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CLASSIC: The Weird Life of George Washington, Part 1 · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Fellow Ridiculous Historians. We're bringing in the end of the
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  Speaker 1: year the beginning of the next with one of our
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  Speaker 1: favorite classic series guys, George Washington.
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  Speaker 2: Just so weird Gosh Washington.
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  Speaker 3: Check out they wants you to know YouTube for some
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  Speaker 3: amazing little sketches of a Ben dressed up as a
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  Speaker 3: time traveling George Washington. While that may be fiction or
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  Speaker 3: it may not entirely George Washington, the man did indeed
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  Speaker 3: lead a very unexpectedly varied and fascinating and yes weird,
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  Speaker 3: ridiculous life.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so this is part one of our exploration
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  Speaker 1: with none other than our special guest, our brother in arms,
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  Speaker 1: longtime friend of the show, Christopher hasiotis Yeah Yeah's Rolling.
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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeart Read Deal. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you for tuning in.
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  Speaker 1: My name is Ben, My name is No.
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  Speaker 2: This is an interesting, kind of traditional traditional way to
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  Speaker 2: start the show. If you threw me for a loop there.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it took it hard. Somebody remembered you guys on
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: the internet recently referred to me as what's his name?
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  Speaker 1: So I'm going to try to just play it straight
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  Speaker 1: laced for a little while.
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  Speaker 2: Ben, did they steal your thunder Have they robbed you
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  Speaker 2: of your mojo?
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't want to feel thunderless.
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  Speaker 2: How are we going to get your groove back?
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  Speaker 1: Well, we're going to rely on the help of our
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  Speaker 1: super producer, Casey Pegram as always.
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  Speaker 2: And that sound always gets my groove right up.
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  Speaker 1: So we have a pretty fascinating show for you today, folks,
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  Speaker 1: because it came about through a somewhat circuitous fashion. And
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  Speaker 1: who better to help us explain the story of how
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  Speaker 1: we got to this episode for today than our returning
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  Speaker 1: special guest friends and neighbors Christopher Hasiotis.
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  Speaker 4: Hey everybody, Hey, Casey, Hey Nole? What's your name?
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  Speaker 2: Too soon? Yeah? Yeah, come on, we've got a nurture, Ben,
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  Speaker 2: do we we do? Okay?
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  Speaker 4: Very my contract?
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  Speaker 2: This is a safe space? Is a safe space? Fine?
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  Speaker 4: Fine?
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  Speaker 1: So we love having you on the show, Christopher, and
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  Speaker 1: we always have a bang up time whenever you bless
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  Speaker 1: us with some historical knowledge. But in our conversations off air,
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  Speaker 1: the four of us were, you know, we were kicking
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  Speaker 1: around ideas what should we explore on air today? And
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  Speaker 1: you recently returned from a trip to Washington.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's Washington State. I was out in Seattle for
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  Speaker 4: Podcon too, which is a podcast convention, podcast conference, so
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  Speaker 4: kind of diving into the weird, strange, growing world of podcasting.
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  Speaker 4: Headed out there was a very sort of DIY scene,
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  Speaker 4: a lot of great creators, a lot of great podcasters.
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  Speaker 4: Aaron Mankey, who's got some shows over here on our network.
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  Speaker 4: He was out there, and it was my first time
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  Speaker 4: in Seattle. And I know you've got your goal of
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  Speaker 4: doing a show about every state. So I don't know
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  Speaker 4: if this really counts that I was in Washington and
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  Speaker 4: we're going to talk about what we're going to talk about.
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  Speaker 4: I don't know that accounts for Washington, but that's up
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  Speaker 4: to you. I don't make your rules. I just sit
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  Speaker 4: in the back and judge from a distance. But yeah,
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  Speaker 4: we were out there, and that trip to Seattle to
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  Speaker 4: Washington State made me think, Hey, what's this place named after?
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  Speaker 4: It's named after a guy.
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  Speaker 2: Did you have a guess?
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  Speaker 4: You know, it wasn't named after an apple, Okay, wasn't
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  Speaker 4: named after a city on the other side of the nation.
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  Speaker 1: And it wasn't named after George Washington Carver.
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  Speaker 4: It wasn't no president numrouno. George Washington himself, he's our Yeah,
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  Speaker 4: I thought there's a there's a lot of cool stuff
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  Speaker 4: that we can talk about when it comes to George Washington.
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  Speaker 4: He's a you know, revered statesman, our first president, a general,
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  Speaker 4: super military commander. You may know him for his fake teeth,
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  Speaker 4: his cherry tree. We can get into all of that
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  Speaker 4: and whether that actually happens.
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  Speaker 2: Quite a snappy dresser, well weren't, weren't they all sure?
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  Speaker 2: I mean he had a particularly honed.
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  Speaker 1: I mean during their paintings they did. Yeah, you don't
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  Speaker 1: know what they wore on a regular Thursday.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the paintings, the things that are on
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  Speaker 4: the dollar bill. That's essentially like the Instagram of the time.
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  Speaker 4: It's what they wanted to put forth. You know, you
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  Speaker 4: can be looking at someone's Instagram feed and they're happy,
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  Speaker 4: they're with their significant other, and you have no idea
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  Speaker 4: that they're going through a financial troubles and dealing with
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  Speaker 4: a mortgage and they're about to break up. Looks like
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  Speaker 4: the life is great. So I think it's just got real.
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  Speaker 4: Not speaking from personal experience here, but yeah, so maybe
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  Speaker 4: you know, that's one of the nice things about paintings.
