The Distillery

The Distillery. . , The monks of Ireland are credited with having developed the art of whiskey making. It was transported to Colonial America by the Scotch-Irish, who were largely responsible for opening up the Appalachian region to settlement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Whiskey was one of the few sources of cash income the frontier settlers could use to purchase items they could not produce themselves, such as salt, sugar, rifles and gunpowder., When the newly formed federal government imposed an excise tax on whiskey in 1791, as a mean of paying off the debts associated with the War for Independence, the so-called Whiskey Rebellion erupted all across the western frontier, and became particularly violent in Western Pennsylvania. Although the federal government was successful in putting down the rebellion, illegally distilled whiskey, also known as "moonshine", became and remained an underground industry well into the 20th century, particularly in the isolated regions of the Appalachian Mountains., The Perryopolis distillery is believed to have been constructed in c. 1790, by Israel Shreve, who leased the grist mill and land from George Washington. It provided a distilling service to farmers who brought their grains to the grist mill to be processed. Corn and rye were the most prominent grains used in the distilling process. Surplus grain not needed for subsistence was ground at the mill and then moved over to the distillery for processing. The distilling process took place in the basement of the structure., Pictured in the sketch is the layout of the old distillery as indicated by archaeological research: (1) marks the location of a well, which supplied the water used in the still (2); a seven-foot square chimney (3) drew smoke through pipes from the still during the heating process; a small hole (4) was used to carry mash from the still to a trough (5) outside the building, where animals could feed. The second floor was originally used to store grain before it was distilled as well as the final barrels of "good Monongahela Rye Whiskey." The distilling apparatus has long since disappeared, but probably was similar to that found in Washington's c. 1797, distillery at Mount Vernon., (Photo Captions):, Archaeologist John Pharr's sketch of distillery layout., Two copper stills in Washington's distillery at Mount Vernon. Shreve's Perryopolis distillery only would have had one still., Courtesy of www.mountvernon.org/distillery