OLIVER COT TEE. 
 
ICibrtH 
 
 SEYMOUR DURST 
 
 •V 'Fort nitiia, ^frn/ftrjem, pg J< M*Jukm§ 
 
 When you leave, please leave this book 
 
 Because it has been said 
 "Ever'thing comes t' him who waits 
 
 Except a loaned book." 
 
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Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 
 Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library 
 
J>iA(;K.tt!S l)Y TJIK STOMAt'H L\ UKi<M\S (OA'UJTIOAS 
 
SEE WHAT YOU DRINK. 
 
 READ, AND DRINK NO MORE. 
 
 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS, 
 
 WITH 
 
 A DESCRIPTION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Poisons Used in their Manufacture. 
 
 BY 
 
 OLIVER COTTER, 
 
 A REFORMED LIQUOR DEALER, OF BROOKLYN, K. V. 
 
 A. S. BARNES & CO., 
 New- York. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 
 
 OLIVER COTTER, 
 in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
The laws of health are the laws of God, and as binding 
 on men as the Decalogue.— Willard Parker, M.D., 
 President Academy of Medicine. 
 
 Among the evil institutions that threaten the integrity 
 and safety of a State, the liquor traffic stands preeminent. — 
 Hon. John Bright. 
 
 If alcohol were unknown, half the sin, and a large part 
 of the poverty and unhappiness of this world, would 
 disappear. — Prof. Edmund H. Parks, M.D., F.R.S. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 http://archive.org/details/seewhatyoudrinkrOOcott_0 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The following pages have been compiled 
 from the writings and lectures of the most 
 celebrated chemists, physicians, and physiolo- 
 gists of the present age, together with the 
 experience of the author as a liquor dealer for 
 seven years past. 
 
 The writer believes that the true way to 
 promote the temperance cause is to kindly 
 and truthfully teach the people the true na- 
 ture of alcoholic beverages, and to expose the 
 system of adulterations and frauds that are 
 practiced to such an alarming extent by the 
 dealers. 
 
 With the hope that this treatise may help to 
 check the swelling tide of intemperance that 
 threatens to overwhelm our country, it is re 
 spectfully submitted to all classes of society. 
 
 OLIVER COTTER. 
 
 Brooklyn, 1874. 
 
Adulteration of Liquors. 
 
 WINE. 
 
 The practice of drugging wines is of very 
 ancient date. Homer, who lived one thousand 
 years before Christ, makes frequent mention of 
 the very potent drugs that were mixed with 
 wines. 
 
 In the Odyssey, lib. IV. 220, he tells us that 
 Helen prepared for Telemachus and his com- 
 panions a beverage which was highly stupe- 
 factive. This art she learned from the Egyp- 
 tians. The Hebrews, as we learn from Scrip- 
 ture, were in the habit of using mixed wines, 
 wines made inebriating by the use of spices, 
 myrrh, mandragora, opiates, and other strong 
 drugs ; yea, many have supposed the inha- 
 bitants of the Old World were experts in the 
 whole system of drugging and adulterating 
 wines, and that one of the abominations which 
 
s 
 
 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 drew down upon them the wrath of heaven, 
 was that of drunkenness. 
 
 Pliny, in Chapter 16 of Book XIV., gives 
 a long list of drugs and spices and fruits from 
 which wines were made. 
 
 Virgil, after enumerating various descriptions 
 of wine, cuts short the subject by saying, that 
 it was impossible to number the various species 
 of wine then in use, and that to attempt it 
 would be as hopeless a task as to tell the sands 
 of the Lybian coasts which the west wind 
 agitates, or the waves of the Ionian Sea which 
 are rolled to the shore. 
 
 During the reign of Edward III., in the 
 fourteenth century, a law was enacted in Eng- 
 land, imposing heavy penalties on frauds on 
 liquors. That same monarch, in a letter to the 
 Mayor of London, complains of the wine 
 merchants, " they do mingle corrupt wines with 
 other wines, and are not afraid to sell the wines 
 so mixed and corrupt at the same price as they 
 sell the good and pure, to the corruption of the 
 bodily health of those who buy wines by 
 retail." 
 
 Addison, in his Tatler, No. 131, says that, 
 in his time, 1710, there was a certain fraternity 
 of chemical operators who wrought under- 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 9 
 
 ground, in holes, caverns, and dark retirements, 
 to conceal their mysteries from the eyes and 
 observation of mankind. 
 
 These subterraneous philosophers are daily 
 employed in the transmutation of liquors, and 
 by the power of magical drugs and incantations, 
 raise, under the streets of London, the choicest 
 products of the hills and valleys of France. 
 They squeeze Bordeaux out of the sloe, and 
 draw champagne from an apple. 
 
 Virgil, in that remarkable line, 
 
 "The ripening grape shall hang on every thorn," 
 
 seems to have hinted at this art, which turns a 
 plantation of modern hedges into a vineyard. 
 
 These adepts are known among one another 
 by the name of wine-brewers, and I am afraid 
 do great injury to the bodies of many of her 
 majesty's good subjects. 
 
 For example, take champagne wine. The 
 United States are reported to be the largest 
 consumers of this kind in the world, that of 
 1,000,000 baskets. Now, let us remember that 
 the whole Champagne district is about 20,000 
 acres, and the amount of wines manufactured 
 for exportation is 10,000,000 bottles, or about 
 800,000 baskets. Of this, Russia consumes 
 
ro 
 
 ADULTERATION OF. LIQUORS. 
 
 160,000; France, 162,000; Germany, 146,000; 
 England, 220,000 — leaving only 120,000 for the 
 United States ; which proves that 888,000 bas- 
 kets of wine drank in this country for imported 
 champagne are counterfeit — an amount more 
 than equal to the whole supply of the Cham- 
 pagne district for the world. 
 
