THE SPIRITS OF PATRIOTISM - PART III
2002-12-17

by Pam North

While the Founding Fathers were some of the more famous tipplers of
colonial America, they also had plenty of company.  Almost everyone
in the New World imbibed - high and low, rich and poor, young and old,
male and female - Americans loved their spirits.

Alcohol was common at the family table.  For many colonists the
day began with an eye-opener of rum mixed with whiskey, or a large mug
or two of hard cider.  A fitting breakfast for Dutch immigrant children
was beer soup.  Hot toddies helped people face the cold weather. 
Shops would close an hour or two before noon for 'leven o'clock bitters. 
Lodgers at inns received a courtesy drink in the morning.

All occasions lent themselves to celebrations with spirits:  weddings,
christenings, funerals, town meetings, arrivals of ships, building of houses,
barn raisings, church suppers, visits of friends, harvest time and holidays. 
The militia musters always ended in a great alcoholic debauch.  The
ordination of ministers called for refreshment, and a brew which came to
be called "ordination beer" was served for such occasions.  The local
tavern owner was often given the honor of sealing a bottle of whiskey in
the cornerstone of a newly-constructed community building.

Fashionable people always served their guests punch from the punch bowl
before dinner.  The bowl alone was passed to be drunk from, without
the glasses.  One custom prevalent among Virginia's Scotch-Irish was
barring the way of a newly-married couple's coach by ropes or other obstacles,
which were not removed until the groom had paid a toll in the form of a
bottle of wine or drinks to his persecutors.

By 1639 brewing had been started in Massachusetts on a small scale.  The
ingenuity of the colonists was equal to the challenge.  Fermented drinks
were made from pumpkins, parsnips, currants, elderberries, wild grapes,
plums, cherries and blackberries.  Distilled drinks were obtained from
persimmons, whortleberries, white and sweet potatoes, turnips, carrots and
Indian corn.  Liquors were made from pears, peaches, honey and honeycomb.
Alkermes was a liquor made from the Kermes insect, which was mistakenly
thought to be a berry.  Apples, not native to America, were brought to this
country by immigrants, and the first apple orchard was planted in 1629 with
the express purpose of making applejack and hard cider.  Orchards were
growing abundantly by 1671, and most New England homesteads had their own
apple orchard as a source for hard cider.  Cider oil was applejack, also
known as "Jersey lightning" (because it struck suddenly), "essence of
lockjaw," "hedgehog quills," a "lug of blue fishhooks," or a "horn of
gunpowder."  The tremors rattling the bodies of enthusiastic applejack
drinkers the following morning were known as "apple palsy."

Applejack was a high-proof liquor siphoned off from a keg or open vat
of hard cider that was left outside to freeze in sub-zero temperatures. 
The chemical process known as fractional crystallization resulted in a
drink called "frozen-heart applejack."

Cider in both hard and sweet forms soon became a major export to the
southern colonies and to the West Indies, and the glass industry flourished
in New Jersey as an accompaniment.  Hard cider was often used as a
medium of exchange to pay bills to local tradesmen, and supplies of it
were even bequeathed in wills.  A swig of cider was usually preferred
over one of water, which was probably a more healthy course of action in
view of the fact that local water supplies were often contaminated. 
Typhus couldn't be gotten from applejack.

Hard cider was a common ingredient in various medicinal cures. 
The "Stone Fence" was a milk pan of hard cider heated on the stove until
steaming, at which point brandy, brown sugar and spices were added to it. 
The "Scotchem" was for serious chest colds; it brought tears to the eyes
of the unfortunate who had to drink it, and it reportedly tasted like ketchup.

Rum was one of the first spirits to be made in colonial days, and it
developed into a saleable product which became an important part of colonial
America's economy.  Serious whiskey-making also began in the colonies
in the early 1700s; some of this brew was almost 150 proof, and as pure
as rainwater.

With the variety of spirits available to the early colonists, it was
only a matter of time and imagination before mixed drinks of countless
combinations became the vogue.  A "Stewed Quaker: was a mug of hard
cider with a hot baked apple immersed in it.  There were flips, syllabubs,
bounces, mimbos, slings, malmsy, hotchpotch, white-belly vengeance, and
patriotic-themed drinks called Yard of Flannel, Split Ticket, Vox Populi,
Son of Liberty and American Eagle.  New York's Black Horse Tavern's
proprieter, Robert Todd, concocted a hot drink that soon became famous
and gave rise to the name "toddy."  The first mixed drink designated
as a "cocktail" was reportedly served in 1776 at Halls Corners Tavern in
New York, when Betsy flanagan, a barmaid there, served a mixed drink with
a rooster feather in it as a decoration.

The states of inebriation that followed the downing of spirits had their
own colorful terminology, such as becoming "haily-gaily," and getting to
the state of "how came you so?"

Appreciation for spirits was deeply ingrained into the lives of American
colonists, and whatever the strange names, odd mixtures and political
consequences, it was all part of the settling of America.


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