The Backstory: Tip One Back with the Founding Fathers

It’s the nation’s 250th birthday! It’s a time to celebrate . . . like the Founding Fathers, who certainly knew how to tip a few back. This is a look at their drinking habits. And it’s next on The Backstory.
Feel free to DM me if you have a story you’d like me to cover . . . On Facebook it’s Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele.

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Speaker 1: Well, this weekend, it'll be the fourth of July, the

Speaker 1: two hundred and fiftieth birthday of the United States. Timed

Speaker 1: a party like you're a founding father. You think I'm kidding,

Speaker 1: I'm Patty Steele. Far from the very austere marble statues,

Speaker 1: we see them as these guys knew how to enjoy

Speaker 1: life and stir their creative juices. That's next on the backstory.

Speaker 1: We're back with the backstory as we approach this weekend's

Speaker 1: two hundred and fiftieth birthday of the United States of America.

Speaker 1: It's really interesting to look back at the folks who

Speaker 1: made all this happen all those years ago. And I

Speaker 1: have to say, I kind of love knowing that these

Speaker 1: guys that we see in formal paintings or as bronze

Speaker 1: or marble statues were real people like you and me,

Speaker 1: at least sort of. I get it. When you picture

Speaker 1: America's founding fathers, you probably think of powdered wigs, solemn speeches,

Speaker 1: and men carefully debating the future of a nation. Which

Speaker 1: it probably don't picture is them partying and drinking a lot.

Speaker 1: But honestly, alcohol wasn't just common in colonial America. It

Speaker 1: was practically a way alive for everybody. Stats show that

Speaker 1: in the late seventeen hundreds, a lot of Americans drank

Speaker 1: a lot more alcohol than we do today. In fact,

Speaker 1: they show that the average American drank about three times

Speaker 1: as much alcohol as we do today. In fairness, problem

Speaker 1: was clean drinking water wasn't always reliable. Beer and hard

Speaker 1: cider were safer than water, and whiskey was everywhere. So

Speaker 1: were the guys who founded the United States actually drunks? Well,

Speaker 1: that's kind of an exaggeration. Okay, let's separate fact from fiction.

Speaker 1: First up is the father of the founding Fathers and

Speaker 1: a guy with one of the biggest reputations as a

Speaker 1: drinker of all of them, George Washington. But he didn't

Speaker 1: really earn that rep in awareness. Washington wasn't just a drinker.

Speaker 1: He was one of America's largest whiskey producers. After leaving

Speaker 1: the presidency, his distillery at Mount Vernon churned out almost

Speaker 1: eleven thousand gallons of whiskey in just one year, making

Speaker 1: it one of the biggest operations in this very young nation.

Speaker 1: It's pretty clear Washington loved Madero wine with dinner as

Speaker 1: well as hardsider, beer, and spiked punch at social gatherings.

Speaker 1: But despite all that, alcohol historians say there's very little

Speaker 1: evidence that Washington was actually drunk all that often. As

Speaker 1: you can imagine, he believed in moderation and self control,

Speaker 1: so running a whiskey distillery didn't necessarily mean drinking everything

Speaker 1: you produced. Next up, there's John Adams. He began pretty

Speaker 1: much every morning with hard cider. That may sound a

Speaker 1: bit shocking these days, but again in the eighteenth century,

Speaker 1: it wasn't all that unusual where it is. Adams drank

Speaker 1: a full tankard of with breakfast almost every day of

Speaker 1: his adult life. He also drank several glasses of Madeira

Speaker 1: wine with dinner every night. Did it take a toll

Speaker 1: on his health? Guess not. He lived to be over

Speaker 1: ninety years old and unbelievably old age in those days,

Speaker 1: and on top of that, he was mentally sharp as

Speaker 1: attack almost until the end. Now let's move on to

Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson. He was what you might call a bit

Speaker 1: of a wine snob. Whiskey wasn't really his thing, but

Speaker 1: fine wine absolutely. During Jefferson's years in France as America's ambassador,

Speaker 1: he really developed an appreciation for European wines, he went

Speaker 1: on to eventually build one of the largest wine collections

Speaker 1: in America. In fact, during his presidency he bought and

Speaker 1: imported over twenty thousand bottles of wine from Europe, and

Speaker 1: he received regular shipments of casks and kegs as well.

