Copper Part from Illicit 19th-Century Still Discovered in Scotland

According to a Herald Scotland report, National Trust for Scotland archaeologists, assisted by volunteers, recovered a piece of copper alloy from a stone structure in Highland Scotland's Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve that may have been used to distill whisky in secret to avoid paying taxes that had been levied beginning in the 1780s. The researchers suggest that the copper part is a piece known in Gaelic as An Gearradan, or the collar connecting a still to its lyne arm, which controlled how much vapor returned to the pot and therefore controlled the flavor of the finished product. The team...