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CHAP. VIII. How to distill Aqua Vitae or the spirits of Wine.
TAke of good white or Claret-wine or Sack which is not sowr nor musty, nor otherwise corrupt, or of the Lees, that quantity which may serve to fil the vessel wherein you make the distillation to a third part; then put on your head furnished with the nose or pipe, and so make your distillation in Balneo Mariae. The oftner it is distilled, or (as they term it) rectified, the more noble and effectual it becomes. Therefore some distil it seven times over.
At the first distillation it may suffice to draw a fourth or third part of the whole: to wit, of twenty four pintes of Wine or Lees, draw six or eight pintes of distilled liquor.
At the second time the half part, that is, three or four pintes.
At the third distillation the half part again, that is, two pintes; so that the oftner you distil it over, the less liquor you have, but it will be a great deal the more efficacious. I do well like that the first distillation be made in Ashes; the second in Balneo Mariae. To conclude, that aqua vitae is to be approved of, neither is it any oftner to be distilled, which put into a spoon or saucer, and there set on fire, burns wholly away and leaves no liquor or moisture in the bottom of the ves∣sel; if you drop a drop of oyl into this same water, it continually falls to the bottom; or if you drop a drop into tht palm of your hand, it will quickly vanish away, which are two other notes of the probation of this liquor.
The faculties and effects of aqua vitae are innumerable; it is good against the epilepsie and all cold diseases, it asswages, the pain of the teeth, it is good for punctures and wounds of the Nerves, faintings, swoonings, gangreens and mortifications of the flesh, as also put to other medi∣cines for a vehicle.
There is this difference between the distilling of Wine and Vineger; wine being of an aiery and vaporous substance, that which is the best and most effectual in it, to wit, the aiery and fiery liquor, comes from it presently at the first distillation. Therefore the residue that remains in the bottom of the vessel, it is of a cold drye and acrid nature; on the contrary, the water that comes first from Vineger being distilled is insipid and flegmatick. For Vineger is made by the corruption of wine, and the segregation of the fiery and aiery parts; wherefore the Wine becoming sowr, there remains nothing of the former substance but phlegm; wherefore seeing phlegm is chiefly predo∣minant in Vineger, it first rises in distillation. Wherefore he that hopes to distil the spirit of Vi∣neger, he must cast away the phlegmatick substance, that first substance that first rises, and when by his taste he shall perceive the spirit of Vineger, he shall keep the fire thereunder, until the flowing liquor shall become as thick as hony; then must the fire be taken away, otherwise the burning of it will cause a great stinch.
The vessels fit to distil aqua vitae and Vineger are divers, as an Alembick or Retort set in sand or Ashes; a Copper or brass-bottom of a Stil, with a head thereto, having a pipe comming forth thereof which runs into a worm, or pipe fastned in a barrel or vessel filled with cold water, and having the lower end comming forth thereof, whose figure we shall give you when as we come to speak of the drawing of oyls out of vegetables.