Tody (drink)

“ Life's funny, ain't it? An' I got a head on me—ow, what a head! You've never been tight? Don't you like the stuff?"
"Not much, no. A little wine."
"Bah, wine! I want something you can taste. An' you'll get to whisky yet. Oh, yes, you will. Wait till you have to make up to ever' lousy tramp that wants a kiss—then's when you've got to get drunk an' stay there. Uh-huh. Where's that nigger wench with my drink?"
Tota came with bottle and whisky glass and, as she was placing them on the table, the woman who called herself Raggy-tail Mag snatched bottle and glass and began trying to fill the glass. ”

“ Beer for the lads of the forest, mead for the gleeman, strong waters for the tinker, and wine for the rest. It is an old custom of the house, young sir. It has been the use at the 'Pied Merlin' this many a year back that the company should drink to the health of the last comer. Is it your pleasure to humor it?”
“Why, good dame,” said Alleyne, “I would not offend the customs of your house, but it is only sooth when I say that my purse is a thin one. ”

“ In general, the drink is more intoxicating than coconut toddy, but it is wholesome, and its use is not attended by the after effects that are the result of overindulgence in certain other alcoholic drinks like vino. ”

“ In South-Eastern Asia the palms from which it is collected are the gomuti, cocoa-nut, palmyra, date, and the kittul (Caryota urens) . When newly drawn the liquor is clear, and in taste resembles malt. In a very short time it becomes turbid, whitish, and sub-acid, quickly running into the various stages of fermentation, and acquiring an intoxicating quality.
In our use of the word, toddy seems to mean nothing more than spirit and water sweetened, with the occasional addition of lemon peel. Whiskey toddy is the common and favourite species, though there are also apple, gin, and brandy toddies. ”

“ I'm cursed if I'll accept a favour from a man whose too almighty big to have a drink with me."
"Well, well, mate, don't turn rusty," says Jim. "Give us one drink an' I'm off."
The keeper pours out about half a pannikin of raw rum and hands it to the bushman. The moment he smells the old familiar smell his longing for it returns, and he swigs it off at a gulp. His eyes shine more brightly, and his face becomes flushed. ”

“ I stand drinks all round. What say you, fellars?” A murmur of assent answered the interrogatory.
“Good!” continued the speaker. “Hyar, bar-keeper! drinks for the crowd!”
And so saying, he of the white-hat and jeans coat stepped forward to the bar, and placed a couple of dollars upon the counter. All who were near followed him, shouting each out the name of the beverage most to his liking in the various calls of “gin-sling,” “cocktail,” “cobbler,” “julep,” “brandy-smash,” and such-like interesting mixtures.
In America men do not sit and sip their liquor, but drink standing. ”

“ The amazing strength, the skill in the use of the harpoon, the rum and water, the sealskin tobacco-pouch with the coarse tobacco—all these pointed to a seaman, and one who had been a whaler. I was convinced that the initials ‘P.C.’ upon the pouch were a coincidence, and not those of Peter Carey, since he seldom smoked, and no pipe was found in his cabin. You remember that I asked whether whisky and brandy were in the cabin. You said they were. How many landsmen are there who would drink rum when they could get these other spirits? ”

“ Hither small parties of men are continually repairing to “take a drink.” Perhaps they each choose a different kind of punch, or sling, or cocktail, requiring various combinations, in different proportions, of whisky, brandy, or gin, with sugar, bitters, peppermint, absinthe, curaçao, lemon-peel, mint, and what not; but the bar-keeper mixes them all as if by magic, when each man, taking his glass, and tipping those of all the rest as he mutters some sentiment, swallows the compound and wipes his moustache. ”

“ Now hear me.—See, my friend! when I come to this place with my skins and peltry to trade, the people are kind; they give me plenty of good victuals to eat, and pay me in money, or whatever I want, and no one says a word to me about drinking rum—neither do I ask for it! When I come to your place with my peltry, all call to me: 'Come, Thomas! here's rum, drink heartily, drink! ”

