[ad_1]
This Sunday is a moment in North Carolina history. October 3, 2021 is the first Sunday a bottle of alcohol has been legally sold in our state since Prohibition began in the early 1900s.
While ABC stores remain closed statewide on Sunday, North Carolina distilleries can now sell their own alcoholic products starting this weekend due to changes to a broad alcoholic beverage control law .
“This weekend will mark the first time since the end of the ban that bottles of alcohol will be legally sold on a Sunday in North Carolina,” according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.
To mark the occasion, Mystic Farm & Distilling Company in Charlotte welcomes representative Zack Hawkins to celebrate the new law, HB 890.
Jonathan Blitz, owner of Mystic Farm & Distilling Company, will make his first bottle sale at noon.
North Carolina’s complicated history with prohibition, moonlight and smuggling
While this Sunday marks the first legal spirits sold in North Carolina in more than a century, it is far from the first alcohol sold on a Sunday. North Carolina’s complicated relationship with Prohibition runs deep in its culture – right down to the state’s roots in NASCAR and Moonshine.
North Carolina was the first state to enact a ban on alcohol, starting in 1908. Even before spirits were made illegal, many counties were already dry and unable to sell alcohol in the provinces. bars and saloons.
But that hasn’t stopped a lot of people from drinking. An entire part of northern Wake County, known as Harricane, was dedicated to the production and sale of illegal moonlight. This community, located around Falls Lake, has all but disappeared as alcohol sales became more readily available and neighboring towns engulfed these rural moonlit stills. But, in these woods, you can still find old rusty stills, a reminder of a bygone era.
Many politicians and wealthy men have not had to give up alcohol. An old hotel in downtown Raleigh, located near the State Capitol, once served the wealthy elite and politicians who came to town to work. Under this same hotel, which today serves as a residence for the elderly, the remains of a former clandestine bar are still sealed, hidden under Fayetteville Street. In the 1920s and 1930s, the posh establishment would have been the unofficial “office” of politicians and heads of state, making handshake deals over whiskey.
The ban officially ended in 1933, but many counties remained dry for decades.
Johnny C. Binkley, a historian and author who was part of the task force to remove moonlight stills, recalls that moonlight peaked around 1956, but still had immense popularity in 1960s and 70s.
In a history book based on his experiences at that time, he recalls that although alcohol was legal, it was harder to find and very expensive at the time.
“You could drive from Raleigh to Charlotte and never walk past a store where you could buy liquor or beer,” Binkley said.
At that time, smugglers and smugglers could prosper.
Things have changed a lot since the days of Prohibition and the Moonlight. Even the town of Cary, named after famous prohibitionist preacher Samuel Fenton Cary, now has several breweries and bottle shops within walking distance.
And now alcohol can even be sold on Sundays.
[ad_2]
Source link