CHAPTER IV. 5. On Fermentation, Alcoholic Drinks, Nutrition, &c. 1. Sugar, or Saccharine Matter. 2. Requisites to Fermentation. 3. Vinous, Acetous, Panary, and Putrefactive Fermentation. 4. Distillation. Proportion of Alcohol in different Intoxicating Beverages. 6. Gin, Brandy, &c. 7. Alcohol unknown to the Ancients. 8. The natural Strength of different Fermented Wines. 9. Malt Liquors. 10. Nutriment in Barley, Apples, Figs, &c. 11. Pigs fed on Apples. 12. Small degree of Nutriment in Wines. 13. Letters to Brother John quoted. 14. Inebriating Liquors not needed for Food, for Thirst, nor for Medicine. 15. Spontaneous Combustion. 16. Adulteration of Beer, Wine, Porter, &c. SUGAR, or saccharine matter, is allowed by all scientific men to be the base of alcoholic drinks. The terms sugar, saccharum, and saccharine, are all derived from the Hebrew sacar or shacar, or from the Arabic shaccaron or saccaron. When we come to speak of the wines of Scripture, we shall show that, shacar, which is generally rendered "strong drink," in the Bible, is palm or date wine. "This liquor," says Dr. Shaw, "has a more luscious sweetness than honey." 5/1 We The Arabs used the word saccharon, for date wine, by way of eminence, because of its sweetness, and also for saccharine substances generally. Dioscorides, about 35 B.C., says: "There is a kind of honey called saccharon, which is found in India and Arabia Felix." Arrian, in his Periplus of the Red Sea, mentions it as an article of commerce, and terms it ranxag, sacchar. The Romans used the words saccharum for honey found in reeds, canes, &c. need not add that the English term sugar is the same word as the Hebrew and Arabic shacar, the Greek sacchar, and the Latin saccharum. We also find that these terms have always been applied to sweet or saccharine substances. This saccharine material, then, has in every age been the base of alcohol. For, as fermentation is a chemical process, and has always taken place according to the same natural laws, it has ever required the same base, and therefore sugar was as necessary to the production of alcohol in the days of Moses or Solomon as in our own time. But sugar alone is not sufficient to the production of alcohol. Science has long since demonstrated that there must be a portion of gluten, barm, or yeast, mixed with this sweet solution, or else vinous fermentation will not take place. In grapes and apples gluten is found in different proportions, and hence in fermenting the juice of these fruits, the addition of yeast is not required; but in the malting of barley a certain portion of its natural yeast or gluten is destroyed, and to make up for this deficiency, barm is employed in the fermentation of beer. stated that the following things are absolutely necessary to the vinous fermentation of the juice of the grape. 1. As already shown, there must be saccharine matter and gluten. 2. The temperature should not be below 50, nor above 70 or 75 degrees. tence. 3. The juice must be of a certain consis Thick syrups will not undergo the vinous fermentation. An excess of sugar is unfavourable to this process, and, on the other hand, too little sugar, or, which is the same thing, too much water, will be deficient of the necessary quantity of saccharine matter to produce a liquor that will keep, and, for want of more spirit, the vinous fermentation will almost instantly be followed by the acetous. 4. The quantity of gluten or ferment must also be well regulated. Too much or too little will impede and prevent fermentation. 5. Grape juice will not ferment when air is completely excluded. When air has once been admitted in sufficient quantity to cause fermentation to begin, it will then proceed without the admission of more, but until some has entered the fermenting vat it will not commence. Hence, Columella directs, that in making unfermented wines the vessel should be completely filled and immediately closed. 6. By boiling down the juice, or in other words evaporating the water, the substance becomes a syrup which, if very thick, will not ferment. 7. If the juice be filtered and deprived of its gluten, or ferment, the production of alcohol will be impossible. 8. Fermentation of grape juice proceeds very slowly if the quantity fermented is small. It appears that Donovan borrowed several, if not all, of these rules from Chaptal, who was an agriculturist, chemist, and wine manufacturer on a large scale. And the reader will do well to bear these conditions necessary to vinous fermentation in mind, as we shall have occasion to appeal to them when we come to speak of the unfermented wines of the ancients. It should also be observed, that most of these rules apply to the fermentation of malt liquor, except that in making beer, there does not appear to be such a necessity for the admission of air as is requisite to the fermentation of the juice of the grape. The reader may be reminded that there are four, if not more, descriptions of fermentation; the vinous, the acetous, the putrefactive, and the panary. The vinous is the only one that produces inebriating drinks, and it is to this species of fermentation alone that the rules just given apply. Donovan, in his work on "Domestic By the acetous fermentation, vinegar is Economy," in Lardner's Cyclopædia, has produced. It takes place at a higher tem Calcavella Burgundy. 11.55 Currant wine......20.55 11.95 Elder wine, Cider, White Hermitage...17.43 & Perry 9.57 .12.82 Stout 6.80 ... 