Ptisana, mentioned by Celsus (iii., 7), appears to have been a mixture of rice or barley water and vinegar.
Toast-water is a drink which may be held by some unworthy of mention, but they may change their minds after reading what Mr. James Sedgwick, apothecary at Stratford-le-Bow, had to say on this subject in the year 1725. The burning of a crust and putting it hissing hot into water has, according to this gentleman, several good advantages. By it, the “raw coldness from nitrous particles are (sic) taken off and moderated, and it becomes more palatable, besides which, from the sudden hissing opposition of temperament, an elevation is made of the heterogeal particles, a motion, an interchanging position is obtained: These Principles during their intercourses will be imbibed and sucked into the bread in order, according to their respective distance and gravities, whereby the liquor will become more pure and almost uncompounded, less foreign than it was under its natural acception.” And yet though all these securities are taken to blunt the “frigorific mischiefs” of the water in general, yet in many constitutions and at particular seasons it is not to be trusted without some “substantial warmth to give and maintain a glowing, e’er it dilutes and disperses.” He goes on to say that it is better to add wine to the water, “to prevent the contingent hazards from the limpid element.”
Braket or Bragget or Bragwort, was a drink made of the wort of ale, honey, and spices.[164] Her mouth, says Chaucer, speaking of Alison, the carpenter’s pretty wife in the Mother’s Tale,
“was swete as braket or the meth,
Or hord of apples, laid in hay or heth.”
And in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Little Thief, or the Night-Walker, Jack Wildbrain speaks with contempt of
“One that knows not neck-beef from a pheasant,
Nor cannot relish braggat from ambrosia.”
The opponents of alcoholic drinks are often met by the objection that some of the drinks recommended by themselves are alcoholic, as indeed they often are. Even water appears to possess, in some cases, an intoxicating property. Pliny (Nat. Hist., ii., cvi.) speaks of a Lyncestis aqua,[165] of a certain acidity, which makes men drunken. The celebrated Ballston waters in the State of New York, are said to be affected with qualities “highly exhilarating,” sometimes producing vertigo, which has been followed by drowsiness; in other words, they who drink them exhibit the usual symptoms of drunkenness.