Pulling Molars with Forceps and Pouring Double-Run Rye: The Country Dentist
Alchemist G. G. Wilkins tells of the country dentist's trade, from pulling an abscessed molar with forceps to the safe and unsafe uses of spirits, and walks through the craft of the cuts, copper, fire, and the double run. His guest, master coppersmith and thumper builder Silas 'Hacksaw' McAllister of Pittsfield, tells of a tooth-key replica, a molar-dented pot, and a gold watch fob. A call-in from Cletus 'Rabbit' Miller about hickory ashes in the thump keg rounds out the show.
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Full episode transcript
♦ Audible wax cylinder surface crackle, slow drip of clear distillate into a glass jar
♦ Barnaby the black bear grunting and chain clinking outside log cabin window
Wilkins: Hush now, Barnaby. Settle your great hairy carcass down. It is not a deputy. It is the wireless, you ignorant sack of bacon, and the wireless does not require mauling.
♪ 1860s parlor banjo and mountain fiddle theme with antique warmth
Wilkins: Good evening, ladies, gentlemen, and those of you listening from the privy with the door cracked for the signal. Welcome to Radio Moonshine with Alchemist G. G. Wilkins, broadcasting from Fort Wilkins on the Suncook Valley Turnpike, Route 28, in Pittsfield, Merrimack County, New Hampshire.
Wilkins: Tonight we speak of my daytime trade, the honorable art of the extracting dentist. Tonight we speak of molars, of forceps, and of what a man pours down his throat so he will not scream the church windows out of their frames. Grab a seat and a clean rag.
Announcer: Friends, a quick word before we go on! If your copper is dull and your spirits are duller, step over to moonshinestill.com and see the Flame-Flow still, protected under United States Patent 10,561,960. Heavy-gauge pure electrolytic copper, handcrafted, built to last a lifetime. That's moonshinestill.com!
Wilkins: Now then. The country dentist. Let me paint you the picture, because the painting is half the pleasure.
Wilkins: Picture a Tuesday in March. Mud on the turnpike deep as a dead man's debts. A farmer named, oh, call him Ezekiel, comes through my door with a face swelled up like a Thanksgiving squash. One whole side of his jaw is the color of a bruised plum. His breath alone could strip varnish off a pulpit. He has an abscessed molar down in the back, and I can smell the rot from the doorway, sweet and foul together, like a sick calf.
Wilkins: Now in the year 1846, up in Boston, a dentist by the name of William Morton put a man under with ether before the learned gentlemen at Massachusetts General Hospital. A great day for science. A great day for Boston. And here in the backwoods of the Suncook Valley, nearly twenty years on, we have not seen a drop of the stuff. Ether is a Boston luxury. Out here we have courage, a stout pair of forceps, and a jar of my best double-run rye.
Wilkins: A word on that, for I am a careful man in the matter of the jar. Spirits are a poor anesthetic. They dull the edge, they loosen a man's nerve, and they make him a little braver than his body deserves. But they do not numb the root. A fellow who drinks himself half-blind before the pulling will bleed like a stuck hog, because strong drink thins the blood. I do not recommend it. I have seen it go badly. I tell my patients to take a mouthful to settle the shakes, no more, and to rinse the wound after with a splash of clear spirit, for the rinse does clean the hole, though it burns like the devil's own handshake.
Wilkins: And let me say plain, to the revenue men listening in the bushes: everything I tell you tonight is for history and education. The making of spirits for drinking without a federal permit is against the law of these United States. I am a Pittsfield dentist, a blacksmith, an inventor, a numismatist of the anvil, and I am telling you stories. Stories are not taxable. I have asked.
Wilkins: Back to Ezekiel. I sit him on a stump chair in my workshop, beside the anvil, and I take up the instruments. In the old days it was the turnkey, a wicked hooked contraption you fastened over the tooth and wrenched sideways like a man starting a stubborn pump. The turnkey could break a jaw, friends. I knew a man in Chichester who got his whole lower bone cracked clean through. Cracked it like a dry chicken wing. I will not use the turnkey. I use the forceps, a good steel pair I forged myself, the beaks shaped to the neck of the tooth.