Speaker 1: The household went through multiple bottles of wine every day. Monticello,

Speaker 1: he had a massive wine selter built right next to

Speaker 1: his hard cider seller and sharing a hallway with the

Speaker 1: space for all the other hard liquors. Jefferson was a

Speaker 1: big believer that wine encouraged civilized conversation and intellectual discussion.

Speaker 1: He called it a necessity of life, so his spending

Speaker 1: on it became legendary and expensive. But historians pretty much

Speaker 1: agreed that he mostly just drank until he was very

Speaker 1: happy and extra talkative, not falling down drunk. Now. Perhaps

Speaker 1: the most colorful drinker among the founders had to be

Speaker 1: the original party boy, Benjamin Franklin. Ben loved wine, women,

Speaker 1: and song, so he adored taverns. He met friends there

Speaker 1: top politics, printed newspapers in tavern backrooms, and negotiated business deals.

Speaker 1: He even wrote some funny observations about drinking one famous

Speaker 1: quote often attributed to him says, beer's proof that God

Speaker 1: loves us. He probably never said that, but he did say,

Speaker 1: behold the rain which descends from Heaven upon our vineyard,

Speaker 1: to be changed into wine, proof that God loves us

Speaker 1: and loves to see us happy. Ben Franklin definitely enjoyed alcohol,

Speaker 1: but he was also about some moderation because he was

Speaker 1: also a smart businessman. By the way, Ben Franklin published

Speaker 1: over two hundred slang terms for being overserved, some of

Speaker 1: which we still use today, including being well oiled. Now

Speaker 1: for the guy who, in all likelihood was into heavy drinking,

Speaker 1: Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton loved Madeira wine and was known to

Speaker 1: drink heavily at political dinners. Some witnesses on the scene

Speaker 1: described him as noticeably intoxicated during social events, giving him

Speaker 1: a rep for over indulgence. In fact, his famous duel

Speaker 1: with Aaron Burr came after years of political and personal conflict,

Speaker 1: perhaps after loose talk after tossing a few back. Now

Speaker 1: here's the thing. Colony politics themselves revolved around drinking. Campaigning

Speaker 1: often meant buying voters drinks, believed or not. In fact,

Speaker 1: when George Washington first ran for the Virginia House in

Speaker 1: seventeen fifty five. He refused to provide alcohol, and he

Speaker 1: lost the election. Three years later, he changed his strategy.

Speaker 1: His campaign bought dozens of gallons of beer, rum, punch wine,

Speaker 1: hard cider, and whiskey for just a few hundred voters,

Speaker 1: and that was pretty much what the campaign spent, and

Speaker 1: this time Washington won by a landslide. Today we'd probably

Speaker 1: call that bribery, but back then it was considered a

Speaker 1: perfectly acceptable campaign hospitality. So America's Founding fathers certainly weren't drunks,

Speaker 1: but they were festive folks who mostly knew when to stop.

Speaker 1: They for sure drank much more than modern Americans do.

Speaker 1: For the most part, alcohol was part of breakfast, lunch, dinner, politics, business, celebrations,

Speaker 1: and diplomacy, but most of them were big on moderation,

Speaker 1: on discipline, education, and public service. Heavy drinking, that was

Speaker 1: just what folks did back then, as long as they

Speaker 1: knew when to turn their glass upside down. At the

Speaker 1: end of the day, the Founding Fathers were human beings,

Speaker 1: not marble statues. Yes, they celebrated victories with punch bowls,

Speaker 1: debated liberty over glasses, of Madera toasted independence with rum

Speaker 1: and sometimes drank far more than we'd consider normal today.

Speaker 1: But they were far from a bunch of drunken revolutionaries,

Speaker 1: just enthusiastic drinkers and thinkers. Their greatest intoxication, it turns out,

Speaker 1: wasn't whiskey or wine. It was the radical idea that

Speaker 1: ordinary people could govern themselves, and that idea proved far

Speaker 1: more powerful. I hope you liked the Backstory with Patty Steele.

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Speaker 1: have a story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook,

Speaker 1: It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the

Speaker 1: pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.