If the USAF can have Jeremiah Weed, why can't the Navy have Old Overholt?
...we have ligit traditions if we want them...
Every now and then I hear about some vague connection between the USAF and the liquor Jeremiah Weed.
Though the USAF is better known for its anime swords, I guess they can up their game a bit by creating some legends of their own to justify a connection to a drink.
I’d prefer Robin Olds and a bucket of champagne vibe, but I’m not USAF, so that’s up to them.
What about the U.S. Navy? Sadly, General Order 99 took the wind out of our sails a bit, but I had a thought recently.
I ran into this pic. Just get a look at these ballers.
I dug around a bit and found the backstory via the Navy SEAL Museum:
Aboard the USS Burrfish (SS 312) near Peleliu in the Pacific Ocean, part of a UDT special mission group of volunteers that conducted the only UDT submarine launched operation during World War II. (L-R) Leonard Barnhill, John MacMahon, LT M.R. Massy, Bill Moore and Warren Christensen, John MacMahon (pictured) and Robert Black and CPO Howard Roeder (not pictured) were captured by the Japanese the night after this photograph was taken and killed while in captivity.
That was the easy part. Next I needed to find out not just how that bottle of liquor got on a submarine, but why, and what brand it was.
I even had to enlist ChatGPT and Grok, but they were no help. Their image enhancement just made things up. So I dug around old-school…and SUCCESS!
I’ll spare you the details, but that is a bottle of Old Overholt. Here’s a similar period bottle.
The Old Overholt brand is about as American as you can get, and it is the longest continually produced whiskey in North America—legally made even during Prohibition. But why was it on that table?
Old Overholt rye whiskey was a staple "medicinal" alcohol for the United States Navy, frequently stocked aboard ships and affectionately nicknamed "Overcoat" by sailors. This 100-proof, bottled-in-bond rye.
Why, in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-Six, am I now only finding out about this?
Why has the U.S. Navy not made this, if not official, then, at least culturally, its official whiskey? Don’t tell me the U.S. Navy should just have “rum” or some concoction called “grog”.
We should have something quintessentially American and connected to our fighting history.
It is still around—now produced by Beam Distilling.
Same recipe, but perhaps not as sexy of a bottle.
It isn’t that expensive. You can get a bottle for sale for under $10. Maybe if enough Navy types showed an interest, Beam might consider a special bottling using the WWII Era Bottle?
Wait, they may not have to do that. The bottle they use for their 11 year old stuff is close, they’d just need to create the right label and fill it with the appropriate 100 proof.
This should be a thing. I’ve found out where to buy it locally. I think I’ll pick up a bottle.
Old Overholt is an old name... Not quite the foundations of the country, but traces to early 1800s which is close. And which brings us to the Whiskey Rebellion, 1791-94, a formative event in the life of the then very young nation.
Brand new USGovt (per 1787 Constitution & later ratification) needed $$, which it did not have, and so Congress passed a tax law levying fees on the capacity of stills; not output or production, but capacity. And out West, on other side of the Alleghenies, farmers routinely converted excess ag output -- what they didn't consume on site or sell locally -- into distilled spirits cuz the product was less bulky, higher value, and easier to transport to distant markets. But on the best of days, farmers had little "real" money to do anything, let alone pay tax collectors. Indeed, US had no mint or national currency, so coinage was a mix of British, Spanish, Dutch, and Northern European/Germanic "Thalers" -- from which we get the word "dollar."
Which is to say that "whiskey" out West was its own form of currency. And now, the govt wanted to tax it, payable in $$ that few had. So, farmers rebelled... burned down the tax collector's house (Gen Neville, an old colleague of George Washington), just south of Pittsburg (no "h" at the end back then). And this led Washington and his govt in far-off Philadelphia (cuz no Wash DC back then, either) declaring... "Insurrection."
Washington raised & led militias from NJ, Del & Virginia west across Pennsylvania... Literally, he led the troops, riding a horse... First, last, only time a US President ever did that... And GW traveled as far as about Bedford, where he turned back and sent the troops on their way. And note that no PA militia were summoned, due to fears about loyalty to the rebels of the same Commonwealth.
Troops made it west to Braddock's Field, south of Pittsburgh and site of battle in French & Indian War where Gen Braddock was shot, and a young George Washington survived. (Today the site of US Steel Edgar Thomson Works.) And there... on that hallowed ground, the "federal" troops and people of Pittsburgh held a wild barbecue... Roasted sheep & ox, plenty of beer & whiskey... and the matter came to a conclusion.
Although, along the way... a number of Westerners plotted to break the region away from the US and ally w France and/or Spain... plots that gained little traction but were worrisome to the federals back East.
Out of the Whiskey Rebellion...
Reinforced the idea of widespread "militia" forces, certainly w their own arms; dovetailed w 2A and put it into the DNA of national culture.
Congress/US Treasury set up America's first mint at Philadelphia, to provide coinage for the economy.
Congress established "district" federal courts outside of Eastern Seaboard, to give access to legal process to people in the Interior.
Congress began to think much harder about "how" to expand the nation westward under the Northwest Ordinance of 1787; not just random settlement by whomever/wherever, but an actual approach to building roads, canals, development of what's now the US Midwest, and what to do about the Natives already there.
In general, Whiskey Rebellion was a powerful wakeup call to America's then-"elite" on East Coast (sound familiar?) that people of the Interior were not to be taken for granted, certainly not if the new nation wanted to remain a unified system.
We can discuss more over shots of Old Overholt.
While Wikipedia is generally deserving of mockery and shame, they got this one right. Look at the photograph they chose to illustrate "Rye Whiskey":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rye_whiskey