# How Much Did Cowboys (Old West) Drink? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 19, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875 "2009-12-19T18:10:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![wedgehed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8edcca/32.png) [@wedgehed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wedgehed)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/21 "2009-12-20T01:43:46Z")
> [@kopek](#): > > But it wasn’t as wild as you would think, either - read through some old collections of the newspapers from Tombstone and the like. Falling off horses was a leading cause of death, knives the preferred method of murder, and the cowboys basically got drunk up about the same as a ship full of sailors hitting San Diego. Let’s call it more a movie exaggeration than invention. > > (PS - IMHO the people you name made their reputations more by the Penny Dreadfulls than actual deads. Although I will admit that its hard sometimes to separate the two.) Sailors on leave in San Diego don’t carry weapons. I doubt if the townfolk gave two shits about what the cowboys did to each other. The lawmen were there to protect the town. Drunks with guns could do a lot of property damage. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/22 "2009-12-20T02:54:03Z")
When a cow town of 3,000 like like [Livingston, Montana boasts 33 saloons](http://www.legendsofamerica.com/WE-Saloons.html) in 1883, you gotta know they held drinking in high regard. ---
**Author:** ![AtomicDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@AtomicDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AtomicDog)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/23 "2009-12-20T03:03:25Z")
> [@WhyWhyWhy](#): > > That…just…ain’t…right. > > One would need some saloons to just cancel out the opera houses. > > Opera!?! What? You’ve never heard of a [Horse Opera?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_opera) ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/24 "2009-12-20T04:24:34Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > Something I’ve wondered about but haven’t bothered to research is why whisky? Why not beer and ale? > > I know they didn’t have a way to keep beer cold, but isn’t cold beer a fairly modern thing anyway? People have drunk beer and ale for centuries. > > So why whisky? In addition to the reasons given, wasn’t a lot of whisky **corn** whisky, a.k.a. rotgut? If you can make a decent non-distilled alcoholic beverage from maize I’ve yet to hear of it. Ditto re. potatos and vodka ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/25 "2009-12-20T04:27:15Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > In addition to the reasons given, wasn’t a lot of whisky **corn** whisky, a.k.a. rotgut? If you can make a decent non-distilled alcoholic beverage from maize I’ve yet to hear of it. Ditto re. potatos and vodka I thought that potato vodka was all the current rage, drawing a premium price compared to many grain vodkas… ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/26 "2009-12-20T04:31:17Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > In addition to the reasons given, wasn’t a lot of whisky **corn** whisky, a.k.a. rotgut? If you can make a decent non-distilled alcoholic beverage from maize I’ve yet to hear of it. Ditto re. potatos and vodka Excuse me? **Bourbon** is corn whiskey. Hardly rotgut. Whiskey is by definition distilled. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/27 "2009-12-20T05:58:49Z")
The original question was why distilled alcohol (whisky) was more common than undistilled fermented beverages like beer. I was opining that I’d never heard of using corn or potatos **except** for distilled beverages. (Well I vaguely think I’ve heard the phrase potato beer). ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/28 "2009-12-20T08:31:42Z")
Here is some data on [per capita alcohol consumption](http://www.hoboes.com/Politics/Prohibition/Notes/Drinking/), in gallons of pure alcohol. ```auto Absolute Alcohol: Year Spirits Wine Beer Total 1790 2.30 0.10 3.40 5.80 1800 3.30 0.10 3.20 6.60 1810 3.90 0.10 3.10 7.10 1820 3.90 0.10 2.80 6.80 1830 4.30 0.10 2.70 7.10 1840 2.50 0.10 0.50 3.10 1850 1.88 0.08 0.14 2.10 1860 2.16 0.10 0.27 2.53 1870 1.53 0.10 0.44 2.07 1871-80 1.02 0.14 0.56 1.72 1881-90 0.95 0.14 0.90 1.99 1891-95 0.95 0.11 1.17 2.23 1896-00 0.77 0.10 1.19 2.06 1901-05 0.95 0.13 1.31 2.39 1906-10 0.96 0.17 1.47 2.60 1911-15 0.94 0.14 1.48 2.56 1916-19 0.76 0.12 1.08 1.96 1920-30 - - - 0.90 1934 0.29 0.07 0.61 0.97 1935 0.43 0.09 0.68 1.20 1936-41 0.63 0.14 0.77 1.54 1942-46 0.83 0.18 1.05 2.06 1947-50 0.73 0.20 1.07 2.00 1951-55 0.76 0.21 1.03 2.00 1956-60 0.82 0.22 0.98 2.02 1961-65 0.92 0.23 1.01 2.16 1966-70 1.09 0.26 1.10 2.45 1971 1.18 0.33 1.17 2.68 1972 1.12 0.31 1.20 2.63 1973 1.12 0.33 1.24 2.69 1974 1.10 0.31 1.25 2.66 1975 1.11 0.32 1.26 2.69 1976 1.09 0.33 1.26 2.68 1977 1.10 0.34 1.31 2.75 1978 1.12 0.36 1.34 2.82 ``` You can see the rise of the [temperance movement](http://www.dui.com/dui-library/studies/research/colonial-america) after 1830. Postbellum alcohol consumption doesn’t appear particularly high to me. I wonder whether part of the decline in drinking was due to the expansion of potable water in the cities during the middle of the century. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/29 "2009-12-20T08:41:32Z")
