Pombe is a liquid brewed of fruit, furnishing a common sort of cider known well in Eastern Africa.
In Tonquin[169] on the annual renewal of allegiance, they drink chicken’s blood mixed with arrack. They make a sort of cider from miengou, a fruit like a pomegranate. An extract of wheat, rye, or millet is mixed with peka, consisting of rice flour, garlic, aniseed, and liquorice. After fermentation it is distilled and becomes the celebrated Samchou.
In Sweden, with the smör-gås, or fore taste[170] at a side-table a glass of fenkål, sometimes very good, sometimes very bad, is given to him who is about to dine. It is made from fennel—a form perhaps of fœniculum—growing wild and abundant, as at Marathon[171] the celebrated deme on the east coast of Attica, the field of the famous battle.
In addition to strange compounds known in various parts of this country, such as Gin and Lime Juice, Whiskey or Rum and Milk, Brandy and Port, a drink said to have originated in Lancashire, Dog’s Nose, Shandy Gaff, etc., etc., may be mentioned Ethyl or Methylated Spirits, a beverage which, like ether in Ireland, has of late years advanced considerably in public estimation. It has the two advantages of being cheap and heady. An Act of 1880 imposed penalties on any retail tradesman selling it for the purpose of drink. A better method perhaps to prevent its being poured down the throats of Her Majesty’s liege subjects would be to take steps to ensure its being mixed before sold with a strong emetic. The palate can be trained, but the stomach is far less docile.
FOOTNOTES
[1] These essences and colours are no new thing. Addison spoke of them nearly two hundred years ago in his “Trial of the Wine Brewers” in the Tatler. Tom Tintoret and Harry Sippet have left a large family behind them.
[2] See tailpiece, where a servant is coming to the assistance of her mistress.
[3] Jablonski is our authority for supposing it primarily an Egyptian drink. A zythum and a dizythum seem to have existed, corresponding, let us say, to our Single and Double X.
This zythum is nearly allied to the sacera of Palestine, the cesia of Spain, the cervisia of Gaul, the sebaia of Dalmatia, and the curmi or camum of Germany. According to Rabbi Joseph, this beer was made ⅓ barley, ⅓ Crocus Sylvestris, ⅓ salt. He adds, “He that is bound, it looseth; and he who is loose, it binds; and it is dangerous for pregnant women.”