14,37 Ale..... 8.88 .......4. Marcella.. perature than the vinous. Every one knows The panary fermentation occurs in the manufacture of bread. Some scientific men assert that this process is nothing more than the vinous fermentation, others that it is the acetous. In consequence of there being a small portion of spirit in brewers' barm, or from some other cause, a weak kind of alcohol has been detected in the oven of the baker. Some time ago a speculation was set on foot for the purpose of condensing and collecting the spirit, but upwards of twenty thousand pounds have been squandered upon this scheme without any adequate return, and we believe the project is now abandoned. Red Champagne...11.30 8.88 Porter 4.79 Brandy ....... ........53.39 ......53 68 ..51.60 Vin de Grave......12.80 Rum For these analyses, the most genuine liquors were obtained, and, as a proof that the per centage may be depended upon, I have in my possession several other tables which differ but very little from the one given above. The difference between distillation and fermentation is, that by the application of heat the distiller obtains a larger quantity of spirit from the saccharine base than does the brewer. Fermentation is necessary to precede distillation, otherwise there would be no alcohol to extract. In wines and beer you have a portion of the grape, or the malt held in solution, but in ardent spirits you have nothing but alcohol and water. Gin, rum, brandy, whisky, &c., when pure, are nothing but alcohol and water; and the fiery spirit in each of them is obtained by heat and fermentation from various saccharine substances. Gin, whis If the panary fermentation is the same as the vinous, still it is impossible that any spirit should remain in bread after it is baked; because alcohol is given off at the heat of 170 degrees; and, as the baker's oven must be much hotter than this, whatever quantum of spirit may be in the dough must be evolved during the process of baking. If panary fermentation really did produce alcohol, still none of it would remain in the bread after it came from the oven, because the whole must have been extractedky, and British brandy are distilled from by the heat necessary to bake the loaves. Consequently those advocates for strong drink, who tell us there is spirit in bread, display the grossest ignorance, both concerning distillation, and the heat at which alcohol is obtained. grain: rum from sugar and molasses; and foreign brandy from grapes; but in neither of these is there the least particle of nourishment. It is the aim of the distiller to convert every atom of the substance he distils into spirit. The more he can atten. Vinous fermentation produces alcohol, or uate his liquor, the lighter it is, the thinner the intoxicating spirit of all our modern it is, the less it has of anything like nutriinebriating liquors. That which intoxicates, tion, the greater his success and profit. He whether in gin, rum, brandy, whisky, has not the least idea of leaving anything wine, beer, or cider, is the same principle, in the form of food for the stomach of his and is called alcohol, or spirits of wine. It customer. An inflammatory, stimulating, may exist in different proportions in differ- poisonous liquid is all that he produces, ent liquors, but still the intoxicating prin- and to obtain this he destroys millions of ciple in all alcoholic drinks is the same bushels of wholesome grain. kind of spirit. According to the experiments and analyses of the most careful chemists, the following degrees of alcohol are found in different intoxicating beverages of our own day. that period it was confined to the shop of the apothecary. enough and intoxicating enough for our palate; how dissatisfied then should we be with the wines of Scripture! Those who tell us that the Bible recommends wine, would do well to get us some of the wines mentioned in the Word of God; until they do this, it is useless to attempt to convict us of running counter to the voice of Revelation. We believe that oil, pulse, &c., are spoken of quite as highly in Holy Writ as wine, and yet our opponents are so wicked as never to taste any of these substances; we know also that water is highly recom very sanctimonious lovers of strong drink are impious enough to laugh at waterdrinkers as persons who are beside themselves. Weighed in the even balances of the Sanctuary, the tee-totaller, who rejects the brandied wines of modern times, and which have scarcely the least resemblance to the wines of Scripture, would be found to be quite as good a Christian as he who rejects the oil and the water of which the Holy Spirit has spoken in terms of such high commendation. The strongest wines of hot countries, if they had any, could have in them but a very small portion of alcohol, and could not have been brandied, because distillation was then unknown; but we have seen that port and sherry are mixed with this fiery poison, until very frequently they are full one fourth spirit, and therefore are five, six, or seven times stronger than any of the drinks of antiquity could have been; and, supposing it were our duty to drink the latter, will any man say that we are under an obligation to partake of the former? We will presently prove that there is not a single text of Scripture which ever invites us to taste of intoxicating liquors; but could one be produced, still it would not follow that, if the Word of God recommends us to drink poison at the rate of three or four per cent., therefore we ought to take it at the increased ratio of twenty or twenty-five per cent. One is almost ready to conclude that a little of the stupefaction of alcohol must have been felt, before any person would have reasoned that an invitation to drink weak wine would put us under an obligation to become bibbers of those which are highly adulterated with a strong and "acrid poison." It is well known that grapes adapted to produce the strongest wines will not yield more than eight per cent. of spirit, and therefore not be stronger than modern ale. France is said to be the most suitable climate in the world for the growth of a grape that will produce a strong wine, yet the French wines are generally spoken of as weak. The fact