ADDITIONAL DRINKS.
Jewish Prayers respecting various Drinks—Women’s Tears—Dew—Oil—Sea Water—Blood—Vegetable Water—Ganges Water—Vinegar—Ptisana—Toast Water—Bragget—Ballston Water—Warm Water—Asses’ Milk—Ghee—Milk Beer—Kumyss—Syra—Lamb Wine—Rice Wine—Garapa—Fenkål—Brandy and Port—Methylated Spirit.
In the Jewish prayers there is an especial, exclusive and extensive blessing upon wine, which runs in the following wise:—
“Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, universal King, for the vine, and for the fruit of the vine, and for the produce of the field, and for the land of delight and goodness and amplitude which Thou hast been pleased to give as an inheritance to thy people Israel, to eat of its fruit, and to be satisfied with its goodness.” Then follow petitions for the divine mercy upon those who say the blessing, upon Israel, God’s people, and upon God’s city, Jerusalem, and upon Zion, the dwelling-place of His glory, and upon His altar, and upon His temple.
The blessing concludes with a prayer for speedy transportation into the holy city: “Bring us up into the midst thereof eftsoons, even in these present days, that we may bless Thee in purity and holiness. For Thou art good, and the Giver of good to all. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, for the land and for the fruit of the vine.”
This beautiful prayer,[155] of which only the roughest sketch has been given here, has been said by pious Hebrews at every meal in which wine has been drunk from time immemorial. But upon wine alone has this honour been conferred. Those who drink Shecar, or water, or any other beverage except wine, say before their draught thus much only: “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, universal King, by whose word all things were made;” and after it, “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, universal King, the Creator of many souls, and their needs, for all which Thou hast created, to keep alive the soul of every living thing. Blessed art Thou who livest everlastingly.”
But these two prayers have no especial and necessary relation to drinks. They are also used where aught is eaten which has not grown originally and directly out of the earth, as, for example, the flesh of some beasts, and birds, and fishes, and cheese, milk, butter, and honey.
In the present work particular attention has been given, in the case of alcoholic drinks, to wines, spirits, liqueurs, and beers, and in the case of non-alcoholic, to mineral waters, tea, coffee, and other beverages usually considered non-intoxicant; but under both these widely extended categories a large number of drinks must enter of which no mention whatever has been made in the preceding pages. It remains for us, therefore, to consider in the present chapter the most interesting and important of these drinks which have been hitherto excluded. Of the curious and, in many cases, repulsive liquids which have from time to time been taken, either to assuage the pangs of human thirst, or to gratify the taste of the human palate in health or in disease, the reader who has not devoted some little time and attention to the investigation of this subject will probably have but a very faint conception. To go no farther back on the pathway of time than to the age of John Taylor, the water poet, we find so strange a drink as women’s tears.
But at a date far earlier than that of the water poet, the date of the Babylonian Talmud, in Machshirin, vi. 64, there are seven liquids comprehended under the generic term drink (Lev. xi. 34, and therefore liable to ceremonial defilement), dew, water, wine, oil, blood, milk, and honey. Upon every one of these seven liquids something curious and interesting might be written.
About these drinks a question arises in the Talmud, whether under water are included such beverages as mulberry water, pomegranate water, and other waters of fruits which have a shem livoui, or compound name. Rambam the great Eagle, more commonly known as Maimonides, seems to exclude these drinks from the general category. By honey is to be understood the honey of bees; the honey of hornets is not to be numbered in the list. In the Tosephoth of Shabbath it is asked, How do we know that blood is a drink? Because it is said (Num. xxiii. 24), And drink the blood of the slain. How do we know that wine is a drink? Because it is said (Deut. xxxii. 14), And thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape. How do we know that honey is a drink? Because it is said (Deut. xxxii. 13), But He made him to suck honey out of the rock. How do we know that oil is a drink? Because it is said (Isa. xxv. 6), A feast of fat things. How do we know that milk is a drink? Because it is said (Judges iv. 19), And she opened a bottle of milk and gave him drink. How do we know that dew is a drink? Because it is said (Judges vi. 38), And wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water. There is a curious addition, reminding us of Taylor, the water poet. How do we know that the tears of the eye are a drink? Because it is said (Ps. lxxx. 5), And givest them tears to drink in great measure. How do we know that the water of the nose is a drink? Because—but the reader has had probably enough of the Rabbinical lucubrations.
A chapter of this book might, were not space a consideration, be devoted to water, which Thales[156] declared to be the first principle of things, and, according to Seneca,[157] valentissimum elementum. Iced, it was inveighed[158] against by the Stoic philosopher, as injurious to the stomach. The desire for it was said to proceed from a pampered appetite. Pliny[159] speaks of a wine made from sea water, but considers it, with Celsus, a bad stomachic. In later times sea water has been converted into fresh.
Bory de St. Vincent,[160] in his Essais sur les Isles Fortunées, an entertaining description of the archipelago of the Canaries, says that in Fer, one of the Canary Islands, a nearly total privation of running water was compensated by an extraordinary tree. Bacon (Nov. Scient. Org., 412), the Father Taillandier (Lettr. Edit., vii., 280), Corneille (Grand Dict., under Fer) may be consulted about this tree, called the holy one. Gonzalez d’Oviedo (ii., 9) says it distils water through its trunk, branches, and leaves, which resemble so many fountains. The “exaggerator Jakson,” says Bory de St. Vincent, being at Fer in 1618, saw this tree dried up during the day, but at night yielding enough water to supply the thirst of 8,000 inhabitants and 100,000 other animals. According to this authority, it was distributed from time immemorial all over the island by pipes of lead. It is nothing to “Jakson” that lead was not known from time immemorial. Viana (Cant., i.) speaks of the sacred tree as a sort of celestial pump.[161] Another author says the holy tree was called Garoe, and that its fruit resembled an acorn, that its leaves were evergreen, and like those of a laurel. During an east wind the water harvest was the most abundant.
This celebrated vegetable product was unfortunately destroyed by a hurricane in 1625. But even about this date authors disagree. While Nunez de la Pena is an authority for that given, Nieremberg assures us the catastrophe occurred in 1629. Another date mentioned is 1612.
The view of Bory de St. Vincent is that this holy tree was nothing more than the Laurus Indica of Linnæus, which is indigenous to the mountain summits of the Canary Islands. His concluding remark is pregnant with common sense: Si les auteurs que nous ont parlé du Garoé ont dit qu’il était seul de son espèce dans l’île, c’est qu’ils n’étaient pas botanistes, et qu’ils n’avaient pas réfléchi que cet arbre ayant un fruit, devait se reproduire, comme tous les autres végétaux.
The water of rivers is often clarified in a peculiar manner before drinking. For instance, that of the Ganges is said to be improved by rubbing certain nuts on the edges of the vessel in which it is kept,[162] though how this may be it is as difficult to understand, as how the turtle is affected by a touch of his carapace, or the Dean and Chapter—to borrow Sydney Smith’s illustration—of St. Paul’s by stroking the cupola of that cathedral. The Nile water is also said to be purified by treating the vessel which holds it in a similar manner to that which holds the water of the Ganges, with bitter almonds. The bitter waters of Marah were made sweet in a far different fashion.
The Melo-cacti of South America have earned for themselves the name of “springs of the desert,” owing to their liquor-preserving properties. An ingenious drink is that of the natives of Siberia, a drink prepared of an intoxicating mushroom,[163] in a peculiar and economical manner, by natural distillation.
Vinegar appears as a beverage in a few countries only, and then for special purposes. The Roman soldiers received it as a refreshing drink on their marches, and even in the time of Constantine their rations included vinegar on one day and wine on the other. After all, this vinegar may have been nothing more than what many of us drink at present under the title of wine. That “excellent claret,” for instance, “fit for any gentleman’s table,” which may be had at 1s. 6d. a bottle, may be very like the vinegar of the Roman soldier. Roman reapers used it mixed with water, we are told by Theocritus (Idyl x.), and before that time Ruth was directed to dip her morsel in the vinegar when she gleaned in the field of Boaz.
Ptisana, mentioned by Celsus (iii., 7), appears to have been a mixture of rice or barley water and vinegar.
Toast-water is a drink which may be held by some unworthy of mention, but they may change their minds after reading what Mr. James Sedgwick, apothecary at Stratford-le-Bow, had to say on this subject in the year 1725. The burning of a crust and putting it hissing hot into water has, according to this gentleman, several good advantages. By it, the “raw coldness from nitrous particles are (sic) taken off and moderated, and it becomes more palatable, besides which, from the sudden hissing opposition of temperament, an elevation is made of the heterogeal particles, a motion, an interchanging position is obtained: These Principles during their intercourses will be imbibed and sucked into the bread in order, according to their respective distance and gravities, whereby the liquor will become more pure and almost uncompounded, less foreign than it was under its natural acception.” And yet though all these securities are taken to blunt the “frigorific mischiefs” of the water in general, yet in many constitutions and at particular seasons it is not to be trusted without some “substantial warmth to give and maintain a glowing, e’er it dilutes and disperses.” He goes on to say that it is better to add wine to the water, “to prevent the contingent hazards from the limpid element.”
Braket or Bragget or Bragwort, was a drink made of the wort of ale, honey, and spices.[164] Her mouth, says Chaucer, speaking of Alison, the carpenter’s pretty wife in the Mother’s Tale,
And in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Little Thief, or the Night-Walker, Jack Wildbrain speaks with contempt of
The opponents of alcoholic drinks are often met by the objection that some of the drinks recommended by themselves are alcoholic, as indeed they often are. Even water appears to possess, in some cases, an intoxicating property. Pliny (Nat. Hist., ii., cvi.) speaks of a Lyncestis aqua,[165] of a certain acidity, which makes men drunken. The celebrated Ballston waters in the State of New York, are said to be affected with qualities “highly exhilarating,” sometimes producing vertigo, which has been followed by drowsiness; in other words, they who drink them exhibit the usual symptoms of drunkenness.
Timothy Dwight, in his Travels in New England and New York, says that these waters are considered by the farmers of the neighbourhood as an excellent beverage, and are sent for from a considerable distance for drink to labourers during haymaking and harvesting, a time well known to be full of desire on the part of country people employed in these agricultural pursuits, for alcoholic refreshment. “They supersede,” says Dwight, “in a great measure the use of any ardent spirits.” But since the result of drinking these waters seems precisely the same, as far as regards inebriation, as that of drinking beer or other alcoholic liquor, it is questionable whether any advantage is gained by this supersession.
The properties of the Saratoga water, situated some seven miles from that of Ballston, are also of a very remarkable nature. They abound to such an extent in a species of gas, that we are told a very nice sort of breakfast bread is baked from them instead of yeast.
The Romans considered warm water an agreeable drink at the conclusion of the chief repast of the day. This may explain why Julius Cæsar was always taken ill after dinner.
Many drinks are derived from animals, either wholly as milk and blood, or from animals and vegetables in common, as oil.
It is said that there are people here in England who like—so strange is the diversity of tastes—a draught of oil from the liver of a cod as much as an Esquimaux approves of a draught of the oil of a porpoise or a seal.
Of milk a large catalogue of drinks can be reckoned. First, there are the different kinds of milk of different animals, as the milk of asses, of women, of goats, of cows, of sheep, of reindeer, of camels, of sows, and of mares. Then it may be swallowed as it is drawn, or in the form of whey, or curdled. Ghee[166] is a common favourite throughout all India. It is a stale butter clarified by boiling and straining, and then set to cool, when it remains in a semi-liquid or oily state, and is used in cooking, or is drunk by the natives.
In milk-beer, milk is substituted for water. Kef is a kind of effervescing fermented milk, much resembling Koumiss (or rather Kumyss), of which the best is probably to be obtained in Samàra. Youourt[167] is a favourite drink at Constantinople, made of milk curdled after a peculiar fashion. Syra, a form allied with the German Säure, is a sour whey, used for drink like small beer in Norway and Iceland. Aizen and Leban are both sorts of Kumyss, one of the Tartars, the other of the Arabs. The latter have also an intoxicating liquor Sabzi, made of Bhang, a species of hemp. The green leaf from which the drink derives its name is pounded and diluted with sugared water.
Even the warm blood of living animals has been considered suitable for a drink. In the book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian, concerning the marvels of the East, we are told, the Tartar will sustain himself in an economical manner, by opening a vein in the neck of the horse upon which he rides, and having taken a sufficient drink will close the aperture, and ride on as before. Carpini says much the same of the Mongols. This appears indeed to have been a time-honoured institution.
Dionysius Periegetes, in the nineteenth chapter of his Description of the World, treating of Scythia and other ancient nations situated in what is now known as Great Tartary, says of the Massagetæ that they have no eating of bread nor any native wine, but
And Sidonius, to the same effect,
Another strange variety of drink is made by the Peruvians. The ordinary chica is mixed with the bloody garments of a slain warrior. Temple (Travels, ii., 311).
According to Lobo, the Abyssinians esteem the gall one of the most delicious parts of a beast, and drink glasses of it, as epicures with us drink Château Lafitte. Pearce (Adventures in Abyssinia, i., 95) says that they also drink blood warm from the animal with an extraordinary relish.
The Mantchoos, the conquerors of China, prepare a wine of a peculiar mixture from the flesh of lambs, either by fermenting it reduced to a kind of paste with the milk of their domestic animals, or by bruising it to a pulp with rice. When properly matured, it is put into jars and drawn as occasion requires. It is said to be strong and nutritious, and the most voluptuous orgies of the Tartars are the result of an intoxication from lamb wine. Abbé Rickard, History of Tonquin.
The only wine in Sumatra, according to Marco Polo, was derived from a certain tree, the sacred wine-tree as it might be called, in comparison with the sacred water-tree, afterwards known as Areng Saccharifera, from the Javanese name, called by the Malays Gomuti and by the Portuguese Saguer. It has some resemblance to a date palm, to which Polo compares it, but is much coarser and more ragged, incompta et adspectu tristis, dishevelled and of a melancholy aspect, as it is described by Rumphius. A branch of this tree was cut, a large pot attached, and in a day and a night the pot was filled with excellent wine, both white and red, which, says the Venetian, cures dropsy and tisick and spleen.
The Chinese Rice Wine and its manufacture is described in Amyot’s Memoires, v., 468. A yeast is employed, with which is often mixed a flour prepared from fragrant herbs, almonds, pine seeds, dried fruits, etc. Rubruquis says the liquor is not distinguishable, except by smell, from the best wine of Auxerre, a wine so famous in the middle ages that the historian friar Salimbene went to that town for the express purpose of drinking it. Ysbrand Ides compares it to Rhenish, John Bell to Canary, and a modern traveller, quoted by Davis, “in colour and a little in taste to Madeira.” Marco Polo says, “it is a very hot stuff,” making one drunk sooner than any other beverage.
From the walnut, which is cultivated to great extent in the Crimea, a sweet clear liquor is extracted in the spring, at the time the sap is rising in the tree. The trunk of the walnut is pierced and a spigot placed in the incision. The fluid obtained soon coagulates into a substance used as sugar. It does not, however, appear that the juice has been converted to any inebriating purpose. Not only, however, from the walnut can a good drink be extracted, but also from the birch, the willow, the poplar and the sycamore.
A sort of birch wine is made in Normandy.
An excellent drink, resembling brandy, has been distilled, it is said, from water melons in the southern provinces of Russia, where consequently much attention is paid to the culture of this vegetable, producing in some cases water melons of thirty pounds in weight.
In the Sandwich Islands a drink is distilled from the root of the Dracæna, something like the beet of this country. The root of the Dracæna gives a saccharine juice resembling molasses. From this, with the addition of some ginger, a kind of tea is made, also a spirit called by the natives Ywera. Their manufacture of this drink is remarkable for its complexity, involving certain mystic operations with an old pot, a leaky canoe, a calabash, and a rusty gun-barrel. It is unnecessary to give a detailed account of the process. We yearn in vain for that absence of entanglement which distinguishes the religion of the Iroquois, who have no other worship than the annual sacrifice of a dog to Taulonghyaawangooa, which being interpreted is the “supporter of the Heavens.” At this sacrifice they eat the dog.
Sbitena, or Sbetin, is the name of a delightful drink sold in the streets of St. Petersburg to the populace. In Granville’s St. Petersburg (ii., 422) a mention is made of this beverage. It is composed of honey and hot water and pepper and boiling milk.
A drink called Omeire is prepared in the South-West of Africa by the aid of some dirty gourds and milk vigorously shaken therein at stated intervals.
