Secret Drinking Clubs through History

After a long day, I decided to stop by my local bar and wash away my worries with liquid happiness. The place was packed, so I had to sit at the bar. This isn’t very common in the Czech Republic, so it was awkward. To boot, the guy next to me was all elbows and there was this awful, dull sporting event called ‘soccer’ on the TV. Between longing for a Phillies game and wishing the guy next to me would get his elbows eaten by a wolverine, I wished for a place I could go and drink with lots of space. A club. A drinking club. No, a private drinking club. Even better, a secret private drinking club. Yes!

Before I could Google ‘secret drinking clubs’ my brain’s Shutterstock brought forth images of smoky, carpeted rooms lined with books, British men sitting in soft leather chairs eating peas and carrots, drinking brown liquor, and complaining about ungrateful colonists. As it turns out, I wasn’t wrong. But the history of the secret drinking club is far more interesting.  

The Greco-Roman world had a cult for everything, one of which was the Roman Bacchanalia, based on the Dionysian Mysteries. The rites praised Dionysus, the god of ecstasy, freedom, wine, and fertility, and who represented the primitive nature of humans. This meant wine. This also meant days of wine-induced dancing, orgiastic delights, and people transcending their civilized forms in lieu of a wild frenzied animalistic being. This also meant – if we are taking the word of Livy (a stick in the mud who lived and wrote 200 years after the Bacchanalia) – human sacrifices and eating raw human meat. Which is probably how they dealt with members late on dues.

Other drinking clubs, though less secret, helped advance people and society. The book clubs of the 18th century offered access to expensive and inaccessible books, but also to social interaction, discussion, and gossip. Oh, and wine, which made the other things happen. Most book clubs were held at pubs or inns, so people drank, talked about books, gossiped, and went home a little more culturally aware, book smart, and drunk, which is probably the best way a day in the 18th century could end. Like the British gentlemen’s clubs, tall tales, drink, jokes, and gossip were lifeblood. Indeed gossip was not a bad word, but a commodity, a way to show status – the more information you had about people and events, the more important your worth. But the gentlemen’s clubs were exclusive and hard to get into. No word if anyone was ritually sacrificed and then eaten alive. Maybe on chicken pot pie night.

Perhaps no secret drinking club had a bigger or longer lasting effect on society than the speakeasies of the 1920s. Prohibition necessitated any drinking club to be secret, even if that secret was the worst-kept one in America. Everyone knew they existed, even the police, who were bribed to turn a blind eye. Nevertheless, one needed the password to get in, but once they did they were in a completely different world, one of food, music, and booze that might render them blind. Bad booze was masked with juice or soda and subsequently the popularity of the cocktail soared. Speakeasies welcomed women, which was both groundbreaking and ironic, since women had lead the prohibition charge after years of not being welcome in bars and growing sick of dealing with drunken alcoholic husbands who were. Women didn’t feel comfortable sitting at bars (elbows), so the speakeasy introduced table service. It also created a venue for jazz, and Italian speakeasy owners used the opportunity to sell their delicious and popular cuisine. The speakeasy was also a place for young people to meet up without the supervision of parents, and the concept of ‘dating’ was introduced into American society. The speakeasy is just proof that restricting people often makes them bloom.   

But while many of these secret drinking clubs led to social change or advancement, some drinking clubs were simply that – clubs for drinking. Hard. No club fits that profile more than the Hollywood Vampires. The Hollywood Vampires Club made no qualms about their intent. They were a celebrity drinking club in the 1970s. Alice Cooper was president, Keith Moon was vice president, and used to come dressed up as the Queen of England or Adolf Hitler, which is what you do when you happen to be both the drunkest person and the best drummer on earth at the same time. Other members included Ringo Starr, Micky Dolenz, and Harry Nilsson. Before admission to the club, a potential member had to outdrink all other members, presumably on a night when Keith Moon was sick. A member throughout his ‘Lost Weekend’ period was John Lennon, who made it a habit to hang out with Harry Nilsson, get drunk, and then get thrown out of places. Over the 18 months of his lost weekend, Lennon completed three albums, produced two (for Ringo Starr and Nilsson), and reunited with Paul. This only means that at his most fucked up, John Lennon was far more talented and productive than you. Or me. Or pretty much anyone except Hunter S. Thompson.  

By my third beer, elbow man next to me began complaining about work and the too-dark-too-early days. The bartender came over and we all commiserated with a few shots to spite the world outside the door. My mood lightened, my liver at work, I decided that we’re all in a secret drinking club. Whether you sip beers at your local and watch mind-numbingly dull soccer, stand around a grill drinking Bud longnecks with your neighbors and talk about the other neighbors, or you meet with colleagues for a drink at Happy Hour to gripe about the boss. You have your own language, membership dues, gossip, and roundtable. Today we drink to our secret private drinking clubs and to the sanctuary they provide. And we drink the Brandy Alexander milkshake.

The Brandy Alexander was a post prohibition cocktail and John Lennon and Harry Nilsson’s lost weekend drink of choice. They made it into a milkshake, and it helped them berate the Smothers Brothers, get punched in the face by security, and create timeless albums.

Ingredients

-          1 ounce Cognac or brandy VSOP

-          1 ounce crème de cacao

-          1 ounce cream

Directions

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker. Add a handful of ice. Shake until chilled. Pour into anything you have in the kitchen that holds liquid. If you can, garnish with freshly grated nutmeg. Or just start drinking. Drink to the Hollywood Vampires, to the cultural explosion that happened in the speakeasy, and to your own secret drinking club. Just don’t eat a human being raw. Well, not anyone you know anyway.