1872 Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks (Mixellany)

Brandy. 47 by the name Cognac, Jernac, Champagne, &c.; the best is made from the grape named folle blanche, which only yields a poor white wine. In good years, this wine will produce a fifth of spirit at 22° to 23°, but in bad years, nine or ten parts of wine are required to produce one of Brandy. The Brandy distilled from the red grape is inferior to the folle blanche, and does not possess the bouquet of genuine Cognac. Cognac Brandy, as the Brandy of the Charente is called, owes its excellence to the care exercised in fermenting the wine, that it be not impregnated with an acrid oil which is con- tained in the skin of the grape, a drop of which would suffice to deteriorate a large quantity of good Brandy spirit. It is this oil that renders eav, de vie de marc (or Brandy distilled from the lees and refuse of the grape, after wine-making) so un- pleasantly coarse and unpleasant in flavour. The wine-growers in the Brandy districts of Charente carry on the distillation themselves, nearly each vine-land being furnished with stills and the necessary apparatus, and the utmost pains are taken to make the Brandy of the greatest degree of purity. From whatever vine it is obtained, it is at first perfectly colourless, or white Brandy. The best produce of the still is known as eau da