Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/189

Rh ADULTERATION 173 and 36 Viet. c. 94), provision is made to protect the public from the adulteration of beer ; for it prohibits the possession, sale, or use of beer adulterated with Cocculus indicus, chloride of sodium (otherwise common salt), cop peras, opium, Indian hemp, strychnine, tobacco, darnel- seed, extract of logwood, salts of zinc or lead, alum, and any extract or compound thereof, under a penalty of 20 for the first offence, and .100 for the second offence, together with disqualification of both the dealer and the house for a certain period. The police and the officers of Inland Revenue are empowered to search for and obtain samples of such beer, and the analyst is a person appointed by the Excise. The tests for the adulteration of beer, ale, and porter, are not easily applied except by a skilled chemist ; but it may be said that the chief qualities of good beer are its density, sweetness, spirituosity, piquancy, flavour, and frothiness. The density of ale and beer ranges from 1008 to 1020 (water being 1000) the average being 1015 ; and in the case of porter it ranges from 1015 to 1020. The amount of alcohol in these beverages ranges from 5 to 9 per cent., the average being about 7. The solid extract is from 4 to 6 per cent., and the ash or mineral matter is from 2 to 3 per cent, very little of which should be common salt. 1 3. Malt. The Excise do not permit malt to be adul terated with ungerminated grain ; but it is very difficult to determine whether the presence of these grains is accidental or otherwise, as in some wet seasons when barley is badly stacked it will heat or become mouldy, and the grains will lose their vitality. Even if the grain is dried artificially at a temperature of from 140 to 150 Fahr., the vitality of the seed will be destroyed. In some seasons as much as from 34 to 70 per cent, of the grain will be killed. Roasted unmalted grain, instead of the malted, is prohibited by 19 and 20 Viet. c. 34, but there is no doubt that the substitution is largely practised. 1 4. Wine and Spirits. The denunciations in the Scripture against the use of mixed wine has reference, in all probability, to wines which were fortified or adulterated with stimulating and intoxicating herbs. In this country measures were taken at a very early period to prevent the sale of unsound and unwholesome wine. The Vintners Company, for example, which was incorporated in the reign of Edward the Third, under the name of the &quot; Wine Tonners&quot; had control over the price and purity of the article, there being chosen every year &quot;persons of the most sufficient, most true, and most cunning of the craft (that hold no taverns),&quot; who were to see to the condition of all wines sold by retail, and who were to govern the taverners in all their proceedings. Bad or adulterated wine was thrown into the gutters, and the possessors thereof were set in the pillory. It would seem that the wine which was most adulterated was that called Gascoign ; for in the tenth year of the reign of Henry the Sixth (1432), there was a petition to the king on the subject, praying him to amend the same. Stowe, in fact, says &quot;that in the 6th of Henry VI., the Lombardes currupting their sweete wines, when the knowledge thereof came to John Ranwell, maior of London, he, in divers places of the citie, commanded the heades of the buts and other vessels in the open streetes to be broken, to the number of fifty, so that the liquor running forth passed through the citie like a stream of raine water, in the sight of all the people, from whence there issued a most loathsome savour.&quot; In modern times the art of adulterating wine has been brought to great perfection ; for it consists not merely in the blending of wines of different countries and vintages, but in the use of materials which are entirely foreign to the grape. Port wine, for example, is manufactured from Beni Carlos, Figueras, and red Cape, with a touch of Mountain to soften the mixture and give it richness the body and flavour being produced by gum-dragon, and the colour by &quot; berry -dye, which is a preparation of German bilberries. To this is added the washings of brandy casks. (&quot; brandy cowe&quot;) and a little salt of tartar to form a crust. Sherry of the brown kind and of low price is mingled with Cape and cheap brandy, and is flavoured with &quot; brandy- cowe,&quot; sugar-candy, and bitter almonds. If the colour be too high it is lowered by means of blood, and softness is- imparted to it by gum-benzoin. Pale sherries are produced by means of plaster of Paris or gypsum, by a process called &quot; plastering,&quot; arid the effect of it is to remove the natural acids (tartaric and malic), as well as the colour of the wine. In this way a pale, dry, bitter, and sub-acid wine is produced, charged with the sulphates of lime and potash. Large quantities of what are called clarets are manufactured in this country from inferior French wine and rough cider, the colour being imparted to it by turnsol or cochineal. Madeira is produced from Vidonia with a little Mountain and Cape, to which are added bitter almonds and sugar. Even Vidonia and Cape are adulterated with cider and rum carbonate of soda being used to correct the acidity. Common Sicilian wine is transformed into Tokay, Malaga, and Lachryma Christi. Champagne is produced from rhubarb stalks, gooseberries, and sugar, the product being largely consumed at balls, races, masquerades, and public dinners. Of late, too, since the investigations of Petiot, Thenard, Gall, Hussrnan, and others, the manufacture of wine from sugar and the refuse husk or mark of the grape has been largely practised, insomuch that a great part of the wine of France and Germany has ceased to be the juice of the grape at all. In point of fact, the processes of blending, softening, fortifying, sweetening, plastering, &c., &c., are carried on to such an extent that it is hardly possible to obtain a sample of genuine wine, even at first hand; and books are written on the subject, in which the plainest directions are given for the fabrication of every kind of wine, there being druggists called &quot;brewers druggists,&quot; who supply the agents of adulteration. These are as follow : Elderberry, logwood, brazil-wood, red saunders-wood, cudbear, red beet-root, &c., for colour; litharge, lime or carbonate of lime, carbonate of soda, and carbonate of potash, to correct acidity ; catechu, logwood, sloe-leaves, and oak-bark, for astringency ; sulphate of lime, gypsum, or Spanish earth, and alum for removing colour ; cane sugar for giving sweetness and body ; glucose or starch sugar for artificial wine ; alcohol for fortifying ; and ether, especially acetic ether, for giving bouquet and flavour. The tests for these agents are not readily applied, except by the professional chemist ; but they are promptly recognised by the stomach and the brain, for good wine, though it may intoxicate, rarely leaves a disagreeable impression. In a general way, it may be said that the specific gravity of genuine wine ranges from 991 to 997; and the amount of alcohol in it never exceeds 20 per cent, by volume. The solid residue in it, when evaporated to perfect dryness, amounts to from 1 33 to 2 15 per cent, in Rhine wines, and in the light wines of France; to from 2 85 to 3 73 per cent, in Teneriffe and Cape; to from 3 49 to 4 54 per cent, in sherry and Madeira; and to from 3 75 to 5 24 in port. Sweet wines, as Lachryma Christi, Muscat, Malaga, Tokay, Bergerac, champagne, and the wines of the Palatinate, contain a much larger percentage of solid matter in them. The ash, or involatile constituents of wine, should range between 19 and 5 per cent. It should be strongly alkaline, and should consist of carbonate, sulphate, and phosphate of potash, chloride of sodium, carbonate of lime, and a little alumina. As a distinctive mark of genuine wine, the ash is of the greatest value. Again, pure wine gives but slight precipitates with oxalate of ammonia, with acid nitrate of silver, and acid nitrate of baryta. The