| Modern estimates place the annual amount consumed by the colonists somewhere in the range of five to six gallons of pure alcohol (by comparison, per capita consumption in the United States in 2007 came in around 2.3 gallons).
It would be interesting to know the distribution of this. I wonder how much of it is individual people drinking more vs more people drinking. Take away video games and TV and I bet a lot more people would end up at the bar.
According to the Ken Burns documentary Prohibition [1], it was both - especially if you replace "people" with "men". I don't remember all the facts and details leading up to Prohibition, but the documentary did make me more sympathetic to the temperance movement.
Also consider DUIs (now that we have motor vehicles), office work (where drinking during the day - at least heavily - is typically forbidden), and to some extent possibly the suburban lifestyle (most people don't live a few steps from a bar) and I can see why the amount would be higher back then.
A big part of it is about sanitation--since pure water wasn't so safe to drink, people drank far more tea (boiling kills bacteria) and beer/wine (fermentation has a similar effect).
> A big part of it is about sanitation--since pure water wasn't so safe to drink, people drank far more tea (boiling kills bacteria) and beer/wine (fermentation has a similar effect).
This is a massive myth.[1] It has historically been very rare to not have access to clean water. Beer and alcohol are nutritionally more dense than water, and for much of western europe's history they were watered down to the point of not working to sterilize. It was simply more of part of the meal than alcohol is today and may have tasted better.
In addition, alcohol is easier to preserve during the winter, especially when most of your heat is for keeping people alive. Cider was probably the staple drink for much of rural new england during early colonization, and could have ranged anywhere from highly sugary (like modern unpasteurized cider), highly alcoholic (like an ale or, as applejack, as a liqeur; George Washington was a fan), to something more fiber-oriented (not all apples would have been very sugary, and you end up with something like a sour beer that had lots of flavor but was not super alcoholic).
Finally, let's not forget that people love to drink. It's addictive, at least to some subset of people and situations. People have always drank alcohol because it's been easy to prepare (literally just leave sugar and water out in the air) and easy to drink. This doesn't mean they were drunk all the time (there are a ridiculous number of laws about being drunk in public), but it was through and through a part of the lifestyle in a way that it is difficult for modern, post-christianization western europe to grasp. It was only when real alternatives to alcohol in terms of nutrition and cost were cheap enough people could get away with moralizing about it when it became separated into a "drug".
It depends on concentration. If the concentration is low enough, then the alcohol will exit your system in the same sweat that keeps you cooled down, and the same pee that gets rid of other stuff (pee is rarely saturated).
It's only when you drink enough alcohol that you start sweating/peeing specifically to get rid of alcohol that you get diuretic effects.
That's right; estimates of imports of alcoholic drinks are actually fairly accurate because 18th century governments had a very strong financial incentive to keep track of them due to tariffs and special taxes. (I've studied that a bit myself in the context of shipments of medicinal drugs between Portugal and colonial Brazil). I would guess that estimates for domestic production within colonial North America are much more impressionistic though.
I wonder how much of this had to do with using alcohol as a primary source of nutrition and method of food preservation.
Perhaps the best way to preserve all the new world crops (including corn, potatoes, and numerous fruits and vegatables) was to ferment them? Old world wheat is very dry to start with, making it easy to store for long periods. But new world staples are much harder to preserve - what else could you do if you haven't discovered bacteria or pasteurization, invented refrigeration or canning, and need to feed everyone year round?
With farm output preserved through fermentation, alcohol would have been extremely cheap as well - I would guess significant cheaper than fresh foods during winter months.
Also transportation: fermentation reduced bulky corn crops to a few litres of alcohol with a corresponding increase in value density. Concentrated the wealth, which you could carry on your back to market.
I think this is a big issue. You would have wanted to ship alcohol instead of grain for the same reason you want to ship pig iron instead of ore. Transportation costs can eat up all your profit.
It would be interesting to know the distribution of this. I wonder how much of it is individual people drinking more vs more people drinking. Take away video games and TV and I bet a lot more people would end up at the bar.