Spirit (drink)

“ Every one therefore may make his drink as he will, by putting in more or less of the spirit, according to his Palate; which doth not only serve to make the wine and beer clear and diuretick, but may also be used in Fountain-water, in hot weather, for the allaying of wine: For if some drops of it be put into a bottle of water, it giveth it a grateful acidity, not much unlike to the natural Mineral acid waters, and in hot weather allayeth the over-great heat of the Blood, and quencheth Thirst, so that there is no need of burdening the stomach with much wine or beer. ”

“ Wine when drunken makes the face flush, the eyes sparkle, the heart leap, the pulses sharp, the veins full; water when drunken does none of these acts, and seems to do nothing but respond to the natural wish for drink. ”

“ Everybody drinks it; and you shall, too—you shall!" he cried, with a fearful oath, "and then see if you don't run off to the gin-shop, to take the taste of it out of your mouth. Drink? and who can help drinking, with his stomach turned with such hell-broth as that—or such a hell's blast as this air is here, ready to vomit from morning till night with the smells? I'll show you. You shall drink a bucket full of it, as sure as you live, you shall." ”

“ The greatest bards of every clime have sought inspiration in its sparkling depths. But the poet, even German, is yet unborn, who, moved by sweet memories of the nectar of his fatherland, shall chant in rhyme the virtues of his national drink. Yet though its merit has inspired neither of the sister graces, poetry and song, to strike the lyre in its honor, it has had, none the less, an important mission to perform. To its plebeian sister beer, as a healthful beverage, wine must yield the palm. As a common drink, suited to human nature's daily need, it has never been surpassed. ”

“ But I tell you what, lads, stick to the light wines, and a moderate quantity of them will do you no harm; but eschew spirits-and-water, or spirits in any shape, as you would poison, and when you drink beer, don’t go swilling away huge quantities, as I see some fellows doing, as if their insides were mere tuns made to hold liquor. Just look at the great, fat, pursy, bloated fellows you often meet, and think how you would like to become as they are. ”

“ She turned her bright beer-brown eyes upon him gravely. "Yes," she said, "I am an alcoholic medium. It is the latest and most superior form of spiritualism. By gazing upon crystal—particularly upon an empty tumbler—I am able to throw myself into a trance in which I can communicate with departed spirits. A good drink does not die, you know: its soul hovers radiantly on the twentieth plane, and through the occult power of a medium those who loved it in life can get in touch with it once more. ”

“ To entice others to drunkenness, to put the bottle to them, that they may be allured to it by its charms, by looking on the wine when it is red and gives its colour in the cup, or to force them to it, obliging them by the rules of the club (and club-laws indeed they are) to drink so many glasses, and so filled, is to do what we can, and perhaps more than we know of, towards the murder both of soul and body ”

“ «Strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise»; but pure wine upon a healthy stomach, is grateful and precious as the light of truth and the exercise of discretion, to a sound and well-regulated mind. ”

“ Drink makes languid hearts beat quicker,
Empty heads sublimely think.
Drink, all slavish toil forgetting,
Drink can make clown a king;
Drink till eyes in joy are setting,
Drink makes sorrow take the wing! ”

“ That sorrow and care may be drowned
⁠By a timely consumption of drink.
Does not man, these enthusiasts ask,
⁠Most nearly approach the divine
When engaged in the soul-stirring task
⁠Of filling his body with wine? ”

“ I have more than once intoxicated myself to deaden the pitiful pain of a toothache. By the same means I resolved to relieve the dire aching of my heart.
The spirit of wine was nigh at hand, and might be imbibed in many forms.
In one corner of the “smoking-saloon” was the “bar,” with its elegant adornments—its rows of decanters and bottles, with silver stoppers and labels its glasses, and lemons, and sugar-crushers—its bouquet of aromatic mint and fragrant pines—its bunches of straw tubes for “sucking” the “mint-julep,” the “sherry-cobbler,” or the “claret sangaree.” ”

“ Egyptian Beer and Brandy.—Mexican Pulque.—Plant-worship.—Union with the Godhead by Alcohol.—Soma.—The Cow-religion.—Caxiri.—Murwa Beer.—Bacchic Rites.—Spiritual Exaltation by Wine.
One of the strongest desires of human nature is the passion for some kind or another of alcoholic stimulants. Intoxicating liquors are made by savages in primeval forests, and travellers in all parts of the world have found the natives conversant with the art of preparing some sort of stimulating liquor in the shape of beer, wine, or spirit. ”

“ Is the sole cause I drink me drunk with wine.
67
Drunkards are doomed to hell, so men declare,
Believe it not, 'tis but a foolish scare;
⁠Heaven will be empty as this hand of mine,
If none who love good drink find entrance there. ”

“ There are relatively normal types of the heavy drinker,—the socially minded and the hard manual worker. But there is a large group of those who find in alcohol a relief from the burden of their moods, who find in its real effect, the release from inhibitions, a reason for drinking beyond the reach of reason. Do you feel that the endless monotony of your existence can no longer be borne,—drink deep and you color your life to suit yourself. ”

“ Follow no other way than that which the Kalendar
follows; seek no other place than the tavern; occupy
yourself only with wine, song and the friend [the Divinity] ;
place in your hand a cup of wine, upon your back
a gourd; drink, O dear object of my heart! drink and
speak not of foolish things.
422.
Do you wish life to rest upon a rock? Do you wish
life for some time free to be from grief? Dwell for one
instant without drinking wine, then at each breath you'll
find a new attraction in existence. ”

