Name: Art of Preparing Spirit of Wine From Brandy, Without Fire
Ingredients: 2 to 3 pounds calcined salt of tartar, very dry; best and clearest white brandy (enough to fill 5 or 6 fingers high)

Art of Preparing Spirit of Wine From Brandy, Without Fire

Ingredients

2 to 3 pounds calcined salt of tartar, very dry
best and clearest white brandy (enough to fill 5 or 6 fingers high)

Directions

In a glass container, combine the calcined salt of tartar and white brandy.
Stir the mixture with a wooden spatula.
Let it rest for 1 hour to allow the salt to absorb the phlegm from the brandy.
After resting, separate the spirit of wine by pouring it off or filtering it.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Calcined salt of tartar: Very dry potassium carbonate that absorbs water from the brandy, separating the alcohol from it.
White brandy: Source of the alcohol that is separated out as the spirit of wine.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.