Application of the Law to Whiskies
The pure food issue covers, and should cover, all substances intended for human consumption, and the fact that any subject covered in the issue is difficult and unpleasant is the more reason why it should be included.
Whiskey is ethyl alcohol and natural flavor. Brandy is ethyl alcohol and natural flavor. The difference is the difference in flavor. The flavor of genuine whiskey comes from the grain, secondary products—fusel oil—distilled over with the ethyl alcohol and ripened into the flavors of 'rye' and 'Bourbon' whiskey. The new whiskey with its unripened secondary products is like the green peach, unfit for consumption. The quality of the flavor of whiskey depends upon the quality of fusel oil and the method and period of aging. The quality of the fusel oil depends upon the quality of the grain and water used, the preparation of the mash and the methods of heating and distilling. The new product is ripened by putting into charred oak barrels and storing these barrels in warehouses. These warehouses are under the lock of government officials, primarily to see that none of the product is taken away until the tax is paid. Whiskies may be taken out of this warehouse at once, or they may be permitted to remain for a period of eight years before the government collects the tax and ceases its control. Most of the whiskey, however, is tax-paid and removed from bond before it is three years old. The rectifier or blender claims that he has a process for producing palatable whiskey without the expense and delay of the barrel-aging process. The rectifier, however, colors, beads and labels his product in imitation of the aged whiskey. If the process has the merit which is claimed for it, there should be no injustice and all advantage in a law requiring rectified whiskey to be labeled for what it is.
When the tax is paid on distilled spirits the government puts a stamp on the product to show this fact. Formerly these stamps were only put on barrels. Consumers do not buy the product by the barrel, and so in 1896, following the investigation of the whiskey trust and the adulteration of whiskies, congress passed an act permitting a tax-paid certificate stamp to be put over the corks of bottles. Whiskey to be so bottled must have remained in the bonded warehouse at least four years, and must be bottled without the addition of any substance except distilled water to reduce it to one hundred proof. This law is optional. The four-year period of aging which it requires should be made compulsory for all whiskey.
No such supervision is exercised, on the contrary, over the business or product of rectifying. In fact, the rectifier or blender holds a government license to 'spuriously imitate' as he pleases, and a law is needed to restrain the adulteration which it is possible to practise. The natural flavor in genuine whiskey and the government tax are the
