Swain on Intoxication: Being "Without the Power To Drink Or Contract" @AuckLawSchool

Warren Swain, University of Auckland Faculty of Law, has published 'Without the Power to Drink or Contract' at 24 Edinburgh Law Review 26 (2020). Here is the abstract.

Intoxication as a ground to set aside a contract is not something that has proved to be easy for the law to regulate. This is perhaps not very surprising. Intoxication is a temporary condition of varying degrees of magnitude. Its presence does however raise questions of contractual autonomy and individual responsibility. Alcohol consumption is a common social activity and perceptions of intoxication and especially alcoholism have changed over time. Roman law is surprisingly quiet on the subject. In modern times the rules about intoxicated contracting in Scottish and English law is very similar. Rather more interestingly the law in these two jurisdictions has reached the current position in slightly different ways. This history can be traced through English Equity, the works of the Scottish Institutional writers, the rise of the Will Theory, and all leavened with a dose of judicial pragmatism.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

A New Book on Law and Alcohol: Brian F. Haara's Bourbon Justice @bfhaara, @SippnCorn @PotomacBooks

Brian F. Haara has published Bourbon Justice: How Whiskey Law Shaped America (Potomac Books, dist. by the University of Nebraska Press, 2018). Here from the publisher's website is a description of the book's contents.

Bourbon whiskey has made a surprising contribution to American legal history. Tracking the history of bourbon and bourbon law illuminates the development of the United States as a nation, from conquering the wild frontier to rugged individualism to fostering the entrepreneurial spirit to solidifying itself as a nation of laws. Bourbon is responsible for the growth and maturation of many substantive areas of the law, such as trademark, breach of contract, fraud, governmental regulation and taxation, and consumer protection. In Bourbon Justice Brian Haara delves into the legal history behind one of America’s most treasured spirits to uncover a past fraught with lawsuits whose outcome, surprisingly perhaps, helped define a nation. Approaching the history of bourbon from a legal standpoint, Haara tells the history of America through the development of commercial laws that guided our nation from an often reckless laissez-faire mentality, through the growing pains of industrialization, and past the overcorrection of Prohibition. More than just true bourbon history, this is part of the American story.

Yo, Ho, Ho: Sailors and Rum @GB2d

Ross E. Davies, George Mason Univesrity Law School; The Green Bag, is publishing Sailors and Rum, at Sea and Ashore in Deadly Harpoon: A Facsimile of the Original Manuscript of “The Adventure of Black Peter” by Arthur Conan Doyle with Annotations and Commentary (Glen Miranker, ed., BSI Press 2018)). Here is the abstract.

An examination of the regulation and culture of grog in Victorian maritime life, using a scenario drawn from a Sherlock Holmes story -- “The Adventure of Black Peter.”

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Drink Up! Frye on a Legal History of the Bacardi Cocktail @brianlfrye

Brian L. Frye, University of Kentucky College of Law, has published 'It's Your Right…!': A Legal History of the Bacardi Cocktail. Here is the abstract.

In 1936, the Bacardi Company filed a trademark infringement action in New York state court against two New York bars for serving Bacardi cocktails made without Bacardi rum, and the court granted an injunction. For years afterward, the Bacardi Company used the ruling in its advertisement, proclaiming, "It's your right!" to expect Bacardi rum in your Bacardi cocktail. This article provides a legal history of the Bacardi cocktail and the Bacardi Company's trademark infringement action. An appendix provides a list of historical recipes for the Daiquiri and Bacardi cocktails.

Download the article at the link.