1903 The Flowing Bowl by Edward Spencer

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CHAPTER VII

A SPIRITUOUS DISCOURSE

What is brandy?—See that you get it—Potato-spirit from the Fatherland—The phylloxera and her ravages—Cognac oil Natural history of the vine-louse—"Spoofing" the Yanks —Properties of Argol—Brandy from sawdust—Desiccated window-sills—Enormous boom in whisky—Dewar and the trade—Water famine—The serpent Alcohol—Some figures —France the drunken nation, not Britain—Taxing of distilleries—Uisge heatha—Fusel oil—Rye whisky Palm wine—John Exshaw knocked out by John Barleycorn. "What is a pound ?" was a favourite query of the great Sir Robert Peel. " What is brandy ?" is a question asked now and then; and the answer thereto should be an ambiguous one. Brandy is supposed, by good easy people who trouble not to enquire too closely into the com position of their daily food, to be a liquid obtained by distilling the fermented juice of the grape. The red wines are preferable, although in the seventeenth century the best French brandy was made entirely from white ones. The original distillation is clear and colourless, but when placed in casks the liquid dissolves out the colouring matter of the wood, brown sugar and other pigments being also added.