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This article was selected as the article for improvement on 27 June 2022 for a period of one week. |
This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
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A recent edit claims that "boo" is a singular form of the colloquial term "booze." Is there anyone who can support this statement? I've only ever heard booze used as a collective noun with no separate plural and singular, to describe the class of alcoholic beverages. Kardonius ( talk) 09:46, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
" Beer and wine, which are not distilled, are limited to a maximum alcohol content of about 20% ABV, as most yeasts cannot metabolise when the concentration of alcohol is above this level; as a consequence, fermentation ceases at that point." - %14 is probably the practical limit for yeast fermentation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.124.116.101 ( talk) 10:13, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
I've edited this entry to change the following. I document it here because there's no room to document it on the main page:
1. The history of distillation is partly given under "Background" and partly under "History". It's confusing.
2. Sake is absolutely not a distilled beverage. Sake is closest to beer in its ingredients and closest to Riesling or Chardonnay wine in its method of production (using two ferments to create the final product). It is never distilled on its own and true sake has an ABV of about 14%.
3. "Malt" and "grains" are not different items. Malt is derived from grains. Without malting, it's difficult if not impossible to ferment barley and wheat.
4. Many spirits are made from vegetables. Vodka is often made from potatoes.
5. References are not given in Wikipedia form.
6. Many typos, run-on-sentences, unclear phrases, etc. For instance, "universal medical elixir application" makes no sense in any form of English. From reading one of the primary sources, I think the original writer meant that the liquors were likely first designed to be medical elixirs.
7. Saying that corn spirits were distilled by the English in 1400 could be highly misleading for North American readers. "Wheat" is an unambiguous term.
8. If "spirits" is used to refer to distilled beverages only, you can't call beer a "grain spirit" before you distill it.
9.I seem to remember reading about a Roman celebration involving some rather strong (perhaps distilled) drink in a bachus festival. It was quite different from the regular wine theme. Ostia seems to ring a bell. Does anyone know of any techniques they may have used to make a spirit(not just a wine) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.179.245.86 ( talk) 06:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
References
What is the purpose in filtering alcohol through charcoal/ashes? Moonshine that isnt filtered through charcoal/ashes is called pop-skull liquor (According to 'The fox fire' book) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.168.21.138 ( talk • contribs) .
All liqueur enthusiasts, please vote here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Qi (spirit). Thank you, Badagnani 07:14, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
All interested in deleting the comsumption section please add your input to mine. This is an article about origins and info about what it is not about who drinks the most.
Liquor doesn't need to be a "alcoholic" beverage, right?
See how it is used here: https://www.tea-junction.com/product.aspx?id=459&c=Green%20Tea&cid=585
The article says that the use of the term 'liquor' is first recorded in the late 1200s and first used to refer to alcoholic beverages in the 1700s. My reference [1] says early 1200s and 1300s, respectively, a difference of 50 and 400 years. CRGreathouse ( t | c) 08:31, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
-- Stbalbach 17:06, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Help! In that big "box" at the bottom of the page, it lists cider and apfelwine as apple-based "distilled" alcoholic drinks. This is obviously untrue, as both are simply fermented, not distilled. How does one edit that box? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.180.4.31 ( talk) 01:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC).
The problem with the sub-sections is they break the section up into a regional history, which it is not. It is a global/world history that discusses the innovations that were new, in a roughly chronological order. They just happen to fall along some regional lines, which I suppose one could "forge" sections out of, but that takes away from the narrative and flow and intention of the section. It's not that long that it needs sectioning. -- Stbalbach 23:55, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
George Liquor is a fairly obscure, web-only character that was part of a short-lived project. Basically, I'm trying to say, almost no one knows what that even is..... so why should there be a redirection from Distilled Liquor (a large, broad, and fairly well-sourced article) to an article that's been tagged for over a year for having unreliable sources for a cartoon character?
