The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-09-27
POTEEN HUNTIG IN IRELAND
ILLICIT STILLS OF THE WILD
 VEST COUNTRY.

Product of Barren Islands, Made in Crudest Utensils and Carried by
 Night Over Bogs and Mountain Pass es to Evade the OfcHiaIs-Hunters
 and Hunted
 The wild west of Ireland is the nat
 ural home of ''poteen," or illicit whis-
 key. This is because the loneliness and
 remoteness of the spots chosen for making it, almost inaccessible through the mountains and bogs, save to those who know something about the eoun- 1 try. are all in faver of the smugglers escaping detection; while its network of mountain lakes and small running streams affords the necessary cold wat CT for condensing the distilled fumes in-
 to spirit during the cooling process,
 writes The Gael in the New England
 Licour Journal.
 The report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue for 1896 shows that
 the number of detections of illicit dis
 tillation was 399-5 in England, in
 Scotland, and 3sS in Ireland.
 Sweeter and dearer beyond any Par
 liament whiskey'-by which expression
 he denotes that sort which has paid the
 tax imposed by the Saxon Goverment-
 is this fiery fluid to the heart of every
 true peasant son of Connaught. And
 in the interests of truth it must be add ed that those who inhabit the coast counties, from Kerry to Donegal, in-
 elusive, are also fully alive to its se- ductiVe merits. Indeed, many doctors
 (local, of course) will tell you that Well
 made poteen is better in sickness than
 the adulterated whiskey usually met
 with in the small public houses in this
 region of poverty; for in the Conne-
 mara country, at any rate, the illicit
 whiskey is made of pure malt though
 run1or has it that the less particular palate of Donegal for instance, is sat-
 isfied with a firewater mainly made from molasses, potatoes-aye some
 times from almost anything you please.
 But to realize all the humor and
 wild, reckless spirit shown in prosecu-
 ting this precarious industry one should
 NNN-AS @ AtStAAN HI e1AlSlAkHllllS u put UOWu
 the traffic Poteen hunting is about as
 exciting as deer stalking and fox hunt ing combined, and there are great &C.,
 companying hardships to be endured.
 The best time to catch men making it
 is naturally about Christmastide or the New Year, when our northern winters are, to say the least of 1t, indictment,
 and especially so, think, in the rnoun- tainous west of Ireland, where rain seems to be the normal condition of affairs. Tremendous tramps through mountains and bogs (the latter often unsafe), and night trips of ten or twen- ty miles, with a snatch of sleep in an open boat often in rain or frost, are generally necessary in order to reach suspected places understood before dawn. T have seen a boats crew after rowing in the darkness nearly all night, and striking on and showing off from one would think, nearly every sub merged rock in the lake, find them selves, sS " at dawn near the spot, where |, they first lost their bearings,
 It ts%always called the stuff' in the trade. You first prepare your barrels of wash or ground malt properly fer mented. which you can test as to it's fitness for distilling by throwing in a handful of dry oats and seeing whether they sink or swim in the liquid. These barrels the police occasionally almost walk into, concealed in lonesome nIaces or on barren islands in the lakes hv buryi1g them nearly up to the top rim and covering all with a few boards or poles and with a layer of grass, etc. You fill your still with wash" and light a fire under it. The still is a huge round tin utensil rlveted and air tight, with a convex bottom like that of a black bottle, to concentrate +he fire underneath, and narrowing at the neck. into which is fitted (and the joint also made air tight a worm.
 NOW, a worm, which is worth three or four pounds sterling merely as old copper, is long pipe or tube (coiled in 3 spiral to give as much surface as pos- S1ole to the cold water outside). through which the fumes or steam. driven off by the heat from the con- fined liquor in the still must pass and n which they are condensed by the ex- ternal cold into liquid spirit, which is caught at the end of the pipe in a bucket, as 1t flows in constant small stream. If this runs too freely the pro- cess is going on more rapidly than is should, and the fire must be lowered accordingly. This worm is kept sub merged in barrel of cold water. and q. supply is necessary in order to keep the water in the barrel from heat ng, in which case, Of course, the worm would fail to do it's work-hence run- hing water or 8 lake is necessary to | he distiller. The worms flavor the stuff with a metallic taste; copper ones, which are expensive, do not
 once run through the still the uouor s called '''singlings," twice run through It is "doublings," or has been, as it is l called, doubled" and is the completed l spirit It is very raw and powerful of l 'ourse, much overproof, and has. es- 'ecially when taken hot from the still. l very exhilarating effect. It's flavor l s smoky and indescribable but not bad l
 You can get poteen at about 10 shiI- ! ings to 12 shillings a gallon-that is. f you know whom to apply to and are 1 not caught by the authorities. An idle 'coffer, whom I did not believe. once | old me that the only two places where |