The Alcoholic Republic

I like to think of myself as well educated. I went to great schools, and I was always encouraged to learn more about everything rather than just take one person's opinion. My father was a huge history buff, but somehow he never mentioned (or maybe never knew?) that we used to be a country of drunks.

Sure, some images of people sitting under trees with a bottle of whiskey are familiar to me, but I would never have thought that such a Puritanical nation would be referred to as the "Alcoholic Republic" by many of our founding fathers. From 1790 to 1830, we drank whiskey at every meal. We drank it at work. We drank it at political rallies. We drank it at quilting meetings. Europeans were fascinated by our cheap booze.