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The Volstead Act, prohibiting the production, sale, and transport of “intoxicating liquors,” became law on January 17, 1920. Prohibition didn’t prohibit much, and incited a great deal. By September 1922 it was already obvious that prohibition, known with varying degrees of irony as the Great Experiment, was experimenting mostly with the laws of unintended consequences. Its greatest success was in loosening the nation’s inhibitions with bathtub gin—what they called “synthetic” liquor.
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Sarah Churchwell (Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby)