SC - another - Rose water question

[Bonne of Traquair]

When the 
>>  roses come out, should I just collect the petals and but them in a 
jar of 
>>  rose water?

>>  Anybody ever make their own rose water!
>
>Not REAL rose water of course, because it's distilled, and of course 
here in 
>the US that's a no no. 

Why a no no to distill water, as opposed to distilling alcohol?  

>Of course I would never do such a thing. Hypothetically of course... 
you 
>could, if the law allowed... put the water over very low heat, maybe 
in say, 
>a pressure cooker not locked down, and cool the vapors that come out 
the vent 
>with copper tubeing. 

This sounds like too much work.  All the recipes I've seen (near 
medieval and modern) involve stuffing petals into water, boiling, 
cooling, repeating, adding more petals as available, boiling, cooling, 
repeating.  Eventually, strain, boil and bottle it up. Alternative to 
boiling are recipes which have the petals and water slurry kept gently 
warm for long periods, adding petals and eventually straining, 
boiling, bottling.

The Spurling book re: Fettiplace has a set of instructions or a 
description, that's the only sure thing I can direct you to at the 
moment.  Oh, and the Florilegum has a large file on the topic of what 
to do with flowers.  

Bonne

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