 Take that of madeira. Dr. Nott states, on 
 reliable authority, that but 30,000 barrels of 
 wine were produced on the island of Madeira, 
 and yet 50,000 arc claimed to be from there 
 drank in America alone. 
 
 Take that of port wines. According to the 
 custom-house books of Oporto, for one year, 
 135 pipes and 20 hogsheads were shipped for 
 Germany ; yet in the same year there were 
 landed at the London docks 2545 pipes and 
 162 hogsheads from that island, reported to be 
 port wine. Whence come the additions ? In 
 France, there are many thousand hogsheads of 
 wine exported annually, more than all the 
 vineyards can possibly yield. There is more 
 what is called port wine drank in London 
 alone than all the port-wine growers in the 
 world can produce, and yet London supplies 
 the whole civilized world. 
 
 From the report of the Commissioners of 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 1 1 
 
 the Internal Revenue system, made in 1866, we 
 learn that four firms in the city of New- York 
 reported to the commissioners a consumption 
 of 225,000 gallons of pure spirits for the manu- 
 facture of imitation wines. 
 
 As about twenty per cent is the proportion 
 of spirits used, we have from four firms alone 
 nearly 2,000,000 gallons of this death-dealing 
 mixture palmed off for consumption. Con- 
 ceive, if you can, the whole amount manu- 
 factured in these United States, when there 
 are probably not less than three hundred firms 
 engaged in the debasing traffic. 
 
 Prof. C. A. Lee, of New-York, says : " A 
 cheap madeira is made here by extracting the 
 oils from common whisky, and by passing it 
 through carbon. There are immense estab- 
 lishments in this city where the whisky is thus 
 turned into wine. In some of those devoted 
 to this branch of business, the whisky is rolled 
 in the evening, but the wine goes in the broad 
 daylighj, ready to defy the closest inspection." 
 
 A grocer, after he had abandoned the nefa- 
 rious traffic, assured me that he had often pur- 
 chased whisky one day of a country merchant, 
 and before he left town sold the same whisky 
 
12 
 
 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 back to him, turned into wine, at a profit of 
 from four to five hundred per cent. 
 
 This metamorphosis is not even excelled by 
 the French wine merchant who said: 14 Give me 
 six hours' notice of what wine you like, and you 
 shall have it out of those two barrels." 
 
 Let us ascertain what it is that man drinks 
 when lie takes a glass of wine. On the testi- 
 mony of Accum, one well qualified to speak, 
 evidence sufficient has accumulated to show 
 that few of those commodities which are the 
 objects of commerce are adulterated to a 
 greater extent than wines. We have testi- 
 monies the most unquestionable, that modern 
 wines are manufactured and adulterated to an 
 awful extent. The Vintner s Guide and The 
 Wine-Merc hani s Companion furnish the most 
 shocking directions on this subject, and any 
 one who desires to learn more than we can give 
 in this article on the ingredients that enter into 
 the composition of those fabrications called 
 wines, so obligingly prepared in those garrets 
 and cellars of our large cities, where fraud 
 under ground finds protection, and wholesale 
 deeds of darkness are securely and systemati- 
 cally performed, and no less obligingly supplied 
 from the brew-houses of foreign lands, will do 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 13 
 
 well to consult M. P. Orfila, on poisons, and 
 Mr. Frederick Accum, on coloring poisons. 
 
 We will enumerate some of the ingredients 
 and the object sought for in the adulterations. 
 
 To brighten, color, clear, and make astrin- 
 gent wines, alum, Brazil-wood, gypsum, oak saw- 
 dust, husks of filbert, and lead are employed ; 
 and for the purpose of communicating particu- 
 lar flavor to insipid wines, bitter almond, 
 cherry-laurel water. In the Isle of Sheppey, 
 many persons are employed in picking up 
 copperas stones from the sea-beach, which 
 being taken to a manufactory, copperas is ex- 
 tracted, and then shipped to Oporto, to be sold 
 to the wine-dresser and wine-merchant, and by 
 them is mixed with the port wine to give it a 
 particular astringent quality. 
 
 It is but recently that a writer, noways 
 favorable to abstinence, but one who ought to 
 know, said, in an article on adulterated wines : 
 " We know very well that the Spaniard would 
 not touch the wine he manufactures for us, and 
 the Portuguese would spit out our port like so 
 much poison. What a humiliating thought 
 that Americans greedily swallow what the Por- 
 tuguese spit out as poison !" 
 
 In answer to certain questions, Dr. Cox, the 
 
14 
 
 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 celebrated chemist and inspector of liquors for 
 Ohio, mentions the following as the composi- 
 tions of all the port wine he had inspected that 
 spring: " As a basis, either water, cider vinegar, 
 or a mixture of water and sulphuric acid, with 
 the juice of elder-berries, privet-berries, beet- 
 root juice and logwood, with alum, technically 
 called sulphate of alumina and potassa, sugar 
 to cover the pernicious mixtures, and some- 
 times I found one or two per cent of Jamaica 
 rum or neutral spirits added. " 
 
 Of sherry, madeira, muscatel, etc., he says 
 they are all — or at least all that he has inspect- 
 ed — either mixed or have as a basis water, cider, 
 wort, made of pale malt, or a mixture of sul- 
 phuric acid and water to the acidity of weak 
 vinegar, with brown sugar, honey, orris-root, and 
 neutral spirits to give it alcoholic percentages ; 
 and this, he adds, was the character of two sam- 
 ples of wines, port and sherry, that he inspected, 
 which were sent from a store, the proprietors 
 of which are honorable and high-minded gen- 
 tlemen, who had paid a high price for their 
 liquors, got them out of the custom-house in 
 an Eastern city, with an assurance that they 
 were genuine and imported, and yet there was 
 not one drop or symptom of wine in either of 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 *5 
 
 them — the one having its warming, stimulating 
 influence from sulphuric acid and one per 
 cent Jamaica rum ; and the sherry having six 
 per cent alcoholic spirits imparted to it by 
 neutral spirits, with sulphuric acid, bitter 
 almonds, brown sugar, and honey. 
 
