A SPIRITUOUS DISCOURSE
What is brandy? — See that you get it — Potato-spirit from the
Fatherland — The phylloxera and her ravages — Cognac oil — Natural
history of the vine-louse — “Spoofing” the Yanks — Properties of Argol
— Brandy from sawdust — Desiccated window-sills — Enormous boom in
whisky — Dewar and the trade — Water famine — The serpent Alcohol —
Some figures — France the drunken nation, not Britain — Taxing of
distilleries — _Uisge beatha_ — Fusel oil — Rye whisky — Palm wine —
John Exshaw knocked out by John Barleycorn.
“What is a pound?” was a favourite query of the great Sir Robert Peel.
“What is brandy?” is a question asked now and then; and the answer
thereto should be an ambiguous one. Brandy is supposed, by good easy
people who trouble not to enquire too closely into the composition of
their daily food, to be a liquid obtained by distilling the fermented
juice of the grape. The red wines are preferable, although in the
seventeenth century the best French brandy was made entirely from white
ones. The original distillation is clear and colourless, but when
placed in casks the liquid dissolves out the colouring matter of the
wood, brown sugar and other pigments being also added. {73}
But if you want the best French brandy, distilled from the luscious
grape, see that you get it; and let your vision be in thorough working
order. With the exception of the good, conscientious spirit-distillers,
all French houses import potato-spirit in large quantities from
Germany, and re-ship it to the home of the brave and free as superior
cognac. This alone would seem sufficient excuse for another invasion
of France; although these evil-minded distillers seek to justify their
actions by blaming the _phylloxera_, a little insect which has laboured
more assiduously in the cause of temperance—by destroying the main
source of intemperance—than Sir Wilfrid Lawson himself. “The ravages
of the _phylloxera_,” say the distillers, in effect, “compel us to
employ other _matériel_, in order to fulfil our cognac contracts with
the merchants of the perfidious isle.” It is related of a theatrical
“property-man” that, upon being rebuked by the tragedian for making a
snowstorm out of brown, instead of white, paper, he replied curtly: “It
was the only paper I had; and if you can’t snow white you must snow
brown.” This excuse is on a par with that urged on behalf of the German
potato-spirit.
_Phylloxera vastatrix_ (why not _devastatrix_?) has cost France, it
is said, a pecuniary loss far exceeding that of the Franco-Prussian
war. The little monster was discovered in North America in 1854, and
whether the discoverer or one of his friends brought the vine-killer
on a holiday-trip to Europe, or whether it worked its own passage
will never be known. But certain it is that the {74} little monster
made its first appearance on this side in the year 1863. Striking an
attitude, with the exclamation, “Hallo! here’s a vine, let’s have the
first suck,” the _phylloxera_ commenced a long starring engagement (to
borrow another metaphor from the theatres), which in another fifteen
years’ time had developed into an enormous success, as far as the
_vastatrix_ was concerned. Naturally, it is the she-phylly who does
the harm. From August to October Madam lays her little eggs on the
vine-leaves, beneath the surface. The _ova_ develop late in autumn into
males and females, who migrate to the stem of the vine. There each
bold, bad female lays an egg, under the bark. This egg lies dormant,
after the manner of pesky little insect-nuisances, through the winter,
and develops in April or May into a wingless, voracious, merciless
little “vine-louse,” with power to add to its number. “The rest,” as
the mechanical engineers tell us, just before our brains go, “is easy.”
The vine-louse attacks the roots, without waiting, the silly idiot,
for the grapes to ripen, the vine dies, and the potato reigns in its
stead. Without burning the plant, or drowning it, it is impossible to
eradicate the _phylloxera_, without spending three times as much cash,
in chemicals, as the vine is worth. This is the true story of France’s
great trouble.
Beetroot-spirit is also largely used in making cognac, the coarse
spirit being flavoured with œnanthic æther, cognac-oil (made from
palm-oil) and—other things. Also of late years the French have
discovered that almost as good wine can be made from raisins as from
the uncooked {75} article, provided they use enough raisins; three
pounds being required to make a gallon of liquor. A good deal can also
be done, in the way of imitation wine, by chemicals; it being quite
possible to make sherry which will fetch at least four shillings per
bottle, for the ridiculous sum of fourpence for the same quantity. And
it is also a fact that a large quantity of alleged claret which (mainly
through the endeavours of the late Mr. W. E. Gladstone) we are able
to import on the cheap from the other side of the water, is made from
currants and raisins steeped in water and mixed with cheap Spanish wine.
