The Old-Time Saloon: Not Wet - Not Dry, Just History

Fancy a tipple? Then pull up a stool, raise a glass, and dip into this delightful paean to the grand old saloon days of yore. Written by Chicago-based journalist, playwright, and all-round wit George Ade in the waning years of Prohibition, The Old-Time Saloon is both a work of propaganda masquerading as "just history" and a hilarious exercise in nostalgia. Featuring original, vintage illustrations along with a new introduction and notes from Bill Savage, Ade's book takes us back to the long-gone men's clubs of earlier days, when beer was a nickel, the pretzels were polished, and the sardines were free.

Born and educated in Indiana but a long-time Chicagoan, George Ade (1866-1944) was a prolific journalist, a Broadway playwright, and a humorist whose newspaper columns, Fables in Slangand Stories of the Streets and of the Town, were syndicated nationally, collected in books, and produced as films, some of which Ade directed. Bill Savage is associate professor of instruction in the Department of English at Northwestern University, as well as a bartender emeritus.