Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

vinepair.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 190 posts

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#31

Post by bruce511 »

vmception wrote: post #25
bruce511 wrote: post #13

One cool thing about the pandemic is that many countries took the opportunity to run large-scale social experiments under the guise of Covid Restrictions. I expect social scientists will be digging into this data for years to come. One experiment in South Africa was banning the sale, or transportation, of alcohol. (Production and consumption was still allowed, just not sale or transportation.) This resulted in a mark…

> This resulted in a marked decrease in hospital admissions, traffic accidents and domestic crimes. That was the same worldwide because nobody was outside. Holy retcon, Batman!

Yes, so it's not the only cause, but the reductions in SA were like 65% compared to the UK at about 25%

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#32

Post by bruce511 »

inter_netuser wrote: post #29
bruce511 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool because data is always cool :) More seriously,because it would simply be impossible to run these social experiments in normal circumstances. There are other examples; New Zealand and Australia tested a "closed border" approach, Sweden adopted a "personal responsibility" approach. Some places had curfews. The shere variety and scale of the last two years have generated enormous amounts of data, and matching data…

For some, data is not needed to figure out that tyranny isn't worth investigating.

I think possibly we have different definitions of tyranny

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#33

Post by Stratoscope »

If you find this interesting, I highly recommend Last Call by Daniel Okrent:

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B003JTHVHY/

Some related tidbits from that book:

Like the compressed grape bricks, grape juice was perfectly legal. And making your own wine for family consumption was also legal.

So in San Francisco, many homes had basement wine cellars, and you could arrange a delivery from the grape juice truck down a chute into your wine barrel.

If you preferred fresh grapes, you could go to the Drumm Street station to pick up boxes of Napa County grapes straight off the train. Then go next door to the barrel maker and take it all home.

http://santarosahistory.com/wordpress/2019/05/will-wine-coun...

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#34

Post by bobthepanda »

vmception wrote: post #25
bruce511 wrote: post #13

One cool thing about the pandemic is that many countries took the opportunity to run large-scale social experiments under the guise of Covid Restrictions. I expect social scientists will be digging into this data for years to come. One experiment in South Africa was banning the sale, or transportation, of alcohol. (Production and consumption was still allowed, just not sale or transportation.) This resulted in a mark…

> This resulted in a marked decrease in hospital admissions, traffic accidents and domestic crimes. That was the same worldwide because nobody was outside. Holy retcon, Batman!

Traffic accidents actually went up in the US. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-12-08/traffi...

Generally speaking, emptier roads encourage more speeding and reckless driving, increasing the severity of car accidents.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#36

Post by thrashh »

bruce511 wrote: post #31
vmception wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This resulted in a marked decrease in hospital admissions, traffic accidents and domestic crimes. That was the same worldwide because nobody was outside. Holy retcon, Batman!

Yes, so it's not the only cause, but the reductions in SA were like 65% compared to the UK at about 25%

But your article also says that SA has major issues with the regulation of alcohol consumption, issues that do not exist in a country like the US (according to the article).

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#37

Post by gwbas1c »

mod50ack wrote: post #12
rdtsc wrote: post #7

When someone suggests a clever loophole, the response is usually “that would never work, the police and the judge will know exactly what you’re doing”. But somehow, a whole industry developed around the “do not do … detailed prohibited thing”. I guess, because it somehow worked that one time, it became memorable as an exception, while in most cases it wouldn’t fly in court.

The thing you must realize is that despite prohibition public attitude soured on it very quickly and many judges and politicians were themselves partaking in prohibited alcohol. And the situation cannot be compared with marijuana; it was on a whole different magnitude.

Back the the defense could ask for Jury nullification. Now the defense can't.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#38

Post by thrashh »

rdtsc wrote: post #7

When someone suggests a clever loophole, the response is usually “that would never work, the police and the judge will know exactly what you’re doing”. But somehow, a whole industry developed around the “do not do … detailed prohibited thing”. I guess, because it somehow worked that one time, it became memorable as an exception, while in most cases it wouldn’t fly in court.

It’s kind of like a little speeding on the highway. In many places, a lot of people are OK with it and the risk of being ticketed is very low. Yet in other places, it is not OK.

Something being on paper is basically meaningless. It’s all the “soft” cues that we use and you pick up those cues through experience.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#39

Post by sdenton4 »

istjohn wrote: post #20
jameslk wrote: post #18

I'm very curious how this tasted and I wonder why there isn't anyone selling them anymore (based on a quick Google search). If it tasted half decent I'm curious if there could still be a market for something like this, given it seems to be able to be stored dry?

Fermenting alcohol that tastes good is not easy enough to justify a mass market product. Furthermore, why buy this when you can just buy cheap boxed wine that probably tastes much better than whatever you would get from fermenting reconstituted dry grape concentrate?

I've often made one gallon batches of mead; it's pretty simple, and wine (if you don't get too fancy) is a similar level of difficulty.

IME, one gallon batches about two hours of work from start to a clean kitchen. Five gallon batches take much longer to cool after boiling, so are a much bigger headache.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#40

Post by cgio »

boogies wrote: post #8
Syonyk wrote: post #3

I'm always reminded of the bit from The Incredibles: BOB PARR: All right, listen closely. I'd like to help you, but I can't. I'd like to tell you to take a copy of your policy to Norma Wilcox on... Norma Wilcox. W-I-L-C-O-X. On the third floor. But I can't. I also do not advise you to fill out and file a WS2475 form with our legal department on the second floor. I wouldn't expect someone to get back to you quickly to…

Offtopic, but The Incredibles has one of my favorite movie quotes: You always say “Be true to yourself”, but you never say which part of yourself to be true to! … which stuck in my head because so many Disney (and other?) movies seem to be all about being “true to yourself,” and in my experience they conspicuously fail to address the fact (in my belief system) that all humans have both good and evil, selfish and self…

And the villain quote along the lines of “if we are all superheroes then no one is a superhero”.
Post reply on HN