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  Speaker 4: You can put the best foot forward, you can work
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  Speaker 4: a lot of symbolism into it. All of a sudden,
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  Speaker 4: we're talking art theory. But let's uh, let's get back
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  Speaker 4: to George.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's get back to George. One thing I want
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  Speaker 1: to mention that I think is a very classy aspect
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  Speaker 1: of his character. He refused to become king. Right. There
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  Speaker 1: were proposals early on in the days of the founding
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  Speaker 1: of the nation. People said George, you're great, and He's like, well,
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  Speaker 1: stop keep going, stop, no, keep going, And they said
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  Speaker 1: you should be king, and he said, nah, I guys,
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  Speaker 1: we're kind of missing the point. And that is, in
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  Speaker 1: my opinion, something that speaks very highly to his character
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  Speaker 1: and his reputation. But along the way, as we decided
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  Speaker 1: to explore the life of George Washington, we also decided
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  Speaker 1: to not do the basic origin story, life and times
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  Speaker 1: and then death. We decided to look into some of
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  Speaker 1: the strangest, weirdest things the average person might not know
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  Speaker 1: about George Washington. Previously on the show, Noel, You and
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  Speaker 1: I had bantered back and forth about the misconception surrounding
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  Speaker 1: Washington's teeth or his allegedly wooden teeth.
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  Speaker 2: Seahorse teeth. It was straight seahorse teeth. Bringing it back,
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  Speaker 2: bring it back, No, but seriously, I mean, that was
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  Speaker 2: a time where it was absolutely a thing to have
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  Speaker 2: animal teeth as dentures. Also, I think the episode in
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  Speaker 2: question was about using the teeth of fallen soldiers for dentures.
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  Speaker 2: And then we discovered that seahorse teeth weren't actually the
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  Speaker 2: teeth of tiny, tiny sea horses. That was just what
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  Speaker 2: they called hippopotamus as they called them seahorses.
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  Speaker 1: And Christopher, in case you missed it now, straight seahorse
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  Speaker 1: teeth is one of our new catchphrases.
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  Speaker 5: It's just like saying something dope, super dope, straight seahorse teeth.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah mm hmm yeah, Okay, you picked it up so quickly,
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  Speaker 1: super easy. Somehow it sounds like it sounds better when
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  Speaker 1: you say.
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  Speaker 4: It straight sea horse teeth, straight seahorse teeth.
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  Speaker 2: It's hard to say. See, friend, you could not do it.
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  Speaker 4: But no, that just means if I, if I had,
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  Speaker 4: I would have conjured like a little demon seahorse right here.
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  Speaker 4: That would have messed up the studio something fierce.
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  Speaker 2: It's sort of a homunculus type, a bit of a
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  Speaker 2: bit of a quistor.
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  Speaker 1: Please don't kidding, kidding, kidding.
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  Speaker 2: Have you ever been present for the quist?
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  Speaker 4: I feel like he's here right now, Sorry, listeners, He's.
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  Speaker 2: He usually is. He kind of does sort of that
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  Speaker 2: extra sisty type thing, or he just sort of clings
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  Speaker 2: to the ceiling or in his head rotates and looks
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  Speaker 2: at us downward. It's a whole thing.
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  Speaker 1: He's kind of the n essay of how stuff works.
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  Speaker 1: You know, he's he's always around, but he would agree
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  Speaker 1: with us. I hazard that George Washington is an amazing
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  Speaker 1: guy who lived an astonishing life. We know the gist, Christopher.
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  Speaker 1: I think you set it up quite nicely for us.
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  Speaker 1: George Washington born February twenty second, seventeen thirty two, passed
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  Speaker 1: away December fourteenth, seventeen ninety nine. But in that span
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  Speaker 1: of time he lived quite a full life, and there
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  Speaker 1: are so many facts about him. There are so many misconceptions.
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  Speaker 1: He has moved from the realm of earthly creatures into
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  Speaker 1: the world of myth in many ways. And we decided
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  Speaker 1: to each find some lesser known aspects of George Washington's
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  Speaker 1: life and times and share them with each other and
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  Speaker 1: share them with you listening today?
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  Speaker 2: When did you say his birthday was man.
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  Speaker 1: February twenty second.
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  Speaker 2: So apparently that in and of itself is a misconception.
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  Speaker 1: Is that the case?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, according to this Mental Floss article twenty five things
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  Speaker 2: he might not have known about George Washington, his actual
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  Speaker 2: birthday was February eleventh. That's seventeen thirty one.
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  Speaker 4: Well, but that's a calendar thing we're talking here, right.
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  Speaker 2: This is true because it has to do with the
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  Speaker 2: Gregorian calendar versus the Julian game. But it's just that,
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  Speaker 2: and I just thought that was fine. That is it
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  Speaker 2: is great. The man is shrouded.
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  Speaker 1: Mystery calendars are weird anyway.
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  Speaker 2: True.
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  Speaker 1: So you're right, the colonies switched from the Gregorian calendar
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  Speaker 1: to the Julian calendar, and his birthday was moved eleven days.
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  Speaker 1: I wonder which of those answers is the acceptable answer
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  Speaker 1: in a trivia game.
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  Speaker 2: That's a good question.
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  Speaker 4: I think it depends on the trivia host and how
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  Speaker 4: deep into nertitude you want to get.
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  Speaker 2: I was about to put a call out to any
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  Speaker 2: trivia host in the audience. Is there a code amongst
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  Speaker 2: trivia hosts as to this kind of thing. How pedantic
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  Speaker 2: is too pedantic.
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  Speaker 4: For some of the trivia games I've been to. It's
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  Speaker 4: never too pedantic, that's fair, okay, And it depends on
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  Speaker 4: how much beer you've had.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, also true.
