author

Anthony Boucherie

b. 1746

Best known for an early American guide to distilling, this French-born writer brought practical whiskey-making methods to an English-speaking audience in the early 1800s. His work is valued today as a window into the craft, chemistry, and business of spirits in the young United States.

1 Audiobook

The Art of Making Whiskey So As to Obtain a Better, Purer, Cheaper and Greater Quantity of Spirit, From a Given Quantity of Grain. Also, the Art of Converting It into Gin, after the Process of the Holland Distillers

The Art of Making Whiskey So As to Obtain a Better, Purer, Cheaper and Greater Quantity of Spirit, From a Given Quantity of Grain. Also, the Art of Converting It into Gin, after the Process of the Holland Distillers

by Anthony Boucherie

About the author

Anthony Boucherie was a French-born author and inventor, generally identified in library records as born in 1746 or 1747. He is best known for The Art of Making Whiskey So as to Obtain a Better, Purer, Cheaper and Greater Quantity of Spirit from a Given Quantity of Grain, published in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1819 and presented as translated from the French.

His book is a practical manual on distillation, fermentation, and the making of gin after Dutch methods. Rather than writing as a literary figure, Boucherie appears as a technical writer sharing specialized knowledge for distillers and farmers interested in improving yield and quality.

Records from the early United States also connect him with Philadelphia and with efforts to secure legal protection for his industrial processes, including a petition related to sugar refining and correspondence with James Madison in 1807. Although little personal detail seems to survive, his published work preserves the voice of someone deeply interested in applied science and useful manufacture.