Alcoholic Beverages

"I had never tasted anything so cool and clean [as martinis]. They made me feel civilized."

"[The dry martini is] the only American invention as perfect as a sonnet."

"One [martini] is all right, two is too many, three is not enough."

"[A martini.] Shaken, not stirred."

"The important thing is the rhythm. Always have rhythm in your shaking. Now a manhattan you shake to time, a bronx to two-step time, but a dry martini you always shake to time."

"You ought to get out of those wet clothes and into a dry martini."

"I like to have a martini, Two at the very most. After three I'm under the table, After four I'm under my host."

"Martinis should never be shaken. They should always be stirred so that the molecules lie sensuously on top of each other."

"The essential mint julep is made with bourbon and mint syrup poured over ice and garnished with a spring of fresh mint. ... Variations abound, some of them so far from the Kentucky julep as to be unrecognizable to traditionalists. On the first Saturday in May, Kentucky Derby day, juleps are served at parties nationwide, yet few people know its history, and even many experienced bartenders do not know has to properly mix this celebrated drink."

"rose, smiling faintly, and went to the table. "Open the whiskey, ," she ordered, "and I'll make you a mint julep. Then you won't seem so stupid to yourself. . . . Look at the mint!""

"figures heavily in the experience; the mint julep has become the traditional drink of the and the most celebrated bourbon-based in the world. ... The mint julep had been served at from the beginning, but were not available in the now-famous souvenir glasses until the late 1930s."

"... I arose early in the morning and made him a Mint Julep, thinking it would refresh him after the restlessness of the hot night. ... Holding up the cooling beverage, I said to him: "Well, Professor, I have been entertaining you for two weeks on our simple ' fare; I could do no better, but I should have been glad had it been in my power to have treated you in the old Virginia style. Still, I cannot let you leave Virginia without taking a taste of the old lady, as she was known in ante-bellum days.""

"... There are many varieties, such as those composed of , , &c.; but the ingredients of the real mint julep are as follows. I learned how to make them, and succeeded pretty well. Put into a tumbler about a dozen of the tender sprigs of mint, upon them put a spoonful of white sugar, and equal proportions of and , so as to fill it up one-third, or perhaps a little less. Then take rasped or pounded ice, and fill up the tumbler. Epicures rub the lips of the tumbler with a piece of fresh , and the tumbler itself is very often incrusted outside with stalactites of ice. As the ice cools, you drink. ..."

"I'd druther been bit with a snake than pap's whisky."

"Wi’ usquabae, we’ll face the devil!"

"What two ideas are more inseparable than Beer and Britannia?"

"The wort of raw and malted grain is, by the addition of yeast, made to ferment easily, and affords a strong vinous liquor."

"During the sweating, the roots... begin to appear, and rapidly increase in length till checked by frequently turning the malt. About a day after the sprouting... rudiments of the future stem called acrospire... rises from the same extremity... and advancing within the husk, at last issues from the opposite end; but the process of germination is stopped before... such progress."

"The degree of heat at first does not exceed 90° but it is raised very slowly up to 150° or higher... It is then cleaned, to separate the rootlets, which are considered as injurious... formed chiefly from the mucilaginous and glutinous part..."

"The malt distillers add to the malted grain, which they ferment, a certain quantity of unmalted corn, nearly ground to powder, and the proportion of unmalted corn has... gradually... increased as to exceed considerably that of the malted grain."

"The term malt is... applied to grain which has been made to germinate..."

"In domestic brewing, the addition of molasses, or coarse brown sugar, to the malt employed, greatly economises the fabrication of the beer."

"As the acrospire shoots along the grain, the mealy part of the corn undergoes a chemical change. The glutinous and mucilaginous matter is taken up and removed by the embryo plant; the texture... becomes so loose that it crumbles between the fingers. When the acrospire has come nearly to the end of the seed the process is stopped by drying the malt upon the kiln."

"[M]alting... is... germination artificially excited, with the view of converting the fecula, or starch of the barley, into saccharine matter... by the abstraction of carbon... on the malt floor. ...[H]owever, ...the whole starch does not suffer this change; a portion... remains in the grain, which may even be extracted from it pure."

"This mixture they grind to meal, infused with water, at a heat considerably lower than that... used by the brewers, and employ much more agitation to mix it... The wort is drawn off and cooled in the usual way, and fresh water poured on to exhaust the grain."

"The wort thus formed is not so transparent as that from malt, but its taste is nearly as sweet. It would appear... the starch in the raw grain undergoes a certain change during the , and is brought towards the state of saccharine matter."

