Did the NY Times wine guy *really* praise Unterberg?

http://thepour.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/1 ... /#more-167

I guess he did...

Too bad we can't vote the guy out of office....

Best regards,
Alex R.

I didn't read the article closely but it seemed to be about digestive bitters from the particular angle recently popular in North America, which connects them with bars and cocktails.

Therefore I don't know if the author explained that the stuff is used in central Europe, frequently and as far as I know mainly, in its traditional role as an herbal medicine. The strong gentian content and other herbs (like mint and/or anise, both traditionally considered pharmaceutically important as carminatives, in the US) is claimed to reduce the full feeling after a big meal. Underberg (spelled with a D, surprisingly, on the bottle I just checked) is one member of a larger genre of this type, often sold in Europe distinctive single-dose bottles. (I have a small collection of these, brought back from their home soils starting about 15 years ago.) Underberg and Fernet Branca are two that are widely distributed in the US. (Gretel Beer in her classic Austrian cookbook quipped about competition between a Bouillon mit Ei and Fernet Branca as universal cure-alls.) From a posting I made earlier this month on the eGullet spirits forum:

--
In this thread are reminders of the medicinal or semi-medicinal origin of so many cordials and specialty wines. (Which continues: the digestive bitters so popular after meals in C. Europe -- Underberg, Fernet Branca, Stonsdorfer, Wunderlich -- all used as traditional herbal medicines.)

Max, is there a link missing from your post?

Thanks, Bob

Bitters (Amari) are taken very seriously in Italy, each region having its own specialties. I was at Mozza in LA recently and did a tasting of six bitters, which was fascinating.

I think he should stay in office, in other words.

Alex, I think we should keep Asimov.

The links and comments on his post are really interesting, especially the history of Underberg and why it comes in the small size, as well as information the other bitters and digestifs.

What do you have against Underberg?

Regards, Bob

Max, is there a link missing from your post?

Hi Bob, no, I just did it the old-fashioned way: Quoted the relevant part. (Sorry if that was unclear.)

Thanks, Max. I wasn't sure where you started quoting, but I see it now. Regards, Bob

Keep in mind that until a generation or two ago, most medicines were herbal medicines. A (really, the) mainstream US biochemical reference book in mid-20th century lists gentian (basis of Underberg, many other bitters and other drinks such as the Swiss Enzian) used medicinally to stimulate gastric juices; anise and peppermint to reduce digestive gas. (In current editions of the same reference, these herbs have fallen in importance , listed tersely for applications like flavoring.)

Keep in mind that until a generation or two ago, most medicines were herbal medicines.

Well, the history of non-herbal medicines is a bit older than that, Max. FWIW, it begins in the US with George Merck developing sulfa drugs and vitamins with Merck & Co. in the 1920s. Aspirin, of course, predates all that, but it was derived from willow bark so I've left it out. By the end of WW II, synthetic antibiotics were commonplace, and cancer chemotherapy had been introduced. So, I would suspect that, by then, the majority of medicines were either synthetic or semi-synthetic (as are the penicillins) in nature.

Your larger point about the historical importance of herbal medicines is spot on, though, and even today Chinese herbal medicines are being closely scrutinized for their active constituents. One such constituent, arteminsin, is now a potent new antimalarial.

Mark Lipton

Hi Mark. From your reply, maybe my one-liner gave the impression of claiming synthetic medications were only significant in the last couple generations, which wasn't my intent. See what you think of this elaboration.

In human-history terms, the era of synthetic pharmacy is very recent. It's not just that the recorded Western pharmacopoeia between roughly Galen and penicillin came mainly from natural sources (some would fault me for not starting with the Papyrus Ebers, 1700 years before Galen, but Galen overshadowed it). Most natural medications were herbal (there were important animal sources, and in the last few hundred years powerful inorganic agents -- mercury, ferro-arsene, etc. -- came into, then went out of, medical use). What is more striking is how far into the 20th century a sophisticated herbal technology remained important. I wrote above that most medicines had herbal origins (vs. the synthetics later dominant) because that's the picture conveyed by the mainstream medical and pharmaceutical texts I have from 1900-1950. Without them I would never have appreciated this. US pharmacists training even in the middle 1950s (one of them is a wine-tasting friend, and even used as texts some of the same titles I have) had to become skilled botanical chemists: semesters of "pharmacognition" courses on recognizing plants, knowing which parts were active, and extracting the principles. Pharmacists were required (again, until relatively recently) to know how to make their medicines from "scratch." The mid-century Merck Index, my source above on gentian etc., contrasts radically and fascinatingly from modern editions in its emphasis on plant biochemicals. Synthetics began appearing, of course, as you mentioned (I could give you more of that history if you like) but they didn't displace the existing pharmacopoeia overnight. Even in sources like Burack's 1969 prescription-drugs book and the contemporaneous eds. of Goodman and Gilman, it's striking how many common meds even in the late 1960s were recognizably herbal in origin -- no longer a majority, but still significant.