In Nubia the crumb of strongly leavened bread made from dhurra is mixed with water and set on the fire. It is afterwards allowed to ferment for two days, strained through a cloth, a lady’s garment by choice, and drunk. It is called Ombulbul, or the mother of the nightingale, because it makes the drinker sing like that bird. Pulque is a vinous beverage made in Mexico by fermenting the juice of the agave. Its distinctive peculiarity is its odour, which has been compared by an experimentalist to that of putrid meat.
There are four drinks in Madagascar: Toak, made from honey and water; Araffer, from a tree called Sater, resembling a small cocoa-nut; Toupare, from boiled cane, a liquid so corrosive as in a short time to penetrate an egg shell; and Vontaca, from the juice of the so-called Bengal quince. The last soon produces intoxication, against which another curious drink is mentioned as a remedy by Ovalle, to wit, the sweat of a horse infused in wine.
The aborigines of Australia (Dawson’s Present State of Australia, p. 60) are inordinately fond of a beverage known by them under the name of bull. The recipe for this, as given by Mr. Dawson, runs thus: Get an old sugar bag, steal it if you cannot get it by any other means, and cut it into small pieces. Prepare a large kettle of boiling water, throw into it as many of these pieces of bag as it will hold, and let it simmer for half a day. An excellent bull will be the result. This bull, says Dawson, they are extremely fond of, and will drink it till they are blown out like an ox with clover, and can contain no more.
Poncet speaks of booza as the usual liquor of the Abyssinians, “vastly thick and very ill tasted,” produced from a day’s soaking of a roasted berry.
The negroes of Brazil affect a mixture of black sugar and water without fermentation, called Garapa, to which heat is sometimes added by the leaves of the Acajou tree.
Snow melted and impregnated with the flavour of smoke from the fire upon which it is placed is the common drink of the Lapp. Occasionally he gets a decoction of the herb angelica in milk. The maritime Lapp drinks with gusto the oil squeezed from the entrails of fish. Women, it is said, will take a pint and a half of this so-called tran at a meal. But the favourite drink is composed of water and meal flavoured with a quantity of tallow, and, if circumstances will permit, the blood of the reindeer.
Taidge or Tedge or Tedj is a kind of honey wine or hydromel, said by Father Poncet[168] to be a delicious liquor, pure, clarified, and of the colour of Spanish white wine. The process of its manufacture is simple. Wild honey is mixed with water, and set in a jar, with a little sprouted barley, some biccalo or taddoo bark, and a few geso or guécho leaves. A superior kind is made by adding kuloh berries. This is called barilla. The taste of tedj has been described as that of small beer and musty lemonade. The women commonly strain it through their shifts.
Besdon is made like tedj, with honey, and is highly valued in some parts of Africa. Ladakh beer has the merit of portability. It is made of parched barley, rice, and the root of an aromatic plant, and pressed into a cake. A piece of this is broken off and cast into water. It resembles in taste sour gruel.
Pombe is a liquid brewed of fruit, furnishing a common sort of cider known well in Eastern Africa.
In Tonquin[169] on the annual renewal of allegiance, they drink chicken’s blood mixed with arrack. They make a sort of cider from miengou, a fruit like a pomegranate. An extract of wheat, rye, or millet is mixed with peka, consisting of rice flour, garlic, aniseed, and liquorice. After fermentation it is distilled and becomes the celebrated Samchou.
In Sweden, with the smör-gås, or fore taste[170] at a side-table a glass of fenkål, sometimes very good, sometimes very bad, is given to him who is about to dine. It is made from fennel—a form perhaps of fœniculum—growing wild and abundant, as at Marathon[171] the celebrated deme on the east coast of Attica, the field of the famous battle.
In addition to strange compounds known in various parts of this country, such as Gin and Lime Juice, Whiskey or Rum and Milk, Brandy and Port, a drink said to have originated in Lancashire, Dog’s Nose, Shandy Gaff, etc., etc., may be mentioned Ethyl or Methylated Spirits, a beverage which, like ether in Ireland, has of late years advanced considerably in public estimation. It has the two advantages of being cheap and heady. An Act of 1880 imposed penalties on any retail tradesman selling it for the purpose of drink. A better method perhaps to prevent its being poured down the throats of Her Majesty’s liege subjects would be to take steps to ensure its being mixed before sold with a strong emetic. The palate can be trained, but the stomach is far less docile.
FOOTNOTES
[1] These essences and colours are no new thing. Addison spoke of them nearly two hundred years ago in his “Trial of the Wine Brewers” in the Tatler. Tom Tintoret and Harry Sippet have left a large family behind them.
[2] See tailpiece, where a servant is coming to the assistance of her mistress.
[3] Jablonski is our authority for supposing it primarily an Egyptian drink. A zythum and a dizythum seem to have existed, corresponding, let us say, to our Single and Double X.
This zythum is nearly allied to the sacera of Palestine, the cesia of Spain, the cervisia of Gaul, the sebaia of Dalmatia, and the curmi or camum of Germany. According to Rabbi Joseph, this beer was made ⅓ barley, ⅓ Crocus Sylvestris, ⅓ salt. He adds, “He that is bound, it looseth; and he who is loose, it binds; and it is dangerous for pregnant women.”
[4] Information on this subject is given by Sir Edward Barry, Observations on the Wines of the Ancients; Henderson, History of Ancient and Modern Wines; and Becker’s Charicles.
[5] This is probably the murrhina of Plautus (Pseudol. ii. 4, 50)
[6] This drink must not be confounded with ὑδρόμελι, honey and water, our mead, or ὑδρόμήλον, our cider.
[7] Pliny, Nat. Hist. xiv. 19, etc.
[8] Line 964, etc.
