Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1884-05-28
Blended whisky.

" Blended whisky?' What is that?''
a vile concoction, artifcially flavor
ed and with a fancy name tackled on to
make it sell. Don't you know how
they do it,"
The reporter confessed his ignor-
ance.
an tell you. You must rememt er
that very few men are good judges of
whisky, no matter how they boast
about it. Regular drinkers are the
worst judges Of all, for they soon burn
the keen edge of their palates, and this
fact gives the blended article a chance
A rectilier puts ten gallons of fine old
| Gibson or Trimble or some other good
whisky into a barrel with thirty gal
Ions of neutral spirits. This mixture
he aavors with peach syrup or prune
juice. adds burnt sugar to give it color,
inyents taking name for it and puts
it on the market"
"How about the government gauger?
Doesn't he detect the cheat when his
services are called in?"
ooh, he has nothing to do with that.
It's his business to find out how many
proof-gallons the barrel contains, and
he is guided by the strength of the
alcohol. When he's through he puts
on his stamp certifying that he gauged
the barrel on such day and that it
contains so many gallons, etc. The
rectifer now offers it for sale as pure
old rye and the consumers never
know the difference"
But you said nothing about the
second stamp. l thought whisky
always had two stamps"
Good whiskies dol see you know
little about the business-and I'll ex-
plain that to you in few words. A
distiller makes his whisky from the
grain-rye or corn or wheat or barley,
any Of them will produce it-in Ire
land they make it from potatoes-and
stores it in a government warehouse
1t is gagged and stamped when it's
entered and allowed to remain there
two years. During that time it ages
and evaporates, and of course, increas-
es in value. Now, when the owner
sells it, it is gauged again to show the
loss by evaporation and duly stamped
That's how it gets the second stamp"
''Then single stamp whisky is never
pure?"
Never It's downright fraud; and
yet, as l said before, three-fourths OF
the whisky used in this town is the
single-stamped article. Philadelphia
is the greatest place for that sort of
thing in the country. Why, there are
regular old whisky soaks who are so
used to the highly favored mixture
that they make face over pure whisky
and complain that it burns the palate. !"
You spoke of the rectfers using
peach syrup as favoring-that sounds
rather appetizing."
at does? Well you'll change your
mind when | tell you he buys up all
the thrown-aside, unstable dried
peaches, three or four years old, that
he can get at the lowest possible
prices, and makes his syrup from them
He never gets the clean. freshly dried
fruit you see in the groceries; it would
cost too much. It's the refuse he's
after, because it's cheap"
as the blended whisky more inju-
rious than the pure?"
Certainly. That's the whisky that
fills our iails I'm not drinker, and
| wouldn't say word in favor of the
bad habit, but it's fact that a drink
of good, pure, old whisky is sometimes
an actual benefit to a man. 1t send S
a warm and generous glow all over
his system. The blended stuff, on the
contrary, being three fourths neutral
spirits, is full of ether and flies straight
to the head. When a man fills up on
tkat the first thing he wants to do is
to fight, or to kick up row of some
kind. It's a quick and violent stimu-
lent, whereas pure whisky is more
gentle in its action"
"If there is so much blended whisky
about, how can a man be sure he's
getting the pure article?"
The only way is to buy it from an
honest dealer-If you can find him"
"What about beer? That's pretty
extensively adulterated, isn't it?"
81 don't know a single brand that l
would drink and Pm familiar with
them all-Milwaukee, Rochester, Gin
cinnati, Philadel phia-it's all the same
"a compound of malt, glucose or
grape sugar and picric acid. The
glucose does the fermenting and saves
malt, the picric acid brightens the
color, and gives the pungent taste and
saves hops. The sole object is to save
money, and human ingenuity is always
at work trying to find cheap substi-
tutes for the proper ingredients in
everything.
"Your talk is not very encouraging
to drinkers"
"Ask any reputable dealer and he
Will tell you I've spoken the simple
truth and that's what you asked for.
Since the row they made about the
adulteration Of beer in New York two
years ago its consumption has fallen
off all over the country. You might
think that would be warning to the
brewers, but they don't seem to care a
rap for it. They 60 on adulterating
the same as before. The picric acid
they use to give it pungent taste, is
very injurious to the kidneys and other
organs and ! have herd that all the
brewers buy it from the same druggist
and keep it as quiet as possible No
| don't know who the druggist is-I'd
tell you in minute if did A Ger
man doctor told me not long ago that
nearly all the diseases among the Ger
mans here are caused by drinking beer
There's nothing of that kind in Ger
many, where the beer is pure and kept
for one year after it is made. Here it
is not only adulterated, but is ierked
out to tipplers when it is only a month
old Now that isn't lager beer at all,
for lager means kept and our beer
is not entitled to that name"
D,,tt -. l, L 1