

Getting Drunk in Colonial America (2013) - benbreen
http://theappendix.net/blog/2013/2/getting-drunk-in-colonial-america

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eastbayjake
For those interested, I highly recommend _The Alcoholic Republic_ (1979) which
had an honored place on my college bookshelf[1]. The colonists' drink of
choice was cider -- 18 gallons per year per person during the Revolution. I've
made available his table on alcohol consumption from 1770-1970, showing that
pure alcohol consumption peaked at 3.9 gallons in 1830 and has been rising
steadily since Prohibition[2].

[1] [http://bit.ly/the-alcoholic-republic](http://bit.ly/the-alcoholic-
republic)

[2] [http://imgur.com/lTeKNUA](http://imgur.com/lTeKNUA)

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alphaoverlord
There was a recent Washington Post article which showed the exponential
distribution of drinking the US now - ie. the vast majority of drinks of a
very small sliver of the population. I wonder if that was true then as well,
or more uniform as it was a standard liquid of choice.

[1]
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/25/t...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/25/think-
you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will-tell-you/)

~~~
soylentcola
At first that data surprised me (just assumed that I'd see a more predictable
curve) but now that I think about it, it's not too big of a surprise when I
think about my experience with alcohol and other recreational drugs. Many
people abstain (or nearly so) and many others enjoy degrees of moderate use.
It's only a smaller percentage that really takes to their drug of choice and
runs into likely addiction and habituation issues.

Normally on that chart I'd fall between the 7th and 8th decile depending on
the week but there are exceptions. Sometimes I just don't drink for a few
weeks because I don't meet friends for a beer or whatever. Then other weeks
like the one between Christmas and New Year's Eve I easily push into the 9th
decile between a work party one evening, wine with festive family dinners, and
going out for drinks until the late hours on NYE.

I don't have easy access to detailed data for my own habits over the course of
a year or more so it's tough to estimate where I'd end up after averaging more
weeks together.

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noahm
Consider also the bar tab from a party for George Washington in Philadelphia
in 1787:
[http://teachingamericanhistory.org/convention/citytavern/](http://teachingamericanhistory.org/convention/citytavern/)

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nether
Everything was microbrew back then, plus there were no TV's. I bet taverns
back then were just perfect.

