KIRSCHWASSER

is an alcoholic liquor obtained by fermenting and distilling bruised cherries, called kirschen in German. The cherry usually employed in Switzerland and Germany is a kind of morello, which on maturation becomes black, and has a kernel very large in proportion to its pulp. When ripe, the fruit being made to fall by switching the trees, is gathered by children, thrown promiscuously, unripe, ripe, and rotten into tubs, and crushed either by hand, or with a wooden beater. The mashed materials are set to ferment, and whenever this proce is complete, the whole is transferred to an old still covered with verdigris, and the spirit is run off in the rudest manner po ible, by placing the pot over the common fire-place. The fermented mash is usually mouldy before it is put into the alembic, the capital of which is luted on with a mixture of mud and dung. The liquor has accordingly, for the most part, a rank smell, and is most dangerous to health, not only from its own crude e ential oil, but from the pru ic acid, derived from the distillation of the cherry-stones. There is a superior kind of kirschwa er made in the Black Forest, prepared with fewer kernels, from choice fruit, properly pre ed, fermented, and distilled.