The tours are led both by an actor playing a colonial character and a 21st-century host (on the evening I went, Keith Henley, who handled modern-day questions like, "Where are the indoor bathrooms?").

The character (in more ways than one) was Liam (actor Doug Thomas), an Irishman indentured to Daniel Smith at City Tavern in 1775 who hasn't shut up since. While this can be annoying in a contemporary tour, it can actually be useful when you set out drinking with strangers (again, in more ways than one). Our group of 13 included a local postal worker and Tippler's Tour regular who waited only about 15 minutes before snapping souvenir photos of the trio of attractive local working gals (though not of the California retirees, the Oklahoma mom or me).

From the moment we spotted Liam holding aloft the pewter stein that would serve as his tour leader "flag," it was clear that barkeeping was not just a job for him but a worldview. According to Liam our forefathers' love of drink explains everything from where the Pilgrims settled (they originally planned to go to Virginia, but landed early when they ran out of beer) to our bicameral system of government (that "Great Compromise" in states' representation having been hammered out not in Independence Hall but over a few pints in a nearby tavern).

In colonial days even kids were allowed to drink, Liam told us at the Plough & the Stars before, in his funniest move of the evening, he began sucking on the finger of the Oklahoma mom to demonstrate a colonial baby's struggle to stay interested in mother's milk when a glass of hard cider was close by. Between pub visits, Liam discussed Ben Franklin's conflicted feelings on alcohol. Franklin is widely held to have said, "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Yet he also published an entire dictionary of unflattering words and phrases for drunkenness, including nimtopsical, swampt, staggerish and "he shines like a blanket."

If the promised camaraderie and fun seemed a bit forced early on (Liam was forever offering toasts to which we had been trained to respond, "Hip, hip, hizzah"—as in His Honor the king), after four drinks, everybody was too nimtopsical to mind.

Tippler's Tour, 5:30-7:30 p.m. every Thursday through Oct. 26, $30 ($25 student/senior), departs from the Independence Living History Center, Third and Chestnut sts., 215-629-4026, www.onceuponanation.org.