Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-08-02
VERY WICKED DRINKS.
Visitors to Strange Lands Had Better
Avoid Them.

Avoid Them.
"People have remarks to make adverse
to whisky" said a naval officer to a WASH
ington Star reporter, shut there is many
another drink in this world to which old
rye or Kentucky bourbon is as milk for
babies For instance, there is the 'hoot
chenoo' of the Chilcats of Southern AL
aska. Doubtless the method Of distilation
of this remarkable beverage was originally
suggested to the Chilcats by United States
soldiers. Any sort of vegetables made
into mash is employed as raw material.
The mash is put in large tin can, which
is connected with another can just like it
by the tube of hollow vegetable stem that
grows to length OF many feet in those
regions. A fire is built under the can that
contains the mash and the alcoholic prop
critics pass over into the other vessel. The
natives drink the liquor thus distilled and
are driven wild by 1t. have seen some
thing of the way it operates in the course
of certain naval experiences on the AL
askan coast. Very likely you have heard
of the style in which certain dwellers in
that cline celebrate their arrival at the
maximum of worldly fortune. Once in a
while it occurs that big man finds him.
self in possession of $4,000, mostly in the
shape Of blankets, such being the currency
in that part of the world. He has been
working for that end all his life, and he
emphasizes its accomplishment by giving a
festival called 'potlatch, during which
he spends or distributes in the shape of
presents all that he has gathered together
in the shape of property. incidentally
the popular drink is served ad libitum,
and the guests begin the fun with the
widest orgies, winding up at length with
general pandemonic celebration, clawlng
and chewing and generally trying to
destroy one another to the best of their
ability"
"And why does the drink produce such
a surprising effect ?'
"Well, my notion is that the awful re-
suits of taking the stuff are in large
measure attributable to its being SO new
from the STILL There is apt to be in any
such alcoholic beverage, new made, a GER
tain considerable percentage of powerful
poison known as fusil oil. Fusil oil is an
alcohol. People suppose, when they speak
of alcohol, that it is always one thing and
one only; but, as matter of fact, there
are really dozen different alcohols. You
can derive alcohol from anything that is
vegetable by the process of distillation.
Take the fiber that is made into wood pulp
and distill it-you have alcohol. Now,
whereas properly seasoned whisky is
readily digested in very moderate quanti-
ties, when new from the still it will set
the person who drinks it fairly crazy,
chiefly through the operation of the fusil
oil in it. This fusil oil is very volatile,
and it will escape by natural processes
from liquor that is kept for a time, but so
long as it remains it is deadly. 1t will in
duce temporary insanity off-hand."'
"Has the freshness of the drink con-
sumed anything to do with the madness of
the natives who run amuck in the Malay
Peninsula%
Decidedly. What the Malays drink is
popularity known all over Eastern Asia as
'arrack,' the name derived from the Ara
bic 'arrak, signifying 'perspiration.' 1t
is distilled, the best of it. from the unex-
panded flowers of certain varieties of
palms, the resulting juice being known as
'toddy' Hence our name for for certain
strong drink. This toddy is simply fer
mented and the resulting liquor drank.
"a vile kind of arrack is made from i'm
pure molasses that is left over as refuse in
the manufacture of raw sugar, rice being
fermented with it and percentage OF
palm toddy added. Under the influence
of this baleful intoxicant | have known
whole parties of Malays.. to run samuck
together, the sport only concluding with
the death of all the participants as well as
the destruction of numbers of innocent
people This, you know, is the favorite
Malay plan of committing suicide. A
good for-nothing fellow makes up his
mind that he wants to die, and so he fills
himself up with raw arrack and starts tc
run amuck, stabbing everyone that comes
in his way until he himself is slain. Good
arrack from palm toddy is not objectiona.
ble The destructiveness of the inferior
stuff, | imagine, is mainly due to its being
consumed in crude state before its more
poisonous properties have been eliminated
by seasoning. 1t is the same way with
'pisco.'"
"And what is that ?"
at is the distilled juice of a certain sort
of white grapes, somewhat resembling the
Malaga variety, which grow mostly in the
neighborhood of Plsco, on the coast o.
Peru The brandy-for such, of course, il
is-thus made is drunk raw from the still
and it sets the men who swallow it fairly
mad. Usually they become murderously
inclined In the same way Mexicans who
get drunk on the liquor distilled from the
cactus root and known as 'mescaP become
horribly fierce and are ready to plunge
their knives into the most inofensive peo
pie they encounter. The rawness of the
beverage is mainly responsible for thi
symptom, am convinced. have knowr
the crew of ship on the Alaska coast
which was out of grog, to buy up con
siderable stock of Jamaica ginger discov
cred in grocery shop, and, having drunl
it, to fall upon one another with knives
and axes. There is good sort Of pisc'
known as Italia which is not distilled
from grape-skins, and has had time t.
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