During February Festival Week, the most important part of it was the food and drink. While most of it was about the Asian food that was served during the Chinese New Year, some were more interested in the Prohibition-era alcohol that had been found beneath what is now ASM.
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"This thing was so rusted from disuse," Said Steve as he worked the crank of a prohibition-era cocktail mixer, "that we had to take it to a professional restoration business, who had to take it apart piece by piece; trace each part; build each part from scratch; then reassemble the machine. The original pieces went to the national Prohibition Museum, while we got two: one for the main bar, and one for the Meat Market."
"But why would there even be such a machine during Prohibition?" asked one customer.
"Because, back during prohibition, brew-your-own beer tasted terrible." answered Steve, "So people would try to mix other things into it to cover up the taste. The few advantages to this machine would be the fact that two different cocktails can be mixed with only half the effort of one. It's also great for mixing zero-proof beverages like Shirley Temples."
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"You know," said one foreign tourist, "Scotland had something similar to Prohibition."
"Really?" asked Tyra, a little surprised.
"Yeah, although whiskey wasn't outlawed outright, a hefty government tax on it made it nearly impossible to get." continued the tourist. "It was a battle between the illicit bootleggers and the tax collectors. One really clever way was to transport the whiskey in a coffin. The bootleggers would knock a coffin together, place the whiskey inside, dress up in funeral garb, and carry it to where it needed to be while looking for all the world as a funeral procession."
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There was also a reconstruction of the continuous still that had been found. Like the other Prohibition era paraphernalia, it was rusted out from disuse. Fortunately, it wasn't so damaged that it couldn't be copied to make a new one. While the modern reconstruction was as accurate to the original as possible, there was a large section of the columns that were replaced with heat resistant plastic that could show the inside of the still without taking it apart. The bottle-your-own-whiskey service from the ATE&FF was still there, but there were bottles ranging from small, Prohibition-era whiskey flasks, to large bottles with labels that had most of the words missing so people could write anything they wanted on it. For example, one American Green Beret took his bottle, and labeled it with his name, along with the message, "Smash when dead.", while another person wrote, "Don't freakin' touch! I spit in this, I mean it!!" on his label.
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Daniel Richardson was wanting to see some of the Prohibition Era booze for himself. So one server brought a bottle of the domestic gin that had been found to him. Pouring a little bit into a provided shot glass, he drank it and instantly remembered the taste.
"Yes, this is the stuff I remember. I remember when FDR served this to soldiers going into battle as a kind of "last drink" before the big mission."
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All together, while the February Festival Week was a good way to do three different festivals, each with a different theme, and still be fun and educational for visitors.