SC - Re: aqua vitae

[david friedman]

At 6:32 PM -0500 3/6/00, Ian Gourdon wrote:

>While the quality of the sources is variable, the good
>documention seems to be on the side of Brandy, with mention
>of it going back to the Charlemaine era,

I'll bite--what's the evidence for brandy in Charlemagne's time? The 
closest you come to it in your quotes are:

>In Europe, distillation was known
>by at least the eleventh or twelfth century."
>-Simon, Wines of the World. p351.
>

But aside from being a few centuries too late, the quote says nothing 
about distilling alcohol for purposes of drinking. My impression was 
that distillation was first done for alchemical purposes, and only 
later for consumption.

and

>The distillation process was improved around 800 C.E. by
>Jabir ibn Hayyan.

That also says nothing about brandy, or about distilling something in 
order to drink it.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/