comparatively modern date, the _poteen_ having been manufactured in
illicit stills, in inaccessible and unhandy places. Now, Roe’s distillery
turns out over two million gallons a year, and Jameson’s more than a
million and a half. The whiskey made by these firms, that of Sir John
Power & Sons, and some others, is distilled from pure malt; but there are
many distilleries that send out a spirit made from molasses, beet-root,
potatoes, and other things, which cannot possibly be called whiskey,
which has brought Irish whiskey somewhat into disrepute, to the great
advantage of the Scotch distillers. Again, unmalted grain is used, which
gives a practically tasteless spirit, which is almost entirely deficient
in the grateful ethers, and is only so much raw alcohol and water, a very
different article to that which occasioned the following verses:—
“Oh, Whiskey Punch, I love you much, for you’re the very thing,
To level all distinctions ’twixt a beggar and a king.
You lift me up so aisy, and so softly let me down,
That the devil a hair I care what I wear, a caubeen or a crown.
“While you’re a-coorsin’ through my veins I feel mighty pleasant,
That I cannot just exactly tell whether I’m a prince or peasant;
Maybe I’m one, maybe the other, but that gives me small trouble,
By the Powers! I believe I’m both on ’em, for I think I’m seein’
double.”
Scotch whiskey is the same as Irish, and should be similarly made from
pure malted barley. No one knows when it was first made; but, until
the time of the Pretender, it was hardly known in the Lowlands, being
a drink strictly of the Highlanders. There is a tradition of a certain
St. Thorwald, whose name may be sought for in vain in the pages of Alban
Butler, who had a cell in the side of a hill looking upon the Esk. He
is said to have possessed a wonderful elixir, famous for curing all
diseases, and, consequently, he was resorted to by pilgrims both far and
near. Could it be that he had a whiskey still? We know not; but to this
day a spring on the site of his hermitage helps to supply the Langholm
distillery.
Perhaps the earliest historical account of Scotch whiskey is the grant,
in 1690, to Duncan Forbes of Culloden, in consideration of his services
to William III., of the privilege of distilling whiskey, duty free,
in the barony of Ferrintosh. Naturally, a number of distilleries were
erected there, and Ferrintosh became the generic term for whiskey. In
1785 this grant was annulled on payment of £20,000 to the representatives
of Duncan Forbes, a proceeding which Robert Burns thus wrote about, in
his “Scotch Drink”:—
“Thee, Ferrintosh! O sadly lost!
Scotland laments from coast to coast!
Now colic-grips an’ barkin’ hoast
May kill us a’;
For loyal Forbes’ _chartered boast_
Is ta’en awa’.”
The Highland risings made the Lowlanders more familiar with this spirit;
but it was a long time before the drink became general, and a far longer
before it was generally introduced into England. “Bonnie Prince Charlie”
got too fond of it, and his affection for strong drinks was life-long.
George IV., on his visit to Scotland, thought the best way to popularise
himself on his arrival was to call for, and drink, a glass of whiskey;
and even our good Queen has tasted “Athol-brose.”
The manufacture of whiskey was encouraged for several reasons: first,
that it gave employment; secondly, that it used up large quantities of
grain, to the benefit of the farmer; and thirdly, it was hoped that
it would, in many cases, supersede the French brandy, which was most
extensively smuggled. But Government imposed so high a duty, that illicit
stills sprang up everywhere, and contraband whiskey was universally
drank, the smugglers openly bringing their wares down south, and in such
force as to defy the Excise, and frequently the military. A wise step was
then taken, and in 1823 the excise duty was lowered from 6_s._ 2_d._ to
2_s._ 4¾_d._ per imperial gallon, a proceeding which, in a year, doubled
the output of exciseable spirits; but, by degrees, fiscal exigencies have
raised it to 10_s._ per proof gallon. Now, the quantity of home-made
spirits on which duty was paid for the year ending 31st March, 1890, is
as follows:—
England. Scotland. Ireland.
_Galls._ _Galls._ _Galls._
12,636,060 9,463,012 7,521,998
or in all, 29,621,070 gallons, yielding a revenue of £14,810,522.
It would be invidious to particularize any of the large Scotch
distilleries, which mostly owe their fame to the excellence of their
malt and the extreme purity of their water, together with the fact that
peat is extensively used as fuel, even to the drying of the malt; but
“Glenlivet” has a name as world-wide as “Ferrintosh.” Do we not read in
the _Bon Gaultier Ballads_ that—
“Fhairhson had a son
Who married Noah’s daughter,
And nearly spoiled ta flood,
By trinking up ta water;
Which he would have done,
I at least pelieve it,
Had ta mixture peen
Only half Glenlivet”?