> [@WhyWhyWhy](#): > > That…just…ain’t…right. > > One would need some saloons to just cancel out the opera houses. > > Opera!?! They didn’t really feature opera, usually, but were just auditoriums that usually showed burlesque, vaudeville, and the like, sometimes augmented by legitimate theater. Often they would have the name of their proprietor in their name; like L.A.'s Wood’s Opera House in the 1880s. I don’t think L.A. had a real opera performance until the American premier of _La Boheme_ in 1895. You wouldn’t see that today; after all it’s the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, not Chandler’s Opera House. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/30 "2009-12-20T08:45:17Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Was the saloon the center of life in these western cow towns? For the young cowboys, I believe it was, even in places like Dodge City, KS, where there was already statewide Prohibition in 1881. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/31 "2009-12-20T09:23:08Z")
> [@wedgehed](#): > > Sailors on leave in San Diego don’t carry weapons. I doubt if the townfolk gave two shits about what the cowboys did to each other. The lawmen were there to protect the town. Drunks with guns could do a lot of property damage. Drunks with or without guns can do a lot of property damage but nowhere is it written that they MUST. That is where the saloon-keepers and ladies came into play. Lawmen did their thing but it wasn’t like the movies. And I’ve seen guns that were carried by the cowboys, basically in the same condition as they were then; after being used as hammers and Lord only knows what. I wasn’t real impressed. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/32 "2009-12-20T11:11:29Z")
I think many saloons in the cow towns also featured prostitutes who hustled drinks as well as cowboys. After several months in the saddle, cowboys were more than ready to ride a different kind of saddle; I wonder if women or whiskey was the main attraction. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/33 "2009-12-20T13:15:36Z")
There was a TV show on the Discovery Channel called Wild West Tech, that gave a bit of anecdotal history with snappy animations, you may find some episodes online. Basically, according to the experts hired for the show (who are historians, presumably with books they’ve authored, with references), you have Victorian morality, pre-Industrial infrastructure, and limitations on what can be transported, across the country or around the landmass by ship. Some places had very advanced goods and services, like oysters shipped from New Orleans packed in ice harvested in Chicago. And cold beer might have been available, if you chose to build your saloon over a creek, had an ice house or could order and store ice. The show often mentions alcohol, other vices, and how they were provided, procured, and what it meant given the sensibility of the time. And if you really care, you could always read what these historians wrote, and check how good their references are. Personally, I just watched the show, and went, “Hum. Makes sense. I’ll buy that.” But these historians sometimes seemed a little prone to embellishment for the sake of the show. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/34 "2009-12-20T15:09:24Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > The original question was why distilled alcohol (whisky) was more common than undistilled fermented beverages like beer. I was opining that I’d never heard of using corn or potatos **except** for distilled beverages. (Well I vaguely think I’ve heard the phrase potato beer). There’s your answer. Corn beer tastes like crap. 😃 **LouisB** , it really wasn’t “riding” the cowboys had in mind. I’ve read where the most asked-for service from one of the soiled doves was satisfaction of the oral variety. ---
**Author:** ![LVBoPeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/858c86/32.png) [@LVBoPeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LVBoPeep)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/35 "2009-12-20T15:36:08Z")
I have been doing some research on military fort medicine of the Great Basin for my novel and have a couple of quotes from military physicians. These quotes come from this book [A Saw, Pocket Instruments, and Two Ounces of Whiskey](http://www.amazon.com/Saw-Pocket-Instruments-Ounces-Whiskey/dp/0870622722) On shootings: “The Yankees especially have the deplorable habit of playing with their revolvers, five or six shot repeaters, the way South Americans play with their Daggers” Dr. Piere Garnier, pg 128 “While I saw the revolver prettly[sic]frequently worn for ornamental purposes, I never knew it to be used otherwise, and my only experience of bloodshed from one was when called professionally to see a cowboy, who had accidentally shot himself in the leg with his own ornament” Surgeon William Cline Borden, pg 129 On alcoholics: “the lustiest consumers of alcohol…shared one common trait: they wre members of a new, mobile class without customs,roots,or social ties.” Rorabaugh, pg. 134 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/36 "2009-12-20T16:07:32Z")
