38. America’s Long Love Affair With Booze
In the 1730s, Benjamin Franklin set out to compile a list of contemporary terms for “drunk” and was able to cite over 200 examples. It was unsurprising, considering how much Colonial America liked alcohol. Even the Puritans loved their booze: In 1630, John Winthrop arrived in Massachusetts aboard a ship laden with over ten thousand gallons of wine, and carrying three times as much beer as water.
In the eighteenth century, rum was the most popular drink, and by the 1760s, New England alone had almost 160 commercial distilleries. In the countryside, farmers fermented their own hard cider, and most of them kept a barrel by the door for their family and for whoever happened to drop by. By the early nineteenth century, hard liquor was so plentiful and so cheap, that it actually cost less than tea.
