Speakeasy

A place where any drink with liquor is sold illegally. Although most commonly associated with Prohibition, the term goes back to the 1800s, when to gain entrance to such an establishment, you had to "speak easy" and credit whomever sent you. Oftentimes, speakeasies were fronted by such chaste stops as a barbershop, ice cream parlor, or tearoom.

John F. Mariani, in his Dictionary of American Food and Drink, claims that the English, with their "speak-softly shops" selling the wares of smugglers, should be credited with the word. Nowadays, when the term isn't used to refer to the past, it's more commonly mentioned by US police officers chattering about places that serve liquor to minors.

Speakeasies defeated the Volstead Act, opened bars to women, and romanticized the mob. Interestingly enough, some would argue that the speakeasy destroyed the profession of bartending.

Many of the great bartenders refused to degrade their profession - not by practicing illegally, but by altering classic recipes. The speakeasy crowd usually brought its own bottles of liquor, safely stashed in coat pockets and purses; bar backs merely distributed glasses, ice, and sodas - called "setups." Although bartenders of upscale speakeasies actually concocted drinks, they nearly always added excessive sweeteners to mask the taste of poorly made spirits. The profession of bartending dropped from artform to menial labor for anyone with a shaker and sugar. The only requirements of the job were to remain calm during police raids and to keep a straight face while serving crap drinks.

After the "noble experiment," old-time bartenders like Patrick Gavin Duffy published pleas to clear the profession's name, while bartenders like the Waldorf-Astoria's mixing maestro Joseph Taylor - who wouldn't mix during the "drouth" out of protest and principle - died before dusting off their shakers for the era of reform.