A few days ago, I received a really nice gift from a friend. It was a “Golfer’s Hip Flask” — really nice, it came in a leather case that held a divot tool, ball marker and wooden tees. I have never owned a flask before, and while checking on how to clean it properly, I began to run across some interesting things about flasks…. so I just couldn’t resist doing some extensive research on the subject.
First off, there are a number of different types of flasks — you probably remember flasks used in your chemistry classes in school and a vacuum bottle is really a kind of flask, but but my flask is a “hip flask,” so that’s where my research was centered.
Drinking flasks have been around since prehistoric times. They were popular with the Romans, and they have a dark past with the Mafia. In the middle ages, gutted fruit was sometimes used to store alcoholic drinks. During the 18th century, women would take pig’s bladders, fill them with gin and hide them under their petticoats to smuggle them onto British warships.
Flasks have been made from almost every material you can think of, including earthenwares, wood, bronze, pewter, glass, silver, plastic and stainless steel. Today, the primary reason for using plastic is to avoid detection by metal detectors.
The curved deigns popular today were invented in the 18th century. They were popular with the elite social class of the time. The high quality flasks were made from silver and glass, but cheaper ones were made from pewter. Pewter contains dangerously high levels of lead and unfortunately for some, the metal was leaking into their containers and causing brain damage. You can still buy pewter flasks, but they no longer contain lead.
So why were hip flasks invented? Basically, to make smuggling alcohol easier. Prohibition radically changed drinking in America and if you wanted a drink, it was best to conceal it. Around1920, the hip flask became popular in the urban gentleman’s collection of accessories — that’s when it gained its name. The word “hipster” was used to identify people that carried hip flasks during Prohibition. A lot of people would conceal their flasks within their boots, which is where the phrase “bootlegger” came from. Early in the Prohibition period, the US government banned the sale of both hip flasks and cocktail shakers.
I guess this maybe falls into the “fun fact” category, but more hip flasks were sold in the first six months of Prohibition than during the entire previous decade. During Prohibition, the hip flask became the ultimate accessory for anyone wanting to stylishly flout the law.
So hip flasks really became popular during, and because of, prohibition — an interesting subject in and of itself….
Alcohol was banned completely in America between 1920 – 1933. This was driven by various religious organizations that thought banning alcohol would reduce crime and violence rates — and — raise religious quality in America.
The only this is, it didn’t work. Banning alcohol did not go the way the US government had hoped — it led to lost government revenue from the alcohol tax and caused a lot of people to move on to heavier substances instead. Throughout prohibition, alcohol consumption gradually rose back to around the same level as it was before the ban.
During prohibition, the high demand for alcohol birthed many dangerous gangs and gangsters, including Al Capone, who is (partially) famous for illegally brewing, distilling and distributing beer and liquor. It also led to the creation of speakeasies — illegal bars where people would drink alcohol in secret.
But I do like my new flask and I’m a person that likes to see the flask half full — hopefully with Jack Daniels.
— 30 —