1892 Drinks of the world

DRINKS.

1 64

eau de vie In which had been macerated certain herbs and aromatic spices to give It taste and colour ; after- wards minute portions of metalHc gold were added. The ingredients mentioned by Arnold de Villeneuve are rosemary flowers, from which, he says, the water obtains its golden colour, cinnamon, grains of paradise, cloves, cubebs, liquorice, and the like. In the mind of the middle ages, gold was held to be a remedy for every ill. Many people applied themselves to the task of dissolving this metal and rendering it potable. It was put into drinks, baths, the time abounds in elixirs of gold, tinctures of gold, drops of gold, and so on. To please the public eye, those pieces of the precious metal were cast into the com- position which we now know as Eau de vie de Dant^ zig. Catherine de Medicis brought into France all the voluptuous discoveries and superfluities of Italy, and helped to augment considerably the number of new liqueurs and to popularize their usage. Henry II. was especially fond of the anisette of Marie Brizard of Bordeaux. Sully, in 1604, examining the objects of luxury In France, found Populo and Rossolio to have the chief share in the public estimation and expendi- Of them Populo is mentioned in the Letters of wine, water, sugar, musk, amber, essence of anise, and es- sence of cinnamon. B-Ossolis, our Rossolio, or Rossoli, said to be derived, pills, and the pharmacopeia of ture. Gui-Patin.-^ It was composed of spirits of

•victuals,

Gui-Patin Let Ires ^

1

ii. 425.