ALCOHOL 55 



sugar and water to ferment to alcohol. Fruit juice con- 

 tains sugar dissolved in the water of the juice. The 

 simplest way in which an alcoholic drink is made is to 

 squeeze the juice from the fruit and let it ferment in open 

 bottles or barrels. There are always enough 

 germs of the yeast plant upon the outside 

 of the fruit to start the fermentation, and 

 in a few weeks or months the sugar of 

 the juice has turned to alcohol. The 

 strongest liquor made in this way can be 

 only one eighth alcohol, for more than that 

 kills the yeast plant. When grape or cherry 

 or blackberry juice is used, the liquor is 

 called wine ; but if apple juice is used, it is called cider. 

 It all contains alcohol. Cider begins to ferment in a 

 few hours after it is made, and in a week it often has 

 enough alcohol to make a person drunk. In a short 

 time other germs enter the cider and change the alcohol 

 to vinegar. Homemade wine contains alcohol, and its 

 use is as harmful as though it were bought at the saloon. 

 Some wine has pure alcohol added to it to make it keep 

 better. 



Since wine is made of fruit juice, it may contain some 

 albumin, which is of value as food, but to buy wine is a 

 very expensive way to buy albumin, and besides the albu- 

 min of wine is not nearly so good as the albumin of bread 

 or meat. Wine may contain some unfermented sugar also. 



The flavor of wine depends upon the kind of fruit and 

 the amount of fermentation. It has little to do with the 

 amount of alcohol in the wine. Fermented fruit juice 

 was the only kind of alcoholic drink which people knew 

 in ancient times. It was weak in alcohol, and a great deal 

 was needed to make a man drunk. Much of the wine 



