Sunday, June 22, 2014

Prohibition-Era Recipe

Templeton Rye says right on their bottle that they make it from a "prohibition era recipe". Wow, I never would have thought that would be a marketing slogan!

Yes, for those who don't know, during Prohibition, anything that was not smuggled in was generally speaking what you'd call "bathtub gin", which meant it was made with the same care someone might direct to making speed today. That is to say: not much; whatever it takes to make it somewhat passable and sell it to a desperate black market clientele. So, not exactly exacting standards.

But hey: whatever it takes to get people's attention, I guess! Heck, most people alive today never even experienced Prohibition, so most people have no idea what it wad really like. And I didn't, either; but I do know enough to know that a lot of "Prohibition Era Recipes" made people blind and dead. So I'm surprised to see it being used as an advertising/marketing slogan, that's all.

(For all I know, though, this stuff might be the best ever, and what they really mean is that it's made by a family of moonshiners who have been making it for hundreds of years, but they can't say so without attracting unwanted attention to their financial records.)