Ancient Distilled Spirits

Ancient Distilled Spirits
The invention of the process of distilling alcohol has not been precisely dated.

Using literary references, historians have found it hard to distinguish between simply fermented beverages such as beer and wine and the more potent beverages produced by boiling off the alcohol from a fermented beverage and recapturing it in a still.

References to a rice beer distilled into a rice brandy appear in China as early as 800 BC.

The Greeks, Romans and Arabs all apparently produced distilled beverages, although the first clear references do not show up until after AD 100.

Although the ancient Egyptians made beer and wine, both of which contain alcohol, they were unacquainted with distillation, and therefore did not know distilled spirits.

When and where the discovery of distillation took place there is no evidence to show, it the first mention of it that can be traced is by Aristotle in the fourth century BC, which describes the formation of mist and rain.

Although Aristotle had distilled wine and made dilute alcohol, he did not recognize it as anything other than water ‘water modified by a certain admixture,’ the nature of which determined it flavour.

In the 12th century, alchemists referred to aqua vitae (Latin) eau-de-vie (French) and uisge beatha (Gaelic) as terms for distilled alcohol.

Aqua vitae usually referred to a distillation of wine, or brandy, while the Gaelic uisge (pronounced wees-geh) is the origin of the word whisky, a beverage distilled from fermented barley.

The Scots began distilling in the 15th century and produced three types of whisky. When it was made solely from barley, then malted, dried over peat fire, fermented and then double distilled in alembics or pot stills, then aged in casks that had previously held sherry, the resulting beverage was known as a single malt or a singleton.

When two whiskies each from a single distillery, were brought together in a large vat, they were known as vatted whisky.
Ancient Distilled Spirits