WATER OF LIFE A HISTORY OF WINE-DISTILLING AND SPIRITS 500 BC – AD 2000.pdf

WATER OF LIFE

A HISTORY OFWINE-DISTILLING AND SPIRITS

500 BC – AD 2000

C. Anne Wilson

PROSPECT BOOKS2006

water showreel.indd 3 10/1/07 11:27:08 am

First published in Great Britain in 2006 by Prospect Books,Allaleigh House, Blackawton, Totnes, Devon TQ9 7DL.

© 2006 C. Anne Wilson.© 2006, illustrations, Andras Kaldor.© 2006, title page illustrations, James Stewart.

The author, C. Anne Wilson, asserts her right to be identified as author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holders.

BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA:A catalogue entry of this book is available from the British Library.

Typeset and designed by Tom Jaine.Cover illustration by James Stewart.

ISBN 1-903018-46-3; 978-1-903018-46-0

Printed and bound in Great Britain by the Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wiltshire.


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CONTENTS

THE ANCIENT AND EARLY MEDIEVAL WORLD:THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN REGION

1. WINE-DISTILLING AND THE FOUR ELEMENTS 1. The earliest wine-distilling recipe 17 2. The early experimenters in Egypt 20 3. The four elements: Pythagoras and Plato 27

2. DIONYSUS AND DISTILLING 1. Sophisticated stills and their predecessors 33 2. Dionysus at Delphi 39 3. Dionysus in Thrace and Macedonia 43 4. Dionysus at Athens 51 5. Dionysus at Rome and Pompeii 56

3. WINE-DISTILLING RITUALS AMONG THE EARLY GNOSTICS 1. Water, fire and ‘living water’ 59 2. Distilling rituals and Christian Gnostics 66 3. The three baptisms 69 4. ‘Living water’ in the early Middle Ages 75

4. DISTILLING IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES: BYZANTINES, PERSIANS AND ARABS 1. How distilling passed to the Persians and Arabs 77 2. The Romano-Byzantine Empire to the time of Heraclius 84 3. Greek fire 86 4. Arabs and alchemy 91


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THE LATER MIDDLE AGES: WESTERN EUROPE

5. BURNING WATER AND HEAVENLY LIGHT 1. Paulicians, Bogomils and Cathars 97 2. Early Western wine-distilling recipes 103 3. The Holy Grail 107 4. The Templars 112

6. AQUA VITAE AND THE EYEWATER OF PETER OF SPAIN 1. The physicians of Bologna 115 2. The origin of the aqua vitae treatises 119 3. Eyewater among the three waters 124

7. BURNING WATER AND AQUA VITAE: THE WONDER YEARS 1. Distilling and alchemy 133 2. John of Rupescissa and the Quintessence 138 3. The fading of the heavenly fire 142

8. BURNING WATER AND AQUA VITAE: PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE IN LATE-MEDIEVAL EUROPE 1. Supply side 145 2. Trials and errors 151 3. Methods and recipes 155

FROM EARLY MODERN TIMES TO AD 2000: THE BRITISH ISLES

9. DISTILLING IN THE BRITISH ISLES IN TUDOR TIMES 1. Herbal waters in English gentry households 169 2. Aqua vitae in English gentry families 176 3. Independent distillers in England, Scotland and Ireland 182 4. Potable gold 189 5. Water of Life: new materials and a new method 191


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WATER OF LIFE

10. DISTILLING IN THE BRITISH ISLES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 1. Family stillhouses and their equipment 195 2. Domestic distillers and their recipes 201 3. Sir Walter Raleigh and the great cordial 208 4. Apothecaries, distillers and their trade 210 5. Water of Life in Scotland and Ireland; and England’s ‘British brandy’ 217

11. DISTILLING IN THE BRITISH ISLES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 1. The amazing expansion of the distilling industry 223 2. Home-distilled cordial waters in fashion 230 3. Home-distilled cordial waters in decline 237 4. The distilling trade in the later eighteenth century, and distilling in the wider world 244

12. DISTILLING IN THE BRITISH ISLES IN THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES 1. The earlier nineteenth century 253 2. Vogues and fashions in spirit-drinking, 1800–1918 262 3. Alcohol in pharmaceuticals, perfumery and other industries 272 4. The fall and rise of spirit-drinking, 1918–2000 276

BIBLIOGRAPHY 287

INDEX 291


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ILLUSTRATIONS

The sources of individual illustrations are acknowledged in their captions. Those without a printed acknowledgement are from books in the University of Leeds Libraries, and are reproduced by kind permission of the Librarian.

Frontispiece. An allegorical picture titled: ‘Truth pointing to the light of Philosophy’. Frontispiece to D. Hughson, The New Family Receipt-book, London, 1817. 2Figure 1. (a) Reconstruction of a glass ‘Hellenistic’ still. (b) Reconstruction of a sublimatory vessel for extracting mercury from cinnabar. Drawing by Andras Kaldor. 22Figure 2. Dibikos, tribikos and tube-still. 36Figure 3. From a vase-painting on a bell-krater of the late fifth-century BC now in the Stoddard Collection, Yale University. Drawing by Andras Kaldor. 44Figure 4. Dionysian ritual object from a vase-painting on a small jug now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. Drawing by Andras Kaldor. 52Figure 5. Dionysian ritual object from a vase-painting on a large krater now in the National Museum, Copenhagen. Drawing by Andras Kaldor. 52Figure 6. Multiple stills for extracting rosewater. Drawing from a fifteenth-century Arabic manuscript containing the works of al-Dimashqi (Muhammad ibn Ali Talib). 82Figure 7. ‘Secret’ recipe for distilling wine, in a twelfth-century codex now in St John’s College Library, Cambridge. By courtesy of the late Dr Guy Lee. 102Figure 8. Label from a bottle of Portuguese aguardente. 102Figure 9. Material from the early aqua vitae treatises in Ars operativa, ascribed to Raymond Lull, in a compendium with John of Rupescissa, De consideratione quintae essentiae, Basel, 1561. 128Figure 10. A glass pelican with two arms and a glass retort used in distilling herbal waters, from The vertuose boke for the distyllacyon of all maner of waters, translated by L. Andrew, London, c. 1527, reprinted New York, Johnson, 1971. 140


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WATER OF LIFE

Figure 11. Distilling herb-flavoured waters: from the title-page of the first printed book of recipes for herbal waters and aqua vitae, compiled by Michael Schrick and published in Augsburg in 1477. Illustration reprinted New York, Johnson, 1971. 156Figure 12. Johannes Wenod’s drawing of a still. From Cod. Lipsiensis 1175, University of Leipzig Library, in Archiv fűr die Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und Technik 5 (1915), 283. 156Figure 13. Title-page of the English translation by Laurence Andrew of H. Brunschwygk, Liber de arte distillandi, published in London c. 1527 under the title, The vertuose boke for the distyllacyon of all maner of waters. Reprinted New York, Johnson, 1971. 173Figure 14. Recipe for wormwood water, and other recipes. J. Partridge, The Widowes Treasure, London, 1585. 178Figure 15. Cold still and bucket-head still. J. French The Art of Distillation, 2nd edn. London, 1653. 194Figure 16. Descriptive illustration of a hot still, with worm and worm-tub. W. Y-Worth, The Compleat Distiller, 2nd edn. London, 1705. 196Figure 17. The late-seventeenth century stillhouse at Ham House, Surrey. By courtesy of Peter Brears. 200Figure 18. Earthenware stillhead found on the site of the lost English colony of Martin’s Hundred (10 miles east of Jamestown). Drawing by Andras Kaldor. 214Figure 19. An apothecary holding a retort, and a distiller at work in a stillhouse. Frontispiece to W. Y-Worth, The Compleat Distiller, 2nd edn. London, 1705. 218Figure 20. The drunken mother and her falling child, from Hogarth’s famous engraving of Gin Lane. Drawing by Andras Kaldor. 222Figure 21. Lady in a still-house preparing herbs for distilling. N. Bailey, Dictionarium domesticum, London, 1736. 240Figure 22. Coffey’s still. J.T. Gardner, ed., The Brewer, Distiller and Wine Manufacturer, reprinted London, 1902. 254Figure 23. Ben Nevis Distillery, near Fort William. A. Barnard, The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom, London, 1887. 266Figure 24. Monasterevan Distillery, Co. Kildare, Ireland. A. Barnard, The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom, London, 1887. 266



