It turns out that you can't believe everything you read on t-shirts. Historian Bob Skilnik, and my Beers of the Day calendar, would like to inform us that Ben Franklin was a wine drinker. Those novelty t-shirts which claim that "Beer is proof that God loves us" are not, most likely, quoting ol' Ben correctly. According to Skilnik, this famous misquote could have been paraphrased from a letter written by Franklin in 1779;
"Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine, a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy"
Sounds to me like ol' Ben had been reading too much King James and the Greek Classics and not enough Hymn of Ninkasi. But, the Hymn of Ninkasi probably wasn't available for Mr. Franklin's reading pleasure.
