Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Were The Founding Fathers Drunks?

That why I said "name"...

Sam Adams Brewing (officially Boston Beer Company) was founded in 1984 by Jim Koch. One of their beers Utopius (25% alcohol and does not require refrigeration due to the alcohol level) is limited-released once every 2-3 years and costs $200/bottle; very few beer shops even got it and generally only 1 bottle is sold per customer. Following its release, internet prices soar to up to $1000 per bottle.

My son-in-law always manages to get a bottle and it is GOOD!

see: http://gizmodo.com/i-drank-a-200-bottle-of-sam-adams-for-science-1469881907

rockinbar;
Good morning to you sir, I hope the weekend has been treating you well thus far.

So putting on my best sarcasm voice - I'd say I'm shocked - yes shocked I tell you - to learn that your great nation was started by any other than teatotalers.

While it may or may not be of more than passing interest to you or any of my 'Fire friends south of the medicine line to learn, our own "Father's of Confederation" were in the main a bunch of semi-sober Scotsmen and Englishmen.

Here's a quick quote from a National Post story about the initial meeting in Prince Edward Island.

"Confederation itself had floated through on waves of free booze. Christopher Moore, in his book 1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal, describes how Ontario and Quebec delegates to the Charlottetown Conference of 1864 showed up with a boatload of hooch and went from one party to another. Small wonder so many of the Fathers of Confederation in Robert Harris�s famous painting are sitting down or appear to be leaning on something."

Our first Prime Minister from what I read could have held his own with your Founding Fathers when it came to imbibing as well.

"It�s also no secret that our first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, was cursed with the unquenchable thirst. But most people don�t realize that many of his opponents were, too."

Anyway sir, please note that I'm not comparing anything more or less here than the alcohol consumption habits of the founders of our respective nations.

It's ironic/funny/strange to read where some of the notions we were otherwise stemmed from and how many folks to this day choose to believe that.

All the best to you in the upcoming week rockinbar.

Dwayne

The drinking of distilled spirits in the founding father's time was due to three reasons. The first was the sanitary condition of water. Since water could not be trusted not to make you sick, people drank alcohol beverages or mixed them with water. The second is the need to preserve foodstuffs. It was a way to preserve grains and turn calories into something that could be stored long term.
The third is why we drink it today, for the entertainment value.

Drinking and being a drunk were two different things back then, but the larger amounts of alcohol consumed is due to the first two reasons, reinforced by the third.

As methods to preserve food and clean water have improved, the need for alcohol consumption drops and heavier consumption is typically an abuse problem with all its attendant problems.

People always try to measure actions and intents of the past with current perceptions, doesn't always apply.

I'm so glad that wonderful man BC30 isn't a moderator.

Huh?

It was Washington that levied the tax and sent soldiers against American civilians. Many of which were revolutionary war veterans.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion

George Washington ran the largest distillery in the colonies. History has sanitized the founders to the point that we think they were saints. They weren't. They had the same flaws we have today and to hold them to any other standard is a disservice to them and to history.

If so perhaps this country now needs more drunks.

Winston Churchill liked to drink. When he was a young cavalry officer, and went to war in northern Africa, he and his pal had a separate wagon just to transport their booze. Wine, liquor, champagne etc.
Of course the regular field troop could not engage in such luxury, but Churchill was an aristocrat.
During WW2, Churchill would have a big glass of sherry for breakfast, and continue to drink throughout the day. He was more or less drunk every day of the war.

Also, Churchill never exercised, and smoked cigars throughout his life, lived to be about 88 years old.

How many of the folks of that time were heroin/opium addicts?

In know in the UK, in the 1800's and early 1900's before heroin was made illegal, it was actually quite a problem, especially in the upper classes..

Chemists sold "heroin tonics", and in the WW1, it wasn't uncommon for family's to send small amounts of heroin to sons/husbands serving in the trenches..

NSFW:

Bob;


Thanks for the good chuckle this afternoon sir - hopefully this finds you and yours well.

I'm pretty secure in saying you're very likely in a majority position with your sentiments that I'm not a moderator.

While I do appreciate the adjective and kind thoughts attached - please be sure I make heavy use of the backspace bar and the "Preview Post" icon when posting.

As I've often said, it's in real life that I could really, really use something similar before I speak.

All the best to you folks this week and thanks again for the laugh.

Dwayne

idon't know, but I'll paraphase Abraham Lincoln's replay when one of his aides told him that the general he appointed to run the whole Union Army, Ulysses S. Grant had a dirnking problem: If the Founding Fathers were drunks, find out what they were drinking and send a case of it to Obama and every member of Congress!

idon't know, but I'll paraphase Abraham Lincoln's replay when one of his aides told him that the general he appointed to run the whole Union Army, Ulysses S. Grant had a dirnking problem: If the Founding Fathers were drunks, find out what they were drinking and send a case of it to Obama and every member of Congress!

So then goverments took on a problem, made it illegal in an attempt to regulate human behaivier, and created a monster.

actually Grant didnt have a drinking problem....thats mostly bullchit....he drank some in his younger days but by the time he was a General he hardly drank...whole lot of people were below him didnt like him so whenever Grant did something questionable they would start spreading chit that he was a drunk based on what he had done years before, not what he was at that time....

Exactly.

I don't think many of them actually fought in the war. It is likely many of those who were on the losing side of the whiskey rebellion did though.

One quick witted quote, paraphrased here, I always remember as being attributed to WC took place at some formal occasion where the prime minister was rather deep into the cup when he happened upon a very proper, English lady, or she happened upon him:

Lady to WC in proper, English disdain: "why,..mister Churchill, you are drunk!

WC: Yes madam, I am. But in the morning I will be sober. You, however, will still be ugly!

Same here, but it wasn't a problem. Also, it was almost entirely limited to the upper class people here since it was out of the reach of most any other class due to the cost.