Dr. Clarke says in a note to his Travels, that Champagne is an artificial compound: that “the common champagne wine drunk in this country is made with green grapes and sugar; and that the imitation of it, with green gooseberries and sugar, is full as salutary, and frequently as palatable.” A Frenchman who translated these Travels remarks upon this passage thus, C'est sans doute par un sentiment de patriotisme, et pour degoûter ses compatriotes du vin de Champagne, que le Docteur Clarke se permet de hasarder de pareilles assertions. Croit-il que le vin de Champagne se fasse avec du sucre et des raisins verts, ou des groseilles, et qu'un semblable mélange puisse passer, même en Angleterre, pour un analogue des vins d'Ai et d'Epernai? Dr. Clarke, as it became him to do, inserted this remark in his next edition, and said in reply to it, “It so happens that the author's information does not at all depend upon any conjectures he may have formed; it is the result of enquiries which he made upon the spot, and of positive information relative to the chemical constituents ‘des vins d'Ai et d'Epernai,’ from Messrs. Moett and Company, the principal persons concerned in their fabrication.” It was in the town of Epernai, whither the author repaired for information upon this subject, that in answer to some written questions proposed to Mons. Moett, the following statement was given by that gentleman touching the admission of sugar into the composition of their wine:
“Peut-être regarderoit-on en Champagne comme un indiscretion, la réponse a cette question, puisque la révélation de ce qu'on appelle LE SECRET DU PROPRIETAIRE pourroit nuire a la reputation des vins de Champagne: mais les hommes instruits et éclairés doivent connoître les faits et les causes, parcequ'ils savent apprecier et en tirer les justes consequences.
“Il est tres vrai que dans les années froides ou pluvieuses, le raisin n'ayant pas acquis assez de maturité, ou ayant été privé de la chaleur du soleil, les vins n'ont plus cette liqueur douce et aimable qui les characterise: dans ce cas quelques propriétaires y ont supplée par l'introduction dans leur vins d'une liqueur tres eclaire, dont la base est nécessairement du sucre; sa fabrication est un secrêt; cette liqueur meslée en très petites quantités aux vins verts, corrige le vice de l'année, et leur donne absolument la même douceur que celle que procure le soleil dans les années chaudes. Il s'est élevé en Champagne même des frequentes querelles entre des connoisseurs qui pretendoient pouvoir distinguer au goût la liqueur artificielle de celle qui est naturelle; mais c'est une chimère. Le sucre produit dans le raisin, comme dans toute espèce de fruit par le travail de la nature, est toujours du sucre, comme celui que l'art pourroit y introduire, lorsque l'intemperance des saisons les en a privé. Nous nous sommes plûs très souvent à mettre en defaut l'expérience de ces prétendus connoisseurs; et il est si rare de les voir rencontrer juste, que l'on peut croire que c'est le hazard plus que leur goût qui les a guidé.”
Having thus upon the best authority shown that Champagne in unfavourable years is doctored in the country, and leaving the reader to judge how large a portion of what is consumed in England is made from the produce of our own gardens, I repeat that I think Champagne of Lord John Russell,—not such as my friend of Oxford intended in his verses,—but Gooseberry Champagne, by no means brisk, and with a very disagreeable taste of the Cork.
If the Oxford Satirist and I should peradventure differ concerning Champagne, we are not likely to differ now concerning Lord John Russell. I am very well assured that we agree in thinking of his Lord Johnship as he is thought of in South Devonshire. Nor shall we differ in our notions of some of Lord John's Colleagues, and their left handed friends. If he were to work out another poem in the same vein of satire, some of the Whole-hoggery in the House of Commons he would designate by Deady, or Wet and Heavy, some by weak tea, others by Blue-Ruin, Old Tom which rises above Blue-Ruin to the tune of three pence a glass—and yet more fiery than Old Tom, as being a fit beverage for another Old one who shall be nameless,—Gin and Brimstone.
There is a liquor peculiar to Cornwall, with which the fishermen regale, and which because of its colour they call Mahogany, being a mixture of two parts gin and one part treacle, well beaten together. Mahogany then may be the representative liqueur of Mr. Charles Buller, the representative of a Cornish borough: and for Sir John Campbell there is Athol porridge, which Boswell says is the counterpart of Mahogany, but which Johnson thought must be a better liquor, because being a similar mixture of whiskey and honey, both its component parts are better: qui non odit the one, amet the other.
Mr. Shiel would put the Satirist in mind of Whiskey “unexcised by Kings,” and consequently above proof. Mr. Roebuck of Bitters, Mr. Joseph Hume of Ditch Water, Mr. Lytton Bulwer of Pop, Mr. Ward of Pulque, Mr. O'Connell of Aqua Tofana, and Lord Palmerston of Parfait Amour.
Observe good Reader, it was to bottled Small Beer that the Oxford Satirist likened Grey Bennet, not to Brown Stout, which is a generous liquor having body and strength.
Hops and Turkeys, Carp and Beer
Came into England all in one year
and that year was in the reign of Henry VIII. The Turkeys could not have come before the discovery of America, nor the Beer before the introduction of the Hops. Bottled Beer we owe to the joint agency of Alexander Nowell, Bishop Bonner, and Mr. Francis Bowyer, afterwards Sheriff of London.