1827 Wine and spirit adulterators unmasked

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which it is expedient, that every one should be made acquainted. Many people imagine that, by pur- chasing" Wines, (no matter of whom,) so long as they are in docks, where there is no opportunity for adulteration, they must necessarily be of good quality. This is by no means the case, and I firmly believe, several persons have found it so to their cost; because, it often happens, with the description of Wines, for which such low prices are quoted, that the quality, even of such as are made up, and manufactured of spurious ingredients at home, is superior in body and taste. At the time the last reduction in the duties took some hundreds of pipes of Wine, lying in the London Docks, and never considered of value sufficient, to pay the then rate of duty, viz. 64/. per were immediately bought np by interested individuals, for a purpose by no means difficult to understand. The characters of some of these Wines, were such, as to hold out the presumption, that if they were moved, and the lees disturbed in them, their transit to something of the nature of vinegar, would be extremely rapid ; others con- sisted of nothing more than a compound of thin meagre flavorless Wine, with a large portion of bad Brandy, the whole, however, to be purchased for a very few pounds, and of parties glad to get rid of them on any terms. Lately, and only since the dis- turbances have taken place in Portugal, a vast quan- place, pipe,