Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/90

80 pure as any person is who wishes to purchase and properly use a pure article.

After the internal revenue tax has been paid, and the tax-paid stamps properly placed upon the packages, the spirits are withdrawn from bond; each package having two stamps upon it—a warehouse and a tax-paid stamp—and when put upon the market in this condition they are known as two-stamp goods; but the best distillers, instead of selling their goods directly from the bonded warehouse—if they have not been filtered and refined during the process of their manufacture—transfer them to the rectifying-house for rectification; the object of which is to remove any pernicious substances or impurities, such as the grosser properties of the essential oils, or fusel, and acetic acid, and to improve the quality and flavor of the spirits. It is the essential oils extracted from the various materials used that impart the peculiar distinguishing characteristics to each kind of liquor. The alcoholic property is virtually the same in all spirituous liquors.

The process of rectification is generally done by redistilling, and filtering through alternate layers of woolen blankets, sand, and granulated bone or maple charcoal—other complicated mechanical arrangements are sometimes used, called rectifiers, but they are not common—after which process, a little burned sugar is added to give them a kind of straw-color, simply, I presume, to distinguish them from water, and which gives the appearance of age without improving or injuring their quality. After rectification, the spirits are gauged by the United States gauger, and a rectifier's stamp is placed upon each package, and the whisky is then ready for the market, pure and unadulterated, and, known as one-stamp goods. Remember that I am now stating how good whisky is made; all whisky is not made with the same degree of care. Some people are under the impression that if they buy two stamp goods they are certainly getting a pure article, but that is not always the case, unless the whisky has been properly rectified during the process of manufacture.

There is a vast difference between rectification proper and mixing or compounding. Rectification, in its proper sense, is purifying and refining. Compounding is diabolizing. Moral: Purchase from first hands, if possible.

By this, I do not mean to insinuate that all dealers in liquor are unscrupulous; for, paradoxical as it may appear to some minds, there are many very generous, noble-hearted, upright men engaged in the liquor-traffic; but the demand for cheap liquor is so great that some men can not resist the temptation to mix or compound, in order to supply this demand, and some of them feel that they are compelled to do it against their will in order to hold their customers; and this practice will continue until the strong arm of a righteous law is placed upon it—a law that every honest distiller and liquor-dealer will cordially approve.