Excerpted from Cocked and Boozy: An Intoxicating History of the American Revolution (2026) by Brooke Barbier, published by Chicago Review Press.
In 1778 Thomas Jefferson offered Americans sensible travel advice: one’s itinerary should be balanced with sightseeing and relaxation. “When you are doubting whether a thing is worth the trouble of going to see,” Jefferson advised, “recollect that you will never again be so near it, that you may repent the not having seen it.” But he cautioned against cramming too much in, for “[t]here is an opposite extreme too. That is, the seeing too much. A judicious selection is to be aimed at.” Visiting historic taverns solves this problem—you are seeing and experiencing the past, but you are (hopefully) unwinding with a drink.
Below are suggestions for travel focused on the taverns and drinking culture of the American Revolution. These recommendations are by no means exhaustive—dozens and dozens more eighteenth-century taverns and landmarks are not included here, and not all the taverns mentioned function as places to drink today. Before visiting, please confirm operating hours, as many of the establishments are only open seasonally or with very limited hours.
Virginia
Colonial Williamsburg has three taverns where you can drink today: Christiana Campbell’s Tavern, King’s Arms Tavern, and Shields Tavern, all within a short walk of each other. The first two serve period cocktails. The Raleigh Tavern, where Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and George Washington drank, is open as a museum.
If you visit Colonial Williamsburg for more than one day, I recommend staying in one of the historic taverns on Duke of Gloucester Street, the main thoroughfare. The lodging is rustic but memorable.
Massachusetts
Your first stop in the state should be Boston. The city’s Freedom Trail spans two and a half miles and links up historic sites from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.
Photo by Heidi Besen/Shutterstock
Public houses on or just off the Freedom Trail include Warren Tavern in Charlestown, named for Joseph Warren, who was slain nearby. Built in 1780, its wooden floorboards and beams will transport you to an earlier time.
The Green Dragon Tavern is near the original location, but is not in the building where the Sons of Liberty met, which was destroyed in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, it is still worth having a drink in the inviting space.
Across the alley is the Bell in Hand Tavern, founded in 1795, which is always lively.
Steps away is the Union Oyster House, which opened in 1826 and has been operating there since. Its building dates to the eighteenth century, and in the early 1770s, a Patriot printer operated his newspaper out of the second floor.
Pennsylvania
Philadelphia’s Old City is spectacular, with dozens of colonial-era buildings, but only one serves alcohol today. A Man Full of Trouble is in a newly restored 1759 building that has a tap room downstairs and a museum on the second floor.
City Tavern was completely reconstructed in the 1970s and was open to the public until recently. Today, you can view it from the outside and see how close it was to Independence Hall, where the Second Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention met.
Delaware
The Ryves Holt House in Lewes (first settled in 1631) is one of the oldest surviving buildings in Delaware, dating to the 1680s. In the late seventeenth century, the owner of the house received a license to open a tavern, and its location near the shoreline where the Atlantic Ocean and Delaware Bay meet made it an optimal spot for those traveling by sea. No drinks are served there today, but the building operates seasonally as a museum.
New York
George Washington said farewell to his troops at the end of the Revolutionary War at Fraunces Tavern.
Photo by Promenade Pix/Shutterstock
New York City has few remnants from its colonial past, but what it lacks in quantity, it makes up in quality. You can eat and drink inside Fraunces Tavern, where revolutionaries including John Hancock dined.
The original building suffered through fires and alterations, and a complete reconstruction began in 1904. It stands today at the original location on the southernmost tip of Manhattan and is a delight to visit and have a drink. A museum upstairs has a lot to see—I love the Long Room and its imagined display of Washington’s farewell meal at the end of the war.
Connecticut
In Ridgefield, you can visit the Keeler Tavern Museum & History Center, a house constructed in 1713 that functioned as an inn and tavern beginning in 1772. The building boasts one unusual sign of war: a small cannonball lodged in one of the building’s wooden posts, a relic from when British troops fired nearby during the Battle of Ridgefield in 1777. Today, the museum has rooms set up to resemble a tavern from the time, and it hosts various events throughout much of the year.
Rhode Island
The White Horse Tavern in Newport is the oldest operating restaurant and tavern in the USA.
Courtesy of Discover Newport
Newport has one of the country’s oldest taverns, the White Horse Tavern, originally built in 1673. The building has two floors, and you cannot go wrong dining on either. The second floor has one of the enclosed bars characteristic of the time, so if you do not sit up there, take a peek before you leave. It is a short walk from there to the Colony House, the colonial-era capitol building where ship captains would claim their cargos of molasses and rum, or not.
