Water Of Life - Prospect Books

WATER OF LIFE
A HISTORY OF
WINE-DISTILLING AND SPIRITS
500 BC – AD 2000
C. Anne Wilson
PROSPECT BOOKS
2006

First published in Great Britain in 2006 by Prospect Books,
Allaleigh House, Blackawton, Totnes, Devon TQ9 7DL.
© 2006 C. Anne Wilson.
© 2006, illustrations, Andras Kaldor.
© 2006, title page illustrations, James Stewart.
The author, C. Anne Wilson, asserts her right to be identified as author
of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act
1988.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the copyright holders.
BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA:
A catalogue entry of this book is available from the British Library.
Typeset and designed by Tom Jaine.
Cover illustration by James Stewart.
ISBN 1-903018-46-3; 978-1-903018-46-0
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the Cromwell Press, Trowbridge,
Wiltshire.

CONTENTS
THE ANCIENT AND EARLY MEDIEVAL WORLD:
THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN REGION
1. WINE-DISTILLING AND THE FOUR ELEMENTS
1. The earliest wine-distilling recipe 17
2. The early experimenters in Egypt 20
3. The four elements: Pythagoras and Plato 27
2. DIONYSUS AND DISTILLING
1. Sophisticated stills and their predecessors 33
2. Dionysus at Delphi 39
3. Dionysus in Thrace and Macedonia 43
4. Dionysus at Athens 51
5. Dionysus at Rome and Pompeii 56
3. WINE-DISTILLING RITUALS AMONG
THE EARLY GNOSTICS
1. Water, fire and ‘living water’ 59
2. Distilling rituals and Christian Gnostics 66
3. The three baptisms 69
4. ‘Living water’ in the early Middle Ages 75
4. DISTILLING IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES:
BYZANTINES, PERSIANS AND ARABS
1. How distilling passed to the Persians and Arabs 77
2. The Romano-Byzantine Empire to the time of Heraclius 84
3. Greek fire 86
4. Arabs and alchemy 91
[ 5 ]

WATER OF LIFE
THE LATER MIDDLE AGES: WESTERN EUROPE
5. BURNING WATER AND HEAVENLY LIGHT
1. Paulicians, Bogomils and Cathars 97
2. Early Western wine-distilling recipes 103
3. The Holy Grail 107
4. The Templars 112
6. AQUA VITAE AND THE EYEWATER OF
PETER OF SPAIN
1. The physicians of Bologna 115
2. The origin of the aqua vitae treatises 119
3. Eyewater among the three waters 124
7. BURNING WATER AND AQUA VITAE:
THE WONDER YEARS
1. Distilling and alchemy 133
2. John of Rupescissa and the Quintessence 138
3. The fading of the heavenly fire 142
8. BURNING WATER AND AQUA VITAE:
PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE IN LATE-MEDIEVAL EUROPE
1. Supply side 145
2. Trials and errors 151
3. Methods and recipes 155
FROM EARLY MODERN TIMES TO AD 2000: THE BRITISH ISLES
9. DISTILLING IN THE BRITISH ISLES IN TUDOR TIMES
1. Herbal waters in English gentry households 169
2. Aqua vitae in English gentry families 176
3. Independent distillers in England, Scotland and Ireland 182
4. Potable gold 189
5. Water of Life: new materials and a new method 191
[ 6 ]

WATER OF LIFE
10. DISTILLING IN THE BRITISH ISLES IN THE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
1. Family stillhouses and their equipment 195
2. Domestic distillers and their recipes 201
3. Sir Walter Raleigh and the great cordial 208
4. Apothecaries, distillers and their trade 210
5. Water of Life in Scotland and Ireland;
and England’s ‘British brandy’ 217
11. DISTILLING IN THE BRITISH ISLES IN THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
1. The amazing expansion of the distilling industry 223
2. Home-distilled cordial waters in fashion 230
3. Home-distilled cordial waters in decline 237
4. The distilling trade in the later eighteenth century,
and distilling in the wider world 244
12. DISTILLING IN THE BRITISH ISLES IN THE
NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES
1. The earlier nineteenth century 253
2. Vogues and fashions in spirit-drinking, 1800–1918 262
3. Alcohol in pharmaceuticals, perfumery
and other industries 272
4. The fall and rise of spirit-drinking, 1918–2000 276
BIBLIOGRAPHY 287
INDEX 291
[ 7 ]

ILLUSTRATIONS
The sources of individual illustrations are acknowledged in their
captions. Those without a printed acknowledgement are from books
in the University of Leeds Libraries, and are reproduced by kind
permission of the Librarian.
Frontispiece. An allegorical picture titled: ‘Truth pointing to the light
of Philosophy’. Frontispiece to D. Hughson, The New Family
Receipt-book, London, 1817. 2
Figure 1. (a) Reconstruction of a glass ‘Hellenistic’ still.
(b) Reconstruction of a sublimatory vessel for extracting mercury
from cinnabar. Drawing by Andras Kaldor. 22
Figure 2. Dibikos, tribikos and tube-still. 36
Figure 3. From a vase-painting on a bell-krater of the late
fifth-century BC now in the Stoddard Collection, Yale University.
Drawing by Andras Kaldor. 44
Figure 4. Dionysian ritual object from a vase-painting on a small
jug now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.
Drawing by Andras Kaldor. 52
Figure 5. Dionysian ritual object from a vase-painting on a large
krater now in the National Museum, Copenhagen.
Drawing by Andras Kaldor. 52
Figure 6. Multiple stills for extracting rosewater. Drawing from
a fifteenth-century Arabic manuscript containing the works of
al-Dimashqi (Muhammad ibn Ali Talib). 82
Figure 7. ‘Secret’ recipe for distilling wine, in a twelfth-century
codex now in St John’s College Library, Cambridge.
By courtesy of the late Dr Guy Lee. 102
Figure 8. Label from a bottle of Portuguese aguardente. 102
Figure 9. Material from the early aqua vitae treatises in Ars operativa,
ascribed to Raymond Lull, in a compendium with John of
Rupescissa, De consideratione quintae essentiae, Basel, 1561. 128
Figure 10. A glass pelican with two arms and a glass retort
used in distilling herbal waters, from The vertuose boke for
the distyllacyon of all maner of waters, translated by L. Andrew,
London, c. 1527, reprinted New York, Johnson, 1971. 140
[ 8 ]

WATER OF LIFE
Figure 11. Distilling herb-flavoured waters: from the title-page of
the first printed book of recipes for herbal waters and aqua vitae,
compiled by Michael Schrick and published in Augsburg
in 1477. Illustration reprinted New York, Johnson, 1971. 156
Figure 12. Johannes Wenod’s drawing of a still. From Cod. Lipsiensis
1175, University of Leipzig Library, in Archiv fűr die Geschichte
der Naturwissenschaften und Technik 5 (1915), 283. 156
Figure 13. Title-page of the English translation by Laurence Andrew
of H. Brunschwygk, Liber de arte distillandi, published in London
c. 1527 under the title, The vertuose boke for the distyllacyon of all
maner of waters. Reprinted New York, Johnson, 1971. 173
Figure 14. Recipe for wormwood water, and other recipes.
J. Partridge, The Widowes Treasure, London, 1585. 178
Figure 15. Cold still and bucket-head still. J. French
The Art of Distillation, 2nd edn. London, 1653. 194
Figure 16. Descriptive illustration of a hot still, with worm and
worm-tub. W. Y-Worth, The Compleat Distiller,
2nd edn. London, 1705. 196
Figure 17. The late-seventeenth century stillhouse at Ham House,
Surrey. By courtesy of Peter Brears. 200
Figure 18. Earthenware stillhead found on the site of the lost English
colony of Martin’s Hundred (10 miles east of Jamestown).
Drawing by Andras Kaldor. 214
Figure 19. An apothecary holding a retort, and a distiller at work in
a stillhouse. Frontispiece to W. Y-Worth, The Compleat Distiller,
2nd edn. London, 1705. 218
Figure 20. The drunken mother and her falling child, from Hogarth’s
famous engraving of Gin Lane. Drawing by Andras Kaldor. 222
Figure 21. Lady in a still-house preparing herbs for distilling.
N. Bailey, Dictionarium domesticum, London, 1736. 240
Figure 22. Coffey’s still. J.T. Gardner, ed., The Brewer, Distiller
and Wine Manufacturer, reprinted London, 1902. 254
Figure 23. Ben Nevis Distillery, near Fort William. A. Barnard,
The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom, London, 1887. 266
Figure 24. Monasterevan Distillery, Co. Kildare, Ireland.
A. Barnard, The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom,
London, 1887. 266
[ 9 ]

