A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, was an illicit establishment that sold alcoholic beverages. The term may also refer to a retro style bar that replicates aspects of historical speakeasies.
New York's 21 Club was a Prohibition-era speakeasy.
An early use of the term in the U.S. Pittsburgh Dispatch, June 30, 1889
Inside the Mystery Room of the Arizona Biltmore Hotel which served as a speakeasy during Prohibition
Several patrons and a flapper await the opening of the Krazy Kat Klub, a speakeasy, in 1921.
Prohibition in the United States
The Prohibition era was the period from 1920 to 1933 when the United States prohibited the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, and finally ended nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on January 16, 1919. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933.
Detroit policemen inspect the equipment used in a clandestine brewery during the Prohibition era.
Pro-prohibition political cartoon, from 1874
The Drunkard's Progress – moderate drinking leads to drunkenness and disaster: A lithograph by Nathaniel Currier supporting the temperance movement, 1846
"Who does not love wine, wife and song, will be a fool his whole life long!" (Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib & Gesang / Bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang.)