Coolhaes, Caspar Janszoon (1536–1615), author of the influential distilling manual Van seeckere seer costelijcke wateren (published in Amsterdam in 1588), became a distiller only when the politics of religion robbed him of his profession as a theologian. Born in 1536 in Cologne, he studied in Düsseldorf and worked as a Reformation minister in various regions of southwestern Germany before accepting a professorship at Leiden university in the Netherlands in 1574. There, he disagreed with purist Calvinists, who felt the church should also be responsible for civic order and punishment, and subsequently Coolhaes was excommunicated in 1582. Coolhaes, however, was not a man to stand still; in that same year he started a distillery making both medicinal and recreational spirits. Six years later he published his manual, which as well as being influential and frequently reprinted is today principally remembered for bemoaning the fact that korenbrandewijn (grain distillate) was by 1588 being bought, paid for, and enjoyed at the same price and in the same way as grape brandy. Initially, when alcoholic distillates were used more medicinally than recreationally, the highest quality distillates were made from grapes. This is probably why, in his book, Coolhaes (who started out as a medicinal distiller himself), clearly disapproved of grain distillates being regarded in the same light as grape distillates, even though this development would allow a distiller like himself higher profits. One of the first known references to distilled recreational spirits in Europe is from the Netherlands in 1495, and that recipe strongly stressed using a wine base. Coolhaes’s book is the earliest known to confirm that grain had replaced grape as the base ingredient of choice; hence we now know by what approximate date the Netherlands had switched to grain. Coolhaes went on to found an Amsterdam distillery in 1591 and sold it to his son Adolph in 1608, who in turn sold it to his son, Johannes. Caspar himself died in Leiden (or possibly Amsterdam) in 1615.
See also genever.
Rogge, H. C. Caspar Jansz. Coolhaes, de voorloper van Arminius en der remonstranten. Amsterdam: CP Burger, 1856.
van Schoonenberghe, Eric. Jenever in de Lage Landen. Oostkamp, Belgium: Stichting Kunstboek, 1996.
By: Philip Duff