Party Like the Founding Fathers Did

MOUNT VERNON, Va. -- With his wooden teeth, powdered wig and staid expression, George Washington is not remembered today as a party animal. But both he and fellow Founder Thomas Jefferson enjoyed a good drink and used their gorgeous Virginia estates to make fine libations.

Washington's wooden teeth, as you soon learn on a stroll through the expansive, modern visitors' center at Mount Vernon, is a myth, but Washington's whiskey, which the first president hand-crafted in a stone distillery that was rebuilt and opened to the public just last year, is no myth. Jefferson's love of elegant wine is no myth, either. But, although he failed to make wine after many frustrating attempts, our bon vivant third president's restored vineyards are a prime reason for visiting Monticello.

Both estates, lovingly maintained by nonprofit foundations and long popular with visitors, have recently begun to seriously talk about the two national heroes' relationships with drink. Alas, actually sampling modern versions of presidential whiskey and wine on-site is not easy -- unless you visit Mount Vernon or Monticello on special occasions, in which case you may literally get a taste of history.

Viewing Washington and Jefferson through a glass, clearly, is another way of seeing them. It humanizes these long-ago sages and makes them seem more like real people.

Certainly that's what I thought when I learned on a recent visit that prim and proper George Washington was America's largest, richest maker of commercial whiskey at his death in 1799. Washington was persuaded to use his creekside grist mill and new distillery to make whiskey by a Scottish-born associate, James Anderson, who thought high-octane hooch could fuel a thriving business. He was right. At its peak, Washington's distillery made 11,000 gallons of rye whiskey a year.