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☠️ Poison Pantry 1867

Pineapple Rum

Honey, an ounce of sulphuric acid, and butyric ether — the ester that smells of rancid butter.

From
Mackenzie's Ten Thousand Receipts
Published
1867
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Exactly as printed, 1867

Pineapple Rum.

Neutral spirits, 4 galls.; honey, 5 pts.; water, to dissolve, 3 qts.; Jamaica rum, 1 gall.; sulphuric acid, 1 oz.; butyric ether, 2 oz.; tincture of To separate the butyric acid, add hydrochloric cochineal, 3 oz.; burnt sugar, 2 oz. (muriatic) acid and distill. It is well to neutralize the distillate with carbonate of soda and re-distill. Then saturate the distillate with fused chloride of calcium and re-distill.

Mackenzie's Ten Thousand Receipts, 1867. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

Butyric ether is ethyl butyrate. Diluted it reads as pineapple; concentrated it is the smell of rancid butter and vomit, because butyric acid is what both have in common.

The sulphuric acid goes in by the ounce, into four gallons of spirit meant for sale. There is no version of that which is a food process.

Notes from the 21st century

  • Ethyl butyrate is still a flavouring. It is in pineapple and orange flavours today, made to food grade and used in parts per million.
  • The cochineal is the colour. Three ounces of tincture, plus burnt sugar. An insect dye, and the least troubling ingredient in the formula.
  • One gallon of real rum, again. Same proportion as the Jamaica formula on the facing page. Enough to carry the name.

Also in this book

  • Bonbons cast in leaden moulds — Boiling sugar syrup, poured into moulds made of lead, and handed to children.
  • Choking remedy — If it will go neither up nor down, put two grains of tartar emetic in the choking person's mouth.
  • Common Ratafia — Ten pounds of bitter almonds infused in ten gallons of spirit, perfumed with ambergris.

Don't take our word for it. The complete book is online, free and searchable.

Read the original page →

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Mackenzie's Ten Thousand Receipts · 1867