This Week for Happy Hour: We Dance on Andrew Volstead's Grave!

Most would agree that FDR was one of the greatest Presidents to grace the oval office. He did some wonderful things, no doubt. Accomplished more than most men, and without the use of his legs. I heard some Chinaman (I know, Asian-American, please) took them away from him in Korea:

But if any doubt remains in your mind as to the man’s grandeur, consider this: when Roosevelt took office, alcohol was an illegal substance, and when he left, it was legal again. What a lawmaker!

It’s true. And the anniversary of the re-legalization of alcohol is upon us. On April 7th, 1933, the Cullen-Harrison Act, signed into law by FDR, became effective. Simultaneously, the Volstead Act, which initiated prohibition (grrr), became another regretful page in our nation’s history books. Just look at Andrew Volstead, what with that sinister, smug expression:

Jeezy Creezy. He looks like if Gargamel from the Smurfs banged Joseph Stalin, and then their child developed an eating disorder and joined the SS. Not coincidentally, less than a decade after Volstead and his cohorts of small-phalliced teetotalers were ejected from Washington, FDR would go on to begin stomping the doo out of another group of similarly hateful pointy-nosed reactionaries across the pond. (Hint: their leader’s name rhymed with Hitler.)

So on the eve of April 7th, 1933, people lined up outside all of America’s bars and taverns, in grinning solidarity, to once again enjoy a frosty cold brew-dog and sing, dance, and toast. They called it, “New Beer’s Eve,” or at least that’s what I’m going with.

The government didn’t make it easy for them to get a good buzz on, though. The still-weary legislature set a proof limit of 6.4, or 3.2% alcohol, since becoming intoxicated from such a weak beer would be next to impossible, they naively thought. Instead, American night life became the drinking Olympics for the next hundred years or so.

Come celebrate the anniversary of this momentous occasion at the Rhino Bar! Three dollar Miller Lites Wednesday (New Beer’s Eve), Three dollar Coronas Thursday (New Beer’s Day), and half-priced Happy Hour on Friday from 5-9 (like any holiday, there’s gonna be leftovers).

Hopefully we’ll see you Wednesday night, with a toast at the stroke of midnight: “Here’s to liberty, democracy, and drunken paraplegics doing murderball-style spinsie moves over the graves of Nazis and Andrew Volstead! Yeah!”

Can't make that toast just anywhere. See you there!

Cheers,
Finnegan