Cassis.
This syrup can be obtained in the humblest cabaret in France; but we have to thank the eccentric and illogical ways of our Customs Department for its absence from most of our own wine lists. The duty is so prohibitive—being half as much again as that levied on French brandy—that it would pay nobody but said Customs Department to import it into England; and yet the amount of alcohol contained in cassis is infinitesimal. Strange to say nobody has ever started a cassis still on this side. One would imagine that the process would be simplicity itself; as the liquor is nothing but cold black-currant tea, with a suspicion of alcohol in it.
Sligo Slop.
This is an Irish delight. The juice of ten lemons, strained, ten tablespoonfuls of sifted sugar, one quart of John Jameson’s oldest and best whisky, and two port wine-glassfuls of curaçoa, all mixed together. Let the mixture stand for a day or two, and then bottle. This should be drunk neat, in liqueur-glasses, and is said to be most effectual “jumping-powder.” It certainly reads conducive to timber-topping.
Take it altogether the daylight drink is a mistake. It is simply ruin to appetite; it is more expensive than those who indulge therein are aware of at the time. It ruins the nerves, sooner or later; it is not conducive to business, unless for those whose heads are especially hard; and it spoils the palate for the good wine which is poured forth later on. The precept cannot be too widely laid down, too fully known:
Do not drink between Meals!
Better, far better the three-bottle-trick of our ancestors, than the “gin-crawl” of to-day.