L'eau clairette de grenade is the most agreeable of Ratafias, but has an astringent property.

L'eau clairette de coings is still more estimable than the preceding, and imparts a new activity to the limbs.

Eau clairette de Chamberri should be made of the ripest black grapes, a small quantity of spirit of wine, a little sugar, and other ingredients. In addition to giving an appetite, it rejoices the heart. The longer it is kept, as in the case with all Ratafias, the better.

The white Ratafias, or Hypoteques, should be mixed with cinnamon, mace, cloves, and coriander. Under these circumstances they render the blood balsamic. The best fruits for white Ratafias are oranges, peaches, and apricots.

Curaçoa derives its name from the group of small islands in the West Indies, situated near the north shore of Venezuela, in the Caribbean Sea. The liqueur is made in these islands by the Dutch. It is also made at Amsterdam from orange peel imported from the Curaçoas. Citrus bigaradia.

The bitter orange used is the

It is commonly obtained by digesting orange peel in sweetened spirits, and flavouring with cinnamon, cloves, or mace. The spirits employed are usually reduced to nearly 56 under proof, and each gallon contains about 3 pounds of sugar. Curaçoa varies in colour. The darker is produced by powdered Brazil wood, mellowed by caramel.

Parfait Amour is a liqueur composed of several ingredients, such as citron, clove, muscat, and others.

M

Kirsch, Kirschwasser, or Kirschenwasser, or cherry water, is the genuine drink of the Black Forest. The head-quarters of this liqueur, as Griesbach and Petersthal in the Reuch valley, are rich in cherry trees of the Machaleb variety. H. W. Wolff, in his Rambles, rises into an almost poetic description of its virtues. "It is," he says, referring to the Black Foresters, their general stimulant and comforter, their consoler in grief, their promoter of conviviality, their safety valve in trouble or excitement." After this, little can be added without the danger, or rather the certainty, of bathos. When genuine-for alas, it shares the common fate of drinks, adulteration—it is said to be ardent and slightly poisonous. In other words, it contains "that excellent stomachic, hydrocyanic acid." Of late the Black Foresters have rivalled the Servians in a

spirit distilled from wild plums. Stollberg thinks Kirschenwasser in no way inferior to the spirit made from corn at Dantzic,1 and others hold it equal to the Dalmatian Maraschino. The liqueur is also made in Germany, France, and elsewhere.

Pomeranzen, or Pomeranzen-Wasser,

somewhat

resembling our orangeade, is principally drunk in Northern Germany.

Raspail was originally, as many other liqueurs, medicinal, and was so called from the name of its inventor. Mariani has made an Elixir à la coca du Pérou. This, like Raspail, is an agreeable tonic.

3

Vermuth is composed of white wine, angelica, absinthe, and other aromatic herbs.

1 Stolberg's Travels, i., 146.

2 Germ. Wermuth, absinthe or wormwood, plant of genus

Many sweet wines approach very nearly liqueurs. Of these are in Austria some sweet wines of Transylvania and Dalmatia. In Spain, the Tinto d'Alicante, and the white Muscats of Malaga. In France, Hermitage, Grenache, Colmar, and the Muscats of Rivesaltes and of Roquevaire. In Cyprus, La Commanderie. In Italy, the Muscats of Vesuvius, Orvieto and Montefiascone, the holy wine of Castiglione, the white wines of Albano, and the aromatic wine of Chiavenna. In Greece, the Malmseys of Santorin and the Ionian Isles. In Russia, the wines of Koos and Sudach in the Crimea; and in Mexico, those of Passo del Nocte, Paras, San Luiz de la Paz, and Zelaya.

In the Widdowes Treasure, London, 1595, are receipts for Sirrop of Roses or Violets, and two receipts for Rosa Solis, and in the Good Housewife's Jewele, London, 1596, are receipts for distilling of Rosemary water, Imperiall water, Sinamon water, and the Water of Life.

Artemisia perhaps originally connected with warm, on account of the warmth it produces in the stomach. This bitter, though commonly quoted under liqueurs, should be classed with Quinine Wine, Angostura, Khoosh, etc., Juglandine, made in France from the walnut, Malakoff made in Silesia, the Shaddock and Quassia bitters of the West Indies, and the Schapps bitter of Switzerland.

AMERICAN DRINKS.

Cobblers-Cocktails-Flips, etc.-Punch-Varieties-A Bar Tender Anstey's Pleader's Guide - A Yard of Flannel - Bottled Velvet-Rumfustian, etc.

THE great au

HE great authority, probably the greatest authority, on this interesting subject is a gentleman who, with the true modesty of genius, allows himself to be known only by the pseudonym of Jerry Thomas. Formerly a bar-tender at the Metropolitan Hotel, New York, and the Planter's House, St. Louis, he is said to have travelled over Europe and America in "search of all that is recondite in this branch of the spirit art." His very name, says one of his admirers, is synonymous in the lexicon of mixed drinks with all that is rare and original.

Among the chief American drinks are, being alphabetically arranged, cobblers, cocktails, cups, flips, juleps, mulls, nectars, neguses, noggs, punches-of which there are at least three score-sangarees, shrubs, slings, smashes, and toddies.

1 The dictionary explanations of these terms are commonly unsatisfactory. The experience of the bar-tender is more than the learning of the lexicographer. Cobbler, indeed, is well explained as compounded of wine, sugar, lemon, and sucked up through a

The cobbler is an American invention, though now common in other countries. It requires small skill in its composition, but should be arranged to please the eye. Of this drink the straw is the leading characteristic.

The cocktail is a comparatively modern discovery. In this drink Bogart's Bitters occupies invariably a prominent place. The Crusta is an improvement on the cocktail, and is said to have been invented by Santina, a celebrated Spanish caterer. Its differentia is a small quantity of lemon juice and a little lump of ice. The paring of a lemon must also line the glass, from which feature it probably derives its name.

Flip has been immortalised by Dibdin as the favourite beverage of sailors, though it has been asserted that they seldom drink it; a somewhat hazardous statement, unless limited to the times in which there is none to be had. The essential feature in a flip is repeated pouring between two vessels, supposed to straw; but of cocktail we only learn that it is a compounded drink much used in America. The etymologies given are generally satisfactory. Julep is from rose water. Mull from mulled, erroneously taken as a past participle. According to Wedgwood, mulled is a form of mould, and mulled ale is funeral ale, potatio funerosa. Nogg is from noggin, signifying a pot, and then the strong beer which it .contains. Negus is commonly known to have been the invention of Col. Francis Negus in the reign of Anne. Punch is of course from the Hindustani signifying 5, from its five original ingredients, to wit, aqua vită, rose water, sugar, arrack, and citron juice. A very unsatisfactory derivation of Sangaree is from the Spanish sangria, the incision of a vein. Shrub is clearly the Arabic or syrup.

Smash, explained curtly as iced brandy and water. Slang. is probably from the smashing of the ice; while sling seems evidently to be from the German schlingen, to swallow.