Everyday Drinking_ The Distilled Kingsley Amis - Kingsley Amis [106]
7. Ay is a village in the Champagne country whose produce is given the highest rating, and Ahr is the name of a small river in Germany round which they make red wine. So now you know.
8. Without going into Magyar grammar it can be said that the higher the number the sweeter the wine. The reference is to the number of baskets of overripe grapes added to the cask. Five is the maximum.
9. He devised the logical system of calculating alcoholic strength by volume. We in the UK are now going over to it, abandoning our own illogical one: 40 per cent G–L = 70 ° Br. proof. (I said it was a small debt.)
10. “Saki,” H. H. Munro (1870–1916).
POUSSE - CAFÉ II
1. Gamay Beaujolais is not from Beaujolais; it is a California varietal (named after the variety of grape) wine. Confusingly, the grape concerned is not in fact the Gamay as used in Beaujolais but a sub-variety of Pinot Noir.
2. Brandy. Though it produces a lot of sherry too.
3. (a) Moonshine. UK 1785, US 1875.
(b) Hooch. US 1877, UK 1927.
(c) Poteen, potheen, 1812.
4. From the town of Spa in Belgium, that gave its name to all the other “spas.”
5. “Roomed,” allowed (not artificially encouraged) to reach room temperature, in practice 63°–68° F. Most red wines do not release their full flavour when colder.
6. (a) USSR (UK and US jostling for second).
(b) Italy.
(c) US.
7. Lime-juice, to prevent scurvy, a prostrating disease caused by lack of vitamin C, result of a shipboard diet that lacked fresh fruit and vegetables. Hence “lime-juicer” or “limey,” derogatory term for British person, sailor or ship.
8. Ostentation, yes, and keeping a down-market label out of sight of the guests, very much so, but also to aerate the wine, let it “breathe” more than it can in the bottle and improve both bouquet and flavour. Fanatics say decanting even improves a fine malt whisky.
9. A kind of mull made with port, sugar and hot water. Attributed to Col. Franctics Negus in the reign of Queen Anne.
10. Stephen Potter, founder of Winesmanship.
POUSSE - CAFÉ III
1. Bacchus, Dionysus. Strictly, “Bacchus” began life as another name of Dionysus. Dionysus was one of those gods that periodically die and come to life again. Could this be a symbolic reference to the hangover?
2. A solution of honey in water. Mead was popular at the court of Attila the Hun about ad 450 and centuries earlier.
3. A spiced or medicated mead, said to be good with curries. Not I think commercially made nowadays, but popular with amateurs.
4. Oak, which is strong but porous and “gives” the liquor something. This is not to say much, perhaps, there being several hundred different species of oak.
5. (a) 6000 BC, round the Caspian Sea
(b) 1000 BC
(c) 500 BC
(d) AD 100.
6. One vine to one bottle is the rough rule.
7. Removing the liquid from the solid matter left after fermentation. Nothing to do with racking brains or tenants, but from a Provençal word meaning “dregs.”
8. False, really. If the bottle is there at all it should be on top of or beside the refrigerator, waiting to be drunk on the rocks. Chilling the bottle locks up the sparkle. (Imparted to me years ago by the head of Perrier.)
9. Only (d) is a drink, the colloquial name of akvavit (from a word meaning a “mouthful”).
(a) is the Canadian jay,
(b) are rolled gingerbread wafers, as you know,
(c) are collectively a feature of Scottish musical style, a short accented note followed by a longer unaccented one,
(e) is a wheel in a cotton-gin (see Pousse-Café i, a 4).
10. G. K. Chesterton.
ALCOHOL AND YOUR INTERIOR
1. A dodgy question. Alcohol draws the blood to the skin, giving a “glow” but accelerating bodily loss of heat, so overall it cools you. Anyway, avoid serious drinking before going out into the cold. Have a couple when you come back in.
2. (a) None. For a proof of the contrary, try spending a whole evening on vintage port.
(b) None, but see a 4.
3. Speed—a short sharp alcoholic shock is very drunk-making. Unfamiliar drinks—the body learns to tolerate ones it knows. Then vague things like your mood, state of health,