Фредерик Марриет - Diary in America, Series Two

Reasons, therefore, are as plentiful as blackberries, and habit becomes second nature.

To run up the whole catalogue of the indigenous compounds in America, from “iced water” to a “stone fence,” or “streak of lightning,” would fill a volume; I shall first speak of foreign importations.

The Port in America is seldom good; the climate appears not to agree with the wine. The quantity of Champagne drunk is enormous, and would absorb all the vintage of France, were it not that many hundred thousand bottles are consumed more than are imported.

The small state of New Jersey has the credit of supplying the American Champagne, which is said to be concocted out of turnip juice, mixed with brandy and honey. It is a pleasant and harmless drink, a very good imitation, and may be purchased at six or seven dollars a dozen. I do not know what we shall do when America fills up, if the demand for Champagne should increase in proportion to the population; we had better drink all we can now.

Claret, and the other French wines, do very well in America, but where the Americans beat us out of the field is in their Madeira, which certainly is of a quality which we cannot procure in England. This is owing to the extreme heat and cold of the climate, which ripens this wine; indeed, I may almost say, that I never tasted good Madeira, until I arrived in the United States. The price of wines, generally speaking, is very high, considering what a trifling duty is paid, but the price of good Madeira is surprising. There are certain brands, which if exposed to public auction, will be certain to fetch from twelve to twenty, and I have been told even forty dollars a bottle. I insert a list of the wines at Astor House, to prove that there is no exaggeration in what I have asserted. Even in this list of a tavern, the reader will find that the best Madeira is as high as twelve dollars a bottle, and the list is curious from the variety which it offers.

But the Americans do not confine themselves to foreign wines or liquors; they have every variety at home, in the shape of compounds, such as mint-julep and its varieties; slings in all their varieties; cocktails, but I really cannot remember, or if I could, it would occupy too much time to mention the whole battle array against one’s brains. I must, however, descant a little upon the mint-julep; as it is, with the thermometer at 100 degrees, one of the most delightful and insinuating potations that ever was invented, and may be drank with equal satisfaction when the thermometer is as low as 70 degrees. There are many varieties, such as those composed of Claret, Madeira, etcetera; but the ingredients of the real mint-julep are as follows. I learnt how to make them, and succeeded pretty well. Put into a tumbler about a dozen sprigs of the tender shoots of mint, upon them put a spoonful of white sugar, and equal proportions of peach and common brandy, so as to fill it up one third, or perhaps a little less. Then take rasped or pounded ice, and fill up the tumbler. Epicures rub the lips of the tumbler with a piece of fresh pine-apple, and the tumbler itself is very often incrusted outside with stalactites of ice. As the ice melts, you drink. I once overheard two ladies talking in the next room to me, and one of them said, “Well, we have a weakness for any one thing, it is for a mint-julep—” a very amiable weakness, and proving her good sense and good taste. They are, in fact, like the American ladies, irresistible.

The Virginians claim the merit of having invented this superb compound, but I must dispute it for my own country, although it has been forgotten of late. In the times of Charles the First and Second it must have been known, for Milton expressly refers to it in his Comus:—

If that don’t mean mint-julep, I don’t know the English language.

The following lines, however, which I found in an American newspaper, dates its origin very far back, even to the period when the heathen gods were not at a discount as they are now.

I have mentioned the principal causes to which must be assigned the propensity to drink, so universal in America. This is an undeniable fact, asserted by every other writer, acknowledged by the Americans themselves in print, and proved by the labours of their Temperance Societies. It is not confined to the lower classes, but pervades the whole mass: of course, where there is most refinement, there is less intoxication, and in the Southern and Western States, it is that the custom of drinking is most prevalent.

I have said that in the American hotels there is a parlour for the ladies to retire to: there is not one for the gentlemen, who have only the reading-room, where they stand and read the papers, which are laid out on desks, or the bar.

The bar of an American hotel is generally a very large room on the basement, fitted up very much like our gin palaces in London, not so elegant in its decorations indeed, but on the same system. A long counter runs across it, behind which stand two or three bar-keepers to wait upon the customers, and distribute the various potations, compounded from the contents of several rows of bottles behind them. Here the eye reposes on masses of pure crystal ice, large bunches of mint, decanters of every sort of wine, every variety of spirits, lemons, sugar, bitters, cigars and tobacco; it really makes one feel thirsty, even the going into a bar. 4 4 Every steam-boat has its bar. The theatres, all places of public amusement, and even the capitol itself; as I have observed in my Diary. Here you meet every body and every body meets you. Here the senator, the member of Congress, the merchant, the store-keeper, travellers from the Far West, and every other part of the country, who have come to purchase goods, all congregate.