KINDS OF STRONG DRINK
=68. Wine.=--All strong drink is alcohol and water. There may be other
things to give it taste, but alcohol and water are always in it. No
strong drink is over one half alcohol.
[Illustration: =A glass of wine contains so much alcohol.=]
In olden times wine was the only strong drink. Men used to crush out
the juice of grapes and let it ferment. This made wine. But very often
they used the juice before it fermented. Then it had no alcohol and
could do no harm, but was a good food. We read of wine in the Bible.
Some of it was fresh fruit juice.
In wine, the sugar is changed to alcohol. The rest of the juice stays
the same. All wine is made by the yeast plant growing in fruit juice.
No yeast is put in, for there is always enough on the outside of the
fruit. Wine is about one tenth alcohol.
=69. Homemade wine.=--Cider is a kind of wine. It is made from apple
juice. It has alcohol a day or two after it is made. All homemade
wines have alcohol. Any of them can make a person drunk. Using weak
homemade wine and cider often makes an appetite for stronger drinks.
The alcohol in any of them is enough to harm the body.
[Illustration: =A glass of beer contains so much alcohol.=]
=70. Beer.=--After man had made wine for a long time, some one found
out how to cultivate yeast. Then men could make sugar and water
ferment whenever they wanted to. So men boiled grain to take out its
sugar. Then they poured off the liquor and added yeast and let it
ferment. This made beer and ale. Now millions of bushels of grain are
used every year in making beer. Men call beer a _light_ drink. But it
has alcohol and is a strong drink, and can make men drunk.
=71. Root beer.=--Some persons boil roots and herbs, and add molasses
and yeast. Then the liquid ferments and becomes _root beer_. They say
"it has no alcohol, for we made it." But it does have alcohol, for
yeast always makes alcohol. Some ginger ale is made by putting yeast
in sweetened ginger water. It has alcohol, too.
=72. Distillation.=--Boiling water turns to vapor or steam and goes
off in the air. When the vapor is cooled, you can see the water again.
It often cools on the window and makes little streams of water. You
can catch the steam in a tube. If you keep the tube cool, the steam
will turn to water in the tube. This process is called _distillation_.
[Illustration: =A glass of whisky contains so much alcohol.=]
Boiling alcohol also passes off into the air as vapor. When the vapor
is cooled, it becomes liquid again. Alcohol boils with less heat than
water. When alcohol in water is heated, the alcohol boils first. So
the vapor has more alcohol than the water. When the vapor is cooled,
the liquid has more alcohol than it had at first. When the liquid is
distilled again it has more alcohol yet. Pure alcohol can be made in
this way.
=73. Whisky.=--Distilling wine or strong beer makes _whisky_ and
_brandy_. Whisky is one half alcohol. It is more harmful than wine or
beer.
=74. Habit.=--Some strong drinks have only a little alcohol and some
have a great deal. No one begins to drink the strong liquors. He
begins with wine or beer. When he has once learned, he has a hard time
to stop drinking. It is dangerous to drink even weak drinks.
=75. Strong drink and thirst.=--When a man is thirsty, water will
satisfy him but strong drink will not. Sometimes the mouth is dry and
dirty and then a man feels thirsty. Rinsing the mouth with water, and
rubbing the tongue and teeth clean will help the dryness and stop the
thirst. At any rate, strong drink will only make the mouth dryer.
Some men drink only when they are tired. Then a cup of strong and hot
tea or coffee will make them feel much better than a glass of strong
drink, and will not harm them so much.
When strong drink is swallowed, its alcohol takes water from the
mouth. When your mouth is dry, you feel thirsty. Strong drink makes
the mouth dry, and so a drink makes a man more thirsty. The alcohol
also makes the mouth smart. Men need another drink to cool the mouth
after the first one. So one drink leads to another. All the while a
person drinks water with the alcohol until he has too much water. But
his mouth is dry and he feels as thirsty as ever.
=76. Effect of alcohol upon the stomach.=--When strong drink is
swallowed it makes the stomach smart just as it does the mouth. So the
stomach feels warm, but it is really no warmer. This harms the stomach
and keeps it from working well.
Alcohol also keeps the gastric juice from changing albumin to a
liquid. Alcohol keeps flesh from decaying in a museum. In the same way
it may hinder the digestion of food in the stomach.
When alcohol is used for only a short time, the stomach can get well;
but if it is used for months and years, the stomach will stay weak.
Then the drinker can hardly eat at all.
=77. What becomes of alcohol.=--In the stomach a great deal of gastric
juice is mixed with the alcohol. So it is very weak when it reaches
the intestine. Alcohol needs only a little digesting. It soon soaks
into the blood from the intestine along with the other food. The blood
flows fast and washes the alcohol away as soon as it leaves the
intestine. Too little gets into the blood at once to harm it much.
Alcohol goes to the liver, and is there destroyed; but it still does
great harm. The liver has to attend to the alcohol, and so it does not
change the food to good blood, and it does not take all the poisons
out of the blood. Then the whole body becomes weak and sick. Alcohol
hurts the liver first, and more than other parts of the body. On this
account, drinkers often have bilious attacks and stomach troubles.
=78. Bitters.=--Many medicines are made by dissolving drugs in
alcohol. In taking a strong medicine, we use only a few drops, and so
do not get much alcohol. Some kinds of medicines must be taken in
large doses. Bitters are weak medicines, and must be taken by the
tablespoonful. A tablespoonful of the medicine has more alcohol than a
large drink of whisky. The bitters seem to make a person feel well,
but it is because he is taking a large amount of strong drink.
Jamaica Ginger is only common ginger dissolved in alcohol. It, too, is
a form of strong drink.
=79. Strong drink as medicine.=--People sometimes keep whisky or
brandy in the house to give for colds or other slight forms of
sickness. A drink of hot coffee does more good than the strong drink,
and has none of its dangers.
By using whisky or brandy for medicine, children learn to believe in
strong drink, and so they will be likely to use it when they grow up.
This reason alone ought to keep any one from giving it to a child.
=80. Alcohol in cooking.=--In making bread, alcohol is formed in the
dough by the yeast. When the bread is baked, all the alcohol is driven
off by the heat, and so we do not eat any.
Sometimes brandy or wine is put into desserts. If it is put in after
the dessert is cooked, we shall get as much alcohol as if we had drunk
it. If the liquor is put in before cooking, the heat will drive off
the alcohol but the flavor of the liquor will remain. The flavor will
do no harm in itself, but people will learn its taste, and from it
may learn to like the strong drink itself. The alcohol in bread has no
special flavor and does not leave any taste behind. So we cannot learn
to like strong drink by eating bread.
WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED
1. Fruit juice makes wine or cider.
2. All kinds of wine contain alcohol.
3. When the liquid from boiled grain has fermented, it becomes
beer, or ale.
4. By boiling wine or beer, and cooling the vapor, distilled
drinks like whisky are made. They are one half alcohol.
5. Water will satisfy a real thirst. Strong drink will not.
6. Alcohol keeps the stomach from digesting food.
7. Alcohol soaks into the blood tubes and goes to the liver.
8. The liver destroys the alcohol, but is hurt in doing it.