The above are the frauds practised by wine-dealers, by vending bottles of inferior dimensions to the legal wine quart, which contains thirty-two ounces; but many of the bottles imposed on unwary purchasers do not contain more than twenty-four ounces, and few more than twenty-six ounces.
The readiest way of detecting the fraud is by measuring the suspected wine-bottle by Lyne’s graduated glass measure, which holds half a pint, and is divided into ounces, &c. Or, if you have not a measure of the kind by you, weigh the contents of the suspected bottle and compare the weight ascertained with the following corresponding weights:
1 legal wine quart = 32 ounces; or, 256 drachms.
By subtracting the weight of the contents of the suspected bottle from this weight, you may precisely ascertain the deficiency.
2. SPIRITS.
In the adulteration of spirituous liquors, the advertising and placarding compounder exerts equal ingenuity and fraud, and obtains an equally lucrative traffic as from wines. The “Curious old soft flavoured Cogniac, ten years old,” of those nefarious dealers, is compounded of Spanish or Bourdeaux brandy, neutral flavoured rum, rectified spirits, British brandy, British brandy bitters, cherry-laurel-water, extract of almond cake, extract of capsicums, or of grains of paradise, burnt sugar or colouring matter. But more generally that “medicinal” compound British brandy is palmed on the public, for real Cogniac brandy. This diabolical farrago of mischievous ingredients, which was held forth to the public by interested individuals concerned in the undertaking, as calculated “entirely to supersede the use of Cogniac brandy,” and “likely to prove of great benefit to the health and comfort of the poorer and middling classes of society,” is compounded of oil of vitriol, vinegar, nitrum dulce, tincture of raisin stones, tinctura japonica, cherry-laurel-water, extracts of capsicums or of grains of paradise, orris-root, cassia-buds, bitter almond meal, colouring matter, &c. from which enumeration of “neat” articles it appears that this “almost superior brandy to Cogniac,” as its modest manufacturers term it, is a slow poison, and equally deleterious in its effects, if not more so, than that vile composition—“cheap gin.” That this is not an unfounded insinuation against “the pure and unadulterated” article, sold, no doubt, “at astonishingly low prices, and for ready money,” will appear from the clear statement of the process of each manufacture given by the author of The Wine and Spirit Adulterators Unmasked, pages 179 and 198. “British brandy,” says the honest Unmasker, “is composed of drugs, gin only flavoured by them. In the manufacture of gin, the ingredients are put into the still, with a spirit which has been previously rectified, and the condensed evaporation which is derived from the whole constitutes the article gin. In the preparation, however, of British brandy, the mixture is made without any process through a still, being compounded more like a quack doctor’s nostrum. The only part of the manufacture wherein distillation is concerned, consists merely in rectifying either rum or malt whiskey, to deprive them of their essential oils, so that they may be reduced to a state as tasteless as possible, and thereby more readily receive the spurious flavours intended to be imparted to them.
“The other articles are added in their raw state.—Should it be inquired why the same process as is adopted in the manufacture of gin, should not succeed in making British brandy, the answer is, because, in distilling the necessary drugs with the rectified spirit, the flavour would neither retain the sufficient predominancy, nor be sufficiently fixed to enable the article to sustain the desired likeness to brandy, besides that the effect of several of the ingredients, such as the oil of vitriol, and nitrum dulce, which are used to impart a resemblance of the vinosity possessed by genuine French brandy, would be completely destroyed.”
“Fine old Jamaica rums of peculiar softness and flavour” are manufactured of low-priced Leeward-island rum, ale, porter, or shrub, extract of orris-root, cherry-laurel-water, and extract of grains of paradise, or of capsicums. Sometimes the composition consists of low-priced Jamaica rums, rectified spirits of wine, and the Leeward-island rums, with the necessary acid vegetable substances, to give them false strength and pungency and the requisite flavour; and thus the purchaser is accommodated by the “caterers of comfort,” with a rum which “cannot” be adulterated, of exceedingly fine and superior flavour, remarkably cheap and for ready money only. The ripe taste which rum or brandy that has been long kept in oaken casks obtains, is imparted to new brandy and rum, by means of a spirituous tincture of raisin-stones and oak saw-dust. And the water distilled from cherry-laurel-leaves is frequently mixed with brandy and other spirituous liquors to impart to them the flavour of the cordial called Noyeau. Sugar of lead not unfrequently forms part of the flavouring ingredients of the retailers’ rums.
