Garrett Peck on The Prohibition Hangover: Alcohol in America From Demon Rum to Cult Cabernet

Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie sat down with Garrett Peck, author of the new history The Prohibition Hangover: Alcohol in America From Demon Rum to Cult Cabernet (Rutgers University Press).

A wide-ranging social history that begins with the end of Prohibition and runs up to the current craze over great domestic wines and small-batch spirits, The Prohibition Hangover helps explain why Americans continue to have such an ambivalent relationship toward drinking. Engaging, well-written, and packed with an infinite number of fascinating interviews and historical anecdotes, The Prohibition Hangover is required reading for anyone interested in understanding the past 80 years of American business and culture.

For Peck's official site, go to http://www.prohibitionhangover.com/

To buy the book and to get downloadable versions of this interview, go to http://reason.tv

Related Reason.tv videos include Beer: An American Revolution and Jerome Tuccille on "Gallo Be Thy Name."

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• garrett peck
• reason.tv
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• alcohol
• prohibition
• prohibition hangover
• wine
• booze
• drinking
• repeal day

[Mackingster]

I don't drink, but I would never force that choice on others. Prohibition is just another system of control.

[fomastephanovitch]

A prohibitionist is the type of person you wouldn't choose to drink with even if he did drink.

[scapegoat666]

why do you keep saying deep south stop watching little nicky

[shamsalasl]

Drinking alcohol is forbidden in Islam. God says in the Holy Quran the following verse:

" O You who believe! Intoxicants and gambling, (dedication of) stones and (divination by) arrows are an abomination of Satan’s handiwork. Avoid (such abominations) that you may prosper. ."

[gunslingerfire]

@ReaganGoldwaterBuckl Hold on a second. Fermentation has nothing to do with rotting. Fermentation is when active yeast cultures convert sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The same exact thing that happens when bread rises. The higher alcohol content in fermented beverages has a lot to do with the sugar content of the fruit juices or malted barley, not how long it was exposed to heat. Alcohol acts as a preservative also. I also agree that prohibition is a system of controlling people.

[ReaganGoldwaterBuckl]

The more alcohol in a beverage means it's rotted longer (fermentation). Biblical wine was desirable when it was new wine (least rotten/fermented) as they had no means of continually cooling their beverages. Highly alcoholic wine would have meant it was exposed to heat (sunlight) and thus distasteful. The Bible does differentiate between strong drink, wine and new wine. I also have been to Bible college and studied Biblical languages and you're wrong.

[TheCanadianDude]

@schroff1968 I definitely can't argue with that :)

[schroff1968]

@TheCanadianDude If the US is stupid enough to vote these social conservative tea party canidates in the senate and House like Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell than you canadians might be making those huge profits again. Sharron Angle has said back in 2006 that she favors alcohol prohibition

[klippklar314]

god and bible? what does this shit have to do with alcohol?!?!