“ Farintosh cried, intervening between the two. "It is not money we expect from you. All we want is a drain of rum to drink success to you with."
"Oh, if that's all," said the young merchant—and turned round to pick up the bottle which stood on a table behind him. Quick as a flash Burt sprang upon him and struck him down with a life-preserver. With a gasping cry and a heavy thud Ezra fell face downwards upon the floor, the bottle still clutched in his senseless hand, and the escaping rum forming a horrible mixture with the blood which streamed from a great gash in his head. ”

“ It is true, some men, by limiting the strength of those drinks, by measuring the spirit and water, have drunken them for many years, and even during a long life, without acquiring habits of intemperance or intoxication, but many more have been insensibly led, by drinking weak toddy and grog first at their meals, to take them for their constant drink, in the intervals of their meals ”

“ This spirit, to my taste, is more palatable than most distilled liquors, having a very decided and peculiar flavor. It is a little fiery when new, but as water soon quenches fire, it is not spared by the native retailers, whose arrack would be of a most innocent character were it not for their infamous addition of stupefying drugs and hot peppers.
The toddy contains a large proportion of saccharine, without which the vinous fermentation could not take place. This is procured by evaporation in boiling, on the same principle that sugar is produced from cane-juice. ”

“ This extreme ruddiness brought a clue at last to the observant doctor. Surely it was not to be attained without alcohol. In alcohol lay the secret of this man's trouble. Some little delicacy was needed, however, in showing him that he had read his case aright--that at a glance he had penetrated to the inmost sources of his ailments.
"It's very hot," observed the stranger, mopping his forehead.
"Yes, it is weather which tempts one to drink rather more beer than is good for one," answered Dr. Horace Wilkinson, looking very knowingly at his companion from over his finger-tips. ”

“ The water they require they obtain either from a jungle stream, or by collecting rain. They will not drink toddy made from trees near the village, but draw it from distant palms. Everything is partaken of from special vessels; toddy is sucked from a bamboo through a reed, of which the mouth-end is capped with a larger as soon as the drink is finished. They are, however, willing to accept bread, biscuits, and rum from others, but the latter is drunk from a new coconut shell, and never from a glass. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ But seeing that our nature is what it is, we must try to make the best of it. It seems as though we civilized human beings must have stimulating drinks, and that being so, we have to follow our own convictions. I am for a glass of toddy. Let who will eat plum-cake and swill hot coffee — heartburn and other troubles are often the result of this kind of refreshment. A little toddy doesn't hurt anybody.
The consumption of alcohol on the Fram's third voyage was as follows: One dram and fifteen drops at dinner on Wednesdays and Sundays, and a glass of toddy on Saturday evenings. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Women, it is said, will take a pint and a half of this so-called tran at a meal. But the favourite drink is composed of water and meal flavoured with a quantity of tallow, and, if circumstances will permit, the blood of the reindeer.
Taidge or Tedge or Tedj is a kind of honey wine or hydromel, said by Father Poncet [168] to be a delicious liquor, pure, clarified, and of the colour of Spanish white wine. The process of its manufacture is simple. Wild honey is mixed with water, and set in a jar, with a little sprouted barley, some biccalo or taddoo bark, and a few geso or guécho leaves. ”

“ There is still a species of flapdragon in the west, among the peasantry, by means of a cup of ale or cyder with a lighted candle standing in it: the difficulty being for a man to drink the liquor, without having his face singed, while his companions are singing some doggrel verses about Tom Toddy. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ The bar itself was an incredibly ancient sheet of transparent plastic, stained and chipped and yellow with age. Its n-grav coat had faded from one end; bricks now propped it up. The drink mixer had long since fallen apart. Only wine and beer were served. No living man knew how to mix the simplest drink.
Tolby moved up to the bar. "Beer," he said. "Three beers." Penn and Silvia sank down at a table and removed their packs, as the bartender served Tolby three mugs of thick, dark beer. He showed his card and carried the mugs over to the table. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In addition to strange compounds known in various parts of this country, such as Gin and Lime Juice, Whiskey or Rum and Milk, Brandy and Port, a drink said to have originated in Lancashire, Dog’s Nose, Shandy Gaff, etc., etc., may be mentioned Ethyl [362] or Methylated Spirits, a beverage which, like ether in Ireland, has of late years advanced considerably in public estimation. It has the two advantages of being cheap and heady. An Act of 1880 imposed penalties on any retail tradesman selling it for the purpose of drink. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”