Starting on a dry note...

It's Monday which means it's time for a little history lesson!

We are going to start with the American tragedy of Prohibition. Just to revisit some of the things you might have forgotten since 5th grade we'll just lay down a bit of the scaffolding so we have something to work with:

• On January 16, 1919 the 18th Amendment passed stating no more beer in a year
• On October 28, 1919 the Volstead Act passed defining all the wonderful things we would not be allowed to enjoy anymore in this fine nation
• And on January 16, 1920 the omen came true and we were stuck with no beer and no end in sight

Now our nation was not the only one afflicted with this atrocity. The early 20th century was hard all around, including some of these other fine upstanding countries that did not need to bear this kind of hardship:

• USSR from 1914-1925
• Iceland from 1915-1922 (but beer was still illegal until 1989!!!)
• Norway from 1916-1927
• Finland from 1919-1932
• United States from 1920-1933

The light at the end of the tunnel was finally restored on December 5th of 1933.

Though we had fallen on dark days and many wonderful breweries had to close their doors (for example Barth Brewing of South Dakota) there were some new businesses that emerged from this time. Chicago helped lead our way towards new cravings when a soda jerk at Walgreen's invented the Malted Milkshake in 1922. Ovaltine hit the scene and created a niche to include the 4 row malt to be used as a breakfast drink when mixed with milk. There is also a famous candy that came on the scene in England then migrated across the ocean. The homemade candy sold on the streets of New York and Chicago. The recipe was bought out by a company called Overland Candy that called it 'Giants'. What is that candy called today?

The answer will be posted tomorrow in the Tuesday News Day.

Cheers!