with its concealed virtues and force into
the human body to do its healing duty.It’s this connection between distillation and
the pure and ethereal that gives us our
synonym for distilled alcohol, spirits.
From Medicine to Pleasure and Drug of
Oblivion For several centuries after its
discovery, aqua vitae was produced in
apothecaries and monasteries and prescribed
as a cordial, a medicine to stimulate the
circulation (the word comes from the Latin
for “heart”). It seems to have been liberated
from the pharmacy and drunk for pleasure in
the 15th century, when the terms Bernewyn
and brannten Wein, ancestors of our word
brandy that meant “burning” or “burnt” wine,
appear in German laws about public
drunkenness. This is also when winemakers in
the Armagnac region of southwest France
began to distill their wine into spoilage-
resistant brandy for shipping to northern