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Since the first Europeans settled in North America, much of American life and politics have happened around the tavern. Readers will appreciate this in-depth analysis of the tavern and its influence on American life and society throughout history. From public houses in Puritan New England to Gilded Age saloons, and on to the modern sports bar, drinking establishments have had a significant and lasting presence in American life. This book analyzes the role of drinking establishments throughout American history through an examination of their unique interior spaces. The book considers the objects that define the space and the customers who give the space relevance and provides an overview of the space throughout history, showing how the physical attributes of the tavern and its role within society have changed over time. This work will consider the tavern from the perspective of the tavern keeper as well as the patrons, and will show how drinking establishments have found a permanent home within American life.

A companion to Andrew F. Smith’s critically acclaimed and popular Eating History: Thirty Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine, this volume recounts the individuals, ingredients, corporations, controversies, and myriad events responsible for America’s diverse and complex beverage scene. Smith revisits the country’s major historical moments—colonization, the American Revolution, the Whiskey Rebellion, the temperance movement, Prohibition, and its repeal—and he tracks the growth of the American beverage industry throughout the world. The result is an intoxicating encounter with an often overlooked aspect of American culture and global influence. Americans have invented, adopted, modified, and commercialized tens of thousands of beverages—whether alcoholic or nonalcoholic, carbonated or caffeinated, warm or frozen, watery or thick, spicy or sweet. These include uncommon cocktails, varieties of coffee and milk, and such iconic creations as Welch’s Grape Juice, Coca-Cola, root beer, and Kool-Aid. Involved in their creation and promotion were entrepreneurs and environmentalists, bartenders and bottlers, politicians and lobbyists, organized and unorganized criminals, teetotalers and drunks, German and Italian immigrants, savvy advertisers and gullible consumers, prohibitionists and medical professionals, and everyday Americans in love with their brew. Smith weaves a wild history full of surprising stories and explanations for such classic slogans as “taxation with and without representation;” “the lips that touch wine will never touch mine;” and “rum, Romanism, and rebellion.” He reintroduces readers to Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and the colorful John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed), and he rediscovers America’s vast literary and cultural engagement with beverages and their relationship to politics, identity, and health.