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  Speaker 1: So February eleventh, seventeen thirty one, but then it changed
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  Speaker 1: to February twenty second, seventeen thirty two, and actually also
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  Speaker 1: changed in terms of the year. And as you said
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  Speaker 1: and old, this is just the beginning of the of
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  Speaker 1: the historical mysteries surrounding George Washington. We learned some fascinating
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  Speaker 1: quick what off trivia things. You pointed out something interesting
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  Speaker 1: about his name, Christopher.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, George Washington. That's his name. That's it. No middle name.
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  Speaker 2: What are you saying?
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  Speaker 4: No middle name? Just George.
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  Speaker 2: That's that's illegal, Just George. That's not It's not okay,
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  Speaker 2: George Washington. What happened?
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  Speaker 4: What more do you need? That's he made a state.
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  Speaker 4: You know, he's not prince, he's not Madonna. He's George Washington.
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  Speaker 4: He is not George Steven Washington.
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  Speaker 2: This begs the question of when did the middle name
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  Speaker 2: start and why? Why? Why people get so hung up
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  Speaker 2: on a middle name. Because my reaction there was very
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  Speaker 2: real in visceral, But now I'm questioning it.
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  Speaker 1: You know, there is another president who had a middle
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  Speaker 1: name made up.
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  Speaker 4: It was are we talking Truman's situation here?
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  Speaker 1: It was, Yeah, it was a fake middle initial. Right.
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  Speaker 4: Well, there's there's some dispute about Harry S. Truman, a
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  Speaker 4: lot of and again this kind of gets back to
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  Speaker 4: Nole's favorite pedantic trivia folks. But you know, people will
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  Speaker 4: often claim Harry S. Truman, he did not have a
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  Speaker 4: period after the S and his name, and that's the
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  Speaker 4: way it is. And you know, it's the kind of
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  Speaker 4: people who love to jump down your throat on the
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  Speaker 4: Internet and say like, well, technically, actually, actually those.
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  Speaker 2: Are our people.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, they can be, but those, you know, it can
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  Speaker 4: be a little aggressive, It can be a little off
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  Speaker 4: putting if you are always looking to correct other people
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  Speaker 4: and to shape the world into the way you see
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  Speaker 4: it in my opinion, So, yeah, Harry S. Truman sometimes
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  Speaker 4: he signed his name with a period after the S.
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  Speaker 4: So again it's one of those things that's not consistent
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  Speaker 4: and left to the mysteries of the history.
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  Speaker 2: And just to stay in keeping with the pedantry of
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  Speaker 2: our of our people. Here, the middle name actually began
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  Speaker 2: in the Middle Ages, and it had to do with
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  Speaker 2: families not being able to decide whether to give their
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  Speaker 2: kids a family name or a religious name, so they
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  Speaker 2: were able to give them both.
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  Speaker 1: And it's different in other cultures, right exactly. So not
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  Speaker 1: to focus too much on on President Truman in our
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  Speaker 1: George Washing episode, which we are endeavoring to get count
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  Speaker 1: as our Washington State episode.
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  Speaker 4: I don't know, you know what, let's go.
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  Speaker 1: Let's give it a go.
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  Speaker 2: Let's give it a go.
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  Speaker 1: I think we can. We can always leave the door
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  Speaker 1: open to do another Washington episode. But while we're filling
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  Speaker 1: out our fifty.
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  Speaker 2: I say, who's gonna stop us?
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  Speaker 1: Who?
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  Speaker 2: Not me?
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  Speaker 4: Apparently?
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  Speaker 1: Oh Chris So Harry S. Truman. According to the story,
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  Speaker 1: when he was born in eighteen eighty four, his parents
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  Speaker 1: couldn't decide on a middle name, so they went with
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  Speaker 1: the letter S to honor his paternal grandfather and his
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  Speaker 1: maternal grandfather, a Ship and a Solomon, respectively. When he
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  Speaker 1: took the presidential oath of office, the Chief Justice Harlan F.
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  Speaker 1: Stone said, I Harry Ship Truman, and the President replied,
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  Speaker 1: I Harry S. Truman. So we've buttoned that up.
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  Speaker 4: Well, does that mean he actually was never president, as
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  Speaker 4: folks said about Obama when there was like a little
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  Speaker 4: bit of a discrepancy during the swearing in. I don't know,
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  Speaker 4: probably not, because cable news did not exist in a
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  Speaker 4: day Twitter was not a thing. Thankfully for mister Harry S. Truman.
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  Speaker 2: This is a good point you make.
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  Speaker 1: And now we return to George Washington having solved the
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  Speaker 1: case of Harry S. Truman's frankly fake presidency. Right, that's
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  Speaker 1: not a sweeping statement.
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  Speaker 2: We had to make an appearance. He just couldn't couldn't
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  Speaker 2: leave well enough alone, Harry S. Truman.
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  Speaker 1: He's the quist of He's the quister of American president.
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  Speaker 2: Really, really is so, George Washington? Yeah, no, middle, I mean,
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  Speaker 2: is there more behind the story or is that is
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  Speaker 2: that where the story ends? There may be okay, and
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  Speaker 2: I'll leave you with that. It'll be a cliffhanger, That's
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  Speaker 2: what I know. I like it.
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  Speaker 1: I like it, I like I like this mysterious air
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  Speaker 1: we are we are creating in today's episode, but we
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  Speaker 1: are not just going to present mysteries for the entirety
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  Speaker 1: of the show. We do have some fascinating facts that
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  Speaker 1: you may not have learned in your school years. And
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  Speaker 1: I think that I think we're we're all on the
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  Speaker 1: same page. But how do we want to start?
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  Speaker 2: Guys? Oh, I thought we were. We were already off
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  Speaker 2: to the races.
