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How to Pack a Rectifying Tub
marks 10 degrees below proof. This first run is called high wine. Then remove the receiver that contains the high wine, and substitute another. Continue to distil until the low wine ceases to blaze when it is thrown in the fire. Whenever this occurs, stop the operation, and keep the low wine for the next distillation. Then clean the still and charge it with fresh mash.
When the operator does not employ the heater, the mash passes from the fermenting tubs immediately into the still. No uniform disposition is necessary for the fermenting tubs or heater, all depends upon the general arrangement of the apparatus. The distiller need not be informed that the apparatus must be arranged so as to save labor. If the mash tubs are above the still, connect them by a gutter or pipe; if on a level with the still, employ a hand pump. (See pages 18 to 24.) How to Pack a Rectifying Tub.
TO RECTIFY FROM 10 BELOW PROOF TO 50 ABOVE PROOF. 30 bushels of maple charcoal are required for a tub seven feet high and four feet in diameter; a tub of this size will give a clear bed of 14 inches. At two inches from the bottom of the tub place a false bottom perforated with 1-inch holes, and cover this bottom with sailcloth or blanket. Then pack in the charcoal regularly and very tightly with a wooden pestle. Great attention should be given to this part of the operation, in order to prevent the occurrence of holes or crevices in the charcoal during the process of filtration. Pack the sides of the tub thoroughly. Cover the charcoal with sailcloth, place laths over the cloth, and use heavy stores to keep the charcoal down.
This is a working page from a rectifier's manual — the trade of buying crude spirit, stripping it in a still and leaching it through charcoal to sell as brandy, gin or whiskey. It is readable as industrial history, but it is not a procedure to carry out.
- Distilling is the barrier, not the difficultyOperating a still to concentrate alcohol for beverage use is a federal offence in the United States without a distilled spirits plant permit, and is licensed or prohibited almost everywhere else. Nothing on this page can be legally reproduced in a home kitchen or garage.
- The fire test is not a control"Continue to distil until the low wine ceases to blaze when it is thrown in the fire" is the pre-hydrometer proofing method: spirit above roughly 50 percent alcohol will ignite. It tells the operator nothing about what else is coming over — methanol, acetone and fusel oils all distil alongside ethanol, and a flame test cannot separate them.
- No cuts, no temperaturesThe text gives no head or tail cuts, no vapour temperatures and no discard of the first fraction. A run managed only by eye and fire, from an unspecified mash, gives no control over the congeners that come over with the ethanol.
- Charcoal does not fix thatMaple charcoal leaching removes fusel oils and harsh flavour compounds and is genuinely effective at smoothing a spirit. It does not remove methanol, which passes straight through. The polish this page produces is sensory, not a safety step.
- Period stills and period metalNineteenth-century worms and condensers were commonly assembled with lead-bearing solder, and the same is true of salvaged equipment today. Lead contamination in illicit spirit is a documented, recurring poisoning route.
- What the proof figures meanUnder the American system in use when this was printed, proof spirit is about 50 percent alcohol by volume, so "10 degrees below proof" is roughly 45 percent and the rectified strength named in the heading is far higher. "High wine" is the strong first run; "low wine" the weak tail held back for the next charge.
- The vessel, for scaleA tub seven feet high and four feet across taking 30 bushels of charcoal is holding something over 35 cubic feet of it, packed hard with a wooden pestle. This is factory equipment, not benchtop filtration.
- If you want the flavour effectCharcoal mellowing of an already-purchased, legally distilled spirit is a different activity from what is described here. Follow a current source for that; do not work from this page.
Books of this kind — and there were many in the 1850s to 1870s, sold to grocers, saloon keepers and "wine and liquor manufacturers" — served the rectifying trade. The rectifier bought raw high-proof spirit, cleaned it by redistillation and charcoal leaching, then coloured and flavoured it into whatever the market wanted, which is why volumes like this pair filtration instructions with formulas for imitation cognac, Holland gin and Madeira. The charcoal tub itself is the older, honest half of the trade: leaching new spirit through a deep bed of hard-maple charcoal is the same principle as the Lincoln County process still used for Tennessee whiskey, and the terms "high wine" and "low wine" for the strong first run and the weak tail were standard American distillery vocabulary. The instruction to test the tail by throwing it on a fire is a reminder of how much of this work was done by eye, nose and flame, and of why the period's spirits had such an uneven reputation.