It was such a famous place that, according to the _Ordnance Gazetteer of
Scotland_, there were as many as 200 illicit stills there, in brisk work,
at the beginning of the present century.
“Small still” whiskey is undoubtedly the best, for only good materials
can be used, as the distillation carries over the flavour of the malt.
Hear what Dr. Thudicum says[68]:—
“The product of the patent still derives its name from the fact that it
is mere alcohol and water, having no distinctive qualities, telling no
tales to nose or palate of the source from which it was obtained, and
hence, in the almost poetic spirit of the trade, it is commonly called
‘silent spirit.’ The owner of a patent still, instead of being confined,
like a whiskey distiller, to the use of the best materials, is able to
make his spirit from any, even spoiled and waste, materials, and with
little reference to any other quality than cheapness. The worst of the
spirit thus produced is fit only for methylation, preparatory for being
used for trade purposes, exclusive of consumption as a beverage. When
intended for a beverage, it must be rectified and flavoured. It thus
serves as a basis for the implanting of artificial flavours, which may
be those of sham whiskey, sham brandy, or sham rum....
“The presence of grain ethers is the condition of the genuineness of
whiskey. Silent spirit, on the other hand, undergoes no change by
keeping, and must be flavoured to become drinkable. For that purpose it
is either made smoky, to become like Scotch, or it is mixed with Irish
pot whiskey, to become like Irish whiskey.”
There is yet another and a newer way of altering whiskey, which was shown
in the Brewers’ Exhibition at Islington, October, 1890, and described
in an advertisement in a morning paper as “A Transformation Scene; no
Pantomime.” This new process of maturing spirits is by subjecting them
to the action of compressed air confined in a close chamber. Nothing but
atmospheric air is used, which is filtered through pure water before
being compressed. The air chamber shown was a cylindrical vessel, which,
in practice, would be some twelve feet high or more. It is supplied with
a finely perforated floor, at a convenient distance below the top, and
it has, besides, one or two lower floors of metallic gauze. The cylinder
is charged with the liquor to be treated, and the compressed air is
then let into it. The taps having been closed on the completion of this
operation, a rotary pump keeps the liquor in continuous circulation as
it passes through the floors in the form of a fine shower. As soon as
it reaches the gauze floor it breaks up into spray, and, in this minute
state of sub-division, it is acted on by the condensed air. This air,
rising through a pipe, collects at the top of the cylinder, and in that
way it is prevented from interfering with the steady flow of the shower.
A slight circulation of the air is at the same time promoted. On the
process being completed, the liquor is run into casks, and the air which
remains in the vessel is allowed to escape, the quantity of alcohol in
combination with it not being worth saving.
The object of this process is to bring about the oxidation of the
essential oils contained in the whiskey or other spirit, and to promote
their conversion into ethers. It is claimed that this transformation does
take place, and that the spirit is changed from a new spirit, and has
all the character, mellowness, and flavour of that matured by time. This
change is said to be effected in twenty-four hours, and that the spirit
has, in that period, put on a maturity of ten years.
J. A.
[Illustration: WOODEN CUAGH OR QUAIGH. (_Brit. Mus._)]
[Illustration]
RUM.
Derivation of Name—Whence Procured—Its Manufacture—Its
Price—Trade Rum.
The etymon of the name of this spirit is somewhat dubious. Some have it
that it was formerly spelt (as it now is in French) _Rhum_, and that
it is derived from _rheum_, or ῥεῦμα, a flowing, on account of its
manufacture from the juice of the sugar cane. Others say that, as rum has
the strongest odour of any distilled spirit, it is a corruption of the
word _aroma_.
Rum is made from the refuse of sugar, and can, of course, be produced
wherever sugar is grown. This is notably the case in the West Indies, and
the best rum comes thence. The finest, and that commanding the highest
price in the market, is from Jamaica; Martinique and Guadaloupe perhaps
come next; and Santa Cruz has a very good name. British Guiana, the
Brazils, Natal, Queensland, and New South Wales all produce it.
