HOW WHISKY IS MADE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 9, 1901

HOW WHISKY IS MADE.

THE following from the Union Signal will tell its own story:—

DEAR Union Signal: I see in a recent issue some good things on the whisky of to-day and the saloon. I consider you can not take up a subject of more importance to the general public. Before the ’60’s whisky was made by all the country distilleries from rye and sold for twenty-five cents a gallon. After Mr. Lincoln got into the White House, he found the treasury in such a condition he had to tax everything taxable, and one thing was whisky. That went up to $2.00 a gallon. The saloon-keeper was at his wits’ end; he couldn’t sell a glass of whisky for the old price and pay that tax. But the druggists came to his relief. I was then a traveling man, my route being from Chicago to Omaha by the Rock Island. At one town I stopped at the depot and the agent told me he had received a package in his office one afternoon for a saloon-keeper in that town from a druggist in Chicago, and that it was in very bad condition, looked as if it had been opened. Upon investigation he had found it to contain four packages of powders, all labeled “Poison.” The bill of cost was $6.00, and attached to the bill was a foot-note in which the druggist said, “If you will put these four powders into your whisky barrel and fill it full of water, I will guarantee you as good a barrel of whisky as you ever had in your house.” And I was told a few days ago that the saloon-keeper makes all his own whisky nowadays.

Respectfully, F. PAGE.

Austin, Ill.