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Long shelf life
Liquid spirits, produced from fermented grain and distillation process, had been known and enjoyed in Europe since the Middle Ages.
The finished product lasts for years and is easily transported in bottles or barrels.
The early settlers brought both the knowledge and pleasure of spirits with them to the New World. So.... you say you have a few bushels of com you don’t know what to do with?
We can (or should we say, could) fix you right up almost in your backyard.
In the 1840s, 7700 gallons of distilled spirits were produced annually in Rappahannock County.
It seems like that volume would quench quite a few thirsts (except perhaps that of U. S. Grant and a few other noted really serious imbibers).
It’s not clear how many individual distilleries were responsible for that output. It can be documented, however, that there were at least 11 such facilities in 1890, three in Flint Hill, two each in Washington and Amissville, as well as others in Laurel and Slate Mills, Castleton, and Sandy HookSo one need not have gone far to obtain one’s ‘medicine’ in the euphemism of the era.
Any favorite brands associated with these operations seem not to have had lasting fame.
Legendary
liquid spirits
At least one Virginia distillery is legendary.
In the late 1700s, several years prior to his death, George Washington estab
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