WHISKEY --
THE DISTILLED SPIRIT

Sales of whiskey commenced in the region shortly before the start of the French & Indian War.  Likely distilled from rye, sales of numerous bushels of rye first appeared in Dupui's general store ledger in 1748, with pounds of rye meal first starting to be sold in 1753.

Rye was easy to grow.  Planted in autumn, this cereal grain would reach a height of 4 feet by the June summer solstice.  After the harvest, the rye would be processed into meal at Dupui's mill and would typically be ready for sale at the store by mid-July.

While a great many bushels of rye were sold by Nicholas Dupui, the same cannot really be said for whiskey.  Although it was cheap enough (sold at 1 shilling and 3 pence per quart), less than 1 gallon of whiskey in total was sold by way of Dupui's store to customers that had credit-based accounts.

So how do we explain this situation? 

We begin by recognizing the fact that taverns in the county were only first licensed in 1759, and taverns were where one typically went for social lubricants.  As Samuel Depue was among the select few that obtained a tavern license that year, we can surmise that the Dupui family was indeed eventually selling prodigious amounts of this distilled spirit -- just not at the store.

As whiskey can also be distilled from corn, one might also ask why it has been presumed that area whiskey was made from rye?  The answer lies in tradition.  While the Scots-Irish that settled in nearby Mount Bethel had as their tradition a whiskey distilled from corn, rye grain has always been part of Dutch distilling history, and the area around Dupui's establishment was primarily settled by those with a Dutch background (who established all of the Dutch Reformed churches in the area).

Yet whether it was rye whiskey or whiskey distilled from corn, a Pennsylvania tradition nonetheless was born, and it's certainly nice to see that Dupui's general store helped to facilitate that birthing process.