Ball - Rebellious spirits: the illicit history of Booze in Britain

I n London, at the moment, it sometimes seems impossible to open a fridge or wardrobe, to pull a book from a shelf or even to flush a toilet without stumbling into a speakeasy. My own hit list of bars in need of a visit still runs to two dozen, even after many diligent research trips, and more of these well-publicised secret bars are opened every week. But what is the appeal that keeps so many legal bars pretending to be illegal? The draw of secrets that are known to anyone with an internet connection or a copy of Time Out?

To understand the speakeasy trend, you must put aside your cynicism and suspend your disbelief: walk from the crowded public street into an unmarked doorway, climb a narrow flight of stairs, give the password and step through into another world. The thrill is in that transition from drab corridor to beautiful bar; the moment of stepping through a wardrobe into a Narnia of cocktails. But its also in the feeling of being naughty, of doing something illicit. The sensible, everyday self doesnt want to get into trouble, but the inner child wants to misbehave. Speakeasies create a theatre of wrongdoing for an audience ready to play at being gangsters.

Once inside a speakeasy, youre unlikely to find wine or beer on the menu. If you insist, the proprietors may reluctantly find you a glass of these tamer drinks, but the emphasis is always on cocktails and spirits because, while beer and wine are all very well for a work night out or your cousins wedding, it has always been spirits that accompany naughtiness and rule-breaking. No gunslinger ever burst into a saloon and demanded half a pint of craft lager; no gangster ever set up an illegal wine press in a bathtub. Spirits are the true drink of the underworld. Such a powerful drink in such a small package: the feel of that first sip like liquid fire warming right down to your toes, the knowledge that a pint of it would mean certain oblivion. We know that its wrong, but that is what is so tantalisingly right.

The thrill of illicit spirits today is carefully orchestrated theatre, and too often their colourful and varied history in Britain is overshadowed by just a few years of Americana. The era of Prohibition in the USA is both more glamorous and better known, partly thanks to the huge number of Prohibition-era gangster movies produced by Hollywood over the years. But for as long as spirits have existed, there has always been someone doing something really naughty with them: someone selling gin through pipes and over windowsills in a London back alley; hiding stashes in a secret chamber in the walls of a peat-burners hut on an Irish bog; standing guard on a lonely Cornish clifftop waiting for a smugglers signal; or dodging bombs and shrapnel while running whisky in the Blitz.

In fact, the history of spirits in Britain has more illicit in it than licit. The most famous whisky brands have huge, mysterious holes in their official history, times when recording what they were doing would have been too dangerous so much of their past is now a mystery, even to their owners. The British government has even tried to outlaw drinking gin, at the cost of thousands of pounds and the loss of what little popularity they had at the time. The strictest control measures have always failed. The rebellious spirit of spirit drinkers refuses to be quelled.

In writing this history I have delved into archives, scoured newspapers and listened carefully to the rich oral history passed from bartender to bartender in order to find some of the best stories and amazing characters behind the black-market trade in spirits. Sometimes the sources were a little questionable the words of thieves and smugglers but these are the stories as they were recorded by the people who lived them, complete with their own embellishments and wild claims. To give you a taste of the history and bring it alive, the stories are accompanied by authentic recipes for drinks of the era along with adaptations by me, the Alchemist, to make them safe and legal. Follow them carefully for a genuine taste of history. These are the rough and ready fare of long-ago taverns, rather than the best of the best. If you want a more refined drink, turn to the final chapter for a selection of recipes from some top bartenders, which are significant improvements on their humble originals.

Finally, before you immerse yourself in this very British history of spirits and discover a new world, pour yourself one of those classic American Prohibition-era cocktails. I recommend the Sidecar, a popular cocktail in the more glamorous New York speakeasies of the 1920s. Supplied by gangsters and sipped by the rich and the famous, it was strong, simple and heavily flavoured with citrus to disguise the poor quality of bootleg bathtub brandy. Drink furtively while fully prepared to flee at the first sign of a raid by the fuzz.

2 parts brandy (a cheap brandy for authenticity or a VSOP cognac for pleasure)

1 part orange brandy (or Cointreau)

1 part lemon juice

Shake over ice and strain into a chilled Martini glass. Now sit yourself in a leather wing chair, light up a good cigar and sip slowly as you read this book.

F or a long time there were no illicit spirits in Britain. Spirits cannot break the law when there are no laws to break, and laws about spirits cannot exist until spirits exist themselves. So before the story of illicit spirits in Britain can be told, I have to tell the story of how spirits came to be, and of the journey they took to reach one small windswept isle on the edge of Europe an isle inhabited by people who were badly in need of a dram or two to keep out the cold.

The true origins of spirits have often been debated. Some claim they were being distilled in Egypt as the pyramids were built, others that arrack has been produced in Sri Lanka for three millennia. Theres little proof for any of these theories; most are based on a line or two in a single book that could be interpreted this way or that. The discovery could even have been made more than once, miles and centuries apart. The version Ive chosen to tell is my favourite and just as likely to be true as any other.

Like many great inventions, it all began in Greece over 2,000 years ago. Unfortunately, once discovered, the invention was forgotten again for more than half of those years. Or rather, not exactly forgotten, but kept a closely guarded secret by a mystic sect who based their entire religion on getting very drunk. You could call that behaviour selfish or you could just call it normal behaviour for the constantly intoxicated. Whatever the reasons, this religious secret-keeping meant that it wasnt until the thirteenth century that anyone else in the world really got to have a proper drink. To make matters worse, those in the sect who knew the secret didnt even use the spirit for drinking.