Belloc the Discerning Bartender

Hilaire Belloc viewed the Reformation as a sundering, not just of the Church, but of all aspects of civilization, right down to drinking it would appear (gentle Protestant reader: please don't take offense at Belloc's rhetoric; it's just Belloc's way):

I knew a man once that was given to drinking, and I made up this rule for him to distinguish between Bacchus and the Devil. To wit that he should never drink what has been made and sold since the Reformation–I mean especially spirits and champagne. Let him (said I) drink red wine and white, good beer and mead–if he could get it–liqueurs made by monks, and, in a word, all those feeding, fortifying, and confirming beverages that our fathers drank in old time; but not whisky, nor brandy, nor sparkling wines, nor absinthe, nor the kind of drink called gin. This he promised to do, and all went well.

The Path to Rome