LIQUOR: Prices

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Half the U. S. people could buy legal liquor last week, and most of them found the prices painfully steep.

¶ Declaring that distillers were gouging the public, Representative John Joseph Cochran of St. Louis, where Cozy Corner used to sell for 98¢ a quart, indignantly announced: "Seven dollars a quart for whiskey, no matter how old, is outrageous! Chemists of the Bureau of Industrial Alcohol advise me that the best whiskey available today did not cost more than 50¢ a gallon to make." He advised a drinkers' strike.

¶ Liquor must sell almost 50% cheaper before the bootlegger can be completely driven out of business, declared New York City's Police Commissioner Bolan.

¶ Chairman William F. Smith of the Wholesale Liquor Dealers Committee of New York telegraphed Federal Alcohol Control Administration's Director Joseph Hodges Choate Jr. to turn the "spotlight of publicity" on an alleged whiskey trust which had cornered 90% of the nation's straight spirits. "Distillery interests," he charged, "are selling inferior blended whiskeys that are cut with more than 17% of artificially colored water and alcohol and are injurious to the health of the consuming public. They are selling these blends to the wholesale and retail liquor dealers at prices around $30 a case. If they are permitted to be sold at all, the price should range around $8 or $9 a case, including all taxes."

¶ When whiskey reached 65¢ a drink in Baltimore, the home of rye, Maryland Legislators became so incensed that they introduced a resolution calling for an investigation of "greatly increased" liquor prices.

Despite high prices people in 18 states stood in line for hours at a time to exercise their new freedom. These prices were representative:

San Franciscans favored U. S. whiskeys, particularly De Luxe ($3.35 a pint), Golden Wedding ($3), Greenbriar ($3). Old Raven ($3), Cedar Brook ($2.75). Popular gins were Old Ram's Head ($1.75 a fifth), Old Colony ($1.55) and a local product, Old Smoothie ($1.25).

New Orleans topers fared no worse than those of most other cities in the matter of prices. Sixteen-year-old straight whiskeys like Paul Jones, Four Roses and Antique were going at $3 a pint. Jamerson's Irish brought $5 a fifth; Royal George Scotch $4. Cook's Imperial champagne, made in St. Louis ($5 a fifth) sold at national pars.

Chicago was long on U. S. whiskeys, short on Scotch. Old Taylor, Old McBrayer, Old Grand Dad, Four Roses, brought $3 a pint. No Johnny Walker or Haig & Haig were in sight.

Boston maintained the New England rum tradition by popularizing Spanish Main ($3 a pint) and New England ($2.75). Old James E. Pepper bourbon cost $3.25 a pint. A Great Western champagne sold for $3.50 a quart.

In Manhattan, Macy's, which boasts that it will not be undersold, was doing a landoffice liquor business. All old straight American whiskeys cost $6.94 a quart, or $3.74 a pint. Other prices: blended Golden Wedding ($2.94 a quart), *** Hennessy ($4.49 a fifth), Holloway's gin ($1.74), Mumm's Cordon Rouge 1926 champagne ($5.74 a quart).

In Brooklyn Abraham & Straus was selling Johnny Walker Black Label at $5 a fifth.