A history of distillation in France (and elsewhere).

[NormandieStill]

A little while ago PalCabral posted here the following which set me thinking.

As far as I know the alambic charentais is really a design by the moors that was put in practice and enhanced by the Portuguese, used for wine fortification. The Portuguse used the moor's name for the still, al-inbīq but spelled it Alambique. Later, Dutch wine traders found the still in Portugal and brought it back to The Netherlands, where they started using it. Dutch wine traders bought the thin wines from Charentais for distilling at home but quickly realized it was cheaper to distill the wines locally and only transport the brandewijn, the burnt wine, back to The Netherlands. This is how the alambic charentais ended up in Cognac. Neither the still nor the name is actually French or from Charentais. History is funny.

The French often consider themselves to have been uniquely responsible for every great thing ever invented, but the long history of great French spirits (Cognac, Armagnac, Calvados) suggests that the local experience with distilling is not recent. But I couldn't find a online source that charted the history of the still in France. So I went hunting in the online archives of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (French National Library). There's a lot of archived books available online. Had to check a few before I found a decently written history of distilling in France.

Eventually I found Traitement Pratique des Vins - Deuxième Édition by Raimond Boireau (1876)1. He doesn't go back in detail to the original use of distillation in France, probably because there are no records, but given that other books cover the use of distillation for plant extraction and within alchemical experiments, it's probably fair to say that the still has been in use for some time. Searching for the people that he quotes or references in his history, put me onto another text from 1817 by Sébastien Lenormand ("The art of the distiller of spirits and eau-de-vies")2 which had the following to say in the introduction.

"Ce fut un Français qui donna naissance à la distillation des vins; ce fut encore un Français qui perfectionna cet art, ou, pour m'exprimer avec plus d'exactitude, qui renversa tout le système pratiqué jusqu'à lui, et lui en substitua un nouveau. Le chimiste le plus distingué du treizième siècle, Arnaud de Villeneuve, créa l'Art de la Distillation"
Translation: "It was a Frenchman who gave birth to the distillation of wines; it is another Frenchman who has perfected this art, or, to express myself with more precision, who has tipped the system used up until him on it's head, and replaced it with another. The most distinguished chemist of the 13th century, Arnaud de Villeneuve, created the Art of Distillation."

Searching for M. de Villeneuve, produced the following quote from one of his works:

"Parmi les médicaments, certains sont distillés ; à partir d'un vieux vin rouge, de l'aqua ardens est distillée, qui éloigne fortement la paralysie, diminue la pléthore et guérit rapidement les blessures récentes..." - Arnaud de Villeneuve ~1300
Translation: "Among medicines, certain are distilled; from an old red wine, aqua ardens (lit. Strong water from my limited latin) is distilled, which prevents paralysis, reduces "pléthore" (an excess of "humours" in the old medical understanding of illness) and quickly heals recent wounds..."

While he apparently only used spirits externally as a medical treatment, he does have a strong claim to being one of the first, if not the first to distill wine!

---

Returning to my original reading Boireau talks about the appareil simple ("simple still") being the only still used until the end of the 18th century. The first modification was the addition of the chauffe-vin ("preheater") by "Ami Argand" in 1780. Diagrams seem to show the basic concept of the charantais still (copper pot enclosed in a brick, wood-fired oven) with preheater and associated pipework in place around this time.

The next major improvement was by Édouard Adam in 1800 and was the application of something called Woulf's Apparatus. This deserves a detour. Woulfe's apparatus was a series of "bottles" through which a gas was bubbled in order to dissolve it (or some molecule within it). Originally developed to make working with nitric oxide safe, what will jump out at any regular here, or viewer of Moonshiners, is its similarity to the terrible mason jar thumper chains.

Adam worked out that the proof could be increased by bubbling the vapours from the still through a series of liquid-filled chambers. His version more closely resembles that of bubble plates (perf plates) of a modern still. (The drawings in the book often fail to show the details of construction which are all in the text - which is damn near impenetrable at times!).

From here, progress was made towards continuous distillation with the final French contribution being that of Cellier-Blumenthal in 1818. Searching for him brought me to an article3 about the development of distillation in France in the 19th century (which might have saved me some reading).

From that article Here is Adam's still:

Which looks like it might break the HD rule about not being able to close valves!

And that of Cellier-Blumenthal (taken from his 1818 patent - I've not been able to find the complete text of that online):

And also the following:

Which is clearly a bubble plate with caps. No perf plates here! The picture is undated, and taken from another book on the history of distilling which I'll try and get my hands on.

Boireau's book also has a set of recipes for various liqueurs which I'll post in a different section and link back to here.