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  Speaker 1: We'll off to the races.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, let's was that your first one, Christopher?
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  Speaker 4: There wasn't no, that had nothing to do that.
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  Speaker 2: We're just bantering.
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  Speaker 4: That is trivia.
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  Speaker 1: This is just banters.
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  Speaker 2: This is good. Oh, this is going to be a
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  Speaker 2: good one. You guys, who wants to go first? I
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  Speaker 2: propose that Christopher goes fair here I am yep.
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  Speaker 5: All right.
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  Speaker 4: Well, we started off talking about George Washington's birth, his
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  Speaker 4: birth date and the change of that. So let's just
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  Speaker 4: fast forward. Let's skip all the rest, and let's go
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  Speaker 4: straight to the end of his life. So bummer, yeah, no,
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  Speaker 4: I mean, he's not dead yet. He's not dead yet.
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  Speaker 4: His twilight years, he's almost dead. He's not dead yet.
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  Speaker 4: So in seventeen ninety seven, George Washington leaves the presidency,
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: what's he going to do with his life? He decides,
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  Speaker 4: there's an actual quote from one of his biographers, George
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  Speaker 4: Washington when he leaves the presidency, he wants his retirement
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  Speaker 4: to be quote more tranquil and freer from cares end quote.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah sounds nice. He wants to chill.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, more tranquil, freer from cares.
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  Speaker 2: And because of course, doing this on his palatial estate,
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  Speaker 2: Mount Vernon, right, well.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, Mount Vernon, which is it's south of where DC
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  Speaker 4: is now. It's on the Virginia side of the Potomac River.
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  Speaker 4: It's his estate of tens of thousands of acres. And
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  Speaker 4: while there, in his final days he's retired, he is
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  Speaker 4: a man managing the plantation, a Scottish immigrant named James Anderson.
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  Speaker 4: Now this plantation manager had a background and a training
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  Speaker 4: in distillation. He made booze. So Anderson suggests to Washington,
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  Speaker 4: Hey Washington, Hey, George Washington, if you're going to use
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: the full name, why not start making some booze. So
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: we almost had George Washington whiskey, and the country did
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  Speaker 4: for a long time. So George Washington died in seventeen
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  Speaker 4: ninety nine. He'd left the presidency in seventeen ninety seven.
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  Speaker 4: For those last couple two and a half years of
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  Speaker 4: his life, he started a distillery in Mount Vernon. It
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  Speaker 4: ended up being one of the largest distilleries in the
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  Speaker 4: Americas at the time. By seventeen ninety eight, By early
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  Speaker 4: seventeen ninety nine, which is the year he ended up dying,
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  Speaker 4: at the end of that year, in December, they were
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  Speaker 4: producing eleven thousand gallons of whiskey. Now, whiskey became really
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  Speaker 4: popular because in the seventeen eighties and during the Revolutionary period,
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  Speaker 4: rum was the drink of choice. Soldiers were given rations
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: of rum, sometimes whiskey, but essentially it became problematic importing
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  Speaker 4: a lot of the sugar cane from the West Indies
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  Speaker 4: to create rum. So this homegrown liquor whiskey became much
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  Speaker 4: more popular. And yeah, there's a distillery right there that
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  Speaker 4: Washington ran. His signature whiskey was made with sixty five
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  Speaker 4: percent rye, thirty percent corn, and five percent barley.
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  Speaker 2: And wasn't it considered an non aged rye.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was just it was it was distilled and
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  Speaker 4: ready to go. It didn't last years and years. You
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  Speaker 4: know a lot of the whiskeys you can buy now
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  Speaker 4: in the rise they're aged in oak barrels. They're given
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  Speaker 4: That's how it gets the color. Yeah, exactly, they're they
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  Speaker 4: mature over a long period of time. They developed more flavor.
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  Speaker 4: But no, I mean this stuff was distilled right away
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: and sold.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: So doesn't that mean it was almost a little bit
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: closer to something like moonshine or wing.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, pretty much pretty much. And it was sold, but
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: it wasn't bottled. It wasn't sold in cans or pouches
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: or anything like that. It was just packaged in barrels
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: and pouches. Yeah. Well, I'm trying to think of how
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: you could have like a juice box, Yeah, exactly, whiskey pouch,
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: like a you know, one of those little foil capri
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: sun kind of things Washington. So it's the kind of
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: thing you could find it like the I don't know,
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: fire festival or something.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Too soon too soon. Yeah, how was it sold?
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: It was just sold in barrels straight straight to taverns.
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: They would buy a whole barrel of this of this whiskey.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: They didn't just make whiskey though. They also made other
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: kinds of brandy on the side. There was a peach brandy,
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: and apple brandy, a per Simon brandy, and they would
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: also take the leavings of that and make vinegar. They
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: would take all the grains that had fermented and feed
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: those to the pigs that lived on Mount Vernon, So
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: it's a sort of cyclical, sustainable, good way to use
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: what you've grown. Also wildly successful. In his final days,
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: George Washington was becoming one of the pre eminent whiskey
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: barons in the United States. The only thing that really
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: derailed the company, and one of the reasons why we
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: don't have Washington Whiskey as a massive legacy institution in
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: the country today is he died in seventeen ninety nine.
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: So after he died, the distillery was passed to Martha,
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: his wife's granddaughter and her husband. But a fire in
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: eighteen fourteen burned down the distillery and that was pretty
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: much the end of the operation. So that really put
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: the final screw in the tombstone. It nail in the
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: coffin there you go.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: I like screwing the tombstone.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: I like screwing the tombstone. Sure it's more secure than
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: a nail.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: It's one of those ikea tombstones, I think, and now correct.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Me if I'm wrong in this, or maybe you have
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: a better timeline. But they're back at it again at
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Mount Vernon. They are.
