Daniel Okrent Explains How Prohibition Spawned the Cocktail
Last night an intimate gathering was held at the historic 21 Club in Midtown celebrating American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, an exhibition running October 19, 2013 to April 28, 2013 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The exhibit features over 100 rare artifacts from the era, a re-created speakeasy, various films and multimedia as well as a custom video game where you are a federal agent tracking down bootleggers. While period era cocktails — Gimlets, Old Fashions and Clover Clubs — were being served and enjoyed by those in attendance, we caught up with American Spirits curator/author Daniel Okrent and asked him to enlighten us on the history of the cocktail. "The quality of the liquor during Prohibition was so bad... that to make it palatable people had to mix something else in it," he shares. Watch the video below and get the full story.
