Beer was brewed in families, and the orchards soon yielded an abundance of cider. In 1721 the production of cider increased so that one village of forty families made three thousand barrels, and in 1728 Judge Joseph Wilder, of Lancaster, made six hundred and sixteen barrels himself.
When the Quakers framed their constitution for Pennsylvania they inserted clauses punishing swearing, intemperance, cardplaying, and the drinking of healths. They were mighty drinkers in their sober fashion, consuming vast quantities of ale and spirits, and making no serious inroads on the pure and wholesome water, although we are gravely assured that particular pumps, one on Walnut Street, and one in Norris Alley, were held in especial favor as having the best water in town for the legitimate purpose of boiling greens. Their first beer was made from molasses, and we have Penn's assurance that, when "well boyled with Sassafras or Pine infused into it," this was a very tolerable drink. Rum punch was also in liberal demand, and after a few years the thirsty colonists began to brew ale, and drank it out of deep pewter mugs.
When Congress met in 1774, in Philadelphia, John Adams was shocked by the display of eatables. His appetite overcame his scruples, although after each feast he scourged himself for yielding. After dining with Mr. Miers, a young Quaker lawyer, Adams remarks in his diary:
"A mighty feast again; nothing less than the very best of Claret, Madeira, and Burgundy. I drank Madeira at a great rate and found no inconvenience. This plain Friend and his plain though pretty wife, with her Thees and Thous, had provided us the most costly entertainment, ducks, hams, chickens, beef, pig, tarts, creams, custards, jellies, fools, trifles, floating islands, beer, porter, punch, wine, etc."
Again after dining at Mr. Powell's:
"A most sinful feast again: Everything which could delight the eye, or allure the taste, curds, and creams, jellies, sweetmeats of various kinds, twenty sorts of tarts, fools, trifles, floating islands, whipped syllabubs, etc. Parmesan cheese, punch, wine, porter, beer, etc."
The Swedes planted peach and fruit trees of all kinds, had flourishing gardens, and grew rich selling the products when the Quakers arrived. They made wine, beer, or brandy out of sassafras, persimmons, corn, and apparently anything that could be made to ferment and they imported Madeira. Acrelius, their historian, gives a long list of their drinks, and tells us that they always indulged in four meals a day.
In the True and Sincere Declaration, issued in December, 1609, by the Governor and Council for Virginia, there was an advertisement for two brewers, who, as soon as they were secured, were to be dispatched to the Colony. Brewers were also included among the tradesmen who were designed by the Company to go over with Sir Thomas Gates. This indicated the importance in the eyes of that corporation of establishing the means in Virginia of manufacturing malt liquors on the spot instead of relying on the importation from England. The notion arose that one of the principal causes of mortality so prevalent among those arriving in the Colony, in the period following the first settlement of the country, was the substitution of water for beer to which the immigrants had been accustomed in England. The Assembly, in the session of 1623, went so far as to recommend that all new comers should bring in a supply of malt to be used in brewing liquor, thus making it unnecessary to drink the water of Virginia until the body had become hardened to the climate. Previous to 1625, two brew-houses were in operation in the Colony, and the patronage they received was evidently very liberal.
Cider was in as common use as beer; in season it was found in the house of every planter in the Colony. It was the form of consideration in which rent was occasionally settled; the instance of Alexander Moore, of New York, shows the quantity often bequeathed: he left at his decease twenty gallons of raw cider and one hundred and thirty of boiled. Richard Moore of the same county kept on hand as many as fourteen cider casks. Richard Bennett made about twenty butts of cider annually, while Richard Kinsman compressed from the pears growing in his orchard forty or fifty of perry. A supply of spirits was provided for the members of public bodies when they convened. The character of the liquors used depended on the nature of the assemblage. When Charles Hansford and David Condon, as executors of the widow of the unfortunate Thomas Hansford, leased her residence in York to the justice of the peace of that county to serve as a court house, they bound themselves to furnish not only accommodations for horses, but also a gallon of brandy during each session of the bench. It is not stated whether this brandy was consumed by the honorable justices in the form of the drink which had become so famous in later times in Virginia, the mint julep, but if mint was cultivated in the colony at that age, it is quite probable that a large part of this gallon was converted into that mixture. In 1666 the justices of Lower Norfolk county rented the tract of land on which the court house was situated, on condition that the lessee, in part consideration for the use of the houses and orchards each year, would pay ten gallons brewed from English grain. The members of the Council appear to have been fastidious in their tastes. It was one of the duties of the auditor-general to have a large quantity of wine always ready at hand for this body. Thus on one occasion William Byrd, who filled the office in the latter part of the century, ordered for their use twenty dozen of claret, and six dozen of canary, sherry, and Rhenish, respectively. A quarter of a cask of brandy was also to be added.