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book has grown over many years as I have gradually gathered
evidence to illustrate a very long story. Wine-distilling – or
at least the production of spirits of wine – could have been
practised in a ritual context as far back as the fifth century BC. But
the importance of those early alcoholic spirits lay in their fire-bearing
property. It was not until the thirteenth century AD that the distillate
of wine began to be recognized widely as a wonderful medicine.
Later still alcoholic spirits became a general pick-me-up, and quite
soon afterwards a social drink. Water of life and the techniques that
produced it underwent considerable changes through two and a half
millennia, and this is the first time they have been mapped so fully in
the context of contemporary society.
Certain parts of the story have already appeared in some of my
earlier publications, in particular those relating to science and beliefs in
the Greek and Roman world, and to home-distilling in early modern
Britain. It was while preparing a conference paper on the history of
alcoholic spirits in Britain, in the 1970s, that I first encountered the
medieval Latin aqua vitae treatises, and was puzzled by their insistence
on the power of distilled wine to improve the memory, and to restore
youth to the elderly – properties that seemed contrary to real-life
experience.
The breakthrough came in January 1980, when I was browsing
through J.R. Partington’s very thorough History of Chemistry, volume
1, part 1. He includes a brief mention of the Coptic Gnostic text in
the Bruce Papyrus wherein a figure representing Jesus performs a long
ceremony, and turns wine into water. Suddenly I saw the connection
between that water and the sulphur water and other waters distilled
earlier by the philosopher-chemists of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt,
and also the medieval burning water (aqua ardens) and water of life
(aqua vitae). All these ‘waters’ are distillates. Furthermore, in the
case of the Egyptian chemists and the fourth-century Gnostic users of
the Coptic text, the production of the distillate was linked with rites
that bestowed not just youth, but actual rebirth as an initiate, thus
guaranteeing immortality for the soul. It all seems a very long way
from today’s binge-drinking of spirits.
[ 11 ]

After further investigations into the early stages of wine-distilling
and its background I wrote Philosophers, Iosis and Water of Life, and
I would like to thank Ian Moxon of Leeds University, then editor
of the literary and historical section of the Proceedings of the Leeds
Philosophical and Literary Society, for his patient scrutiny and advice
on my monograph prior to its publication there in 1984. My thanks are
due also to Professor Richard Seaford of Exeter University, Roger Brock
and Professor Malcolm Heath of Leeds University, and Christopher
Tuplin of Liverpool University, who read and commented on various
papers and articles that I wrote subsequently about evidence for spirits
of wine in Greek and Roman times and late antiquity.
I am grateful too to food historians Peter Brears and Ivan Day,
who shared with me interesting discoveries they had made about the
practical side of household distilling in early modern Britain. Leeds
University Libraries have provided much source material for this book,
especially in the Early Science and Cookery Book collections housed
in Special Collections, and I would like to acknowledge the support I
have received in various ways from the library staff.
Some of the many books consulted are listed in the bibliography,
and other sources appear in the footnotes. But I owe a particular debt
to Pamela Vandyke Price’s The Penguin Book of Spirits and Liqueurs
for background material on the late nineteenth and earlier twentieth
centuries. Finally, friends and colleagues engaged in other areas of
historical research have been generous in passing on occasional
references that they thought might aid my investigations. Among them
are Professor John Chartres, Jenny Cooksey, Gordon Forster, Professor
Constance Hieatt, Bridgett Jones, Lynette Muir and Professor Joan
Thirsk. Susan Chesters was my mainstay when the computer went into
problem mode.
I hope readers will find this book interesting and informative, and
will enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed the detective work that led me
through the long story of water of life.
[ 12 ]
C. ANNE WILSON,
Leeds, 2006.

CHAPTER ONE
WINE-DISTILLING AND THE FOUR ELEMENTS
1. THE EARLIEST WINE-DISTILLING RECIPE
It all goes back to Dionysus. That is hardly surprising: he was the
god of wine, of the vines and the grapes that produced it, and of
all moist fruits. By contrast, Demeter took care of the cereals and
the legumes. The discovery that grape juice could be fermented into
wine had been Dionysus’ great gift to mankind. If the discovery was
also made within the ancient Greek world that wine could be distilled
to produce the more strongly alcoholic spirits of wine, then it would
have been welcomed as another, yet greater, manifestation of Dionysus’
power.
Was wine-distilling really invented so long ago? The fashionable
view among historians of science through most of the twentieth century
was that the art of wine-distilling was invented in the mid-twelfth
century AD by physicians or apothecaries at Salerno, home of the famous
medical school. 1 At that time the Salernitan school already had access
to the techniques known to the Arabs for extracting rosewater and
other herbal waters by means of stills. Their stills had been developed
through the centuries from prototypes based on those used for chemical
experiments in Hellenistic Egypt.
But although we can trace the practice of distilling in Egypt as far
back as the first century AD, the early distillers there, who recorded their
recipes in Greek texts, apparently used the technique principally to
create ‘sulphur water’ [theion hudor] from various mineral and organic
ingredients. With it they endeavoured to tint base metals, which had
already received other treatments, to a golden colour. Their surviving
1. Forbes (1949), 57.
[ 17 ]

WATER OF LIFE
recipe books give no instructions for distilling wine; but we know that
at least one book on the distilling of liquids (which might have held
such a recipe) was in existence probably as early as the first century (see
chapter 1, part 2). Unfortunately, it did not survive. 2
There are no obvious references to wine-distilling in the works of
contemporary Greek and Roman authors. When the Arabs tried,
much later, to distil wine, they produced a colourless liquid resembling
distilled vinegar, which apparently contained no alcohol. Therefore
modern historians of science have calculated that the technique for
producing alcoholic spirits by distillation must have been invented
during the Middle Ages, shortly before recipes for carrying out the
operation began to appear in medieval Latin manuscripts.
One historian disagreed. Herman Diels recognized instructions
for distilling wine in a book written in Greek about AD 200 by a
Christian author, believed to be Hippolytus, presbyter of Rome (and
perhaps an early anti-Pope). His purpose was to attack the heretical
Gnostic sects of his age. His method was to name each sect in turn, and
demonstrate how its beliefs were taken from the teachings of the ancient
Greek philosophers, and, where relevant, he pointed out the ‘tricks’
practised within the sect. The book was formerly called by the Greek
title Philosophoumena, and more recently by the Latin title Refutatio
omnium haeresium. Here it will be called simply the Hippolytus text.
In part 4 of this book, the author wrote down a series of recipes for
creating magic fires and lamps. Classical scholars believe that he copied
them from a collection of such recipes gathered together and circulated
by Anaxilaus of Thessaly, a neo-Pythagorean who was expelled from
Rome in 28 BC, charged with practising magic. In the Hippolytus text
they are referred to as tricks practised by the Gnostics and the magi.
The magi were the wise men of the Persian Zoroastrian religion, wherein
fire was the highest and most important element. One Gnostic sect in
existence around AD 200, the followers of Basilides, did indeed combine
Zoroastrian with Christian teachings, thus giving rise to the idea that
2. M. Berthelot, Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs (Paris, 1887–8, reprinted
London, 1963), 2.1.29. The 1963 edition is arranged as three separate volumes bound
together and titled ‘Introduction’, ‘Textes’ and ‘Traduction’. The text references printed
here all give the numeration of the part, the treatise, and the paragraph, as these
numbers are identical for the Greek texts and the French translations.
[ 18 ]

WINE-DISTILLING AND THE FOUR ELEMENTS
magic fires originated with the magi. But Anaxilaus’ collection of fireraising
recipes owed more to his Pythagorean beliefs, as we shall see.
The recipe identified by Diels in the Hippolytus text (book 4, chapter
31) runs as follows, in English translation:
There is sea-foam [salt] that has been heated in an earthenware wine-jar
with new wine. When this has been ‘boiled’, if you apply a burning
lamp to it, seizing the fire it sets itself alight, and if poured upon the
head, it does not burn it at all. And if you add manna to it as it boils,
it catches fire much more readily. It does better still if you put to it
some sulphur.
Diels recognized what the product would be because ‘to boil’ is one
of the terms used to indicate ‘to distil’ in the Greek recipe texts of the
early chemical experimenters in Egypt (see chapter 2, part 1). It is also
obvious that the recipe in this format would have acted as a reminder
for people who already knew how to carry out the operation. There
is no reference to a stillhead, though it would have been essential to
use one. Wine heated in an open vessel simply loses its alcohol to the
air; and it was the alcohol that allowed the liquid to be flamed upon
the head. But perhaps the most telling proof of all is that the same
formula reappears nearly a thousand years later, as the earliest Latin
recipe for wine-distilling so far discovered. The Latin version does not
mention applying the distillate to the head, but it does say that the salt
and wine ‘cooked in the vessels used for this business’ produce ‘a water
which, when ignited, while flaming preserves the underlying material
unburnt’. 3
The salt [sea-foam] remains a frequent ingredient in medieval distilling
recipes. It raises the boiling point of wine by a few degrees, thus
delaying the moment at which massive amounts of water vapour are
released to combine with what remains of the alcohol in the wine. For
a description of the full process, see chapter 2, part 1.
The Gnostics’ wine-distilling expertise – and their recipe – survived
under cover for a very long time. But how did they come to possess it,
and whence came their ritual usage of the spirits distilled from wine?
3. Mappae clavicula (1974), 109, col.45 for text; 59, no.212 for translation.
[ 19 ]

