Cognac word of the day: Alembic

The word of the day from my Cognac trip is: alembic. It's the distinctive still that the wine must pass through--twice--to become the eau-de-vie that is cognac.

Known in French as the alambic charentais, it is made out of copper, which gives the distillate a distinctive flavor. The wine, a thin acidic wine almost entirely from the ugni blanc grape, goes into the boiler on the right in this miniature, antique example.