Funtime with the Washington Correspondence
From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal by Zach Weiner. (Hat tip to John Overholt.)
History, analysis, and unabashed gossip about the start of the American Revolution in Massachusetts.
PERMANENT LINK: 08:30
Labels: Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, language
5 comments:
Who knew George was so hip?
(O.K., JL: were these words actually written by GW? What was a wine cooler of his day? A cask?)
Oh, yeah, Washington wrote those words. However, his sentence continued “a wine cooler for four bottles.” So it was a specialized container. In another letter he called this one “plated”—covered with metal, I assume.
Given the difficulty of refrigeration in the period, a container for cooling wine was probably a fairly luxurious genteel item.
THIS is an 18th century Wine Cooler:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98516310568554328/
Salem Loyalist Samuel Curwen spoke in his journal of the coffee houses in London. But these establishments were not what we see today:
"To someone in the 21st century, the term coffee house either conjures up memories of the local drive-through shop or images of dimly lit nightclubs frequented by countercultural poets and musicians. However, the 18th century coffee house was much more -- part social club, part embassy, and part hotel. The dozens of these establishments that could be found in London's financial district each catered to a particular clientele -- lawyers, stock brokers, actors and even merchants from the Thirteen Colonies."
http://www.uelac.org/Loyalist-Trails/2011/Loyalist-Trails-2011.php?issue=201118
Coffee houses were basically upper-class taverns. David Conroy's excellent study of taverns in pre-Revolutionary Massachusetts found that Boston's leading coffee-houses paid more in excise taxes than any other business; in other words, they sold more liquor.
Post a Comment