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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book has grown over many years as I have gradually gathered evidence to illustrate a very long story. Wine-distilling – or at least the production of spirits of wine – could have been

practised in a ritual context as far back as the fifth century BC. But the importance of those early alcoholic spirits lay in their fire-bearing property. It was not until the thirteenth century AD that the distillate of wine began to be recognized widely as a wonderful medicine. Later still alcoholic spirits became a general pick-me-up, and quite soon afterwards a social drink. Water of life and the techniques that produced it underwent considerable changes through two and a half millennia, and this is the first time they have been mapped so fully in the context of contemporary society. Certain parts of the story have already appeared in some of my earlier publications, in particular those relating to science and beliefs in the Greek and Roman world, and to home-distilling in early modern Britain. It was while preparing a conference paper on the history of alcoholic spirits in Britain, in the 1970s, that I first encountered the medieval Latin aqua vitae treatises, and was puzzled by their insistence on the power of distilled wine to improve the memory, and to restore youth to the elderly – properties that seemed contrary to real-life experience. The breakthrough came in January 1980, when I was browsing through J.R. Partington’s very thorough History of Chemistry, volume 1, part 1. He includes a brief mention of the Coptic Gnostic text in the Bruce Papyrus wherein a figure representing Jesus performs a long ceremony, and turns wine into water. Suddenly I saw the connection between that water and the sulphur water and other waters distilled earlier by the philosopher-chemists of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, and also the medieval burning water (aqua ardens) and water of life (aqua vitae). All these ‘waters’ are distillates. Furthermore, in the case of the Egyptian chemists and the fourth-century Gnostic users of the Coptic text, the production of the distillate was linked with rites that bestowed not just youth, but actual rebirth as an initiate, thus guaranteeing immortality for the soul. It all seems a very long way from today’s binge-drinking of spirits.


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After further investigations into the early stages of wine-distilling and its background I wrote Philosophers, Iosis and Water of Life, and I would like to thank Ian Moxon of Leeds University, then editor of the literary and historical section of the Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, for his patient scrutiny and advice on my monograph prior to its publication there in 1984. My thanks are due also to Professor Richard Seaford of Exeter University, Roger Brock and Professor Malcolm Heath of Leeds University, and Christopher Tuplin of Liverpool University, who read and commented on various papers and articles that I wrote subsequently about evidence for spirits of wine in Greek and Roman times and late antiquity. I am grateful too to food historians Peter Brears and Ivan Day, who shared with me interesting discoveries they had made about the practical side of household distilling in early modern Britain. Leeds University Libraries have provided much source material for this book, especially in the Early Science and Cookery Book collections housed in Special Collections, and I would like to acknowledge the support I have received in various ways from the library staff. Some of the many books consulted are listed in the bibliography, and other sources appear in the footnotes. But I owe a particular debt to Pamela Vandyke Price’s The Penguin Book of Spirits and Liqueurs for background material on the late nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries. Finally, friends and colleagues engaged in other areas of historical research have been generous in passing on occasional references that they thought might aid my investigations. Among them are Professor John Chartres, Jenny Cooksey, Gordon Forster, Professor Constance Hieatt, Bridgett Jones, Lynette Muir and Professor Joan Thirsk. Susan Chesters was my mainstay when the computer went into problem mode. I hope readers will find this book interesting and informative, and will enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed the detective work that led me through the long story of water of life.

C. ANNE WILSON,Leeds, 2006.


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CHAPTER ONE

WINE-DISTILLING AND THE FOUR ELEMENTS

1. THE EARLIEST WINE-DISTILLING RECIPE

It all goes back to Dionysus. That is hardly surprising: he was the god of wine, of the vines and the grapes that produced it, and of all moist fruits. By contrast, Demeter took care of the cereals and

the legumes. The discovery that grape juice could be fermented into wine had been Dionysus’ great gift to mankind. If the discovery was also made within the ancient Greek world that wine could be distilled to produce the more strongly alcoholic spirits of wine, then it would have been welcomed as another, yet greater, manifestation of Dionysus’ power. Was wine-distilling really invented so long ago? The fashionable view among historians of science through most of the twentieth century was that the art of wine-distilling was invented in the mid-twelfth century AD by physicians or apothecaries at Salerno, home of the famous medical school.1 At that time the Salernitan school already had access to the techniques known to the Arabs for extracting rosewater and other herbal waters by means of stills. Their stills had been developed through the centuries from prototypes based on those used for chemical experiments in Hellenistic Egypt. But although we can trace the practice of distilling in Egypt as far back as the first century AD, the early distillers there, who recorded their recipes in Greek texts, apparently used the technique principally to create ‘sulphur water’ [theion hudor] from various mineral and organic ingredients. With it they endeavoured to tint base metals, which had already received other treatments, to a golden colour. Their surviving

1. Forbes (1949), 57.


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recipe books give no instructions for distilling wine; but we know that at least one book on the distilling of liquids (which might have held such a recipe) was in existence probably as early as the first century (see chapter 1, part 2). Unfortunately, it did not survive.2

There are no obvious references to wine-distilling in the works of contemporary Greek and Roman authors. When the Arabs tried, much later, to distil wine, they produced a colourless liquid resembling distilled vinegar, which apparently contained no alcohol. Therefore modern historians of science have calculated that the technique for producing alcoholic spirits by distillation must have been invented during the Middle Ages, shortly before recipes for carrying out the operation began to appear in medieval Latin manuscripts. One historian disagreed. Herman Diels recognized instructions for distilling wine in a book written in Greek about AD 200 by a Christian author, believed to be Hippolytus, presbyter of Rome (and perhaps an early anti-Pope). His purpose was to attack the heretical Gnostic sects of his age. His method was to name each sect in turn, and demonstrate how its beliefs were taken from the teachings of the ancient Greek philosophers, and, where relevant, he pointed out the ‘tricks’ practised within the sect. The book was formerly called by the Greek title Philosophoumena, and more recently by the Latin title Refutatio omnium haeresium. Here it will be called simply the Hippolytus text. In part 4 of this book, the author wrote down a series of recipes for creating magic fires and lamps. Classical scholars believe that he copied them from a collection of such recipes gathered together and circulated by Anaxilaus of Thessaly, a neo-Pythagorean who was expelled from Rome in 28 BC, charged with practising magic. In the Hippolytus text they are referred to as tricks practised by the Gnostics and the magi. The magi were the wise men of the Persian Zoroastrian religion, wherein fire was the highest and most important element. One Gnostic sect in existence around AD 200, the followers of Basilides, did indeed combine Zoroastrian with Christian teachings, thus giving rise to the idea that

2. M. Berthelot, Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs (Paris, 1887–8, reprinted London, 1963), 2.1.29. The 1963 edition is arranged as three separate volumes bound together and titled ‘Introduction’, ‘Textes’ and ‘Traduction’. The text references printed here all give the numeration of the part, the treatise, and the paragraph, as these numbers are identical for the Greek texts and the French translations.

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magic fires originated with the magi. But Anaxilaus’ collection of fire-raising recipes owed more to his Pythagorean beliefs, as we shall see. The recipe identified by Diels in the Hippolytus text (book 4, chap-ter 31) runs as follows, in English translation:

There is sea-foam [salt] that has been heated in an earthenware wine-jar with new wine. When this has been ‘boiled’, if you apply a burning lamp to it, seizing the fire it sets itself alight, and if poured upon the head, it does not burn it at all. And if you add manna to it as it boils, it catches fire much more readily. It does better still if you put to it some sulphur.

