I've always been fascinated by a bit I ran across in a Lancaster county publication: British prisoners, I think from the battle of Saratoga were being kept or marched through Lancaster (for a while they were in a camp near York, PA, possibly guarded by men commanded by an ancestor of mine). There was a dispute over how much their daily ration of rum should be, so much for the men, so much for the women, so much for the children. Apparently it was accepted on all sides that rum was mother's milk for all.
Today Boston 1775 quotes a letter on another website written by a private at the start of the Battle of Bunker Hill. He says, as they were digging in: "We began to be almost beat out, being fatigued by our Labour, having no sleep the night before, very little to eat, no drink but rum..."
Not something Tea Partiers will tell you about the Revolution.
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