4.  But I must, as I said, hasten on to another ingredient of the dish we are compounding; I refer to barley, for that too, as our gracious hostess would say, is “intilt.”  From this single grain what virtues have been developed! what mildness, what soothing, what nourishment, and what strength!  What a source it is to us of comfort, of enjoyment, and of wealth!  There is barley-water, for instance, a beverage most harmless, yet most soothing; meet drink for the sick-room, and specially promotive of the secretions in patients whose disease is inflammatory, and who suffer from thirst.  Then there is barley-bread, extensively used in both England and Scotland, than which there is none more wholesome to the blood and more nourishing to the system; the meal of which is of service too in the shape of a medical appliance, and, when so used, acts with most beneficial effect.  But its strength is not so pronounced or decisive either in the form of an infusion or in that of bread, much as in these forms it contributes to health and vigour:  it is not when it is put into the pot, or when bruised by the miller, that it comes out in the fulness of its might; it is when it is immersed in water, and subjected to heat, and metamorphosed into malt.  In this form it can be converted into a beverage that is simple and healthful, and, when used aright, conducive to strength of muscle and general vigour of life; but when it has undergone a further process, which I am about to describe, it evolves a spirit so masterful that the weak would do well to withstand its seductiveness, for only a strong head and a stout will dare with impunity to enter the lists with it, and can hope to retire from the contest with the strength unshorn and a firm footstep.[C]

Whisky, which is what I now refer to as the highest outcome of the strength of barley, is, like hodge-podge, of Scotch incubation, and deserves, for country’s sake and the fame it has, some brief regard.  The process by which the grain is prepared may be described as follows.  The grain is first damped, then spread out on a floor, and finally a certain quantity of water and heat applied, when it begins to germinate, which it continues to do to a certain stage, beyond which it is not allowed to pass.  At this moment a Government official presents himself, and exacts a duty of the manufacturer for the production of the malt, the authorities shrewdly judging that they are entitled to levy off so valuable an article a modicum of tax.  The grain thus prepared is now in a state for further manufacture, and it passes into the hands of the brewer or distiller, to be converted into a more or less alcoholic drink.