Historic Beer Terrorist Birthday: Carrie Nation

November 25, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Carrie Nation (November 25, 1846–June 9, 1911). Many biographies of her today refer to her as a “famous leader and activist,” a “temperance crusader” or “temperance advocate.” But she was also a terrorist who tried to impose her will by smashing up bars. One simple definition of terrorism is “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” That’s exactly what she was doing, and why she was celebrated by temperance groups, especially the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, which she was a member of and also started a local branch. None of these groups did much to stop her destroying private property and terrorizing people she disagreed with, because even though they wouldn’t come out publicly in favor of such tactics, in private they were just fine with the results. That she’s still revered in some circles today strikes me as quite odd. She was a criminal, and yet has her own page on The State Historical Society of Missouri’s “Historic Missourians,” (which is doubly odd since she was born in Kentucky and only moved to Missouri when she was a young girl). Many biographies refer to her “passionate activism against alcohol” or her “passion for fighting liquor” as positive attributes, which certainly seems like revisionist history and apologists for criminal behavior to me. Certainly, the bar owners and patrons whom she encountered have a considerably different opinion of her “passion.” According to Wikipedia, “She described herself as ‘a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn’t like,’ and claimed a divine ordination to promote temperance by destroying bars.”

Here’s her entry from Wikipedia:

Nation was born in Garrard County, Kentucky, to George and Mary (née Campbell) Moore. Her father was a successful farmer, stock trader, and slaveholder of Irish descent. During much of her early life, her health was poor and her family experienced financial setbacks. The family moved several times in Kentucky and finally settled in Belton, Missouri in 1854. She had poor education and informal learning.

In addition to their financial difficulties, many of her family members suffered from mental illness, her mother at times having delusions. There is speculation that the family did not stay in one place long because of rumors about Nation’s mother’s mental state. Some writers have speculated that Nation’s mother, Mary, believed she was Queen Victoria because of her love of finery and social airs. Mary lived in an insane asylum in Nevada, Missouri, from August 1890 until her death on September 28, 1893. Mary was put in the asylum through legal action by her son, Charles, although there is suspicion that Charles instigated the lawsuit because he owed Mary money.

The family moved to Texas as Missouri became involved in the Civil War in 1862. George did not fare well in Texas, and he moved his family back to Missouri. The family returned to High Grove Farm in Cass County. When the Union Army ordered them to evacuate their farm, they moved to Kansas City. Carrie nursed wounded soldiers after a raid on Independence, Missouri. The family again returned to their farm when the Civil War ended.

In 1865 Carrie met Charles Gloyd, a young physician who had fought for the Union, who was a severe alcoholic. Gloyd taught school near the Moores’ farm while deciding where to establish his medical practice. He eventually settled on Holden, Missouri, and asked Nation to marry him. Nation’s parents objected to the union because they believed he was addicted to alcohol, but the marriage proceeded. They were married on November 21, 1867, and separated shortly before the birth of their daughter, Charlien, on September 27, 1868. Gloyd died in 1869 of alcoholism.

Influenced by the death of her husband, Nation developed a passionate activism against alcohol. With the proceeds from selling her inherited land (as well as that of her husband’s estate), she built a small house in Holden. She moved there with her mother-in-law and Charlien, and attended the Normal Institute in Warrensburg, Missouri, earning her teaching certificate in July 1872. She taught at a school in Holden for four years. She obtained a history degree and studied the influence of Greek philosophers on American politics.

In 1874, Carrie married David A. Nation, an attorney, minister, newspaper journalist, and father, 19 years her senior.

The family purchased a 1,700 acre (690 ha) cotton plantation on the San Bernard River in Brazoria County, Texas. As neither knew much about farming, the venture was ultimately unsuccessful. David Nation moved to Brazoria to practice law. In about 1880, Carrie moved to Columbia to operate the hotel owned by A. R. and Jesse W. Park. Her name is on the Columbia Methodist Church roll. She lived at the hotel with her daughter, Charlien Gloyd, “Mother Gloyd” (Carrie’s first mother-in-law), and David’s daughter, Lola. Her husband also operated a saddle shop just southwest of this site. The family soon moved to Richmond, Texas to operate a hotel.

David Nation became involved in the Jaybird–Woodpecker War. As a result, he was forced to move back north to Medicine Lodge, Kansas in 1889, where he found work preaching at a Christian church and Carrie ran a successful hotel.

She began her temperance work in Medicine Lodge by starting a local branch of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and campaigning for the enforcement of Kansas’ ban on the sale of liquor. Her methods escalated from simple protests to serenading saloon patrons with hymns accompanied by a hand organ, to greeting bartenders with pointed remarks such as, “Good morning, destroyer of men’s souls.” She also helped her mother and her daughter who had mental health problems.

Dissatisfied with the results of her efforts, Nation began to pray to God for direction. On June 5, 1900, she felt she received her answer in the form of a heavenly vision. As she described it:

The next morning I was awakened by a voice which seemed to me speaking in my heart, these words, “GO TO KIOWA,” and my hands were lifted and thrown down and the words, “I’LL STAND BY YOU.” The words, “Go to Kiowa,” were spoken in a murmuring, musical tone, low and soft, but “I’ll stand by you,” was very clear, positive and emphatic. I was impressed with a great inspiration, the interpretation was very plain, it was this: “Take something in your hands, and throw at these places in Kiowa and smash them.”

Responding to the revelation, Nation gathered several rocks – “smashers”, she called them – and proceeded to Dobson’s Saloon on June 7. Announcing “Men, I have come to save you from a drunkard’s fate”, she began to destroy the saloon’s stock with her cache of rocks. After she similarly destroyed two other saloons in Kiowa, a tornado hit eastern Kansas, which she took as divine approval of her actions.

She even sold hatchet pins.

Nation continued her destructive ways in Kansas, her fame spreading through her growing arrest record. After she led a raid in Wichita, Kansas, her husband joked that she should use a hatchet next time for maximum damage. Nation replied, “That is the most sensible thing you have said since I married you.” The couple divorced in 1901; they had no children. Between 1902-06 she lived in Guthrie, Oklahoma.

Alone or accompanied by hymn-singing women, she would march into a bar and sing and pray while smashing bar fixtures and stock with a hatchet. Her actions often did not include other people, just herself. Between 1900 and 1910, she was arrested some 30 times for “hatchetations”, as she came to call them. Nation paid her jail fines from lecture-tour fees and sales of souvenir hatchets. The souvenirs were provided by a Topeka, Kansas pharmacist. Engraved on the handle of the hatchet, the pin reads, “Death to Rum”.

In April 1901, Nation went to Kansas City, Missouri, a city known for its wide opposition to the temperance movement, and smashed liquor in various bars on 12th Street in downtown Kansas City. She was arrested, hauled into court and fined $500 ($13,400 in 2011 dollars), although the judge suspended the fine so long as Nation never returned to Kansas City. She would be arrested over 32 times—one report is that she was placed in the Washington DC poorhouse for three days for refusing to pay a $35 fine.

Nation also conducted women’s rights marches in Topeka, Kansas. She led hundreds of women that were part of the Home Defender’s Army to march in opposition to saloons.

In Amarillo, Texas, Nation received a strong response, as she was sponsored by the noted surveyor W.D. Twichell, an active Methodist layman.

A common sight in bars and taverns at the time.

Nation’s anti-alcohol activities became widely known, with the slogan “All Nations Welcome But Carrie” becoming a bar-room staple. She published The Smasher’s Mail, a biweekly newsletter, and The Hatchet, a newspaper. Later in life she exploited her name by appearing in vaudeville in the United States and music halls in Great Britain. In October 1909, various press outlets reported that Nation claimed to have invented an aeroplane.

Nation, a proud woman more given to sermonizing than entertaining, found these venues uninspiring for her proselytizing. One of the number of pre-World War I acts that “failed to click” with foreign audiences, Nation was struck by an egg thrown by an audience member during one 1909 music hall lecture at the Canterbury Theatre of Varieties. Indignantly, “The Anti-Souse Queen” ripped up her contract and returned to the United States. Seeking profits elsewhere, she sold photographs of herself, collected lecture fees, and marketed miniature souvenir hatchets.

Suspicious that President William McKinley was a secret drinker, Nation applauded his 1901 assassination because drinkers “got what they deserved.”

Near the end of her life, Nation moved to Eureka Springs, Arkansas where she founded the home known as “Hatchet Hall”. In poor health, she collapsed during a speech in a Eureka Springs park. She was taken to a hospital in Leavenworth, Kansas, the Evergreen Place Hospital and Sanitarium located on 25 acres at Limit Street and South Maple Avenue just outside the city limits of Leavenworth.

Evergreen Place Hospital was founded and operated by Dr. Charles Goddard, a professor at the University of Kansas School of Medicine and a distinguished authority on nervous and mental troubles, liquor and drug habits.

Nation died there on June 9, 1911. She was buried in an unmarked grave in Belton City Cemetery in Belton, Missouri. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union later erected a stone inscribed “Faithful to the Cause of Prohibition, She Hath Done What She Could” and the name “Carry A. Nation.”

And this is her biography from the Encyclopedia Britannica:

Carry Nation, in full Carry A. Nation, née Carrie Amelia Moore, (born November 25, 1846, Garrard county, Kentucky, U.S.—died June 9, 1911, Leavenworth, Kansas), American temperance advocate famous for using a hatchet to demolish barrooms.

Carry Moore as a child experienced poverty, her mother’s mental instability, and frequent bouts of ill health. Although she held a teaching certificate from a state normal school, her education was intermittent. In 1867 she married a young physician, Charles Gloyd, whom she left after a few months because of his alcoholism. In 1877 she married David Nation, a lawyer, journalist, and minister, who divorced her in 1901 on the grounds of desertion.

