Whiskey

“ 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. ”

“ Rum and brandy, glenlivet and guava jelly, limes, green tea, and a slight suspicion of preserved ginger,—nothing else, upon honor,—and the most simple mixture for the cure, the radical cure, of blue devils and debt I know of; eh, Doctor? You advise it yourself, to be taken before bed-time; nothing inflammatory in it, nothing pugnacious; a mere circulation of the better juices and more genial spirits of the marly clay, without arousing any of the baser passions; whiskey is the devil for that. ”

“ The sight of even a lost dipper or cup would set them blood-hounds on our path, as sure as we are white and they are savages!"
"As I live, they scent the whiskey! There is a rush toward, and a pow-wow in and about the shed — yes, of a certainty they smell the liquor! Some of it has escaped in rolling down the hill, and their noses are too keen to pass over a fragrance that to them equals that of roses. ”

“ Give us such whiskey as we call for of thy best, with lemons and sugar, but in place of hot water in the kettle, see to it that as often as it is replenished, it be filled with thy newest and palest rum. ”

“ You, Sir—imbibed whiskey! No harm in good whiskey—excellent thing, good whiskey! But injuriverius—should say, injurious—if has too much flavour of malt! Your whiskey too much flavour of malt! You took brandy—bad brandy—too much taste of grapes! You took rum—bad rum—too much mo—mo—molasses! Now I took all three—whiskey, brandy, rum, but pure—no by-products. No, not at all. Result! See! Sober as judge!"
And, succumbing to a sudden desire for slumber, the Professor, at this point of his discourse, joined his friends under the table!
CYCLING NOTES.
He. "DO YOU BELONG TO THE PSYCHICAL SOCIETY?" ”

“ There are many thousands of whites who want their whiskey or rum "fiery" above all things; and they want it that way because their sense of smell [576] is not educated to appreciate the higher qualities of liquors—their fragrance, or "bouquet." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whiskey is ethyl alcohol and natural flavor. Brandy is ethyl alcohol and natural flavor. The difference is the difference in flavor. The flavor of genuine whiskey comes from the grain, secondary products—fusel oil—distilled over with the ethyl alcohol and ripened into the flavors of 'rye' and 'Bourbon' whiskey. The new whiskey with its unripened secondary products is like the green peach, unfit for consumption. ”

“ A distiller may at pleasure convert his whiskey into gin. He needs only to perfume the wort which he puts in fermentation, by adding a certain quantity of the berries, slightly broken: the fermentation is then common to both; their sweet mucosity enriches that of the wort, and increases the spirit, while at the same time the soapy extract, which is the proximate principle of vegetation, yields the essential oil, which perfumes the liquor. ”

“ Whiskey is a solution of alcohol in water, mixed with various other principles which impart to it peculiar physical properties. The amount of alcohol which it contains varies from forty-eight to fifty-six per cent. Old whiskey is more highly prized than the more recent product of the still, from the fact that when kept for some years certain volatile oils are generated which, impart to it a mellowness of flavor. ”

“ You and some of your friends have been illicitly making whiskey. You have a distillery somewhere in the mountains, and, while working in the mills during the day, you have taken turns in running the still at night. ”

“ The most usual drink in the United States, is whiskey; other spirituous liquors, such as peach and apple brandy, are only secondary, and from their high price and their scarcity, they are not sufficient for the wants of an already immense and increasing population. ”

“ The bottle of whiskey—a second one—was now in constant demand by all present, excepting Catherine, who "felt just as good on nothing at all." ”

“ The production of whiskey depends upon the simple fact, that when any vinous fluid is boiled, the alcohol being very volatile, evaporates first, and may thereby be separated from the aqueous vegetable infusion in which it took its birth. Sugar is the only substance which can be transformed into alcohol. Whatsoever fruits, seeds, or roots afford juices or extracts capable of conversion into vinous liquor, either contain sugar ready formed, or starch susceptible of acquiring the saccharine state by proper treatment. ”

“ De-natured Alcohol and De-naturing Formulæ
The uses of alcohol are very numerous and varied, the principal being, of course, for the production of all alcoholic liquors such as brandy, gin, rum, whiskey, liquors, etc.; that distilled from grain is almost entirely consumed in the manufacture of whiskey, gin, and British brandy. In the arts, strong alcohol is employed by the perfumers and makers of essences for dissolving essential oils, soaps, etc., and for extracting the odor of flowers and plants ”

“ Take of singlings a sufficient quantity to fill the doubling still, put therein ten or twelve pounds of juniper berries, with one shovel full of ashes, and two ounces alum—put on the bead, and run her off, as is done in making whiskey. This is the common mode of making country gin; but is in this state little superior to whiskey, save as to smell and flavor. ”

“ What is almost entirely overlooked is that there were, as I am informed, very large stocks of whiskey in this country, and it seems to me quite certain that if the brewing of beer were prevented entirely, along with all other drinks, many of them harmless, which are derived from food and food stuffs, the consumption of whiskey would be stimulated and increased to a very considerable extent. ”

“ The principal active agent in all of these remedies was {93} found to be alcohol. In most of them it exists in a proportion about equal to that in which it is supposed to occur in ordinary whiskey. Some of them are even stronger in alcoholic contents than the whiskey usually sold in our large cities. ”

