Favorite Beverage for the Old West?

[Frank Dalton]

If you could take one distilled or brewed alcoholic beverage with you if you travelled back to the old west, what would you take?

This could be hard or easy, since we have access to so many good, quality products.

The one I store in the fancy cut glass decanter is Bushmills. I reckon that it would go for a premium price back then, especially around any railroad town where our Irish bretheran would be plentiful.

How about it?

[Standpat Steve]

River City John,

You Sir, are a man after my own heart! Although I have never adulterated Knob Creek with so much as ice, I bet it would be fine mixed as you described.

[Tangle Eye]

Well I reckin after a hot day of doin whatever I'd be doin in the Old West what I'd really like would be an ice cold beer! I guess a Coors Light would be just fine.  I know there's finer stuff - but for day in day out use and if I only get to choose one - that would be it.

[Advertising]

[Steel Horse Bailey]

Sassparilly?

[The Arapaho Kid]

Well I reckon my favorite thirst quencher from the Old West would have to be beer and not the old, standard yeller stuff!  Gimme a mug of anything dark!  The darker...the better.  When you hold it up to the light...I want it to look like a mug of Texas Crude!

[Delmonico]

Ya'd have ta take most of that in a time machine or have someone ship it special to ya from back near the distaillary, yer beer would have been the local product 99.999% of the time cause it spoiled quicky in summer and froze in the winter.  If you had lots of money and was in a boom town like Sidney Nebraska (studied micro-films of newspapper ads) you might be lucky enough to find a few bottles of Bass's or Guniness since the were bottlin' Pasterizein' and shippin' to places like that.  Sorry the ad fer the saloon did not have prices (if you have to ask I bet)  but bein' the closest rail point to the Blackhills it would be the place in the late 1870's to find such stuff.  Course I have access to the microfilms, bet Denver or such would have it too.

As fer whiskey, most that was really whiskey and not colored grain alcahol was bulk barrel stuff from Penn. this state was the whiskey center of the US till proabition.  Good whiskey, well the brands I have seen mentioned that came it a bottle with a lable was Old Overolt and Old Crow.  Course the bottle could be filled from the bulk barrel also.   Brandy and such was rare because of the price unless some one local like Favor in Tx had and orchard or vineyard and disstilled.

Most of the "Old Time" Kentuckey distillaries that have been licensed since that time were small part time local places that leagally sold enough to try to fool the revenooores, but sold most of it as moonshine with out payin' the tax and was not the aged product that most now think of when they think of these places.  (Yes, rumor has it that Jack Daniels and others were moonshiners)

[Delmonico]

Fergot, cold beer ya'd be lucky if it was cool, and ya'd have ta get the barkeep ta go down in the cellar fer it, if he had a cellar.  Ice house, na, the ice was to presious to waste on beer, ya didn't open the door or remove the sawdust unless really needed, if not it would not last through the summer.  Cowboy if the beer ain't cold enough fer you, wait till winter.

[Tangle Eye]

I took the Jack Daniels tour some ago and I think our (somewhat colorful) tour guide mentioned that old Jack most likely got his start as a moonshiner.  He went legit after prohibiition (I guess) cause there was more money in it maybe.  I also find it interesting and funny that some of the first Whiskey makers in this country were preachers - and Baptists at that!

[Delmonico]

My understandin' is many distillaries in Kentucky were legit up to a point.  Kinda like the waitress that only reports part of her tips.  Most if not all the big one were in Penn. and were legit cause George Washinton took the army there to get them to pay their taxes while he was Prez.

The first US Marshall to die in the line of duty was Killed by a Methodist minester in Penn. who didn't want to pay his whiskey tax.

[Russ T Chambers]

My understandin' is many distillaries in Kentucky were legit up to a point.  Kinda like the waitress that only reports part of her tips.  Most if not all the big one were in Penn. and were legit cause George Washinton took the army there to get them to pay their taxes while he was Prez.

The first US Marshall to die in the line of duty was Killed by a Methodist minester in Penn. who didn't want to pay his whiskey tax.

Might have been one of the first, but according to the US Marshal's service, the first Marshal to die was in Georgia:

"United States Marshal Robert Forsyth may have expected trouble. He took two of his deputies with him to Mrs. Dixon's house in Augusta, Georgia on January 11, 1794, because the Allen brothers, Beverly and William, had reportedly been seen there.
Forsyth and his Deputies went after the brothers. Hearing their approach. Beverly Allen aimed his pistol toward the door
and squeezed the trigger. Before the sound of the gunshot could echo off the walls, the ball splintered through the wooden door and struck Forsyth fair in the head. He was dead before his body hit the floor, the first of 400 or more Marshals killed performing their duties."

I know some US Marshal's were sent to Penn. during the Whiskey Rebellion.  They were fought off, but I’m not sure if an official US Marshal was killed there.

[Delmonico]

I used my memory on this and I will check but I think this is the same incodent, but I got the states wrong.  It is the same names I am sure.