On Jul 9, 9:15*am, Mark Lipton > wrote:
> RichD wrote:
> > It's easy to imagine the accidental discovery of beer
> > and wine, maybe 10000 years ago. *Grain ferments
> > naturally. *We might speculate this was the genesis
> > of agriculture - the cavemen wanted a stable supply of barley.
>
> > But I was wondering about distilled liquor - it's a
> > sophisticated, nonintuitive process. *This must have
> > appeared much later.
>
> > Anybody have any ideas when/where/how distillation
> > was invented/discovered? *What are the earliest records?
>
> The Wikipedia article seems fairly well sourced to me, and jibes with
> what I know of the history of Alchemy. *Certainly, the Islamic scientist
> Geber is widely credited with the development of "scientific"
> distillation, and the name alcohol itself reveals its Islamic origins
> (from Arabic al-kuhl, meaning "spirits" or something like that).
>
> Mark Lipton

Yes, I have heard about the Islamic origins of distillation, and frm
there distillation spread to Europe. However the early history of
distillation may date back to the Chinese in 3000 BC. See a brief
discussion of the use of distillation at http://www.essentialspirits.com/history.htm
. This was written by a person well-known in the Cognac region, so it
likely is fairly accurate.

I doubt if many modern people would like to drink any of this early
brew, including that first made in France where it was called eau de
vie at first. "Firewater" likely would have been a more apt name back
then. Crude alcoholic distillates back then were considered medicine
for the most part. As time passed the firewater was sweetened and
various herbs and spices were added. An early example called
Goldwasser still can be found today. It is sweet, has considerable
herb-spice character, and has small particles of gold leaf in it.
Likely the early versions of Goldwasser were much less smooth, since
they were based on a less refined alcohol. At one time sugar was very
expensive. Thus a brew of alcohol, sugar, then expensive spices and
herbs, and gold should be a super medicine besides being far easier to
drink than the crude alcohol alone.