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: They're back at it. Yeah, A couple of years ago.
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: Within the last ten years, they reopened the distillery at
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: his historic home. I don't know if they're using the
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: exact same techniques and methods, but it's in same place.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: And yeah, the Washington distilleries up and running. Probably not
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: going to give some of the other notable names in
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: the whiskey world today a run for their money, but
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: if you go visit Washington's historic Mount Vernon, you can
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: definitely sample the whiskey.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Come for the history, stay for the whiskey.
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: I thought you were gonna say whiskery, whiskery.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: I love pronouncing that hard age. According to Mount Vernon
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: dot org, you can buy a bottle of this stuff
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: for about ninety eight dollars, which right shade cheap, and
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: they refer to the recipe as the mash bill, which
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: must have been the old timy way of referring to
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: this whiskey recipe. And it is using the same recipe
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: that they found in the ledgers from the original distillery.
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: That's great. I would love to take a road trip
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: up there. I think it would be a lot of
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: fun if we could buy not just a bottle, you know,
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: because you couldn't buy a bottle then, so they're being
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: a little a historical. I would just love to just
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: load up a barrel.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: And bring it back to the office.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Get a whole barrel.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: That's what the studio is missing.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: This would not be our first time sampling some tipple
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: from George Whiskey Pouch Washington. I believe we've mentioned on
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: previous episodes a good friend of ours, our coworker producer
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams, is known around how stuff works for making
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: toward the end of the year, making an historically accurate
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: version of George Washington's famous eggnog and just between us folks,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: that stuff packs a punch.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Oh man, it's boozy. And the last little direction in
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: the recipe the best part. It says to let's set
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: in cool place for several days and taste frequently.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: As one does with just about anything in your cool place.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: I think it would startle most of us in the
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: modern age to travel back in time to the days
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: of the Founding Fathers and see just how much and
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: how often they drank. Yeah, it's insane.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: I would say, there was never a sober moment.
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: I'll point out though, that you know, we were talking
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: about George Washington's distillery and his recipes. Again, this was
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: a man who commanded an entire plantation, so he was
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: kind of up at the head. This wasn't Washington himself
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: sitting in there in the distilling room tinkering with the recipe,
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: coming up with what he most favored. This wasn't really
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: a passion project for him. It was a way for
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: him to make money at the end of his life.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: He wasn't nearly as rich as some people may have
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: thought he was. He wrote to a nephew who was
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: asking him for money, Yeah, I'll give you this loan,
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: but I'm not made of money like most people think
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: I am. So this was really a project of James Anderson,
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: the plantation manager, as well as six enslaved Africans who
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: were the ones doing the actual hard labor of making
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: this distilled liquor.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Getting none of the credit.
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: No, and we'll get back to Washington's enslaved staff soon.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's foreshadowing. Also, before we get too into the
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: disturbing facts of Washington's life, I have a proposal for
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: us on the show. Why don't we hunt for a
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: middle name for George Washington. In the course of this episode,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: as we learned stuff. So right now we've got mash Bill,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: which you think is great.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: I'm a fan of seahorse Teeth, Sea horse Teeth.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: I think that's great.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: One word. Yeah, okay.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: I also like whiskey Pouch just because it makes them
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: seem so disreputable.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: It's very good.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: Can I can I suggest George.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: George George Washington.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: That sounds like an eighties singer.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: It's George George Washington. Uh yeah, let's see, let's see
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: what we find. These are all some great contenders, but
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: we are just setting off on our weird Washington journey.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: What do you think? Do you have one? Do you
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: want to go?
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Do you want to flip for it? You want to
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: Rochambeau for sure?
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, it's one, two, three go. We've got Christopher as
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: a witness. All right, ready? One?
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: Does that mean you get to choose what you do?
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: Does I mean you go that?
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: I think up to you, man, I'd like you to go.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Man, Okay, I have something that is a bit strange
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: but will be old beans to people who also were
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: fans of our other show stuff. They don't want you
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: to know. George Washington, you see, had any number of
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: extracurricular activities, one of which was freemasonry. George Washington became
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: a Master Mason in seventeen fifty three, and ever since
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: this has driven more fringe or conspiratorial researchers further and
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: further into the depths of speculation. He was a young
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Virginia planter when he became a Master Mason in Fredericksburg, Virginia,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Masonic Lodge number four. He was only twenty one years old,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: and soon he would command his first military operation as
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: a major in the Virginia Colonial Militia. We know, I
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: think basically what freemasonry is. It's evolved from the practices
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and rituals of Stonemason's guilds in the Middle Ages, and
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: it was still a powerful force in America even during
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: the time of tension in the later in the War
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: for Independence against the British Empire. The first American Masonic
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Lodge was founded in Philadelphia in seventeen thirty and do
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: you know who was a founding member of that.
• 24:15
  Speaker 6: It's pretty easy to guess, is it Old Benny Franks?
