The Pilgrims drank so much beer on Mayflower that they'd almost run out by the time they reached America, and they may have landed at Plymouth simply because they didn't have enough beer to fuel the search for a better place. "We could not now take time for further search and consideration," one passenger wrote, "our victuals being much spent, especially our beere." Not long after landing, the Pilgrims began making wine out of wild grapes. They served it to the Indians at the first Thanksgiving, although you probably didn't hear about that back in kindergarten.

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The Puritans are not known as party animals, but they arrived in Boston in 1630 on a ship that carried plenty of beer—and 10,000 gallons of wine. Despite their well-deserved reputation as killjoys, the Puritans didn't oppose drinking, they merely opposed drinking too much. "Drink is in itself a good Creature of God, and to be received with thankfulness," wrote Increase Mather, the famed Puritan preacher, "but the abuse of drink is from Satan."

All over the colonies, settlers quaffed vast quantities of this "good Creature of God." When they could get it, they drank imported wine, brandy and port, but such luxuries were expensive and tended to mysteriously disappear en route from England in accidents attributed to "leakage." Consequently, thirsty colonists began making booze out of just about everything, as recounted in this little ditty from the 1630s:

If barley be wanting to make into malt,
We must be content and think it no fault,
For we can make liquor to sweeten our lips,
Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips.

Among the most popular concoctions in colonial-era taverns was a drink called "Flip." The bartender filled about two-thirds of a mug or pitcher with beer, added a dollop of rum, sweetened the cocktail with sugar, molasses or dried pumpkin and then stirred it with a red-hot poker, which made the drink bubble, gurgle and steam. Good for what ails you, especially on a cold winter's night.

Tea is the beverage most commonly associated with the American Revolution, but beer and rum are far more deserving of that honor. Even though Samuel Adams was a devout Congregationalist (see "The Revolutionary Gospel According to Samuel Adams," p. 42), he recruited his Sons of Liberty in Boston taverns, causing Tories to mock him as "Sam the Publican." And the patriots who dumped British tea in Boston harbor had fortified themselves for their mission by downing several bowls of rum punch. Later, General George Washington boosted his troops' morale with a daily ration of rum. "The benefits arising from the moderate use of strong Liquor," he explained, "have been experienced in all Armies and are not to be disputed."

Unlike today's milquetoast pols, America's Founding Fathers were eager tipplers. James Madison liked to start his day with a tumbler of whiskey. John Adams breakfasted on what his son described as "a large tankard of hard cider." Washington owned one of Virginia's most productive whiskey distilleries. Thomas Jefferson was an avid wine connoisseur and so was Benjamin Franklin, who wrote an ode to drinking that concluded with this lovely couplet:

That virtue and safety's in wine-bibbing found
While all that drink water deserve to be drowned.

One of the first crises of the newborn United States of America was caused by whiskey—or, more accurately, by a whiskey tax. In 1791 Congress voted to tax whiskey, which proved to be extremely unpopular, particularly in the Appalachian Mountains, where whiskey-making was not only a passion but a major source of cash income for subsistence farmers. In 1794, near Pittsburgh, a motley army of tax protesters rebelled, attacking courts and tarring and feathering a tax collector. President Washington responded by personally leading a militia army to put down what came to be called the "Whiskey Rebellion."

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