 These abominable mixtures are flavored 
 with various oils to suit the flavors of different 
 wines : oil of lavender, cloves, cinnamon, berga- 
 mot, rosemary, etc. etc. 
 
 At an examination made by this same Dr. 
 Cox, in the presence of Professor Wilson, of 
 Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa., he found in 
 one article of wine purporting to be the pure 
 wine of grape, and which had been used for sa- 
 cramental purposes, the following: eight per 
 cent alcoholic spirit or rye whisky, muriatic 
 acid, alum, sugar, elder-berries or flowers, which 
 impart a flavor very analogous to the grape ; and 
 in a sample of pale sherry, so called, belonging 
 to one of the professors of that college, and 
 purchased by him at a high price from an im- 
 porting-house of New- York city, and for medi- 
 cal purposes, there was not a drop of the juice 
 of the grape, but an abundance of sulphuric 
 acid, prussic acid, alum, and other ingredients 
 
i6 
 
 ADULTERATION of LIQUORS. 
 
 to give bouquet and aroma to that rascally and 
 poisonous imitation. 
 
 Query : Was this the medicinal wine ordered 
 by Paul for Timothy's weak stomach, and often 
 infirmities? Accum says, many thousands of 
 pipes of spoiled cider are annually brought 
 hither from the country, for the purpose of 
 being converted into fictitious wine ; artisans 
 are regularly employed in staining and crust- 
 ing casks and bottles, and making an astrin- 
 gent extract for old port. 
 
 Mr. Cyrus Redding, celebrated as an author 
 who has written much on the subject of wine, 
 in the description he gave before the Select 
 Committee of the House of Commons, of the 
 mode by which wines are manufactured in 
 London, stated that brandy cowe — that is, wash- 
 ings of brandy-casks — coloring made of elder- 
 berries, logwood, salt of tartar, green dragon, 
 tincture of red sanders or cudbear, were exten- 
 sively used in preparing an article which sells 
 as port. The entire export of port wine, he 
 added, is 20,000 pipes, and yet 60,000, as given 
 in evidence, are annually consumed in this 
 country. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Baird, in his visit to the vineyards 
 of Spain and France, says brandy is always 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 17 
 
 added to the finest sherries on their shipment, 
 because strength is one of the first qualities 
 looked for by the consumer. Again, in no case 
 do exporters send a genuine natural wine — that 
 is, a wine as it comes from the vat — without a 
 mixture of other qualities. 
 
 The Wine Guide gives directions to put a 
 quart of warm sheep's or lamb's blood into a 
 butt of sherry to take off the color. The same 
 book gives directions to wine merchants for 
 clearing cloudy or musty wine with litharge or 
 sugar of lead. Dr. Nott says : " A friend of 
 mine informed me that, having been induced to 
 purchase a cask of port wine by the fact that it 
 had just been received direct from Oporto by a 
 house in New- York, in the honor and integrity 
 of which entire confidence could be placed, he 
 drew off and bottled up and secured with his own 
 hands its precious contents, to be reserved for 
 the special use of friends ; and that having done 
 so, and having thereafter occasion to cause that 
 cask to be sawed in two, he found, to his astonish- 
 ment, that its lees consisted of a large quantity 
 of the shavings of logwood, a residuum of 
 alum and other ingredients, the name and na- 
 ture of which were to him unknown. In reply 
 to a question put by the same authority to a 
 
i8 
 
 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 friend who had himself been a wine dealer, as 
 to the verity of the startling statements then 
 published with reference to wine-brewing, this 
 response was made : " God forgive what has 
 passed in my own cellar, but the statements 
 made are true, all true, I assure you." Another 
 friend, who had been the executor of a wine 
 dealer, assured him that, in the inventory of arti- 
 cles for the manufacture found in the cellar of 
 that dealer, and which amounted to many thou- 
 sand dollars, there was not one dollar for the 
 juice of the grape. And still another friend 
 informed him that, in examining, as an assignee, 
 the papers of a house in the city which dealt 
 in wines, and which had stopped payment, he 
 found evidence of the purchase, during the pre- 
 ceding years, of hundreds of casks of cider, but 
 no wine, which had been supposed to have been 
 dealt out by that house to its confiding custom- 
 ers. A gentleman who had once been largely 
 engaged in the manufacture of spurious wines, 
 and who in one year sold 30,000 casks, stated 
 to Mr. Delevan that few persons who drink 
 wine had any conception of what they drink. 
 Frauds committed in the city of New-York 
 alone amount, it is supposed, to $8,000,000 an- 
 nually. A cargo of wine arrives in New- York ; 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 19 
 
 it is at once purchased up, and if fictitious, in 
 twenty-four hours its whole character is chang- 
 ed. To effect this, it is emptied into large vats, 
 and then mixed with whisky, cider, sour beer, 
 and drugs. One of the most poisonous ingre- 
 dients which these adulterators use is lead ; 
 this appears to have been rather an old practice. 
 In the year 1696, several persons in the Duchy 
 of Wurtemberg were poisoned in consequence 
 of drinking wine adulterated with white lead. 
 A disease called the lead colic raged in Poitou 
 in the sixteenth century, for upward of sixty 
 years, and is now well known to have been 
 occasioned by the abominable adulterations of 
 wine with lead. In 181 1, all the passengers of 
 the Highflyer coach who dined and drank wine 
 at Newcastle, January 1 7th, were taken ill with 
 extreme sickness, and one gentleman, who had 
 taken more wine than the rest, was brought al- 
 most to the grave ; and another, who had drank 
 some negus which was made from the very 
 wine, was taken ill soon after, and actually died 
 before medical aid arrived, and on the inquest 
 being held, the jury returned a verdict of died 
 of poison. 
 
