CigarsLover Magazine I 2023

SPIRITS
Speakeasy
Directly from the years of American prohibition,
the secret places of the time are back in fashion.
by Nicola Ruggiero
Soft light, jazz music, and the clinking of ice in the
shaker, in the historical setting of the years between
1800 and 1900. Here is a photograph of today's
speakeasies, the trend of the moment in terms of
clubs and lounge bars. The term's etymology is linked to
the era of prohibition, a historical period between 1919
and 1933, during which the total ban on the manufacture,
importation, marketing, administration, and transport of
alcohol was sanctioned in the United States.
However, the history of these establishments seems to
have more roots in the late 1800s, when Pennsylvania
was involved in a 900% increase in the tax on saloons,
which led to several legal establishments having to close
to the public, thus favoring the proliferation of clandestine
ones. The secret places were hidden behind various types
of activities: from the back rooms of shops to butchers or
drugstores up to barbers and often private homes. Any
place, apparently normal, could hide a secret passage to
a world made of alcohol and music, access to which was
possible only after pronouncing a password. In one of the
rooms, housed in the basement of a hotel, legend has it
that the owner ordered turbulent and harassing customers
to lower the volume of their voices, using the iconic
phrase «speak easy, boys!», for fear that the shouts could
alert the authorities.
The Speakeasies were, however, places reserved exclusively
for the highest social classes who could pay to enjoy
the best service: and it is precisely in these elite secret
bars that innovative recipes and preparation techniques
originated which, later, would mark not only the history of
mixed drinking but would also inspire modern mixology
as well. New cocktails were born made both with the use
of smuggled distillates (remember that due to the prohibition
law, there was an absolute ban on the importation
of alcohol from abroad) and with poor-quality alcoholic
products: in both cases, it was necessary to mix them
with something else, in order to mask the flavor, making it
more drinkable.
The alcoholic component has always been a fundamental
64 #1-2023 CigarsLover Magazine