WATER OF LIFE
– for there is other evidence for the Gnostics’ ritual fire. To find out we
must look back to the cultic aspect of the early chemical experiments
performed in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt; and beyond them to the
role of the ancient Greek mystery religions, and especially the mysteries
of Dionysus.
2. THE EARLY EXPERIMENTERS IN EGYPT
The people who supply our link between the wine-distillers of the early
Christian era and their more shadowy predecessors within the Dionysus
cult are the philosopher-chemists in Egypt. They too were practising
distilling, as one among several chemical techniques, in apparent
attempts to turn base metals into gold, and they were doing this for
cultic reasons as will be explained. They were active from about 200
BC and probably earlier; and in the first century AD were already using
stills of three or four different types
It is extremely likely that they distilled wine, and were interested
in the high fire content of spirits of wine. One of their terms for
distilling was ‘the raising of the water’ (tou hudatos hē arsis), and the
author of their earliest text, supposedly Democritus, claims to have
written a treatise on that topic already. It could have contained useful
information about contemporary wine-distilling, but it has not
survived. Nevertheless many other recipe texts of these proto-chemists
have come down to us in manuscript collections, now preserved in
libraries in several European cities. It is worthwhile to consider here
the achievements of the philosopher-chemists of Egypt, and how their
ideas about the natural world influenced their cultic beliefs, before we
go back earlier still to view the possible role of spirits of wine in the
mysteries of Dionysus.
The oldest collection of their recipes is held in St Mark’s library in
Venice (MS Marc. 299). It contains Greek texts copied around AD
1000, but most originated much earlier, and some include material
going back to the first century AD. They were edited by Marcelin
Berthelot from a transcript made by C.E. Ruelle, and subsequently
published in four volumes alongside Berthelot’s own French translation,
and with an introduction by him, in 1887–8. The French translation is
very free. But the Greek texts themselves are not always easy to follow,
[ 20 ]

WINE-DISTILLING AND THE FOUR ELEMENTS
partly because many mineral ingredients mentioned in them can no
longer be identified.
The object of the experiments, however, is clear from the recipes. It
was to transform a tablet of bronze, or sometimes an amalgam of four
base metals including bronze (called the tetrasomata, i.e. four bodies), by
giving it the appearance first of silver, and then of gold. The gold tint
was achieved in various ways, including the treatment of the silvered
metal with ‘waters’ distilled from sulphur compounds and other yellow
colorants. These were called theion hudor (meaning both ‘sulphur water’
and ‘divine water’, since Greek theion can mean either ‘sulphur’ or
‘divine’). One recipe includes a description of the distilling apparatus
used to produce the divine sulphur water by the slow distillation of
eggs.
The stillhead is called a mastarion (meaning ‘breast-shaped’) – it
was made of blown glass, so would have had a ‘nipple’ where the glassmaker’s
rod was broken off. Its rim was incurved, and the curved
channel thus formed was equipped with an outlet tube. This stillhead
was attached to the top of the wide cylindrical neck of the base vessel,
while the lower end of its outlet tube was sealed to the mouth of the
receiving vessel.
The apparatus, with the eggs in the base vessel, was left in a low heat
(within a dunghill or a pastrycook’s oven) and the complete operation
took several weeks, with the occasional addition of more eggs. ‘When
you open the still, hold your nose against the odour,’ warns the recipe.
The final viscous liquid was sun-dried to a soapy consistency, and was
then applied to silver to give it the appearance of gold. 4 Many other
powders, pastes and liquids were manufactured for the same purpose.
The previous stage, the silvering of the bronze, was also achieved in
a variety of ways. Cinnabar was treated by sublimation (vaporization
in a closed vessel) to produce mercury, and orpiment and realgar were
treated by the same technique to produce arsenic. One or other was
then applied to the surface of the bronze, again by the sublimation
method, to provide a silver coating. But several other methods were
also used to achieve the desired silver coloration.
4. Berthelot (1963), texts, 3.8.
[ 21 ]

CHAPTER SIX
AQUA VITAE AND THE EYEWATER OF PETER OF SPAIN
1. THE PHYSICIANS OF BOLOGNA
Between about 1270 and 1285 news began to spread from Bologna
through northern Italy and beyond concerning a marvellous
new panacea called aqua vitae [water of life]. Its virtues were
recorded in a number of short Latin treatises. It was a wonderful cure
for all cold diseases, and for apoplexy, paralysis, trembling of the limbs,
and renal stone, either taken as a dose of a few drops in a cup of wine,
or applied externally as a liniment. It could consume phlegm, relieve
toothache, and reduce bad breath. Above all, it could ease an ancient
pain in the head, hold back old age and restore youth, improve the
memory, and take away darkness, spots and cataract from the eyes.
It had other remarkable applications, too. It could clarify winemust,
and furthermore could recover corrupt wine and make it good.
It could preserve dead flesh from decay. It could draw out within three
hours the virtues of any herb, flower, root or spice steeped in it. It had
potentials for alchemy that are only hinted at in the treatises.
Aqua vitae was distilled from wine, and there are references in
the treatises to fractional distilling (that is, redistilling the first, most
alcoholic, part of the distillate, as a process for strengthening the ‘water’).
Aqua vitae itself is usually said to be produced in three distinct formats:
the simple, distilled from wine alone (and thus resembling burning
water); the composite (composita) for which the simple version was
redistilled over herbs and spices; and the most perfect (perfectissima)
which required further redistillations, usually over additional spices.
Seven or even ten redistillations are mentioned, though in practice four
would suffice. 1
1. Lippmann (1914), 382.
[ 115 ]

WATER OF LIFE
But perhaps the greatest novelty, for those whose practice of winedistilling
was confined to the rosewater still or its equivalent, was the
commendation in all the aqua vitae treatises of the use of a stillhead
equipped with a long, serpentine outlet tube, which passed through a
tub of cold water to cool the distillate. The technology is described in
great detail in the treatise copied at the end of the manuscript of the
Consilia medicinalia, a book of medical advice by the famous physician
Taddeo Alderotti of Bologna.
Knowledge of the new technology spread fast. The Acts of the
Provincial Chapter of the Dominicans at Rimini for 1288 report the
discovery that certain brethren had instruments ‘by which they make
the water that is called aqua vitae’. All the Dominican priors were
warned that the vessels used for that purpose must be destroyed or
sold; and they must not permit ‘water of this kind to be made in
our houses’. 2 The Church authorities were not yet ready to accept a
medicine produced by the ‘alchemical method’; in fact, they were at
that period opposed to having any medicines made within religious
houses, since they believed that ailments should be cured by God’s will
alone, and not through human intervention.
Who were the true authors of the aqua vitae treatises, and whence
came their understanding of the new distilling process based on the
serpentine tube? The names of well-known physicians were attached
to the Latin texts, but that was inevitable in a culture where unknown
authors spread their ideas by attributing them to famous names; and
literary and scientific texts circulated in copies made by scribes who
themselves remained anonymous. Two men were named as authors
of one or other of the earliest aqua vitae treatises: Taddeo Alderotti
(1223–1303), called by his Latin name, Thaddaeus Florentinus, in
the texts; and his contemporary Teoderico Borgognoni (1205–1298),
called simply Theodericus in the surviving copies. Both men practised
medicine at Bologna during the later thirteenth century.
Soon afterwards a third name began to appear on copies of the
aqua vitae treatises, that of Mondinus, who was Mondino de’ Luzzi
(c. 1275–1326). He was an apothecary who studied under Taddeo
2. Archivum fratrum praedicatorum, 11 (1941), 163, quoted by F.S. Taylor, ‘The idea
of the quintessence’, Science, Medicine and History: Essays in Honour of Charles Singer,
2 vols. (Oxford, 1953), I, 254.
[ 116 ]