Carry Nation entered the temperance movement in 1890, when a U.S. Supreme Court decision in favour of the importation and sale of liquor in “original packages” from other states weakened the prohibition laws of Kansas, where she was living. In her view, the illegality of the saloons flourishing in that state meant that anyone could destroy them with impunity. Alone or accompanied by hymn-singing women, Nation, who was typically dressed in stark black-and-white clothing, would march into a saloon and proceed to sing, pray, hurl biblical-sounding vituperations, and smash the bar fixtures and stock with a hatchet. At one point, her fervour led her to invade the governor’s chambers at Topeka. Jailed many times, she paid her fines from lecture tour fees and sales of souvenir hatchets, at times earning as much as $300 per week. She herself survived numerous physical assaults.

Nation published a few short-lived newsletters—called variously The Smasher’s Mail, The Hatchet, and the Home Defender—and her autobiography, The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation, in 1904 (rev. ed., 2006). Her “hatchetation” period was brief but brought her national notoriety. She was for a time much in demand as a temperance lecturer; she also railed against fraternal orders, tobacco, foreign foods, corsets, skirts of improper length, and mildly pornographic art of the sort found in some barrooms of the time. She was an advocate of woman suffrage. Later she appeared in vaudeville, at Coney Island, New York, and briefly in 1903 in Hatchetation, an adaptation of T.S. Arthur’s Ten Nights in a Bar-Room: And What I Saw There (1854). Despite her campaign, the enactment in 1919 of national prohibition was largely the result of the efforts of more conventional reformers, who had been reluctant to support her.

This was the front page of the newspaper, the San Francisco Call, on March 1, 1903, when Nation visited the California city.

If you’re curious if her first name is “Carry” or “Carrie,” it’s actually both. “The spelling of her first name varies; both ‘Carrie’ and ‘Carry’ are considered correct. Official records say ‘Carrie,’ which Nation used for most of her life; the name ‘Carry’ was used by her father in the family Bible. Upon beginning her campaign against liquor in the early 20th century, she adopted the name ‘Carry A. Nation,’ saying it meant ‘Carry A Nation for Prohibition.’ After gaining notoriety, Carrie officially registered ‘Carry’ as a trademark.”

1880-american-temperance-crusader-carry-nation

Historic Beer Birthday: William Painter

November 20, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of William Painter (November 20, 1838-July 15, 1906). He was born in Ireland, and in 1858 came to the U.S. “in search of better opportunities,” and settled in Baltimore, Maryland. He trained as a mechanical engineer and initially got a job “as a foreman at the Murrill & Keizer’s machine shop.” His biggest claim to fame is that he “invented the crown cork bottle cap and bottle opener. He worked with manufacturers to develop a universal neck for all glass bottles and started Crown Cork and Seal in 1892 to manufacture caps that could be used to seal the universal necks.”

Over the course of his life, “Painter patented 85 inventions, including the common bottle cap, the bottle opener, a machine for crowning bottles, a paper-folding machine, a safety ejection seat for passenger trains, and a machine for detecting counterfeit currency. He was inducted to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006.”

The bottle cap was arguably his most important invention. “The crown cork was patented by William Painter on February 2, 1892 (U.S. Patent 468,258). It had 24 teeth and a cork seal with a paper backing to prevent contact between the contents and the metal cap. The current version has 21 teeth. To open these bottles, a bottle opener is generally used.

The height of the crown cap was reduced and specified in the German standard DIN 6099 in the 1960s. This also defined the “twist-off” crown cap, now used in the United States, Canada, and Australia. This cap is pressed around screw threads instead of a flange, and can be removed by twisting the cap by hand, eliminating the need for an opener.”

He also patented several other innovations for the brewing industry, such as the Bottle Seal Or Stopper, from 1894, the Bottle Stopper, in 1885, a Closure For Sealing Bottles, in 1899, and a Capped-Bottle Opener, from 1894, to name just a few.

And here’s Painter’s obituary from the Brewers Journal in 1906:

Historic Beer Birthday: Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

October 24, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (October 24, 1632–August 26, 1723). He “was a Dutch tradesman and scientist, and is commonly known as ‘the Father of Microbiology.'” Apropos of nothing, “his mother, Margaretha (Bel van den Berch), came from a well-to-do brewer’s family.” Despite hi family ties, van Leeuwenhoek didn’t discover anything specifically useful to the brewing industry, but he did find that there was life pretty much everywhere he looked, using his microscope, including the “microscope—tiny “animalcules,” including yeast cells, which he described for the first time” in 1674-80.” But he laid the groundwork for later scientists to figure how exactly yeast worked. As Brian Hunt wrote in the entry for “infection” in the “The Oxford Companion to Beer,” that “the existence of yeast as a microbe was only discovered in 1674 by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, the inventor of the modern microscope.” Or as Sylvie Van Zandycke, PhD, put it. “The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae was used for thousands of years in the fermentation of alcoholic beverages before anyone realized it! The Dutch scientist, Anton Van Leeuwenhoek observed the mighty cells for the first time under the microscope in 1680.”

Here’s a short biography, from the Science Museum Brought to Life:

Leeuwenhoek was born in Delft in the Netherlands, to a family of brewers. He is known for his highly accurate observations using microscopes.

Leeuwenhoek worked as a draper, or fabric merchant. In his work he used magnifying glasses to look at the quality of fabric. After reading natural scientist Robert Hooke’s highly popular study of the microscopic world, called Micrographia (1665), he decided to use magnifying lenses to examine the natural world. Leeuwenhoek began to make lenses and made observations with the microscopes he produced. In total he made over 500 such microscopes, some of which allowed him to see objects magnified up to 200 times.

These were not the first microscopes, but Leeuwenhoek became famous for his ability to observe and reproduce what was seen under the microscope. He hired an illustrator who reproduced the things Leeuwenhoek saw.

In 1673 he began corresponding with the Royal Society of London, which had just formed. Leeuwenhoek made some of the first observations of blood cells, many microscopic animals, and living bacteria, which he described as ‘many very little living animalcules’. In 1680 his work was recognised with membership of the Royal Society – although he never attended a meeting, remaining all his life in Delft.

Leeuwenhoek with His Microscope, by Ernest Board (1877–1934)

Here’s a story from Gizmodo, by Esther Inglis-Arkell, explaining Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s role and iviting readers to Meet The First Man To Put Beer Under A Microscope:

The man in the picture [the same one at the top of this post] is considered the “Father of Microbiology.” He helped to discover and sketch microorganisms. When he turned his microscope on beer, he saw some of the most useful microorganisms in the world — but he failed to recognize them.

This man above is Anton van Leeuwenhoek, and he’s wearing an absolutely bitchin’ coat because he was a draper by trade. In fact, he draped so successfully that he managed to indulge his hobbies as he got older, one of which was lens making. Anton spent his days making powerful microscopes and sketching the objects he put in front of them. He discovered many things, the most interesting of which were animalcules, things that looked like tiny little animals. His sketches and descriptions, as well as his microscopes, jumpstarted the field of microbiology.

It wasn’t long before he turned his lens on beer in the process of brewing. It was 1680 when he first trained his lens on a droplet of beer. At the time, no one knew what it was that made hops, barley, and water turn into beer. Although they knew of yeast as a cloudy substance that appeared in beer after it spent some time fermenting, they were entirely ignorant of what it did; to the point where there were laws against using anything except barley, hops, and water in the beer-making process. Naturally, as soon as Anton looked at brewing beer he saw little circular blobs. He saw the way they aggregated into larger groups. He saw the way that they produced bubbles of what he thought was “air,” and floated to the surface.

Despite his obsession with microorganisms, he utterly failed to recognize them as life. These blobs, he believed, had come loose from flour. They aggregated into groups of six as part of a chemical process. Anton was fascinated by these groups of flour globs. He modeled them in wax, because he wanted to figure out the ways six globs could stick together while all being visible from above. This is his sketch of his models.

It took another 150 years before Charles Canard-Latour figured out that the “air” was carbon dioxide and the sextets of blobs hadn’t aggregated together, they’d grown. Archaeologists believe that beer was probably first brewed around 3000 BC. That means that we used an organism for nearly 5,000 years before we realized it even existed.

Although van Leeuwenhoek did write about the wood used in beer barrels:

Beer Birthday: George Wendt

October 17, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the 72nd birthday of George Wendt, who “is an American actor and comedian, best known for the role of Norm Peterson on the television show Cheers. He’s originally from Chicago and was an alumnus of The Second City in the mid-1970s. He began acting on television and movies, mostly in small roles, before landing the role of Norm Peterson in Cheers. “From 1982 to 1993, Wendt appeared as Norm Peterson in all 275 episodes of Cheers. For his work on Cheers, Wendt earned six Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.” Years later he wrote, with some help, Drinking with George: A Barstool Professional’s Guide to Beer, a quasi-memior, beer book and biography of his character.

Wendt with GABF director Nancy Johnson and then-Denver mayor John Hickenlooper at the 2009 GABF.

One of my favorite running gags in Cheers was the “Normisms” and I’ve been collecting them off and on for some time now. By no means complete, here are the ones I’ve uncovered, with the season and/or episode it’s from, if known.

Cheers to Norm(isms)

The NBC sitcom “Cheers” was one of the most popular shows on television, and ran for eleven seasons from 1982 until 1993. Set in a Boston bar, it was replete with beer and drinking references, most notably a running gag between the bartenders and one of their regulars, Norm Peterson, played by George Wendt. In many of the episodes, as Norm would first enter the bar each evening, everyone would yell Norm! and whoever was behind the bar would greet him, setting him up for a memorable comeback line. These became known as Normisms and they seem to have started in the first season, possibly episode 10. Over 275 episodes, at least 100 Normisms were delivered.

Season 1 (1982-83)

Endless Slumper [1.10]
Coach: What’s the story, Norm?
Norm: A thirsty guy walks into a bar. You finish it.

Let Me Count the Ways [1.14]
Coach: What’s going on, Norm?
Norm: Science is seeking a cure for thirst and I happen to be the guinea pig.

Diane’s Perfect Date [1.17]
Coach: Beer, Norm?
Norm: That’s that sudzy amber stuff, right? Been hearing good things about it.

No Contest [1.18]
Coach: What can I do for you, Norm?
Norm: I am going to need something to kill time before my second beer. How about a first one?

Someone Single, Someone Blue [1.20]
Coach: What’ll it be Norm?
Norm: Fame, fortune, fast women.
Coach: How about a beer?
Norm: Even better.

