One Drink Book Club | Presidential Pours by Rick Snider

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another edition of the One Drink Book Club. Today we'll be talking with Rick Snider, author of a new book called Presidential Pours. It's a great selection for the One Drink Book Club because it highlights the favorite

[00:00:20] drinks of every US President going back to George Washington. Rick Snider is a longtime Washington journalist, tour guide, and history buff who has covered DC sports and history since 1978. You can see his work on 1067 The Fan or his regular video blog on his YouTube channel Rick Sniders Washington.

[00:00:39] Thanks for joining me, Rick. Well thanks for having me. I certainly came out of nowhere and was like, ooh, a drinking show? Okay. Of course the show is on long, we need a drink but you know it was interesting so I'm curious how this will go.

[00:00:52] I love reading books. I love discussing, you know, when I get excited about a book I like and then I also like to have a cocktail in the evening and so why not join the two of them and call it the One Drink Book Club.

[00:01:03] So I'll go ahead and announce what I'm drinking here. I chose Franklin Delano Roosevelt's one of his favorite drinks which is a Bermuda Rum Swizzle, partially because Swizzle is fun to say and a lot of the other presidents were kind of street whiskey guys.

[00:01:19] There wasn't a lot of mixed drinks which kind of surprised me. Yeah, a lot of them are either whiskey or beer. I mean you get a fair handful at something unique for them but they were pretty straight up drinkers. These guys, these colonial forefathers, they were ragers man.

[00:01:33] Those guys, at baffle being when I read how much they could drink or even Martha Warstin, I have a few First Lady drinks in there too. Martha Warstin made a rum and punch that would have just killed people today. I couldn't believe how much these guys were drinking.

[00:01:47] I mean the early founding fathers were, as you said, they were throwing ragers especially George Washington. He was one of the most surprising to me. Well, they pulled off the upset of the century. So I guess it was one to celebrate.

[00:02:00] I mean part of it, a lot of it really was about the water. The water wasn't as safe to drink back then really until late 1800s before water really became widespread safe including DC.

[00:02:11] And I mean Congress had to threaten to leave DC to get a better water supply and roads and things to it or else they were moving to St. Louis. So that was, you know, in the colonial times she had to drink alcohol more

[00:02:25] and they even had something called Ciderkin for kids, you know, which was kind of a mixture of the two. So everybody, they liquored up and you know George won a revolution so I guess he could celebrate. Yeah, I was really impressed with like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

[00:02:40] So John Adams started every day with a shot of hard cider and then continued it throughout the day and then would drink three glasses of rum fortified glasses of Madeira before bed. That's a serious consumption. And no wonder they had so much outrage among them.

[00:02:56] I mean they were crazy. I mean George Washington would drink four glasses of wine every afternoon and it was 40% alcohol. So that was, and that's just, that was just the wine. You know these guys, I guess they never did drink water but I mean they definitely kept lubricated.

[00:03:13] I mean of course George Washington became a whiskey maker so that's how he made a lot of his money, made him more money than anything else. That was another fact that I thought was really interesting. For those of you who read the book, it's a fun, quick read.

[00:03:25] It has lots of information but I thought it also had a nice synopsis of each president and kind of what their highlighted accomplishments are and kind of a quick overview of their presidency and the fact about Washington that I found was really surprising

[00:03:40] was that when he died, he had, you said that his final year he had sold 11,000 gallons of whiskey that was made at Mount Vernon and he died being the richest person in the country which I did not know. I didn't realize that.

[00:03:56] Yeah he was, and they still make that whiskey at Mount Vernon. They use the original recipe in a replica of the stills. He had three stills going most days. You can go to the Grist House. It's about a mile from Mount Vernon

[00:04:08] because George owned 8,000 acres at the end. He just didn't have a good umbrella. That's what ended up taking him out in the end was being all wet and not changed out of his wet clothes like your mother would tell you and that was the end of that.

