Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1905-01-13
MORE WINE THAN WATER.
Large Consumers Among the Gus
toners of New York Ger
man Wine Shops.

Wine drinking, a duty with some and
a pleasure with others, is to many thou
sands of men and women in the German
quarter hardly less than a science, says
the New York Sun.
The familiar half schoppen of native
| wine, red or white, which sells in the
vein stuben at five cents, is rather more
than a fifth of bottle, or as nearly as
may be twenty-fifth of gallon. Regu-
lar freQuenters of the vein stuben drink
these wines in lieu of water and much
more freely than most persons drink
the latter fluid.
The ordinary citizen drinks from
six to eight half schoppens at a sitting,
and it is an exceedingly moderate man
who stops at three or four. The old
topers go as high as ten or Is glasses,
and hard drinkers often consume 16
or IS.
All of these keep sober. When men
assemble to a wassail bout, as they oc-
casiOnally do in the vein stuben. nobody
knows just how much man may drink,
for the dead men" are carried off after
three or four have gathered on the table.
and no further count is kept.
The wassail drinkers buy by the bot
tie, but on ordinary occasions wine is
bought by the glass. AS a matter of fact
the price is nearly the same one way as
the other.
Wine drinking really begins in the
vein stuben about time for luncheon,
say at noon. One rathSkeller, however
has hit upon an ingenious plan of pro-
viding free lunch from ten o'clock to
noon in order to attract early customers,
and the place is never empty after mid
morning. The fact that the hot coffee
lunch is pretty vigorously cut off at noon
does not prevent customers from
crowding the rathskeller all afternoon.
Midday drinking in the vein stuben,
however, is after all moderate and a
mere adjunct to luncheon, because most
men have yet some hours OF work be-
fore them. The regular business of
drinking begins toward four O'Clock,
when many business men have finished
their days work and few lucky men
of leisure come in to meet their friends.
Many man drinks nearly half gal
lon of wine between four o'clock and
six. and few drink more. Some of
those who spend the afternoon thus go
home to a dinner at which they drink
at least pint more.
The hour of eight O'Clock finds the
night business of the vein stube well
under way, and now the number and
the variety of drinkers are multiplied.
Men far advanced in their seventies will
sit two hours in vein stube at night
and drink ten Or II glasses of wine.
Even a few women drink as much, and
some of the afternoon drinkers return
at night to finish their score.
Raw fish, limburger cheese and few
like dainties, along with pretzels and
saltstangen, accompany the wine. At
midnight the last sitter leaves the place,
and if he happens to be one Of the regu-
lar daily and nightly customers he has
probably consumed in the course OF IL
hours well on to a gallon and a half of
wine
That men who drink after this fashion
live, keep moderately sober and are nef-
Their noisy or quarrelsome seems to ar
que highly for the soundness of Ameri-
can wines. The barkeepers, who have
watched these goings on for half life
time, insist that the immunity of their
patrons from the penalties of over
drinking is due in part to the fact that
nearly everybody drinks slowly and ia
part to the almost invariable rule that
nobody drinks without eating.
AS a matter of fact the regular GUS
toners Of the vein stube usually cut
down their daily supply of wine two
thirds or three-fourths once or twice
year under doctors orders, but very few
actually mount the water wagon.