Alright, let’s talk about this phrase, “blind tiger”. It popped up the other day, and honestly, I hadn’t heard it used like that before. Someone mentioned it, I think in passing, talking about old times or maybe a movie set way back when. It stuck in my head because, well, it sounds strange, right? A tiger that can’t see?
So, my curiosity got the better of me. You know how it is. Something lodges itself in your brain, and you just gotta figure it out. First thing I did was just mull it over. Blind tiger. Didn’t make much sense on the surface. Was it some kind of metaphor I wasn’t getting?
My Digging Process
I sat down, fired up the old computer, and just typed the phrase into a search engine. Plain and simple. “blind tiger meaning”.
The results started popping up. At first, I saw some stuff about actual tigers, animal sanctuaries, maybe some folklore. But pretty quickly, another meaning started showing up repeatedly, linked to history.
- Speakeasy
- Prohibition Era
- Illegal alcohol
That seemed more like it, given the context I vaguely remembered hearing it in. So, I clicked on a few links that talked about American history.
Figuring It Out
It turns out, a “blind tiger” was basically a code name, a workaround, for a place selling booze illegally, especially back during Prohibition times. The whole setup was kind of clever, in a sneaky way.
Here’s the gist of what I gathered:
These places couldn’t legally sell alcohol directly. So, they’d set up a sort of sideshow. They’d charge people admission, maybe 10 or 25 cents, to see some kind of attraction – like an exotic animal, supposedly this “blind tiger” (though I bet there often wasn’t a real tiger at all!). Once you paid your entrance fee to see the “show,” you’d conveniently be given a “complimentary” alcoholic drink. See? You weren’t buying the drink, you were paying to see the tiger! It was a way to skirt the law.
So, the owner could claim they weren’t selling liquor, just charging for the entertainment. Pretty nifty loophole they found there.
It was one of those moments where you learn a bit of history hidden inside an odd phrase. It paints a picture of the time, people finding ways around rules they didn’t agree with. Just thought I’d share how I tracked that down. It’s funny the things you stumble across.