"The process of preparing malt is as follows: The barley is steeped in water for... not less than forty hours, beyond that time the steeping may be continued as long as the maltman chooses. The barley increases in weight... and... in bulk..; during this change much carbonic acid is disengaged; the grains become somewhat tender, and tinges the water of a bright reddish brown colour. The water being drained away, the barley is spread about two feet thick upon a floor, where it is formed into a rectangular heap, called the couch, about sixteen inches deep. ...[I]t is allowed to remain about twenty-six hours. It is then turned by... wooden shovels and diminished a little in depth. This... is repeated twice a day or oftener and the grain is spread thinner... till at last its depth [is less than] a few inches. ...[I]t ...gradually ...absorb[s] oxygen from the air ...to convert it into carbonic acid. In consequence ...temperature slowly increases and in about ninety-six hours the grain ...average[s] about 10° hotter than the surrounding air."

"Different kinds of corn are employed... In Britain barley is the most common grain... In America it is not uncommon to make beer of Indian corn and sometimes of rice. In the interior of Africa... the holcus spicatus."

"Small, or Table Beer... is a weaker liquor than ale, containing a larger quantity of water."

"In some northern countries of Europe a mixture of rye and barley is used. In the East Indies beer is frequently made of wheat; but the grain which answers best is common barley, because its germination is most easily conducted, and its farinaceous matter is more readily converted into saccharine matter than any other seed, and affords it in greater quantity."

"At this time the barley... becomes again so damp that it wets the hand; this is called sweating."

"Porter, [w]hich is commonly called Beer in London, must be pronounced the most perfect of all kinds of malt liquors."

"Mungo Park found the art of brewing beer... in the interior parts of Africa. They prepare the seed of the Holcus Spicatus nearly in the same manner as we do barley and he says that their beer was, to his taste, equal to the best strong malt liquor he had ever tasted..."

"Among the different kinds of drinks provided for a royal banquet in the reign of , ale is particularly specified. In Scotland and Wales they had at that time two kinds of ale, called common ale, and aromatie ale, both of which were considered... articles of great luxury among the Welsh. Wine, it appears, was then unknown even to the king of Wales."

"All the ancient malt liquors... seem to have been made entirely of barley, or some other farinaceous grain, and therefore were not generally calculated for long keeping, as this quality depends considerably, though not entirely, on the bitter principle of the ... The use of [which] is of modern date."

"The processes employed for brewing this species of malt liquor, all unite to convert the substance from which it is produced into the most perfect vinous fluid that can be obtained from grain."

"Beer may be considered as the wine of grain, for it is the product of the fermentation of malt, just as wine is that of the fermentation of the grape, or other subacid fruits. Malt liquors, however, are distinguished from wine, chiefly by the larger quantity of mucilage and saccharine matter which they contain, and by the absence of super-tartrate of potash, a salt which exists in all wines made of the juice of the grape."

"The principal distinction of malt liquors is into Beer, properly so called, Ale and Table Beer, or Small Beer."

"The name of Stout, or Brown Stout, is given to porter of more than ordinary strength."

"Ale is beer of a more syrupy consistence than porter; it contains a considerable quantity of undecomposed farinaceous matter; and saccharine mucilage, which impart... a clammy consistence and sweetish taste. Hence strong new brewed ale becomes muddy by a copious admixture of alcohol, whereas porter suffers no perceptible change..."

"Two parts of London table beer may be considered equivalent in strength to one of ale."

"All kinds of malt liquor contain a common identical principle... namely alcohol or spirit. They are of course weaker than wines, and in general more liable to become flat and acescent from this circumstance..."

"In Scotland the species of barley called beer, or big, (hordeum hexastichon) is employed, which is a much more hardy... and ripens better in northern latitudes."

"The... only essentially necessary substances employed in brewing beer are water, malted corn, and hops."

"[B]arley, and other cereal and leguminous seeds, when penetrated first with a portion of water, and afterwards exposed to a moderate temperature, swell, and announce the intestine movement that is excited in them by the development of the germ which sprouts out of these seeds. ...it has acquired a saccharine taste and the water in which it is boiled extracts from it a real saccharine substance..."

"When the grain has been thus changed the brewer... heats and dries the germinated seed by the action of fire and when... well dried he grinds the seed in order afterwards to prepare an infusion of it which when boiled with hops and suffered to ferment affords beer."

"Galen... and Dioscorides... were neither of them strangers to ale."

"The invention of brewing is ascribed to the Egyptians... from whence it seems to have passed to... western nations... The town of ... was particularly celebrated for its manufacture of malt liquors. Herodotus attributes the discovery of the art of brewing to the wife of ."

"The starch is not employed in their formation; but undergoes a change... for the future nourishment of the plumula, or embryo plant. It acquires... the property of forming a transparent sweet solution with hot water, approaching to the nature of sugar."

"Tacitus informs us, that beer was known in very remote ages among the northern nations, and that this liquor was the favourite drink of the Anglo-Saxons, and Danes, as it had been of their ancestors, the Germans. Before their conversion to Christianity, they believed that drinking large and frequent draughts of fermented malt liquors was one of the chief felicities which those heroes enjoyed, which were admitted into the hall of Odin."