Southern Spirits by Robert F. Moss

Recently, I came across this book called Southern Spirits: Four Hundred Years of Drinking in the American South, with Recipes by Robert F. Moss. I rarely drink.  A couple times a year I might drink a small wine glass size of Bailey Cream or Kahlua. I might here and there sip someone else margarita or a special drink. It is kind of hard to drink when I am on so many medications. Even though I don’t drink much this book still looked incredibly interesting.

I would highly recommend putting this on your reading list. There are no words that can express how well written this book is. There wasn’t a page I didn’t like. I never could imagine there is that much history on Alcohol in America. The book starts out talking about alcohol during the pilgrim days and ends around 1960s.

Author, Robert F. Moss, is a food and drinks writer and culinary historian living in Charleston, South Carolina. He is the Contributing Barbecue Editor for Southern Living and the Southern Food Correspondent for Serious Eats. He is a frequent contributor to the Charleston City Paper, and his work has also appeared in publications such as Garden & Gun Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Charlotte Observer, Texas Monthly, the Columbia Free Times, and Early American Life. He gives a detailed history of how drinks were made, where they came from, as well as, who drank them.

Here are just a couple of fun facts:

“Most prominent Charleston drinking spot during this (1700s) was Shepard’s Tavern. It was also known as the ‘Corne Tavern’. It held the first known public performances of a play in the colonies. (p.26).”

“Native Americans were non Alcholics. Most natives weren’t happy about the alcholol trading. Some passed laws to prohibit to sell to the nation of Indians along Savannah River and was renewed through at least 1707. (p. 36)”

“Rum was the drink of ambitious people, rough around the edges but hearty and lively became important part of commercial life in rising cities like Charleston and Williamsburg. (p.23)”

“Punch (rum) originated in the colonies of British India, usually made with arrack- hardspint distilled with coconut sap, palm tree sap or rice wine- that is diluted with water, sweetened with sugar and cut with citurs and spices. p.29” Punch had four basic elements: 1) Citrus peel infused rum. 2) Sugar Syrup. 3. Blend of fruit juice. 4. more rum.

There are many recipes throughout the book.

Here are the topics and recipes of each chapter.