Season 2 (1983-84)

Personal Business [2.3]
Coach: Would you like a beer, Norm?
Norm: I’d like to see something in a size 54 sudzy.
____________________
Coach: Can I draw you a beer, Norm?
Norm: No, I know what they look like. Just pour me one.

No Help Wanted [2.14]
Coach: How about a beer, Norm?
Norm: Hey I’m high on life, Coach. Of course, beer is my life.

Fortune and Men’s Weight [2.17]
Coach: What’s your most troublesome problem, Norm?
Norm: Well that’s tough to say, Coach. Let’s see I’m overweight, unemployed, separated, depressed, starting to drink too much. My problem is I’ve never been happier.

Snow Job [2.18]
Coach: Beer, Normy?
Norm: Coach, I don’t know. I’ll have one next week… what the heck I’m young.
____________________
Coach: How’s a beer sound, Norm?
Norm: I dunno. I usually finish them before they get a word in.
____________________
Coach: What’s up, Norm?
Norm: Corners of my mouth, Coach.
____________________
Coach: What’s shaking, Norm?
Norm: All four cheeks and a couple of chins, Coach.
____________________
Coach: Beer, Normie?
Norm: Uh, Coach, I dunno, I had one this week. Eh, why not, I’m still young.
____________________
[Norm comes in with an attractive woman.]
Coach: Normie, Normie, could this be Vera?
Norm: With a lot of expensive surgery, maybe.
____________________
Coach: What can I do for you, Norm?
Norm: Well, I am going to need something to kill time before my second beer. Uh, how about a first one?
____________________
Coach: Beer, Norm?
Norm: Naah, I’d probably just drink it.
____________________
Coach: What’s up, Normie?
Norm: The temperature under my collar, Coach.

Season 3 (1984-85)

Rebound – Part 1 [3.1]
Coach: What will it be, Normy?
Norm: A transfusion with a head on it.

Diane Meets Mom [3.8]
Coach: What would you say to a nice beer, Normie?
Norm: Going down?
____________________
[Norm returns from the hospital.]
Coach: What’s up, Norm?
Norm: Everything that’s supposed to be.
____________________
[Norm comes in, depressed. He just stands by the door with a sullen face.]
Norm: [mutters] Afternoon, everybody.
All: Norm? (Norman?)
____________________
Sam: What’s new, Normie?
Norm: Terrorists, Sam. They’ve taken over my stomach.
They’re demanding beer.
____________________
Coach: What’ll it be, Normie?
Norm: Just the usual, Coach. I’ll have a froth of beer and a snorkel.
____________________
Coach: What would you say to a beer, Normie?
Norm: Daddy wuvs you.
____________________
Sam: What’d you like, Normie?
Norm: A reason to live. Gimme another beer.
____________________
Norm: Afternoon, everybody.
All: Norm!
Cliff: Afternoon, everybody.
All: [silence]

The Executive’s Executioner [3.21]
Sam: What will you have, Norm?
Norm: Well, I’m in a gambling mood, Sammy. I’ll take a glass of whatever
comes out of that tap.
Sam: Oh, looks like beer, Norm.
Norm: Call me Mister Lucky.
____________________
Coach: How’s it going, Norm?
Norm: Daddy’s rich and Momma’s good lookin’.
____________________
Coach: What’s doing, Norm?
Norm: Well, science is seeking a cure for thirst. I happen to be the guinea pig.
____________________
Coach: How’s life, Norm?
Norm: Not for the squeamish, Coach
____________________
Coach: Beer, Norm?
Norm: I heard of that stuff. Better give me a tall one in case I like it.
____________________
Coach: Beer, Norm?
Norm: Does a rag doll have cloth knobs?
____________________
Coach: How are you doing, Norm?
Norm: Cut the small talk and get me a beer.
____________________
Coach: What’s going down, Normie?
Norm: My butt cheeks on that bar stool.

Season 4 (1985-86)

Birth, Death, Love and Rice [4.1]
Sam: What do you say, Norm?
Norm: Any cheap, tawdry thing that’ll get me a beer.
____________________
Sam: What do you say to a beer, Normie?
Norm: Hi ya, sailor. New in town?
____________________
Norm: [coming in from the rain] Evening, everybody.
All: Norm! (Norman!)
Sam: Still pouring, Norm?
Norm: That’s funny, I was about to ask you the same thing.
____________________
Sam: What’s the good word, Norm?
Norm: Plop, plop, fizz, fizz.
Sam: Oh no, not the Hungry Heifer…
Norm: Yeah, yeah, yeah…
Sam: One heartburn cocktail coming up.
____________________
Sam: Whaddya say, Norm?
Norm: Well, I never met a beer I didn’t drink. And down it goes.
____________________
Woody: What’s your pleasure, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: Boxer shorts and loose shoes. But I’ll settle for a beer.
____________________
Woody: What can I do for you, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: Elope with my wife.
____________________
[Norm is angry.]
Woody: What can I get you, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: Clifford Clavin’s head.
____________________
Woody: How’s life, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: Oh, I’m waiting for the movie.

The Peterson Principle [4.18]
Sam: Hey, what’s happening, Norm?
Norm: Well, it’s a dog-eat-dog world, and I’m wearing Milk-Bone underwear.

Strange Bedfellows: Part 2 [4.25]
Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, can I pour you a beer?
Norm: Okay Woody, but be sure to stop me at 1. Ah, make that 1:30.

Strange Bedfellows: Part 3 [4.26]
Woody: How you feeling today, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: Pour.
Woody: I’m so sorry to hear that.
Norm: [pointing to the beer tap] No, I meant pour.

Wendt with John Ratzenberger on the set of Cheers.

Season 5 (1986-87)

Knights of the Scimitar [5.8]
Woody: What’s the latest, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: Zsa Zsa marries a millionaire. Peterson drinks a beer. Film at 11.
____________________
Paul: Hey Norm, how’s the world been treating you?
Norm: Like a baby treats a diaper.
____________________
Norm: Hey, everybody.
All: [silence; everybody is mad at Norm for being rich]
Norm: [carries on both sides of the conversation himself]
Norm! (Norman.)
How are you feeling today, Mr. Peterson?
Rich and thirsty. Pour me a beer.

Season 6 (1987-88)

Norm: Hey, everybody.
Woody: Norm! [nobody else in the bar says anything]
Norm: That’s it, I’m leaving.
____________________
Norm: [comes in, pretending to be Joe Average customer, as part of operation Wayne Down the Dwain]
Customer: Norm!
Norm: [quietly] Not now!
____________________
Woody: Would you like a beer, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: No, I’d like a dead cat in a glass.

A Kiss Is Still a Kiss [6.10]
Sam: How’s life treating you?
Norm: It’s not, Sammy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t.

Let Sleeping Drakes Lie [6.18]
Woody: Can I pour you a draft, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: A little early, isn’t it Woody?
Woody: For a beer?
Norm: No, for stupid questions.
____________________
Woody: What’s the story, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: The Bobbsey twins go to the brewery. Let’s cut to the happy ending.

Season 7 (1988-89)

One Happy Chappy in a Snappy Serape [7.4]
Norm: I hate to change the subject but I don’t know if anyone recognizes, we seem to have a little problem here.
Woody: Oh you need another beer, Mr. Peterson.
Norm: Okay we have two problems here.
____________________
Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, there’s a cold one waiting for you.
Norm: I know, and if she calls, I’m not here.
____________________
Sam: Beer, Norm?
Norm: Have I gotten that predictable? Good.

Call Me, Irresponsible [7.20]
Woody: What’s going on, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: A flashing sign in my gut that says, Insert beer here.

Season 8 (1989-90)

Sam: What can I get you, Norm?
Norm: [scratching his beard] Got any flea powder?
Ah, just kidding. Gimme a beer; I think I’ll just drown the little suckers.
____________________
Feeble Attraction [8.11]
Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, Jack Frost nipping at your nose?
Norm: Yep, now let’s get Joe Beer nipping at my liver, huh?

Bar Wars III: The Return of Tecumseh [8.21]
Sam: What are you up to Norm?
Norm: My ideal weight if I were eleven feet tall.

Loverboyd [8.22]
Woody: Nice cold beer coming up, Mr. Peterson.
Norm: You mean, Nice cold beer going down Mr. Peterson.
____________________
Sam: What do you know there, Norm?
Norm: How to sit. How to drink. Want to quiz me?

Season 9 (1990-91)

Grease [9.6]
Woody: How would a beer feel, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: Pretty nervous if I was in the room.
____________________
Sam: What can I do for you, Norm?
Norm: Open up those beer taps and, oh, take the day off, Sam.
____________________
Woody: What’s going on, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: Another layer for the winter, Wood.
____________________
Sam: How’s life treating you, Norm?
Norm: Like it caught me sleeping with its’ wife.
____________________
[Gang yells Norm!]
Norm: Women. Can’t live with ’em, pass the beer nuts.

Season 10 (1991-92)

Where Have All the Floorboards Gone? [10.8]
Sam: Hey what’s going on, Normie?
Norm: It’s my birthday Sammy. Give me a beer, stick a candle in it, and I’ll blow out my liver.
____________________
Woody: How’s it going, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: Poor.
Woody: I’m sorry to hear that.
Norm: No, I mean pour.
____________________
Sam: How’s life in the fast lane?
Norm: Dunno, can’t get on the on-ramp.
____________________
Woody: Pour you a beer, Mr. Peterson.
Norm: Alright, but stop me at one…. make that one-thirty.

Season 11 (1992-93)

Sam: What’s the story, Norm?
Norm: Boy meets beer. Boy drinks beer. Boy meets another beer.
____________________
Sam: How about a beer, Norm?
Norm: That’s that amber sudsy stuff, right? I’ve heard good things about it!
____________________
Woody: What’s going on, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: The question is what’s going in Mr. Peterson? A beer please, Woody.
____________________
Sam: What’s up, Normie?
Norm: My nipples, it’s freezing out there.

