1960 The U K B G Guide to Drinks (3 rd edition revised)

Part m

SECTION V

BRITISH WINES

The name covers all manner of alcoholic beverages produced in Great Britain, where they are known to the Excise authorities under the name of Sweets, and taxed as such. The oldest British Wines were the Home-made Wines, which,in olden days, were the pride of the still-room in all great, and even modest, households. Home-made Wines, when they were made on a commercial scale, were first offered for sale under the name of English Wines. Both were madefrom the same materials, mostly the fruits, leaves, flowers, seeds and roots of English-grown plants, such as elderberry, apples and pears, cowslips and goose berries ; but also from overseas produce, such as oranges and ginger, which were imported on a commercial scale into England from an early date. All such wines were mostly known under the names of the fruit or plant which formed their basis, but it was not at aU uncommon to call some of them b}'the better-known or better-sounding name ofsomeimported wine which they wereintended to approxi mate. Thus was the Gooseberry Wine called English Champagne, and Elderberry Wine, English Port. At present, however, the name British Wines, although it still covers Home-made Wines and Enghsh Wines,applies chiefly to more modern types of alcoholic beverages made in England on more scientific lines, since the early part of the twentieth century. These, the latest form of British Wines, are made from either grapes, raisins, grape-juice or grape-sugar, imported in various forms—solid, hquid or semi-hquid—to which water is added, then some form of yeast to secure the fermentation of the sugar content of the brew : the resulting alcoholic liquid is then coloured and flavoured to taste with much skill.

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