What It Was Like to Be a Prohibition Bootlegger
Mark Twain once said, “It is the prohibition that makes anything precious.” The United States learned that lesson the hard way not long after January 17, 1920, when it made the nation’s fifth-largest industry largely illegal. Smuggling alcohol during Prohibition became its own industry, inciting the growth of illicit activity and organized crime. But necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention, and some of the ways people hid alcohol during Prohibition were very inventive. If it hadn’t all come to an end in 1933, hiding liquor might have become another major industry.
#bootleg #prohibition #weirdhistory
@thetrojanlucy
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
I'm doing a Model UN Crisis tomorrow as a pro-prohobitiom advocate. Im so cooked😭
@340wbymag
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
I learned to mash grain and distill liquor just for fun long ago. It is easy, at least on a small scale for personal use, so I am surprised that so few people were involved in bootlegging.
@BEN-d1l9e
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
You should read "The Mysterious World of Prohibition Bootleggers" by George Larrick now. This quick read is an impressive nonfiction book about beer and history. It is the best book about underground secrets. Google it!
@cgarzone
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
The first speakeasy (so I"m told) in Syracuse, NY was opened by my grandfather, Charles Garzone, in 1921. Cafe Garzone was at 2426 South Ave. in the city on Onondaga Hill. He became a rum runner with a route from Canada through Buffalo-Rochester-Syracuse. It's said one of his "special friends" was Dutch Schultz while the gangster was on trial for tax evasion in Syracuse. Schultz was an avid horseman and Garzone's doubled as stables where people came from across the region to ride. The Cafe closed sometime around 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akquidn6T1I
@holdencaulfield4808
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
It's almost as if the government created the black market for drugs. WAIT!
@maxwellthehero
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
Anyone watching this after seeing Lackadaisy?
@laluna5192
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
would this page back me up and produce my family stories after I write the screenplays? im looking for a backer
@laluna5192
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
My Great Grandfathers Job!!!
@KevinCeniceros-z9u
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
These guys are essentially the 1930 version of our Old West outlaws. That's why they seem so novel for their time.
@JeanneKrukowski
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
We are a small, local, non-profit historical society. We would like to use this Youtube Video at our museum to explain bootlegging. If it is possible to use this video, how would we go about getting permission from you.
@JeanneKrukowski
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
We are a small, local, non-profit historical society. We would like to use this Youtube Video at our museum to explain bootlegging. If it is possible to use this video, how would we go about getting permission from you.
@ScottSummers-m5l
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
Always a great show Weird History. Thank you for all your hard work to all involved.
@unionrdr
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
My grandma made white lightnin' & keg charred during those days. Right up until we started growing up. I cut teeth on the stuff! It was smooth as a sip of spring water! I could never get the recipe from her!? I tried to tell her it'd sell more than JD…
@DigitalWitness77
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
For God so Loved the World, That He Gave His Only Begotten Son, That Whosoever Believeth in Him Should Not Perish, But have Everlasting Life.
John 3:16kjv
@wendyyoung7950
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
Temperance societies, misery guts
@SukatAkalainYT
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
Good times
@ljrouse5
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
Came here after watching boardwalk empire 😂
@shamusbob7969
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
"Ail Capone" can't tell if it's a joke or just silliness
@Anon26535
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit. This is the fine point on which all the legal professions of history have based their job security.
@btetschner
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
#4.) Mariah Carey is a legendary collaborator, her #1 single with Boys II Men "was ranked first in Rolling Stone's reader's poll for the Best Collaboration of All Time." (wikipedia).
@TheFern72
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
Check out the nutty history piece about the government poisoning alcohol during prohibition
@princessmarlena1359
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
“Open up, Curly! This is a raid!”
@BlackMambas82
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
Ohhhhhhhhhh! So Whites did commit violent acts of crime against each other! Let them tell it, they've been model citizens throughout their history! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@JIm-w1b
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
Today we have the war on drugs as in meth and cocaine, what is just an updated version of the alcohol prohibition with the same as before bootleggers versus the enforcement agents in an endless game of cat and mouse, full of machine gun murders, high level corruption and worldwide drug cartels, where the criminals become progressively richer and the addicts continue to have all the drugs they want. History truly does repeat itself
@BensonCaisip
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
I congratulate Liquor for winning the War on Liquor.
@Goodiesfanful
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
Booze cruise also became popular. It was legal to serve booze in international waters, so one shipping line, which had suffered from the Depression, saved itself by taking people outside the three-mile limit where they could have all the booze they wanted. So there were loopholes in Prohibition too.
@Primo_extracts
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
Guess that means weed growers were modern day bootleggers or maybe its greenthumbers😂
@TheKoolbraider
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
My dad lived in northern Maine. There were bootleggers in the family who would go back and forth from Canada to the states.
@sahffggg6493
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
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@btetschner
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
A+ video!
Fascinating topic and video!
@btetschner
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
I am 100% behind the idea of bringing speakeasies (as a type of nightclub) back into prominence (since there isn't the same threat of organized violence today).
@btetschner
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
Eating ANOTHER Weird History snack!
Eating LAYS POTATO CHIPS (Limón)*†…while watching this Weird History video!
Since Lays were released in 1932 (before the end of Prohibition) and they are a finger food (according to one source finger foods were the most common in the Speakeasies), this seemed to be a great fit!
* From the Weird History videos about potato chips.
† There is an image of a lime on the front of the bag.
@munchiemac2895
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
My great grandfather ran liquor for Capone.
@Daria_Morgandorfer.
April 28, 2026 at 4:50 pm
Haha this video could be about my grandpa haha my old man's dad was a bootlegger and moonlight chemist lol