Diels recognized what the product would be because ‘to boil’ is one of the terms used to indicate ‘to distil’ in the Greek recipe texts of the early chemical experimenters in Egypt (see chapter 2, part 1). It is also obvious that the recipe in this format would have acted as a reminder for people who already knew how to carry out the operation. There is no reference to a stillhead, though it would have been essential to use one. Wine heated in an open vessel simply loses its alcohol to the air; and it was the alcohol that allowed the liquid to be flamed upon the head. But perhaps the most telling proof of all is that the same formula reappears nearly a thousand years later, as the earliest Latin recipe for wine-distilling so far discovered. The Latin version does not mention applying the distillate to the head, but it does say that the salt and wine ‘cooked in the vessels used for this business’ produce ‘a water which, when ignited, while flaming preserves the underlying material unburnt’.3

The salt [sea-foam] remains a frequent ingredient in medieval distil-ling recipes. It raises the boiling point of wine by a few degrees, thus delaying the moment at which massive amounts of water vapour are released to combine with what remains of the alcohol in the wine. For a description of the full process, see chapter 2, part 1. The Gnostics’ wine-distilling expertise – and their recipe – survived under cover for a very long time. But how did they come to possess it, and whence came their ritual usage of the spirits distilled from wine?

3. Mappae clavicula (1974), 109, col.45 for text; 59, no.212 for translation.



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– for there is other evidence for the Gnostics’ ritual fire. To find out we must look back to the cultic aspect of the early chemical experiments performed in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt; and beyond them to the role of the ancient Greek mystery religions, and especially the mysteries of Dionysus.

2. THE EARLY EXPERIMENTERS IN EGYPT

The people who supply our link between the wine-distillers of the early Christian era and their more shadowy predecessors within the Dionysus cult are the philosopher-chemists in Egypt. They too were practising distilling, as one among several chemical techniques, in apparent attempts to turn base metals into gold, and they were doing this for cultic reasons as will be explained. They were active from about 200 BC and probably earlier; and in the first century AD were already using stills of three or four different types It is extremely likely that they distilled wine, and were interested in the high fire content of spirits of wine. One of their terms for distilling was ‘the raising of the water’ (tou hudatos hē arsis), and the author of their earliest text, supposedly Democritus, claims to have written a treatise on that topic already. It could have contained use-ful information about contemporary wine-distilling, but it has not survived. Nevertheless many other recipe texts of these proto-chemists have come down to us in manuscript collections, now preserved in libraries in several European cities. It is worthwhile to consider here the achievements of the philosopher-chemists of Egypt, and how their ideas about the natural world influenced their cultic beliefs, before we go back earlier still to view the possible role of spirits of wine in the mysteries of Dionysus. The oldest collection of their recipes is held in St Mark’s library in Venice (MS Marc. 299). It contains Greek texts copied around AD 1000, but most originated much earlier, and some include material going back to the first century AD. They were edited by Marcelin Berthelot from a transcript made by C.E. Ruelle, and subsequently published in four volumes alongside Berthelot’s own French translation, and with an introduction by him, in 1887–8. The French translation is very free. But the Greek texts themselves are not always easy to follow,

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partly because many mineral ingredients mentioned in them can no longer be identified. The object of the experiments, however, is clear from the recipes. It was to transform a tablet of bronze, or sometimes an amalgam of four base metals including bronze (called the tetrasomata, i.e. four bodies), by giving it the appearance first of silver, and then of gold. The gold tint was achieved in various ways, including the treatment of the silvered metal with ‘waters’ distilled from sulphur compounds and other yellow colorants. These were called theion hudor (meaning both ‘sulphur water’ and ‘divine water’, since Greek theion can mean either ‘sulphur’ or ‘divine’). One recipe includes a description of the distilling apparatus used to produce the divine sulphur water by the slow distillation of eggs. The stillhead is called a mastarion (meaning ‘breast-shaped’) – it was made of blown glass, so would have had a ‘nipple’ where the glass-maker’s rod was broken off. Its rim was incurved, and the curved channel thus formed was equipped with an outlet tube. This stillhead was attached to the top of the wide cylindrical neck of the base vessel, while the lower end of its outlet tube was sealed to the mouth of the receiving vessel. The apparatus, with the eggs in the base vessel, was left in a low heat (within a dunghill or a pastrycook’s oven) and the complete operation took several weeks, with the occasional addition of more eggs. ‘When you open the still, hold your nose against the odour,’ warns the recipe. The final viscous liquid was sun-dried to a soapy consistency, and was then applied to silver to give it the appearance of gold.4 Many other powders, pastes and liquids were manufactured for the same purpose. The previous stage, the silvering of the bronze, was also achieved in a variety of ways. Cinnabar was treated by sublimation (vaporization in a closed vessel) to produce mercury, and orpiment and realgar were treated by the same technique to produce arsenic. One or other was then applied to the surface of the bronze, again by the sublimation method, to provide a silver coating. But several other methods were also used to achieve the desired silver coloration.

4. Berthelot (1963), texts, 3.8.




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CHAPTER SIX

AQUA VITAE AND THE EYEWATER OF PETER OF SPAIN

1. THE PHYSICIANS OF BOLOGNA

Between about 1270 and 1285 news began to spread from Bologna through northern Italy and beyond concerning a marvellous new panacea called aqua vitae [water of life]. Its virtues were

recorded in a number of short Latin treatises. It was a wonderful cure for all cold diseases, and for apoplexy, paralysis, trembling of the limbs, and renal stone, either taken as a dose of a few drops in a cup of wine, or applied externally as a liniment. It could consume phlegm, relieve toothache, and reduce bad breath. Above all, it could ease an ancient pain in the head, hold back old age and restore youth, improve the memory, and take away darkness, spots and cataract from the eyes. It had other remarkable applications, too. It could clarify wine-must, and furthermore could recover corrupt wine and make it good. It could preserve dead flesh from decay. It could draw out within three hours the virtues of any herb, flower, root or spice steeped in it. It had potentials for alchemy that are only hinted at in the treatises. Aqua vitae was distilled from wine, and there are references in the treatises to fractional distilling (that is, redistilling the first, most alcoholic, part of the distillate, as a process for strengthening the ‘water’). Aqua vitae itself is usually said to be produced in three distinct formats: the simple, distilled from wine alone (and thus resembling burning water); the composite (composita) for which the simple version was redistilled over herbs and spices; and the most perfect (perfectissima) which required further redistillations, usually over additional spices. Seven or even ten redistillations are mentioned, though in practice four would suffice.1

1. Lippmann (1914), 382.


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But perhaps the greatest novelty, for those whose practice of wine-distilling was confined to the rosewater still or its equivalent, was the commendation in all the aqua vitae treatises of the use of a stillhead equipped with a long, serpentine outlet tube, which passed through a tub of cold water to cool the distillate. The technology is described in great detail in the treatise copied at the end of the manuscript of the Consilia medicinalia, a book of medical advice by the famous physician Taddeo Alderotti of Bologna. Knowledge of the new technology spread fast. The Acts of the Provincial Chapter of the Dominicans at Rimini for 1288 report the discovery that certain brethren had instruments ‘by which they make the water that is called aqua vitae’. All the Dominican priors were warned that the vessels used for that purpose must be destroyed or sold; and they must not permit ‘water of this kind to be made in our houses’.2 The Church authorities were not yet ready to accept a medicine produced by the ‘alchemical method’; in fact, they were at that period opposed to having any medicines made within religious houses, since they believed that ailments should be cured by God’s will alone, and not through human intervention. Who were the true authors of the aqua vitae treatises, and whence came their understanding of the new distilling process based on the serpentine tube? The names of well-known physicians were attached to the Latin texts, but that was inevitable in a culture where unknown authors spread their ideas by attributing them to famous names; and literary and scientific texts circulated in copies made by scribes who themselves remained anonymous. Two men were named as authors of one or other of the earliest aqua vitae treatises: Taddeo Alderotti (1223–1303), called by his Latin name, Thaddaeus Florentinus, in the texts; and his contemporary Teoderico Borgognoni (1205–1298), called simply Theodericus in the surviving copies. Both men practised medicine at Bologna during the later thirteenth century. Soon afterwards a third name began to appear on copies of the aqua vitae treatises, that of Mondinus, who was Mondino de’ Luzzi (c. 1275–1326). He was an apothecary who studied under Taddeo

2. Archivum fratrum praedicatorum, 11 (1941), 163, quoted by F.S. Taylor, ‘The idea of the quintessence’, Science, Medicine and History: Essays in Honour of Charles Singer, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1953), I, 254.

