208 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
is served at dinner, usually after the remove (of the solids), is 
found to exercise the effect of considerably assisting digestion 
at such time; it forms an interlude between the principal acts 
of the play, being a sort of white ice made with lemon-juice, 
white of egg, sugar, and rum. The quaint old recipe for brewing 
West Indian Punch with Jamaica rum has an almost cabalistic 
ring about it :— 
‘One of sour, three of sweet, 
Four of strong, and four of weak.” 
But, after all, Brandy is to be pronounced par excellence the 
prince of cordial restoratives. This (Brant wein, “‘ burnt wine ”’) 
is a spirituous liquor obtained by the distillation of wine. It 
contains an average proportion of alcohol from 48 to 54 per cent. 
In a peculiarly rich Brandy made from the ferment and stalks 
left from wine manufacture, a wine oil is found, Cognac oil, so 
called from its flavour. Genuine Cognac is distilled from the 
red, and white grapes of vineyards about Cognac, a small city 
in the Charente department. But the fact is manifest, that this 
Cognac could not possibly supply half the Brandy which is 
represented as such; even some of the costly brands are not 
expressed from grapes which grow in picturesque old Cognac. 
Beet-root plays an important part in Brandy distilling, not 
excepting “fine old Cognac” at sixty shillings the dozen. 
Another very frequent variety of Brandy is whisky distilled 
from corn, and flavoured with genuine Cognac, as well as with 
cenanthic ether. But Spain, which abounds with cheap wines, 
furnishes some fearsome brands of vile Brandies, coloured with 
burnt sugar, and contaminated with fusel oil, ether, etc. There 
is a pure, wholesome Cognac which is immensely valuable for 
medicinal purposes, being made from the grapes of La Folle, 
or St. Pierre, such as are carefully cultivated, and guarded, in the 
vineyards of Charente. These grapes are juicy, large, and very 
sweet, as well as rich in flavour. The wine expressed therefrom 
is stored in oaken casks for four years, at the end of which time 
it is rich in colour, and very astringent in quality, these being 
the virtues which confer its value as a medicine. Ina good year 
.8ix or seven bottles of wine should yield one bottle of Brandy. 
-Aiter from twenty to forty years Brandy comes to contain a 
considerable proportion of volatile ethers, and aldehydes, to 
which some of the most valuable properties of this Cordial spirit 
