Tom Pegram

You go get your rum or whiskey and it's got that tape on it at the top. That's a sign that the federal excise tax has been passed. So there is a tradition of internal revenue regulating alcohol.

And so you had this prohibition unit, it was originally called, that's tied to the Internal Revenue Service in the Treasury Department. You know, not justice. which usually enforces the laws.

Temperance is a self-control movement not tied to legal restrictions.

Sylvester Graham was a diet and health reformer in the early 19th century. He was also a temperance guy. Sylvester Graham believed that meat was sexually stimulating. And in fact, he led an attack, I think somewhere in Massachusetts, on butchers.

There were public houses, there were taverns in colonial and revolutionary America in the early part of the 19th century. In rural areas, often serving as hotels as well. But the saloon was tied to urbanization and also tied to beer culture and the Germans. You know, as the Germans came in, they brought in lager beer.

Americans had English-type ales, but the lager beer revolution really switched American drinking practices.