Learn how the temperance movement, the new federal income tax, and wartime politics converged to pass the 18th Amendment in 1920.

Learn how medicinal whiskey licenses kept a handful of Kentucky distilleries alive through 13 dry years, while more than 2,000 others shut their doors.

Learn how moonshiners and rum runners built the smuggling networks and modified vehicles that would later give rise to NASCAR.

About the course

This module covers Prohibition from its roots in the temperance movement through Repeal in 1933. You'll learn how the 18th and 16th Amendments were politically intertwined, how the Volstead Act was enforced, and how bootleggers, moonshiners, and speakeasies filled the vacuum left by more than 2,000 shuttered distilleries. You'll also learn how six licensed distilleries kept whiskey legally flowing through medicinal prescriptions, and the coalition of factors, including rising crime and the Great Depression, that finally ended Prohibition.  This is a standalone module: it does not include the Level One exam or certification, which are only awarded with the complete 10-module program.

Your Instructor: Susan Reigler

Susan Reigler wrote the book on American whiskey. Eight of them, actually. She's the author or co-author of eight books on bourbon and American spirits, an adjunct professor of Beer & Spirits at Eastern Kentucky University, and a working spirits judge, which means she's spent decades doing exactly what this course teaches you to do, at a level most drinkers never reach. She's judged whiskeys against each other by the hundreds, trained hospitality students on the science behind every barrel, and turned some of the industry's driest regulations into stories people actually remember. That's the instructor behind every module in American Whiskey Scholar: someone who has done the tasting, read the fine print, and can tell you precisely why your whiskey tastes the way it does.

Curriculum

1 Chapter · 11 Lessons

    1. (Included in full purchase)

      Temperance Movements

    2. (Included in full purchase)

      The 18th Amendment

    3. (Included in full purchase)

      The Volstead Act

    4. (Included in full purchase)

      Bootleggers and Moonshiners

    5. (Included in full purchase)

      Speakeasies

    6. (Included in full purchase)

      Repeal

    7. (Included in full purchase)

      Prohibition

    8. (Included in full purchase)

      Timeline of American Whiskey Events

    9. (Included in full purchase)

      Quiz

    10. (Included in full purchase)

      Review

    11. (Included in full purchase)

      Recommended Reading

Learn how six distilleries kept bourbon alive.

Enroll in History: Prohibition and trace the 13 years that nearly ended American whiskey.

$49.00

Enroll now