were slung from the hips to exaggerate feminine posteriors and then petticoats were draped over those and wire crinolines before dresses were donned. Longer corsets forced women's posture forward, thrusting their breast upward and emphasizing their backsides. The fashion order of the day was curvature and S-shaped silhouettes but it probably made some women look like top heavy pelicans. By the 1890's though the ideal of feminine beauty would begin shifting towards the athletic “Gibson Girl”; followed later by pencil thin, flat chested, boyish looking “Flapper” by the 1920's.
Lillain_Diamond_Jack_g2.jpg
The leading sex symbol of her day and the epitome of high fashion in the Gilded Age was the rather rotund actress Lillian Russell. Lillian was unabashed about her eating habits and often accompanied another legendary eater after the sun went down in NYC. In an era famed for big spenders and fabulous feasting, Diamond Jim Brady stood apart from normal men. He was a self made man that started as a bellhop, graduated to railroad clerk and ultimately made himself a multi-millionaire. He also acquired a collection of diamonds and other gemstones that would be worth about $62 million in today's money. It was his appetite for which Diamond Jim was most famous. He would often eat as much as any other ten men in the room. It was said that he had a stomach six times that of a normal man. Arm and arm with Lillian Russell, they were a common sight in the evenings, strolling down Broadway searching for a new restaurant to ravage. One restaurant owner called Brady “the best twenty-five customers we have”.
american-dollar-gilded-age.jpg
After the Civil War the United States started exporting prairie grown cultivated grain and other commodities to a world market, that displaced an important revenue which the agricultural holding - landed gentry in Europe depended upon. Reduction in workforce and a depression suddenly turned what were once the world's wealthiest people into second-class citizens compared to America’s elite.

The above cartoon is but one of many that lampooned the “The Dollar Princesses”. The rags-to-riches new American millionaires created during the booming Gilded Age often found themselves at a loss or snubbed when they attempted to socialize with the “older money” or established aristocratic upper class in American society. That led to many of these suddenly wealthy people taking their New World money and going to Europe to purchase aristocratic European titles, with fat dowrys in exchange for marriage to their daughters. Then these social climbing families could return to America and boast over their immediate connections with real blue-blooded nobility. By the time WWI broke out more than 450 American women were married to foreign aristocrats. Princess Diana who died in a car crash in 1997 was the descendant of such a union.
princesg.jpg
Above are four example Dollar Princesses, a young Winston Churchill and his brother. Clockwise from the upper left are Consuelo Vanderbilt, Mary Victoria Leiter, Allene Tew, Winston Churchill, his mother, his brother and his mother again - Jennie Jerome Churchill.

-When Consuelo Vanderbilt married the Duke of Marlborough in 1895, he got $2.5 million in cash, 50,000 shares of railroad stock and a prenuptial agreement that stipulated that the Duke would retain is income for the rest of his life – regardless if his marital status changed, which it did.

- Born in Chicago, Mary Victoria Leiter became Lady Curzon Of Kedleston or more popularly “The Yankee Queen of India”.

- Daughter of a banker, Allene Tew's 4th marriage was to Prince Heinrich XXXIII and her 5th marriage was to Count Pavel de Kotzebue.

- Easily the most controversial and one of the earliest, if not the first “Dollar Princess” was Jennie Jerome. Lord Randolph Churchill's parents nearly had an apoplexy when he announced his engagement to her in 1874. She was the tattooed daughter of a social climbing, philandering financier. She was also part Iroquois Indian. But for the equivalent of a $4.3 million dollar dowry offered by Jerome's father, the Churchills willingly accepted the proposition. For many years “Lady Churchill” cut a glamorous figure in English society. She was a dark and intelligent beauty in a crowd of towheads. One time when she entered a ballroom, someone likened her to a panther on the prowl. Consuelo Vanderbilt wrote of her: “She was still, in middle age, the mistress of many hearts, and the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) was known to delight in her company. Her grey eyes sparkled with the joy of living and when, as was often the case, her anecdotes were risqué it was with her eyes as well as her words that one could read the implications. She was an accomplished pianist, an intelligent and well-informed reader and an enthusiastic advocate of any novelty.”

