Drinkware

“ There were three of us—a soldier, a flâneur and myself, who am neither but would like to be either. We were talking about the strange appearance—a phenomenon of the day—of French wine in German bottles, and this led to the re-expression of my life-long surprise that bottles should exist in such numbers as they do—bottles everywhere, all over the world, with wine and beer in them, and no one under any obligation to save and return them. ”

“ Edibles were represented only by a single dish of fruit; the tablecloth, stained with wine and cigar ash, seemed crowded with every sort of bottle and every sort of glass. A magnum of champagne, empty, another half full, stood in the middle of the table; whisky, brandy, liqueurs of various sorts were all represented; glasses—some full, some empty, some filled with cigar ash and cigarette stumps—an ugly sight! ”

“ Don’t be frightened; there is absolutely no danger. Put into a silver mug, or jug, previously heated, two wine-glassfuls of overproof (or proof) Scotch whisky, and one wine-glassful of boiling water. Set the liquor on fire, and pass the blazing liquor into another mug, also well heated. Pass to and fro, and serve in a tumbler, with a lump of sugar and a little thin lemon peel. Be very particular not to drop any of the blazer on the cat, or the hearth-rug, or the youngest child. ”

“ The immense variety of drinking-cups, as well as the intrinsic value of many of them, speaks volumes. He describes them as ‘some of elme, some of box, some of maple, some of holly, &c., mazers, broad-mouth’d dishes, moggins, whiskins, piggins, cruizes, ale-bowles, wassell-bowles, court-dishes, tankards, kannes, from a bottle to a pint, from a pint to a gill. Other bottles we have of leather, but they are most used amongst the shepheards and harvest-people of the countrey ”

“ As the vapor passes through the tube, it cools and drops out at the end into the worm-tub, changed into a liquid stronger in alcohol than that from which it was drawn or distilled.
In this way gin is made from beer, brandy from wine, and rum from fermented molasses. These are very strong drinks, and only hard drinkers like them. But very few people begin by taking these; they first learn to like alcohol by drinking cider, beer, or wine, and end with gin, whiskey, or rum when they have become drunkards. ”

“ So favourite a drink has, of course, been largely adulterated. Taste, colour, and smell are frequently due to unscrupulous falsifications. Bitterness is produced by strychnine, aloes, nux vomica, gentian, quassia, centaury, pyrethrum, absinthe, and many other ingredients. Colour is obtained by liquorice, chicory, and caramel; and flavour by other additions, which perhaps it is better not to particularize. Water, of course, is added to beer, as to most drinks, to enlarge the quantity and therefore the price. Potatoes are frequently a substitute for grain. ”

“ Chemistry seems to agree with the temperance society, that wine, beer, brandy, gin, whiskey, and rum are alcohol and water, mixed in different proportions, and with some slight differences of flavoring and coloring matter. In all these drinks, teetotalers maintain, alcohol is power, the other ingredients being mere dilution and flavoring. Wine, they assure us, is alcohol and water flavored with grapes; beer is alcohol and water flavored with malt and hops; Bourbon whiskey is alcohol and water flavored with corn. ”

“ It is well known that men who are preparing themselves for, or engaging in, feats requiring great strength and endurance are beginning to find that they must let intoxicating drinks alone. It is something marvelous to see with what tenacity so many physicians hold on to the idea that fermented wine, beer, brandy, and whiskey are strengthening. This idea comes, to a great extent, from the custom which prevails of giving such drinks to patients who are recovering from fevers, acute diseases, and from the effects of other debilitating causes. ”

“ To restore warmth and circulation to the surface, light, rapid friction and the wrapping with dry flannel is the safest, cheapest and most efficient, while free breathing of fresh air, and frequent small doses of milk, beef-tea, ordinary tea or coffee, or even simple water, will afford the greatest amount of strength and endurance, and leave the least secondary bad consequences. It is just as easy to keep at hand a jug or flask of any one of the articles named as it is to keep a flask of whisky or brandy. ”