[00:04:19] But George was a brilliant man. Even though he finished his education at age 11 but he was always good at asking questions and finding out things from people. If you've ever been to Mount Vernon it looks like a stone house that's actually an optical illusion he learned.

[00:04:33] He had a greenhouse. He had the second greenhouse I think in America that's there. There's a great book called Washington at the Plough that talks about his agricultural pursuits. Including he was one of the first founding fathers who said, forget tobacco we're not making any money on this.

[00:04:48] I'm going to grain and shifted his finances greatly. So George was always learning how to do things and so whiskey made him some good money in the end. I mean, probably he had as he was always all fighting the British or running the government.

[00:05:01] I mean he was gone 20 years basically. So he didn't have, he would write letters back to them. He didn't get to really have a hands on thing till the very end. Wow, wow. Well in researching this book what were some of the things that you found surprising?

[00:05:14] What did you learn? Cause I know you're such a history buff and you know a lot about the presidents but what did you find out that was new? One thing I didn't know was Teddy Roosevelt was a mid-jewel guy. You know as a sports rider

[00:05:25] I covered 20 Kentucky Derbys at one point. It's a little bit of a stiff drink, you know? I mean it's basically a lot of booze and a mint stalk in it. I mean that's about what it is. And so I thought Teddy, you know

[00:05:38] I thought it seems kind of like a sissy drink for Teddy. The other thing really surprised me was Jimmy Carter was such a wine maker. He even had a 250 year old wine press that he used. So he was big into it. That was really surprising to me too.

[00:05:51] I would have totally guessed if you were gonna make me guess which presidents were not drinkers I would have guessed Jimmy Carter knowing who he is. I think he didn't drink as much as he may but he inherited a farm

[00:06:04] and he had a couple generations on that farm before him and his grandfather made a lot of wine. He did grapes big time. So I guess it was a natural thing to do and you know I had my family was a long line of farmers

[00:06:16] and during the Great Depression we had bootleggers in the family in Carolina cause yeah, you had the bootleg to make a living basically far away back in the old days. So I guess that's what Jimmy's people did too but yeah I would have thought he was straight up

[00:06:29] he'd have a beer once in a while and I think a lot of presidents reflected drinking habits of their time. A lot of them were kind of casual drinkers they'd have one at the ceremonies or something the colonial guys were ragers

[00:06:43] colonial people would drink three times more alcohol than we do today. So to them it didn't seem that unusual and in recent times three of the last four presidents have been sober. So you know, go figure that. Yeah, it's really interesting.

[00:06:56] One of the ones that kind of surprised me was Ulysses Sgrit because I knew he was kind of known for drinking but you found out that his favorite drink was champagne which I would have totally pegged him as a whiskey guy.

[00:07:08] Yeah and then he was early in his life he gained a reputation as a drunk cause he was a young officer far from home, missed his family, drank way too much but when he got to be a general and things got serious

[00:07:20] you know, he didn't drink nearly as much but he drank some because you're in a saddle so much jurek and bones, you know and he didn't weigh that much so he used it for medicinal purposes as a song sort

[00:07:31] and by the time he got to the White House he really didn't drink very much at all because he knew everybody was watching and he didn't want to come off as some drunk and undermine what he was doing

[00:07:41] so he really didn't drink a lot in his final years. The funniest one I found was Herbert Hoover was president during the prohibition and what he would do is go to the embassies at happy hour and drink there cause embassies are foreign soil

[00:07:56] a lot of the presidents drank to our prohibition you know that wasn't the server ones didn't work around back then. If you had to have a drink with anybody any of these presidents who would you want to sit down and have a beer cocktail with?