 In the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical 
 Journal, Vol. XXIII., page 67, there is the fol- 
 
20 
 
 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 lowing case: " The family of a baronet in Rox- 
 burghshire, together with several visitors, were 
 taken seriously ill during dinner, or soon after 
 it; the symptoms in all were sickness, vomit- 
 ing, and diarrhoea. In the course of the night, 
 all were afflicted with a sense of heat in the sto- 
 mach, throat, and mouth, and in the morning 
 the lips became incrusted, and in the matter 
 vomited the two hundred and fiftieth part of a 
 grain of arsenic was discovered, and in the re- 
 mains of a bottle of champagne, two ounces of 
 wine gave one grain and a quarter of sulphate of 
 arsenic." How true it is that few persons who 
 drink wine have any conception of what they 
 drink. So one gentleman, according to the testi- 
 mony of Mr. Delevan, thought, who purchased 
 in this city a bottle of what was called genuine 
 champagne of the importer, and found it to con- 
 tain one quarter of an ounce of sugar of lead. 
 Merchants, I know, persuade themselves that the 
 minute quantity employed to cause the acid 
 taste in wine is perfectly harmless. But chem- 
 ical analysis proves the contrary, and it must be 
 pronounced highly deleterious. Lead, in what- 
 ever state it is taken into the stomach, occasions 
 terrible disease, and wine adulterated with the 
 minutest quantity of it becomes a slow poison. 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 21 
 
 Such being the case, does not the merchant or 
 dealer who practices this dangerous sophistica- 
 tion add to the crime of fraud that of murder ; 
 and is he not deliberately sowing the seeds of 
 disease and death among those who contribute 
 to his emolument ? We know that much has 
 been said about the pure wines of Ohio and 
 California, the sparkling Catawba and Isabella ; 
 and those who advocate their use may really 
 believe they are the pure juice of the grape — at 
 least they know that the manufacturers of such 
 wines raise whole acres of grapes, which is good 
 prima facie evidence that grapes are what they 
 make wine of. This reminds us of one who 
 gave a receipt for making bear's-grease : after 
 telling how it is made, in which there is no 
 more of the bear than in the wines now drank, 
 he remarks : " It would be well to keep a bear 
 on the premises, so that the people would think 
 it was bear's-grease." Sure enough ; it is well to 
 raise grapes alias to exhibit the bear. When, 
 then, we know that the wines now current are 
 really a mess of drugs, a concoction of vile 
 compounds, does not the medical prescription 
 of wines partake of the rankest quackery ? 
 
 Here not only have we the liquor-dealer 
 constituted the apothecary, and the doses left to 
 
22 
 
 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 be regulated by the appetite of the patient, 
 but the true composition and strength of the 
 drinks prescribed are quite unknown to the pre- 
 scribe r. 
 
 The London Times, which can not be accused 
 of fanaticism on the subject, says : " As a rule, 
 medical men know no more of the value of wine 
 as a medicinal agent than any body else. A 
 glass of sherry is their universal panacea for 
 want of tone in the system ; but sherry may 
 mean any thing but the thing it is really called. 
 It is a great pity the faculty do not pay as much 
 attention to wine as a medicament as they do to 
 water. We are told there is some spa suitable 
 to every complaint the human frame is liable to; 
 but port and sherry are all the wines the majo- 
 rity of physicians prescribe or recommend to 
 their patients when special restoratives are 
 required." When physicians prescribe wine for 
 their patients, ought they not to ascertain 
 whether what they order is the product of the 
 sun in the vineyard, or of applied chemistry in 
 the laboratory ? 
 
 * 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 23 
 
 BRANDY, RUM, GIN, WHISKY. 
 
 We asked a physician the other day, who 
 had just written a prescription for one of his 
 patients, what it was he had ordered. " Just a 
 little cognac brandy," he replied, so called from 
 the village of Cognac, on the river Charente, in 
 the kingdom of France. On the strength of 
 her physician's testimony, the poor invalid ima- 
 gined, as thousands of others have blindly be- 
 lieved, that she was using a drink distilled from 
 grapes, ignorant of the fact that not one per cent 
 of all the liquor sold as brandy in this country 
 is real brandy ; that we pay the French distillers 
 at Lyons and Marseilles, saying nothing of half 
 a hundred other places on the European con- 
 tinent and our own, to make our corn whiskies 
 into fine old brandies. In proof of this, we have 
 just to refer to the various receipt-books which 
 spirit dealers, as well as wine merchants and 
 brewers, have, containing specific directions for 
 the manufacture and adulterations of liquor. 
 
 For example, in the Vintner s Guide, to im- 
 prove the flavor of brandy : A quarter of an 
 ounce of English saffron and half an ounce of 
 
2 4 
 
 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 mace, steeped in a pint of brandy for ten days, 
 shaking it once or twice a day, then strain it 
 through linen cloth, and add one ounce of terra 
 japonica, finely powdered, and three ounces of 
 spirits of nitre ; put it into ten gallons of brandy, 
 adding at the same time ten pounds of prunes, 
 bruised. To give new brandy all the qualities 
 of old : To one gallon of new brandy, add thirty 
 drops of aqua ammonia (volatile smelling li- 
 quor), shaking it well that it may combine with 
 the acid on which the taste and other qualities 
 of the new liquor depend." Lacour, the cele- 
 brated manufacturer of oils for making and fla- 
 voring every variety of liquors, offers his guide- 
 book, containing directions for making cider 
 without apples, and for converting cider into 
 all kinds of white wines, champagne, etc., and 
 a package of the article used for giving strength 
 to liquors, converting seventy gallons of whisky 
 into one hundred gallons, and every article 
 necessary to commence a liquor-store, will be 
 furnished for $25 (very moderate), also all the 
 information necessary to conduct such an esta- 
 blishment, thus enabling the new beginner to 
 •compete successfully with the oldest liquor 
 dealer. This Lacour s oil of cognac is warrant- 
 ed to convert neutral spirit to a superior imita- 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 25 
 
 tion of imported brandies — namely, Otarcl, 
 Sazerat, Marretti, Cognac, Martel, Hennessy, 
 Renault, Castillon, and London Dock brandies. 
 These liquors will have a full, fruity flavor, 
 and a beautiful sparkling color, etc. 
 
