From the New York Times, November 13, 1866

I was researching the cowardly murder of J. King Robinson who was killed in Utah, October of 1866. A dispatch from Utah on the subject was printed in the New York Times. As part of the dispatch from Utah came the following on the state of liquor and distilling in Great Salt Lake City, for what it's worth:

"The city authorities have for some time past endeavored to keep this traffic [the liquor trade] within narrow bounds, very latterly having had but one place for its sale, and there "not to be drunk on the premises." This policy has been virulently opposed, chiefly by the "Gentiles," though many Mormons were not well pleased with it. This one place--the "City Liquor Store"--is now closed, through a petition from many citizens. So just now there is no place within the city boundaries where liquor can be legally made, bought or sold. This is the Puritanical extreme and sorely vexes the moderate drinkers as well as the heavy soakers. As one extreme by natural reaction follows another, it would not be surprising if before long the city should deem it advisable to grant licenses to make and sell liquors more generally than it has done for some time past. There is another point. In consequence of recent wet and snowy weather, hundreds of bushels of peaches have rotted under the trees, which fruit, most of it, would have been made to yield "peach brandy," if the distilleries had been working."