Alcohol and Drinking History in America: A Chronology

The New Republic

1774-1783.

• “The War of Independence was to have its effect on drinking habits. With the breaking of commercial links with the West Indies, which remained under British jurisdiction, there was demand for substitutes for rum. The new domains to the west of the Appalachians produced whiskey from their growing of maize; rye whiskey became more popular and a large estate in Kentucky began to make Bourbon.”¹
• Troops in the Colonial Army received a daily ration of four ounces of either rum or whiskey.²

1774. The Single Brothers Brewery and Distillery opens in the Moravian religious settlement of Salem, North Carolina.³

1777. George Washington wrote to John Hancock that the “benefits arising from the moderate use of strong Liquor have been experienced in all Armies and are not to be disputed.”⁴

1778. The Free African Society temperance organization was formed and excluded men of drinking habits.”⁷

1781. Corks were first used as a common stopper, which made wine bottle aging possible.⁸

1782. The first California wine was made by priests at San Juan Capistrano.⁹

Post-1783. “...rising nationalism in the post-revolutionary years led American drinkers to switch from rum, a product dependent on supplies from Europe’s Caribbean colonies, to whiskeys distilled from domestically produced grains.”¹⁰ 

1784. Dr. Benjamin Rush published his pamphlet “An Enquiry into the Effects of Spiritous Liquors upon the Human Body, and Their Influence upon the Happiness of Society.” He promoted his ideas that alcoholism is an “odious disease” for which his recommended cures included “whipping the patient severely,” blistering the ankles, bleeding, and purging with toxic substances. Parenthetically, he also promoted his belief that being black was a result of a curable skin disease, which he called negroidism. Intermarrying, he argued, help spread the disease.¹¹

1785. When Rev. Philip Otterbein organized his first United Brethren in Christ church in the U.S., he “took perhaps the strongest stand that had been taken officially by any minister up to that time by excluding from partaking in communion all those who indulged in strong drink.”¹²

1786. Thomas Sewall was a temperance activist who created eight graphic colored drawings of what he called "alcohol diseased stomachs." These were widely distributed to promote abstinence. One temperance leader sent a copy to every household in the state of New York and also sent 150,000 copies to poorhouses, prisons, hospitals and schools.¹³

1789.

• The first Kentucky whiskey was distilled by the Reverend Elijah Craig, a Baptist minister.¹⁴
• Religious events were occasions for drinking. Consumed at the the ordination of a minister in Woburn, Massachusetts, were six and one-half gallons of hard cider, 25 gallons of of wine, two gallons of brandy, and four gallons of rum.¹⁵
• The fourth president of the U.S., James Madison, proposed a low tax on beer to encourage “the manufacture of beer in every State in the Union.”¹⁶
• Massachusetts passed a law to encourage the production of “strong beer, ale, and other maltliquors....The wholesome qualities of malt liquors greatly recommend them to general use as an important means of preserving health of the citizens of the commonwealth.”¹⁷
• “Upwards of 200 of the most respectable farmers of the County of Litchfield,Connecticut, have formed themselves into an association to discourage the use of spiritous liquors, and have determined not to use any kind of distilled liquors, in doing their farming work, the ensuing season.”¹⁸

1790s. "Happy hour" typically began at three o’clock in the afternoon  and cocktails were enjoyed until dinner.²⁰

1791. Congress passed the Distilled Spirits Tax of 1791 (the Whiskey Tax),which imposed a tax on all distilled spirits produced in the US.²¹

1792. Brewing property became non-taxable in New Hampshire.²²

1793. During the Whiskey Rebellion that occurred in Pennsylvania, federal troops established the federal government’s ability and willingness to impose its power by arresting those who refused to pay taxes on their products.²³

1798. John James Dufour planted the first vineyard in Kentucky but the vines failed by 1802.²⁴

Nineteenth Century

• While drunkenness was still an accepted part of life in the eighteenth century,²⁶ the nineteenth century brought a change in attitudes as a result of increasing industrialization and the need for a reliable and punctual work force.²⁷  Self-discipline was needed in place of self-expression, and task orientation had to replace relaxed conviviality. Drunkenness would come to be defined as a threat to industrial efficiency and growth.
• In the early nineteenth century the consumption of spirits dominated drinking in the U.S.²⁸
• The continuous still was developed, which made the distilling process cheaper and easier to control.²⁹
• Problems commonly associated with industrialization and rapid urbanization were attributed to alcohol. Thus, problems such as urban crime, poverty and high infant mortality rates were blamed on alcohol, although "it is likely that gross overcrowding and unemployment had much to do with these problems."³⁰
• More and more personal, social and religious/moral problems were blamed on alcohol. And not only was it enough to prevent drunkenness; any consumption of alcohol came to be seen as unacceptable. Groups that began by promoting temperance - the moderate use of alcohol - became abolitionist and pressed for the complete and total prohibition of the production and distribution of beverage alcohol.³¹

1801.  On The recommendation of Thomas Jefferson, the federal duty of liquor was abolished.³²

1802.