I mean, if it were a popular cartoon character, I could understand, but this character would only be known to serious fans of an obscure cartoon creator (John Kricfalusi, creator of Ren & Stimpy).
I almost feel like this redirect gives it undeserved, and completely unrelated exposure, and thus leads people away from this article to a really strange article, for something that almost no one knows anything about (beyond the dozen or so 2-minute web cartoons).
Basically, if people even KNOW what George Liquor is and they want more information on it, chances are they're going to search for the character by names ("George Liquor" is not at all a difficult series of English language words to type into the search box.)—Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.0.238.197 ( talk • contribs)
The following pieced is moved out of " Vodka" (unreferenced there). Please incorporate it here, whatever makes sense. `' Míkka >t 01:16, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
See Talk:List of liqueurs, and comment there if you wish. Badagnani ( talk) 02:29, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
I removed the following from history. The first evidence of distillation comes from Babylonia and dates from the 2nd millennium B.C. Specially shaped clay pots were used to extract small amounts of distilled alcohol through natural cooling for use in perfumes. By the 3rd century A.D., alchemists in Alexandria, Egypt, may have used an early form of distillation to produce alcohol for sublimation or for colouring metal. citation needed the tag is 2 and a half years old, and contradicts the common understanding of the origins of distillation. Broad Wall ( talk) 02:25, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
This section innacurately says that medieval middle eastern alchemists were the first to distill alcohol. However, historians of science like Sarton did extensive research on this topic and analised the middle eastern, chinese and european claims of primacy, and concluded the first to distill alcohol were the europeans of the Salerno school. Robert James Forbes reaches the same conclusion in his famous book A short history of the art of distillation.
In addition, the source used to back up this claim is extremely poor, not to say biased. Ahmad Y Hassan is the same person who runs the famous "muslimheritage" site, known for its distortions and claims of islamic inventions stolen by europeans. I think this is a rather old story... -- Knight1993 ( talk) 23:25, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
The redirect of "liquor" to "distilled beverage" seems to represent a US-centric interpretation of the word, which has a diversity of meanings in the English language. "Liquor" can mean any alcoholic beverage, including wine and beer as well as "hard liquor". If "Liquor" means exclusively distilled beverages, then why would the adjectival qualification "hard liquor" ever be necessary ? Eregli bob ( talk) 05:35, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Overall, this article is fragmentary and lacks citations in almost every paragraph. However as I am more familiar with the history of distillation than the other sections this is what I have commented.
The subsection about Central Asia mentions the Mongolian still. The Mongolian still is not a form of freeze distillation, but a distillation apparatus (similar to the Chinese still), that differs from the alembic in that is has no distillation head. It consists of a chamber with a concave roof that is filled with water. The distilland, or mash, is placed on the bottom of the chamber and a catch-bowl is placed on a shelf underneath the nadir of the concave roof higher up in the chamber. [1] As the distillate evaporates it hits the concave roof and is cooled by the water. It condenses and runs down the roof and drips into the catch-bowl.
The section on Medieval Europe is very fractional and should be rewritten. I would do it myself if I had the time, but unfortunately I don't for a few months.
The method of testing alcohol by burning a cloth dry does not require 95% abv. alcohol, in fact if the alcohol concentration is much in excess of 60% the cloth will burn, rather than be left dry and unharmed. The evaporating water from the mixture absorbs the heat from the burning ethanol and ensures that the cloth will not catch fire. This principle is used in a common science show demonstration where a banknote is lit, but is still unharmed afterwards. [2] I have never tried the Paracelsus-version in a spoon, so I cannot comment on this, but it seems likely to me that ca. 70% abv. should be sufficient to evaporate the rest of the water.
The claim that spirits from the 12th century were of about 40% abv. is unfounded. I have never seen this claim before and would be very interested to know if it came from an actual historical source.
