The Marietta journal. (Marietta, Ga.) 1918-1944, 1919-08-29
TWENTY YEARS A BARTENDER
CONTINUED from page one)

hol. The average person TAKING Wills
ky for the first time gagged. His
body resented it. More easy was 1t
to down, the first time, beer or wine
or a cocktail, with the alcohol taste
carefully camouhaged by fruit |
have seen these FIRST drinkers" Most
of them began on beer and then came
a day when they wanted more alcohol
and they went to whisky, to distilled
spirits, gin or rum, with their higher
percentages of alcohol. But they be-
gan on beer. Their body would not
stand for them beginning on whisky.
Nature had to be ceased in" First,
it accepted a drink with about five
per cent alcohol; then it wanted thir-
ty per cent.
OF course, you know what alcohol
is. / made it my business to find out
about everything in the booze game.
Alcohol is liquid without color,
sharp and repellent of taste, and quite
suave of odor. Before telling you
what it did to men-as / have watched
it from behind the bari shall tell
YOU what we did to alcohol so it
would please men. After we colored
and perfumed alcohol, it reminded me
sometimes of woman of the night
adorned to attract.
/ shall begin with a dynamite
drink" You know brandy, cognac?
They made it by distillng wine. When
distilled, it was colorless and had
about fifty per cent alcohol. Then
it was put in cask from the wood
of which it took an amber or brown
color. In the cask it lost some of
the alcohol, and when it came to US
at the bar in bottles it had about
forty per cent alcohol. / have served
brandy, however, that was as high
as fifty-two per cent alcohol. Whisky
was not quite as strong; almost,
though. Distilled from barley, rye,
maize, or other grains, it ran from
thirty-five per cent to as high as fir
ty-six per cent in some of the i'm
ported "Scotches." Rum, you know,
was made of distilled molasses and the
by-products of cane-sugar factories.
Not as4strongias whisky, it was strong
er than gin, which latter had about
thirty per cent alcohol. Gin was dis
titled from unmalted grain and fla
vored with juniper berries. Those
were the common drinks and the base
ingredients for mixed drinks.
Wine, made from the fermented
juice of the grape, ran from ten per
cent to twenty-five per cent alcohol.
Beer, supposed to be made from the
fermented malt, favored with hops
but which it rarely was in America
contained, before the war measures,
from three to nine per cent alcohol.
Ale was about the same. OF course,
the beer of today has only 2.75 alco-
hol, but alcohol there is and men
drink it for the alcohol alone. 1t may
interest you to know that before the
war, when beer in Europe was con-
demned as being bad, we imported it
along with good beer; for, unlike Eu-
ropean countries, we had no inspec-
ton of beer.
So much for "good" booze; now
I'll tell ysu something about "bad"
booze, let you in on some secrets
Of the game, which sooner or later
were bound, knew, to bring prohibi-
ton. In America we adulterated and
falsitied booze. l never would stand
for serving customers that kind of
stuff. left two jobs because of the
bad booze they sold. To whisky some
distillers added chemicals which gave
it desired sage" When Scotch is
genuinely made, the creosote in it
comes from the peat in the making; in
very good Scotch this is eliminated,
for it is not good for the stomach.
The average "bar Scotch" was not
imported. 1t was made in America.
Also it held creosote (injurious,) ar
tifcially added so it would taste
Smoky" like some real Scotch, from
which the creosote is not removed,
Most of the Scotch sold in America
was flake" l shall never forget the
day when a salesman from distille-
ry came into a cafe where | worked.
My boss considered himself an expert
on whisky. The salesman came over
to the bar with him and called for
small glasses. Into these he poured
his samples for him to taste. The
boss picked up the glasses, shifted
their contents, tasted them carefully
and, as he did so, said
"That new Bourbon is very good
Brandy ten years in the cask, fine
This is good Irish-Where did you
get that Scotch?-It's 0. K"
The salesman smiled. He quoted
then a price per barrel on these whis
kies so cheap that it made my employ
err gasp, But how can you afford tC
sell such goods so cheap
The salesman grinned. THAT stuff
is wood alcohol. Its tastes, color;
and flavors were fixed up by our heac
chemist-great, hey?"
And my boss gave him big order
and | quit the Job. On the level, il