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Virginia is for (Liquor) Lovers!

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST

Bob McDonnell is a self-professed pinot grigio and white zinfandel drinker.

He's also the new Republican governor of Virginia and is taking aim at the commonwealth's oppressive and inefficient state-owned liquor monopoly. More than a dozen states still completely control the sales and distribution of all distilled spirits.

The result? Higher payrolls for state governments (state-workers are public-sector employees after all) and rotten selection and service for customers (state-sanctioned monopolies tend to diminish the shopping experience).

Despite a reputation as a social conservative, McDonnell thinks that state-run liquor stores are a bad idea from both pragmatic and philosophical perspectives. Given budget crises, says McDonnell, "we can't just do things the same old way.... Certainly there's nothing I gleaned from the [Virginia] constitution that would have me think it's better or required to have the government controlling distilled spirits."

States such as West Virginia and Iowa have gained millions of dollars in new tax and license revenues by privatizing liquor sales, says Reason Foundation policy analyst Len Gilroy. And they've also cut government expenditures by millions of dollars as well.

Will Virginia join them? McDonnell invited Reason.tv to come back in a year and check in with him. Sure thing, Mr. Governor. We'll bring the questions. You can bring the white zinfandel.

Approximately 4.30 minutes. Written and produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie, who also hosts. Additional footage: Dan Hayes.

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For more Reason.tv videos on prohibition and alchohol policy, go here.

Red, White, and Sacrebleu

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:00:00 EST

From wine elves to classy pitchmen, American winemakers have tried just about everything to challenge the dominance of French vintners. And yet, with infamous labels like Ripple and Thunderbird, Yankee wines had long endured the reputation of being good for just one one thing—getting blitzed.

So it must have seemed like a cruel joke in 1976 when a British wine merchant arranged The Paris Tasting, a one-of-its-kind competition that pitted mighty France versus lowly America in a blind taste test judged entirely by Gallic wine experts.

But as viewers of the movie Bottle Shock and the documentary Mondovino can tell you, the unthinkable happened: America took home top honors for both red and white wine.

The Paris Tasting made Mike Grgich an instant legend, but back then, even the maker of the winning white couldn't believe he had won. "I said are you sure it's me?" recalls Grgich. How could this American, an immigrant who fled communist Yugoslavia, shock the world?

The French wanted to find out, so Jean-Noël Fourmeaux, an official government wine taster became a wine spy. He headed to California to discover how, in the span of a couple of decades, American winemakers progressed from Thunderbird to Grgich's award-winning white.

Fourmeaux encountered a freewheeling atmosphere of technological and cultural innovation—one that attracted the likes of Squire Fridell of Glen Lyon Vineyards, a winemaker who has his own reason for smiling at America's emergence as a leader in wine. Fourmeaux pondered what he could create by mixing French tradition with Yankee innovation, and it led him to a most unexpected decision.

"Red, White, and Sacrebleu" is written and produced by Ted Balaker, who also hosts. Director of Photography: Alex Manning; Field Producers: Paul Detrick and Hawk Jensen; Production Associates: Zach Weissmueller and Tannen Wels.

Special thanks to D'Argenzio Winery and the Wine Institute.

Approximately 7.30 minutes. Scroll down for embed code and downloadable versions.

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Garrett Peck On "The Prohibition Hangover: Alcohol in America from Demon Rum to Cult Cabernet"

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:00:00 EST

Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie sat down with Garrett Peck, author of the new history The Prohibition Hangover: Alcohol in America From Demon Rum to Cult Cabernet (Rutgers University Press).

A wide-ranging social history that begins with the end of Prohibition and runs up to the current craze over great domestic wines and small-batch spirits, The Prohibition Hangover helps explain why Americans continue to have such an ambivalent relationship toward drinking. Engaging, well-written, and packed with an infinite number of fascinating interviews and historical anecdotes, The Prohibition Hangover is required reading for anyone interested in understanding the past 80 years of American business and culture.

For Peck's official site, go here.

To buy the book, go here.

Related Reason.tv videos include Beer: An American Revolution and Jerome Tuccille on "Gallo Be Thy Name."

Reason.tv's Nanny of the Month for November 2009

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 06:00:00 EST

Smoking, fast food, giant inflatable blue gorillas—no matter what it is, chances are some nanny wants to ban it. And this past month was no exception.

Reason.tv's October 2009 Nanny of The Month Award went to New York State Sen. Jeff Klein for his efforts to rid the Empire State of fish pedicures.

Who is the Nanny of the Month for November 2009?

