It has been said of the native African that he wants something with a "bite" in it and is not satisfied with a drink that does not go down his throat "like a torchlight procession." But the African is not alone in this peculiarity. There are many thousands of whites who want their whiskey or rum "fiery" above all things; and they want it that way because their sense of smell is not educated to appreciate the higher qualities of liquors—their fragrance, or "bouquet."
"It is a fact," as a well-known mixer of fancy drinks once remarked, "that there are very few good judges of liquor. It is a very old chestnut to set out whiskey when brandy has been called for, and not one in ten can tell the difference. There are few people who can distinguish between high and low priced wines."
The difference between the best wines and the poorest lies chiefly in this, that the best have a maximum of bouquet and a minimum of alcohol. The bouquet is exhilarating, like the alcohol, yet is perfectly harmless. On the bouquet depends the commercial as well as the gastronomic value of wines almost entirely. Now, while some persons who are addicted to strong drink may be hopeless cases, there are thousands who might be saved by teaching them that by educating their sense of smell to the appreciation of bouquet they can get infinitely more pleasure from a refined sort of indulgence than from the bestial alcoholic intoxication which is followed by nausea, headache, by nights and days of misery, by poverty and deadly diseases.
Drunkenness and gluttony are no longer respectable, or even semi-respectable, and further progress in the same direction may be hoped for through efforts at reform along the lines I have indicated. A true epicure would no more dull the edge of his appetite for future pleasures of the table by over-indulgence in food or drink than a barber would think of whittling kindling wood with his razor.
Whiskey drinkers are far from being the only topers. There are also a great many tea and coffee topers. A writer in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" describes the case of a woman, a member of the Temperance Union in her town, who was "a coffee drunkard," having been living for months on little beside black coffee, till she was a wreck. Such cases are common; they have led to the manufacture on a large scale of diverse substitutes for coffee, some of which are not at all bad if taken with sugar and cream.
Some relief is also coming through the increased demand for cocoa, which has the advantage over tea and coffee of being a real food. In the period from 1888 to 1911 imports of cocoa into the United States increased from 6,600,000 pounds to 134,000,000, while those of coffee increased only from 404,000,000 to 800,000,000 pounds, and those of tea from 68,000,000 to 104,000,000 pounds.
That tea is the worst enemy of the Irish peasantry was the burden of a blue book issued a few years ago by the Inspectors of Irish schools. "The tea is so prepared for use that the liquid, when drunk, has the properties of a slow poison. The teapot stewing on the hearth all day long is kept literally on tap; the members of the family, young as well as old, resorting to it at discretion."
Javanese Tea-picker and Porter