[9] Line 4044, etc.
[10] Line 1387, etc.
[11] Line 1432, etc.
[12] Line 135, etc.
[13] Hist. Account of the Cathedral Church of York, Lond., 1715, p. 7.
[14] That division of the ancient kingdom of Northumberland, which was bounded by the river Humber southwards, and to the north by the Tyne.
[15] A liquor made of honey, wine, and spice.
[16] Honey, diluted with the juice of mulberries.
[17] In this sense it is apparently used in Gen. ix. 24: “Noah awoke from his wine.”
[18] From an Arabic word for antimony, applied to the eyes, the name is said to have been transferred to rectified spirits (C₂H₆O). It is a liquid formed by fermentation of aqueous sugar solutions. Spirit of Wine contains about 90 per cent. of alcohol. 55 parts of alcohol and 45 of water form proof spirit. Of alcohol, spirits contain 40-50 per cent.; wines, 7-25; ale and porter, 6-8; small beer, 1-2.
[19] Who would believe this from the specimens tasted in England? Yet we are assured the statement is perfectly true.
[20] Patterson’s Travels in Caffraria, p. 92.
[21] One of these inspired Longfellow, who thinks (poetically) the richest wine is that of the West, which grows by the beautiful river, whose sweet perfume fills the apartment, with a benison on the giver:—
A dreamy taste is something startling even in poetical description.
[22] Chili has lately taken Paris medals for its wines; it also produces a light and wholesome beer.
[23] The rébêche is principally sold to people manufacturing cheap Champagnes; by mixing with other wines of very light complexion, they give them body, and make a stuff which can be produced at a very low price.
[24] De Proprietatibus Rerum. Argent. 1485, lib. xix. cap. 56.
[25] Blount’s Fragmenta Antiquitatis. Sec. “Grand Serjeantry,” No. IV.
[26] The Wines of the World, Characterized and Classed, 1875, pp. 16, 17.
[27] This wine is said to profit much by a quiescent state of the air afforded by the town wall.
[28] A wine at Homburg, called Erlacher, at about one mark a bottle, is, says Dr. Charnock, frequently superior to the ordinary Niersteiner.
[29] “Hock,” says one of those wine circulars, which weary alike the postman and the public, “is the English name for the noble vintages of the Rhine, which afford models of what wine ought to be. Their purity is attested by their durability. They are almost imperishable. They increase appetite, they exhilarate without producing languor, and they purify the blood. The Germans say good Hock keeps off the doctor. Southey says it deserves to be called the Liquor of Life. And so Pindar would have called it, if he had ever tasted it.” Nothing surely can be added to this description of its virtues.
[30] Thus unfortunately translated, “Rhine wine is good, Neckar pleasant, Frankfort bad, Moselle innocent.” But Moselle, we have been told, is very far from “innocent.” Unnosel is without bouquet. Tranken means not bad but drinkable, and lecker is rather lickerish than good. A sample of the same carelessness occurs on the next page, where ein weinfask von anderhalb ahm ein pipe is intended to express ein Weinfass von anderthalb Ohm, eine Pipe. It is a pity that an excellent work, to which we, as many writers on wine like ourselves, have been deeply indebted, should be marred by these irregularities.
[31] Colonel Leake described the ordinary country wine as a villainous compound of lime, resin, spirits of wine, and grapes, without body or flavour. Nor were things better in the days of old. Dugald Dalgetty, a German Ensign, writing from Athens in 1687, says, “Would that I could exchange a cask of Athenian wine for a cask of German beer!” The vin du pays is impregnated with resin or turpentine now as formerly, whence, according to Plutarch, the Thyrsus of Bacchus is adorned with a pine cone. Pliny says it favours the preservation of the drink.
[32] The island owes this name to its patron saint Irene, martyred here A.D. 304.
[33] The value attached to this wine is one example among many of the caprice of fashion. The Muscadine of Syracuse or the Lagrima of Malaga is equal to it in richness, and few people would prefer it to other wines, did they dare to contradict the decision of fashion in its favour, and to have a taste of their own.
[34] So called from its green colour. It is said to have been a favourite wine of Frederick the Great. It is held now in slighter esteem.
[35] Called Est Est from the writing under the bust of the valet of the bibulous German bishop Defoucris, who drank himself to death, upon which his valet composed his epitaph.
Reverence for antiquity is our sole excuse for the reproduction of these wretched lines. Monte Pulciano has also the credit of having killed a Churchman. Other wines doubtless have had the same honour.
[36] “Let no man,” says the Talmud, “send his neighbour wine with oil upon its surface.”—Chulin, fol. 94, col. 1.
[37] Malmsey wine is also a product of Funchal, in Madeira. The first so-called wine was shipped for Francis I. of France. The word is probably a corruption of Malvasia or Monemvasia (μόνη ἐμβασία, or single entrance), a Greek island from which the grape may have been brought by the Florentine Acciajoli in 1515.
[38] Rota wines are mostly coloured, or Tintos, whence our English sacramental drink. They are all simmered—at their best in youth, and their worst in age.
[39] Supposed by some to be the old English Sack. The reader interested may consult Hakluyt, Nicols, Hewell’s Dictionary, and Venner’s Via Recta.
[40] The etymology is uncertain. Some derive it from the town near Seville, others from the Spanish word for an apple, and others again from that for a camomile flower.
[41] Valley of Rocks, indicating the soil on which it is grown.
[42] It is frequently damaged by the carelessness of the vinatero, or wine-seller, to such an extent that the proverb Pregonar vino y vender vinagre becomes, like wisdom, justified of her children.
[43] So called from the grape common in most parts of Spain.
