Of the Street-sellers of Hot Elder Wine.
The sale of hot elder wine in the streets is one of the trades which have been long established, but it is only within these eight or ten years that it has been carried on in its present form. It continues for about four months in the winter.
Elder wine is made from the berries of the elder-tree. Elder syrup—also made from the berries—was formerly famous in the north of England as a curative for colds, and was frequently taken, with a small admixture of rum, at bedtime. Some of the street-sellers make the wine themselves; the majority, however, buy it of the British wine makers. The berries must be gathered when fully ripe, and on a dry day. They are picked, measured, and put into a copper, two gallons of water being added to every gallon of berries. They are then boiled till the berries are quite soft, when the liquor is strained and pressed from them through a strong hair sieve. The liquor thus expressed is again put into the copper, boiled an hour, skimmed, and placed in a tub along with a bread toast, on which yeast is spread thickly; it then stands two days, and is afterwards put into a cask, a few cloves and crusted ginger being hung in a muslin bag from the bung-hole, so as to flavour the liquor. Sometimes this spicing is added afterwards, when the liquor is warmed. The berries are sold in the markets, principally in Covent-garden,—the price varying, according to the season, from 1s. 6d. to 3s. a gallon. Of all elder-wine makers the Jews are the best as regards the street commodity. The costermongers say they “have a secret;” a thing said frequently enough when superior skill is shown, and especially when, as in the case of the Jews’ elder wine, better pennyworths are given. The Jews, I am told, add a small quantity of raspberry vinegar to their “elder,” so as to give it a “sharp pleasant twang.” The heat and pungency of the elder wine sold in the streets is increased by some street-sellers by means of whole black pepper and capsicums.
The apparatus in which the wine is now kept for sale in the streets is of copper or brass, and is sometimes “handsome.” It is generally an urn of an oblong form, erected on a sort of pedestal, with the lid or top ornamented with brass mouldings, &c. Three plated taps give vent to the beverage. Orifices are contrived and are generally hidden, or partially hidden, with some ornament, which act as safety-valves, or, as one man would have it, “chimneys.” The interior of these urns holds three or four quarts of elder wine, which is surrounded with boiling water, and the water and wine are kept up to the boiling pitch by means of a charcoal fire at the foot of the vessel. Fruit of some kind is generally sold by the elder-wine men at their stand.
The elder wine urn is placed on a stand covered with an oil-cloth, six or eight glasses being ranged about it. It is sold at a halfpenny and a penny a glass; but there is “little difference in some elder wines,” I was told, “between the penn’orths and the ha’porths.” A wine glass of the “regular” size is a half-quartern, or the eighth of a pint.
Along with each glass of hot elder wine is given a small piece of toasted bread. Some buyers steep this bread in the wine, and so imbibe the flavour. “It ain’t no good as I know on,” said an elder-wine seller, “but it’s the fashion, and so people must have it.” The purchasers of elder wine are the working classes—but not the better order of them—and the boys of the street. Some of these lads, I was told, were very choice and critical in their elder wines. Some will say: “It ain’t such bad wine, but not the real spicy.”—“The helder I thinks,” said another, “is middlin’, but somehow there’s nothing but hotness for to taste.”
Of these traders there are now perhaps fifty in London. One man counted up thirty of his brethren whom he knew personally, or knew to be then “working elder,” and he thought that there might be as many more, but I am assured that fifty is about the mark. The sellers of elder wine have been for the most part mechanics who have adopted the calling for the reasons I have often given. None of them, in the course of my inquiry, depended entirely upon the sale of the wine, but sold fruit in addition to it. All complained of the bad state of trade. One man said, that four or five years back he had replenished the wine in a three quart urn twelve times a day, a jar of the wine being kept at the stall in readiness for that purpose. This amounted to 576 glasses sold in the course of the day, and a receipt—reckoning each glass at a penny—of 48s.; but probably not more than 40s. would be taken, as some would have halfpenny glasses. Now the same man rarely sells three quarts in a day, except perhaps on a Saturday, and on wet days he sells none at all. The elder wine can be bought at almost any price at the wine makers, from 4d. to 1s. 6d. the quart. The charge in the public-houses is twice as high as in the streets, but the inn wine, I was told by a person familiar with the trade, contains spirit, and is more highly spiced.
A decent-looking middle-aged man who had been in a gentleman’s service, but was disabled by an accident which crushed his hand, and who thereupon resorted to street-selling and had since continued in it, in different branches, from fifteen to twenty years, gave me an account of his customers. He had not been acquainted with the elder-wine trade above four or five years when he bought an elder can for about 15s. among a cheap miscellaneous “lot” in Smithfield one Friday afternoon, and so he commenced:
“It’s a poor trade, sir,” he said. “I don’t suppose any of us make 10s. a week at it alone, but it’s a good help to other things, and I do middling. I should say less than a 1s. a day was above the average profits of the trade. Say 5s. a week, for on wet days we can’t sell at all. No one will stop to drink elder wine in the wet. They’ll rather have a pennor’th of gin, or half a pint of beer with the chill off, under shelter. I sell sometimes to people that say they’re teetotallers and ask if there’s any spirit in my wine. I assure them there’s not, just the juice of the berry. I start when I think the weather’s cold enough, and keep at it as long as there’s any demand. My customers are boys and poor people, and I sell more ha’porths than pennor’ths. I’ve heard poor women that’s bought of me say it was the only wine they ever tasted. The boys are hard to please, but I won’t put up with their nonsense. It’s not once in fifty times that a girl of the town buys my wine. It’s not strong enough for her, I fancy. A sharp frosty dry day suits me best. I may then sell three or four quarts. I don’t make it, but buy it. It’s a poor trade, and I think it gets worse every year, though I believe there’s far fewer of us.”
One elder-wine stand in Tottenham-court-road cost, when new, 7l., but that was six or seven years ago. Calculating that 50 persons clear 5s. a week for 16 weeks, their profit being at least cent. per cent., the street outlay in this very British wine will be only 200l., and the street-consumption of it in the course of the year 1,500 gallons.