62 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



dominant costs in production. The rectifier seeks to lessen these costs 

 by expansion, or by the addition of artificial essences to neutral spirits 

 to make a product which will taste and appear like genuine whiskey. 

 Sometimes more or less genuine whiskey is mixed with this neutral 

 spirit to help the flavor, and when such is the case, and when the flavors 

 and other imitations added are harmless, the product has all the rights 

 of the market provided it is labeled for what it is. 



JSTew genuine whiskey is often taken from bond before it is suf- 

 ficiently aged and syrups are added to make it palatable. Green 

 whiskey is unfit for consumption, and this practise should be pro- 

 hibited. In one class of rectified whiskey the mixer not only seeks 

 to avoid the cost of producing the natural flavor, but also to reduce 

 the tax cost of the ethyl alcohol by incorporating some one of the non- 

 taxed intoxicants, like wood alcohol. There are no statistics to show 

 to just what extent this practise is carried on. It is such stuff as this 

 which is sold in the ' dives ' of cities and the ' blind tigers ' of prohibi- 

 tion districts, and its crazing effect upon human beings is a matter of 

 common knowledge. 



The people who do not drink alcoholic beverages know little and 

 care less about the composition and labeling of these products. " They 

 are all bad because they contain ethyl alcohol, and there can be little 

 difference between the adulterated and the pure." Some of the pro- 

 hibitionists even fear that the investigation might help to ' legalize 

 part of the traffic' But it would seem wiser to insist that the search- 

 light of chemistry and the law of the honest label shall be applied to 

 all substances intended for human consumption, whether foods, drugs 

 or liquors. And such a control for alcoholic beverages is the beginning 

 of a far-reaching reform. Some things are worthy of the sentiment 

 of state rights. The adulteration of alcoholic beverages is not one 

 of them. 



Standards 



All agree on the general principles of pure food legislation, but a 

 controversy arises when it is proposed to apply these principles to the 

 sale of some special product. The name and describing terms given 

 to or incorporated in the label of an article of food or drink have much 

 to do with the price and supposed food value of the article so named or 

 labeled. The imitation, where law does not prevent it, goes into the 

 market under the name and trade terms of the product imitated, and 

 is so mingled in the market with the general food that it is impossible 

 for consumers to distinguish between the two. 



It is the purpose of standards to determine and establish the normal 

 constituents of each food substance and to so a,pply and restrict names 

 and describing terms that consumers can at once identify the imitation 

 from the genuine or the inferior from the superior. The interests 



