Scotland Magazine

THE DAYS WHEN WICK WAS DRY

Mention the word ‘prohibition’ to most people, and it conjures up images of New York speakeasies, mobster Al Capone versus the Untouchables, and press photographs of revenue officers taking axes to seized casks of illegal alcohol.

But prohibition was far from being just a US phenomenon. In the unlikely setting of the Caithness fishing port of Wick, in the far north of Scotland, another much less well-known period of prohibition took place. Not only that, but it lasted for 12 years longer than

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