Properly Sauced: Ken Burns' Prohibition

By Rob Christopher in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 28, 2011 4:00PM

A small but passionate minority, led by a relentlessly driven visionary, comes to realize that you don't have to win everyone else in the population over to your side in order to get your way. You just have to cobble together a legislative majority, which can be done by scaring politicians into believing that if they're not for you, they're against you, and will get voted out of office come next election.

No, we're not describing the Tea Party but instead The Anti-Saloon League. Founded in Ohio in 1893, it was the most powerful and effective lobbying group that American politics had ever seen. It really caught fire under the leadership of Wayne Wheeler, who took the helm in 1902. The League's focus narrowed almost exclusively to bringing about Prohibition. Which, of course, it did in 1920. It took rampant lawlessness, a vociferous counter-campaign, and the Great Depression to finally end "the great experiment," and Prohibition was repealed in 1933.

Prohibition, a three-part miniseries that premieres October 2 at 7:00 pm, and October 3 and 4 at 8:00 pm on WTTW11, tells the story of this truly peculiar and often frightening moment in American history. Filmmaker Ken Burns (along with collaborator Lynn Novick) reuses the documentary tools that have served him well in the past. Juicy photographs and historical footage are layered with voiceover narration from an all-star cast, with an onscreen parade of experts and historians on hand to fill in the blanks (Daniel Okrent, author of Last Call, and Pete Hammil are especially worthwhile).

In terms of technique, then, it's not blazing any trails. But it is good solid storytelling, with a three-part structure that gives it enough room to cover the topic. The first episode sketches in a short history of alcohol in early America, and the factors that gave birth to the Prohibition movement. Frances Willard, whose house in Evanston is now a museum, and the Woman's Christian Temperance Movement were instrumental in implementing the novel idea of organizing women to agitate for change.

The perfect compliment to the first episode is the Corpse Reviver #2, as detailed in Ted Haigh's marvelous book Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails: From the Alamagoozlum to the Zombie. Intended as an "eye-opener" for consumption during a hangover, the drink made its first appearance somewhere around the turn of the century. By Prohibition there were several variants, and #2 is the best we've had the good fortune to try.

Corpse Reviver #2

1 oz. dry gin
1 oz. Cointreau (we used Mathide Orange XO)
1 oz. Lillet Blanc
1 oz. fresh lemon juice
3 drops absinthe, or Pernod, or Herbsaint

Shake well with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a stemless cherry.

As Haigh notes, it's very important to follow these proportions exactly, especially when it comes to the three drops of absinthe. Those tiny drops add a wonderful je ne sais quoi to the drink as a whole, cementing a harmonious balance of flavors that makes the Corpse Reviver #2 a perfect stand-alone cocktail.

To coincide with episodes 2 and 3 of Prohibition, we'll be posting two other vintage recipes next week, so keep your peepers trained right here.