ooks have worked as long to concentrate flavor as doctors have striven for potent medicinal effect . For millennia , we simply ground , extracted , soaked and reduced our herbs and spices . Spanish innovators of the eighth century unlocked the process we know today as distillation to achieve higher concentrations . For the last 300 or so years , we have made actual improvements , but the artisanal method remains the same as 1300 years ago . In fact , those alchemists were so successful at keeping the secret of their fantastic method that it was not until the 13th century that the concentration of alcohol for drinking or medicine became widely known . For those centuries , the “ Aqua Vitae ,” the “ Water of Life ,” was an esoteric and valuable secret . Once it became better known , the story was just beginning .
The basics of distilled alcohol work like this : beer or wine is made — in which alcohol forms concentrations between 3 percent and 15 percent by volume . Because alcohol ( as well as essential oil ) evaporates at a lower temperature than water , distillation is the process of capturing “ evaporates ” and cooling them back into a liquid . Based on the sophistication of the equipment used today , this liquid may concentrate the alcohol to 40 percent ( standard ) to 95 percent ( Everclear ).
A cautionary note — the folklore is real . Hard liquor can be made over a wood-fired still in the woods — however , the range of alcohols produced by distillation run from fingernail polish remover to methanol to fusel oils that will damage optic nerves . Yes , poorly made distillate can blind you — please be careful . It is difficult to overestimate the number of alchemists and backwoodsmen who sacrificed their sight for this insight .
Even when the desirable ethanol was produced , the distilling of the eighth century would be considered crude by our
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