It is made from molasses and the skimmings of the boiling sugar. Molasses
is the syrup remaining after the separation of all the saccharine
matter which will crystallize, and is a dense, viscous liquid, varying
from light yellow to nearly black, according to the source from which
it is obtained; but its distillation will not produce rum. Sugar or
molasses, if distilled, will produce alcohol, but it will have no
character of rum. This peculiar odour is imparted to it by the addition,
in distillation, of “skimmings,” which are the matters separated from
the sugar in clarifying and evaporation; that is to say, the scum of the
precipitators, clarifiers and evaporators is mixed with the rinsing of
the boiling pans, and is thus called. They contain all the necessaries
of fermentation, and when mixed with molasses and “dunder,” which is the
fermented wash left from distillation, are distilled into rum.
The odour of rum is very volatile; so much so, that it should be casked
immediately after distillation. The raw spirit is extremely injurious;
but it improves so much by age that, at a sale in Carlisle in 1865, rum,
known to be 140 years old, sold at three guineas a bottle. Like all
alcohol, rum, when distilled, is white, the colour being given to it,
as it used to be in brown brandy, by caramel (burnt sugar). Much of the
rum sold in England is made from “silent” spirit, flavoured with butyric
ether; and it is this stuff which is sold as “trade rum” for export to
Africa. Some years since an action was brought by an African merchant
against the vendor of “trade rum” for damages caused by it to his trade.
All went merrily till the negroes drank the rum, when it suddenly
ceased, owing to its colouring their excreta red, probably owing to the
colouring matter.
In the old days of punch drinking, rum was the great ingredient in that
beverage, but its use has gradually died out, except among sailors, it
still being served out in the navy, on account of its supposed warming
qualities. Rum and milk, taken before breakfast, is also a beverage used
very extensively.
J. A.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
LIQUEURS.
I.
Derivation of Term—Eichhoff—Gregory of
Tours—Liqueur Wines—Herb Wines—Scot’s
_Ivanhoe_—Hydromel—Murrey—Delille—Montaigne—Monastical
Liqueurs—Arnold de Villeneuve—Catherine de Medicis—Elixir
Ratafia.
The word _liqueur_ has been traced by Eichhoff to a Sanskrit root, viz.,
_laks_ or _lauc_, to see, appear. It is now commonly understood of a
drink obtained by distillation, a beverage of which alcohol is the base.
To the ancients liqueurs appear to have been unknown. The art of
distillation on which they depend was not apparently discovered till the
middle ages. Fermented wines, of which some description will be found in
another part of this book, occupied their place at dinner and dessert.
Old Falernian when mixed with honey probably bore some near resemblance
to what is now understood by liqueur. But this drink was found to have
such disastrous effects by way of intoxication that it was forbidden to
women to drink of it.
Our ancestors, perhaps in imitation of the ancients, composed a sort of
liqueur with the must of wine, in which they had infused berries of the
_lentiscus_, or a portion of its tender wood. The artificial wines made
either with this _lentiscus_, or with other aromatic herbs, called by
Gregory of Tours _vina odoramentis immixta_, were the only approaches to
the modern liqueurs, even some time after the discovery of the process of
distillation.
Among these liqueur wines must be mentioned that species of cooked wine
which was the result of a portion of must reduced to half or a third
of its original bulk by boiling. The capitularies of Charlemagne speak
of this drink as _vinum coctum_, and the southern provinces called
it _Sabe_, from the Latin _sapa_, which with the Romans had the same
signification. Both Galen and Hippocrates refer to a Greek composition
called _Siræum_ or _Hepsema_, which, says Pliny, we call _sapa_. The
fashion in which this wine was cooked is shown in the _Pitture antiche
d’Ercolano_, t. I., tab. 35.
Those artificial wines which consisted solely of infusions of aromatic or
medicinal plants, such as absinthe, aloes, anise, rosemary, hyssop, and
so on, were called _herb wines_, and were frequently employed as remedies
and preventives. With a herb wine, the wine of a honied absinthe, it was
that Fredegonda poisoned him who reproached her with the murder of the
Pretextate. The most famous of these wines were those into which entered,
besides honey, the spices and aromatic confections of Asia, to which were
given the name of pigments. The highly spiced and “most odoriferous” wine
sweetened with honey is one of those drinks which Cedric bids Oswald, in
_Ivanhoe_,[69] to place upon the board for the refreshment of the Knight
Templar. It is mentioned in company with the oldest wine, the best mead,
the mightiest ale, the richest _morat_,[70] and the most sparkling cider.
The poets of the thirteenth century speak of this decoction with
transport. They regarded it in the light of an exquisite delicacy.
