Beverages
Beverages
The drinks most commonly used in hotels and restaurants are alcoholic drinks, soft drinks, and mineral water. Alcoholic drinks comprise beers (from 3% to 8% alcohol), wines (from 8% to 12% alcohol- fortified up to 21%) and spirits (from 40% to 60% alcohol). Spirits are described under terms such as aquavit, apéritifs, digestifs and liqueurs.
Aquavit is a very strong alcoholic drink obtained from distilling wines (brandy), fruits and cereals. Its alcoholic gradation is comprised between 35 and 65 deg C. The best known distilled spirits include whisky, vodka, rum. brandy, grappa, cognac, tequila. Brandy is commonly distilled from wine or fermented fruit juice (eg. Cherry Brandy). Brandy from the Bordeaux region of France is called "Cognac"; that from south-west France is called "armagnac".
Apéritifs are essentially a blend of wine and spirit in which a number of herbs and flavourings are macerated. They are characterized by a fairly soft bitterness and are low in alcohol (16-20 per cent). Campari, Punt e Mes, Cynar, Suze, Dubonnet, St. Raphael, Plessis, Lillet, Sherry, Port and Madeira are the apéritifs commonly drunk at hotels and restaurants. Campari and Punt e Mes are served on the rocks with ice and lemon, and an optional splash of soda. Suze, made from the roots of the gentian, is bright yellow, gently aromatic, and slightly bitter. It is drunk straight or diluted with mineral water, tonic, lemonade, but always on the rocks.The commonest apéritifs served in Britain are sherry, gin and tonic, whisky, or various martinis.
Bitters are alcoholic extracts of bitter roots and barks flavoured with herbs and spices. They are often used to give a finishing touch to dry drinks such as aquavit or to cocktails. They aid digestion by stimulating the secretion of various digestive juices. The bitter taste is supplied by orange peel, gentian root, rhubarb root, cinchona, quinine, and quassia, and the flavour is supplied by caraway, anise, juniper, camomile, cloves, and other herbs and spices. The best-known bitters are Angostura (created in the city of Angostura, now Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela), Fernet Branca, Brancamenta, Amaro Averna, Underberg, Jágermeister, etc.
Liqueurs or cordials are distilled spirits containing sweet and aromatic substances. They are prepared using fruit (Maraschino, Cherry Brandy), citrus fruit (Grand Marnier, Curaçao, Cointreau), aromatic herbs and plants (Kümmel, Crème de Menthe, Anisette, Bénédictine), bitter plants (Bitter, Fernet, Petrus Boonekamp, Amaro Averna).
Beer is an alcoholic drink made from malt and flavoured with hops. In Great Britain the most popular beers are "bitter" and "lager". Bitter is a type of beer made bitter by adding hops. Lager is a light-coloured fizzy beer. There is another type of strong dark beer called Stout. Beer is served from a bottle, a can, or, in a pub, direct from a wooden barrel. This is called "draught beer" which is commonly sold in a glass mug. In hotels and restaurants bottled beer is usually served in a goblet (a glass with a stem). Shandy is a mixture of beer and lemonade.
Soft drinks are drinks which have no alcohol. They may be fizzy (with bubbles in them) or non-fizzy and are prepared with drinkable or mineral water in bottle or can. The most common soft drinks are orange juice, grapefruit juice, tomato juice, orange squash, lemon squash, lime juice, ginger ale, tonic water, coca-cola, milk shake. Soft drinks are also used to mix with alcoholic ones. Some common mixtures used to make long drinks are whisky and soda (water made fizzy by putting gas into it), whisky and ginger ale, gin and tonic water, gin and lime juice, vodka and tomato juice, rum and cola.
Mineral water naturally contains dissolved mineral salts or gases. Bottled mineral waters are either still or sparkling. Their health benefits rest on the purity and natural mineral contents inherent in the water, since it is extracted from the ground or collected from a spring and bottled at source. Each brand is unique for none will have identical mineral composition. Most mineral waters carry some details of their chemical constituents on the label of the bottle. Minerals commonly found in various quantities include the salts of sodium, magnesium, potassium, calcium and iron. The water taste is determined by the mineral content: the more heavily mineralised the water, the more distinctive the taste. British bottled mineral water comes from a variety of sources. Major brands are Aqua Pura, Prewets, Ashboume, Malvem, Buxton, Highland Spring and Brecon Mountain Spring. Common mineral waters served in hotels and restaurants are Vittel, Perrier, Evian, Fiuggi, Vichy.
