U.S. Presidents and the Alcohol Race

With the Presidental inauguration taking place yesterday, we thought it appropriate to share an episode written to talk about U.S. Presidents, the good, and bad, of alcohol at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and beyond. From George Washington to Barack Obama, see which presidents were good for the industry and which ones made alcohol bad for their health. 

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Transcript

Hi everyone and thank you as always for listening to the Buffalo Brews podcast. I am Jason Edinger and recording here in the Mont Fortress podcast studio for this episode. You have me because Bree is under the weather and she's been fighting this over Christmas and really needs the push because the Caribbean is calling.

I'm recording this just after New Year's and you will be hearing this on or after the drop date, which is January the 21st. Where are Bree and I today as this drops? We are in Georgetown, Grand Cayman, as the podcast is literally going to hell today. You'll have to listen to the podcast of the Caribbean 2 episode coming next month for a little bit more on that.

Fresh off the Cheers to American Beer series of barely getting started and with us seeding a new president this month, and actually in just a few days, I can promise you that this episode will leave politics aside and in return, we give you a highlight reel of the history of U.S. presidents and their appreciation, both good and bad, of alcohol. Speaking of such, what am I drinking? Is it good? Is it bad? Well, I am drinking Elijah Craig Small Batch Bourbon, an episode like this calls for bourbon because this one here is an award winning bourbon that basically started it all. Signature Small Batch owes its distinctive warm spices.

It's got a subtle smoke flavor, level three charred oak barrels, and it's a favorite for bourbon connoisseurs and casual whiskey fans alike. Get a little bit of that on the nose there. We have the Wood Spice.

Now this one is particular to the 2020 batch. This is in a 2024 bottle. So you have the Wood Spice, a little bit of nutmeg, cinnamon.

I like this a lot. This was an award for Best Small Batch in the San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2018, and then they scored a 91 and double gold at the Tag Global Spirits Awards in 2024. They're also a double gold winner at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition in 2021 and 2022.

Fun little fact is that Elijah Craig is actually the official bourbon of the 2024 PGA Championship that was at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky. I was asked to volunteer for the 2025 championship, which is this year in Quail Hollow in Charlotte, North Carolina, but I'm going to be fresh back off of a trip to Orlando, so I won't be able to volunteer for that. But it's a great opportunity and I'm hoping I'll be able to get to do it again someday because part of the 2023 championship that I've talked about previously on the podcast that was held at Oak Hill in Rochester, New York.

So this is going to be something for me to enjoy for the rest of this opening. One more sip there. I love a bourbon that coats like that and it's got this, the wood spice really stands out on it, I think is what you really look for in a quality Kentucky bourbon.

So this will be my enjoyment here for the rest of this opening. 2024 was certainly exciting for us here at the podcast because we published 46 episodes that started first with an episode appropriately named Day 1, where we told you about the breweries and locations paired with great hikes around Western New York. Our final episode took us to a holiday episode, megasode for that matter, in which we talked Christmas movies and wine tours.

And thanks to you, the Brewniverse, as we've learned to call you, the listeners, the faithfuls, we're excited that we saw an 18% growth over 2023. And the countless comments, the feedback, the face-to-face conversations that I have in public, it all makes our fun little project to record and makes us enthusiastic to continue to share with you. We heard in 18 different countries in 2024, and we love seeing those statistics with every episode and appreciate ever-growing numbers for our faithful in places like Germany, Ireland, Australia, and then this year alone we saw new countries enter the ranks such as the Philippines, Singapore, Bangladesh, and the UK.

When we look at how you listen to us, we find that 70% of you do so via just 4 podcast apps. So that's Apple, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, and Spotify. And as always, you can like and subscribe on any applications, and in some cases you can even follow that allows episodes to download directly to you when they are first dropped, which is usually on Tuesdays at 12 midnight.

This means when you get in the car to head to work, you're ready to go. You just hit play. A growing trend in 2024 was listening via web browsers.

So we found that 21% of listeners chose to do so, and because of that we saw a substantial growth on our website, and you can listen to any of our episodes at buffalobrewspodcast.com. At the website, you can access our entire library, currently up to 136 episodes, including this one. And you can check out our pod shop, which has themed merchandise and can be delivered to your front door. Most recently, we released our Field Hopperdive and Podcastamania designs.

We'll be having a sale on those pretty soon to basically give them the public debut that they deserve. All of our profits go to charity, and in 2025 we are giving to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which is building an affordable housing apartment complex that will ultimately house 90 veterans locally. If you're in the Buffalo area, you've probably seen that marked off.

