Drinking History: Fifteen Turning Points in the Making of American Beverages

Clark’s Inn, also known as the State House Tavern, built in 1693, was located across the street from the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia and was a meeting place for colonial and state officials. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

ON APRIL 26, 1607, three ships—the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery—sailed into the Chesapeake Bay with approximately 100 colonists onboard. These colonists founded a small settlement along the James River, which became the first successful English colony in North America.

From the beginning, the Jamestown settlement was none too promising, and one serious problem that the colonists faced concerned the issue of beverages. They had brought beer and malt with them, but eventually their supplies ran out and they were reduced to drinking water, which did not please them at all. Although soon after his arrival the colonist George Percy wrote that he was “almost ravished” at the sight of “fresh-waters running through the woods,”¹ he later complained bitterly that there was “neither taverne, beere-house, nor place of relife” in Jamestown.² As the colonists dumped refuse into the river and polluted their shallow wells, Percy’s views of Virginia water changed: the “cold water taken out of the River; which was, at a floud, verie salt; at a low tide, full of slime and filth, which was the destruction of many of our men.”³

Six years after the colony’s founding, life was still difficult there. A Spanish spy reported the following: “There are about three hundred men there more or less; and the majority sick and badly treated, because they have nothing to eat but bread of maize, with fish; nor do they drink anything but water—all of which is contrary to the nature of the English—on which account they all wish to return and would have done so if they had been at liberty.”⁴

Despite these massive hardships, however, Jamestown had turned a corner. More colonists arrived, and things improved. Even without their preferred beverages, the early colonists at Jamestown set in motion a series of events that would change American drinking habits forever.

The first English attempt to establish a colony in North America began on Roanoke Island in 1585. Unfortunately, much of the food supply—including beer—was lost when the boat carrying provisions capsized in the surf while trying to land. Once the fledgling colony was established, the ships left, taking much of the remaining beer with them. The colonists were resourceful, however. Thomas Harriot, an astronomer and ethnographer who learned the Algonquin language before arriving in Roanoke in 1585, later wrote that the colonists took corn and made “some mault, whereof was brued as good ale as was to be desired. So likewise by the help of hops thereof may bee made as good Beere.”⁵ The colonists’ interest in beer was understandable: it was the most important beverage in England, so much so that English families expended an estimated one-third of their budgets on malt for brewing.⁶ By the time Harriot’s account was published in 1590, however, the Roanoke colony had disappeared, forever leaving unanswered the question of what had happened to the settlers. Almost twenty years passed before the English tried again to establish a colony in North America.

The second English attempt to establish a colony in North America was Jamestown. It was enough of a success a decade after its founding that it encouraged the English to establish more settlements, the next of which was in Massachusetts. In 1620, English settlers stocked the Mayflower with both water and beer for the trip to America; these supplies were carefully rationed on the voyage and continued to be rationed in the new settlement that the colonists established at Plymouth. When the Mayflower first arrived off Cape Cod, a landing party was sent to reconnoiter the area. The colonists sampled their first “New England water with as much delight as ever we drunke drink in all our lives.”⁷ Their delight likely resulted from the contrast between the fresh, cold springwater they found and the foul-tasting barreled water they had been drinking on the Mayflower. The sailors on the ship were more concerned with the other beverage onboard. They calculated how much beer would be needed for their return voyage, and when their reserves dropped to that amount, the Mayflower weighed anchor and left Plymouth.

Although the Plymouth colonists would have appreciated plentiful stores of beer, they “supplied themselves with water,” as one resident later put it.⁸ William Bradford, the longtime governor of the settlement, wrote that eventually water became as “pleasant unto them as wine or beer had been in foretimes.” He was quick to add that “water was not as wholesome as the beer and wine” but concluded that the available water was as good as any in the world and “wholesome enough to us that can be content therewith.”⁹

