XXVI | Beverages, of Which Water Is the Foundation.
Water is certainly the most ancient beverage, the most simple, natural, and the most common, which nature has given to mankind. But it is necessary to be really thirsty in order to drink water, and as soon as this craving is satisfied it becomes insipid and nauseous. What is then to be done? Cyrus would have said: “Drink no more;” so would a teetotaler of the present day. In the first ages of the world, the human race, bound by no oath of temperance, succeeded, by sheer application of their ingenuity, in finding something better, or perhaps worse, according to the ideas of certain moralists, whose wise teaching, however, commands respect. Certain it is that water, continuing to be regarded with peculiar favour, was called to play a principal part in various combinations by which it lost its insipidity and inoffensive properties, and acquired the wonderful power of provoking a sort of madness, known by the name of drunkenness.
Those beverages which man imbibes when he is no longer thirsty, which cloud his weak mind, and render him ill when in good health, are called fermented liquors.
Beer is one of the most ancient. If we are to believe Diodorus of Sicily, Bacchus himself invented it.[XXVI_1] However, it is certain that the absolute injunction not to drink wine, caused the inhabitants of Egypt to have recourse to a factitious beverage obtained from barley,[XXVI_2] often mentioned in history under the name of zythum and curmi,[XXVI_3] and whose invention has been often attributed to Osiris—which means, that its precise origin is entirely unknown.
It was a kind of beer composed of barley, and capable of being preserved for a long time without decomposing;[XXVI_4] for instead of hops, utterly unknown in that country, a bitter infusion of lupins was added.[XXVI_5]
The Egyptians also used Assyrian corn in its composition, and probably other aromatic plants, in which each one followed his peculiar taste. The method of brewing varied much among them;[XXVI_6] but the one here mentioned was that most generally in use to procure zythum in Lower Egypt, where it was converted, like our beer, into vinegar, which the Greek merchants of Alexandria exported to the European ports.[XXVI_7]
The Egyptians long drank nothing but this fermented liquor, because the followers of Osiris believed that when Jupiter crushed the Titans with thunderbolts, their blood, mixing with the earth, produced the vine. They invented the zythum as a substitute for wine.[XXVI_8]
It is not probable that the Greeks, whose wines were so renowned in antiquity, thought much of beer. Nevertheless, Aristotle[XXVI_9] mentions drunkenness being caused by drinking a beverage drawn from barley. Æschylus[XXVI_10] and Sophocles[XXVI_11] mention a liquor procured from the same cereal.
The use of beer spread rapidly in Gaul, where wine was but little known before the time of Probus. The Emperor Julian, governor of this country, acquaints us of this fact in an epigram.[XXVI_12]
The Spaniards, and the aborigines of Britany and Germany, also delightfully intoxicated themselves with an “infusion of barley,” called by the first of these nations, cœlia, ceria, cerevisia,[XXVI_13] and curmi by the two latter. These various denominations signify literally, strong water,[XXVI_14] and this fermented drink was common to the nations just indicated.[XXVI_15] All the people of Western Europe drank a strong liquor made with grain and water. The manner of preparing it was not the same in Spain, in Gaul, and elsewhere; but everywhere it possessed the same dangerous properties.
“Man,” says Pliny, “is so skilful in flattering his vices, that he has even found means to render water poisonous and intoxicating.”[XXVI_16]
The Danes and Saxons gave themselves up to an enormous consumption of zythum and curmi, kinds of ale and beer, varying in no other respect than in the manner of preparing them.[XXVI_17] The warlike piety of their ingenuous and coarse-minded heroes, desired no greater recompense, after a life of fatigue and rough combats, than to sing the praises of Odin amidst eternal banquets, where these exhilarating beverages might unceasingly maintain the joy and bravery of the warriors.[XXVI_18]
The ancient Britons had many vines, but they esteemed them only as ornaments to their gardens; and they preferred, says Cæsar, the wine of grain to that of grapes.[XXVI_19] It is historically demonstrated that the English, at a very early epoch, applied themselves to the making of beer.
