brandy cowe; to which are added extract of almond-cake or gum benzoin, to impart a nutty flavour; cherry-laurel-water, to give a roundness of flavour; lamb’s blood, to fine the mixture and clear or decompose its colour; and oyster-shells and chalk, for the purpose of binding and concentrating the whole; and this delectable composition the knavish adept in the art of deleterious combination palms on the credulity of the public under the inviting title of “fine pale Sherry, of peculiar delicacy and flavour.” Had the late Dr. Kitchiner been aware of these sophistications he would not have said “that, of the white wines, Sherry is the most easy to obtain genuine, and is the least adulterated.” The “fine old East-India Madeira, at unprecedented cheap prices, for ready money only,” of these worthies is a commixture of a portion of East-India Madeira with Teneriffe, Vidonia, or Direct Madeira,[C] and East-India Cape.[D] The “fine old soft-flavoured West-India Madeira, _of capital quality_,” and, of course, at _exceedingly low prices_, is manufactured from a portion of genuine West-India Madeira and a sufficient modicum of old thin Direct Madeira; and should the precious commixture be approaching to acidity the kindness of the sophisticating compounder obliges the palate of his poor gulled customer with the insertion of a few ounces of carbonate of soda. The genuine colour of pure Madeira (one of the best off-hand methods of forming an opinion of the goodness of Madeira is, as the author of _The Private Gentleman and Importing Merchants’ Wine and Spirit Cellar-Directory_ judiciously says, by its colour) is much paler than that of Sherry. When it has a pinkish hue it is a sign of its having been adulterated with Teneriffe. “The Old London Particular,” or any other imposing and dainty appellation extracted from the adulterating vocabulary of the artful sophisticator, is generally composed of a combination of cheap Vidonia, common dry Port, Mountain, and Cape wine, properly fined and reduced to the requisite colour by means of lamb’s blood. The Cape wine generally sold to the public is composed of the drippings of the cocks from the various casks, the filterings of the lees of the different wines in the adulterators’ cellars, or from any description of bad or spoiled white wines, with the addition of brandy or rum cowe and spoiled cider. “The delicately pale Cape Sherry, or Cape Madeira, at astonishingly low prices,” and, of course, for _ready money_, is composed of the same delicious ingredients, with the addition of extract of almond cake, and a little of that delectable liquor, lamb’s blood, to decompose its colour, or, in the cant phraseology, to give it “complexion.”