SC - cognac

[Terry Nutter]

Hi, Katerine here.  Tibor commented that he didn't know of recipes that
call for brandy, and Adamantius added that one reason for that is that it
would have been regarded as medicinal.

Actually, there are spiced wine recipes that call for aqua vite, and 
recipes for flaming dishes using eau ardent; both are almost certainly
brandies (i.e. spirits of wine made from grape-based wines), and cognac
would be a reasonable modern brandy to use. Before anyone asks: no, I 
don't know what the difference between aqua vite (as specified in English
recipes going back to the 14th C, not the modern stuff) and eau ardent
was. They may have been the same.  A reasonable alternative hypothesis
is that aqua vite is any distilled wine, and eau ardent is specifically
a distilled wine that has a high enough alcohol content to flame
adequately (in modern US terms, about 70 proof).

Cheers,

- --Katerine/Terry