Grasse - Colonial spirits: a toast to our drunken history

High taxes forced a revolution. Corn crops invented American beer. Composing on a prescription pad gave Dr. William Carlos Williams short poems. A draconian liquor control system forced the worlds best distilleries to innovate. A missing finger created heavy metal.

The history of American booze is a history of creative workarounds. Like the frothy foam of a beer, the harder were poured, the higher we rise.

SPIRITS CAN BE MANY THINGS:
a transcendental search, the embodiment of inspiration, a ghost in the closet, a bottle of booze.

We see the spirit of America as all of the above.

Before Democracy, there were spirits, and from spirits we created taverns, and it was in those taverns that we laid out the blueprint for a new kind of country, with a new kind of ideology, not ruled by kings and queens but by men and women.

In other words, we got drunk and invented America.

OVERTURE

In the drink, a dream; and in the dream, a spark. So it has gone for more of American life and myth and invention than any teetotaler would ever admit. As children, for generations we have been given a version of our history that leans toward the puritanical. And it has gotten us into nothing but trouble. As a result, so many of us in this landthose of us who are lost equal to those of us whove never strayedhave grown up in battle, in endless war, pitting what weve been told versus what we know to be true: Morning in America has only been a result of nighttime in America.

And we have only been coming out of that night. If you visit Independence Hall, where our forefathers contentiously hammered out not just how wed differentiate from British rule, not just how wed win the war to have the right to do so, but also the very style of governance that guides us today, you will see (among other things) a chair. Cut in deep mahogany with a rich leather seat and gorgeous rails up the back that lead to a carving at the head, it is referred to as the Rising Sun Chair. This was the chair George Washington himself sat in for months on end as the early American political power structure argued bitterly about what our version of democratic rule would look like. At the chairs head, one glimpses half of a golden sun, its brow and eyes and nose watching over what transpired there at Fifth and Chestnut Streets so many years ago. When all was said and done at that first Federal Convention of 1787, when our path was finally agreed to and set, Benjamin Franklin was heard to say perhaps the most American thing anyone has ever said: I have often looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now I know that it is a rising sun.

This book is a salute to those nightsnights of our forefathers putting to paper the rights we hold ever more dearly, nights that have given us freedom itself. Nights in a shed conjuring the modern world: Edison, flight, rock n roll. Nights we thought we might not ever make it through. Nights made magnificent by the promise of the day to come.

Drinking, as it happens, is mostly done at night.

A Note on Our Methodology

The recipes you will enjoy in this humble tome are the result of diligent research and fearless testing. Our research team has delved into several centuries worth of recipes culled from cookbooks of the period, historical record, anecdote, and folklore. We wanted to know not just what our American ancestors drank, but also why they drank it and how it was made.

What we found, time and time again, were two distinct facts:

The early Americans tried to make booze from literally anything they could get their hands on. (See our notes on liquor from wood, .)

In relating these recipes to you, and updating them for modern times, it was of the utmost importance to us that youyes, youwould not die or even be hospitalized should you choose to make or imbibe them.

And so we set out upon our noble effort to make the past come alive inside your mouth. But before we even started narrowing down our selections, we knew that we wanted these recipes to be so user-friendly that anyone with a can-do spirit and access to both the Internet and a local market could approximate them. Wherever possible, we have endeavored to share with you recipes that give the flavor and spirit of the originals without an overly arduous commitment of time or labor. Weve also taken steps to ensure that many of the recipes bear a waste-not-want-not approach. (Didnt like your Cock Ale, for instance? Well, at the very least, you are now in possession of a mighty fine soup stock.) That resourceful, DIY spirit is central not just to our own philosophy but also to the early American spirit, which we know youll find as refreshing as we did. It is our finest hope that this book honors past, present, and future Americans alike. It no doubt will also offer all of them a stiff drink.

With recipes in hand, our crack team of chefs, mixologists, and tasters alike entered the test kitchen, where we honed the recipes you see before you. There was trial; there was error; and then there were more of both; and finally, there was success. Once a recipe passed muster (and with no less than a dozen tasters, this was no mean feat), it was then laid out more or less as you see it before you. However, our work was then tested once more by our publisher, who made sure all these recipes adhere to widely acknowledged and regulated standards of things that can be safely ingested by the human body.

These drinks may get you drunk. They may put hair on your chest. They may send a surge of history-lightning through your organism. But they will not, we are proud to say with some measure of confidence, kill you.

Drink up. Its later than you think.