The McBournie Minute: Drink like a president

As you may have heard already, today is President’s Day, well, actually it’s really just called Washington’s Birthday, even though George Washington was born on Feb. 22. It’s a strange holiday in a month filled with holidays we all know how to celebrate.

For Valentine’s Day, we buy flowers, or grumble about how much our sad, pathetic, lonely lives are. For Mardi Gras, we flash our boobs in exchange for plastic jewelry easily available for a dollar or two, thereby flashing people for so little that a stripper would be insulted. We have these holidays because February is probably the worst month ever. It’s cold, it’s mid-winter, and one can easily give up on life because of this.

So how the hell do we celebrate President’s Day? Drink like the Commander in Chief.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you how to drink like all 44 presidents, you might die. Besides, some of them were teetotalers, and others have a messy drinking history. (Example: George W. Bush was really fun to drink with in his younger days, but by the time he got to the White House, he never touched the stuff.) So, let’s go with the drinking habits of the first three presidents–drinkers in a time when the common man drank daily, but for gentlemen, it was unseemly to appear inebriated in public.

George Washington
The father of our country was also one of its best drinkers. Before he became president he was known for bending an elbow. Wine and rum were his drinks of choice. It’s said he drank so much that he would stain his false teeth brown, which led to rumors about them being wooden (typically, they were ivory), and then he would order new ones.

In 1787, Washington served as president of the Constitutional Convention, where they created the document we now know as the highest law in the land. Estimates seem to vary a bit, but the 55 delegates celebrated hammering out the legal side of our new country by getting hammered. They ordered whiskey, wines, beer, punch and hard cider, so much of it that they had about three bottles of alcohol per delegate. The first political party.

While he was in office, the U.S. government levied a tax on whiskey, which distillers everywhere found appalling. They even formed an rebellion to challenge the government on the matter. Washington, mustering up some of his old army bravado, saddled up as president and led American troops to meet the Whiskey Rebellion, but it disappeared when they heard Washington was coming. Had there been a battle, Washington would have been fighting his own kind. At one point, he was the leading whiskey distiller in America.

However, it’s most notable that at Valley Forge, during the American Revolution, he ordered that enlisted men get their rum rations before the officers. So in our brutal winter today, perhaps this is the best route to go.

John Adams
Our second president, and first vice president, drank all of his life. In fact, he began every day with a glass of hard cider. He must have found that it helped him rise in the morning and set about work for his country. During his career, he worked to get the Declaration of Independence created, helped create the U.S. Navy, convinced the French to join the revolution, served as first U.S. ambassador to Great Britain and of course became the first to serve in the White House.

During his time in France and England, hard cider was not as easy to come by, so he switched to the finer wines of Europe, particularly Madeira, a fortified Portuguese wine. He must have passed on his love to his son, because John Quincy Adams (also a president) named 11 of 14 Madeiras in a taste test.

Adams the elder was also known to drink rum, showing his New England roots. Perhaps he knew that alcohol was the secret to good health centuries before doctors did, because those daily drinks helped him live to the age of 90, which was beyond ancient back then.

Thomas Jefferson
The most noted free-thinker of the age was also a free-drinker. Jefferson is better known for being the author of the Declaration of Independence than being our third president. He was chosen by Adams and Benjamin Franklin to write the document because he had a style and flourish in his prose that the other two patriots lacked. However, Jefferson felt the immense pressure of writing such a document and worked tirelessly on it, aided by continuing glasses of Madeira at a Philadelphia tavern.

If liberty was Jefferson’s first lifelong love, wine was a close second. He quenched his thirst with European wines while serving his country as an ambassador to France with Franklin and Adams during the Revolution, then came back home, and in his off time, tried unsuccessfully to come up with a variety of grape that would be hardy enough to stand the harsh Virginia weather. Still, he had at the time one of the best wine cellars in America. When he had guests visit, he made sure they had full glasses at all times.

So, today of all days, it seems appropriate to celebrate those who set this great country upon its path to success with a glass or tankard of whatever you want. They fought for your freedom of choice of drink after all.

Thanks to many sources, among them: Richard English, David McCullough and the Barboursville Vineyards.

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