It is mentioned in the laws of Ina, Chief, or King, of Wessex; and this liquor held a distinguished rank among those that appeared at a royal feast in the reign of Edward the Confessor.[XXVI_20]
Under the Normans, ale acquired a reputation it has ever since maintained. Two gallons cost only one penny in the cities; in the country, four gallons might be obtained at the same price. Happy age! happy ale drinkers! At that period—the golden age for the apostles of the Britannic Bacchus—the brewers rendered no account of the preparation of this beloved beverage. The English nation did not yet purchase the right of intoxicating themselves: it was not till the year 1643 that this authorization was to be bought.[XXVI_21]
The use of hops would appear to be of German invention. They were employed in the Low Countries at the beginning of the 14th century; but it was not till the 16th that they were appreciated in England.[XXVI_22]
Can it be true that beer or ale possessed, in certain cases, strange curative properties? We find the following fact in a statistical account of Scotland.[XXVI_23]
A poor coal miner of the county of Clackmannan, named William Hunter, had been long suffering with acute rheumatism, or obstinate gout, which deprived him of the use of his limbs. The eve of the first Monday of the year 1758, some of his neighbours came to pass the evening with him. Ale was drunk, and they got merry. The jolly fellow never failed to empty his glass at each round. Scotch ale is a seductive drink, and as perfidious as pleasure: it bewilders the senses, and finally masters the reason. William Hunter lost his, completely; but his legs were restored, and he was able to make marvellous use of them for more than twenty years. After that happy evening, never did his old enemy, the gout, dare approach him; and the worthy coal miner took care to keep it at a distance, by reiterating the remedy which had proved so beneficial. Nobody could blame him. Ale had become so dear to him! Gratitude and prudence combined to make it a duty to remain unalterably attached, and he was faithful to it till he breathed his last.
Antecedent to the use of hops beer was made in England as follows:
“To make a Hogshead of Strong Ale.—It was necessary, first of all, to make the grout, which was thus done:—Nine gallons of water was to be well boiled, and put into a brewing-vessel; when it was a little cool there was put therein three pecks of malt, which was left standing for an hour and a-half, and then it ought to be drawn off into a cooler. When it was near cold, it was put into a vessel provided for that purpose, perfectly clean, and having a cover to stop it down close. Being therein, it was closely covered down, that it might there stand to sharpen; if the weather should be cold it might require about eighteen hours, but if it was hot not quite so long. When it was ripe enough, upon the sudden opening of the vessel, the strength of the fume arising from the liquour would near, if not entirely, extinguish a lighted candle, which ought to be provided short on purpose, and holden over for the proof thereof. When the brewer was satisfied that the grout was properly ripened, he poured it forth into the copper, and boiled it moderately upon a slow fire for about an hour, constantly stirring it all the while, and to know when it was boiled enough he provided a small ashen stick, which, being alighted at the fire, he thrust suddenly into the boiling liquor, drawing it forth as quick as possible, when, if the fire on the stick remained still unextinguished, it was well boiled, but not if it were otherwise. This being done, the liquor was put into a vessel of twenty gallons, or thereabouts, and yeast put to it, that it might work, which when it had sufficiently done, it was ready for the wort to be put to it. The wort might be brewed of what strength the brewer should please, so that it did not exceed sixty gallons to the above proportion of grout. The grout being now properly ripe, and having worked enough, a quantity of the wort, sufficient to fill up the twenty-gallon vessel into which the grout is put, must be poured upon it, and then the whole drawn off into the yeeling fatt, and there, being mixed with the remainder of the wort, is left to work together, which when it hath sufficiently done, it must be strained off into the hogshead, through a hair sieve made for that purpose, where it must also work like other beer or ale.”[XXVI_24]
In the ninth year of Edward II., things being very scarce, a gallon of ale was sold for twopence, of the better sort for threepence, and of the best for fourpence; but the Londoners ordained that, in the City, a gallon of the bettermost sort of ale should be sold for three-halfpence, and of the small ale for one penny only.[XXVI_25]
Holinshed says[XXVI_26] that every kind of wine could be procured in England. “Nevertheless,” he adds, “ale and beere beare the greatest brunt in drincking, which are of so many sortes and ages as it pleaseth the brewer to make them. The beere that is used at noblemen’s tables is commonly of a yeare olde (or, peradventure, of twoo yeares’ tunning, or more, but this is not general); it is also brued in Marche, and is therefore called Marche beere; but for the household it is usually not under a monthe’s age, eache one coveting to have the same stale as he might, so that was not soure, and the breade new as possible, so that be not hote.”
Formerly, they drank beer in some parts of France—in others, wine. Perhaps it is the same now. This difference of taste gave rise to a rather jocose dispute between a grey friar and a white friar. One, who was a Fleming, was for beer; the other, who was from Bordeaux, was for wine. The Fleming cited passages without number from antiquity in proof of the excellence of beer, known by the ancients under the name of zithum, or curmi. The one from Bordeaux was not so learned, but he was a native of Bordeaux, and with one word he terminated the dispute. “Brother,” said he to his adversary, “I maintain that there is as much difference between wine and beer as there is between St. Francis and St. Dominick.” The whole community were for the Bordeaux monk, and the Fleming was reduced to silence.[XXVI_27]
Braket was formerly the cherished drink of the lower classes in England. Arnold describes the preparation of it, in his “Chronicles of London:”
“Take a pot of good ale and put thereto a porcyon of honey and pepper, in this manner:—When thou hast good ale, lete it stonde (stand) in a pott two dayes, and then drawe out a quart, or a pottell, of that ale, and putt to the honey, and set it over the fyre and let it sethe well, and take it of the fyre and scume it clene; and then sat it over the fyre and scume it agayne, and then let it keele a whyle, and put thereto the pepper, and then set hym on the fyre and let him boyle well togyder, with esy fyre, but clere. Take four gallons of good ale, a pynte of fyn tryed hony, and about a saucerful of powder of peper.”
