1872 Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks (Mixellany)

20 Wines. this generous wine. Shakspeare, who no doubt had partaken of some, which Lord Essex brought home from the sacking of Cadiz in 1596, says: "Your Sherries warms the blood, which was before cold and settled, and left the liver white, which is the badge of pusillanimity, but the Sherries makes its course from the inwards to the parts extreme/' The controversy amongst antiquarians and Shak- spearian annotators concerning this wine is thus disposed of by Mr. Ford, who, in speaking of Sherris Sack, says, " The term used by Falstaff, no mean authority on this matter, is the precise ' Seco de Xeres/ the term by which the wine is known to this day in its own country. The epithet seco or dry, the sack of old English authors, and the sec of French ones, being used in contradistinction to the sweet malmseys and muscadels, which are also made of the same grape." The finest and driest sort of Xeres wine is Amontillado; and the peculiarity of its flavour is a mystery of nature that has not been correctly solved. "When the farmer intends making this wine, the grapes are plucked about a fortnight before the general vintage, and the produce kept apart; out of 20 butts, how- ever, it generally happens not above two will have the quality so much desired. Sometimes, as if by