Happy Day After Repeal Day!

Hope everyone had a happy Repeal Day. Mine was pretty decent. After a long day at work, I went home, sipped a couple of beers, beat Michigan with KU (no easy task) on my NCAA Football game for PS2, then joined Max and Megan for a couple more beers at Old Chicago. It was a very laid back kind of night, which was nice.

Not too many people celebrating Repeal Day, though. Which was kind of disappointing. I mean, I guess I don't know for sure, as none of us were screaming "Repeal Day! Woo! Yeah!" or anything ourselves, and there were definitely less people out drinking than on say, St. Pat's. I aim to fix that (exactly how, I'm not sure) and as fate would have it, so is Dewar's. I guess Dewar's has been running an ad campaign promoting Repeal Day. I'm not sure if they have multiple ads, but this one is pretty great.

What I find especially amusing about all of this, is that it's Dewar's that's advocating a Repeal Day holiday. Not because it's a blended Scotch Whiskey from Scotland, but because of it's history with Repeal Day and Prohibition. You see, Joseph Kennedy (JFK's dad), owned a company called Somerset Importers, that according to Wikipedia, was "the exclusive American agent for Gordon's Dry Gin and Dewar's Scotch." Some historians believe that JFK's dad illegally sold Dewar's and Gordon's to the Mafia for black market sales and made a tidy profit during prohibition. To my knowledge that's never been proven, but it is known that Joe Kennedy amassed a rather large inventory of Gordon's and Dewar's and made a killing after Repeal Day. And by killing I mean he made millions, which in 1933 dollars is A LOT of money. Presumably, Dewar's and Gordon's made some money, too, so it's not a surprise that Dewar's wants to celebrate Repeal Day!

So, even though this year's Repeal Day wasn't a big event, it'll be interesting to see if it starts to gain any steam. Next year might be more of the same, but I'm betting that 2 years from now, more companies will be making a big deal about it. December 5, 2008 will mark the 75th anniversary of Repeal Day. Now that will be something to celebrate!