–1—How to make true spirit of wine
Take the finest paper you can get or else some virgin parchment pull it very tight and stiff over the glass bottle where you put your sack, malmsie or muscadine. Oil the paper or virgin parchment with a pencil moistened in the oil of Ben {Moringa oleifera} and distill it in the pot with a gentle fire and by this means you shall get only the true spirit of wine. You shall not have more than two or three ounces at the most out of a gallon of wine which rises in the form of a cloud without any dew or veins in the helm {lid, cover} all the joint’s well in its distillation. The spirit will vanish in the air if the glass stays open.
–2—How to make ordinary spirits of wine, that is sold for five shillings and a noble a pint.
Put sack, malmsie, or muscadine into a glass bottle leaving 1/3 or more of your glass bottle empty. Set it in a warm bath or in a pan of ashes keeping a soft and gentle fire. Draw no longer than until all or most part will boil away, which you may check now and then by setting a spoonful of it on fire with a paper as it drops from the nose of a pipe of the lid. If your spirit thus drawn has any phlegm therein the then rectify or redistil that spirit again in a smaller bottle putting a lid of a small head on top of the steel thereof and so you shall have a very strong spirit or else for more expedition distill five or six gallons of wine in an alembic and that spirit which rises afterward red is still in a glass as before.
–3—Spirits of spices
Distill with a gentle heat either in a water bath or in ashes the strong and sweet water where you have added oil of cloves, mace, nutmeg, juniper, rosemary, etcetera after it has stood one month with tight lid and so you shall make a most delicate spirit of each of the said aromatical bodies.
–4—Spirits of wine tasting of what herbs you please
Macerate rosemary, sage, sweet fennel seeds, marjoram, lemon or orange peel, etc. in spirits of wine a day or two and then distill it over again, unless you would rather have it in its original color. For so you shall have it upon the first infusion without any further distillation and some young alchemists do hold these for the true spirits of herbs. {Original was spirits of vegetables}
–5—How to make the water which is usually called balm water
To every gallon of claret wine put one pound of green balm. Keep that which cometh first and is clearest by itself on the second and wider sort which is weakest and cometh last by itself it is still in a pewter alembic that is lidded onto a brass pot with paste then draw this in May or June when the herb is in its prime.
{Claret is a red Bordeaux either Cabernet sauvignon or merlot}
–6—Rosa Solis
Take one gallon of the herb Rosa Solis gathered in July. Pick out all the black spots from the leaves add half a pound of dates, one ounce each of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, half an ounce of grains of paradise, a pound and a half of fine sugar, and four handfuls of red rose petals, fresh or dried. Steep all there in a gallon of good Aqua compostia in a glass jar close stopped with wax for twenty days, shake it well together once every two days. Your sugar must be ground to a powder your spices bruised only or roughly pounded. Your dates cut in long slices and the stones taken away, If you add two or three grains of ambergris as much Musk in your glass amongst the rest of the ingredients it will have a pleasant smell. Some add to gum amber with coral and pearl finely powdered and fine leaf gold. Some used to boil Ferdinando buck (Pernambuco wood} in rose water till they have purchased made a fair deep Crimson color and when the same is cold they color their Rosa solis and Aqua rubia therewith.
–7 —Aqua rubea
Take five grains of Musk, one ounce each of cinnamon and ginger, one pound of white sugar candy, then powder the sugar and bruise the spices. Bind them up in a clean linen cloth and put them to infuse in a gallon of Aqua compostia in a glass bottle close lidded for 24 hours shaking them together every few hours. Then add twenty one drams of turnsole, let it stand for one hour and then shake well. Then if the color is good after it Is settled pour off the clearest into another glass bottle but if you would have a deeper color let it work longer upon the turnsole.
–8—D. Steevens Aqua composita
Take a gallon of wine from Gascony, plus a dram each of ginger, galingale, cinnamon nutmeg and grains of paradise, anise seed, fennel seeds and caraway seeds. A handful each of sage, mint, red rose leaves, thyme, pellitory, rosemary, wild thyme, chamomile, and lavender. bruise all the spices small and bruise the herbs letting them macerate for 12 hours stirring it now and then. Then distill by an alembic of pewter keeping the first clear water that comes by itself and so likewise the second you shall draw about a pint of the better sort from each gallon of wine
–9—Usquebaugh or Irish Aqua Vitae
To every gallon of good Aqua composita put two ounces of licorice root bruised and cut into small pieces after you have cleaned them of all dirt and two ounces of anise seed that have been cleaned and crushed. Then let them macerate five or six days in a wooden vessel lidded closely and then draw off as much liquid as will run clear dissolving in that clear Aqua vitae or six spoonfuls of the best molasses you can get, Spanish cute {sugar honey?} if you can get it, is thought better than molasses then put this into another vessel and after three or four days, the more the better, when the liquor has fined itself you may use it. Some add dates and raisins of the sun to this recipe. Those solids which remain you may redestil and make more Aqua composita of them and then of that Aqua composita you may make more usquebaugh.
