Ten Quotations Highlighting Alcohol’s Intoxicating Influence on the American Revolution

The founding generation of the United States, both its leaders and ordinary folks, drank far more alcohol than we do today, tippling diverse offerings including wine, cider, beer, rum, and mixed drinks. This consumption had a profound influence on the American Revolution.[1] These ten quotations highlight the many ways that alcohol impacted the revolutionaries’ society, politics, and economy.

1. “I know not why We Should blush to confess that molasses was an essential Ingredient in American independence.”^[2]—John Adams to William Tudor Sr., August 11, 1818

In the eighteenth century, molasses was the primary ingredient in rum, the most popular spirit in colonial America. Thus, when Parliament in England passed the Sugar Act in 1764—putting a tax on foreign sugar and molasses—it would financially impact several colonies, particularly those in the north. This was especially true for Massachusetts because its capitol, Boston, was the leading rum distiller in British North America, and its inhabitants were the first to protest the tax.[3] The Sugar Act marked the beginning of a decade-long resistance to taxation without representation that ultimately, according to John Adams, led to independence.

2. “I do not stand at any price. I like a Rich Wine, let it be good.”[4]—John Hancock to Hill, Lamar, and Bissett, January 20, 1767

John Hancock was one of the wealthiest men in Massachusetts and could afford whatever beverages he desired, as was clear when he placed this order for madeira. He was not alone in his love for the fortified wine from the island of the same name. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson also imbibed it throughout their lives. But it was Hancock’s smuggling of madeira in June 1768—and the subsequent seizing of his sloop by customs officials—that led to one of the most memorable mobs of the American Revolution. Between 500 and 1,000 men, some of whom had been tippling rum, assaulted the customs officials who had taken the vessel. After, the group dragged one of the bureaucrat’s sailboats out of the harbor, hauled it up to Boston Common, and set it on fire.[5] With the Sugar Act, rum had been the impetus for protests, and in 1768, rum was an incitement.

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3. “I know that they were heated with rum till capable of committing the most shocking outrages.”[6]—Janet Schaw, journal entry, 1775

When war broke out in Massachusetts in April 1775, militias throughout North America began readying to combat the British Empire. Loyalist Janet Schaw watched a local group in Wilmington, North Carolina, with contempt but a bit of fear too. Despite their lack of uniforms and seemingly rag tag appearance, Schaw saw that they were good marksmen and that they were drilling while intoxicated. Colonial training days usually concluded with plenty of drink, but it could be enjoyed during the exercises too—the booze was often furnished by the militia leader himself.[7] While soldiers imbibing was common, drunken troops on both sides stoked fear among civilians, who would be subject to “shocking outrage,” abuse, and aggression.

4. The Quartermaster General’s department “gave us a half pint tumbler full of genuine old Jamaica spirits … Our stomachs being empty, the spirits began to take hold of both belly and brains. I soon became very faint.”[8]—Joseph Plumb Martin, memoir, 1830

Alcohol had been a part of Continental Army rations since 1775, for good reason. Booze could soften the horrors of war, warm soldiers during cold weather, and provide diversion on monotonous days. It functioned as medicine and could incite men to fight stronger and longer.[9] Beer and cider were preferred rations, but they were often unavailable and replaced with rum or whiskey.[10] Food was also supposed to be a part of the provisions, but soldiers rarely had both. Often going hungry, they consumed their liquor rations on empty stomachs. This caused them to get more drunk more quickly, as Martin experienced, because the alcohol was absorbed into the bloodstream faster.

5. “A people corrupted by strong drink cannot long be a free”[11]—Benjamin Rush, An Inquiry into the Effects of Spiritous Liquors on the Human Body, 1790

Signatory of the Declaration of Independence Benjamin Rush is considered one of the founders of the temperance movement. As a doctor who served as a surgeon general of the Continental Army, he grew concerned about the way alcohol rations affected soldiers.[12] In the eighteenth century, temperance did not mean complete abstinence from alcohol, however. Rush believed that fermented drinks were salubrious, including beer, cider, and wine. In contrast, “strong drink”—alcohol that was distilled, like rum, brandy, and whiskey—threatened the United States because people had less control over themselves when drinking it. Rush wondered why people would free themselves from one tyrannical power, Great Britain, only to fall victim to another, alcohol. As a result, he spent decades of his life studying alcohol addiction and cautioning Americans away from distilled liquors.

6. “I found my poor unhappy Son, for so I Must still call him, laid upon a Bed of sickness destitute of a home … a distressing cough, an affection of the liver and a Dropsy will soon terminate a Life … his Physician Says, he is past recovery—I shall carry a Melancholy report to the President.”^[13]—Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, November 10, 1800

Abigail Adams visited her thirty-year-old son, Charles, when he was on his deathbed, suffering from alcohol-related health problems. Because of Charles’s previous struggles related to alcohol dependence—a new concept at the time, pioneered by Benjamin Rush, who called such addiction a “disease”—his father, John (“the President,” as Abigail referred to him), had sworn off seeing him.[14] Abigail was undeterred and visited shortly before Charles passed away. She was surprised that her son did not look like someone who suffered from alcohol addiction. Despite this, she knew he was “past recovery” and would die soon, a devastating realization for her and the Adams family.

7. “Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.”^[15]—Benjamin Franklin to Abbé Morellet, circa July 5, 1779

While in Europe helping to secure the US-Franco alliance, Benjamin Franklin developed a keen interest in wine, loading up his cellar with thousands of bottles, including champagne. Franklin wrote these thoughts about wine in French to a friend, but this translated quotation has morphed into a similar and oft-repeated phrase that he did not say: “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” A man who composed drinking songs and penned cocktail recipes, Franklin enjoyed many types of alcohol throughout his life, including beer, but it was only wine that he praised in this way.

