1903 The Flowing Bowl by Edward Spencer

A SPIRITUOUS DISCOURSE 8i takes its trade colour, and, to a certain extent, flavour, from the sherry-casks in which it is matured. It is also coloured by the direct addi tion of caramel (burnt sugar), or a maturing wine. In America, Rye or Bourbon whisky is made from wheat or maize grown in the Bourbon country, Kentucky, and some of it would kill at forty yards. The chief distillery states on the other side of the Atlantic are Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, NewYork, and Pennsylvania. At the Cape, and throughout South Africa, there is decent whisky procurable, as also a pernicious compound known as " Square-face " or "Cape smoke," and in much favour with the dusky races of the country. On the Congo, palm-wine —similar to the fermented toddy of the East Indies—was for centuries the only livener, but with the march of civilization have come the whiskies of Great Britain, more or less adulter ated j and whereas in the past death by the sword, or the club, was the only known punish ment for the subjects of the native tyrants who are so fond of thinning out the population, a well-fuselled whisky is now freely employed for the same purpose. Although whisky is now freely partaken of all over GreatBritain, it was comparatively speak ing despised in England until the first half of the present century had slipped by. This fact is apparent from a perusal of contemporary litera ture. And in no country has " malt" had such a rise in public estimation as in the greatcontinent of Hindustan, where "John Exshaw " and "John

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