Wilkins: So I dip the forceps in the clear spirit, wipe them dry on my apron, and I tell Ezekiel, look at the ceiling and think of your wife's pie. Tight on the molar, rock it forward, rock it back, twist, and then the sound. Oh, the sound. A wet, grinding crack, like a boot pulled out of a clay bank, and a gush of yellow-green matter that goes all down the front of my apron and a good deal of it into my beard. Ezekiel gave a scream that sent Barnaby's chain jangling against the logs. That bear sat up like a Presbyterian at the first note of the doxology.
Wilkins: I held the tooth up to the lamp. Three roots, black as a miser's heart, with a little white maggot of pus clinging to the tip. Ezekiel looked at it, went whiter than a sheet on the line, and said, Doctor, was that all me? And I told him, that was all you, and the wicked part of it too. Pay me a dollar and a ham.
Wilkins: I have pulled teeth from selectmen, farmers, a Methodist minister who yelled loudest of the lot, and a blacksmith who bit me. The blacksmith still owes me for the thumb.
♦ Steel punch clangs on copper coin
Wilkins: That is the stamp of my trade, folks. G. G. Wilkins, Pittsfield, N.H. Struck on a copper large cent, handed to a grateful patient in the days when hard money hid in mattresses.
Wilkins: We will hear more of the pulling anon. But I have a visitor in the log fortress tonight, a gentleman of my own township, a master of the hammer and the red metal. Make him welcome, Barnaby. Not with the teeth. Silas McAllister, step in.
Silas: Evening, Doc. Good timber in these walls. Smells like a hog barn on fire, though.
Wilkins: That is the fragrance of honest industry, sir. Silas McAllister, called Hacksaw, master coppersmith and thumper builder of Pittsfield. You hammer the pots at my own foundry, do you not?
Silas: I do, Doc. Twenty-four-ounce electrolytic copper, pots and swan necks and dephlegmators, all beaten by hand. Metal does not lie to you. A pure sheet rings true under the hammer, and a poor weld shows itself the first time the heat comes on.
Wilkins: Now here is a thing that chills my marrow. I am told your grandfather once hammered a tooth-key. A turnkey, the very wicked hooked contraption I spit upon every Tuesday. Why would a sane man make such a thing?
Silas: The New Hampshire historical society asked him for a replica, so folks could see what their great-grandparents sat through. He made it out of a scrap pot lid, hooked claw and all, and fitted it with a rosewood handle. Said even a torture ought to be well made.
Wilkins: A torture with a rosewood handle! Sir, that is the most civilized instrument of agony I have ever heard tell of. My Chichester friend with the cracked jaw would weep for the craftsmanship. And did the society hang it in a glass case?
Silas: Under glass, with a little card. Children press their noses to it and their mothers pull them off by the collar.
Wilkins: As they should! Now, Silas, I hear a rumor about a pot in your shop with a dent in it. A dent, in a coppersmith's own work. Confess.
Silas: One pot I built has a dent shaped exactly like a molar. Crown, neck, the lot. I never put it there on purpose. It came off the anvil that way. I named her Old Wisdom, and I will not sell her at any price.
Wilkins: Old Wisdom! Because the wisdom tooth comes late, aches long, and pulls hardest of the lot. I should know. I have the bruises on my forearms. And no man has tempted you with a fat purse?
Silas: Several, Doc. Told them all she's not for sale. A man ought to keep one piece of work that answers back.
Wilkins: Spoken like a dentist. Now I understand there is a pretty tale about gold and a patient's debt, and I will warn you, I am a jealous man where fees are concerned.
Silas: Back in the old days, a patient with no coin paid the old Pittsfield dentist with a single gold watch fob. Years on, my family melted that fob and inlaid it into the signature plate on our first still. So there is a bit of a bad tooth shining on the front of the first pot we ever sold.
Wilkins: A dollar and a ham is my price, sir, but I begin to see the advantage of gold. Pain turned to bullion, bullion turned to a nameplate. That is alchemy of the finest sort. Tell me, how does a man like you judge a seam that will hold?
Silas: By the nose, mostly. If you smell solder fumes instead of flux, throw that fitting in the scrap bin. And never let lead anywhere near the joint.
Wilkins: There is a word for my listeners to write on the privy wall. Splendid advice, Silas. I thank you.
Silas: Any time, Doc. Now you want to hear how I tell a sound dephlegmator from a weak one just by the ring of it?
Wilkins: I would sooner hear it than eat supper.
Silas: Well, you rap it with a knuckle, and a good one sings like a church bell...
