The Art of Making Whiskey.

by Anthony Boucherie.

PREFACE.

The most usual drink in the United States, is whiskey; other spirituous liquors, such as peach and apple brandy, are only secondary, and from their high price and their scarcity, they are not sufficient for the wants of an already immense and increasing population. As to wine, in spite of all the efforts and repeated trials made to propagate the grape-vine, there is as yet no hopes, that it may in time become the princ.i.p.al drink of the Americans.

To turn our enquiries towards the means of bringing the art of making whiskey to greater perfection, is therefore, to contribute to the welfare of the United States, and even to the health of the Americans, and to the prosperity of the distiller, as I will prove in the sequel.

The arts and sciences have made great progress; my aim is to diffuse new light on every thing that relates to the formation of spirituous liquors that may be obtained from grains. Most arts and trades are practised without principles, perhaps from the want of the means of information.

For the advantage of the distillers of whiskey, I will collect and offer them the means of obtaining from a given quant.i.ty of grain, the greatest possible quant.i.ty of spirit, purer and cheaper than by the usual methods. I shall then proceed to indicate the methods of converting whiskey into gin, according to the process of the Holland Distillers, without heightening its price.

If the principles hereafter developed are followed, the trade of distiller will acquire great advantages, that will spread their influence on agriculture, and consequently on commerce in general.

THE ART OF MAKING WHISKEY, &c.

CHAPTER I.

OF SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS, OR SPIRITS.

Spirituous liquors are the produce of vinous ones, obtained by the distillation of these last. The art of making wine is of the remotest antiquity, since it is attributed to Noah; but that of distilling it, so as to extract its most spirituous part, dates only from the year 1300.

Arnand de Villeneuve was the inventor of it, and the produce of his Still appeared so marvellous, that it was named Aqua-Vitae, or _Water of Life_, and has ever since continued under that denomination in France; Voltaire and reason say that it might, with far more propriety, be called _Aqua-Mortis_, or Water of Death.

This liquor, called in English, _Brandy_, received from the learned the name of _Spirit of Wine_; time improved the art of making it still stronger by concentration, and in that state it is called _Alcohol_.

All spirit is the distilled result of a wine, either of grapes, other fruits, or grains; it is therefore necessary to have either wine, or any vinous liquor, in order to obtain spirits.

CHAPTER II.

OF THE FORMATION OF VINOUS LIQUORS WITH GRAINS, IN ORDER TO MAKE SPIRITS.

The art of extracting wine from the juice of the grape, not being the object of this book, I shall confine myself to what is necessary and useful to the distillers of whiskey; it is therefore of the vinous liquor extracted from grains, that I am going to speak.

The formation of that kind of liquor is founded upon a faculty peculiar to grains, which the learned chymist, Fourcroy, has called _saccharine fermentation_. Sugar itself does not exist in gramineous substances; they only contain its elements, or first principles, which produce it.

The saccharine fermentation converts those elements into sugar, or at least into a saccharine matter; and when this is developed, it yields the eminent principle of fermentation, without which there exists no wine, and consequently no spirit.

Grains yield two kinds of vinous liquors, of which the distiller makes spirit, and the brewer a sort of wine, called _beer_. From a comparison of the processes employed to obtain these two results, it will be found that the brewer's art has attained a higher degree of perfection than that of the distiller. They both have for their object to obtain a vinous liquor; but that of the brewer is, in reality, a sort of wine to which he gives, at pleasure, different degrees of strength; while that of the distiller is scarcely vinous, and cannot be made richer. I will give a succinct exposition of their two processes in order that they may be compared.

OF THE ART OF BREWING.

The art of brewing consists:

1st. In the sprouting of a proportion of grain, chiefly barley. This operation converts into a saccharine matter, the elements of that same substance already existing in grains.

2dly. In preparing the _wort_. For that operation, the grain, having been previously ground, is put into a vat, which is half filled up with water; the rest is filled up at three different times with hot water--the first at 100, the second at 150, and the third at 212, which is boiling water. The mixture is strongly stirred each time that it is immersed. By this infusion, the water lays hold of the sweet principles contained in the grain.

3dly. The wort thus prepared, the liquor is filtrated, in order to separate it from the grain, and then boiled until reduced to one half, in order to concentrate it to the degree of strength desired. In that state, 40 gallons of wort contain the saccharine principles of 200 wt.

of grain.

4thly. The wort, thus concentrated, is drawn off in barrels, which are kept in a temperature of 80 or 85. The yeast is thrown into it to establish the fermentation, and in a short time beer is made, more or less strong, according to the degree of concentration, and more or less bitter, according to the greater or lesser proportion of hops put into it.

Such are, in a concise view, the proceedings of the brewer. Let us proceed to those of the distiller of whiskey.

OF THE DISTILLER OF WHISKEY.

Whiskey is made either with rye, barley, or Indian corn. One, or all those kinds of grains is used, as they are more or less abundant in the country. I do not know how far they are mixed in Kentucky; but Indian corn is here in general the basis of whiskey, and more often employed alone.

I have ascertained, in the different distilleries which I have visited in the United States--

1stly. That, in general, the grain is not sprouted. I have, however, seen some distillers who put 10lbs. of malt into a hogshead of fermentation containing 100 gallons, which reduces it to almost nothing.

2dly. That they put two bushels of ground grain into a hogshead of fermentation containing 100 gallons, filled up with water.

3dly. They had a ferment to determine the fermentation, which, when finished, yields two gallons of whiskey per bushel of grain, and sometimes ten quarts, but very seldom. I do not know whether those results are exact; but, supposing them to be so, they must be subject to great variations, according to the quality of the grain, the season, the degree of heat, of the atmosphere, and the manner of conducting the fermentation. From my a.n.a.lysing the different sorts of grains, I know that Indian corn must yield the most spirit.

From the above proportions, it results, that 100 gallons of the vinous liquor of distillers yield only 4 gallons of whiskey, and very seldom 5; that is, from a 25th to a 20th. It is easy to conceive how weak a mixture, 25 parts of water to one of whiskey, must be; thus the produce of the first distillation is only at 11 or 12 by the areometer, the water being at 10. It is only by several subsequent distillations, that the necessary concentration is obtained, to make saleable whiskey. These repeated operations are attended with an increased expense of fuel, labor, and time.

Such are the usual methods of the whiskey distillers. Before we compare them with those of the brewer, let us examine the nature of fermentation, and what are the elements the most proper to form a good vinous liquor: thence we shall judge with certainty, of those two ways of operating.

CHAPTER III.

OF FERMENTATION.

"Fermentation is a spontaneous and intestine motion, which takes place amongst the principles of organic substance deprived of life, the maximum of which always tends to change the nature of bodies, and gives rise to the formation of new productions."

_Bouillon la Grange.--Manual of a Course of Chymistry._

Fermentation has long since been divided into _spirituous_, _acid_, and _putrid_.

It is only since the revival or new epoch of chymistry, that the learned have been occupied in researches on fermentation. I was the first who gave a new hint on this important part of natural philosophy, in 1785.