622 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of portentous length, and by placards sown broadcast through the 

 country. So that one may buy " Lafite " or "Margaux " " Chamber- 

 tin " or " Nuits " '47 port, or even '34 at any village store ! No 

 terms can be too strong to characterize such trade. 



If fine wines of unquestionable character and vintage are to be 

 produced, there are only two ways of possessing them : one, by find- 

 ing some wine-merchant of long standing and reputation who will do 

 an applicant the favor to furnish them, and the price must be large 

 for quality and age. We may be certain that such a one will never 

 advertise : no man who really has the grands vi?is of esteemed vin- 

 tages in his cellar need spend a shilling in advertisements, for he con- 

 fers a favor on his customer by parting with such stock. But better 

 and more satisfactory is it to obtain from time to time a piece or two 

 of wine, of high character and reputed vintage, when they are to be 

 had, just fit to bottle, and lay them down for years until ripe for use. 

 Commencing thus in early life, a man's cellar becomes in twenty or 

 thirty years a possession of interest and value, and he can always 

 produce at his little dinners, for those who can appreciate it, something 

 curiously fine, and free at all events from the deleterious qualities of 

 new and fictitious wines. 



Briefly : the rule, by general gastronomic consent, for those who 

 indulge in the luxury of wine, is to offer a glass of light pale sherry 

 or dry Sauterne after soup ; a delicate Rhine wine, if required, after 

 fish ; a glass of Bordeaux with the joint of mutton ; the same, or 

 champagne dry, but with some true vinous character in it, and not 

 the tasteless spirit-and-water just now enjoying an evanescent popu- 

 larity during the entrees/ the best red wine in the cellar, Bor- 

 deaux or Burgundy, with the grouse or other roast game ; and but 

 this ought to suffice, even for that exceptional individual who is sup- 

 posed to be little if at all injured by " moderate " potations. With 

 the ice or dessert, a glass of full-flavored but matured champagne, or 

 a liqueur, may be served ; but at this point dietetic admonitions are 

 out of place, and we have already sacrificed to luxury. The value of 

 a cigarette at this moment is that with the first whiff of its fragrance 

 the palate ceases to demand either food or wine. After smoke the 

 power to appreciate good wine is lost, and no judicious host cares to 

 open a fresh bottle from his best bin for the smoker, nor will the 

 former be blamed by any man for a disinclination to do so. 



For unquestionably tobacco is an ally of temperance ; certainly it 

 is so in the estimation of the gourmet. A relationship for him of the 

 most perfect order is that which subsists between coffee and fragrant 

 smoke. While wine and tobacco are antipathetic, the one affecting 

 injuriously all that is grateful in the other, the aroma of coffee " mar- 

 ries " perfectly with the perfume of the finest leaf. Among the Mus- 

 sulmans this relationship is recognized to the fullest extent ; and also 

 throughout the Continent the use of coffee, which is almost symboli- 