–10—Cinnamon water
Take a copper vessel or brass pot that will hold 12 gallons. You may well make two or three gallons of cinnamon water at once. Put into your vessel overnight six gallons of water and two gallons of spirits of wine or to save charge, two gallons of spirits drawn from wine lees, ale or low wine, five pounds of the best and largest cinnamon you can get or else eight pounds of the second sort broken up but not beaten into powder. Lid your alembic and begin with a good fire of wood and coals until the vessel begins to distill and then moderate your fire so as your output will slow and run trickling into the receiver, but not blow at any time it helps much herein to keep the water in the bucket not too hot by often changing it must never be so hot that you can’t keep your finger in the bath.
Then divide into quart glasses the spirit of which first comes out and that you find either no taste or very small taste of the cinnamon. Then you may, after the spirit once begins to come strong of the cinnamon taste, draw until you have gotten at least a gallon in the receiver and then divide often by half pints and quarter pints lest you draw too long, which you shall know by the faint taste and milky color of which distills in the end. This you must know and then taste it with a spoon. Now when you have drawn so much as you find good you may add so much of your spirit that came before your cinnamon water as the same will bear which you must find by your taste but if your spirit and your cinnamon be both good and you may make up two gallons or two gallons and a quart of good cinnamon water. Here note that it is not amiss to observe which glass was first filled with the spirit that distilled and so the second, third and fourth when you mix begin with the last glass first and so with the next because those have more of the taste of cinnamon then that which came first and therefore more fit to be mixed with your cinnamon water and if you mean to make eight or nine pints at once then begin with half of this proportion. Also that spirit which remains unmixed does serve to make cinnamon water the second time this way I have often proved and found most excellent take heed that your alembic is clean and has no manner of sent in it but of wine or cinnamon and so likewise of the glasses funnels and pots which you shall use to make the cinnamon water.
–11—How to distill hyssop, thyme, lavender, rosemary etc after a new and excellent manner
Pick a large pot that can contain twelve to fourteen gallons with an alembic on it or else a copper body with a Serpentine {probably tubing coil} of twenty or twendy-four gallons and a copperhead being such a vessel as is commonly used in the distilling of Aqua vita. Fill with two parts of fair water and one other part with such herbs as you would distill the herbs being either moist or dry it slightly in a skillet. Let the herbs macerate all night and in the morning begin your fire then distill as before in cinnamon water, being careful to give change of waters so the color always looks good. Draw no longer than you get a strong and sensible taste of the herb which you distill. Always dividing the stronger from the weaker and by this means you shall make a water far excelling any that is made by a common pewter still you may also gather the oil of each herb which you shall find fleeting on the top or top of your water this course agrees best with such herbs as are not in taste and will yield their oil by distillation.
–12—How to make the salt of herbs
Burn whole bundles of dried rosemary, sage, hyssop, etc. in a clean oven and when you have gathered good store of the ashes of the herbs mix them in warm water making a strong and sharp lye of those ashes. Then evaporate that lye and the residue or settling which you find in the bottom thereof is the salt which you seek. For some used to filter this lye diverse times before evaporation that the salt may be the clearer and more transparent. This salt according to the nature of the herb has great effects in medicine.
–13—Spirit of Honey
Put one part of honey to five parts of water, when the water boils dissolve your honey into it, skim it and having boiled an hour or two put it into a wooden vessel and when it is but blood warm add yeast after the usual manner of beer and ale barrel it and then when it has laid for some time it will yield the spirit by distillation as wine, beer, and ale will do.
–14—To distill rosewater at Michaelmas and have a good yield as any time of the year.
In the pulling of your roses first divide all the imperfect petals, then take the other fresh petals and lay them abroad upon your table or windows with some clean linen under them and let them lie three or four hours, or if they are dewy, until the dew is fully vanished put these rose petals in large stone pots having narrow mouths and well lidded such as the gold finers call their hookers and served to receive their aqua fortis be the best of all others that I know. When they are well filled stop their mouths with good corks either covered all over with wax or molten brimstone {sulfur, don’t do this without PPE} and then set your pot in some cool place and they will keep a for long time. You may distill them at your best leisure, this way you may distill rosewater good and cheap if you buy store of roses when you find a glut of them in the market where they are sold for £0.07 or £0.08 the bushel. You then prepare the petals and some hold opinion that if in the midst of these petals you put some broken petals and after you fill up the pot with rose petals at the top that so in your distillation of them you shall have a perfect rose vinegar without the addition of any common vinegar. I have known rose leaves kept well in small vessels that have been first well seasoned with some hot liquor and rose petals boiled together and the same pitched over on the outside so as no air might penetrate or pierce the vessel.