From Unknown Seasons

Woody: How would a beer feel, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: Pretty nervous if I was in the room.
____________________
Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, what’s up?
Norm: The warranty on my liver.
____________________
Sam: Well, look at you. You look like the cat the swallowed the canary.
Norm: And I need a beer to wash him down.
____________________
Sam: What’ll you have, Norm?
Norm: Fame, fortune, and fast women.
Sam: How ’bout a beer?
Norm: Even better.
____________________
Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, you got room for a beer?
Norm: Nope, but I am willing to add on.
____________________
Sam: Little early in the day for a beer, isn’t it Norm?
Norm: So float a corn flake in it.
____________________
Sam: What’s going on, Normie?
Norm: My birthday, Sammy. Give me a beer, stick a candle in it, and I’ll blow out my liver.
____________________
Woody: How’s it hanging, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: Better when my butt is hanging off this bar stool with a beer in my hand.
____________________
Woody: What’s the latest, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: Zha-Zha marries a millionaire, Peterson drinks a beer. Film at eleven.
____________________
Sam: Hey, how’s life treating you there, Norm?
Norm: Beats me. … Then it kicks me and leaves me for dead.
____________________
Sam: What’s up Norm?
Norm: God’s in His Heaven, [pause] something, something, something.
____________________
Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, what do you say to a cold one?
Norm: See you later, Vera, I’ll be at Cheers.
____________________
Woody: How are you today, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: Never been better, Woody. … Just once I’d like to be better.
____________________
Woody: How’s it hanging Norm?
Norm: Oh, little to the left.
____________________
Sam: What’s new, Norm?
Norm: Most of my wife.
____________________
Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, how’s life?
Norm: Well, the plot’s okay, Woody, but it kind of falls apart at the end.
____________________
Woody: Hey, Mr. P. How goes the search for Mr. Clavin?
Norm: Not as well as the search for Mr. Donut. Found him every couple of blocks.
____________________
Woody: How are you Mr. Peterson?
Norm: Yeah…as if you care.
____________________
Woody: What’s shaking Mr. Peterson?
Norm: What isn’t?
____________________
Sam: How’s life Norm?
Norm: Ask a man who’s got one.
____________________
Sam: How’s the world treating you, Norm?
Norm: Like I just ran over its dog.
____________________
Sam: How are you today, Norm?
Norm: I’m on top of the world…It’s a dismal spot in Greenland.
____________________
Elderly Sam: What’s up, Norm?
Elderly Norm: Me, about thirty times a night.

Historic Beer Birthday: Walter Jerome Green

October 10, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Walter Jerome Green (October 10, 1842-January 27, 1885). He was the son of Charles Green, who founded an upstate New York hop merchant around 1840. After his son joined the business, it became known as Charles Green & Son. According to the Brewers’ Journal, he was “one of the earliest and most widely known hop merchants of Central New York.”

Here’s a portion of his obituary that mentions the hop business from Oneida County, NY Biographies:

Walter Jerome Green, who passed away in Utica on the 27th of January, 1885, was one of the city’s most prominent business men and respected residents. He was a leading factor in financial circles as a member of the banking house of Charles Green & Son, of Utica, and was also the president and owner of the Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Halifax River Railroad of Florida. He is survived by his widow and one son. His birth occurred in Hubbardsville, Madison county, New York, on the 10th of October, 1842, his father being Charles Green, who was born at Sangerfield, Oneida county, on the 28th of May, 1811. The latter was prominently identified with financial interests in Utica for a number of years, being one of the oldest and best known bankers and business men of this part of the state. David Green, the paternal grandfather of our subject, was born at South East, Putnam county, New York, his ancestors, John Alden and Priscilla Nolines, coming to America in the Mayflower. He was related to General Nathaniel Green of Revolutionary fame. His mother, who in her maidenhood bore the name of Deliverance Hatch, was a native of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Her mother was a Sears, to which family David Green was likewise related.
The mother of Walter Jerome Green bore the maiden name of Mary Jane Hubbard and was a resident of Hubbardsville. Madison county, New York. She was a descendant of Lieutenant Joseph Kellogg, of Hadley, Massachusetts. Her parents, Oliver Kellogg and Mary (Meachem) Hubbard, were both natives of Connecticut, the former of Windsor and the latter of Simsbury, that state.
Walter Jerome Green received a liberal education in his youth, attending Cazenovia Seminary and Madison University. Desiring to become a member of the legal fraternity, he qualified for practice by an extensive course of study and was graduated from Albany University in 1864. At the end of two years, however, he abandoned a promising career as an attorney because the increasing importance of his father’s business made it desirable for him to come to his assistance. Soon afterward he was admitted to a partnership in the bank and the name of the firm became Charles Green & Son. Young though he was, his enterprising spirit soon made itself felt in the affairs of his father’s business, which gradually broadened its field, of operations and took a leading place among similar enterprises in the central part of the state. An important department in the business of the house was the trade in hops, which became so extensive as to place the firm among the largest dealers in this country. To meet the demand for reliable intelligence bearing on the hop trade, the firm published a journal known as Charles Green & Son’s Hop Paper, a large, handsomely printed, four page folio of twenty eight columns, of which an edition of about five thousand was issued, gratuitously, each quarter.

And here’s another account from Michael Brown Rare Books:

Charles Green’s son, Walter Jerome Green became one of Utica, New York
‘s most prominent business men and respected residents. He was a leading factor in financial circles as a member of his family’s banking house of Charles Green & Son, of Utica, and was also the president and owner of the Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Halifax River Railroad of Florida. Walter’s birth occurred in Hubbardsville, Madison County, New York, on the 10th of October, 1842. He received a liberal education in his youth, attending Cazenovia Seminary and Madison University. Desiring to become a lawyer, he qualified for practice by an extensive course of study and was graduated from Albany University in 1864. At the end of two years, however, he abandoned a promising career as an attorney because the increasing importance of his father’s business made it desirable for him to come to his assistance. Soon afterward he was admitted to a partnership in the bank and the name of the firm became Charles Green & Son.
Young though he was, his enterprising spirit soon made itself felt in the affairs of his father’s business, which gradually broadened its field, of operations and took a leading place among similar enterprises in the central part of the state. An important department in the business of the house was the trade in hops, which became so extensive as to place the firm among the largest dealers in this country. To meet the demand for reliable intelligence bearing on the hop trade, the firm published a journal known as Charles Green & Son’s Hop Paper, a large, handsomely printed, four page folio of twenty eight columns, of which an edition of about five thousand was issued, gratuitously, each quarter.
On the 26th of June, 1867, Mr. Green was united in marriage to Miss Sarah L. Swartwout, a daughter of Henry Swartwout, of Troy, New York. They had one son Walter Jerome Green, Jr.
Seeking a new field for investment of his capital Green became interested in a railroad project in Florida. His attention was drawn to the lack of modern transportation facilities in the fruit growing section of that state. He put both energy and money into the scheme. The outcome of his effort was the Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Halifax River Railroad, of which he was president and the entire owner. This road began at Jacksonville on the St. John’s River, in the northeastern corner of the state, extended southwardly and eastwardly to St. Augustine on the Atlantic coast and was thirty seven miles in length. The road connected with the Atlantic Coast Steamship Company, running outside to New Smyrna on the Halifax coast. Mr. Green’s intentions were to extend the road a distance of one hundred and six miles to New Smyrna. This would have afforded quick and cheap transportation between Jacksonville and the Halifax and Indian River country. The rail through a fertile and rapidly developing region had shortened the time of transport between the orange country of the east coast of Florida and New York by some eight days, a most important consideration under any circumstances, but more especially so in view of the perishable nature of the delicate fruit transported. While the possibilities of this section of Florida as a fruit growing country and health resort had long been known and to some extent developed, progress had been slow and uncertain owing to the lack of railroad facilities. Among the most notable results was the laying out of new towns between St. Augustine and Jacksonville.
Returning from active labors in Florida in the winter of 1884-5, he was passing some time at his home in Utica, when he was stricken with apoplexy and died on the 27th of January, 1885. He was survived by his widow and one son. On the death of Green the property was left to trustees for his son. In 1886 it was sold to H. M. Flagler of New York, who has carried out the plans and ideas of its previous owner.

The Michael Brown Rare Books site also had for sale a letter to and from Walter Jerome’s father, Charles Green, and his company which details some of the history of the company.

In 1838 Charles Green entered the store of Gideon Manchester, assignee of Hart & Hunt, Hubbardsville. He bought the stock and continued the business three years. Afterwards he got into the hop business eventually bringing into business his sons, Walter J. and Charles Germaine Green. Green first started in the hop business in 1850. In 1865 a partnership was formed with his son Walter Jerome Green, under the firm name of Charles Green & Son, with headquarters at Hubbardsville. The company later appears as Charles Green & Sons when Charles Germaine Green joined the firm.

NY-New-York-HUBBARDSVILLE-1940s — This postcard of Hubbardsville is from the 1940s.

Historic Beer Birthday: John Gorrie

October 3, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of John Gorrie (October 3, 1803-June 29, 1855). He “was a physician, scientist, inventor, and humanitarian,” and most importantly, is credited with creating one of the very first refrigerators, an important development for the brewing industry.

Here’s one brief account, from a history of refrigeration on The Sun:

The man credited with developing the first actual “fridge” was an American doctor, John Gorrie, who built an ice-maker in 1844 based on Evans’ work of decades earlier. He also pioneered air conditioning at the same time, since his idea was to blow air across the ice-making machine to cool hospital patients suffering from malaria in Florida.

Gorrie did not make the fortune he deserved. His business partner died and his leaky machines were mocked by the Press and the ice-producing firms to whom he could have been a threat. He died sick and broke aged 51.

Here’s his story from his Wikipedia page:

Since it was necessary to transport ice by boat from the northern lakes, Gorrie experimented with making artificial ice.

After 1845, he gave up his medical practice to pursue refrigeration products. On May 6, 1851, Gorrie was granted Patent No. 8080 for a machine to make ice. The original model of this machine and the scientific articles he wrote are at the Smithsonian Institution. In 1835, patents for “Apparatus and means for producing ice and in cooling fluids” had been granted in England and Scotland to American-born inventor Jacob Perkins, who became known as “the father of the refrigerator.” Impoverished, Gorrie sought to raise money to manufacture his machine, but the venture failed when his partner died. Humiliated by criticism, financially ruined, and his health broken, Gorrie died in seclusion on June 29, 1855. He is buried in Magnolia Cemetery.