But the perfection of adulteration is in gin,—cheap gin—“the real comfort,”—patronized by the poor for its supposed genuineness! This infernal compound of combustibles is distinguished from the other slow poisons to which a large portion of the population of “the queen of cities,”—our “modern Carthage,” make themselves the willing victims, by the poisonous nature of the ingredients of which it is composed.[E] These are the oils of vitriol, turpentine, juniper, cassia, carraways, and almonds, sulphuric ether or phosphorus, extracts of orris-root, angelica-root, capsicums or grains of paradise, sugar, and heading. The aid of lime-water and of spirits of wine is also invoked in the course of the operation. The purposes of these mischievous ingredients are as follow: The oil of vitriol is to impart pungency and the appearance of strength, when the liquor is applied to the nose, while the extract of capsicums or of grains of paradise is designed to perform the same office for the taste. The extracts of orris and angelica roots give a fulness of body and the coveted flavour called cordial to the large proportion of the compound, which consists only of water. The remaining oils are to give strength, the sugar to sweeten the composition, and the lime to unite the oils with the spirit; while the sulphuric ether, phosphorus, and heading are intended to give the semblance of being highly spirituous from the fiery taste, and the appearance of the light bead which is caused to appear and remain for some time on the surface of the noxious compound. The introduction of the white arsenic is intended to promote an irritable and feverish thirst, so that the poor deluded consumer may be compelled to have recourse to fresh potations of the “liquid fire.” The Hollands of the gin-shop keepers and advertising dealers is a commixture of a small portion of the genuine article with rectified spirits, peppermint, cloves, &c. The cordial, called Shrub, says Mr. Accum, Culinary Poisons, p. 257, frequently exhibits vestiges of copper, which arise from the metallic vessels employed in the manufacture of the liquor. But, had that ingenious gentleman been thoroughly acquainted with the manufacture of shrub in the cellars of spirit dealers, he would not have been quite so moderate in his remarks respecting this seductive “cordial.”
Such is a list of the detestable articles palmed on the public, by the avaricious and unprincipled dealers and cozeners in the factitious wines and spirits on constant and extensive sale throughout every quarter of the metropolis. The credulity and infatuation of the public in the consumption of the deadly draughts are truly astonishing, and are a verification of the sarcasm that were the vision of death to appear to the tippler in each glass of liquor that he puts to his lips, yet he would still persevere in habits which are inevitably destructive of health and comfort, and eventually productive of disease and death. “Oh blindness to the future!—” Surely old Jeremy Taylor’s observation respecting Apicius is equally applicable to the inveterate consumer of wines and spirits—“It would have been of no use,” says that orthodox old divine, “to talk to Apicius of the secrets of the other world, and of immortality; that the saints and angels eat not! The fat glutton would have stared awhile and fallen a-sleep. But if you had discoursed well and knowingly of a lamprey, a large mullet, or a boar, animal propter convivium, and had sent him a cook from Asia to make new sauces, he would have attended carefully, and taken in your discourses greedily.” The same feeling I expect will be displayed towards this book by the inveterate dram-drinker: he or she will curse the author, as a busy-body, for his intermeddling with, and abusing their “dear comfort.” People are apt to conclude that a practice sanctioned by time and numbers must be right; but there cannot be a conclusion more fallacious. The grossest possible absurdities have been sanctioned for the same reasons. No doubt some will defend their practice of dram-drinking and immoderate potations of wines, and of malt and spirituous liquors by the unsound plea that they find no ill effect from their self immolation from drinking the deadly draughts; but reasoners so deluded should recollect that, though there are persons who are insensible to the immediate effects from strong liquors, either spirituous or malt, yet to those who seldom or ever use them, they act as quick poisons; not waiting their tedious operation in the form of fever, gout, stone and gravel, dropsy, bile, rheumatism, head-ache, scurvy, cancer, asthma, consumption, palsy, brain fever, apoplexy, mania, and a long list of other frightful and loathsome diseases. In truth, as the author of “The Oracle of Health and Long Life” forcibly observes, “they paralyze the nervous system and the heart’s action; and the tremulous hand, the palsied limbs, the bloated and inflamed countenance, and the faltering tongue, super-induced by their immoderate use, indicate that premature death lays claim to his deluded and self-destroying victim!”