Alcohol Distillation and Its Significance in Alchemy

Alcohol distillation has always had a spiritual undercurrent to it, both for physiological reasons as well as its history and significance. The process itself can have its own sacred energy which adds depth and mystery.

Distillation has long been practiced by early civilizations, from Chinese who were distilling beverages by 800 BC and Greek cult of Dionysus who carried bronze still heads during biennial rituals to Delphi for biennial festivals. Alchemists believed distillation was capable of transmuting matter; alchemists employed distillation to extract essences from flowers, trees, plants and animals for use in creating remedies or elixirs.

Distillation works on the principle of differential boiling points between liquid and vapor states of substances; for instance, water boils at 100 C (212 F), while ethanol has lower boiling points at 78.3 C (173 F). As vaporized liquid condenses into two distinct components with different boiling points that separate into individual fractions with different boiling points in a collection vessel; it then returns back into boiling mixtures, while collected vapor fragments again into fractions that contain different compounds; this cycle repeats as necessary until desired products have been reached.

Raimondo Lullo first described an alembic in the 13th century alchemist Raimondo Lullo. An alembic is comprised of a curved flask equipped with a tube from bottom to top in which vapor from below passes up, being cooled with cold water from below as it rises towards its destination. Distillers can control both reflux rate and thus the concentration of each fraction as desired by controlling this process.