AQUA VITAE AND THE EYE WATER OF PETER OF SPAIN
Alderotti, and went on to become a physician himself at Bologna. 3
Later still, the discovery of aqua vitae was attributed to Raymond Lull
or Arnald of Villanova, both scholarly celebrities of their time, and the
links between the early treatises and the Latin names of Thaddaeus,
Theodericus and Mondinus were forgotten.
But those links, made by scribes who copied the manuscripts in the
later thirteenth century, are suspect too. The authenticity of Thaddaeus’
authorship of his aqua vitae treatise begins to slip away when we
examine the text of his Consilia medicinalia (edited by G.M. Nardi
in 1937 from thirteenth- and fourteenth-century manuscripts). 4 The
greater part of the book is devoted to a diversity of ailments with advice
on methods of treatment, and just the final seven Consilia describe
aqua vitae, its properties and the way it is distilled. Yet those seven
sections are written in a totally different style from the previous 178,
and although they praise aqua vitae as a wonderful cure for every kind
of cold ailment, it receives no mention when the same ailments are
considered in the main part of the book. The single exception, 5 towards
the end of the book, could have been inserted by the same unknown
scribe who added the final aqua vitae sections to the copy he was writing
of Thaddaeus’ celebrated Consilia. From that copy others were made,
including the two used by Nardi for his modern edition. They leave
us with the thought that the inventor of aqua vitae was not Thaddaeus
Florentinus.
Could Theodericus, then, have been the inventor? On the face of
it, this seems quite possible. He was either the son or the close disciple
of Hugo Borgognoni of Lucca, who had practised medicine at Bologna
from 1214 until his death in the 1250s. Theodericus himself also
practised, first at Lucca, and then, for most of his professional
3. Sources: Thaddaeus in thirteenth-century Cod. Vaticano 2418 and fourteenthcentury
Cesena, Cod. Malatestiano Dxxiv–3, and Munich, Cod. Lat. 363, 78r.–81v.
Theodericus in thirteenth-century British Library MS Add.25031, ff.26–7, and many
later copies; see Singer (1928–31), II, 654–8, no. 1000 listing 23 in British libraries
alone. Mondino in fourteenth-century British Library MS Sloane 1754, 19v.–20v.,
and MS Add. 9351, 105r.–105v. The names Theodericus and Mondino often appear
in mangled form, corrupted through re-copying.
4. T. Alderotti (Thaddaeus Florentinus), Consilia medicinalia, ed. G.M. Nardi (Turin,
1937).
5. ibid., 206.
[ 117 ]

WATER OF LIFE
life, at Bologna. He wrote a book called Cirurgia [Surgery], probably
in the 1260s, in which he advocated the use of wine as a dressing for
all wounds ‘because it dries and cleanses’. 6 By 1240 he had become a
Dominican, and during 1262–66 he served as Bishop of Bitonto, near
Bari in southern Italy. Then he was appointed Bishop of Cervia, north
of Rimini, and he held that post until his death in 1298, continuing
all the while to practise medicine in Bologna.
As a young man Theodericus was said to have studied alchemy,
and even to have written two alchemical books, now lost. 7 Western
alchemists followed the Arab tradition of distilling various chemical
‘sharp waters’ with which to treat metals. He would certainly have
known about the distilling of rosewater and herbal waters, both from
Latin translations of works of prominent Arab physicians, and because
those waters had become a part of Salernitan medicine. But the aqua
vitae treatises circulated under Theodericus’ name contain no references
to Galen, or to the Arab masters who were his guides for many of his
recommendations in Cirurgia.
The earliest text to come to light so far (BL Add. 25031) is written
in a thirteenth-century hand. It repeats over and over the value of
aqua vitae against numerous cold diseases, and makes the usual claims
that this ‘water’ brings out the virtue of all herbs, spices and flowers
(except the violet) within three hours, and that it drives away white
hair, i.e. old age, and brings back youth, that it improves the memory
and that it makes the person who drinks it cheerful and happy. Already
the writer of the treatise is recommending a small daily dose. The
serpentine vessel (cooling tube) is mentioned. If the water flames on
a scrap of linen when ignited, it is good. If it does not, then it is no
use. Finally the treatise makes a link back to earlier times, for twice it
states that the information it contains has ‘come from the words of the
ancient philosophers’. The reasons why Theodericus’ name came to be
associated with this text will shortly become apparent.
6. Theodericus, The Surgery of Theoderic in AD 1267, trans. E. Campbell and J.
Colton, 2 vols. (New York, 1955–60), I, 49.
7. He was author of De sublimatione arsenici and De aluminibus et salibus, both
now lost. See G. Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science, 3 vols. (Baltimore,
1937–48), II, 654.
[ 118 ]

AQUA VITAE AND THE EYE WATER OF PETER OF SPAIN
2. THE ORIGIN OF THE AQUA VITAE TREATISES
The treatises are ostensibly medicinal, but concealed within them are
certain signals which show they do not come from Arab medicine or
from alchemy. These are the riddling statements that betray the thought
processes of the Gnostics. The ancient pain in the head which, it is
claimed, will be relieved by the distillate of wine is the pain of the soul
(it was Plato who first emphasized the head as the location of the highest
part of the soul), the pain felt because the soul has fallen from the realm
of light into this dark world; and it can be relieved by baptism of the
head with the distillate of wine. The restoration of youth refers to the
beginning of a new life for the initiate receiving that baptism (it was
also, of course, the goal of the seekers after the Arab-inspired elixir of
life). The improvement of memory is a cryptic reference to the soul’s
increased ability to recall its life in the realm of light once baptism
has taken place. The removal of spots from the eyes represents release
from the blindness that prevents the uninitiated from seeing the truth.
These ideas went back across many centuries. One of the Greek texts
in Berthelot’s Collection, composed not later than the third or fourth
century AD, and supposedly by Ostanes, refers to the water that makes
the blind to see, the deaf to hear, and the stutterers to speak plainly. 8
Bu t it was the concept of distilled wine restoring the memory that
stood out for me when I first studied the aqua vitae texts. It seemed
totally contrary to the effects of spirit-drinking today. That comment,
encountered several years ago, started me on a quest that led back to
the Gnostics of the ancient world and beyond. Yet very recently I have
discovered that there may have been some truth in what the texts say.
Dr Andrew Scholey of Northumbria University carried out experiments
whereby some of his students were given small amounts of
alcohol (e.g. a half-pint of lager, but no more) between the time when
they learnt certain facts and when they were asked to recall them. Their
remembrance of the facts proved to be better than that of either the
control group given more alcohol, or the one given no alcohol at all.
This research was reported in some newspapers on 15 March 2002; and
it raises a new question. Could the Gnostics have known the same
8. Berthelot (1963), texts, 4.2.1.
[ 119 ]

CHAPTER ELEVEN
DISTILLING IN THE BRITISH ISLES
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
1. THE AMAZING EXPANSION OF THE DISTILLING INDUSTRY
Britain’s war with France continued, and the distilling trade in
England and Wales continued to grow. Smuggled brandy and
genever still came in, but there was an increasing market for the
new substitute, British brandy, and for the national version of genever
or gin which soon became the more popular of the two. Strong beer
grew ever more expensive, due to extra taxation; and as its price rose
from two-pence a quart in 1688 to three-pence or more in 1720, so
more people transferred their allegiance to spirits.
French brandy was smuggled direct from France, but was also
brought in indirectly via Germany or the Low Countries with duty
paid on it as ‘German’ or ‘Flemish’ brandy. The new cereal-based
British brandy was treated in various ways to increase its resemblance to
brandies drawn from grape-marc or wine. Prunes, damaged vine-fruits,
even raisin stalks were sometimes added before the first distillation (the
‘low wines’) was redistilled. George Smith, a distiller from Kendal,
recommended adding to twenty gallons of ‘fine English brandy’, two
ounces of a tincture made from terra Japonica (the astringent dried
leaves and shoots of the oriental Uncaria gambir bush) and a little
saffron and mace, all infused in a pint of brandy, plus six ounces of
nitre dulcis [wine-barrel tartar] ‘to improve English brandy and make
it appear like French.’ 1 Ambrose Cooper claimed that molasses spirit
could have its vinosity improved by ‘some good dulcified spirit of nitre
… and if the spirit be clean worked it may, by this addition only, be
made to pass on ordinary judges for French brandy.’ 2
1. G. Smith (1766), 6.
2. Cooper (1757), 75.
[ 223 ]

