I taste a liquor never brewed—

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I taste a liquor never brewed— (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)

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For the ancient Greeks, Dionysus, the god of the wine grape, was also the deity associated with dramatic poetry. Writing verse, and reading it, removed one from ordinary sense experience. Dickinson, though never invoking the god's name, makes all she can of the association between intoxication and ecstasy in poem 214. The rhythm of a reel (a whirling dance) supports this imagery. Significantly, this poem privileges the reading of verse to the writing of it. The speaker “tastes” the never-brewed liquor, which is held in pearl tankards, the mother-of-pearl covered verse anthologies...

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