72 The Bulletin. 



3. A large class of whiskey is made by adding whiskey of the first 

 class to dilute silent spirit. Usually caramel is added to restore the 

 color lost by the addition of the spirit. In this way the volume of 

 whiskey of the first class used is increased to several times its original 

 quantity. As the silent spirit has but little flavor, the flavor of this 

 class of whiskey is largely that of the original whiskey of the first 

 class used in the manufacture, though, of course, not so pronounced. 

 As the original whiskey is mixed with silent spirit, this process of 

 manufacture has formerly been known as blending, but as the Food 

 Law provides that a blend is a mixture of like substances, and as 

 silent spirit is not whiskey, a product made from whiskey and silent 

 spirit cannot now be classed as a blended whiskey. The process is 

 also called rectifying, as the manufacturer has a rectifier's license and 

 uses rectified spirits. It can be classed as a compound whiskey, pro- 

 vided that it contains enough whiskey to make it a real compound and 

 not a mere semblance of one. On the advice of the Attorney-General, 

 the Secretary of Agriculture of the United States has ruled that to be 

 lawfully labeled "'Compound Whiskey" the amount of whiskey in a 

 mixture of whiskey and silent spirit must equal or exceed one-third 

 in volume of the product. 



4. A fourth class of whiskey on the market is a product that is 

 wholly artificial. It is made by adding coloring matter, beading oil 

 and various essences for flavoring to dilute silent spirit. This class of 

 whiskey was formerly classified by the manufacturer as a blended or 

 rectified whiskey. As it is wholly an artificial product, it appears to 

 have no right to be so called, and must be labeled "Imitation or Arti- 

 ficial Whiskey." 



From the foregoing it is very evident that the term "whiskey," as 

 it has generally been used, referred to quite a variety of products, 

 necessarily varying in composition. 



The United States Circuit Court at Baltimore, in a case where a 

 product labeled "Whiskey" was seized, held that whiskey was one 

 of the distillates from the fermented mash of sound grain, distilled 

 so as to contain the volatile flavors, together with ethyl alcohol derived 

 from the grain during fermentation, and stored in wood not less than 

 four years. 



The definition of "whiskey" is simple, but it is a very complex 

 liquid. In addition to about 45 to 50 per cent by volume of ethyl 

 alcohol and 50 to 55 per cent of water, it contains a number of other 

 substances. Of these substances Allen (Analyst, June, 1901) says: 

 "The secondary constituents of spirits are by no means to be regarded 

 in the light of impurities, as they have wrongly been called and con- 

 sidered by some. They are the associated bodies which give the 

 alcohol its special and valued characteristics, and to their production, 

 modification or elimination by age we owe the change which spirits 

 undergo during the process of maturing." 



