Wet Yale

Here's to dear old Yale She's so hearty and so hale, Drink her down, drink her down, Drink her down, down, down! Celebrated in song and story is Yale's interest in the wassail cup. Last week two faculty members at New Haven--Professor Yandell Henderson of applied physiology and Professor R. Selden Rose, head of the Spanish department and chairman of the University Athletic Association--each made scholarly contributions to the art and practice of drinking. Professor Yandell, interested in the toxicological aspect of tippling, announced in the Yale News that a tosspot would have to down two litres (one-half gal.) of 4% beer every hour to become intoxicated. "General experience shows," amended Pedagog Yandell, "that few persons care to drink two litres in an hour. Under my definition [that 80 cc. of alcohol can be absorbed in the system in one hour], therefore, beer containing 3% or 4% of alcohol by volume is not intoxicating." "A cordial or liqueur," he continued, "such as curagao or benedictine, although it may contain 50% of alcohol, is not intoxicating, for in common practice such beverages are consumed only in very small amounts. But whiskey, gin or rum, having approximately the same alcoholic content, are frequently taken at a rate which results in the absorption into the blood within an hour of enough centimetres of alcohol to intoxicate." Although Pedagog Yandell did not mention wine in his list of good cheer, yet Yale was also wine-conscious last week.

Fresh from the presses was a handsome, claret-colored volume called Wine Making For The Amateur by Professor Rose. It is privately issued by the Bacchus Club*Its format was designed by Carl Purington Rollins, head of the Yale University Press.

A potential delight for homeloving sybarites, the book is dedicated to "that large group of citizens who have always cherished a glass of sound wine as a vitally important part of their dinner." Testimonials to the cup that cheers but does not inebriate have been culled from Thackeray, Athaeneus, Pliny, Aristotle, Galen, Plutarch. "On the other hand, we cannot be too emphatic in declaring that we are not interested in promoting the happiness of that wretched group whose only criterion of excellence in wine is the violence of its 'kick.' Let them ride white mule to maudlin joys. We have nothing to offer them." Vintner-Professor Rose, slick-haired, mundane, long famed among his friends in New Haven for the excellence of his cellar, has set down a valuable store of good, plain advice on the preparation and care of dry red wines, dry white wines, live wines.

His main points: use only wine grapes, protect the liquid from contact with the air, blend.

*Only 515 copies available, $15 the copy. Address: The Bacchus Club, P. O. Box 113, New Haven, Conn.

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