St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-02-20
COCOANUT WHISKY.
How Refreshments Are Prepared
in New York for Prohibition
Communities,

in New York for Prohibition
Communities.
"There is still large business done
with Maine, Vermont, Iowa and Kan
SaS, the four great prohibition states"
said Front street wine and liquor mer-
chant to a New York World reporter,
"but the trade is not what it used to be.
The danger of losing the goods by con-
fiScatiOn. and of having agents arrested,
fined and imprisoned is so great that
but very few of us care to take the risk.
A few OF us, however, enjoy the fight
and keep it up. The great point of the
trade is sending liquor in such form or
disguise that the excise cOnStableS and
temperance spies will not recognize it.
The best idea we got from the soldiers
on Governors Island. During and
after the war the rules were very
strict against bringing liquor there
from the city. Nevertheless the men
got drunk all the time in the most I'M
accountable manner. After awhile the
cOmmandant got tired and ordered an
investigation. and he found that ths
men took their muskcts with them each
time they visited the city, and had the
barrels filled with rum OF whatever they
preferred. We applied this idea to the
Maine trade and sent gas pipes, water
pipes and even sewer pipes filled with
Jersey lightning and securely plugged
in the best style.
1.-The best system was the:flled cocoa
nut. You know, probably, that some
times the contents of cOcOanut will
ferment and produce sour beer of
some sort. i never drank it myself, but
l am told that it is not so very bad, and
that it is strong. We took natures hint,
tapped the nuts through the eyes,
washed or scalded out the inte-
rior, filled it with liquor and sealed
the eyes with wax that was wonder
fully good imitation of the natural SUBJ
stance. We packed these whisky CO.
coanuts so that the barrel contained
three rows of ordinary nuts at the top
and bottom. Any one, especially con-
stable, opening barrel, would get an
ordinary nut, no matter from what end
he started. This scheme lasted quite
down in Maine in the vast number of
cocoanut drinking vessels, soup dishes,
-four scoops and the like. Some smart
individual in Portsmouth, N. H., tried
to initiate it, and plugged some five or
ten watermelonS on the same principle.
The first melon that went across the
river into the Granite state had it's plug
and half its contents fall out. The con-
stable who made the discovery laid in
wait for watermelOns and cOnfiscated
all that came over that were whisky
filled. That ended the brief career of
the humble watermelon as portable
saloon.
1.-THE next plan, and the one that ran
the longeSt-it is, in fact, being used to-
days the packing of the demijohns,
kegs, runlets and little puncheOns in
barrels, which are then filled with flour,
cOrnmeal, salt, rock salt, sugar or pO-
tatOeS. There is hardly any grOcer'S
article which goes out in barrels but
has been used in the Maine trade for
harbOring five gallons and upwards of
fire water. The grocer in the little
town receives the barrel and opens it
late at night or very early in the morn
ing, and when no disciple of Neal Dow
is around conveys the precious package
that is concealed inside to some place
of safety.
ANOTHER BRANCH OF THE TRADE,
and much safer one, is the bottle bust
ness. This consists simply in bottling
cheap WhiSkey, adding some harmless
color and tlavoring matter, FASTING on a
label with some medicine name and
formula and sending it off by
the dozen or gross as medicine.
l said cheap whlskey just now,
and meant it. The dealers in
Maine can't afford to buy a good
whisky. Their customers can't afford
it either, in turn. All that the latter
wants is to get drunk as cheaply, quickly
and thoroughly as possible. For that
reason they want the cheapest and raw
est stuff they can buy-something full
OF fuSil oils and proof spirits. This
rule applies to all the prohibition states
and explains to my satisfaction why
they have more intOXication in proper
ton to the population than in the great
cities, where a more liberal policy is
pursued by the state government. Of
the bottle trade bitters used to be the
biggest trade. But when they got to
selling gin cocktails by the quart as
Pine Tree Bitters' and rum and mo-
lasses as 'Opodeldoc Bitters' that
was too much for the temperance
agitators. They appointed chemist,
who analysed each brand and classified
them into medicinal and non-medicinal
beverages and condemned all the latter.
The liquor men got even with one of the
state chemists assistants, though, who,
although he drank Oh the sly, bothered
them more than any one else. They
gave him some fine cordial, to which
they added croton oil. The assistant
came very near dying after drinking
one sample. There is still good de-
mand for gin, tansy and fennel. This
is very much like the gin and tansy of
the past, and is good drink as well as
good medicine. UncOlOred whisky.
cinnamon and alkanet root makes
very superior bitters and is also splen-
did linament for colds and rheumatism.
1.-The tendency nowadays in this
struggle between New York brains and
Maine morals, so called. is to fight law
with law. Thus, while it is criminal
offense to sell liquor in these prohibit
ton states, such sale in an adjacent
state is legal, and under the national
constitution becomes legal in Maine. A
club of fifty sends all agent to us who
buys a heavy invoice. We express it to
them and the authorities can do moth
ing.
"a second scheme invented by our
lawyers is the loan system. own lot
of wine in Bangor. You come and Dor
row some. giving me a receipt like this:
Borrowed from j. S. & Co. one basket
marked 'Mumm, valued at S32. Signed
A. F. If, now, you use that basket
you have got to make it good. In Bangor
you do SO with check after three or
four 5orrows. A third is the storage sys-
tenn. You keep hotel and | store with
you for safe keeping OF aging large
consignment of assorted liquors, for
which you give storage receipt in
which an agreed value of the stored
goods is inserted. If at the end of six
months call for my goods and find that
through breakage or other causes they
have been lost [ hold your storage re-
ceipt and sue on that for its face value
and not for the liquor sold.
''DeSpite all opposition and legiSla-
ton the trade keeps on about the same.
The war against the traffic deteriorates
the quality of the stuff consumed on the
one hand and increases the cost OH the
other. People will have their drink,
whether they buy it in sewer pipes,
cocoanuts, medicine bottles or through
pilt=edWpd limh=nricnd Ianunrc .,