The Flowing Bowl

Extract

The history of liquor, from the time when Noah “planted a vineyard and drank of the wine” to the controversy over the eighteenth amendment to our Constitution, has been presented to the Society by the heirs of George C. Dempsey. Everything pertaining to the subject is liberally represented: receipts for wassail bowl (to be served with three pieces of toasted bread floating in it), milk posset (the receipt furnished by Sir Walter Raleigh), and 'rack punch (the beverage on which the Collector of Boggley Wallah disgraced himself at “Vanity Fair”); legislation, from the excise laws under the Stuarts to the licensing of American saloons; what the complete brewer should know; adulteration of liquor; temperance; prohibition; and the praise of wine.