If your Tinctures or Elixirs be not so strong or so saturated as you desire, you may by distillation abstract part of the Spirit of Wine which they contain, and by that means give them such a degree of thickness as you judge proper. But the Spirit of Wine thus drawn off constantly carries along with it a good deal of the aromatic principle. It is a truly Aromatic Strong Water. This Spirit of Wine also carries up with it a portion of thin Oil, which is so much the more considerable as the degree of heat employed is greater: and this is the reason why it becomes of a milky colour when mixed with water.
If you intend to make an Aromatic Strong Water only, you need not previously extract a Tincture from the vegetable substance with which you mean to prepare your water: you need only put it in a cucurbit, pour Spirit of Wine upon it, and distil with a gentle heat. By this means you will obtain a Spirit of Wine impregnated with all the odour of the plant.
[CHAP. III.]
Of Tartar.
PROCESS I.
Tartar analyzed by distillation. The Spirit, Oil, and Alkaline Salt of Tartar.
Into a stone retort, or a glass one coated with lute, put some white Tartar broken into small bits, observing that one half, or at least a full third, of the vessel be left empty. Set your retort in a reverberating furnace. Fit on a large ballon, having a small hole drilled in it; lute it exactly with fat lute, and secure the joint with a linen cloth smeared with lute made of quick-lime and the white of an egg. Apply at first an exceeding gentle heat, which will raise a limpid, sourish, pungent water, having but little smell, and a bitterish taste.
When this first phlegm ceases to come off, increase your fire a little, and make the degree of heat nearly equal to that of boiling water. A thin limpid Oil will rise, accompanied with white vapours, and with a prodigious quantity of air, which will issue out with such impetuosity, that if you do not open the little hole in the receiver time enough to give it vent, it will burst the vessels with explosion. An acid liquor will rise at the same time. Continue the distillation, increasing the heat by insensible degrees, and frequently unstopping the little hole of the receiver, till the elastic vapours cease to issue, and the oil to distil.