As no gentleman’s library is complete without the presence of some
particular work of which a bookseller is anxious to dispose, so no feast
at which pigment was not present was held to be complete by the medieval
_gourmet_. Indeed this drink seems to have been all too sweet, and was,
in consequence of its inebriating property, like the honied Falernian,
partially prohibited. The Council of Aix-la-Chapelle in 817 decreed
that on festival days only might this voluptuous cup be introduced into
conventual repasts.
Hydromel and hippocras were allied to this category of fermented and
almost alcoholic drinks, but they were not liqueurs. Finally certain
liqueurs were composed entirely of juices of fruits and held the rank
and title of wines. Such were cherry, gooseberry, strawberry wine, and
others. Another liqueur wine often cited by the thirteenth-century poets
is _Murrey_, a thin drink coloured or otherwise affected by mulberries.
The word liqueur appears to have had a considerable latitude of
signification. We talk now of coffee and liqueur, but according to the
French poet Delille, who lived at a time very near our own, coffee itself
was included under the latter category—
“Cest toi, divin café, dont l’aimable liqueur
Sans altérer la tête épanouit le cœur”:
which presents us with a view of coffee akin to that held by Cowper of
tea, when he talks in his _Task_ (Book IV.) of
“the cups
That cheer but not inebriate.”
Liqueurs, indeed, properly so called were not known till long after
the distillation of wine had been recognised, probably about the
fourteenth century. Many years elapsed before these preparations escaped
from the domination of the alchemists. Those religious who employed
distillation for the confection of balsams and panaceas seem to have
been the first to discover them to the world. Montaigne, in the strange
account he has written of his travel in Italy, speaks of the Jesuits of
Vicenza—the _Jesuates_ as he calls them—who had a liquor shop in their
fair monastery, in which were sold phials of scent for a crown. The
good fathers appear to have busied themselves in the intervals of their
religious exercises with distilling waters of different herbs and flowers
for the public use, as well for medicine as for sensual delight. Speaking
of Verona, Montaigne says he saw also a religious of monks who call
themselves _Jesuates_ of St. Jérosme. They are dressed in white under a
smoked robe with little white caps. They are not priests, neither do
they say mass, nor preach,[71] and they are for the most part ignorant.
But they make a boast to be excellent distillers of _eau de naffé_[72]
and other waters, both in Verona and elsewhere.
Monastical liqueurs are worthy of a paragraph to themselves. So long
as monks have existed, they seem to have manifested a taste for the
concoction of these drinks. We can scarcely pass the shop window of
a liqueur-seller without having our attention attracted by what the
French call a _Kyrielle_ or litany of flasks of diverse forms, decorated
with tickets bearing such titles as the following:—_Liqueur des
Chartreux_, _Liqueur des Benedictins_, _Liqueur des Carmes_, _Liqueur des
Trappistes_, _Liqueur des Pères de Garaison_, _Liqueur du P. Kermann_,
and so on. A large volume might well be composed on these liqueurs alone.
About their supposed virtues,—aperient, digestive, antiapoplectic,
antispasmodic, anticholeric, tonic, etc., that book might be well
supposed likely to stretch out as far as the list of Banquo’s issue to
the diseased imagination of Macbeth.
The search for the philosopher’s stone and the powder of projection was
by no means wholly fruitless. It strengthened the hands of chemistry. It
was also the cradle of liqueurs. In the early part of the middle ages
the learned inhabitants of the convents devoted their leisure time, of
which they appear to have had no lack, to the so-called _magnum opus_.
The _magnum opus_, the quintessence, the elixir of long life, were three
different denominations of one and the same thing. Monkish intellectual
toil was chiefly connected at that time with the study of essences,
spirits, alcohols, and distillations. The plants which they sought with
the greatest eagerness were rosemary, arnica, elder, camomile, sweet
trefoil, rose, borage, balm mint, snake weed, iris, etc.
In the thirteenth century, Arnold de Villeneuve, a celebrated physician,
possessed with this devil of a _magnum opus_, formulated the question
of the quintessence or elixir of long life in these terms, which became
afterwards a dogma for all his monastic successors. “This is the secret,
viz., to find substances so homogeneous to our nature that they can
increase it without inflaming it, continue it without diminishing it
... as our life continually loses somewhat, until at last all is lost.”
The outcome of the long and patient labours of the monkish alchemists
was certain elixirs and liqueurs, of which the secret composition was
transmitted from generation to generation in convents and monasteries.
