DRINKING NATIONS

NZ Truth, Issue 890, 16 December 1922, Page 13

DRINKING NATIONS

"livested Virtue" of Teetotalism "Pussyfoot" would have listened with horror to the attack made upon the "invested virtue" of toetotalism led -by the Countess Of Selborne during the proceedings of the National Council of Women Conference at Cambridge last week (writes "Truth's" London correspondent). Speaking m opposition to a motion urging the prohibition of the sale of alcohol to anybody under the age of eighteen, Lady Selborne could not see why the working youth should bo deprived of hi*s dinner glass of beer— a perfectly harmless thing. The nations that haye drunk beer, she declared, are the greatest nations m the world; the nations that never drink are among the nations that have done least. It is the drinking nations that have led the world. She admitted that drinking to exoess was wrong and that a distinction should be drawn between ardent spirits which were undoubtedly dangerous and the old natural drinks, but she had yet to be convinced that THE MODERATE USE OF WINE or beer was either inadvisable or wrong.-* Temperance reformers showed too great a disposition to meddle m affairs that concern the individual. They would do better to follow the advice of their Master and consort with publicans and sinners, than be led away by teetotallers. Further, although totally unconnected with the women's movement at Cambridge, there was published last week m London a delightful book on how to buy, serve, store and drink wine, by a veritable enthusiast m tho several arts thereunder enumerated. Naturally he has a contempt for the smallest drinker of beer or the no less uninspired pptronlser of the vulgar whisky and soda. But if you want to know anything about wine from a vintage champagne to grocer's port, then W. J. Todd, the enthusiast In question, is the ,one at whose feet to sit. And with all his knowledgo of famous vintages Mr. Todd has a good word for Australian Burgundies. "If they are not precisely wines for connoisseurs, they are sound and wholesome beverages for citizens of, moderate means." It is not only helping to know wine that Mr. Todd assists. He tells you the proper way to drink lt and his Instructions are a long way different from an ordinary man's habit of tossing off the contents of a thick, clumsy wine-glass— even, horrible dlctu— -a tumbler. "A glass ot wine" with him is ceremony, a ritual, far more than it was with Mr. Pickwick. ' In the first place the glass must never be more than half-full— which is w the first hurdle THE UNEDUCATED WINE BIBBER has to face. Thon there must be a different shape for each kind of wine —there or thereabouts. For champagne tho glass should be tulipshaped, so that tho life m tho wine, with beaded bubbles winking at tho brim, should remain as long as possible. In every case the glass should be of egg-shell thinness with a deilcato stem. Having half-filled it, it should be gently twirled by the stem so that more aroma-bouquet that Is, may be released and be savoured by the nostrils of the connoisseur. Finally the wine should bo sipped through pursed Ups, rolled reverently round the tongue while a little air is gently sucked through the puckers Into the mouth to increase the flavor of the wine. After that if the reader persists ln going out and drinking whisky, it is not Mr. Todd's fault,