'Twas Honest old Noah first planted the Vine And mended his morals by drinking its Wine. —from a drinking song by Benjamin Franklin There were, Peter Thompson notes, some one hundred and fifty synonyms for inebriation in common use in colonial Philadelphia and, on the eve of the Revolution, just as many licensed drinking establishments. Clearly, eighteenth-century Philadelphians were drawn to the tavern. In addition to the obvious lure of the liquor, taverns offered overnight accommodations, meals, and stabling for visitors. They also served as places to gossip, gamble, find work, make trades, and gather news. In Rum Punch and Revolution, Thompson shows how the public houses provided a setting in which Philadelphians from all walks of life revealed their characters and ideas as nowhere else. He takes the reader into the cramped confines of the colonial bar room, describing the friendships, misunderstandings and conflicts which were generated among the city's drinkers and investigates the profitability of running a tavern in a city which, until independence, set maximum prices on the cost of drinks and services in its public houses. Taverngoing, Thompson writes, fostered a sense of citizenship that influenced political debate in colonial Philadelphia and became an issue in the city's revolution. Opinionated and profoundly undeferential, taverngoers did more than drink; they forced their political leaders to consider whether and how public opinion could be represented in the counsels of a newly independent nation.

This volume recounts the individuals, ingredients, corporations, controversies, and myriad events responsible for America's diverse and complex beverage scene. Smith revisits colonization, the American Revolution, the Whiskey Rebellion, the temperance movement, Prohibition and its repeal and tracks the growth of the American beverage industry throughout the world. The result is an intoxicating encounter with an often overlooked aspect of American culture and global influence.

Rum arguably shaped the modern world. It was to the eighteenth century what oil is to the present, but its significance has been diminished by a misguided sense of old-fashioned morality dating back to Prohibition. In fact, Rum shows that even the Puritans took a shot now and then. Rum, too, was one of the major engines of the American Revolution, a fact often missing from histories of the era. Ian Williams's book -- as biting and multilayered as the drink itself -- triumphantly restores rum's rightful place in history, taking us across space and time, from the slave plantations of seventeenth-century Barbados (the undisputed birthplace of rum) through Puritan and revolutionary New England, to voodoo rites in modern Haiti, where to mix rum with Coke risks invoking the wrath of the gods. He also depicts the showdown between the Bacardi family and Fidel Castro over the control of the lucrative rights to the Havana Club label. Telling photographs are also featured in this barnstorming history of the real "Spirit of 1776."

They began their existence as everyday objects, but in the hands of award-winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, fourteen domestic items from preindustrial America–ranging from a linen tablecloth to an unfinished sock–relinquish their stories and offer profound insights into our history. In an age when even meals are rarely made from scratch, homespun easily acquires the glow of nostalgia. The objects Ulrich investigates unravel those simplified illusions, revealing important clues to the culture and people who made them. Ulrich uses an Indian basket to explore the uneasy coexistence of native and colonial Americans. A piece of silk embroidery reveals racial and class distinctions, and two old spinning wheels illuminate the connections between colonial cloth-making and war. Pulling these divergent threads together, Ulrich demonstrates how early Americans made, used, sold, and saved textiles in order to assert their identities, shape relationships, and create history.

The first visual and narrative account of the American Revolution told through tales about the Colonial-era inns, taverns, and alcoholic beverages that shaped it, Taverns of the American Revolution is equal parts history, trivia, coffee-table book, and travel guide. A Complete Guide to the Spirits of 1776 In 1737, Benjamin Franklin published “The Drinker’s Dictionary,” a compendium of more than two hundred expressions for drinking and drunkenness, such as “oil’d,” “fuzl’d,” and “half way to Concord.” Nearly forty years later, the same barrooms that fostered these terms over bowls of rum punch helped sow the seeds of revolution. Taverns of the American Revolution presents the boozing and schmoozing that went on in some of America’s most historic watering holes, revealing the crucial role these public houses played as meeting places for George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and their fellow Founding Fathers in the struggle for independence. More than a retelling of the Revolutionary War, this unique volume takes readers on a tour of more than twenty surviving colonial taverns; features period artwork, maps, and cocktail recipes; and is filled with trivia and anecdotes about the drinking habits of colonial Americans. From history buffs and those interested in colonial architecture and art to tavern goers, beer aficionados, trivia lovers, and those keen on hitting a few historic pubs on their road trip through the original thirteen colonies, this one-of-a-kind compendium is the ultimate guide to the taverns that helped spark a revolution. Includes: -Commentary on more than twenty surviving colonial taverns Period artwork, maps, and documents -A detailed time line of the events leading up to, during, and immediately after the American Revolution -Six colonial cocktail recipes -A comprehensive index of more than one hundred fifty surviving colonial taverns -An abundance of little-known facts and anecdotes that will have you owning your next pub quiz trivia night

"This important study explores the medicalization of alcohol abuse in the 19th century US” and its influence on American literature and popular culture (Choice). In Rum Maniacs, Matthew Warner Osborn examines the rise of pathological drinking as a subject of medical interest, social controversy, and lurid fascination in 19th century America. At the heart of that story is the disease that afflicted Edgar Allen Poe: delirium tremens. Poe’s alcohol addiction was so severe that it gave him hallucinations, such as his vivid recollection of standing in a prison cell, fearing for his life, as he watched men mutilate his mother’s body—an event that never happened. First described in 1813, delirium tremens and its characteristic hallucinations inspired sweeping changes in how the medical profession saw and treated the problems of alcohol abuse. Based on new theories of pathological anatomy, human physiology, and mental illness, the new diagnosis established the popular belief that habitual drinking could become a psychological and physiological disease. By midcentury, delirium tremens had inspired a wide range of popular theater, poetry, fiction, and illustration. This romantic fascination endured into the twentieth century, most notably in the classic Disney cartoon Dumbo, in which a pink pachyderm marching band haunts a drunken young elephant. Rum Maniacs reveals just how delirium tremens shaped the modern experience of alcohol addiction as a psychic struggle with inner demons.

Discover why rum is becoming the hottest spirit in the world right now with the latest and greatest offering from bestselling author and master mixologist Tristan Stephenson.