Wilkins: Hold that thought, Silas. Our announcer has urgent business with the good people at home. Announcer, if you please.
♪ Short brassy patent-medicine jingle, banjo and tin whistle
Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, are you tired of tarnished kettles and thin, weak, disappointing distillation? Is your copper dull as a Concord banker's smile? Then lean in close to your wireless, for I have wondrous news from Fort Wilkins in Pittsfield, New Hampshire!
Announcer: Behold the Flame-Flow Still, flagship of Moonshine Stills, protected under United States Patent 10,561,960! Handcrafted from heavy-gauge, high-purity electrolytic copper, fitted with precision CNC-machined brass unions, and engineered to maximize convective circulation for unmatched purity! Whether you distill essential oils, herbal tinctures, or traditional demonstrations of the ancient art, the Flame-Flow delivers!
Announcer: Imagine a vessel that heats evenly, flows cleanly, and will serve your grandchildren! Not tin, not scrap, not a salvaged kettle, but pure American copper, hammered and finished by honest hands! Your friends will marvel! Your neighbors will envy! The only thing you'll regret is not buying one sooner!
Announcer: The Flame-Flow Still is priced at just eight hundred ninety-nine dollars! Stop by the showroom at Fort Wilkins on Route 28 in Pittsfield, New Hampshire, or order direct at moonshinestill.com! That's moonshinestill.com! Do not delay, for quality copper waits for no man!
Announcer: Once again, the Flame-Flow Still, eight hundred ninety-nine dollars, at moonshinestill.com or the Fort Wilkins showroom on Route 28! Order today!
♪ Banjo and fiddle sting, antique warmth
Wilkins: Splendid, Announcer. Splendid. Now, friends, let us step from the dentist's chair to the still-house, for I have promised you something of the craft. Copper and the craft.
Wilkins: Why copper? Because copper is the old and honest metal. It conducts heat evenly, it is workable under the hammer, and, here is the alchemist's secret, it reacts with sulfur compounds in the vapor. When the mash cooks, certain foul-smelling sulfur compounds rise in the steam. They would foul the spirit with a rotten-egg stink. But copper catches them. The sulfur binds to the copper surface and drops out, leaving a cleaner vapor behind. That is why a copper still gives a sweeter spirit than iron or tin, and why a seasoned distiller looks upon a green crust of verdigris with a sort of grim affection. It is the copper doing its work.
Wilkins: Now to the craft, step by step, as I would teach it to an apprentice, all for history and for education, mind, and nothing more.
Wilkins: First, the mash. A mash is a mix of ground grain, hot water, and yeast. In the Suncook Valley a farmer might use cracked corn or rye, with a little malted barley to convert the starch to sugar. You cook the grain in the water, let it cool to a gentle warmth, and pitch your yeast. Then you wait, and the yeast eats the sugar and breathes out carbon dioxide and alcohol. In a few days the mash bubbles, sours, and settles. That sour, bubbling stuff is called the wash.
Wilkins: Second, the run. The wash goes into the still, and heat is applied low and steady. Alcohol boils at a lower heat than water. So it rises first as a vapor, climbs the neck of the still, passes through the worm, a coiled tube cooled in a tub of water, and condenses back into a liquid that drips into your jar. That drip is what you hear at the top of this program.
Wilkins: Third, and above all, the cuts. This is the part that separates the craftsman from the corpse. The run comes off in four parts. First the foreshots, the very first few spoonfuls, stinking and sharp. These carry methanol and other harsh volatiles, and they are poison. Throw them out. Burn them in a saucer, away from your still, and mind your fire. Next come the heads, still sharp, smelling like a hardware store, and still unfit. Discard them. Then the hearts, the sweet clean middle of the run, which is the good spirit. And finally the tails, oily and dull, which taste of wet cardboard and are set aside, to be run again. A man who does not make his cuts honest will make himself or his customers ill, and some who ignorant men called moonshine have killed or blinded their fellows. Keep your cuts honest, friends.
Wilkins: Fourth, fire. A still is a pressure vessel and a bomb, and the vapor is flammable. Keep it clean, keep the joints tight, keep the fire low and steady, and never, never run a still in a room without air. Leaking vapor meeting a flame has taken more than one distiller's eyebrows, whiskers, and head. And a word on materials. Never use lead solder on a still. Never fit a salvaged car radiator into it. Lead is a poison that will sicken and kill a man by slow degrees, and I have seen it happen. Use clean copper, clean brass, and silver solder, if solder you must, and your customers will live to curse you in old age.