Such liqueurs were in their origin simply a pharmaceutic product. It
is only within the last few years comparatively that they have been
converted into delicacies after dinner. Our age bears the hall mark of
positivism. The monks labour no longer for the sole glory of God and
comfort of the sick. Their object at the present day is to effect, it
is affirmed, a ready and productive sale. It may be so; happily it is
not our business to determine. It is certain that a vast development has
taken place in the manufacture of the majority of the monkish liqueurs.
The _Chartreux_ of _L’Isère_ now realize annual benefices of considerable
value, of which a portion is said to be contributed to the continually
diminishing Papal exchequer, under the title of Peter’s pence. Of this
medicinal liqueur the active and benevolent element is gathered from
herbs scattered on the Alpine mountains cold, or on the slopes of the
Pyrenees, or in the sombre forests of the north (see the Prospectus),
or in the shops of the apothecaries. But they all assuredly depend
upon cognac for their element of life. _Benedictine_, with its four
cabalistic letters, A M D G,[73] is made by the monks of Fécamp, at the
famous Carthusian monastery of _La Grande Chartreuse_, near Grenoble.
The elixir of long life, _de Sept-Fonds_, is made in a convent of the
Trappists of l’Allier, and _Trappistine_ is the work of the good fathers
of the abbey of _La Grâce-Dieu_ (Doubs). It is, however, affirmed that
only Chartreuse, coloured yellow or green at will, and Trappistine, are
the works of religious hands, while all other liqueurs are made by the
laics. The methods of fabrication employed in the convents are now well
known.[74] Benedictine is the only liqueur which has escaped analysis.
_Absinthe_ is not strictly a liqueur. It substitutes bitter for sweet.
This strong spirituous liquor, so prejudicial to French health and
morality, is, however, commonly called a liqueur. Its base is an
alcoholate, composed of anise, coriander, and fennel. It is flavoured
with wormwood, a species of _artemisia_, and other plants containing
_absinthin_. It is said to be commonly coloured with indigo and sulphate
of copper. It is prepared chiefly in Switzerland, but much of it is made
at Bordeaux.
Arnold de Villeneuve, in his medical treatise, written in Latin, _On the
preservation of youth and the retardation of age_, has a sermon upon
Golden water. “I have not,” he says, “read the properties of this water
in books of distinguished authority, but it is to be presumed that, if
it exists, it is so sublime a work that they have concealed the method
of its preparation, and have even refused to mention its name. Of gold,
however, they have spoken, and set it among cordial medicines. They have
praised it for the comforting of the heart and for the palliation of
leprosy. It is possible that since we every day find things diversified
by alteration of substance, acquiring the operations of those other
things into which they have been transformed, so out of wine may be made
a water of life very different from wine both in colour and in substance,
in effect and in operation. And the doubt here is, not about the fact,
but how it is brought about. That the bodies of all metals may be reduced
into water by the ingenuity of mankind, experience allows us not to
question; but the operation and nature of those things by which this end
is obtained it is no easy matter to discover.”
This golden water was originally nothing else than _eau de vie_ in which
had been macerated certain herbs and aromatic spices to give it taste
and colour; afterwards minute portions of metallic gold were added. The
ingredients mentioned by Arnold de Villeneuve are rosemary flowers, from
which, he says, the water obtains its golden colour, cinnamon, grains of
paradise, cloves, cubebs, liquorice, and the like.
In the mind of the middle ages, gold was held to be a remedy for every
ill. Many people applied themselves to the task of dissolving this metal
and rendering it potable. It was put into drinks, baths, victuals, pills,
and the pharmacopeia of the time abounds in elixirs of gold, tinctures of
gold, drops of gold, and so on. To please the public eye, those pieces of
the precious metal were cast into the composition which we now know as
_Eau de vie de Dantzig_.
Catherine de Medicis brought into France all the voluptuous discoveries
and superfluities of Italy, and helped to augment considerably the number
of new liqueurs and to popularize their usage. Henry II. was especially
fond of the _anisette_ of Marie Brizard of Bordeaux. Sully, in 1604,
examining the objects of luxury in France, found _Populo_ and _Rossolio_
to have the chief share in the public estimation and expenditure. Of them
_Populo_ is mentioned in the Letters of Gui-Patin.[75] It was composed of
spirits of wine, water, sugar, musk, amber, essence of anise, and essence
of cinnamon.