Edward Spencer

“Wormwood!” — The little green fairy — All right when you know it, but??? — The hour of absinthe — Awful effects — Marie Corelli — St. John the Divine — Arrack and bhang not to be encouraged — Plain water — The original intoxicant — Sacred beverage of the mild Hindu — Chi Chi — Kafta, an Arabian delight — Friends as whisky agents — Effervescent Glenlivet — The peat-reek — American bar-keeper and his best customer — “Like swallerin’ a circ’lar saw and pullin’ it up again” — Castor-oil anecdote — “Haste to the wedding!”

We will now proceed to consider certain weird potations, some of which I have personally tested, others of which not all the wealth of Golconda, Peru, and Throgmorton Street would induce me to sample of my own accord, and all of which bring more or less trouble in their wake.

Gall and wormwood have been closely allied from time im­me­mo­rial; and it is in accordance with the eternal fitness of things that the consumption of

Absinthe

should be almost entirely confined to France. And what is absinthe? Merely alcohol, in {116} which have been macerated for a week or so the pounded leaves and flowering tops of wormwood, together with angelica root, sweet-flag root, star-anise, and other aromatics. The liquor is then distilled, and the result is the decoctions sacred to the “little green fairy,” who has accomplished even more manslaughter than the Mahdi, the Khalifa, and the Peculiar People, put together. Of all the liqueurs absinthe is the most pernicious; and with many other sins it occupies some time in taking possession of its victim. Like Mr. Chevalier’s hero, you “have to know it fust,” and after that the rest is easy. Like golf, “scorching,” and gambling, once you “get” absinthe, it gets you, and never leaves you whilst you last; and there is a weird, almost tragic, look about the milky liquid, when diluted with water, as to suggest smoke, and brimstone, and flames, with a demon rising from their midst. But it is only “the little green fairy”; who is, however, as deadly and determined as any demon.

The best absinthe is made in the canton of NeuchÂtel, Switzerland, and is not made entirely from Wormwood proper, but from a mixture of plants related to it—such as Southernwood (“Old Man”), and another which takes its name from the invulnerable Achilles. But the merry Swiss boy knows a trick worth two of drinking absinthe; so the French get the most of it, whilst some goes to America, and some to the foreign quarters of our great metropolis. The French soldiers learnt to appreciate it, from drinking it as a febrifuge, during the Algerian campaign, 1832–47, and it afterwards became, {117} gradually, a popular drink on the boulevards, where the five o’clock gossip-hour at the cafÉs came to be known as “the hour of absinthe.” Its use is now forbidden in the French army and navy, and no wonder. The evil effects of drinking it are very apparent: utter derangement of the digestive system, weakened frame, limp muscles, pappy brain, jumpy heart, horrible dreams and hallucinations, with paralysis or idiocy to bring down the curtain.

In that seductive, though gruesome book, Wormwood, Marie Corelli gives a most graphic picture of an absintheur, once a gay young banker, who, through trouble of no ordinary kind, gradually came under the spell of the “green fairy.” I forget how many murders he committed; but his awful experiences and hallucinations will never leave anybody who has read the book. He is haunted for some days by a leopard who accompanies him on his walks abroad, and who lies down at the foot of his bed at night-time—the “jim-jams,” in fact, in their worst form.

“There are two terrible verses,” says a writer on the subject, “in the Revelations of St. John.

“And the third angel sounded his trumpet, and there fell a great star from the heavens, burning like a lamp, and it fell upon a third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters. And the name of the star is called Wormwood; and the third part of the waters became Wormwood, and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter.”

Which seems a very appropriate quotation; {118} yet will men drink of the waters, for although absinthe makes the heart grow blacker, and the pulse more feeble, men—and, occasionally women—will continue, as long as there is a world, to do the thing they ought not to do. With which moralising let us pass to the next objectionable drink,

This is an East Indian name, derived from the Arabic, for all sorts of distilled spirits, but chiefly for the “toddy,” or palm-liquor obtained from the cocoa-palm, as also from rice, and the coarse brown sugar known to the natives as “jaggery.” “Toddy,” when fresh, is a delicious drink, and bears no sort of relationship to whisky-toddy. An almost nude male swarms up a cocoa-palm—assisted by a rope which encircles his ankles and the trunk of the tree—early in the morning, and fetches down the vessel which has been fastened up atop, overnight, to catch the sap which has dripped from the incisions made in the tree. That sap, in its raw state, is delicious—especially with a dash of rum in it, but it ferments rapidly, and usually turns sour in three or four days. Then the natives distil, and make “arrack” of it—a liquor which is sold in the bazaars and drunk on the occasion of a burra din, or festival. Nor is its use confined to natives. The British soldier drinks it, faute de mieux; and occasionally the British officer.

Poor B--, who was in my old regiment, had fuddled himself into such a state of stupidity, that all liquor was forbidden him by the doctor’s {119} orders. I, who shared his bungalow, took particular care that these orders were carried out, and threatened his bearer and khitmugar with fearful penalties should they convey any surreptitious alcohol to the sahib. Still he managed to get it; and it took me a week to find out how. His syce (groom) used to smuggle arrack from the bazaar, and hide it under the horse’s bedding in the stable; and whenever I was away from the house, poor B-- used to creep over to the stable, and “soak” there!

