Of The Formation Of Vinous Liquors With Grains In Order To Make Spirits

The art of extracting wine from the juice of the grape, not being the

object of this book, I shall confine myself to what is necessary and

useful to the distillers of whiskey; it is therefore of the vinous

liquor extracted from grains, that I am going to speak.



The formation of that kind of liquor is founded upon a faculty peculiar

to grains, which the learned chymist, Fourcroy, has called saccharine

ferm ntation. Sugar itself does not exist in gramineous substances;

they only contain its elements, or first principles, which produce it.

The saccharine fermentation converts those elements into sugar, or at

least into a saccharine matter; and when this is developed, it yields

the eminent principle of fermentation, without which there exists no

wine, and consequently no spirit.



Grains yield two kinds of vinous liquors, of which the distiller makes

spirit, and the brewer a sort of wine, called beer. From a comparison

of the processes employed to obtain these two results, it will be found

that the brewer's art has attained a higher degree of perfection than

that of the distiller. They both have for their object to obtain a

vinous liquor; but that of the brewer is, in reality, a sort of wine to

which he gives, at pleasure, different degrees of strength; while that

of the distiller is scarcely vinous, and cannot be made richer. I will

give a succinct exposition of their two processes in order that they may

be compared.