Aeneas Coffey

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Aeneas Coffey (1780-1852) was born in Calais, France where he spent his early years. His family returned to Dublin (both his parents were Irish), where he was educated at Trinity College. He entered the excise servce around 1799-1800. He married Susanna Logie in 1808 and they a son also named Aeneas, who may have been their only child.

He invented the Coffey still, a revoluntionary distilling apparatus. Early Coffey stills produced 60% over proof spirit. Modern versions can achieve 66-68% over proof, approximately 95.6% v/v pure alcohol. As alcohol forms an azeotrope with water at this concentration, it is impossible to achieve higher purity alcohol by distillation alone.

[edit] See also

• List of inventions named after people
• List of alumni of the University of Dublin