History, Natural History & the Arts
A new era of alcoholic beverage production is dawning in the Adirondacks. You can drink locally-brewed beer from any one of several micro-breweries, or imbibe vodka distilled from potatoes grown in Gabriels (in the town of Brighton, Franklin County) and filtered through the high-quality quartz crystals known as Herkimer diamonds.
“Drinking local” has a long tradition in the Adirondack Park. Consider the honorable history of Adirondack beer. [Read more…] about Adirondack Beer Brewing Traditions
For more than a century, New York City was the brewing capital of America, with more breweries producing more beer than any other city, including Milwaukee and St. Louis.
In Beer of Broadway Fame: The Piel Family and Their Brooklyn Brewery (SUNY Press, 2016,) Alfred W. McCoy traces the hundred-year history of the prominent Brooklyn brewery Piel Bros., and provides an intimate portrait of the company’s German-American family. [Read more…] about Beer of Broadway Fame: The Piel Family of Brooklyn
During Prohibition – which ended on December 5, 1933 – my grandfather’s brother Denis Warren, a veteran of some of the bloodiest American battles of the First World War, was left for dead on the side of Route 9N south of Port Henry on Lake Champlain. He was in the second of two cars of friends returning from Montreal, both “heavily loaded with Canadian ale” according to a newspaper account.
Going through Port Henry, Essex County, local customs agents gave chase and the car he was in hit a rock cut and he was badly injured in the accident. Figuring his was dead, or nearly so, and worried he would go to prison, one of Denis’s best friends rolled him under the guardrail, climbed into the other car, and sped off. [Read more…] about Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition
Americans are surprisingly more familiar with John Hancock‘s famous signature than with the man himself. In a spirited account of Hancock’s life, Brooke Barbier’s King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father (Harvard University Press, 2023) depicts a patriot of fascinating contradictions ― a child of enormous privilege who would nevertheless become a voice of the common folk; a pillar of society uncomfortable with radicalism who yet was crucial to independence.
About two-fifths of the American population held neutral or ambivalent views about the Revolution, and Hancock spoke for them and to them, bringing them along. [Read more…] about King Hancock: Drinking with John Hancock during the American Revolution
Over time, there have been numerous taverns and pubs in England that carried the name of Hole-in-the-Wall. It has been suggested that the name is a biblical reference to Ezekiel 8:7: “And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall.”
There is, in other words, an access to every secret which no man can seal off – there is “a crack in everything.” [Read more…] about Roguery & Mythmaking: Criminal Biographies From Claude Duval to Herbert Asbury
On Saturday, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul signed a package of legislation changing New York’s “blue laws” to will allow for the expanded sale of alcoholic beverages on Sunday, extends the brewer’s license, where alcohol can be served, and more. [Read more…] about New York Changes Sunday Alcohol Blue Laws
The book Booze, Badboys & Bootleggers: North Country Tales Grandpa Never Told You (Self-Published, 2022) by James E. Reagen chronicles the early days of Prohibition in communities across St. Lawrence County. [Read more…] about Prohibition in St. Lawrence County: Booze, Badboys & Bootleggers
A loophole is an ambiguity or inadequacy in a legal text or a set of rules that people identify and use to avoid adhering to it. Exploiting loopholes in tax legislation by big corporations or wealthy individuals is a preoccupation of our time. The authorities fight a losing battle trying to plug them as lawyers specialize in finding new and profitable flaws. [Read more…] about Raines Law, Loopholes and Prohibition
Dennis Warren left his job as a coal shoveler on the New York Central Railroad in Albany to ship out to the First World War. His transport ship had a close call with a German submarine on the way over, but got there in time to take part in what one of the bloodiest military campaigns in American history.
For Americans after the war, the Argonne would mean what Normandy meant just 25 years later – sacrifice. Sadly, that sacrifice in the Argonne Forest was never repaid to Dennis Warren, who met the death of a smuggler – running from an officious and invasive law on a treacherous mountain road near Port Henry on Lake Champlain.
According to the newsman who reported his death at the age of 29, “Canadian Ale was spread across the road.” [Read more…] about Smugglers & The Law: Prohibition In Northern New York
Today there are at least two breweries along the Route 9 corridor in Eastern Saratoga County, each offering their own brand of unique microbrews. Looking back in county history, we find that the commercial production of ale can trace its roots to well before the Civil War, with one of the earliest being the Werner family brewery in the town of Halfmoon. [Read more…] about Werner Brewery of Saratoga County: Some History