- David Henderson has been blogging excerpts from Dan Okrent’s book on Prohibition, Last Call, including one on the origins of “Raines Law hotels” [Econlog] Also, the “law-abiding” kind of speakeasy; and would polite opinion today, as it did in the 1920s, assail Prohibition enforcement as draconian and intrusive?
- Obstacles to craft brewing [Matthew Mitchell, Christopher Koopman, Mercatus; Michelle Minton/DC Beer]
- Brown U. professor Dwight Heath on why drinking age should be lowered [WJAR]
- Feds go after hobby distillers [Jacob Sullum]
- When a liquor license sells for $425,000, as happened in Boston recently, it’s become virtually a taxi medallion [Ira Stoll]
- Maryland grain alcohol ban tripped up violin restorers, cake pros, craft bitters folk. Gee thanks, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health [WaPo] Much more about the center’s anti-alcohol crusader, David Jernigan [my Free State Notes] Tax dollars have enabled his crusades [Michelle Minton, Baltimore Sun]
- Profile of obscure Treasury Department official who “approves essentially every beer label in the United States” [Tim Mak, Daily Beast; coaster image, Flickr user Roger Wollstadt]
Filed under: alcohol, beer and brewers, hotels, Maryland, Michael Bloomberg, restaurants
2 Comments
Why are the Revenoors targeting home distillers? For the revinoo. They can seize your house and land, even if they never press charges.
It makes one a lot more sympathetic for the hatred of Tax Collectors reported in The Gospels. It never made sense as a kid. It makes perfect sense, now.
What a weird choice for an image. I actually worked at the Feldschlossen brewery in Rheinfelden, Switzerland. It’s a pretty little town. The bridge across the Rhein river to Germany was patrolled by Swiss police looking for people carrying milk across the border. (German milk was much cheaper than Swiss milk for some reason.)