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LiquorA distilled beverage is a liquid preparation meant for consumption containing ethyl alcohol (Ethanol) purified by distillation from a fermented substance such as fruit, vegetables, or grain. The word spirits generally refers to distilled beverages low in sugars and containing at least 35% alcohol by volume. Gin, vodka, rum, whiskey, brandy, and tequila are types of spirits. Beverages high in both alcohol and sugar content such as Grand Marnier, Frangelico and schnapps are generally referred to as liqueurs. The term liquor may mean spirits, spirits and liqueurs, or all alcoholic beverages, including wine, sake, beer, and mead. The source of this word is its close relative, "liquid". Both came from Latin verb liquere, meaning "to be fluid". The word liquor was first used in English to mean "a fluid" in the late 1200s; in the 1700s, the term was first applied to alcoholic beverages. Beer and wine were historically limited to a maximum alcohol content of about 15 percent by volume, beyond which yeast is adversely affected and cannot ferment. Alcohol levels higher than 15 percent have historically been obtained in a number of ways. Wine heated in an animal bladder draws out water and leaves alcohol behind (the bladder has a natural property which removes water), but there is no evidence this method was used before modern times. The first evidence of true distillation comes from Babylonia and dates from the fourth millennium BC. Specially shaped clay pots were used to extract small amounts of distilled alcohol through natural cooling for use in perfumes, however it is unlikely this device ever played a meaningful role in the history of the development of the still. By the 3rd century AD there is evidence that alchemists in Alexandria, Egypt, used distillation to produce alcohol for sublimation and for coloring metal. Freeze distillation or the "Mongolian still", is known to have been in use in Central Asia as early as the 7th century AD. This method involves freezing the alcoholic beverage and removing water crystals. The freezing method had limitations in geography and implementation and thus did not have widespread use, but remained in limited use, for example during the American colonial period applejack was made from cider using this method. The development of the still with cooled collector — necessary for the efficient distillation of spirits without freezing — was an invention of Arab and Persian alchemists in the 8th or 9th centuries. In particular, Geber (Jabir Ibn Hayyan, 721–815) invented the alembic still; he observed that heated wine from this still released a flammable vapor, which he described as "of little use, but of great importance to science". Not much later Al-Razi (864–930) described the distillation of alcohol and its use in medicine. By that time, distilled spirits had become fairly popular beverages: the poet Abu Nuwas (d. 813) describes a wine that "has the color of rain-water but is as hot inside the ribs as a burning firebrand". The terms "alembic" and "alcohol", and possibly the metaphors "spirit" and aqua vitæ ("life-water") for the distilled product, can be traced to Middle Eastern alchemy. Check out the following recipes that are tagged "Liquor":
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