Wine bottle

“ Method.—Half fill clean, dry wine bottles with the fruit. Add to each 1 oz of crushed barley sugar, a little noyeau, or 2 or 3 drops of almonds. Fill the bottles with good unsweetened gin, cork them securely, and allow them to remain in a moderately warm place for 3 months. At the end of this time strain the liqueur through fine muslin or filtering paper until quite clear, then bottle it, cork securely and store for use. ”

“ The small key opened a small cupboard, wherein hung upon nails some half-dozen larger keys, one of which was taken down and used to open a larger cupboard, from which Asher Skurge brought forth a well-corked and tied-down bottle.
A cunning, inhospitable old rascal, bringing out his hidden treasures to bib on a winter’s night alone. What was it in the old black bottle? Curaçoa, maraschino, cherry brandy, genuine hollands, potent rum, cognac? Hush! was it smuggled-up remains, or an odd bottle of sacramental wine? ”

“ On every side bottles are reposing in various attitudes, the majority in huge square piles on their sides, others in racks 68 slightly tilted, others, again, almost standing on their heads, while some, which through over-inflation have come to grief, litter the floor and crunch beneath our feet. Tablets are hung against each stack of wine indicating its age, and from time to time a bottle is held up before the light to show us how the sediment commences to form, or explain how it eventually works its way down the neck of the bottle, and finally settles on the cork. ”

“ Every bottle must be first rinsed with wine, for fear of any moisture left in the washing: some, out of a mistaken thrift, will rinse a dozen bottles with the same wine; but I would advise you, for more caution, to change the wine at every second bottle; a gill may be enough. Have bottles ready by to save it; and it will be a good perquisite either to sell, or drink with the cook.
Never draw your hogshead too low; nor tilt it for fear of disturbing your liquor. When it begins to run slow, and before the wine grows cloudy, shake the hogshead, and carry a glass of it to your master ”

“ Those ingenious gentry line the inside of the bottles they intend to fill with their compound called wine, by suffering a saturated hot solution of super-tartrate of potash, coloured red with a decoction of Brazil wood, to crystallize within them. Others of that honest fraternity, who dislike trouble, put a tea-spoon full of the powder of catechu into each bottle, and by this artifice soon produce a fine crusted appearance of “aged wine.” ”

“ The operation of bottling the wine next ensues, when the Scriptural advice not to put new wine into old bottles is rigorously followed. For the tremendous pressure of the gas engendered during the subsequent fermentation of the wine is such that the bottle becomes weakened and can never be safely trusted again. It is because of this pressure that the champagne bottle is one of the strongest made, as indicated by its weight, which is almost a couple of pounds. ”

“ To a bottle of champagne add a wine-glass of Madeira or sherry, a liqueur-glass of Maraschino, two slices of Seville orange-peel, and one slice of lemon-peel. Before drinking, pour in a bottle of seltzer-water, and serve with a sprig of verbena or a very small piece of thinly cut peeling of cucumber. ”

“ Yet such is the dexterity acquired by practice that the average amount of wine, foam, and deposit ejected by this operation does not exceed one-fourteenth of the contents of the bottle. Occasionally a bottle bursts in the dégorgeur’s hand, and his face is sometimes scarred from such explosions. The sediment removed, the dégorgeur slips a temporary cork into the bottle, or places the latter in a machine provided with fixed gutta-percha corks and springs for securing the bottles firmly in their places. ”

“ It was a happy thought which substituted glass for the skin and leather of which earlier bottles were made, for one can now see, by holding it to the light, how little the bottle contains, and order another. The principal fault of bottles is that they are rarely big enough. A half-bottle does not contain sufficient for one, and a whole bottle rarely satisfies two. Some men are so lost to shame as to set only one bottle of wine before three or even four persons. ”

“ A bottle of wine from outside was allowed daily, and a friend had taken advantage of this permission to send me a bottle of excellent hock. The private and I contrived to uncork the bottle with a couple of nails; the bouquet of the wine was perceptible at a distance, and I looked forward to the pleasure of drinking it for some days to come.
224There is nothing like prison life for revealing the childishness in a grown man and the consolation he finds in trifles, from a bottle of wine to a trick played on a turnkey. ”

“ Every process that removes us one step farther from the earth is a distinct loss to the people, and yet we are rapidly coming into the habit of taking all things at [Pg 107] second hand. My objection to the wine of the grape is not so much a question of abstinence as of the fact that I find no particular satisfaction in the shape and texture of a bottle.
If one has a sensitive appreciation of the beauty in form and color and modelling of the common fruits, he will find his interest gradually extending to other products. ”

“ 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. ”

“ British wines have earned their bad name partly through the careless manner in which they are usually prepared, unclean bottles, corks, casks, and vats being commonly used; and partly through the absurdly short space of time allowed to elapse between making and drinking. No wine is fit to drink under two years from the time of its manufacture, and most wines should be kept in bottle much longer than is customary. ”

“ The utmost stretch of our intellectual charity is to allow the old wine to be put in a new bottle, and yet she regrets the absence of the old bottle—she really believes that the bottle is the important thing—that the wine is but a secondary consideration. ”