It's right off of the Cleveland-Harlem Circle in Cheektowaga. And folks, finally for this opening, I'd like to pitch an annual appeal of sorts to you. Statistically, podcasts that produce more than just 10 episodes make up the top 10% of all podcasts in existence, and we're happy to say that we are in that top 10%, obviously, since we're at 136 episodes.

And as I said earlier, we're excited to always bring this content to you. So what we would ask is, real quick, if you've ever gotten any entertainment out of listening to us, me, Bree, me and Bree barely getting started, please, if you haven't done so, leave us a five-star review on whatever platform that you can. Give us a write-up, especially on Apple Podcasts, where we like to share those to our website.

If you go to our website at buffalobrewspodcast.com, you can see a list of all the reviews that we've received in the past. We are notified every time we get one, and we love to read them, and they actually make our day 100% of the time. So we would love to hear from you, and it helps us get exposure for what helps build continued great content for you.

We're excited about what's happening in 2025 coming up, and excited that we can have you a part of it with us. Cheers to you. Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy.

These are the, quote, infamous words spoken by Benjamin Franklin. More on that in a moment. On December 29th, we lost a man who, at the time, was the oldest living president, James Earl Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, serving from 1977 until 1981, was also a 2002 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

But did you know that President Carter was considered a hero in craft beer? In 1978, when only about 100 breweries existed that controlled most of America's beer output, Carter played a significant role in the evolution of craft beer in America. He was the first person to legalize homebrewing and small-scale craft for personal or family use. The new law, H.R. 1337, deregulated the American beer industry by making it legal to sell malt, hops, and yeast to American homebrewers for the first time since the 1920 beginning of Prohibition in the United States.

This deregulation led to the increase of homebrewing over the 1980s and 1990s that, by the 2000s, had developed into a strong craft microbrew culture in the United States with over 10,000 microbreweries, brewpubs, and regional craft breweries in the United States at this time. While Carter is the founding father of the modern craft beer era, it is important and interesting also to look at our founding fathers of the United States, several of which had close-knit connections with alcohol. Did you know that founding fathers and presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams were all brewers? During his presidency, George Washington typically downed four glasses of Madeira, a fortified wine from the Portuguese island of Ironically named Madeira, every afternoon.

It was recorded that he had habitually had a silver pint cup or mug of beer placed by his plate, which he drank while dining. After serving his term, he retired to his house on Mount Vernon and started brewing beer for himself. As was noted by one visitor, both beer and porter were among the beverage choices offered during a Mount Vernon dinner back in 1799.

Martha Washington's grandson noted that Washington generally drank a homemade beverage at dinner, which was probably a reference to beer brewed on the estate, one of which was known as small beer. It is transcribed in the Journal of George Washington while he was serving with the Virginia Militia in 1737, which today is on display at the New York Public Library. He was about 25 years old at the time, and it reads as following.

Recipe for small beer. To make small beer, take a large siffer full of bran hops to your taste. Yikes.

Boil those for three hours, then strain out 30 gallons into a cooler. Put in three gallons molasses while the beer is scalding hot, or rather, draw the molasses into the cooler and strain the beer on it while boiling hot. Let this stand till it is little more than blood warm, then put in a quart of yeast.

If the weather is very cold, cover it with a blanket and let it work in the cooler for 24 hours, then put it into the cask. Leave the bung open until it is almost done working. Bottle it the day week it was brewed.

Meanwhile, since its discovery, Washington's small beer recipe, which has been recreated by multiple historical beer connoisseurs, in 2011, the New York Public Library and Brooklyn-based Coney Island Brewing Company partnered to brew a porter that was similar to the recipe, but amended slightly to appeal to a contemporary drinker's palate. John Adams, Washington's successor, partook in a tankard of hard cider every morning at breakfast. Thomas Jefferson, our third president, invested his resources into learning the art of brewing.

Five years later, he owned a personal brew house, and he spared no expense in the pursuit of happiness. A moderate ember as the Sage of Monticello certainly didn't drink the most of any president, but he definitely drank the best. He had been so spoiled by fine cuisine and liquors from his five years as a minister in Europe that he spent more than $15,000 over $300,000 in present-day money on wine during his White House years.

His vast wine collection swelled to more than 20,000 bottles. Think about walking into a premier like on Maple or the one on Transit. You're looking at something around that size.

Before becoming president, James Madison was better known as the father of the U.S. Constitution. James Madison pitched the very first bill to tax alcoholic beverages. The new tax was levied on porter, rum, beer, ale, and other spirits.

The fourth president of the United States was possibly the biggest advocate for home brewing. He wanted to appoint a secretary of beer to the presidential cabinet around 1809. Samuel Adams, even though he was never president, worked as a partner in the family malt house, which was next to the family home on Purchase Street.