Compared with Jamestown and later southern settlements, New England was well endowed with lakes, springs, streams, and rivers. William Wood, an early resident of Plymouth, proclaimed in 1634 that New England was as

well watered as any land under the Sunne, [with] every family or every two families having a spring of sweet waters betwixt them, which is farre different from the waters of England, being not so sharp, but of a fatter substance and of a jetty color; it is thought there can be no better water in the world, yet dare I not preferre it before good Beere, as some have done, but any man will choose it before bad Beare, Wheay or Buttermilke. Those that drinke it, be as healthfull, fresh and lustie as they that drinke beere.¹⁰

Even when beer and other beverages were available, water remained America’s most commonly consumed beverage; the poor, of course, could not afford to drink much else. But all colonists drank water—either straight or mixed with other beverages, such as cider, wine, beer, and milk. They sometimes sweetened or flavored water with molasses or ginger. As small cities developed in the eighteenth century, their residents usually obtained water from public pumps placed at intervals along the streets. However, contamination of the water supply by sewage became a problem as urban areas grew. This problem was well understood by colonists, who learned to collect rainwater instead of using groundwater, boil water before drinking it, mix water with alcoholic beverages, or just drink something else entirely. In 1724, a Virginian reported that “good springs of excellent water abound everywhere almost, which is very cooling and pleasant in summer, and the general drink of abundance, not so much out of necessity as choice.”¹¹ This was no exaggeration, and European visitors agreed. A German traveler concluded that of all the beverages consumed in Philadelphia, the best was “delicious and healthy water.”¹² On the western frontier, where alcohol was less available, water was much more important. As one surveyor on the frontier reported in the 1720s, “All we drink here is water and sometimes rum, but that is very dear and [we have] very little money to buy it.”¹³

Throughout the colonial period, water was an essential component in traditional medical potions. For dealing with various diseases, one source recommended drinking warm water, water gruel, barley water, sage or balm tea, or flaxseeds or mullein leaves in water.¹⁴ However, some of the drinking water in the colonies was far from salubrious. One observer credited the ladies of Charlestown, South Carolina, with being “extremely temperate,” even to the point of drinking the city’s water, which contained sand and dirt.¹⁵ According to a Swedish visitor to New York in the mid-eighteenth century, Albany’s water was acidic and “not very agreeable.”¹⁶ New York City water was not much better. Wells were dug in the settlement early on; however, because the relationship between drinking water, waste disposal, and disease was only dimly understood, epidemics of typhoid and other diseases ran regularly through the city. More wells were dug, but the water was brackish and not good for drinking. Many residents were fearful of getting sick from impure water and visited springs just north of the settlement, which was then only on the southern tip of Manhattan Island, seeking a fresh and safe supply of drinking water.¹⁷

It was not just polluted water that drove colonists to drink. Alcohol had been an integral part of social life in Europe for hundreds of years. As one British historian put it, alcohol played a role “in nearly every public ceremony, every commercial bargain, every private occasion of mourning and rejoicing.” It was “an essential narcotic which anaesthetised men against the strains of contemporary life.”¹⁸

English colonists brought these drinking traditions with them to America. As American society evolved, alcohol was imbibed when waking in the morning and before retiring at night. It was served before, during, and after meals, social gatherings, weddings, funerals, ordinations, auctions, dances, barbecues, quilting bees, barn raisings, husking bees, land clearings, militia musters, church services, horse races, courtroom proceedings, legislative sessions, royal holidays, and political rallies. Many events included drinking toasts to a wide variety of individuals, including the king, governors, visiting dignitaries, and other prominent personages, or to each other; indeed, it was considered impolite and occasionally unpatriotic not to drink to someone’s health. At election time, candidates commonly purchased alcohol for their supporters. When a political leader called a meeting or dined with other officials, the usual venue was a tavern, where alcohol flowed freely. When a sick or an injured person needed something to dull the pain or medication for a specific disease, alcohol was usually part of the answer. Drink also was used to pay laborers, especially at the autumn harvest when alcohol was mandated by contract. As there was little specie in the American colonies, alcohol also served as currency and a means of trade. Not only were alcoholic beverages considered healthful and nutritious, but they also imparted pleasure and provided sustenance because they contained calories.¹⁹

