1857 The Bordeaux wine and liquor dealers' guide

112

A Tl~EATISE ON

else it becomes again flat. This is an excellent method when home-brewed beer becomes sour and vapid.

DISTILLATION.

The evaporation and subsequent condensation of fluid, by means of a still and refrigerator, or other similar apparatus. In COMMERCIAL LANGUAGE, the term is applied to the manufacture of spirituous liquors. The d-McOl/Jery of the art of distillation is usually ascribed to the alchemists, but there appears to be • good reason- to suppose that it was known in more remote ages to the Arabians and other Eastern na– tions, to whom it probably descended from the ancient Babylonians. Certain it is, however, that a rediscovery of the process was made by some of the northern nations of Europe, and that the first notice of it appears in the writings of .Arnoldus de Villa Nova, and his pupil Raymond Lully, by whom spirit, or aqua vitm, as it was called, was declared to be "an emanation of the Deity; an element newly revealed to man, and destined to restore the energies

Google

Digitized by