Munier, Etienne (1732–1820), was a French engineer and official of the royal administration who penned one of the earliest detailed descriptions of the cognac industry and its distilling techniques.
Originally from the east of France, he was assigned to the Angoumois, an administrative division to which the Cognac region belonged, after graduating from the prestigious Ponts et Chaussées civil engineering school. While his initial assignment was improving the transportation network, he was a follower of the physiocratic School, which held that wealth came exclusively from the land. Consequently, he extensively studied the agricultural practices of the Angoumois, with a view to describe current methods and propose their modernization. In 1770, he published his Mémoire sur la manière de distiller les vins, a description of the best practices of Angouleme distillers. His magnum opus, though, is a two-volume study on the Angoumois, published in 1779. In this detailed description of agriculture in the whole region, he wrote what cognac historian Nicholas Faith called “our basic source of information about cognac in the later 18th century.” Ever the polymath (he wrote treaties on Jerusalem artichokes and wheelbarrows, and he invented a threshing machine), Munier recommended specific changes to the charentais still in order to solve a constant problem facing cognac distillers of the time: the alcohol-rich vapors exited the still through a pipe leading down from the side of the head, low and flat-topped in the Dutch style, allowing undesired elements to spill over toward the serpentin (condensing coil). Munier’s solution was to raise the head; this led to the development of the swan’s neck. He was a constant advocate for the development and improvement of the cognac industry until his death at the age of eighty-eight.
See also cognac and distillation, history.
Bujeaud, Victor et Jérôme. La Charente révolutionnaire, vol. 1. Angoulème: Quèlin Frères, 1866.
Faith, Nicholas. Cognac: The Story of the World’s Greatest Brandy. Oxford: Infinite Ideas, 2013.
Societé Royal D’Agriculture. De la fermentation des vins et la mellieure maniere de faire l’eau de vie. Lyon: 1770.
By: François Monti