[44] The fine old Amoroso, of which a small stock is still remaining.
[45] So called from the battle of Birs, in the reign of Louis XI., in which 1,600 Swiss opposed 30,000 French, and only sixteen of the former survived. The fallen succumbed, we are told, less to the power of the foe than to the fatigue of the fighting.
[46] It is supposed by the erudite divine, Adam Clarke, to be probably borrowed from the Hebrew word שֵׁכָר, Greek σίκερα, which, according to St. Jerome (Epist. ad Nepotianum de vita Clericorum, et in Isai. xxvii. 1), means any intoxicating liquor, whether of honey, corn, apples, dates, or other fruits.
[47] In a treatise of the Talmud, Abodah Zarah, fol. 40, col. 2, cider is called “wine of apples.”
[48] Walker: Hist. Essay on Gardening, p. 166. Anthologia Hibernica, i. 194.
[49] The extra dry old lauded or pale cremant, or the extra reserve Cuvée, 1884 vintage.
[50] For further information, see Crocker, Marshall, Knight, and especially Stopes.
[51] The French name, Eau de Vie, having the same meaning.
[52] “The Vertuose boke of Distyllacyon of the Waters of all maner of Herbes, with the fygures of the styllatoryes, Fyrst made and compyled by the thyrte yeres study and labour of the most con̅ynge and famous master of phisyke, Master Iherom bruynswyke. And now newly Translated out of Duyche into Englysshe,” etc. Lond., 1572.
[53] Lethargy.
[54] Belching.
[55] Pleurisy.
[56] A Spanish Wine.
[57] ? Orrice.
[58] Stir.
[59] Phial.
[60] Adam and Eve stript of their furbelows, 1710 (?)
[61] Act III., s. 3.
[62] My Life and Recollections, Vol. I., p. 59.
[63] Now called Athol brose.
[64] Of the word gill-house a recent editor of Pope observes that it is doubtful whether it is to be understood as a house where gill, or beer impregnated with ground-ivy, was sold, or whether as an inferior tavern, where beer was sold by the measure known as a gill.
[65] There are two other prints connected with this event, all published at the same time. One is “The Funeral Procession of Madame Geneva, Sept. 29, 1736.” The other is a Memorial, “To the Mortal Memory of Madame Geneva, who died Sept. 29, 1736. Her weeping Servants and loving Friends, consecrate this Tomb.”
[66] Whose premises were burnt down during the Lord George Gordon riots. Dickens immortalized Langdale in Barnaby Rudge. The distillery is still in existence at the same place.
[67] A whistling shop was a sly grog-shop. No spirits were allowed in the Fleet prison, but of course they were introduced, and could be got at some places. The method of telling who could be trusted, was for the customers to whistle—hence the term.
[68] Alcoholic Drinks, 1884, p. 67.
[69] Scott’s Ivanhoe, cap. iii.
[70] Morat is a composition of honey and mulberries, from which latter its name is derived.
[71] According to their first institution the Jesuits were not priests. This was conceded to them afterwards by Paul V. Their primitive principal occupation was the assistance of the sick and the distillation of salutiferous waters, whence they were known as “padri dell’ acquavite,” or Fathers of brandies.
[72] A liqueur made with the flower of citron.
[73] Ad majorem Dei gloriam.
[74] Roret’s “Manuel du distillateur-liquoriste.”
[75] Gui-Patin Lettres, ii. 425.
[76] One of the most important liqueur manufactories is that of Marie Brizard and Roger of Bordeaux. In 1755 Marie Brizard, in the Quartier S. Pierre, a lady of much devotion and charity, devoted a large portion of her time, in imitation of the monks, to the concoction of medicinal cordials. Of these, her Anisette, so called from its chief ingredient, soon attained a wide reputation. Roger married the niece of this lady, and the firm is now known under their joint names. They manufacture many other liqueurs, but are still chiefly famous for the old medicinal cordial.
[77] الاكسير, alacsir, from ξηρόν, dry.
[78] Here is the etymological process for the linguistic student: Ligusticum; Lat., levisticum; Fr., luvesche, leveshe, livèche; O. Eng., livish, lovage. The Italian has the form libistico, and the Portuguese levistico.
[79] A technical term.
[80] So called because said to be prepared from the maidenhair fern, Adiantum capillus Veneris; “but,” says Pereira, (Materia Medica), “the liqueur sold in the shops under this name is nothing but clarified syrup flavoured with orange-flower water.”
[81] These colours by which soi-disant connoisseurs profess to determine the excellence of the liqueur, are in most cases merely adscititious. Rules are given for their manufacture. Rose, for instance, is the outcome of cochineal or sanders wood steeped for a fortnight in spirits of wine. Blue, of indigo and sulphuric acid. Yellow, of saffron. Pink, of cudbear, a corruption of the name of the chemist, Dr. Cuthbert Gordon, who first employed this lichen; and green, of blue and yellow mixed.
[82] A pharmaceutical term for volatile oil of orange flowers. Said to be derived from an Italian princess, Néroli, who invented it.
[83] From Arabic خلنج Khulanj, “a tree from which wooden bowls are made,” Richardson. A dried rhizome brought from China, an aromatic stimulant of the nature of ginger. The drug is mostly produced by Alpinia officinarum.
[84] Also called Luft-Wasser.
[85] Only an Italian, we are told, can make this liqueur. The composition is a dark secret, but, we are also told, it originated in Austria, and is a mixture of tea, wine and milk in unknown quantities.
[86] Said, on account of its carminative properties, to be derived from the three words vesse, pet, and rot, which it is not incumbent upon us to translate.
[87] Merely a corruption of Usquebaugh.
