Part 7

Although the Still-room was serviceable for medicinal purposes, yet, as we have seen, there were many comforting drinks made, including _Vsquebath, or Irish aqua vitæ_ (a recipe for which we will give in its proper place), and doubtless this contributed much towards the tippling habit of some ladies in the 17th and 18th centuries. We hear somewhat of this in the reign of good Queen Anne (who, by the bye, was irreverently termed “Brandy-faced Nan”), when they used to make, and drink, _Ratifia of Apricocks_, _Fenouillette of Rhé_, _Millefleurs_, _Orangiat_, _Burgamot_, _Pesicot_, and _Citron Water_, etc., etc., numerous allusions to which are made in the pages of “The Spectator,” and other literature of the times. Edward Ward, who had no objection to call a spade, a spade, thus plainly speaks out.[60]

“It would make a Man smile to behold her Figure in a front Box, where her twinkling Eyes, by her Afternoon’s Drams of Ratifee and cold Tea, sparkle more than her Pendants.... Her closet is always as well stor’d with Juleps, Restoratives, and Strong Waters, as an Apothecary’s Shop, or a Distiller’s Laboratory; and is, herself, so notable a Housewife in the Art of preparing them, that she has a larger Collection of Chemical Receipts than a Dutch Mountebank.... As soon as she rises, she must have a Salutary Dram to keep her Stomach from the Cholick; a Whet before she eats, to procure Appetite; after eating, a plentiful Dose for Concoction; and to be sure a Bottle of Brandy under her Bed side for fear of fainting in the Night.”

There is no necessity to multiply instances of the feminine liking for brandy, for everyone finds numerous examples in his reading, from Juliet’s nurse,[61] who, after Tybalt’s death, says, “Give me some _aqua vitæ_,” to old Lady Clermont, of whom Grantley Berkeley tells the following story[62]:—

“Prominent among my earliest Brighton reminiscences are those of old Lady Clermont, who was a frequent guest at the Pavilion. Her physician had recommended a moderate use of stimulants, to supply that energy which was deficient in her system, and brandy had been suggested in a prescribed quantity, to be mixed with her tea. I remember well having my curiosity excited by this, to me, novel form of taking medicine, and holding on by the back of a chair to watch the _modus operandi_. Very much to my astonishment, the patient held a liqueur bottle over a cup of tea, and began to pour out its contents, with a peculiar purblind look, upon the _back_ of a teaspoon. Presently, she seemed suddenly to become aware of what she was about, turned up the spoon the right way, and carefully measured, and added the quantity to which she had been restricted. The Tea, so strongly ‘laced,’ she now drank with great apparent gusto.”

We derive our name of Brandy from the Dutch _brand-wijn_, or the German brannt-wein, that is, _burnt_ or distilled _wine_; and in the 17th and 18th centuries it was generally spelt, and spoken of as brandy wine. But, also, in those centuries was it known by the name of “Nantz,” from the town (Nantes, the capital of the Loire Inferieure) whence it came. But this name was changed early last century, when the trade left Nantes, and got into the Charente district, of which Cognac was the centre; so what used to be “right good Nantz” of the old smuggling days, turned into the delicate, many-starred “Cognac” of our times.

It was an eminently respectable spirit. Whiskey was practically unknown out of Scotland and Ireland. Gin was the drink of the common people, and rum was considered only fit for sailors. Even Dr. Johnson, though so fond of his tea, was also fond of brandy, as Boswell chronicles of him, when in his 70th year: “On Wednesday, April 7, I dined with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s. Johnson harangued upon the qualities of different liquors; and spoke with great contempt of claret, as so weak, that ‘a man would be drowned by it, before it made him drunk.’ He was persuaded to drink one glass of it, that he might judge, not from recollection, which might be dim, but from immediate sensation. He shook his head, and said, ‘Poor stuff! No, sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero’ (smiling) ‘must drink brandy. In the first place the flavour of brandy is the most grateful to the palate, and then brandy will do soonest for a man what drinking _can_ do for him. There are, indeed, few who are able to drink brandy. That is a power rather to be wished for than attained.’”

And two years later on he gives another illustration of the doctor’s liking for strong potations. “Mr. Eliot mentioned a curious liquor peculiar to his country, which the Cornish fishermen drink. They call it _Mahogany_; and it is made of two parts gin and one part treacle, well beaten together. I begged to have some of it made, which was done with proper skill by Mr. Eliot. I thought it very good liquor, and said it was a counterpart of what is called _Athol porridge_[63] in the Highlands of Scotland, which is a mixture of whiskey and honey. Johnson said ‘That must be a better liquor than the Cornish, for both its component parts are better.’ He also observed, ‘_Mahogany_ must be a modern name; for it is not long since the wood called mahogany was known in this country. I mentioned his scale of liquors: Claret for boys—port for men—brandy for heroes. ‘Then,’ said Mr. Burke, ‘let me have claret; I love to be a boy; to have the careless gaiety of boyish days,’ Johnson: ‘I should drink claret too, if it would give me that; but it does not; it neither makes boys men, nor men boys. You’ll be drowned in it before it has any effect upon you.’”

But it was the spirit always drunk by gentlemen until well on in this century, as we see by Mr. Pickwick, whose constant resource in all cases of difficulty, was a glass of brandy. Pale brandy was not so much drank as brown, which is now only taken, when very old, as a liqueur, although a brown brandy of very dubious quality is to be met with in some country public houses. Brandy, like every other spirit, developes its ethers with age, gets mellower, and of exquisite flavour; and its popularity would undoubtedly be revived if the drinker were only sure he could get such brandy as the many starred brands of Hennessy and Martell, instead of that awful substitute so often given—British brandy, made of raw potato spirit.

The soil of the Charente slope is particularly adapted to the growth of the vine, although, as in all vine-growing countries some districts, and even small patches of land, produce finer wine than others. The grapes are white, not much larger than good-sized currants, and the vines seldom bear fruit until four or five years from their planting, and are most vigorous at the age of from ten to thirty. Many bear well up to fifty and seventy, and some are fruitful at one hundred years or more.

As a rule, the large firms do not distil the brandy they sell, but leave that operation to the small farmers round about, and then blend their products; as, to produce the quantity they sell, enormous distilling space would be necessary, wine only producing one-eighth or one-tenth of alcohol to its bulk. The farmer’s distillery is very primitive; merely a simple boiler with a head or receiver, and a worm surrounded with cold water. There are generally two of these stills at work, and when once the farmer commences making his brandy, he keeps on day and night, bivouacking near the stills, until he has converted all his wine into crude spirit, as colourless as water, which he carts off, just as it is, to the brandy factory for sale. There it is tasted, measured, and put into new casks of oak, hooped round with chestnut wood. These casks are branded with the date, together with the quality and place of growth of the wine from which the brandy was distilled, and they remain some time in stock before their contents are blended in the proportions which the firm deem suitable.

This new spirit is housed on a floor over large vats, which are filled from selected casks, the spirit being filtered through flannel discs on its way. This mixes the various growths pretty well, but the spirit is run into other vats, being forced through filters of a peculiar kind of paper, almost like paste-board. When it gets to the second series of vats, it is kept well stirred, to prevent the heavier spirit sinking to the bottom. It is then drawn off into casks, which are bunged up, and stored for several years that the brandy may mature, and that the fusel oil may develope into the ethyls, which give such flavour and fragrance to the brandy.

Perhaps the oldest house in the Cognac district is Hennessy’s, but it would be invidious to say that their brandy was superior either to Martell’s, Otard and Dupuy’s, the Société Vignicole, Courvoisier, or many other firms. That must be left to individual taste. But from these firms we can rely on having pure unadulterated brandies, the pure product of the vine, without any admixture of grain or beet spirit. At one time, adulteration was rife among the farmers, but in 1857 and 1858 several of them were prosecuted, and they are now credited with having abjured their evil ways.

J. A.

GIN.

Massinger’s _Duke of Milan_—Pope’s _Epilogue to Satires_—The _Dunciad_—William III.—Lord Hervey—Sir R. Walpole—The Fall of Madame Geneva—Hogarth’s Gin Lane—Schiedam Adulteration—Gin Sling—Captain Dudley Bradstreet—Tom and Jerry Hawthorn.

Gin is an alcoholic drink distilled from malt or from unmalted barley or other grain, and afterwards rectified and flavoured. The word is French, _genièvre_, juniper, corrupted into _Geneva_, and subsequently into its present form. It is to the berries of the juniper that the best Hollands owes its flavour.

Perhaps one of the earliest allusions to gin is in Massinger’s _Duke of Milan_ (1623), Act I., scene i., when Graccho, a creature of Mariana, says to the courtier Julio, of a chance drunkard,

“Bid him sleep; ’Tis a sign he has ta’en his liquor, and if you meet An officer preaching of sobriety, Unless he read it in Geneva print, Lay him by the heels.”

In this extract the word is played upon, Geneva suggesting both the habit of spirit-drinking and Calvinistic doctrine.

When Pope wrote, the corrupted word “Gin” had become common. In the _Epilogue to the Satires_, I. 130.

“Vice thus abused, demands a nation’s care; This calls the Church to deprecate our sin, And hurls the thunder of our laws on gin.”

Pope has added a note to this passage, to the effect that gin had almost destroyed the lowest rank of the people before it was restrained by Parliament in 1736.

Another early allusion to Geneva is to be found in _Carmina Quadragesimalia_, Oxford, 1723, vol. i., p. 7, in a copy of verses contributed by Salusbury Cade, elected from Westminster to Ch. Ch. in 1714.

The thesis of which Salusbury Cade maintained the affirmative, is whether life consists in heat, or in the original _An vita consistat in calore?_

“Dum tremula hyberno Dipsas superimminet igni Et dextra cyathum sustinet, ore tubum, Alternis vicibus fumos hauritque, bibitque, Quam dat arundo sitim grata Geneva levat. Languenti hic ingens stomacho est fultura, nec alvus Nunc Hypochondriacis flatibus ægra tumet. Liberior fluit in tepido nunc corpore sanguis, Hinc nova vis membris et novus inde calor. Si quando audieris vetulam hanc periisse: Genevæ Dicas ampullam non renovasse suam.”

Which being Englished, is

“Dipsas, who shivers by her wintry fire, While her pipe’s smoke ascends in spire on spire, Alternate puffs and drinks—Geneva lays That thirst the weed is wont in her to raise. With this her belly propped, its pain expels; Intestine wind no more her stomach swells; A freer blood runs leaping through her frame, New heat, new strength recalls the ancient game. And should you hear she’s dead, the cause you’ll know Was that Geneva in her jug ran low.”

In the _Dunciad_, which Pope wrote in 1726 (book iii., l. 143), we read,—

“A second see, by meeker manners known, And modest as the maid that sips alone; From the strong fate of drams if thou get free, Another D’Urfey, Ward! shall sing in thee! Thee shall each ale-house, thee each gill-house[64] mourn, And answering gin-shops sourer sighs return.”

An early allusion to Geneva is in a poem by Alexander Blunt, Distiller, 8vo, 1729, price 6_d._, called “Geneva,” addressed to the Right Honourable Sir R⸺ W⸺. It commences,

“Thy virtues, O Geneva! yet unsung By ancient or by modern bard, the muse In verse sublime shall celebrate. And thou O W⸺ statesman most profound! vouchsafe To lend a gracious ear: for fame reports That thou with zeal assiduous dost attempt Superior to _Canary_ or _Champaigne_ Geneva salutiferous to enhance; To rescue it from hand of porter vile, And basket woman, and to the bouffet Of lady delicate and courtier grand Exalt it; well from thee may it assume The glorious modern name of _royal_ BOB!”

Though “Brandy cognac, Jamaica Rum, and costly Arrack” are alluded to, there is no mention of Hollands in the poem, which is a defence of _Geneva_ against _ale_.

In this poem a statement is contained that Geneva was introduced by William III., and that he himself drank it.

“Great Nassau, Immortal name! Britain’s deliverer From slavery, from wooden shoes and chains, Dungeons and fire; attendants on the sway Of tyrants bigotted and zeal accurst, Of holy butchers, prelates insolent, Despotic and bloodthirsty! He who did Expiring liberty revive (who wrought Salvation wondrous!) God-like hero! He It was, who to compleat our happiness With liberty, restored Geneva introduced. O Britons. O my countrymen can you To glorious William now commence ingrates And spurn his ashes? Can you vilify The sovereign cordial he has pointed out, Which by your own misconduct only can Prove detrimental? Martial William drank Geneva, yet no age could ever boast A braver prince than he. Within his breast Glowed every royal virtue! Little sign, O Genius of _malt liquor_! that Geneva Debilitates the limbs and health impairs And mind enervates. Men for learning famed And skill in medicine prescribed it then Frequent in recipe, nor did it want Success to recommend its virtues vast To late posterity.”

In 1736 Lord Hervey, describing the state of England, says: The drunkenness of the common people was so universal by the retailing a liquor called Gin, with which they could get drunk for a groat, that the whole town of London and many towns in the country swarmed with drunken people from morning till night, and were more like a scene of a Bacchanal than the residence of a civil society.

Retailers exhibited placards in their windows, intimating that people might get drunk for the sum of 1_d._ and that clean straw would be provided for customers in the most comfortable of cellars.

On Feb. 20, 1736, in the ninth year of George II., a petition of the Justices of the Peace for Middlesex against the excessive use of spirituous liquors was presented to the House of Commons, setting forth: That the drinking of Geneva and other distilled spirituous liquors had greatly increased, especially among the people of inferior rank, that the constant and excessive use thereof had destroyed thousands of his Majesty’s subjects, debauching their morals, etc., that the “pernicious liquor” was then sold not only by the distillers and Geneva shops, but many other persons of inferior trades, “by which means journeymen, apprentices and servants were drawn in to taste, and by degrees to like, approve, and immoderately to drink thereof,” and that the petitioners therefore prayed that the House would take the premises into their serious consideration, etc. The House having resolved itself into a committee on Feb. 23, Sir Joseph Jekyll moved the following resolutions: (1) That the low price of spirituous liquors is the principal inducement to the excessive and pernicious use thereof. (2) That a discouragement should be given to their use by a duty. (3) That the vending, etc., of such liquors be restrained to persons keeping public brandy-shops, victualling houses, coffee houses, ale houses and inn-holders, and to such apothecaries and surgeons as should make use of the same by way of medicine only; and, (4) That no person keeping a public brandy-shop, etc., should be permitted to vend, etc., such liquors, but by licence with duty payable thereon. These Resolutions were agreed on without debate.

On March 8, Mr. William Pulteney affixed a duty of 20_s._ per gallon on gin, on the grounds of ancient use and sanction, and of its reducing many thousands of families at once to a state of despair.

Sir Robert Walpole had no immediate concern in the laying of this tax on spirituous liquors, but suffered therefrom much unmerited obloquy. The bill was presented by Jekyll from a spirit of philanthropy, which led him to contemplate with horror the progress of vice that marked the popular attachment to this inflammatory poison. The populace showed their disapprobation of this Act in their usual fashion of riot and violence. We are told in Coxe’s Walpole that numerous desperados continued the clandestine sale of gin in defiance of every restriction.

The duty of 20_s._ per gallon was repealed 16 Geo. II., c. 8. On the 28th of September, 1736, it was deemed necessary to send a detachment of sixty soldiers from Kensington to protect the house of Sir Joseph Jekyll, the Master of the Rolls, in Chancery Lane, from the violence threatened by the populace against this eminent lawyer. Two soldiers with their bayonets fixed were planted as sentinels at the little door next Chancery Lane, and the great doors were shut up, the rest of the soldiers kept garrison in the stables in the yard.

This agitation gave rise to many a ballad and broadside, such as the “Fall of Bob,” or the “Oracle of Gin,” a tragedy; and “Desolation, or the Fall of Gin,” a poem.

THE LAMENTABLE FALL OF MADAME GENEVA.—_29 Sept., 1736._[65]

The Woman holds a song to yᵉ tune to yᵉ Children in yᵉ Wood.

“Good lack, good lack, and Well-a-day, That Madame Gin should fall: Superior Powers she must obey. This Act will starve us all.”

The Man has the second part to yᵉ same tune.

“Th’ Afflicted she has caus’d to sing, The Cripple leap and dance; All those who die for love of Gin Go to Heaven in a Trance.”

Underneath are the following verses—

“The Scene appears, and Madame’s Crew In deep Despair, Exposed to view. See Tinkers, Cobblers, and cold Watchmen, With B⸺s and W⸺s as drunk as Dutchmen. All mingling with the Common Throng, Resort to hear her Passing Song.

“Whilst Mirth suppress’d by Parliament, In Sober Sadness all lament, Pursued by Jekyl’s indignation, She’s brought to utter desolation. With Oaths they storm their Monarch’s name, And curse their Hands that form’d the Scheme.

“All Billingsgate their Case Bemoan, And Rag-fair Change in Mourning’s hung; Queen Gin, for whom they’d sacrifice Their Shirts and Smocks, nay, both their Eyes. Rather than She want Contribution, They’d trudge the Streets without their shoes on.”

The following verses on the Gin Act, in 1736, are supposed by John Nichols to be the production of Dr. Johnson.

“Pensilibus fusis cyatho comitata supremo, Terribili fremitu stridula mæret anus. O longum formosa vale mihi vita decusque, Fida comes mensæ fida comesque tori! Eheu quam longo tecum consumerer ævo, Heu quam tristitiæ dulce lenimen eras. Æternum direpta mihi, sed quid moror istis, Stat, fixum est, nequeunt jam revocare preces; I, quoniam sic fata vocant, liceat mihi tantum, Vivere te viva te moriente mori.”

A clever cento from the Latin poets, which may be thus represented in English:—

“... Left with her last glass alone, Thus loud laments her lot, the squeaking crone: Farewell, my life and beauty, thou art sped, Faithful companion of my board and bed! My earthly term fain with thee would I live, Who to my sorrowing heart can’st solace give. Bereft of gin, alas! am I for aye! The Act is passed. ’Tis all in vain to pray. Go where the Fates may call, and know that I Living, with thee would live, and dying, die!”

Hogarth’s Gin Lane was advertised in 1751, with a note that, as its subject was calculated to reform some reigning vices peculiar to the lower class of people, in hopes to render them of more extensive use, the author had published them in the cheapest manner possible. “The cheapest manner possible” was one shilling which in those days was a fairly good price for a print. The following lame and defamatory verse was composed for the occasion by the Rev. James Townley:—

“GIN LANE.

Gin, cursed fiend, with fury fraught, Makes human race a prey; It enters by a deadly draught, And steals our life away. Virtue and Truth, driven to despair, Its rage compels to fly; But cherishes, with hellish care, Theft, murder, perjury. Damned cup, that on the vitals preys, That liquid fire contains; Which madness to the heart conveys, And rolls it through the veins.”

Hogarth tells us that in Gin Lane every circumstance of the horrid effects of gin drinking is brought to view _in terrorem_. Idleness, poverty, misery, and distress, which drives even to madness and death, are the only objects that are to be seen; and not a house in tolerable condition but the pawnbrokers and gin shop. The same moral is taught by Cruikshank, but not before his conversion to teetotalism.

Schiedam is the metropolis of gin, and its numerous distilleries are omnivorous, taking with equal relish cargoes of rye and buckwheat from Russia, and damaged rice or any cereal from other countries, and sometimes also potato spirit from Hamburg.

The distillery of De Kuypers is probably that of the greatest note, and that firm’s black square bottles, packed in cases filled with hemp husks, are known all over the world. In Africa “square face” is king, but he frequently holds some counterfeit liquor, even sometimes the vilest of Cape Smoke.

Schiedam is the Mecca of the Dutchman, the birthplace of his beloved Schnapps. This drink is always acceptable, and fifty good reasons exist for drinking it.

The chief varieties of the aromatised popular spirit called gin are now known as Geneva, Hollands, and Schiedam. It is current in some parts of Africa as a species of coin.

Since, however, every distiller varies his materials and their proportions, the species of this beverage are practically unlimited. Generally, however, the distinction is clear between Hollands or Dutch and English gin. The former is commonly purer than the highly flavoured and too frequently adulterated British product.

The matters employed in the adulteration are very many. Corianders, crushed almond cake, angelica root powdered, liquorice, cardamoms, cassia, cinnamon, grains of paradise, and cayenne pepper, and many more substances take the place of the berries of the juniper tree. As these substances frequently produce a cloudy appearance, the liquid is subsequently refined by other adulterants, such as alum, sulphate of zinc, and acetate of lead.

The variety of gin dear to ancient beldams, which is known as Cordial, is more highly sweetened and aromatized than the ordinary quality.

The alcoholic strength of gin as commonly sold ranges from 22 to 48 degrees. The amount of sugar varies between 2 and 9 per cent.