“ The air in the cylinder should be drawn from a pure source, by means of a tube, if necessary, leading to the open air. The air in a cellar or even a close apartment is rarely pure, and would have a decidedly unwholesome effect on the beer.
26. Bottled Beer should be kept in a cool place or in a refrigerator, not in contact with the ice. The bottles ought to stand upright, so that any sediment will settle to the bottom. It is, therefore, not advisable to pour the last dregs of the bottle into the glass. ”

“ Before using the glass, rinse it in hot water.
↑ Sugar does not readily dissolve in spirits; it is necessary, therefore, in making hot toddy or punch to put in the water before the spirits, or at least sufficient of the water to entirely dissolve the sugar, taking care to warm the glass before pouring boiling water into it.
The best Hot Whiskey Punch is made with pulverized rock-candy. This is preferable to sugar, for any hot drink made of whiskey or brandy. ”

“ Be careful to use clean and dried bottles; leave them unstopped for twelve hours, and then cork them as closely as possible with good and sound new corks; put a bit of lump sugar as big as a nutmeg into each bottle: the beer will be ripe, i. e. fine and sparkling, in about four or five weeks: if the weather is cold, to put it up the day before it is drunk, place it in a room where there is a fire.
Remember there is a sediment, &c. at the bottom of the bottles, which you must carefully avoid disturbing; so pour it off at once, leaving a wine-glassful at the bottom. ”

“ The quantities of alcohol, water, and sugar in an imperial pint of Brandy, Rum, and Gin, are shown in the Case 39.
The physical degeneracy and moral degradation attendant upon taking alcohol in excess are well known; and no language is too strong to condemn the folly and wickedness of those who thus convert one of the blessings of Providence into a curse.
In Cases 38 the visitor will see samples of alcohol obtained from various sources; also a variety of flavored spirits, or “liqueurs,” from various countries, and a Japanese spirit or liqueur, distilled from rice, called “soke,” or “saki.” ”

“ Glass is useful also for making glasses—the receptacles from which wine is drunk. Without glasses we should be hard put to it to consume our liquor and should have to resort to half-cocoanuts, cups, the hollow of the hand, or even sponges.
Just at the moment bottles—I mean the more genial variety—are under a cloud. It is a penal offence to sell a bottle before noon, between half-past two and half-past six, and after half-past nine at night. But they are expected to come to their own again when Peace is celebrated. ”

“ But just then one of the king’s guard smelled out that the lad who had owned the scissors and the table-cloth had a tap besides, which, if one only turned it a little, gave out the rarest drink, both ale, and mead, and wine. So when he came back to the palace, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut this time any more than before; he went about telling high and low about the tap, and how easy it was to draw all sorts of drink out of it.
“And as for that mead and ale, I’ve never tasted the like of them in the king’s palace; honey and syrup are nothing to them for sweetness.” ”

“ And within the locked cupboard of the study lurks a certain black bottle, which does not contain Kopps’s ale. Therefore I repeat that the most effectual restorative for the total abstainer—whether as a direct change, or as a hair of the dog—is brandy.
Our ancestors cooled their coppers with small ale, and enjoyed a subsequent sluice at the pump in the yard; these methods are still pursued by stable-helpers and such like. A good walk acts beneficially sometimes. Eat or drink nothing at all, but try and do five miles along the turnpike road within the hour. ”

“ A rough, lumbering, insensible navvy may drink a quart or two of tea, or a few gallons of beer, or several quarterns of gin, with but small results of any kind. I know an omnibus-driver who makes seven double journeys daily, and his ‘reglars’ are half a quartern of gin at each terminus—i.e. 13⁄4 pints daily, exclusive of extras. This would render most men helplessly drunk, but he is never drunk, and drives well and safely. ”

“ You take the cool cup thankfully and swallow it down at one long draught; fresh as a May morning, pure as an English hill-side spring, delicate as—well, as cocoa-nut water. None but itself can be its parallel. It is certainly the most delicious, dainty, transparent, crystal drink ever invented. ”

