Drugs Series. Episode #2 of 4. Today we’re going to discuss alcohol consumption in early America. Alcohol was very important to early Americans and it flowed freely through the colonies. Adults and children alike drank alcoholic beverages for a variety of reasons. One being that it was one of the few things that were safe to drink at the time. However, by the time of the Early Republic period, roughly 1790 to 1830, Americans were consuming more hard liquor per capita than any other country in the world. So today we’ll explore drinking in early America, ask why Americans drank so much, and how such drinking affected the new republic.

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