Jersey Lightning

[bach2yoga]

I was reading the chapter in Cornelius Weygandt's Down Jersey on Jersey lightning.
I found this interesting:
" "Spirits from fruit are always tastier than spirits from grain" was the refrain of all his discourse on brandies and whiskies. It was years, though, before I knew anything more definite about Jersey lightning than that it was something to drink. I was thirty before I tasted it, with extreme moderation, and that was far up in North Jersey, on a low mountain on the verge of New York State. The peach brandy we bought there was more famous, though, than the apple brandy. I have never met true Jersey lightning from any still of "The Pines." I have been told where some of the finest was made. There was in what they call back of Chatsworth a "field" or abandoned farm without buildings. In the "field", as yet unchoked by the pines and oaks, was a good stand of apple trees. It was out of the way and untroubled by visits of minions of the law. There in the cellar hole of the old house, was the still. It was a college professor who promised to pilot me there, but that was a pilgrimage never accomplished. Nor has any of that amber cordial, "with a taste of woodsmoke in it," ever come my way....
The late Francis B Lee of Trenton ways that the natives who made Jersey lightning seldom so call it. Following the general American custom of shortening all words they can, Jerseymen truncate "applejack" to just "jack".....
The state of intoxication that follows too great familiarity with applejack is called in Jersey "apple palsy". "( excerpts, p 93, 94)

So, has anyone ever come across a stand of old apple trees, Chatsworth vicinity, perhaps near an old cellar hole, in what may or may not now be succeeding into a more mature forest???

Renee

 

[bach2yoga]

Here is more on Jersey lightning:

http://blake.montclair.edu/~olsenk/ACETIC ACID.htm
ACETIC ACID, INDUSTRIAL
VINEGAR, AND JERSEY
LIGHTNING
Reprinted with the permission of the Indicator, the news magazine of the North Jersey Section, American Chemical Society.
By Kevin Olsen
For most of us, Jersey Lightning conjures up memories of the thunderstorms that sweep through this region on humid summer afternoons. Yet for more than 300 years, the name referred to a potent fermented apple liquor. In time, the same technology that fermented beverages was used for the production of acetic acid.
By 1685, New Englanders settling in New Jersey were busy establishing apple cultivation on a large scale. Cider had been their favorite drink. It could be fermented for a hard cider or fermented and distilled to make brandy, or if you prefer, Jersey Lightning. A method popular in New England was simply to freeze the cider and discard the ice. Some of the cider was made into vinegar which was used in cooking and preserving.
A lively export market for Jersey Lightning made apples a good cash crop. By the 1790's specialized apple varieties were planted in carefully tended orchards. An acre of land with 65 to 70 trees typically yielded 250 bushels of apples. Eight bushels produced one barrel of cider. Thirty-two gallons of cider yielded 4 gallons of hard spirits that sold for about 3/4 of a dollar.
By 1834, there were 388 cider distilleries in the state; about a third of them were in Morris and Hunterdon counties. But the good times were not to last. By the Civil War, temperance movements reduced the demand for Jersey Lightning. In 1860, there were only 56 distilleries. None remained in Essex County, the one time home of Newark Applejack which was a widely popular name, especially in the south.
As Jersey Lightning was becoming less popular (it never completely died out), industrial demand for acetic acid was growing. Of the estimated 29,000 barrels of New Jersey cider pressed in 1899, about 6000 went into vinegar production.
In the 1870's, chemists were developing methods for oxidizing alcohol for acetic acid production. However, the majority of producers used a much less sophisticated method - they opened the barrel of cider and let bacteria do the rest.
Industrial vinegar was an important surface cleaning agent prior to the widespread availability of other commercially produced acids. Greek and Roman smiths immersed metals in vinegar (urine was also used) prior to scrubbing. Needlemakers and nailmakers scrubbed their products in vinegar prior to tinning and spoon makers needed to soak their product for two or three days before coating. Sheets of iron or steel were pickled in vinegar prior to zinc plating. Sometimes this required an iron sheet to be immersed in warm vinegar for eight days. During the pickling process, new vinegar had to be added to the bath to maintain the correct acidity. Today sulfuric acid with pickling inhibitors is used to clean sheet metals prior to coating.
So, what was it like to grow apples for industrial vinegar? The Andrew Slingerland farm in Pompton Plains, Morris County, sold a portion of their apple crop for industrial use. Emily Slingerland recalled how her father and grandfather made vinegar on the farm just before 1900.
In addition to their 500 trees, the Slingerlands also purchased apples from their neighbors. They accepted only two varieties: the large yellow Canfield, and an unidentified red variety. They demanded they be high quality and, if satisfied, bought the apples by the ton. There was, of course, competition for the crop from cider makers, but temperance minded farmers preferred to sell their crop to the Slingerlands. In a shed behind the barn, horse powered machinery crushed the apples. The juice went into large tanks in the cellar and, at the right moment in the fermentation process, was transferred into barrels which then were stored in the barn. The vinegar was tested frequently and carefully. If standards were met, a horse and wagon brought the barrels to the Bloomfield Turning Mills.
In time, other acids replaced vinegar in metal finishing applications. This made the Slingerland's operation less profitable. But the final blow came during the laying of Newark's water supply pipeline in about 1891. The pipeline workers broke into the barn and stole the hard cider!
Author's note: Eleanor and Char1ie Bogard, members of the North Jersey Highlands Historical Society, collected much of this information from Emily Slingerland and researched the use of vinegar in metal finishing. Other data came from Herbert G. Schmidt's Agriculture in New Jersey, Rutgers University Press, 1973.

 

[njvike]

I was reading the chapter in Cornelius Weygandt's Down Jersey on Jersey lightning.
I found this interesting:
" "Spirits from fruit are always tastier than spirits from grain" was the refrain of all his discourse on brandies and whiskies. It was years, though, before I knew anything more definite about Jersey lightning than that it was something to drink. I was thirty before I tasted it, with extreme moderation, and that was far up in North Jersey, on a low mountain on the verge of New York State.

Renee

I wonder if he was referring to the Ramapo Mountains.

Does anyone know what proof this is? I've also heard it referred as clear-water, I believe.

Either way, I couldn't go beyond 151 Rum

 

[bach2yoga]

I'm not familiar with the Ramapo Mountains. North Jersey, I take it? Is there a story behind it?
As far as handling it, I can't even handle a glass of wine very well! :friday: