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DISTILLATION.
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that intestine change which grape JUice and
other glutino-saccharine liquids spontaneously
undergo when exposed to the atmosphere at
common ten1peratures. Sugar is the only sub–
stance which can be transformed into alcohol.
Whatsoever seeds, fruits, or roots afford juices
or extracts capable of conversion into vinous
liquor, either contain sugar ready formed, or
starch, susceptible of acquiring the saccharine
state by proper treatment. In common lan–
guage, the intoxicating liquor obtained from the
sweet juices of fruits is called
wine,
and that
from the infusions of farinaceous seeds,
beer,
though there is no real difference between them
in che1nical constitution.
Wine, cider, beer,
and
fermented wash
of every kind, when distilled,
yields an identical intoxicating spirit, which
differs in these different cases merely in flavor,
in consequence of the presence of a ininute
quantity of volatile oils of different odors.
The juices
~of
sweet fruits contain a glutinous
ingredient, which acts as a ferment in causing