George Washington was a Major Moonshiner

[Butch50]

George Washington owned a major distillery after he served as president. In the final year of his life, 1799, his distillery made 11,000 gallons of rye whisky which sold for 50 cents per gallon. He had a top shelf whisky that sold for 1 dollar per gallon, it was run thru the still four times.

Washington's farm manager, Scotsman James Anderson, began distilling whiskey in February 1797, in the final months of Washington's presidency. Anderson convinced a reluctant Washington to build a large-scale distillery a few months later, and the distillery was completed in March 1798.

Oddly though, just three years earlier Washington led troops to put down the "Whisky Rebellion":

The Whisky Rebellion of 1794 brought us to the brink of civil war.
Alexander Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury, was a Federalist advocating a strong central government under a monarch. The states, especially the western frontier states, considered themselves self-governing members of a coalition. Hamilton believed a military confrontation was required to establish the supremacy of the federal government over the states.

Hamilton crafted the excise tax of 1791 to incite resistance. The act mandated the registration of all stills, appointed tax collectors with powers of search and seizure and taxed all whisky at a flat rate of 7¢ per gallon at the still. The professed goal of the tax was to raise 21 million dollars for defense. At 7¢ per gallon, this equates to 300,000,000 gallons of whisky, which tells us there must have been one hell of a thriving moonshine industry.

The law was so unpopular that no one would accept the position of tax collector. The tax was unfair. Whisky sold for 25¢ a gallon on the frontier, 50¢ in the more settled eastern regions. Thus, the struggling farmer on the frontier was taxed at 28% on his moonshine, whereas the bigger distilleries snug and safe in the eastern regions only paid 14%.

Things went from bad to worse. In August 1794, about 7,000 frontier militiamen marched on Pittsburgh, threatening to destroy the city unless the "obnoxious characters" were banished. George Washington, at Hamilton's urging, mobilized 13,000 troops under Robert E. Lee's father. This number of troops was more than Washington usually had under his command during the Revolution.

Washington appointed commissioners to travel in advance of the army, to meet with rebel leaders to negotiate peace and offer amnesty. A few citizens were killed; more were arrested and carted off to Philadelphia for trial. Ultimately, all the prisoners were released, acquitted or pardoned and officially the federal government won. Washington's popularity sank so low that he did not seek a third term.

When Thomas Jefferson succeeded him as president in 1802, one of the first things he did was repeal the hated excise tax. So, for the next 50 or 60 years we happily turned amber waves of grain into oceans of tax-free booze.