FALSIFICATION OF BRANDY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3666, 14 April 1883, Page 4

FALSIFICATION OF BRANDY.

A lamentable picture has been dnuvn in a recent report of the American Consul at Roche-Ik- of the falsification of brandy, Avhich, it appears, in the la-st three years has undergone a complete transformation, and is no longer brandy, the greater portion being prepared from alcohol of grain, potatoes or beet. The most unsatisfactory circumstance is that even the merchants who desire to purchase a pure cognac cannot be certain that they do so, for the proprietors of vineyards, all of whom iij'c distillers, have become so. clever iv the. manipulation of the alcohols and the accompanying drugs that they deliberately make a brandy-of any required year.or quality. The mention of the years l&ty, or 187,0, for instance, in an invoice or on. a label, means simply that the article is presumed to have the taste or color of the brandies of those years. Tho increasing importation of German potato and beet alcohols into the Charente ports is an additional proof that the less brandy that it consumed the better for the health and intellect of the consumer. It is, moreover, becoming- a custom to sell the brandy in twelve-bottle cases, marked one, two, or three stars, according to the presumed quality, thus avoiding any compromising mention of year or place of production. Some of the manufacturers import the small raisins from the East, and make what they call brandy from the. juice, there being at least one such establisluuent in operation at Cognac. Apart from the unsatisfactory purchase of a brandy which is not a brandy, drinkers should seriously consider AyV.at are the properties of the liquid Avhich tltey are so complacently imbibing. It is simply an active poison, the imported alcohol, Avhich is known to the traders as " frots-six ' ? being of ninety degrees strength, and sold at a lit tic less than three francs a gallon. Its characteristic effect is to. produce an intoxication in wliich the patient is especially inclined to, rage and physical violence, Avhile insanity of an obstinate and almost hopeless iorni. is the inevitable consequence of a prolonged use of it. It is said that the great increase of violent and brutish crimes in France may be traced to the drinking of ibis brandy and absinthe. The slang term for a glass of Cognac is an jut rote, and for coffee Avith Gognac nn gruwle tU-ttil. Not only in France, but in other countries, and e\-en in the United States, these liquors are producing a condition of national alcoholism of the worst kind, far beyond the ordiimvy drunkenness arising from unadulterated, in,-, toxicating drink.