Buttermilk.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 14 March 1910, Page 4

Buttermilk.

A FINE THIRST QUENCHER. Many whisky drinkers who resent the inposition of fresh taxes by the British Government upon their favourite {'potation have discovered that butermilk is a beverage which gratifies and satisfies,but does not inebriate, and have adopted it to an extent that promises to give quite a fillip to the cause of temperance. The manager of the drinking bars in a world-famed, hotel explains thus the popularity of the homely beverage. "Buttermilk satisfies thirst: has an agreeable after-effect, and does not make you want another drink, as milk, "water, and beer do. Doctors tell everybody that it is the most healthful drink one can take. Men who have a reputation as consumers of champagne are drinking more buttermilk this summer than an ordinary fanner's son will consume in a lifetime. When we first put it in here three or four years ago we were laughed at, and we did not sell as much ill three months then as we sell in a day now." . . Buttermilk appeals to the smnt drinker more tlia>n to the consumer of beer, according to this statistician of the crooked elbow. "Many thousands of quarts daily represents our present sales of buttermilk," said an official of a milk company. "The increase has been enormous, especially this summer. We have had a large, steady demand all the year around for several years from those who drink it under the advice of their physicians. When the weather gets particularly hot the demand takes a big jump. We make it from fresh milk that is 'set' over night, and carefully kept at a certain temperature. Then the liquid goes through a partial butter-making process. Ordinary buttermilk, tench as one gets 011 farms, is what is left after cream has been thoroughly churned and all the butter removed. The buttermilk specially prepared by us is of a much richer quality." Buttermilk has an excess of lactic bacteria, which seems to be the sparrows of the bacterial world. r llit- other microbes they meet have no chance against tlism. They are harmless, and beneficial in driving out other bacteria of the alimentary system, and give to buttermilk a slightly laxative property which other forms of milk are without. The faintly acid taste, which has had so much to do with making buttermilk popular with bar-room customers, and which makes it a grateful assuager of thirst, is due to the lactic acid in it.—messenger.