1868 The complete Practical Distiller

THE COMPLETE PRACTICAL DISTILLER.

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diately after being dropped from the vial, as it exhales very soon after being exposed to the atmosphere.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR MAKING INFUSIONS, SPIRITUOUS TINCTURES, &c. This constitutes an important part of the business for those who are engaged in distilling or otherwise dealing in spirits. Rectified spirits of wine is the direct men- struum of the resins and essential oils of vegetables, and entirely extracts these active principles from various vegetable matters, "which yield them to water either not at all or only in part. It dissolves likewise the sWeet saccharine matter of vegetables, and generally those parts of animal bodies in which their peculiar smells and tastes reside. The virtues of many vegetables are extracted almost equally by water and rectified spirit ; but in the watery and spirituous tinctures of them there is this difference, that the active parts in the watery extractions are blended with a large proportion of inert gummy matter, on which their solubility in this menstruum in a great measure de- pends, while rectified spirit extracts them almost pure from gum. Hence, when the spirituous tinctures are mixed with watery liquors, a part of what the spirit had taken up from the subject generally separates and subsides, on