Booth's Mental health

[L Verge]

I have a very difficult time accepting assumptions that Booth was an alcoholic - even a functioning alcoholic. A frequent drinker, yes, but not an alcoholic.

I was raised with a father who was a functioning alcoholic for approximately forty years of his life, thanks to a family trait, World War II, and the Korean War. During the last few years of his life, I would classify my father as a pure alcoholic. I have also read many biographies of Booth as well as the full story of the assassination, and I just don't see enough evidence to indicate that Booth would be in the same category as, say John Surratt, Sr. The assassin's best biographers certainly have not branded him as an alcoholic.

I think that Booth was like most men of his day who were social drinkers. It really was a society thing in a day where water was unsafe, and people (even children) resorted to fermentation in order to quench their thirst. Remember that beer was the #1 drink of the day. The temperance movement had good reason to take offense at how freely liquor flowed.

While we are busy trying to blame the assassination on Booth's mental problems, have we ever stopped to consider that Lincoln and what Booth saw happening to the country that he loved (the whole U.S., not just the South) were what brought on his "insane" behavior (if you want to call it that) and drinking? I see things happening in my country today that make me very angry and upset -- and you are doing good to see me drink more than 5-6 wines or highballs in a year.

One of the best descriptions of Booth's motive appeared in a review of American Brutus in a Catholic publication. "Though vain and manipulative, John Wilkes Booth was an idealist whose deep-seated belief in the righteousness of the Confederate cause and the guilt of Abraham Lincoln led him to commit what has indeed gone down as one of the most spectacular dramatic acts in American history." If Booth drank heavily, which I don't believe he did in our modern interpretation, it was caused by the fury and grief that he was feeling against Lincoln and over the collapse of Southern culture.

NOW, ON A LIGHTER NOTE: Did you know that there is an alcoholic drink named "John Wilkes Booth?" You can blame it on a Yankee because it has its roots in colonial Pennsylvania, where the settlers stole a recipe from the Indians. There was once something known as Root Tea, which was an herbal remedy concocted from pretty much anything you wanted to throw in the pot. The main ingredient in most of the recipes, however, was sassafras. Over the years, this concoction developed into things like root beer (which was first introduced by Charles Hires in Pennsylvania) and sarsparilla (which even children sipped).

A few years ago, an entrepreneur from Pennsylvania decided to concoct a liquor based on the old root tea. However, sassafras is now outlawed for consumption because it has been classified a carcinogen. This business man experimented and found that brewing wintergreen, spearmint, orange and lemon peel produced the same taste. He began the distilling process and now sells a liquor named Root. Root is the basis for a drink that is named after John Wilkes Booth. Here's the recipe: 2 crushed cinnamon sticks, a spoonful of brown sugar, a few orange slices, 1 oz. of Root, 2 oz. of rye whiskey.

Place the orange and sugar in a cocktail shaker and add the crushed cinnamon. Muddle it until the sugar dissolves. Add ice, the Root. and the rye whiskey and shake, shake, shake. Double strain it to get all the crushed cinnamon pieces out and pour over ice into a rocks glass. Add a twist of orange peel to the rim.

Someone wrote an appropriate review of this John Wilkes Booth cocktail: "Smooth, like the actor. Fiery, like the rebel. Deceptive, like the conspirator. Be warned: This drink, like the assassin, will sneak up on you."