 So much for the books ; now for the produc- 
 tions. What it really was that that patient may 
 have been prescribed to drink we shall see. In 
 reply to the question, " Have you reason to be- 
 lieve that imported wines and brandies are 
 adulterated ?" put to Dr. Cox, the inspector of 
 liquors for Ohio, he says : " Yes, I know them to 
 be, and can demonstrate the fact to any one 
 who has faith in chemical developments. I have 
 inspected brands of various kinds and qualities 
 fresh from the custom-house, with the inspector's 
 certificate which accompanied them, and was 
 assured that they were freshly imported ; and 
 yet the chemical tests gave me corn whisky, 
 with abundance of fusel oil, or the oil of corn, 
 as a basis, with sulphuric acid, nitric ether, prus- 
 sic acid, copper, chloroform, Guinea pepper, 
 tannin or tannic acid, with sometimes a very 
 small percentage of good brandy, and frequent- 
 ly not a drop. The same gentleman says : " A 
 gentleman of veracity in Cincinnati, a druggist, 
 that he might have a pure liquor as a medicinal 
 
26 
 
 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 article, and that kind of purity, etc., that lie 
 could recommend to his customers, went to 
 New-York and purchased two half pipes of 
 splendid Seignette brandy — one pale, the other 
 dark. When passing one day, he called me in 
 to see his beautiful pure brandy, just from New- 
 York. I stopped, looked at it, smelled it ; but 
 before tasting it, happening to have some blue 
 litmus-paper in my pocket, I introduced a small 
 piece ; it came out red as scarlet. I then called 
 for a polished spatula, put it into a tumbler con- 
 taining perhaps half a gill, and waited on it per- 
 haps fifteen minutes, at the expiration of which 
 the liquor was black as ink. The spatula cor- 
 roded, and when dried, a thick coating or rust, 
 which, when wiped off, left a copper coat almost 
 as thick as if it had been plated. I charged 
 him on the spot, under the penalty of the law, 
 not to sell a drop of it ; took samples of it to 
 my office, and the following is the result of my 
 analysis : ist sample, dark, 55 per cent alcoholic 
 spirits by volume, and 41 per cent by weight; 
 specific gravity, 0.945. The tests indicate sul- 
 phuric acid, nitric acid, nitric ether, prussic acid, 
 Guinea pepper, and an abundance of fusel oil, 
 bare common whisky, not a drop of wine. 
 2d sample, pale, 54 per cent alcoholic spirits by 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 27 
 
 volume, 40 per cent by weight; specific gravity, 
 0.955. This article has the same adulterations 
 as the first, but in greater abundance, with the 
 addition of caoutchouc. 
 
 Remark : Most villainous concoctions ; of 
 course these articles could not be sold without 
 a violation of the liquor law, consequently the 
 chemist condemned them. They were pur- 
 chased on four months' time. The purchaser 
 immediately notified the New- York merchant 
 of the character and quality of the goods, and 
 directed him to send for them ; but instead of 
 sending for them, he waited till the notes be- 
 came due, and brought the suit into the Court 
 of Common. Pleas (Cincinnati). The chemist 
 analyzed the liquors in the presence of the 
 court and jury, showed them satisfactorily that 
 they were the pernicious, poisonous, and vil- 
 lainous liquors which he had represented them 
 to be, and the defendant gained his case 
 triumphantly, and the New-York merchant 
 vanished before a state warrant could be got 
 out; otherwise he would have had ample time 
 allowed him to learn an honest trade at one of 
 the State institutions in Columbus. 
 
28 
 
 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 RUM. 
 
 With this liquor, supposed to be a simple 
 distillation of the sugar-cane, some adultera- 
 tions arc carried on. The impositions prac- 
 ticed with rum generally consist in purchasing 
 low-priced Leeward Island rum, and by the 
 introduction of such articles as the following, 
 in certain proportions, it is sold as fine old 
 Jamaica rum of peculiar softness and flavor: 
 ale, porter, shrub, extract of orris-root, cherry- 
 laurel water, extract of grains of paradise, or 
 capsicum. 
 
 GIN. 
 
 According to the guide for distillation and 
 brewing, the list of ingredients used in the 
 manufacture of gin is truly startling. The 
 articles are as follows : oil of vitriol, oil of cas- 
 sia, oil of turpentine, oil of caraway, oil of 
 juniper, oil of almond, sjulphuric ether, extract 
 of capsicum, extract of grains of paradise, ex- 
 tract of orris-root, extract of angelica-root, 
 water, sugar, etc. 
 
 Dr. Sherman, of London, says : " Holland 
 gin has been poisoned by lead. I detected an 
 extensive adulteration of smuggled gin, which 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 2 9 
 
 had been sold by an excise officer and dispers- 
 ed over an extensive tract of country, and 
 which committed great ravages among the in- 
 habitants." 
 
 WHISKY. 
 
