Abraham Lincoln's Favorite Drink Was A Refreshing Yet Surprising Choice

For the president of the United States, drinking alcohol is a tricky balancing act. Barack Obama famously shared beers with professor Henry Louis Gates and police officer Sergeant James Crowley to discuss systemic racism. George Washington ordered a staggering amount of Madeira wine over his lifetime and operated one of the country's largest distilleries (at the time), but he seems to have enjoyed booze in moderation. As for Abraham Lincoln, his favorite drink is reported to have been water. That's right: Though he worked with two of America's future presidents who loved their booze – Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant – Lincoln seems to have barely touched alcohol, according to both historians and his own friends.

Although some writers have dubbed Lincoln one of our driest presidents, he has competition. While Rutherford B. Hayes's wife, Lucy, was nicknamed "Lemonade Lucy" for banning alcohol from the White House, Hayes himself drank a little. Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump are both reported to be complete teetotalers, with Trump joking that abstinence from alcohol is "one of my only good traits."

In Lincoln's case, he seems to have more or less pretended to sip wine or beer at social events, but according to his assistant and private secretary, John Hay, Lincoln almost exclusively drank water while in the White House, not for moral reasons, but simply because he didn't care for wine or spirits. That's not to say Lincoln never drank in his lifetime, however.

The academic resource site, Abraham Lincoln's Classroom, has a great deal of information about Lincoln's overall health as well as his dining and drinking habits. Most of the information comes from observations and letters written by Lincoln's close friends and professional associates. While the accounts don't all quite line up (he was described alternately as a "moderate," "hearty," and "not a very hearty" eater and often skipped meals while president), but one thing they agree on is that Lincoln rarely indulged in alcohol.

By most reports, he wasn't a fancy eater (though Lincoln's final meal was pretty elegant). He ate a lot of apples, telling a fellow lawyer one should eat healthful food and drink. He reportedly drank beer for a short time on the recommendation of a doctor. Both Hay and his uncle Milton Hay noted Lincoln would take (or fake) occasional sips of wine. While he supported the Temperance movement, there's little evidence Lincoln abstained for ethical or moral reasons, and in fact held a tavern/bartender's license when he was younger. As Hay wrote, he seems to simply have "never cared for wine or liquors of any sort, and never used tobacco."

While water was Lincoln's libation of choice, it wasn't his only non-alcohol drink in the White House. Hay noted in his letters that Honest Abe sipped coffee at breakfast, and would have a glass of milk "in winter" during lunch.