Mate (drink)

“ HOURTIN. Never having been drunk proves nothing.
BRIGNAC. Oh, come!
HOURTIN. No. There are a large number of men who drink, perhaps, a glass of vermouth before lunch, a bottle of wine at lunch, and two or three glasses of liqueur after. The same at dinner, after an absinthe and a glass or two260 of beer in the afternoon. They would be much astonished to learn that they are thoroughly alcoholized.
BRIGNAC. Well, I do all that, and I’m as well as can be. What is more, as a baby I was very delicate. I couldn’t walk till I was eighteen months old or talk before two years. ”

“ A laughable custom prevalent at Sussex harvest-homes, was the following: Each person at the table—perhaps twenty or thirty men—had to drink, without spilling, a glass of ale placed on the top of a tall hat; when he had finished, he must toss the glass up in the air and catch it in the hat as it fell. Sometimes a man would fail four or five times, and at length get too drunk even to try. Meantime the company kept up the refrain:―
I’ve been to London, I’ve been to Dover, I’ve been a rambling, boys, all the world over, Over, over, over and over, Drink up the liquor and turn the bowl over. ”

“ But he looked sober enough.
So I picked up a large schooner of beer at the bar and strolled over to his table in the far corner away from the window.
"Mind if I join you?" I asked casually. "I hate to drink alone." ”

“ White provided a plentiful dinner for roof-raising, and gave each man his mug of beer. After a hearty meal they began to grow clamorous for more drink. The farmer, said, "My lads, I don't grudge you a few gallons of ale merely for the sake of saving my liquor, though that is some consideration, especially in these dear times; but I never will, knowingly, help any man to make a beast of himself. ”

“ The general design of the Plate Beer Street is to expose the deadly habit of gin-drinking, and to teach that if man must drink strong liquors, beer is far the best to indulge in.
Edward Young, courtier, poet, rector, a general genius, satirised tea and wine as abused by the women of his day. ”

“ Few men drink liquor for the love of it. A vast deal of alcohol is consumed just because it seems devilish. When the host tips his guest the wink and stealthily leads the way to the back-closet under the stairs and produces a black bottle, how the flavor of the liquor is improved by the vicious delight in evading the watchfulness of the members of the Women’s Temperance Society gathered in the parlor! ”

“ I have watched the butler repeatedly at large dinner parties as he passed the wine and seen him fill only four or five glasses.
Women rarely drink at all. About one man in three takes champagne. Of course he is apt to drink whisky instead, but by no means the same amount as formerly. ”

“ I then yelled quite loudly, and two men broke their arms trying to get out the door, and the bartender trembled so when he mixed a drink for me you would have thought he was putting up a milk shake for a girl who wanted to catch a street car.”
“Yes?” said the bartender.
“Yes, sir, I am feeling a little out of sorts today, and it always makes me real cross and impatient when I get that way. A little gin and bitters always helps me. It was six times, I think, that I fired, the time I was telling you about. Straight whisky would do if the gin is out.” ”

“ The writers of the day are loud in their abuse of beer. In the passages from Andrew Boorde’s Dyetary (1542) , quoted in Chapter I. (p. 6) , ale is described as being the natural drink of Englishmen, and made of malt and water, while beer, which is composed of malt, hops, and water, is the natural drink of a Dutchman, and of late is much used in England, to the great detriment of many Englishmen. There is a truly insular ring about this. We should like to enlighten old Andrew’s darkness by a draught of sparkling Burton. ”

“ Nay, I have known some of the little Victualling Brewers so stupendiously ignorant, that they have thought they acted the good Husband, when they have squeezed the Hops after they have been boiled to the last in small Beer, to get out all their goodness as they vainly imagin'd, which is so reverse to good management, that in my Opinion they had much better put some sort of Earth into the Drink, and it would prove more pleasant and wholsome. ”

“ A rather popular drink at present is an equal mixture of white grape-juice and ginger ale with mint leaves and much ice. Those few who still have cellars, serve wines exactly as they used to, white wine, claret, sherry and Burgundy warm, champagne ice cold; and after dinner, green mint poured over crushed ice in little glasses, and other liqueurs of room temperature. Whiskey is always poured at the table over ice in a tall tumbler, each gentleman "saying when" by putting his hand out. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lady S. I never taste malt liquor: but they say it is well hopp’d.
Sir J. Hopp’d? why if it had hopp’d a little further it would have hopp’d into the river. O, my lord, my ale is meat, drink, and cloth; it will make a cat speak and a wise man dumb.
Lady S. I was told ours was very strong.
Sir J. Ay, madam, strong of the water; I believe the brewer forgot the malt, or the river was too near him. Faith, it is mere whip-belly vengeance; he that drinks most has the worst share.
Col. I believe, Sir John, ale is as plenty as water at your house. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The stanch old soakers, on the other hand,—men who, if put on tap, would have yielded a red alcoholic liquor by way of blood,—usually confined themselves to plain brandy-and-water, gin, or West India rum; and, oftentimes, they prefaced their dram with some medicinal remark as to the wholesomeness and stomachic qualities of that particular drink. ”

“ What there is about gin that makes it the national beverage for bad people beats me, for it looks like water, tastes like medicine and smells like cold storage eggs. At home when a person takes a drink of beer or whisky he at least looks happy for a minute, and maybe he laughs, but here nobody laughs unless somebody gets hurt, and that seems to tickle everybody in the White Chapel district. ”

