Getting me through the Winter

Prohibition-Era Euphemisms for Alcohol

The noble experiment of 1920-1933 didn’t stop anyone from drinking, of course. But the dubious quality of bootleg liquor and homemade toadstool hooch did cause sufficient brain damage among the speakeasy set such that simple, useful descriptiors were maniacally replaced with the zippy, jazz-age lingo of the insane. Broadway was “That Great Glowing Gulch of Drowning Dreams,” tough guys were “gorillas,” and “gorillas” were “mega-chimps.”

The Areas of My Expertise
John Hodgman