WATER OF LIFE
English genever was easier to construct, inasmuch as it was based, like
its Dutch prototype, on malted grain. The top quality ‘royal genever’
was made from proof malt spirit redistilled over crushed juniper berries,
and was thus extremely alcoholic; ‘best genever’ required more juniper
berries and more water with the same amount of proof spirit, and
ordinary genever even more berries and water, according to George
Smith’s recipes. 3 He was a reputable distiller. But Sir John Hill, a
physician, warned against the spirits sold in the majority of city ginshops,
since only the better kind was made with juniper berries, and
‘what they commonly sell is made with … oil of turpentine … and with
the coarsest spirit they have.’ 4
A huge number of small-scale distillers were at work, in cellars,
back-rooms, and lean-tos in alleys in the towns, and especially in
London. Their products were sold on the spot, or from barrows in
the streets, where women vendors also walked around carrying flasks
from which they sold drams to passers-by. Many distillers were poor
folk, for distilling apparatus was cheaper than the equipment needed
to set up as a brewer, and it occupied less space. Drinkers buying at
source would knock back their dram in the street outside the cramped
gin-shop; if not inside. Significantly, an early reference to such a shop,
which appeared in 1718 in Read’s Weekly Journal, ran: ‘Last Thursday
a woman coming out of a Jeneva shop in Red Cross Street fell down
and within some few minutes departed this mortal life for another.’ 5
Drinkers could also purchase gin or brandy in ale-houses, if they
wished to drink indoors in more comfort. In smaller country towns and
villages, the ale-houses were the usual outlets, often selling smuggled
foreign spirits alongside duty-paid foreign and British ones.
Smuggled spirits were of variable quality, but usually less pernicious
than the products of many London gin-shops, distilled not just from
beer-dregs, but from all sorts of organic waste set working by yeast.
Whether any such shop really carried a sign saying ‘Drunk for a penny,
dead drunk for two-pence, clean straw for nothing’, as appears in
Hogarth’s famous engraving of Gin Lane, we do not know. But his
3. G. Smith (1766), 48–50.
4. Sir J. Hill, Materia medica, vol.2, v, xxi, 497, quoted in Oxford English Dictionary,
2 nd ed.
5. Dowell, (1888), IV, 166.
[ 224 ]

DISTILLING IN THE BRITISH ISLES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
image of the oblivious mother letting her child fall to its doom, while
other deeply intoxicated persons display their predicament, does make
it seem quite possible.
Heavy drinking by prospective mothers affected the unborn, too.
More than two hundred years before, German physicians had warned
about the perils of spirit-drinking for pregnant women. But it was
the collective experience of miscarriages following over-indulgence in
genever during the first half of the eighteenth century that gave gin its
reputation in Britain as a means for procuring abortions.
The ills arising from excessive consumption of gin and brandy
included an increased susceptibility to disease; impaired judgement
causing accidents both to the drinker and to those round about,
stunted growth in young people; premature ageing for adults, and loss
of memory. The last two effects were the complete reverse of the claims
made in the early aqua vitae treatises, which still carried the influence
of the Gnostic ideas transmitted by the Cathars. Once more, excessive
drinking was turning water of life into water of death.
The government became alarmed at the proliferation of small-scale
distillers, and the effects of their products; and they tried to enforce
controls by legislation. Acts of Parliament in 1729 and 1736 imposed
high-cost licences on retailers, together with a high rate of tax on the
spirits themselves. But enforcement proved difficult. The 1736 Gin
Act was followed by riots; and the many small-scale distillers carried on
unlicensed, and with impunity. By 1743 the official excise duty returns
showed that the consumption even of duty-paid spirits in England and
Wales had risen to over eight million gallons a year. A new Act passed
in that year reduced the cost of the retailer’s licence to £1, but with the
proviso that it could only be granted by a magistrate. At the same time
the tax on liquor was reduced to a penny a gallon for malt spirit, one
and a half pence for gin, and six-pence for wine-based spirits. 6
All these measures still failed to curb the consumption of strong
alcohol. London physicians estimated in 1750 that as many as 14,000
cases of illness in and around London, mostly fatal, could be attributed
to over-indulgence in gin. 7 Women were much involved in the gin
6. G.B. Wilson (1940), 192–4.
7. W.H. Lecky, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, 3 rd ed. (London,
1883), 480.
[ 225 ]

WATER OF LIFE
trade, both as providers and as drinkers. In London nearly a third of
the licensed spirit sellers were women; and many servant maids and
labouring men’s wives consumed drams in the gin-shops. 8
The newly distilled spirit was extremely fiery, since it could be sold
as early as the day after it was distilled. George Smith of Kendal, well
experienced in the distilling trade, pointed out that gin had this quickselling
advantage over the other spirits. But he went on to explain:
However, it wonderfully improves by keeping, especially when it is full
proof, insomuch that some persons distilling Geneva from rectified
malt-spirits, with the usual quantity of juniper-berries, and laying
the goods by for eight or nine months, the same has meliorated and
become so mellow a commodity, that it has been sold at double price
in parcels, and been preferable to other liquors of dearer prices. 9
George Smith would have had some discerning customers able to afford
expensive mature gin. But the majority of gin-drinkers had to rely on
the fiery raw spirit.
At last, in 1751, an Act was passed by Parliament that really checked
the sale of spirits. Distillers were banned from either selling alcoholic
distillates themselves, or selling them on to unlicensed retailers. The
penalty for so doing was a fine of £10, and it was increased in later years.
Licences were granted only to householders owning property worth
at least £10, and to certain traders. Two years later the licences were
restricted further, and additional limitations were imposed on public
houses. Furthermore, distilling was forbidden totally during certain
periods in the 1750s, due to bad harvests and the need to convert
grain into foodstuffs. The trade of the distillers was thus interrupted.
Smuggling continued of course, but the overall consumption of British
spirits at last began to fall.
Smuggling had become an insoluble problem for the government.
Beyond the seaside towns with their harbours lay the huge indented
coastline of England and Wales, with its many unfrequented inlets
where smugglers could land their goods. There were too few excisemen
8. P. Clark, ‘The “Mother Gin” controversy in the early eighteenth century,’ Trans.
Royal Historical Society, 5 th series, 38 (1988), 70–1.
9. G. Smith (1766), 50.
[ 226 ]

DISTILLING IN THE BRITISH ISLES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
to keep up with the endless secret landings of barrels and casks; and
the local people, labourers and gentry alike, supported the smugglers
because their liquors were so much cheaper than duty-paid foreign
spirits. During 1732 a whole fleet of French smuggling ships was at
sea off the east coast between Newcastle and Yarmouth; and from
them small boats openly carried brandy inshore. 10 Smuggling went on
all through the eighteenth century and beyond, not only on the east
coast, but also on southern and western shores. Not for nothing was
the secluded Hareslade Cove on the Gower peninsula in South Wales
rechristened ‘Brandy Cove’. Scores of other inlets could have been
given the same name.
Rum was imported at a more favourable rate of duty than other
spirits, since it originated in the British West Indian sugar colonies. But
before 1750 the amount coming in was relatively small. The molasses
that was turned into spirits by British distillers either arrived as a
separate item, or was available as a by-product of the sugar refineries.
The Royal Navy, however, had already replaced brandy with rum as
the preferred spirits for issue to the crewmen; and until 1740 the
ration was half a pint of neat rum for each man daily. Then Admiral
Edward Vernon learned from his ships’ captains and surgeons that ‘the
pernicious custom of the seamen drinking their allowance of rum in
drams, and often at once, is attended by many fatal results.’ Thereafter
the sailors were issued twice daily with a mixture of one pint of water
and a quarter pint of rum, which they called ‘grog’, after the Admiral’s
nickname ‘Old Grog’, referring to his grogram boat-cloak. 11 From
1795 lemon juice was added to the mixture, bringing great benefit in
warding off scurvy. 12
Cider had a very minor role in the production of spirits. When
available, a small proportion was added to the malted grain or the
molasses of the wash from which the first ‘low wines’ were distilled.
But cider spirit never achieved a strong identity among spirit drinkers.
In Normandy from the sixteenth century onwards an eau de vie was
drawn from apple juice and pulp, and was eventually developed into
10. Clark (1983), 240–1.
11. Grogram was a coarse fabric of mixed silk and wool, often given a smooth surface
with gum, which would have helped to waterproof it.
12. G.B. Wilson (1940), 270.
[ 227 ]