“ A tale is told of a man who asserted that tea was stronger than beer. “A pot of beer,” said he, “will seldom attract more than a couple of men about it, but a pot of tea will draw half-a-dozen or more old women.”
A potent drink, much in vogue with the roystering blades of former times, was that known as “huff-cap.” The name was a cant expression for strong ale, which was so called because it induced people to set their caps in a bold huffing fashion. ”

“ The German, the Fleming, the Dutchman, who drinks beer, and beer only, wishes it strong, nourishing, and malty; the Parisian, on the contrary, whose ordinary drink is wine, and who resorts to beer as we do in warm weather to soda water, pop, and ginger-beer, merely [273] requires that the liquor shall be light, brisk, sparkling, and agreeable. I have no means of knowing the number of brewers in Paris at present, but there were forty 120 years ago, who annually made about 75,000 muids of beer (the muid is 300 pints) . ”

“ For our blyssd Lady sake, bring us in good ale,”
is a very old wassailing cry, and the wandering musicians always expected a black jack of ale and a Christmas pye. A favourite draught, also, was spiced ale with a toast, stirred up with a sprig of rosemary,—“Mark you, sir, a pot of ale consists of four parts: imprimis, the ale, the toast, the ginger, and the nutmeg.” Mead, or metheglin, was another national drink, and here the steward was only allowed as far as he could reach in the cask with the first joint of his middle finger. ”

“ The Dutch in New York called the liquor brandy-wine, and soon in that colony wherever strong waters were named in tavern lists, the liquor was neither aqua vitæ nor gin nor brandy, but New England rum.
[Pg 102] It soon was cheap enough. Rev. Increase Mather, the Puritan parson, wrote, in 1686: “It is an unhappy thing that in later years a Kind of Drink called Rum has been common among us. They that are poor and wicked, too, can for a penny make themselves drunk.” ”

“ Evelyn says that ale and beer, “brewed with these berries, being ripe, is an incomparable drink.”
Maize, beet-root, potatoes, parsnips, and other vegetables have each and all been used in the making of beer, but it seems very doubtful whether any combination of ingredients will ever equal the time-honoured partnership of malt and hops.
A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1758 says: “In many parts of the Kingdom, a beer is made of treacle—thus: to eight quarts of boiling water put a pound of treacle, a quarter of an ounce of ginger, and two bay leaves. ”

“ How do women learn to drink, Pa? They don’t go to the tavern like men, do they?”
“Not at first, Guy. Usually they begin at home, or at parties, or when stopping at the great hotels, where wine is drunk at the dinner-table. In many families, also, wine is used at the table, and fathers and mothers teach their daughters to drink it as a daily beverage. But generally, I believe, ladies begin their habit of drinking wine at parties, taking it, at first, not from choice, but because they don’t like to be thought singular.” ”

“ I think the working man is safer with his glass of whiskey."
"Why not beer? The Americans and English drink beer."
"We are a stubborn Northern race," said Edmund. "Beer is too insipid for us."
"I think if a drink could be invented with a flavour like whiskey but without its evil effect, it would very soon supplant it, don't you, Mr. Vale?" said Miss Pearsall, arranging her fingers about the stem of her wine glass. ”

“ If we give this party, one thing is certain."
"What?"
"That boys and young men, some of them already in the ways that lead to drunkenness and ruin, will be enticed to drink. We will put temptation to their lips and smilingly invite them to taste its dangerous sweets. By our example we will make drinking respectable. If we serve wine and brandy to our guests, young and old, male and female, what do we less than any dram-seller in the town? ”

“ The consequence of the bar being the place of general resort, is, that there is an unceasing pouring out, and amalgamation of alcohol, and other compounds, from morning to late at night. To drink with a friend when you meet him is good fellowship, to drink with a stranger is politeness, and a proof of wishing to be better acquainted. ”

“ In extending their denunciations to ale and beer drinkers, the total abstainers are, in my opinion, working a very grievous injury on the labouring classes, who for centuries have found the greatest benefit from the use of malt liquors. Barley-broth should be looked upon as the temperance drink of the people or, in other words, the drink of the temperate. ”

“ Mischievous young men, however, sometimes find the bottle, and drink the gin before the lover comes, and so the girl often waits till she hears the shots, and then lowers the bottle by a string from the window. ”

“ Though the English upper classes, as I have said, drink with a certain moderation, their moderation really embraces a quantity of liquor which would send the artisan quite off his head. Whiskies-and-sodas at noon, Burgundy at lunch, with cognac to one's [Pg 152] coffee, three kinds of wine at dinner, followed by liqueurs and whisky, make no appreciable mark on a man who is living at his ease and can sleep as long as he likes ”

“ Pitt, Dundas, the Lord Chancellor Eldon, and many others who gave the tone to society, would, if they now appeared at an evening party, ‘as was their custom of an afternoon,’ be pronounced fit for nothing but bed. A three-bottle man was not an unusual guest at a fashionable table; and the night was invariably spent in drinking bad port wine to an enormous extent. ”

“ Many boys get their first taste for drink at fashionable parties, and many reformed men have the old fiery thirst revived by a glass of wine poured out for them in social hospitality. I am afraid to have my conscience burdened with the responsibility which this involves."
"There is no question as to the injury that is done by this free pouring out of liquors at our fashionable entertainments. I've long enough seen that," said Mr. Eldridge; "but she will be a bold lady who ventures to offer a cup of coffee in place of a glass of wine. ”