Garrett Peck, author of ‘The Prohibition Hangover’

It was at a Christmas dinner several years ago that booze book author Garrett Peck had his “a-ha moment” about writing The Prohibition Hangover. It being a celebration, Peck opened a bottle of 1997 Burgundy—but his grandmother, a product of the Great Depression and the aftermath of the temperance movement, would not indulge. Peck made do—he and his mother split the bottle—but the seed was planted.

Why abstinence was so important to her, and why that thinking hadn’t been passed down through the generations to Peck’s mother and himself, seemed interesting. “I thought, ‘wow, I have to write about this,’” Peck said during a recent launch event for his book here in Washington.

Peck, an Arlington resident, set out to answer his own questions. Using vacation time from his telecommunications analyst job for research trips—including one enviable one down the Kentucky bourbon trail—he compiled a comprehensive account of drinking culture, the rise and fall of different kinds of alcohol, the plethora of laws we have governing alcohol as a controlled substance and each of these has been shaped by “the noble experiment” and its subsequent repeal.

He learned a lot—and drank a lot—along the way. Six years later, the book is published, he now writes articles on drinks and drinking for various publications, and he has created the “Temperance Tour” throughout downtown D.C. highlighting a number of Prohibition related sites in Washington. Peck sat down again with DCist recently to talk about his adventures researching the book and in experiencing D.C.’s cocktail culture.