It is a fact frequently overlooked that our Founding Fathers were usually faintly tipsy if not downright potted—mostly because fresh water was hard to come by and alcohol was actually the safer beverage. In other words, we got drunk and invented America. And early Americans became quite inventive in their potables, experimenting with all manner of fermentations and concoctions. The founder of Art in the Age in Philadelphia's Old City, brewer and distiller Steven Grasse here takes us on a delightful tour of colonial tipples—beer, rum and punch, temperance drinks, liqueurs and cordials, medicinal beverages, cider, wine, whiskey, and bourbon—peppered with liquored-up adages from Ben Franklin and his friends.