Everyday Drinking_ The Distilled Kingsley Amis - Kingsley Amis [93]
5. What is meant by saying that a bottle of wine is chambré?
6. In the production of alcoholic drinks, which country leads in quantity in:
(a) spirits
(b) wine
(c) beer?
7. What soft drink, still very popular as a mixer, was enforced in the Royal Navy in the mid-nineteenth century, and for what purpose?
8. Vintage port and other wines that throw a sediment are traditionally decanted, but in recent years people have been taking more and more to decanting light, clear wines, even whites. What is the purpose of this?
9. Define negus.
10. “It is WRONG to do what everyone else does—namely, to hold the wine list just out of sight, look for the second cheapest claret on the list, and say, ‘Number 22, please.’ ” Who wrote that?
POUSSE - CAFÉ III
1. Name the Roman god of wine, and his Greek counterpart.
2. You still occasionally see mead, which may well be the oldest of all fermented drinks and certainly goes back to the beginnings of the English language, about AD 700. What is it made from?
3. And what is metheglin, once supposedly the national drink of Wales?
4. Wine and spirits are often matured in wooden casks. Which wood has proved to be best for this purpose?
5. Give:
(a) the approximate date when and the probable place where wine was first made.
Also the approximate dates of its introduction to:
(b) Greece
(c) France
(d) England.
6. On average, by and large, etc., how many bottles of wine are made from the fruit of a single vine—or how many vines are needed to produce a bottle?
7. A certain stage in the making of wine and beer involves what is known as racking. Define this process.
8. Every good host, perhaps every civilized person, ought by rights to have a bottle of sparkling water in his refrigerator. While you may assent to the general proposition, do you consider it true or false?
9. Name the odd man out:
(a) whisky-jack
(b) brandy-snaps
(c) Scotch snaps
(d) Danish snaps
(e) gin-wheel.
10. “No animal ever invented anything so bad as drunkenness—or so good as drink.” Who wrote that?
ALCOHOL AND YOUR INTERIOR
There can be few subjects of general interest more ridden with folk-lore and superstition than the physical effects of alcohol and the measures taken to limit and alleviate them. We have all met the man who says he actually drives better after a few drinks than when cold sober. Many people believe that black coffee—why black coffee?—sobers you up, whereas all it does is keep you awake. On the other hand, the consensus that liqueurs are tricky has good sense in it.
Remember that doctors disagree on these matters quite as much as on any others, so some of the answers here must fall some way short of total scientific objectivity. There is no way to measure drunkenness, after all, nor, thank heaven, a hangover.
1. Winter warmers’ are a recognized category of drink, but does alcohol warm you?—it certainly makes you feel warm. Elucidate.
2. We are often warned against mixing our drinks, especially “grape and grain,” i.e. wine/brandy and beer/whisky. Doing so supposedly:
(a) makes you drunk
(b) gives you a hangover.
How much truth is there in these assertions?
3. Quantity of intake is an obvious factor in drunkenness. So is food, or rather lack of it. Can you suggest others?
4. Apart from a large alcoholic intake, what else seems to cause or aggravate hangovers?
5. Most of us have learnt better by now than to call alcohol a stimulant; it is, we keep hearing, a depressant. Does it inevitably cause a state of depression?
6. Excessive drinking is a cause of cirrhosis of the liver. True or false?
7. Excessive drinking, especially of port, is a cause of gout. True or false?
8. Apart from the unthinkable resort of drinking less, is there any stratagem that will limit the intoxicating ravages of alcohol?
9. What is and what is not good for a hangover is such a personal matter, and so much influenced by suggestion, that any ruling must be tentative, but try to give a balanced, educated view of:
(a) two beneficial things
(b) two useless or harmful