Have a Very Boozy Repeal Day: Prohibition Punch & Pig Roasts

Time to raise your glasses to Repeal Day on December 5, the day the 21st amendment ended Prohibition, a bleak period for our martini-loving country. Then again, if we didn't have Prohibition, we wouldn't have stories of bathtub gin, Tommy Guns and Boardwalk Empire. The Del Monte Speakeasy, in the basement of Townhouse in Venice, was an actual speakeasy at the time, a hotbed of activity for rum runners who ran shipments in underground catacombs leading from the Abbot Kinney pier to the bar. Or so the story goes. That makes drinking Prohibition Punch that much sweeter on Wednesday (Dec. 5), just one of the specials at the bar. There's also a free pig roast, $8 cocktails all day and 1933 pricing from 10-11 PM.

There are Repeal Day specials all over town tomorrow - scroll down for specials and more.

The 1933 Group, so named to honor the end of Prohibition, will have a special 50-cent Repeal Day cocktail at all six LA bars - Sassafras (9-11 PM), La Cuevita (7-10 PM), and Thirsty Crow, Bigfoot Lodge, Bigfoot West and Oldfield's Liquor Room (5-10 PM).

Last year it was an actual bathtub filled with gin, but this year Cole's and Varnish will serve a $5 Templeton Rye punch all night on tonight and tomorrow (Dec. 4-5). Tonight there's a bartending competition with some of LA's top bar men and women, and there will be a toast at midnight.

The Parish's resident mixologist John Coltharp says "the repeal of Prohibition welcomed the return to the rich traditions of craft fermentation and distillation," meaning we started drinking good cocktails again and not rot gut. He's celebrating with the classic Bee's Knees, one of the first drinks recorded that used honey instead of sugar because it masked the harshness of bootleg gin. Get it for $8 all day long on December 5.

Classic cocktails are only $5 all night at Comme Ca, including Sazeracs, Manhattans, Negronis and Gin Rickeys.

At Oliverio at the Avalon Hotel is celebrating all week with $10 gin and whiskey cocktails through Wednesday.

There's a Christmas tree trimming party at Glendale's Neat bar on Wednesday - bring an ornament and get a free bartender's choice cocktail. Ho ho ho.