In popular memory the repeal of US Prohibition in 1933 signaled alcohol’s decisive triumph in a decades-long culture war. But as Lisa Jacobson reveals, alcohol’s respectability and mass market success were neither sudden nor assured. It took a world war and a battalion of public relations experts and tastemakers to transform wine, beer, and whiskey into emblems of the American good life. Alcohol producers and their allies—a group that included scientists, trade associations, restaurateurs, home economists, cookbook authors, and New Deal planners—powered a publicity machine that linked alcohol to wartime food crusades and new ideas about the place of pleasure in modern American life. In this deeply researched and engagingly written book, Jacobson shows how the yearnings of ordinary consumers and military personnel shaped alcohol’s cultural reinvention and put intoxicating pleasures at the center of broader debates about the rights and obligations of citizens.

About the Author

Lisa Jacobson is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of Raising Consumers: Children and the American Mass Market in the Early Twentieth Century.

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Moderate Drinkers, the New At-Risk Group?

Lisa Jacobson, author of "Intoxicating Pleasures," about how alcohol’s place as an emblem of “the good life” may be in jeopardy.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART ONE. CHARTING ALCOHOL’S PATH TO REDEMPTION
1 The Potent Politics of Weak Brews
2 A New Deal for Alcohol?
3 Fermented Beverages and the Gospel of Moderation
4 Spiritous Beverages and the Muddled Meanings of Moderation

PART TWO. THE POLITICS OF PLEASURE
5 Beer Goes to War
6 Whiskey, Weapons, and the Wartime State
7 Wine and Culinary Innovation on the Kitchen Front
8 Rank Privilege: The Politics of Intoxicating Pleasures in the US Military

Epilogue: The Power and Limits of Reinvention

Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Reviews

"An excellent addition to any library of distilled spirits, wine and beer."
— Bourbon Veach

"Jacobson begins her important book by characterizing the changing public image of alcoholic beverages as a prime example of 'troublesome commodities' undergoing 'dramatic cultural reinventions'."
— CHOICE

"This volume is an essential read and represents the new, key text in understanding the legacy of Prohibition and the modern meanings of alcohol in America. Vital for food scholars and social and business historians alike, it explains how in shedding its connotations of evil, alcohol, for all its intoxicating properties, became pleasurable."
— Global Food History

"The book will be of interest to food historians, political scientists, 'Beeronomics' scholars, and those who simply enjoy the pleasure of curling up with a good book...and a good drink. Cheers!"
— American Historical Review

"Intoxicating Pleasures is a must for historians of alcoholic beverages and American social and business historians of the 20th century. . . . It is well written and engaging enough to be of interest to non-historians with an interest in the subject."
— Business History

"Full of fascinating and little-known stories that complement and complicate our understanding of twentieth-century culinary culture as a joint product of business, government, and consumers. Lisa Jacobson is one of the best writers on the history of consumer culture."—Megan Elias, author of Food on the Page: Cookbooks and American Culture

"Jacobson's exhaustive research provides a compelling window into the evolution of American drinking culture."—Vicki Howard, author of From Main Street to Mall: The Rise and Fall of the American Department Store

"Intoxicating Pleasures provides the most in-depth and well-researched account of the alcoholic beverage industries in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. It persuasively argues that Americans' demand for access to alcoholic beverages was in fact a demand for the right to have pleasure."—Pamela Pennock, author of Advertising Sin and Sickness: The Politics of Alcohol and Tobacco Marketing, 1950–1990

"Surprises abound in Jacobson's eagerly awaited Intoxicating Pleasures! Creative research supports an erudite and groundbreaking analysis of alcohol’s still-contested reentry into American culture following Prohibition. A remarkable array of illustrations enhances the elegantly crafted narrative, showing how advocates reinvented moderate consumption as a patriotic and socially suitable source of respectable pleasures."—Pamela Laird, author of Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing

Awards

Nach Waxman Prize Shortlist 2024, Kitchen Arts & Letters

About the Book