But no discovery of general utility ought to experience that fate in a republic. Government itself ought to promote the first undertaking, or a certain number of citizens ought to join in order to give it a start. It is the more easy in this case, as my apparatus requires very little expense.
If a distillery according to my directions, was established in some of the principal towns of the state, my method would then make rapid progress, and thus prove the truth of the principle which I have advanced; and the distillers, after having meditated upon my method in this book, would come and satisfy themselves of its goodness, by seeing it put into practice, and yielding the most perfect results, with all the advantages for trade that may be expected: hence would naturally ensue the rapid increase of distillation, and consequently that of agriculture and commerce.
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.