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Cocked and Boozy: An Intoxicating History of the American Revolution
America’s founding generation drank a staggering amount of alcohol by today’s standards.
It influenced their politics, built and sustained their relationships, and drove the economy. Booze was not a small part of colonial society, nor covertly consumed in private spaces—it was integral to American life.
Historians have been reluctant to discuss the influence of alcohol on the founding of the United States, but it is necessary if we want to gain a full picture of the movement—it’s time to reveal the drunken side of the American Revolution.
In Cocked and Boozy—two of Benjamin Franklin’s two hundred terms for drunkenness—public historian Brooke Barbier examines the role that alcohol played in spurring, binding, and winning the American Revolution and how it shaped the nascent United States. Every chapter concludes with an eighteenth-century cocktail recipe made for modern tastes, so readers can participate in their own historic tippling.
The intoxicating story begins in 1763 after the end of the French and Indian War and spans until 1800, with the presidential election of Thomas Jefferson. During these nearly four decades, Americans witnessed unprecedented disorder and prodigious growth, and through it all—powering it, in fact—was alcohol. Put simply, drink helped transform British subjects into Americans.
It influenced their politics, built and sustained their relationships, and drove the economy. Booze was not a small part of colonial society, nor covertly consumed in private spaces—it was integral to American life.
Historians have been reluctant to discuss the influence of alcohol on the founding of the United States, but it is necessary if we want to gain a full picture of the movement—it’s time to reveal the drunken side of the American Revolution.
In Cocked and Boozy—two of Benjamin Franklin’s two hundred terms for drunkenness—public historian Brooke Barbier examines the role that alcohol played in spurring, binding, and winning the American Revolution and how it shaped the nascent United States. Every chapter concludes with an eighteenth-century cocktail recipe made for modern tastes, so readers can participate in their own historic tippling.
The intoxicating story begins in 1763 after the end of the French and Indian War and spans until 1800, with the presidential election of Thomas Jefferson. During these nearly four decades, Americans witnessed unprecedented disorder and prodigious growth, and through it all—powering it, in fact—was alcohol. Put simply, drink helped transform British subjects into Americans.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published June 9, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
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July 5, 2026If you’re interested in the American Revolution- this is a must! It’s so interesting seeing how alcohol influenced and accompanied and affected this era. This book is short & goes down easy! 🍻
August 1, 2026
This is my friend groups bookclub pick for the month, I enjoyed this much more than I expected. The background into our founding fathers and their relationship with alcohol was fascinating. The writing is quick and engaging and there are colonial cocktails at the end of every chapter for you to enjoy. I learned a lot, it was an interesting read I probably wouldn't have picked up otherwise.
June 26, 2026
First line: Without thinking about it too much, conjure up an image of Benjamin Franklin--whatever comes to mind.
Summary: In Brooke Barbier’s new book she takes a look at how alcohol shaped the early years of our country. Using primary sources, she delves into the importance of alcohol in policy making, networking and financing the new nation. Spanning the years after the French and Indian War to the presidential election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800, we learn how “drink helped transform British subjects into Americans.” At the end of each chapter, Barbier provides a recipe for an eighteenth century cocktail that is adapted for modern audiences.
My Thoughts: When most people think of the American Revolution and drinks, you would assume their first thought would be tea. I know I do. After reading Cocked and Boozy I have a completely new view of what helped drive the founding fathers.
One of the most controversial taxes on the American colonies was on sugar and molasses. Since it affected the production of rum and small beer, it caused riots and increased smuggling. These drinks had become part of the everyday lives of the population. Adding the extra expense became too much for the colonists.
However, the production costs were not the only way alcohol played an important part in our nation’s founding. Many gatherings of the founding fathers happened in taverns. Celebrations for the ratification of the Constitution featured copious amounts of beer, cider and brandy. The amount of wine Thomas Jefferson purchased from France each year is astounding. George Washington started to produce thousands of gallons of whiskey at his plantation after leaving office. There is no denying that alcohol played an important part in our nation’s birth.
If you were looking for an unconventional book about the American Revolution then I would steer you to this one! It was a fascinating read about the little discussed part of our history. It also will might give you some inspiration for your Fourth of July party plans!
