It’s a cross-over! This week we joined Cody Wheat from the Shots of History podcast to talk about that one time that George Washington sent the army to deal to force some country bumpkins to pay their taxes – in other words, the Whiskey Rebellion. How did we become a nation of whiskey-drinkers, why was whiskey taxed in the late 18th century, and what kind of legacy did the Rebellion leave? Join Marissa, Sarah, and Cody to learn all about it.
Show Notes & Further Reading
Lender, Mark Edward, and James Kirby Martin. Drinking in America: A History (New York: Free Press, 1987).
Slaughter, Thomas. The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
Just for funsies: “One Last Ride,” the song about the Whiskey Rebellion that was cut from Hamilton: The Musical
The Whiskey Rebellion
Produced by Marissa Rhodes and Sarah Handley Cousins in conjunction with Cody Wheats
Edited by Marissa Rhodes
Transcribed by Elizabeth Garner Masarik
Sarah: Today on the podcast we are talking about the Whiskey Rebellion- the conflict between rural Appalachian whiskey distillers and the federal government that took place in 1794 in western Pennsylvania, right around what is now Pittsburg, PA. This podcast is a collaboration with our friend Cody Wheats.
Cody: Hey everyone, my name’s Cody Wheats. I host a podcast called Shots of History, where I talk about the intersection of history and alcohol. So it could be something like this episode, where we talk about the Whiskey Rebellion, or it could be something a little bit more abstract. Like how alcohol consumption in New York actually influenced the growth of the Florida orange industry. I’m really happy to be collaborating with Sarah and Marissa today, I’m really happy that they agreed to do this. And you will be hearing from me a little bit later in the episode.
Sarah: So first we’ll talk a little bit about alcohol culture in America before the Whiskey Rebellion, in the 18th century. What kind of alcohol people drank and how it got to a place where we were drinking whiskey in the United States. Um, then Cody will tell us a little bit about the tax that was levied on whisky that fomented this whole rebellion, and then at the very end I’ll talk a little bit about the legacies and the situations after the Whiskey Rebellion, and then we have a really great conversation about this conflict and what it has meant for America and what maybe it can tell us about America today.
And we are the History Buffs.
Welcome to the History Buffs podcast, where history matters. After today’s show, go to iTunes, rate us, and leave a review. We hope you enjoy the episode!
Marissa: By the 1790s, whiskey held a special place in the hearts of American drinkers. I thought I’d take a few minutes to explain how this happened. Much like Americans are today, colonial Americans were into beer, as much for food safety reasons as for personal preference. Because basically it was safer to drink beer than it was water, which was full of microbes. Um, but most early American beer had a low alcohol content. Wine, a staple in the Old World, was generally unavailable for all but the wealthiest elites. I think Jefferson had like a huge collection of wine.
Sarah: He did but he went into huge significant debt importing it.
Marissa: Right, so it wasn’t what your average person could. There wasn’t enough demand for it to stimulate American viticulture until much later (like the 1980s). Gin, a staple of every British drunkard, was a grain-based alcohol flavored with the juniper berry. Gin became so popular in Georgian London that satirists like William Hogarth depicted debauched scenes of vagrants and lie-abouts, wasted out of their minds, and littering the London streets. I think one of his cartoons is called “Gin Lane” or something like that. This was called the “gin epidemic.” So, given the high numbers of English flocking to the colonies, one would think that gin would be popular there too. But no, gin never caught on. Some historians think this is because in England, gin was most popula