Another version of Gorrie’s “cooling system” was used when President James A. Garfield was dying in 1881. Naval engineers built a box filled with cloths that had been soaked in melted ice water. Then by allowing hot air to blow on the cloths it decreased the room temperature by 20 degrees Fahrenheit. The problem with this method was essentially the same problem Gorrie had. It required an enormous amount of ice to keep the room cooled continuously. Yet it was an important event in the history of air conditioning. It proved that Dr. Gorrie had the right idea, but was unable to capitalize on it. The first practical refrigeration system in 1854, patented in 1855, was built by James Harrison in Geelong, Australia.

Schematic of Gorrie’s ice machine.

And this account, entitled “Dr. John Gorrie, Refrigeration Pioneer,” is by George L. Chapel of the Apalachicola Area Historical Society in Apalachicola, Florida, which is the location of the John Gorrie State Museum:

Dr. John Gorrie (1803 – 1855), an early pioneer in the invention of the artificial manufacture of ice, refrigeration, and air conditioning, was granted the first U.S. Patent for mechanical refrigeration in 1851. Dr. Gorrie’s basic principle is the one most often used in refrigeration today; namely, cooling caused by the rapid expansion of gases. Using two double acting force pumps he first condensed and then rarified air. His apparatus, initially designed to treat yellow fever patients, reduced the temperature of compressed air by interjecting a small amount of water into it. The compressed air was submerged in coils surrounded by a circulating bath of cooling water. He then allowed the interjected water to condense out in a holding tank, and released or rarified, the compressed air into a tank of lower pressure containing brine; This lowered the temperature of the brine to 26 degrees F. or below, and immersing drip-fed, brick-sized, oil coated metal containers of non-saline water, or rain water, into the brine, manufactured ice bricks. The cold air was released in an open system into the atmosphere.

The first known artificial refrigeration was scientifically demonstrated by William Cullen in a laboratory performance at the University of Glasgow in 1748, when he let ethyl ether boil into a vacuum. In 1805, Oliver Evans in the United States designed but never attempted to build, a refrigeration machine that used vapor instead of liquid. Using Evans’ refrigeration concept, Jacob Perkins of the U.S. and England, developed an experimental volatile liquid, closed-cycle compressor in 1834.

Commercial refrigeration is believed to have been initiated by an American businessman, Alexander C. Twinning using sulphuric ether in 1856. Shortly afterward, an Australian, James Harrison, examined the refrigerators used by Gorrie and Twinning, and introduced vapor (ether) compression refrigeration to the brewing and meat packing industries.

The granting of a U.S. Patent in 1860 to Ferdinand P.E. Carre of France, for his development of a closed, ammonia-absorption system, laid the foundation for widespread modern refrigeration. Unlike vapor-compression machines which used air, Carre used rapidly expanding ammonia which liquifies at a much lower temperature than water, and is thus able to absorb more heat. Carre’s refrigeration became, and still is, the most widely used method of cooling. The development of a number of synthetic refrigerants in the 1920’s, removed the need to be concerned about the toxic danger and odor of ammonia leaks.

The remaining problem for the development of modern air conditioning would not be that of lowering temperature by mechanical means, but that of controlling humidity. Although David Reid brought air into contact with a cold water spray in his modification of the heating and ventilating system of the British Parliament in 1836, and Charles Smyth experimented with air cycle cooling (1846 – 56), the problem was resolved by Willis Haviland Carrier’s U.S. Patent in 1906, in which he passed hot soggy air through a fine spray of water, condensing moisture on the droplets, leaving drier air behind. These inventions have had global implications.

Dr. Gorrie was honored by Florida, when his statue was placed in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol. In 1899, a monument to Dr. Gorrie was erected by the Southern Ice Exchange in the small coastal town of Apalachicola, where he had served as mayor in 1837, and had developed his machine.

Reportedly born October 3, 1803 in Charleston, South Carolina, of Scots – Irish descent, he was raised in Columbia, S.C. He attended the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Western District of New York, in Fairfield, New York, from 1825 to 1827. Although the school lasted only a few decades, it had a profound influence, second only to the Philadelphia Medical School, upon the scientific and medical community of the United States in the 19th century. Young Asa Gray, from Oneida County, New York, who by 1848 would be ranked as the leading botanist in the United States, and who in time would become a close friend of Dr. Alvin Wentworth Chapman of Apalachicola, the leading botanist in the South, served as an assistant in the school’s chemical department. In later years, Dr. Gray had distinct recollections of Gorrie as a “promising student.”

Dr. Gorrie initially practiced in Abbeville, South Carolina, in 1828, coming to the burgeoning cotton port of Apalachicola in 1833. He supplemented his income by becoming Assistant (1834), then Postmaster in Apalachicola. He became a Notary Public in 1835. The Apalachicola Land Company obtained clear title to the area by a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1835, and in 1836 laid out the city’s grid-iron plat along the lines of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Gorrie, who served as Vice-Intendant in 1836, and Intendant (Mayor), in 1837, would be an effective advocate for the rest of his life for draining the swamps, clearing the weeds and maintaining clean food markets in the city. He first served as Secretary of the Masonic Lodge in 1835, was a partner in the Mansion House Hotel (1836), President of the Apalachicola Branch Bank of Pensacola (1836), a charter member of the Marine Insurance Bank of Apalachicola (1837), a physician for the Marine Hospital Service of the U.S. Treasury Department (1837 – 1844), and a charter incorporator and founding vestryman of Trinity Episcopal Church, Apalachicola (1837).

Dr. Gorrie married Caroline Frances Myrick Beman, of a Columbia, South Carolina family, the widowed proprietress of the Florida Hotel in Apalachicola, on May 8, 1838. Shortly thereafter, he resigned his various positions in Apalachicola, and the family left the city not to return until 1840. He was named Justice of the Peace in 1841, the same year that yellow fever struck the area.

Mal-aria, Italian, “bad air”, and yellow fever, prevailed in the hot, low-lying, tropical and sub-tropical areas where there was high humidity and rapid decomposition of vegetation. Noxious effluvium, or poisonous marsh gas was thought to be the cause. The “putrid” winds from marshy lowlands were regarded as deadly, especially at night. The specific causes were unknown, and although one had quinine for malaria, the gin and tonic of India, there was no cure nor preventive vaccine, for yellow fever. The legendary Flying Dutchman was founded on the story of a ship with yellow fever onboard.

Malaria would start with shaking and violent chills, followed by high fever, and a drenching sweat. Insidious, it could recur in the victim as well as kill. Yellow fever did not recur; one either died or survived. It came in mysterious, vicious waves, killing anywhere from 12 to 70 percent of its victims. It started with shivering, high fever, insatiable thirst, savage headaches, and severe back and leg pains. In a day or so, the restless patient would become jaundiced and turn yellow. In the terminal stages, the patient would spit up mouthfuls of dark blood, the terrifying “black vomit” (vomito negro), the body temperature would drop, the pulse fade, and the comatose patient, cold to the touch, would die in about 8 to 10 hours. So great was the terror, that the victims would be buried as quickly as possible. Areas would be quarantined, and yellow flags flown. Gauze would be hung over beds to filter air; handkerchiefs would be soaked in vinegar; garlic would be worn in shoes. Bed linens and compresses would be soaked in camphor; sulfur would be burned in outdoor smudge pots. Gunpowder would be burned, and cannons would be fired. And, later, when it was over, the cleaning and fumigating would occur.

It would not be until 1901 in Havana, Cuba, that Drs. Walter Reed, Carlos Finlay and William Crawford Gorgas, with others, would demonstrate conclusively that the Aedes Aegypti, or Stegomyia Fasciata mosquito was the carrier of the yellow fever virus. It would be about the same time that the English physician, Sir Ronald Ross in India, would correctly identify the Anopheles mosquito as the carrier of the malaria protozoa. As early as 1848, in Mobile, Alabama, however, Dr. Josiah Nott first suggested that mosquitos might be involved. The yellow fever epidemic of 1841, and the hurricane and tidal wave, known locally as the “Great Tide” of 1842, destroyed Apalachicola’s rival cotton port of St. Joseph some thirty miles to the west on the deep water sound of St. Joseph’s Bay. Using Florida’s first railway (1837) to transport cotton from the Apalachicola River, St. Joseph had hosted Florida’s Constitutional Convention in 1838.

Dr. Gorrie became convinced that cold was the healer. He noted that “Nature would terminate the fevers by changing the seasons.” Ice, cut in the winter in northern lakes, stored in underground ice houses, and shipped, packed in sawdust, around the Florida Keys by sailing vessel, in mid-summer could be purchased dockside on the Gulf Coast. In 1844, he began to write a series of articles in Apalachicola’s “Commercial Advertiser” newspaper, entitled, “On the prevention of Malarial Diseases”.

He used the Nom De Plume, “Jenner”, a tribute to Edward Jenner, (1749 – 1823), the discoverer of smallpox vaccine. According to these articles, he had constructed an imperfect refrigeration machine by May, 1844, carrying out a proposal he had advanced in 1842. All of Gorrie’s personal records were accidentally destroyed sometime around 1860.

“If the air were highly compressed, it would heat up by the energy of compression. If this compressed air were run through metal pipes cooled with water, and if this air cooled to the water temperature was expanded down to atmospheric pressure again, very low temperatures could be obtained, even low enough to freeze water in pans in a refrigerator box.” The compressor could be powered by horse, water, wind driven sails, or steampower.
Dr. Gorrie submitted his patent petition on February 27, 1848, three years after Florida became a state. In April of 1848, he was having one of his ice machines built in Cincinnati, Ohio, at the Cincinnati Iron Works, and in Octobcr, he demonstrated its operation. It was described in the Scientific American in September of 1849. On August 22, 1850, he received London Patent #13,124, and on May 6, 1851, U. S. Patent #8080. Although the mechanism produced ice in quantities, leakage and irregular performance sometimes impaired its operation. Gorrie went to New Orleans in search of venture capital to market the device, but either problems in product demand and operation, or the opposition of the ice lobby, discouraged backers. He never realized any return from his invention. Upon his death on June 29, 1855, he was survived by his wife Caroline (1805 – 1864), his son John Myrick (1838 – 1866), and his daughter, Sarah (1844 – 1908). Dr. Gorrie is buried in Gorrie Square in Apalachicola, his wife and son are buried-St. Luke’s-Episcopal Cemetery, Marianna, Florida, and his daughter, in Milton, Florida.

