I've found that with old alcohol recipes, they always specify a recipe to make massive amounts. A few years ago I was looking at recipes for brewing from the H

I've found that with old alcohol recipes, they always specify a recipe to make massive amounts. A few years ago I was looking at recipes for brewing from the Household Cyclopedia of 1881 [1]. The recipes specify malt by the sack. 3 sacks of malt to brew 3 barrels. I never did actually brew any beer from the book, since the recipes were fairly standard and not altogether that different from modern brewing. 1881 is late enough that we had a good understanding of the chemistry and microbiology involved in brewing beer. The book also has recipes for various liqueurs, usually with recipes calling for 4 gallons of spirits. There's even a recipe for "port wine" that calls for 100 gal of claret and 12 gal of honey. [1] https://archive.org/stream/Household_Cyclopedia#page/n403/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/Household_Cyclopedia#page/n403/mo...