The above is the general method of doctoring or “cooking” wine and spirits. The following are the particular and more ingenious methods of sophistication in use among the advertising and placarding venders of “genuine old Port” and “amber-coloured” or “fine pale Amontillado Sherry.” Both sorts are generally compounded of a small quantity of the real article either in a good or a deteriorated state, according to the taste or conscience of the compounder, with the necessary proportions of Cape wine, cider, sal tartar, colouring matter, brandy or rum cowe, or other adulterating slops, which are calculated to form a tolerable basis, and to bear a resemblance in colour and flavour to the wine desired to be imitated. As the communication of the particular ingredients of which these factitious wines are composed cannot but be acceptable to my readers, I shall give a particular account of each of the processes.
Factitious, or fabricated port wine is usually made by mingling or blending together in large vats Benecarlo, or black strap, which is a strong coarse Spanish wine of inferior quality; Red Cape; a sufficient quantity of Mountain to soften the mixture and give it the appearance of richness; a portion of sal tartar and gum dragon (the object of the first ingredient is to cause the wine to crust soon when bottled; of the second, to impart a fullness and roundness of flavour and consistence of body); colouring matter, or berry-dye, which is an extract of German bilberries; brandy or rum cowe, which is the rinsings of casks containing those liquors, obtained by throwing in a few gallons of water into them after the liquor is drawn off, and leaving it closely bunged up till the cask has imparted the flavour of the liquor to the water; and a quantity of spoiled cider, of which many thousand pipes are annually brought to the metropolis for this purpose. Sometimes a small quantity of port is made use of, with rectified spirits and coarse brandy, and, instead of the colouring articles above mentioned, red saunders wood, or the juice of elderberries or of sloes is employed. According to the Mechanics’ Magazine, the chemical analysis of a bottle of cheap port wine was as follows: spirits of wine, three ounces; cider, fourteen ounces; sugar, one and half ounce; alum, two scruples; tartaric acid, one scruple; strong decoction of logwood, four ounces. And this is the “genuine old port,” of unrivalled flavour and quality, of the London fabricators and compounders. “Amber-coloured Sherry,” or “the fine pale Amontillado Sherry,” of the advertising wine-factor and placarding gin-shop keepers is manufactured of coarse highly-brandied brown Sherry, Cape wine, and brandy cowe; to which are added extract of almond-cake or gum benzoin, to impart a nutty flavour; cherry-laurel-water, to give a roundness of flavour; lamb’s blood, to fine the mixture and clear or decompose its colour; and oyster-shells and chalk, for the purpose of binding and concentrating the whole; and this delectable composition the knavish adept in the art of deleterious combination palms on the credulity of the public under the inviting title of “fine pale Sherry, of peculiar delicacy and flavour.” Had the late Dr. Kitchiner been aware of these sophistications he would not have said “that, of the white wines, Sherry is the most easy to obtain genuine, and is the least adulterated.”
The “fine old East-India Madeira, at unprecedented cheap prices, for ready money only,” of these worthies is a commixture of a portion of East-India Madeira with Teneriffe, Vidonia, or Direct Madeira,[C] and East-India Cape.[D] The “fine old soft-flavoured West-India Madeira, of capital quality,” and, of course, at exceedingly low prices, is manufactured from a portion of genuine West-India Madeira and a sufficient modicum of old thin Direct Madeira; and should the precious commixture be approaching to acidity the kindness of the sophisticating compounder obliges the palate of his poor gulled customer with the insertion of a few ounces of carbonate of soda. The genuine colour of pure Madeira (one of the best off-hand methods of forming an opinion of the goodness of Madeira is, as the author of The Private Gentleman and Importing Merchants’ Wine and Spirit Cellar-Directory judiciously says, by its colour) is much paler than that of Sherry. When it has a pinkish hue it is a sign of its having been adulterated with Teneriffe.
“The Old London Particular,” or any other imposing and dainty appellation extracted from the adulterating vocabulary of the artful sophisticator, is generally composed of a combination of cheap Vidonia, common dry Port, Mountain, and Cape wine, properly fined and reduced to the requisite colour by means of lamb’s blood.
The Cape wine generally sold to the public is composed of the drippings of the cocks from the various casks, the filterings of the lees of the different wines in the adulterators’ cellars, or from any description of bad or spoiled white wines, with the addition of brandy or rum cowe and spoiled cider. “The delicately pale Cape Sherry, or Cape Madeira, at astonishingly low prices,” and, of course, for ready money, is composed of the same delicious ingredients, with the addition of extract of almond cake, and a little of that delectable liquor, lamb’s blood, to decompose its colour, or, in the cant phraseology, to give it “complexion.”
In fact, the impositions practised in regard to this species of wine fully justifies the reprobation of the writer in the 43d number of the Quarterly Review. “The manufactured trash,” says the judicious critic, “which is selling in London under the names of Cape Champagne, Burgundy, Barsac, Sauterne, &c. are so many specious poisons, which the cheapness of the common and inferior wines of the Cape allows the venders of them to use as the bases of the several compositions, at the expense of the stomach and bowels of their customers.” By mixing these wines with the lees of other kinds, and fining and compounding them with various drugs, they endeavour to counterfeit the more costly vintages of Spain and Portugal, and even France.
It is unnecessary to state that the “Old Vidonia Wines,” the “Fine old delicately-pale Bucellas,” and the “Unequalled and beneficial Tent,” for the sick and infirm, and the offices of our holy religion, “sold remarkably cheap, for ready money,” by those honest and tender-conscienced gentry, are base substitutes for the genuine articles. To say nothing worse, Tent, Mountain, Calcavella, &c. is Port wine, transmuted by the addition of capillaire, &c. And, from the report of a late case which came on before the Court of King’s Bench, it appears that the scarce and costly Tokay, the Lachryma Christi, and La Crême Divine, are seldom any other than identical Sicilian wines of an inferior description; the current price of which in the market is about twelve pounds sterling per hhd. Oh! friend Bull, how the sophisticating rogues trifle with thy dainty palate! Hadst thou not better rest contented with thy soul-stirring, heart-cheering, vinum Britannicum,—thy home-brewed ale, and Sir John Barleycorn, instead of filling thy dear stomach with a medley of foreign slops. Oh, John, when wilt thou learn wisdom and find a loyal pleasure in paying thy quota of tax on articles of home manufacture! Alas! Johnny, thou art a sadly wayward fellow! there is more hope of “the wild ass’s colt” than of thee, when thy longings after foreign luxuries seduce thy palate and blind thy understanding!
Nor are the costly French wines less exempt from the devices and sophistications of the imps of the “Father of Deceit.” The “super-excellent” or “genuine Claret of exceedingly fine description and of the choicest quality” of the advertising and placarding dealers, is a composition of inferior claret and a quantum sufficit of Spanish red wine and rough cider, with the colouring berry-dye. The colouring process is sometimes performed by the agency of “black sloes,” “a dozen new pippins,” or a “handful of the oak of Jerusalem,” are often kindly introduced to improve its quality; and to tickle the taste of the consumer of this wine, or of Port, “an ounce of cochineal” is considerately thrown into a hogshead of liquor “to make it taste rough.”
When one views this goodly enumeration of items, it must be admitted that the burthen of the old song does not appear overcharged:
“One glass of drink, I got by chance,