That's the background. My point in raising it was that in the time humans have consumed bitters and other herbal cordials, these were linked with medicines more often than not. In fact there's much more: popular drinks from absinthe to Coca-Cola (tm) started out as medicines, and others once popular have faded out, often for good reasons (like Mariani wine, containing a generous dose of cocaine).

Bob,

You wrote,

"What do you have against Underberg?"

To which I reply "the taste".
Yuk!

As to Asimov, I really don't want to kick him out, I was being more facetious than anything else.
He writes some interesting articles, for sure.

But I think he's definitely barking up the wrong tree with Underberg...

Alex

Got it, Alex. Thanks. Bob

Max,
Thanks for the elaboration. I think that where the confusion lies is in what is meant by "medicine." In my reply, I was thinking more of "ethical pharmaceuticals" (aka prescription drugs), but if we also include over-the-counter medications, then we are in total agreement. In fact, I'd argue that, aside from one brief moment in our history from roughly 1950-1980, your statement has always been true that most medicines were herbal in origin. The current growth of nutraceuticals as a way of evading FDA scrutiny (combining with the gutting of FDA's oversight capacity by the clowns in the White House) is a very worrisome trend.

Mark Lipton

In my reply, I was thinking more of "ethical pharmaceuticals" (aka prescription drugs)...

Actually so was I, in the sense of medications physicians specified -- some of which also were sold over-the-counter or had other uses.

Today's concept of prescription-only medications is a phenomenon of the late 20th century as follows. Prescription-only vs. OTC meds were delimited after the 1952 Durham-Humphrey Amendment while the 1962 Drug Amendments Act added the "efficacy" requirement to US drug regulation. It also chartered FDA to review and preen the then-existing pharmacopoeia, deleting medications from USP and NF because of safety, or past inclusion from "demand rather than therapeutic value." In effect, some discretion and responsibility shifted from physicians to FDA.

That continued a process started in the well-known 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, before which US had little drug regulation at all. OTC medicines contained strong narcotics and made absurd claims for cures; the Sears-Roebuck mail-order catalog sold experimenters' syringe kits, and morphine and heroin refills by the pint,* treating this as a hobby that evidently wasn't even all that popular, and anyway not expensive.

* Sears-Roebuck's offerings, with pictures and prices, are in the excellent US TV documentary Hooked: Illegal Drugs and How They Got That Way, which also shows ampoules of methamphetamine rolling off German assembly lines in 1940 for issue to soldiers in the Blitzkrieg. Regulatory details here are from the 1970 or 4th ed. of Goodman and Gilman, the standard medical pharmacology text in North America.

As to Asimov ... I think he's definitely barking up the wrong tree with Underberg

Alex, do you mean he's barking up the wrong tree by using it as a digestive aid (which is what the article is about) or that he's using it as a sipping bitters (which the Underberg labels warn you specifically against, saying it's meant as a medicinal tonic to be consumed in one gulp). I wonder if this product is being somehow mistaken for a beverage bitters because of general current interest in that subject.

Max,

I am talking about taste alone.
I find it awful.
And I'd rather suffer or take a pill if I had indigestion.

Best regards,
Alex R.

Within the context of this discussion,ithin the scope of Oliver's comments, Averna must be mentioned. It's one of the more delightful post-prandials, a bitter with a cola-spice component, and somewhat milder and tastier than the Underberg (which is not really for drinking, but for dashing down, hence the sales volumes of the tiny one-shot bottles on bars throughout Germany).

Americans, with their fondness for things sweet, haven't normally been fans of bitters and digestifs, with the exception of some cocktails (which, oddly enough, are aperitifs). That, thank the FSM, is changing and more of these intriguing concoctions are coming to the fore.