MRS. B.
The alcohol is contained in the brandy which is now coming over, and dropping from the still. Brandy is nothing more than a mixture of alcohol and water; and in order to obtain the alcohol pure, we must again distil it from brandy.
CAROLINE.
I have just taken a drop on my finger; it tastes like strong brandy, but it is without colour, whilst brandy is of a deep yellow.
MRS. B.
It is not so naturally; in its pure state brandy is colourless, and it obtains the yellow tint you observe, by extracting the colouring matter from the new oaken casks in which it is kept. But if it does not acquire the usual tinge in this way, it is the custom to colour the brandy used in this country artificially, with a little burnt sugar, in order to give it the appearance of having been long kept.
CAROLINE.
And is rum also distilled from wine?
MRS. B.
By no means; it is distilled from the sugar-cane, a plant which contains so great a quantity of sugar, that it yields more alcohol than almost any other vegetable. After the juice of the cane has been pressed out for making sugar, what still remains in the bruised cane is extracted by water, and this watery solution of sugar is fermented, and produces rum.