[88] So called from the inventor. Said to be useful in stomachic affections.
[89] Sic, aimable (?)
[90] So called because made with guignes, Sp. guindas; dark red, very sweet cherries, smaller than the bigarreaux. The Guignolet d’Angers is especially famous.
[91] This is composed of fennel, celery, coriander, and angelica.
[92] Sometimes written Karoy. Carum carve, L., from the Greek κάρον, an umbelliferous plant of which the root by culture becomes edible. The fruit is analogous to that of anise.
[93] Also written more correctly d’Hendaye; white, yellow, and green, according to its alcoholic strength.
[94] Cassis would appear to be the name of a ville (Bouches-du-Rhone) which has a commerce of wine and fruit.
[95] Stolberg’s Travels, i., 146.
[96] Germ. Wermuth, absinthe or wormwood, plant of genus Artemisia—perhaps originally connected with warm, on account of the warmth it produces in the stomach. This bitter, though commonly quoted under liqueurs, should be classed with Quinine Wine, Angostura, Khoosh, etc., Juglandine, made in France from the walnut, Malakoff made in Silesia, the Shaddock and Quassia bitters of the West Indies, and the Schapps bitter of Switzerland.
[97] The dictionary explanations of these terms are commonly unsatisfactory. The experience of the bar-tender is more than the learning of the lexicographer. Cobbler, indeed, is well explained as compounded of wine, sugar, lemon, and sucked up through a straw; but of cocktail we only learn that it is a compounded drink much used in America. The etymologies given are generally satisfactory. Julep is from گلاب rose water. Mull from mulled, erroneously taken as a past participle. According to Wedgwood, mulled is a form of mould, and mulled ale is funeral ale, potatio funerosa. Nogg is from noggin, signifying a pot, and then the strong beer which it contains. Negus is commonly known to have been the invention of Col. Francis Negus in the reign of Anne. Punch is of course from the Hindustani پانچ, signifying 5, from its five original ingredients, to wit, aqua vitæ, rose water, sugar, arrack, and citron juice. A very unsatisfactory derivation of Sangaree is from the Spanish sangria, the incision of a vein. Shrub is clearly the Arabic شرب or syrup. Smash, explained curtly as “iced brandy and water.” (Slang) is probably from the smashing of the ice; while sling seems evidently to be from the German schlingen, to swallow.
[98] The verdict of François Guislier du Verger, the master-distiller in the art of chemistry at Paris, in his Traité des Liqueurs, in 1728, is altogether unfavourable to what he calls Le Ponge. “It is,” he says, “an English liqueur, and a man must be English to drink it; for I think it cannot be to the taste of any other nation in the world. It upsets the stomach, provokes the bile, and violently affects the head. How, indeed, can it be otherwise, seeing that it is composed of white wine, Eau de vie, citrons, a little sugar, and bread crumbs.” And then follows the observation: “If water were put instead of Eau de vie, with an equal quantity of wine, a citron, and four ounces of sugar, a liqueur suitable to every one would be the result, a liqueur which would do as much good as the other does harm.”
[99] Such at least is the signification of sangaree as far as American drinks are concerned. But Sang-gris is said by Bescherelle to be a mixture of tea in wine amongst the sailors of the North. Perhaps the name is taken from the colour. It recalls David Garrick’s “Why, the tea is as red as blood.” In the West Indies it is made of Madeira, water, lime juice, and sugar. Spices are sometimes added. Pinckard’s “West Indies,” i. 469.
[100] Shrub is called santa in Jamaica. It is made in the West Indies with rum, syrup, and orange-peel.
[101] The Slang Dictionary, however, defines Sling as a drink peculiar to Americans, generally composed of gin, soda-water, ice, and slices of lemon. At some houses (understand public) in London gin slings may be obtained. Francatelli has an exquisite note on Gin Sling, which he directs to be sucked through a straw. “I fear that very genteel persons will be exceedingly shocked at my words; but when I tell them that the very act of imbibition through a straw prevents the gluttonous absorption of large and baneful quantities of drink, they will, I make no doubt, accept the vulgar precept for the sake of its protection against sudden inebriety.”
[102] Aromatic tincture: Ginger, cinnamon, orange peel, each 1 oz.; valerian, ½ oz.; alcohol, 2 quarts. Macerate for fourteen days and filter through unsized paper.
[103] Those who wish to investigate the antiquity of beer may find ample matter to supply their desire in a work commonly attributed to Archdeacon Rolleston, entitled, “Οινος Κριθινος, a dissertation concerning the origin and antiquity of barley wine.” Oxford, 1750.
[104] Much has been written on the comparative merits of wine and beer. Perhaps as good a remark as any on this subject was made by a modern tradesman who, wishing to sell both, explained that, while strongly advocating the introduction of wine, he did not at all intend to depreciate the merits of our national beverage, beer. Where, he continued, plenty of out-door exercise is taken, and little intellectual effort is demanded, good beer is perhaps the most wholesome of all drinks; and therefore he advised the “labouring man,” who could not probably afford to buy wine, to drink beer, while others, who might be supposed able to afford wine, were warned that they could not drink beer with impunity.
[105] The world has little altered since the time of Martial (i. 19).
[106] This is the sweet potato, introduced into Europe before the common potato.
[107] For an interesting account of this, vid., Dr., Charnock’s Verba Nominalia.
[108] Beajus, which in Malay signifies a wild man.
[109] Roggewein’s Voyage Round the World.
[110] According to Kotzebue, old women chew, as in the South American chica—let us hope this cannot be correct—and little girls spit on it to thin the paste. Kotzebue’s New Voyage Round the World, vol. ii., p. 170.