Several generations of Adamses were maltsters who produced the malt necessary for brewing beer. Years later, a poet poked fun at Adams by calling him Sam the Maltster. Adams has often been described as a brewer, but the extent of the evidence suggests that he worked as a maltster and not a brewer.

He also made financial decisions for the malt house and had a position of influence in the business, which he lost due to his lack of understanding the responsibilities of accounting and running a business, which led to many poor decisions and then caused the malt house to ultimately close. Of note, Adams's father once lent him $1,000 to go into business for himself. A substantial amount for that time.

Adams's lack of business instincts were confirmed. He lent half of that money to a friend who never repaid it and frittered away the other half. Adams always remained, in the words of historian Pauline Meyer, a man utterly uninterested in either making or possessing money.

Fast forward to 1985, when the Boston Beer Company created Samuel Adams Boston Lager, drawing upon the aforementioned tradition that Adams had been a brewer. It became a popular award-winning brand as we know. To round out our founding fathers, you recall earlier when I mentioned Benjamin Franklin and those popular memes.

While I'm certain you have seen that quote, beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy, what if I told you that those words were shown to have been embellished? The fact is Franklin never liked beer very much and was more of a wine lover. According to research from Suffolk University, the quote originally came from a letter that Franklin wrote to his friend André Morlet. Where he was in France in 1779, he stated, quote, Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards and which incorporates itself with the grapes to be changed into wine, a constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.

Here's a few snippets of a few of the presidents who enjoy alcohol on the job. Our ninth president, William Henry Harrison, distributed free bottles of old cabin whiskey at campaign rallies in 1840. Sometimes in the form of food, James Monroe, our fifth president, enjoyed syllabum, which is a British dessert created in the 16th century using sugar, citrus, cream, wine, and liquor.

Franklin Pierce, our 14th president, was mocked as a hero of many a well-fought bottle. Andrew Johnson, then vice president to Abraham Lincoln, displayed the tall tale signs of a man who had just slugged three shots of whiskey, slurred words and all, and that man became the 17th president after the assassination of President Lincoln. Harry Truman, our 33rd president, threw back an ounce of 100-proof old granddad whiskey every morning to just, quote-unquote, get the engine running.

Dwight Eisenhower, who I have a personal share in health-related kinship with, enjoyed eggnog, which served in the right quality and quantity could probably charm the pants off just about anybody. And then there's Ulysses S. Grant, our 18th president. He would develop a historic reputation as a drunk during his Civil War days when soldiers and newspaper reporters saw the Union general staggering around swilling whiskey literally from a canteen.

Or, in a case of one inspection tour, projectile vomiting onto a horse's mane. It was noted during his presidency that despite believing that he was a larger stature of a man, he only weighed about 135 pounds, but was prescribed brandy for migraines. And drinking for whatever reason, President Grant developed a terrible alcohol habit.

Later in his dying days, in his desperate attempt to complete his memoirs, Grant gargled his wine laced with cocaine to relieve the pain of throat cancer brought on by decades of cigars and snuff. Not all presidents were keen to the idea of alcohol in the White House. First Lady Lucy Hayes, wife of Rutherford B. Hayes, our 19th president, banned alcohol from being served at the White House altogether.

She was influenced by her grandfather, a man named Isaac Cook, who is a lifelong adherent of the Temporist Movement, a social movement promoting temperance or the complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. The decision earned her praise from some corners, derision from others, and lasting nicknames such as Lemonade Lucy. The story has become a major part of Mrs. Hayes' legacy, and by the time her husband became president, Lucy's opinions on alcohol consumption were well known, and Americans on both sides of the temperance debate watched to see whether the beverages served at the White House would reflect the First Lady's views.

During the first major social event of the Hayes administration, a dinner in the honor of Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, the wine flowed as it always had, and the decision attracted way more attention than they had expected. Mrs. Hayes was uncomfortable continuing to serve alcohol, and while the president did not mind the occasional drink, he saw political possibilities in solidifying the support of his temperance advocates. They declared from then on, no alcohol of any kind would be served in the White House.

Grover Cleveland, our 22nd and 24th presidents, is the most well-known of the list to us here at the podcast. President Cleveland was a well-known overindulger. No, that's not why we find him as well-known, but two terms of office due to cheap beer and rich food served in the smoke-filled saloons of Buffalo, New York.

Some history. The death of Grover Cleveland's father in 1853 forced him to abandon school in order to support his mother and sisters, and after clerking in a law firm in Buffalo, he was admitted to the bar in 1859, and soon entered politics as a member of the Democratic Party. During the Civil War, he was drafted, but hired a substitute so that he could care for his mother, an altogether illegal procedure at that time, but one that would make him vulnerable to political attack in the future.