As for the "national" drinks part, this should be deleted. It is neither encyclopedic nor true. The invention of gin is usually credited to Franciscus Sylvius in the mid 17th century. He is credited with the popularization of what had been a medicine for urinary diseases and animal poisons since at least the early Renaissance [3] The origin of these juniper medicines can be traced alt least as far back as Dioscorides [4]. Jenever and gin have the same origin, and both names stem from the Latin word for juniper (iuniperus). The Scandinavian aquavit (it's actually called akvavit (Swedish) or sometimes akevitt in Norwegian (though most brands call themselves aquavit in Norway), not akvavit snaps) is actually a short form of aqua vita, water of life, which was the name used for alcohol spirits from the Middle Ages. This is a very common name for spirits; the French Eau de vie and the English Whisky (from the Gaelic uisge beatha or uisce beatha) are two other examples. I have never researched the other names mentioned, but none of the above-mentioned emerged in the 16th century.
The section Modern distillation seems to have been written from the top of someone’s head. Not a single citation is given throughout the section. I'm not certain that many distillers or chemists would agree that distillation has remained more or less unchanged since the 8th century. The physical principal is still the same, but that's about it. I could explain this in greater depth, but I would rather refer to Robert J. Forbes' A Short History of the Art of Distillation, where he discusses this over some 400 pages. I would also be interested to know which chemists claim to be able to artificially reproduce the aging of alcoholic beverages.
The statement that modern marketing has brought distilled beverages to populations that previously did not drink spirits is unhistorical at best. A solid argument for this can be found on the first few pages of Robert J. Forbes' A Short History, where he argues polemically against a widespread ethnological hypothesis that distillation has evolved independently in most "primitive" or "barbaric" cultures (not my words! remember that Forbes wrote his book in the mid 1940's!). The "virtues" of distilled beverages have been as good a marketing strategy in its own right as alcoholic beverages could ever need or hope for.
The last two level 4-sections of the History section are fractional and incoherent and should be deleted. It could be desirable to have a section on Government regulations, but the current section is not about the history of Government regulations (though there is much interesting to be said about that), and should not be a subsection under the History section. It should also be cleaned up a bit, as the part about methanol is unnecessary. 2001:700:300:1021:9B1:921A:79CF:4AE1 ( talk) 19:42, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
References
I also found the Paracelsus paragraph lacking. After reading above critique I decided to take it
out of the article, moving it here for the moment:
Paracelsus experimented with distillation. His test was to burn a spoonful without leaving any residue. Other ways of testing were to burn a cloth soaked in it without actually harming the cloth. In both cases, to achieve this effect, the alcohol had to be at least 95 percent, close to the maximum concentration attainable through distillation (see purification of ethanol).
My accusations are:
-- BjKa ( talk) 21:06, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
Some material sourced to Wired [1] was just removed. I checked and the source does not support the material. Maybe something could be salvaged from this? Kendall-K1 ( talk) 13:32, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
References
The result of the move request was: consensus to move the page to Liquor at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 07:47, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Distilled beverage →
Distilled liquor – Per
WP:CommonName and
WP:NaturalDisambiguation. The most common name for this is simply "liquor" (which does redirect here), but that term is somewhat ambiguous. "Hard liquor" would resolve the ambiguity, but I think that is more of an American term. "Distilled liquor" is the best alternative.
