[Sca-cooks] FREEZING WINE......

[Stefan li Rous]

Iago said:
> Another way that alcohol content was increased was addding slaked lime to the
> wine, this was done by an 11th century monk in I think italy or France and he
> produced nearly pure alcohol. Now how drinkable it was I do not know, but the
> implication was that it was used in a medicinal. I will see if I can find the
> documentation on this,  I have it somewhere though.

Yes, please find the documentation on this. And if there is a
knowledgeable chemist on this list, please explain to me the possible
equation for this. I could see where this might extract the water
from the wine, but I don't see how this could approach pure
alcohol. My totally off-the-cuff estimate might be 120 proof. And
I would expect a fair amount of lime to disolve into the resulting
solution. But I haven't had a chemistry class for over 25 years.

I'm still wondering if, even without a knowledge of germs, whether
such distilled alcohol solutions might have found external
medical applications.

--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas          stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****