There have been eight presidents who swore off consuming alcohol, and the November election could be giving the country its ninth.
Since a young age, former Vice President Joe Biden has opted not to drink, citing the heavy drinking in his extended family.
“There are enough alcoholics in my family,” Biden said in a 2008 interview as Barack Obama’s vice presidential running mate.
Then, as one of the youngest senators in history, and on a daily train commute between his Wilmington, Delaware, home and Washington, Biden, now 77, opted to sip on cranberry juice instead of a beer or spirit.
Decades later, in the White House, Biden during the 2009 “Beer Summit” between Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and a Cambridge, Massachusetts, police officer, Biden drank a nonalcoholic beer while the two parties and Obama discussed race relations — alcoholic suds in hand.
Of the 2020 Democratic primary candidates he bested, Biden wasn’t alone in his teetotaling. Both New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and former Housing Secretary and San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro abstain from drinking alcohol.
America has had presidents who refrain from drink since the mid-19th century. Millard Fillmore, the 13th president, took a vow in his 20s never to drink. Abraham Lincoln gave speeches to the Washington Temperance Union about the “victims” of alcohol.
The 20th century saw two presidents who preferred water over booze. William Taft, who despite weighing more than 350 pounds, indulged in food over beer. Jimmy Carter, who did occasionally have a glass of wine, declared his White House dry.
[Read more: Americans drink more than two gallons of alcohol per year: Report]
George W. Bush, a recovering alcoholic, almost doomed his presidential bid when a 1976 drunk driving arrest and guilty plea came out days before the 2000 election. The future president quit drinking in the 1980s and became an evangelical Christian.
President Trump never drinks alcohol either, citing his dead brother’s struggle with addiction as a primary reason. As president in 2017, in a rare moment of candor, Trump spoke about his brother Fred’s death in 1981.
“I had a brother, Fred. Great guy, best-looking guy, best personality, much better than mine,” Trump said at the time. “But he had a problem. He had a problem with alcohol, and he would tell me, ‘Don’t drink. Don’t drink.’ He was substantially older, and I listened to him and I respected [him].”
At the same time, Trump has no problem making jokes about keeping dry.
“I’m not a drinker. I can honestly say I never had a beer in my life. It’s one of my only good traits,” he said in the midst of the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. “I never had a glass of alcohol. I never had alcohol, for whatever reason. Can you imagine if I had? What a mess I would be. I would be the world’s worst. I never drank, OK?”
Like Trump, Biden will often crack jokes about his preference for nonalcoholic beverages. During a livestreamed “happy hour” campaign event last week, Biden sipped on a Gatorade, while attendees were expected to have a cocktail or beer in hand.
“I’m probably the only Irishman you know who has never had a drink,” Biden said, adding that his guilty pleasure is “ice cream.”
Other presidents, such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, were famous for keeping a cocktail nearby. Lyndon Johnson once told a doctor after a heart attack that “whiskey, sunshine, and sex” were some of life’s greatest pleasures.
Johnson’s special assistant for domestic affairs, Joseph Califano, recalled in an interview how his boss would often demand refills of his scotch and soda on the road.
“Periodically, Johnson would slow down and hold his left arm outside the car, shaking the cup and ice. A Secret Service agent would run up to the car, take the cup, and go back to the station wagon,” Califano said. “There, another agent would refill it with ice, scotch, and soda as the first agent trotted behind the wagon.”
Roughly 30% of the public avoids alcohol entirely, with Honolulu, Hawaii, having the highest number of dry residents, at over 21%. Just 36% of people enjoy a drink at least once a week. Roughly 6% say alcohol should be outlawed entirely.
