Archives for the 'prohibition' tag
Review of ‘Gallo Be Thy Name’
My review (download PDF) of Jerome Tuccille’s recent release Gallo Be Thy Name: The Inside Story of How One Family Rose to Dominate the U.S. Wine Market, appears in the newest issue of the Journal of Wine Economics, just released today.
Tuccille is a good writer, and neither fawns over his subject nor takes needless swipes. He and the Gallo boys definitely grabbed my attention from the beginning, and held it until the end. A background snip:
The “inside story” of the Gallo wine empire and its progenitors, brothers Ernest and Julio, Gallo Be Thy Name is an engaging and thoughtful look at the making of the world’s largest privately held, family-owned winemaker. Jerome Tuccille, author of more than two-dozen books—including respective biographies of Donald Trump and Alan Greenspan, four novels, and several how-to guides—mostly succeeds in the endeavor. While readers of true crime and celebrity tell-alls will no doubt revel in Tuccille’s tales of murder, familial rancor, deception, and mafia dealings, devotees of wine economics will appreciate Tuccille’s faithful recounting of the Gallo family’s saga as a story of two sons of an Italian-immigrant family rebuilding the American wine market, one jug at a time. From exposing the Gallo family’s well-guarded successes during Prohibition to its post-Prohibition expansion and subsequent boom as the result of savvy marketing and distribution decisions, Tuccille shows Ernest and Julio together possessed a unique ability to respond to the demands of the American wine consumer across more than seven turbulent decades.
[...]
Perhaps the most interesting competitive advantage Gallo Winery enjoyed was the result of familial competition between the brothers themselves. It’s a story of specialization Adam Smith himself would love. Ernest’s goal, writes Tuccille, was to sell more wine than Julio could produce, while Julio’s aim was to produce more than Ernest could sell. When Ernest outdid Julio in this respect, the brothers began to buy grapes from other Napa growers so that supply could keep up with demand. While Tuccille makes clear that Ernest was a businessman nonpareil, it’s possible Julio, the expert winemaker, lost the competition because his heart was elsewhere. From early on in their venture, Julio had hoped that the American wine palate—dulled by the strong liquor and sweet wine prevalent during Prohibition—might recover its senses so that he could make the dry, high-quality, varietal wines he preferred. Still, the market forced Julio for decades to produce a stable of cheap, sweet, nondescript reds and whites. Julio’s lifelong wish would not come to fruition until near the time of his death several decades later.
Buy the book here. Subscribe to the journal–which has published some really interesting research (this, for example)–here. And yes, in case you’re wondering, I have consistently had a succession of 1.5L jugs of Carlo Rossi Paisano on my kitchen countertop since I read the book, and question your sanity if you, too, do not do the same.
Cripsy Potluck and the Last Word
When I worked at Open City in Washington, DC, our bar was surprisingly well stocked with European liqueurs. That doesn’t mean we knew what to do with them, it just means we had them. For the most part they sat on the shelf gathering dust.
I made it my mission as a bartender to find uses for some of these obscure liqueurs. My favorite became Chartreuse. The Garden Party from Imbibe — basically a Mojito with Chartreuse in place of rum — served as my introduction to the liqueur and on one particularly memorable night my friends and I finished off the bottle that the restaurant had purchased for its opening nearly two years before. I’ve been in love with the stuff ever since.
It turns out co-blogger Katherine recently discovered Chartreuse as well, so when I brought a bottle to the Crispy Potluck I knew exactly what to make for her. And since I’m the last one here to post a recipe from the party, here’s the Last Word cocktail:
.75 oz gin
.75 oz green Chartreuse
.75 oz maraschino liqueur
.75 oz fresh lime juice
It’s a weird recipe. Chartreuse is intensely aromatic and flavorful, reportedly made with 130 different herbs, and can easily overpower other ingredients in a drink. Maraschino, a fruity, nutty liqueur made from whole Marasca cherries, can also dominate. Combining these in equal parts with lime and gin somehow evens them out, creating a beguiling, complex, delicious cocktail.
Paul Clarke notes that this libation may have been created during Prohibition at the Detroit Athletic Club, making this one of the few bright spots in a dark era for mixology. Why the Detroit Athletic Club happened to have Chartreuse and maraschino on hand we may never know, but I’m very glad they did.
Party Like It’s 1933
Eric Felten hoorayed Repeal Day in Friday’s Journal by calling attention to one of my favorite Prohibition pastimes: the hotel party. Folks would BYOB to a hotel room, then call down to the kitchen for ice and glasses. The transitory nature of the get-together and the collusion of hotel management and staff made the parties nearly immune to police interruption, while the scandalous circumstances — men and women mixing in a bedroom, women openly smoking — only drove the stake deeper through the heart of Victorian morality.
Felten recommends the Commodore Bedroom for Repeal Day libations, which I may request of my bartender Friday night. And you, dear reader? Do you have any plans to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Prohibition’s demise this December 5?
Photo credit zoethustra, who I am sure is never a mean drunk.
Remembering When Booze Was Back
I’m not 100 years old, so I don’t actually remember when FDR–convinced he should at least do one thing right during his seven or eight presidential terms–put the final nail in Prohibition on this date in 1933.
At Pabst Brewing Co. in Milwaukee, thousands of onlookers cheered as company employees hoisted barrels and crates onto trucks. About 800 people stood in the rain outside the White House, watching as a man hopped out of his vehicle and unloaded two cases of beer. Secret Service agents accepted the goods, a gift for the chief executive from one of the nation’s brewers. “President Roosevelt,” read a sign on the side of the truck, “the first real beer is yours.”
None of that highbrow PBR for me. I’ll be celebrating tonight the same way I did last night: with some damn fine Mickey’s Malt Liquor widemouths.
More on the end of Prohibition here and here.
My friend Sean Higgins interviewed the head of the U.S. Prohibition Party–yep, that’s a political party fighting to ban booze–last year for the unabashedly awesome Modern Drunkard.
Update: For accuracy’s sake, instead of “booze,” I should have stated “low-alcohol beer was back,” as Jacob rightly notes in comments.