An imitation arrack may be made by dissolving 10 grains of benzoic acid in a pint of rum; but arrack is just the sort of fluid which ought not to be imitated. Give me the honest, manly, simple, beautiful Bass!

Whether cold water ought to be drunk, or not, I am bound, as a tolerably truthful chronicler, to remark that very few folk who can obtain any other sort of tipple do drink it.

Pulque, which is the sap of the aloe, is the favourite drink of the Mexicans. In Kamtchatka the natives drink (or used to drink) birch-wine, which has been already described in these pages. The Russians, also, are very fond of birch-wine; and their’s effervesces, like champagne.

In the Caucasus district there be strange drinks made from mares’ milk, sparkling—such as Koumiss, or otherwise. But these beverages do not have a large sale in other districts.

“Very pleasant sensations” are, it is said, caused by this custom, and the effect is so invigorating that the Arab soldier who goes in steadily for Kafta can do “sentry go” all night without feeling in the least drowsy. Whether the soldiers of the Khalifa did much chewing on the night before the battle of Omdurman deponent sayeth not. Frequently the kat leaves are boiled in milk sweetened with honey, and the result is the same. The infusion is intoxicating, but the effect is not of long endurance; and at a synod of the most learned Mahomedans it was pronounced lawful for the faithful to chew, or drink Kafta, “as, whilst it did not impair the health nor hinder the observance of religious duties, it increased hilarity and good humour.” Sly rogues, these followers of the Prophet!

If a man wants to retain his old friends and {123} to make fresh ones let not that man take to selling wines or spirits on commission. Some years ago I gave an old schoolfellow an order for a case of Scotch whisky, which he declared upon oath to be absolutely the best procurable. Home came the whisky, and the first cork was drawn. Pop! The stuff was literally effervescent, like champagne, or Russian birch-wine. “My dear,” I observed to the partner of my joys and cares, “we had better not drink much of this.”

At the next Sandown Park race-meeting I met the whisky agent, who, I forgot to mention before, was a bit of a stammerer.

“And wh-wh-wh-what,” he asked, “d’you think of that wh-wh-wh-wh-whisky?”

Stammering is occasionally to be caught.

“I think,” was my reply, “it’s the d-d-d-dashedest m-m-m-muck I ever t-t-t-t-tasted.”

“Wh-wh-what’s the m-m-m-matter with it?”

“It f-f-f-fizzes like g-g-g-ginger p-p-p-pop.”

“My d-d-dear sir,” he protested, “that is no dr-dr-drawback. That’s the p-p-p-peat-r-r-reek.”

Peat-reek or no, that whisky was not used for household purposes-not even for the Christmas pudding; but was kept for the special benefit of such police-constables, Inland Revenue officers, process-servers, tax-gatherers, book agents, and retailers of certain winners, as might call around, with a thirst in them.

Strange whisky reminds me of the American story of the proprietor of a spirit-store in Arizona, who found the ordinary brand of “Rye” was not sufficiently attractive to his customers. So he fitted together a blend of his own, consisting of {124} essence of ginger, capsicums, croton oil, snuff, carbolic acid, pain-killer, turpentine, and a little very young and very potent spirit distilled from old junk. He placed a bottle of this on the counter, and the first customer who came along helped himself to a tumblerful, and, taking it “straight,” swallowed it at a gulp.

As soon as he had got his second wind, he gasped out: “That’s the best doggoned whisky I’ve sampled in this yer camp. Sonny, guess you’ve fixed me up to rights. It’s like swallerin’ a circ’lar saw and pullin’ it up again. So long.”

And with the tears pouring down his cheeks, and holding on to his diaphragm with both hands, he staggered into the open. The saloon-keeper watched him from the doorway, until he had passed the second block, and rounded the corner; and returned to his counter and his bottles, with the pious exclamation: “The Lord be praised.! He hasn’t died in our parish!”

No chapter on strange drinks would be complete without the following story, which, I confess at the outset, is one of the most venerable of “chestnuts.” It appeared in the Sporting Times four-and-twenty years ago, and I will not affirm that it was strictly original even then. It has since been translated into every known language; but it is just possible that some of the rising generation may not have heard it.

A well-dressed gentleman entered a chemist’s shop one morning, evidently in a violent hurry.

“Can you make me up a dose of castor-oil?”

“Certainly, sir,” said the dispenser, with a bow. {125}

Whilst he was going through the usual motions—no prescription can be properly made up until the chemist has overhauled every bottle on the top shelf, opened most of the empty drawers, and upset a tray of tooth-brushes—the customer was fidgeting about the shop, and fanning himself with a scented pocket-handkerchief.

“It’s infernally hot,” he said presently, “and I don’t think I ever felt so thirsty in my life. Can I have a bottle of lemonade?”

“Certainly, sir.”

More sorting of bottles. Presently “pop” goes a cork, and the sparkling lemonade is poured into a mammoth tumbler. The customer drains it at once.

“Ah-h-h!” he crowed, wiping his mouth. “I feel a bit better now.”

A pause. Presently he asked:—

“Have you made that up yet?”

“What, sir?” asked the chemist.

“Why that stuff—the castor-oil I ordered.”

“You’ve had it, sir.”

“Had it! Wotty mean?”

“I gave it you in the lemonade, sir.”

“Great Scotland Yard!” exclaimed the customer. “I didn’t want it for myself—I’m going to be married in half an hour!”