“ The enlightenment of the present day is full of short-cuts to comfort, and all the impediments in the way of enjoying a social glass of punch, compounded according to the latest discoveries of the art, are obviated by having a bottle of the desired nectar in a concentrated essence form, ready brewed in exact proportions, and nothing needed but a moderate supply of hot or cold water, or ice, to adjust it to the correct strength and temperature, and a glass to receive the welcome libation. ”

“ The safest liquids are boiled water, natural mineral waters, tea, coffee, good red wine, and, in moderation, sound English or German beer. Fairly good cognac or even whiskey may be obtained almost everywhere, but for the time-honoured ‘soda’ or ‘potash’ it is safer to substitute boiled or mineral water. ”

“ I wish I could write it in letters of fire over the door of every liquor saloon.
It may be the climate; it may be the high-pressure, fever-heated rate of modern living; it may as well be that those honest men who made their own apple whiskey and peach brandy, by their daily dram-drinking transmitted the taste which adulterated liquors, in the generation following, were to lash into uncontrollable appetite. ”

“ But I flashed my dough and Slim sent several of the younger men off to buy the booze. Take my word for it, Anak, it was a blow-out memorable in Trampdom to this day. It's amazing the quantity of booze thirty plunks will buy, and it is equally amazing the quantity of booze outside of which twenty stiffs will get. Beer and cheap wine made up the card, with alcohol thrown in for the blowd-in-the-glass stiffs. ”

“ The vine doth so abhor cold, that it cannot grow beyond the 49th degree to any purpose; therefore God and nature hath furnished the north-west nations with other inventions of beverage. In this island the old drink was ale, noble ale, than which, as I heard a great foreign doctor affirm, there is no liquor that more increaseth the radical moisture, and preserves the natural heat, which are the two pillars that support the life of man. But since beer hath hopped in amongst us, ale is thought to be much adulterated, and nothing so good as Sir John Oldcastle and Smugg the smith was used to drink. ”

“ In his directions to the butler, he tells him, “If any one {277} desires a glass of bottled ale, first shake the bottle, to see if anything be in it; then taste it, to see what liquor it is, that you may not be mistaken; and, lastly, wipe the mouth of the bottle with the palm of your hand, to show your cleanliness.
“If any one calls for small beer towards the end of the dinner, do not give yourself the trouble of going down to the cellar, but gather the droppings and leavings out of the several cups and glasses and salvers into one ”

“ The rapidity and dexterity with which they mix half-a-dozen different kinds of drinks all at once is perfectly wonderful; one sees nothing but a confusion of bottles and tumblers and cascades of fluids as he pours them from glass to glass at arm’s length for the better amalgamation of the ingredients; and in the time it would take an ordinary man to pour out a glass of wine, the mixtures are ready, each prepared as accurately as an apothecary makes up a prescription. ”

“ The cool air sobered me, and my friend congratulated me on my recovery from a state of inebriety.
"After a little practice at the bar," said he—"it will take a good many tods to floor you. Let me give you a few hints as regards drinking. Never mix your liquor—always stick to one kind. After every glass, eat a cracker—or, what is better, a pickle. Plain drinks are always the best—far preferable to fancy drinks, which contain sugar, and lemons, and mint, and other trash; although a mixed drink may be taken on a stormy night, such as this has been. ”

“ As soon as a cask of liquor begins to grow vapid, and to lose its briskness, while it is on the tap, it should be drawn off immediately into bottles; and in order to quicken it, put a piece of loaf sugar into every bottle, about the size of a walnut. To forward the ripening, wrap the bottles in hay, and set them in a warm place; straw will not answer the purpose. When ale is to be bottled, it will be an improvement to add a little rice, a few raisins, or a tea-spoonful of moist sugar to each bottle. ”

“ By the Excise laws at present existing in this country, the various degrees of strength of brandy, rum, arrack, gin, whiskey, and other spiritous liquors, chiefly composed of little else than spirit of wine, are determined by the quantity of alcohol of a given specific gravity contained in the spiritous liquors of a supposed unknown strength. ”