Foreword

Harvest to Hydrosol by Ann Harman is a detailed introduction to this product of distillation, once simply called the “water of distillation” and now called the Hydrosol. She has done the research, looked into the ancient texts, unearthed the secrets that have been kept and often long forgotten. She has developed an incredible warehouse of information that includes her own personally learned knowledge. And this is what we get in this book—a truly personalized accounting of how to distill, when to distill, what to distill, what are the tools, how to test, and the time- honored techniques for this most wondrous of arts.

Ah, when was it that I met Ann Harman? Only sixteen years ago? I had been invited to speak to the Sequim Lavender Grower’s Association about the distillation of Lavender and Ann was the Education Committee chair as well as my tour guide and caretaker. She was so enthusiastic and so incredibly helpful. A few years later I was invited back to the Sequim Lavender Festival to speak again. We have pictures together where her exuberance for the material discussed just shines through and she was an exciting student to have in the classes as she listened carefully and asked great questions. She soon purchased a copper still from me and began to distill on the alembic stills. To say that she has taken this art, this act of distillation, to a new level, is an understatement. Ann says that “each distillation is a living thing, an act of alchemy” and she is one of the best alchemists at this exciting creative endeavor.

Hundreds of years have passed since the first “waters of distillation” were produced and many years since my own time with a master distiller and introduction to the “art of distillation” by Hubert Germain-Robin. He is from a family of cognac makers and a truly masterful brandy distiller himself. I had known how to distill but he gave me the mysterious long-hidden detailed knowledge and the tools to do it better and correctly. He taught me to think about all aspects of the distillation and more about terroir, how the land influences the distilled product, how important it was to consider the water and the marc (the plant waste left after the distillation – we fed it to the lambs and used the waste water as a dog flea repellent and compost water); he showed me why it was important to be more thoughtful towards the art of distillation, while thinking also about the craft. He was a master of both as I see that Ann Harman has become as well. She too has become master of the land, of the importance of the freshness of the plant used, the necessity for the intrinsic or cellular water of the plant to be captured intact, the mystery of alchemy and its transformation of water through steam to hydrosol and thus the capturing of this cellular water to make the magical product called “the hydrosol.”