SC - liqueurs and jenever (longish)

[Christina van Tets]

Hello the List!

I've been looking in 'Jenever:  Ode aan een volksdrank', by Cees Kingmans 
(Bever, 's Gravenhage, 1991):

The first chapter deals with distillation in general, so I won't bore you 
with that, apart from the titles of some books from about 1500:

Hieronymus Brunschweig:  'Das Buch der Rechten Kunst zu Distilleren'.   This 
was printed shortly afterwards by (guess who?  sorry) Thomas vander Noot in 
Brussels under the title 'Die Distellacien ende Vertuyten der Wateren'.

Meister Philippus Hermanni wrote a MS in 1551 in Antwerp for his colleagues' 
use (he was an apothecary), entitled Een Constich Distelleerboek, which 
according to Kingmans deals with the concept of distilling from 'most plant 
material'.  He apparently goes into some detail about appropriate equipment 
and the like.

Nice quote from him:
'Als ghi nu wilt gaen maecken den ghebranden wyn, soo en sult ghi niet doen 
ghelyck vele bedrieghers doen, die daertoe neemen veelderhande dinghen daer 
si den wyn mede verderven ghelyck als wyndroesem oft gist van bier ende 
dierghelycken onreinichheit...

If you want to make burnt wine, so you shall not do what many swindlers do, 
who take many things into it to corrupt the wine, such as wine dregs or 
yeast from beer and similar impurities...'

This appears to be because initially they distinguished the two by calling 
the stuff made from grapes 'ghebrande wyn' and the stuff made from grains 
'ghebrande coren wyn'.

Other interesting points from Kingmans:

Short burble about Paracelsus, a Swiss (1493-1541) who 'found a medicinal 
application through adding certain herbs to distilled drink'.
[Abelard would seem to predate him by a bit, though.  CJvT]

Korenwijn (also corenwyn) appears to be the oldest name of the distilled 
grain liquors in the Low Countries.  According to the glossary, it is 
considered in _current_ usage to be jenever or maltwine which has been 
distilled up to four times with a mixture of herbs and then left to cellar 
for a time.

Kingmans isn't even going to guess when corenwyn came in.  However, he says 
that towards the end of the 16th C it seemed that production might end after 
several failed harvests, and the States-General banned the making of alcohol 
from wheat, rye, barley, male and buckwheat.  In 1606 this was repealed and 
jenever and juniper berries were mentioned for the first time in an official 
document, a State Ordinance.

Lucas Bols began a liqueur distillery in Amsterdam in 1575;  Amsterdam was 
at that time an important harbour town which saw the through-traffic of 
sugar, spices and herbs.  [There follows a speculation about using sugar 
water from the washing down sweet-makers' trays to distil.  No support here 
for this.]  Bols is now a multinational, apparently.

Oh, and a priest in Leiden was defrocked in 1582 for distilling - not a 
suitable occupation for a 'servant of the Word'.  Apparently in the priest's 
defence he claimed that he only used the best Rhine, French or Spanish wine 
for his nefarious purposes, but also recommended the use of grains and other 
fruits of the earth.

Then the history starts geting OOP, so I'll stop there.

Cairistiona
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