What the Pilgrims Drank on Thanksgiving
Glug Glug
No, it wasn’t champagne or beer or even whiskey, but cider—the drink of the Romans and British sailors. It’s a tipple you should still be knocking back on Thanksgiving.
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“It is indeed bad to eat apples. It is better to make them all into cider.”
—Benjamin Franklin, reporting a Native American’s response to hearing the story of Adam and Eve.
No one knows exactly what the Pilgrims drank at the first Thanksgiving back in 1621. No known televised documentaries have survived to date, and little written documentation chronicling the meal exists. However, all evidence points to the fact that the Pilgrims toasted survival and that first harvest in America with mugs of hard apple cider.
