Welcome to the SFA

Welcome to the Southern Foodways Alliance -- an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture with headquarters at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi.

The Southern Foodways Alliance documents and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the American South. We set a common table where black and white, rich and poor -- all who gather-- may consider our history and our future in a spirit of reconciliation.

First in War, First in Peace, First in Whiskey: George Washington as Distiller

by Thomas Head

George Washington’s fame as a soldier and president has tended to overshadow his considerable accomplishments as farmer, architect, livestock breeder, and entrepreneur. He worked tirelessly to improve the profitability and efficiency of his 8,000-acre Mount Vernon estate. In his late 20s, he made the decision to turn from tobacco as his main crop to wheat. In 1771, he built a gristmill, a profitable venture that enabled him to market his flour both locally and abroad. In 1797, at the urging of his Scottish plantation manager James Anderson, who had experience in distilling, Washington built a distillery adjacent to the mill. The distillery, one of the largest on the east coast, made 11,000 gallons of whiskey the first year and produced a profit of $7,500, an enormous sum at the time.

The gristmill was restored and opened to the public in 2002. Now, with the assistance of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a trade association of distillers and wholesalers, Washington’s distillery is being reconstructed and will open to the public in 2006 as the only operating 18th-century-style distillery in the country.

The first step in the restoration has been an extensive archeological excavation of the site. The dig, which began in 1999, is now in its final stages. The excavation and research into contemporary documents has revealed that Washington’s distillery was a large sandstone building, about 30 by 75 feet, which held about 50 mash tubs and five pot stills. A second floor, which originally was used for grain storage and living quarters for the distillery manager, will be transformed into a museum and auditorium.

The Vendome Copper and Brass Works of Louisville, Kentucky will fabricate the distillery’s five copper pot stills. They are replicas of an 18th-century still, now in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution, confiscated by the Treasury Department in Fairfax County, Virginia, in the 1940s.

A model of the still was fired up last fall at the site, and the master distillers from a dozen modern distilleries, all dressed in 18th-century costumes for the occasion, made the first whiskey made on the site in 200 years. The mash recipe, reconstructed from the distillery’s accounts, consisted of 60 percent rye, 35 percent corn, and 5 percent barley, a formula that would make it closer in composition to today’s rye whiskey than to bourbon. The initial batch of whiskey will be aged for several years in Port casks, and then sold to benefit Mount Vernon’s educational programs.

The reconstruction of Washington’s distillery is a fascinating project for many reasons. It gives us an insight into the economics of plantation management in the post-Colonial South. It gives us a fascinating glimpse of our first president as entrepreneur. And it gives us a way of looking at the place of alcohol in colonial society.

Did Washington drink the whiskey he made? Probably not much. He certainly felt it necessary to the running of an army. “The benefits arising from the moderate use of liquor have been experienced in all armies,” he wrote to the president of Congress, “and are not to be disputed.” Records confirm that in addition to whiskey, apple, peach, and persimmon brandy were also distilled here, and these fruit brandies are probably the spirits that Washington and his guests drank.

Southern Foodways Forum on eGullet.org

The SFA is pleased to announce its first online partnership with eGullet.org, a non-profit "society of culinary arts and letters." Their new Southern Food Culture forum is a bulletin board for SFA members and other interested foodies to discuss issues and dishes near to their hearts, minds and tastebuds.

check out the new forum...

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