On the evening of September 26, 1765, a group of the leading citizens of Newburyport, Mass., met at the Wolfe's Head tavern. Between them, they consumed before supper, by my count, 66 bowls of punch (rum, sugar, lemon and water), five bowls and a "nip" of toddy (punch without the lemon), two bowls of egg toddy (toddy with eggs) and a mug of flip (beer, rum, sugar and eggs). After supper they had another 17 bowls of punch, three bowls of assorted toddy and six and a half pints of straight spirits. Each "bowl" was something like two pints (a third to a half of it alcohol) and so served 16 moderately sized drinks. This was for a crowd that could not have been bigger than 150 people. The purpose of their gathering was to debate a response to the recently passed Stamp Act. Of such gatherings, fueled by rum, sugar and water, was the American Revolution born - and the place of its birth was the bar.
L'importante ruolo del bar nella storia americana è raccontato dal bel libro di Christine Sismondo, America Walks Into a Bar (Oxford UP). wsj.
Del bar e dell'alcol!
RispondiElimina(Ho recentemente riletto "The Sun Also Rises", e pur sapendo che il vecchio Ernest non era propriamente astemio, ho trovato la quantità di alcol ingurgitata dai protagonisti semplicemente surreale.)