 The time was when this liquor could be 
 had in its purity. When the whiskies of Scot- 
 land and Ireland got their reputation, they 
 were the products of one thousand illicit stills, 
 scattered through the hills and bogs of those 
 lands. Then the liquor was made by men who 
 disdained to do any thing worse than cheat the 
 gauger. They prided themselves on the skill 
 of their brewing, and did not know the mean- 
 ing of doctoring. That day has gone by ; the 
 illicit stills are almost extirpated, and the mak- 
 ing of Scotch and Irish whiskies is in the hands 
 of large distillers. 
 
 The principle of dressing, as it is termed, is 
 about the same as that followed in gin, with the 
 exception of getting that smoky taste, which is 
 supposed to be a certain part of a good Scotch 
 or Irish whisky, and that is produced by the 
 introduction of creasote, which is a deadly 
 poison. The same drugging process is carried 
 on with bourbon and rye whiskies. Most of 
 
30 
 
 ADULTERATION" OF LIQUORS. 
 
 our readers remember the excitement created, 
 a few years ago, all over our Western country, 
 from the large number of hogs that died from 
 some malignant disease, particularly in the 
 State of Ohio. The disease was called the 
 Hog Cholera. Soon the discovery was made 
 that the disease was confined to the distillers 
 and their immediate neighbors. It was also 
 noticed that the fish in some streams on 
 the banks of which distilleries were located, 
 died in large numbers, manifesting all the 
 symptoms of intoxication or poisoning by nux- 
 vomica. Finally, the swill of the distilleries 
 was analyzed, and the presence of strychnine 
 discovered. This at once accounted for the 
 fatality among the hogs and fish. At first, the 
 distillers were very indignant ; but seeing the 
 thing could not be hid, afterward acknowledged 
 that they used the drug to aid them in obtain- 
 ing more spirits out of the same quantity of 
 corn. Physicians say that since the introduc- 
 tion of strychnine, etc., in the manufacture of 
 whisky, it has become impossible to cure deli- 
 rium tremens. " One day," Dr. Cox says, " I 
 called at a grocery-store where liquor also was 
 kept ; a couple of Irishmen came in while I was 
 there and called for some whisky, and the first 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 31 
 
 drank, and the moment he drank the tears 
 flowed freely, while he at the same time caught 
 his breath, like one suffocated or strangling ; 
 when he could speak, he says to his companion, 
 1 Och, Michael, but this is a warming to the 
 stomach !' Michael drank, and went through like 
 contortions, with the remark, ' W ouldn't it be 
 foine in a could, frosty morning ?' After they 
 had drank, I asked the landlord to pour me out 
 a little in a tumbler, in which I dropped a slip 
 of litmus-paper, which was no sooner wet than 
 it put on a scarlet hue. I went to my office, and 
 got my instruments and examined it. I found 
 it had 17 percent alcoholic spirits by weight, 
 when it should have 40 per cent to be proof, 
 and the difference in percentage made up by 
 sulphuric acid, red pepper, pellitory, caustic 
 potassa, benzine, and one of the salts of nucis 
 vomicae, commonly called mix vomica. One 
 pint of such liquor would kill the strongest 
 man. I had the manufacturer indicted ; but 
 by such villainy he had become wealthy, and I 
 never have, owing to some defect in the laws, 
 been able to bring that case to a final issue." 
 
 The amount of adulterated liquors is enor- 
 mous. ; and, with a few exceptions, the entire 
 liquor traffic of the world is not only a fraud, 
 
32 
 
 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 but (perhaps without all of the dealers being 
 aware of the fact) it also amounts to a system 
 of drugging and poisoning. 
 
 The business of making adulterated liquors 
 has been so simplified that any novice who 
 knows enough to make a punch or a cocktail 
 can learn in a short time how to make any 
 kind of liquor that will pass muster with nine 
 tenths of the drinking community. The oils 
 and essences are within the reach of any dealer, 
 wholesale or retail, and with the chemical 
 preparations he can procure the directions for 
 making a large or small quantity in a short 
 time. 
 
 If the oils, essences, and other chemical 
 preparations are wanted for converting com 
 whisky into any other kind of liquor, they can 
 easily be obtained. You can procure brandy- 
 oil enough to change eight barrels of corn 
 whisky into eight barrels of French brandy for 
 $16, and enough chemicals to convert sixteen 
 barrels into Holland gin, London cordial gin, 
 Old Tom gin, or schnapps, for $12. 
 
 To make old bourbon or rye and wheat 
 whisky, enough of these chemical compounds 
 can be purchased for $8 to make four barrels ; 
 and to make four barrels of Irish or Scotch 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 33 
 
 whisky, the chemical materials can be procured 
 for $10. 
 
 Then there is the cost of the coloring matter, 
 and what the dealers call age and body prepa- 
 ration. By using these drugs, new whisky is 
 converted into any kind of liquor of any age 
 or color in a short time. Some of these 
 materials are known to be deadly poisons. 
 The more highly the imitation liquor can be 
 charged with the cheap poisonous drugs, to 
 supply the intoxicating properties of alcohol, 
 the more water can be added, thus reducing 
 the cost and keeping up the intoxicating power 
 of the liquor. These preparations can be 
 procured in any quantity. A small retailer can 
 purchase a small quantity sufficient to convert 
 a gallon or two of whisky into brandy, gin, or 
 rum, as his daily wants may require, but they 
 are generally used for larger quantities. 
 
 In addition to the foregoing, there are an 
 immense number of receipts for making all 
 kinds of intoxicating liquors. From various 
 authentic sources, I have procured a large 
 number of these, which have been made use of 
 at different times, and are in use now. 
 
34 
 
 ADULTERATION OF LIOUORS. 
 
 MALT . LIQUORS. 
 
