Per a pair of biographies (I believe Brands' and Myers', respectively), it has been alleged that despite their "legendary" drinking reputations, both Ulysses S. Grant and Edgar Allan Poe were incapable of handling more than a drink or two without being fall-over drunk, likely due to a genetic condition—they were the lightweight most people don't want to go out with, essentially.
Given that as a baby, Poe was given laudanum (a mixture of opium and alcohol) the same way parents used to say to put a drop of alcohol on a baby's gum to get it to stop crying; quite a bit stronger and no wonder the poor guy seems to have grown an addiction which ended with his mysterious death on 1849's Election Day.
Grant, well, I can't remember a childhood link to alcohol or predisposition, but he did complete and publish his now-famous memoirs with the aid of one Mark Twain, which is a nifty little historical link.
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