THE DISTILLING INDUSTRY IN IRELAND. 503 



distilled. The products of this second distillation are collected in the 

 Feints Receivers, and the cleanest and most suitable of the " Feints " are 

 transferred into the third still to be ultimately discharged as " Whiskey." 

 In distilling with an apparatus of this simple construction it is obvious 

 that at the beginning of the operation, when the wash or liquid to be 

 distilled is rich in alcohol and its boiling point low, the distillate will pass 

 over at a comparatively low temperature. As the operation progresses and 

 the proportion of spirit becomes less, the boiling point of the mixture in the 

 still rises, and more heat is required to evaporate it. As ihe alcoholic 

 strength of the liquid which remains in the still continually weakens, a 

 point is eventually arrived at when the value of the weak distillate produced 

 will not balance the expenditure on fuel necessary to distill it. 



The " patent stills " of the second and third class are too elaborate, and 



the method of working is too complicated to be 



P f f Sf'll even briefly described in a short article. The best 



known of these stills is " Coffey's," which is the only 



patent still used in the United Kingdom for the 



manufacture of " silent " or rectified spirit. It is said to be the speediest 



and most economical device for preparing a highly concentrated spirit in a 



single operation, as it extracts all the alcohol from any fermented liquid, 



and only one condensation of the distillate is necessary. The process of 



distillation, which is carried on by steam, is continuous, and the " low wines" 



spirit IS not collected as in the case of pot-stills, but passes on in the form of 



vapour to the rectifying column where it is purified into strong spirits. By 



the patent still a spirit is obtained almost destitute of flavour or smell, and 



of a strength varying from 62 to 68 over proof. 



If only alcohol and water passed over in distillation all spirits from what- 

 ever material derived would be the same, but this 

 Whiskey and is not the case. Each distillate has its own peculiar 

 Patent Spirit. flavour, depending upon the nature of the materials 

 from which it is extracted, and spirits of the high 

 strength produced by most patent stills ultimately pass to the condensers 

 at such a low temperature that scarcely any of the volatile oils on which the 

 peculiar fla\'Our of whiskey depends, are present with it ; hence the patent 

 still is not adapted for the distillation of Fine Whiskies which require a 

 certain amount of these essential oils to give them the proper " whiskey " 

 flavour, and patent spirit has usually to be blended with fine whiskey in 

 order to be acceptable to the consumer. Pot-Still whiskey contains 

 essential oils or flavouring matters in excess when it is new, and they require 

 to be broken up and re-arranged by the spontaneous action which occurs 

 between them and the spirit with v/hich they are in contact. This modi- 

 fication of whiskey takes place during the period of bonding when the 

 whiskey is maturing in oak casks. It is the presence of the essential oils, 

 and their gradual modification in cask, which makes whiskey so different 

 from rectified spirit, and the fact that time is required for this modification 

 is the reason why whiskey improves with age. 



The spirits obtained from patent stills contain very little of the essential 

 oils or flavouring constituents which ultimately give taste and aroma to the 

 matured whiskey obtained from pot-stills, where the valuable bye-products 

 referred to are kept and incorporated in the spirit. The difference between 

 the two spirits was well put by a witness before the Select Tommittee on 

 British and Irish Spirits appointed in i8go. It was stated that silent spirits 



