where did the term spirits for alcohol come from
Middle Eastern alchemy
title: Liquor text: "OED" mentions of its meaning "a liquid for drinking" occurred in the 14th century. Its use as a term for "an intoxicating alcoholic drink" appeared in the 16th century. The term "spirit" in reference to alcohol stems from Middle Eastern alchemy. These alchemists were more concerned with medical elixirs than with transmuting lead into gold. The vapor given off and collected during an alchemical process (as with distillation of alcohol) was called a spirit of the original material. Early evidence of distillation comes from Akkadian tablets dated "circa" 1200 BC describing perfumery operations, providing textual evidence that an early primitive title: Alcohol text: titled as "The Book of the chemistry of Perfume and Distillations". The Persian physician, alchemist, polymath and philosopher Rhazes (854 CE – 925 CE) is credited with the discovery of ethanol. The word "alcohol" is from the Arabic "kohl" (), a powder used as an eyeliner. Al- is the Arabic definite article, equivalent to "the" in English. "Alcohol" was originally used for the very fine powder produced by the sublimation of the natural mineral stibnite to form antimony trisulfide . It was considered to be the essence or "spirit" of this mineral. It was used as an antiseptic, eyeliner, and title: Alcohol text: cosmetic. The meaning of alcohol was extended to distilled substances in general, and then narrowed to ethanol, when "spirits" was a synonym for hard liquor. Bartholomew Traheron, in his 1543 translation of John of Vigo, introduces the word as a term used by "barbarous" (Moorish) authors for "fine powder." Vigo wrote: "the barbarous auctours use alcohol, or (as I fynde it sometymes wryten) alcofoll, for moost fine poudre." The 1657 "Lexicon Chymicum", by William Johnson glosses the word as "antimonium sive stibium." By extension, the word came to refer to any fluid obtained by distillation, including "alcohol of wine," the title: Liquor text: by Taddeo Alderotti in the 13th century. The production method was written in code, suggesting that it was being kept secret. In 1437, "burned water" (brandy) was mentioned in the records of the County of Katzenelnbogen in Germany. It was served in a tall, narrow glass called a "Goderulffe". Claims upon the origin of specific beverages are controversial, often invoking national pride, but they are plausible after the 12th century AD, when Irish whiskey and German brandy became available. These spirits would have had a much lower alcohol content (about 40% ABV) than the alchemists' pure distillations, and they were title: Ethanol text: Geneva, Switzerland. The term “alcohol” now refers to a wider class of substances in chemistry nomenclature, but in common parlance it remains the name of ethanol. The Oxford English Dictionary claims that it is a medieval loan from Arabic "al-kuḥl", a powdered ore of antimony used since antiquity as a cosmetic, and retained that meaning in Middle Latin. The use of “alcohol” for ethanol (in full, “alcohol of wine”) is modern, first recorded 1753, and by the later 18th century referred to “any sublimated substance; distilled spirit” use for “the spirit of wine” (shortened from a full expression "alcohol of