Caguamas & Cultural Heritage
One of the most iconic symbols of summer in my neighborhood, and many neighborhoods across Chicago, is the oversized bottle of a forty-ounce beer. They are more affectionately referred to as 40s, or in Latinx communities caguamas. The 40 is a cultural object which is used to fulfill a specific cultural practice. On a sweltering summer afternoon, it is not uncommon to see men sitting out on stoops with a paper bag in hand that's wet with the condensation of a 40-ounce glass bottle. This ritual performs several functions within the neighborhood; forties are an inexpensive large serving of alcohol. It is an effective way to get drunk on a budget, which is important to many residents in low-income neighborhoods. The liquor is cheap and malted. It is made mostly of fermented sugar and lacks the sophisticated ingredients and distillery processes of more mainstream beers. Because of the high amount of sugar, traditional forties also have a much higher alcohol content than regular beer. According to journalist Besha Rodell, the forty comes from depression-era attempts at making enough beer with only rationed amounts of malt. It is a beer with its roots in poverty, and the companies that sell it specifically market this cheap, potent alcohol to communities of color.
An important function of the forty is its portability. The ritual often involves walking around the neighborhood, sitting in the park, standing in the alley, or even driving around. With a forty amounting to more than three beers, it is a portable way to intoxicate oneself, much more convenient than lugging around a six-pack. Participants in this ritual of forty drinking sometimes ignore laws that prohibit drinking in public, opting for a brown paper bag that they believe conceals the nature of what is inside. 40-ounce rituals are time honored and can contribute to important social bonding, as many people, generally men, will congregate in an area and drink together. However, this ritual can also be performed alone, as the drinking of 40s is associated with kicking back and relaxing.
Barbara Kirshenblatt- Gimblett, a museum scholar from Canada, describes certain cultural practices being delegated as folk when they are compared to the practices of the colonizing elite. Forty-ounce beers are not a part of the cultural narrative of white neighborhoods. Their marketing focus is not white people. This practice of drinking alcohol in these low-income neighborhoods of color is stigmatized. This represents an othering of alcohol consumption, and while it might be a mark of sophistication to drink expensive craft beers at the park on a picnic blanket, it is not considered sophisticated to drink a forty on the park bench. The drink itself is stigmatizing, however, the fact that it is a drink that has been historically marketed towards poor communities of color also disqualifies it from any association with fine cultural practice. A surefire signifier of gentrification in a given neighborhood can be found inside local liquor stores. As the culture of low-income communities of color is often appropriated as trendy fashion, so has been the fate of the forty-ounce beer. Craft breweries are now producing their own versions of the forty, at two, sometimes three times the price of the originals. I will never forget how far back my eyes rolled when I saw a glistening pink Rosé Forty. However, the old school malt liquors still have their place, a complicated symbol of structural violence, ritualization, and social bonding.
