Reddit reviews The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition

Lightweights.

Two days before the signing of the consitution in 1787, our founding fathers went on an alcoholic binge drinking that is cannot be seen as anything other than awe inspiring

The 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention partied at a tavern. According to the bill preserved from the evening, they drank...

• 54 bottles of Madeira
  
• 60 bottles of claret
  
• 8 bottles of whiskey
  
• 22 bottles of porter
  
• 8 bottles of hard cider
  
• 12 bottles of beer
  
• 7 bowls of alcoholic punch
  
  They then spent two days finding out where they were in the gutters and sobering themselves up with coffee. That's right, they put off the whole unified government thing for partying their asses off.
  
  EDIT: Due to request's, here's my Source
  The author of that article wrote The Alcoholic Republice: An American Tradition
  

The Alcoholic Republic was a fantastic read for me, and right along the lines of the topic. The author, Rorabaugh, discusses how not too many US historians really acknowledge the sheer weight of influence alcohol had on the US after the Revolutionary War. The book makes a few fun claims, but does a great job of citing some absolutely staggering numbers and sticks to illustrating a piece of US history oft overlooked.

haha, I found the page (About half-way, starting at "New York Governor George Clinton")

The Alcoholic Republic is a good resource on American drinking habits. Rum (made cheap by slave-grown sugar cane in the Caribbean) was the most popular drink up until about 1830, when a glut of cheap corn west of the Appalachians made whiskey more prominent. Beer didn't really show up until after the Civil War, when railroads and canals meant that crops could be shipped more easily, and a larger influx of German immigrants brought with them a bigger thirst for beer.

There is some mention of geography/climate in the book: apparently it was difficult to grow grapes in the original 13 states, and corn grew better than barley most places, but I think that economic and cultural reasons outweigh the geographic/climate reasons.

Edit: as wendelgee2 says, cider was also an important American beverage, especially in rural areas with lots of orchards.

I think it was a newpaper, online, etc. article about a proper book or academic writeup of some kind.

This was some years ago & my memory is horrible.

I found something at Amazon that sounds close:


The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition
by W. J. Rorabaugh (Paperback)

The founding fathers would regularly get a whole town shitfaced off of free whiskey that they bought, then send the drunk lot into the voting booth. [source] They also had a nasty habit of using language that would make Richard Nixon blush.