WATER OF LIFE
Migne, J.E., ed., Patrologiae cursus completus, series graeca, 165 tomes,
Paris, 1857–66.
–––, Patrologiae cursus completus, series latina, 221 tomes, Paris, 1844–55.
Müller, G., ed., Aus Mittel-Englischen Medizintexe (Stockholm,
Miszellankodex X.90), Leipzig, 1929.
Orphei hymni, ed. W. Quandt, Berlin, 1962.
Pistis Sophia, ed. C. Schmidt, translated V. McDermott (Nag Hammadi
studies, 9), Leiden, 1978.
Savonarola, M., Libellus de aqua ardenti, in John of Rupescissa, De
consideratione quintae essentiae, Basel, 1561.
Singer, D.W. and others, Catalogue of Latin and Vernacular Alchemical
Manuscripts in Great Britain and Ireland, 3 vols., Brussels, 1928–31.
Vitalis of Furno, Pro conservanda sanitate, Mainz, 1531.
2. GENERAL
Barrett, C.R.B., The History of the Society of Apothecaries of London,
London, 1905.
Burkert, W., Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, translated E.L.
Minar, Cambridge, Mass., 1972.
Burnett, J., Liquid Pleasures: a Social History of Drink in Modern Britain,
London, 1989.
Chartres, J.A., ‘No English Calvados? English distillers and the cider
industry’, in English Rural Society, 1500–1800: Essays in honour of Joan
Thirsk, ed. J. Chartres and D. Hey, Cambridge, 1990, 313–42.
–––, ‘Leeds: regional distributive centre of luxuries in the later
seventeenth century’, Northern History 37 (2000) (Essays in honour
of Maurice W. Beresford), 115–32.
Clark, P., The English Alehouse, London, 1983.
–––,‘The ‘Mother Gin’ controversy in the early eighteenth century’,
Transactions, Royal Historical Society, 5 th series, 38 (1988), 63–84.
Cullen, L.M., The Brandy Trade under the Ancien Régime, Cambridge,
1998.
Degering, H. ‘Ein Alkoholrezepte aus der 8. Jahrhundert’, Sitzungsberichte
der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist.
Klasse, (1917), 503–15.
Dowell, S., A History of Taxation and Taxes in England from the Earliest Times
to the Year 1885, 2 nd revised ed., 4 vols. (London, 1888), vol. 4.
[ 288 ]

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Easton, S.C., Roger Bacon and his Search for a Universal Science, Oxford,
1952.
Forbes, R.J., Short History of the Art of Distillation, Leiden, 1948.
Harrison, B. Drink and the Victorians, London, 1971.
Ladurie, E.LeR., Montaillou, translated B. Bray, Harmondsworth, 1980.
Lichine, A., Encyclopaedia of Wines and Spirits, London, 1967.
Lu, G.-D. and Needham, J. and D., ‘The coming of ardent water’,
Ambix 19 (1972), 69–112.
Maguire, E.B., Irish Whiskey, Dublin, 1973.
Morewood, S., A philosophical and statistical History of … the
Manufacture and Use of inebriating Liquors, 2 nd ed., Dublin, 1838.
Mulhauf, R.P., The Origins of Chemistry, London, 1966.
Needham, J., Science and Civilization in China, part 5: Chemistry
and chemical Technology, vol. 2. Spagyrical Discovery and Invention,
Cambridge, 1974.
Partington, J.R., History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder, Cambridge, 1960.
Rau, E.J., Aertzliche Gutachten und Polizeivorschriften über den Branntwein
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Runciman, Sir Stephen, The Medieval Manichee, Cambridge, 1947.
Thorndike, L., A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols.,
London, 1923–55.
Vandyke Price, P., The Penguin Book of Spirits and Liqueurs, Harmondsworth,
1980.
Voigts, L.E., ‘The Master of the King’s Stillatories’, in The Lancastrian
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Williams, G.P. & Brake, G.T., Drink in Great Britain, 1900–79,
London, 1980.
Wilson, C.A., Food and Drink in Britain from the Stone Age to Recent
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Literary Society, Publications, Lit. & Hist. Section, 19), 1984.
–––,‘Wine rituals, maenads and Dionysian fire’, Papers of the Leeds
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[ 289 ]

WATER OF LIFE
–––, ‘Distilling, sublimation and the four elements: the aims and
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306–22.
Wilson, G.B., Alcohol and the Nation, London, 1940.
Wilson, R., Scotch, its History and Romance, Newton Abbot, 1973.
Wootton, A.C., Chronicles of Pharmacy, 2 vols., London, 1910.
Worlidge, J., Vinetum Britannicum, London, 1676.
3. ENGLISH RECIPE BOOKS
Adam’s Luxury and Eve’s Cookery, London, 1744.
Astry, D., Diana Astry’s Recipe Book, ed. B. Stitt (Bedfordshire Historical
Record Society, Publications, 37), 1957.
Bailey, N., Dictionarium domesticum, being a New and Compleat
Houshold [sic] Dictionary, London, 1736.
Beeton, I., The Book of Household Management, London, 1861.
Cooper, A., The Complete Distiller, London, 1757.
Dawson, T., The Good Huswife’s Jewell, London, 1596, reprinted
Amsterdam, 1977.
French, J., The Art of Distillation, 2 nd ed., London, 1653. Issued with
The London-distiller, 1652.
Gesner, C., The Newe Jewel of Health, translated G. Baker, London, 1576.
Hartmann, G., The True Preserver and Restorer of Health, London, 1682.
Hieatt, C.B. & Butler, S., eds. Curye on Inglysch (Early English Text
Society, SS8), 1985.
The London-distiller, new ed., London, 1652.
M., W. The Queens Closet Opened, London, 1655.
Markham, G., The English Housewife, 4 th ed., London, 1631.
Platt, Sir Hugh, Delightes for Ladies, London, 1605.
Raffald, E., The Experienced English Housekeeper, Manchester, 1769.
Smith, E. The Compleat Housewife, London, 1727.
Smith, G., A Compleat Body of Distilling (1725), new ed., London, 1766.
Woolley, H., The Gentlewoman’s Companion, 2 nd ed., 1675, reissued
Totnes, 2001.
–––, The Queen-like Closet, 2 nd ed., London, 1672.
Y-worth, W., The Compleat Distiller, 2 nd ed., London, 1705.
[ 290 ]

Accomplish’d Ladies Delight, The, 206
Adam’s Luxury and Eve’s Cookery,
232, 236
Adams, Samuel and Sarah, 259
Adeney, Roger, 184
Aeschylus, The Nurses, 46
agave, 284
Albigensian Crusade, 122
alchemy, 23, 31ff., 33, 133ff., 141
alchemy and the Arabs, 91ff.
alcohol, as preservative, 164
effects on memory, 119
alcools blancs, 192
alcopops, 285
alembic stillhead, 158, 242
Alexander of Aphrodisias, 38, 80
Alexandria, 55, 56, 69
Alexis of Piedmont, 174, 190
aloes, 232
Al-Razi, 93
alum, 158
ambergris, 261
America, 192-193, 214, 246, 248-
251, 269-271, 281, 282, 284
American brandy, 250
Amsterdam, 149
Anaxilaus of Thessaly, 18, 19, 35, 50,
51, 62, 63, 66, 71, 73, 89, 100,
103
INDEX
Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations on those pages.
[ 291 ]
Andrew, Laurence, 162, 172, 173
Angers, 264
aniseed, 176, 179, 180, 187, 191,
202, 211, 212, 232, 244
aniseed water, 211
Anna Comnena, 98
Annals of Loch Cé, 153
Anne of Denmark, Queen, 195, 209
Anthesteria festival, Athens, 53
Anthony, Francis, 189
Apocalypse of Adam, The, 65
apothecaries, as distillers, 171, 182,
183
Apothecaries’ Company, 210, 246
apple jack, 192, 193, 271
apricot brandy, 205
apricot kernels, 260
aqua ardens, 101, 102, 104, 106, 145
aqua ardente, 157
aqua coelestis, 188, 202
aqua composita, 142, 179, 180
aqua mirabilis, 188, 206, 231, 234
aqua regia, 189
aqua serpentina, 142
aqua vitae, 127, 157
aqua vitae, as medicine, 176ff.
aqua vitae, deaths from, 152-153
aqua vitae, early recipes, 155ff.
aqua vitae, first appearance in