Rreagan007 (
talk)
06:47, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
I feel renaming was a mistake. 'Liquor' in this sense is largely American usage, so there are WP:GLOBALIZE issues. British people would never describe whisky or vodka as 'liquor' since 'spirit' is the standard term, and there is no concept of a 'liquor store' there. I don't know about other parts of the anglophone world but I suspect British usage is more common there, as the US has a pretty unique alcohol culture derived from the wrangling over prohibition. -- Ef80 ( talk) 14:12, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
Can someone please create a table to compare vodka, whisky, brandy, rakia, slivovitz, mezcal, pisco, etc.? I assume some dimensions would be alcohol content, region of origin, fruit used, cocktails it supports? --Cryout 17:32, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
The "History" section states that Taddeo Alderotti wrote down the method for fractional distillation in code. Does anyone have a reference for this? I am unable to find anything about this supposed code elsewhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:1810:483F:4500:5853:FA91:E014:A248 ( talk) 21:16, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect ליקר. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 July 25#ליקר until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hog Farm Bacon 00:25, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
There seems to be some general historical information in this section regarding when different nations began distilling and a blurb about fractional distilling. Are these things somehow specific to wine in a way that's not apparent to me? I think it should be clarified or moved. Andythechef ( talk) 22:24, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved. Per consensus. ( closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky ( talk) 01:55, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
Liquor → Distilled liquor – The template on the article says to use American English, but terminology of title isn't American, and is ambiguous. "Liquor" in parts of the US, and in Canada, also has a broader sense of "any alcoholic drink", as described in the lede. "Hard liquor" (which currently redirects to "Liquor") is unambiguous American English for the distilled alcoholic drinks that are the topic of the article, and the term seems unlikely to confuse anyone else. A title like "Distilled liquor" (also currently a redir to "Liquor") would be ever clearer globally, but I think it is a bit less commonly used in the US. Since I think policy permits us to take that sort of trade-off, I'd prefer "Distilled liquor": I think it would be most understandable to everyone, including non-native-speakers of English. Leaving "Liquor" as a redirect makes good sense to me. Opinions?
I'd note that some articles use "liquor" in the North American sense only, like Liquor license, and some use the "distilled" sense only, like Flavored liquor. This is fine. But some use it in both senses, like liquor store. It would be nice to have the main article very clear on its terminology to avoid confusion. HLHJ ( talk) 23:04, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
This help request has been answered. If you need more help, you can , contact the responding user(s) directly on their user talk page, or consider visiting the Teahouse. |
Liquor comes up in the search yet when you do a find of "particlar country" in the edit field it does not appear. 2603:8000:D300:D0F:D0D3:D68B:850D:7FC4 ( talk) 04:11, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Liquor article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This
level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article was selected as the article for improvement on 27 June 2022 for a period of one week. |
This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
This article has previously been nominated to be moved. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination.
Discussions:
|
This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. |
Reporting errors |
A recent edit claims that "boo" is a singular form of the colloquial term "booze." Is there anyone who can support this statement? I've only ever heard booze used as a collective noun with no separate plural and singular, to describe the class of alcoholic beverages. Kardonius ( talk) 09:46, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
" Beer and wine, which are not distilled, are limited to a maximum alcohol content of about 20% ABV, as most yeasts cannot metabolise when the concentration of alcohol is above this level; as a consequence, fermentation ceases at that point." - %14 is probably the practical limit for yeast fermentation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.124.116.101 ( talk) 10:13, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
I've edited this entry to change the following. I document it here because there's no room to document it on the main page:
1. The history of distillation is partly given under "Background" and partly under "History". It's confusing.
2. Sake is absolutely not a distilled beverage. Sake is closest to beer in its ingredients and closest to Riesling or Chardonnay wine in its method of production (using two ferments to create the final product). It is never distilled on its own and true sake has an ABV of about 14%.
3. "Malt" and "grains" are not different items. Malt is derived from grains. Without malting, it's difficult if not impossible to ferment barley and wheat.
4. Many spirits are made from vegetables. Vodka is often made from potatoes.
5. References are not given in Wikipedia form.
6. Many typos, run-on-sentences, unclear phrases, etc. For instance, "universal medical elixir application" makes no sense in any form of English. From reading one of the primary sources, I think the original writer meant that the liquors were likely first designed to be medical elixirs.
7. Saying that corn spirits were distilled by the English in 1400 could be highly misleading for North American readers. "Wheat" is an unambiguous term.
8. If "spirits" is used to refer to distilled beverages only, you can't call beer a "grain spirit" before you distill it.
