PROHIBITION: Good Whiskey

The U. S. supply of good whiskey, essential for medicinal purposes, is running inconveniently low. In November, 1921, there were 50,000,000 gallons in storage. But the yearly drinking, under doctors’ prescriptions, and the disappearance of 18,000,000 or 19,000,000 gallons by technical shrinkage of evaporation and absorption have left a scant 15,000,000 gallons. This constitutes an “emergency,” General Lincoln C. Andrews, Prohibition Director, said last week.

Thereupon, with General Andrews and Secretary Mellon agreeing, the Treasury Department announced that it would ask Congress to provide for the organization of a private corporation under Federal control to buy all medicinal spirits now in warehouses and distilleries and to manufacture additional necessary liquors. The Government would name the original Board of Directors and would audit the books to assure the sick public of reasonably priced whiskey. It will require $150,000,000 to finance such a corporation. If the Government cannot find proper private capital, it will ask Congress for an appropriation.

The corporation will be required to manufacture 3,000,000 gallons of whiskey yearly. This will shrink to the 2,000,000 gallons needed annually forlicit purposes, after the five years that whiskey must age to be good.