MISCELLANY. 
On Potatoe Oil and the purification of Brandy. — By Professor Do- 
bereiner. — It is known that brandy of potatoes, infected with the 
disagreeable taste to which the name of fusel has been given, is much 
ameliorated, with respect to both taste and odor, when mixed with one- 
tenth part of its bulk of vinegar and a little sulphuric acid, and distilled 
after several days. 
It was formerly, and still is, believed, that by this process a little 
acetic ether (acetate of oxide of ethule) is formed, and that this is the 
cause of the improvement of the brandy. This is an error, for very 
little or no acetic ether is formed, but, indeed, acetate of oxide of amylol, 
which has so agreeable a taste and odor of fruit, that it may be employ- 
ed for perfuming apartments and for the preparation of ratafias of fruits 1 
The readiness with which oxide of amylol combines with acetic acid, is 
infinitely more considerable than that which oxide of ethule exerts, and 
does not require, like the latter, the aid of a mineral acid. 
The action of chloride of lime on the brandy of fusel, which I 
discovered more than 36 years ago, has no other origin, since the 
hydrated oxide of amylol or potatoe oil is metamorphosed by the 
salt, and thus converted into an ethereal substance of an agreeable 
taste. 
Perfectly calcined wood and animal charcoals separate the potatoe oil 
completely, in brandy which contains it, only when the liquid has been 
previously diluted with water, by means of which the force with which 
the alcohol contains this oil in solution is diminished. In rather con- 
centrated brandy, or alcohol, this oil cannot be separated by any kind 
of charcoal. 
The most simple mode of removing the fusel from brandy, consists 
in rectifying it in Pistor's disinfecting apparatus. The oil of fusel is 
thus collected, as a secondary product, in such large quantities that 
it may be used for the purpose of illumination, on account of its 
brilliant flame, or for other uses in the arts. I received some time ago 
several quarts of this oil, from an establishment for the disinfection of 
of brandy at Magdeburg, and 1 have been enabled to study its proper- 
ties, principally with relation to the purification of the brandy of 
vol. x. — NO. III. 21 
