THE CUBA REVIEW. 



23 



BANANA ALCOHOL. 



By Rene Guerin, Engineer-Chemist. 



An abstract of an article m the Paris "Journal 



for THE CUB 



To be properly appreciated bananas 

 must be ofifered for consumption at a 

 suitable degree of ripeness. Therefore 

 it is necessary to pick them green and 

 let them ripen, at least partly, during the 

 voyage to the market. But hi spite of 

 good care the loss through spoiled and 

 rejected fruit is estimated at 20 per cent., 

 according to information furnished by 

 the Agricultural Society of Jamaica and 

 which we have personally collected in 

 Guatemala. In Jamaica alone this loss 

 represents two million bunches. 



In the face of this state of affairs 

 producers have been trying to find some 

 industrial use for this enormous quan- 

 tity of fruit. They have tried drying 

 and preserving, and they have cooked it 

 with sugar and made flour of it, but ex- 

 periments made in this direction in Costa 

 Rica have been without results. It has 

 been proved that these products cannot 

 compete with figs. As to banana flour, 

 the results have been nil up to date. It is 

 useless to refer to its alimentary value, 

 its great digestibility, etc. These have 

 been discussed for a long time hi various 

 publications. The truth is the product 

 does not please the public. We were 

 very enthusiastic on this subject, and at 

 the Exposition of 1900 we exhibited sam- 

 ples of banana flour which were awarded 

 a gold medal by the International Jury. 

 The manufacturers of the Hour then 

 begged us to find buyers, but in spite 

 of all efforts the best ofTer received 

 was 10 francs per 100 kilos at tlie French 

 railway station. 



In a report presented to the Colonial 

 Society of Berlin, the conclusion was 

 reached that the factories installed in 

 India and Java were unable to continue 

 producing the flour profitably. Dr. Gres- 

 hof, director of the Colonial Museum of 

 Haarlem, is of about the same opinion, 

 and, finally, a factory installed in Costa 

 Rica and two in Jamaica met with the 

 same fate. It is possible that, after blend- 

 ing, a more acceptable product may be 

 obtained, but the problem is not so much 

 to increase the nutritive value of banana 

 flour, which is acknowledged, but to 

 make of it a food that will attract con- 

 sumers. 



d' Agriculture Tropicale." Translated especially 

 A REVIEW. 



Therefore it is necessary to seek for 

 the banana not exported another outlet 

 than those already referred to. At one 

 time Mr. d'Herelle, now chief of the ex- 

 periment station at Yucatan, Merida, but 

 then director of a distillery at Puerto 

 Barrios, Guatemala, who was associated 

 with me in the work of the Central 

 Laboratory of Guatemala, studied a proc- 

 ess of obtaining an alcohol for drinking. 

 Experiments made in the laboratory witn 

 bananas which had been rejected, and 

 were destined to be thrown into the sea 

 or to rot on the beach, permitted us to 

 obtain a good spirit, very much like 

 whiskey. Samples sent to the St. Louis 

 Exposition, that had only been in the 

 barrel for six months, were recognized to 

 be of superior quality. After analysis by 

 the laboratory of the Department of 

 Agriculture in Washington, the pro- 

 ducers were awarded a gold medal. Alco- 

 hol ages so rapidly in tropical countries 

 that one year in the barrel is sufficient 

 to make the product very tine. 



The question of aging is not less in- 

 teresting. Corn whiskey must be kept 

 in casks for several years before being 

 olfered for consumption, and at least five 

 years to obtain the best qualities. Ba- 

 nana whiskey is ripe at the end of one 

 year. We are sure that the samples 

 submitted at the Exposition of St. Louis 

 bore comparison with those that had not 

 been less than ten years in casks. 



After having demonstrated that it is 

 possible to obtain by fermentation from 

 banana juice a marketable product of 

 good quality, it is in order to consider the 

 cost of manufacture. It may be said that 

 it is much less than that of ordinary 

 whiskey. The yield may be estimated 

 at AY2 liters per bunch of bananas. A 

 memorandum of expenses made for a 

 plant capable of producing 150 casks of 

 whiskey daily aggregated 827,500 francs, 

 which included buildings, machinery and 

 apparatus; fuel, labor, administration, 

 general expenses for two years; cases 

 and bottles for the production of one 

 year, and raw material for manufacture 

 for two years (270,000 bundles at 75 

 centimes each). 



Alcohol from Henequen. 

 In Yucatan more than ever devoted 

 to the growing of henequen, experi- 

 ments have been made from time to 

 time to extract alcohol from the pulpy 



residue of the plant after crushing the 

 leaves. On one plantation satisfactory 

 experiments resulted in the production 

 of 34 barrels of alcohol, 40 grade, from 

 each 100,000 leaves. 