The alcoholic drinks served during the early colonial years were the same as those commonly found in England. The most important of these beverages was beer. English colonists brought beer and malt with them, and both were imported from England throughout the colonial period. When the Arabella and a small fleet of ships arrived in Massachusetts to found the settlement of Boston in 1630, they brought with them “10,000 gallons of beer, 120 hogs heads of malt for brewing and 12 gallons of distilled spirits; in addition, each family brought their own stores.”²⁰

Wealthy colonists imported beer—the Virginia planters buying from both England and Holland. They also imported malt, which most colonists could not afford. The varieties of barley initially introduced into North America did not fare well, so colonists tried virtually anything to brew and flavor their beer, including wheat, cornstalks, maple sap, elderberries, gooseberries, nuts, bark, various roots, pine chips, hemlock, and assorted leaves. A French immigrant to America was delighted with the strange variety of ingredients, including “pine chips, pine buds, hemlock, fir leaves, roasted corn, dried apple-skins, sassafras roots, and bran. With these, to which we add some hops and a little malt, we compose a sort of beverage which is very pleasant.”²¹

Perhaps the most American beers were those made with berries from the persimmon (Diospyros virginiana), a small tree that originated in eastern North America. British writer Samuel Morewood, an admirer of persimmon beer, disclosed just how it was made: “The ripe fruit is braised and mixed with wheat or other flour, and formed into cakes which are baked in an oven. These are afterwards placed over the fire in a pot full of water, and when they become blended with the fluid, malt is added, and the brewing completed in the usual manner: thus is produced a beer preferable to most others.”²²

By far the most common beer brewed in colonial America was made from molasses. William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, wrote in 1685 that “our Beer was made mostly of Molasses, which well boyled with Sassafras or Pine infused into it, makes a very tolerable Drink: but now they make Mault and Mault begines to be common.”²³ In Maine, molasses beer was flavored with sassafras root, wormwood, and bran.²⁴ In Virginia, molasses beer was brewed by “the poorer sort” with bran and “Indian Corn Malted with drying in a Stove; with Persimmons dried in Cakes and baked; with potatoes and with the green stalks of Indian Corn cut small and bruised; with Pompions [pumpkins], with the Jerusalem artichoke which some people plant purposely for that use, but this is the least esteemed.”²⁵ However, it was not just “the poorer sort” who enjoyed molasses beer but the wealthy planters as well. In fact, it was a favorite drink of George Washington, whose recipe has survived:

Take a large Sifter full of Bran Hops to your Taste.—Boil these 3 hours. Then strain out 30 Gallons into a Cooler, put in 3 Gallons Molasses while the Beer is scalding hot or rather drain the molasses into the Cooler & strain the Beer on it while boiling Hot. Let this stand till it is little more than Blood warm. Then put in a quart of Yeast if the weather is very cold, cover it over with a Blanket & let it work in the Cooler 24 hours. Then put it into the Cask—leave the Bung[hole] open till it is almost done working—Bottle it that day Week it was Brewed.²⁶

Home brewing continued well into the eighteenth century, especially in rural areas, but commercial breweries quickly became the primary source of beer in the cities. Virginia had two breweries by 1629, and Massachusetts licensed its first in 1637.²⁷ The Dutch, who settled the region around present-day New York beginning in 1624, loved beer even more than did the English settlers. New Amsterdam had its first brewery in 1632, and although taverns were licensed and regulated in the colony, illegal establishments were common.²⁸

Colonists planted apple trees shortly after their arrival in America. As their orchards bore fruit, hard cider became a popular beverage in New England and the Middle Colonies. Apples also grew in some areas of the Carolinas and Virginia, where historian Robert Beverley wrote in 1702 that apple orchards were “wonderfully quick of growth; so that in six or seven years time from the planting, a man may bring an orchard to bear in great plenty, from which he may make store of good cider, or distill great quantities of brandy; for the cider is very st[r]ong, and yields abundance of spirit.” Horse-powered cider mills were constructed, and hard cider became so cheap that virtually everyone drank it, including children. Mulled cider—a festive drink enriched with sugar, egg yolks, and spices—was sometimes spiked with a tot of rum for an extra kick. By the mid-seventeenth century, cider had eclipsed beer as the beverage of choice in New England, and it maintained this position throughout the colonial period. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, the French culinary philosopher and author of The Physiology of Taste (1825), was a great admirer of American cider. After dining at a Connecticut farmhouse in the 1790s, Brillat-Savarin noted that “at either end of the table [were] two vast jugs of cider so excellent that I could have gone on drinking it for ever.”²⁹ In areas where apples were not grown, cider-filled barrels were acquired from apple-growing regions.

