BRANDY

The name given in this country to ardent spirits distilled from wine, and po e ed of a peculiar taste and flavour, due to a minute portion of a peculiar volatile oil. Each variety of alcohol has an aroma characteristic of the fermented substance from which it is procured; whether it be the grape, cherries, sugar-cane, rice, corn, or potatoes; and it may be distinguished even as procured from different growths of the vine. The brandies of Langue doc, Bordeaux, Armagnac, Cognac, Aunis, Saintonge, Rochelle, Orleans, Barcelona, Naples, . being each readily recognisable by an experienced dealer. Aubergier showed, by experiments, that the disagreeable taste of the spirits distilled from the marc of the grape is owing to an e ential oil contained in the skin of the grape; and found that the oil, when insulated, is so energetic that a few drops are sufficient to taint a pipe of 600 litres of fine-flavoured spirit. The most celebrated of the French brandies, those of Cognac and Armagnac, are slightly rectified to only from 0·935 to 0·922; they contain more than half their weight of water, and come over therefore highly charged with the fragrant e ential oil of the husk of the grape. When, to save expense of carriage, the spirit is rectified to a much higher degree, the dealer, on receiving it at Paris, reduces it to the market proof by the addition of a little highly-flavoured weak brandy and water; but he cannot in this way produce so finely-flavoured a spirit, as the weaker product of distillation of the Cognac wine. If the best Cognac brandy be carefully distilled at a low heat, and the strong spirit be diluted with water, it will be found to have suffered much in its flavour. Genuine French brandy evinces an acid reaction with litmus paper, owing to a minute portion of vinegar; it contains besides some acetic ether, and, when long kept in oak casks, a little astringent matter. The following formula may be proposed for converting a silent or flavourle corn spirit, into a factitious brandy. Dilute the pure alcohol to the proof pitch, add to every hundred pounds weight of it from half a pound to a pound of argol (crude wine stone) di olved in water, a little acetic ether, and French-wine vinegar, some bruised French plums, and flavour-stuff from Cognac; then distil the mixture with a gentle fire, in an alembic furnished with an agitator. The spirit which comes over may be coloured with nicely burned sugar (caramel) to the desired tint, and roughened in taste with a few drops of tincture of catechu or oak-bark. The above recipe will afford a spirit free from the deleterious drugs too often used to disguise and increase the intoxicating power of British brandies; one which may be reckoned as wholesome as alcohol, in any shape, can ever be.