And what is to be said of British brandy? A country which can
manufacture superior Dorset butter from Thames mud, and real
turtle-soup from snails and conger-eels, is not likely to get “left”
in a matter of distilling. A great deal of brandy is, therefore, made
in the tight little island from ordinary grain alcohol, by adding
Argol—I’ll tell ye what this is presently—bruised French plums, French
wine-vinegar, a little—a very little—good cognac, and redistilling. I
believe that it is also possible to extract a good midnight sort of
brandy—specially recommended for roysterers—from coal-tar and paraffin.
The Americans make brandy from peaches and other stone-fruits, good
wholesome liquor, but their French cognac is not to be recommended. For
it is nothing more nor less than the common whisky which America has
exported to France, sent back again, after the necessary treatment.
Fact. {76}
Argol, mentioned just now, is a crude variety of cream of tartar which
forms a crust within wine-vats and bottles. Originally it exists in the
juice of the grape, and is soluble therein; but during the fermentation
of the juice, and as it passes into wine, much alcohol is developed,
which remaining in the fermenting liquor, causes the precipitation of
Argol. Thus the “crust” of port wine is Argol, the principal uses (and
abuses) of which are in the preparation of (besides cognac) cream of
tartar and tartaric acid. And malicious people say that you have only
to scratch French brandy to find the Tartar.
A few years ago a German chemist discovered that a very drinkable
brandy can be made from sawdust—whether deal sawdust or any description
of dust does not appear; and under the heading, “A New Danger to
Teetotalism,” an American journal published the following effusion:—
“We are a friend of the temperance movement, and want it to succeed;
but what chance can it have when a man can take a rip-saw and go out
and get drunk with a fence-rail? What is the use of a prohibitory
liquor law if a man is able to make brandy-smashes out of the shingles
on his roof, or if he can get delirium tremens by drinking the legs of
his kitchen chairs? You may shut up an inebriate out of a gin shop and
keep him away from taverns, but if he can become uproarious on boiled
sawdust and desiccated window-sills, any effort must necessarily be a
failure.”
I can believe in the ability of most German chemists to do most
things; and possibly {77} sawdust is used in the Fatherland for the
manufacture of lager beer, Rhine Wine, and—but ’tis a saw subject.
The pure brandy at Cognac is divided into two principal
classes—“champagne” brandy, from grapes grown on the plains, and
“bois” brandy, the product of wooded districts—I am _not_ alluding
now to sawdust—and the last-named variety is subdivided into many
different names. It takes eight and a half gallons of wine to furnish
one gallon of spirits; and the ravages of the vine-louse have made a
terrible difference in the supply. In fact, the amount produced in 1897
was about one-tenth of the amount produced twenty years previously.
But thanks to beet-root, potatoes, and—other things, the distiller
manages to “get” there just the same. But the man who wrote in 1889,
prophesying the speedy disappearance of pure _eau de vie_ from the
market, was probably not far wrong. “It would seem on the whole,”
he wrote, “that unless the phylloxera be stamped out, pure brandy
will soon be a thing of the past.” But they do not tell you this in
saloon-bars, and places where they drink.
It was stated by Mr. Dewar last year (1898) that there were 89,000,000
gallons of whisky lying idle in bond because sufficient suitable
water to dilute it to the orthodox strength could not be found. This
statement is calculated to give a moderate drinker the gapes; whilst
Sir Wilfrid Lawson and others must have longed for permission to set
fire to every bonded warehouse in the Kingdom. But the same great
authority {78} on the wines of bonnie Scotland made another statement
at the same time which is eminently calculated to remove all fears
lest whisky, like brandy, be on the down line. “The serpent Alcohol,”
remarks a writer in the _Daily Telegraph_, in discussing Mr. Dewar’s
speech, “may have been scotched”—was this meant for a joke?—“but it is
far from having been killed.” According to the Ex-Sheriff’s statistics
the distillation of Irish whisky, despite its diminishing popularity,
has increased during the last fourteen years by about thirty per cent;
while in Scotland during the same period the increase has been at the
rate of nearly eighty per cent. Ireland, that is to say, which produced
eleven million gallons in 1884, now produces fourteen million and a
half gallons; while the Scotch output, which was eighteen million
gallons in the former year, had risen in 1898 to the enormous figure
of thirty-three millions and a half. Hech sirs! these be braw figures
indeed.
Yet let not the British be held up to reprobation as hard drinkers, as
long as France is a going concern. Statistics prove that in Scotland,
the land o’ the barley bree, the consumption of spirits during the year
1892–93 averaged a little more than twelve and a half pints per month,
which is little more than the proportion of spirits required by the
Parisians, without wine, absinthe, and—other things. The boulevardiers
are called “temperate,” although they drink as much spirits as do the
Scots, and thirty times as much wine, not to mention cider and beer.