A Selection of Distilled Spirits
Information
Brandy Brandy is a distilled spirit derived from the juice of grapes (grape brandy) or other fruits as is the case of apple brandy or cherry brandy. White wine, made from white grapes, is almost universally used for brandy. It is distilled and then aged in wood casks for a minimum of 2 years. World famous French brandies are cognac (a grape brandy distilled only in the Cognac region of France), armagnac (distilled in Gascony), Calvados (an apple brandy distilled in Normandy). Spanish brandies are generally full-flavoured and sweeter than the French ones.
Curaçao A thick sweet alcoholic drink given a special orange taste by the addition of the skin of the bitter curaçao orange.
Gin Gin is a colourless alcoholic drink made from grain and juniper berries. Gin is often mixed with tonic water or with fruit drinks such as lime or orange. It also forms the basis of dry martinis.
Gin and tonic (g. and t.) is a drink made from gin, ice, a slice of lemon and tonic water.
Maraschino Sweet liqueur made from a small black cherry grown in Dalmatia.
Sherry Fortified wine from Southern Spain around the city of Jerez de la Frontera.. It is a pale or dark brown drink. Sherry ranges from the dry and light manzanilla and fino through the medium-dry amontillado to the sweet cream sherry named oloroso. Sherry is blended, may be sweetened, and is usually fortified with brandy. It is usually drunk in small glasses, especially before a meal.
Vermouth Vermouth is an alcoholic beverage made from white-wine flavoured with seeds, herbs, barks, flowers, and spices. Herbs and flavourings that give the drink its characteristic flavour are macerated in alcohol, which is combined with the wine. Herbs mostly used include cinnamon, rhubarb, nutmeg, cloves, quinine, and anise. Vermouth is used primarily as an aperitif, or as an ingredient in martinis and manhattans. Italian vermouth is sweet and may be red or white, whereas French vermouth is pale amber
Whisky It is a strong alcoholic drink made from grain such as barley or rye, especially in Scotland. Whisky may be drunk on its own (neat), with ice cubes (on the rocks) or diluted with water, soda water or a ginger-flavoured fizzy drink.
Practice
1. Refer back to the text of Beverages and complete the diagram
2. Refer to the following list of words and write the opposites of the drinks below
double, long, mild, insipid, strong, soft, warm, bottled, and soda, sweet, sparkling
1. a short drink a long drink
2. a light beer ......
3. an alcoholic drink ......
4. a draught beer ......
5. a dry sherry ......
6. still mineral water ......
7. a neat / straight whisky ......
8. a chilled drink ......
9. a flavoured drink ......
10. a sharp taste ......
11. a single whisky ......
3. List each of the following drinks in the appropriate column or columns
Campari, Grand Marnier, Whisky, Crème de Menthe, Orange Juice, Cherry Brandy, Bénédictine, Milk Shake, Punt e Mes, Cynar, Evian, Maraschino, Lemon Squash, Angostura, Cointreau, Anisette, Underberg, Perrier, Fernet Branca, Fiuggi, Suze, Gin and Tonic, Lemonade, Dubonnet
mineral water / soft drink / aquavit / aperitif / digestif / liqueur
4. Choose and underline the appropriate item
1. I'd like a soft drink
How about a tonic water / lager / brandy?
2. I'd like a digestif
How about a rum / Vittel / Fernet Branca?
3. I'd like an aperitif
How about a sherry / lime juice / Cointreau?
4. I'd like a light beer
How about a Vichy / stout / lager?
5. I'd like a liqueur
How about a gin and lime juice / vodka / Maraschino?
6. I'd like mineral water
How about a ginger ale / tonic water / Perrier?
7. I'd like a fruit juice
How about a tomato juice / milk and shake / lemon squash?
8. I'd like a bitter
How about a Kümmel / Bénédictine / Boonekamp?
