Russians, many people in Europe cannot conceive how a spirituous and
inebriating liquor could be obtained from milk. But it cannot be
supposed that those travellers who have repeatedly seen these tribes
distil their brandy from milk, without adding the least vegetable matter
to the original liquid, and then, in their unbridled passion for
debauch, drink until they stagger and fall, have said so merely to
impose upon the public. Nor can it be objected that the weakness of
their head renders them liable to be easily inebriated by the vapours of
the milk, for the Kalmucks can take very large quantities of grain
brandy without losing the use of their legs; and there are Russians,
who, although professedly great drinkers, are sooner inebriated than the
Kalmucks by milk-brandy, and often even by the sour milk of mares, and
yet are extremely fond of this kind of drink. I am aware that strangers
have in vain tried to make milk-brandy. I shall even confess that I had
a trial made under my own eyes, at Selenginsk, by Kalmucks, and was so
unsuccessful, that I only obtained a watery fluid which had the smell of
sour milk; but the reason of this was, that two clean vessels had been
used. On the contrary, whenever I allowed these people to use their own
vessels, abundant alcoholic vapours were procured. It is, therefore, an
important point to determine, by means of vessels impregnated by long
use with a strong smell, and the remains of sour milk, that sudden
souring which developes a spirituous principle. This fermentation of a
rare species, and entirely _sui generis_, can only be brought to
the desired perfection by frequent repetition of the process, just as,
according to Russel,[5] the thick milk (_leban_), which the Arabs
habitually use for making cheese, can only be obtained by producing the
coagulation of the fresh milk by means of a milk previously curdled, or,
in other words, by the cohobation many times repeated of curdled milk.

After describing the process of distillation, Pallas remarks, if