Posts Tagged ‘whisky’
“It’s called loitering, which is like littering with human beings as the trash”*…
A series of racially-charged incidents of “loitering” have triggered national outrage recently. America’s laws against lingering have roots in Medieval and Elizabethan England; since 1342, the goal has always been to keep anyone “out of place” away.
Visual storyteller Ariel Aberg-Riger dives into the long history of laws against being somewhere you’re not wanted: “What is loitering, really?”
* Neal Shusterman
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As we respect respite, we might recall that it was on this date in 1494 that the first recorded mention of scotch whiskey occurred: an entry in the Exchequer Rolls lists “Eight bolls of malt to Friar John Cor wherewith to make aqua vitae [“water of life,” as the then-medicinally-justified liquor was known]”– a sufficient quantity to produce almost 1,500 bottles, suggesting that distilling was already well-established. Indeed, some historians believe that the “Heather Ale” drink brewed by the Picts was actually early scotch whisky– suggesting that whisky could date back to the late Iron Age (100-50 years BC).
“Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite, and furthermore always carry a small snake”*…
During the 1820s, thousands of folks along the Erie Canal corridor were … succumbing to the mind-blasting effects of raw alcohol. America was reeling through the most phenomenal drinking binge in its history. Hordes of citizens were living their lives in the woozy, dislocated haze of permanent inebriation.
Western farmers who grew barley, corn, and rye found it more profitable to ferment and distill their crops into strong liquor than to ship the grain to market. Whiskey was plentiful and cheap. Each man older than fifteen was drinking on average fourteen gallons of hundred-proof whiskey every year. By the middle of the decade, more than a thousand distillers were operating in New York State. Whiskey was cheaper than wine or beer, more readily available than imported luxuries like tea and coffee, safer to drink than water.
Whiskey was considered ‘so conducive to health,’ a journalist wrote in 1830, ‘that no sex, and scarcely any age, were deemed exempt from its application.’ Children drank. Adults deemed it more patriotic to drink whiskey than French wine or Dutch gin. Liquor filled the role that coffee would later assume as a morning bracer. A glass of whiskey with breakfast was commonplace.
A man need not go to a tavern: he could stop for a glass of whiskey at a grocery or candy store. He could down a shot at a barber shop. Theaters served strong drink. Millers provided the refreshment to waiting farmers. Militia musters always ended with heroic drinking. Casual sellers of grog set up bars in their basements.
Men during this period habitually drank at work. Before the spread of factories, artisans typically operated workshops that employed a dozen or so journeymen and apprentices. The master was expected to provide ale or whiskey for his employees’ dinner and breaks. He often drank with them. He tolerated a degree of absenteeism on what was known as Saint Monday, as workers recovered from Sunday binges…
– From Jack Kelly’s Heaven’s Ditch: God, Gold, and Murder on the Erie Canal, excerpted in the ever-illuminating Delancey Place.
More at “The peak of American intoxication.”
* W.C. Fields
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As we head down the hatch, we might recall that it was on this date in 1844 that Captain J.N. Taylor of the Royal Navy first demonstrated the fog horn. At the time, it was called a telephone (to mean a far-signaling instrument to be used on ships, railway trains, etc.).
Happy National Pecan Pie Day
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