“ I missed me whiskey entirely! Bedad, if I had only had the sense to say 'Nate, yer Holiness,' I'd a had me whiskey sure enough, and never known it warn't all true, instead of a drame." I knew what he wanted, so I poured him out a glass. "Won't it do as well now, Pat?" said I. "Indeed it will, yer honor," says he, "and me drame will come true, after all. I thought it would; for it was mighty nateral at the time, all but the whiskey."
Anonymous. ”

“ Whisky, Whiskey, hwis′ki, n. a spirit made by the distillation of the fermented extract from malted and unmalted cereals, potatoes, or any starch-yielding material—the best qualities made either from malted barley alone, or from a mixed grist of barley-malt and dried barley and oats.—adjs. Whis′kified, Whis′keyfied, intoxicated.—n. Whis′ky-liv′er, cirrhosis of the liver, from too much whisky.—Whisky insurrection, an outbreak against the excise regulations which occurred in Western Pennsylvania in 1794 ”

“ The half-breed chuckled, shook his head sagely, swore half-way through his vocabulary at Whiskey Wine, gratefully received a pipe of tobacco from Shon M'Gann, and continued: “He come in on us slow and still, and push out long thin hands, the fingers bent like claws, towards the pot. ”

“ And this is not all: corroded by the acetous acid, they are full of small holes, particularly in the cap, where all the vapors collect themselves, as in a reservoir. It is easy to conceive with what rapidity they escape, which occasions a considerable waste of liquor. In proof of the truth of this observation, we may refer to the smell of whiskey, so strongly perceivable on the roads leading to a distillery, and preceeding from no other cause than that liquor wasting out of bad vessels, to the great loss of the distiller. ”

“ There are many distilleries in this part of the country, and a great deal of whiskey is made. I am not defending whiskey, at least any that is less than thirty years old and has attained a medicinal quality. But I want to express my opinion that this is as temperate as any region in the United States. There is a wide-spread strict temperance sentiment, and even prohibition prevails to a considerable degree. Whiskey is made and stored, and mostly shipped away; rightly or wrongly, it is regarded as a legitimate business, like wheatraising, and is conducted by honorable men. ”

“ Wine is a fireside and whiskey a conflagration. These lighter drinks are not unhealthful and do not, as I believe, create a craving for stronger beverages. You will, I think, find it almost impossible to enforce the present law against wine and beer. I was told yesterday that there are some sixty places in Cedar Rapids where whiskey is sold. ”

“ Spirits can be distilled from any vegetable matter which will yield alcohol, yet many substances yield only a rasping, nauseous or flavorless liquor, which age does not improve. To some of these products, artificial flavors and color are given and the imitation articles are thus placed on the market. But true whiskey, brandy, etc., have a specific and original flavor of their own, and contain vegetable oils and acids. ”

“ Probably not one out of a thousand gallons of imported wines, sold as pure, contains a drop of the juice of the grape;—they are manufactured of poisonous drugs and ardent spirits—generally common whiskey. ”

“ Although alcohol can be extracted from any substance containing saccharine matter, yet sugar-cane, grapes, apples, peaches, rye, corn, and rice, on account of their abundance, and superior adaptation to the purpose, are more commonly used than any other. As whiskey is the chief article of this kind, manufactured in the United States, it will be selected to illustrate the general principles of distillation. ”

“ The author has always used this recipe in compounding the above beverage for connoisseurs. Whiskey and gin cocktails, in bottles, may be made by using the above recipe, and substituting those liquors instead of brandy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When damaged grain has been mashed in making whiskey, a peculiar oily substance makes its appearance in it. On approaching the nostrils to such whiskey slightly heated, this volatile matter irritates the pituitary membrane and the eyes very powerfully. ”

“ It was just so in the American Revolution, in 1776, the first delicacy the men threw overboard in Boston harbor was the tea, woman's favorite beverage. The tobacco and whiskey, though heavily taxed, they clung to with the tenacity of the devil-fish. ”

“ Whiskey means more to us mountain folks than hit does to folks in town, whar thar’s drug-stores and doctors. Let ary thing go wrong in the fam’ly—fever, or snake bite, or somethin’—and we can’t git a doctor up hyar less’n three days; and it costs scand’lous. The only medicines we-uns has is yerbs, which customarily ain’t no good ’thout a leetle grain o’ whiskey. ”

“ Whiskey claims to itself alone the exclusive office of sot-making. ”

“ “Open the whiskey, Tom,” she ordered, “and I’ll make you a mint julep. Then you won’t seem so stupid to yourself.... Look at the mint!” ”

“ I don’t know whether any of you, gentlemen, ever partook of a real substantial hospitable Scotch breakfast, and then went out to a slight lunch of a bushel of oysters, a dozen or so of bottled ale, and a noggin or two of whiskey to close up with. If you ever did, you will agree with me that it requires a pretty strong head to go out to dinner and supper afterwards. ”

“ As it is demonstrated that the spirit is the more abundant in proportion to the richness of the vinous liquor,* it is therefore necessary to enrich that of the distillery* which is so deficient in that respect. ”

“ Good whisky—ferry good whisky—and flung on the floor as if it was water, and as if there wass no one in the boat that would hef drunk it! But no matter, Mr. Eyre, no matter; the lass will drink whatever you give her, for she’s a good lass; and if we have all to drink champagne, that is no matter, too, but there is a man or two up on deck that would not like to know the whisky was spoiled. ”

“ 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. ”