What kind of liquor was he making?
Almost all rye, with smaller amounts of brandy. Washington’s whiskey recipe is 60 percent rye, 35 percent corn, and 5 percent malted barley. That was a fairly typical recipe at the time. It wasn’t aged, and it wasn’t bottled. It was sold by the barrel, or if you wanted a smaller amount, you brought your own container and they put it in there. Did Washington drink? Sure. He had a kind of modern attitude towards alcohol consumption. He knew it had some problems: He had more than one employee [whom] he had to discharge because they couldn’t hold their alcohol. But in the military during the Revolutionary War, we have letters he wrote where he talks about the need to supply the troops with alcohol because it’s expected and good for morale. Was whiskey really popular back then? Before the Revolution, most people drank rum that came from the West Indies. After the war, whiskey-making was very cheap, and it became the most popular spirit. Rye was most common because it was cheapest to make. M
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