These scholarly papers were presented in the session Distilling the Past:  George Washington's 18th-Century Wiskey Distillery from Excavation to Reconstruction at the Society for Historical Archaeology annual meeting in St. Louis, January 2004.

The session consisted of five papers and a discussant:

• Shad, Wheat, and Rye (Whiskey):  George Washington, Entrepreneur by Dennis J. Pogue
• "To Erect a Large Distillery:"  An Architectural Reconstruction by Gardiner Hallock and Laura Seifert
• Whiskey in the Rocks:  Excavating and Interpreting the Archaeological Remains of George Washington's Distillery by Eleanor Breen
• Tourists, Schoolchildren, and Liquor Lobbyists:  The Various Publics of the Mount Vernon Distillery Site by Kim Christensen
• Distilling the Future:  Reconstructing Washington's Distillery by Esther C. White
• Comments on the Distilling the Past Session by Donald W. Linebaugh of the University of Maryland