Presidents' Favorite Drinks: What the Record Actually Supports

Lists of presidents’ favorite drinks circulate widely, and a fair share of what they contain is folklore repeated until it hardened into fact, which is why the version below includes only associations that appear consistently in biographies, presidential libraries and the presidents’ own testimony, and says so plainly where historians disagree. Several of the more interesting entries turn out to be abstainers, since three of the last four men to hold the office have not drunk at all.

The list at a glance

The founders: rye, Madeira and wine

Washington’s connection to whiskey rests on business records rather than anecdote, because in 1797 his farm manager, James Anderson, persuaded him to build a distillery at Mount Vernon, and by the end of Washington’s life it had become one of the larger whiskey operations in the country, producing a rye-heavy, unaged spirit sold to merchants rather than poured at his own table. The reconstructed distillery operates again today and sells rye made on the old pattern, which tastes closer to a raw grain spirit than to anything aged in a barrel.

At the table, the drink of the founding generation was Madeira, the fortified Portuguese wine that survived long ocean voyages far better than unfortified wine, because heat and oxidation, which ruin most wines, are part of how Madeira is made. Washington drank it, as did most of the colonial gentry, and anyone wishing to taste the style in a modern glass can try the Madeira Cocktail, which pairs it with cognac and Strega, an Italian herbal liqueur, although that build is a modern construction rather than an eighteenth-century one. Jefferson, meanwhile, was the most serious wine collector of the early presidents, ordering French and Italian bottles in quantity during and after his years as minister to France.

Lincoln and Grant: two disputed reputations

Lincoln drank very little, a point on which his contemporaries largely agree, which makes it slightly ironic that he co-owned a store in New Salem that obtained a license to sell liquor by the drink. Grant’s reputation runs in the opposite direction, since stories of his drinking followed him from the Army into the White House, but historians continue to argue over how much of that reputation reflected real heavy drinking and how much was political attack, and the honest summary is that the question remains open.

Theodore Roosevelt and the mint julep

Roosevelt is unusual in that his drinking habits were examined under oath. In 1913 he sued a Michigan newspaper editor who had printed that he was a drunkard, and he won, testifying that he drank sparingly, that he did not drink whiskey or brandy except on a doctor’s advice, and that the mint julep was among the few drinks he took at all. A julep is therefore a fitting tribute, built from bourbon, sugar, water and a large handful of fresh mint; the classic proportion is about two and a half ounces of bourbon to a quarter ounce of rich syrup, packed with crushed ice until the cup frosts, and the version in our index follows that template with powdered sugar.

FDR and the martini

Franklin Roosevelt took office in March 1933, in the last months of Prohibition, and within weeks signed the Cullen–Harrison Act, which legalized beer and light wine at 3.2% alcohol by weight; full repeal followed with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment on December 5, 1933. Roosevelt himself mixed the drinks at his evening cocktail hour, and the martini was his habit, by most accounts made with a generous hand and not always by any recipe a bartender would recognize. Anyone curious about what Americans had been drinking in the years before repeal can find some of it in these recovered Prohibition-era recipes.

The standard gin martini of that period was wetter than the modern version, often two parts gin to one part dry vermouth, and the Martini Cocktail in our index uses exactly those two ingredients; the Dry Martini adds the olive and is better made at four or five to one.

Truman and bourbon

Truman’s taste for bourbon is among the best documented of any president’s, turning up in nearly every account of his daily habits. The story most often told concerns his wife, Bess, who reportedly found the White House staff’s Old Fashioneds too sweet and fussy, until the butlers learned to serve her bourbon over ice with barely anything else in the glass. The well-made version sits between those two extremes, a sugar cube or a quarter ounce of syrup, two dashes of Angostura and two ounces of bourbon stirred over a single large cube, and the Old Fashioned in our index follows that pattern. The method and its many arguments are covered in more detail in our Old Fashioned recipe guide.

Kennedy and the daiquiri

The drink most consistently attached to John F. Kennedy is the daiquiri, a sour built from white rum, lime and sugar, and by most accounts he drank moderately. The correct daiquiri is shaken, not blended: two ounces of white rum, an ounce of fresh lime juice and three quarters of an ounce of simple syrup, strained into a chilled coupe, which is how the Daiquiri Natural is written. Those wanting the slightly more elaborate Cuban style can try the Daiquiri No. 3, which adds grapefruit juice and maraschino liqueur.

Johnson’s scotch and Obama’s beer

Lyndon Johnson’s drink was Cutty Sark scotch with soda, and since its recipe is simply scotch, soda and ice, there is little to add beyond a ratio of about one to three. Barack Obama’s contribution was different in kind, because in 2011 the White House kitchen staff began brewing beer on the premises, the first known to have been brewed there, using honey from the beehive on the South Lawn, and the recipe for the White House Honey Ale was later published for homebrewers.

The recent abstainers

George W. Bush stopped drinking in 1986, at the age of forty, and has said publicly that he has not had a drink since. Donald Trump has never drunk alcohol, a choice he has linked to the alcoholism of his older brother, Fred, and Joe Biden has likewise been a lifelong abstainer, citing alcoholism in his own family. No earlier stretch of the presidency has had abstainers in such a concentration.

Building a presidential bar at home

The practical lesson of the list is that most presidents drank the ordinary drinks of their era, which means that a bottle each of rye, bourbon, gin, white rum and dry vermouth will cover almost every entry above. Anyone checking what a particular shelf can produce can enter those bottles into the CocktailBuilder ingredient search, and those who want a single theme for a gathering might pair the list with the official, and mostly unofficial, drinks of the fifty states.

If only one bottle can be bought, the record points toward American whiskey, because it runs further through the list than any other spirit, from the rye that Washington’s distillery sold to merchants to the bourbon in Truman’s glass, and both make the stirred drinks above without needing anything rarer than sugar and bitters.

Last modified on October 25, 2026