The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-05-03
lat Is SWhiSkeyAbrOad?
Bv FREDERIC J. HASKIN

Japan protect herself against adultcra
tlons.
Horace Greedy and Alexander H
Stephens were once co-editors of an
encyclopedia. After describing the
characteristics of straight whiskey, as
the pure article is now termed by Mr.
Bonaparte, this encyclopedia explains
"that a very large proportion of the
whiskev consumed in this country is
artifcially prepared - IL then gives
a recipe for making "cognac brandy,
which calls for forty gallons of proof
spirits, one gallon of peach flavor, one
pint of wine vinegar, one pound OF
glycerinc, and little oil of cognac
and one gallon Of brandy, with enough
is known as Johnson s. Not that of
"rare Bcn,' who spelled it "Jonson,
nor that of DR.. Samuel. the great
photographer, but of plain United
| States Johnson.
But, if extra -Boswellian tradition be
believed, the great Doctor Johnson con-
temned not the flowing bowl, the
pewter mug nor the clinking glass.
Look today into the dusty windows of
his one-time favorite "Cheshire
Cheese" at the little brown jugs of
the old song about the little brown
jug was born at a moment when a
poet looked in at these windows
with thick blanket of London fog
hanging heavy on his good resolutions.
Notwithstanding the air of romance
and the halo of historic interest, it re-
mains a fact that it is exceedingly
difficult to get drink of genuine
wbiskey in tho "pubs' of London.
The Scotch and Irish whiskies sold
there are seldom pure, and most
often are mixtures and compounds OF
neutral spirits, There are floating iu
the markets of London today, as we'll
as throughout the United Kingdom, all
over Europe, America and the Orient,
bottles of so-called Scotch whiskey, con
secrated and dedicated to His
Majesty, Edward VII, bearing em-
blems of the Highlands, with kits and
heather bloom, and all the stage set
tings of the land of Bobbie Burns
and Walter Scott; and yet in many
cases there is hardly drop in bottle
that bears any geographical relation
whatever to the land of Scotland.
1t is often nothing more than ethyl
alcohol, favored and eolored to simulate
the smoky taste of the rare genuine
possible to get genuine Scotch whlskey,
Just as it is possible to get pure Amerl-
can whiskey, despite the multiplication
Of limitations.
The fight against fraudulent labels
in England is being waged with warmth
and earnestness In case decided
by Magistrate Fordhnm of London,
still under appeal, the court said:
"Adulteration by the addition of
patent still spirit (ethyl alcohoD has
til the so.caled blenders have dared
to concoct and place upon the market,
and sell retailers, raw. new, patent still
spirit, with a nero dash or Scotch or
Irish. 1t is time this fraud upon the
public in the matter of the sale of
whisl'ey was stopped"
One may sit in front of the Cafe de
la PaiX in the heart of Paris-that spot
which Booth Harrington dubbed the
center Of the universe-and point at
half dozen places where FAmerlcan
whiskey' is supposed to be vended to
who, yielding to the curse of the wan
dering foot, finds himself in the great
French capital without an interpreter.
Yet one might walk the streets of Paris
for days without finding bottle of
American whisley bearing the green
stamp over the cork in proof of its
purity and age. That American whis-
key for sale there was not made i'll
France. 1t came from the United
before it left the American shores. OF
course, there are some good brands of
American whiskey TO be found III Paris,
but much of it is of the kind that from
now on will have TO be labeled ga COM
pound - or can imitation.'
Yet France has taken a great lead
III Europe IN protecting her own do
mestic liquors from adulteration and
imitation. The adulteration Of brandy
the year 1902. Then France enacted
law by which the famous brandics of
Cognac and others in the department
of the Charente, and the province of
the Gironde, may be bottled in bond in
its integrity at the distillcry, after it
has been duly aged in a Government
bonded warehouse, A certificate of
purity, a white label, then goes with
the product as guarantee.
When Kingston was visited by the
recent earthquake there was in process
Of organization in London syndicate
composed of English capitalists and
Jamaican planters having for it's object
the restoration of genuine Jamaica rum
TO the markets of the world, Forty
two rum distilleries in Jamaica went
out OF business in five years, and in the
same period the output of alleged Ja-
maica rum in the markets Of the world
was enormously increased. This rum
was sold everywhere as the product of
the little island, but it bore as much
relation to Jamaica as the German po-
tato, the French grain and the Ameri-
can maize from which the ethyl alcohol
was distilled bears TO the sugar cane
OF the West Indies.
The traders found that the rum could
be made on the banks of the Thames
or the Seine or the Ohio in fifteen min
utes by the judicious admixturc of ncu-
trail spirits, essence of rum and burnt
sugar. The earthquake has caused u
temporary cessation OF plans for the
restoration OF Jamaica s trade in this
particular, but there is strong move
ment to induce the British Parliament
to do something TO protect tins eolony's
valuable product from imitation. To
this end the local government of the
island sent special commissioner to