During prohibition, did churches serve real wine at communion?

Yes, there were a couple exemptions to prohibition. Communion wine was one of them. You could also get your doctor to write you a prescription.

My uncle has a bottle of Jim Beam bottled during prohibition that has Medicinal on the label. They buried it with him.

Read Title II, Sec. 6, Para. 3.

Yes. And the wineries that got the church contracts, such as the Gallo Brothers, did very well.

Rhode Island and Connecticut refused to accept the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act. I love that bit of history. That is why the Cosa Nostra is so strong there to this day. A friend of mine told me this.

Sorry, it wasn’t the Gallo Brothers who made out like bandits during Prohibition under Catholic Church contracts. I read about this years ago, but I forget the name of the winery. It was a California outfit and the deal with the Church saved them from bankruptcy, as I remember. But here’s a little tidbit that I didn’t know about that I found while trying to get the name of the winery:

“The Volstead Act specifically allowed individual farmers to make certain wines “on the legal fiction that it was a non-intoxicating fruit-juice for home consumption”, and many people did so. Enterprising grape farmers produced liquid and semi-solid grape concentrates, often called “wine bricks” or “wine blocks”. This demand led California grape growers to increase their land under cultivation by about 700% in the first five years of prohibition. The grape concentrate was sold with a warning: After dissolving the brick in a gallon of water, do not place the liquid in a jug away in the cupboard for twenty days, because then it would turn into wine.” One grape block producer sold nine varieties: Port, Virginia Dare, Muscatel, Angelica, Tokay, Sauterne, Riesling, Claret and Burgundy.”

Yes, as everyone else has said.

It’s also interesting to note that attendance at Sunday Mass shot up during Prohibition as well.