The subtitle of this book is “A Prohibition Expedition Through the South . . .with Cocktail Recipes”. It does indeed include recipes. I did not try any of them, because I don’t have many of the ingredients or utensils for mixing drinks, but some of them sounded pretty good! The premise of this book is that the author traveled through various locations in the Southeastern United States, and profiled the people associated with that area who had an impact on Prohibition, and visited a few bars or distilleries in the area as well. “Baptist” is her shorthand for someone who supported Prohibition, and bootleggers is pretty self-explanatory. The cover of the edition I read shows photos of Carry Nation and Al Capone, both emblematic of their respective “dry” and “wet” views.
She starts by describing the history and reasoning behind banning the sale of alcohol. And some of the reasons were compelling, although the solution turned out to be less than ideal. The phrase “unintended consequences” could have been coined to describe Prohibition. The pro-prohibition side had the foresight to use long-term tactics to achieve their goals, by starting out electing dry candidates to local offices and building up on that. However, they did not take human nature into account.
At the end of every chapter, she has a “Cemetery Side Trip” where she mentions one or more cemetery in the area she is in, or where the people she has discussed in the chapter are buried. As a genealogist, I appreciated this section. She also, at the end of each chapter, lists a book or two as recommended reading. Some are more specific to the region she has just profiled, and some are more specific to the history of alcoholic beverages.
If this was your family, how would you research them? If you had family in any of the places the author highlights during Prohibition, they might have encountered some of the individuals she profiles. They at least would have read about the well-known individuals in the newspaper. Do you know which side of the debate your ancestors were on? If you don’t have family lore to tell you, it might be difficult to determine. And different family members could well have had different opinions. I have heard that my Grandpa made his own hard cider, and that his mother was not too happy about it!