While in the United States it is well known that whisky in our storehouses undergoes certain changes in alcoholic strength of a character which produces a finished product much richer in alcohol than at first, the contrary operation takes place with brandy in France. This may be due in particular to the fact that the brandy is stored at an alcoholic strength of 65 percent or 70 percent, while in America the whisky is stored at an alcoholic content of only 50 percent. At any rate, the effect of age upon the brandy is to diminish to a certain extent the percentage of alcohol therein. Water also passes off with the alcohol, but as a rule with residual contents of the cask of old brandy, while diminished largely in volume, contain also a much less content of alcohol than they did at first. While the greater part of the alcohol which is lost is, doubtless, evaporated through the pores of the wood, some of it is changed into ethers and other aromatic substances, which give to old brandy some of its most desirable characters. At any rate, the brandy becomes more and more fragrant, and more delicious to the taste, as well as to the nostril, by keeping in wood. Very old brandies; that is, those that have been kept for 20 or 30 years, or more, in wood, have a character which is entirely distinct from the new brandies, and often brandies which are kept only four or five years ameliorate in their qualities and become much more potable and pleasant, both to the taste and the nostril.