• Chapter one: “Contrary to the Nature of the English”: The Failure of Beer and Wine. Apple Cider. Alcohol Consumption in the Early Southern Colonies.
• Chapter Two: The Rise of the Rum Trade. Punch Houses and Taverns. Sampling Colonial Rum. Harriott Pinckney Horry’s Duke of Norfolk Punch.Making Colonial Shrub. Samara and Negus. Rum, Wine, and the Founding of Georgia. Rum and Native Americans.
• Chapter Three: Alembics and Brandy: The Expansion of Southern Distilling. Fruit Brandy Today. Improved Cider, Commercial Distilling, and Beer. Drinking on Plantations and in the Backcountry.
• Chapter Four: “Three Times Around the Horn: Madeira Emerges.” Creole Contentment (Recipe). The Rise of Madeira. The Drinking Habits of the Southern Elite. Cognac.
• Chapter Five: “Revolutionary Spirits: An Interlude.” Tiki the Hut (Recipe).  Black Walnut Orgeat (Recipe).
• Chapter Six: “Rye Whiskey and Corn Liquor” Whiskey Toddy (Recipe). The Rise of Whiskey. Whiskey Leaks to the East. Rum’s Last Stand. The Whiskey Rebellion. George Washington and Distilling. Better Whiskey, Roads, and Rivers.
• Chapter Seven: “The Cocktail in Antebellum New Orleans.” Brandy Cocktail (Recipe). The Bitter Truth About Cocktails. The Great New Orleans Hotels. The Crusta (Recipe). Sazerac Brandy with a Dash of Peychaud’s
• Chapter Eight: “The Mint Julep”. Antebellum Mint Julep (Recipe). Mint Juleps: The Myth. A Morning Antifogmatic. A Hailstorm Stikes. The Julep Becomes a Hit. The Great Julep Makers of the South.
• Chapter Nine: Madeira and the Creation of Connoisseurship.” An Ever Rarer Wine. The Domestic Wine Industry.
• Chapter Ten: “The Whiskey Boom.” Whiskey Cobbler (recipe). Whiskey Distilling goes Commercial. The Rise of Old Monongahela and Old Bourbon. A Substitute for Brandy and Rum. Bourbon Gets Its Name (and an Imitator). Drinking and Slavery During the Antebellum Era.
• Chapter Eleven: “The Civil War”. The Real Rhett Butler (recipe). The End of Madeira. A Crisis of Grain. Soldiers and Drinking. Drinking on the Home Front. Planters’ Madeira: Gone with the Wind. The Fate of the Julep Makers.
• Chapter Twelve: ” By the Light of the Moon: The Rise of Illegal Whiskey Distilling During the Reconstruction Era.” Moonshine Margarita (Recipe). Dodging the Tax Man. The North Georgia Moonshine War. How the Blockaders Operated. Lewis Redmond, King of the Outlaws. The Tennessee Front. The Tide Turns Against the Moonshiners.
• Chapter Thirteen: “The Golden Age of Whiskey.” Whiskey Comes of Age. Barrels, Bottles, and Brands: The Marketing and Distribution of Whiskey. The Brandy Bust and the Industrialization of Whiskey. The Rise of Baltimore and Kentucky. Colonel E.H. Taylor and the Bottled in Bond Movement.
• Chapter Fourteen: “The Golden Age of the Southern Cocktail.” The Sazerac (Recipe). The Best Bartenders in the World. A Survey of the Drinks of New Orleans. The Ramos Gin Fizz. The Ramos Gin Fizz (Recipe). The Roffignac. The Original (Perhaps) Roffignac Cocktail (Recipe). Himbeeressig, or Raspberry Vinegar Syrup (Recipe). The Sazerac.
• Chapter Fifteen: “Southern Punch: ‘The Killer of Time, the Destroyer of Bitter Memory, the Mortal Enemy of Despair.” Chatham Artillery Punch. Admiral Dewey’s Artillery Punch (Recipe). Charleston Light Dragoon Punch. Pre-Prohibition Charleston Light Dragoon Punch (Recipe). Other Famous Southern Punches. Saint Cecilia Punch (Recipe). Otranto Club Punch. Otranto Club Punch (Recipe). The Decline of Punch.
• Chapter Sixteen: “Southern Suds: The South Masters Brewing”. The Germans to the Rescue. The King of Beers Emerges.
• Chapter Seventeen: “The South and Temperance.” Bourbon and Coke Rebooted (Recipe). Coca-Cola Simple Syrup (Recipe). Early Temperance Movements in the South. The Atlanta Campaign. The Dispensary Movement. “The Negro Problem” and the Drive Toward Prohibition. Whiskey Paranoia.
• Chapter Eighteen: “National Prohibition”. The Fate of the Distilling Industry. Bootlegging and Illegal Whiskey Distilling. Rum-Running. Industrial Alcohol. The Demise of the Southern Cocktail. The Great MInt Julep Controversy of 1933.
• Chapter Nineteen: “Four Roses and Rebel Yell: Rebounding from Prohibition.” Martin Cuneo’s Pendennis Club Mint Julep (Recipe). Repeal. An Industry Rebuilds. A Patchwork Quilt of Laws. The Decline of Rye and the Preeminence of Story. Moonshining.
• Chapter Twenty: “King Pappy: The Decline and Rebirth of Southern Drinking.” The Julian (Recipe). The Postwar Spirits Trade. Moonshine’s Last Hurrah. The Fate of Whiskey in a Vodka World. Rip Van Winkle Awakens. The Return of Southern Spirits.

Check out his website at http://www.robertfmoss.com