It’s President John Adam’s birthday. Born in 1735, history generally portrays America’s second president as a sober and serious man, but in fact, he might well have been the hardest-drinking of all the Founding Fathers. A man of strong habits, John started each and every day with a draft of hard cider and finished up with a nightcap of three glasses of Madeira, a type of fortified wine. In between those two rituals he “feasted,” as he put it, on porter, lager, claret, brandy, burgundy, rum and as much Madeira as he could get his hands on. John’s wife, Abigail, must have been super chill, as the kids say, because during the Continental Congress John wrote her numerous letters bragging about just how much he and the boys were laying back each night. True story: A scandalized French diplomat who stayed with the Adams had this to say about the state of drinking a la Chateau du Adams, and I quote: “Dinner was washed down with cider, weak or strong beer, then white wine. They keep drinking right through dessert, toward the end of which the ladies leave the table, leaving the men free to drink as much as they please, because the bottles then go around continuously, each man pouring for himself. Toasts are drunk, cigars are lighted and the diners run to the corners of the room hunting night tables and vases, which enables them to hold a greater amount of liquor.” Unquote. He doesn’t say what they were doing with those night tables and vases, but I have a couple strong ideas.
