BOTTLING, the filling of bottles with liquor, and corking them in order to preserve it. Particular caution should be used in bottling cyder: the best way to secure the bottles from bursting, is to have the liquor thoroughly fine before it be bottled. If one bottle break, it will be necessary to give vent to the remainder, and cork them up again. Weak cyder is more apt to burst the bottles than that of a stronger quality: they should be placed so that the corks may be kept wet, and stowed in a cellar not exposed to the changes and influence of the air. For this purpose, the ground is preferable to a frame; and a layer of saw-dust or sand better than the bare soil: but the most proper situation is a stream of running water.
Bottled beer may be much improved by putting a small quantity of crystals of tartar, spirituous liquor, or sugar boiled with the essence of cloves, into each bottle.
In order to ripen bottled liquors, they are sometimes exposed to moderate warmth, or the rays of the sun, which, in a few days, will bring them to maturity.