In nineteenth-century France, where alcohol consumption was growing steadily, the first voices expressing worry about a dangerous societal phenomenon were raised in the middle of the century. Little by little and under various forms, the anti-alcohol movement formed, warning against the massive alcoholization of a significant portion of the French population. Until the 1870s, a fairly structured medical and associative discourse existed addressed the diversity of practices (collective and individual consumption; chronic and acute alcoholism; fermented or distilled beverages; etc.). After this date, it became much firmer and more coherent, denouncing the different facets of what appeared to be a social plague in the last decades of the century. This article intends to question a specific form of alcoholism considered pernicious and particularly widespread: “therapeutic alcoholism.” This refers to the—passive or active—alcoholization of consumers of alcoholic beverages with supposedly therapeutic virtues. After having traced the roots of the phenomenon, by explaining the medical reasons for these practices, this paper questions how, under the effects of the implication of various protagonists, some of whom are very distant from medical or paramedical circles, the consumption of so-called tonic or fortifying drinks gained momentum in the last quarter of the century. From then on, the response of the anti-alcohol scene was fierce, targeting businessmen of the alcohol industry but also doctors.