In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, brewing ranked next
in importance after milling and baking. The Puritans did not disdain the
use of alcohol, as is sometimes supposed. A federal law passed in 1790
provided each soldier a daily ration of one-fourth pint of brandy, rum, or
whiskey. The colonists imported wine and malt beverages and planted
vineyards, but it was Jamaican rum that became the answer to the thirst
of the new nation. For its sake, New Englanders became the bankers of
the slave trade that supplied the molasses needed to produce rum. Eventually whiskey, the backwoods
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