>I don't suppose I'll discover whether the "alembick" I found being >>bequeathed in >a will was used for distilling liquor >or potions of some sort or indeed what it really looked like. I wonder if this has any connection to the word 'lambic', which is a type of Belgian beer? It's a unique kind, which is made by spontaneous fermentation using only the yeast and other microbes in the atmostphere. This was probably the original method by which man first discovered how to make beer. Regards - Judith Gibbons Coventry, UK