Rico will drink to that

Courtesy of the Mangan's Miscellany blog, a reminder that today is the anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition:

December 5th is the 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. In honor of that great day, here's H. L. Mencken taking a drink on the day of repeal. The Sage of Baltimore hated Prohibition as much as he hated anything, deeming it the work of the inhabitants of "the Bible Belt", a phrase he coined.
Baltimore was viewed as a “center of resistance to prohibition“. Undeniably Baltimore was a “wet” city, which meant that Baltimore continued the selling, distributing, and consumption of illicit alcohol under the auspices of city and state government. While some rural towns in Maryland did indeed favor prohibition, the more cosmopolitan and urban Baltimore refused to yield to such stringent federal infringement upon one of their most preferred forms of recreation and relaxation. Baltimore was home to many immigrant groups and races and also had a large African-American [Mencken would have called them "Aframericans"] population. These groups were greatly affected by prohibition, whether they were for or against the Eighteenth Amendment. The city’s economy was affected, especially since employment in the trafficking of liquor was halted due to the fact that the city’s breweries and saloons were shut down.

A worthy thing to have a drink in honor of, so Rico will now go and do that...