Dedicated to Thomas Jefferson as “’the munificent patron of the sciences,’ and containing directions for making apple-brandy, mint, citron, orange, cinnamon, clove, etc. waters” (Bitting), this is the first American book on distilling and is complete with both folding plates. At the rear of the book are three recipes for “usquebaugh”, “the famous Irish usquebaugh” and “green usquebaugh”, this being the Irish word for whisky.
Krafft (born c.1775) lived a little over twenty miles north of Philadelphia in Bristol, Pa. In October 1801 he received a patent for an improvement in the construction of stills, successfully leasing the invention to 217 stills throughout the country. On 24 April, 1804, Krafft wrote to Jefferson asking his permission to dedicate this work to him. In the letter he wrote: “For three Years last past I have been diligently employed in experimenting (under weighty expence) principally on Subjects immediately interresting to my Country such as that of our Domestic Distilleries &c. facts proved, and final results from which I have the strongest Conviction must ultimately tend to facilitate the rising Interests of Community. These together with the general system of Domestic Distillery I have arranged in the form of an 8o. volume of about 400 pages entitled The American Distiller, of the first part of which the enclosed are proof sheets (as a sample) and although it Cannot boast of elegance of Language, Yet I trust it will be found Replete with Usefull matter.”
Scarce: the last copy at auction was in 1998 (the Crahan copy) which was also sold at Sotheby’s in 1986 and 1984. Another copy sold in 1998 was defective. Auction records list eleven others stretching back to 1903.
Provenance: given to Eastport Public Library in August 1894 by S.D. Leavitt, it was de-accessioned along with much of their older material several decades ago; German private collection; thence to the American trade.
Amerine & Borg, 2033; Bitting p265; Crahan 72; Gabler 26730; Sabin, 38294; Tucher, 1434; Krafft, M., ALS to Thomas Jefferson, Bristol, 24, April 1804: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-43-02-0252 accessed 26 November, 2021.
