Happy Birthday to Our Booziest Presidents

Today is Presidents' Day. Technically, it's the day (the third Monday in February) when we celebrate Washington's birthday (which is really February 22), but most of the ads for mattresses and used cars will feature Washington and Lincoln, our booziest presidents.

Not that they were heavy drinkers, neither man was, but both were in the whiskey business.

For Washington, it was a coda to his public career. Washington the businessman was always looking for ways to make his Virginia estate more profitable. His manager, a Scot, suggested they convert some of the rye, corn and barley grown there into something much more valuable: whiskey. Although it operated for only a few years, the distillery was one of Washington's most successful enterprises.

Today, you can visit Washington's restored gristmill and reconstructed distillery, and even buy some of the whiskey distilled there (recently, not way back when).

For Lincoln, booze was something he got involved with at the very beginning of his adult life, and it dogged him throughout his political career. As a teenager, he briefly worked on flatboats that hauled whiskey from Kentucky to points south. For several years early in his 20s, Lincoln was in the retail liquor business, first as a hired clerk, then as a store owner in New Salem, Illinois. His stores all failed and left him burdened with debt.

Lincoln’s partisans tried to downplay or obscure the fact that he sold whiskey, just as his enemies exaggerated it. Most accounts of Lincoln’s early life describe his stores as 'groceries,' a term that sounds innocent enough to us now, but which at the time was a euphemism for a makeshift rural saloon.

Lincoln's stores sold lard, bacon, firearms, beeswax, honey and other necessities, but mainly whiskey. In tiny New Salem, Lincoln's male customers would hang out and visit with Lincoln, his business partner, and each other while consuming some of the whiskey they had just purchased. This socializing helped Lincoln develop the skills and reputation that carried over into his political career. What's more, it was considered all very normal and respectable at the time.

Years later, Lincoln had to deal with a growing Temperance Movement. His message was, “love the sinner, hate the sin.” He praised the good work of the good folks in the local Temperance society and advocated voluntary abstinence. He practiced it too, according to all accounts.