The Chemistry of Cookery

beet-root sugar, since, during its fermentation, besides ethyl alcohol and aldehyde, it yields propyl, butyl, and amyl alcohols, which have been shown by Dujardin and Audigé to act as poisons in very small quantities.’ In connection with this subject I may add that the French Government carefully protects its own citizens by rigid inspection and analysis of the wines offered for sale to French wine-drinkers; but does not feel bound to expend its funds and energies in hampering commerce by severe examination of the wines that are exported to ‘John Bull et son Île,’ especially as John Bull is known to have a robust constitution. Thus, vast quantities of brilliantly coloured liquid, flavoured with orris root, which would not be allowed to pass the barriers of Paris, but must go somewhere, is drunk in England at a cost of four times as much as the Frenchman pays for genuine grape-wine. The coloured concoction being brighter, skilfully cooked, and duly labelled to imitate the products of real or imaginary celebrated vineyards, is preferred by the English _gourmet_ to anything that can be made from simple grape-juice. I should add that a character somewhat similar to that of natural dryness is obtained by mixing with the grape-juice wine a secondary product, obtained by adding water to the _marc_ (_i.e._ the residue of skins, &c., that remains after pressing out the must or juice); a minimum of sugar is dissolved in the water, and this liquor is fermented. The skins and seeds contain much tannic acid or astringent matter, and this roughness imposes upon many wine-drinkers, provided the price charged for the wine thus cheapened be sufficiently high. Some years ago, while resident in Birmingham, an enterprising manufacturing druggist consulted me on a practical difficulty which he was unable to solve. He had succeeded in producing a very fine claret (Château Digbeth, let us call it) by duly fortifying with silent spirit a solution of cream of tartar, and flavouring this with a small quantity of orris root. Tasted in the dark it was all that could be desired for introducing a new