EVER EVOLVING
THE THIRSTY BARBER BOASTS THE MOST EXPERIENCED MIXOLOGISTS THIS SIDE OF MANHATTANThe year was 1920, a cold January eve, and the Eighteenth Amendment had just kicked in to effect. America was dry; the sale of all intoxicating liquors now prohibited under the constitution, and the post-war US looked for ways to get their fill without alerting the feds to their shenanigans.
It took less than 5 years for the mob bosses of NYC to supply up to 100,000 speakeasys with the necessary grog to keep their flappers and tom cats liquored up to the eyeballs in their hideouts. Secured behind a barrel of henchmen and requiring an elaborate password to enter, the bootlegged hooch flowed freely and gave birth to a variety of ‘fruit juices’ and Real McCoys, often mixed in to cocktails to mask the true contents should the feds come a knocking.
Keeping the spirit, and spirits, is The Thirsty Barber, a 1920s style den of iniquity serving up a variety of Prohibition-era cocktails, infused gins, and an assortment of liquors to tantalise your tastebuds without alerting the goofs to your antics. A true prohibition experience, hidden behind the unassuming façade of a barber shop, and entered via the secret phone box doorway.
Ever evolving, the bar is staffed by the most diamond mixologists in Malta, qualified and experienced enough to guide you down the rabbit hole and serve you the perfect giggle water for your tastes.
speakeasy pal, meaning “shhh lower your voice”.
You can drink, you can dance, you can enjoy the live music, but whatever you do…
DON’T TELL THE FEDS.
- Prohibition barred making alcohol, selling it, and shipping it for the purposes of consumption. In fact, doctors could prescribe alcohol for medicinal purposes.
- Speakeasies got their name because you had to whisper a code word or name through a locked door in order to be allowed in.
- New York City Alone had an estimated 30,000 ‘speakeasies’
- Some states refused to enforce Prohibition.
- Along with creating an army of federal agents, the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act stipulated that individual states should enforce Prohibition within their own borders. Governors resented the added strain on their public coffers therefore many neglected to appropriate any money towards policing the alcohol ban.
- Maryland never even enacted an enforcement code and eventually earned a reputation as one of the most stubbornly anti-prohibition states in the Union.
-
New York also showed great restraint towards the ban of alcohol. NYC repealed its measures in 1923 and other states grew increasingly lackadaisical as the decade wore on.
- It was once said by Marylands senator, William Cabell Bruce in congress in the mid 20’s “National Prohibition went into legal effect upward of six years ago, but it can be truly said, that except to a highly qualified extent, it has never gone into practical effect at all”