The entrance immediately transports you to the era just preceding Prohibition, which lasted from 1920 to 1933. A larger-than-life 1918 street scene depicts a truck loaded with alcohol being prevented from moving by an angry crowd of protesters. They sport signs that read “Liquor is a curse,” “Alcohol is poison,” and “Bread not beer,” and feel uncomfortably reminiscent of today.
Welcome to the Prohibition Museum in Savannah, Georgia, the only museum of its kind in the country, where you don’t just learn about Prohibition, you actually relive it. The visit is only one of the many enticing land excursions aboard American Cruise Lines Intra-Coastal Waterway Cruise from Amelia Island, Florida, to Charleston, South Carolina—also the only cruise of its kind in the country.
In the immersive 1920s, famed evangelist Billy Sunday is railing against “King Alcohol,” loudly proclaiming Savannah to be the wickedest city in the world. Life-size reenactments of the many facets of prohibition, from the massive attempts to rid the sinners of demon drink to the creative efforts of moonshiners to replenish the loss, greet you around every corner. Political cartoons lining the walls elucidate the conflict: what caused prohibition, how people responded to it, got around it, and eventually overrode it. Vintage newsreels—for example, of a Coast Guard vessel chasing a rumrunner—further bring the era to life.
As I made my way through, I was mesmerized by how clever the whole presentation was.
“Moderation is the key, not prohibition,” says (literally!) August Busch of the famed Anheuser-Busch Co. He’s just a picture on the wall before he starts talking and then gets into a fiery debate with a lady of the Temperance League several picture frames down. How can you not delight in such an imaginative historical spectacle!
The 18th Amendment eventually prevailed, enabling barrel-bashing and bottle-breaking while the economy itself tanked. People were out of jobs, taxes were lost, and manufacturing hobbled—pretty sobering news. But there were those who thrived—Al Capone, for instance, as well as Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Moran, and their compatriots.
Observed Capone: “When I sell liquor, it’s called bootlegging; when my patrons serve it on Lake Shore Drive, it’s called hospitality.”
A separate observation came from famous raconteur Will Rogers: “During prohibition it was said tailors would ask customers what size pockets they wanted: pints or quarts.” And others found ways around the restrictions. Pharmacists issued prescriptions for liquor for “medicinal purposes.”
And, of course, moonshiners across the country reaped the profits from the grain alcohol produced secretly at night, ergo the famous moniker. Another of the life-size exhibits had one such backwoods culprit talking directly to us about his business. Eerie—and effective.
The tour ends at a nondescript but imposing wooden door—somewhat imposing—but what kind of Prohibition Museum would it be without a speakeasy? You know immediately that you need a password. A knock brings a small open slit in the door with a pair of menacing, shifty eyes behind it and a growl that says, “Who sent you?” The temptation, of course, is to say, “Al did,” until you notice scratchy chalk marks close by with Al crossed out and an admonition to say Gus. So you say Gus, and the voice behind the eyes mumbles something and then says OK. And in you go.
The menu includes a long list of libations famous at the time and the modern versions they most represent. I had a Mary Pickford and my husband the much-revered Prohibition Boilermaker. Apparently, fancy cocktails were the norm, as bartenders had to get creative in order to mask the taste of poor-quality liquor. But at least these drinks were legal.
Throughout the bar, not surprisingly, are newspaper headlines announcing the end of Prohibition: “Happy Days Are Beer Again” and “Sober City Hails Liquors Return.” And apparently the ramifications of that era exist today—at least according to the museum. There’s a whole section celebrating the fact that moonshine runners were the origin of NASCAR.