 It is absolutely frightful to contemplate the 
 lists of poisons and drugs with which malt 
 liquors are doctored. Respecting porter, ac- 
 cording to several books published for the use 
 of brewers (sec Child's Art of Brewing there 
 are used opium, henbane, capsicum, cocculus 
 indicus, salt of tartar, headings, ginger, and 
 slaked lime. The heading is a mixture of 
 half alum and half copperas, ground to a fine 
 powder, and is so called from giving to porter 
 that beautiful head of froth which constitutes 
 one of the peculiar properties of porter, and 
 which landlords are so anxious to raise to 
 gratify their customers. Besides these named, 
 aloes, quassia, gentian, sweet-scented flag, worm- 
 wood, hoarhound, bitter oranges, and that most 
 abominable of all abominations, and a deadly- 
 poison, tobacco, are used to supply the place of 
 hops. In England, a few years ago, public 
 attention was strongly called to this, and the 
 result was some terrible revelations as to what 
 the intelligent British public had been swallow- 
 ing. It was found that salt, molasses, sulphate 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 35 
 
 of iron, gentian, quassia, chamomile, ginger, 
 coriander, paradise-seed, alum, sulphuric acid, 
 capsicum, cocculus indicus, tobacco, opium, 
 and strychnine, were component parts of the 
 different specimens of porter and ale obtained 
 from various beer-shops through the city of 
 London. 
 
 In an English book, called Brewing Malt 
 Liquors, by one Morrice, various of the arti- 
 cles already named are unblushingly recom- 
 mended for brewing malt liquors, and for im- 
 proving them after they are brewed ; but the 
 drugging does not cease with the brewer, the 
 liquors are often doctored by the retailers. 
 One case in point : less than a year ago, some 
 dissipated men and women were drinking ale 
 and porter in a dram-shop in Hull, England. 
 The landlord had occasion to leave the shop, 
 when one of the women, seeing on the counter 
 a pitcherful of what she supposed was porter, 
 drank a good draft, replacing the pitcher. In 
 a very short time she was seized with nausea 
 and griping pains, and fell down on the floor 
 in a state of hopeless stupor and intoxication. 
 In this state, she was conveyed to the hospital, 
 where the contents of the stomach being 
 evacuated, she was rescued from being poison- 
 
36 
 
 ADULTERATION <)F LIOUOKS. 
 
 ed, although it was several days before she 
 was able to be removed. The matter vomited 
 was found to be a strong solution of cocculus 
 indicus. The publican acknowledged that the 
 drug had been used by him to bring up his 
 ales to a strength to suit the customers. This 
 was a noted house for genuine ales and bitter 
 beer. 
 
 Morricc, in his practical treatise on brewing 
 the various sorts of malt liquors, with examples 
 of each species, the whole forming a complete 
 guide to brewing London porter, gives us one 
 receipt out of these for making 89 barrels: 25 
 qrs. malt, 1 cwt 2 qrs. of hops, 6 lbs. of coccu- 
 lus indicus, 3 lbs. of Leghorn juice, 4 lbs. of 
 porter extract ; then he makes " the remaining 
 goods into small beer by adding 3 lbs. of coc- 
 culus indicus, being ground fine, and 4 lbs. 
 of faba amara, or bitter bean." 
 
 Another popular author, to whom we have 
 more than once referred, Child, in his work, 
 Every Man his Own Brewer, after stating that 
 cocculus indicus, capsicum, and headings are 
 used in making porter, says : " However much 
 they may surprise, however pernicious or disa- 
 greeable they may appear, I have always found 
 them requisite in the brewing of porter ; they 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 37 
 
 must invariably be used by those who wish to 
 continue the taste, flavor, and appearance." 
 
 BEER. 
 
 In the essay on brewing, published in the 
 Library of Useful Knowledge, we find there, 
 in the manufacture of beer, sugar, molasses, 
 honey, and liquorice are used for malt ; alum, 
 opium, gentian, quassia, aloes, cocculus indicus, 
 gentian, amara, tobacco, and nux vomica are used 
 for hops ; and the last-mentioned are known to 
 be highly poisonous. Saltpetre, common salt 
 mixed with wheat or bean flour, jalap, the fiery 
 liquid called spirit of maranta bruised, green 
 copperas, lime, marble-dust, oyster-shells, egg- 
 shells, sulphate of lime, hartshorn-shavings, 
 nut-galls, and the subcarbonate of potash and 
 soda, are used to prevent acidity, etc. It was 
 our fortune, some time ago, to be admitted 
 behind the scenes, and witness the modus 
 operandi of making wholesome beer and pure 
 ale in all its stages, and know whereof we speak 
 when we say that to give beer a cauliflower 
 head, beer-heading is used, consisting of green 
 vitriol, alum, and salt. 
 
 Alum gives likewise a smack of age to beer, 
 
38 
 
 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 and is penetrating to the palate. To make this 
 beer old, add oil of vitriol, and an imitation of 
 the age of eighteen months is thus produced 
 in an instant. As to the water employed in the 
 manufacture of malt liquor, the testimony of 
 a brewer in this country gives ground for 
 believing there was some foundation in the 
 rumor that prevailed a few years ago, that 
 water used at one of the largest breweries in 
 London was pumped from the Thames at low 
 water. At that time, the draining of the 
 stables and filth of every kind poured down 
 the sewers, and, finally, into the river. And 
 that brewery was hence famed for the richness 
 of its porter. The brewer says: M In the great 
 brewery in which I have for years been em- 
 ployed, the pipes which draw the water from 
 the river come in just at the place which 
 receives the drainings of the horse-stables. 
 And there is no such beer in the world as was 
 made from it." 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 39 
 
 NATURE OF INGREDIENTS USED 
 IN THE MANUFACTURE OF 
 INTOXICATING DRINKS. 
 
 COCCULUS INDICUS, OR INDIAN BERRY. 
 
 This article, which is rarely ever used in 
 medicine, and of no importance in the arts, is 
 extensively used for the purpose of adulterating 
 malt liquors. To such an extent is this the case 
 that writers on brewing openly acknowledge the 
 fact, and give regular formulae for its employ- 
 ment ; and all recommend it on the ground 
 that it increases the apparent strength of the 
 beer, and improves its intoxicating quality. 
 
