rake or rummager is a set of arms that rotate inside a direct-fired pot still; the arms are connected to copper chains or mats that agitate the liquid inside and preventing solids (which can make up 8 percent of the wash) from settling on the bottom where they might burn, creating off flavors and potentially damaging the still. Rummagers also help distribute heat more evenly across the bottom surface of the still. Direct-fired stills, which involve the application of open flames directly underneath, were once ubiquitous but are now found in only a handful of distilleries, including Glenfarclas, Glenfiddich, and the Macallan in Scotland and the Nikka distillery in Japan. (These are generally of otherwise conventional form, but in Ireland in particular a lopsided style of direct-fired still used to be in common use where the neck was displaced to the side of the pot so that the rummager mechanism could be centrally located.) The adoption of steam-coil heating for pot stills rendered rummagers unnecessary.
See also still, pot; whisky, Irish; and whisky, scotch.
Schidrowitz, Philip. “Spirits.” In Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed, 700. New York: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911.
By: Clay Risen