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138
What Shall We Drink?
Port,Sherry,Catawba and other similarforeign and domestic
wines.
Brandy, Whisky, gin and other ardent spirits have no
nutritive value except for the alcohol they possess. This
alcohol is of such high percentage, however, that unless di
luted with some other beverage,its highly concentrated form,
except in dlness, is deleterious, rather than helpful, to the
human system. In other words, its nutrimental value, in its
undiluted form,is submerged in its destructive attacks on the
tender tissues and membranes.
Cordials (or Hqueurs) are less harmful because they con
tain sugars and herb extract mixtures in addition to their
alcohoHc content, which varies from 25 to 45 per cent by
volume.
It might be well to explain these two terms,so often used:
Alcohol by volume and alcohol by weight.
Alcohol by weight is self explanatory. It represents the
total amount of 95 per cent pure alcohol which can be ex
tracted by distillation from certain weighed quantities of a
hquid.
Alcohol by volume represents all the 95 per cent pure
alcohol which can be distilled from an unweighed, mnfis
quantity,selected at random from bulk.
Given alcohol by weight, a government inspector, for
instance, can find the alcohol by volume simply by multiply
ing by the decimal 1.25.
Given alcohol by volume, he can ascertain alcohol by
weightsimply by multiplying bythe decimal.80.
Both methods are resorted to for taxing purposes, for
tariff assessment and, by the maker,to know for a certainty
that the alcohofic content of his product is exactly what the
beverage requires.
For those who might have reason to settle arguments as
to what should be the alcoholic content of beverages, I am
appending a table showing estimates compiled by experts,but
giving only the alcohol by volume.
If you wish to find the alcohol by weight,merely multiply
the percentages by the decimal .80.