---

References
1. Traitement pratique des vins : vinification, distillation. Culture de la vigne dans les divers vignobles - Raimond Boireau
2. L'art du distillateur des eaux-de-vie et des esprits: dans lequel on a donné la description des nouveaux appareils de distillation, Volume 1
3. Le développement de la distillation en France au XIXe siècle - Les apports de Jean-Baptiste Cellier-Blumenthal et d’Ernest Sorel - Jacques Breysse

[Black Bull]

Interesting read, thanks for that.
after 30+ years my high school french came in handy

[shadylane]

Thanks for the read
That's a shit load of valves on the Adam's still.
The one that bumfuzzles me is the valve on the take end of the worm?

The bubble cap plates hydraulics are something I haven't seen before.
The reflux was directed all the way around the plate by a weir to an offset middle downcomer.

[NormandieStill]

Interesting read, thanks for that.
after 30+ years my high school french came in handy

Ha ha. The older I get, the more I realise that an education is not a bad thing, and knowledge that seemed useless at the time, tends to help out in one way or another.

Thanks for the read
That's a shit load of valves on the Adam's still.
The one that bumfuzzles me is the valve on the take end of the worm?

The bubble cap plates hydraulics are something I haven't seen before.
The reflux was directed all the way around the plate by a weir to an offset middle downcomer.

I suspect that the drawing of Adam's still was not done by the designer. It's quite possible that it was drawn from memory by someone who didn't fully understand how it worked. The tap at the take-off of the worm would let you change receiver without spilling a drop. The bubble cap design would perhaps ensure enough movement to guarantee mixing... not that the turbulent conditions of a bubble plate seem somewhere where anything could stagnate.

Gustave Flaubert (Author of Madame Bovary) was compiling an encyclopedia of sorts when he died, his collected research and notes have been archived online, and include some notes on the history of distillation (his dates and names match those I found so the history is consistent at least). In his notes on distillation I found the following quotes.

"Au préalable, bien rincer le serpentin, pour s’assurer qu’il n’est pas bouché car une explosion, dans ce cas-là, serait inévitable."
Trans: "Before use, rinse the worm well to ensure that it is not blocked because in that case, an explosion will be inevitable."

"En hiver, lorsqu’il gèle fort ne pas laisser d’eau dans le réfrigérant : sa dilatation par le froid pourrait forcer ou faire crever le réfrigérant et toutes les pièces du serpentin."
Trans: "During winter, when it freezes hard, do not leave water in the flake stand: its expansion due to the cold could force or break the flake stand and parts of the worm."

The first makes me think that there may have been a number of documented industrial accidents at the time. The second reminded me of my own woes with a liebig.

I keep stumbling across quotes and images which amuse me, or which seem relevant to the community. I don't think that any of the tech is new, although some ideas seem to reinforce research done here by members. I'll commit to updating this thread as I stumble across stuff.

[PalCabral]

Eventually I found Traitement Pratique des Vins - Deuxième Édition by Raimond Boireau (1876)1. He doesn't go back in detail to the original use of distillation in France, probably because there are no records, but given that other books cover the use of distillation for plant extraction and within alchemical experiments, it's probably fair to say that the still has been in use for some time. Searching for the people that he quotes or references in his history, put me onto another text from 1817 by Sébastien Lenormand ("The art of the distiller of spirits and eau-de-vies")2 which had the following to say in the introduction.

"It was a Frenchman who gave birth to the distillation of wines; it is another Frenchman who has perfected this art, or, to express myself with more precision, who has tipped the system used up until him on it's head, and replaced it with another. The most distinguished chemist of the 13th century, Arnaud de Villeneuve, created the Art of Distillation."

Searching for M. de Villeneuve, produced the following quote from one of his works:

While he apparently only used spirits externally as a medical treatment, he does have a strong claim to being one of the first, if not the first to distill wine!

Returning to my original reading Boireau talks about the appareil simple ("simple still") being the only still used until the end of the 18th century. The first modification was the addition of the chauffe-vin ("preheater") by "Ami Argand" in 1780. Diagrams seem to show the basic concept of the charantais still (copper pot enclosed in a brick, wood-fired oven) with preheater and associated pipework in place around this time.

The next major improvement was by Édouard Adam in 1800 and was the application of something called Woulf's Apparatus. This deserves a detour. Woulfe's apparatus was a series of "bottles" through which a gas was bubbled in order to dissolve it (or some molecule within it). Originally developed to make working with nitric oxide safe, what will jump out at any regular here, or viewer of Moonshiners, is its similarity to the terrible mason jar thumper chains.

Very interesting! I don't think anyone should ignore the importance of the French and how they developed the art of distillation in history. The French have been in the forefront, leaders, when it comes to producing etanol in so many different forms and shapes. I hope my post, that you referred to NormandieStill, didnt give you this opinion, that was certainly not my intention.

