On New Year’s Day 250 years ago the Patriots and Loyalists in America were celebrating the New Year. A British officer in Boston recorded in his diary:

Nothing remarkable but the drunkenness among the Soldiers, which is now got to a very great pitch, owing to the cheapness of the liquor, a Man may get drunk for a Copper or two.

Source: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3278509&seq=42