9.I seem to remember reading about a Roman celebration involving some rather strong (perhaps distilled) drink in a bachus festival. It was quite different from the regular wine theme. Ostia seems to ring a bell. Does anyone know of any techniques they may have used to make a spirit(not just a wine) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.179.245.86 ( talk) 06:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
References
What is the purpose in filtering alcohol through charcoal/ashes? Moonshine that isnt filtered through charcoal/ashes is called pop-skull liquor (According to 'The fox fire' book) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.168.21.138 ( talk • contribs) .
All liqueur enthusiasts, please vote here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Qi (spirit). Thank you, Badagnani 07:14, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
All interested in deleting the comsumption section please add your input to mine. This is an article about origins and info about what it is not about who drinks the most.
Liquor doesn't need to be a "alcoholic" beverage, right?
See how it is used here: https://www.tea-junction.com/product.aspx?id=459&c=Green%20Tea&cid=585
The article says that the use of the term 'liquor' is first recorded in the late 1200s and first used to refer to alcoholic beverages in the 1700s. My reference [1] says early 1200s and 1300s, respectively, a difference of 50 and 400 years. CRGreathouse ( t | c) 08:31, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
-- Stbalbach 17:06, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Help! In that big "box" at the bottom of the page, it lists cider and apfelwine as apple-based "distilled" alcoholic drinks. This is obviously untrue, as both are simply fermented, not distilled. How does one edit that box? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.180.4.31 ( talk) 01:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC).
The problem with the sub-sections is they break the section up into a regional history, which it is not. It is a global/world history that discusses the innovations that were new, in a roughly chronological order. They just happen to fall along some regional lines, which I suppose one could "forge" sections out of, but that takes away from the narrative and flow and intention of the section. It's not that long that it needs sectioning. -- Stbalbach 23:55, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
George Liquor is a fairly obscure, web-only character that was part of a short-lived project. Basically, I'm trying to say, almost no one knows what that even is..... so why should there be a redirection from Distilled Liquor (a large, broad, and fairly well-sourced article) to an article that's been tagged for over a year for having unreliable sources for a cartoon character?
I mean, if it were a popular cartoon character, I could understand, but this character would only be known to serious fans of an obscure cartoon creator (John Kricfalusi, creator of Ren & Stimpy).
I almost feel like this redirect gives it undeserved, and completely unrelated exposure, and thus leads people away from this article to a really strange article, for something that almost no one knows anything about (beyond the dozen or so 2-minute web cartoons).
Basically, if people even KNOW what George Liquor is and they want more information on it, chances are they're going to search for the character by names ("George Liquor" is not at all a difficult series of English language words to type into the search box.)—Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.0.238.197 ( talk • contribs)
The following pieced is moved out of " Vodka" (unreferenced there). Please incorporate it here, whatever makes sense. `' Míkka >t 01:16, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
See Talk:List of liqueurs, and comment there if you wish. Badagnani ( talk) 02:29, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
I removed the following from history. The first evidence of distillation comes from Babylonia and dates from the 2nd millennium B.C. Specially shaped clay pots were used to extract small amounts of distilled alcohol through natural cooling for use in perfumes. By the 3rd century A.D., alchemists in Alexandria, Egypt, may have used an early form of distillation to produce alcohol for sublimation or for colouring metal. citation needed the tag is 2 and a half years old, and contradicts the common understanding of the origins of distillation. Broad Wall ( talk) 02:25, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
This section innacurately says that medieval middle eastern alchemists were the first to distill alcohol. However, historians of science like Sarton did extensive research on this topic and analised the middle eastern, chinese and european claims of primacy, and concluded the first to distill alcohol were the europeans of the Salerno school. Robert James Forbes reaches the same conclusion in his famous book A short history of the art of distillation.