• 24:17
  Speaker 6: It is it is. It's the old Libertine himself. So
• 24:24
  Speaker 6: for a lot of people this association would seem to
• 24:28
  Speaker 6: indicate that there's something at work behind the behind the
• 24:33
  Speaker 6: screen of history, right, that Freemasonry was involved in the
• 24:39
  Speaker 6: American Revolution, or that people were acting under orders of
• 24:43
  Speaker 6: the Masonic organization. But really, for George Washington, joining the
• 24:49
  Speaker 6: Masons was a rite of passage, and it was sort
• 24:51
  Speaker 6: of an exercise of his civic responsibility. After he became
• 24:55
  Speaker 6: a master Mason again at the age of twenty one,
• 24:57
  Speaker 6: he had the option of passing through a number of
• 25:00
  Speaker 6: additional rights that would take him to higher degrees that
• 25:03
  Speaker 6: would place him higher in the hierarchy of Masonry. In
• 25:06
  Speaker 6: seventeen eighty eight, shortly before he became the first President
• 25:09
  Speaker 6: of the US, he was elected the first Worshipful Master
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: of Alexandria Lodge Number twenty two. And he was not
• 25:18
  Speaker 6: alone in this, as who pointed out Benjamin Franklin was
• 25:21
  Speaker 6: also a Mason. As where Paul Revere, John Hancock, the
• 25:25
  Speaker 6: Marquis de Lafayette of the Hamilton Musical Fame, and the
• 25:29
  Speaker 6: Boston Tea Party, saboteurs and Masonic rights were in play.
• 25:34
  Speaker 6: They were witnessed events like Washington's inauguration, the laying of
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: the cornerstone of the US Capitol Building in Washington, d C.
• 25:42
  Speaker 6: And DC again is a city supposedly designed with a
• 25:45
  Speaker 6: lot of Masonic symbols. In mind, you have to admit
• 25:48
  Speaker 6: the Washington Monument's pretty abstract, you know what I mean.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Itfinitely looms large in the horizon in a very sinister way.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: If you're walking around on the mall at night, he
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: kind of gives me the creeps. To be honest, I.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: Think the whole idea of conspiracy and the Masonic lodge
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: and all that, it doesn't really take into account the
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: reality of the situation at the time. Now in the
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: two thousands, it's easy to look back and think, oh
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: my gosh, all these people knew each other, they were
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: all part of the same organization. Everything ties into everything.
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: But the reality is the population of the colonies at
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: the time was so small compared to what we have today, right,
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: So I mean, essentially you're talking about a population in
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: terms of the landowners and the white European immigrants or settlers.
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: We're talking tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. Essentially.
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: These are small towns or small cities, so everyone's going
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: to know everyone, especially if you're near the top of
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: the upper echelon of society. It's not quite as nefarious
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: cabal creating as it sounds.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Absolutely not. That's the thing. In many ways, it's a
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: social club. These people are sharing their interests. And do
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: they talk about things that they want to do? Do
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: they talk about political goals or business ideas? Of course
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: they do, because that's what friends do when they hang
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: out with each other, you know, they talk about the
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: things they care about and the things that they're working on.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: I enjoy this theory, and I especially appreciate Christopher You're
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: pointing out that it's easy for us to look back
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: in retrospect and perhaps see patterns where none actually exist.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean. A lot of history is coincidence.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: The human species is not chock full of amazing planners
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: with very complicated schemes.
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: Now, everything in the past looks like it unfolded in
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: a way that it was meant to and in a
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: way that made sense. But that's because that's the way
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: we know how things unfolded. There are innumerable other ways
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: things could have happened, and other paths history could have
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: taken that if we travel down those timelines, would make
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: this one look particularly ridiculous or strange.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: But guys, you're completely overlooking the blood magic rituals to
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: molok oh, I mean they did on the regular.
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but that's I mean, Oh, I think that I.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Thought you were talking about the one that I was
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: going to do later.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Oh oh, I didn't mean to blow up you all.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Spot you guys are coming right.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Well. I didn't get an invite.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: I brought snacks.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: I love a good snack.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, come for the mullick, stay for the snacks.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: That's what I'll do.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: One last thing about freemasonry and George Washington in DC.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: I have such a fun time imagining the pitch meeting
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: for building the Washington Monument and say, okay, we think
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: he's the greatest president, we think he's the first president.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: We need something that really says this man, what's the
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: first president? And you know, they go back and forth
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: and someone says, well, maybe a statue of the guy.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: And they go, ah, I like the idea of something
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: like a big structure. Okay, okay, maybe like he's on a.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: Horse or as you like to say, Ben, No, let's get.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Weird with it. That's exactly it. Yeah, they said, let's
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: get let's get with it. Have you guys heard of obelisk?
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: And then you mean obelisks like a dude like in Egypt?
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Right on? And that was history. I am mostly kidding
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: because if you look into the story of the Washington Monument,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: which could be its own episode, they had much more
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: ambitious plans, and what we see today is essentially a
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: compromise in scaling down.
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: Again, the story of our nation and the story of
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: our history is compromises, half baked plans that in retrospect
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: look like what should have happened, but in reality we're
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: just thrown together at the time with no real idea
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: of what ramifications would come to pass decades down the line.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: I mean, look at anything involving well, we don't need
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: to get into health insurance and tax law and all
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: sorts of compromises made in Congress. But yeah, we are
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: just a collection of mistakes and bumbles through the years.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Some of which have incredible staying power.
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: Yes, very much, so much like a monument itself to
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: our first president, I would argue, maybe they just want
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: were like, how are we going to remind people that
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: he was the first president? Let's this This looks like
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: a big number one giant number one.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: So let's reset just a second here, because it occurs
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: to me that we may be well on the way
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: to making something that sounds like a hit piece on
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: George Washington. Because he's a whiskey tycoon, he's a freemason,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: he's a slave owner. He's a slave owner. Yeah, we
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: can't forget that part. But it wasn't it wasn't all complicated, weird,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: problematic stuff he had. He had some other notable wins.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: And I don't think being a whiskey tycoon is that bad.
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: I have nothing wrong with that.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: I think there was a slave labor. I think that
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: bothers me.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's also one of those things where it's
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: I can't even fall behind the whole. It was just
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: how everyone was doing it. It was that was a
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: different time.
