Good news for college tipplers: George Washington’s estate, which we know as Mount Vernon, has decided to reissue our much-revered first president’s recipe for rye whiskey. Whoopee.

Yes, our first president was a distiller, according to NPR (damn liberals, always looking into things that are none of their business), of some freaky good whiskey. That probably accounts for his famous rye sense of humor.

Good news for the anti-drinking UI administration: A bottle of Washington’s rye whiskey costs $185.

Bad news for college tipplers: Yeah; $185, dude.

Oh, well. It’s the thought that counts. (Just judging from experience, I suggest that college dudes never but never try that line on a woman.)

Besides, I suspect most college-age tipplers don’t tipple rye whiskey unless it’s named after the shortstop traded for Ozzie Smith, and even then, most college-age dudes don’t remember Ozzie Smith. (Hint: Think backflips on the diamond.)

No, it seems that older dudes are the rye-whiskey tipplers (I keep using that word because I like the sound of it and because it also means a method of screening and loading coal, which always reminds me of Mitt Romney.) Rye whiskey is so cardigan sweater.

In a thoroughly unscientific study (which is the kind Republicans appear to prefer, just going by what they say), I’ve discovered that older dudes don’t actually employ the word "dude" all that often.

C’mon, older dudes. Get with the program.

Washington’s Mount Vernon, by the way, is not to be confused with the One Hill of a Town north of us on the terminal moraine, more or less. Yes, I know; these are very confusing times.

But you think these times are confusing — how confusing was it 12,000 years ago when the glaciers decided to give up their southern vacation, turn around, and go home, leaving behind all these terminal moraines? What were people supposed to think? The Ice Man goeth? And what were they supposed to do with all those damn terminal moraines, which, quite frankly, are hard to climb?

The good news is, these days, we don’t have to worry about terminal moraines because we have petroleum-fueled vehicles, so we can zip up that terminal moraine as if it weren’t there — thus achieving our goal of getting to Mount Vernon. (Why that was our goal I’m not sure, but luckily, we still have the freedom to do so.)

The bad news is, we have petroleum-fueled vehicles.

On the other hand, the good news for all the various Occupiers is that 59 percent of Americans support the movement, if that’s what it is. That’s courtesy of a National Journal poll — whose data, Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post tells us, matches that of a Time magazine poll.

Yes, I know — there are some mumblers and grumblers out there who contend that the Occupy This and Occupy That don’t have a coherent message.

Really?

It seems to me they have a quite coherent message: They’re against the big banks and the growing corporatization of America, more or less. That Occupy Wall Street isn’t exactly on Wall Street — or that the big financial institutions aren’t located on Wall Street, either — is kind of beside the point. Everything in America these days is symbolism.

And that’s why even the floor of the New York Stock Exchange is mostly just for show — the majority of stocks traded are done electronically. I think the computer banks are located in New Jersey. (Yes, that New Jersey, which, so far as I know, is not a terminal moraine. More’s the pity. It would give a whole new meaning to terminal moraine.)

The other good news is, Gail Collins of the New York Times managed to slip in a reference to Mitt Romney strapping the family dog to the top of the car on a vacation to Canada in her Oct. 19 column. That always makes me smile. (Not that I’m in favor of strapping dogs to the tops of cars. The back of a pickup truck always works out better.)

Makes you wonder, though: If Romney becomes president, will he strap the family dog to the roof of the White House?

And will that make the White House a terminal moraine?