Stockbridge - What to Drink part 2 - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Part 2

It's been like being in a time machine while in Charlevoix devoting myself to their Prohibition history and incorporating it into my program, "High Times in the Dry Times" which is finally beyond the Preview stage.  The northern Michigan era may not have been part of the way so much of what was seen in the Detroit/St. Clair area when we supplied 75% of the smuggled alcohol during Prohibition, but they certainly knew how to join in roaring through the Roaring '20s.  The early Twentieth Century was when they began to develop into one of Michigan's resort areas.  It's an interesting area and the northern part of Michigan is at least a week or two ahead of metro Detroit's entry into autumn colors.

I promised to give recipes from a recent book called What to Drink: Non-Alcoholic Drinks and Cocktails Served During Prohibition by Bertha E.L. Stockbridge, which is a reprint of a 1920 book, What to Drink; The Blue Book of Beverages; Recipes and Directions for Making and Serving Non-Alcoholic Drinks for All Occasions.  That link takes you to Archive.org's online version.  Part One of this included the Table of Contents and I presumed I'd be giving some of the Fruitades, but confess there's been enough of a chill in the air I decided instead to give some hot drinks served in Prohibition and beyond.  I'll also include a variety of "mocktails" as that's the essence of Stockbridge's purpose.

I'll end with a nod to those who worked to create the "Noble Experiment" that might have succeeded if the Depression hadn't convinced people, along with the rise in crime, that it was time to return to alcohol, if nothing else to regulate and tax it.  The parallels to the legalization of marijuana have to be left to my audience as my persona telling about "High Times in the Dry Times" is firmly in the 1930s.

What could be more innocent than having a Malted Milk at the local ice cream shop?  When you hear the term, "Blind Pig", maybe it doesn't make sense to present day listeners.  During Prohibition it meant going to a location that, unlike a "Speakeasy", claimed to be legitimate, like an ice cream shop, but served knowing customers alcohol.  If you ordered a malt there it might be a bit different than these recipes.  I also am only used to this being a cold drink.  These warm versions, even one with coffee, are a bit different.

Of course we're used to Hot Chocolate or Cocoa, but here's something a bit different, two Creole versions and one from New England.

I confess I'm not likely to make the first version requiring grating the chocolate, but maybe you're more of a "foodie" and want to see the difference French chocolate makes.

While discussing malts, I mentioned coffee and realize nowadays coffee recipes and coffee shops are everywhere, but here's the '20s look at it with a bit of international versions.  I found the comment about Parisian housekeepers interesting.  My Scottish ancestry makes me wonder if I should try this in my Mr. Coffee?

I wasn't overly impressed with Stockbridge and tea except for these ideas: she suggests a spray of orange blossom in the tea or mint and then pour the hot tea over it.

Now for a few of her cocktail substitutes.

Not exactly a typical "Virgin Mary" was it?

I can't say that highballs are as popular nowadays, but they were favorites for a long time, so here's the non-alcoholic version.

The concept of a Fizz was new to me, but confess it sounds interesting.

Finally I want to include a Mint Julep, and also a Ginger Ale version.  Hmmm Mint Juleps sound like something for the Kentucky Derby, but this names Georgia for its origins.

That's just a taste of what our ancestors may have tried, especially if they were in the Women's Christian Temperance Union.  Before starting to discuss these "Drys", I told my audience I needed to put on my sourest expression.  They started the nation thinking about Prohibition and then were overshadowed by the men of the Anti-Saloon League.  Still it's interesting that they were considered one of at least three possible reasons why the Charlevoix party boat,  the Keuka, known for its dance floor, gambling, and, of course, alcohol might have sunk!

Here in this area near Holly, Michigan, the most famous member of the W.C.T.U. was Carry or Carrie A. Nation, and, yes, that was her real name and she used both spellings. 

That hatchet was her trademark and to this day people in this area talk about how she attacked the Battle Alley area of downtown Holly.

I've had the fun of being in the old Carry Nation Festival Holly held for well over 30 years.  As a lover of history, I hope some day they bring it back.

Well that's at least part of my story for this past week.  It's a bit different than my usual article or even stories from the "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" series, but I  hope you'll see what storytelling possibilities exist in my presenting "History as seen by the 'average' person."
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This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
  
  Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:            

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for October 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 
           - Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for finding new books and stories to love and tell.

     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!

Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!