[111] From the old French Pallir, to become vapid, lose spirit. Washy stuff.
[112] See second part of Westminster Drollery, 1672.
[113] General Monk’s receipt is given in the Harleian Miscellany, i., 524. London, 1744.
[114] “Mum’s the word,” etc.
[115] Der Bierbrauer, Prag., 1874.
[116] Hamilton’s Account of Nepaul.
[117] Pinckard’s Notes, p. 429.
[118] Robertson’s History of America, ii., 7.
[119] This is the beverage in general use. Titsingh’s Japan. Some writers have connected it with our “sack.”
[120] When cold, it is said to produce serki, a species of fatal colic.
[121] For this list we are indebted to the courtesy of Messrs. Gow, Wilson & Stanton, 13, Rood Lane, London, E.C.
[122] Messrs. William, James & Henry Thompson, 38, Mincing Lane London.
[123] Messrs. Gow, Wilson & Stanton.
[124] In September, 1890, a small parcel of Flowering Pekoe fetched, at public sale, 36s. per lb., and this price has been largely exceeded on former occasions.
“A parcel of tea from the Oriental Bank Estates Company’s Havilland Estate in Ceylon was sold at auction in Mincing Lane yesterday for £17 per lb., or over one guinea an ounce.”—Standard, May 6th, 1891.
“A small lot of Golden Tip Ceylon tea from the Gartmore Estate was sold by auction in Mincing Lane yesterday to the Mazawattee Ceylon Tea Company at £25 10s. per lb.”—Standard, May 8th, 1891.
[125] Messrs. Wm. Jas. and Hy. Thompson.
[126] Joannis Petri Maffeii Bergomatis, e Societate Jesu, Historiarum Indicarum, etc. Florentiæ, 1588.
[127] Delle Cause della grandezza delle Città, etc., del Giovanni Botero. Milano, ed. 1596, p. 61.
[128] Divers Voyages et Missions du P. Alexandre de Rhodes, en la Chine, & autres Royaumes de l’Orient, etc. Paris, 1653, p. 49.
[129] Catharine of Braganza, wife of Charles II.
[130] Portugal.
[131] The Works of Thomas Brown, ed. 1708, vol. iii., p. 86.
[132] His friend Tyers parodied the last phrase as “te inviente die, te decedente.”
[133] Relation du voyage de la Mer du Sud, aux côtes du Chily, et du Pérou, fait pendant les années 1712, 13, 14, par Amédée François Frezier. Paris, 1716, 4ᵒ.
[134] Joyfull Newes out of the newe founde Worlde, etc. Englished, by Jhon Frampton, Marchaunt, 1577, fol 101 b.
[135] Garden beds in which seeds are planted.
[136] Lima.
[137] Tschudi travelled in Peru, 1838-1842.
[138] Travels in Peru, by C. R. Markham, 1862, p. 237.
[139] In 1861, the cesto of Coca sold at 8 dollars in Sandia. In Huanaco it was 5 dollars the aroba of 25 lbs.
[140] Ed. 1879, p. 363.
[141] A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea, etc., by John Barbot, etc. Now first printed from his original MS., 1732.
[142] Part 2, Section 5.—Mem. 1, Sub. 5.
[143] For a list of 500 Coffee Houses, see Appendix to Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, by John Ashton.
[144] Memoirs and Observations in his Travels over England, etc.
[145] A Brief Description of the excellent Vertues of that Sober and Wholesome Drink called Coffee. 1674, s. sh. fol.
[146] The Mineral Water Maker’s Manual for 1866, from which many receipts are taken with thanks.
[147] Twaddell’s Hydrometer. From 11 to 12 lbs. sugar to the gallon should give something near this specific gravity.
[148] A sufficient quantity.
[149] About 8½ lbs. loaf sugar to the gallon of water should produce this S. G.
[150] An extract made from orange flowers.
[151] Or Butyric Ether, known as Essence of Pine-apple.
[152] Jargonelle Ether.
[153] Beware, however, of one compound ether, which gives the taste of cinnamon, and is, Ethyl Perchlorate. This mixture is explosive!!!
[154] Raspberries.
[155] The form of this thanksgiving is very nearly akin to that said on the occasion of eating any of the five kinds of cooked food from which the challah is due.
[156] Arist., Metaph., i., 3.
[157] Seneca, Nat. Quæst., iii., 13.
[158] Ibid., iv., 13.
[159] Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxiii., 24.
[160] p. 220.
[161] Other authorities concerning this remarkable drinking fountain are Nieremberg (Occult. Philos., ii., 350), Clavijo, Cairasio, and Dapper.
[162] Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, xi., p. 499.
[163] The mushroom used by the Chukchees is described by Lansdell, Through Siberia, ii., 269, as “spotted like a leopard, and surmounted by a small hood—the fly agaric, which here has the top scarlet, flecked with white points. It sells for three or four reindeer.” So powerful is the fungus that the native who eats it remains drunk for several days. Half a dozen persons may be successively intoxicated by a single mushroom, but every one in a less degree than his predecessor. Goldsmith, Chinese Philosopher.
[164] Another description is, “Ale mixed with pepper and honey.”
[166] The Hindustani گهي.
[167] A corruption of the Turkish يوغرت Yughurt.
[168] Lockman’s Travels of the Jesuits, i., 218.
[169] P. Alex. de Rhodes, Voyages et Missions. P. de Marini, On the Kingdom of Tonquin.
[170] A word which, according to the Glossarium Suiogothicum, originally meant simply bread and butter. It now comprehends anchovies and other antepasts.
[171] So called probably from its being overgrown with fennel (μαραθρῶν in Strabo, 160).