Wines
Classification of Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented grape juice. It is classified in several categories among which are: Table still wines, with an alcohol content of 8 to 14 percent, are consumed primarily as complements to food. Table wines are made from juice pressed from the grape, called must, which is allowed to ferment naturally, perhaps only with the addition of controlled amount of sugar or a very small amount of sulfur. Sparkling wines, for example champagne. Distinguishable by their effervescence, they go through a double fermentation, the second fermentation taking place in the bottle. When grape juice is fermented, sugar is converted into alcohol and carbonic gas. While in still wines the gas is allowed to escape, in sparkling wines it dissolves in the wine itself which is contained in corked bottles. On removing the cork, the gas is released and rushes out in the form of bubbles. Sparkling wines may vary from extra brut (very dry; sugar content up to 6g), brut (very dry; sugar content less than 15g), sec (medium dry and slightly sweet; sugar content of 17 to 35g), demi-sec (medium sweet) and doux (sweet) with a sugar content of 35 to 50g. Fortified wines, with an alcohol content of 15 to 24 percent, are most commonly drunk as an aperitif or with dessert before or after meals, depending on their sweetness, and are also frequently used in cooking. These wines are termed fortified because their alcoholic and sugar content are increased. The various types include port, sherry, malaga, madeira, marsala. Aromatized wines which are fortified wines with the addition of aromatic ingredients, such as vanilla and various other herbs and spices. Typical examples are Vermouths which are sold under internationally recognized brands such as Cinzano, Martini, Amer Picon, Punt-e-Mes,, Dubonnet, Suze, St Raphael.
Wines are distinguished by colour, flavour, bouquet (aroma), and alcoholic content. They may be red (when the whole crushed black grape is used and the must is left in contact with the skins until a desired quality is attained), white (using the juice only of grapes of greenish colour), or rosé (when skins are removed after fermentation has begun). As to taste wine is distinguished into dry wine and sweet wine. A dry wine is characterized by absence of sweetness and is one that removes the effects of sweetness. Sweet wines are characterized by a relatively dulcet flavor. The variety of grape determines the nature and quality of wine whose production varies greatly with soil and climate.
French Wines
French wines are usually named by the region, town, or vineyard where they are produced. Six well-defined regions—Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Côtes du Rhône, the Loire Valley, Champagne, and Alsace—account for the most distinctive products of this great wine-producing country. The Champagne region in northern France produces the best sparkling wine in the world. As to wine production, regions are classified into districts, which in turn are divided into communes (for example, Margaux in the Médoc district of Bordeaux), within which lie world-renowned individual vineyards called châteaux, such as Château Lafite-Rothschild. Wines bottled in Burgundy properties are known as estate (French: domaine) bottled; for example, Beaujolais Morgon, Domaine de la Chanaise. Wine production comprises dry white wines, sweet white wines, natural sweet wines, dessert wines, light bodied red wines, full bodied red wines, dry and sweet sparkling wines, fortified and aromatic wines, and aquavits like Cognac and Armagnac.
1. Answer these questions:
- What is wine?
- How is wine classified?
- What is a table wine?
- What is a fortified wine?
- What types of fortified wines do you know?
- What are Vermouths?
- What is a sparkling wine?
- How is a red wine obtained?
- How is white wine made of?
- How is a rosé wine obtained?
- Hos is wine distinguished as to taste?
- What is a dry wine?
- How are French wines labelled?
- Which regiona in France are wine producers?
- Where are the best sparkling wines produced?
- What varieties of wine does France produce?
2. Match the words on the left column with their Italian equivalent in the second column
1. Vine2. Wine
3. To vintage
4. Vineyard / vinery (USA)
5. Vintage
6. Vintner
7. Grape
8. Vinification
9. Must
10. Full bodied wine
11. Dry wine
12. A bunch of grapes / a) Vino
b) Vigneto
c) Trasformazione del mosto in vino
d) Vinaio
e) Acino
f) Grappolo d’uva
g) Annata, raccolto
h) Vino secco
i) Mosto
j) Vendemmiare
k) Vino robusto
l) vite
1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10
l
3. Insert the following wines in their area of production
Alsace / Bourgogne / Côte-du-Rhône / Bordeaux Area
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4. Identify the use of the glasses below: