The Tail Spin – A New Orleans Prohibition-Era Cocktail

Let’s start our evening with a refreshing cocktail—straight from Prohibition-era New Orleans! I’ll introduce you to the Tail Spin.

Prohibition in a Shaker

Prohibition lasted in the United States from the 1919 ratification of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution until its repeal in 1933 with the 21st Amendment.

But New Orleans was a city with a history of good times, high tolerance for rule-bending and numerous dark waterways into and out of town. Prohibition was a federal law and not usually the concern of local law officials. As a result, these federal laws went largely ignored in New Orleans, except when occasionally enforced by U.S. officers.

How New Orleans could be so bold in the face of federal legislation can be explained by underfunding and a lack of consistent will to enforce the law.

Unlike laws against vices such as prostitution and gambling, which were (sometimes) enforced by local police, Prohibition was under the jurisdiction of the Federal Prohibition Bureau, which was chronically understaffed. To complicate matters, cooperation between New Orleans police and federal agents had given way to acrimony and rivalry.

Another factor making New Orleans a virtual free state with respect to alcohol was the nearness of the Gulf Coast. That meant access to the city from the Gulf of Mexico could easily be had through uncounted remote and sheltered waterways impossible to effectively monitor or police.

Smugglers

Smugglers bringing alcohol from Cuba and other parts of the Caribbean frequently anchored their boats just off the coast of Louisiana and transferred their cargo to smaller vessels that then followed obscure waterways inland. There the merchandise was transferred to cars and trucks for the final journey to the city, and New Orleans became an important port for the illegal distribution of alcohol to the rest of the country. The author William Faulkner even claimed—probably insincerely—that he had run rum in the Gulf of Mexico.

Compounding matters for the feds, many private homes in New Orleans maintained small-scale brewing and bootlegging operations, mostly for personal consumption but also to supplement income. The authorities sometimes discovered and shut down such petty crime, but the penalty often was limited to a small fine, and production quickly resumed.

Alcohol in the Big Easy? No Way.

Alcohol could be purchased throughout the city, and a common venue was the speakeasy. These businesses at first operated clandestinely and ranged from simple backrooms to elaborate night clubs. Typically, the speakeasies sold high-quality smuggled liquor and beer and could be quite well-run establishments.

In contrast, less-expensive but poorer quality alcohol was often found at so-called soft drink stands. Buying from these stands was risky because they sometimes sold distilled spirits contaminated with toxic denaturants such as benzene or wood alcohol or with heavy metals such as lead.

A Tiki Treat

The art of the New Orleans cocktail rose to great levels in speakeasies where quality alcohol was available. One succulent example is the Tail Spin, here adapted from a recipe in the classic book, Shaking Up Prohibition in New Orleans: Authentic Vintage Cocktails from A to Z, by Olive Leonhardt and Hilda Phelps Hammond (Gay Leonhardt, ed. Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2015). Don’t confuse this with the gin-based Tailspin cocktail found elsewhere on the internets. The drink listed below is a sweet and tart concoction, and is best served at Tiki parties and special celebrations.

The Tail Spin Recipe

• 2 jiggers Irish whiskey
• 1 jigger dry vermouth
• 1 jigger grenadine
• 2-3 shakes Peychaud’s bitters
• juice from 1/2 lemon

Garnish the rim of a large martini glass with granulated sugar.

Into a cocktail shaker place five or six ice cubes. Add the juice from half a large lemon, a couple of shakes of Peychaud’s bitters, and the indicated amounts of Irish whiskey, dry vermouth and grenadine. Shake for six or seven seconds and strain into the martini glass. Add a quality cocktail cherry or lemon peel and serve!

Tips:

• Never use crushed ice in a cocktail shaker! It melts too quickly and dilutes the cocktail. Plus, shards of ice slip past the strainer and contaminate the drink.
• Avoid shaking or stirring a cocktail for longer than seven seconds. By this time, the cocktail has cooled to the desired temperature, and any further stirring will just dilute it. Remember, alcohol dissolves ice pretty quickly.

Photo MaxPixel.