• 30:54
  Speaker 6: I mean.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: The thing is, he also was a pretty forward thinking
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: individual in so many ways. In fact, he was so
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: influential in creating the structure that is very much still
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: a part of our military today that he was posthumously
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: given this title the General of the Armies of the
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: United States, that is forever un outrankable.
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's total, total god mode. You know, you can't
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: let's say they create seven star generals, eight star generals,
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: nine star generals in the next couple of years, those
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: still will be underneath Washington.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Kind of similar in some ways to the Eternal President
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: of the DPRK Kim Il Sung, but we didn't call
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: him eternal President. We just called him General of Everything.
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think it's important to remember about Washington
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: that and most of the men back then, this was
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: the first time they were doing the He was setting
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: the precedent for the president.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: The presidential president exactly.
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: And so yeah, the way he acted, the choices he made,
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: the statements he put forth, they set the stage for
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: what we have, what we've had over the past several
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: hundred years leading up to today. And it's important to
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: keep in mind that anyone who's given that sort of
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: authority carries weight. They embody what a country is moving forward.
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: And that actually played into some of the misconceptions about Washington,
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: because his biographers said, we don't need just a man,
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: we need a myth. So we're going to invent this
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: whole thing about the cherry tree. We're going to make
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: up some stories to make him larger than life.
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: That was his biographer weams beams, yeah, biographer slash mythologizers,
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: right absolutely, and just blatantly like made it up, not
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: fudged it a little bit.
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: Some of the stuff was just made up to make
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: him larger than life.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. I mean, and I honestly, very very frequently
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: confuse the myth of the cherry tree with Abe Lincoln
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: because if everyone called him honest Abe, so I sometimes
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: conflate those stories because he also was a very larger
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: than my figure, who grew up poor in kind of
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: more of a rural setting.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: And is also similar to Washington. He has a real
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: underdog story because Lincoln ran unsuccessfully for office right multiple times? Right,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: you know, so people love to see some perseverance. Oh man,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: I think we're doing pretty well here so far. We've
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: got we're drawing in Truman, we're drawing in Lincoln.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Well remember earlier, Christopher, when you were talking about how
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: the United States was sort of a agglomeration of half
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: baked ideas.
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: I remember that. I look forward to the emails.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Speaking of half baked ideas. Washington smoked a lot of weed.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: No that's not true, but he grew a lot of hemp.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: That is true.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: That part is true.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: I was waiting for that. I needed to do that.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Callback I had to do it. Thank you for supplying
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: me with that. No true. Hemp was one of his
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: main cash crops, well before he got into the whiskey trade.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: On Mount Vernon, he grew copious amounts of hemp, which
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: is marijuana, but it is a slightly different strain of marijuana.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Doesn't contain the psychoactive substance thchc or it's very very
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: very low tetrahydro cannabinolls. And it was used historically for
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: making ropes. It was a fantastic fiber who used the
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: stem it had these They grew it so it would
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: have these elongated strands, these fibers in the stems, as
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: opposed to the plants that were grown to smoke, or
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: you would think of the ones that are grown today
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: to smoke are much shorter, less hardy plants. They look
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: a little more like little bushes. But he grew fields
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: of this stuff in an area on Mountain Vernon that
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: he called the muddy Hole, the muddy Hole, the muddy Hole,
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: and it was because it was a very sought after substance,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: because it was used to make They even referred to
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: ropes in those days as hemps, they call them, like
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: sailing hemps, like for all the riggings in various types
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: of vessels. And he would have continued to grow it
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: if he hadn't have done some kind of shrewd calculations
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: and realized that act wheat was probably a more profitable
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: crop to use his land for. But yeah, he grew
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: it for quite some time. And as it turns out,
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: in the very same way that Mount Vernon is now
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: back to distilling whiskey. Mash bill, mash bill. Yeah, they're
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: also now growing hemp.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as of twenty eighteen, right, right, they harvested their
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: first hemp crop in centuries, I believe.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: And the interesting thing is is that hemp, even though
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: it doesn't contain very high levels of the psychoactive substance
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: at all, were outlawed and made a Schedule one drug
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: right alongside the more you know, trippy counterparts. So growing
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: hemp was outlawed.
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: But it's not the same thing, right, I mean, they're
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: if these plants are cousins, they're related. But that's like
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: if you had prohibition of alcohol and all of a
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: sudden you couldn't serve cough syrup at a drug store, right,
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: because just because it has a little bit of alcohol
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: in it, we're kind of on the same thing. People
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: are overreacting and bunching things together.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Very very very similar. But if you look at a
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: field of hemp, it looks like a field of marijuana plans.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, they're very very similar. And in fact, so
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: what I was getting to is, in twenty fourteen, there
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: was a farm bill that passed that allowed research for
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: growing hemp, and some states have legalized essentially limited hemp farming,
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: and another bill that passed in the Senate in twenty
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: eighteen was going to allow for full legalization. I don't
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: know if that one has gone through yet or not.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: I'll have to do a little more follow up on that,
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: But the point is you can get there's another substance
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: of compound that's in marijuana and hemp. It's called CBD,
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: which you may have read a lot of research about
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: people use it for anxiety. It can treat a lot
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: of different ailments and just kind of has become a
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: very popular kind of remedy that people are using. And
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: it is legal in states where marijuana is not legal
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: because you can get it from hemp. It's pretty interesting.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: But yeah, now there's no evidence. A lot of other
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: Faunding fathers grew he too, like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson,
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: but there is no evidence showing that any of them
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: ever tried to smoke.
