City Beautiful Tours

ALCOHOL. BECAUSE NO GREAT STORY EVER STARTED WITH COFFEE. ​

This tour is about the craziest period in American history – the Prohibition. The law that prohibited alcohol didn’t quite work and, instead, promoted much more drinking in illegal bars called speakeasies. With speakeasies came exciting nightlife entertainment with jazz, flappers, cocktails, and …mafia. The crazy party lasted for 14 years and left the city with a collective hangover. Prohibition changed all the rules: it created organized crime and the concept of nightlife, it brought about a new 20th-century independent woman and introduced a certain allure of secret drinking places. Speakeasies are no longer a necessity, but the idea of a “secret” creates this special excitement of discovery. There are only a couple of authentic Prohibition-era speakeasies left in New York that survived. But there are quite a few of excellent modern speakeasies where the craft of making a cocktail is elevated to the art form.  We will visit one of the Prohibition era survivors for the atmosphere Prohibition history and some contemporary speakeasies for cocktails.