Summary: In Brooke Barbier’s new book she takes a look at how alcohol shaped the early years of our country. Using primary sources, she delves into the importance of alcohol in policy making, networking and financing the new nation. Spanning the years after the French and Indian War to the presidential election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800, we learn how “drink helped transform British subjects into Americans.” At the end of each chapter, Barbier provides a recipe for an eighteenth century cocktail that is adapted for modern audiences.
My Thoughts: When most people think of the American Revolution and drinks, you would assume their first thought would be tea. I know I do. After reading Cocked and Boozy I have a completely new view of what helped drive the founding fathers.
One of the most controversial taxes on the American colonies was on sugar and molasses. Since it affected the production of rum and small beer, it caused riots and increased smuggling. These drinks had become part of the everyday lives of the population. Adding the extra expense became too much for the colonists.
However, the production costs were not the only way alcohol played an important part in our nation’s founding. Many gatherings of the founding fathers happened in taverns. Celebrations for the ratification of the Constitution featured copious amounts of beer, cider and brandy. The amount of wine Thomas Jefferson purchased from France each year is astounding. George Washington started to produce thousands of gallons of whiskey at his plantation after leaving office. There is no denying that alcohol played an important part in our nation’s birth.
If you were looking for an unconventional book about the American Revolution then I would steer you to this one! It was a fascinating read about the little discussed part of our history. It also will might give you some inspiration for your Fourth of July party plans!
October 29, 2026
Forget the powdered wigs and solemn portraits. Brooke Barbier’s “Cocked and Boozy” suggests that America’s founding deserves a bar tab alongside its bibliography. Apparently, liberty did not arrive on horseback. Sometimes it needed another round. Barbier explores how alcohol helped turn disgruntled colonists into revolutionaries, allies, and eventually Americans. Taverns emerge as places where political relationships developed and resistance acquired momentum: less marble temple of democracy, more room where somebody has opinions about taxation and questionable control of his elbows. The pleasure here is not watching the Founders descend from their pedestals and order drinks. It is seeing drinking as social infrastructure. Shared glasses helped build trust across colonial boundaries; liquor supported commerce, sustained soldiers, and accompanied celebrations. Independence required ideas, but ideas benefited from somewhere to sit and something to swallow. Benjamin Franklin, whose vocabulary for drunkenness supplied the title, seems ideally suited to this enterprise. Two hundred expressions for being drunk is not merely linguistic curiosity; it is the work of a man determined never to describe the same dinner guest twice. Yet Barbier’s subject has a darker finish. Alcohol could encourage violence as readily as fellowship, and judgments about excessive drinking depended on who held the glass. The party was never equally welcoming. Those complications keep the premise from collapsing into a novelty coaster with footnotes. Each chapter also concludes with an eighteenth-century cocktail recipe adapted for modern tastes. Finally, a history book that makes preparing for book club sound suspiciously like provisioning a Continental encampment. Whether your discussion improves after the second serving remains an experiment for your own scholarly committee. The limitation is inherent in the lens: alcohol illuminates the Revolution without explaining everything about it. Still, this is an inviting corrective to history presented as an endless procession of sober pronouncements by improbably flawless men. Come for the drinking stories; stay for the connections between conviviality, commerce, and rebellion. Barbier gives the founding generation back its humanity, its contradictions, and, the morning after. Designate a driver, not a monarch!
July 29, 2026
The recipes at the end of each chapter were really my favorite part of this. There is lots of interesting information in this but I think we readers would have been better served to either make this more strictly about alcohol OR the revolution, there is two little of each here.
July 27, 2026
This was another forced read from NYT recommendations and it was fine. It wasn't quite enough history or quite enough booze. I think it wasn't sure what kind of book it really was trying to be. The recipes they had were interesting though!
July 17, 2026
Interesting but less lighthearted than I was expecting based on the cover.
September 13, 2026
3.5 upped to 4 because this book is unique..
Back in my 1970’s undergraduate years, I majored in sociology, specifically the sociology of political movements. I remember writing a paper that shocked my classmates because it was sympathetic to the prohibition movement — it was a movement sympathetic to female concerns and women developed organizing skills that led to their battle for voting rights. That said, I thought I was aware of how prevalent alcohol was in early American history. I did know that in most colonial communities the institutions consisted of a church, school and tavern. Alcohol was omnipresent.
What I didn’t ponder on was the role booze played in historic events. Taxes levied on alcohol was a source of political outrage, mob violence erupted by drunken citizens… and our forefathers discussed and debated important policies and actions while swilling wine and bear. Yes, alcohol was present while the constitution was getting written.
