WHISKY HISTORY
The whiskey rebellion
In the last issue, Gavin D Smith explored how whisky-related taxation led to riots in Glasgow during 1725. Here, he looks at how opposition to the taxation of whiskey in the USA at the end of that century was the catalyst for more serious and widespread violence, and as in Scotland, there were some interesting unintended consequences
America’s ‘Whiskey Rebellion’ occurred between 1791 and 1794, and took place in Western Pennsylvania, where whiskey was principally made from rye.
It occurred after Alexander Hamilton, Treasury Secretary of the newly-formed federal government led by president George Washington – himself a whiskey distiller – came up with the idea of imposing a tax on distilled spirits. This was part of an attempt to reduce debts incurred during the revolutionary war against Great Britain and was also intended to raise revenue for future government spending plans.
Large-scale distillers were only required to pay the tax – of six cents per gallon – on an annual basis, and were charged a more favourable rate if they produced larger quantities. However, small producers, who were often also farmers, found their spirit taxed at a rate of nine cents per gallon, and only cash would be accepted as settlement.
It soon became clear that there was going to be widespread opposition to the tax, with excise officers being intimidated and even attacked, and many producers refusing to pay. The climax of the ‘rebellion’ came in July 1794, when US Marshal David Lennox arrived in Western Pennsylvania to serve writs on 60 distillers who had not paid their tax.
Landowner and tax collector General John Neville assisted Lennox, and in retribution, his house was attacked and subsequently burned down by a mob comprising up to 700 armed men. In the wake of this development, and with the threat of an attack on the settlement of Pittsburgh, George Washington sent a peace envoy to Pennsylvania to meet with the leaders of the rebellion.
Although rye whiskey continued to be made in large quantities, the effects of the ‘Whiskey Rebellion’ undoubtedly fed into a growing momentum towards the creation of an industry based on producing bourbon from corn in Kentucky.
PICTURED: Alexander Hamilton
When the envoy failed to achieve a promise that law and order would be restored, Washington assembled in excess of 12,000 militia men from Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey and Virginia, and personally marched at the head of this force into Western Pennsylvania. The militia met with little resistance, and a number of suspected rebels were arrested. Two were subsequently convicted of treason, but were pardoned by Washington.
The tax on distilled spirits was finally repealed in 1802 during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, partly on the grounds that the duty due had proved virtually impossible to collect, despite the best efforts of the forces of law and order. Kentucky and Tennessee distillers were not subjected to the federal law, and as Wright Thompson explains in his 2020 book Pappyland, “The farmers and distillers ran from the tax man and the long arm of the feds, looking for a piece of land where they might make their stand.
Hamilton’s law passed in 1791. Kentucky became a state in 1792.
In Kentucky, the land was perfect for corn – four times the yield per acre than Maryland…and so the farmers naturally grew corn.”
Although rye whiskey continued to be made in large quantities, the effects of the ‘Whiskey Rebellion’ undoubtedly fed into a growing momentum towards the creation of an industry based on producing bourbon from corn in Kentucky.
Already, a commercial distillery had been constructed close to the Ohio River at Louisville in 1783 by Evan Williams, with the Samuels Family – later of Maker’s Mark fame – beginning to distil for their own use around the same time.
In 1789, Baptist minister Elijah Craig had opened a distillery in Georgetown, and he is sometimes heralded as the ‘inventor’ of Bourbon by ageing his corn whiskey in barrels rather than selling it new and raw, though it is more likely that he was carrying on maturation experimentation started by earlier, uncredited whiskey distillers.
So, just as an unintended consequence of the Glasgow Malt Tax riots was the development of a commercial distilling industry on the island of Islay, an unintended consequence of the ‘Whisky Rebellion’ across the Atlantic was the eventual dominance of bourbon from Kentucky.