In addition, the source used to back up this claim is extremely poor, not to say biased. Ahmad Y Hassan is the same person who runs the famous "muslimheritage" site, known for its distortions and claims of islamic inventions stolen by europeans. I think this is a rather old story... -- Knight1993 ( talk) 23:25, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
The redirect of "liquor" to "distilled beverage" seems to represent a US-centric interpretation of the word, which has a diversity of meanings in the English language. "Liquor" can mean any alcoholic beverage, including wine and beer as well as "hard liquor". If "Liquor" means exclusively distilled beverages, then why would the adjectival qualification "hard liquor" ever be necessary ? Eregli bob ( talk) 05:35, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Overall, this article is fragmentary and lacks citations in almost every paragraph. However as I am more familiar with the history of distillation than the other sections this is what I have commented.
The subsection about Central Asia mentions the Mongolian still. The Mongolian still is not a form of freeze distillation, but a distillation apparatus (similar to the Chinese still), that differs from the alembic in that is has no distillation head. It consists of a chamber with a concave roof that is filled with water. The distilland, or mash, is placed on the bottom of the chamber and a catch-bowl is placed on a shelf underneath the nadir of the concave roof higher up in the chamber. [1] As the distillate evaporates it hits the concave roof and is cooled by the water. It condenses and runs down the roof and drips into the catch-bowl.
The section on Medieval Europe is very fractional and should be rewritten. I would do it myself if I had the time, but unfortunately I don't for a few months.
The method of testing alcohol by burning a cloth dry does not require 95% abv. alcohol, in fact if the alcohol concentration is much in excess of 60% the cloth will burn, rather than be left dry and unharmed. The evaporating water from the mixture absorbs the heat from the burning ethanol and ensures that the cloth will not catch fire. This principle is used in a common science show demonstration where a banknote is lit, but is still unharmed afterwards. [2] I have never tried the Paracelsus-version in a spoon, so I cannot comment on this, but it seems likely to me that ca. 70% abv. should be sufficient to evaporate the rest of the water.
The claim that spirits from the 12th century were of about 40% abv. is unfounded. I have never seen this claim before and would be very interested to know if it came from an actual historical source.
As for the "national" drinks part, this should be deleted. It is neither encyclopedic nor true. The invention of gin is usually credited to Franciscus Sylvius in the mid 17th century. He is credited with the popularization of what had been a medicine for urinary diseases and animal poisons since at least the early Renaissance [3] The origin of these juniper medicines can be traced alt least as far back as Dioscorides [4]. Jenever and gin have the same origin, and both names stem from the Latin word for juniper (iuniperus). The Scandinavian aquavit (it's actually called akvavit (Swedish) or sometimes akevitt in Norwegian (though most brands call themselves aquavit in Norway), not akvavit snaps) is actually a short form of aqua vita, water of life, which was the name used for alcohol spirits from the Middle Ages. This is a very common name for spirits; the French Eau de vie and the English Whisky (from the Gaelic uisge beatha or uisce beatha) are two other examples. I have never researched the other names mentioned, but none of the above-mentioned emerged in the 16th century.
The section Modern distillation seems to have been written from the top of someone’s head. Not a single citation is given throughout the section. I'm not certain that many distillers or chemists would agree that distillation has remained more or less unchanged since the 8th century. The physical principal is still the same, but that's about it. I could explain this in greater depth, but I would rather refer to Robert J. Forbes' A Short History of the Art of Distillation, where he discusses this over some 400 pages. I would also be interested to know which chemists claim to be able to artificially reproduce the aging of alcoholic beverages.
The statement that modern marketing has brought distilled beverages to populations that previously did not drink spirits is unhistorical at best. A solid argument for this can be found on the first few pages of Robert J. Forbes' A Short History, where he argues polemically against a widespread ethnological hypothesis that distillation has evolved independently in most "primitive" or "barbaric" cultures (not my words! remember that Forbes wrote his book in the mid 1940's!). The "virtues" of distilled beverages have been as good a marketing strategy in its own right as alcoholic beverages could ever need or hope for.