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Alderotti, and went on to become a physician himself at Bologna.3 Later still, the discovery of aqua vitae was attributed to Raymond Lull or Arnald of Villanova, both scholarly celebrities of their time, and the links between the early treatises and the Latin names of Thaddaeus, Theodericus and Mondinus were forgotten. But those links, made by scribes who copied the manuscripts in the later thirteenth century, are suspect too. The authenticity of Thaddaeus’ authorship of his aqua vitae treatise begins to slip away when we examine the text of his Consilia medicinalia (edited by G.M. Nardi in 1937 from thirteenth- and fourteenth-century manuscripts).4 The greater part of the book is devoted to a diversity of ailments with advice on methods of treatment, and just the final seven Consilia describe aqua vitae, its properties and the way it is distilled. Yet those seven sections are written in a totally different style from the previous 178, and although they praise aqua vitae as a wonderful cure for every kind of cold ailment, it receives no mention when the same ailments are considered in the main part of the book. The single exception,5 towards the end of the book, could have been inserted by the same unknown scribe who added the final aqua vitae sections to the copy he was writing of Thaddaeus’ celebrated Consilia. From that copy others were made, including the two used by Nardi for his modern edition. They leave us with the thought that the inventor of aqua vitae was not Thaddaeus Florentinus. Could Theodericus, then, have been the inventor? On the face of it, this seems quite possible. He was either the son or the close disciple of Hugo Borgognoni of Lucca, who had practised medicine at Bologna from 1214 until his death in the 1250s. Theodericus himself also practised, first at Lucca, and then, for most of his professional

3. Sources: Thaddaeus in thirteenth-century Cod. Vaticano 2418 and fourteenth-century Cesena, Cod. Malatestiano Dxxiv–3, and Munich, Cod. Lat. 363, 78r.–81v. Theodericus in thirteenth-century British Library MS Add.25031, ff.26–7, and many later copies; see Singer (1928–31), II, 654–8, no. 1000 listing 23 in British libraries alone. Mondino in fourteenth-century British Library MS Sloane 1754, 19v.–20v., and MS Add. 9351, 105r.–105v. The names Theodericus and Mondino often appear in mangled form, corrupted through re-copying.

4. T. Alderotti (Thaddaeus Florentinus), Consilia medicinalia, ed. G.M. Nardi (Turin, 1937).

5. ibid., 206.

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life, at Bologna. He wrote a book called Cirurgia [Surgery], probably in the 1260s, in which he advocated the use of wine as a dressing for all wounds ‘because it dries and cleanses’.6 By 1240 he had become a Dominican, and during 1262–66 he served as Bishop of Bitonto, near Bari in southern Italy. Then he was appointed Bishop of Cervia, north of Rimini, and he held that post until his death in 1298, continuing all the while to practise medicine in Bologna. As a young man Theodericus was said to have studied alchemy, and even to have written two alchemical books, now lost.7 Western alchemists followed the Arab tradition of distilling various chemical ‘sharp waters’ with which to treat metals. He would certainly have known about the distilling of rosewater and herbal waters, both from Latin translations of works of prominent Arab physicians, and because those waters had become a part of Salernitan medicine. But the aqua vitae treatises circulated under Theodericus’ name contain no references to Galen, or to the Arab masters who were his guides for many of his recommendations in Cirurgia. The earliest text to come to light so far (BL Add. 25031) is written in a thirteenth-century hand. It repeats over and over the value of aqua vitae against numerous cold diseases, and makes the usual claims that this ‘water’ brings out the virtue of all herbs, spices and flowers (except the violet) within three hours, and that it drives away white hair, i.e. old age, and brings back youth, that it improves the memory and that it makes the person who drinks it cheerful and happy. Already the writer of the treatise is recommending a small daily dose. The serpentine vessel (cooling tube) is mentioned. If the water flames on a scrap of linen when ignited, it is good. If it does not, then it is no use. Finally the treatise makes a link back to earlier times, for twice it states that the information it contains has ‘come from the words of the ancient philosophers’. The reasons why Theodericus’ name came to be associated with this text will shortly become apparent.

6. Theodericus, The Surgery of Theoderic in AD 1267, trans. E. Campbell and J. Colton, 2 vols. (New York, 1955–60), I, 49.

7. He was author of De sublimatione arsenici and De aluminibus et salibus, both now lost. See G. Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science, 3 vols. (Baltimore, 1937–48), II, 654.

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2. THE ORIGIN OF THE AQUA VITAE TREATISES

The treatises are ostensibly medicinal, but concealed within them are certain signals which show they do not come from Arab medicine or from alchemy. These are the riddling statements that betray the thought processes of the Gnostics. The ancient pain in the head which, it is claimed, will be relieved by the distillate of wine is the pain of the soul (it was Plato who first emphasized the head as the location of the highest part of the soul), the pain felt because the soul has fallen from the realm of light into this dark world; and it can be relieved by baptism of the head with the distillate of wine. The restoration of youth refers to the beginning of a new life for the initiate receiving that baptism (it was also, of course, the goal of the seekers after the Arab-inspired elixir of life). The improvement of memory is a cryptic reference to the soul’s increased ability to recall its life in the realm of light once baptism has taken place. The removal of spots from the eyes represents release from the blindness that prevents the uninitiated from seeing the truth. These ideas went back across many centuries. One of the Greek texts in Berthelot’s Collection, composed not later than the third or fourth century AD, and supposedly by Ostanes, refers to the water that makes the blind to see, the deaf to hear, and the stutterers to speak plainly.8

Bu t it was the concept of distilled wine restoring the memory that stood out for me when I first studied the aqua vitae texts. It seemed totally contrary to the effects of spirit-drinking today. That comment, encountered several years ago, started me on a quest that led back to the Gnostics of the ancient world and beyond. Yet very recently I have discovered that there may have been some truth in what the texts say. Dr Andrew Scholey of Northumbria University carried out experi-ments whereby some of his students were given small amounts of alcohol (e.g. a half-pint of lager, but no more) between the time when they learnt certain facts and when they were asked to recall them. Their remembrance of the facts proved to be better than that of either the control group given more alcohol, or the one given no alcohol at all. This research was reported in some newspapers on 15 March 2002; and it raises a new question. Could the Gnostics have known the same

8. Berthelot (1963), texts, 4.2.1.

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

DISTILLING IN THE BRITISH ISLESIN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

1. THE AMAZING EXPANSION OF THE DISTILLING INDUSTRY

Britain’s war with France continued, and the distilling trade in England and Wales continued to grow. Smuggled brandy and genever still came in, but there was an increasing market for the

new substitute, British brandy, and for the national version of genever or gin which soon became the more popular of the two. Strong beer grew ever more expensive, due to extra taxation; and as its price rose from two-pence a quart in 1688 to three-pence or more in 1720, so more people transferred their allegiance to spirits. French brandy was smuggled direct from France, but was also brought in indirectly via Germany or the Low Countries with duty paid on it as ‘German’ or ‘Flemish’ brandy. The new cereal-based British brandy was treated in various ways to increase its resemblance to brandies drawn from grape-marc or wine. Prunes, damaged vine-fruits, even raisin stalks were sometimes added before the first distillation (the ‘low wines’) was redistilled. George Smith, a distiller from Kendal, recommended adding to twenty gallons of ‘fine English brandy’, two ounces of a tincture made from terra Japonica (the astringent dried leaves and shoots of the oriental Uncaria gambir bush) and a little saffron and mace, all infused in a pint of brandy, plus six ounces of nitre dulcis [wine-barrel tartar] ‘to improve English brandy and make it appear like French.’1 Ambrose Cooper claimed that molasses spirit could have its vinosity improved by ‘some good dulcified spirit of nitre … and if the spirit be clean worked it may, by this addition only, be made to pass on ordinary judges for French brandy.’2

1. G. Smith (1766), 6.2. Cooper (1757), 75.


[ 224 ]

