George Washington, the Whiskey Baron

choi

Michael Beschloss, Washington, the Whiskey Baron; After helping build America, the first president took up distilling to build his fortune. New York Times, Feb 14, 2016 (in the section SundayBusiness).
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/1 ... nt-vernon.html?_r=0

Note:
(a) Mount Vernon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Vernon
(section 1 Name)

(b) "Washington’s biographer Ron Chernow "
(i) Chernow: "Variant spelling, under Polish influence, of Russian and Jewish Chernov/ Chernoff)"
(ii) The Russian and Jewish surname Chernov: son of byname Chernyj black

(c) "Before departing the President’s House in Philadelphia, Washington had already felt compelled to sell two tracts of land to buy 'a few necessaries for my family.' "

necessary (n): "necessaries : things (such as food, a place to live, and clothing) that you must have : necessary things"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/necessary
(d) Washington "allowed him [plantation manager James Anderson] to purchase a still and to convert part of a cooper’s shop [to distillery] at Mount Vernon."

still (n; mid 16th century: from the rare verb still extract by distillation, shortening of distill):
"an apparatus for distilling alcoholic drinks such as whiskey"
http://www.oxforddictionaries.co ... rican_english/still

(e) "One scholar, Dennis Pogue, notes that in 1755, Washington failed to win election to Virginia’s House of Burgesses after refusing to match his opponent in passing out whiskey, rum punch and beer. (The next time, Washington gave out alcohol and won.) He had been disgusted when his troops were 'incessantly drunk, and unfit for service,' and he had offenders punished. (In 1840, one Baltimore society that tried to help people who drank too much honored his demands for moderation by naming itself the Washingtonians.) As president, he sent 13,000 militiamen to put down the Whiskey Rebellion by distillers in western Pennsylvania, who had risen up against the federal whiskey tax (designed by the secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton) and threatened those who enforced it."
(i)
(A) House of Burgesses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Burgesses
("was the first legislative assembly of elected representatives in North America * * * From 1619 to 1776, the legislature of Virginia was the House of Burgesses [but not necessarily unicameral -- see next], which governed in conjunction with a colonial governor. Jamestown remained the capital of the Virginia colony until 1699; from 1699 until its dissolution the capital was in Williamsburg")

* This 'its dissolution' is ambiguous: dissolution of Colony of Virginia (for example, by revolutionaries, to form Commonwealth of Virginia) or by, say, Parliament?  I searched the Web and found nothing about dissolution of the Colony. Instead I found dissolution of House of Burgesses. Indeed, the above Wiki page later states, "In 1769 the Virginia House of Burgesses passed several resolutions condemning Britain's stationing troops in Boston following the Massachusetts Circular Letter of the previous year; these resolutions stated that only Virginia's governor and legislature could tax its citizens. The members also drafted a formal letter to the King, completing it just before the legislature was dissolved by Virginia's royal governor." (citations omitted)
* House of Burgesses. Encyclopedia Virginia, Feb 6, 2012
www.encyclopediavirginia.org/House_of_Burgesses
("This democratically elected legislative body was the first of its kind in English North America. * * * From 1619 until 1643, elected burgesses met in unicameral session with the governor and the royally appointed governor's Council; after 1643, the burgesses met separately as the lower house of the General Assembly of Virginia. * * * In 1774, when the House of Burgesses began to support resistance to the Crown, Virginia's royal governor, John Murray, earl of Dunmore, dissolved it. The Virginia Constitution of 1776 created a new General Assembly that replaced the governor's Council with an elected Senate and the House of Burgesses with an elected House of Delegates")
* John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Murray,_4th_Earl_of_Dunmore
(1730 – 1809; Governor of the Province of Virginia 1771-1775)
(B) burgess (n; etymology)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Burgess
(C) Colony of Virginia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_of_Virginia
(After declaring independence from Great Britain in 1775 before the Declaration of Independence was officially adopted [ratified on July 4, 1776], the Virginia Colony became the Commonwealth of Virginia)
(ii) Whiskey Rebellion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion

choi

(f) "In 1782, American soldiers were given daily rations of four ounces of whiskey, which was supplanting rum as the nation’s most popular liquor because it didn’t require molasses from the British West Indies."
(i) 1 fluid ounce = 28.4 milliliters
(ii) rum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum
(made from sugarcane byproducts, such as molasses, or directly from sugarcane juice; The distillate, a clear liquid, is then usually aged in oak barrels; section 2 History, section 2.2 Colonial America)
(A) hustings (noun plural but singular or plural in construction)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hustings

This dictionary does not have singular form of this word.
(B) husting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Husting
("Husting," or more usually the plural "hustings," developed to mean a court of the city of London; The husting was a platform or pavilion, a temporary structure erected at the place of an election)

(g) "build a large new distillery, which was completed by the spring of 1798, and is considered, at a minimum, to be one of America’s largest of the time.  As it turned out, Washington’s whiskey business was a smashing success — he and Anderson couldn’t produce the spirit fast enough. In October 1799, he wrote another nephew, 'Two hundred gallons of Whiskey will be ready this day for your call, and the sooner it is taken the better, as the demand for this article (in these parts) is brisk.' According to Mount Vernon scholars, that year he produced nearly 11,000 gallons, which achieved a profit of about $7,500 (about $142,000 today)."
(i) George Washington (1732 – Dec 14, 1799; president Apr 30, 1789 – Mar 4, 1797)
(ii) smashing (adj)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/smashing
(iii) call (n): "a short visit"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/call

* To "pay a call on" somebody is a phrase.

(h) "The venture did not instantly provide Washington with much ready capital — many of the transactions were not cash on the barrelhead but by barter or credit. But he was on the way to building what might have become a great American business when, that December, he died at the age of 67. The coppersmith [Anderson] who had created the general’s stills was now asked to fashion a liner for his coffin. The whisky operation was left to a granddaughter of Martha Washington’s, but she and her husband could not sustain Washington’s early momentum. In 1814, a fire devastated the distillery."
(i) Cash on the Barrelhead
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_on_the_Barrelhead(capitalized because it is a title of a song; section 1 Song premise)
(ii) About a copper "asked to fashion a liner for his coffin." This liner is not the fabric that lines the coffin (which is called "lining"), but burial vault (enclosure)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burial_vault_(enclosure)
(also known as a burial liner, grave vault, and grave liner)
(iii) "The whisky operation was left to a granddaughter of Martha Washington's"

George Washington
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington
(section 3 Between the wars: Mount Vernon (1759–1774): In 1759 [age 27], Washington married the wealthy widow Martha Dandridge Custis [née Dandridge], then 28 years old)