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Importance of Whiskey 210 years ago


Bourbon Boiler
This topic has been inactive for at least 365 days, and is now closed. Please feel free to start a new thread on the subject! 

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I just came across this doing a little Lewis & Clark research.

http://www.pbs.org/lewisandclark/living/idx_8.html

Q: How important was whiskey on the expedition?

A: You know, Napoleon said, whenever you set off on a march, make sure you’ve got

plenty of beer and wine along and that it’s enough to last until you get far

enough away from camp so that nobody can desert. And that’s basically what

happened with Lewis and Clark. They brought enough whiskey along to get them

through to the Great Falls. And then they ran out. Well that was way too late

for anybody to desert. They measured out the whiskey, gave them about enough, a

gill of whiskey, about four ounces, enough so that under today’s conditions you

would be described as legally drunk by a, by a police officer if you were

driving. Then they began to water that whiskey down to stretch it out. Every man

in the expedition knew exactly how much whiskey was left. So when Pvt. Hall got

into the whiskey barrel one night near present-day Kansas City, and then got

himself drunk and was taking more than his share, they had a court martial, he

was found guilty, and they ordered 100 lashes well laid on. And from the

descriptions of the event, the Indian chief who saw this, an Otoe chief, just

cried at the sight of this. They just beat the holy hell out of Hall for this,

because that was their whiskey that he had stolen.

Of course, SB.com has already discussed this here:

http://www.straightbourbon.com/forums/showthread.php?3615-Lewis-Clark-and-Whisky

But as the thread has been dead for 101 months, I thought I'd bring it up again.

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But as the thread has been dead for 101 months, I thought I'd bring it up again.

Any thread containing a post from Tim/TNBourbon is a great thread BB. Enjoy the story about Pvt. Hall too, the poor bastard.

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Actually Hall was punished for sleeping on guard duty and it wasn't his first offense.

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