Native New World grapes were abundant, and some colonists, including Thomas Jefferson, took a stab at winemaking. Although the wild grapes lacked the qualities needed for making a palatable beverage that was competitive with imported wine, they came to be added to other beverages as flavoring and a source of sugar. Some colonists imported grape plants from Europe, but they did not thrive in America.

Undaunted, Americans experimented with perry (pear cider), mobby (peach wine), and other fruit wines and brandies made from cherries, currants, black raspberries, plums, and quinces. Peach brandy, according to the American political economist Tench Coxe, was “the most exquisite spirit in the world.”³⁰ Perhaps the most unusual American brandy was made from persimmons. A British writer noted that it was made “by putting a quantity of the fruit into a vessel for a week, until it becomes quite soft. Water is then poured in and left for fermentation, without the addition of any other ingredient to promote it. The brandy is then made in the common way, and it is said to be much improved when mixed with sweet grapes, that are found wild in the woods.”³¹

Colonists also imported wines and brandies. Fortified wines, such as port and Madeira, traveled well, and Americans, like their British cousins, preferred such sweet wines. Wines imported from Europe were taxed, whereas wines imported from European possessions were not. As a result, wines from the Portuguese Azores or Spanish Canary Islands were less expensive than those from Continental Europe, and these wines became popular in colonial America. A Virginia minister opined that “the common wine comes from Madeira or Fayal, which, moderately drunk, is fittest to cheer the fainting spirits in the heat of summer, and to warm the chilled blood in the bitter colds of winter, and seems most peculiarly adapted for this climate.”³² Added to the colonial wine list were claret (i.e., Bordeaux), Canary, port, sherry, and muscadine. Sack (fortified white wines from Spain and the Canary Islands) and hock (German white wines) were also common by the late eighteenth century. Wine was widely available in taverns, but many colonists eschewed it, considering it pretentious. For the most part, wines were favored by the upper class.

Well-to-do colonists did not limit themselves to just one or two favorite beverages, however. Wait Winthrop, son of the Connecticut governor John Winthrop, enjoyed balm tea, beer, Canary wine, palm wine (made from coconuts), sage tea, and regular wine.³³ Massachusetts judge Samuel Sewall—notorious throughout history as a judge involved in the Salem witch trials—drank ale, beer, Canary wine, “chockelat,” cider, “Madera,” sack, sack posset, sage tea, “sillibub,” tea, and wine, as well as water; in fact, he often quaffed several different beverages at the same occasion.³⁴ Every colonist who could afford them drank a similarly diverse menu of beverages.

Alcoholic beverages were also an important item of trade with the American Indians. Although pre-Columbian peoples in Mexico made alcoholic beverages, most North American Indians did not. When Europeans wanted to obtain furs from the Indians, they found that hard liquor was ideal for the exchange: it was easy to transport and did not spoil easily. The Indians used the liquor medicinally, employed it in ceremonies as a means of gaining transcendence, and offered it as a gesture of hospitality and sociability.³⁵ Because Indians lacked the technology to distill their own alcoholic beverages, liquor was highly prized, and European colonists used it to great advantage in trade for fur, land, and many other items. Alcohol killed and impoverished many Indians during and after the colonial period; it harmed even those who did not drink it by creating tensions within families and communities.

