A Very
Fast & Spirited
 NGLISH
 ISTORY
 ESSON
BY
CONRAD MARTIN
 n
England every facet of our culture, including the beverages we
enjoy are connected to centuries upon centuries of drama at Royal
courts. The beverages we enjoy today, like hard cider, are intertwined,
with our political history. Of course the same is true for America,
politics is always very spirited, as you know from your era of
prohibition against consuming hard liquor in the 1930s….
|
 he
political logic for a King is irrefutable: To
maintain power and control over the landed gentry use a system
of patronage and keep the feudal lords at court as much a possible.
Give them lavish living quarters, sumptuous feast, entertain them…
because they are paying for this splendor out of taxes levied
against them.Kings
need the support of their Royal subjects so he can wage war, maintain
power, raise taxes, and get volunteers for Crusades to the Holy
Lands. These courtly visits made sense for the nobles because
it provided them direct access to the patronage system, (the primary
way of increasing land holdings) and social prestige, which helped
in the arrangement of "good marriages" which increased family
power by increasing land holdings.
|
 or
centuries hard cider production was naturally controlled by the
English feudal lords who controlled all agricultural production
on their estates. New strains of apples were first brought to
England by the conquering Normans in 1290 and expanding cider
production was given high priority so that the Lords would have
their favorite drink. Wine was never plentiful in England, and
was expensive. Hard Cider was consumed at every meal including
breakfast, and that tradition followed the Englishmen who settled
in America. The idea of drinking water at a meal was positively
uncivilized.
 t
Royal feast hundreds of liter of cider were consumed. The mythology
of cider’s healing and magical powers abound in English history.
Merlin made magic potions with cider. Doctors prescribed it as
remedy for everything from the Black Plague to baldness. Documents
reveal that women bathed in cider believing it stopped aging.
|
hroughout
English history, because Kings needed to raise taxes to pay for
their court expenses, wars and wages of government, they taxed
hard cider production, and this taxing was often abused and resulted
in "cider rebellions". King Richard III put a heavy tariff on
the importation of French, Italian and Spanish spirits, because,
with great cunning, he knew this would stimulate the production
of domestic hard cider, and give him an opportunity to control
the industry and put a tax on production. The King then granted
cider production monopolies to his loyal Lords, so that he could
gain the revenues needed to pay for his army and navy which were
at war with France and Spain. This eventually lead to the famous
Cider Rebellion of 1524, which arose because of the local sheriff’s
ruthless and bloody campaign to destroy all of the cider mills
owned and operated by the peasants and tenants which were taking
business away from the Lord's own cider mills.
 |
 ere
is an interesting twist to the politics of English spirits trade:
The Catholic monasteries of England, like the Catholic monasteries
throughout Europe, were the most sophisticated agricultural businesses,
had the best vineyards, distilleries, and best fruit orchids.
They used their holdings, which were multiplying, to produce and
sell their products to pay for their social work in the community.
Cheeses, grains, textiles, and all forms of spirits were produced
by these monasteries, and they were often in competition with
the landed gentry's businesses, and…. the King could not
collect taxes on the monasteries. Yet, the Court was one of the
major customers of these Catholic monasteries because they produced
the goods, spirits, and agricultural products it needed. Henry
VIII resolved this conflict when, during the Protestant Reformation,
he seized all of the Catholic Church's property and established
the Church of England, with the King as its head. Henry, to gain
the support for his Protestant revolution awarded the Church's
lands to his loyal supporters, which meant that the monastery's
cider mills were now under the control of feudal lords. |
|
|
 t
is well documented in English history that the onerous tax on
hard cider during George III's reign was causing trouble. While
trouble was brewing in the American colonies there was a cider
tax rebellion in England and it spread….
 ngland
was passing restrictive trade laws that forced colonist to (1)
trade only with England, (2) only use English ships for commerce,
and on top of that England (3) heavily taxed all imports and exports
to and from the colonies.
 hat
explains why the merchants of Boston were the instigators of the
idea of rebellion against England. One of the most profitable
exports to the colonies was English Hard Cider, which was the
most popular drink among the colonist who did not drink beer or
wine. Repressive English monopoly laws prevented the colonist
from building their own cider mills...even though it was well
known that farmers were making their own cider from their apple
orchids. But when you went into a tavern....you drank imported
English Hard Cider.
 an
anyone imagine what would happen in America if the government
taxed water consumption? That was the feeling that was developing
among the colonist, because hard cider was the basic beverage
of life.
t
is well known that the import tax on tea and cider (the two basic
drinks of colonists) became the symbol of England’s oppression,
so when Paul Revere and his followers surveyed Boston Harbor and
discovered two English ships; one carrying tea and the other one
carrying hard cider, he naturally knew which cargo to throw overboard,
and which to enjoy. According to the historical record, the notion
of spilling cider into Boston Harbor, as an act of protest against
English taxes, made no sense to the Boston rebels, when tea, a
relatively boring drink would make the point very effectively,
and permit the cider to be enjoyed by all after the raid.
 hat
is why the Boston Tea Party was NOT the Boston Hard Cider Party.
This also explains why tea never became an American national drink,
while right after the war for independence, hard cider production
in America boomed.
 ew
realize that America's Johnny Appleseed myth, where John plants
apples all
over the northeast, is really a folk tale about the development
of the apple orchid industry in America right after the American
revolution, because Americans needed apples for cider production….now
that they were free from England's cider making monopoly.
|
|
OLLY OF
IDER
AXATION
MERICAN
ISTORY