“ It is among the wine-drinking classes of our fellow-beings, that absurd, incomplete, and reactionary ideas prevail. The receptive, the curious, the candid, the trustworthy brains,—those that do not take things for granted, and yet are ever open to conviction,—such heads are to be found on the shoulders of men who drink little or none of these seductive fluids. ”

“ And yet, strange to say, men of good sense, clear judgment and quick perception in all moral questions and in the general affairs of life, are often so blind, or infatuated here, as to affirm that this substance, alcohol, which they use under the various forms of wine, brandy, whisky, gin, ale or beer, is not only harmless, when taken in moderation—each being his own judge as to what "moderation" means—but actually useful and nutritious! ”

“ Drink has wound like some ubiquitous fungus round and round the tissues of the national body, and we are sure to have a nasty growth striking out at intervals. It tears the heart-strings when we see the brave, the brilliant, the merry, the wise, sinking under the evil clement in our appalling dual nature, and we feel, with something like despair, that we cannot be altogether delivered from the scourge yet awhile. ”

“ A drink of liquor is to my appetite what a red-hot coal of fire is to a keg of dry powder. You can just as easily shoot a ball from a cannon's mouth moderately, or fire off a magazine slowly, as I can drink liquor moderately. When I take one drink, if it is but a taste, I must have more, if I knew hell would burst out of the earth and engulf me the next instant. ”

“ Their pockets are distended with bottles of spirits: they drink, wiping the necks of the bottles with hardened palms ... the liquor sends a livid flush, a purple veil of heat, over faces seared and pitted with poverty. ”

“ Don't preach to me while the taste of a drink is still in my mouth, for there's no heart so strong as the one whisky puts into a man. When I feel my courage oozing from my fingers I can reinforce it in less time than it takes to sneak away. ”

“ Wine is doubtless here used in a large sense, for every kind of strong drink. "Wine was given to make glad the heart of man." He is allowed to use it with temperance and sobriety: But so many abuse it to their own hurt, and to the injury of society, that it is rather a curse, than a blessing, to the world. ”

“ Drink is so jolly; prosperous persons talk with such a droll wink about vagaries which they or their friends committed the night before; it is all so very, very lightsome! The brewers and distillers who put the mirth-inspiring beverages into the market receive more consideration, and a great deal more money, than an average European prince;—and yet the poor dry-rotted unfortunate whose decadence we are tracing is like a leper in the scattering effects which he produces during his shaky promenade. He is indeed alone in the world, and brandy or gin is his only counsellor and comforter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is therefore not the drink in itself but the certainty that death will ensue, which relieves them from constraint. [Pg 96] The act of drinking betokens only the moment of consciousness and confession. ”

“ I have known some men drink enormous quantities of spirituous liquors when going into action, to drive away little intruding thoughts, and to create false spirits; but these are as short-lived as the ephemera that struggles but a moment on the crystal stream, then dies. If a man have not natural courage, he may rest assured that liquor will deaden and destroy the little he may possess. ”

“ If thou drinkest wine, drink it with intelligent people,
drink it in company with thy ravishing idols, with smiles
upon their lips and their cheeks tinted with the colors of
the tulip. Drink not too much or speak boastingly of
it; make it not a refrain, but drink a little from time
to time in quietude.
332 213.
Wine should be drunk in the company of slender creatures
who ravish the heart with the color of their cheeks.
Art thou bitten by the serpent of grief, friend—drink, then,
of this antidote. I myself drink of it and plume myself
on the strength of it ”

“ Tea keeps conversation within the bounds of pedantic propriety, and beer soothes but checks quick repartee; but wine sharpens the sting of wit, stimulates spirited conversation, and brightens the whole social atmosphere. The poet, who lives in imagination, and turns his back upon reality, was always a lover of wine—the beverage which intensifies reality, and, at the same time, lifts him above it. The drinking-song, from Anacreon down to all his imitators in Germany, occupies a special and very prominent place in literature. ”

“ TO pass from rum to amusement is a very easy and natural transition, for unfortunately the people who drink are, as a rule, those who need and will have amusement. Having done with liquor forever, I am glad to get to a subject not quite so disagreeable. ”

“ The lesson against tampering with beer or strong drink, either the drinking, making, or vending of it, is of a most impressive character, and is admirably adapted to win and hold the reader's interest, and to create and strengthen good resolutions. ”

“ 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! ”

“ When not under the influence of drink, the general is one of the kindest-hearted men in the world. To his wife he is tender and indulgent almost to a fault, if that were possible. But liquor seems to put the devil into him. Drink drowns his better nature and changes him into a half-insane fiend. ”

“ Drink far more lustily than those less happy.
Those also who were called the seven wise men used to make drinking parties; "for wine comforts the natural moroseness of old age," as Theophrastus says, in his treatise on Drunkenness. ”

“ Living at a period when it was universally customary to offer a guest or caller a glass of wine, let him come at what hour of the day he might, and when the decanters and glasses always stood invitingly upon the side-board, yet he never used ardent spirit as a beverage, never partook of it at all, even in after years, when perhaps a partial stimulant might have been of physical benefit to him, because of a fixed principle in his own mind concerning its pernicious effects. ”

“ How we ate that morning, Bill and I, and how we relished our breakfast. Yes, I had a drink, a big drink of whiskey, but not because I had forgotten my resolve of the night before, but because I was yet ignorant. To be quite frank, I have always been a bit cynical about these sudden conversions of confirmed drunkards.
Not long ago I met a man at a rescue mission where I frequently attend, who, as we say on the Bowery, "eats whiskey" and almost subsists on it. ”