HUMANKIND’S most basic physical need is water, which for most Americans is readily available and cheap. However, not content to just replenish our bodies with plain water, we have devised ingenious ways to flavor and process it into all sorts of palatable drinks, which are sometimes nutritious and health enhancing but other times not. We have added natural and artificial substances—bark, leaves, seeds, spices, beans, nuts, honey, herbs, fruit, flowers, grasses, grains, sugars, vitamins, minerals, and all sorts of chemicals—to water and processed it in ingenious ways, creating a great cornucopia of beverages that are alcoholic and nonalcoholic, carbonated and caffeinated, heated and room temperature, cool and frozen, watery and thick, spicy and plain.
I am particularly intrigued by the wild assortment of beverages Americans drink. Today alone, the total number of domestic and imported beers, wines, spirits, coffees, teas, sodas, bottled waters, sports drinks, energy drinks, and dairy drinks consumed in America surely run into the tens of thousands. These beverages are sold in several forms—bottled, boxed, canned, frozen, powdered—and sipped, sniffed, savored, guzzled, quaffed, or chugged from glasses, mugs, cups, bottles, cartons, or straight from a tap or fountain. They can be bought in all sorts of places—supermarkets, convenience stores, vending machines, bars, lounges, fast food chains, restaurants, saloons, cafes, cafeterias, ordered online, and even made in the home.
As a culinary historian, I am curious about how Americans created this diverse and complex beverage scene and why beverages have shifted over time. American beverage history is complex, and numerous books and articles have been written about particular drinks; even more have been written about major historical events, such as the Revolutionary War, the Whiskey Rebellion, and Prohibition, in which particular beverages played key roles. It would be impossible to condense a complete discussion of American beverage history into a single book.
For the past few years, I have grappled with two related questions: Why do Americans drink the beverages that we do? And how can the evolution of American beverages be presented in the most understandable fashion? My answer has been to focus on fifteen events or turning points that introduce threads of American beverage history. Thirteen of these events focus on beverage categories that often intersect, and two focus on historical periods—colonial beverages and the temperance and prohibition movements, which have affected American beverages for 400 years. American drinking habits are embedded in broader societal trends, such as those related to industrialization, transportation systems, internal migrations, external immigrations, political reform efforts, advertising and promotion, scientific discoveries and new technologies, governmental regulation and taxation, corporate centralization, and globalization. The relationships between American beverages and these broader trends are significant, but I touch upon them only tangentially in this book.
This book introduces American beverage history—its significant events, creators, celebrities, promoters, and controversies. It is also introduces the vast literature on American beverage history. In this work, I have tried to present the entire history of American beverages, both alcoholic and nonalcoholic, simply because of the tremendous interconnections among them. An increase in sales of one beverage usually results in a decrease in sales of other beverages. Focusing just on one beverage or a beverage category often fails to illuminate these connections.
My approach is mainly explanatory and descriptive rather than normative. Although this is primarily a book about America’s past, it is also about how we think about beverages today. For those who believe that American beverages are on the right track, this book offers a partial history of how we arrived at a system that has emphasized convenience, massive diversity, corporate concentration, and consumer choice. For those interested in changing the current system, this book offers insight into how we ended up where we are today—and perhaps even provides inspiration for alternative approaches for the future.
