(no subject)

[kleenexwoman]

I had this dream that Michigan banned the sale of alcohol products. Alcohol was legal to own, distill, or drink, you just couldn't buy or sell it within state lines.

Most of the grocery stories and party stores just stopped selling it, or sold "non-alcoholic" beer or wine, or had some sort of arcane subscription service. But the Bottle & Barrel down the street adopted another strategy. They started selling fabric swatches, all different kinds, and giving away bottles of alcohol and cans of beer free with each swatch, depending on price. They even had a little chart up on the wall showing what kind of alcohol you got with each kind of fabric. Silks tended to be vodka, cotton was rum, wool blends were whiskey or scotch, and beer and wine were patterned polyester or lengths of yarn. I think they were selling paper samples for alcopops, like Mike's Hard Lemonade.

Coincidentally, we're going to the bar tonight for a friend's going-away party. \o/

Comments

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Did you wake up screaming? Please tell me you did.

I tried making moonshine once. Smashed some grapes and left them to do their thing. After a couple days I had moldy smashed grapes. Maybe I needed to add sugar. Or just go buy three bottles of Boone's and not worry about the labor part of getting plastered.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Just grapes aren't enough. You need fermenting agents--yeast and sugar. Try this recipe if you're that desperate. (http://hubpages.com/hub/PrisonWine)

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Recipe, schmecipe. (No, that was not faux-Yiddish. It was faux-drunken-slurred-speech.) I wanted to make moonshine. Not Dom Perignon. Or even Thunderbird.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Ah . . . didn't read it before I replied. Yes, that'd do in a pinch. And making it in a toilet -- that's bathtub gin for a new generation. Although you're probably just gonna wind up puking it back up again (with a few extra chunks & surprises).

[benprime.livejournal.com]

That is why prohibition failed and why the 'war on drugs' will eventually be won, by the drugs. People are very cunning and also, in certain pursuits, very determined. Viva la resistance. Salud.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Prohibition: So doomed. During the 1920s, some juice manufacturers actually printed long, detailed instructions on how to turn juice into wine on their juice bottles so they could "warn people against doing it." Sales shot up.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

And I'm quite sure the Catholic and Jewish "populations" (har har) shot up quite a bit.

We're still suffering from the ill effects of Prohibition to this very day. It's ridiculous. Carrie Nation should be dug up and retroactively beaten to death.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Historically, marijuana prohibition has more to do with pressure from the tobacco and rope companies than it does alcoholic Prohibition, and it started way before. I mean, I assume that's what you're talking about.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

No, not specifically. That's part of it, but I meant in a more general sense of puritanical pleasure avoidance. And even though America's back to its good ol' drunken roots, there's still a hell of a lot of mixed messages that get pushed on us.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Dude, the Puritanical ideal of pleasure avoidance has been with us ever since Martin Luther translated the Bible into German. Prohibition was just a result of that, prejudice against the poor, and first-wave feminism.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Ah, no, not since Luther. Luther liked himself a good roaring drunk every so often. He felt bad about it afterward, but he didn't stop doing it. It was only when we got to stupid John Calvin and a few other assholes that I'm forgetting (or maybe blocking) that humanity put a giant bug up its collective ass.

[superfinemind.livejournal.com]

I love your dreams.