◇ · Arc origines

Distillation — the alchemical tradition of separating in order to gather better

From the Arab alembic of Al-Kindi in the 9th century to the copper stills of today's distilleries, distillation is one of the most universal techniques for transforming plants. It concentrates the volatile spirit — what the alchemists called Mercury — while preserving the plant's olfactory signature and its potency.

Essential oils obtained by distillation are highly concentrated. In most cases they are not used neat on the skin. The alchemical tradition teaches gradual dilution. To be assessed with an aromatherapist for any therapeutic use.

The Arab alchemists of the 8th century, Jabir ibn Hayyan foremost among them, developed the alembic (al-anbiq) in the form still used today. Al-Kindi, in the 9th century, wrote the first systematic treatise on the distillation of plant perfumes. The technique spread to medieval Europe through Andalusia, entered the monasteries, fed Paracelsian medicine, then perfumery, then modern chemistry.

Two main types of plant distillation

Water distillation (hydrodistillation): the plant sits directly in the water, and the whole is heated. Gentler than steam it is not — some heat-sensitive compounds can be altered. It is still used for specific plants (delicate flowers such as rose, lavender).

Each plant has its optimal window of distillation: temperature, duration, the ratio of water to plant matter. The Damask rose, for instance, calls for a slow distillation at low temperature — one more hour at too high a temperature and the oil loses its characteristic olfactory signature.

Distillation in the spagyric tradition

The full sequence: 1. Maceration-fermentation of the fresh plant in alcohol (or water) 2. Distillation to recover the spirit (tincture + distilled alcohol) 3. Calcination of the residual marc to obtain the mineral Salt 4. Purification of the Salt (dissolution, filtration, recrystallisation) 5. Cohobation: reuniting the purified Salt with the distilled tincture

The result — the spagyric elixir — is held by its practitioners to be bioavailable differently from a simple tincture, because the plant Salt acts as a natural mineral carrier for the active principles.