[00:08:10] I'd love to drink with George Washington I mean I grew up at Acacique Mar-Ala which is across the river from Mount Vernon so I've been walking Mount Vernon since the 60s on there and I found him a fascinating man I would want to have a drink with him

[00:08:22] to see if he was actually a stuck up aristocrat or was he a common guy I don't really know the answer to that but I think he was probably a little more uppity than we might suspect so it would probably blow our images at him

[00:08:35] and John Adams would be fun to drink with I always like if he started drinking at 16 and smoking at like nine and he lived till his 90s Thomas Jefferson's wife was very against drinking and she had a special thing that she would drink and she died at 32

[00:08:50] I mean it's so at random how all of this worked Dead did not escape me as well that the irony that John Adams lived till 90 and Thomas Jefferson's wife died at 32 or 33 really interesting I agree with you on John Adams I think he would be very fun

[00:09:06] I think he had so much anger inside him that it kept him alive for a really long time You know his cousin was Sam Adams the Sam Adams who basically started the war with England over the he was one of the sons of Liberty

[00:09:19] and they were the ones who threw all million dollars worth of tea into the harbor and then the British said we gotta go arrest him and that ended up to the first shots of Lexington and Concord you know Sam Adams started the war

[00:09:29] and the other people in the Continental Congress were mad I'm like why can't you get along with the British and he's like come to Boston and live with them see what it's like you know he was a street guy basically well he became Governor of Massachusetts

[00:09:40] but he was a boots on the ground hardcore guy and they named the beer companies after him Well you know he's not the only relative of a president who did a beer company if you remember Jimmy Carter's brother he did Billy beer for a while

[00:09:55] Yeah man I remember those days and you could just tell Jimmy wanted to put Billy in a box somewhere and file him away he was shameless man he didn't care he was just trying to hawk beer and sell and I never had any Billy beer though

[00:10:08] I was a teenager not that that mattered but I never sell it anywhere if I can remember The only reason I knew about it is that my grandfather in the basement of his house he had a pool table and a big collection of beer cans

[00:10:22] and I always remember Billy beer he had a can of Billy beer up on the wall so that was my recollection My guess is it would taste like Schlitz maybe something like that I think it's right on

[00:10:35] Yeah you get a six pack for a buck and a half something like that or Schaefer one of my favorite beers my favorite beer slogan I think is Schaefer which is their official on-the-can slogan is the beer to have when you're having more than one

[00:10:47] Oh yeah I remember that my dad used to drink Paph's Blue Ribbon which was probably a dollar for six pack ugh you know Now PBR is kind of like a hipster drink like you can find it at bars and it'll be in the price like an IPA

[00:11:04] See that's what I don't get about today's beer markets they're all I mean there's stuff like strawberry, salsa or beers Good lord what is this stuff I mean it's like just take a fruit or whatever just drink your beer already you're killing me with this kind of crap

[00:11:19] Another thing that you cover in the book is great watering holes in Washington that have been around for a long time and presidents have frequented and I think I've been to everyone that you mentioned because it was old David Grill The Willard, the Hay Adams The Regis

[00:11:37] and the Mayflower and they all had connections to presidents obviously because they were the big prominent ones I mean the Willard and Mayflower the oldest hotels in town the Mayflower had presidential inaugurations from Silent Cow Coolidge all the way up to Reagan they were it

[00:11:53] before the town was full of bigger ones but the Willard had a lot I think they said 23 straight presidents drank at the Willard until Trump who doesn't drink so they had that I mean the Hay Adams which is right on the corner of the White House

[00:12:06] I think it always places too I mean that's where you go down in there it's called off the record pub but a lot of White House people I've seen in their drinking and they talk about things and you're like good Lord you know this is a city

[00:12:19] with supposedly 10,000 or more spies I hear that's a conservative number from people I know and yet they're just talking about stuff you know it's a cool bar it's in the basement of the hotel on there and you know I like the Willard it's a nice round one

[00:12:35] Ralph Robin right yeah and it's they make good drinks there that's a serious bartender's there on all that the Edgar is what it's called at the Mayflower from J. Edgar Hoover who ate lunch in there for 20 straight years every day was not known to be a drinker