Europe, 115ff.
aqua vitae treatises, 116ff.
aqua vitis, 72, 127, 142
aquavit, 151
aqvavit, 151
Arab herbal waters, 125
Arab translations of chemical texts,
92
Arabs and alchemy, 91ff.
Aragon, 123
Archidoxies, 192
Ardashir, Shah, 81
Argand, Aimé, 251
Argyll, Earls of, 219
Aristophanes, 53
Aristotle, 25, 27, 29, 38, 92
Armenia, 74, 97
Army, consumption of rum in, 265
Arnald of Villanova, 117, 135, 136
arquebusade water, 239
arrack, 216, 217, 250-251, 272
Ars operativa, 127, 128
arsenic, 27
Art of Distillation, The, 194
Artois, Count of, 145
Astry, Diana, 203, 205, 231
Athanasius, Archbishop of
Alexandria, 69
Athens, Dionysus cult at, 51ff.
Atholl brose, 237
Aubrey, John, 209
Augustine, Saint, 74, 87
aurum potabile, 189ff.
Australia, consumption of spirits in,
272
early distilling in, 271-272
Australian brandy, 271
WATER OF LIFE
[ 292 ]
Bacardi rum, 284
Bacchae, 57
Bacchus, see Dionysus,
Bacon, Roger, 94, 133-136
Baghdad, 92
Bailey, Nathaniel, 239, 240
Baker, George, 172
balcaan, 186
balm, water of, 211, 233
Band of Hope, 258
banquets, 177, 179, 198, 199
baphomet, 113, 114
Barbados, 215
barber-surgeons as distillers, 150
Barnard, A., 266
Basilides, 76, 80
Basilides, followers of, 18
Bastard wine, 159
Batten, Lady, 204
Batten, Sir William, 204
Beefeater gin, 210
Beeton, Isabella, 261, 263, 273, 275
Beggars’ Opera, 234-235
Belfast, 273
Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire, 174,
259
Ben Nevis distillery, Fort William,
266
Bénédictine, 148, 159-160
bergamot, 261
bergamot water, 259
Berlin, 191
Berlioz, Hector, 273
Berthelot, Marcelin, 20
Bethel, Connecticut, 282
betony, water of, 175
Betton’s British Oil, 252

Billingsgate, London, 265
Bilney, Norfolk, 235
Biographica Britannica, 190
Biringuccio, Vannoccio, 164
Bitonto, Bari, 118
bitter lemon drink, 283
bitters, 232, 279
black cherry brandy, 207
black cherry water, 180
Black Death, remedies for, 151, 152
Blencowe, Anne, 207
blended whisky, 269, 270, 277, 279
blessed thistle, water of, 175
blood, distillation of, 135
Blue John, 212
Bogomil, 97
Bogomils, 143
and fire baptism, 98, 107
and wine-distilling, 97ff.
transmission of knowledge of
distilling, 103
Boil, Johann, physician, 153
Bologna, 115, 117, 118, 124
Cathars in, 121, 125
Guild of Spicers, 147
Bolos of Mendes, 32, 33
Bols, 191
bonded warehouses, 245, 257, 282
Book of Fires of Marcus the Greek, 89,
90, 104, 163
Book of Thomas the Contender, 69
Books of Jeu, 70, 71, 121, 122, 127,
129
Boorde, Andrew, 171, 186
Booth, Felix, 244
borage, water of, 170, 171
Bosnia, 122
INDEX
[ 293 ]
bottles, 228
Bourbon County, Kentucky, 249
Bourbon whisky, 250, 270, 271
Boyle, Sir Robert, 209, 217, 247
Bradley, Martha, 241
braggot, 157
brandewijn, 149, 151, 204
brandy, 204, 213, 220, 227, 230,
243, 244, 246, 250, 251, 262,
263
American, 250
Australian, 271
British, 220-221, 223, 244, 263
South African, 272
brandy and soda, 279
brandy shrub, 245
Branntwein, 149, 151
Brears, Peter, 199, 239, 259
Brentford, Middlesex, 244
Brewer, Distiller and wine
Manufacturer, The, 254
brewers’ waste, 212
Brian, Richard, 174
Bridgewater Convent, 159
briony water, 231
Britain, consumption of spirits in,
276ff.
British and Foreign Temperance
Society, 258
British Association for the
Promotion of Temperance, 258
British brandy, 220-221, 223, 244,
263
British Temperance League, 258
Broke, Robert, distiller, 147
Brooke, Rev. Josiah, 206
Broseley, Shropshire, 252

Brunschwygk, Hieronymus, 162,
172, 173
Buck, John, farmer, 246
bucket-head still, 172, 194, 197-198,
242
bugloss, water of, 171
Bulgaria, 97
Burkert, Walter, 56
burning water, 133, 137, 157, 158,
163
Burnouf, Emile, 111
burnt waters, 161, 147, 148, 153,
155, 161
Burrough, James, Ltd., 210
Burt, Captain Edward, 237
Bushmills, 249
Bushmills distillery, 186
Bushmills malt whisky, 281
buttermilk water, 206
Byron, Lord, 267
Cadman, Dr Thomas, 211
Callimachus, 40, 41, 45
Calvados, 192, 227
Campbell, Besse, 185
Campbeltown, Argyllshire 281
camphor, 163, 164
Campion, Edmund, 186
Canada, early distilling in, 250
Canadian whisky, 271
canella bark, 232
Cannes, 276
Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, 137
Canterbury, 215
Canterbury Tales, 137, 189
Cape of Good Hope, 272
caraway, 191, 211
caraway seed brandy, 235
WATER OF LIFE
[ 294 ]
Caroline, Queen, 209
Carpocratian sect, 69
Carteret, Lady, 203
Cassell’s Domestic Dictionary, 267
Castle Carrick, Argyll, 219
Catalonia, 123
Cathars, and fire baptism, 100-101,
106, 109
and Grail literature, 107ff.
and the Templars, 113
and the water of life, 110
decline of, 143
early experiments with grain
spirits, 158
early spread, 98
female devotees and distilling,
129
in Bologna, 121, 125
in Germany, 100
in Provence, 108
in south-western France, 123ff.,
143
influence on Michael Savonarola,
142
influence on Roger Bacon, 135
recipes for distilling, 99, 104-105
rites, rituals, influence, 97ff.
synod of ‘bishops’, 108, 121
transmission of secrets of
distilling, 123ff.
Cecil, William, Lord Burghley, 176,
183, 184
cedrat, 261
cereal-based spirit, 137, 150, 153ff.,
158
English monopoly for, 184
from brewery waste, 184

in America, 215
Cervia, Rimini, 118
Charles Edward Stuart, Prince, 229,
241
Charles I, King, 211
Charles II, King, 209
Charles the Bad, King of Navarre,
152
Charles, Prince of Wales, 270
Chartres, John, 285
Chartreuse, 148
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 112, 137, 141,
189
Chelmsford, Essex, 176
chemical medicines, 181, 182
cherry brandy, 205, 235, 244, 251,
263
Cherry Heering, 264
cherry water, 206
chicory, water of, 171
China, 193
alchemy in, 93-94
Chiquart, Maistre, 163
cholera, 262
Chrétien de Troyes, 107, 108
chymists, 251-252
cider spirit, 192, 227, 228
cinnabar, 21, 25, 26, 27, 79, 93, 111
cinnamon, 176, 244
cinnamon water, 175, 180
cinnamon-flavoured Schnapps, 191
Circa instans, 103
Cirurgia, 118
citron, 261
claret wine water, 202
Clarke, Mr, instrument-maker, 247
clarrey, 157
INDEX
[ 295 ]
clary, water of, 180, 232
cleansing agents, 274, 275
Cleland, Elizabeth, 242
Clement IV, Pope, 134, 135, 136
Cleopatra, Queen, 35
Closet for Ladies and Gentlewomen, A,
201, 202
clove cordial, 267
Cobbett, Anne, 261, 274
Coca-Cola, 284
cochineal, 232
cocktails, 270, 271, 278, 279
cockwater, 180, 216
coffee, 237
Coffey, Aeneas, 256
Coffey’s still, 254
see also continuous still
cognac, 148, 205, 279
Cointreau, 264
Colchis, 26
cold still, 194, 197, 242
Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, 281
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 273
Cologne, 100
Cologne water, 234
Colombière, 251
columbine, water of, 170
Columbus, Christopher, 215
Columella, 33
Compleat Distiller, The, 196, 218
Compleat Housewife, 190, 231, 233
Complete Servant, The, 259
composite waters, 147-148, 157,
160, 170, 177, 179, 181, 187-
188, 203, 210, 215, 220, 231,
239, 246
Compostella, 107, 125

