Estela Calápiz. Peninsula 360 Press.
Moss Beach Distillery
We had driven over rough roads from "The Beach House" along the sea to the mist-shrouded cliffs that covered the craggy edges of the raging ocean. At last an old board indicated: "Moss Beach Distillery". A historical monument that, during the prohibition of alcohol in the United States, distilled it for sale in San Francisco.
While we ate, we listened to country music that evoked that era. Excitedly we went down to the dance floor and like in the Old West movies, in the shelves of the big mirror of the saloon, there were bottles of liquor of that era, where the bartender was serving a woman dressed in red, in front on the small dance floor played a few musicians, and near them a blonde girl dressed in a blue "flapper" was wiggling.
One man masterfully played the washboard with two spoons, harmonizing with the group, which also consisted of the banyo, a guitar, the harmonica, the dobro, and the fiddle. and the fiddle. The music was great, emulating that time of smuggling. We ordered beer from the house while we commented on the thinness of the woman in red, her body stretched to the ceiling, her bony legs sticking out of the side slits of her dress. As I watched the bearded faces of the men and the bodies of the women dancing vanish from their clothes; I dropped the glass of beer splashing my trousers; the woman in blue who had watched the scene came to my aid; when I raised my face to thank her, the lifeless holes in her eyes looked at me as her bony hand offered me a napkin to wipe myself and as I wanted to lean on my partner, my hand was lost in a gelatinous haze, he wasn't there. I went up to the dining room looking for him, I asked the hostess if she had seen him, she told me when she saw me:
Madam, you arrived alone and there is no bar here where music is played.
The Story
At the beginning of the 20th century, the massive influx of working class immigrants The growth of a new urban culture based on a fondness for the arts in the big cities had led to the flowering of a new urban culture. the alcohol and the noisy atmosphere of the Bars. It was a way of having a good time that not everyone tolerated. Conservative sectors, who defended the old values of order and strict morality, saw in this leisure a threat to the typically American principles and protested until they got its abolition. And this began with the "Volstead Act" (named after its initiator), Lutheran Congressman from Minnesota Andrew J. Volstead) which was passed in 1919 by Congress after three months of debate. The following year, the rule prohibiting "the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating alcoholic beverages" came into force.
Curious facts On the beaches, which was where the contraband arrived, a buoy marks the three nautical miles, the limit of U.S. territorial waters, on the other side awaiting ships loaded with prohibited liquor, and bars that sold alcohol clandestinely multiplied throughout the country after the ban, to enter them used to require an invitation as, or know a certain password. These speakeasies were called ?speakeasies? ? to avoid attracting the attention of the police and in the Midwest, as ?blind pigs? or ?blind tigers?, name that alludes to the fact that they developed their activity hidden ?blind? ? "blind"?
The ?wine bricks? ? "wine bricks"? contained concentrated grape juice (the production of which was legal) that allowed to make wine at home. On the label (and under the warning that such a thing was illegal) the procedure to obtain it was explained.
Moonshine? ? "moonshine" is the name still given today to illegally distilled liquor, one of the flourishing activities in Prohibition times. Drinking it was dangerous, as it lacked health guarantees.
The rural areas of the country that had a long tradition of producing their local beverages increased the illegal production of liquor that allowed farmers to make money behind the taxpayer's back by distilling the surplus of the harvest who created for this purpose ingenious systems to make alcoholic beverages at home.
https://historia.nationalgeographic.com.es/a/ley-seca-era-prohibicion-estados-unidos_12311/29
The Legend
The Moss Beach Distillery dates back to 1927 when Frank Torres built the bar and restaurant. He called it "Frank's Place" and turned it into a speakeasy (a place that sold alcohol illicitly) during the prohibition era. It was frequented by some very influential people of the time, and a venue for a variety of underground criminal activities. Politicians, gangsters and silent film stars were among Frank's clientele.
This proved very advantageous for Frank. For Frank's Place was used as a delivery point for the Canadian rum runners. They would land on the beach below, take the rum down to the cliff where it would be loaded into vehicles for delivery to other illegal establishments up and down the coast. Frank's connections provided protection for the operation and his nightclub was never raided, although others in the area were not so fortunate. But rum was not the only liquor in Frank's place, Prohibition became a defiance of the law, and a real diversion for many middle and upper class young women; of those women I will tell you the legend of Mary Ellen (Blue Lady).
Mary Ellen, was a beautiful woman who loved to wear blue dresses. The story of Blue Lady tells that she was a married woman who fell in love with a pianist, John Contina. John and Mary Ellen had an illicit love affair for quite some time. They enjoyed their love in a hotel right next to the Moss Distillery where they used to stroll along the shore during their passionate encounters. The couple was stabbed one night while walking. But John survived and disappeared, turning up dead on the beach much later. From then on, it is said that "Blue Lady" appears in those places and, moreover, it is said that very strange things happen in that place as it happened to me.
The legend is confused with reality; the story tells a part of Reality and the Tale is written by sharing these two realities with introspection and perception, intense, deep, of another reality, which is not unreal because it is strange.