English genever was easier to construct, inasmuch as it was based, like its Dutch prototype, on malted grain. The top quality ‘royal genever’ was made from proof malt spirit redistilled over crushed juniper berries, and was thus extremely alcoholic; ‘best genever’ required more juniper berries and more water with the same amount of proof spirit, and ordinary genever even more berries and water, according to George Smith’s recipes.3 He was a reputable distiller. But Sir John Hill, a physician, warned against the spirits sold in the majority of city gin-shops, since only the better kind was made with juniper berries, and ‘what they commonly sell is made with … oil of turpentine … and with the coarsest spirit they have.’4 A huge number of small-scale distillers were at work, in cellars, back-rooms, and lean-tos in alleys in the towns, and especially in London. Their products were sold on the spot, or from barrows in the streets, where women vendors also walked around carrying flasks from which they sold drams to passers-by. Many distillers were poor folk, for distilling apparatus was cheaper than the equipment needed to set up as a brewer, and it occupied less space. Drinkers buying at source would knock back their dram in the street outside the cramped gin-shop; if not inside. Significantly, an early reference to such a shop, which appeared in 1718 in Read’s Weekly Journal, ran: ‘Last Thursday a woman coming out of a Jeneva shop in Red Cross Street fell down and within some few minutes departed this mortal life for another.’5 Drinkers could also purchase gin or brandy in ale-houses, if they wished to drink indoors in more comfort. In smaller country towns and villages, the ale-houses were the usual outlets, often selling smuggled foreign spirits alongside duty-paid foreign and British ones. Smuggled spirits were of variable quality, but usually less pernicious than the products of many London gin-shops, distilled not just from beer-dregs, but from all sorts of organic waste set working by yeast. Whether any such shop really carried a sign saying ‘Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for two-pence, clean straw for nothing’, as appears in Hogarth’s famous engraving of Gin Lane, we do not know. But his

3. G. Smith (1766), 48–50.4. Sir J. Hill, Materia medica, vol.2, v, xxi, 497, quoted in Oxford English Dictionary,

2nd ed.5. Dowell, (1888), IV, 166.

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image of the oblivious mother letting her child fall to its doom, while other deeply intoxicated persons display their predicament, does make it seem quite possible. Heavy drinking by prospective mothers affected the unborn, too. More than two hundred years before, German physicians had warned about the perils of spirit-drinking for pregnant women. But it was the collective experience of miscarriages following over-indulgence in genever during the first half of the eighteenth century that gave gin its reputation in Britain as a means for procuring abortions. The ills arising from excessive consumption of gin and brandy included an increased susceptibility to disease; impaired judgement causing accidents both to the drinker and to those round about, stunted growth in young people; premature ageing for adults, and loss of memory. The last two effects were the complete reverse of the claims made in the early aqua vitae treatises, which still carried the influence of the Gnostic ideas transmitted by the Cathars. Once more, excessive drinking was turning water of life into water of death. The government became alarmed at the proliferation of small-scale distillers, and the effects of their products; and they tried to enforce controls by legislation. Acts of Parliament in 1729 and 1736 imposed high-cost licences on retailers, together with a high rate of tax on the spirits themselves. But enforcement proved difficult. The 1736 Gin Act was followed by riots; and the many small-scale distillers carried on unlicensed, and with impunity. By 1743 the official excise duty returns showed that the consumption even of duty-paid spirits in England and Wales had risen to over eight million gallons a year. A new Act passed in that year reduced the cost of the retailer’s licence to £1, but with the proviso that it could only be granted by a magistrate. At the same time the tax on liquor was reduced to a penny a gallon for malt spirit, one and a half pence for gin, and six-pence for wine-based spirits.6

All these measures still failed to curb the consumption of strong alcohol. London physicians estimated in 1750 that as many as 14,000 cases of illness in and around London, mostly fatal, could be attributed to over-indulgence in gin.7 Women were much involved in the gin

6. G.B. Wilson (1940), 192–4.7. W.H. Lecky, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, 3rd ed. (London,

1883), 480.

DISTILLING IN THE BRITISH ISLES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY


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trade, both as providers and as drinkers. In London nearly a third of the licensed spirit sellers were women; and many servant maids and labouring men’s wives consumed drams in the gin-shops.8

The newly distilled spirit was extremely fiery, since it could be sold as early as the day after it was distilled. George Smith of Kendal, well experienced in the distilling trade, pointed out that gin had this quick-selling advantage over the other spirits. But he went on to explain:

However, it wonderfully improves by keeping, especially when it is full proof, insomuch that some persons distilling Geneva from rectified malt-spirits, with the usual quantity of juniper-berries, and laying the goods by for eight or nine months, the same has meliorated and become so mellow a commodity, that it has been sold at double price in parcels, and been preferable to other liquors of dearer prices.9

George Smith would have had some discerning customers able to afford expensive mature gin. But the majority of gin-drinkers had to rely on the fiery raw spirit. At last, in 1751, an Act was passed by Parliament that really checked the sale of spirits. Distillers were banned from either selling alcoholic distillates themselves, or selling them on to unlicensed retailers. The penalty for so doing was a fine of £10, and it was increased in later years. Licences were granted only to householders owning property worth at least £10, and to certain traders. Two years later the licences were restricted further, and additional limitations were imposed on public houses. Furthermore, distilling was forbidden totally during certain periods in the 1750s, due to bad harvests and the need to convert grain into foodstuffs. The trade of the distillers was thus interrupted. Smuggling continued of course, but the overall consumption of British spirits at last began to fall. Smuggling had become an insoluble problem for the government. Beyond the seaside towns with their harbours lay the huge indented coastline of England and Wales, with its many unfrequented inlets where smugglers could land their goods. There were too few excisemen

8. P. Clark, ‘The “Mother Gin” controversy in the early eighteenth century,’ Trans. Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 38 (1988), 70–1.

9. G. Smith (1766), 50.

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to keep up with the endless secret landings of barrels and casks; and the local people, labourers and gentry alike, supported the smugglers because their liquors were so much cheaper than duty-paid foreign spirits. During 1732 a whole fleet of French smuggling ships was at sea off the east coast between Newcastle and Yarmouth; and from them small boats openly carried brandy inshore.10 Smuggling went on all through the eighteenth century and beyond, not only on the east coast, but also on southern and western shores. Not for nothing was the secluded Hareslade Cove on the Gower peninsula in South Wales rechristened ‘Brandy Cove’. Scores of other inlets could have been given the same name. Rum was imported at a more favourable rate of duty than other spirits, since it originated in the British West Indian sugar colonies. But before 1750 the amount coming in was relatively small. The molasses that was turned into spirits by British distillers either arrived as a separate item, or was available as a by-product of the sugar refineries. The Royal Navy, however, had already replaced brandy with rum as the preferred spirits for issue to the crewmen; and until 1740 the ration was half a pint of neat rum for each man daily. Then Admiral Edward Vernon learned from his ships’ captains and surgeons that ‘the pernicious custom of the seamen drinking their allowance of rum in drams, and often at once, is attended by many fatal results.’ Thereafter the sailors were issued twice daily with a mixture of one pint of water and a quarter pint of rum, which they called ‘grog’, after the Admiral’s nickname ‘Old Grog’, referring to his grogram boat-cloak.11 From 1795 lemon juice was added to the mixture, bringing great benefit in warding off scurvy.12

Cider had a very minor role in the production of spirits. When available, a small proportion was added to the malted grain or the molasses of the wash from which the first ‘low wines’ were distilled. But cider spirit never achieved a strong identity among spirit drinkers. In Normandy from the sixteenth century onwards an eau de vie was drawn from apple juice and pulp, and was eventually developed into

10. Clark (1983), 240–1.11. Grogram was a coarse fabric of mixed silk and wool, often given a smooth surface

with gum, which would have helped to waterproof it.12. G.B. Wilson (1940), 270.

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Migne, J.E., ed., Patrologiae cursus completus, series graeca, 165 tomes, Paris, 1857–66.

–––, Patrologiae cursus completus, series latina, 221 tomes, Paris, 1844–55.Müller, G., ed., Aus Mittel-Englischen Medizintexe (Stockholm,

Miszellankodex X.90), Leipzig, 1929.Orphei hymni, ed. W. Quandt, Berlin, 1962.Pistis Sophia, ed. C. Schmidt, translated V. McDermott (Nag Hammadi

studies, 9), Leiden, 1978.Savonarola, M., Libellus de aqua ardenti, in John of Rupescissa, De

consideratione quintae essentiae, Basel, 1561.Singer, D.W. and others, Catalogue of Latin and Vernacular Alchemical

Manuscripts in Great Britain and Ireland, 3 vols., Brussels, 1928–31.Vitalis of Furno, Pro conservanda sanitate, Mainz, 1531.

