from the year 1300.
Arnand de Villeneuve was the inventor of it, and the produce of his
Still appeared so marvellous, that it was named Aqua-Vitae, or _Water of
Life_, and has ever since continued under that denomination in France;
Voltaire and reason say that it might, with far more propriety, be
called _Aqua-Mortis_, or Water of Death.

This liquor, called in English, _Brandy_, received from the learned the
name of _Spirit of Wine_; time improved the art of making it still
stronger by concentration, and in that state it is called _Alcohol_.

All spirit is the distilled result of a wine, either of grapes, other
fruits, or grains; it is therefore necessary to have either wine, or any
vinous liquor, in order to obtain spirits.

CHAPTER II.

OF THE FORMATION OF VINOUS LIQUORS WITH GRAINS, IN ORDER TO MAKE
SPIRITS.

The art of extracting wine from the juice of the grape, not being the
object of this book, I shall confine myself to what is necessary and
useful to the distillers of whiskey; it is therefore of the vinous
liquor extracted from grains, that I am going to speak.

The formation of that kind of liquor is founded upon a faculty peculiar
to grains, which the learned chymist, Fourcroy, has called _saccharine
fermentation_. Sugar itself does not exist in gramineous substances;
they only contain its elements, or first principles, which produce it.
The saccharine fermentation converts those elements into sugar, or at
least into a saccharine matter; and when this is developed, it yields
the eminent principle of fermentation, without which there exists no
wine, and consequently no spirit.

Grains yield two kinds of vinous liquors, of which the distiller makes
spirit, and the brewer a sort of wine, called _beer_. From a comparison
of the processes employed to obtain these two results, it will be found
that the brewer's art has attained a higher degree of perfection than
that of the distiller. They both have for their object to obtain a
vinous liquor; but that of the brewer is, in reality, a sort of wine to
which he gives, at pleasure, different degrees of strength; while that
of the distiller is scarcely vinous, and cannot be made richer. I will
give a succinct exposition of their two processes in order that they may
be compared.

OF THE ART OF BREWING.

The art of brewing consists:

1st. In the sprouting of a proportion of grain, chiefly barley. This
operation converts into a saccharine matter, the