QUICK GUIDE TO SPIRITS.

By RobertJay Misch '25. Garden City, New York:Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1972. Drawings by Mac Shepard. 91 pp. $3.50.

A connoisseur of fine liquor, you may be shaken up by this book. Why, you can't even define whisky: "An alcoholic distillate from a fermented mash of grain, distilled at less than 190 degrees in such a manner that the distillate will have the taste, aroma, and characteristics generally attributed to whiskey and withdrawn from the distillery at not more than 125 degrees proof and not less than 80 degrees proof and is further reduced before bottling to not less than 80 degrees proof." But you know your Scotch? Well, then, what is the difference among Highland and Lowland Malts, Islays, and Campbeltowns? W hat in your wisdom can you say about Glenlivet, Glenfiddich, Glen-Grant, Balvenie, and Laphroaig? About Irish whiskey modestly you pride yourself only on not asking for an Ulster Irish in Eire and in asserting that Irish is distilled from potatoes. Try not to look surprised that it is a blend of straight malt whiskeys, 172 degrees proof, cut with lovely soft Irish bog wafer and aged in the wood a minimum of seven long years. Bourbon for you. Good man! Mr. Misch: "Bourbon is America's No. 1 whiskey. It is more American than apple pie or Mary Martin." Of it we may be "inordinately proud." "It need doff its cork to none."

For whom should huge balloon cognac glasses be used? "For the birds — or for goldfish." Less noble than Cognac, Armagnac, bottled in a basquaise, deserves more attention. Applejack is now a respectable and respected drink. "Sloe gin is not really gin — it is a cordial made by steeping sloe berries in alcohol." Real gin "is medicine — at least it was!" Mix vodka with ginger ale and kick up your heels with a Moscow mule. Rum conjures up visions of drunken sailors, pirates, rum runners, and Dartmouth's 500 gallons. And the word indeed, according to some, derives from "rumbullion," a rambunctious disturbance. If the Wheelock era was not noted for placidity, rum is now almost as respectable as cambric tea in Victorian days. Gone are the days of the shaggy-chested. With a retreat from flavor, rum now appeals to women with delicate throats, fruit-juice-oriented.

A man of property and a great lover, you wish to impress your sweetheart by a liqueur with after-dinner coffee. Give her DanzigerGoldwasser, orange base, with flecks of gold, or Parfait Amour, a purple cordial made from violets.

When, Scandinavian inclined, you toast with Aquavit, use beer chasers. And your hangover next morning? If you turn pale before a whole egg, raw, laced with Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, rely on a half bottle of champagne or a Hock and soda, Lord Byron's sure-cure remedy. But don't weaken and cry, "Never again!" Remember the wisdom of H. L. Mencken: "All the great villainies of history have been perpetrated by sober men."