1892 Drinks of the world

LIQUEURS.

I.

— Eichhoff— Gregory of Tours — Scot's Ivanhoe — Monastical Liqueurs — Hydromel

— Liqueur Wines

Derivation of Term — Herb Wines — Montaigne

— Murrey

— Delille

— Arnold de Villeneuve

Catherine de Medicis — Elixir Ratafia. THK word liqueur has been traced by Eichhoff to a Sanskrit root, viz., laks or lauc^ to see, appear. It is now commonly understood of a drink obtained by distillation, a beverage of which alcohol is the base. To the ancients liqueurs appear to have been un- known. The art of distillation on which they depend was not apparently discovered till the middle ages. Fermented wines, of which some description will be found in another part of this book, occupied their place at dinner and dessert Old Falernian when mixed with honey probably bore some near resemblance to what is now understood by liqueur. But this drink was found to have such disastrous effects by way of intoxication that it was forbidden to women to drink of it. Our ancestors, perhaps in imitation of the ancients, composed a sort of liqueur with the must of wine, in

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