Kirsch is the Drink of the Working Class

Right everybody, gather round.

The subject line is just a smart idea that I had. Indulge me; I'm
your grandfather. There used to be an anti-drinking slogan 'Drink
is  the  curse  of  the  Working  Class' put out by the Victorian
moralists. Maybe we'll talk about the Band of Hope,  the  T-Total
Movement,  The  Women's League of Health and Beauty and others in
the future (oh, I've so much to tell you). But today's subject is
'My family and Alcohol.'

Before we start, though, a word of explanation for you newcomers.
Lolly and I both know that I've been sending her e-mails  on  and
off  since before she was born. For the last few years, I've only
sent her a birthday e-mail. Now, in the very first letter to her,
I said that I would send copies of them all to the rest of you as
and when you appeared. I never thought that there'd  be  so  many
all at once! I don't think I can write a letter to each of you on
each of your birthdays (especially as  all  your  birthdays  fall
pretty  close together). In any case, I'd probably end up writing
you all much the same letter. So here's what we're going to do:

I am declaring February 4th 'Write a Letter to your Grandchildren
Day' and I'll send the letter to each of you. There are about six
previous letters and I think all your parents have got copies  of
them  for  you (if not, you let me know and I'll send you a set).
What you newcomers have to do is get up to speed - read the  back
list.

One  last  thing  before we move on. Lolly and I both know that I
don't expect you to read all (or  any)  of  these  e-mails  right
away.  I know I'm old and most young people think 'old' means the
same thing as 'foolish' but, let me tell you, we do have our  oc-
casional  moments  of  understanding.  No, you catch up with your
mail later, whenever you can.

OK. If you're not asleep, we'll start.

The first thing you have to understand about my family and  alco-
hol  is that my family didn't understand alcohol. By 'family', of
course, I mean my parents and their brothers  and  sisters.  They
weren't  unusual  amongst  the  children  of  immigrant Jews; you
scarcely ever saw any of them with alcoholic drinks. Yet they all
seemed  to  keep  a  few  bottles in their homes. Some even had a
cocktail cabinet (they were the wealthy  and  pretentious),  many
had  a  glass-fronted  china  cabinet which held a few mismatched
glasses and a few bottles. My parents kept theirs in a  sideboard
cupboard,  out  of  view. Not hidden from view, so much as stored
away (I don't think they were self-conscious about  it;  I  don't
think  they  were even conscious about it). Wherever each of them
kept their booze, what they kept all bore a melancholy similarity
to  each  other.  Come with me on a trip around my parent's side-
board cupboard.

There was a more-or-less half empty bottle of whisky. I think  it
was  the same bottle of whisky that I remember as a child that my
mother still had when she died. Whisky was highly thought  of  in
Jewish  circles;  it  was  just hardly ever consumed. There was a
small bottle of brandy. You know how some  people  have  a  lucky
mascot  which they always keep by them? You may have one yourself
- a lucky coin or small toy animal or something  which  you  keep
for  good  luck?  Well,  I think that's why they all kept a small
bottle of brandy. It was for 'medicinal purposes', they told each
other; just in case of faintness or illness or shock. Clearly, it
was effective if only because no-one ever had to  actually  drink
any;  simply possessing the bottle seemed to ensure that the con-
tents were never needed.

Then there was half a bottle of  Palwin  kosher  wine  -red  wine
which  was so sweet it made your teeth hurt. I hadn't seen Palwin
for years, didn't know they still made it, until a friend brought
me  a  bottle last Pesach. I don't know whether he thought he was
doing me a favour or if it was meant as some ironic self-referen-
tial,  post-modern  (in a 5000 year old biblical context) joke. I
didn't like to ask. I've still got  it,  unopened.  I  suppose  I
could  start  my own drinks cupboard in the sideboard. It must be
more than half a century since a drop of Palwin ever  crossed  my
lips  yet,  as I write, I can still remember the taste - it makes
you clench your buttocks.

Palwin wasn't just found gathering dust in Jewish  cupboards,  of
course; if that were the case, then they'd have been out of busi-
ness just as soon as everyone had bought one bottle.  There'd  be
no need for children to buy another bottle - it would become part
of their inheritance, along with the candlesticks and  the  meno-
rah.  No, it was bought by the synagogues too. They must have got
through a bottle a week in the larger synagogues.

