THE ART OF
MAKING GIN,
AFTER THE PROCESS OF THE
HOLLAND DISTILLERS.
Having indicated the most proper means of obtaining
spirits, I will now offer to the public the manner of
making Gin, according to the methods used by the distillers
in Holland. It may be more properly joined to
the art of making whiskey, as it adds only to the price
of the liquor, that of the juniper berries, the product of
which will amply repay its cost. Many distillers in
the United States have tried to imitate the excellent liquor
coming from Holland, under the name gin. They
have imagined different methods of proceeding, and
have more or less attained their end. I have myself
tried it, and my method is consigned in a patent.
But those imitations are far from the degree of perfection
of the Holland gin: they want that unity of
taste, which is the result of a single creation; they are
visibly compounds, more or less well combined, and
not the result of a spontaneous production.
To this capital defect, which makes those imitations
so widely different from their original, is joined their
high price, which prevents its general consumption. In
fact, it is made at a considerable expense: the whiskey
must be purchased, rectified and distilled over again
with the berries. These expenses are increased by the
waste of spirit occasioned by those reiterated distillations.
This brings the price of this false gin to three
times that of the whiskey: consequently the poorer sort
of people, whose number is always considerable, are
deprived of the benefits of a wholesome liquor, and restrained
to whiskey, which is commonly not so.
The methods used in Holland, have reduced gin to
the lowest price; that of the juniper berries being there
very trifling, and increasing but little the price of whiskey:
still that small addition is almost reduced to nothing,
as will be seen hereafter.
The United States are, in some parts, almost covered
with the tree called here cedar; which tree is no
other than the juniper, and grows almost every where,
and bears yearly a berry, which is in reality the juniper
berry. Some Hollanders knew it at Boston, collected
considerable quantities of it in Massachusetts,
and shipping it to some of the eastern harbors, sold it
as coming from Holland. I have seen some at Philadelphia
ten years ago, at the house of a Hollander, who
received it from Massachusetts in hogsheads of about
ten hundred weight, and sold as the produce of his own
country, what was really that of the United States.
I collected myself a great quantity of those berries,
at Norfolk, Va. by means of negroes, to whom I paid
one dollar per bushel of 40 lbs. being 2½ cts. per pound.
Two years ago, it sold for 6 cents in Philadelphia, and
bore the same price at Pittsburgh.
There is a great deal of cedar in Kentucky, and consequently
of berries. I have seen them at Blue Licks,
and they abound near the Kentucky river.
Although an incredible number of those trees is cut
down daily, there is still a greater number standing, in
the United States; and millions of bushels of berries
are lost every year, while only skilful hands are wanted,
to make them useful to mankind. The juniper
berry has many medical properties: it is a delightful
aromatic, and contains an oil essential, and a sweet extract,
which by the fermentation yields a vinous liquor,
made into a sort of wine in some countries; that is
called wine for the poor: it strengthens the stomach,
when debilitated by bad food or too hard labor.
The Hollanders, who have long had the art of trading
upon every thing, have constantly turned even their
poverty to account. They have immense fabrications
of gin, and scarcely any juniper trees. They only collect
the berry in those countries where it is neglected as
useless, as in France and Tyrol, which produce a great
deal of it. The United States need have no recourse
to Europe, in order to get the juniper berries: they
have in abundance at home, what the Hollanders can
only procure with trouble and money. They can therefore
rival them with great advantage; but they must
follow the same methods employed in the Holland distilleries.
The juniper berry contains the sweet mucous extract,
in a great proportion: it has therefore the principle
necessary to the spirituous fermentation; and, indeed,
it ferments spontaneously. When fresh, and heaped
up, it acquires a degree of heat, but not enough to burn,
as I have ascertained: it is therefore safely transported
in hogsheads. From that facility of fermenting, it must
be considered as a good ferment, and as increasing the
quantity of spirit, when joined to a fermentable liquor.
A distiller may at pleasure convert his whiskey into
gin. He needs only to perfume the wort which he puts
in fermentation, by adding a certain quantity of the
berries, slightly broken: the fermentation is then common
to both; their sweet mucosity enriches that of the
wort, and increases the spirit, while at the same time
the soapy extract, which is the proximate principle of
vegetation, yields the essential oil, which perfumes the
liquor.
The fermentation being common to both substances,
unites them intimately; and when, by the distillation,
the spirit is separated from the water, there remains an
homogenous liquor, resulting from a single creation,
and having that unity of taste, and all the properties of
Holland gin, because obtained by the same means.
One single and same distillation can therefore yield
to the distiller either gin or whiskey, as it requires no
more labor, and its conversion into gin costs only the
price of the berries, which repays him amply, either by
the spirit it yields, or by its essential oil, which, floating
on the surface, may be easily collected. This oil
bears a great price, and the Hollanders sell much of it.
We have seen, in the 10th chapter of this work, that
my hogsheads for the fermentation, contain about 120
gallons of wort, being the production of the saccharine
extract of 12 bushels of grain. The intelligent distiller
will himself determine the quantity of berries necessary
for each hogshead to have a good aromatic perfume.
He may begin with 10 lbs. per hogshead; and
will, upon trial, judge whether or not this quantity is
sufficient, or must be increased. At any rate, economy
should not be consulted in the use of the berries, since
their price does not increase that of the whiskey. This
low price must naturally become the principle of an
immense fabrication of gin; and henceforth it will be
an important article of exportation for the United
States, as well as a considerable and wholesome object
of home consumption.
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