1920s References in Speakeasy Dead: Prohibition and Bootleg Booze
One of the operations taking place inside the Falstaff Ninepin Fellowship is the distillation of bootleg booze. This is not exactly a product of prohibition, since Clara’s half-sister, Priscilla, has been distilling apple brandy for years. But it comes into play when the elegant Hollywood Grand hotel opens across the street stimulating the demand for quality liquor.
Cognac Pot Still (source: Wikipedia)
And brother, was there demand! By 1924 much of the alcohol that had been stashed away when Prohibition went into effect (January 17, 1920), had been consumed, and a thirsty public was turning to more dangerous sources. Often this took the form of “denatured” alcohol—spirits intended for industrial use that had been deliberately poisoned by the government—which would be filtered or blended by unscrupulous bootleggers and sold as drinkable liquor. 
The book " target="_blank">Bobbed Hair Bandit reprints the New York Daily News “Hands of Death” summing up the statistics for 1923. Although Moonshine deaths (271) lagged far behind the number one killer of the day, cars without seatbelts (884), it beat gun-violence by one.
Reprinted from 1923 New York Daily News
As P.G. Wodehouse puts it in his memoir, Bring on the Girls, “People had learned to cope with [prohibition] at least to the extent of having their liquor analyzed or, in an emergency, of pouring some into a saucer in a darkened room, setting fire to it, and, if it burned with a reddish flame, changing their bootlegger.”
This 1920s scientist bears a faint resemblance to P. G. Wodehouse
One of the most infamous cases of alcohol poisoning came from the patent medicine known as “Jake” made from an extract of Jamaica ginger. Jake itself was not dangerous, but when a pair of amateur chemists developed an additive intended to trick regulators, they accidentally laced the popular concoction with neurotoxin.
Tens of thousands of Americans (some say up to 100,000) suffered varying degrees of paralysis of their lower limbs, and the permanent flopping “Jake-walk” that resulted was the subject of several blues songs like Asa Martin’s 1933 Jake Walk Papa.
In Speakeasy Dead, Priscilla Woodsen is an expert alchemist and poses no threat to the community. Unfortunately, some very unsavory gangsters may pose a threat to the coven.
References:
The Jake-Leg Infamy (indie documentary on YouTube)
The Bobbed Hair Bandit by Stephen Duncombe and Andrew Mattson
Bring on the Girls by P. G. Wodehouse & Guy Bolton
Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent
