1930 The Savoy Cocktail Book

brat who was so privileged. To accompany my modest provisions on my return to school—a cutlet, the drumstick of a chicken, or one of those hard cheeses that are matured beneath wood-cinders and which one breaks into splinters with a blow from one's fist like a pane of glass—I had Chateau-Larose, Chateau-Lafite, Chambertin and Gorton wh^h had escaped the Prussians in 1870. Certain of the wines had perished, and were pale and smelt faintly of dead roses ; they rested in a bed of tannin which dyed the bottles deeply ; but most of them kept their fine fire, strength and vigour. What delightful times those were ! I drained the cream of the paternal cellar, glass by glass, delicately .... My mother recorked the opened bottles and contemplated the glory of the French vintages on my colouring cheeks. How lucky are the children who do not distend their stomachs with great draughts of artificially reddened wine at meals ! How well advised are the parents who dole out to their offspring an inch of pure wine—meaning " pure " in the highest sense of the word—and teach them that ; " When it is not meal time, you have the pump, the tap, the springs and filters. Water is for thirst. Wine is, according to its quality and its flavour, a necessary tonic, a luxury or a tribute paid to food." Is it not also nourishment ? What lovely times those were when the natives of my village in Lower Burgundy would gather around a bottle clad in dust and silky cobwebs and kiss their fingers in the air to it, exclaiming—even before tasting it—" Nectar ! " Do you not admit, then, that in telling you about wine here I am speaking about what I know ? It is not a

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