2. GENERALBarrett, C.R.B., The History of the Society of Apothecaries of London,

London, 1905.Burkert, W., Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, translated E.L.

Minar, Cambridge, Mass., 1972.Burnett, J., Liquid Pleasures: a Social History of Drink in Modern Britain,

London, 1989.Chartres, J.A., ‘No English Calvados? English distillers and the cider

industry’, in English Rural Society, 1500–1800: Essays in honour of Joan Thirsk, ed. J. Chartres and D. Hey, Cambridge, 1990, 313–42.

–––, ‘Leeds: regional distributive centre of luxuries in the later seventeenth century’, Northern History 37 (2000) (Essays in honour of Maurice W. Beresford), 115–32.

Clark, P., The English Alehouse, London, 1983.–––,‘The ‘Mother Gin’ controversy in the early eighteenth century’,

Transactions, Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 38 (1988), 63–84.Cullen, L.M., The Brandy Trade under the Ancien Régime, Cambridge,

1998.Degering, H. ‘Ein Alkoholrezepte aus der 8. Jahrhundert’, Sitzungs-

berichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Klasse, (1917), 503–15.

Dowell, S., A History of Taxation and Taxes in England from the Earliest Times to the Year 1885, 2nd revised ed., 4 vols. (London, 1888), vol. 4.

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Easton, S.C., Roger Bacon and his Search for a Universal Science, Oxford, 1952.

Forbes, R.J., Short History of the Art of Distillation, Leiden, 1948.Harrison, B. Drink and the Victorians, London, 1971.Ladurie, E.LeR., Montaillou, translated B. Bray, Harmondsworth, 1980.Lichine, A., Encyclopaedia of Wines and Spirits, London, 1967.Lu, G.-D. and Needham, J. and D., ‘The coming of ardent water’,

Ambix 19 (1972), 69–112.Maguire, E.B., Irish Whiskey, Dublin, 1973.Morewood, S., A philosophical and statistical History of … the

Manufacture and Use of inebriating Liquors, 2nd ed., Dublin, 1838.Mulhauf, R.P., The Origins of Chemistry, London, 1966.Needham, J., Science and Civilization in China, part 5: Chemistry

and chemical Technology, vol. 2. Spagyrical Discovery and Invention, Cambridge, 1974.

Partington, J.R., History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder, Cambridge, 1960.Rau, E.J., Aertzliche Gutachten und Polizeivorschriften über den Brannt-

wein in Mittelalter, Leipzig, 1914.Runciman, Sir Stephen, The Medieval Manichee, Cambridge, 1947.Thorndike, L., A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols.,

London, 1923–55.Vandyke Price, P., The Penguin Book of Spirits and Liqueurs, Harmonds-

worth, 1980.Voigts, L.E., ‘The Master of the King’s Stillatories’, in The Lancastrian

Court, ed. J. Stratford (Harlaxton medieval studies, 13), Donington, Lincs., 2003, 233–52.

Williams, G.P. & Brake, G.T., Drink in Great Britain, 1900–79, London, 1980.

Wilson, C.A., Food and Drink in Britain from the Stone Age to Recent Times, London, 1973.

–––, Philosophers, Iōsis and Water of Life (Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, Publications, Lit. & Hist. Section, 19), 1984.

–––,‘Wine rituals, maenads and Dionysian fire’, Papers of the Leeds International Latin Seminar, 10 (1988).

–––, ‘Water of Life: its beginnings and early history’, in Liquid Nourishment: Potable Foods and Stimulating Drinks, ed. C.A. Wilson, Edinburgh, 1993.

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–––, ‘Distilling, sublimation and the four elements: the aims and achievements of the earliest Greek chemists’, in Science and Mathematics in Ancient Greek Culture, ed. C.J. Tuplin and T.E. Rihll, Oxford, 2002, 306–22.

Wilson, G.B., Alcohol and the Nation, London, 1940.Wilson, R., Scotch, its History and Romance, Newton Abbot, 1973.Wootton, A.C., Chronicles of Pharmacy, 2 vols., London, 1910.Worlidge, J., Vinetum Britannicum, London, 1676.

3. ENGLISH RECIPE BOOKSAdam’s Luxury and Eve’s Cookery, London, 1744.Astry, D., Diana Astry’s Recipe Book, ed. B. Stitt (Bedfordshire Historical

Record Society, Publications, 37), 1957.Bailey, N., Dictionarium domesticum, being a New and Compleat

Houshold [sic] Dictionary, London, 1736.Beeton, I., The Book of Household Management, London, 1861.Cooper, A., The Complete Distiller, London, 1757.Dawson, T., The Good Huswife’s Jewell, London, 1596, reprinted

Amsterdam, 1977.French, J., The Art of Distillation, 2nd ed., London, 1653. Issued with

The London-distiller, 1652.Gesner, C., The Newe Jewel of Health, translated G. Baker, London, 1576.Hartmann, G., The True Preserver and Restorer of Health, London, 1682.Hieatt, C.B. & Butler, S., eds. Curye on Inglysch (Early English Text

Society, SS8), 1985.The London-distiller, new ed., London, 1652.M., W. The Queens Closet Opened, London, 1655.Markham, G., The English Housewife, 4th ed., London, 1631.Platt, Sir Hugh, Delightes for Ladies, London, 1605.Raffald, E., The Experienced English Housekeeper, Manchester, 1769.Smith, E. The Compleat Housewife, London, 1727.Smith, G., A Compleat Body of Distilling (1725), new ed., London, 1766.Woolley, H., The Gentlewoman’s Companion, 2nd ed., 1675, reissued

Totnes, 2001.–––, The Queen-like Closet, 2nd ed., London, 1672.Y-worth, W., The Compleat Distiller, 2nd ed., London, 1705.

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Accomplish’d Ladies Delight, The, 206Adam’s Luxury and Eve’s Cookery,

232, 236Adams, Samuel and Sarah, 259Adeney, Roger, 184Aeschylus, The Nurses, 46agave, 284Albigensian Crusade, 122alchemy, 23, 31ff., 33, 133ff., 141alchemy and the Arabs, 91ff.alcohol, as preservative, 164 effects on memory, 119alcools blancs, 192alcopops, 285alembic stillhead, 158, 242Alexander of Aphrodisias, 38, 80Alexandria, 55, 56, 69Alexis of Piedmont, 174, 190aloes, 232Al-Razi, 93alum, 158ambergris, 261America, 192-193, 214, 246, 248-

251, 269-271, 281, 282, 284American brandy, 250Amsterdam, 149Anaxilaus of Thessaly, 18, 19, 35, 50,

51, 62, 63, 66, 71, 73, 89, 100, 103

Andrew, Laurence, 162, 172, 173Angers, 264aniseed, 176, 179, 180, 187, 191,

202, 211, 212, 232, 244aniseed water, 211Anna Comnena, 98Annals of Loch Cé, 153Anne of Denmark, Queen, 195, 209Anthesteria festival, Athens, 53Anthony, Francis, 189Apocalypse of Adam, The, 65apothecaries, as distillers, 171, 182,

183Apothecaries’ Company, 210, 246apple jack, 192, 193, 271apricot brandy, 205apricot kernels, 260aqua ardens, 101, 102, 104, 106, 145aqua ardente, 157aqua coelestis, 188, 202aqua composita, 142, 179, 180aqua mirabilis, 188, 206, 231, 234aqua regia, 189aqua serpentina, 142aqua vitae, 127, 157aqua vitae, as medicine, 176ff.aqua vitae, deaths from, 152-153aqua vitae, early recipes, 155ff.aqua vitae, first appearance in

INDEX

Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations on those pages.


