Speak Softly and Enter These Very Cool Upstate NY Speakeasies!

It really is hard to imagine that there was a time, not too long ago (maybe when our grandfathers were alive?), that America banned the sale of alcohol across the land.  In fact it was banned from 1920 to 1933...13 years!

Of course the citizens were not about to put up with something so draconian, so they set to work.  Speakeasies popped up in almost every small village and big city in the United States.  Often called "blind pigs," these illegal bars served booze with abandon and flourished until our long (legal) dry spell was over in 1933.

Today, you can still find modern day speakeasies across Upstate New York celebrating that rogue tradition of our ancestors.  A speakeasy means a dark out of the way place, maybe illicit, but always fun.  You usually had to knock three times on a secret door and say something like "Joe sent me" to enter.  Once inside you could find beer, bathtub gin, champagne flowing, and flappers dancing to the sound of the hot jazz of the era.

Today's speakeasies are a lot tamer, and very much legal, but they are still fun to visit.  Here are some great ones in our region.

We particularly like the one in Binghamton where you really do have to find a secret button on a large bookshelf to gain entry to it!  It is the one in the above photograph.

So, check these out and remember...."Joe sent you."