Feel free to use the monikers – but if you do, please send me a sample for a special corner of my wine cellar where I spend too much time self-isolating at an anti-social distance these days.In the meantime, I am quaffing, serendipitously, on a glass of marvellous The Survivor Pinotage 2015.
At the end of the first five weeks of lockdown, I find myself pondering prohibition, the plague and alcohol protocols. First, prohibition. The lockdown ban on the supply, sale or transport of alcohol in South Africa, albeit temporary, brings to mind a fascinating prohibition tour I did of Chicago in 2014 – a city at the epicentre of the black market trade which brought bootleggers like Al Capone infamy and fortune. On a tour of speakeasies like The Green Mill (founded 1907) – with its historic underground tunnels where whisky barrels would be delivered in the dead of night, and revellers flee police raids - our media group were given a first-hand lesson in the pros and cons of prohibition.
A wall plaque at the Green Mill awarded by Brown-Forman (“The only US spirits company in business today that existed before prohibition”) to mark the 75th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition salutes the bar lounge as “A proud survivor of those dry years”. You’ve seen it in old mafia movies.Folk lyrics about gun shy molls and shoot-outs line the wood-panelled walls of Al Capone’s old bar.
This year, 2020 also marks a century since prohibition was declared in 1920, ushering in twelve years of a federal alcohol ban – an act which saw the rise of organised crime and police corruption, a boom in the illegal alcohol industry (especially spirits) to US$3 billion pa, the growth of homemade moonshine, beer and bathtub gin, a loss of 14% of all state tax revenue, an estimated 10-20% decline (especially wine) in alcohol consumption, and a legacy of dry counties in the US today.
The lockdown ban in South Africa is a short-term measure – designed inter alia to limit the spread of the virus through social distancing by temporarily closing restaurants, bars, shebeens and taverns, encourage self-isolation, boost immunity lowered by alcohol consumption, reduce domestic gender violence, alcohol-fuelled violence and drunk driving, and increase hospital capacity for Covid-19 patients. It also means the poor spend money on food and necessities not alcohol. Minister for Police Bheki Cele the believes strategy is working – though opponents argue the night curfew and restrictions on movement are the probable causes of lower crime rates. And there is widespread looting of liquor outlets as well as the emergence of lethal home-distilled spirits and bathtub gins.
The World Health Organisation estimates alcohol consumption in South Africa at 11,5 litres per capital pa (or 27 litres among the drinking population), making it the nineteenth biggest consumer of liquor in the world – with the highest drunk driving rate in the world. There is no doubt the SA government acted boldly and decisively to go into hard lockdown early, stop the spread of the virus, flatten the curve and prepare medical capacity for the corona crisis. Its judicious actions have won acclaim worldwide. But the new moral crusade against alcohol abuse is proving highly divisive, losing the ANC popular support – and fails to discriminate between moderate, heavy and binge drinkers (The WHO estimate 25% of SA drinkers fall into this category) – or between the discrete consumption patterns of income groups, beer, wine and spirits users, daily, occasional and weekend drinkers. (See study on alcohol abuse and income groups in SA BMC Medical Journal, 25 June 2018).A strict alcohol ban is starting to fuel rebellion against the lockdown itself among the data doubters.
Under prohibition in the US, the same arguments were waged between the “dry’s” (The Pure Prairie League and Temperance Union) and “the wet’s” (the drinkers). In dire need of destressing, the estimated 42% of South Africans who drink alcohol (a market estimated at 56% beer, 18,5% wine, 18% spirits and 7,5% cider,alco-pops) argue the ban inflates the state’s emergency powers, creates a nanny state that limits civil liberties,overloads the police, encourages corruption – and doesn’t work. Even medical professionals who treat alcoholics and addicts are calling to lift the alcohol ban.
Wine exports are now allowed at level four – easing restrictions on over half the wine industry. But the ban on cigarette sales to eleven million smokers has been reinstated – on the grounds that smoking increases the respiratory threat of the Covid-19 virus and undermines social distancing (as many people share a smoke like a drink). I would propose cigarette, off-trade and online alcohol sales should be allowed – although the looting of liquor delivery vans could become a problem, especially in delivery to poor areas. And the limited off-trade trading hours (Mon-Wed) allowed under the next level three lockdown may further encourage binge-buying and weekend bootlegging.
The wine trade lobby says that 290 000 jobs in the Western Cape are threatened by the alcohol ban – the beer, wine and spirits industry contribute some R97 billion pa to GDP, as well as alcohol ad-spend of R2,4 billion. What’s more, the lockdown ban stimulates the black market alcohol industry – where the number of illegal alcohol outlets and traders is already estimated at more than double the number of legals (65 000). The economic losses to the South African economy of the illegal alcohol market (valued at R13 billion in 2017) are massive, including major lost tax revenue– in a global market where one out of every four bottles of alcohol sold is illegal - and an estimated 23% of all alcohol consumed in South Africa goes unrecorded. Al Capone would see the gap – and take it.
This brings me to my second flight of memory in my lockdown cellar over a delightful glass or two of Steenberg’s flagship Magna Carta 2016 to set a medieval English mood – the plague. History repeats itself. Self-isolation, social distancing and community solidarity go back to medieval times. In 2010, I was on a travel assignment to Eyam, a historic landmark known as the plague village in the Peak district in Derbyshire. Some 260 out of 700 inhabitants died of the plague here in the 1660s. The village graveyard is full of families who succumbed to the disease spread by fleas trapped in cloth.
With no government regulation, the good folk of Eyam heroically chose to isolate themselves for the common good – while nearby villages brought food and necessities to a boundary stone – in an era long before online delivery. In those days it was safer to drink ale than contaminated water from the well. The consumption of ale was recommended for children, women and men. No prohibition during the plague. Money exchanged was disinfected with vinegar. Nine generations later, the descendants and village priest are ill with the Covid-19 virus. Even the museum, run by volunteers in their 70s is closed. The lessons of history are infinite, from the plague to the present. A society where social distancing is achieved by consent and voluntary self-regulation is better than by brute enforcement.
My last flight of memory inspired by a glass of Morgenster’s fabulous Tosca Italian red blend is my own experience of quarantine in 2010 during the time of the swine flu pandemic. On boarding a cruise liner in the Mediterranean, I was put into quarantine by the ship surgeon who inspected all passengers for signs of fever. I had flown from Laos in the Far East, transiting in Cape Town before flying onto my next travel assignment. Along the way I came down with a bad dose of flu and fever.
The surgeon stuck a swab stick so far up my nose, it felt like a brain probe. Isolated indefinitely in my claustrophobic cabin until the test was done back in Rome, I survived on room service, eating pizza and pasta, drinking prosecco and Chianti, left outside my door by a steward whose ancestors must have seen service in the plague village. I thought of all the exotic places I would see through the porthole in my lonely quarantine – Catania in Sicily, Corfu, Trieste, Croatia, Montenegro.
I was soon cleared – and allowed ashore. Taking my place late at my allocated dinner table, I told fellow passengers I was coming out of quarantine in my cabin. I was left to dine alone. Talk about social distancing, isolation – and the parallels of prohibition, the plague, and alcohol lockdown protocols across the centuries. I will get back to my lockdown diaries in my next column.