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CHAPTER VII
A SPIRITUOUS DISCOURSE
What is brandy?—See that you get it—Potato-spirit from the
Fatherland—The phylloxera and her ravages—Cognac oil
Natural history of the vine-louse—"Spoofing" the Yanks
—Properties of Argol—Brandy from sawdust—Desiccated
window-sills—Enormous boom in whisky—Dewar and the
trade—Water famine—The serpent Alcohol—Some figures
—France the drunken nation, not Britain—Taxing of
distilleries—Uisge heatha—Fusel oil—Rye whisky Palm
wine—John Exshaw knocked out by John Barleycorn.
"What is a pound ?" was a favourite query of
the great Sir Robert Peel. " What is brandy ?"
is a question asked now and then; and the
answer thereto should be an ambiguous one.
Brandy is supposed, by good easy people who
trouble not to enquire too closely into the com
position of their daily food, to be a liquid
obtained by distilling the fermented juice of the
grape. The red wines are preferable, although
in the seventeenth century the best French
brandy was made entirely from white ones.
The original distillation is clear and colourless,
but when placed in casks the liquid dissolves out
the colouring matter of the wood, brown sugar
and other pigments being also added.