-----------------------------------
Lager style beer was introduced into the United States in the 1840's by German immigrants. The fact that Lager beer suddenly became a taste sensation over old style ales was probably due to the fact that besides being brewed in a cold environment, it was also usually always served chilled if at all a possible. By 1873 Adolphus Busch would implement pasteurization as a means to preserve his lager's freshness. Busch was the first to bottle beer in massive quantities, he was the first to ship beer in bottles and he shipped this lager with big blocks of ice in “refer” (refrigerated cars). Four thousand one hundred thirty one American breweries, would produce nine million barrels of beer that same year (1873). Five years later, meat-packer Gustavus Swift would hire an engineer to improve the circulation of chilled air within his refer cars to protect his packaged meats. The first Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869. Considering the proliferation of railroads during the Gilded Age, this must have made it easier to grab a fresh meat sandwich and a cold beer when you wanted one.
Photoo.jpg
The first enthusiastic following for lager beer seems to have grown in New York City. In cities with large German populations (like Cincinnati and Milwaukee) similar big beer halls or “Volks Gardens” provided nighttime family entertainment; with music, dancing, party like atmospheres, hearty meals and of course cold mugs of sparkling beer for dad. The famous “German Winter Garden” was located in the Bowery of NYC. Commercial brewers like Pabst, Miller and Schlitz responded by building beer gardens in other cities. Besides having banks of electric lights, potted palm trees and its own orchestra, Milwaukee's Schlitz Palm Garden frequently featured first-class visiting performers (like classical concerts or touring bands perhaps led by the likes of John Philip Sousa).

But the Germans were having too much fun. The Goody Two Shoes temperance movement reformers infecting the nation's political scene could not abide public saloons or beer halls. Meddlesome organizations like the American Temperance Society, Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the National Prohibition Party had already forced the issue of prohibition in more than a dozen states before 1855. (Twenty three states were already dry, before the 18th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution). The proselytizing temperance effort of the Anti Saloon League became closely tied to women's suffrage and these evangelical women were determined to make their voices ring in every ear – whether that noise was appreciated or not. Begun in 1893 the Anti Saloon League still exist today but now it's known by the more erudite sounding title – the “American Council on Addiction and Alcohol Problems”.

Prohibitionist suggested fruit flavored sparkling water as a substitute for lager beer. A convincing “soda pop” can be made of almost any fruit juice by extracting and filtering it out of the pulp and then adding seltzer water. Hires Root Beer using real sassafras oil was the first soft drink to be bottled, and shipped. The temperance movement objected to “beer” in its name but creator Charles E. Hires had it tested in a laboratory to prove its lack of alcohol and then advertised it as "The Temperance Drink" and "the Greatest Health-Giving Beverage in the World”. His company claimed to have sold over a million bottles in 1891. In American English when someone was said to have “moxie”, that meant that they had determination, daring or courage. It took courage to drink Moxie. Created in 1876, the original Moxie began life as a patented medicine and was promoted as a nerve food. Once carbonated water was added to it, the sweet and very bitter tasting drink technically became a soft drink. Apparently President Calvin Coolidge and a few other New England Yankees liked it. The remnants of the Moxie company were purchased by The Coca-Cola Company in 2018. Coco-Cola itself came about in 1886 but existed only as a soda fountain syrup for about 27 years before they decided to bottle it. The famous original green tinted “Coke” bottle was designed (1913) by the Root glass Company in Indiana and was patterned after a plump, rippled cocoa bean pod. It was by shipping and distribution of the beverage in bottles that made the soft drink profitable. These days it is said that 1.2 billion cans or 1.9 billion servings of Coco-Cola ® are sold or served each day.

-more-
http://thepalacehotel.org/
https://online.maryville.edu/business-d ... ilded-age/
https://winstonchurchill.org/the-life-o ... is-mother/
https://www.history.com/news/american-h ... aristocrat
http://www.beeretseq.com/a-yankee-views ... er-garden/
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/101/h ... ican_beer/
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Re: We have come a Long way

Post by dukethebeagle120 »

StillerBoy wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 3:23 pm We surely have, both in equipment and numbers..