Wilkins: Fifth and last, the double run. Run your first distillate through the still a second time, and the second run purifies the first, strips more of the heads and tails away, and concentrates the hearts. That is the double-run rye of my rhyme, friends. It is a smoother, cleaner spirit than the single run, and it is what I pour into the rinse cup beside my forceps. Never confuse it, however, with the first pour, which is never to touch lip nor wound.
Wilkins: There you have it. Mash, run, cuts, fire, double run. Four years at the anvil taught me the half of it. Forty years of mistakes will teach you the rest. Now I have a letter. Rather, a voice upon a wax cylinder, from a gentleman in North Carolina. Let us hear his question.
♦ Wax cylinder crackle, a faint scratchy voice
Wilkins: Ah. Here it comes. He is a Wilkes County man.
Cletus: Alchemist, this is Cletus 'Rabbit' Miller down in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. My uncle swears the old-timers used to throw hickory ashes or red oak shavings into the thump keg to clean out bad heads. Is there any truth to that, or was he just making swamp medicine?
♦ Wax cylinder crackle fades
Wilkins: Rabbit Miller! A grand name, sir. I picture a long, lean fellow with ears like a jackrabbit and a mouth that never stops. Welcome to the program. Let us look into your uncle's claim.
Wilkins: First, the thump keg. For the uninitiated, a thump keg, or doubler, is a sealed barrel set between the still and the worm. The vapor from the still bubbles up through a little charge of spirit in the keg, and the second pass concentrates the alcohol, a sort of double run in a single sitting. It is a clever contrivance and I salute the Carolina men who made it famous.
Wilkins: Now, your uncle's claim. Hickory ashes, red oak shavings, tossed in the thump keg to clean a bad head. Rabbit, there is a grain of truth in it and a bushel of nonsense. The grain: hardwood charcoal does clean spirit. Charcoal is a great adsorber, meaning it holds onto certain harsh compounds on its surface. That is why distillers in Tennessee leach their whiskey through sugar-maple charcoal, a trade I admire. And a good charred oak barrel mellows a raw spirit over time. Those old-timers did notice something real.
Wilkins: The nonsense: tossing raw ashes or green shavings into a hot keg does not remove a bad head. Ashes are lye, and lye in a boiling keg can foam, clog, and turn the spirit soapy. Raw wood shavings give the spirit a woody, tannic smack and nothing more. And neither one removes methanol, which is the real danger in a bad head. Methanol and ethanol are cousins too close to part with a handful of ash. The only cure for a bad head is a good cut: throw away the foreshots and heads. No charm, no pinch of ash, no ritual of the keg replaces an honest cut.
Wilkins: So, Rabbit, your uncle was half right and fully a romantic. Tell him I said so, and tell him the doctor would sooner take a sound pair of forceps and a clean cut than all the hickory in the Carolinas. And a hearty shout to Rabbit Miller of Wilkesboro, a fine name for a fine listener. Write again.
♦ Steel punch clangs on copper coin
Wilkins: That, friends, is the sound of a myth struck dead on the anvil.
Wilkins: Now, before I go, I must mention the school. The Alchemist G. G. Wilkins Distilling Course, taught at Fort Wilkins itself. Come learn the craft, the history, the safe and lawful demonstration of distillation, and the finer art of not poisoning your friends. I will teach you the cuts, the copper, and the fire. Inquire at the showroom on Route 28 in Pittsfield, and bring a notebook and a strong stomach.
Announcer: One last word, friends! The Flame-Flow Still, protected under United States Patent 10,561,960, handcrafted in pure copper. See it at moonshinestill.com or at Fort Wilkins on Route 28! That's moonshinestill.com! Order yours today!
Wilkins: Thank you, Announcer. And thank you, Silas McAllister, for the stories and the copper. Safe roads home, sir, and mind the mountain.
Silas: Thank you, Doc. And keep that bear fed. I'd hate to see him get ideas.
Wilkins: He has ideas already, Silas. They involve you. Goodnight, friends. Keep your copper clean, your cuts honest, and your fire low. Goodnight from Fort Wilkins.
♦ Bear grunt and final drip into jar
♪ Banjo and fiddle theme swells and fades