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a useful crop, and it might be a
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: disappointment to your stoner buddy out there who's saying, oh,
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: Washington and the founding Father's had hemp, we need to
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: legalize everything. It's not quite the same thing, but it
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: does argue for nuance, It argues for understanding the uses
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: of plants and that any one plant or one species
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: can have different applications.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Well said, and also just a soft historical note there.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: I don't believe any form of cannabis was actually scheduled
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: one until the nineteen seventies, right, So it's relatively research.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, And I mean we are definitely in a
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: sea change of legalizations sweeping the nation right now, which
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: is pretty fascinating time to be around with so many
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: of these changes coming so quickly. There's actually a pretty
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: great quote in this article from the Smithsonian that talks
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: about the first hemp crop being harvested at Mount Vernon
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: recently from this fellow by the name of John Hughdack,
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: who says, I think where we're at right now is
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: a situation in which finally a lot of members of
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Congress that finally stopped buying drug war era rhetoric, stopped
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: thinking about the cannabis plant in a very uniform way.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: So very much sad supports your point, Christopher.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: And fascinating for all of our listeners outside of the
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: US and my friends who live in different countries, it's
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: a weird process to explain to them that you can
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: be arrested for one thing in one state and it's
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: completely fine in another, and you can hop a flight
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: for a few hours and be in a place where
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: you're in the same country, but the laws are completely different.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: And I kind of have a feeling that old George
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: Washington might have had issues with prohibition of any kind,
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: you know, being that he liked his whiskey and he
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: liked as himp and you know, seem like a you know,
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: civil liberties kind of fellow. You know, I don't know,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I wonder what he would have to say.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: As long as it applied to white land owners.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Well, that's fair.
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: It was a different time Yeah, and there is historical
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: record of Washington complaining about soldiers who were drunkards, who
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: consumed too much, who overindulged. And that's been argued by
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: some that Washington was a little more uptight than you
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: might be led to believe. But to me, in reading
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: what he actually said and wrote, it looks more like
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: he was against the over indulgence, not the actual substance itself.
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: He didn't assign a moral value to alcohol or to
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: whatever might have been smoked.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: You know what else was in evangelical He was actually
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: very a religious. He was a very moral man and
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: had a real code that he lived by. But he
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: was not a strict adherent to any form of religion.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: That has been made clear in the record.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Which he had these sorts of beliefs placing rational morality
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: over spiritually motivated morality, in common with some other Founding
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: fathers like Jefferson and his famous Jefferson Bible where he
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: removes everything that he thought was remotely supernatural, which is
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: a story for another day. Okay, so we've painted a
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: pretty in depth picture right now, and just to recap,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: we've got a whiskey tycoon who is also a freemason
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: who is also a hemp farmer hemp tycoon.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: Is that fair? It seems like he was testing in
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: a little bit more and then he kind of like
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: switched over to grain. Yeah, but I don't know. He
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: definitely made some money. And it turns out too that
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: it became a very profitable export because the Brits really
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: relied on it. They were actually growing in a lot
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: when the colonies were still under British control, and they
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: relied on that from them. So when they split, they
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: turned it into a much more of a business like exchange.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, hang on, guys, hang on, Casey, could we get
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: a like a game show out of time sound effect?
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: A perfect what's going on?
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Well, it turns out, Christopher, that we have made a
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: game time decision. We are running low on times. We
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: want to give this topic the justice it deserves, which
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: means that we are in for a spontaneous two parter.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: What do you guys say?
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I love it when you actually decide
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: it's going to be a two part or in real
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: time as opposed to post mortem.
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: You know, wait, Ben, what's going on? It sounds like
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: you've just got to get out of here. You don't
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: want to hang out with us for another couple of
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: hours and talk about George Washington.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: I do, I do, And through the magic of editing,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: we'll do that in a later episode.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay, Because as we know in the podcast world,
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: time is but an illusion, a flat circle.
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: Indeed, we've actually been here in the studio for about
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: twelve hours talking about George Washington.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: I've always been here here.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: We are check in anytime you like, but you can
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: never leave. We're kidding. This will mark the end of
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: part one of our George Washington and Washington State episode technically,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: but this will not mark the end of the show.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Please tune in for our next episode, when we explore
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: even more strange, obscure facts about the first president of
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: the United States. In the meantime, you can say hello
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: to Casey, Noel, Christopher and myself on Instagram. You can
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: find us on Facebook. You can find us on Twitter.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Hit us up with your favorite strange historical facts, and
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: if you want to hang out with our favorite part
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: of the show, your fellow listeners, visit us on our
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: community page Ridiculous Historians on Facebook.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: You want a little tiny peek into our relatively run
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: of the mill lives, but you know, we do some
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: cool things every now and then. You can check me
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: out at Embryonic Insider on Instagram.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: And I am at Ben Bullen on Instagram. One hundred
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: percent molock free photo content so far, it's good to know.
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: Until the next episode comes out, I'm just going to
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: be sitting here pulling dollar bills out of my wallet,
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: very very.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Few dollar bills, two money bags.
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: Just staring at George. Staring at George, wanting to talk
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: about him with you guys again soon.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: I can't wait. Do you have any plugs you'd like
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: to plug?
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: I do have some plugs. If you want to find
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: me on Instagram, I'm at Haciotis. That's Hassiotis, and we
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: all hang out on the Ridiculous System Facebook page. We'll
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: be there too.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, we would like to think, of course,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: our super producer, Casey Pegram. We would like to thank
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams, who composed our track.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: We'd like to think our pal Gabe who helps us
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: out with research, and of course we'd like to thank
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: Christopher Haciotis, our incredible guest and lifelong pal.
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: No thank you Casey. Thanks and if one of you
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: guys would think what's his name over here for me,
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: I'd appreciate it.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next time.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.