1868 The complete Practical Distiller

INSTRUMENT FOR TESTING WINES.

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The point most embarrassing was the refrigeration, or cooling, necessary to condense the vapours. The common mode required a vessel larger than the whole of the new intended apparatus ; in this, only a little water was want- ing. However, this difficulty being got over, it was found practicable, with a small lamp, to obtain a sufficient quantity of brandy in the course of half an hour. A glass vessel which served as a recipient, by a very simple operation, was filled with a mixture in arithmetical proportion with the difi'erent wines contained in a number of tuns of various capacities. This instrument, which would admit of the distillation of even a glass of wine, and afford the product in half an hour, was found to be such that it might be repeated at pleasure many times in a day. It was observed that peo- ple who had orange-trees, and who could only collect a few of the flowers, had now an opportunity of amusing themselves in drawing distilled waters. They had nothing more to do than to put the water into the little alembic, and then to lay the flowers upon the two gratings, across which the water was to pass in a vapour in order to be condensed in the receiver. People might also make similar experiments in distil- ling rose water, mint, peppermint, &c. At the same time it was observed that a great number of exotic vege- tables cultivated in green-houses contained volatile oils and aromatic qualities scarcely known till a short time since, because their leaves, flowers, seeds, roots, and barks were too small to be distilled in the ordinary manner but, with this little alembic for the trial of wines, re- peated distillations might be made at the difi'erent epochs 16*