ALCOHOL. 143 
oils, which give them character. ‘hus rum is alcohol 
flavored with the essential oil of the sugar cane; gin with 
the oil of the juniper berry; brandy with the oil of the 
grape; while whiskey owes its peculiarity to the well- 
known fusil oil inherent in grain. By depriving either 
of these liquors of the essential oils, coloring matters, and 
volume of water they contain by means of rectification, 
we obtain from them pure alcohol, or the well known 
spirit of wine of the apothecaries’ shops. 
To obtain absolute alcohol, or a spirit perfectly free from 
water, is impossible by any of the distilling apparatus yet 
invented, alcohol having too great an affinity for water, 
to be separated entirely by mechanical means. Yet a 
spirit sufficiently pure for all commercial purposes may 
be produced by a variety of distillatory arrangements, 
which it shall be my duty to refer to in the proper place. 
Spirit containing only five per cent. of water may be manu- 
factured by a good apparatus. 
It being the purpose of this work to treat only of the 
sorgho and its products, it is to the manufacture of sorgho 
spirit only that I shall refer. But as in the case of the 
manufacture of sugar from the same source, I considered 
a description of a West Indian plantation and apparatus 
best calculated to elucidate the subject, so, as regards the 
manufacture of sorgho rum or spirit, a short detail of the 
methods practiced in Cuba and the Windward Islands, 
together with a few illustrations of improved apparatus, 
will best serve the purpose, feeling assured—judging 
from a sample of sorgho syrup received from Mr. Olcott 
—that the products of the cane and sorgho are alike, and 
required similar treatment to obtain like results. 