• Many Native American leaders decried the abuse of alcohol among their people. At the request of Chief Little Turtle and a group of Quakers, Congress gave the President  authority “to take such measures from time to time as may appear to him expedient to prevent or restrain the vending or distribution of spiritous liquors among all or any of the said Indian Tribes....”³³
• ”An amendment was added to the Trade and Intercourse Acts that outlawed the use of liquor in the Indian fur trade.”³⁴
• Federal taxes on distilling and importing spirits were repealed.³⁵

1803. By 1803 cocktails appear to have been invented. The first published reference to the cocktail appeared in the Farmer's Cabinet (Amherst, New Hampshire, April 28, 1803) and the first published definition appeared in The Balance and Columbian Repository of 1806 as “a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters.”³⁶

1804. Swiss immigrant Jean-Jacques Dufour planted the first vines in Indiana 12 years before it became a state at what is now Vevay in Switzerland County.  His community of Swiss settlers produced wine made from the first American hybrid (Alexander or Cape) and the first American-grown wines sold to the public.³⁷

1808. “Members of the Congregational Church in Moreau, Saratoga County, New York form a temperance society.”³⁸

1810.

• “In 1810 federal statistics show that the six main whiskey-producing states together distilled twice as many gallons of whiskey per annum as there were people in America. Ten years later, the national per capita consumption had risen to more than five gallons per head per annum.”³⁹
• A French Huguenot began planting vines in New York's Hudson Valley. It was the nucleus for what later became the Brotherhood Winery, the oldest in continuous operation in the U.S.⁴⁰
• Lyman Beecher began his famous series of six sermons against the evils of selling or drinking alcohol and insisted that “Drunkenness is a sin which excludes [one] from Heaven.” They were published in pamphlet form and widely distributed.⁴¹

1813.

• The Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance was founded. It opposed not only rum but all of the "kindred vices, profaneness and gambling" and “every [other] kind of...immorality."⁴³
• Federal taxes were imposed on distillers’ and alcohol retailers’ licenses.⁴⁴

1814. The first grape vines were planted in Hawaii.⁴⁵

1815. The American Practical Brewer and Tanner was published,⁴⁶ indicating widespread interest in brewing.

1818. Federal taxes on distillers’ and retailers’ licenses were repealed.⁴⁷

1819. The first engine used in producing beer in the U.S. was a steam engine built by Thomas Holloway and installed in the brewery of Francis Perot in Philadelphia.⁴⁸

1820.

• Brewers blamed a decline in sales on an increased consumption of whiskey.⁴⁹
• ”Over 2,000 barrels of whiskey were shipped out of Kentucky in 1820, and it was widely known as bourbon.”⁵⁰

1824. Nicholas Longworth planted Catawba vines in Cincinnati, Ohio, and three years later made his first Catawba wine. He retired from law to devote his time to viticulture and wine making, which became very successful.⁵¹

Cir. 1825. The first vines were planted in the state of Washington by a trapper at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River.⁵²

1825.

• The “Lincoln County Process” of filtering whiskey through charcoal before aging was developed in Tennessee.⁵³
• The American Tract Society (ATS) was established. It is a publishing organization that publishes evangelistic Christian and temperance literature. By 1851 it had distributed about 5,000,000 temperance tracts. The ATS still continues it mission today.⁵⁴

1826.  First known as the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance, the American Temperance Society, was established by two Presbyterian ministers. One, Lyman Beecher, was strongly anti-Catholic and also a racist who refused to permit African-American students in his classes at the theological seminary. The other, Justin Edwards, said the organization was to promote temperance while letting drunkards "die off and rid the world of ‘an amazing evil.'" It currently publishes Listen: A Journal of Better Living.⁵⁵

1827. Unidentified sources reported that Wilbraham, Massachusetts, a town of  2,000 residents, consumed 8,000 gallons of rum in one year and that each of the 34 families in Salisbury, Connecticut, consumed 29 and 1/2 gallons of rum in a year.⁵⁶

1829. The D.G. Yuengling Brewery was established in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. It is the oldest brewery in the U.S. still in operation.⁵⁷