8. “Unless, therefore, the inhabitants of the counties, which have been mentioned are greater consumers of spirits, than those of other parts of the Country, they cannot pay a greater proportion of the tax. If they are, it is their interest to become less so.”^[16]—Alexander Hamilton to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, March 5, 1792

In 1791, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton proposed a tax on spirits produced in the United States, including rum and whiskey, and the stills needed to make them. The Whiskey Tax was unpopular with Americans, especially those living in the western part of the country because their economy relied on producing whiskey to sell to eastern markets. Violent protests broke out shortly after, chiefly in Pennsylvania, beginning what is known as the Whiskey Rebellion.[17] It became a difficult tax to enforce; consequently, Congress lowered the fee a year later. Hamilton was livid, arguing that the consumers would pay the tax, not the producers. If Americans wanted to pay less in taxes, he reasoned, they should drink less. This simplistic view was in bad faith. Saying people should decrease their alcohol intake was not as easy as proclaiming it. In fact, alcohol consumption continued to steadily rise among Americans in the last decades of the eighteenth century.

9. “I consent to your commencing a distillery, and approve of your purchasing the Still.”^[18]—George Washington to James Anderson, January 8, 1797

Just a few years after putting down the Whiskey Rebellion, George Washington became a distiller himself. He had hired James Anderson, a Scottish immigrant, to manage his farms, and Anderson recommended that Washington produce spirits to bring in additional revenue. After some successful trials, Washington consented to constructing a distillery at Mount Vernon. The structure was built by enslaved men, and the arduous work of distilling was also done by them. They made rum and brandy, but whiskey was the primary spirit produced. Mount Vernon became one of the nation’s largest distilleries until operations petered out after Washington’s death in 1799. Gallons of the plantation’s whiskey were served at his funeral.[19]

10. “habit having rendered the light and high flavored wines a necessary of life with me.”^[20]—Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Appleton, January 14, 1816

Thomas Jefferson was a man with exacting taste, and when he lived in France, he—like Franklin—became passionate about European wines. He traveled and tasted throughout the continent and met winemakers and merchants.[21] Back in North America, those who dined with Jefferson remarked on his frequent wine consumption with meals and how often he talked about his vinous interests. John Quincy Adams complained that at Jefferson’s dinner parties “there was as usual a dissertation upon Wines.”^[22] As the first secretary of state, Jefferson was immediately useful to President Washington because he ordered thousands of bottles of European wine for presidential entertaining. When Jefferson was elected to the executive branch in 1800, he continued the tradition of serving plentiful wine at parties and helped further establish the American governing class.

[1] Brooke Barbier, Cocked and Boozy: An Intoxicating History of the American Revolution (Chicago Review Press, 2026)

[2] John Adams to William Tudor Sr., August 11, 1818, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-6959.

[3] Ken Shumate, The Sugar Act and the American Revolution (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2023), 43–84; Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 10–12.

[4] John Hancock to Hill, Lamar, & Bissett, January 20, 1767, in G. G. Wolkins, “The Seizure of John Hancock’s Sloop ‘Liberty,’” Massachusetts Historical Society-Proceedings, vol. 55 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1923), 262.

[5] Brooke Barbier, King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023), 56-61.

[6] Janet Schaw, Journal of a Lady of Quality, ed. Evangeline Walker Andrews (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1923), 190.

[7] W. J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 20; Edward Field, The Colonial Tavern: A Glimpse of New England Town Life—a Social History of America’s Bars in the 1600s and 1700s (Providence, RI: Preston and Rounds, 1897), 118-119.

[8] Joseph Plumb Martin, Memoir of a Revolutionary Soldier: The Narrative of Joseph Plumb Martin (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2006), 66.

[9] Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775–1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 144.

[10] George Washington, General Orders, 8 August 1775, Founders Online, National Archive, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-01-02-0173; Royster, Revolutionary People, 75, 144; Erna Risch, Supplying Washington’s Army (Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 1981), 190.

[11] Benjamin Rush, An Inquiry into the Effects of Spirituous Liquors on the Human Body (Boston: Thomas and Andrews, 1790), 10.

[12] Stephen Fried, Rush: Revolution, Madness, and Benjamin Rush, the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father (New York: Crown, 2018), 201.

[13] Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, November 10, 1800, Adams Papers Digital Edition, Massachusetts Historical Society.

[14] Carl Erik Fisher, The Urge: Our History of Addiction (New York: Penguin Press, 2022), 4–14.

[15] Benjamin Franklin to Abbé Morellet, circa July 5, 1779, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-30-02-0034.

[16] Alexander Hamilton, “Report on the Difficulties in the Execution of the Act Laying Duties on Distilled Spirits, [5 March 1792],” Founders Online, National Archives; founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-11-02-0079; Hogeland, Whiskey Rebellion, 67–68; Baldwin, Whiskey Rebels, 69–70.

[17] Brady J. Crytzer, The Whiskey Rebellion: A Distilled History of an American Crisis (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2023); William Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America’s Newfound Sovereignty (New York: Scribner, 2006).

[18] George Washington to James Anderson, January 8, 1797, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-21-02-0209.

[19] Dennis J. Pogue, Founding Spirits: George Washington and the Beginnings of the American Whiskey Industry (Buena Vista, VA: Harbour Books, 2011), 125-126, 134, 145.

[20] Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Appleton, January 14, 1816, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-09-02-0222.

[21] James M. Gabler, Passions: The Wines and Travels of Thomas Jefferson (Baltimore: Bacchus Press, 1995); John Hailman, Thomas Jefferson on Wine (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2006), 255-256.

[22] John Quincy Adams, diary entry, November 3, 1807, Adams Papers Digital Edition, Primary Source Cooperative at the Massachusetts Historical Society.