Talk:Alembic

Desire for picture of an alembic

Can anyone provide a picture of an alembic? the article would benefit massively from one

I took a picture from the Polish Wikipedia and added it to this article. H Padleckas 00:24, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Oops! The caption in the Polish Wikipedia article on distillation indicated that the picture showed distillation by an alembic, but it is more like a retort. I looked at some alchemy books at a library which showed pictures of alembics, and they looked a little different. The distillation head (alembic) was removable. It was placed on top of a distilling flask. Since the books were copyrighted, I couldn't copy the pictures from the books. I will try to make a diagram of an alembic myself some day instead. H Padleckas 06:03, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I started making the above-mentioned pic and before I could finish it, somebody else came up with the alembic pic now seen in the article. Now I'm finished with my diagram and I uploaded it into WikiCommons. Here's my pic:

Distillation by Alembic

H Padleckas 08:33, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Merge with Pot still

Pot still and alembic refers to the exact same object and there is no reason to maintain both articles--DagI 09:53, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Seems ok to me. "pot still" sounds more recent and while alembic more traditional, should alembic be the main article? -- Stbalbach 13:34, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I suggest using "pot still" as I beleive that is the most common term, at least in English.--DagI 09:15, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm a history buff and I only know it as Alembic, I'd never heard of "pot still" before. -- Stbalbach 12:36, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

In fact, both alembic and pot still would both be hyponyms for still which also has its own article. We should consider merging them all, though alembic/pot still is only one of several types of stills so its combined article should form a section under still. Then we'd redirect alembic and pot still to still. It makes this discussion more complicated, but end of the day the result would be more comprehensive. It certainly should not remain as it is since we now have three artictles with much of the same information which makes editing hopeless, and it makes the information you get when searching a bit of a gamble depending on which synonyms you choose.--DagI 19:31, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that's a great idea, merge these two articles into the still article, which is stubby anyway. Makes a lot more sense to talk about them in a single place. -- Stbalbach 00:21, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Roughly a month later, the two articles haven't been merged. Personally, I think that keeping them separate makes the most sense. "Alembic" clearly has a different meaning than "pot still," refering to a still used in alchemy rather than alcohol (with the exception of "alambic charentais"). I'm going to be bold and take down the merge notices. If you object, feel free to replace them but please leave a message on my talk page so we can talk further. --Alex S 04:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)