Travels in India (Tavernier) 135.1

135.1

Persia or elsewhere. The spirit is made in this way — In large earthen vessels, glazed inside, which are called martabans and are of different sizes, and hold as much as 300 Paris pints of palm wine, they place 50 or 60 pounds of black sugar — which is unrefined, and looks like yellow wax — with about 20 pounds of a thick black bark of a kind of thorn, very like that which our tanners use in Europe to tan their leather. This bark serves to make the palm wine ferment ; this it does in four or five days like our new wine, so that the sweetness changes into sourness equal to that of our wild pears. The whole is then distilled, and, according to the flavour which is wished for, there is thrown into a kettleful either a small bag of cloves, or three or four handfuls of aniseed or mace, large chaldrons serving for the distillation. This spirit can be made of whatever strength is desired. One day, having taken the fancy to distil some for myself, I filled ten of those bottles which come from England, the glass of which is of the thickness of a white crown (écu blanc) ; they hold about 4 pints, Paris measure, each, and are used for wines which it is desired to keep. But during the night the spirit having effervesced in the bottles I found them all cracked in the morning by the strength of the liquor.