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

THE GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION

Sip, twirl the tongue, and enjoy each succeeding nuance of taste as it strikes the taste buds, palate, and rebounds through a renewed sense of smell from the posterior section of the nasal cavity. Then swallow, and catch the final after-taste. Americans can't get used to having restaurants put bottles away for clients to call on later. Some wines, of course, do not keep for more than a few hours after being opened, but most regular patrons of any given spot have their bottles labelled, corked tightly, and properly cared for until their next visit. For this reason, and possible Scotch in– stincts through not wishing a waiter to get an unused half bottle, Americans gulp all their wine to the last drop-thereby not only drinking too fast but surfeiting themselves with so much vinous fluid that true appreciation, after the first brief introduction, is impossible. WORDS to the DRINKING WISE No. XX, on the OPENING of GLASS STOPPERS of DECANTERS if and when STUCK Dr. Kitchiner, 1823 "With a feather rub a drop or two of salad oil around the stopper, close to the mouth of the Decanter, which must then be placed before the fire . . . not too close . . . the heat will cause the oil to insinuate itself between stopper and Neck. "When Bottle or Decanter has grown warm, gently strike the Stopper on one side, and then the other, with any light wooden instru– ment; then try it with the Hand; if it will not yet move, place again be– fore the fire, adding another drop of oil. After a while strike again as before. . . . However tightly it may be fastened in, you will at length succeed in loosening it." This is a sound bit of advice, for we remember the sad experience of breaking a specially fine cut crystal decanter stopper in a brandy decanter we'd just picked up in London. The sweetness of the spirit had sealed the stopper in tight as glue, and we were impatient.... The quickest modern way is to put the outer neck of the decanter un– der quite hot water from the spiggot; tap stopper lightly with some– thing made of wood-anything not metal, and a twist of the wrist will usually loosen it-the heat having expanded the neck to a size larger than the still chilled glass stopper.

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