–15—A speedy distillation of rosewater.
Crush the leaves and first distill the juice being expressed and after distill the leaves and so you shall dispatch more with one still than others do with three or four stills. This water is every way as medicinal as the other serving in all syrups, decoctions etc sufficiently but not altogether pleasing in smell.
–16—How to distill good wine vinegar or alegar so that it may be both clean and sharp
I know it is a usual manner among the novices of our time to put a quart or two of good vinegar into an ordinary lead still and so to distill it as they do all other waters. But this way I do utterly dislike both for that there is no separation made at all and also because I fear that the vinegar does carry an ill touch with it either from the leaden bottle or pewter head or both. Therefore. I would with rather that same were distilled in large body of glass with the head or receiver the same being placed in sand or ashes. Note that the best part of the vinegar is the middle part that arises first is faint and phlegmatic and the last will taste of adulteration because it grows heavy towards the latter end and must be forced with great fire and therefore you must now and then taste of that which comes both in the beginning and towards the latter end that you may receive the best by itself.
{Note that he is noticing the issues with using lead and leaded pewter, especially with acidic ingredients. Tasting of adulteration seems to be a burnt taste because of the extra heat.}
–17—How to draw the true spirit of roses and so of all other herbs and flowers.
Macerate rose petals in their own juices adding unto it once the juice is temperately warm a convenient proportion of either yeast or ferment. Leave them a few days in fermentation until they have gotten a strong and heady smell, beginning to incline towards vinegar, then distill them in a water bath in glass jars lidded to their tops. Happily, an alembic will do better and work faster and draw so long as you find any scent of the rose to come then redistill or rectify the same so often till you have made a perfect spirit of the rose you may also ferment the juice of roses alone and after distill the same.
–18—An excellent rosewater
Upon the top of your glass bottle stretch a hair cloth and upon that lay a good quantity of rose petals either dry or half dry and so your water will distill very good both in smell and in color. Distill either in a water bath or in a gentle fire in ashes. You may reuse the same water with fresh leaves. This may also be done in a leaden still over which by reason of the width , one gallon you may place more leaves.
–19—An excellent way to make the extract of all herbs
Express a good quantity of the juice of your herbs and flowers then set them on the fire and give them only a walme or two then they will grow clear. Before it is cooled pour away the clearest, filter with a piece of cotton cloth and then reduce the filtered juice until it comes to a thick substance and thus you shall have a most excellent extract of roses, gilly flowers etc with the perfect scent and taste of the flower. Or as the common way is to make the extract either by the spirit of wine, fair water the water of the plant or some kind of solvent.
{a walme is a heave, so two heaves of the liquid as it begins to boil}
–20—To make water smelling of the Egalantine, Gillyflower, etc
Dry the herb or flower and distill the same in fair water in an alembic. Draw no longer than you find scent in the water that issues. Reuse the water with fresh herbs and distill as before dividing the sweetest from the rest.
–21—A Scottish Handwater
Put thyme, lavender, and rosemary altogether then make a layer of thick wine lees in the bottom of a stone pot. Add another layer of the herbs and then a layer of lees and so forth. Lid the pot well and bury it in the ground for six weeks. Distill it and it is called James Water in Scotland. A little thereof put in a basin of common water makes a very sweet washing water.
–22—How to draw the blood of herbs
Crush the herbs and put the same into a large glass vessel leaving it two thirds empty. Some commend the juice of the herbs only. Close the glass very well. Then put it in a water bath for fifteen to sixteen days and you shall find the same very red. Divide the watery part that and which remains is the blood or essence of the herb.
–23—Rosewater and yet the petals are not discolored
You must distill in a hot water bath and when the bottom of the pewter still is very hot put in a few petals at once and distill them. Watch your still carefully and as soon as those are distilled put in more. I know not whether your profit will pay for your labor yet accept it as a new conclusion.
–24—How to recover any rosewater or any other distilled water that has gotten a mother and is in danger of getting muddled
Infuse your water with fresh rose petals or upon rose cakes broken in a bunch of pieces and then after soaking for three or four hours with a gentle fire redistill your water. Do this in an alembic take heed of drawing too long for burning unless your alembic stands in a hot water bath.
–25—To draw both good rosewater and oil of roses together
After you have digested your rose petals by the space of three months (see recipe 13) either in barrels or in clay pots then distill them with fair water in an alembic. Distill so long as you get an excellent smell of the rose then divide the fatty oil that floats on the top of the rose water and you have both excellent oil of roses and also good rose water together. And you shall also have more water than by the ordinary method and this rose water extends farther in medicinal composition and the other serves best for perfumes and casting bottles. You may also distill the oil of lignum rhodium this way saving that you shall not need to macerate the same above twenty-four hours in your water or solvent before you distill. This oil has a most pleasing smell in a manner equal with the oil of roses.
Æduin of Skye 