[ 292 ]

Europe, 115ff.aqua vitae treatises, 116ff.aqua vitis, 72, 127, 142aquavit, 151aqvavit, 151Arab herbal waters, 125Arab translations of chemical texts,

92Arabs and alchemy, 91ff.Aragon, 123Archidoxies, 192Ardashir, Shah, 81Argand, Aimé, 251Argyll, Earls of, 219Aristophanes, 53Aristotle, 25, 27, 29, 38, 92Armenia, 74, 97Army, consumption of rum in, 265Arnald of Villanova, 117, 135, 136arquebusade water, 239arrack, 216, 217, 250-251, 272Ars operativa, 127, 128arsenic, 27Art of Distillation, The, 194Artois, Count of, 145Astry, Diana, 203, 205, 231Athanasius, Archbishop of

Alexandria, 69Athens, Dionysus cult at, 51ff.Atholl brose, 237Aubrey, John, 209Augustine, Saint, 74, 87aurum potabile, 189ff.Australia, consumption of spirits in,

272 early distilling in, 271-272Australian brandy, 271

Bacardi rum, 284Bacchae, 57Bacchus, see Dionysus, Bacon, Roger, 94, 133-136Baghdad, 92Bailey, Nathaniel, 239, 240Baker, George, 172balcaan, 186balm, water of, 211, 233Band of Hope, 258banquets, 177, 179, 198, 199baphomet, 113, 114Barbados, 215barber-surgeons as distillers, 150Barnard, A., 266Basilides, 76, 80Basilides, followers of, 18Bastard wine, 159Batten, Lady, 204Batten, Sir William, 204Beefeater gin, 210Beeton, Isabella, 261, 263, 273, 275Beggars’ Opera, 234-235Belfast, 273Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire, 174,

259Ben Nevis distillery, Fort William,

266Bénédictine, 148, 159-160bergamot, 261bergamot water, 259Berlin, 191Berlioz, Hector, 273Berthelot, Marcelin, 20Bethel, Connecticut, 282betony, water of, 175Betton’s British Oil, 252

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Billingsgate, London, 265Bilney, Norfolk, 235Biographica Britannica, 190Biringuccio, Vannoccio, 164Bitonto, Bari, 118bitter lemon drink, 283bitters, 232, 279black cherry brandy, 207black cherry water, 180Black Death, remedies for, 151, 152Blencowe, Anne, 207blended whisky, 269, 270, 277, 279blessed thistle, water of, 175blood, distillation of, 135Blue John, 212Bogomil, 97Bogomils, 143 and fire baptism, 98, 107 and wine-distilling, 97ff. transmission of knowledge of

distilling, 103Boil, Johann, physician, 153Bologna, 115, 117, 118, 124 Cathars in, 121, 125 Guild of Spicers, 147Bolos of Mendes, 32, 33Bols, 191bonded warehouses, 245, 257, 282Book of Fires of Marcus the Greek, 89,

90, 104, 163Book of Thomas the Contender, 69Books of Jeu, 70, 71, 121, 122, 127,

129Boorde, Andrew, 171, 186Booth, Felix, 244borage, water of, 170, 171Bosnia, 122

bottles, 228Bourbon County, Kentucky, 249Bourbon whisky, 250, 270, 271Boyle, Sir Robert, 209, 217, 247Bradley, Martha, 241braggot, 157brandewijn, 149, 151, 204brandy, 204, 213, 220, 227, 230,

243, 244, 246, 250, 251, 262, 263

American, 250 Australian, 271 British, 220-221, 223, 244, 263 South African, 272brandy and soda, 279brandy shrub, 245Branntwein, 149, 151Brears, Peter, 199, 239, 259Brentford, Middlesex, 244Brewer, Distiller and wine

Manufacturer, The, 254brewers’ waste, 212Brian, Richard, 174Bridgewater Convent, 159briony water, 231Britain, consumption of spirits in,

276ff.British and Foreign Temperance

Society, 258British Association for the

Promotion of Temperance, 258British brandy, 220-221, 223, 244,

263British Temperance League, 258Broke, Robert, distiller, 147Brooke, Rev. Josiah, 206Broseley, Shropshire, 252

INDEX


[ 294 ]

Brunschwygk, Hieronymus, 162, 172, 173

Buck, John, farmer, 246bucket-head still, 172, 194, 197-198,

242bugloss, water of, 171Bulgaria, 97Burkert, Walter, 56burning water, 133, 137, 157, 158,

163Burnouf, Emile, 111burnt waters, 161, 147, 148, 153,

155, 161Burrough, James, Ltd., 210Burt, Captain Edward, 237Bushmills, 249Bushmills distillery, 186Bushmills malt whisky, 281buttermilk water, 206Byron, Lord, 267Cadman, Dr Thomas, 211Callimachus, 40, 41, 45Calvados, 192, 227Campbell, Besse, 185Campbeltown, Argyllshire 281camphor, 163, 164Campion, Edmund, 186Canada, early distilling in, 250Canadian whisky, 271canella bark, 232Cannes, 276Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, 137Canterbury, 215Canterbury Tales, 137, 189Cape of Good Hope, 272caraway, 191, 211caraway seed brandy, 235

Caroline, Queen, 209Carpocratian sect, 69Carteret, Lady, 203Cassell’s Domestic Dictionary, 267Castle Carrick, Argyll, 219Catalonia, 123Cathars, and fire baptism, 100-101,

106, 109 and Grail literature, 107ff. and the Templars, 113 and the water of life, 110 decline of, 143 early experiments with grain

spirits, 158 early spread, 98 female devotees and distilling,

129 in Bologna, 121, 125 in Germany, 100 in Provence, 108 in south-western France, 123ff.,

143 influence on Michael Savonarola,

142 influence on Roger Bacon, 135 recipes for distilling, 99, 104-105 rites, rituals, influence, 97ff. synod of ‘bishops’, 108, 121 transmission of secrets of

distilling, 123ff.Cecil, William, Lord Burghley, 176,

183, 184cedrat, 261cereal-based spirit, 137, 150, 153ff.,

158 English monopoly for, 184 from brewery waste, 184

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[ 295 ]

in America, 215Cervia, Rimini, 118Charles Edward Stuart, Prince, 229,

241Charles I, King, 211Charles II, King, 209Charles the Bad, King of Navarre,

152Charles, Prince of Wales, 270Chartres, John, 285Chartreuse, 148Chaucer, Geoffrey, 112, 137, 141,

189Chelmsford, Essex, 176chemical medicines, 181, 182cherry brandy, 205, 235, 244, 251,

263Cherry Heering, 264cherry water, 206chicory, water of, 171China, 193 alchemy in, 93-94Chiquart, Maistre, 163cholera, 262Chrétien de Troyes, 107, 108chymists, 251-252cider spirit, 192, 227, 228cinnabar, 21, 25, 26, 27, 79, 93, 111cinnamon, 176, 244cinnamon water, 175, 180cinnamon-flavoured Schnapps, 191Circa instans, 103Cirurgia, 118citron, 261claret wine water, 202Clarke, Mr, instrument-maker, 247clarrey, 157

clary, water of, 180, 232cleansing agents, 274, 275Cleland, Elizabeth, 242Clement IV, Pope, 134, 135, 136Cleopatra, Queen, 35Closet for Ladies and Gentlewomen, A,

201, 202clove cordial, 267Cobbett, Anne, 261, 274Coca-Cola, 284cochineal, 232cocktails, 270, 271, 278, 279cockwater, 180, 216coffee, 237Coffey, Aeneas, 256Coffey’s still, 254 see also continuous stillcognac, 148, 205, 279Cointreau, 264Colchis, 26cold still, 194, 197, 242Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, 281Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 273Cologne, 100Cologne water, 234Colombière, 251columbine, water of, 170Columbus, Christopher, 215Columella, 33Compleat Distiller, The, 196, 218Compleat Housewife, 190, 231, 233Complete Servant, The, 259composite waters, 147-148, 157,

160, 170, 177, 179, 181, 187-188, 203, 210, 215, 220, 231, 239, 246

Compostella, 107, 125

INDEX


[ 296 ]

compound waters, 221, 231Compton Burnett, James, 189Confectio Raleighana, 210Confessio amantis, 141Consilia medicinalia, 116, 117, 124consolamentum, 105, 122, 143Constantine I, Emperor, 90Constantine IV, Emperor, 90Constantine V, Emperor, 97Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus,

Emperor, 86, 90Constantinople, 86, 91, 108Conte du Graal, 107continuous still, 256, 257, 268, 269,

271, 277, 281, 283Cooper, Ambrose, 223Copenhagen, 264Cor, Friar John, 149cordial waters, 180, 234, 235, 242,

