1868 The complete Practical Distiller

I HE COMPLETE PRACTICAL DISTILLER.

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and a suitable quantity of water having been added to bring them down to 15°, the liquor became immediately opacous; and a quarter of an hour after it was covered with a quantity of oil : 150 litres have produced more than 30 grammes of this oil. This oil has the following characteristics : " It is extremely limpid and colourless the moment it is separated from the alcohol, but the light gives it, a few moments after, a slight lemon colour. ^^ It is very fluid ; its flavour is penetrating, and its taste very acrid and disagreeable. Submitted to distilla- aroma ; but the product soon acquires an empyreumatic taste, which, M. Aubergier suspects, is caused by a small portion of fixed oil proper to the kernel of the raisin ; the liquor left in the retort takes at the same time the colour of lemon, which increases during the operations, and leaves at last a very light coal.'' To the above, M. Gay-Lussac adds the following note : "It is not necessary, to explain this fact, to resort to the presence of a fixed oil in that which is drawn from lees-spirit; for the latter, although it has a very acrid taste and flavour, is nevertheless much less volatile than " It combines with water in the proportion of one thou- sandth part, and gives to it the particular flavour and acridity. " When in ebullition it dissolves sulphur, which is pre- cipitated by cooling, and with alkalies it forms soap. '*The oil is so penetrating and so acrid that one drop of tion, the first portions that are volatilized l^eep their essential oils.'' Then proceeds the subject thus :