1. The various spirituous liquors, as whiskey, gin, rum, brandy, etc., contain, in addition to the ethyl alcohol and water common to them all, varying minute proportions of ethereal and oily substances to which each owes its peculiar taste and odor. These substances are œnanthic, acetic, and valerianic ethers, products of the reaction between the corresponding acids and alcohol, and various essential oils. Traces of the other alcohols are also present. Amyl alcohol, the so-called fusel oil, is present in new and coarse spirit, but especially in that derived from potatoes, in considerable amounts. It is to this ingredient that potato spirit owes its peculiarly deleterious properties. Richardson3 experimentally produced with amyl alcohol phenomena analogous to delirium tremens in man. Spirits also frequently contain sugar, caramel, and coloring matters derived from the cask, to which certain products of the still also owe in part their flavor. These liquors are of varying strength, and contain from 45 to 70 per cent. of absolute alcohol by volume.4
3 On Alcohol, Lond., 1875.
4 Vide Baer, Der Alcoholismus, Berlin, 1878.
Liqueurs (anise, kümmel, curaçoa, Benedictine, etc.) are the products of the distillation of alcohol with various aromatic herbs, sweetened, or of its admixture with ethereal oils and sugar. These compounds contain a very high percentage of alcohol. Two of them, absinthe and kirsch, by reason of their peculiarly dangerous properties deserve especial mention.
Absinthe is an alcoholic distillate of anise, coriander, etc. with the leaves and flowers of the Artemisia absinthium, which yields a greenish essence. This liqueur contains from 60 to 72 per cent. of alcohol, and exerts a specific pernicious effect upon the nervous system, largely due to the aromatic principles which it contains.5 Kirsch, which owes its peculiar flavor to the oil of bitter almonds and hydrocyanic acid which it contains in varying and often relatively large proportions, is still more dangerous. The toxic effects produced by these liqueurs are of a very complex kind, and scarcely fall within the scope of this article.
5 As early as 1851, Champouillon (referred to by Husemann, Handbuch der Toxicologie) called attention to the fact that the French soldiers in Algiers, in consequence of excessive indulgence in absinthe, suffered especially from mania and meningitis. Decaisne (La Temperance, 1873, Étude médicale sur les buveurs d'absinthe) found absinthe in equal doses and of the same alcohol concentration to act much more powerfully than ordinary spirits, intoxication being more rapidly induced and the phenomena of chronic alcoholism earlier established. Pupier (Gazette hébdom., 1872) found in those addicted to the use of absinthe marked tendency to emaciation and to cirrhosis of the liver; and Magnan (Archives de Physiol., 1872) asserts that the chronic alcoholism due to this agent is characterized by the frequency and severity of the epileptic seizures which accompany it. There is reason to believe that the consumption of absinthe in the cities of the United States is increasing.
2. Wines are the product of the fermentation of the juice of the grape. Their chemical composition is extremely complex. They owe their general characteristics to constituents developed during fermentation, but their special peculiarities are due to the quality of the grape from which they are produced, the soil and climate in which it is grown, and the method of treatment at the various stages of the wine-making process. So sensitive are the influences that affect the quality of wine that, as is well known, the products of neighboring vineyards in the same region, and of different vintages from the same ground in successive years, very often show wide differences of flavor, delicacy, and strength.
The most important constituent of wine is alcohol. To this agent it owes its stimulating and agreeable effects in small, its narcotic effects in large, amounts. The proportion of alcohol, according to Parkes, Bowditch, Payen, and other investigators, varies from 5 to 20 per cent. by volume, and in some wines even exceeds the latter amount. The process of fermentation, however, yields, at the most, not more than 15 to 17 per cent. of alcohol, and wines that contain any excess of this proportion have been artificially fortified.
Further constituents of wine are sugar, present in widely varying amounts, and always as a mixture of glucose and levulose—inverted sugar; traces of gummy matter, vegetable albumen, coloring matters, free tartaric and malic acid, and various tartrates, chiefly potassium acid tartrate, or cream of tartar. In some wines there are found also traces of fatty matters. Tannin is likewise found. Small quantities of aldehyde and acetic acid are due to the oxidation of alcohol. The acetic acid thus formed further reacts upon the alcohol, forming acetic ether. To the presence of traces of compound ethers, acetic, œnanthic, etc., wines owe their bouquet. Carbon dioxide, produced in the process of fermentation, is retained to some extent in all wines, and is artificially developed in large quantities in champagnes and other sparkling wines.
Much of the stuff sold as wine, even at high prices, in all parts of the world, is simply an artificial admixture of alcohol, sugar, ethereal essences, and water. The wines rich in alcohol are especially liable to imitation.