Miscellaneous desk
< July 27	<< Jun \| July \| Aug >>	July 29 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

July 28

Favoured drinks in the American Old West

Comics such as Lucky Luke and Punaniska have shown that men in the American Old West generally drunk whisky in saloons in the west. I imagine they may also have drunk beer. In fact, one Punaniska comic shows Calamity Jane offering Punaniska some wine, which he immediately refuses, thinking it would challenge his masculinity. What was the situation in real life? Did they really almost always drink whisky? And what sort of whisky? American instead of Scottish or Irish, I should presume? Did they have any preferences or did they just want to get drunk quickly? Did they also drink beer and wine? What about non-alcoholic beverages? JIP | Talk 20:35, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Absinthe might be included in the list of alcoholic drinks, until banned in the US by 1915.

As for non-alcoholic beverages, there were many variations on root beer, such as ginger ale and sarsparilla. Note that while Coca-Cola has roots going back to the 19th century, it was sold as a patent medicine then, in drug stores, not saloons, as it contained cocaine. StuRat (talk) 21:01, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Moonshine and Corn_whiskey. Note the former has a name from England but took on its own prominence in America, while the latter, strictly speaking, is a product of the New World. Here are two relevant books I found on Google that would almost certainly give you better info and more context [1] [2]. SemanticMantis (talk) 13:42, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bourbon whiskey was the preferred drink because (a) it was relatively cheap, being made mainly from corn (maize), the most widely grown crop in America, and (b) it was easy to store and transport. In the old west the ingredients were not available to brew beer locally, and it didn't keep well enough to be transported by railroad at reasonable expense. Wine was easier to store and transport than beer, but it was still a luxury item. It wasn't just the old west by the way -- even in the east Bourbon was by far the most commonly consumed form of alcohol. Looie496 (talk) 13:53, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hm. As for east of the Mississippi, recall Johnny Appleseed gave the gift of booze to the (then) western frontier - his nurseries and orchards did not make tasty apples, they were used for hard cider and applejack, which were both very popular as well - very easy to make in large swathes of the country, less so west of the Mississippi at that time. I'm not saying that apple booze was more popular than Bourbon necessarily, just that it was much easier to make at home than beer, and required less special processing. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:56, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A webpage called Saloons of the American West mentions "Cactus Wine, made from a mix of tequila and peyote tea, and Mule Skinner, made with whiskey and blackberry liquor. The house rotgut was often 100 proof, though it was sometimes cut by the barkeep with turpentine, ammonia, gun powder or cayenne" but says that the main drink was rye whiskey or bourbon, also beer served at room temperature. Alansplodge (talk) 20:52, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, now I want to try Cactus wine. Might be hard to do this weekend, but I can probably manage a Mule Skinner :) SemanticMantis (talk) 13:41, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Be sure to put on some Mule Skinner Blues when you do so. I'm partial to the Jerry Reed/Chet Atkins version, though the Bill Monroe take on it is choice as well... --Jayron 32 19:25, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]