ON WINE AND SPIRITS.
George and Harry, accompanied by their tutor, went one day to pay a visit to a neighbouring gentleman, their father’s friend. They were very kindly received, and shown all about the gardens and pleasure-grounds; but nothing took their fancy so much as an extensive grapery, hung round with bunches of various kinds fully ripe, and almost too big for the vines to support. They were liberally treated with the fruit, and carried away some bunches to eat as they walked. During their return, as they were picking their grapes, George said to the tutor, “A thought is just come into my head, sir. Wine, you know is called the juice of the grape; but wine is hot, and intoxicates people that drink much of it. Now we have had a good deal of grape-juice this morning, and yet I do not feel heated, nor does it seem at all to have got into our heads. What is the reason of this?”
Tut.The reason is, that grape-juice is not wine, though wine is made from it.
Geo.Pray how is it made, then?
Tut.I will tell you; for it is a matter worth knowing. The juice pressed from the grapes, calledmust, is at first a sweet watery liquor, with a little tartness, but with no strength or spirit. After it has stood awhile, it begins to grow thick and muddy, it moves up and down, and throws scum and bubbles of air to the surface. This is calledworkingorfermenting. It continues in this state for some time, more or less, according to the quantity of the juice and the temperature of the weather,and then gradually settles again, becoming clearer than at first. It has now lost its sweet flat taste, and acquired a briskness and pungency, with a heating and intoxicating property; that is, it has becomewine. This natural process is called thevinous fermentation, and many liquors besides grape-juice are capable of undergoing it.
Geo.I have heard of the working of beer and ale. Is that of the same kind?
Tut.It is: and beer and ale may properly be called barley-wine; for you know they are clear, brisk, and intoxicating. In the same manner, cider is apple-wine, and mead is honey-wine; and you have heard of raisin-wine and currant-wine, and a great many others.
Har.Yes, there is elder-wine, and cowslip-wine and orange-wine.
Geo.Will everything of that sort make wine?
Tut.All vegetable juices that are sweet are capable of fermenting, and of producing a liquor of a vinous nature; but if they have little sweetness, the liquor is proportionally weak and poor, and is apt to become sour or vapid.
Har.But barley is not sweet.
Tut.Barley as it comes from the ear is not; but before it is used for brewing, it is made intomalt, and then it is sensibly sweet. You know what malt is?
Har.I have seen heaps of it in the malt-house, but I do not know how it is made.
Tut.Barley is made malt by putting it in heaps and wetting it, when it becomes hot, and swells, and would sprout out just as if it were sown, unless it were then dried in a kiln. By this operation it acquires a sweet taste. You have drunk sweet-wort?
Har.Yes.
Tut.Well, this is made by steeping malt in hot water. The water extracts and dissolves all the sweet or sugary part of the malt. It then becomes like a naturally sweet juice.
Geo.Would not sugar and water then make wine?
Tut.It would; and the wines made in England of our common fruits and flowers have all a good deal of sugar in them. Cowslip flowers, for example, give little more than the flavour to the wine named from them, and it is the sugar added to them which properly makes the wine.
Geo.But none of these wines are so good as grape-wine?
Tut.No. The grape, from the richness and abundance of its juice, isthe fruit universally preferred for making wine, where it comes to perfection, which it seldom does in our climate, except by means of artificial heat.
Geo.I suppose, then, grapes are finest in the hottest countries?
Tut.Not so, neither; they are properly a fruit of the temperate zone, and do not grow well between the tropics. And in very hot countries it is scarcely possible to make wines of any kind to keep, for they ferment so strongly as to turn sour almost immediately.
Geo.I think I have read of palm-wine on the coast of Guinea.
Tut.Yes. A sweet juice flows abundantly from incisions in certain species of the palm; which ferments immediately, and makes a very pleasant sort of weak wine. But it must be drunk the same day it is made, for on the next it is as sour as vinegar.
Geo.What is vinegar—is it not sour wine?
Tut.Everything that makes wine will make vinegar also; and the stronger the wine the stronger the vinegar. The vinous fermentation must be first brought on, but it need not produce perfect wine, for when the intention is to make vinegar, the liquor is kept still warm, and it goes on without stopping to another kind of fermentation, called theacetous, the product of which is vinegar.
Geo.I have heard of alegar. I suppose that is vinegar made of ale.
Tut.It is—but as ale is not so strong as wine, the vinegar made from it is not so sharp or perfect. But housewives make good vinegar with sugar and water.
Har.Will vinegar make people drunk if they take too much of it?
Tut.No: the wine loses its intoxicating quality as well as its taste on turning to vinegar.
Geo.What are spirituous liquors—have they not something to do with wine?
Tut.Yes: they consist of the spirituous or intoxicating part of wine separated from the rest. You may remember that, on talking of distillation, I told you that it was the raising of a liquor in steam or vapour, and condensing it again; and that some liquors were more easily turned to vapour than others, and were therefore called more volatile or evaporable. Now, wine is a mixed or compound liquor, of which the greater part is water; but what heats and intoxicates isvinous spirit. This spirit being much more volatile than water, on the application of a gentle heat, flies off in vapour, and may be collected by itself in distilling vessels;—and thus are made spirituous liquors.
Geo.Will everything that you called wine yield spirits?
Tut.Yes: everything that has undergone the vinous fermentation. Thus, in England a great deal of malt spirit is made from a kind of wort brought into fermentation, and then set directly to distil, without first making ale or beer of it. Gin is a spirituous liquor also got from corn, and flavoured with juniper berries. Even potatoes, carrots, and turnips, may be made to afford spirits, by first fermenting their juices. In the West Indies, rum is distilled from the dregs of the sugarcanes, washed out by water and fermented. But brandy is distilled from the fermented juice of the grape, and is made in the wine countries.
Geo.Is spirit of wine different from spirituous liquors?
Tut.It is the strongest part of them got by distilling over again; for all these still contain a good deal of water, along with a pure spirit, which may be separated by a gentler heat than was used at first. But in order to procure this as strong and pure as possible, it must be distilled several times over, always leaving some of the watery part behind. When perfectly pure, it is the same, whatever spirituous liquor it is got from.
Har.My mamma has little bottles of lavender water. What is that?
Tut.It is a spirit of wine flavoured with lavender flowers; and it may in like manner be flavoured with many other fragrant things, since their odoriferous part is volatile, and will rise in vapour along with the spirit.
Har.Will not spirit of wine burn violently?
Geo.That it will, I can tell you: and so will rum and brandy; for you know it was set on fire when we made snap-dragon.
Tut.All spirituous liquors are highly inflammable, and the more so the purer they are. One way of trying the purity of spirit is to see if it will burn all away without leaving any moisture behind. Then it is much lighter than water, and that affords another way of judging of its strength. A hollow ivory ball is set to swim in it; and the deeper it sinks down, the lighter, and therefore the more spirituous, is the liquor.
Geo.I have heard much of the mischief done by spirituous liquors—pray what good do they do?
Tut.The use and abuse of wine and spirits is a very copious subject; and there is scarcely any gift of human art, the general effects of which are more dubious. You know what wine is said to be given for in the Bible?
Geo.To make glad the heart of man.
Tut.Right. And nothing has such an immediate effect in inspiringvigour of body and mind as wine. It banishes sorrow and care, recruits from fatigue, enlivens the fancy, inflames the courage, and performs a hundred fine things, of which I could bring you abundant proof from the poets. The physicians, too, speak almost as much in its favour, both in diet and medicine. But its really good effects are only when used in moderation; and it unfortunately is one of those things which man can hardly be brought to use moderately. Excess in wine brings on effects the very contrary to its benefits. It stupifies and enfeebles the mind, and fills the body with incurable diseases. And this it does even when used without intoxication. But a drunken man loses for the time every distinction of a reasonable creature, and becomes worse than a brute beast. On this account Mahomet entirely forbade its use to his followers, and to this day it is not publicly drunk in any of the countries that receive the Mohammedan religion.
Har.Was not that right?
Tut.I think not. If we were entirely to renounce every thing that may be misused, we should have scarce any enjoyments left; and it is a proper exercise of our strength of mind to use good things with moderation, when we have it in our power to do otherwise.
Geo.But spirituous liquors are not good at all, are they?
Tut.They have so little good and so much bad in them, that I confess I wish their common use could be abolished altogether. They are generally taken by the lowest class of people for the express purpose of intoxication; and they are much sooner prejudicial to the health than wine, and, indeed, when drunk unmixed, are no better than slow poison.
Geo.Spirit of wine is useful, though, for several things—is it not?
Tut.Yes; and I would have all spirits kept in the hands of chymists and artists who know how to employ them usefully. Spirits of wine will dissolve many things that water will not. Apothecaries use them in drawing tinctures, and artists in preparing colours and making varnishes. They are likewise very powerful preservatives from corruption. You may have seen serpents and insects brought from abroad in vials full of spirits.
Geo.I have.
Har.And I know of another use of spirits.
Tut.What, is that?
Har.To burn in lamps. My grandmamma has a teakettle with a lamp under it to keep the water hot, and she burns spirits in it.
Tut.So she does. Well—so much for the use of these liquors.
Geo.But you have said nothing about ale and beer. Are they wholesome?
Tut.Yes, in moderation. But they are sadly abused too, and rob many men of their health as well as their money and senses.
Geo.Small beer does no harm, however.
Tut.No—and we will indulge in a good draught of it when we get home.
Har.I like water better.
Tut.Then drink it by all means. He that is satisfied with water has one want the less, and may defy thirst, in this country, at least.
The Trial, p.172.EVENING XIV.
The Trial, p.172.EVENING XIV.
The Trial, p.172.EVENING XIV.