1933 AD FDR signs the bill that dissolves Prohibition, celebrates with the first (legal) martini in 13 years. Sadly, many American breweries would not survive the drought, America is now stuck with a handful of ever-growing macrobreweries. With $5,000 and a recipe found in a pamphlet borrowed from a public Library, brothers Ernest and Julio Gallo began building a wine-making empire. In the next eighty years they will produce millions of gallons of "budget" wine and inflict nearly as many psyche-shattering hangovers.
1935 AD Jagermeister is invented in Wolfenbuttel, Germany. On the other side of the Atlantic, canned beer is introduced by the Kreuger Brewing Company in Richmond, VA.
1938 AD Writer H. L. Mencken announces that 17,864,392,788 different cocktails can be made from the ingredients in a well-stocked bar. The Bartender's Guild considers having him assassinated.
1939 AD France fearfully watches Germany rearm under the guidance of a teetotaler with a Charlie Chaplin mustache. France wonders, "What shall he do for fun?"
1940 AD Germany invades France.
1944 AD Trader Vic invents the Mai Tai in Oakland, CA.
1945 AD The Allies, led by full-bore boozers Churchill, FDR and Stalin, defeat the Axis Powers, led by a sinister cabal of teetotalers and lightweights. The world is now safe for drinkers. And democracy.
1948 AD Happy Hour is invented in Chicago.
1947 AD Humphrey Bogart forms the first incarnation of the Rat Pack in Hollywood. Later headed by Frank Sinatra, the Pack would dictate what was hip until the hippies came along and screwed everything up. In St. Louis, the Hyde Park brewery airs the first beer commercial on television.
1950 AD Flying in the face of the Red Scare, vodka begins to dominate the world market. The Screwdriver becomes the most popular drink in America.
1951 AD Trader Vic opens restaurants in San Francisco, Oakland, and Beverly Hills, and cocktail lounges in Seattle and Chicago. Soldiers returning from the Pacific flock to the Polynesian themed bars, ushering in the Tiki Era.
1953 AD The Piña Colada is first assembled in the Hotel Caribe Hilton in Puerto Rico by Ramón Marrero. The coconut cocktail would go on to win a global competition and inspire Rupert Holmes to pen a song so insidiously catchy it would haunt an entire generation.
1958 AD Ernest Hemingway issues a challenge to the rest of America by consuming 16 of his signature Papa Dobles cocktails in a single sitting (more than 60oz of strong rum), then walking home. Accepting the challenge, America enters a golden age of guzzling, led by celebrity avatars like Jackie Gleason, Dean Martin, Robert Mitchum and Richard Burton.
1960 AD The Rat Pack begins holding court at the Sands Hotel in Vegas. The Swinger Era begins.
1962 AD John F. Kennedy and Ernest Hemingway's public thirst for daiquiris ignites a pop culture phenomenon.
1963 AD The pop top beer can is introduced by the Iron City Beer Brewing Company in Pittsburgh.
1964 AD Sean Connery, as James Bond, not only asks for vodka in his martini, but also insists it be shaken, not stirred, releasing a two-headed gorgon of controversy. Soon every Playboy subscriber in the civilized world is donning a tuxedo jacket and swilling vodka martinis.
1970 AD Wineries rapidly spread throughout California and wine spritzers and disco music suspiciously arrive at the exact same time.
1972 AD The Long Island Ice Tea is invented by a Long Island Bartender Robert C. "Rosebud" Butt. In defiance of all previously known laws of mixology, tequila, rum, vodka, and gin are made to play nice together.
1975 AD Androgynous cocktails such as the Tequila Sunrise and the Harvey Wallbanger, along with a plethora of self-help books encouraging sensitivity and outright crying, lay heavy siege to the collective masculinity of the modern male.
1978 AD President Jimmy Carter, in an attempt to atone for his many failures, legalizes home brewing.
1980 AD The first boxed wines appear in Australia and the trend soon spreads to the U.S. Drunks now have the power to tumble down a flight of stairs with two liters of wine in their hands without the worry of picking shards of glass out of their skulls while bawling over spilled wine. Jokes about American beer become popular throughout the world because as the U.S.'s 44 brewing companies produce virtually the same product: a light, tasteless, over-carbonated lager.
1981 AD As state laws are relaxed, microbreweries start popping up across the nation. America's reputation as a decent beer-producing nation is redeemed. The population of beer snobs also multiples.
1985 AD Bartles & James takes a chance on a bizarre ad campaign featuring two old coots sitting on a porch asking you to buy their light and fruity wines. A wine cooler craze soon sweeps the nation, instantly doubling the chances of pimply high-school kids getting laid after the prom.
1987 AD Fueled by rumors that it contains morphine extracts, Jagermeister explodes out of New Orleans and sweeps the nation. It effectively secures the middle ground between manly shots (tequila and whiskey) and wussy shots (Kamikazes and fruit schnapps). The finest drinking movie ever made, the Bukowski-scripted Barfly, is released.
1990 AD The martini and the lounge make triumphant comebacks. On their back arrives the pseudo-martini craze, whereas even a dead rat served in a stemmed glass can be called a martini. This is also the era of the ribaldly-named cocktail, including the Sex on the Beach, Screaming Orgasm and Sloe Comfortable Screw.
1992 AD Flavored vodkas begin fighting for space on the bar shelves.
1996 AD Modern Drunkard Magazine is launched.
2003 AD Nearly 2000 breweries are now in operation in the United States, surpassing the number in existence prior to Prohibition.
2007 AD CVOHARLEY.com friday beer thread started, conclusion, Beer is ultima consolatio corporus humani, anche, li ottiene bevuti.