Stimulating hot beverages—coffee, tea, and chocolate—arrived in North America almost simultaneously in the mid-seventeenth century. All three were fashionable in Europe at the time. Coffee, the first of these beverages to arrive in the colonies, was adopted by many immigrant groups, such as the Pennsylvania Germans. Tea quickly became America’s favorite hot beverage, appearing at breakfast and supper as well as on the afternoon tea table. Colonists who could not afford imported tea sometimes imbibed native North American substitutes, such as sage tea and black tea. Hot chocolate lagged behind tea and coffee, but it too became popular in the colonial period, especially for breakfast.³⁷

By the 1680s, coffeehouses modeled on those in Europe emerged in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, and shortly thereafter in other cities. These establishments usually served coffee, tea, and chocolate, and they provided colonial newspapers and English magazines for customers to peruse while engaging in conversations with their compatriots. Large coffeehouses occasionally provided rooms for holding trials, city council meetings, and other public events. Taverns (also called public houses, ordinaries, and inns) that catered to the wealthy also offered coffee, tea, and chocolate.

By the mid-eighteenth century, coffee, tea, and chocolate were readily available in all the colonies. Shops sold coffee beans, tea leaves, and chocolate beans for drinking. Home consumption of these beverages increased throughout the eighteenth century, at least among the well-to-do colonists.³⁸ Because coffee, tea, and chocolate were unaffordable or unavailable on the western frontier (then just a few hundred miles from the Eastern Seaboard), colonists there made do with substitutes such as burned rye, parched beets, peas, potatoes, and a variety of herbs, roots, barks, and leaves.³⁹

Coffee and chocolate were imported directly from the French colonies on Martinique and Santo Domingo, as well as from the Dutch colony in what is present-day Suriname, which were all free of the import taxes required by England for goods shipped from European nations. Tea, which could legally come only from England, was more expensive. However, as one colonist gleefully proclaimed, tea was “as cheap [as] or cheaper than in England.”⁴⁰ This was because much of the tea shipped to colonial America was smuggled in by the Dutch and abetted by the colonists, especially those in New England.

Most traditional English beverages—beers and ciders—had relatively low alcohol contents. The exceptions were brandies (many of which were imported) and gin, which originated in Holland but became a British mainstay.⁴¹ In America, apple and other fruit brandies were quite popular.

The most common distilled spirit in colonial times was rum, which had been introduced into the North American colonies from Barbados in the mid-sixteenth century. However, rather than pay for expensive West Indian rum, New Englanders imported cheap molasses and distilled the liquor themselves. The first Boston rum distillery was founded in 1657. Because rum produced in America was inexpensive and highly alcoholic compared with beer, ale, and cider, its use quickly spread, especially among the less affluent. It was typically drunk in taverns, where people of all levels dined and drank. Sailors favored grog, which was rum mixed with water, and grog shops were common in port cities.

Many colonists favored mixed drinks, which appeared in many guises. Flips (beer sweetened with sugar, molasses, dried pumpkin, or honey and strengthened with rum) had become popular by 1690. Possets, made from spiced hot milk and ale or beer, evolved into eggnog and other beverages. Syllabub—spiced milk or cream whipped to a froth with sweet wine or cider and sugar—was a spirituous drink for festive occasions. Shrubs—composed of citrus juice from imported oranges, lemons, and limes mixed with various spirits—were popular drinks before the Revolutionary War, as were hot toddies (made of liquor, water, sugar, and spices) and cherry bounces (made from cherry juice and rum). The most popular mixed drink was punch, which was usually composed of rum, citrus juice, sugar, and water and had myriad variations. Milk punches made with egg yolks, sugar, rum, and grated nutmeg were common for parties and balls. There were iced punches for summer and hot punches for winter. Sangaree—a mixture of wine, water, sugar, and spices—evolved into what is now called sangria.⁴²

Alcoholic beverages even made it into newspapers of the day and occasionally inspired poetry of sorts. On February 13, 1744, the New York Gazette published the following recipe, which likely originated in England but was widely reprinted in America:

Colonists also made distilled spirits from corn and other available grains. At first, these distilled spirits were made for home consumption. As grain harvests increased, however, farmers realized that it was more profitable to sell part of their crop in the form of alcohol, which was less bulky and easier to transport over the poor colonial roads than were wagonloads of grain. This was particularly important for those farming in isolated rural areas, such as western Pennsylvania. By the mid-eighteenth century, a new spirit called whiskey emerged; it became especially popular among the Scots-Irish who lived in isolated rural areas, such as western Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas.

