Word: liquor
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Last week G-Man J. Edgar Hoover himself added a lurid footnote to the shoe shortage: shoes, he said, were the third biggest item in a mounting flood of hijacking. (The first two: liquor and rayon...
...Government at 50? a gal. in exchange for permission to withdraw 35,000,000 gal. of good U.S. grain alcohol at 90? a gal. and to turn it into good U.S. prewar-style potables. This was supposed 1) to add at least 10% to the nation's liquor supplies, 2) to give the Government a smart profit and, 3) to increase the U.S. alcohol supply without drawing on scarce U.S. grain. Besides, as one enthusiastic liquorman put it, it might "head off hoarding, strike at the heart of the black market, curb . . . gorillas and gangsters on the fringes...
Hope Dashed. There was only one flaw: war industry (synthetic rubber, explosives, etc.) is the big consumer of alcohol today, not hair tonic. And there is not enough alcohol. Smart sugarmen in Cuba and the rest of the Caribbean have converted all sugar possible into liquor instead of into the good alcohol base, blackstrap molasses. Reason: they get about $1 (800%) more a gal. Last month Foreign Economic Administrator Leo Crowley tried to force Cuban producers back into the molasses and industrial-alcohol business by limiting the amount of potable alcohol the U.S. would import...
Hope Revived. At week's end a ray of hope appeared again. Nevada's Pat McCarran, chairman of the Senate's liquor investigation, came out foursquare for a liquor holiday as the best way to stop hijacking (see p. 82). His committee colleague, Homer Ferguson of Michigan, concurred. But to U.S. tipplers, who have heard that kind of talk before, the holiday seemed just another mirage...
...Last week, after weeks of cogitation, OPA forbade liquor dealers to use the word "gin" for the new cane-base, shellac-scented cocktail base now pouring into the U.S. from the Caribbean. The official, denatured title from now on: "Distilled spirits made from cane products and favored with aromatics...