Historic Beer Birthday: John Ewald Siebel

September 17, 2020 By Jay Brooks 2 Comments

Today is the birthday of John Ewald Siebel (September 17, 1868-December 20, 1919). Siebel was born in Germany, but relocated to Chicago, Illinois as a young man. Trained as a chemist, in 1868 he founded the Zymotechnic Institute, which was later renamed the Siebel Institute of Technology.

Here’s his obituary from the Foreign Language Press Survey:

Professor John Ewald Siebel has died after an active life devoted to science. Besides his relatives, thousands of his admirers, including many men of science, mourn at the bier of the friendly old man. He died in his home at 960 Montana Avenue.

Professor Siebel was born September 18, 1845, in Hofkamp, administrative district of Dusseldorf [Germany], as the son of Peter and Lisette Siebel; he attended high school [Real-Gymnasium] at Hagen and studied chemistry at the Berlin University. He came to the United States in 1865 and shortly afterwards obtained employment as a chemist with the Belcher Sugar Refining Company in Chicago. Already in 1868, he established a laboratory of his own, and from 1869 until 1873 he was employed as official chemist for the city and county. In 1871 he also taught chemistry and physics at the German High School. From 1873 until 1880 he was official gas inspector and city chemist. During the following six years he edited the American Chemical Review, and from 1890 until 1900 he published the Original Communications of Zymotechnic Institute. He was also in charge of the Zymotechnic Institute, which he had founded in 1901. Until two years ago he belonged to its board of directors.

Among the many scientific works published by the deceased, which frequently won international reputation, and are highly valued by the entire world of chemical science are: Newton’s Axiom Developed; Preparation of Dialized Iron; New Methods of Manufacture of Soda; New Methods of Manufacture of Phosphates; Compendium of Mechanical Refrigeration; Thermo-and Electro-Dynamics of Energy Conversion; etc. The distilling industry considered him an expert of foremost achievement.

The deceased was a member of the Lincoln Club; the old Germania Club; the local Academy of Science; the Brauer and Braumeisterverein [Brewer and Brewmaster Association]; the American Institute for Brewing; and the American Society of Brewing Technology. Professor Siebel was also well known in German circles outside the city and state.

His wife Regina, whom he married in 1870….died before him. Five sons mourn his death: Gustav, Friedrich, Ewald, Emil and Dr. John Ewald Siebel, Jr. Funeral services will be held tomorrow afternoon at Graceland Cemetery.

Professor Siebel was truly a martyr of science. He overworked himself, until a year ago he suffered a nervous breakdown. About four months ago conditions became worse. His was an easy and gentle death.

The Siebel Institute’s webpage tells their early history:

Dr. John Ewald Siebel founded the Zymotechnic Institute in 1868. He was born on September 17, 1845, near Wermelskirchen in the district of Dusseldorf, Germany. He studied physics and chemistry and earned his doctorate at the University of Berlin before moving to Chicago 1866. In 1868 he opened John E. Siebel’s Chemical Laboratory which soon developed into a research station and school for the brewing sciences.

In 1872, as the company moved into new facilities on Belden Avenue on the north side of Chicago, the name was changed to the Siebel Institute of Technology. During the next two decades, Dr. Siebel conducted extensive brewing research and wrote most of his over 200 books and scientific articles. He was also the editor of a number of technical publications including the scientific section of The Western Brewer, 100 Years of Brewing and Ice and Refrigeration.

In 1882 he started a scientific school for brewers with another progressive brewer but the partnership was short lived. Dr. Siebel did, however, continue brewing instruction at his laboratory. The business expanded in the 1890’s when two of Dr. Siebel’s sons joined the company.

The company was incorporated in 1901 and conducted brewing courses in both English and German. By 1907 there were five regular courses: a six-month Brewers’ Course, a two-month Post Graduate Course, a three-month Engineers’ Course, a two-month Maltsters’ Course and a two-month Bottlers’ Course. In 1910, the school’s name, Siebel Institute of Technology, was formally adopted. With the approach of prohibition, the Institute diversified and added courses in baking, refrigeration, engineering, milling, carbonated beverages and other related topics. On December 20, 1919, just twenty-seven days before prohibition became effective, Dr. J. E. Siebel passed away.

With the repeal of prohibition in 1933 the focus of the Institute returned to brewing under the leadership of F. P. Siebel Sr., the eldest son of Dr. J. E. Siebel. His sons, Fred and Ray, soon joined the business and worked to expand its scope. The Diploma Course in Brewing Technology was offered and all other non-brewing courses were soon eliminated. Then in October 1952, the Institute moved to its brand new, custom built facilities on Peterson Avenue where we have remained for almost 50 years.

Siebel Brewers Academy c. 1902-04.

Here’s another short account from the journal Brewery History, in an article entitled “A History of Brewing Science in the United States of America,” by Charles W. Bamforth:

Dr John Ewald Siebel (1845-1919) was born on September 17th 1845 at Hofcamp, near Düsseldorf. Upon visiting an uncle in US after the completion of his doctorate in chemistry and physics he became chief chemist at Belcher’s sugar refinery in Chicago, aged 21, but that company soon folded. Siebel stayed in Chicago to start an analytical laboratory in 1868, which metamorphosed into the Zymotechnic Institute.

With Chicago brewer Michael Brand, Siebel started in 1882 the first Scientific School for practical brewers as a division of the Zymotechnic Institute. True life was not breathed into the initiative until 1901 with Siebel’s son (one of five) Fred P. Siebel as manager. This evolved to become the Siebel Institute of Technology, which was incorporated in 1901 and conducted brewing courses in both English and German. Within 6 years five regular courses had been developed: a six-month course for brewers, a twomonth post graduate course, a threemonth course for engineers, a two-month malting course and a two-month bottling course.

Amongst Siebel’s principal contributions were work on a counter pressure racker and artificial refrigeration systems. Altogether he published more than 200 articles on brewing, notably in the Western Brewer and original Communications of the Zymotechnic Institute. Brewing wasn’t his sole focus, for instance he did significant work on blood chemistry.

Son EA Siebel founded Siebel and Co and the Bureau of Bio-technology in 1917, the year that prohibition arrived. Emil Siebel focused then on a ‘temperance beer’ that he had been working on for nine years. Courses in baking, refrigeration, engineering, milling and nonalcoholic carbonated beverages were offered.

And here’s the entry for the Siebel Institute from the Oxford Companion to Beer, written by Randy Mosher:

NFL Football: Pick The Winners At Brookston Fantasy Games 2020: Pandemic Edition

September 9, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

This is the fourteenth year for the Brookston Fantasy Football Games. We’ve had a lot of fun over the last thirteen, so if you love football and beer, consider joining us this year, whether you’ve played in past seasons or are a newcomer. The NFL season begins tomorrow, Thursday, September 10, so you’ve got just a few hours to sign up. And this year is the Pandemic Edition, which just means with so little else to do, everybody should sign up this year. Why not join us?

I’ve again set up two free Yahoo fantasy football games, one a simple pick ’em game and the other a survival pool. Up to 50 people can play each game (that’s Yahoo’s limit, not mine), so if you’re a regular Bulletin reader feel free to sign up for one or even both. It’s free to play, all you need is a Yahoo ID, which is also free. Below is a description of each game and the details on how to join each league and play.

Pro Football Pick’em

In this Pick’em game, just pick the winner for every game each week, with no spread, and let’s see who gets the most correct throughout the season. All that’s at stake is bragging rights, but it’s still great fun.

Also, like the last few years, we’ll be able to keep picking all through the playoffs, so the game will continue through to the Super Bowl, which is pretty cool.

In order to join the group, just go to Pro Football Pick’em, click the “Sign Up” button and look for a link or bottom that reads “Join Group.” From there, follow the path to join an existing private group and when prompted, enter the following information…
Group ID#: 33460 (Brookston Football Picks)
Password: brookston

Survival Football

If picking all sixteen football games every week seems like too much, then Survival Football is for you. In Survival Football, you only have to pick one game each week. The only catch is you can’t pick the same team to win more than once all season. And you better be sure about each game you pick because if you’re wrong, you’re out for the season. Actually a few years ago they added a new feature and I changed the game so to be kicked out you have to be wrong twice. In that way more people stand a better chance of lasting longer into the season. So get one wrong, and you’re still okay, get a second wrong, now you’re gone for the season. Last man standing wins.

Again, like the last few years, we can keep picking all through the playoffs, assuming our luck holds. So the game could even continue through to the Super Bowl.

This year it’s even easier to join, with a new streamlined sign-up process. Just click on thi s direct link and follow the instructions from there.

With 50 players allowed in each game, there’s plenty of room, so don’t be shy. Sign up for one or both games. In past seasons, I’ve posted the standings on the home page, but wasn’t able to figure out a way to do that recently. Hopefully, I’ll figure out something this year. Anyway, why not join us? Go head to head again me and my team, the Brookston Brew Jays.

Historic Beer Birthday: Johann Peter Griess

September 6, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Johann Peter Griess (September 6, 1829-August 30, 1888). He was born in Kirchhosbach (now part of Waldkappel), Germany. He was “an early pioneer of organic chemistry.” While known for his work on synthetic dyes, and he was the first to develop “the diazotization of aryl amines (the key reaction in the synthesis of the azo dyes), and a major figure in the formation of the modern dye industry.” He also “worked for more than a quarter of a century at the brewery of Samuel Allsopp and Sons in Burton upon Trent, which, owing to the presence of several notable figures and an increase in the scientific approach to brewing, became a significant centre of scientific enquiry in the 1870s and 1880s.”