compound waters, 221, 231
Compton Burnett, James, 189
Confectio Raleighana, 210
Confessio amantis, 141
Consilia medicinalia, 116, 117, 124
consolamentum, 105, 122, 143
Constantine I, Emperor, 90
Constantine IV, Emperor, 90
Constantine V, Emperor, 97
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus,
Emperor, 86, 90
Constantinople, 86, 91, 108
Conte du Graal, 107
continuous still, 256, 257, 268, 269,
271, 277, 281, 283
Cooper, Ambrose, 223
Copenhagen, 264
Cor, Friar John, 149
cordial waters, 180, 234, 235, 242,
260, 272
coriander, 211
corn whisky, 249, 250
Cornwall, 267
cosmetics, 201, 234
cowslip wine, 229
Crimean War, 265
Cuba, 284
Cuba, Johann, physician, 153
cucurbit still, 90, 104, 105
cufa, 103
Cuffe, Mr, of Ballinrobe, 243
Curaçoa, 272
Cyzicus, 86
Daiquiri, 284
Dale, Pembrokeshire, 269
Dalmatia, 192
damask water, 174
WATER OF LIFE
[ 296 ]
Damian, John, alchemist, 149, 150
dandelion, water of, 171
Daniels family, of Cardigan, 269
Danziger Goldwasser, 191
dates, 187
Davenant, Charles, 213
Dawson, Thomas, 175, 179
Day, Ivan, 179
De administrando imperio, 90
De conservanda iuventutis, 136
De consideratione quintae essentiae,
138
De erroribus medicorum, 134
De remediis secretis, 172
De retardatione senectutis, 136
Defence of the Realm Act, 277
Degering, Hermann, 51
Delightes for Ladies, 174, 201
Delphi, Dionysus cult at, 39ff.
Demeter, 17, 56
Democritus, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28,
30, 31, 33, 63, 64, 68, 80, 81,
91, 92
Denmark, early distilling in, 150-
151
early spirit consumption in, 195
Der Lachs Goldwasser, 191
Derby ale, 228
Diageo, 269, 282
dibikos stillhead, 35, 36
Dictionarium domesticum, 240
Diels, Herman, 18, 19
diethyl ether, 273, 274
Digby, Sir Kenelm, 189, 233
dill, water of, 175
Diocletian, Emperor, 81
Dionysiaca, 45

Dionysian ritual objects, 52
Dionysus, 17, 34
Dionysus Chthonius, 41, 42
Dionysus cult, 24, 35ff.
at Athens, 51ff.
at Delphi, 39ff.
at Rome and Pompeii, 56ff.
at Thebes, 39ff.
in Thrace and Macedonia, 43ff.
Dionysus Liknites, 41, 42
Dioscorides, 26
Discourse on Tea, 237
distillation, origin of word, 177, 179
Distilleerboec, 204
distillers, independent, 182ff.
professional, 147
Distillers’ Company, 268
Distillers’ Company of London, 212,
212
Distillers Company Limited, 268
distilling, by English gentlewomen,
201ff.
in English households, 169ff.
dittany, water of, 161
Diu Crône, 110, 111
Divine and Sacred Art, see alchemy
divine water, 21
Dock distillery, Dublin, 256
dog’s nose, 265
Dominicans, 124
and aqua vitae, 116-121
Dordrecht, 216
Douglas, Isle of Man, 259
Dover, 244
Dr Chamber’s water, 203, 204
Dr Stephen’s water, 188, 204
Drake, Richard, 184
INDEX
[ 297 ]
Drambuie, 242
Drosera rotundifolia, 179
dualism, 48, 75, 105
Dublin, 245
Dock distillery, 256
Dundee, 150
Durham Abbey, 146
duty, see taxation,
Dyetary of Helth, 171
eau de Cologne, 61, 234, 261
eau de vie, 148, 149-151, 157, 204
eaue ardant, 163
Eckbert von Schoenau, 101
Edessa, 74, 76, 77, 87, 92
Egypt, 27, 81
Egypt, philosopher-chemists of, 20,
21, 27, 28, 30-33, 35, 37, 53, 63,
64, 68, 80, 81, 113
Eleusis, 56
elixir, 93, 94, 125, 138, 208ff.
Elizabeth I, Queen, 171, 177
Empedocles, 27, 29, 30
Encouraging the Distilling of Brandy
and Spirits from Corn, Act for,
221
Encyclopaedia of Domestic Economy,
260
Endfield, 171
endive, water of, 171, 175
enfleurage, 276
England, aqua vitae in, 157
consumption of spirits in, 149,
213, 245, 246, 247, 258, 262ff.,
213
English Housekeeper, The, 261
English wines, 229
Enoch, Book of, 63, 64

Ephesus, 26
ether, 273, 274
Euchites sect, 73, 88, 97
Euphorion, 40, 41, 45
Euripides, 57
Bacchae, 47, 48
Medea, 47
Euthanios Zigabenos, 98
Evelyn, John, 209, 239
Evelyn, Mary, 239
Evervin von Steinfeld, 100
ew ardent, 163
ewrose, 174
excise duties on spirits and alcohol,
149, 169, 204, 213, 219, 220,
220, 221, 223, 224, 225, 227,
243, 245, 246, 247, 249, 253,
255, 257, 263, 264, 272, 277,
285; see also taxation
eyebright, water of, 171, 175
eyewater, 124ff., 127, 129, 131, 159
Fairfax, Sir William and Sir Thomas,
198
Faits de cuisine, 163
Fane, Lady, 231
Fécamp Abbey, Normandy 159
Feirefiz, 109, 113
fennel, water of, 175
fern, water of, 170
ferric oxide, 94
Fettiplace, Lady Elinor, 202
Fine English Hollands, 260
fire baptism, 48ff., 62, 67, 68, 69,
71, 73, 74, 88, 100ff., 104, 106,
109, 129, 130, 132, 143, 144
fireworks, 164
Flegetanis, 107, 108
WATER OF LIFE
[ 298 ]
Flemish influence on English spirit
consumption, 183
flower waters, 234
Foix, County of, 143
Forme of Cury, 163
fortification of wines, 228-229
fortified wines, 264
four elements, 27ff., 29, 30, 33, 34
4711 eau de Cologne, 234
fractional distilling, 116, 128, 150
France, aqua vitae in, 157
early distilling in, 148
exports of brandy from, 204,
205, 220, 223, 227, 244, 250
exports of wine from, 264
production of liqueurs, 264
Francis I, King, 182
Francis, Philip, of Calcutta, 251
Franciscan order, 124, 136, 138
Frankfurt am Main, 147, 153
Freake, Mrs, of Bilney, Norfolk, 235
freezing out, 192-193
French, John, 194, 202, 233
Frenchams, Mary, 213
Frogs, The, 53
Fron-Goch distillery, Lake Bala,
269-270
fruit brandies, 191, 235-236, 244,
270
fumitory, water of, 161, 170
furnace in stillhouse, 195, 197, 200
Fyrst Book of the Introduction of
Knowledge, 186
Gardner, J.T., 254
Gawain, 110
gebrante Wyne, 147
genever, 272; see also gin

Genever bessenwater, 204
gentian root, 232
Gentlewomans Companion, The, 207,
238
Gerard, John, 179
Germany, 122, 151
consumption of spirits in, 147ff.
Gesner, Conrad, 172, 191
gin, 204, 224, 244, 256, 260, 265,
267, 272, 278, 279
Act, 225
and hot beer, 265
and milk, 265
growth in consumption, 224-226
Hollands, 267
hot water and black treacle, 267
London dry, 267
Plymouth, 267
Gin Lane, 222, 224,
ginger-beer, 258
Girard, Master, physician, 145
Glasgow, 216, 245
Glasse, Hannah, 234
glasses, 198
glasses, drinking, 235
Glenfiddich malt whisky, 281
Glenlivet malt whisky, 281
Gloy, Sir James, chaplain, 169
gnosis, 61
Gnostic sects, flaming baptism, 42
Gnostic sects, involvement with
distilling, 18, 61ff.
Goa, 216
Godfrey, Mr, apothecary, 246
gold, 141
Gold Strike, 191
gold water, 189ff.
INDEX
[ 299 ]
golden cordial, 191
Goldwasser, 190, 191
gooseberry brandy, 236
Gordon, Alexander, 244
Gordon’s orange gin, 278
Gospel of Nicodemus, 76
Gospel of Philip, 68, 69
Gouberville, Gilles de, 192
Gower, John, 141
Gower, South Wales, 227
Grail, the Holy, 107ff.
Grail, origin of word, 109, 111
grain whisky, 248, 253
Grand Marnier, 264
Grant, Thomas, of Dover, 244
Grant, William, 281
grapes in America, 215, 250
Grasse, 276
great palsy water, 231
Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, 227
Greek fire, 80, 86ff., 163
Gregory, Saint, 104
grocers, as distillers, 183
Grocers’ Guild, 183, 210
grog, 227
Guiana, 208
Guild of Surgeon Barbers (Scotland),
185
Guild of Vinegar-makers (France),
182
gunpowder, 164
as proving agent, 221
Hackness, E. Yorkshire, 175
Hales, Stephen, 251
Halstead, Coupland and Myers, 244
Ham House, Surrey 199, 200, 201,
239