The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1874-01-16
THE UHISK Y OF TO-DAY.

My dear sir-you with that glass of whis-
ky at your lips-if you were to soc man
go into a drug store and purchase a pint of
raw alcahol, and take that alcahol out and
mix it with water, and drink it you would
say he was an old guzzler. You would
say he must have stomach like bottom
of a tip cart. And yet that is just what
ou have at your lips only your beverage
not so pure as his. Yours is drugged
and his is not.
Time was when rum and whisky and gin
were distilled to n percentage which ad-
mitted of a retaining of the quality and
flavor of the organic materials. In whis-
ky and gin much of the nutritiye matter of
the grain was retained and the old rum
which our grandfathers drank contained a
percentage of organic saccharine matter
Those liquors were honestly distilled
They came from the TetOrts and receivers
Just as they were going into market, only
lacking age to give them smOothness.
But it is not so now. There is no honesty
in the market. a man may, by paying the
Price, have something like an honest liquor
made to his especial order; but he cannot
find it in the market because it is not
there.
Some years since-ten years, | think-I
was in the office of hotel in Conway n
H., and was there introduced to a gentle
man who was n travelling agent of Long
worth, the wine-king of Cincinnati, and
also taking orders foT one or two Kentucky
whisky houses. From the subject of wine
the conversation turned upon whisky.
smel!ed of some which he called pure Bour-
bon, and which had fairly nauseated me.
why is it," said |, in the earnestncss
Of entire innocence, that | cannot find
anywhere such whisky as l used to get on
board ship, as naval rations, five and TWEEN
ty years ago."
The agent was for a time silent and
thoughtful. BY and by he nodded and said
TO me:
at isn't made y
Ism made ," repeated wonderingly.
NO" he added. There is no such
thing as the whisky of commerce distilled
today, except to the special order of Gus
toners FOR individual uSe.''
Seeing my wOnderment unabated lie
went OH to explain. quote his exact Ian
guagc, 50 far at least as important partic-
ulars are concerned. Said he
"They don't make it b, cause it don I
pay The same amount of labor, time
and cost Of mauufacture-of course bar
rim matcrials--reGuired to throw over five
barrels of the old fashioned Mouongahela
hisky Of which you speak will, with the
new appliances of science, throw over one
hundred barrels of crude spirits coarse al
COhOD The result is, that all-spirit is thus
distilled. 1t is then rectiied snd diluted
and color and flavor given by artificial
sneans.''
There you have it, sir. The stuff you
are drinking is not whisky. That other
stuff is not brandy. They never were
and never can be, whisky or brandy, as .
credulous public may think them to be-
The organic matter destroyed by intense
distillation can never be replaced. They
are fooling you, my dear fellow and yor
viii fool yourself if you don't let 1T alone
If you have a head made of wood, and Z
stomach of iron, you may last few year;
and drink it but if you be human, Will
capacity for human employment and hu
man suite ring, and give this liquid scourge 4
clean so by, never to return TO it.