An interesting piece I am sure many of you have already seen but here it is
anyway...
The American Encyclopedia (1830 edition) thus described drinking customs in
colonial times:
 
"A fashion at the South was to take a glass of whiskey, flavored with mint,
soon after waking; and so conducive to health was this nostrum esteemed
that no sex, and scarcely any age, were deemed exempt from its application.
 At eleven o'clock, while mixtures, under various peculiar names-sling,
toddy, flip, etc.-solicited the appetite at the bar of the common
tippling-shop, the offices of professional men and counting rooms dismissed
their occupants for a half hour to regale themselves at a neighbor's or a
coffee-house with punch, hot or cold, according to the season; and females
or valetudinarians, courted an appetite with medicated rum, disguised under
the chaste names of "Hexham's Tinctures" or "Stoughton's Elixir." The
dinner hour arrived . . . whiskey and water curiously flavored with apples,
or brandy and water, introduced the feast; whiskey or brandy and water
helped it through; and whiskey or brandy without water secured its safe
digestion, not to be used in any more formal manner than for the relief of
occasional thirst or for the entertainment of a friend, until the last
appeal should be made to them to secure a sound night's sleep.  Rum,
seasoned with cherries, protected against the cold; rum, made astringent
with peach-nuts, concluded the repast at the confectioner's; rum, made
nutritious with milk, prepared for the maternal office. . . . No doubt
there were numbers who did not use ardent spirits, but it was not because
they were not perpetually in their way. . . . The friend who did not
testify his welcome, and the employer who did not provide bountifully of
them for his help, was held niggardly, and there was no special meeting,
not even of the most formal or sacred kind, where it was considered
indecorous, scarcely any place where it was not thought necessary, to
produce them. . . ."
 
Excerpted from Herbert Asbury's book: "The Great Illusion: An Informal
History of Prohibition" Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY 1950
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Steve Powell
http://www.bluemoon.net/~spowell