Booze: A Distilled History. By Craig Heron. (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2003. Pp. ix+497, ISBN 1-896357-83-0, pbk.)

Less than two hundred years ago a culture surrounding a common product developed in North America, opening windows into communities and worlds which would have otherwise not been discovered. The product stirred controversies, curing ailments, leering some to addiction and others to enjoyable socialization. This product is alcohol, or “booze”, as it is popularly termed and referenced by Craig Heron in his book Booze: A Distilled History. Heron, a scholar in Canadian history and labour studies, writes this book foremost as a historian, discussing social behaviours, intolerance, and acceptance of alcohol throughout Canada’s history. Issues of class, gender, race, and age are discussed in the eleven chapters relating the physical effects of alcohol and its social implications in various cultural milieus of Canada and the United States. The book focuses primarily on Canada and offers a particular analysis on legislative, political and social regulations of alcohol. Although Heron briefly mentions alcohol-related activities in Canada prior to the nineteenth century, the author’s particular era of interest is evidently alcohol’s controversial period from the 1800s onwards. The particular point in history where temperance movements occurred, that is at the turn of the 1820s, motivated Heron to describe decades-long battles between “drys” and “wets” in various regions of Canada. These battles, momentarily shifting from one political angle to the next, and reissued in later alcohol-related campaigns, are fought in various instances by different groups of people serving different purposes but with strong opinions in favour or against alcohol. Heron illustrates the strength of character found in the two opposing groups portraying the people and events and their relationship with alcohol. Throughout the book, Heron is aware of textual problems associated with the remains of these people and events, and expresses his concern while discussing drinking practices and perceptions of alcohol in the various periods of Canadian history. With these concerns, the author states that the most problematic of events pointing to alcohol relates to the bootlegging tradition which endured during prohibition. Heron even states that prohibition was a complete failure; but given the opaque, undocumented business practices of providing alcoholic drinks, it is not easy to determine the actual extent of that failure (264). The author compensates with some found facts on the effects of prohibition in a Canadian setting, recorded through political propaganda, remaining surveys and polls, and advertisements. Heron illustrates how gender issues eventually dilute themselves in the “booze” industry by moving away from the predominantly masculinised consumption of alcohol in so-called dingy locations to the recent adoption of wine bars and bistros who serve alcohol to discriminating palates. Women were rarely associated with drinking practices and venues unless they were considered without morals in the early periods of alcohol controversy and eventually appeared in the late twentieth century involved in alcohol preparation, public serving, and consumption. There were many political controversies surrounding alcohol as Heron notes; plebiscites either promoting or prohibiting alcohol reccurred repeatedly in various regions of Canada and each province had its own approaches to dealing with the issue. Even with prohibition, alcohol still circulated because of smuggling-moguls, some of whom would become established entrepreneurs of well-known beverage dynasties in the country, such as the Bronfmans. This book illustrates the figures who were involved with the temperance movements, during prohibition, and in the promotion of alcohol in Canada over the centuries. In short, Canada’s highly active underground period of alcohol smuggling lead the way towards a “drinking consciousness” which benefited and ruined some Canadians in business and personal affairs.