Reference of wine can be found in Vedas, Bible, the odyssey
and many other ancient scriptures. According to the dictionary, wine is defined
as the fermented juice of ripe grapes, but liquors made from other kind of
fruits, grains and flowers are also called as wines. Actually it is possible to
ferment any liquid containing natural sugar by adding yeast. But for wine,
there is no need for intervention with yeast. True wine ferment itself. After the fermentation is complete, the wine
is left in oak wood casks to mature. There are wines that cost over Rs 1,20,000
a bottle and that’s nothing for the high and mighty to gulp down in a dinner
evening.
Beers are classified as lager,
ale, stout and porter. The grain used to prepare beer is malted barley that is
steeped in water until it begins to germinate. Then it is fermented with yeast
and herbs are added for flavor. It has always been a favourite drink in the
plains traditionally where wine grapes do not grow. In Germany, it has
excellent wines from the Moselle valley. The population consumes almost woo
million barrels of beer annually. The ‘Oktoberfest’ held in Munich every year
is the world’s premiere beer drinking festival, where visitors from all over
the globe congregate for three days of merriment.
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| Love for Alcohol |
The pirate’s drink Rum is very
popular among the sailors and soldiers. Robert Louis in his book- The Treasure Island immortalized
the song by one of his pirates- fifteen men on the dead man’s chest! Yo, ho, ho
and a bottle of Rum! The source material for producing rum is sugar cane
molasses. The molasses is fermented to produce brownish liquor that is
distilled to form Rum.
Gin a medicinal spirit was first created by a Dutch Chemist, Prof. Sylvius. It is distilled from grain and flavored with botanicals. On the other hand Vodka, which is discovered in Russia, is distilled from grains and potatoes. Both vodka and gin are odorless, tasteless and colorless spirits that are not matured. They are easy to mix with fruit juices and other carbonated drinks to produce cocktails.
An Aperitif is a small alchoholic
drink used as an appetizer and among those well known are Martini, Vermouth and
Campari. Italy discovered them and world adores them. Desert wines like Sherry,
Port and Madeira are served after meals and usually fortified red wines with
higher alcohol percentage than usual. Liqueurs are often sweet and fruit-flavored
wines made from peaches, plums, pears, pineapples, cocoa and even banana. Particularly
they are good after dinner.
Another very popular drink,
Brandy is nothing but burnt or distilled wine. In the medieval era, wine
producers decided to lower the volume and increase the potency of wines for
shipment by distillation and that is how brandy was discovered. Some of the
best brandy comes from the region around Cognac in the southwest of France. In fact,
Cognac is a very fine brandy that is doubly distilled and matured for up to 50
years in wooden casks and then bottled. A brandy labeled as VSOP stands for
very superior old pale and is naturally priced higher than the lower quality
ones.
Champagne is a white sparkling
wine produced mainly from red grapes in a very exclusive valley of the Champagne
district of France. It was discovered by Dom Perignon who was a blind monk in
the abbey of Champagne. It is expensive even in France as it is highly taxed
and also takes a lot of time, energy and care to manufacture. Underground
cellars where the barrels of champagne are matured have to be kept at a predetermined
temperature throughout the year.
Whisky is a light golden color
spirit distilled from fermented barley, rye, corn or other grains. The Scots,
English and the Canadians spell the word as Whisky while United States of
America spell it as Whiskey. Modern distilled whisky is of two types-Grain
Whisky and malt whisky. And the modern whisky market is divided into three main
types- Blended, Deluxe and Single Malt whisky. Whisky first emerges from the
distillation process as a clear liquid. Then it has to be stored in oak casks
for a minimum period of three years before it can be legally defined as whisky.
From the very beginning of
civilization, social drinking has been in vogue and no amount of prohibition
has ever been successful anywhere in the world. Excessive consumption of liquor
in any form over a long period can be severely harmful to the liver and other
organs. Edgar Allan Poe had graphically described a drunkard when he wrote- His
eyes were like bulbous, watery orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication. Everyone
should know the threshold limit of alcohol consumption and stay well within
that to be saved such an embarrassment.