The early history of distillation in Europe really follows two threads. One being the academic line, where scholars from the early universities exchanged knowledge with their peers in the arabic world, and I believe just as you are pointing to that it's here where the art of distillation first is passed on, from muslim/arabic scholars to european/christian dito. This is as far as I know proven and a fact. The other thread was the actual use of the moors' al-inbiqs. These pots travelled with the moors as they conquered Iberia and Sicily, being used to sterilize equipement and wounds. Such pots were found by or given to locals in what we today call Italy, Spain and Portugal. Farmers and winemakers put them to use on their crops.

I believe the academic studies of distillation and the practical use of the stills lived quite separate lives. The first alambique to reach The Netherlands from Douro, in Portugal, was in already in the 14th century, I believe, which means that the threads in principal happened in parallel. It's also well documented that the farmers in Charente were not distilling their wines until the Dutch brought the still with them. History is funny.

Thanks for the very interesting information!

[tommysb]

Great stuff Normandie!

aqua ardens (lit. Strong water from my limited latin) i

I think this is more like 'burning water'. We have 'aguardente' in Portuguese, which is clearly derived from 'agua ardens' and also has that meaning (water that burns, or burning water). This tiny detail is just for the pedants and etymology nerds out there! .

[Kareltje]

Merci beaucoup!

[NormandieStill]

aqua ardens (lit. Strong water from my limited latin) i

I think this is more like 'burning water'. We have 'aguardente' in Portuguese, which is clearly derived from 'agua ardens' and also has that meaning (water that burns, or burning water). This tiny detail is just for the pedants and etymology nerds out there! .

Yep. You're right. Not sure why I thought "strong". Interestingly there was a difference between aqua vitae and aqua ardens, despite both being distilled alcohol.

Very interesting! I don't think anyone should ignore the importance of the French and how they developed the art of distillation in history. The French have been in the forefront, leaders, when it comes to producing etanol in so many different forms and shapes. I hope my post, that you referred to NormandieStill, didnt give you this opinion, that was certainly not my intention.

I'm not French, and was far from insulted. More intrigued because after nearly 20 years of living here, I had obviously subconciously absorbed the idea that France is in some shape the "home" of distillation.

The early history of distillation in Europe really follows two threads. One being the academic line, where scholars from the early universities exchanged knowledge with their peers in the arabic world, and I believe just as you are pointing to that it's here where the art of distillation first is passed on, from muslim/arabic scholars to european/christian dito. This is as far as I know proven and a fact. The other thread was the actual use of the moors' al-inbiqs. These pots travelled with the moors as they conquered Iberia and Sicily, being used to sterilize equipement and wounds. Such pots were found by or given to locals in what we today call Italy, Spain and Portugal. Farmers and winemakers put them to use on their crops.

I believe the academic studies of distillation and the practical use of the stills lived quite separate lives. The first alambique to reach The Netherlands from Douro, in Portugal, was in already in the 14th century, I believe, which means that the threads in principal happened in parallel. It's also well documented that the farmers in Charente were not distilling their wines until the Dutch brought the still with them. History is funny.

Thanks for the very interesting information!

It's all fascinating stuff. I confess I hadn't thought of stills as being "agricultural tools" which might have been used by itinerants outside of research and medical circles. While written French going back centuries remains readable to a contemporary speaker, at some point the literature is written in Latin... and as I demonstrated above, my Latin is not so great! Which also means that I can't read whom Arnaud de Villeneuve was crediting for his sources.

Worth a read (if you like this sort of thing) is Michael Pollan's "This Is Your Mind On Plants". He doesn't cover alcohol directly, but does talk about the arrival of coffee (and thus, caffeine), in Europe and the way that it supplanted alcoholic drinks as the principle beverage of choice and the effect that this had on society as a whole (The Enlightenment!).

[PalCabral]

Worth a read (if you like this sort of thing) is Michael Pollan's "This Is Your Mind On Plants". He doesn't cover alcohol directly, but does talk about the arrival of coffee (and thus, caffeine), in Europe and the way that it supplanted alcoholic drinks as the principle beverage of choice and the effect that this had on society as a whole (The Enlightenment!).

Thanks, I will check it out.

The coffee is, still today in many countries and traditions, almost a spiritual beverage with lots of rituals surrounding it. My grandmother always boiled coffee and to prevent the course ground coffee from sticking to the bottom of the kettle she's give it a bang. Such was the custom. Later in life I learned a similar custom exists in Turkiye when they make coffee in those small one cup boilers they use.

Interesting fact. Since the Portuguese were the first to sail to India they were also the first to drink tea, in Europe. It became the fashion among the nobles in Portugal. The daughter of the king was married to the Duke of Lancaster and moved to England, where she took her tea habit with her, and drinking tea also became fashion in the UK. Now it seems I am touting the Portuguese here, and I guess I am a little - it's just a coincident