The authors have followed the example of the illustrious Molière in taking their matter wherever they could find it. The information contained in this work is derived either from other books, oral information, or personal experience. “The sun robs the sea, the moon robs the sun, the sea robs the moon,” says Timon of Athens, repeating Anacreon, who adds that the earth robs them all. So preceding authors are indebted to one another, and the present volume to them all. It has been written, it is hoped, without bias or prejudice of any kind; but, as the drinks containing Alcohol are many more than those in which it is absent, more have been mentioned. That a full record of all drinks should appear, is impossible; nor could any critic expect it; but an attempt has been made to give a fairly full list, and to render it as pleasant reading as the subject admits.
THE DRINKS OF ANTIQUITY.
Egypt: Method of Wine-Making—Early Wines—Names of Wines—Ladies and Wine—Beer, etc. Assyria: List of Assur-ba-ni-pal’s Wines—Method of Drinking—Different Sorts of Wine. Hittite: Two Ladies Drinking—Their Appreciation of Wine—The Hittite Bacchus. Judea: Mention of Wines in the Old Testament—Wine as an Article of Commerce—Mixed Wines—Wine Vessels.
Has any man been bold enough to attempt to fix upon the discoverer of Wine? Not to our knowledge. Nor can a date be even hazarded as to its introduction. It was so good a thing, that we may be sure that men very soon came to know its revivifying effects. We do know this: that the oldest records of which we have any cognisance, those of the Egyptians (who were in a high state of civilization and culture when the Hebrews were semi-barbarous nomads), show us that they had wine, and used it in a most refined manner, as we see by the headpiece to this chapter. Here a father is nursing his child, who invites him to smell a lotus flower, another blossom of which his mother is showing him. An attendant proffers wine in bowls wreathed with flowers, and another is at hand with a bowl possibly of water, and a napkin. This wreathing the bowls with flowers shows how highly they esteemed the “good creature,” and, also, that they were then at least as civilized as the later Greeks and Romans, who followed the same practice.
We have the Egyptian pictures showing the whole process of wine-making. We see their vines very carefully trained in bowers, or in avenues, formed by columns and rafters; their vineyards were walled in, and frequently had a reservoir of water within their precincts, together with a building which contained a winepress; whilst boys frightened the birds away with slings and stones, and cries. The grapes, when gathered, were put into deep wicker baskets, which men carried either on their heads or shoulders, or slung upon a yoke, to the winepress, where the wine was squeezed out of a bag by means of two poles turned in contrary directions, an earthen pan receiving the juice. But they also had large presses, in which they trod the fruit with their naked feet, supporting themselves by ropes suspended from the roof.
The grape juice having fermented, it was put into earthen jars, resembling the Roman amphoræ, which were closed with a lid covered with pitch, clay, mortar or gypsum, and sealed, after which they were removed to the storehouse, and there placed upright. The Egyptians had a peculiar habit, which used also to be general in Italy and Greece, and now obtains in the islands of the Archipelago, of putting a certain quantity of resin or bitumen at the bottom of the amphora before pouring in the wine. This was supposed to preserve it, but it was also added to give it a flavour—a taste probably acquired from their having been used to wine skins, instead of jars, and having employed resins to preserve the skins.