12 A single teaspoon could cause permanent blindness, while a glass of the stuff could kill in a matter of hours. 11 It doesn’t take much of the stuff to work its deadly magic, either: Blum says it only takes about ¼ a cup of undiluted methanol to kill a man–or about 8 ounces, according to a 1919 Tribune article on the dangers of wood alcohol consumption. 10 Both formic acid and formaldehyde are irritants that cause severe internal damage by focusing on the lungs, the optic nerve, and the parietal cortex, which the brain uses to control vision. Deborah Blum, in her wonderful book A Poisoner’s Handbook, explains: “As the body’s enzymes break apart the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen that form the alcohol……deadly chemical detritus consists mostly of formaldehyde and formic acid.” 9 While methanol is “toxic in its own right…formic acid is at least six times more deadly”-never mind the fact that the formaldehyde is embalming you from the inside out. This is because, unlike it’s cousin ethanol, which can be processed by the liver and broken down into other harmless products, methanol actually breaks down into even deadlier compounds. Unfortunately for humans, it’s also incredibly deadly. Jamaica Jake / Jamaica Ginger (South): So prevalent and nasty it’s worth an entire post all by itself, this potent beverage-90% alcohol and 180% proof!-often left its imbibers with permanent neurological damage in the form of paralysis.Goat Whiskey (Indiana/South Dakota): Another popular “secret” recipe, this “whiskey” was rumored to contain some portion of its namesake.Squirrel Whiskey: A “secret” recipe from earlier bootlegging times, this drink was named after the behavior it invoked in whoever imbibed it-namely, by encouraging them to “dig their feet into the sides of a trees and try to run up to the top branches.” 6.Coroner’s Cocktail (Chicago, IL, and other places): If you walked into a druggist and asked real nice, you could get an extra shot of “alcohol” in your milkshake-the kind that could make you hallucinate things like “four-tailed elephants and green giraffes.” 5.The peaches didn’t do much to change the fact that it caused internal bleeding and severe intestinal pain, however. Jackass Brandy (the South): Supposedly made from peaches and sold at $4 a quart, this brandy packs about as much as it’s sibling, White Mule.4 Often mixed with ginger ale or grape juice to help it hold together, but it didn’t do much to mask the awful taste…or the feeling of being kicked in the head by a mule after you drank it. White Mule (the South): These fruit jars full of clear, straight ethanol took a special trick to drink: keep the jar closed until you were ready, then take a deep breath, open the lid, guzzle it down, and slam the lid back on before it could evaporate. Sweet Whiskey (Kansas City, MO): Made with distilled alcohol combined with nitric and sulfuric acid that could destroy your kidneys, this “whiskey” was anything but sweet.Soda Pop Moon (Philadelphia, PA): Shelled out in soda pop bottles, its main ingredient was rubbing alcohol.Yak Yak Burbon (Chicago, IL): A mix of whatever crap is lying around plus a shot of iodine-they sure weren’t lying about the name!.Smoke (Hell’s Kitchen, New York City, NY): For 10 cents a slug, you could drink a mix of raw alcohol and water-or possibly jellied cooking alcohol squeezed through a rag.Depending on where you lived, you could grab a nice, tall glass of… In spite of the atmosphere and the crappy booze, legions of the working poor, desperate for a drink, came to plunk down their hard-earned coins on the bar and pick their poison-sometimes literally. You can feel that stuff going through your whole system because it is raw…Your stomach begins to turn…Everybody is talking silly and acting foolish and singing songs or anything else.” 3 After the third drink your brain…is immediately a muddle. You sit around the table and you have this stuff shelled out to you. You will set around the table with a group of men-4 or 5 or 6, or probably 50. “You get into a room where they are selling this stuff. 2 A New York copper described visiting one of them: 1 Found tucked into “the back of paint stores, drugstores, and markets, among the dry goods and the stacked cans,” low-end speakeasies were cramped, dirty, dangerous, and desperate places. While wealthier citizens were off quaffing imported liquor from Canada in opulent speakeasies, or sipping wine from their own private cellars, poor working stiffs had to content themselves with a drink from a very different kind of place.Īs New York Police Commissioner Grover Walden once said, “all you need is two bottles and a room and you have a speakeasy”-and for most poor drinkers, that was pretty much what they got. Getting a decent drink during Prohibition was hard for everyone-but it was especially difficult for the poor.
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