This important book looks at the entire history of distilling in the Middle East and Europe from the earliest experiments by the Pythagorean alchemists of Ptolomaic Egypt in the fourth century BC to the commercial production of spirits to drink in the British Isles to the year 2000. It is important because Ms Wilson has explored byways of early history that have been little noticed by previous scholars. She links the art of distilling to alchemical practice; to the Dionysian cults of ancient Greece and Rome; to the development of the art by the Gnostic mystic Christian sects (who greatly...
This important book looks at the entire history of distilling in the Middle East and Europe from the earliest experiments by the Pythagorean alchemist...