THE AMERICAN DISTILLER, OR, THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF DISTILLING, ACCORDING TO THE LATEST DISCOVERIES AND IMPROVEMENTS, INCLUDING THE MOST IMPROVED METHODS OF CONSTRUCTING STILLS, AND OF RECTIFICATION

Philadelphia: Printed for Thomas Dobson [by Archibald Bartram], 1804. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. [13],10-151,[22],152-219 pp. plus 2 folding plates. Antique-style quarter calf and marbled boards, gilt leather label, endpapers refreshed. Minor chips at outer corners of title leaf, professionally repaired. Mild toning throughout, heavy toning at edges of rear endpapers, light offsetting in plates. Very good to near fine.

"Said to be the first book on distilling printed in the United States" - Amerine & Borg. The author, Michael August Krafft of Bristol, Pennsylvania, received a fourteen-year-term patent in 1801 for an improvement (truncated) in stills, around which, he writes in the book's Advertisement, "Many unsuccessful attempts have been made to deprive him of the fruits of six years of sacrifice of property and labor" with "[s]light evasions of form, without a departure from the principle." Krafft's patent beat the attempted evasions, and, by the time of writing, 217 distilleries were legitimately using his plan. Krafft dedicates the book to Thomas Jefferson, who had approved of his request to do so, writing to Krafft on April 29, 1804,

"I see too with great satisfaction every example of bending science to the useful purposes of life. hitherto Chemistry has scarcely deigned to look to the occupations of domestic life. when she shall have made intelligible to the ordinary housholder the philosophy of making bread, butter, cheese, soap, beer, cyder, wine, vinegar &c. these daily comforts will keep us ever mindful of our obligations to her. the art of distilling which you propose to explain, besides it’s houshold uses, is valuable to the agriculturalist, as it enables him to put his superfluous grain into a form which will bear long transportation to markets to which the raw material could never get."

In addition to its description of Krafft's distilling technology and system, the book prints 72 recipes for "simple waters," "compound waters," and cordials. The plates show the "Form of a Still intended to evade my patent" and his own distillery plan.

Amerine & Borg, 2033. Gabler 26730. Sabin 38294 ("One of the earliest works of its kind"). (Inventory #: 913)