is, the strongest wine which the pure juice of the grape would yield by fermentation would be comparatively weak, and therefore, until distillation was dismended by our Creator himself, and yet our covered, and pure spirit was obtained to mix with wines, the most potent alcoholic drinks were far from being strong. In warm countries the grapes were too sweet to produce much alcohol. We all know that sweet apples will not yield strong cider, consequently the wines of all very warm countries must have been very weak indeed. The analysis just given shows that palm wine, which was the shacar, or "strong drink," of Scripture, contains less than five per cent. of alcohol, and therefore, is only about half as strong as our ale, and yet this "strong drink" is supposed to have been more potent than their common wines. It is highly probable that the strongest grape wines of the ancients had in them a less quantity of alcohol than our common table beer. But the analysis given above shows that modern wines contain, some fifteen and some twenty-nine per cent. of spirit. Port, which is one of our favourite wines, ranges from 21 to 25 per cent.; a very considerable proportion of the sherry that is drunk would be found to be equally potent. And this large amount of strength, liquid fire, or poison, is obtained by mixing them with brandy or some other species of alcohol. A filthy sort of brandy, called "old strap," is added to port and other wines to render them acceptable to our English palate. For it should be observed, that we are the most drinking people alive, and foreigners, knowing our taste for potent liquors, add a greater quantity of alcohol to the wines imported to this country than to those which they prepare for any other nation. Our home-made wines have generally a portion of brandy added to them, and when this is not the case, many of them are the mere result of sugar, yeast, and water, and therefore, neither British nor foreign wines can afford us any criterion by which to judge of the character of those drinks which are the simple and genuine product of the juice of the grape. Still, the fact that port, sherry, &c., must be brandied to impart unto them a sufficient degree of alcohol to please our vitiated appetite, is a cogent proof that we are far from being satisfied with the unadulterated produce of the grape. The fermented juice of the vine is not strong We have said that sugar is the base of alcohol. This saccharine matter is generally found in the grape, though not always in the same degree; in malt it is produced by the process of malting; and because saccharine matter is deficient in our own native fruits, in making wine from them we add a large proportion of sugar. It should be borne in mind that sugar holds the third or lowest rank among nutrient vegetable substances, and can bear no comparison with the farina of wheat, the God and in most instances thrown away. It is also sometimes stated that the quan hordein of barley, or the starch of potatoes. Majendie fed a dog on sugar; it did very -well for a few days, but in a short time it became weak and diseased, and in less than three weeks died in a most pitiable condition. No labouring man would be able to pursue his daily calling, were you to allow him no other aliment than sugar. Now the design of malting is to change the very nutritive hordein of barley into sugar; that is, to convert a highly nutrient grain into a sub-tity of starch in malt is greater than in barstance not one tenth so nourishing; and then the object of brewing is to change this sugar into a poison. But this is not all. In the production of alcohol the sugar is decomposed, and the carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen which constitute its elements, undergo a new chemical combination. Carbon and oxygen to the amount of forty-eight per cent. unite to form carbonic acid, and in that form are wasted; while fifty-two per cent. combine in the form of alcohol or poison. Thus the sugar, which is less nutritive than barley, is after all wasted at the rate of nearly 50 per cent. for the purpose of producing a poisonous stimulant. Here, then, we have human ingenuity exerted in the work of destroying the bounties of Providence to a most frightful degree, and this, too, is done in a country in which thousands have not bread enough to satisfy the cravings of nature. Hordein, a most nutritive species of farina, is to a great extent changed into a saccharine substance containing not one-tenth the same amount of aliment The frost malts our potatoes, and renders them more saccharine, but are they improved? The sugar into which a portion of the barley has been changed, is by the brewer dissolved and converted into two poisons; the one in the form of carbonic acid is allowed to escape, and the other, in the form of alcohol, is retained to be drunk, and destroy men's reason, morals, health, and prospects in both worlds; and then, as if to perfect this wickedness and presumption, we are gravely told that these poisons are "the good creatures of God!" Much has been said by some concerning the quantity of gum or mucilage which malt contains beyond barley, and which is said to be held in the beer in a state of solution. But, unfortunately for this theory, the testimony of Dr. Paris, a zealous advocate for the use of beer, completely overturns it. His words are, "Hops constitute the most valuable ingredient in malt liquors. Independent of the flavour and tonic virtue which they communicate, they precipitate, by means of their astringent principle, the vegetable mucilage, and thus remove from the beer the active principle of fermentation." The gum or mucilage, therefore, instead of being held in solution and admitted to the stomach as an article of nutrition, according to the high authority of Dr. Paris, is "precipitated" to the