 It is a small, rough, and black-looking berry, 
 of a very bitter taste and an intoxicating quality. 
 In doses of two or three grains, it will produce 
 nausea, vomiting, and alarming prostration. 
 In ten or twelve grain doses, it kills strong dogs 
 by tetanic spasms and convulsions ; and in still 
 larger doses, death, both in man and animals, is 
 speedily produced. 
 
 In India, it is employed by the Nagus and 
 other Indian tribes to poison the water in 
 
40 
 
 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 wells and tanks, to impede the progress of an 
 invading army, and also to poison the weapons 
 used in warfare. 
 
 FOXGLOVE 
 
 is a plant with large purple flowers, possessing 
 an intensely bitter, nauseous taste. It is a vio- 
 lent purgative and emetic ; produces languor, 
 giddiness, and even death. It is a poison, and 
 is used on account of the bitter and intoxicating 
 qualities it imparts to the liquor with which it is 
 mixed. 
 
 GREEN COPPERAS, 
 
 a mineral substance obtained from iron, is 
 much used to give the porter a frothy top. 
 Hartshorn-shavings are the horns of the com- 
 mon male deer rasped or scraped down. They 
 are then boiled in the worts of ale, and give 
 out a substance of a thickish nature like jelly, 
 which is said to prevent intoxicating liquor from 
 becoming sour. 
 
 HENBANE. 
 
 A plant of a poisonous nature, bearing a 
 close resemblance to the narcotic poison 
 opium. It produces intoxication, delirium, 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 41 
 
 nausea, vomiting, feverishness, and death, and 
 appears chiefly to be used to increase the in- 
 toxicating effects of liquors. Grains of para- 
 dise are also largely used. They are also 
 narcotic, causing, when taken in a state of 
 infusion, sickness, general feeling of distress, 
 and finally stupor, tremor, or general nervous 
 prostration. 
 
 JALAP. 
 
 The root of a sort of convolvulus, brought 
 from the neighborhood of Xalapa, Mexico. It 
 * is used as a powerful purgative in medicine. 
 Its taste is extremely nauseous, and is used to 
 prevent intoxicating liquor from souring, and to 
 counteract the binding tendency of some of the 
 other ingredients employed by the brewer. 
 
 LIME. 
 
 An earthy substance, of a white color. It 
 has a hot, burning taste, and in some measure 
 corrodes and destroys the texture of those 
 animal substances with which it comes into 
 contact. 
 
42 
 
 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 MULTUM 
 
 is a mixture of opium and other ingredients, 
 prepared by chemists for the brewer, and used 
 by him to create the intoxicating qualities of the 
 liquor. It is of a highly poisonous nature, and 
 doubtless contributes to the fatal effects of 
 that liquor. 
 
 NUT-GALLS 
 
 are excrescences produced by the attacks of a 
 small insect on the tender shoots of a tree 
 which grows in Asia, Syria, and Persia. They 
 have a very bitter taste, and are used to color or 
 fire the liquor. 
 
 NUX VOMICA 
 
 is the powdered fruit of the strychnus nux 
 vomica. Its name suffices to characterize it. It 
 is a violent narcotic, acrid poison, and is exten- 
 sively used in the manufacture of intoxicating 
 liquors. It is such a dangerous poison that 
 medical men rarely prescribe it. 
 
 OPIUM 
 
 is the thickened juice of the -white poppy, 
 which grows most abundantly in India. It is 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUOR?. 
 
 43 
 
 the most destructive of narcotic poisons, and it 
 is the most intoxicating. It is largely used in 
 the manufacture of intoxicating liquors, because 
 its very nature is to yield a larger quantity of 
 intoxicating matter than any other beverage. 
 
 OIL OF VITRIOL, 
 
 or sulphuric acid, is a mineral poison of an 
 awfully burning nature. It destroys every 
 thing it comes in contact with. It is used by 
 brewers to increase the heating qualities of their 
 liquors. 
 
 POTASH 
 
 derives its name from ashes and the pots in 
 which it is prepared. It is made from vegetables 
 mixed with quicklime, boiled down in pots and 
 burnt, the ashes remaining after the burning 
 being potash. 
 
 QUASSIA 
 
 is the name of a tree which grows in America 
 and the West-Indies. Both the wood and the 
 fruit are of an intensely bitter taste. It is used 
 by brewers instead of hops. 
 
44 
 
 ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS 
 
 TOBACCO 
 
 is a narcotic poison of a bitter, acrid taste. 
 When it is distilled, it yields an essential oil of 
 a most violent and destructive nature. 
 
 WORMWOOD 
 
 is a plant or Sower with downy leaves and 
 small round-headed flowers. The seed of this 
 plant has bitter and stimulating properties. 
 
 In view of the facts here presented, is it not 
 a monstrous absurdity to style liquors composed 
 of such vile abominations, healthful beverages ? 
 And is it not sheer blasphemy to speak of 
 protecting a traffic whose whole history is one 
 gigantic fraud ? 
 
 Talk of pure liquors ! men know not what 
 they say. The purest of the manufacturers' 
 liquors is alcoholic, and as such is deadly in 
 its effects. 
 
 We solemnly aver that if ever there was a 
 State-prison offense, it is that of putting into 
 the market liquors manufactured out of articles 
 infernal in their character, and labeling them 
 as pure and wholesome. And we firmly believe 
 
ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 
 
 45 
 
 that the day is coining when it will be so 
 regarded; when the traffic in intoxicating 
 liquors will be put under the law, and men will 
 be held responsible for every infringement 
 thereof. And what shall we say of the whole- 
 sale prescription of such liquors by so many 
 medical men ? 
 
I