The runners up include the California Energy Commission for banning big-screen TVs unless they conform to stringent new energy standards and the Food and Drug Administration, which is waging war against caffeinated booze drinks.

But can be only one Nanny of the Month, and this time it's ...

Click the video to learn the awful truth.

Nanny of the Month is produced by Ted Balaker. The director of photography is Alex Manning and the associate produce is Paul Detrick. Approximately 1.17 minutes.

This video is also available at Reason.tv's YouTube channel (subscribe now!).

And make sure to tune in next month for more examples of busybodies minding your own business.

Jerome Tuccille on "Gallo Be Thy Name"

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:00:00 EDT

When Reason.tv last checked in with author Jerome Tuccille (in July 2008), it was to discuss a new edition of his classic libertarian-movement memoir, It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand.

Now Tuccille is back with a new book that explores the lives and times of Ernest & Julio Gallo, the California brothers who went from relative obscurity to being the biggest winemakers in the world.

Gallo Be Thy Name: The Inside Story of How One Family Rose to Dominate the U.S. Wine Market is a mesmerizing story of true crime, murder, Prohibition, family drama, and capitalism. It is also an engrossing social history of the last 100 years of America and explains how we went from a nation that gulped Thunderbird, Ripple, Boone's Farm and other Gallo-created plonk to a country of refined Chardonnay and Zinfandel sippers.

Approximately 10 minutes. Interview by Nick Gillespie; shot by Meredith Bragg and Dan Hayes and edited by Meredith Bragg.

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Beer: An American Revolution

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:00:00 EDT

In 1920, the National Prohibition Act destroyed the beer industry in the United States, putting some 1,500 breweries out of business. When the "noble experiment" was repealed in 1933, beer lovers rejoiced, and the beer industry staggered back to its feet. The industry had lost much of its diversity, however, and the emergence of national brands in the 1950s and 1960s led to industry consolidation and fewer choices for American beer drinkers. By 1980, there were less than 50 breweries in the U.S.

By the 1980s, American beer had an international reputation as weak and watery as a case of Hamm's. Most breweries only produced American-style lagers, a light and inexpensive style of beer typically made with rice or corn adjuncts in addition to barley, hops, yeast and water.

What American beer lovers didn’t know at the time was that a revolution was imminent. In 1979, a clerical error in the 21st Amendment was corrected, and for the first time in nearly 50 years it became legal to brew small batches of beer at home. Home brewers who had little interest in cutting costs or making beer with mass appeal began brewing big, flavorful beers in a wide range of styles. Many of these home brewers decided to turn their passion into small businesses, and microbreweries began popping up all over the country.

Today, although mainstream beers still dominate the market, more than 1,400 breweries in the U.S. produce more styles of beer than anywhere else in the world, and American beers routinely dominate international beer competitions.

So the next time you’re at your favorite brewpub, hold your glass up high and celebrate the American beer revolution.

"Beer: An American Revolution" was written and produced by Paul Feine. Alex Manning was the director of photography and Nick Gillespie is the narrator. Approximately seven minutes.

Legal Absinthe in the US

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:51:00 EST

(Click on the image to play the video.)

After nearly a century of prohibition, la fee verte is once again legal in the US.

Legal, that is, as long as it contains less than 10ppm (parts per million) of thujone. Thujone--the active chemical in grand wormwood, one of the many herbs used to make absinthe--has long been thought to be resonsible for creating the magical sense of lucidity that many absinthe enthusiasts report.

Around the turn of the 20th-century, absinthe was adored by some of the most prominent artists, poets, and writers in Europe and the US, including Manet, Rimbaud, Lautrec, Baudelaire, Degas, Wilde, Van Gogh, London and Hemingway. Immortalized in many works of art, absinthe has become perhaps the most mythical alcoholic drink the west has ever known, and its mystique was only enhanced when it was banned in many European countries and the US in the early part of the 20th-century.

Efforts to ban absinthe were spearheaded in the late 19th-century by French prohibitionists who formed a curious coalition with French winemakers. Their successful propaganda campaign condemned absinthe as a drink that causes illness, criminal activity and, ultimately, insanity. Today, while there is disagreement about the psychotropic effects of thujone, the amount of thujone present in pre-ban absinthes and whether today's legal absinthes (with <10ppm thujone) can be called genuine, it's clear that absinthe is as safe as any other alcoholic drink.

For more information about absinthe (including how to get your hands on the green fairy), go here .

Enthusiasts may want to check out Barnaby Conrad's Absinthe: History in a Bottle , a lovely coffee table book.