Maggie's Farm

The Volstead Act also stipulated that the grape growers themselves could make juice and juice concentrate only if those products were used for non-alcoholic consumption. So the vineyards could still make non-alcoholic wine and that wine could theoretically be turned into alcohol by consumers as long as the winemakers gave clear warning that this was illegal, and they had no knowledge of the end consumers’ intentions. With these loopholes in place, the creation of “wine bricks” and, in turn, the ability for U.S. citizens to continue consuming wine came to be.

A wine brick was a brick of concentrated grape juice – which was completely legal to produce – that consumers could dissolve in water and ferment in order make their own vino. But not every consumer knew how to make wine, so how did consumers know what to do? The instructions were printed directly on the packaging, but these instructions were masked as a warning of what not to do with the product. An ingenious way to get around the law.

If you were to purchase one of these bricks, on the package would be a note explaining how to dissolve the concentrate in a gallon of water. Then right below it, the note would continue with a warning instructing you not to leave that jug in the cool cupboard for 21 days, or it would turn into wine. That warning was in fact your key to vino, and thanks to loopholes in Prohibition legislation, consuming 200 gallons of this homemade wine for your personal use was completely legal, it just couldn’t leave your home – something wine brick packages were also very careful to remind consumers.