Regularly, weekly to celebrate Shabat and whenever  necessary  to
celebrate  high  holidays, Kiddush is performed in the synagogue;
this involves a silver goblet of wine which, at the conclusion of
the  ceremony, is consumed. The nice thing about it is that it is
always the children in the congregation who  are  invited  up  to
drink  the  wine.  I guess that the parents had learned years ago
that it was only Palwin and they knew better. However,  we  young
kids  (all  pre-barmitzvah  - I think that must have been the cut
off date) all lined up for this special 'treat'. We knew no  bet-
ter.  We  liked  it.  We especially liked the little ritual which
went with it. You'd be given a taste of wine, not enough to drown
a  fly  (much less your sorrows), and you were expected instantly
to behave as though you were a hardened drinker and swagger  back
to your father waiting in his seat, or drunk and stagger back in-
stead. Years later, I decided that this little ritual  was  meant
as  a  life  lesson  to us all; drink may not be evil (after all,
kosher wine was God's own wine) but it wasn't much  fun.  So  why
bother? I'm sorry to say that it's a lesson that was lost on me.

Back to the sideboard cupboard. In my parents' cupboard (but not,
I think, in many others) resided  a  bottle  of  Sanatogen  Tonic
Wine.  Tonic wines were highly regarded some fifty or sixty years
ago in this country. I think that it was because of an  ignorance
of  matters  medical,  combined  with  a way of getting round the
guilty feeling that booze was bad (if it was Tonic Wine, then not
only was it OK to drink it, it almost became a moral responsibil-
ity to drink it). nyway, the Sanatogen was for the benefit of  my
father.  His  health was far from robust and, every now and then,
when his health was at a low ebb, it was thought that  he  should
have  a  glass  of Sanatogen. It was treated as medicinal - drunk
from a small egg-cup, with much grimacing from  him  and  expres-
sions of sympathy from others. I'm still surprised that they kept
in the drinks cupboard and not in the  medicine  cupboard,  along
with  other scarcely-used essentials such as Andrews Liver Salts,
Enos Fruit Salts, Carters Little Liver Pills (advertising slogan:
'Is life worth living? It depends on the liver. Take Carters Lit-
tle Liver Pills'), California Syrup of Figs.  Certainly,  on  the
few  occasions when drinks were offered, I never heard anyone say
'Make mine a small Sanatogen, please.'

I did hear, though, the ladies ask for 'a small egg-flip' or even
'a  bleeding  heart'.  That's what the fashionable Jewish matrons
were drinking all that time ago. Egg flip, I think, was  advocaat
-  a  sort  of yellow alcoholic custard. A bleeding heart was egg
flip with a swirl of cherry brandy added; not stirred, not  shak-
en,  just a deep red blob suspended in a yellow casing. It looked
as bad as it sounds. If you'd come across  it  on  the  pavement,
you'd  have  stepped  over it carefully. Yet it was consumed with
much delight and even a little merriment. So these  two  ingredi-
ents  for the sophisticated ladies preferred tipple completed the
contents of the cupboard.

The cupboard was seldom opened. Now and again, the  bottles  were
dusted. Less frequently (once a year at most) for a special occa-
sion, the contents were used. It might  celebrate  a  rare  visit
from  a  Canadian  family  member or a silver wedding anniversary
with the family - something like that. Then,  when  everyone  was
somehow  sitting  down  (we  lived  in  a very small back-to-back
house, with one living room dominated by three piece suite,  din-
ing  table,  maybe  half a dozen dining chairs, sideboard -that's
all) my mother would open the sideboard cupboard and  say  'Let's
have a drink to celebrate. What does everybody want?' And all the
men would say 'I'll have a drop of whisky, if you've got  it'  in
the  tone of voice that said 'That's what I always have when I go
into a saloon' and all the women would say 'I like a  small  egg-
flip,  if  you've got one' or 'Do you have any cherry brandy? I'd
like a bleeding heart.' And they'd sit there as though  this  was
their  normal  life, as though they did this every evening around
seven o'clock, whilst waiting for the butler to announce dinner.

'Nice drop of whisky,' the men would say,  as  though  they  knew
about such things. 'L'chayim!' And they'd drink.

'L'chayim!'  means 'To Life!' And that seems as good a way as any
to end this letter to you.

L'chayim and much love



Grandpa Sydney