In 1863, he became the assistant district attorney of Erie County, New York. During his run for district attorney in 1865, Cleveland cut back on his sudsy consumption, down to a gallon of beer a night, and while his friends matured and married, Cleveland grew into a 250-pound middle-aged barfly man living in a sloppy bachelor's pad, and as time passed, his nickname went from Big Steve to Uncle Jumbo, hence the Uncle Jumbo Vodka served around Buffalo. It's almost as if a new generation of bargoers arrive and no longer is Cleveland the peer, but an old wise man at the bar, and Cleveland's love life ultimately engendered more gossip than his drinking.

He admitted to fathering a child out of wedlock before marrying a 21-year-old during his first term in office. From 1870 to 1873, he served as county sheriff. With a slight political background and modest success as a lawyer, the apparently unambitious Buffalo attorney launched one of the most meteoric rises in American politics.

In 1881, eight years after stepping down as sheriff, Cleveland was nominated for mayor by Buffalo Democrats, who remembered his honest and efficient service in that office. He won the election easily. As Buffalo's chief executive, he became known as the Veto Mayor for his rejection of spending measures he considered to be wasteful and corrupt.

In 1882, Cleveland received his party's nomination for governor of New York and went on to crush his Republican opponent by more than 200,000 votes. He would only serve as governor for two years, resigning after he became president. Not even Prohibition could keep the 29th president, Warren G. Harding, away from the hard stuff.

Although he voted for Prohibition as a senator, the whiskey aficionado hypocritically kept a fully stocked sidebar in the White House. At smoke-filled poker nights held twice a week, it was said that the whiskey flowed freely, even by a guest's pet monkey who poured a bottle all over President Harding's white suit. The scandals involving Harding's well went beyond political affairs, such as the Teapot Dome, which is a political corruption scandal that involved leasing Navy petroleum reserves in Wyoming, as well as two locations in California to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding.

A biographer of First Lady Florence Harding accounted for seven alleged mistresses, including two who were impregnated. Love letters found revealed Harding's lecherous side in graphic details, and the letters are shocking in what you would never expect for historical figures or senators to express themselves in that way, but on a less naive level, they're human beings too. Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president, was always seeking to wield the levers of power to his advantage.

The Machiavellian Johnson, while Senate Majority Leader, instructed staff to make his scotch and soda significantly weaker than his guests so that he could keep a clearer head. As president, Johnson threw massive barbecues for dignitaries and media members on his Texas ranch, and his styrofoam cup of Cutty Sark was a constant companion. Johnson had the Lincoln Continental convertible customized with a mud grip tire and a reinforced undercarriage to cruise the ranch, so he would drive with reporters around the ranch and he would stop, stick the styrofoam cup out the window whenever he needed a refill from the portable scotch bar located in the trailing Secret Service vehicle.

Gerald Ford, the 38th president, was seen as a down-to-earth president. He was photographed picking up after his golden retriever on the south lawn in his morning bathrobe, and it's known during his first Christmas as president in 1974 that he broke away to party with the press corps who often covered him as vice president. It was the first chance for old buddies to still get together and have martinis.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president, was probably the most liked of all presidents, and at the time FDR won the presidency in 1932 on the promise of legalizing the beer industry. On December 5, 1933, the 21st amendment was signed, and again beer flowed free and legal on the streets of America. You gotta love a country who can pay tribute to former presidents by creating a beer in their honor.

Bill Clinton, our 42nd president, got just that. From Exile Brewing Company in Des Moines, Iowa, they created an amber ale infused with hops specifically for the president. And finally in our list of presidents, this one probably wouldn't come as a surprise, but in 2008, one man who seemingly became the modern trendsetter of beer at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, former president Barack Obama, our 44th president, was the first to set up an in-house brewery in the White House, and the American Brewers Association bestowed upon him a lifetime membership.

Thanks to America's Right to Information Act, the recipe for the White House honey brown ale is available on almost every site and search engine. And folks, there you have it. A lot has changed since President Washington.

For as long as there has been a White House, then there's been a commander in chief who's enjoyed a beverage or two. No matter what their taste, what may have changed is they drink more than would be acceptable for a politician today. That is attributed to probably the availability of clean water.

And everything is political when you're a politician, but it doesn't take a debate to know that some of the drink that is enjoyed, some that is enjoyed still, porter, cider, wine, whiskey, maybe even champagne. And in the end, we should all raise a glass to that which every president represents, our great nation. So here it is to the United States and to each and every one of you.

Cheers.