bottom of the cask, ley. This is granted; but still it has been I have not in my possession an analysis which will show the quantity of mucilage, gluten, sugar, &c. contained in apples, pears, dates, or grapes, in their original state, or in the juice of these fruits previous to fermentation, but there is no doubt that in the manufacture of fermented liquors from these fruits, there is as great a waste and destruc tion of their nutritive properties as that which takes place in the process of malting and brewing. The Americans have found that cows, sheep, or pigs, can be fatted on apples at a cheaper rate than on any other material, and that it is far more profitable to convert these fruits into animal food than to grind them, and ferment the juice into cider. One gentleman, whose orchard used to produce cider to the value of 300 dollars per year, on adopting the principle of total abstinence, resolved to employ his apples in fatting pigs, and his profits doubled, for instead of three hundred dollars which his cider used to be worth, his pork produced six hundred. The following demonstration of the nutritive qualities of apples has appeared in most of the public prints, and may be fully relied on. "On Thursday, Dec. 28, 1837, the members of the Ebley Mechanics' Institute dined at the Ebley Coffee House, in the Borough of Stroud, in the county of Gloster, and partook of a pig which had been fed upon apples. The owner, Thomas Neate, a member of the Stroud Total Abstinence Society, had read in a Temperance publication that, in America, pigs had been fatted on apples, and resolved to try the experiment, and commenced on the 10th of October; the pig was then so poor, that every rib could be counted. For the first fortnight he gave it nothing but apples and grains, and it improved amazingly; after that period, he substituted bean-meal for the grains, and the increase of flesh was still greater. On the 10th of October, when the experiment began, the pig was computed, by the best judges, to weigh about fourscore pounds, and eight weeks after, when it was killed, it was upwards of nine score, so that it increased in flesh at the rate of more than 10lbs. per week. During the period of fatting, it consumed four sacks of apples, and two bushels and a half of bean-meal. The apples and the meal cost 17. 6s. and for this sum nearly five score of pork was obtained. The apples were boiled; but as they needed no washing, and were cooked as soon as the water boiled, much less fuel and labour was required than would have been necessary in dressing potatoes. flesh when roasted was of the finest flavour, and all who partook of it declared that they never had tasted its equal." This experiment proves most unequivocally the highly nutritive properties of apples, and consequently the waste of God's bounties of which those are guilty who convert them into cider. What if Thomas Neale had ground the apples and made them into cider, and given it to the pig for wash, instead of the animal becoming fat, it would have decreased to a perfect skeleton. And why delude the labourer by giving him cider for food or for wages? The quantity The of nourishment in a pint of cider is not worth mentioning; the alcohol it contains is poisonous, and the water might be obtained in a much purer state from the pump or the spring. At the dinner mentioned above, the writer of this Essay was present. Indeed the report which appeared in the public newspapers was furnished by his pen. Thomas Neale was for many years one of my hearers. We have seen from the declarations of Scripture, that grapes in the East were considered an article of food. In Palestine and Assyria, the people were in the habit of "eating the fruit of the vine." Raisins or dried grapes are often spoken of as articles of food. Highly nutritious food is not needed in very hot countries, and human life could be sustained by figs, grapes, or dates; but who would think of feeding a man on modern port or sherry? The following quotation from Johnson's "Letters to Brother John on Life, Health, and Disease," will place this matter in a strong light. The author asks "Are stimulantsby which I mean ardent spirits, wines, and strong ales-are stimulants necessary? Are they pernicious? or are they neither one or the other? I assert that they are, in every instance, as articles of diet, pernicious; and even as medicines wholly unnecessary; since we possess drugs that will answer the same intentions, in at least an equal degree. But it is only as articles of diet that we have here to consider them. "Wines, spirit, and ale, are all alike, as it regards the fact of their being stimulants; they only differ somewhat in kind and degree. I shall speak for the present only of wine, for the sake of convenience. But whatever I shall say of wine, is to be considered as equally true of the others; and if what I have taught you in my preceding letters be true, what I shall now say of stimulants must be true also. "If wine be productive of good, what is the nature and kind of the good it produces? Does it nourish the body? We know that it does not; for the life of any animal cannot be supported by it. Besides, if you have understood what I have said of the nature, manner, and mechanism of nutrition, you will see at once, from the very mode in which the body is nourished, that whatever is capable of nourishing, must be susceptible of conversion into the solid matter of the body itself. But fluids taken into the stomach are not capable of being transmuted into solids, but pass off by the kidneys, as every body knows. "If, indeed, the fluid drink contains solid matters suspended in it, then these solid matters can be assimilated to the solid body, and so are capable of nourishing it; as in the instance of broths, barley-water, &c. &c. ; but the fluids in which these solid |