petition to – As Americans plan for a hot Fourth of July weekend, a YouTube historian is pushing rye whiskey into the spotlight of America’s 250th anniversary—linking colonial-era recipes, Revolutionary rationing, and the Whiskey Rebellion’s tax fight to a real-world effort
The holiday weekend is supposed to be simple: fire up the grill, keep the drinks cold, wave the flag. But for Max Miller. the creator of the YouTube series “Tasting History. ” the Fourth of July is also the start of something more pointed—a push to make rye whiskey the “official spirit of America” for the nation’s 250th anniversary.
Miller, whose channel has more than 4.3 million subscribers, partnered with distiller WhistlePig for an authentic semiquincentennial spread. The brand’s campaign aims to complete its mission by submitting a signed petition to Congress on July 4. pairing celebration with a direct attempt to shape federal recognition. The theme sounds playful, but the structure behind it is unmistakably political.
Miller frames eating and drinking as a way to step into the past. “Eating and drinking history is one of the most interesting and immediate ways to explore history,” he said. “When you eat or drink something that has a history to it. that was what George Washington drank. immediately you’re put into his boots.”.
A punch with lemons, sugar, and milk
One early America drink Miller points to is punch—less a single recipe than a pattern of flavors and proportions. “Punch was the popular way to drink a lot of alcohol,” he said. “Usually at that time it meant you had lemons, lots of sugar, and one optional ingredient would be milk.”
Milk, he adds, wasn’t a novelty. “Milk punch was consumed all over.” Miller says Benjamin Franklin wrote down a milk punch recipe. describing a method that involves adding milk to a prepared spirits mix until it curdles. then straining it until the remaining drink is clear and mellow. “It chills out the flavor of whatever liquor is in there. the bite is gone. ” Miller said. describing the result as “a very pretty golden yellow color” with “a very silky smooth texture.”.
He also said Franklin made it with brandy, but it “tastes just as good with rye whiskey,” noting that he and his team “tried it.”
Another founding-era favorite was “cherry bounce,” described as an “extremely strong” cherry cordial brandy that George Washington loved so much that Martha Washington would send him bottles when he was away at war.
No fries, no wings—oysters instead
If curdled milk in a punch feels like a hard sell to modern palates. Miller argues that the food side of colonial-era America may be even more surprising. Instead of fries. mozzarella sticks. wings. or even celery with ranch dip. he says bar-goers in many parts of the country leaned heavily on oysters.
“As the railroads proliferated. they would take the oysters out of the ocean and put them into ice cars on the railroad and it would get anywhere within a day or two and it would be relatively fresh. ” Miller explained. “To this day. he said. if you visit a saloon that’s been standing long enough. you can spot fresh oyster shells where they were thrown to the ground a century or two ago.”.
That contrast—what’s missing from today’s bar menus and what shows up in the old ones—is part of the way Miller says history comes alive, bite by bite.
He also points to James Hemings. the enslaved cook to Thomas Jefferson. as a culinary thread Americans should recognize more fully. Miller said Hemings was the first American to undergo culinary training in France and brought techniques learned overseas back to the U.S. popularizing dishes including macaroni and cheese. fries. ice cream and creme brulee.
Yet Hemings. Miller said. didn’t receive recognition for his work for centuries. with much of the credit for the popularity of these foods going to Jefferson instead. “So much of the work was done by enslaved people and we don’t know their stories. we don’t know their names. ” he said. “When we do know their actual stories, we do know their names, it’s so important that we share that information.”.
Hemings was freed by Jefferson in 1796 at 30 years old after a lifetime of slavery, and he died six years later, according to the Institute of Culinary Education.
From patriot drink to federal test
For Miller, rye whiskey isn’t just a beverage—it’s a story American institutions already argued about. The reason is partly practical, he said, and partly about identity.
“While rum was once the predominant drink of early America. ” Miller said. he added that rum’s supply chain depended on outside sources for molasses. “Whiskey really took off just before the Revolution. ” he said. describing how whiskey became “the more patriotic choice. because it was fully grown and produced in the colonies.” During the revolutionary war. he said. whiskey became “a necessity” because it was difficult to get molasses from the Caribbean. and the British Navy blockaded many ports. Miller said whiskey was often given to soldiers as part of their rations.
Whiskey also became central to what Miller calls the first true test of the new federal government’s domestic power. After the Revolution, he said, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton wasn’t pleased with the country’s finances and imposed an excise tax on spirits, including and especially whiskey.
The backlash. Miller said. turned into the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania—an episode of violent refusal of the tax that ended with burning. “The Americans had just fought a war over taxes. They didn’t want to pay it,” Miller said. “And so they ended up rebelling in western Pennsylvania, and it was a violent rebellion known as the Whiskey Rebellion. The people ended up burning down the house of one of the tax collectors. prompting President George Washington to raise the first federal army against them and quickly quell the revolt.”.
Miller said the incident became a precedent that still matters: “It was that first test of that part of the Constitution, because a lot of people were like, ‘Are you allowed to do this?’ And it turns out he was,” Miller said.
By turning those facts into a holiday spread—and then attaching a signed petition to Congress on July 4—Miller is effectively pushing rye whiskey into the overlap of celebration and governance.
A toast to the scrappy spirit
Miller’s pitch is simple at first glance: serve a drink rooted in early American life and let people taste history. But the ingredients of his story—rum’s dependence on imports. whiskey’s role in wartime rations. and the federal tax fight that prompted Washington to deploy the first federal army—give the campaign a sharper edge.
He describes rye whiskey as “one of the oldest drinks in America” and the “original base of many of our earliest cocktails like Manhattans and Old Fashioneds.” And even as Americans gear up for a “remarkably hot Fourth of July weekend. ” he says the deeper point is about everyday life. not just politics.
“When people think of early America, they usually think about what was happening politically, but food and drink tell you just as much about how people actually lived,” Miller said. “For a brief moment, your taste buds are there.”
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