Pierre Lacour and Whiskey Without Distilling

“QUIT DRINKING POISONOUS LIQUORS.” Thus blared the headlines of Pierre Lacour's’ advertisements.  Instead, the New Orleans entrepreneur for $20 would sell you 1) A complete assortment of “Oils necessary for making and flavoring every variety of liquor,” 2) ingredients to convert 70 gallons of whiskey into 100, and 3) “every article” needed to start a liquor store.   That likely would include a supply of crushed, dried cochineal bugs, an insect that lives on cacti in Mexico and Central America.

The secret behind Lacour’s liquor was that it really did not require whiskey at all, just raw alcohol he called “neutral spirits.”  Lacour’s book, The Manufacture of Liquors, Wines and Cordials without the Aid of Distillation, first published in 1853, listed dozens of “recipes” for making liquor without the onerous and time consuming process of distillation.  Among them are four instructions for making various American whiskeys.

1.  Old Bourbon Whiskey:  Neutral Spirits, four gallons; refined sugar, three pounds;  dissolved in water, three quarts;  decoction of tea, one pint; three drops of oil of wintergreen, dissolved in one ounce of alcohol; color with tincture of cochineal, two ounces;  burnt sugar, three ounces.

Comment:  My father, a dentist, when called late at night by a patient suffering from a toothache would suggest swabbing it with oil of wintergreen and arrange to meet the sufferer in the morning.

2.  Monogahela Whiskey:  Neutral spirits, four gallons; honey three pints, dissolved in water, one gallon;  rum, half gallon; nitric ether, half an ounce. This is to be colored to suit fancy.  Some customers prefer this whiskey transparent;  while some like it just perceptibly ringed with brown; while others, again, want it rather deep, and partaking of red. [Then apparently add the bugs]. 

Comment:  Nitric ether is defined as a colorless, flammable liquid used in perfumes, drugs, and dyes and in organic synthesis.  It is potassium nitrate mixed with alcohol.  The mechanism left purports to show the process of creating the compound.

3.  Oronoko Rye:  Neutral spirits, four gallons; refined sugar, three and a half pounds, dissolved in water to dissolve three pints;  decoction of tea, one pint; burnt sugar, four ounces; oil of pear, half an ounce, dissolved in an ounce of alcohol.

Comment:  The name of this whiskey seems to have been esoteric to Lacour himself.  I can find no such designation anywhere. Pear seeds contain a high percentage of oil (50%). The seeds, it is said, can be processed into a kind of vegetable oil. 

4.  Tuscaloosa Whiskey:  Neutral spirits, four pints; honey three pints, dissolved in water, three pints; solution of starch, five pints;  oil of wintergreen, four drops dissolved in half an ounce of acetic ether; color with four ounces burnt sugar.

Comment:  One reference to a Tuscaloosa Whiskey is from the Baltimore distillery of W. T. Walters.  He was producing that brand more than a decade after the publication of the book so that it is difficult to know the origin of Lacour’s reference.  It is doubtful that Walter’s whiskey included a “solution of starch” or acetic ether, defined as “a colourless volatile flammable fragrant liquid ester, made from acetic acid and ethanol.”  

Michael Veach of the Filson Historical Society and America's reigning expert on bourbon history has explained why it is important to parse these recipes.  First, they tell us what ingredients were among those being used to concoct cheap alcoholic beverages.  Second, they validate the complaint by legitimate distillers against shysters clothing themselves in the garment of “rectifiers,” that is, blenders of whiskey.

An 1858 newspaper ad for Lacours potions indicated that it was not necessary to start from scratch and assemble for oneself all the esoteric ingredients needed to  imitate whiskey.  He suggested starting with whatever “rectified,” whiskey was at hand.  Simply by adding “Lacour’s Oil of Rye,” it was possible to create Monongahela Rye, Old Virginia Malt Whiskey or even Kentucky Bourbon.  To convert rectified whiskey into “Old Irish Malt Whiskey” Lacour recommended oil of cedrat, extracted from a citrus-type fruit that grows in Latin America,

Of Lacour himself, information is scant.  Little is known of his personal life. His date of birth has been given as “about 1800.” He called himself “of Bordeaux,” leading to the assumption that he had been a resident of that city before emigrating to the United States.  Lacour’s arrival year and place is given as 1848 and New Orleans.  Those few details are from a 1992 book entitled “The Foreign French: Nineteenth-Century French Immigration into Louisiana,” by Carl A. Brasseaux.

Upon his arrival, Lacour reputedly opened a saloon in the New Orleans’ French Quarter.  His venture into the liquor trade may have led him to scheming about how to make popular alcoholic drinks on the cheap.   His book, cited earlier, was first published in 1853 and republished at least once in 1860. An 1861 New Orleans business directory listed a “Pierre Lacour” as a cotton trader, doing business in Cloutierville, Natchitoches, Louisiana.  If this is our man, he may have been branching out into other enterprises.  I can find no record of his death or place of interment.

Lacour went on to write at least two more books that may now be lost, including “Lacour’s Chemical Analysis” and “Lacour’s Chemical Manipulations.”  He also claimed to have set up a laboratory in Jefferson Parish, contiguous to New Orleans, for the manufacture of “Lacour’s Essential Oils” — essential that is for turning raw alcohol into any number of faux liquors.  

In contemplating the history of American whiskey before Prohibition,  Lacour’s story is instructive.  Although my research indicates that many of “rectifiers,” blenders of whiskey, played it straight, enough examples of those who cheated have come to light to indicate that Lacour had his disciples.   The Kentucky straight bourbon distillers who pressed the government to have all blended whiskeys designated as “artificial” were not just self-serving.  National Prohibition, while ill-considered and devastating, had one positive effect:  It eliminated the Lacours of the liquor trade.

Note:  While drawn from a variety of sources, this post was made possible by Mike Veach in his 2013 book “Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey:  An American Heritage.”  There he reprinted the four Lacour whiskey recipes, not available from Internet sources.