Distilled from grains (mainly wheat, rye, and corn), whiskey was of minor importance in colonial America before the influx of large numbers of Scots-Irish immigrants beginning in the late seventeenth century. After that, whiskey production and consumption in America increased slowly.⁴⁴ However, by 1770, whiskey making was a common practice throughout the colonies. It had the distinct advantage of being cheap; in addition, unlike rum, which was dependent on imported molasses, whiskey could be made with American-grown grains. This was particularly important for colonists on the frontier. These colonists did not have easy access to molasses but did have plenty of grain, much of which was converted into whiskey that could then be traded. Because whiskey could be made by anyone with a still, its popularity burgeoned in the years before the Revolutionary War.

At the 1785 ordination of Joseph McKean, a minister in Beverly, Massachusetts, eighty people drank “30 Bowles of Punch” before the ceremony. At the dinner that followed and afterward, six of the guests drank tea while another sixty-two downed eight bottles of brandy, twenty-eight bottles of wine, forty-four bowls of punch, and a large quantity of cherry rum.⁴⁵ A Frenchman who moved to Philadelphia in 1794 reported that the Americans drank throughout the meal until dessert; after the women withdrew, more bottles went around continuously, with “each man pouring for himself. Toasts are drunk, cigars are lighted, diners run to the corners of the room hunting night tables and vases which will enable them to hold a greater amount of liquor.”⁴⁶

According to modern estimates, the annual consumption of absolute alcohol (pure ethanol containing less than 1 percent by weight of water) in 1770 was 3.5 gallons per person, which is equivalent to 7 shots of hard liquor per day.⁴⁷ Another modern estimate, for the year 1790, puts annual consumption by those older than age fifteen at 6 gallons of alcohol per person, which is equal to 34 gallons of beer and cider, more than 5 gallons of distilled liquor, and 1 gallon of wine.⁴⁸ These numbers are just averages, of course. Because some colonists, especially women, did not drink, others obviously downed much more than average—and many were chronic drunks.⁴⁹

Concerns arose about alcohol consumption in colonial America. One visitor to Maryland reported that the colonists there drank “so abominably together” that when ships arrived bearing wine and brandy, many colonists used their money for drinking and were short of funds to purchase necessities for the remainder of the year.⁵⁰ The clergy and political leaders frequently sought to reduce alcohol production and sales. Manufacturing was licensed, and the hours of operation for liquor stores and taverns were regulated by law.

Because few rural communities had large public buildings, taverns frequently hosted civic functions, such as court sessions and official gatherings.⁵¹ As taverns increasingly functioned as community centers, they competed with churches and local governments for the loyalties of citizens. Tavern owners played important roles as well; they were generally well informed about current happenings, and they shared what they knew. Many owners were upset when royal governors attempted to control liquor consumption, as were distillers; in fact, many of them became revolutionary leaders. Meetings of groups such as the Sons of Liberty and militiamen were frequently convened at taverns and public houses, and revolutionary activities were often planned and launched from those establishments. One Boston tavern, the Green Dragon, was a hotbed of political activity. The Massachusetts royal governor purportedly called it “a nest of sedition,” while Daniel Webster, a leading statesman during the antebellum period, characterized the Green Dragon in 1821 as the “headquarters of the Revolution.”⁵²

Colonists brought their own drink preferences with them. However, once they arrived in the New World, these beverages were Americanized. Colonial beer, for instance, was often made from different ingredients than traditional English beer. Because colonists came from different social classes and many came from different countries, no single beverage dominated the American scene.

Few of the specific beverages preferred by the colonists—sweet wines, dark bitter beers and ales, fermented fruit wines, morning bitters, and the mixed punches of the period—survived much beyond independence. Yet European colonists set America on a path to beverage diversity with a wide variety of beers, wines, spirits, mixed drinks, and nonalcoholic beverages such as coffee, tea, and chocolate. One of these beverages—rum—was actually what set the English North American colonies on the path to revolution.