The last two level 4-sections of the History section are fractional and incoherent and should be deleted. It could be desirable to have a section on Government regulations, but the current section is not about the history of Government regulations (though there is much interesting to be said about that), and should not be a subsection under the History section. It should also be cleaned up a bit, as the part about methanol is unnecessary. 2001:700:300:1021:9B1:921A:79CF:4AE1 ( talk) 19:42, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
References
I also found the Paracelsus paragraph lacking. After reading above critique I decided to take it
out of the article, moving it here for the moment:
Paracelsus experimented with distillation. His test was to burn a spoonful without leaving any residue. Other ways of testing were to burn a cloth soaked in it without actually harming the cloth. In both cases, to achieve this effect, the alcohol had to be at least 95 percent, close to the maximum concentration attainable through distillation (see purification of ethanol).
My accusations are:
-- BjKa ( talk) 21:06, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
Some material sourced to Wired [1] was just removed. I checked and the source does not support the material. Maybe something could be salvaged from this? Kendall-K1 ( talk) 13:32, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
References
The result of the move request was: consensus to move the page to Liquor at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 07:47, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Distilled beverage →
Distilled liquor – Per
WP:CommonName and
WP:NaturalDisambiguation. The most common name for this is simply "liquor" (which does redirect here), but that term is somewhat ambiguous. "Hard liquor" would resolve the ambiguity, but I think that is more of an American term. "Distilled liquor" is the best alternative.
Rreagan007 (
talk)
06:47, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
I feel renaming was a mistake. 'Liquor' in this sense is largely American usage, so there are WP:GLOBALIZE issues. British people would never describe whisky or vodka as 'liquor' since 'spirit' is the standard term, and there is no concept of a 'liquor store' there. I don't know about other parts of the anglophone world but I suspect British usage is more common there, as the US has a pretty unique alcohol culture derived from the wrangling over prohibition. -- Ef80 ( talk) 14:12, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
Can someone please create a table to compare vodka, whisky, brandy, rakia, slivovitz, mezcal, pisco, etc.? I assume some dimensions would be alcohol content, region of origin, fruit used, cocktails it supports? --Cryout 17:32, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
The "History" section states that Taddeo Alderotti wrote down the method for fractional distillation in code. Does anyone have a reference for this? I am unable to find anything about this supposed code elsewhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:1810:483F:4500:5853:FA91:E014:A248 ( talk) 21:16, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect ליקר. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 July 25#ליקר until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hog Farm Bacon 00:25, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
There seems to be some general historical information in this section regarding when different nations began distilling and a blurb about fractional distilling. Are these things somehow specific to wine in a way that's not apparent to me? I think it should be clarified or moved. Andythechef ( talk) 22:24, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved. Per consensus. ( closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky ( talk) 01:55, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
Liquor → Distilled liquor – The template on the article says to use American English, but terminology of title isn't American, and is ambiguous. "Liquor" in parts of the US, and in Canada, also has a broader sense of "any alcoholic drink", as described in the lede. "Hard liquor" (which currently redirects to "Liquor") is unambiguous American English for the distilled alcoholic drinks that are the topic of the article, and the term seems unlikely to confuse anyone else. A title like "Distilled liquor" (also currently a redir to "Liquor") would be ever clearer globally, but I think it is a bit less commonly used in the US. Since I think policy permits us to take that sort of trade-off, I'd prefer "Distilled liquor": I think it would be most understandable to everyone, including non-native-speakers of English. Leaving "Liquor" as a redirect makes good sense to me. Opinions?
I'd note that some articles use "liquor" in the North American sense only, like Liquor license, and some use the "distilled" sense only, like Flavored liquor. This is fine. But some use it in both senses, like liquor store. It would be nice to have the main article very clear on its terminology to avoid confusion. HLHJ ( talk) 23:04, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
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Liquor comes up in the search yet when you do a find of "particlar country" in the edit field it does not appear. 2603:8000:D300:D0F:D0D3:D68B:850D:7FC4 ( talk) 04:11, 19 January 2023 (UTC)