It is Wilkins again — copper man, keeper of a name once belonging to the most prolific coin-counterstamper in American history. The original Dr. G. G. Wilkins struck his name onto better than a hundred thousand cents between 1857 and 1873, until "DR. G. G. WILKINS" was hammered into copper coins from Pittsfield to who-knows-where. I'd like to think he simply could not resist putting his mark on good American copper. Neither, dear reader, can I.
You've come asking the great question of our craft: copper or stainless steel? I'll give you the honest comparison, and then I'll tell you plainly where I stand — because I'd be a coward to pretend I don't have a side.
This is the whole ballgame. During fermentation, yeast throws off sulfur compounds. Left in the spirit, they taste foul — cabbage, rotten egg, struck match. Copper actively, chemically removes them. As vapor races up through a copper still, the metal binds those sulfides and drops them out as harmless copper sulfate. Stainless steel is inert; it simply lets the sulfur ride along into your glass. There is no way around this chemistry. If flavor matters to you — and in distilling, flavor is everything — copper wins before the argument starts.
Copper conducts heat beautifully and evenly, reducing scorched, off-flavored runs. It has been the distiller's metal for centuries for exactly these reasons. Our stills are raised from thick 20-ounce American copper, Forged in New Hampshire and Built to Last. Have a look at our 6 Gallon Onion-Head Copper Pot Still and you'll see what real metal looks like.
I'll be fair to the other metal, because fairness costs nothing. Stainless steel has genuine virtues:
These are real advantages. If you only ever distilled water, or you valued indestructibility above the taste in the glass, stainless would be a defensible choice.
For making spirits you intend to drink, copper is the superior tool, full stop. The flavor and the sulfur-scrubbing simply cannot be matched by inert steel. That is not nostalgia talking; it is chemistry, and the world's finest distilleries vote with their copper pot stills every single day.
But notice the clever path the professionals walk: many large operations use a stainless steel boiler with copper in the column and condenser. They get the steel's toughness where the wash sits, and copper's flavor-cleaning where the vapor travels. Vapor must touch copper to do its work — so as long as copper lives in the vapor path, you reap the benefit. It is the best of both metals, and an honest answer to an honest question.
Yes, a fine copper still costs more than a steel pot. But weigh it across a lifetime. A well-built copper still, cleaned and cared for, will serve your children. The flavor it returns, run after run, repays the difference many times over. Cheap is expensive when you buy twice. I'd rather sell you one good still than two mediocre ones — that's not salesmanship, it's how I was raised.
I build in copper because I believe in it the way a man believes in his own name. The original Wilkins stamped his into a hundred thousand coins; I hammer mine into seams that will outlast me. If you want the best flavor American hands can give you, start your browsing on the main shop page and feel the weight of real copper for yourself.
Stubbornly, unrepentantly copper,
— Alchemist G. G. Wilkins
Who would counterstamp every still he sells if the law and the postman allowed it.