“ In modern times bottles are usually made of glass (q.v.) , or occasionally of earthenware. The glass bottle industry has attained enormous dimensions, whether for wine, beer, &c., or mineral waters; and labour-saving machinery for filling the bottles has been introduced, as well as for corking or stoppering, for labelling and for washing them.
BOTTLE-BRUSH PLANTS, a genus of Australian plants, known botanically as Callistemon, and belongiug to the myrtle family (Myrtaceae) . They take their name from the resemblance of the head of flowers to a bottle-brush. ”

“ If the bottom is lower than the neck, the cork will not be kept wet, and the wine is liable to be injured by the air, as the cork is not perfectly air-tight. The bottles should be supported at two points, the neck and the bottom; the belly of the bottle needs no support. If two tiers of bottles are put in a pile, the bottoms are on the outside, with the necks at the middle of the pile. Laths are used to support the bottles, about three-eighths of an inch thick, and one inch or more wide. ”

“ By this time the fermentation is over; but in the interval, commencing from a few days after the bottling of the wine, a loose dark-brown sediment has been forming, which has now settled on the lower side of the bottle, and to get rid of which is a delicate and tedious task. As the time approaches for preparing the wine for shipment, the bottles are placed sur pointe, as it is termed—that is to say, slantingly in racks with their necks downwards, the inclination being increased from time to time to one more abrupt. ”

“ Those that sell by retail the oil and wine from their estates have painted over this niche “Vino é Olio.” The empty bottle, with the money, having been passed through, it reappears shortly after full. The windows of the first range are generally 10 feet from the ground, and are grated and barred like those of a prison. Under the eaves runs a deep cornice with bold projecting soffits. ”

“ That you may know however, for the future, whether Champaigne or any other wine is so adulterated, I will give you an infallible method to prove:—fill a small long-necked bottle with the wine you would prove, and invert the neck of it into a tumbler of clear water; if the wine be genuine, it will all remain in the bottle; if adulterated, with sugar, honey, or any other sweet substance, the sweets will all pass into the tumbler of water, and leave the genuine wine behind. ”

“ To restore wines to their right condition many persons adopt such rough means as plunging the bottle in a bucket of hot water or putting it in front of the fire in the fender, proceedings which have the double effect of warming the wine and utterly spoiling it. The proper way to set to work is to bring up the day before or in the morning all the wine that is wanted for one day, and to place the bottles standing in a room in which there is a fire, but nowhere near the fire; the wine will then gradually recover its proper temperature and tone and be fit to drink. ”

“ If wine is to withdraw its most poetic countenance, the sun of the white dinner-cloth, a deity to be invoked by two or three, all fervent, hushing their talk, degusting tenderly, and storing reminiscences—for a bottle of good wine, like a good act, shines ever in the retrospect—if wine is to desert us, go thy ways, old Jack! ”

“ Glass-bottles are better for cyder than those of any other substance.
Dr. Percival censures the common practice of cleansing wine-bottles with shot; for if, through inattention, any of it should remain, when the bottles are again filled with wine, the metal will be dissolved, and the liquor impregnated with its deleterious qualities. ”

“ This bottle's the sun of our table,
His beams are rosy wine
We, planets, that are not able
Without his help to shine. ”

“ I drank a bottle of wine for company. It was a Château Margaux. It was pleasant to be drinking slowly and to be tasting the wine and to be drinking alone. A bottle of wine was good company. ”

“ and when he was gone by the crowd swarmed together and followed him at a distance, talking excitedly and asking questions and finding out the facts. Finding out the facts and passing them on to others, with improvements—improvements which soon enlarged the bowl of wine to a barrel, and made the one bottle hold it all and yet remain empty to the last. ”

“ It must be added however that, thanks to his constant habit of shaking the bottle in which life handed him the wine of experience, he presently found the taste of the lees rising as usual into his draught. ”

“ By insisting on having your bottle pointing to the north when the cork is being drawn, and calling the waiter Max, you may induce an impression on your guests which hours of laboured boasting might be powerless to achieve. For this purpose, however, the guests must be chosen as carefully as the wine. ”

“ They drank the bottle of wine while a faint wind rocked the pine needles and the sensuous heat of early afternoon made blinding freckles on the checkered luncheon cloth. ”

“ It was no great gift, for there was mighty little wine left; but Signor Cavalletto, jumping to his feet, received the bottle gratefully, turned it upside down at his mouth, and smacked his lips. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Extensive as these premises are they are still insufficient for the requirements of the firm, and across the road is a spacious building where new bottles are stored and the washing of the bottles in preparation for the tirage takes place. By the aid of the machinery provided, sixteen women, assisted by a couple of men, commonly wash some fifteen or sixteen thousand bottles in the course of a day. Here, too, stands one of the two large presses with which at the epoch of the vintage a hundred pièces of wine are pressed every four-and-twenty hours. ”

“ All the arrangements at this establishment are very complete. There is a place for everything, and everything is to be found in its place. Adjoining the courtyard, where new bottles are stacked beneath open ornamental sheds, are the tasting-room and the apartment where the operations of disgorging, dosing, and re-corking are performed. The liqueur added by the firm to their sparkling wines is kept in bottle from three to five years before being used. ”

“ All that is necessary is to wind a piece of thick string round the neck of the bottle, get an assistant to hold one end, and then work the bottle to and fro. The glass of the neck will become so warm as to expand, and the stopper will become loosened. ”