This is his biography from his Wikipedia page:

After he finished at an agricultural private school, he joined the Hessian cavalry, but left the military shortly after. He started his studies at the University of Jena in 1850, but changed to the University of Marburg in 1851. During his student life he was several times sentenced to the Karzer (campus jail) and was also banned from the city for one year, during which time he listened to lectures of Justus Liebig at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich. After most of the family possession had been spent, he had to start working at the chemical factory of Oehler in Offenbach am Main in 1856. This was only possible after the recommendation of Hermann Kolbe, who was head of the chemistry department in Marburg. The devastating fire of 1857 ended the production of chemicals at the factory and a changed Peter Griess rejoined Hermann Kolbe at the University of Marburg. His new enthusiasm for chemistry yielded the discovery of diazonium salts in 1858. The discovery of a new class of chemicals convinced August Wilhelm von Hofmann to invite Griess to join him at his new position at the Royal College of Chemistry. During his time at the Royal College, he studied the reactions of nitrogen-rich organic molecules. It took him quite long to become accustomed to his new home in England, but the fact that he married in 1869 and founded a family made it clear that he did not intend to return to Germany, even though he was offered a position at the BASF. He left and started a position at the Samuel Allsopp & Sons brewery in 1862 where he worked until his retirement. His wife died after a long, severe illness in 1886; he survived her for two years and died on August 30, 1888. He is buried in Burton upon Trent.

In 1858 he described the Griess diazotization reaction which would form the basis for the Griess test for detection of Nitrite. Most of his work related to brewing remained confidential, but his additional work on organic chemistry was published by him in several articles.

And this short piece is from the journal “Brewery History,” from 2005. The article was called “The Brewing Connection in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Part II,” and was written by Ray Anderson:

Another man whose activities extended far beyond his brewery work was Griess, (Johann) Peter (1829-1888), chemist to Samuel Allsopp & Sons for 26 years from 1862 until his death. Griess’s inclusion in the dictionary rests on his discovery and subsequent work on ‘a new and versatile chemical reaction which could provide a route to a wide range of new compounds’. These diazo compounds, so called because they contained two atoms of nitrogen per molecule, were to be widely utilised in the production of azo dyes, and the dictionary hails Griess’s synthesis of them as ‘perhaps the greatest single discovery in the history of the dyestuffs industry’. Historians of chemistry place Griess in the front rank of Victorian chemists.

And this is an Abstract from an article, entitled “Johann Peter Griess FRS (1829–88): Victorian brewer and synthetic dye chemist” is from “Notes and Records, The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science,” by Edwin and Andrew Yates:

The German organic chemist Johann Peter Griess (1829–88), who first developed the diazotization of aryl amines (the key reaction in the synthesis of the azo dyes), and a major figure in the formation of the modern dye industry, worked for more than a quarter of a century at the brewery of Samuel Allsopp and Sons in Burton upon Trent, which, owing to the presence of several notable figures and an increase in the scientific approach to brewing, became a significant centre of scientific enquiry in the 1870s and 1880s. Unlike the other Burton brewing chemists, Griess paralleled his work at the brewery with significant contributions to the chemistry of synthetic dyes, managing to keep the two activities separate—to the extent that some of his inventions in dye chemistry were filed as patents on behalf of the German dye company BASF, without the involvement of Allsopp’s. This seemingly unlikely situation can be explained partly by the very different attitudes to patent protection in Britain and in Germany combined with an apparent indifference to the significant business opportunity that the presence of a leading dye chemist presented to Allsopp’s. Although his work for the brewery remained largely proprietary, Griess’s discoveries in dye chemistry were exploited by the German dye industry, which quickly outpaced its British counterpart. One less well-known connection between brewing and synthetic dyes, and one that may further explain Allsopp’s attitude, is the use of synthetic dyes in identifying microorganisms—the perennial preoccupation of brewers seeking to maintain yield and quality. Developments of Griess’s original work continue to be applied to many areas of science and technology.

That’s just the abstract, of course, but you read the whole article online.

Historic Beer Birthday: Hathor, Egyptian Goddess of Drunkenness

August 29, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today in ancient Egypt was celebrated as the Nativity of Hathor. She “was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother, or consort, of the sky god Horus and the sun god Ra, both of whom were connected with kingship, and thus she was the symbolic mother of their earthly representatives, the pharaohs. She was one of several goddesses who acted as the Eye of Ra, Ra’s feminine counterpart, and in this form she had a vengeful aspect that protected him from his enemies. Her beneficent side represented music, dance, joy, love, sexuality and maternal care, and she acted as the consort of several male deities and the mother of their sons. These two aspects of the goddess exemplified the Egyptian conception of femininity. Hathor crossed boundaries between worlds, helping deceased souls in the transition to the afterlife.” But she was also “called the mistress of music, dance, garlands, myrrh, and drunkenness.”

Here’s the initial part of her entry on her Wikipedia page:

Hathor was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky god Horus and the sun god Ra, both of whom were connected with kingship, and thus she was the symbolic mother of their earthly representatives, the pharaohs. She was one of several goddesses who acted as the Eye of Ra, Ra’s feminine counterpart, and in this form she had a vengeful aspect that protected him from his enemies. Her beneficent side represented music, dance, joy, love, sexuality and maternal care, and she acted as the consort of several male deities and the mother of their sons. These two aspects of the goddess exemplified the Egyptian conception of femininity. Hathor crossed boundaries between worlds, helping deceased souls in the transition to the afterlife.
Hathor was often depicted as a cow, symbolizing her maternal and celestial aspect, although her most common form was a woman wearing a headdress of cow horns and a sun disk. She could also be represented as a lioness, cobra, or sycamore tree.
Cattle goddesses similar to Hathor were portrayed in Egyptian art in the fourth millennium BC, but she may not have appeared until the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC). With the patronage of Old Kingdom rulers she became one of Egypt’s most important deities. More temples were dedicated to her than to any other goddess; her most prominent temple was Dendera in Upper Egypt. She was also worshipped in the temples of her male consorts. The Egyptians connected her with foreign lands such as Nubia and Canaan and their valuable goods, such as incense and semiprecious stones, and some of the peoples in those lands adopted her worship. In Egypt, she was one of the deities commonly invoked in private prayers and votive offerings, particularly by women desiring children.
During the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC), goddesses such as Mut and Isis encroached on Hathor’s position in royal ideology, but she remained one of the most widely worshipped deities. After the end of the New Kingdom, Hathor was increasingly overshadowed by Isis, but she continued to be venerated until the extinction of ancient Egyptian religion in the early centuries AD.

Music, Dance, and Joy

Egyptian religion celebrated the sensory pleasures of life, believed to be among the gods’ gifts to humanity. Egyptians ate, drank, danced, and played music at their religious festivals. They perfumed the air with flowers and incense. Many of Hathor’s epithets link her to celebration; she is called the mistress of music, dance, garlands, myrrh, and drunkenness. In hymns and temple reliefs, musicians play tambourines, harps, lyres, and sistra in Hathor’s honor. The sistrum, a rattle-like instrument, was particularly important in Hathor’s worship. Sistra had erotic connotations and, by extension, alluded to the creation of new life.

These aspects of Hathor were linked with the myth of the Eye of Ra. The Eye was pacified by beer in the story of the Destruction of Mankind. In some versions of the Distant Goddess myth, the wandering Eye’s wildness abated when she was appeased with products of civilization like music, dance, and wine. The water of the annual flooding of the Nile, colored red by sediment, was likened to wine, and to the red-dyed beer in the Destruction of Mankind. Festivals during the inundation therefore incorporated drink, music, and dance as a way to appease the returning goddess. A text from the Temple of Edfu says of Hathor, “the gods play the sistrum for her, the goddesses dance for her to dispel her bad temper.” A hymn to the goddess Raet-Tawy as a form of Hathor at the temple of Medamud describes the Festival of Drunkenness as part of her mythic return to Egypt. Women carry bouquets of flowers, drunken revelers play drums, and people and animals from foreign lands dance for her as she enters the temple’s festival booth. The noise of the celebration drives away hostile powers and ensures the goddess will remain in her joyful form as she awaits the male god of the temple, her mythological consort Montu, whose son she will bear.

A drawing based on an ancient Egyptian wall painting shows a drinking festival in progress. The upper row of figures features revelers drinking wine, including one woman who has overindulged. The lower row shows a procession with musicians. (by Betsy Bryan)

Festivals

Many of Hathor’s annual festivals were celebrated with drinking and dancing that served a ritual purpose. Revelers at these festivals may have aimed to reach a state of religious ecstasy, which was otherwise rare or nonexistent in ancient Egyptian religion. Graves-Brown suggests that celebrants in Hathor’s festivals aimed to reach an altered state of consciousness to allow them interact with the divine realm. An example is the Festival of Drunkenness, commemorating the return of the Eye of Ra, which was celebrated on the twentieth day of the month of Thout at temples to Hathor and to other Eye goddesses. It was celebrated as early as the Middle Kingdom, but it is best known from Ptolemaic and Roman times. The dancing, eating and drinking that took place during the Festival of Drunkenness represented the opposite of the sorrow, hunger, and thirst that the Egyptians associated with death. Whereas the rampages of the Eye of Ra brought death to humans, the Festival of Drunkenness celebrated life, abundance, and joy.
In a local Theban festival known as the Beautiful Festival of the Valley, which began to be celebrated in the Middle Kingdom, the cult image of Amun from the Temple of Karnak visited the temples in the Theban Necropolis while members of the community went to the tombs of their deceased relatives to drink, eat, and celebrate. Hathor was not involved in this festival until the early New Kingdom, after which Amun’s overnight stay in the temples at Deir el-Bahari came to be seen as his sexual union with her.
Several temples in Ptolemaic times, including that of Dendera, observed the Egyptian new year with a series of ceremonies in which images of the temple deity were supposed to be revitalized by contact with the sun god. On the days leading up to the new year, Dendera’s statue of Hathor was taken to the wabet, a specialized room in the temple, and placed under a ceiling decorated with images of the sky and sun. On the first day of the new year, the first day of the month of Thoth, the Hathor image was carried up to the roof to be bathed in genuine sunlight.
The best-documented festival focused on Hathor is another Ptolemaic celebration, the Festival of the Beautiful Reunion. It took place over fourteen days in the month of Epiphi. Hathor’s cult image from Dendera was carried by boat to several temple sites to visit the gods of those temples. The endpoint of the journey was the Temple of Horus at Edfu, where the Hathor statue from Dendera met that of Horus of Edfu and the two were placed together. On one day of the festival, these images were carried out to a shrine where primordial deities such as the sun god and the Ennead were said to be buried. The texts say the divine couple performed offering rites for these entombed gods.Many Egyptologists regard this festival as a ritual marriage between Horus and Hathor, although Martin Stadler challenges this view, arguing that it instead represented the rejuvenation of the buried creator gods. Bleeker thought the Beautiful Reunion was another celebration of the return of the Distant Goddess, citing allusions in the temple’s festival texts to the myth of the solar eye. Barbara Richter argues that the festival represented all three things at once. She points out that the birth of Horus and Hathor’s son Ihy was celebrated at Dendera nine months after the Festival of the Beautiful Reunion, implying that Hathor’s visit to Horus represented Ihy’s conception.
The third month of the Egyptian calendar, Hathor or Athyr, was named for the goddess. Festivities in her honor took place throughout the month, although they are not recorded in the texts from Dendera.