[00:12:50] and made his jeeb at not drink at least on duty which I would think would be right but he was a very anti-temperage guy you know that's funny I've had lunch several times at the Edgar and I didn't know where the name came from

[00:13:03] I was unaware that it was from Edgar J. Hoover yeah they agreed they did everything about good 10 years ago they renovated the place and that's when they decided to name it for him he sits just in today's world you have a bar when you walk in

[00:13:17] and just to the left behind is where he always sat and that way if the media was out front in the lobby like we often do he went out the back way you'd eat a salad and half a grapefruit and stuff like that

[00:13:27] I mean no wonder he's such a sour guy yeah that's the worst lunch ever half a grapefruit and a salad man one of the things I thought was interesting is that you've found Teddy Roosevelt to be your favorite you mentioned that he's your favorite president

[00:13:42] what makes him your favorite president yeah I think if we ranked presidents it's always Washington versus Lincoln and I could argue either point I teach US history some so it could go either way but I think Teddy's number three

[00:13:55] and what I liked about Teddy is he basically said think big act big be big and he helped really usher the U.S. into world prominence he was president before the worst world war which really did move us up in the world order

[00:14:09] but he set us up for that and Teddy was a very sick kid as a youth and he they decided strong exercise and such would gain his health and it did very much and he went out the out west

[00:14:22] and was going to be a cowboy for a while but I mean he was the guy that basically he didn't care what anybody else thought and he was going to succeed and and he did great things like the Panama Canal as Teddy Roosevelt who knew that

[00:14:34] stuff like that and Teddy was he was just walks off like carry big step I mean he ended up starting his own cavalry unit for the Spanish-American War that's what really irked me when the nationals first started DC and they had the president's race

[00:14:47] Teddy would lose for like I don't know three years and it thought it was funny and I would write columns then for the examiner I said it's not funny you're taking one of the greatest Americans and turning them into a jokes

[00:14:58] your kids think Teddy where's about an idiot and he wasn't he was quite the opposite I just recently read a book called The War Lovers and it was all about the lead up to the Spanish-American War covered a lot about Teddy Roosevelt and some of his advisors

[00:15:13] his friends and how that happened it was really fascinating it covered his behavior in the war and the formation of that cavalry unit it was a really interesting book and gave me a different perspective on the war one really weird part about Teddy well of two things

[00:15:28] one he hated the name Teddy he preferred TR he didn't make any money off that bear so that wasn't one of his you know it's funny we still remember this Teddy but and the other thing is if you see a picture of Abraham Lincoln's funeral

[00:15:40] in New York City as it goes very prominent picture you look way up to the top and there's a kid staring out a window of the building they're going by that was Teddy Roosevelt at six years old oh wow that's really cool

[00:15:52] had no idea they had passed each other that way but Teddy was you know a New York kid he came from some money his niece was Eleanor Roosevelt so Eleanor's father was Teddy's brother who had died younger and Franklin was a fifth cousin so they were all

[00:16:07] they were all Roosevelt's but Teddy's family you know he had a daughter you know who also was who lived on Embassy Row I do tours about her place and you know she was the first cousin Eleanor so it's a small word the Roosevelt's were a great family

[00:16:22] his all his sons fought in wars one or two Teddy Roosevelt's son Teddy died basically in the Normandy invasion he was in his fifties they said you're too old for this they landed at Omaha Beach they were on the wrong spot Teddy the junior got him to safety

[00:16:37] and then suffered a massive heart attack and died oh wow I did not know that story interesting and he had another son shot down over France in World War I Quentin and another one committed suicide while in the military in World War II

[00:16:51] one of his daughters was a field nurse in World War I met a surgeon, married him so they were you know screwed at Kennedy's these guys were were the real deal to me the Roosevelt's well and you mentioned in the book speaking of of relatives

[00:17:05] that you're distantly related to five different presidents how did you find that out are you a big genealogy guy yeah I am and also ancestry.com used to do this don't do it anymore years ago they would say you're related to these people

