The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails Definition of rectifier (occupation)

rectifier (occupation) is a term with meanings both vague and specific, all of which shift over time and space but nonetheless share the common thread of referring to those who purchase bulk beverage alcohol for resale. In the United States, the 1935 Federal Alcohol Administration Act uses “rectifier” and related terms but does not specifically define them. Because the federal rectification tax was repealed in 1980, Internal Revenue Code regulations no longer define the term. However, the occupation, understood in general terms, dates to the earliest days of commercial distilling. In broad strokes, alcohol rectifiers buy distilled spirits (or wines) from other producers, change them in some way, and sell the resulting product under new labels. Such changes may include re-distilling and purifying those spirits (especially if they are lower proof, are of inconsistent quality, or carry distinctive aromas and taste deemed undesirable); making infusions, macerations, or compounded beverages with them; and creating new blends to package and resell under new labels. In modern parlance, rectifiers may be known as non-distilling producers (NDPs), merchant bottlers, or independent bottlers.

Rectifying as an industry began in Britain in the early eighteenth century, with the establishment of a three-tier system that would persist in some form for over two hundred years. “Malt distillers” made a double-distilled spirit from malted barley (and, later, other grains) and sold it to “rectifiers” (the term is first attested to in 1725). The rectifiers cleaned up the raw spirit by redistillation (either on its own or with botanicals), sometimes along with filtration or chemical adjustment. The resulting spirits—mainly gin or “cologne spirits” (the trade name for neutral alcohol)—were sold in turn to vintners and publicans, who further adulterated them and retailed them to the public. By the middle of the century this system, in place since the 1720s, was enshrined in law. See gin.

The introduction of the column still in the 1830s, with its ability to produce odorless, nearly pure ethanol out of any sort of grain, fruit, cane, or other fermentable material, revolutionized the rectifier’s art. In Britain, the business was tightly controlled. Elsewhere, it was not, and as a result the latter half of the nineteenth century saw the heyday of compounding manuals, such as M. F. Malpeyre’s 1868 Nouveau manuel complet du distillateur-liquoriste, published in Paris, or Joseph Fleischman’s 1885 The Art of Blending and Compounding Liquors and Wines from New York, which instructed readers in how to make countless ersatz spirits, wines, and cordials with rectified spirits. At the same time, commercial flavorists such as Fritzsche Brothers, also of New York, published recipes and provided wholesale essences, extracts, colorants, and oils for emulating genuine beverages using such “velvet” or “silent” spirits. American rectifiers in particular soon earned reputations for producing inferior wet goods that deployed acids, oils, extracts, colorants, and glycerin to smooth over raw spirits and mimic properly aged ones. A large percentage of the spirits Americans drank toward the end of the nineteenth century was made up of rectified (nearly neutral) spirits flavored and colored to resemble genuine whisky, brandy, and the like. The Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897 was enacted precisely to stem the flow of such inferior, ersatz whiskies. See bottled-in-bond. Most countries today prohibit the worst excesses of rectification, but there are exceptions.

Some modern-day, tightly regulated rectifiers have still come under fire for dishonest marketing, particularly ones selling whisky and, recently, some rums. Critics argue that these “brands without stills” are frauds and their owners con artists, selling mystery spirits of unknown origins to gullible buyers while pretending to be the actual distiller. Whisky writer Chuck Cowdery coined the term “Potemkin distilleries” to refer to such brands for their disingenuous pose. See Cowdery, Charles K. While it’s true that some brands are little more than marketing departments with deep pockets that buy, repackage, and sell spirits they’ve purchased in bulk, there is nothing inherently dishonest with the profession. Many well-known brands began—and some remain—as products bought by rectifiers, blended, and packaged as new labels without ever revealing their origins. Those rectifiers include Paul Jones, who created Four Roses; George Garvin Brown, whose Old Forester blended whiskies from three distilleries; I. W. Bernheim, who made I W Harper with purchased bourbon; W. L. Weller, who owned a still to make gin and redistill whisky purchased elsewhere; and S. C. Herbst, who aged Old Fitzgerald bourbon in Milwaukee that he had purchased in Kentucky. More recently, Compass Box (and other scotch and rum bottlers), High West, Redemption Rye, WhistlePig, Bulleit, Michter’s, St. George Spirits, and others have either purchased spirits from others or had spirits distilled to their specifications by others. A great deal of award-winning American whisky, for example, comes from MGP Ingredients industrial distillery (formerly known as Lawrenceburg Distillers Indiana, or LDI), a distiller in Indiana that provides noteworthy spirits to distillers and rectifiers who may age or flavor them further before bottling.

rectifier (occupation)

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