Cocktails and prohibition
Thursday, October 3, 2013 at 9:20 On Tuesday night Forest and the Tobacco Manufacturers Association hosted a drinks reception at the Conservative conference in Manchester.
'Cocktails and Prohibition' was an invitation only event designed to highlight the creeping prohibition of tobacco.
I didn't know, until I was told by TMA secretary-general Jaine Chisholm Caunt, that cocktails were invented during Prohibition as a way of disguising the consumption of alcohol.
Serving cocktails seemed a good way therefore to make a serious point about the EU's Tobacco Products Directive which threatens to ban menthol cigarettes and severely restrict the choice of other tobacco-related products.
Prohibition, as we all know, doesn't work. It simply drives the product underground and clever minds come up with ingenious ways to circumvent the law.
Anyway, the event went rather well, attracting a diverse crowd from all corners of the globe including guests from several Caribbean islands for whom the term 'smoking ban' seemed to be an entirely alien concept.
Apart from a choice of cocktails, the Prohibition theme was emphasised with our choice of music. We played the Forest/Boisdale jazz CD 'You Can't Do That! Songs For Swinging Smokers' over the PA system.
There was also a smoke machine that generated an atmospheric haze throughout the room. In fact the vapour went beyond the room into the adjoining corridor and hotel management eventually asked us to turn it off.
They were worried, apparently, that it would set off the smoke alarms and if that happened they would have to evacuate the entire hotel - an enormous Victorian monster of a building - where hundreds of delegates and most of the Cabinet were staying.
I was tempted, believe me, to ignore them.
Instead we compromised. We turned it off, waited for the light fug to subside, and switched it back on again.
The smoke detectors didn't set off the fire alarm and ministers weren't forced to leave the hotel.
Reader Comments (2)
There are many theories as to why and when cocktails were invented but the truth is that nobody knows for sure.
They have been around a lot longer than prohibition though. I think the earliest references come from the start of the 1800s.
Anyway...
:-)
oh, for goodness sake! Smoke machines don't make smoke - its vapour. Very similar to e-cigs actually. It would never have set off the smoke alarms. Paranoia again..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_machine