124 / 180
156
DISTILLATION.
goes the vinous fermentation, however, much
more slowly and irregularly without the addi–
tion of a ferment than with it. It is therefore
quickened by the addition of the lees of a
preceding distillation.
The sweet juices of
palm-trees
and
cocoa-nuts,
as also of the
maple, ash, birch,
etc., when
treated like cane juice, afford vinous liquors
from which ardent spirits, under various names,
are obtained, as
arrack,
etc., the quantity being
about 50 pounds of alcohol of 0·825 for every
100 pounds of solid saccharine extract present.
IIoney,
similarly treated, affords the
metheglin
so much prized by our ancestors.
2. The juices of
apples, 1Jea.rs, currants,
and
such fruits, afford, by fermentation, quantities
of alcohol proportionate to the sugar they con–
tain.
Cherries
are employed in Germany, Rnd
other parts of the continent, for making a high–
flavored spirit called
kirsch-wasser,
or cherry–
water. The ripened red fruit of the
mountffin
ash
constitutes a good nrnterial for vinous fer-