Drink and it’s Adulteration.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1310, 17 April 1883, Page 2

Drink and it’s Adulteration.

At the Resident Magistrate’s Court on Saturday, Mr Kenny whilst speaking of the evil effect of liquor, said that it was not so much the quantity of liquor consumed as it was the infamous quality of the stuff supplied. He asserted that publicans placed themselves into the hands of merchants, and when the latter got the former into their power they supplied them with most villainous rubbish. As confirming the remarks made by Mr Kenny on the occasion of a prohibition order being made, as to the abominable quality of the liquor retailed, we cull the following extract from the London “Times,” from the report of the American Consul at Rochelle, upon the adulteration of brandy :— The falsification of brandy, in the last three years, lias undergone a comple transformation, the greater portion being prepared from alcohol of grain, pototoes, or beet. The merchants who desire to purchase a pure Cognac cannot do so, for the proprietors of

the vineyards, ail of whom abe dlstriller*, have become so clever in the manipulation of alcohol and the accompanying drugs that they deliberately make up a brandy of any required year or quality, The mention of the years 1849 or 1870, for instance, in an invoice or on a label, means simply that the article is presumed to have the taste or colour of the branches of those years. The increasing importation of the German potato and beet alcohol is an additional proof that the less brandy that is consumed the better for the health and intellect of the consumer. It is, moreover becoming a custom to sell the brandy marked with one, two, or three stars according to the presumed quality, thus avoiding any compromising mention of year or place of production. Apart from the unsatisfactory purchase of brandy which ia not a brandy, drinkers should seriously consider what are the properties of the liquid which they are so complacently imbibing. It is simply an active poison, the imported alcohal which is known to the trade as “ tvoia six” being of POdeg. strength, and sold at a little less than three francs a gallon. Its characteristic effect is to produce an intoxaotion in which the patient is especially inclined to rage and violence, while insanity in a obstinate and almost helpless form, 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 this brandy and absinthe. Not oaly in france, but in other countries, and even in the united States, these liquors are producing a condition of national alcoholism of the worst kind, far beyond the ordinary drunkenness arising from unadulterated intoxacting drinks.