and other Fermented Liquors. 153 



by evaporation, either spontaneously, in the air, or over a fire, 

 and, so much so, as to render them thick and syrupy. 



This process of evaporation, however, was by no means ne- 

 cessary to their being preserved ; for wines, not treated in this 

 manner, have been known to keep equally long. We are 

 informed by Neuman, " that the tartish German wines keep the 

 longest of any ; some of them have kept 200 or 300 years ; 

 and in Strasburgh, there is a cask 400 years old, and many 

 of them above seventy ; the wine being occasionally racked off 

 into smaller casks, that the vessel may be continually full. 

 These very old wines are preserved, rather for curiosity than 

 use, as they not only grow too strong for drinking, but at last 

 quite disagreeable. 11 



The preservation of wines for so long a time, when the pro- 

 cess of distillation was still unknown, and in cases where no 

 brandy had been added, as in the German wines referred to by 

 Neuman, seems to prove conclusively, that the admixture of 

 brandy, or other distilled liquor, is not necessary to effect this 

 object. Nor is it probable that the strength of the wine is 

 much influenced by the brandy, as ordinarily employed. The 

 pure juice of the grape, after a few years, becomes fully as al- 

 coholic as those wines which have been brandied. Mr Brande 

 procured port wine, sent from Portugal, for the express pur- 

 pose of ascertaining how long it would remain sound, without any 

 addition whatever of spirit having been made to it, but it did not 

 differ materially, in the proportion of alcohol, from other kinds. 

 Moreover, the raisin wine, which had been fermented without 

 any addition of spirit, contained a larger amount of alcohol than 

 any other wine in his tables. 



As the alcohol in natural wines is the produce of the sugar 

 contained in the grape, if any part of the sugar escapes decom- 

 position, the wine will contain alcohol and unaltered sugar, and 

 will be szveet. Now, in those grapes which contain a large pro- 

 portion of sugar, and in which there is a sufficiency of yeast pre- 

 sent to decompose it, there will be a superabundance of alcohol. 

 But the alcohol thus formed stops the fermentation, and the same 

 effect is also produced by the admixture of brandy or spirit, 



On the contrary, where the relative quantities of yeast, sugar, 

 and water are such as will conduce to a perfect attenuation, the 