Beer was hot unknown in Italy, but the Romans never granted it their serious attention.[XXVI_28] We will give a brief sketch of those beverages which, among them and the Greeks, replaced wine with greater or less advantage.
Convalescents, sober persons who resisted the sweet seductions of Falernian and Chios wines, drank a kind of barley-water ptisana, a sorry liquid, of which the following is the recipe for the use of the abstemious of the present day. They placed barley in water, and left it there until it swelled; it was then dried in the sun, then beaten to deprive it of its husk, and ground. Then, when it had been boiled in water for a long time, it was again exposed to the sun. When they wished to drink barley-water, a small quantity of this flour was boiled, the water was strained off, and a few drops of vinegar were added.[XXVI_29] The disciples of Comus have always shuddered at this beverage, when only mentioned.
The oxycratus was not much better. It was a mixture of water and vinegar, with which the lower orders contented themselves when they could obtain nothing more exhilarating to drink;[XXVI_30] and with which the soldiers, especially in the camp, were compelled to quench their thirst.[XXVI_31]
Some passages from Pliny, and also from other authors, prove that the ancients were acquainted with cider.[XXVI_32] It is, however, asserted that the use of this beverage goes no farther back than three or four centuries, either in England or France;[XXVI_33] but this cannot be a fact with regard to the last-named country, since the capitulars of Charlemagne place among the number of ordinary trades that of sicerator, or “cider maker.” This “wine of apples,”[XXVI_34] it is said, was very common among the Hebrews. That is possible, but it would, nevertheless, be difficult to prove it from the holy writings, since the word schecar, which has been translated by sicera, and which, again, has been rendered into cider, signifies all kinds of intoxicating beverage, whether made from grain, honey, or fruit.[XXVI_35]
Gaul, covered with forests, and swarming with bees, possessed an immense quantity of wild honey, of which, by the aid of fermentation in water, the inhabitants composed a strong and intoxicating drink, called hydromel. This beverage, highly esteemed both in Rome and Greece, was prepared in the following manner: rain water was kept some time, and then boiled until reduced to one-third, to which honey was added.[P] This mixture was exposed to the sun for the space of forty days; it was then placed in a vessel, and by these means they obtained, in time, a vinous hydromel very similar to our Madeira wine.[XXVI_36] To make oxymel, still more heady, ten pounds of honey were mixed with two pints and a half of old vinegar, and one pound of sea-salt; the whole boiled only an instant in five pints of water. This liquor was left to get very old.[XXVI_37]
Juice of quinces and honey, boiled in water, produced hydromelon, a delicious drink, which our century might envy the delicate drinkers of Athens and Rome,[XXVI_38] especially when roses had been added to this nectar, which changed it into hydrorosatum.[XXVI_39]
The apomeli was nothing more than water in which honeycomb had been boiled.[XXVI_40] Omphacomeli, an ingenious mixture of honey and verjuice, quenched thirst during the summer, and produced that agreeable gaiety which is to drunkenness what doziness is to sleep.[XXVI_41]
A mixture of honey and juice of myrtle seed, of course diluted with water, composed myrtites, the aromatic flavour of which flattered the palate, and rendered the breath more sweet.[XXVI_42] Sometimes pomegranates were substituted for the myrtle, and it was then called rhoites, and possessed an agreeable and pungent flavour.[XXVI_43]
Wine made of dates enjoyed a general esteem in the east. The Romans, who knew also how to appreciate it, prepared it by throwing into water some common, though very ripe, dates; and when they had well soaked, they were put under a press.[XXVI_44] The same means were employed to procure fig wine; but often the sediment of grapes was used instead of water, to prevent its being too sweet.[XXVI_45]
“Artificial wines” were also procured by the aid of several other kinds of fruits, such as sorbs, medlars, and mulberries.[XXVI_46] Fermentation dispelled the sweet and insipid flavour which generally distinguishes these fruits; and, at the commencement of a repast, the guests swallowed with delight large cups of these beverages.[XXVI_47]
It was also the custom to serve very cold water, in which certain plants had been infused, and which was freshened by being surrounded with snow after it had been boiled for some time. The invention of this iced water is attributed to the Emperor Nero, who made great use of it; and who appears to have bitterly regretted it when, dethroned and flying from his assassins, he was constrained through excessive thirst to drink muddy water from a ditch. The unfortunate Cæsar then, for the first time, thought of the strange vicissitudes of fortune, and casting a sorrowful glance at the disgusting fluid he held in his hand, “Alas!” he exclaimed, with a sigh, “is this the iced water that Nero drank?”[XXVI_48]