Alcohol Distillation and Historical Events

Alcohol Distillation and Historical Events

The rise of civilization was closely connected to the development of alcoholic beverages. While initially used for sustenance, they eventually evolved into tools of spiritual transcendence and social connection – leading to distillation becoming both an industry and craft; monastic communities frequently engaged in this trade or craft as monastic breweries specialized in both brewing and distilling operations, creating beer and spirits suitable for consumption as well as trading purposes.

Distillation was well known to ancient Mesopotamians, as evidenced by tablets dated 1200 B.C. and by alchemists using distillation still devices in Roman Egypt during the first century A.D. It was likely done using capillary filtration; that is, placing cups or bowls atop one another on a stepped support and wetting each one with water or clear liquid for capillary filtration – purifying successive liquids as they passed down from upper cups into lower ones – known by those employing it as “distilllatio”.

Jabir (corrupted to Gemer) may have been the first to discover distillation as a viable method in the 8th century A.D. However, commercialization didn’t begin until later during the 15th century when refined techniques enabled commercial producers of alcohol products to broaden their product selections.

Johann Rudolph Glauber of Dutch-German descent drew up a diagram for a steam-injection wooden distillery in 1646; by the early eighteenth century most European distilleries followed similar processes: producing different spirits each with its own individual flavor in small, family-owned stills.