Sam'l P. Arnold in his book EATING UP THE Santa Fe TRAIL has the following to say about trade whiskey additives and flavorings. "***** WHISKEY. 1 cup water. 2 tablespoons cut tobacco, 4 small dried red peppers, 1/2 teaspoon black gunpowder (DO NOT USE MODERN HIGH SPEED POWDER, WHICH IS POISONOUS). "Boil tobacco and red peppers for 5 minutes. Strain, retaining the tea. Add this to the whiskey, little by little, to taste. Then add gunpowder. It should have a gentle nip from the peppers and an herbal taste from the tobacco. The small amount of saltpeter in the black powder will have no effect! (Arnold, FRYING PANS WEST, 53)". Page 25.
"DILUTED OR DOPED ALCOHOL
Of all the desired items in the western Indian trade, alcohol was number one in importance. Fur traders found early on that they could successfully sell highly diluted alcohol to the Indians. By cutting it to less than 5 percent, the traders were able to amass large profits per gallon - as much as 10, 000 per cent. With the alcohol cut so thin, they would often add other items for taste. The recipe for ***** Whiskey in Chapter 2, for example, calls for red pepper, tobacco juice, and black gunpowder, a surprisingly tasty combination. It was said that in later years, when good pure whiskey came into Indian country, it was rejected because it "didn't have the good old-fashioned flavor."
In his book Rocky Mountain Life, Rufus B. Sage reported that in 1842, at Fort Laramie in eastern Wyoming, the American Fur Company carried on doping of alcohol with laudanum. It was the fur company's belief that spiking the alcohol with an opium tincture would slow down the violence that often followed big Indian drinking parties. A number of Indians died from overdoses." Pages 43 and 44 from EATING UP THE Santa Fe TRAIL
