Adventures with Alcohol

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April 18: Paul Revere’s Ride
On this day in 1775, Paul Revere took his midnight ride to warn the Sons of Liberty that the Redcoats were making their move. There's been a lot of controversy over the years over whether Paul took to drinking beer, ale, rum, or other intoxicating liquids before and during his wild ride. There is some evidence that Paul stopped by the home of distiller Isaac Hall and knocked back some rum just to get him in the proper mood for the trip. In a postwar letter, Revere also mentions a later stop where he "refreshed" himself. Since Paul was known to spend a good amount of his free time in pubs, his contemporaries understood what he meant by "refreshing." Since then, however, The Uptight Brigade has labored mightily to strip any sort of drinking references from the Founding Fathers and have tried to assert that, on that cold, dark, dangerous night, Paul stopped for a quick cup of tea or perhaps some refreshing apple juice. Ugh.