CHAPTER IV.
WHAT IS ALCOHOL?
IPE grapes are full of juice.
This juice is mostly water, sweetened with a sugar of its own. It is flavored with something which makes us know, the moment we taste it, that it is grape-juice, and not cherry-juice or plum-juice.
Apples also contain water, sugar, and apple flavor; and cherries contain water, sugar, and cherry flavor. The same is true of other fruits. They all, when ripe, have the water and the sugar; and each has a flavor of its own.
Ripe grapes are sometimes gathered and put into great tubs called vats. In these the juice is squeezed out.
In some countries, this squeezing is done by bare-footed men who jump into the vats and press the grapes with their feet.