John, sorry you couldn't look at the site. I read the info on some of the textbooks, and was baffled. I expect there to be big differences in liberal vs. conservative viewpoint on subjects such as history or economics, but not when it comes to the hard sciences. That's what puzzled me. I'm tempted to order a book or two on subjects I know a lot about, just because I'm curious.

As far as the whiskey still -- yup, views about alcohol were very different then. Plain water was viewed with suspicion by the colonials; it was thought that cold water caused cramps and even death. Most people drank rum or whiskey in the very early days, then beer or cider when the beer became better. It was a long time before any decent wine was made in this country.

No, I'm not scandalized by the idea of ol' George making whiskey. But I'm betting that the authors of that little biography would never mention the fact, nor anything else in the same vein. To explain that standards were once different, one has to admit that standards are not carved in stone and that a certain practice may be all right in one situation but not in another.