Sherry is a Spanish wine, named for the town of Jerez de la Frontera, in Andalusia. It is a heavy wine and improves by age; the older the sherry the better it is, provided it is brut, - that is to say, if nature, not art, has been allowed to work it out. As it ages, it gets dryer, because the sugar is converted into alcohol, and if old enough it becomes inky dry for the same reason. Its color varies from dark red to almost white. By the makers the flavor, which is a peculiar ether flavor, the sherry flavor, is formed by the soleras, or stock, wines. This stock is kept up and used to flavor wines in bulk. Solera wine is no more palatable than sulphuric ether, but gives the flavor to all sherries as it is added in larger or smaller quantities. Sherries are all reinforced or fortified by brandy.

The Amontillado sherries have the ether flavor most strongly marked. The presence of aldehyde causes this flavor. The Manzanilla sherries are so named from their flavor resembling the Manzanilla or chamomile flower. These are the white or nearly white sherries. The sherries we get in the shops, or from dealers, often are known by the names of the commercial houses which deal in them, as the Gordon sherries, etc.

Sherry is often too alcoholic and has the effect of spirits, and it is not, as a rule, a good wine for the sick, except used as wine whey, and I do not recommend this, except when we are, as often happens, at our wit's end for something palatable to the patient. There is one place it comes in, and that is as a substitute for champagne when that wine is too expensive for the sick one, or good champagne cannot be obtained. Mix it in definite proportions with the so-called soda water of the shops, the carbonic acid water, made by charging water with carbon dioxide up to fifteen atmospheres at least, and served to customers in glass siphons which preserve it well charged until all of the contents have been used. Such a mixture will often be found of the greatest benefit, and should be much more used among the sick, especially, than it is.