hist-brewing: RE: Distillation

[Marc Shapiro]

Henry Davis wrote:
> 
> Aqua Vitae has several different definitions and recipes available during
> the middle ages and earlier. One of those recipes has us distill ordinary
> water 19 or more times to create Aquavitae. Others use a combination of
> herbs, as others have already written, infused in water. Some other recipes
> advocate the use of wine or beer as the source material.
> 
> It's important to note that the results of infusing herbs in Everclear will
> be very different from those obtained by distillation. With distillation of
> the infusion you fraction the essential oils from the herbs. If you just
> infuse the herbs you get a different set of oils in different proportions.
> 
> For the non-alcoholic aqua vitae(s) it is permissible to distill  the
> infusions to create the same aqua vitae as is described in period medieval
> sources.

Once the infusion (in water) is distilled to produce a reasonably
accurate period non-alcoholic aqua vitae the distillate could then be
mixed with legally obtainable alcohol to produce something approximating
the medieval alcoholic versions of aqua vitae.

-- 
Marc Shapiro			     "If you drink melomel every day,
m_shapiro at bigfoot.com		     you will live to be 150 years old,
Please visit "The Meadery" at:       unless your wife shoots you."
http://www.bigfoot.com/~m_shapiro/   -- Dr. Ferenc Androczi, winemaker,
				     Little Hungary Farm Winery

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