The Story behind No.15 - Aqua Vitae
Distillation took an enormous step forward when early alchemists started using it as a tool in their pursuit of eternal life. What they discovered was that if you put some fresh meat in some wine, the meat did not go off. So the thought was there must be something in the wine giving the meat life. Next step was to distill this liquid and thus concentrate up and capture this life-giving essence and so they did. What came off the still they called water of life:
In latin: Aqua vitae
In French: Eau de vie
In gaelic: "uisce beatha." Uisce (pronounced "ish-ka") means "water.", Beatha (pronounced "ba-ha") means "life." Contracting down through the ages to whisky.
So to celebrate this, what better way than to distill two botanicals that might do us some good and make it part of a nightly tot? If you do take any of these botanicals on a regular basis, just note a shot (25ml) of No.15 probably has a typical 2 tablet dose of these botanicals in and it's much more fun.
If you are unfamiliar with ginkgo and ginseng have a google, it's interesting reading!
To your (eternal) health! Cheers!
Dr J