Even if you are well acquainted with the history of the American Revolution, Brooke Barbier’s “Crocked and Boozy” colored in much of the ambiance and backdrop of serious events, that which is not revealed to us in history class. Certainly, learning the dry facts about our history is important. But knowing that alcohol was being consumed at the same time is wonderful edification. It actually brings the era to life.
“Cocked” is easy to read, not stuffy and arid. The research is solid. However at 300 pages, it gets repetitive. Two thirds in, I digested her premise: For centuries, alcohol was present and influential in our country’s founding and development. This didn’t bother me because I enjoyed re-experiencing the Revolution now being aware that these characters were often buzzed. And each chapter delightfully ends with an alcoholic recipe from this period. I’m not going to mix one because Hamilton, Franklin and their party boy peers savored very sweet wines. I like dry.
Back in my 1970’s undergraduate years, I majored in sociology, specifically the sociology of political movements. I remember writing a paper that shocked my classmates because it was sympathetic to the prohibition movement — it was a movement sympathetic to female concerns and women developed organizing skills that led to their battle for voting rights. That said, I thought I was aware of how prevalent alcohol was in early American history. I did know that in most colonial communities the institutions consisted of a church, school and tavern. Alcohol was omnipresent.
What I didn’t ponder on was the role booze played in historic events. Taxes levied on alcohol was a source of political outrage, mob violence erupted by drunken citizens… and our forefathers discussed and debated important policies and actions while swilling wine and bear. Yes, alcohol was present while the constitution was getting written.
Even if you are well acquainted with the history of the American Revolution, Brooke Barbier’s “Crocked and Boozy” colored in much of the ambiance and backdrop of serious events, that which is not revealed to us in history class. Certainly, learning the dry facts about our history is important. But knowing that alcohol was being consumed at the same time is wonderful edification. It actually brings the era to life.
“Cocked” is easy to read, not stuffy and arid. The research is solid. However at 300 pages, it gets repetitive. Two thirds in, I digested her premise: For centuries, alcohol was present and influential in our country’s founding and development. This didn’t bother me because I enjoyed re-experiencing the Revolution now being aware that these characters were often buzzed. And each chapter delightfully ends with an alcoholic recipe from this period. I’m not going to mix one because Hamilton, Franklin and their party boy peers savored very sweet wines. I like dry.
June 16, 2026
When I quit drinking twenty years ago, I suddenly began to notice in my reading how much people drank back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I think that I first noticed it in Dickens' Pickwick Papers which is a novel of one drink after another after another, but once I noticed it there, I began to see it everywhere. Those people were serious drinkers! And as this book shows, our Founding Fathers put it away on a scale that we can hardly imagine today. People considered average drinkers then would be seen as insane alcoholics today. Benjamin Rush, who inveighed against drinking, still had a small beer (or two) at lunch and a couple of glasses of wine at dinner. In the army, they drank to fight, they drank to drill, they drank to cover the pain, they drank for courage and they drank to loosen their inhibitions so that they could more easily do the horrible things that are done in war. Alcohol was a key part of the economy, as a trade good, as a source of employment, and as a source of revenue. With the poor transportation networks, it was easier to turn a crop of grain into whiskey than to ship it to market as wheat or corn. They took all of this for granted. They understood that there were a few extreme cases of alcoholism, but they mostly swept them under the rug and poured another drink. They had no sense of the adverse health effects of drinking. It was another world that is not easy to even imagine today.
September 5, 2026
I admit, I expected this to be a bit more salacious, perhaps upending some common historical understandings or telling some deeply personal stories about lives touched by alcohol. The chapters about The Revolutionary War largely recant the general sequence of events, but add in text supporting people were drinking at the time. Some more interesting chapters follow in discussing actual tensions over alcohol and taxes in the new United States. The chapter discussing the origins of the temperance movement and the Adams' son's death from alcoholism felt the most gripping to me.
It's a bit dry for a book purporting to be about alcohol, while not being a particularly in depth historical text. The alcohol recipes at the end of each chapter are fun, though, and I learned some interesting things.
It's a bit dry for a book purporting to be about alcohol, while not being a particularly in depth historical text. The alcohol recipes at the end of each chapter are fun, though, and I learned some interesting things.
