Ginger Jake: Prohibition Loophole Turned Medical Tragedy

“Jake liquor, Jake liquor, what in the world you tryin’ to do?” laments Ishman Bracey in “Jake Liquor Blues.” While the late twenties song is both a shining example of Mississippi Delta Blues, it also hints at a growing epidemic at the tail end of Prohibition, America’s “noble experiment” gone horribly bitter.

When most Americans think about Prohibition, they tend to envision the gangsters that roamed New York and Chicago, the rum-runners that smuggled over the good item in the dead of night, the bootleggers distilling whatever they could get their hands on and calling it gin. Certainly, the north was awash with bootlegged booze and smoke vendors, but the folks down south were singing a different tune, one of old medicine turning from friend to foe in the blink of an eye. Ginger Jake had been popular for years as both cure and libation, but in 1928, it was about to take a dark turn.

Medicinal Libations

Ginger Jake is another name for Jamaican Ginger, a patent medicine made by macerating ginger in high-proof alcohol. The resulting tincture—typically around 180 proof, or 90 percent alcohol—would then be prescribed for a variety of ailments, from headaches to nausea to menstrual cramps. However, being cheap and freely available also made it a popular drink among many, where it would typically be cut with ginger ale.

When Prohibition became the law of the land in 1920, the Volstead Act made an exception for prescription alcohol. If a doctor believed “in good faith … that the use of such liquor as medicine by such person is necessary and will afford relief to him from some known ailment,” he could prescribe his patients up to one pint every ten days of that sweet, curative liquor (“Volstead”). In fact, he wasn’t even legally required to perform a physical examination of his patient before concluding that the only cure was more booze; he merely needed to make the conclusion based “upon the best information obtainable.” Thus, many liberal physicians willing to look the other way used this glaring loophole to write “prescriptions” for their “patients” for anything from the common cold to heart problems. Jamaican Ginger was a popular choice of medicine for many, and sales dramatically rose in the early twenties.

It wasn’t long, however, before the United States Government caught wind, and they swiftly ordered manufacturers of Jamaican Ginger to reduce the alcohol and nearly double the “solids,” or ginger matter, turning the once-refreshing spirit into an unpalatable, bitter sludge. Desperate to regain their dwindling profits, companies and bootleggers alike quickly scrambled to find the best treatment for their ailing bottom line.

The Secret Weapon

Since federal testing merely involved boiling off the water and alcohol and weighing the remaining sludge of solids, producers could fool them by slipping in other substances that wouldn’t evaporate away as quickly; the trick was finding one that also tasted good and didn’t kill. After a variety of formulas failed to take off, brothers-in-law Harry Gross and Max Reisman found just the recipe to keep solids up while retaining a palatable taste. The secret? Tri-ortho-cresyl phosphate, an industrial plasticizer and flame retardant used in vinyl and cellulose manufacturing, under the brand name Lindol.

Today, we know that TOCP is an irritant and poison for humans and wildlife alike; however, such compounds were not thought of as particularly dangerous at the time. In fact, the Bostonian bootleggers were reassured by the manufacturers of Lindol that it was perfectly safe. So, they slipped it in anyway and sold their product as Ginger Jake, knowing that the phosphate’s high boiling point would keep them safe from snooping investigators. It would not, however, keep their clients safe from its deadly effects.

Combined with alcohol, TOCP forms a type of compound known as an organophosphate, which, when consumed, leads to a highly potent buzzing sensation. This was more than just the pleasant buzz of intoxication, however; this was the first sign of a neurotoxin taking hold and burning through motor neurons. It acted slowly, meaning that for the first week or so, drinkers would not notice anything different—at least, not until the symptoms began to rear their ugly heads in earnest.

Jake-itis

What was initially thought of as a polio epidemic was soon seen as its own separate and confusing neuropathy, with otherwise healthy adults—mostly poor or African-American men—experiencing paralysis in their extremities. These patients would develop what was known as the “Jake walk,” due to their inability to control the positioning of their feet: a slow, limping gait with their toes pointing down. It is this walk that led to the affliction being christened as “Jake leg” or “limber leg,” and it often spread up to the knees or even the thumbs of the hands. And, mind you, limbs were not the only extremities affected. Ishman Bracey, continuing to croon, emphasizes the impotence that Jake causes, singing that “you have numbiness [sic] in front of your body, you can’t carry any lovin’ on.”

And while doctors and public health experts may have struggled to put the pieces together initially, it was songs like Bracey’s that helped them realize what was going on. These crooners were quick to spot that those who heavily imbibed Ginger Jake were sure to come out the other end with paralysis. Another contemporary singer, Tommy Johnson, sings in his “Alcohol and Jake Blues” about drinking “so much of Jake, till it done give me the limber leg,” noting tongue-in-cheek that “that’s sure to mess you up.” People knew that Ginger Jake was correlated with the sudden case of paralysis, but they weren’t sure exactly what in it was causing it; after all, people had been drinking Jamaican Ginger for decades without experiencing any ill effects aside from those normally associated with alcohol. Indeed, after suspecting other nasty compounds like creosote or carbolic acid, the realization that it was the supposedly safe TOCP was initially a rather nasty shock. Only a few short years later, though, German scientists began experimenting with organophosphate compounds as pesticides, and later, as chemical warfare. The Nazis developed several nerve agents, including the highly potent Sarin, over the course of the decade. Thankfully, none would have the chance to make it to war.

A Lost Gem

Today, Jamaican Ginger has swiftly fallen from popularity. Gross and Reisman’s little scandal was enough to taint the reputation of the tincture for decades to come, and searches of “Jamaican Ginger” now yield only information about the physical spice; the general public has seemingly forgotten all about the old remedy. Had the poisonings never occurred, there’s a good chance that bottles of Ginger Jake would be resting in every bar well right beside the Angostura and Regan’s, but so far, only curious history enthusiasts seem at all intent to revive the concoction.

What a curious life Jake has lived, and what a shame it is to see it go; perhaps one day in the future we’ll see each other again, hopefully with more control over our legs this time.

Works Cited

"Alcohol as Medicine and Poison." Prohibition: An Interactive History, The Mob Museum, prohibition.themobmuseum.org/the-history/the-prohibition-underworld/alcohol-as-medicine-and-poison/. Accessed 17 May 2022.
Blum, Deborah. The Poisoner's Handbook. New York, Penguin Books, 2010.
Bracey, Ishman. "Jake Liquor Blues." 1928-1929. Spotify, open.spotify.com/track/5NhQXGXIqwCEAeYDrFt4xx.
Johnson, Tommy. "Alcohol and Jake Blues." Paramount, 1930. Spotify, open.spotify.com/album/1BrjO0ZJTNZliuhAi9Orf7?highlight=spotify:track:5Mh5kx2slijXNVOjnOLJvj.
O'Neil, Darcy. "Jamaica Ginger aka 'Jake.'" Art of Drink, 29 May 2011, www.artofdrink.com/ingredient/jamaica-ginger-aka-jake.
"Tricresyl Phosphate." PubChem, National Center for Biotechnology Information, pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Tricresyl-phosphate. Accessed 17 May 2022.
"Volstead Act." Historycentral, www.historycentral.com/documents/Volstead.html. Accessed 17 May 2022.