Distilling in Britain dates from the eleventh {79} century, but in the
beginning it was worked solely in the monasteries by the jovial monks.
What a good time those monks of old would seem to have had! According
to the popular prints they were usually engaged either in fishing,
eating oysters, drinking out of flagons, catching beetles, confessing
pretty women, or being shaved; and we know that their abiding-places
were built, for the most part, on the banks of a river which absolutely
swarmed with salmon or trout, in the midst of a district teeming with
game. Any how the monks made spirits, or “strong waters” as they were
called in those days, first.
Pure malt whisky is, and has been, made almost exclusively in Scotland.
In Ireland they use about one-third of malt to two-thirds of oats
and maize. In England they make whisky of pretty nearly everything,
including German spirit, petroleum, and old boots; whilst in gallant
little Wales—well the only acknowledged Welsh whisky I have tasted was
excellent in quality, and apparently made from pure malt. Distilling,
as a trade, commenced in England during the Tudor period, and from
the reputation bluff King Hal bore for feathering his nest, it is
probable that the industry was fully taxed. In 1579 Scotch distilleries
were taxed for the first time. In Ireland as far back as the eleventh
century the natives made _uisge beatha_—now called potheen—without
interference from landlord or gauger, and continued at it until the
sixteenth century, when licenses were enforced in the cases of _all
but the gentry_, and to run an illicit still was {80} punishable
with death and dismemberment. But they ran ’em just the same; for in
those days an Irishman was never really happy unless he were drinking,
fighting, or being sentenced to death. But whether it was English,
Scotch, Welsh, or Irish whisky, or French brandy, or Dutch gin,
smuggling and illicit distilling were rampant through the centuries,
and the Inland Revenue officer was no more respected or worshipped than
at the present day. Still there has not been much blood shed over those
differences of opinion; except in Western Pennsylvania at the close of
the last century—a period when the greater part of the universe was
fighting about something—when it took 15,000 soldiers from Washington
to quell a riot amongst a populace discontented with the Excise
regulations.
Blending and diluting whiskies are for the most part done in the bonded
warehouses. “All commercial spirit,” says an authority on the subject,
“however pure, contains a small proportion of impurities” (which
sounds Irish) “or by-products of distillation known as fusel-oil.”
It will relieve the minds of some to know that fusel-oil is merely a
by-product of distillation, and not the “low-flash” stuff which causes
the accidents with the cheap lamps. It used to be thought that during
the “maturing,” or “ageing,” of whisky the constituents of fusel-oil
underwent decomposition; but my good friend Doctor James Bell, C.B.,
the chief Government analyst at Somerset House (he retired some three
years ago), utterly refuted this theory by analysis.
Whisky is, like brandy, naturally white, and {81} takes its trade
colour, and, to a certain extent, flavour, from the sherry-casks in
which it is matured. It is also coloured by the direct addition of
caramel (burnt sugar), or a maturing wine.
In America, Rye or Bourbon whisky is made from wheat or maize grown
in the Bourbon country, Kentucky, and some of it would kill at forty
yards. The chief distillery states on the other side of the Atlantic
are Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, New York, and Pennsylvania.
At the Cape, and throughout South Africa, there is decent whisky
procurable, as also a pernicious compound known as “Square-face” or
“Cape smoke,” and in much favour with the dusky races of the country.
On the Congo, palm-wine—similar to the fermented toddy of the East
Indies—was for centuries the only livener, but with the march of
civilization have come the whiskies of Great Britain, more or less
adulterated; and whereas in the past death by the sword, or the club,
was the only known punishment for the subjects of the native tyrants
who are so fond of thinning out the population, a well-fuselled whisky
is now freely employed for the same purpose.
Although whisky is now freely partaken of all over Great Britain, it
was comparatively speaking despised in England until the first half
of the present century had slipped by. This fact is apparent from
a perusal of contemporary literature. And in no country has “malt”
had such a rise in public estimation as in the great continent of
Hindustan, where “John Exshaw” and “John {82} Collins”—the last named
a seductive compound of gin, limes, Curaçoa, and soda-water—have
been almost knocked out by John Barleycorn and Jean Pomme-de-terre.
Until the visit of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, brandy was almost the
sole potation of the heroes who helped to hold the big wonderland,
the old-fashioned _brandi-pani_ gradually giving place to the brandy
diluted with _Belati pani_, or “Europe water.” Thirty years ago a “peg”
meant a brandy-and-soda; but whisky has now usurped the proud position
once occupied by the products of John Exshaw, Justerini and Brooks,
and others.
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