Historian and biographer Susan Cheever (E.E. Cummings) believes alcohol and drinking have been an underlying force shaping the American story from the 17th century to the present. She launches her engrossing, insightful narrative with the Mayflower, which transported 200 barrels of alcohol to the New World. The voyage was beset with difficulties, and adults and children consumed beer for sustenance and to maintain health, as water stockpiled in barrels onboard grew fetid. Running out of beer was a major reason the Pilgrims landed at Cape Cod and not further south. Ten years later, the Puritans jump-started the American brewing industry and their efforts paved the way for the production of distilled liquor: whiskey, cider, rum.
The well-researched and well-developed timeline Cheever presents winds through the Whiskey Rebellion; Johnny Appleseed planting apple orchards on the frontier that led to healthy apple cider production and, later, 66 proof applejack; Meriwether Lewis's reliance on whiskey to help build the Erie Canal; alcohol profiteering, including how the rum trade was connected to slavery; and the Civil War, where liquor helped turn the tide of battle--for better or worse.
Cheever cites many examples of how alcohol and drinking have been divisive and destructive forces that have brought "pain... and incompetence" to the history of our national landscape. But she makes an equally effective and compelling historical case for how "drinking is a cherished American custom--a way to celebrate and a way to grieve and a way to take the edge off. It brings people together." --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines