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THE EXOTIC DRINKING BOOK
out, and aged in wood it starts to be bourbon whisky after not less than
four years in the wood of charred oak casks. . . .
None of the manufacturers of bourbons should have any right to
call any corn whisky "bourbon" until it has aged at least four or five
years, but the demand so exceeded supply that
all
rules were off.
As far as corn likker goes we have drunk it &om a fellow quail and
turkey shooter's still in the Big Swamp country of Central Florida–
made in a copper wash boiler, run through an old shotgun barrel, and
a length of iron pipe into a galvanized washtub covered with a cotton
blanket; drunk it in the "dry" mountain sections of Nawth C'hlina last
summer. We have drunk it straight, with water, with juices, and dis–
guises. We have drunk it scalding hot on chill October evenings, with
cloves, brown sugar,
a~d
lemon peel. We've
drunk
it cold.
In
spite of hades and elevated water that old cawn bouquet comes
shearing through like a rusty can opener to smite us between the eyes.
. . . Hot with cloves, and so on is best; drowned in grapefruit juice is
about the only cold method possible. ... No matter what, that cawn
has a scent of decaying vegetation blended with the fluid men used to
put in old ship lanterns; and taken neat it burns with all the restless fires
of hell.
As you may gather we don't recommend cawn-mentally, morally; or
for general wear and tear arrd declined insurance risk, physically. We
certainly don't-until after
~t
least .five years in charred oak casks.
A FEW NOTES on the CARE
&
SERVICE of OuR BEST UsuAL
WINES, as THEY AFFECT the .AMATEUR
WE ALWAYS have believed that one reason most Americans know noth–
ing about wines except champagne, claret, port, and sherry, is due to
a practical non-existence of a
truly
leisured class within our shores.
Everyone who doesn't leap out of warm sheets at command of an
alarmclock daily, rush through a shave, a hurried breakfast and a dash
to an office is.i.;,_for reasons no sane soul has ever been able to explain to
us-viewed as not quite Worth While, and lacking the proper attitude
toward life. Any young person under fifty who stops work when he
has enough worldly wealth to eliminate the daily grind, is ra butt for
whispers, raised eyebrows; he is considered not quite Worth While.
What we mean is that nothing about wine can be hurried. It takes
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