Tag: prohibition

Booze the vote

Today, you can do many things with your vote. As an informed, 18 year old or older, voting citizen, you have more power in your hand than you know. There is so very much you can do with your vote.

But if you’re in South Carolina or Kentucky, what you can’t do is vote and drink.

Do you live in either state? Are you thinking of visiting either state sometime today? We hope you got that booze yesterday. Both states have outlawed the selling (but not necessarily the consumption) of alcohol on Election Day, whether by restaurant or liquor stores.

Meanwhile, DISCUS, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (which I much prefer over calling them DISCUS), isn’t too keen on such laws. We feel the same way. Nothing eases voting in the losing guy or celebrating the right vote like a shot of the spirits.

A Nation of Dead Sophomores

PBS aired the final episode of Ken Burns’ latest documentary, Prohibition, and the numbers are in!

  • Just over 3,000 college students died from taking a shot every time a camera slowly panned or zoomed into an black and white photograph.
  • 10,000 were hospitalized with neck injuries from caustically comparing the depicted events to the modern day War on Drugs aloud to anyone within earshot.
  • And over 2,000,000 Blogspot and Tumblr accounts incorporated the word “scofflaw” into their posts since Sunday.

Thanks for watching, and may God have mercy on their souls.

The Octoberfest Report

And now a recap from the world’s second greatest drinking event of the year (right behind the day after Christmas): Octoberfest.

The main event, Munich, was the true success story this year. The 6.9 million visitors set a new record, consuming 7.5 million liters (1.65 million gallons) of beer, or one Shamu tank. That only works out to over 1 liter (or less than a quarter gallon) per person, but some of them were probably children who are famous for getting very drunk on very little.

But even more surprising is that, despite drinking more, there were only 58 recorded brawls in which fighters wielded their giant beer steins as weapons. Looks like their priorities — and hearts — were in the right place.

This year was also the first wet Octoberfest for the small Alabama town of Cullman. Located an hour from Huntsville, the city has anually celebrated Octoberfest since 1977 even though they had never repealed their Prohibition era laws against alcohol. Until this year. We don’t have any numbers from their event, but we can only assume they also had fewer fights with the addition of any alcohol.

That’s just math, people.

Within beershot

The biggest beer bust Brunei’s border bobbie’s have ever seen brought in 1,382 cans of illegally smuggled beer. (That’s an even almightier alliteration, Rick. Your move.) The two men were arrested after trying to sneak in the booze into a booze-free zone.

All we have to say is that if the police dumped out the beer, that is the biggest party foul since Prohibition.

The analogy of arcades being speakeasies just became more legitimate

Pouring one out for your digital homies just became a lot more difficult if you reside in Illinois. I mean, really difficult.

Despite there never actually being many instances of this, Illinois has decided to ban any and all references to malt liquor in video games “marketed to children.”

Protip: This will most assuredly make America a better place somehow. Obviously. Clearly.

The state’s government is introducing a whole range of laws designed to tackle alcohol abuse and drunk driving, of which this is but one. Advertisements and displays of any sort of “alcopop” or malt liquor will not be allowed in any video game hoping to go on sale in the mid-Western state.

Protip: Mystifying alcohol and making it look like some sort of forbidden secret will totally not make children all the more curious to try it.

Billboards within 500 feet of public schools and live performances where the majority of the audience could be children have also been affected by this new law, which went into affect this past week.

Protip: Prohibition on a video game level is just a completely inane idea.

Lest we forget

It’s time to drink up (like you needed an excuse to). Seventy-five years ago today, the 21st Amendment was passed, which as any middle school student can tell you was the one that freed the slaves gave women the right to vote let us have our guns repealed the 18th Amendment, which was the main law behind Prohibition.

Yes, we told you only a few months ago that it was time to celebrate because the anniversary of the Volstead Act’s repeal. Well, that was a good reason to drink, but the Volstead Act merely reinforced the 18th Amendment, and while its repeal signaled the end of the national nightmare, it was not the official end.

So, today is a day to stop drinking the gin you’ve been making in your bathtub, today is a day to go out and get crocked because it’s legal to do so (as long as you don’t drive a car, don’t smoke, play drinking games or have absinthe at a bar, and are 21 years of age–it’s legal besides all that). Cheers!

It’s April 7 somewhere

Stop whatever you are doing and have a drink.

Good. Now that you have done that, we will tell you why. Seventy-five years ago today, the Volstead Act, better known as prohibition, was nearly torn down in a single swig, when 3.2 percent alcohol beer was allowed to be legally made and consumed again. Granted, it was not exactly strong beer, but hey, booze is booze.

The stronger beer meant we were one step closer to vanquishing the self-made demon known as prohibition, which was enough to drive a man to drink in the first place. To celebrate, at the broke of midnight April 7, 1933, Anheuser-Busch threw a party it called New Beer’s Eve.

It was only a matter of time, before freedom once again rang across the nation, and Lady Liberty could legally belly up to the bar.