And here’s another account of the Festival of Drunkenness, from Just History:

There was an importance placed on beer in Egyptian culture as well. The source of this festival is a mythological story of how beer saved the world.
The story goes that Re, the sun god, was frankly salty about the “duplicitousness” of mankind and called his children together to discuss it. A Council of the Gods is called, and they decide to punish the rebellious men by letting loose the goddess Hathor. She stormed out in the form of Sakhnet, which literally means female magical power. In some stories this is the form of a great flood, and in others it is the form of a lion. Whatever this form is, Hathor went to town killing everyone up and down the Nile Valley. Re and the other gods started to feel bad about what they let loose, and tried to get her to stop, but at this point Hathor was in a blood rage and would not and could not stop. In order to stop her murderous rampage, the Council of the Gods flooded the fields with beer that had been tinted red with ocher to look like blood. Hathor greedily lapped it up and got drunk and passed out. Mankind was saved by drunkenness.
Originally, it was thought these rituals took place in later in Egyptian history when they were ruled the Greeks and Romans. However, recent discoveries from the excavations of the Temple of Mut complex in Luxor show they took place much earlier- around 1470 BCE. Dr. Betsy Bryan’s research has found the Festival of Drunkenness was celebrated by people at least once a year, sometimes twice, in homes, temples and makeshift desert shrines. It was different than many other temple ceremonies as the priests or pharaoh would act on behalf of the people. In this ritual, everyone participated together- the elites and the peasants. The scene is described in a hymn to Sakhnet as young women with flowing garlands in their hair serving alcohol to everyone They all drink to the point of passing out, then are awoken to the beating of drums and the priests carried out a likeness of the goddess Hathor and they present their petitions to her. It wasn’t just drinking going on either. Graffiti was found discussing “traveling the marshes”, which is a euphemism for having sex. These festivals took place at the beginning of the Nile floods in mid-August, which hearkened to the fertility and renewal of the land by the floods.
The excavations have found what is termed a “porch of drunkenness” associated with Hatshepsut, the woman who became pharaoh. The porch was constructed at the height of her reign. It has been theorized that Hatshepsut was instrumental in popularizing the festival to justify her assumption of pharaonic powers by association with a Great Goddess. There is also a tantalizing discussion of Hatshepsut driving off enemies of Egypt termed the “shemau”, which at least one historian believes was the Jewish people. Then the festivals would be a time to celebrate the fertility of the remaining Egyptians and to replenish their population. This would place the Biblical exodus much earlier than theorized. There is no additional corroboration for this theory however.
No one knows why the porch of drunkenness was taken down. Hatsheput’s name was stricken by her successor, Thutmose III, so it could have been part of that campaign. The ritual fell out of favor as well, and according to Bryan it had lost favor completely by the reign of Amenhotep III. She observed that Egyptians did not like the alcohol making them lose control, and that was what this ritual was about- taking them to the edge of chaos. However, in the time of the fun loving Greeks and Romans it regained popularity. Herodotus reported in 440 BCE that the festivals drew as many as 700,000 participants and drunkenness and sexual permissiveness was the rule. There are also mentions of the festival as late as 200 CE. Although the significance of it had gone, there’s nothing better than a good party.

The Ancient Egyptian Festival of Drunkenness

The Festival of Drunkenness is a religiously significant celebration that was held annually (said to be biannually in some places) by the ancient Egyptians. The background story for the celebration of this festival can be found in a text known as The Book of the Heavenly Cow . In this text, there is an ancient Egyptian myth involving the destruction of mankind. According to the myth, human beings were saved from extinction thanks, in part, to alcohol.

The Destruction of Mankind

In The Book of the Heavenly Cow , there is a myth known as the ‘Destruction of Mankind’. This story begins by stating that once upon a time, human beings lived together with the gods, and were ruled over by Ra (Re). It goes on to say that when Ra had grown old, mankind began to conspire against him. Ra became aware of mankind’s scheming, and decided to summon the other gods to his palace, in order to obtain counsel from them.
After explaining his dilemma to the gods, it was suggested to Ra that he ought to release his Eye, so that it might smite down humanity. He agreed with this suggestion, and sent his Eye in the form of the goddess Hathor to punish mankind. In the meantime, the humans fled to the desert, as they became fearful of Ra.
Nevertheless, Hathor, who was transformed into a lion (or the warlike goddess Sekhmet), descended and slew mankind in the desert. In one version of the story, the goddess went on a rampage, and was about to wipe out all of humanity when Ra took pity on mankind. It was through Ra’s subsequent intervention that mankind was saved. In an alternate version of the myth, it seems that Ra had planned the event to save mankind, so that he could be the savior of humanity.
Thus, Ra summoned his messengers, and ordered them to bring him a great amount of haematite from Elephantine. He then ordered the haematite to be ground. In the meantime, barley was also being ground to produce beer. When both substances were ready, Ra had the haematite put into the beer, so that it resembled human blood. It is written that 7,000 jars of this beer were made.
One night, Ra poured out the blood-like beer, which flooded the fields “three palms high.” On the morning of the next day, the goddess saw that the fields were flooded with what seemed to be human blood, and was delighted at the sight. She began drinking the liquid without knowing that it was actually beer, and soon became intoxicated, then fell asleep. As a result, mankind was saved from destruction.

The Day of Celebration

The Festival of Drunkenness is celebrated on the 20th day of Thoth, the 1st month of the ancient Egyptian calendar. The festival of drunkenness was a communal affair and on one level, the celebrations took place in temples. On another level, this festival took place in peoples’ houses and shrines.
Typically, the participants of this festival would be served lots of alcohol, get drunk, and fall asleep. It was not regarded, however, as a social drinking session, but was sacred event. In the temples, the celebrants would be awoken by the sound of drums and music. Upon waking up, they would worship the goddess Hathor.
Other aspects of the ritual celebration included dancing and the lighting of torches, which was performed in the hopes that the devotees of the goddess would receive an epiphany from her. Another activity believed to have been undertaken during the festival was sex. In a hymn regarding the festival, there is a phrase “traveling through the marshes”, and it has been speculated that this is an ancient Egyptian euphemism for having sex.
One explanation for this activity is provided by regarding Hathor in her role as a goddess of love. Alternatively, it may have been linked to the fertility of the land as well. The Festival of Drunkenness was typically celebrated around the middle of August, the period when the Nile began to rise. Therefore, sexual activity during the festival may have also been perceived as a means of bringing the Nile floods back, and thus ensuring the fertility of the land.

*Egyptian painting of dancers and flutists, from the Tomb of Nebamun.*

And apparently Hathor and drunkenness, too, played a role in Ancient Egyptian funerals.

Funerary Practices

As an afterlife deity, Hathor appeared frequently in funerary texts and art. In the early New Kingdom, for instance, Osiris, Anubis, and Hathor were the three deities most commonly found in royal tomb decoration. In that period she often appeared as the goddess welcoming the dead into the afterlife. Other images referred to her more obliquely. Reliefs in Old Kingdom tombs show men and women performing a ritual called “shaking the papyrus”. The significance of this rite is not known, but inscriptions sometimes say it was performed “for Hathor”, and shaking papyrus stalks produces a rustling sound that may have been likened to the rattling of a sistrum. Other Hathoric imagery in tombs included the cow emerging from the mountain of the necropolis and the seated figure of the goddess presiding over a garden in the afterlife. Images of Nut were often painted or incised inside coffins, indicating the coffin was her womb, from which the occupant would be reborn in the afterlife. In the Third Intermediate Period, Hathor began to be placed on the floor of the coffin, with Nut on the interior of the lid.
Tomb art from the Eighteenth Dynasty often shows people drinking, dancing, and playing music, as well as holding menat necklaces and sistra—all imagery that alluded to Hathor. These images may represent private feasts that were celebrated in front of tombs to commemorate the people buried there, or they may show gatherings at temple festivals such as the Beautiful Festival of the Valley. Festivals were thought to allow contact between the human and divine realms, and by extension, between the living and the dead. Thus, texts from tombs often expressed a wish that the deceased would be able to participate in festivals, primarily those dedicated to Osiris. Tombs’ festival imagery, however, may refer to festivals involving Hathor, such as the Festival of Drunkenness, or to the private feasts, which were also closely connected with her. Drinking and dancing at these feasts may have been meant to intoxicate the celebrants, as at the Festival of Drunkenness, allowing them to commune with the spirits of the deceased.
Hathor was said to supply offerings to deceased people as early as the Old Kingdom, and spells to enable both men and women to join her retinue in the afterlife appeared as early as the Coffin Texts in the Middle Kingdom. Some burial goods that portray deceased women as goddesses may depict these women as followers of Hathor, although whether the imagery refers to Hathor or Isis is not known. The link between Hathor and deceased women was maintained into the Roman Period, the last stage of ancient Egyptian religion before its extinction.