Some people have mentioned drunken sailors and that stereotype had a lot of truth to it. Unlike cowboys who stayed mostly sober on the trail and then had a blow-out when they hit town, sailors got regular rations of alcohol while they were at sea and working. I’ve read histories of life back in the sailing era and most sailors were getting enough alcohol to be in a perpetual half-buzz. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/37 "2009-12-20T16:36:41Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > They didn’t really feature opera, usually, but were just auditoriums that usually showed burlesque, vaudeville, and the like, sometimes augmented by legitimate theater. Often they would have the name of their proprietor in their name; like L.A.'s Wood’s Opera House in the 1880s. I don’t think L.A. had a real opera performance until the American premier of _La Boheme_ in 1895. You wouldn’t see that today; after all it’s the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, not Chandler’s Opera House. I agree that the name opera house was given to the place we might call the theater, a common auditorium that housed all types of entertainment. But not burlesque or vaudeville, which had separate accommodations. Opera was never the sole inhabitant for economic reasons. Even today few sites could survive on a diet of all opera. But that’s not to say that they didn’t feature true opera. Here’s a fascinating article on [Opera in Old Colorado](http://operapronto.home.comcast.net/~operapronto/). > [@](#): > > From about 1870 until 1920, entertainment and civic events in most of the cities and towns of Colorado were centered in opera houses. To distinguish between the baudy, low-class places of entertainment that many theatres were at the time, it became common practice to call a town’s formost playhouse an “opera house” and thus make it known that only socially-acceptable, legitimate theatre would be tolerated there. Almost all of the towns in Colorado in the late 1800s had one or more opera houses, many of which never hosted opera performances. A mix of local talent and touring groups occupied their stages in the heyday of live entertainment. Among the variety of events taking place in the opera houses were dances, community meetings, political gatherings, performances by local actors or musicians, vaudeville acts, minstrels, lectures, roller skating, wrestling and boxing. However, in a substantial number of Colorado’s opera houses, the denizens experienced real opera, either by local groups or by traveling companies, often of considerable repute. Denverites enjoyed a fairly continual procession of opera troupes from 1881 onward. In 1870, when a railroad was extended to it, Denver became a convenient and usually profitable stop-over between Chicago or St. Louis and San Francisco for the best touring artists and companies. As railroads progressively linked other Colorado cities, entertainers could travel in circuits within the state and, eventually, make traverses across the state between Denver and Salt Lake City. … > > For the next 30 years opera houses sprang up in almost every town and city in Colorado. Several of the larger municipalities had two or more opera houses existing simultaneously and often a series of opera houses were built in cities where one burned or became obsolete and then was replaced by another. > > This website provides an account of several of the opera companies that performed in Colorado, a listings of opera performance in early Colorado and a catalog of the 145 opera houses for which we have substantial information. Never mind opera. Roller skating! ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/38 "2009-12-20T17:38:19Z")
> [@](#): > > ```auto > > 1920-30 - - - 0.90 > > ``` Oh, that’s charmingly naive… ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/39 "2009-12-20T17:54:45Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Oh, that’s charmingly naive… Why? Every study I’ve seen has said that overall societal drinking in the U.S. did go down during Prohibition. Of course speakeasies existed. That’s why consumption went down only by 50% rather than to zero. But illegal alcohol was harder to obtain, more expensive, of poorer quality, and less approved of than legal alcohol. It would be extremely surprising if that didn’t cut consumption severely. The interesting figures on that list are those from after repeal. Note that it took four decades for consumption to return to 1911-1915 levels. (World War I levels were artificially low because of heavy state prohibition and the divergence of alcohol or the crops that went into it to serve the war effort.) In 1934, the first full year of legal drinking, consumption barely went up. The U.S. is a big country. At the time, temperance was taken very seriously and drinking really did go down. New York and Hollywood were not representative of the country then or now. What happened in the middle was a true change, even though it did not last forever. ---
**Author:** ![St.Anger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@St.Anger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/St.Anger)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875/40 "2009-12-20T20:05:52Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Here is some data on [per capita alcohol consumption](http://www.hoboes.com/Politics/Prohibition/Notes/Drinking/), in gallons of pure alcohol. > > ```auto > > Absolute Alcohol: > Year Spirits Wine Beer Total > 1790 2.30 0.10 3.40 5.80 > 1800 3.30 0.10 3.20 6.60 > 1810 3.90 0.10 3.10 7.10 > 1820 3.90 0.10 2.80 6.80 > 1830 4.30 0.10 2.70 7.10 > > ``` With that amount of boozing, it’s a miracle our nation even got off the ground! 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-did-cowboys-old-west-drink/521875.md?page=3)