Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-03-01
CHEMIST D|SCLOSES
ANALYSIS Of QUART
Of CORN WHISKY

IneT6 Ne SuCn IndH, HOWdQdyS)
takes into his human system the fol-
lowing staggering array of chemi-
Gals: Alcohol, fusel oil, fixed acids,
volatile acids, esters, iron oxide
alumina, silica, lead, calcium, mag
nesia sulphate and chlorides.
The first authentic story of the
actual chemical content of the stuff
which makes a rabbit hug hound
came Saturday from the office of Joe
Acker, city chemist.
Joe Acker is a Virginian, a schol-
ar, and, entirely, chemically speak
ing, a judge of good whisky. The
other day he decided to find out
what corn Ticker really is. Now he
knows. And he says he is glad that
ne never formed habit for the
stuff, because his analysis would
have made further indications i'm
possible. He even made a wry face
when he started to list the chemical
contents of just one single quart of
the Ticker.
On an order from the health de-
partment, Joe procured a quart of
corn from the police station, pre-
vious history of the quart entirely
1t took three days, miles of glass
tubing, thousands of feet of gas, a
dozen retorts, and two assistants for
Joe to finally reach a solution to
the problem: what is corn Ticker?
But the answer was found, and here
it is:
In this one quart of corn whisky
there was 44.95 per cent of pure
grain alcohol. In the. olden days,
this would have meant that the
whisky was 80 proof.
There was .034 per cent of fusel
oil. Fusel oil, chemically speaking,
means higher alcohols.' That is,
it means Amyl alcohol, and other
rare and seldom heard of kinds. In
teresting to note, is the fact that
cognac brandy is the only liquor
which contains less fusel oil than
corn whisky contains. Gin contains
many times as much, and Scotch
whisky nearly five times as much.
Fixed acids represented .003 per
cent Of the~total quart This is tar
taric acid produced from the reac-
ton of the alcohol on the residue
from the mash suspended in the dis
tilIation.
Volatile acids registered .01 per
cent. Acetic acid, this is. It's made
by some chemical flub-dub in the
mash.
TI+... .o n1A ,,or ao,+ &c +l,o
whole. Esters, Joe says, is a kind
of ether compound formed by the ac-
tion of the fixed and volatile acids
on the alcohol. That's as far as he
could explain without getting tech
meal. It's poisonous.
Of the entire quart of whisky, OPS
per cent was residue. This residue
liquid had been drawn off as vapor.
1t was a. solid brownish mass, very
ugly and very evil-smelling. An
analysis of this residue showed that
it. contained the following:
Organic. matter, 1884. per cent.
That is, portions of the mash which
came over in the vapor when the
liquor was distilled. 1t came over
as a solid, suspended in the body
of the liquor.
Iron oxide and alumina made up
3177 per cent of the residue. Just
plain old iron and aluminum-though
how it got there nobody seems to
know.
Silica, or just plain sand, repre-
sented $3.50 per cent of the residue.
This silica, or sand, got mixed up
in the mash somehow.
There were small amounts of lead;
calcium, magnesium, sulphates and
chlorides. down at the bottom of the
brown mass. Everybody knows thai
soluble lead is a deadly poison, If
taken in large enough quantities.
Even trace is dangerous. The
sinner who made this particular
stuff must have had some lead joints
in the still. The other
chemicals just mentioned sound
wicked enough, even if not fatal.
All of the above, including the al
cohol, made UP about Is per cent of
the quart. The other 25 per cent
was water.
OF course, nobody ever drinks corn
Ticker nowadays, because it is
against the law. But even if it were
not against the law, wouldn't that
analysis be enough to scare you off?