In my community alone, there are at least 15 people doing some sort of distillation of which I know personally 9 of them.. and in the neighbouring communities, I'm aware of some 10 people and know a few of them..

Each community has a few.. but it's kept pretty quiet.. and unless you know what to look for, one where never know it..

Sugar purchase is the big give away..

Mars
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I always wondered if the guy at the feed store knew what i was up to :problem:
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Re: We have come a Long way

Post by The Baker »

duke said, 'Buying wheat 100 lbs at a time...'

When I get around to distilling with grain;
my son-in-law has a wheat farm...!

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Re: We have come a Long way

Post by Andrew_90 »

So to revive this thread.

During Covid-19 we had lockdowns with numerous extended alcohol sale bans, this was accompanied by the closure of restaurants which left most South Africans high and dry. These draconian measures sparked a massive surge in home distilling which is legal here for own consumption.

I believe that this trend is here to stay and that the government never realised how large the loss in revenues would be, tax, duties etc.

The only concern is that this surge has brought with it poor practices with regards to safety and use of storage vessels. Many who have lost their jobs are illegally selling their produce and making tidy sums of money. I think the face of the liquor industry has changed. I have no clue if this will be a significant blip on the radar or not.
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Re: We have come a Long way

Post by Setsumi »

Andrew_90 wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 9:22 am So to revive this thread.

During Covid-19 we had lockdowns with numerous extended alcohol sale bans, this was accompanied by the closure of restaurants which left most South Africans high and dry. These draconian measures sparked a massive surge in home distilling which is legal here for own consumption.

I believe that this trend is here to stay and that the government never realised how large the loss in revenues would be, tax, duties etc.

The only concern is that this surge has brought with it poor practices with regards to safety and use of storage vessels. Many who have lost their jobs are illegally selling their produce and making tidy sums of money. I think the face of the liquor industry has changed. I have no clue if this will be a significant blip on the radar or not.
Andrew, can you please share the correct legislation that allow legal distilation in RSA? As far as I am aware you need a permit from SARS to be legal. And although the permit is cheap you need a certified ketel. Please PM me with the legislation.
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Re: We have come a Long way

Post by Andrew_90 »

https://distillique.co.za/Shop/blog/how ... 0produced.

Yes you do require a registered still that is registered with SARS. The permit from what I understand is for the still and not to distil, although one can argue that the inference is there.
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Re: We have come a Long way

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Re: We have come a Long way

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StillerBoy wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 3:23 pm We surely have, both in equipment and numbers..

In my community alone, there are at least 15 people doing some sort of distillation of which I know personally 9 of them.. and in the neighbouring communities, I'm aware of some 10 people and know a few of them..

Each community has a few.. but it's kept pretty quiet.. and unless you know what to look for, one where never know it..

Sugar purchase is the big give away..

Mars
Tell people you have bees to feed. I purchase a couple hundred pounds of sugar each year to feed bees. some might get diverted
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Re: We have come a Long way

Post by contrahead »

No need to open a new thread for one little picture...

The caption accompanying this picture of “cow shoes” said it was taken in 1924. It makes sense that bootleggers and moonshiners who distilled in the woods, might have located their still site way back in the trees and not too close to any road that was accessible by car. They might also have been very cautious not to stomp out a visible “beaten path” for the revenuers to spot.
cow_shoes_moonshiners_1924.jpg
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Re: We have come a Long way

Post by Metalking00 »

Those shoes remind me of one of my dads friends. He nows owns a cattle company in california, but when he was a 11 or 12, he drove a bootleggers car in some dry county in the east. He said they had kids drive because if they were caught theyd be let off. He said he was driving one day and he was being chased by cops. He crashed into a tree, jumped out and ran away. He thought the owners of the car and the liquor were going to kill him, so he hitchhiked west and thats how he came to california.

One tough dude...
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