Concerning injurious constituents in whisky and their relation to flavour / by Sir Lauder Brunton and F.W. Tunnicliffe.

  • Brunton, Thomas Lauder, Sir, 1844-1916.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Concerning injurious constituents in whisky and their relation to flavour / by Sir Lauder Brunton and F.W. Tunnicliffe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    former is produced but also because it requires less maturing.2 Whisky, on the other hand, derived from malt and made in a pot-still is when raw a very nauseating and foul-smelling liquid. Upon being kept in wood for varying periods of time it becomes changed in character, the irritating smell and disagreeable taste disappearing and the spirit assuming, according to its original properties, a more or less marked bouquet. By suitably blending these two varieties of whisky the trade are able to produce a drinkable article at a relatively cheap price. The alcohol percentage is rendered more or less constant by dilution with water and the colour of the liquid is brought up to a uniform artificial tint by means of caramel or some other suitable agent. From this very superficial, sketch it will be evident that whisky can only very rarely be strictly termed pure, consist- ing, as it does, of a drink the basis of which is generally pure whisky, this latter being artificially doctored to suit the public taste and the distiller’s pocket. It is essential to bear this in mind because an improvement by chemical means of the manufacture of whisky is apt on account of its title to create prejudice; this should not be so since subsequently to fermentation the whole manufacture of whisky, whether in pot-still or in 'Coffey-still, is essentially a chemical process, and if the chemistry of it cannot at the present time be followed step by step it is due in no small degree to the fact that the employes in dis- tilleries are neither chemists themselves nor are they in the majority of cases even directed by chemists; When chemical knowledge has eventually permeated into the distilleries in the Highlands then we shall certainly know more of the minute chemistry of whisky than we do now. In its essentially chemical character whisky differs at once from wine : a wine can go on “living ” long after it is laid in the winebin, can live and change even up to the time it is poured into its penultimate resting-place—the wineglass of the consumer. In the ageing of wine we have biological and chemical processes to consider, in the maturing of whisky chemical and chemico-physical ones. Wine-producers have never hesitated to utilise all that physics, chemistry, and biology can do for them ; champagne is frozen and wines are pasteurised and, if need be, sugared or plastered ; the manu- facture of whisky stands still, and distillers exorcising any improved method with the epithet “doctor” view with mistrust any technique other than the one adopted by their forefathers. 2 The amount of maturation required by silent spirit before it is tit for blending varies. The rectifying column is theoretically supposed to keep back from the distillate all substances boiling above 79° C. As the whole operation is conducted under considerable pressure this theoretical result is not always accurately attained. The usual rectify- ing apparatus Beems to be more efficient in removing higher alcohols, &c., than in getting rid of some of the lower boiling-point impurities ; thus acetic aldehyde can generally be detected in patent-still spirit but furfural with Its boiling point of 162° is most rarely if ever present.