John Adams. Adams loved alcohol, starting almost every morning with a hard cider. Then porter beer, rum and copious amounts of Madeira....
Martin Van Buren. Drank so much whiskey that it earned him a nickname, “Blue Whiskey Van.” He also enjoyed something called Schiedam (a gin-like Dutch specialty unique to New York’s Hudson River Valley)....
Millard Fillmore. Fillmore rarely drank wine or served it to others. However, this lightweight once admitted to sampling enough old Madeira that he was “slightly fuddled.”...
Chester A. Arthur. When a representative of the Temperance movement tried to pressure Arthur into a no-liquor policy in the White House, he thundered: “Madam, I may be the president of the United States, but what I do with my private life is my own damned business!”...
October 19, 2014
All the Presidents' Drinks.
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Abraham Lincoln
One of our driest presidents, he rarely if ever drank.
The best story about Lincoln and drink is reported to be his response to complaints about General Grant's drinking:
Find out what whiskey he drinks and send all of my generals a case, if it will get the same results.
And George Washington ran Mt. Vernon as an industrial farm enterprise, including the largest distillery in the country at that time.
I think the thing was with Grant that he didn't drink well, which is why it was thought that he drank too much. The other thing though, was that he apparently drank from boredom. So, contrary to some other generals in the Civil War, he apparently didn't drink much when he was fighting. Of course, the Lincoln quote there puts this in doubt.
Bruce,
You are likely correct. Note the caveats in my statement :)
but it's a great line, regardless, given that it plays to the meme that Lincoln had issues finding a fighting General. ...
I do find this interesting. There has been a gradual slide in the drinking in our Presidents since our founding. In my lifetime, it looks like Truman, JFK, and LBJ were the only heavy drinkers. Of course, there have been persistent rumors that Bill Clinton substituted cocaine for booze - something did a job on his nose, and it doesn't appear to have been booze.
I think though that a lot of it is indicative of the times. At least when they could afford it, heavy drinking seems to have been common in our early days, and maybe extending through the first half of the 19th century. I suspect that one thing that has hastened the demise of drinking in this country (after college, a time where it is apparently much more prevalent than in my youth) is the automobile, and the societal costs of drinking and driving. Another may have been the extent that both the world and time have shrunk. Presidents no longer have the luxury of sitting around weeks witting for something to do. Bad enough that our current President spends so much of his time golfing and fund raising, which may be one reason why he seems to be fiddling while the country and the world around him burns. Too much is happening too quickly these days for most people to handle drunk.
I agree about the auto reducing drinking. There is an anecdote in one of my favorite Neville Shute novels of an old Irishman who would drive his one horse trap into town on market day and get drunk. As long as he could get into the trap, the horse would get him home.
One of Washington's first crises was The Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.
You can go here to see all the presidents' ailments.
James Monroe...gunshot, malaria, seizures, tuberculosis
Jackson...slobbering, smallpox, depression, chest bullet, malaria, dysentery, dropsy, diarrhea...
Fillmore snored. Rutherford once had poison ivy. Coolidge slept too much.
My understanding is that Grant did not "drink," but would very occasionally go off on a serious bender. So in the war years, at least, and I think he swore off entirely later.
I think there are also some that claim Grant was not drunk at all, but went through some bouts of severe depression.
Buchanan looks like Father Jack
... a lot of it is indicative of the times.
Read The Alcoholic Republic by W.J. Rorabaugh. We got off lightly with our first twenty presidents given the thirst of the average American in the 19th century.
There's a chapter in Rorabaugh's book that describes how the operating budget of a Pennsylvania circuit court in the 1830s (I think it was PA. I could be mistaken) included funds for a substantial supply of whiskey for the jurymen.
"Coolidge slept too much."
Much of this was left wing mythology like that about Reagan. After his son died of sepsis, he became very depressed and that is why he did not consider another term. Had he done so, we might have avoided the Depression as we did in 1921 when he and Harding avoided the mistakes of Hoover.
Hi, Michael...
That same website also notes that Calvin was depressed...which may have been why he slept so much.
Can we include Cocaine? After all, Obama may not have drunk it but he sure did snot it.
Sportsfans/
During Washington's time it was common to start the morning off with hard-cider for breakfast and go from there the rest of the day. IIRC the avg annual consumption of alcohol in litres/person was three times that of today in Washington's time.
During my undergraduate time in college (62-66) everyone drank and drove. Of course this was Louisiana and the drinking age was 18. Culture has A LOT to do with it. Historians will tell you that the predominately Catholic Parishes in Louisiana have historically been far more "relaxed" about such things than the upstate bible-belt Protestant dominated ones. There is A REASON that Mardis Gras is not held in Minneapolis or Des Moines.
Does Obama drink his own Kool-Aid?
The hard drinking presidents seem to have been a 1868 phenomenon. Grant drank rarely while Hayes suffered under the rule of "Lemonade Lucy". Ike and FDR like a couple cocktails before dinner, while JFK liked Broads not booze.
Harding might have been a heavy drinker though. Taft liked food.
Churchill puts all our Presidents to shame. While stories of him having Brandy for Breakfast seem to be exaggerated, he liked wine and brandy with his meals and usually had plenty of after dinner drinks.
"In 1899. Churchill, aged 25, was a correspondent on the Morning Post, covering the Boer war. Sent out to the front line, he took with him 36 bottles of wine, 18 bottles of ten-year old scotch, and 6 bottles of vintage brandy (a drink he believed was essential to a stable diet)."
"While stories of him having Brandy for Breakfast seem to be exaggerated, he liked wine and brandy with his meals and usually had plenty of after dinner drinks. "
When his wife scolded him in 1938 and told him they had to economize, he promised to limit champagne to three bottles with dinner. Of course, they always had dinner guests but still...
huh Wilson and LBJ had one redeeming quality I guess
Do you sip absinthe, or was it hemlock? I ferget, since I'm just a girl (No Doubt debut album) who caint say "No."
Hiccup.
Just so intoxicated by my little ones...
Never mind me. Hic.
Can I get back on topic?
Permite me one mas trans-digression: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwCykGDEp7M.
He won.
Purple Postpartum Prozaic Ponderings
Can justice be bought: www.shopjustice.com?
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