A historical site about early London coffee houses and taverns and will also link to my current pub history site and also the London street directory
THE CANARY HOUSE, IN THE STRAND.
There is a rare Token of this house, with the date, 1665. The locality of the
"Canary House in the Strande," says Mr. E. B. Price, "is now, perhaps,
impossible to trace ; and it is, perhaps, as vain to attempt a description of
the wine from which it took its name, and which was so celebrated in that and
the preceding century. Some have erroneously identified it with sack.
We find it mentioned among the various drinks which Gascoyne so virtuously
inveighs against in his Delicate Diet for daintie mouthde Droonkardes, published
in 1576 : " We must have March beere, dooble-dooble Beere, Dagger ale, Bragget,
Renish wine, White wine, French wine, Gascoyne wine, Sack, Hollocke, Canaria
wine, Vino greco, Vinum amabile, and al the wines that may be gotten. Yea, wine
°>f its selfe is not sufficient ; but Suger, Limons, and sundry sortes of Spices
must be drowned therein." The bibbers of this famed wine were wont to be termed
' l Canary birds." Of its qualities we can perhaps form the best estimate from
the olloquy between " mine hostess of the Boar's Head and Doll Tearsheet ;" in
which the former charges the latter with having " drunk too much Canaries ; and
that's a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood ere one can say,
WhaVs this ?"
We learn from Collier's Roxburghe Ballads {Lit. Gaz. No. 1566) that in the reign
of James I. " sparkling sack " was sold at Is. 6d. per quart, and " Canary —
pure French wine," at 7 pence.
References :
Lots of references are made to two sources on the
internet archive
:
Edward Callows, Old London Taverns &
John Timbs, Club life of London Volume 2