Back in the 1920s, during Prohibition… which was a chaotic period when the US government literally banned the sale of all alcohol nationwide…
But a bar owner named Tom Nelsen found a beautiful flaw in the legal system.
He ran Nelsen’s Hall on Washington Island, Wisconsin, and realized that while Angostura bitters sits at a whopping forty-five percent alcohol, the law classified it as a medical tonic for stomach issues, not liquor.
So my boy Tommy went and got himself a pharmacy license, kept his bar open, and spent an entire decade legally pouring straight shots of Angostura to locals who just wanted to get drunk.
"It apparently tasted like getting aggressively punched in the throat by an entire spice rack, but grown men were lined up down the block pretending to have severe indigestion just to get drunk, while federal agents could only watch on."
And the best part is, it is still happening today.
Because of this exact loophole, Nelsen's Hall holds the title of the oldest continuously operating bar in Wisconsin.
Even crazier, the tradition never stopped. To this day, if you visit Washington Island, you can join their official "Bitters Club" by drinking a full, straight shot of Angostura bitters.
Once you swallow it without throwing up, they log your name in a ledger and hand you an official membership card.
Because of this single bar, on a tiny island in Wisconsin with a population of only about seven hundred people, is consistently one of the largest single consumers of Angostura bitters in the entire world…
All because they used a tiny bottle from here in Trinidad and Tobago to legally break the system.
Did I miss a crucial detail?
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