The cocktail becoming the great American drink is no accident, as claimed by Kimball in her article. “Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum” had to lead somewhere, and colonists who were already naturally eager to drink as they had at home were bound to be the creative minds behind its invention. With wine difficult to obtain due to price and beer not subsisting in northern climates, the rigors and loneliness of life tended to foster a taste for spirits – something easily distilled and found in cookbooks on the shelf. Although rum had become thought of hostile, it was cheap and easily acquired. And no sooner do people get a taste for rum were they mixing it with other liquors and flavors. Thus the start of the earliest concepts of cocktails. …show more content…
Kimball offers that the tendency of mixing drinks, specifically rum with other things, was the real origin of a cocktail.
She lays out the most common argument in where the genealogy of cocktail arose, citing the first printed mention of 1806 with the all familiar composition. However, she draws our attention back to the earliest mixed drink of grog, as well as the wildly popular Punch of 1672, if not 1632. Why would we not believe that a punch, comprised of water, rum, lime juice and sugar, counted as a cocktail? Or the forty-four combinations of rum with other ingredients written in 1759 by Isreal Acrelius in his book? Though she offers the easily found information such as the first finding of print mention, Kimball opens the discussion of cocktail history to question what we classify as a cocktail – is it any mix of liquor with something else or must it be as the first description to be concluded as
such? The author also allows for discussion of how cocktails could be connected to the class status of the consumer at the time, using cocktail loosely in this terms as rum mixed with something else. She draws on evidence that drinking “raw dram” or “raw rum” was somewhat a lower class action. Those who drank raw rum had advanced from civilized mixing of toddy’s and slings down to the raw stuff, in need of the same effects in stronger doses. Those drinking the rum straight would be the alcoholic always nursing his beer or whiskey at the bar until last call to stumble home and have his own stash. The type of punch you consumed could delineate your class, at least in Jamaica. The mixing of liquors invaded every portion of a colonialist’s life, especially in the South where a plantation owner would have one “after coffee, a cooler at nine, a bracer at ten, a whetter at eleven, and two or three stiffeners during the forenoon.” (354) These juleps, toddies, punch and grogs were forever linked with life from the start to the end. Occasions of all types meant an excuse to drink more – from christenings to weddings and even funerals. Dinner in America could not conclude without toasts to everyone’s health, from each person at the table, to the King, Queen, governor and those absent. Kimball paints the image that not just alcohol, wines being imported and championed by Thomas Jefferson at this time, but the early idea of a cocktail was so engrained in the American history that it’s difficult to precisely determine the first origins of a cocktail. With no distinct criteria for one, we must continue exploring with the idea that if it cannot be proven not to be, it must be.
Most people point to wars, Presidents or the economy when asked to describe the history of the United States, but what about alcohol. Social history in general has always taken a back seat to political and economic history, mostly because many aspects of social history are not exactly bright spots from the past. Alcohol, for example, is actually a much bigger aspect of our history than one may expect. As a matter of fact, early America was centered around drinking as a kind of social event. William Rorabaugh’s book Alcoholic Republic outlines how prevalent drinking really was during the years after the Revolutionary War. Rorabaugh argues that post-colonial Americans should be considered alcoholics. However, the evidence Rorabaugh uses
Alcohol has always been a part of feminine culture, but it took a dramatic shift in the early 20th century. In the book, Domesticating Drink, Catherine Murdock argues that during this period, women transformed how society drank and eradicated the masculine culture that preceded this shift. Murdock draws from a few different sources to prove her argument, such as: etiquette manuals published after the turn of the century and anecdotes from the time period. She provides many interesting and unique perspectives on how drinking culture evolved, but she shows a clear bias towards “wet” culture and also makes very exaggerated claims that turn her argument into something that is nearly impossible to completely prove.
Tom Standage has described the beginnings of six beverages: beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola and has found many connections, and information helpful in finding out history of the drinks themselves but also their impacts on the growth of civilization as a whole. This book connects everything with society both past and present, it makes learning about history and the way drinks connect fun and interesting. Like learning without even realizing you are. A History of the World in Six Glasses is more than just talking about each beverage as a single but as a whole, it’s connections, uses, relations, and growth they started.
Theodore Roosevelt may be one of the more notable personalities which have graced the oval office since 1789. Roosevelt’s disposition has been characterized as daring, brash, and ambitious. This image has been molded by stories and events throughout his life, which range from expeditions through the Amazon to giving a speech soon after being shot in the torso. (Andrews)
Enacting prohibition in a culture so immersed in alcohol as America was not easy. American had long been a nation of strong social drinkers with a strong feeling towards personal freedom. As Okrent remarks, “George Washington had a still on his farm. James Madison downed a pint of whiskey a day”. This was an era when drinking liquor on ships was far safer than the stale scummy water aboard, and it was common fo...
