OUR NATIONAL BEVERAGES AND THEIR PURIFICATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 9488, 10 August 1891, Page 6

OUR NATIONAL BEVERAGES AND THEIR PURIFICATION.

It has been suggested that if the efforts of certain seif-constituted modern reformers were directed more towards the purification of our national beverages they would render to their fellow-men a service which could not but be appreciated. All doctors assert that the majority of the innumerable diseases which afflict humanity and render life as “tedious as a twice told tale” are traceable to impure food and adulterated beverages. When we consider that the food wo eat and the liquids ws drink are converted into “ our life blood ” we shall be ready perhaps to admit the truthfulness of the assertion. That drinkables especially are freely adulterated cannot be gainsaid; ana to a very great extent the CONSUMERS THEMSELVES are to blame for this. If they at all times insisted on using such brands of whiskey, for instance, as had acquired a high reputation for absolute purity, combined with a pleasant, delicate flavour, tho “legion ” producers of the “ cheap fusel oil ” article would very soon cease to exist. To those of our readers who find it somewhat difficult to discriminate between the superior and the inferior article, we would say at once: patronise the producer or distiller who is not afraid to expose his product to the “ searching light of science,” who. courts publicity and invites’INVESTIGATION. We have before us the results of a scries of chemical analyses to which Messrs James Buchanan and Co.’s “ House of Commons Whiskey ” (as supplied to the House of Commons) was subjected by such a renowned scientist as the public analyst for the City of Glasgow and the counties ot Lanark, Renfrew and Sutherland, &c., JOHN CLARK, PH. D., P.I C., who reports : —“These results indicate that this is a pure whiskey, which has been kept for a considerable length of time in a sherry cask, and from tho mildness and mellowness of its flavour I am of opinion that it is of very flee quality,” STEVENSON MACDA3SI, PH, D., &C., &C., lecturer in chemistry and consulting analytical chemist, also certifies as follows:—“These results prove that the whiskey haa been carefully distilled, thoroughly matured, and is free from fusel oil or other noxious ingredients. It baa apparently been aged iu a sherry cask and has acquired a full.

ETHEREAL ABOIIA, and is in all respects a first-class and agreeable beverage.” Wo invite special attention to the expert testimonies of Messrs Clark and Haedam, than whom there are no analysts better qualified to give an opinion, and wo know of none whose opinion is entitled to more respect and consideration. This high-class and popular whiskey is kept a.t Coker’s Hotel, Warner’s Hotel, “ The Hereford ” aud at alLthc leading hotels. Wholesale Agents, FLETCHER, HUMPHREYS & CO., Christchurch.