Table traits, with something on them

by Dr. Doran

The Roman law was not levelled against the adulteration of wine; it no more controlled the sale or manufacture, than, in Thevenot’s days, the Tunisian Government interfered with the sale of wine at Tunis, which was left to slaves, who did with it as they liked, for their own profit, and the destruction of infidel stomachs. It was otherwise in Germany, where Diets were assembled to discuss what was, in truth, no unimportant matter; the members of which began to think, that if wine was worth having, it was worth providing for its purity. For centuries Governments made laws, but bad wine was drunk in spite of them.

Beckmann gives it as his opinion, that wines cannot be poisoned by gypsum; but that is more readily said than proved. The ancients clarified their wine with it; but they did so at the expense of a portion of the spirituous part. Old ordinances against the adulteration of wine, in Brussels, by vitriol, quicksilver, and lapis calaminaris,—and in France, by lead and litharge,—may still be read as curiosities, but they have no present application.

A German Monk, named Martin Bayr, is damned to everlasting fame, as the first who adulterated wines within the territory of the Kaiser. Pickheimer, the friend of Albert Durer, is particularly inveterate against Bayr and his followers in evil. The indignation of the lover of pure wine is carried to an incredible extent. He narrates, in a rapt fury, the consequences of drinking injurious wines; beginning with an assurance, that adulterated wine keeps the married childless, and adding, by a sort of bathos, that it causes certain inward pains, “than which none can be more excruciating.” He mentions many ingredients employed, and adverts to some, “the names of which I should be ashamed to mention;” and then he calls for vengeance on the offenders, both in this world and the next. “You hang the counterfeiters of the public coin,” says he; “do not these miscreants, whose misdeeds have caused indignant Nature to check the growth of our grapes, deserve something worse? Cast their accursed beverage, I say, into the sewers, and themselves into the flames: and so may Martin Bayr and his disciples perish in this world, and inherit everlasting damnation in the next!”

Adulteration, however, still went on, until the penalty of death, and confiscation of property, was levelled against the employment of sulphur and bismuth,—used by the most noble of wine-makers to sweeten their spoiled and sour commodity. Offenders, however, again grew bold. The tribunals treated them leniently. First, fines were levied; then came confiscation of property, imprisonment, and hard labour; next, banishment: and none of these courses meeting the evil, the Judges at length cut off the head of an incorrigible criminal, Ehrni of Erlingen; and, for a while, terrified the whole brotherhood of wine-spoilers into a temporary observance of honesty.

The next struggle which occurred in Germany, was between those who applied tests to detect the presence of metals, and those who invented processes to defy them. It was a scientific struggle between two species of assassins,—those who swiftly killed by brewing poisonous wine, and the physicians who racked their brains to invent detective tests, and save their patients for a slower process of extinction. This was very rudely said by rude people, who looked upon themselves as the victims sought for by two contending parties,—the distillers on one side, and the doctors on the other.

The use of milk by the Greeks was, probably, not for adulterating, but for refining, their wines. Isinglass is at present generally employed for the last-mentioned purpose.

As it is the tendency of the world to improve, so the not inconsiderable world of adulterators in England has profited, like philosophers, by the discoveries of those who have preceded them. A mixture of strong port, rectified spirit, Cognac brandy, and rough cider, can be concocted into what is called “fine old crusted port.” It costs the maker about sixteen shillings a gallon, and is sold retail at five shillings a bottle. Sloe-juice is another ingredient, and poisonous tinctures give it a seductive hue. Powder of catechu does for it what hair-powder does for the individual,—gives a crust of antiquity to secure for it the veneration of the ignorant. A decoction of Brazil-wood, and a little alum, will impart to the corks the requisite air of corresponding age; and these the credulous gaze at and believe.

“Madeira, neat as imported,” is the definition of a beverage cleverly manufactured much nearer Fenchurch-street than Funchal. Home-made Madeira is a compound of bad port, Vidonia, that African nastiness called “Cape,” sugar-candy, and bitter almonds; and the Vidonia, which is an ingredient in itself, often adulterated with cider and rum; and a little carbonate of soda, “to contumace the appetite’s acidities.” The lowest and cruellest insult to human taste and stomachs is, perhaps, the adulteration of Cape. It is bad enough in itself; but Cape, with something worse in it, is only fit for the thirsty hounds of Pluto. Gooseberry, passed off as Champagne, is an impostor, and even with strawberries in it, to give it an aristocratic pinkness, it is still a deception; but, compared with Cape, even in its best condition, gooseberry may be imbibed without very much disgust.

A fracas between the waiters and their employers at the last Lord Mayor’s dinner, betrayed another pleasant process regarding wine. The attendants in question declared that, after many hours’ toil, they had not had a glass even out of a dovered bottle. They were as much surprised when the Magistrate asked the meaning of “dovering,” as the sailor was, when he stood before a Lord High Chancellor ignorant of the signification of “’baft the binnacle.” A complaisant Ganymede enlightened the darkened mind of the metropolitan Cadi: “Dovering,” said he, “is the collecting of three-quarter emptied decanters from the dinner-table, and re-decantering the same, serving it up as freshly uncorked.” Dover has the bad reputation of being the locality where this process was first invented.

One of the most ingenious—perhaps we should say, one of the most scientific—tricks that we have heard of, in connexion with wine-doctoring, proves that the modern chymical brewers of superior beverages, which seem what they are not, are vastly superior to the mere experimentalists of former days. In the royal cellars of Carlton House, there was enshrined, if we may so speak, a small quantity of wine which, like the gems worn by the Irish lady, was both “rich and rare.” It was only produced by George IV. when he had around him his most select and wittiest friends. The precious deposit gradually diminished; year by year, as in the case of the famous sha-green skin of the French novelist Balzac, it grew less; until, at last, a couple of dozen bottles only were left, gleaming at the bottom of their bins like gems in a mine, and full of liquid promise to those who needed the especial comfort which it was their duty to impart. These, however, were left so long unasked for, that the gentlemen of the King’s suite who had the control of the grape department, deemed them forgotten, and at their own mirthful table drank them all but two, with infinite delight to themselves, and to the better health of their master. They soon found, however, that there was “garlic in the flowers,” as the Turkish proverb has it; and their embarrassment was not small, when the King, giving his orders for a choice dinner on a certain night, intimated his desire that a good supply of his favourite wine should grace the board. In Courts, “to hear is to obey;” and the officials who had drunk the wine, at once resorted to an eminent firm, well-skilled to give advice in such delicate wine-cases. The physician asked but for a sample bottle, and to be told the exact hour at which the favourite draught would be asked for. This was complied with, and in due time a proper amount of the counterfeit wine was forwarded to Carlton House, and there broached and drunk with such encomiums, that the officers who were in the secret had some difficulty in maintaining an official gravity of countenance. The brewer of the new wine was certainly a first-rate artist; and if he ever achieved knighthood and a coat-of-arms, I would give him a “Bruin” for his crest, and, “The drink! the drink! dear Hamlet!” for his device. This anecdote, I may farther notice, has often been told, and nearly as often been discredited; but I am assured by an officer of the household, who speaks “avec connaissance de fait,” that it is substantially true.