World History, itself is a very well complicated topic to discuss. Many other authors have tried to condense many years of history in one book. Subjected to fail, Tom Standage’s attempt was a success. Instead of Standage trying to sum up the history, he simply based the book upon a single topic, in this case beverages.
It is not common that when one thinks of the history of the world that the thought of beer, wine, spirits, tea, coffee, or even Coca-Cola comes to mind. Matter of fact, the thought of a beverage having an impact in history may be the very last thing that comes to mind. But according to Tom Standage in his book A History of the World in 6 Glasses, he argues that these six drinks have had an all-round influence in the history of the world. It is hard to imagine that the drinks we know of today, were the foundation and building blocks of the history that has been engraved in us. As to which beverage has had a greater impact in history, it is a matter of the extent to which each particular drink has contributed to influencing, not just people, but the course of history. Not diminishing the impact of the other beverages, but coffee has had a greater impact in history over tea and the other drinks.
Prior to the arrival of the whites, Native Americans experienced little to no contact with alcohol, or “firewater.” The main introduction of alcohol to Native Americans came through the fur trade. Quickly upon its initiation to Native Americans, alcohol had various social, economic, and political ramifications. [note] To form new relations with Native Americans and to continue existing ones, the consistent distribution of alcohol was established.
Imagine, a little boy sitting at home alone, hungry and scared because he doesn’t know where his parents are. Millions of children live this scenario every day because they have parents who abuse alcohol. Alcohol abuse is an addiction that affects everyone in the drinker’s life. Many examples of this are shown in The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls and her siblings are heavily impacted by their father’s drinking habit and are constantly forced to take care of themselves. Having a parent with a harmful history of alcohol abuse increases the risk of child maltreatment greatly, alcohol use disorder creates many problems especially when children are involved so government should step in and remove children from that environment.
Once people wanted a drink, nothing stopped them. Subsequently, prohibition sparked American ingenuity to step to the forefront. A black market emerged, as brewing beer making wine, and distilling whiskey, became a national past time. Enterprising home brewers could make enough Home brew, Dago Red, Bathtub Gin or Moonshine to quench their thirst and to sell as well. Therefore, stills begin popping up in basements, barns, backrooms, and the deep woods. Both Canada and Mexico were wet, and their border towns offered many opportunities for thirsty Americans to quench their thirst. Ships anchored outside the three-mile limit on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, loaded with alcohol becoming floating bars and nightclubs. Additional ships offered cases of alcohol spirits only to the professional rumrunners. Illegal liquor grew to such an extent that enforcement became virtually impossible.
People have believed in medicinal benefits of alcohol since ancient times, using it to cure snake bites and control disease. Even though the belief has begun to dwindle in the early twentieth century, alcohol was legally manufactured for medic...
Beer and alcohol has been around for thousands of years. It was only in the 1900’s that the idea that alcohol was a bad substance came about. Before prohibition went into effect there were 900 barrels of beer brewed each year. On December 10th of 1913 prohibitionist, people who supported prohibition also know as dries, marched to the capitol for the prohibition amendment. On the opposing, the anti-prohibitionist known as wets, elected the famous brewer Anheuser Bush as their leader. During the time of debate, on April 2nd, 1917 President Wilson declared war against Germany. This war gave the prohibitionist another reason for prohibition. Most of the liquor breweries were from German descent. This gave the wets a chance to combine the idea that war and alcohol were evil because they were both German. After lots of debates prohibition finally passed and went into effect on January 16th of 1920. Once in effect, the federal government wanted the state government to enforce the prohibition laws, meanwhile the state governments thought that the federal government would enforce the new law. This caused lots of confusion and for the law to be broken in many ways. It was acceptable to make wine for home conception, though you could not sell it or sell the ingredients for...
Ezell, Marcel D. "Early Attitudes toward Alcoholic Beverages in the South" Red River Valley Historical Review 7, 1982.
They considered drunkenness ‘degrading to free me’ and questioned the motives of those who would offer a substance that was so offensive to the senses and that made men foolish. Most Native people who did drink alcohol were reported to show ‘remarkable restraint while in their cups’. Most drank alcohol only during social or trading contact with whites. Although drinking patterns since colonization grew almost exponentially, since 1975, drinking patterns among Native Americans have remained constant.( Alcohol 3)
Warsh, Cheryl Krasnick. ""John Barleycorn Must Die": An Introduction to the Social History of Alcohol ." In Drink in Canada: Historical Essays , by Cheryl Karsnick Warsh, 3-26. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993. (SUNY Stony Brook HV 5306.D75 1993)