1860 A Treatise on the Manufacture , Imitation, Adulteration and Reduction of Foreign Wines, Brandies, .

DISTILLATION. 153 that intestine change which grape JUice and other glutino-saccharine liquids spontaneously undergo when exposed to the atmosphere at common ten1peratures. Sugar is the only sub– stance which can be transformed into alcohol. Whatsoever seeds, fruits, or roots afford juices or extracts capable of conversion into vinous liquor, either contain sugar ready formed, or starch, susceptible of acquiring the saccharine state by proper treatment. In common lan– guage, the intoxicating liquor obtained from the sweet juices of fruits is called wine, and that from the infusions of farinaceous seeds, beer, though there is no real difference between them in che1nical constitution. Wine, cider, beer, and fermented wash of every kind, when distilled, yields an identical intoxicating spirit, which differs in these different cases merely in flavor, in consequence of the presence of a ininute quantity of volatile oils of different odors. The juices ~of sweet fruits contain a glutinous ingredient, which acts as a ferment in causing