260, 272coriander, 211corn whisky, 249, 250Cornwall, 267cosmetics, 201, 234cowslip wine, 229Crimean War, 265Cuba, 284Cuba, Johann, physician, 153cucurbit still, 90, 104, 105cufa, 103Cuffe, Mr, of Ballinrobe, 243Curaçoa, 272Cyzicus, 86Daiquiri, 284Dale, Pembrokeshire, 269Dalmatia, 192damask water, 174

Damian, John, alchemist, 149, 150dandelion, water of, 171Daniels family, of Cardigan, 269Danziger Goldwasser, 191dates, 187Davenant, Charles, 213Dawson, Thomas, 175, 179Day, Ivan, 179De administrando imperio, 90De conservanda iuventutis, 136De consideratione quintae essentiae,

138De erroribus medicorum, 134De remediis secretis, 172De retardatione senectutis, 136Defence of the Realm Act, 277Degering, Hermann, 51Delightes for Ladies, 174, 201Delphi, Dionysus cult at, 39ff.Demeter, 17, 56Democritus, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28,

30, 31, 33, 63, 64, 68, 80, 81, 91, 92

Denmark, early distilling in, 150-151

early spirit consumption in, 195Der Lachs Goldwasser, 191Derby ale, 228Diageo, 269, 282dibikos stillhead, 35, 36Dictionarium domesticum, 240Diels, Herman, 18, 19diethyl ether, 273, 274Digby, Sir Kenelm, 189, 233dill, water of, 175Diocletian, Emperor, 81Dionysiaca, 45

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Dionysian ritual objects, 52Dionysus, 17, 34Dionysus Chthonius, 41, 42Dionysus cult, 24, 35ff. at Athens, 51ff. at Delphi, 39ff. at Rome and Pompeii, 56ff. at Thebes, 39ff. in Thrace and Macedonia, 43ff.Dionysus Liknites, 41, 42Dioscorides, 26Discourse on Tea, 237distillation, origin of word, 177, 179Distilleerboec, 204distillers, independent, 182ff. professional, 147Distillers’ Company, 268Distillers’ Company of London, 212,

212Distillers Company Limited, 268distilling, by English gentlewomen,

201ff. in English households, 169ff.dittany, water of, 161Diu Crône, 110, 111Divine and Sacred Art, see alchemydivine water, 21Dock distillery, Dublin, 256dog’s nose, 265Dominicans, 124 and aqua vitae, 116-121Dordrecht, 216Douglas, Isle of Man, 259Dover, 244Dr Chamber’s water, 203, 204Dr Stephen’s water, 188, 204Drake, Richard, 184

Drambuie, 242Drosera rotundifolia, 179dualism, 48, 75, 105Dublin, 245 Dock distillery, 256Dundee, 150Durham Abbey, 146duty, see taxation, Dyetary of Helth, 171eau de Cologne, 61, 234, 261eau de vie, 148, 149-151, 157, 204eaue ardant, 163Eckbert von Schoenau, 101Edessa, 74, 76, 77, 87, 92Egypt, 27, 81Egypt, philosopher-chemists of, 20,

21, 27, 28, 30-33, 35, 37, 53, 63, 64, 68, 80, 81, 113

Eleusis, 56elixir, 93, 94, 125, 138, 208ff.Elizabeth I, Queen, 171, 177Empedocles, 27, 29, 30Encouraging the Distilling of Brandy

and Spirits from Corn, Act for, 221

Encyclopaedia of Domestic Economy, 260

Endfield, 171endive, water of, 171, 175enfleurage, 276England, aqua vitae in, 157 consumption of spirits in, 149,

213, 245, 246, 247, 258, 262ff., 213

English Housekeeper, The, 261English wines, 229Enoch, Book of, 63, 64

INDEX


[ 298 ]

Ephesus, 26ether, 273, 274Euchites sect, 73, 88, 97Euphorion, 40, 41, 45Euripides, 57 Bacchae, 47, 48 Medea, 47Euthanios Zigabenos, 98Evelyn, John, 209, 239Evelyn, Mary, 239Evervin von Steinfeld, 100ew ardent, 163ewrose, 174excise duties on spirits and alcohol,

149, 169, 204, 213, 219, 220, 220, 221, 223, 224, 225, 227, 243, 245, 246, 247, 249, 253, 255, 257, 263, 264, 272, 277, 285; see also taxation

eyebright, water of, 171, 175eyewater, 124ff., 127, 129, 131, 159Fairfax, Sir William and Sir Thomas,

198Faits de cuisine, 163Fane, Lady, 231Fécamp Abbey, Normandy 159Feirefiz, 109, 113fennel, water of, 175fern, water of, 170ferric oxide, 94Fettiplace, Lady Elinor, 202Fine English Hollands, 260fire baptism, 48ff., 62, 67, 68, 69,

71, 73, 74, 88, 100ff., 104, 106, 109, 129, 130, 132, 143, 144

fireworks, 164Flegetanis, 107, 108

Flemish influence on English spirit consumption, 183

flower waters, 234Foix, County of, 143Forme of Cury, 163fortification of wines, 228-229fortified wines, 264four elements, 27ff., 29, 30, 33, 344711 eau de Cologne, 234fractional distilling, 116, 128, 150France, aqua vitae in, 157 early distilling in, 148 exports of brandy from, 204,

205, 220, 223, 227, 244, 250 exports of wine from, 264 production of liqueurs, 264Francis I, King, 182Francis, Philip, of Calcutta, 251Franciscan order, 124, 136, 138Frankfurt am Main, 147, 153Freake, Mrs, of Bilney, Norfolk, 235freezing out, 192-193French, John, 194, 202, 233Frenchams, Mary, 213Frogs, The, 53Fron-Goch distillery, Lake Bala,

269-270fruit brandies, 191, 235-236, 244,

270fumitory, water of, 161, 170furnace in stillhouse, 195, 197, 200Fyrst Book of the Introduction of

Knowledge, 186Gardner, J.T., 254Gawain, 110gebrante Wyne, 147genever, 272; see also gin

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Genever bessenwater, 204gentian root, 232Gentlewomans Companion, The, 207,

238Gerard, John, 179Germany, 122, 151 consumption of spirits in, 147ff.Gesner, Conrad, 172, 191gin, 204, 224, 244, 256, 260, 265,

267, 272, 278, 279 Act, 225 and hot beer, 265 and milk, 265 growth in consumption, 224-226 Hollands, 267 hot water and black treacle, 267 London dry, 267 Plymouth, 267Gin Lane, 222, 224, ginger-beer, 258Girard, Master, physician, 145Glasgow, 216, 245Glasse, Hannah, 234glasses, 198glasses, drinking, 235Glenfiddich malt whisky, 281Glenlivet malt whisky, 281Gloy, Sir James, chaplain, 169gnosis, 61Gnostic sects, flaming baptism, 42Gnostic sects, involvement with

distilling, 18, 61ff.Goa, 216Godfrey, Mr, apothecary, 246gold, 141Gold Strike, 191gold water, 189ff.

golden cordial, 191Goldwasser, 190, 191gooseberry brandy, 236Gordon, Alexander, 244Gordon’s orange gin, 278Gospel of Nicodemus, 76Gospel of Philip, 68, 69Gouberville, Gilles de, 192Gower, John, 141Gower, South Wales, 227Grail, the Holy, 107ff.Grail, origin of word, 109, 111grain whisky, 248, 253Grand Marnier, 264Grant, Thomas, of Dover, 244Grant, William, 281grapes in America, 215, 250Grasse, 276great palsy water, 231Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, 227Greek fire, 80, 86ff., 163Gregory, Saint, 104grocers, as distillers, 183Grocers’ Guild, 183, 210grog, 227Guiana, 208Guild of Surgeon Barbers (Scotland),

185Guild of Vinegar-makers (France),

182gunpowder, 164 as proving agent, 221Hackness, E. Yorkshire, 175Hales, Stephen, 251Halstead, Coupland and Myers, 244Ham House, Surrey 199, 200, 201,

239

INDEX


Documents

WATER OF LIFE A HISTORY OF WINE-DISTILLING AND SPIRITS 500 BC – AD 2000.pdf