Drinks of the world / by James Mew and John Ashton.

  • Mew, James.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Drinks of the world / by James Mew and John Ashton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    coffee and liqueur, but according to the French poet Delille, who lived at a time very near our own, coffee itself was included under the latter category— “ Cest toi, divin cafe, dont l’aimable liqueur Sans alterer la tete epanouit le cceur ” : which presents us with a view of coffee akin to that held by Cowper of tea, when he talks in his Task (Book IV.) of “ the cups That cheer but not inebriate.” Liqueurs, indeed, properly so called were not known till long after the distillation of wine had been recog- nised, probably about the fourteenth century. Many years elapsed before these preparations escaped from the domination of the alchemists. Those religious O who employed distillation for the confection of balsams and panaceas seem to have been the first to discover them to the world. Montaigne, in the strange account he has written of his travel in Italy, speaks of the Jesuits of Vicenza—the Jesuates as he calls them—who had a liquor shop in their fair monastery, in which were sold phials of scent for a crown. The good fathers appear to have busied themselves in the inter- vals of their religious exercises with distilling waters of different herbs and flowers for the public use, as well for medicine as for sensual delight. Speaking of Verona, Montaigne says he saw also a religious of monks who call themselves J esuates of St. Jerosme. They are dressed in white under a smoked robe with little white caps. They are not priests, neither do