It is even more rare to find good vinegar than good oil or wine on the average hotel, restaurant, or household table. Pure cider or sound wine vinegar should alone be employed, and this is best obtained by making it one's self and not trusting to the labels and brands of commerce. The best wine vinegar is that made from red Bordeaux or red or white Burgundy; the best cider vinegar being the product of fine, selected apples like the Russet or Northern Spy, with absolute cleanliness in manufacture. The liquid should draw clear and be possessed of a fresh vinous fragrance; and no other material should be mixed with it than what is necessary of the same kind for replenishing the barrel. Where vinegar is excessively sharp, it may be corrected, when using, by the addition of a little Bordeaux wine. Lemon juice is an excellent substitute for vinegar where this may be lacking in quality; and by some is preferred in the dressing of delicate salads like cos and lettuce. The use of tarragon vinegar is extremely unadvisable in company dinners. To many it is very disagreeable; and even to those who might not be averse to it occasionally, its frequent abuse causes them to anathematise instead of bless the architect of the salad. As regards pepper, the adulterated powdered article is far superior to the genuine Piper nigrum; the white pepper being the same condiment freed from its outer husk by maceration in water and subsequent rubbing. The genuine black peppercorn is much too spicy and high-flavoured to enter largely as a salad component; and where it is laboriously ground out from a mill at table, as is often the case,--the host preoccupied with the task where he should be considering the sequence and temperature of his wines,--it is always coarse; while its pronounced resemblance to allspice mars the delicacy which is the charm of a salad. Moreover, the energy which should be expended upon the mixing, where the nature of the salad renders it advisable to be made just before serving, is largely spent upon the exacting process of turning the box-wood mill.[59]