Jews and American Whiskey, from George Washington’s Time to the Present

In the vast territories of pre-19th-century Poland, feudal law guaranteed nobles a monopoly on the distillation of alcoholic beverages in their lands. Rather than get into the liquor business themselves, they would usually lease the rights to a Jew, and thus many East European Jews made their livelihood from the manufacture and sale of spirits. Jews, for different reasons, have also played a major role in the American whiskey trade, going back to the first days of the republic. Yvette Alt Miller writes: