With the merging of many presidential birthdays into one commonly celebrated postal/bank holiday, the birthdays of individuals such as George Washington are often forgotten by the average American. Today, I would love to celebrate George Washington on his birthday with a post about a beverage which truly impacted his life and the founding of our great nation – whiskey.
In honor of President's Day, this post will focus on a famous American and how whiskey played a major role in his life and his policies as our nation’s first president.
Just about everybody who ever went to school knows about Washington’s feats as a general. It is less commonly known, however, that Washington was an incredibly shrewd businessman who played a major role in the tobacco and distilling industry of his day and was, by most records, the wealthiest man in America. Not only did he own a whiskey distillery – he owned the largest one in the country in the eighteenth century (a whopping 2,250 square footer at a time when the average was ~800 sq. ft). To illustrate the extent of his production capabilities, Washington’s distillery produced 7,500 gallons of whiskey in 1799 at a time when the average Virginian distillery produced around 650!
For more details on Washington’s 18th century operation, click on the link below:
http://www.mountvernon.org/visit/plan/index.cfm/pid/948/
Not only did he distill it – he also drank it. While most accounts show that Washington’s favorite drinks were fortified wines (ports and sherries) there is clear evidence that he not only drank whiskey, but thoroughly enjoyed it.
Although history is rich in irony, perhaps one of the greatest ones involve Washington as a President. Most historians believe that the most significant event to take place during his tenure as our nation’s first leader was the Whiskey Rebellion. When Congress passed a tax on whiskey in 1791 (yes . . . . .the sin taxes came before all the other ones!), it created a full-blown rebellion that tested the ability of the young nation to enforce law and order. What makes the event truly ironic is that the largest distiller in the country was charged with crushing the rebellion and Washington put his country before his pocket and successfully quelled the whiskey riots by mustering a large and menacing army. Could you imagine the execs at Exxon or AIG doing the same today if a tax were put on gas or bank revenues?
Some historians believe that the whiskey rebellion might have sunk the country’s unity if it had been successful. It would have undermined the ability of Congress to pass laws and would have greatly weakened our nation. Not only did the event have major historical implications, it also had all the fixings of a great country song – whiskey, rebels, blue-collared folk, Robert E. Lee’s pappy, and the South beating the North (the epicenter of the riots were in Pittsburgh which is logical if you’ve ever met Steelers fans). All kidding aside, you should take a moment to celebrate our nation’s first leader and this historic event by buying a bottle of your favorite whiskey, paying the tax on it, and drinking it nice and slowly . . . . . . .
