Today’s Smoky Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
During prohibition, legal and safe alcohol was replaced by cheaply made, unsafe, and often quite foul-tasting alcohol. At the underground clubs, inventive bartenders enjoyed new respect for disguising the taste of the day’s alcohol. They created a new generation of cocktails heavy on fruit juices and liqueurs to mix with the bathtub gin, bright and spicy additions to cover the raw sting of the spirits. There was the Bennett Cocktail (gin, lime juice, bitters), the Bee’s Knees (gin, honey, lemon juice), the Gin Fizz (gin, lemon juice, sugar, seltzer water), and the Southside (lemon juice, sugar syrup, mint leaves, gin, seltzer water).
At least, those were the kind of drinks served at New York City’s classier joints – say Jack and Charlie’s 21 on 52nd Street. Or Belle Guinan’s El Fay Club on West 45th, where the hostess gleamed like a candelabrum and the house band played “The Prisoner’s Song” when dry agents were spotted in the crowd. Down in the Bowery, as the police could tell you, the drink of choice was a cloudy cocktail called Smoke, made by mixing water and fuel alcohol. Smoke joints were tucked into the back of paint stores, drugstores, and markets, among the dry goods and the stacked cans. The drink was blessedly cheap – fifteen cents a glass – and just about pure methyl alcohol.
In a bad season, Smoke deaths in the Bowery averaged one a day. Government agents trying to hunt down suppliers of the poor man’s cocktail swore that it was served right from cans stenciled with the word POISON – and that people didn’t care. They just gambled that it wouldn’t kill them and drank it anyway.
Culled from: The Poisoner’s Handbook
great book.
Yeah, a very good book, despite a few boring passages.
Shall we hum “Smoke on the Water” or “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” now?
Can’t remember where I read it– possibly on this very site!– but apparently for some kinds of junkies, the warning that This Stuff May Kill You simply adds to the attraction.