1939 The Gentleman's Companion volume II Beeing an Exotic Drinking Book

THE EXOTIC DRINKING BOOK

out, and aged in wood it starts to be bourbon whisky after not less than four years in the wood of charred oak casks. . . . None of the manufacturers of bourbons should have any right to call any corn whisky "bourbon" until it has aged at least four or five years, but the demand so exceeded supply that all rules were off. As far as corn likker goes we have drunk it &om a fellow quail and turkey shooter's still in the Big Swamp country of Central Florida– made in a copper wash boiler, run through an old shotgun barrel, and a length of iron pipe into a galvanized washtub covered with a cotton blanket; drunk it in the "dry" mountain sections of Nawth C'hlina last summer. We have drunk it straight, with water, with juices, and dis– guises. We have drunk it scalding hot on chill October evenings, with cloves, brown sugar, a~d lemon peel. We've drunk it cold. In spite of hades and elevated water that old cawn bouquet comes shearing through like a rusty can opener to smite us between the eyes. . . . Hot with cloves, and so on is best; drowned in grapefruit juice is about the only cold method possible. ... No matter what, that cawn has a scent of decaying vegetation blended with the fluid men used to put in old ship lanterns; and taken neat it burns with all the restless fires of hell. As you may gather we don't recommend cawn-mentally, morally; or for general wear and tear arrd declined insurance risk, physically. We certainly don't-until after ~t least .five years in charred oak casks. WE ALWAYS have believed that one reason most Americans know noth– ing about wines except champagne, claret, port, and sherry, is due to a practical non-existence of a truly leisured class within our shores. Everyone who doesn't leap out of warm sheets at command of an alarmclock daily, rush through a shave, a hurried breakfast and a dash to an office is.i.;,_for reasons no sane soul has ever been able to explain to us-viewed as not quite Worth While, and lacking the proper attitude toward life. Any young person under fifty who stops work when he has enough worldly wealth to eliminate the daily grind, is ra butt for whispers, raised eyebrows; he is considered not quite Worth While. What we mean is that nothing about wine can be hurried. It takes A FEW NOTES on the CARE & SERVICE of OuR BEST UsuAL WINES, as THEY AFFECT the .AMATEUR

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