9 JULY 2005, Page 17

Boswell’s tipple

From James Hogg

Sir: The drinking of gin and treacle, or whistlejacket, was not confined to Yorkshire (The Spectator’s Notes, 2 July). On 8 September 1792 Boswell recorded in his journal that he was introduced to it at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s house by Lord Eliot. Eliot’s fellow Cornishmen called it ‘mahogany’.

James Hogg

Melbourn, Cambridgeshire