[00:17:17] and they would put out a whole list interesting because I'm a distant cousin all of them more closely relying to John Wilkes Booth who was would be my third cousin today so I've got I've got a president who was assassinated I've got an assassin I've got a

[00:17:32] I'm a six generation martin Tarnian so you know I know I'm related to everybody in town all right well my last question is more off topic but it's how the commander's going to do this year and should we have any hope as commander fans

[00:17:49] you know I was at commander's fork today because I've covered the team since the 80s and I tell you what it was for February it was busy everybody people moving new coaches around it really sense sense this real piece of urgency in that building

[00:18:05] and I was like wow look at all this I mean this is new people they got a lot of ground to cover you gotta look at your old players who do you need who are you keeping the combines coming up it won't be for lack of trying

[00:18:15] and I think the last coaching staff blew you know just burned out and you know players sense that when players sense that you're burned out like that they ain't gonna play for you anymore and we saw that last year you know they gave up last eight games

[00:18:28] I think you'll see a massive team turnover this year I would expect them to get back to 500 the quarterback in a number two pick of what they do there could be essential to the whole thing but I do have a lot more optimism

[00:18:40] than I've seen in a while so I keep wanting to retire and I keep pulling me back another year so my Danish Snyder steady was retiring I was selling I was like oh okay I'm sticking around because I've endured this mess for so long and finally they're free

[00:18:54] of the shackles of just that guy and now they you know that can be like any other team and maybe they succeed maybe they don't but before there was no chance I moved to Washington in 1996 and so I have never really experienced a decent team

[00:19:10] there's been a few bright spots here and there but I'm ready to have some fun during the football season where I'm not just watching other teams well it's they ever went a Super Bowl again I remember the old praise would draw a legitimate million people downtown

[00:19:26] and this is in late January when the weather sucks it's like the inauguration you know anybody can have a cap celebration in June or even the Nats on a nice day I guess it was late October but doing January in this town you're committed

[00:19:39] but they would have a million people and I mean one of them was even in the rain and everything and people came it is these the unifying task in this town has been at you know they they became great in the 70s when the senators had left

[00:19:52] so they had to market to themselves had 20 years of great teams and then afterwards and often I mean I've been covering it for so long now it's like I'm not even fazed by loss of zip it's just a shame you need a Drake

[00:20:04] I mean when I used to work at the racetrack years and years ago I was a horse racing rider I had a beer tap literally within arms length of my desk because reporters were known as drunks way back in the day they were

[00:20:15] I mean I started the 70s so I remember when I could just you could just pour beer while you're sitting in a tithe I mean they all did too I used to have a deal these four racing riders from prominent papers they had a designated rider

[00:20:27] he'd stay sober he'd write four versions of the story and they used to give him to the tele-type rider who'd send them in so he never had to talk to a boss and the other three would get drunk and they'd just rotate every day

[00:20:38] who was the designated guy yeah we're miscreants as people believe and then today you gotta be nice to each other or else you go down to HR but I used to see fights in newsrooms and drinking in newsrooms and all these kind of things

[00:20:49] and that's what I love about the business we don't have to say anything you know we don't have to bow to anybody we can do it and then we can write bad stuff about you if you don't like it it's a different world in today's media

[00:20:59] well you've seen it all I mean you've seen a huge shift it'll be really interesting to see what happens with the news media and reporters over the next five to ten years because with the layoffs and the way that the media is working right now

[00:21:13] it's kind of anybody's guess on where it ends up you know I was laid off six times in eight years geez and at the end I didn't know what to do exactly I was still waiting for a couple I was ready for 106.7 the fan local radio sports talk

[00:21:27] and another one but I said you know I'm gonna try this social media show I'm gonna be on YouTube I call it Rick Snyder's Warshston so I can talk about anything in town that I want and I do some tours tours and stuff

[00:21:38] people like I do food occasionally people love the pizza shows where I get a couple sports writers who sit there and eat pizza and talk that kind of thing or I mostly talk about the commanders and I make far more money off of that

[00:21:50] stuff than I do getting paid by the radio station so I think what reporters are gonna have to do is become their own brand and their own kind of media outlets in a way because big media is just killing us they're owned by conglomerates

[00:22:03] and they don't want to lose any money and it used to be considered a public trust and it's no longer that and they pay people so badly I don't know how a young reporter is going to stay in this business like I did I've done 46 years

[00:22:14] I'm the longest sports writer in town I outlasted all his bastard so but I don't know how the next guy is going to do it you know it's a tough business to be at overall in sports itself I mean they have essentially eliminated

[00:22:27] the local sports person on the local TV shows I mean they have the anchors will occasionally talk about big sports but there's not like the sports section that there was even 10 years ago where they talk about some high school sports they talk about different sports

[00:22:42] it just doesn't exist anymore people don't realize that TV news has been decimated as much as newspaper very few people I mean the weather is on every four minutes yeah it's still cloudy outside you know I mean it amazes me how much time they get in traffic

[00:22:55] but George the days of George Michael and Glenn Brenner and Warner Wolf and all those guys I knew them I mean they were making serious money and now it's nothing you know on there it's you know I actually I've had the same thought about the weather

[00:23:08] it's unbelievable in a 20 minute local newscast how much time gets dedicated to what happened earlier today that we all witnessed we were all there we saw that it rained we saw that it was hot and they go through it and it actually gets pretty scientific too

[00:23:23] they show the high pressure zones all these which is so bizarre I mean I don't know it is such a strange thing that we we dedicate so much time to what we've all experienced I just laughed because they get 30 seconds ago it's 48 degrees outside

[00:23:36] I'll be back in five minutes to tell you what it'll be like then good lord just think up a graphic it says seven days is it going to rain and what's the high temperature that's all I need to know but sucker everybody in on these things

[00:23:47] they're the one who survives who would have thought the meteorologist would be the guy who's the last man standing the media itself is just got younger people like me are disappearing and so you have no mentors with the younger guys I try to do that when I can

[00:24:01] because I've seen it all I mean when this when the commander sold last year I remember I covered it the one before I've done the stadium chase before I know what this is like and people are people years change but what people are don't

[00:24:14] I used to do a cook impression all the time but nobody knows what it sounds like anymore so it's like by god I'm not going to do it anymore I mean just here is here is a real flim guy to cover he needed a drink

[00:24:25] he did a lot you know oh yeah and his wife too if I remember right yeah the number four I think it was Marlena I was telling somebody today about the times she got drunk in Georgetown and her boyfriend was on the car hood

[00:24:36] and they're racing down M street and like in the cops pulled her over she got so bad she took off her shoe and hit the cop in the face and then he had to arrest her so he always supported her from that the cooks were interesting

[00:24:48] Dan was just mean nobody liked him we've never had anybody sell the team when they were alive you know it's been a couple times before I didn't know he had to leave a country too but uh you know the new guy I think he's pretty decent guy

[00:25:01] I think he's straightforward Josh Harris and they have made a lot of good hires that doesn't mean you're gonna win but I think it won't be for lack of trying well good well I'm looking forward to watching it I'm gonna thank you for joining the uh the show

[00:25:13] tell people how they can get presidential pours where do they buy it you can always go to Amazon but if you go to monumentalthoughts.com that's on my website I'll sign it for you same price um you know it's only 15 bucks include shipping I mean it's something simple

[00:25:28] I mean it's it's not I didn't spend five years of my life writing this book so I don't want to charge people you know billion bucks for it's my 10th book I've written about a lot of things but it's yeah monumentalthoughts.com you can go to

[00:25:39] I'll do it we're just if five people just trust Amazon go there I get paid too well great well thanks again for joining me if you can remember to subscribe rate and review the wondering book club and join us for the next book on our list

[00:25:54] and have a great evening