October 7, 2026
A short, delightful book for anyone who loves American history or a good drink. It covers a niche corner of the Revolutionary era: the role of booze in all its forms, from how it was made and consumed to how people thought about it, and how they rebelled whenever the government got between them and their liquor. Alcohol tax collectors were tarred and feathered, among other counterattacks. Without all this drinking, who knows if the founding fathers would have bonded the way they did and agreed to ratify the Constitution? One little-known and hilarious fact: the government men sent to put down the Whiskey Rebellion couldn't resist drinking whiskey on the way. Each chapter ends with a historical cocktail recipe. They're mostly a fun look at how people drank back then, and too sweet to be practical for today's tastes.
July 7, 2026
Five stars. History has never gone down this smooth.
Brooke Barbier is that rare writer who can teach you something real and make you laugh on the same page. Her romp through the boozy side of the Revolution is warm, sharp, and impossible to put down, and every chapter hands you a real period cocktail recipe to try. The history is meticulous and the storytelling is pure fun. So pour yourself a Stone Fence or a Rum Punch and enjoy the ride
Brooke Barbier is that rare writer who can teach you something real and make you laugh on the same page. Her romp through the boozy side of the Revolution is warm, sharp, and impossible to put down, and every chapter hands you a real period cocktail recipe to try. The history is meticulous and the storytelling is pure fun. So pour yourself a Stone Fence or a Rum Punch and enjoy the ride
July 7, 2026
I gave up on this after reading about half. Although it does have some interesting information about the types of beverages, it mostly harps on the large quantities and omnipresence of alcohol. It would have been more interesting to me if the story had stayed focused on the habits and role of alcohol rather than trying to include a more or less complete history of the revolution, a story that is told much better elsewhere.
June 14, 2026
Barbier shines a light on yet another angle of the American Revolution. In addition to King Hancock, Cocked and Boozy is another opportunity that Barbier found to bring life to familiar names, in a way we can all relate to- alcohol. This is a very engaging and enjoyable read, as we once again have the opportunity to walk in the footsteps of our founding fathers, hoping to bump into them and Huzzah at any time of the day!
June 29, 2026
This book was well researched and easy to read, traits I appreciate in nonfiction books (but aren't always a given). I hadn't realized how prevalent alcohol was to the American Revolution, which was a revelation, and I also enjoyed learning about the early temperance movement and tavern culture. The cocktail recipes are a fun twist, too!
July 3, 2026
An incredibly well researched book! I was amazed by the amount of alcohol consumed by our forefathers and the colonists in general. It’s easy to imagine how the British royalty could look upon them as drunken rabble.
In hindsight, I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I struggled with the repeated “they gathered in a tavern, they drank, they rebelled, and then they drank some more.”
In hindsight, I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I struggled with the repeated “they gathered in a tavern, they drank, they rebelled, and then they drank some more.”
June 16, 2026
Fun, insightful and well researched. One of my favorite history reads, with cocktail recipes as a bonus at the end of each chapter. Bringing a copy for friends hosting a big July 4 party, along with a healthy supply of Grog.
June 26, 2026
Interesting and entertaining! I wish this had gone a little deeper into the social history of alcohol during the founding, but it’s an easy read and very accessible to general audiences. I loved the chapter titles.
July 12, 2026
Such a fun and unique perspective on the American Revolution. If you know the main points of the events but just want to see it in a different light and how important alcohol was to the revolution, this is a great read. I also can’t wait to try some of the cocktails at the ends of the chapter 🍹🍹
September 30, 2026
A whole different perspective on the founding of this country based on the drinking habits of our founders. They were hardy drinkers and distillers. Well documented and review of pre-revolutionary days to Madison and Monroe.
June 14, 2026
Lots of facts. And booze.
June 30, 2026
The two appendices are the best reasons to read/purchase ... "Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy"
June 30, 2026
Fun read with lots of “TMI” moments.
July 1, 2026
Narrrated by Elizabeth Wiley
July 17, 2026
This was so much fun!
July 30, 2026
The historical cocktail recipes are a delight!
August 1, 2026
What a fun read - appreciated the recipes at the end of each chapter. Our country was founded by men who were well lubricated; brings to mind Churchill in WW2 and his relationship with booze.
September 9, 2026
The book couldn't find its groove. Interesting but not engrossing.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews